Is Pope Francis reaching out to the prodigals and are some of us feeling like the older brother?

[Kopratic]

Can we all please spell out the definition of the word “love” each of us using here. Because I cannot understand some of these posts on this forum.

To love is to will the good of another. If I truly love a sinner, it is my responsibility to tell them that what they are doing or have done is a sin. If they cannot accept it or get upset, that is pride. That is another thing they will have to work on.

To simply ignore their mistakes is to foster pride, something we seem very naturally inclined to doing in our part of the world. But that itself is not right.

Sin is sin. To point it out is good. We ignored it for 50 years and our churches didn’t get filled. They are pretty empty to be honest. But if we were to go to the Calvinist Church that has actual doctrine like Total Depravity (imagine that?) are full of young people than our own.

To put it simply {well, not really}, God is love. Yes, of course we should explain to them that they have been/are sinning. However, we must do it with genuine love. Simply telling them, “That’s a sin!” and leaving it at that, expecting them to grow in holiness doesn’t cut it. {Please, note, that I in no way am implying that you mean this!} We weren’t told to ignore the sin. We were told to focus on the sinner. We were told to focus on love. We can tell them everything in the book, but it’s empty if it isn’t rooted in love. Sometimes, that means tough love, as I’m sure you well know. The truth hurts, but a surgeon has to make the cuts. If we get so caught up in the rules, we dehumanize the people breaking them, and we dehumanize ourselves. They aren’t humans; they’re rule-breakers. We aren’t humans; we’re machines. {Again, I want to stress that I do not think you are implying this!} Who are we? We are all sinners. Yes, we definitely should adhere to the rules of the Church. However, those same rules stem from God, who is love. They came from much discernment and prayer.

 

[Fevronia]

I get what you’re saying, but I think we need to make a distinction between pointing out sin in love and pointing out sin in judgement.

We’ll never bring sinners into the church if we just tell them they are ruining society and will go to hell, true as it might be. We cannot bring people into the church if all we do is push them away. We need to open up with love and forgiveness first. We need to show them that we actually care about them as a person, because so many have the impression that we only care about making them conform to our rules. Only then will they be open for us to address their sins.

How can you forgive if the other person doesn’t want it? If the other person loves their gay life style, or feels like that abortion they had at 21 was the best decision of their life or that divorce had to be done, what do we forgive?

To forgive and even be forgiven, one must repent. How can one repent if they do not know they sinned? It just feels like there is some discontinuity in the reasoning process. We cannot just forgive because the other persons outside the Church truly do not want it or know they need it.

And indeed, the Church’s message at its core is be baptized and persevere in the race. Persevere = avoiding sin. No matter how much we discuss and how deep we go, this is just it.

 

[McCall1981]

But you are forgetting that this change did not happen overnight. The Church stood by and watched while this happened for 50 years. It didn’t say anything from the pulpit.

When the free-love movements started gaining force, the local churches didn’t do anything. When mothers started going to work putting their children in day-care or other arrangements, the Church didn’t say anything (so much for passing the faith forward). When pornography started getting popular, they didn’t say anything at the local level. When divorce started getting popular, they started to treat annulments like a another word for divorce.

We got here because of our “sentimental” approach. We just don’t seem to want to admit that no matter what we do, some (perhaps many) will always reject the Church. Jesus didn’t fuss over it when his disciples left after the bread of life discourse. He didn’t tone it down. But we want to do that for the sake of dialogue?

Didn’t Protestants try that out? Even their liberal parishes can’t retain that many followers anymore so how are we going to do any better?

I agree. There needs to be a balance between the mercy and justice, and I think we have been way too far in the mercy direction for several decades, its an imbalance, so it leads to negative results.

 

[Fevronia]

To put it simply {well, not really}, God is love. Yes, of course we should explain to them that they have been/are sinning. However, we must do it with genuine love. Simply telling them, “That’s a sin!” and leaving it at that, expecting them to grow in holiness doesn’t cut it. {Please, note, that I in no way am implying that you mean this!} We weren’t told to ignore the sin. We were told to focus on the sinner. We were told to focus on love. We can tell them everything in the book, but it’s empty if it isn’t rooted in love. Sometimes, that means tough love, as I’m sure you well know. The truth hurts, but a surgeon has to make the cuts. If we get so caught up in the rules, we dehumanize the people breaking them, and we dehumanize ourselves. They aren’t humans; they’re rule-breakers. We aren’t humans; we’re machines. {Again, I want to stress that I do not think you are implying this!} Who are we? We are all sinners. Yes, we definitely should adhere to the rules of the Church. However, those same rules stem from God, who is love. They came from much discernment and prayer.

