Learn more about Pope Francis rather than criticize

[opus101]

With all of the criticism of the Pope, not one person has been able to describe the particular dispensation protocol called for in Canon Law that the Pope should have used for this one situation.

I suspect it is because there is none.

 

[allhers]

thank you for those links. I had already read that basic story elsewhere either in this thread or another. One did provide me with an addtional fact…that there were 40 individuals of which 12 were chosen. Unfortunately, these articles didn’t completely clear things up for me.

It could have been here at The National Catholic Register also, I really can’t remember where I read it at this point, but the links I gave you earlier are all, as is this one, faithful to the Church.

ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/how-should-we-understand-pope-francis-washing-womens-feet

(also read the posts by JReducation on this thread)

 

[Brendan_64]

He’s the man with the keys and the power to bind and loose.
There’s no need to set ourselves up as the higher authority whom the Pope has to consult for his every pastoral move that does not contradict faith and morals. His higher authority is God Himself.
Some think it’s Canon lawyer XYZ or Father (insert initial).

The reason why some are in such a dither about this is because they have publicly harped on this subject for so many years that they are embarrassed that the Pope’s actions might indicate that they were too rigid with its application. The hardest words to say, sometimes, are :“I was wrong.”

The Pope is answerable to nobody on this Earth. He is the supreme monarch of the civil state in which he presides, and is the Supreme Pontiff of Christ’s Church on Earth. He is not bound by Church laws.

He is not required to explain his actions to us, let alone request permission to deviate from a rubric in an optional ritual.

 

[opus101]

With all of the criticism of the Pope, not one person has been able to describe the particular dispensation protocol called for in Canon Law that the Pope should have used for this one situation.

I suspect it is because there is none.

…and furthermore,please do not cut yourselves any slack here. You gave none to the Pope, you held him to the letter of the exact rubric, complete with proper translation of the the Latin word “viri”.
So, when you find the proper canon dealing with Papal protocol for dispensations regarding the optional foot washing on Holy Thursday (in a Mass that he himself is presiding in), please quote it exactly, with the Canon number and the exact meaning of the original Latin.
No “opinions” here. We want the exact info.

 

[McCall1981]

I’m not a fan of him doing the footwashing, but I have to say that the way that he did it was probably about the best it could have been.

The fact that he washed the feet of a Muslim sort of takes the wind out of the women priest arguement by removing any apostolic meaning from the rite. Obviously he’s not indicating there should be Muslim Catholic Priests, so by doing this he totally divorced the rite from any apostolic meaning, and moved it squarely into the pastoral side, which is fine.

Also, for those who don’t know, Pope Franics gave a fantastic General Audience today in which he addresses the role of women in the Church. It should be very re-assuring for any of us who were worried by the foot washing. I link to Fr. Z’s site because I don’t know who else has the full text:

wdtprs.com/blog/2013/04/pope-francis-general-audience-focused-on-women-feminists-arent-going-to-be-happy/

 

[Brendan_64]

So, when you find the proper canon dealing with Papal protocol for dispensations regarding the optional foot washing on Holy Thursday (in a Mass that he himself is presiding in), please quote it exactly, with the Canon number and the exact meaning of the original Latin.
No “opinions” here. We want the exact info.

Isn’t silence golden?

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

I’m not a fan of him doing the footwashing, but I have to say that the way that he did it was probably about the best it could have been.

The fact that he washed the feet of a Muslim sort of takes the wind out of the women priest arguement by removing any apostolic meaning from the rite. Obviously he’s not indicating there should be Muslim Catholic Priests, so by doing this he totally divorced the rite from any apostolic meaning, and moved it squarely into the pastoral side, which is fine.

Also, for those who don’t know, Pope Franics gave a fantastic General Audience today in which he addresses the role of women in the Church. It should be very re-assuring for any of us who were worried by the foot washing. I link to Fr. Z’s site because I don’t know who else has the full text:

wdtprs.com/blog/2013/04/pope-francis-general-audience-focused-on-women-feminists-arent-going-to-be-happy/

Awesome! Thanks for the link!

 

[dans0622]

…and furthermore,please do not cut yourselves any slack here. You gave none to the Pope, you held him to the letter of the exact rubric, complete with proper translation of the the Latin word “viri”.
So, when you find the proper canon dealing with Papal protocol for dispensations regarding the optional foot washing on Holy Thursday (in a Mass that he himself is presiding in), please quote it exactly, with the Canon number and the exact meaning of the original Latin.
No “opinions” here. We want the exact info.

