I Absolutely Love Pope Francis!

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So many times over the past few years, I’ve felt that I was holding on to my faith by my fingernails, that I was still a Catholic in spite of the hierarchy of the Church, not because of it.

Little by little, over the past six months, I’ve felt the ice in my heart begin to thaw. Jesus mentions the poor more than 400 times. To have a Pope who LIVES the gospel, who shows love and compassion to the poor and sinners and not just corporate CEO’s and heads of state makes Jesus real again to me and returns the Church to what it was when He founded it.

I have to disagree that the media is twisting the Pope’s comments. Every mention that I have heard stresses that the Pope is not changing doctrine but merely shifting the emphasis. It’s actually nice to hear them discuss the Church, my Church, with respect again.
 
I just believe the end result of this will not be what the pope is looking for. He’s a good man, but I speaks too freely, for lack of a better term and is spreading confusion. He has to be aware of how the secular media will twist what he says and be as precise as possible. Yes, WE all know what he meant and understand it, but you have people who don’t and will twist it because it’s so vague.

Even people with good intentions will be in trouble. You’ll have people who don’t know the truth here this and think the church is changing and might start going to church. Unfortunately, most priests and teachers won’t correct these misunderstandings so they’ll continue and spread. Then you’ll have the people who are hostile to the church intentionally trying to twist what the pope says to suit their agenda and push for more “change”. I’ve already heard from people saying they need to protest the church even more now because the church is “so close to approving same sex marriage.”

I think the pope is perhaps too nice and it will ultimately hurt the church in the long run.
 
Book_Worm said:
So many times over the past few years, I’ve felt that I was holding on to my faith by my fingernails, that I was still a Catholic in spite of the hierarchy of the Church, not because of it.

Little by little, over the past six months, I’ve felt the ice in my heart begin to thaw. Jesus mentions the poor more than 400 times. To have a Pope who LIVES the gospel, who shows love and compassion to the poor and sinners and not just corporate CEO’s and heads of state makes Jesus real again to me and returns the Church to what it was when He founded it.

I have to disagree that the media is twisting the Pope’s comments. Every mention that I have heard stresses that the Pope is not changing doctrine but merely shifting the emphasis. It’s actually nice to hear them discuss the Church, my Church, with respect again.
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It’s good that you’ve found some semi-reliable news, then. All I know is that my friends keep coming to me saying “Did you hear that the pope said this? This changes everything!” And I keep responding, “Well, actually…”

But I definitely agree about his emphasis on the poor. I know that many people are worried that he isn’t spending enough time condemning homosexuality or whatever other sins they want him to condemn. But I think that even hardcore Catholics, especially the ones who tend to visit apologetics websites (😊), are in danger of forgetting what our faith really means. Christ emphasized forgiveness and caring for people, whether they were sick, or posessed, or poor, or desperate. He healed them. He gave people hope.

Yes, it is important that we speak the truth. It is important that we never compromise on the truth. But if we ignore the needs of the people around us, we are ignoring a massive part of Christ’s tesching. As Gwendolen brought up earlier, we need to heal people’s wounds first, and then we can lead them to the other parts of the truth. :yup:
 
OR – maybe we should consider that the Holy Spirit (knowing better than we do) is guiding the Pope. Those who preach the Truth have always been misunderstood; sometimes genuinely, sometimes deliberately, just as we see happening now.
Bataar said:
I just believe the end result of this will not be what the pope is looking for. He’s a good man, but I speaks too freely, for lack of a better term and is spreading confusion. He has to be aware of how the secular media will twist what he says and be as precise as possible. Yes, WE all know what he meant and understand it, but you have people who don’t and will twist it because it’s so vague.

Even people with good intentions will be in trouble. You’ll have people who don’t know the truth here this and think the church is changing and might start going to church. Unfortunately, most priests and teachers won’t correct these misunderstandings so they’ll continue and spread. Then you’ll have the people who are hostile to the church intentionally trying to twist what the pope says to suit their agenda and push for more “change”. I’ve already heard from people saying they need to protest the church even more now because the church is “so close to approving same sex marriage.”