But to love God is to do his will, no? Don’t we sometimes need to excommunicate others for their own benefit? Haven’t the fathers of the Church and Saints defended that?

I do not see why being very upfront about the Church is bad. If we always keep wavering just to get others in, pretty soon many people will not know what the Church actually stands for. That is what happened in the last 50 years now. We stopped saying things to get others to dialogue and we lost our entire young generations who don’t know a single thing about the faith. Surely, continuing in that vein is not the answer?

Back in the day, you didn’t need the Catechism at home to know what the Church teaches. People knew it just by going to Church and hearing it preached to them. But today, you have to dig so deep for days that you probably have to have a lot of time to be Catholic.

 

[Fevronia]

I agree. There needs to be a balance between the mercy and justice, and I think we have been way too far in the mercy direction for several decades, its an imbalance, so it leads to negative results.

I personally feel that the old approach had the best balance. This new approach is not sustainable. We will keep losing many because the lack of clarity as to what the Church teaches (not everyone has the time to read the Catechism) created by not being too vocal about her moral or faith positions and its not so likely that we will ever win all of them back.

I feel its better to just try to do everything to make sure those who enter the hospital/Church are provided proper care. The hospital care standards cannot be lowered to allow many in because then no one might benefit in being in the hospital.

In essence, this approach is about providing a very basic message for those outside the Church as the Catholic faith at all times. So from the pulpit to other events. The truth will be still there in encyclicals buried under so many paragraphs that not many will know the faith.

The peasant in the old times knew more Catholicism than the graduate from a Catholic College. That is obviously not good.

 

[maximus]

But if we were to go to the Calvinist Church that has actual doctrine like Total Depravity (imagine that?) are full of young people than our own.

In my area the hard core Calvinist and other more zealous Protestant denominations are in sharp decline; I have friends in these denominations. The non-denominational and seeker sensitive are the ones in my area attracting the largest numbers.

We have downsized by about a 1/3 of the Catholic parishes in our area. So in that regards we probably mirror your area. I am fortunate that my Parrish is very vibrant and we are very faithful to the magisterium. Also, we have a lot of young familes in our Parrish.

God Bless

 

[Back2Church]

How can you forgive if the other person doesn’t want it? If the other person loves their gay life style, or feels like that abortion they had at 21 was the best decision of their life or that divorce had to be done, what do we forgive?

To forgive and even be forgiven, one must repent. How can one repent if they do not know they sinned? It just feels like there is some discontinuity in the reasoning process. We cannot just forgive because the other persons outside the Church truly do not want it or know they need it.

And indeed, the Church’s message at its core is be baptized and persevere in the race. Persevere = avoiding sin. No matter how much we discuss and how deep we go, this is just it.

When I said open up with love and forgiveness, I didn’t mean we just walk around forgiving everyone of their sins. We couldn’t even do that if we wanted.

 

[Fevronia]

In my area the hard core Calvinist and other more zealous Protestant denominations are in sharp decline; I have friends in these denominations. The non-denominational and seeker sensitive are the ones in my area attracting the largest numbers.

We have downsized by about a 1/3 of the Catholic parishes in our area. So in that regards we probably mirror your area. I am fortunate that my Parrish is very vibrant and we are very faithful to the magisterium. Also, we have a lot of young familes in our Parrish.

God Bless

The seeker friendly ones always have a lot but they never retain. People just move in and out for the “experience”. But if you were to speak of any issue, the seeker Church individual will always say those things do not matter or that everyone is free to believe whatever they want. The only ones who will care are the more rigorous ones like Calvinists.

What I mean to say in all of this is, if you want people to care, you cannot pretend its easy. To keep away the moral component is to make it look easy and we will have more and more wishy washy Catholics. I think its unfair to want every Catholic to have to read through a whole lot of encyclicals and decrees to figure out what is right and wrong and what is their faith. But that is essentially how it is like in many parishes in our part of the world.

 

[jmcrae]

How can you forgive if the other person doesn’t want it? If the other person loves their gay life style, or feels like that abortion they had at 21 was the best decision of their life or that divorce had to be done, what do we forgive?

Unless you have some kind of authority over that person where they have to listen to you, there is nothing you can say to them.

