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Lormar
Guest
Guy or girl, her remark was completely uncalled for.
Thank you for correcting me.
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Thank you for correcting me.
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agnes_therese
Guest
You’ll notice that Pelosi, Biden, etc. have already had their excuses ready, long before Pope Francis was even on their radar. Can’t blame it on him.
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AdvanceAlways
Guest
But never before have they been able to turn to a Pope to back up their error. (Not saying it’s right.)
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Do_Good_Then_Go
Guest
I found the article to be very inspiring and I can’t see the problems that some are seeing. I thought this part was especially interesting, given some of the responses in this thread (my bolding):
“If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God.** Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.** I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”
“If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God.** Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.** I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”
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Ridgerunner
Guest
I think the secular press will misinterpret or outright misrepresent the Pope’s words for some time to come. It’s pablum for their constituency, and perhaps to dissident Catholics most of all.
But the Pope is not condoning any of those sins in his actual words. He is talking about forgiveness FOR those sins, and talks about the benefits of confession in the context.
This reminds me of an experience I had long ago teaching CCD to high school students. We were talking about marriage, and one young man expressed his resentment of the Church for its position on divorce and remarriage. He expressed that the Church is too obsessed with “rules”. You see, his father and mother had divorced, and his father remarried. However, his father had obtained an annulment in due course. Likely that was a fairly arduous process.
I pointed out that the Church is not a mechanism for punishment, but one for telling us what’s right, then “getting us off the hook” for our mistakes and outright sins. Oftentimes we focus on the truth we’re told about sin and forget about the mercy part. The processes like confession and the marriage tribunals are a mercy, not a trial. The kid obviously decided to shut up and think about it on that occasion. Never again did he miss CCD class, and therafter had a joyful demeanor about him. Never again did he accuse the Church of being harsh.
The secularists who hate the Church don’t like that message. They want to be RIGHT in their errors and sins. They want a church that will endorse their bad behavior, not one that will tell them the truth and offer forgiveness.
I have just put myself to mind of something Ste Therese of Lisieux maintained. She opined that at or around the point of death we are presented with all of our sins in all their horror; a horror much greater than we ever imagined them to be. And our guilt is clear. We view it all with absolute, total clarity. We are then offered love and forgiveness. We either accept it or withdraw from it in our pride. If we withdraw from it, we do it out of hatred of God for having been shown the truth. If so, we volunteer for hell, knowing with total clarity what it is.
Hard to imagine anybody choosing hell like that. But we do sometimes get inklings that some just might. And we rightly fear that we might, which is why it is good for us to practice humility through confession and by other means. It is good for us to listen to the truth even when we don’t like to hear it, and to defer to it even if our minds rebel.
But the Pope is not condoning any of those sins in his actual words. He is talking about forgiveness FOR those sins, and talks about the benefits of confession in the context.
This reminds me of an experience I had long ago teaching CCD to high school students. We were talking about marriage, and one young man expressed his resentment of the Church for its position on divorce and remarriage. He expressed that the Church is too obsessed with “rules”. You see, his father and mother had divorced, and his father remarried. However, his father had obtained an annulment in due course. Likely that was a fairly arduous process.
I pointed out that the Church is not a mechanism for punishment, but one for telling us what’s right, then “getting us off the hook” for our mistakes and outright sins. Oftentimes we focus on the truth we’re told about sin and forget about the mercy part. The processes like confession and the marriage tribunals are a mercy, not a trial. The kid obviously decided to shut up and think about it on that occasion. Never again did he miss CCD class, and therafter had a joyful demeanor about him. Never again did he accuse the Church of being harsh.
The secularists who hate the Church don’t like that message. They want to be RIGHT in their errors and sins. They want a church that will endorse their bad behavior, not one that will tell them the truth and offer forgiveness.
