Pope Francis: many young people in the Church have fallen into the ‘temptation of rigidity’

[friardchips]

You can be rigidly devoted to your family and community.

Every parent who gets up at the crack of dawn each day to create wealth for their family and who spends their spare time taking their kids to social engagements and sporting events are rigidly devoted to their children.

Every priest who daily acts in such a way to visit, organise, collaborate with and teach parishioners is rigidly devoted to Christ and His flock.

Hi. I know what you are driving in these examples, yet the word “rigid” is an uncomfortable word. Because parenting is not (I’m guessing here) the same event everyday. Surely, growing and learning, and not just on the part of the children, but also on the part of the parents, takes place, because otherwise, parenting wouldn’t be seen as a ‘vocation’ for the parents. Vocation is always a term used to reference a path that draws the individual into closer and closer communion with God. So parenting surely is not static, which if “rigid”, parenting might become.

 

[abucs]

Hi. I know what you are driving in these examples, yet the word “rigid” is an uncomfortable word. Because parenting is not (I’m guessing here) the same event everyday. Surely, growing and learning, and not just on the part of the children, but also on the part of the parents, takes place, because otherwise, parenting wouldn’t be seen as a ‘vocation’ for the parents. Vocation is always a term used to reference a path that draws the individual into closer and closer communion with God. So parenting surely is not static, which if “rigid”, parenting might become.

Hello friar,

it was not the parenting that was called static or rigid but the devotion to the family that was called rigid.

You can be rigid in your opposition to the death penalty but that doesn’t mean that your opposition cannot manifest itself in a myriad of ways.

You can also be rigid in your love and commitment to Christ but over a lifetime that rigid love and commitment can develop a diverse range of expressions.

Commitment can be rigid while expression is changing.

 

[friardchips]

Hello friar,

Hi!

friard!

it was not the parenting that was called static or rigid but the devotion to the family that was called rigid.

Parenting and “devotion” is pretty much the same thing, aren’t they, when discussed within the context of family attitudes and be-attitudes?

Q: When is parenting not devotional?
A: When it is too rigid.

You can be rigid in your opposition to the death penalty but that doesn’t mean that your opposition cannot manifest itself in a myriad of ways.

I don’t think this example fits with the words ‘rigid’ and ‘devotional’ because the object of discussion is totally different.

This example is concerned with whether one is against something or for something, over a single moral question, and not about a continuing relationship consisting of many variables.

You can also be rigid in your love and commitment to Christ but over a lifetime that rigid love and commitment can develop a diverse range of expressions.

I still think the word is incorrect. Does “rigid love” even mean anything? Seems to be a contradictory statement.

Commitment can be rigid while expression is changing.

Commitment can be solid and true but I don’t think ‘rigid’ fits, grammatically. It is a matter of semantics.

Rigid means something unbending, not on a positive level, but unbending in a way that it becomes selfish - let my will be done. A mindset that will not allow itself to take into account other people (uncompromising; unforgiving). It denotes a lack of freedom.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Hi!

friard!

Parenting and “devotion” is pretty much the same thing, aren’t they, when discussed within the context of family attitudes and be-attitudes?

Q: When is parenting not devotional?
A: When it is too rigid.

I don’t think this example fits with the words ‘rigid’ and ‘devotional’ because the object of discussion is totally different.

This example is concerned with whether one is against something or for something, over a single moral question, and not about a continuing relationship consisting of many variables.

I still think the word is incorrect. Does “rigid love” even mean anything? Seems to be a contradictory statement.

Commitment can be solid and true but I don’t think ‘rigid’ fits, grammatically. It is a matter of semantics.

Rigid means something unbending, not on a positive level, but unbending in a way that it becomes selfish - let my will be done. A mindset that will not allow itself to take into account other people (uncompromising; unforgiving). It denotes a lack of freedom.