If some stranger were to just randomly knock on your door and tell you your sins, would you listen to them? You would probably say, “yes, I do that; there’s nothing wrong with that!” or else, “I have a good reason why I do that; it’s not like I’m doing it for no reason.”

We all sin. Most of us in the Church, our sins are of the socially acceptable variety. We gossip too much. (We call it “building community.”) We loaf around watching TV and looking at the Internet when there is a sink full of dishes to be washed. (That’s “sloth,” but we call it “networking” or “self-education.”)

To forgive and even be forgiven, one must repent. How can one repent if they do not know they sinned? It just feels like there is some discontinuity in the reasoning process. We cannot just forgive because the other persons outside the Church truly do not want it or know they need it.

Not just them; us too!

And indeed, the Church’s message at its core is be baptized and persevere in the race. Persevere = avoiding sin. No matter how much we discuss and how deep we go, this is just it.

We can’t live other people’s lives for them, and if they are adults, we can’t tell them what to do. We can only pray for them, and let them know that they are welcome any time they want to come and join us.

 

[McCall1981]

I personally feel that the old approach had the best balance. This new approach is not sustainable. We will keep losing many because the lack of clarity as to what the Church teaches (not everyone has the time to read the Catechism) created by not being too vocal about her moral or faith positions and its not so likely that we will ever win all of them back.

I feel its better to just try to do everything to make sure those who enter the hospital/Church are provided proper care. The hospital care standards cannot be lowered to allow many in because then no one might benefit in being in the hospital.

In essence, this approach is about providing a very basic message for those outside the Church as the Catholic faith at all times. So from the pulpit to other events. The truth will be still there in encyclicals buried under so many paragraphs that not many will know the faith.

The peasant in the old times knew more Catholicism than the graduate from a Catholic College. That is obviously not good.

Admittedly the balance is hard to maintain, but it should be the goal, and at some point we have to learn from our mistakes.

 

[Fevronia]

When I said open up with love and forgiveness, I didn’t mean we just walk around forgiving everyone of their sins. We couldn’t even do that if we wanted.

So doesn’t your method require us to either forget the gravity of sin entirely so that we can just let them come in and be Catholic or have to tell it to them that their acts are wrong and try our best to convince them?

 

[jmcrae]

So doesn’t your method require us to either forget the gravity of sin entirely so that we can just let them come in and be Catholic or have to tell it to them that their acts are wrong and try our best to convince them?

To become Catholic, they have to go through the RCIA process, which includes learning the moral teachings of the Church, examining their consciences, and going to First Confession.

They would not come into the Church without being informed of what Church teaching is, or how to follow it. That would be unfair to them. But it would be done in a matter-of-fact, emotionless way. We wouldn’t be all up in their faces screaming “SINNER” at them, or making them feel like lepers.

 

[Kopratic]

But to love God is to do his will, no? Don’t we sometimes need to excommunicate others for their own benefit? Haven’t the fathers of the Church and Saints defended that?

I do not see why being very upfront about the Church is bad. If we always keep wavering just to get others in, pretty soon many people will not know what the Church actually stands for. That is what happened in the last 50 years now. We stopped saying things to get others to dialogue and we lost our entire young generations who don’t know a single thing about the faith. Surely, continuing in that vein is not the answer?

No one ever said that we shouldn’t let others know what the Church stands for. What was said was that we have to start with love. And, I absolutely agree with you. After all, Jesus says that if we love him, we will obey his commandments. I also agree about excommunications. However, we can’t simply excommunicate these people and leave it at that. We have to catechize them. We have to love them. The whole point of excommunicating someone is that hopefully, they will repent and come home to the Church with a growth of knowledge and faith. As I said in my previous comment, sometimes love means tough love. Sometimes that means excommunication. We simply can’t leave it at that. We must do God’s will, yes, which is to bring other closer to him. I feel that I must stress that I do not mean that we should turn a blind eye and let people “come as they are” into the Church. If someone believes that abortion is perfectly alright, we shouldn’t tell them, “Well, the Catholic Church is for you!” because that would not be love. That would be a cruel lie. Instead, we must instruct them and help them grow in knowledge and understanding. Then, when they are in the right state of mind {knowing the beliefs/rules/dogmas of the Church and willing to obey them}, they can begin preparations on entering the Church. Once again, I am going to stress that I do not think we should weaken our beliefs to make others feel welcome.