I think the pope is perhaps too nice and it will ultimately hurt the church in the long run.
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Bataar said:
You’ll have people who don’t know the truth here this and think the church is changing and might start going to church.
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WAIT! wait. wait…

This is a bad thing?

You will see more people convert if you can draw them into the mass. The church will not change because the church is everlasting. They will either see that and come to conversion, or become frustrated by it and leave. Sometimes all you have to do is plant a seed and the Holy Spirit will do the harvesting on its own time.

We are not called to be fire and brimstone followers. This is the church of the new covenant- a church built around forgiveness and being humble. Jesus forgave the very people who were killing him. He didn’t condemn them. If you cannot see that we are to be a forgiving and accepting people then you’ve missed the entire point of the New Testament.
 
It’s my observation that good and sincere people can and tragically often DO fall into two terrible pits in the practice of their faith.
  1. Turn Jesus into a hippy who doesn’t ask anything hard of us (Peace, man!).
  2. Turn God into someone angry and remote who will smite all who fail to accept correct doctrine (actually living it out is just a nice bonus, of course).
It seems that we are tempted to fall into one of these traps at nearly every turn. No wonder it’s called the narrow road…

I think Francis perceives a danger that those faithful to the church are too often falling into trap #2. When we’re there, our witness has no appeal to those trapped in pit #1. It’s only when we’re on the straight and narrow that we can be a light to all.
 
And btw, the above says nothing bad about JPII or B16. I think they focused in their times the widespread problem of people (leadership, even) in the church who insisted that Vatican II taught pit #1. It didn’t and those who said that it did in the leadership are now largely retired or banned from teaching positions. Mission accomplished.
 
manualman said:
And btw, the above says nothing bad about JPII or B16. I think they focused in their times the widespread problem of people (leadership, even) in the church who insisted that Vatican II taught pit #1. It didn’t.
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Absolutely.

I would also like to specify that I have had a great great appreciation of B16 and JPII. I think the Spirit moves through the Popes and uses their individual gifts in ways that are most beneficial to the church during their time as the Vicar of Christ.

I do not believe (in most situations) who becomes pope, and when, is a coincidence.
 
joshvanrad said:
WAIT! wait. wait…

This is a bad thing?

You will see more people convert if you can draw them into the mass. The church will not change because the church is everlasting. They will either see that and come to conversion, or become frustrated by it and leave. Sometimes all you have to do is plant a seed and the Holy Spirit will do the harvesting on its own time.

We are not called to be fire and brimstone followers. This is the church of the new covenant- a church built around forgiveness and being humble. Jesus forgave the very people who were killing him. He didn’t condemn them. If you cannot see that we are to be a forgiving and accepting people then you’ve missed the entire point of the New Testament.
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I see it as a bad thing unless they are corrected once they come into the church, which, I’m sad to say, I don’t see happening. What I do see happening, and I definitely hope I’m wrong, is they will come in, remain uncorrected and their bad habbits/teachings/lifestyles/etc will then spread as “the church will now approve of it.” We’ve been seeing this happen for 30 years now as true teachings from the pulpit wanes and liberal/feminists are in charge of RCIA programs. You know the phrase, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the rest.

Again, this would all be different if I had an ounce of hope that the bishops priest, en masse would work to correct these teachings in a Christ like way.
 
Bataar said:
Again, this would all be different if I had an ounce of hope that the bishops priest, en masse would work to correct these teachings in a Christ like way.
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Then I would pray for more hope.
 
I like his style he tells the truth in a loving way. He’s also more concerned about the state of the church then what someone names their child or what verbage is said during mass. He’s a people pope. I pray he’s pope a long time and enjoys good health.
 
I think it’s sad to see Catholics here talking about what the pope should and should not do, as if they are wiser and know better than the pope himself.
 