Which is why I personally feel that for somebody to make that kind of blanket generalization of an entire group of people based on their preference for an approved Church rite or a perceived liking for something that is not all that common of late years is, in itself, showing a rigid perception of ‘those people’. Apparently, there is no way that any person now living can prefer the EF or enjoy ‘old fashioned’ practices without being a rigid, two-faced, selfish hypocrite leading a double life.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I could see “too rigid” as being interpreted as I have to pray the Rosary every day at 7am and the Divine Mercy at 3pm to only attending Latin Mass to wearing a veil in Mass or the Adoration chapel. I could be interpreted so many ways.

Is he saying being to rigid is like being scrupulous?

No…they are actually not synonymous.

 

[anthony022071]

I think the pope really needs to come out and clearly say what he thinks because at least the English translation is not making sense.

You cannot be rigid and have a double life. A double life negates the characteristic of rigidness.

People can be rigid and live a hypocritical life - they can be very scrupulous with regard to rules and customs of lesser importance but unscrupulous with regard to the commandments (Mark 7, 1-13), neglectful of judgement and mercy and fidelity (Matthew 23, 23) and immoral (Matthew 23, 28-29).

If you are rigid with respect to something then you are not changing.

There should be more rigid Catholics. Rigidness in no way denotes being unmerciful and it is an incoherent insult to suggest it does.

People who are rigid can be unsympathetic and unmerciful when they are rigid with others. Its alright to be rigid with oneself, but its not always right to hold others to your own standard if they are weak or unused to self-discipline or outside the Church or in a humiliating situation, or if you live a particular way of life that God does not require of everyone.

St. Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians that he could not talk to them as spiritual people but as fleshly people, as infants in Christ, and that he fed them milk but not solid food because they couldn’t handle it. He gave them concessions regarding marriage even though he would have preferred that everyone be celibate as he was. And he said that he became weak to the weak people so as to win them over.

After living through a period of time where the church was decimated in the west exactly because it lacked rigidness I rejoice that there are now young Catholics being rigid in the faith. If the older generation would have been more rigid in the faith we would not have participated in the abuse of children and could talk with more authority about such sin.

Rigidity is not a virtue. And it doesn’t necessarily prevent weakening of faith and corruption and perversity. Rigidity can bring on subversion and rebellion, just as St. Paul said that sin is awakened by the law of Moses. The modernists were successful in undermining the Church because there were many Catholics who were secretly weary and resentful of its rigidity and wanted more liberty. Charity and zeal protect the integrity of the Church better than rigidity.

 

[anthony022071]

No…they are actually not synonymous.

People who are rigid with regard to religion in the sense that the pope talks about are overly scrupulous. They are so concerned about propriety and customs and rules of lesser importance that they lack charity, sympathy, and tolerance for others who don’t meet their standards. As Christ said of the scribes and pharisees, they neglect “the weightier things of the law: judgement and mercy and fidelity.” (Matthew 23, 23)

 

[JPUSC]

Taking, therefore, the words of Christ and of the Apostle [Paul] as the strict rule, should not one say that the Church of today is rather inclined more to coddling than to severity? It so happens that the accusation of oppressive rigidity made against the Church by the ‘new morality,’ in reality, attacks, in the first place, the adorable Person of Christ Himself.

Pope Ven. Pius XII

…] It will be objected, however, that such abstinence is impossible, that heroism such as this is not feasible. At the present time you can hear and read of this objection everywhere, even from those who, because of their duty and authority, should be of quite a different mind. …] we have the doctrine of the Council of Trent which, in the chapter on the necessary and possible observance of the Commandments, referring to a passage in the works of Augustine, teaches: ‘God does not command what is impossible, but when He commands, He commands, He warns you to do what you can and to ask His aid for what is beyond your powers, and He gives His help to make that possible for you’. …]

Pope Ven. Pius XII

The distinctive mark of this morality is that it is not based in effect on universal moral laws, such as, for example, the Ten Commandments, but on the real and concrete conditions or circumstances in which men must act, and according to which the conscience of the individual must judge and choose. Such a state of things is unique, and is applicable only once for every human action. That is why the decision of conscience, as the advocates of this ethic assert, cannot be commanded by ideas, principles and universal laws. …] adultery and fornication, the abuse of marriage, the solitary sin, stealing and robbery, taking away the necessities of life, depriving workers of their just wage …]—all this is gravely forbidden by the divine Lawmaker. No examination is necessary. No matter what the situation of the individual may be, there is no other course open to him but to obey. …] this new ethic, perhaps without being aware of it, acts according to the principle that the end justifies the means. …] did they [the martyrs], in the face of the “situation” in which they found themselves, uselessly or even mistakenly incur a bloody death? No, certainly not, and in their blood they are the most explicit witnesses to the truth against the “new morality.”