Hello,

You don’t need to be so confrontational, either toward me or Dr. Peters or Fr. Zuhlsdorf or anyone else. Anyway, you yourself, in another thread, came to the conclusion (based on someone’s comment in an article) that the Pope dispensed himself. forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=771327

While I haven’t seen anything about what form this (alleged) dispensation took, I think that an implementation of the law regarding dispensations would have been appropriate, given the usual protocol for such matters. That is basically all I was getting at in my previous comment.

The directive concerning whose feet can be washed is a matter of ecclesiastical law and is subject to dispensation (as the oft-mentioned correspondence between Card. O’Malley and the Holy See, among other things, shows). Certainly, the Pope can dispense himself from any ecclesiastical law (cc. 85, 91, 331) and doesn’t even need a just cause to do so validly (c. 90). He could have done this by means of a document (nothing extravagant–just stating the fact that he was doing it): this would have been the typical way of going about it (cc. 51, 54.2). But, such an action could have been carried out orally since a dispensation is a kind of rescript (c. 59). You can find the original Latin as well as fine translations of these canons on the Vatican website (although that English translation of c. 59.2 is not liked by all). I don’t think we really need to go into any greater detail than these canons.

Could the Pope bypass usual protocol? Sure. Are these laws even written with the Pope in mind? Good question. Whatever the case may be, I again suggest that for the sake of good order in the “perfect society” which is the Church, even Popes follow the law and change/dispense/interpret/execute it in a regular manner. It is not unreasonable for people to expect this of Legislators in the Church, even the Pope. This is especially relevant for liturgical matters since the faithful, in order to best participate in the rites, need to know what is going to happen next (as Francis Cardinal George once said).

Dan

 

[Lucky7]

I’m not a fan of him doing the footwashing, but I have to say that the way that he did it was probably about the best it could have been.

The fact that he washed the feet of a Muslim sort of takes the wind out of the women priest arguement by removing any apostolic meaning from the rite. Obviously he’s not indicating there should be Muslim Catholic Priests, so by doing this he totally divorced the rite from any apostolic meaning, and moved it squarely into the pastoral side, which is fine.

Also, for those who don’t know, Pope Franics gave a fantastic General Audience today in which he addresses the role of women in the Church. It should be very re-assuring for any of us who were worried by the foot washing. I link to Fr. Z’s site because I don’t know who else has the full text:

wdtprs.com/blog/2013/04/pope-francis-general-audience-focused-on-women-feminists-arent-going-to-be-happy/

And yet if you go to a secular site where a number of heterodox Catholics reside, they are all praising him for his comments about the role of women and consider his comments hopeful!

 

[TimothyH]

remotely present.

-Tim-

 

[Brendan_64]

And yet if you go to a secular site where a number of heterodox Catholics reside, they are all praising him for his comments about the role of women and consider his comments hopeful!

Regardless of what they think, there will not be women priests, there can’t be. Blessed John Paul II was very clear about that. No need to worry.

 

[Lucky7]

Regardless of what they think, there will not be women priests, there can’t be. Blessed John Paul II was very clear about that. No need to worry.

I’m not worried, but I think it is fascinating how two very different Catholics with very different points of view can read the same homily and both think he is helping their view. I hope he makes things even clearer next time.

 

[McCall1981]

And yet if you go to a secular site where a number of heterodox Catholics reside, they are all praising him for his comments about the role of women and consider his comments hopeful!

I would imagine they’re happy becasue he said positive things about women. Remember that they think since he’s in the Church he must hate women, so if he says something positive about women it will set them off.

In this one talk, he re-stated the role of women in the Church from an orthodox perspective, re-affirmed that the Gospels are NOT culturally skewed against women, and spoke of the true role for women while clearly and intentionally ignoring women’s ordination.

Francis basically re-used a number of things Benedict has said about this topic, so if you have an issue with what he said, you also have to have an issue with Benedict said. For instance, a large chunck of what he said it essentially a paraphrase of a couple of paragraphs from one Benedict’s Jesus books.

 

[Lucky7]

I would imagine they’re happy becasue he said positive things about women. Remember that they think since he’s in the Church he must hate women, so if he says something positive about women it will set them off.

In this one talk, he re-stated the role of women in the Church from an orthodox perspective, re-affirmed that the Gospels are NOT culturally skewed against women, and spoke of the true role for women while clearly and intentionally ignoring women’s ordination.

