Pope Francis and negativity

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I don’t buy that. And I don’t think anyone can reconcile that with marriage and Jesus teachings about marriage and the eucharist.
 
I had thought the opposite, namely that traditional Catholics well-schooled in their faith were taught NOT to be critical of the Pope due to his being the apostolic head of the Church. I thought that current criticism of the Pope is a relatively new phenomenon deriving from the notion that the laity is NOT as well-versed in theological matters as it had previously been.
 
padrepio_2012 said:
But all one has to do is look at who he surrounds himself with and what they say and their views. Almost all of his cohort have views radically outside those of the Church
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Did not Jesus sit with tax collectors, eat dinner with prostitutes, and heal the lepers and the blind? I have a hard time faulting the man for the company he keeps.
 
This type of topic either preaches to the choir or attracts more comments against the Pope.
 
You think theological information is not exponentially more available now? Popes have not been free from criticism since Paul rebuked Peter. The difference is now we are all involved.
 
Francis4 said:
The Problem is that most people are often not able to judge correctly.

What standard do we as Catholics judge if something is good or bad? - Simple; The Traditional Teachings of the Church. If you understand the ancient faith; then you can judge correctly.
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But that was the premise behind rejecting the new interpretation of Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. It’s the premise behind rejecting the Novus Ordo. It’s the premise behind rejecting abolition of the death penalty. All are based on appeal to Tradition.

However we accept these developments as coming from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We believe that the Holy Spirit continues to be the voice of Christ in the world to assist us on the right path. The great thing about the Church is that it structured to test the spirits and discern the way forward. It seems so fickle to only accept what we personally agree with and reject what we don’t.
 
giddyromilly said:
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padrepio_2012:
But all one has to do is look at who he surrounds himself with and what they say and their views. Almost all of his cohort have views radically outside those of the Church
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Did not Jesus sit with tax collectors, eat dinner with prostitutes, and heal the lepers and the blind? I have a hard time faulting the man for the company he keeps.
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Jesus reformed them. Taught them and had them change their ways. With teachings so hard his followers ended up abandoning him and then crucifying Him. If the Pope has spent 5 years feeding them sugar, he better follow it with the medicine right quick.
 
Francis4 said:
To reject the Traditional Teachings of the Church is to cease to be Catholic. The Holy Ghost can not lead us in contradictory paths. That would be the Holy Ghost contradicting Himself.
" A house divide can not stand.".
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Why are you posting this ^ in this thread?
And your other posts too, what do they have to do with the subject of this thread?
 
Francis4 said:
Emeraldlady,

The Teachings of the Church are not some novelty to be modified according to the flavor of the day. They come from Christ.

This is why the First Vatican Council pointed out regarding the prerogatives of the Pope:

“For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter, that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith delivered through the Ages.”

When anyone contradicts the Traditional Teachings of the Church it is they who are wrong and not the Tradition of the Church.
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Are you saying that the new versions of EENS, the Mass and teaching on the DP are wrong?
 
Francis4 said:
To reject the Traditional Teachings of the Church is to cease to be Catholic. The Holy Ghost can not lead us in contradictory paths. That would be the Holy Ghost contradicting Himself.
" A house divide can not stand.".
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You surely agree that the teachings of the Church did not all come at once with Christ? There have been 21 ecumenical Councils from which new, reformulated and clarified teachings have emerged. The most profound tradition of the Catholic Church is to guard the Truths taught by Christ by the light of doctrine which is the why of such an intense 2000 year investment by the Magisterium in providing that light.
 
Pope Francis has been a tremendous blessing to the Church and the world… what a tremendous example for us!

Those who try to pin McCarrick or this abuse mess on him are misguided. Remember St JPII made McCarrick a Cardinal, Pope Francis defrocked him. The abuse scandal is a gross disaster, but this Pope isn’t responsible for it at all… he inherited it and has made missteps cleaning it up, but he’ll get it right.
 
I’m still pretty excited about Pope Francis. I was always happy to be Catholic since I converted, but Pope Francis makes me excited about my faith…still. Yes he teaches love as the greatest value. Very initially as the abuse crises unfolded, he may have said the wrong things, but he is recovering and has taken very significant steps. I don’t envy him on the abuse crisis. As for rumblings, I regularly attend two parishes in the US in different states. I don’t hear a peep of criticism about him in the Jesuit parish I attend…it is a happy bubble. In the other parish…kinda in the middle of nowhere…the rumblings about him are noticeable.