Pope Ven. Pius XII

…] Having considered these things, in order to avert the danger of the “New Morality,” of which the Supreme Pontiff Pope Pius XII spoke in the Allocutions held on the days of March 23 and April 18, 1952, and in order to safeguard the purity and intactness of Catholic doctrine, this Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office interdicts and prohibits this doctrine of "Situation Ethics” from being taught or approved, under any name whatsoever it may be designated, whether in Universities, Athenaeums, Seminaries or houses of religious formation, or in books, dissertations, lectures, whether, as they say, at conferences, or by any other means of being propagated or defended.

Pope Ven. St. Pius XII

 

[ToeInTheWater]

Rigidity is not a virtue. And it doesn’t necessarily prevent weakening of faith and corruption and perversity. Rigidity can bring on subversion and rebellion, just as St. Paul said that sin is awakened by the law of Moses. The modernists were successful in undermining the Church because there were many Catholics who were secretly weary and resentful of its rigidity and wanted more liberty. Charity and zeal protect the integrity of the Church better than rigidity.

I can certainly see enough examples of this on CAF itself. Posters stating outright that they are so disgusted by “liturgical abuses” (though such abuses are not sinful, or at least not mortally sinful), that they proclaim they are justified from staying home from Mass (though this is a mortal sin). I can also think of a topic about recent converts being harassed by other parishioners for clapping at a time the priest himself asked them to.

I can also think of the “if you’re not destitute or deathly ill you’re probably using NFP in a contraceptive fashion” posts. Or the “if a book is anti-Catholic in anyway we should burn them” posts. Or the “there’s no way a marriage that lasted 30 years and produced 7 kids could ever be invalid” posts. Or the “anyone who identifies as gay is going to hell because the Bible says sodomites are deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven” posts.

Most of the people making such comments are NOT the posters who have displayed scrupulosity in other comments. Indeed, many are just as judgmental of such scrupulous people, haranguing them for wasting everyone’s time.

Scrupulous people tend to obsess over whether they have committed sins themselves, but rarely obsess over the sins of others, though some do over loved ones, they do not really spend much time speculating on the sins of acquaintances in the pew. But there are indeed a subset of Catholics who do. “Rigid” does seem fitting as a way to describe them.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Pope Francis: many young people in the Church have fallen into the ‘temptation of rigidity’

The Pontiff criticised ‘rigid’ Christians who lack mercy, and those who are hypocritical and hide their sinfulness

Pray that those who are too rigid learn to follow the way of Christ and his meekness, Pope Francis said on May 5 during his early morning Mass in the chapel of his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

With the day’s first reading dedicated to the conversion of Saul — who went from fiercely persecuting Christians to patiently evangelising all peoples — the Pope used St Paul’s life story as an example of an honest, idealistic person of faith, who had been “convinced” of the rigidity of the law.

Pope Francis said Saul’s early life reminds him of “many young people in the church today who have fallen into the temptation of rigidity. Some are honest, they are good and we must pray that the Lord help them grow along the path of meekness.”

Others, the Pope said, use rigidity to cover up their weaknesses, sins and personality disorders and to assert themselves over others.

“They are the rigid with the double life. They show themselves as beautiful, honest, but when no one is looking, they do bad things,” he said.

Saul, on the other hand, was rigid, but honest, the Pope said, and he let himself be led by the Lord, who spoke to him on the road to Damascus with “a language of meekness: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’”

Saul was called with “the force of the meekness of the Lord” to become Paul, preach the Gospel and suffer and die for the Lord, the Pope said.