Francis basically re-used a number of things Benedict has said about this topic, so if you have an issue with what he said, you also have to have an issue with Benedict said. For instance, a large chunck of what he said it essentially a paraphrase of a couple of paragraphs from one Benedict’s Jesus books.

I don’t have issue with what he said; however, I do think he can and will make even clearer statements regarding the role of women (ie. “can not be priests”).

 

[McCall1981]

I hope he makes things even clearer next time.

I’m so glad you said this, because this, I think, is the key to a lot of our worries. I hope I can explain what I’m thinking.

On the surface of it I, like you and some others, would love to hear Francis loudly and clearly re-state all of the othodox beliefs, and “bring the thunder” so to speak. We want to hear it because it would be re-assuring for us personally, and it would also (we think) be good for the Church.

But here’s my point. I think we can all agree that so far Francis has been excellent at emphasizing the centrality of Christ crucified as our Savior. We’ve all encoutered situations where a Priest is uncomfortably vague about Christ, maybe just referring to “goodness” or “religion”. We wouldn’t like this and would want him to speak strongly about the uniqueness and centrality of Christ. Since Francis has been great about this, we don’t really think about this issue too much because we’re happy with it.

But, in all of Francis’ strong references to Christ he has never said anything to effect of “don’t believe in Mohammed”, or “don’t believe in Buddha”. Why doesn’t this bother us? Because it would be unnecessary, and strangely defensive. His job is to present people with the Truth, not to run around undercutting every non-truth out there in the world.

It’s the same with what he said today. Everything he said is strongly orthodox about the wonderful role of women in the Church. That fact that he didn’t slam heterodoxy should not be a concern. It’s not his job to think of every heterodox idea out there about women and shoot them all down. He is to **present what is True **(which he did), **not seek out an argument against non-truth **(which he didn’t).

While it would be personally gratifying to hear him bring that thunder, it would not be an effective form of evangelization, and it’s not really what he’s there to do.

I have to ask myself if part of why I want to hear the thunder is to revel in the feeling that my “enemies” are “defeated” (which would not be a very Christian response). Rather, I should be content that Francis, using more patience and love than I have, is strongly presenting the Truth to the world, and not worry so much about whether the non-truths have be smited “enough”.

Hope that makes some sense.

 

[McCall1981]

Sorry to double post but this is how I’m seeing it.

If I was the Pope and I was approached by a women’s ordination group, I would probably feel threatened, react with impatience and anger, and end up getting into an arguement where I tried to shoot down their positon and **make them **understand the Truth.

If Jesus had somehow been approached by a women’s ordination group, I think He would respond with infinite love and patience, seeing them with eyes of mercy so to speak. He wouldn’t attack or argue with them, He would present them with the Truth in the most loving way possible in order to convert their hearts through love and mercy, not to “defeat” them.

I think Pope Francis is (fortunately) much closer to the Jesus side of this spectrum than to my side. I think he will respond to these kinds issues with much more patience and mercy than I would. Because of my own faults of impatience and anger, this will probably be a frustrating thing for me becasue I will want him to “lay down the law” but he will respond with love, patience and kindness.

The people out there who abuse the Church and Church teaching are very frustrating for us, but think of how frustrating it must have been for the Apostles to watch Jesus be abused, yet He let these things happen out of infinite mercy and love. I think Francis will respond to people who hate the Church with only love and mercy, and though that might be frustrating for me as a sinner, I also know that ultimately it’s right thing to do.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

This is very insightful. We do often want to hear the “other side” condemned, but hearing it only so we can then yell “right on!” isn’t Christ-like at all.

By saying how to be a good Christian woman (instead of how not to be), Pope Francis is giving the directions for what happens after “go and sin no more”.

Come talk about this on my thread The Role of Women in the Church. :flowers:

I’m so glad you said this, because this, I think, is the key to a lot of our worries. I hope I can explain what I’m thinking.

On the surface of it I, like you and some others, would love to hear Francis loudly and clearly re-state all of the othodox beliefs, and “bring the thunder” so to speak. We want to hear it because it would be re-assuring for us personally, and it would also (we think) be good for the Church.

But here’s my point. I think we can all agree that so far Francis has been excellent at emphasizing the centrality of Christ crucified as our Savior. We’ve all encoutered situations where a Priest is uncomfortably vague about Christ, maybe just referring to “goodness” or “religion”. We wouldn’t like this and would want him to speak strongly about the uniqueness and centrality of Christ. Since Francis has been great about this, we don’t really think about this issue too much because we’re happy with it.