Here is the thing. Americans make up 13% or 14% of the Catholics in the World. While western Europe makes up about 20% and south America makes up like 28%. From my first hand experience speaking to my Catholic relatives in Europe, the rumblings are somewhat different. They are concerned about abuse of course, but they can’t understand why Pope Francis progressive message is not making itself into reality fast enough. Some of the ideas of Pope Francis don’t make sense from the perspective of an American often. This is true. They fit well into Western Europe, South and Central America though. This is not going to change with Pope Francis, and based on who he has chosen as Cardinals, it is very unlikely to change with the next Pope. Eventually, people have got to realize this.

You can always ask those who spread negativity, what truly do you expect to happen in the next 5 - 15 years? What difference will your criticisms possibly matter?
 
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Emeraldlady said:
I can’t abide the theory that Vatican II caused the modern crisis when truthfully it was the modern crisis that caused Vatican II if Catholics really cared to learn about the build up to the Council.
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Vatican II itself wasn’t to blame for what happened post-vat II. But it can’t be denied that a large number of unscrupulous priests and theologians took liberties with the teachings of Vat II and this led to a lot of problems.
Emeraldlady said:
I find Amoris Laetitia (On love in the family) to be a truly Christian guidance. It addresses how to love in the many different and difficult situations that families face today. People were genuinely needing some guidance in how to love because exclusion and rejection have not advanced Christ and has lead to relativism and confusion in Christian families.
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The problem is that this document also has been taken by some to mean that previous Church teaching doesn’t apply.

It’s hardly the case that many couples were excluded because they were divorced and remarried. In fact, this teaching was hardly ever enforced.

The bottom line is, we either believe that marriage is indissoluble or we don’t. If we do, then really there’s little room for making allowances other than if an annulment is obtained.

I do agree with Pope Francis when he said that many couples married in the Church today are probably invalidly married as they really have no idea what’s involved in sacramental marriage.

The real problem isn’t so much offering mercy to those in adulterous relationships, but teaching those who come to get married in the Catholic Church and sometimes challenging them to think about why they are…is it for a “nice venue” or to partake in the sacrament of marriage.
 
Hoosier-Daddy said:
I find AL very very needed as well. In fact almost all of it is incredibly solid. Which is why 1 footnote is so troublesome. I just ask myself why? Why?
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AL is great. That footnote can be dealt with in an orthodox manner. To me the line is that someone in a state of mortal sin should not receive Holy Communion. Mortal sin needs grave matter, full knowledge and deliberate consent. We can assume that boxes one and two are checked. For 3 I can imagine someone in an abusive relationship scared of leaving or refusing sex to their spouse. AL may apply in those situations to the victim. The abuser should not receive Holy Communion and the Church should do everything she can to help the victim leave the abusive situation. Sadly that does not seem to be how Pope Francis advocates interpreting it.

The zika comment was a lot more troubling to me and I think the only thing that I have not been able to reconcile with orthodox Catholicism.
 
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godisgood77 said:
Those who try to pin McCarrick or this abuse mess on him are misguided. Remember St JPII made McCarrick a Cardinal, Pope Francis defrocked him. The abuse scandal is a gross disaster, but this Pope isn’t responsible for it at all… he inherited it and has made missteps cleaning it up, but he’ll get it right.
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Pope Francis has his own allegations of mishandling sex abuse and coverups long before he was sitting in the chair of Saint Peter. And let’s not pretend that defrocking McCarrick took some great act of heroics on his part. McCarrick was beyond any help of the hierarchy, the evidence was so overwhelmingly against McCarrick that it doesn’t require much trust in hoping that he did the right thing, to do anything else would’ve been foolish.
 
Crusader13 said:
McCarrick was beyond any help of the hierarchy, the evidence was so overwhelmingly against McCarrick that it doesn’t require much trust in hoping that he did the right thing, to do anything else would’ve been foolish.
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Agreed… it looks very bad for the previous popes, Viganò and others in the hierarchy dating back to the 80’s to have not taken action on McCarrick.

Thankfully Pope Francis was strong enough to take the necessary action.
 
Francis4 said:
Emeraldlady,

Yes, that is correct there have been Two Thousands years of Church teaching.

It seems that some want to accept the latest novelties and reject the constant and clear teachings of the past Popes, Councils, and Magisterial teachings.

As Pope St. Pius X put it "But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those ‘who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind . . . or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church’. . . . Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: ‘I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church’.” - - Encyclical Against Modernism (Pascendi).
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This is what astounds me. I imagine that Pius X would be rolling in his grave to know that his own encyclical was being used against an actual Pope. Pascendi was a classic example of how a teaching was distorted and grew like topsy into a cult like faction dividing the Church. As someone earlier in the thread pointed out, by the logic that it adopted, even Pius X was a modernist for introducing the innovation of allowing children to receive the Sacraments. That was seen as a break with tradition in his time also.
 
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