Luvz2travel said:
I like his style he tells the truth in a loving way. He’s also more concerned about the state of the church then what someone names their child or what verbage is said during mass. He’s a people pope. I pray he’s pope a long time and enjoys good health.
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Well the state of the Church is inexorably tied to what verbiage is used during Mass, since how we pray influences how we believe. If we speak to God as He is - the infinite transcendent divinity - we become more able to internalize how God is what really matters in life, and that He is not just one thing among other things but the source of all goodness and the fulfillment of our lives. On the other hand, if Mass sounds like just another thing, how will we avoid being influenced to think that God is just another thing? The speech should reflect the reality.
 
AuditVocemMeam said:
Well the state of the Church is inexorably tied to what verbiage is used during Mass, since how we pray influences how we believe. If we speak to God as He is - the infinite transcendent divinity - we become more able to internalize how God is what really matters in life, and that He is not just one thing among other things but the source of all goodness and the fulfillment of our lives. On the other hand, if Mass sounds like just another thing, how will we avoid being influenced to think that God is just another thing? The speech should reflect the reality.
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It really just depends on each individual and what they are most able to relate to. For some people it may be more beneficial to pray/talk with God in a more formal way, while with others it’s better for them to take a more relaxed, warm approach like they are talking to a Dad.

There is no right or wrong, really. Neither is there one way that is universally more beneficial to everyone’s relationship with God. It just depends on what each individual needs in order to get the most out of that relationship.
 
JustPink said:
It really just depends on each individual and what they are most able to relate to. For some people it may be more beneficial to pray/talk with God in a more formal way, while with others it’s better for them to take a more relaxed, warm approach like they are talking to a Dad.

There is no right or wrong, really. Neither is there one way that is universally more beneficial to everyone’s relationship with God. It just depends on what each individual needs in order to get the most out of that relationship.
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Certainly there are different styles with different benefits, but I don’t think it’s too much to say that one is more appropriate for the liturgy as the supreme public act of the Church’s devotion to God, and the other is more appropriate for personal piety. For example, we could ask why a “high liturgy” has historically been the norm in the Church, and “low church” liturgy is a rather recent phenomenon. And I think it should be clear to those who have studied the matter that the prior English translation of the liturgy was in many respects deficient and failed to express the beautiful concepts that the Latin liturgy contains.

But there is more to consider in determining liturgical form (at least insofar as it should really be “determined” at all, rather than grown - I would lean as a matter of principle much more on the “grown” side) than what is effective for people’s religious experiences during the liturgy; for example, the Latin and Roman patrimony of the people should not be neglected (which is why Vatican II talks about how the Latin language should be preserved in the liturgy), nor should the gravity and seriousness of the actual event which is occurring - the sacrifice of the Cross - be removed from consideration.
 
AuditVocemMeam said:
Certainly there are different styles with different benefits, but I don’t think it’s too much to say that one is more appropriate for the liturgy as the supreme public act of the Church’s devotion to God, and the other is more appropriate for personal piety. For example, we could ask why a “high liturgy” has historically been the norm in the Church, and “low church” liturgy is a rather recent phenomenon. And I think it should be clear to those who have studied the matter that the prior English translation of the liturgy was in many respects deficient and failed to express the beautiful concepts that the Latin liturgy contains.
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Eh, well that’s just your personal opinion, of course. Which is my point exactly. It’s a matter of personal opinion and taste, and what speaks the loudest and closest to each specific individual.
But there is more to consider in determining liturgical form (at least insofar as it should really be “determined” at all, rather than grown - I would lean as a matter of principle much more on the “grown” side) than what is effective for people’s religious experiences during the liturgy; for example, the Latin and Roman patrimony of the people should not be neglected (which is why Vatican II talks about how the Latin language should be preserved in the liturgy), nor should the gravity and seriousness of the actual event which is occurring - the sacrifice of the Cross - be removed from consideration.
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Ok… Pope Francis isn’t insinuating otherwise so I don’t know how it applies here.
 
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