But, in all of Francis’ strong references to Christ he has never said anything to effect of “don’t believe in Mohammed”, or “don’t believe in Buddha”. Why doesn’t this bother us? Because it would be unnecessary, and strangely defensive. His job is to present people with the Truth, not to run around undercutting every non-truth out there in the world.

It’s the same with what he said today. Everything he said is strongly orthodox about the wonderful role of women in the Church. That fact that he didn’t slam heterodoxy should not be a concern. It’s not his job to think of every heterodox idea out there about women and shoot them all down. He is to **present what is True **(which he did), **not seek out an argument against non-truth **(which he didn’t).

While it would be personally gratifying to hear him bring that thunder, it would not be an effective form of evangelization, and it’s not really what he’s there to do.

I have to ask myself if part of why I want to hear the thunder is to revel in the feeling that my “enemies” are “defeated” (which would not be a very Christian response). Rather, I should be content that Francis, using more patience and love than I have, is strongly presenting the Truth to the world, and not worry so much about whether the non-truths have be smited “enough”.

Hope that makes some sense.

 

[allhers]

I don’t have issue with what he said; however, I do think he can and will make even clearer statements regarding the role of women (ie. “can not be priests”).

Found another good article for you, right on this site:
catholic.com/tracts/women-and-the-priesthood

 

[McCall1981]

I’m not worried, but I think it is fascinating how two very different Catholics with very different points of view can read the same homily and both think he is helping their view. I hope he makes things even clearer next time.

For the record, in his 2011 book, then Cardinal Bergoglio did state that women cannot be Priests, and mentioned the traditional reasons why. It’s only one or two sentences, and I apologize but I don’t have the quote, I read about in a news article. I’m sure you could find it if you searched.

 

[Lucky7]

I’m so glad you said this, because this, I think, is the key to a lot of our worries. I hope I can explain what I’m thinking.

On the surface of it I, like you and some others, would love to hear Francis loudly and clearly re-state all of the othodox beliefs, and “bring the thunder” so to speak. We want to hear it because it would be re-assuring for us personally, and it would also (we think) be good for the Church.

But here’s my point. I think we can all agree that so far Francis has been excellent at emphasizing the centrality of Christ crucified as our Savior. We’ve all encoutered situations where a Priest is uncomfortably vague about Christ, maybe just referring to “goodness” or “religion”. We wouldn’t like this and would want him to speak strongly about the uniqueness and centrality of Christ. Since Francis has been great about this, we don’t really think about this issue too much because we’re happy with it.

But, in all of Francis’ strong references to Christ he has never said anything to effect of “don’t believe in Mohammed”, or “don’t believe in Buddha”. Why doesn’t this bother us? Because it would be unnecessary, and strangely defensive. His job is to present people with the Truth, not to run around undercutting every non-truth out there in the world.

It’s the same with what he said today. Everything he said is strongly orthodox about the wonderful role of women in the Church. That fact that he didn’t slam heterodoxy should not be a concern. It’s not his job to think of every heterodox idea out there about women and shoot them all down. He is to **present what is True **(which he did), **not seek out an argument against non-truth **(which he didn’t).

While it would be personally gratifying to hear him bring that thunder, it would not be an effective form of evangelization, and it’s not really what he’s there to do.

I have to ask myself if part of why I want to hear the thunder is to revel in the feeling that my “enemies” are “defeated” (which would not be a very Christian response). Rather, I should be content that Francis, using more patience and love than I have, is strongly presenting the Truth to the world, and not worry so much about whether the non-truths have be smited “enough”.

Hope that makes some sense.

It makes a lot of sense and I agree with most of it. However, for me, it is not about condemning the other side. It is clearing the misconceptions within our own Faith (as well as to other Faiths). I have heard way too many Catholics state that since Vatican II we are cool with all religions…that you don’t have to be Catholic anymore…all religions point to Heaven…that, unlike Evangelical/Fundamental Christianity, the Catholic Church doesn’t say you have to be Christian. If this is what many Catholics think, then I have to think that that is what others from different religions also think.

I think actions, inactions, and vague words help to reinforce this misconception. This is why I hope for clear words as well as actions…or at least clear words to clarify actions that may be construed as something else.

I hope that makes sense…lol.