Also, being a part of the “younger generations,” {I’m only 21} I find that last comment slightly offensive. I know many young Catholics around my age {up until almost there 30’s} who are extremely well-grounded in their faith and know plenty of it. Do we know everything? Of course not! However, we are constantly striving to grow in holiness and in our faith. I sincerely hope you didn’t mean any offense by that section of your statement, though.

 

[Veridical16]

Well I can’t speak for others, but in my case as a Catholic who has become sensitive to how rampant the dictatorship of relativism pervades our immediate loved ones, as well as oury neighbors in life. We know these middling seculars have nominal or no religion but observe what the Church says about these contemporary issues and observe the Catholic Church from afar and the interviews caused more confusion.

The problem is not reaching out to those who’ve embraced the fruits of secularism. That is a good thing.

It’s the fact that prodigal son thinks the Father slaughtering the calf , is celebrating not his repentance – but has chosen to celebrate their defiance of God instead. And we see it, and we weep. That’s the reaction. If people have been bothered yesterday it should not have been from jealousy like the older son, or from a feeling of superiority, but sensitivity to the disposition of the sinner in the 21st century.

i.e. No one needs a savior, and that Catholic Church needs to stop reminding us, that we may need one. They were happy for the headlines, not because they sought repentance too, but because the one thorn in their side seemingly , called off "we Catholic dogs’ on the ground (particularly in the pro life movement.) Perception is reality for the post-Christian world.
Not to mention that the heterodox Catholics within the Church have a green light to teach badly.

 

[Fevronia]

Unless you have some kind of authority over that person where they have to listen to you, there is nothing you can say to them.

If some stranger were to just randomly knock on your door and tell you your sins, would you listen to them? You would probably say, “yes, I do that; there’s nothing wrong with that!” or else, “I have a good reason why I do that; it’s not like I’m doing it for no reason.”

We all sin. Most of us in the Church, our sins are of the socially acceptable variety. We gossip too much. (We call it “building community.”) We loaf around watching TV and looking at the Internet when there is a sink full of dishes to be washed. (That’s “sloth,” but we call it “networking” or “self-education.”)

So speak about those too. If you were to read the Saints in the past, they do touch upon those with equal depth and gravity. Right now, we just ignore ALL.

Not just them; us too!

Exactly, so how is the “lets not talk about it much” going to work out for the Church? Gradually even the most Catholic person will erode in his/her faith.

We can’t live other people’s lives for them, and if they are adults, we can’t tell them what to do. We can only pray for them, and let them know that they are welcome any time they want to come and join us.

Actually we CAN tell them what to do. This mentality that adults cannot be told what to do is again a cultural myth that we recently constructed. Adults takes orders from the governments, their employers, and so forth but they cannot take advise when its the Church.

As for the second line of your reply, yes, we should pray for them too. But if they are our friends, we should not hide it that we disapprove of their acts and not think twice about cutting off the relationship if its influencing us to normalize the sin as well.

 

[Fevronia]

No one ever said that we shouldn’t let others know what the Church stands for. What was said was that we have to start with love. And, I absolutely agree with you. After all, Jesus says that if we love him, we will obey his commandments. I also agree about excommunications. However, we can’t simply excommunicate these people and leave it at that. We have to catechize them. We have to love them. The whole point of excommunicating someone is that hopefully, they will repent and come home to the Church with a growth of knowledge and faith. As I said in my previous comment, sometimes love means tough love. Sometimes that means excommunication. We simply can’t leave it at that. We must do God’s will, yes, which is to bring other closer to him. I feel that I must stress that I do not mean that we should turn a blind eye and let people “come as they are” into the Church. If someone believes that abortion is perfectly alright, we shouldn’t tell them, “Well, the Catholic Church is for you!” because that would not be love. That would be a cruel lie. Instead, we must instruct them and help them grow in knowledge and understanding. Then, when they are in the right state of mind {knowing the beliefs/rules/dogmas of the Church and willing to obey them}, they can begin preparations on entering the Church. Once again, I am going to stress that I do not think we should weaken our beliefs to make others feel welcome.

But what does it mean to love apart from telling them what is good and bad? Is it to feed them? Most of the time they are doing pretty alright. Is it to give them company? Most of the time one cannot follow them where they want to go and in what they want to do.

So I honestly do not see how there is a separate “love” from telling them good and bad.

Also, if we were to treat them as our best friend, why would they think they need to repent? I have met many an atheist (lapsed Catholic) who say “I am best friends with a Catholic and he doesn’t say there is anything wrong with what I do”.