I have just put myself to mind of something Ste Therese of Lisieux maintained. She opined that at or around the point of death we are presented with all of our sins in all their horror; a horror much greater than we ever imagined them to be. And our guilt is clear. We view it all with absolute, total clarity. We are then offered love and forgiveness. We either accept it or withdraw from it in our pride. If we withdraw from it, we do it out of hatred of God for having been shown the truth. If so, we volunteer for hell, knowing with total clarity what it is.
Hard to imagine anybody choosing hell like that. But we do sometimes get inklings that some just might. And we rightly fear that we might, which is why it is good for us to practice humility through confession and by other means. It is good for us to listen to the truth even when we don’t like to hear it, and to defer to it even if our minds rebel.
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lovetheworld
Guest
I love this pope…
Dude is actaully listening to Jesus… not following hatred… I never could see Jesus saying (gays are bad mckay)…
Dude is actaully listening to Jesus… not following hatred… I never could see Jesus saying (gays are bad mckay)…
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AdvanceAlways
Guest
Your ignorance is incredible. Your liberal buzzwords are useless.
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manualman
Guest
- You and I understand Matthew 18:6 to be applicable, but it’s not remotely explicit. If it were explicit, he’d need to define sin. For someone who doesn’t consider it a SIN for a man and a child to have sexual contact, it no longer seems to apply, does it? You’re underestimating the power of sophistry. Think again if you object that society could never sink that low. Much of Hollywood and the Euro elite thought that Roman Polanski was unfairly persecuted by American law.
- Jesus’ problem with the Pharisees wasn’t with the actual teaching, it was with the way that they used legal sophistry to do evil and call it good. You might recall the occasions he called them “broods of vipers?”
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anglicanusepapa
Guest
To all those accusing people like AdvanceAlways of attacking the Pope: it is perfectly alright to disagree with any Pope or even criticise them as long as being respectful. We as Catholics do not have to agree with a Pope except on definitive teachings and pronouncements.
It seems that the so called “liberals” (proper term would be modernists, and modernism has been declared by the Church to be a heresy) are fine with questioning faithful Catholics and even Popes on settled dogma but raise an outcry when others simply question the appropriatness or effectiveness of a particular way in which the Holy Father has expressed himself.
KNK
It seems that the so called “liberals” (proper term would be modernists, and modernism has been declared by the Church to be a heresy) are fine with questioning faithful Catholics and even Popes on settled dogma but raise an outcry when others simply question the appropriatness or effectiveness of a particular way in which the Holy Father has expressed himself.
KNK
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Havard
Guest
His predecessors never promoted hatred either. They also “actually listened to Jesus” too. I I strongly encourage you to bypass the media’s biased reporting and get to know the Popes through their own words.
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99th_Monkey
Guest
That he’s a kind, caring man?
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einna
Guest
No that is not a personal attack at all. He wrote the words, which were completely unfair and disrespectful.
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AdvanceAlways
Guest
So anyone seeing this differently than you do is disrespectful, eh?
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Elizabeth502
Guest
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Lormar
Guest
Do you think Pope Francis would have lashed out?
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weller2
Guest
Interestingly enough, it does. Translating it as “sin” does not do the verse justice. See:
biblehub.com/matthew/18-6.htm I hope I do not have to explain that being molested by a priest will negatively affect victim’s relationship with God. Which is what the verse refers to.
Of course. Now: read Jesus’ anti-Phariseic rant in Matthew 23. Can you find any Catholic clergymen who match the descriptions therein?
What Francis is doing is calling out the Pharisees in the Church.
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Elizabeth502
Guest
Most of all, indeed.
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einna
Guest
I agree but he should not rephrase what he thought the Pope said.
Again, let me remind people that if you do not like the way the Pope expresses himself or how he lead the Church, you have the many, many bishops and cardinals that voted him in so quickly. No one has brought them up. They knew what a Jesuit priest was like and they knew he would live and teach the way he has done so far. It is their responsibility to know that before they vote.
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AdvanceAlways
Guest
I did not rephrase what the Pope said, I said quite plainly how the media is taking it, and the ramifications of these words, which I do believe will be disastrous.
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_Abyssinia
Guest
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