I agree that there is no point going out to non-Catholics with moral teaching all the time. I think even the Apostles say that. But we cannot compromise our standard to Catholics. We must preach the hard stuff from the pulpit. We must show the gravity of sins.

Also, being a part of the “younger generations,” {I’m only 21} I find that last comment slightly offensive. I know many young Catholics around my age {up until almost there 30’s} who are extremely well-grounded in their faith and know plenty of it. Do we know everything? Of course not! However, we are constantly striving to grow in holiness and in our faith. I sincerely hope you didn’t mean any offense by that section of your statement, though.

Well the truth is that the young generation is not doing well. Most Churches are empty and this is not directed at you but most young people do think they know the faith very well. There is no shortage of over confidence. Even the atheist who left the Church feels he knows the faith much better.

So I did not mean it as a personal thing. I am just giving you the state of the Church. We are not doing well and Europe is actually much worse off with respect to the youth.

 

[St_Francis]

3 Docs–what a wonderful meditation–thank you so much for sharing it .)

WRT the Prodigal Son and how long we’ve understood it–all too often we know something and then forget it. How many times have I read something I needed to have in my lofe only to say, but I read this a few years ago, how could I have forgotten it?

This is why Christ gave us the Church, because we do have this terrible habit of forgetting. First we go one way and the Chirch pulls us back, and the next thing you know, we go too far the ofher way!

I think Pope Francis was telling us that we have to find the balance. In the 60s, we lost our balance and became too everything goes. Lately, we have been so focused on these issues–not saying anyone individually is but maybe the impression others have gotten–that the context, as the Pope said, has been lost. The context into which these issues need to remain embedded is the context of love: God’s love for us and our love for God.

 

[Back2Church]

So doesn’t your method require us to either forget the gravity of sin entirely so that we can just let them come in and be Catholic or have to tell it to them that their acts are wrong and try our best to convince them?

My method is to open up a dialog that hopefully leads them to accepting the truth, repenting of their sins, and entering the church. But if I open up my dialog with how sinful they are, It’s not likely they will keep the dialog open very long at all.

Talking to atheists in particular is a really delicate procedure. They don’t even believe in anything spiritual at all, let alone a concept of sin. What use is talking about sin to such a person? Don’t we first need to point them to God before we can address their sins?

 

[Fevronia]

To become Catholic, they have to go through the RCIA process, which includes learning the moral teachings of the Church, examining their consciences, and going to First Confession.

Not all RCIA covers that, again because of the love and mercy attitude after Vatican II.

They would not come into the Church without being informed of what Church teaching is, or how to follow it. That would be unfair to them. But it would be done in a matter-of-fact, emotionless way. We wouldn’t be all up in their faces screaming “SINNER” at them, or making them feel like lepers.

We don’t need to do that on an individual basis. The priest in the past didn’t address individuals directly from the pulpit. He addressed in general but made it clear how bad a sin is. People then went to confession and had things to confess.

 

[Veridical16]

So speak about those too. If you were to read the Saints in the past, they do touch upon those with equal depth and gravity. Right now, we just ignore ALL.

Exactly, so how is the “lets not talk about it much” going to work out for the Church? Gradually even the most Catholic person will erode in his/her faith.

Actually we CAN tell them what to do. This mentality that adults cannot be told what to do is again a cultural myth that we recently constructed. Adults takes orders from the governments, their employers, and so forth but they cannot take advise when its the Church.

As for the second line of your reply, yes, we should pray for them too. But if they are our friends, we should not hide it that we disapprove of their acts and not think twice about cutting off the relationship if its influencing us to normalize the sin as well.

There is a lot of Enlightenment thought rearing its head. Especially about the individual and his rights.

Christ never tyrannized anyone, but to say because a man is free, didn’t mean that Christ didn’t beckon and plead, and as scripture says, use all means, to urge repentance.

The Saints lives, St. John the Baptist are all rebukes of this mentality that we are to be passive with how we engage with the world, because they are entitled to their enlightenment concept of rights. All of us deserve nothing. So to say that a sinner deserves this or that, for the wrong reasons, when it’s really a COUCHED excuse to take the easy way out when it comes to confronting the world.

I think Catholics have to evangelize WITHIN the Church first before we think about the world . St. Paul when he says to avoid sinners, he means those who are within the Church who should KNOW better.

I also think its unrealistic and a false charity when people are sing-song happy about the state of the Church. As if we’ve been continually on wing. Let us be realistic. We can’t even be of unity of mind, among an abundant amount of Catholics.