Saul’s conversion shows dialogue between condescending rigidity and meekness, a dialogue between “an honest man and Jesus who speaks with kindness.”

“This is the path of a Christian: going forward following Jesus’ footsteps,” which is “a trail of preaching, a trail of suffering, the trail of the cross” and resurrection, the Pope said.

The Pope asked people to pray to Saul for those Christians who are rigid — “for the honest-rigid like him, who have zeal, but get it wrong, and for the hypocrite-rigid, those with a double life.”

catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/05/05/pope-francis-many-young-people-in-the-church-have-fallen-into-the-temptation-of-rigidity

Jesus Christ , as a young man, 30 yo (approx) , spoke of just this rigidity in Jewish Worship .

Picture this, Jesus and His Disciples walk into a town, Jesus gets asked for town Tax by a future Apostle. Then they go into worship.
The person speaking is saying how sinners should be shunned and avoided lest they influence the righteous.

Jesus responds No

Again the leader says to tear shirts, throw ashes and walk off from sinners.

Jesus says No. if they repent. Forgive and include them.

( don’t ask which Bible passage this is, I know the story but not its location. Someone else will, though, I am sure)

And in another passage, a woman found in adultery is chased through the streets by those men wishing to stone her. She meets Jesus in her fleeing. As do the men. So the men and Jesus discuss her crime. Yep she has been found guilty, yep the law says to stone her.

So Jesus says ok , whoever has no sin , throw the first stone to kill her. They all walk away.

These are two examples of rigidity and how it can be used in hipocracy , or in lacking Mercy.

Saturday sitting in church, a homeless guy comes in with food and drink, eating, and trying to pray the Rosary with us. The rigid righteous were horrified. He smelt too!

The attitude towards Christian thinking and living can get lost. It is sad. They would have thrown him right out !

 

[abucs]

I still think the word is incorrect. Does “rigid love” even mean anything? Seems to be a contradictory statement.

Only if you start from the position of 'rigid; being a negative or pejorative.

Parenting and “devotion” is pretty much the same thing, aren’t they, when discussed within the context of family attitudes and be-attitudes?

Q: When is parenting not devotional?
A: When it is too rigid.

Rigid with respect to what?

Rigid in the caring and nursing of health in their children?
Rigid in their self sacrifice of ensuring well being to their children?
Rigid in their devotion to wife and family to create a loving functional family?

That is the point. We can’t use the word ‘rigid’ as a catch-all for everything that one doesn’t like.

Try this.

Q. When is parenting not devotional?
A. When it is too lax.

Same point - lax with respect to what?

Devotion is a word you have introduced but we are considering the word rigid.

Let me ask it this way. Would you prefer a parent to be rigid in his devotion of love to his children or lax in his devotion of love to his children?

In this context, sign me up to rigidness.

Rigidness without context is not a virtue but it equally should not be a pejorative IMHO.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I do appreciate the attempts to clarify what Pope Francis said and to indicate what he actually meant by rigidity. However, in actually reading the articles (and yes, I take into account that they are translations and may not ‘come across’ in English, I would like to know exactly what he bases this charge of rigidity on.

I mean, he seems surprised that ‘many young people’ like to attend the TLM. So it doesn’t sound as though he personally knows that many people who do, right? and if he doesn’t know them, then how does he know that because of their choice of liturgy, these same people are living double lives, are hypocrites, etc. etc.? And how does he know that these people, unlike the billions of us who attend the OF and are hypocrites, live double lives, are ‘rigid’ and unCatholic –because each and every one of us has ‘fallen’, stumbled, and sinned, every day, many times, even if we attend the OF!–are somehow acting that way because their rigidity comes only from their preference of liturgy?

I personally feel that somehow there must be a group of people who are advising the Holy Father and who, for whatever reason, and perhaps they are honestly convinced of their own ‘rectitude’, are ‘down’ on the EF and are using their own biases to try to convince Pope Francis that ‘these people’ are a danger to the faith. Pope Francis, in virtually every other aspect of Catholicism, is courteous, gentle, patient, mild, loving, and understanding. . .it just doesn’t seem possible that such a shepherd could suddenly turn into a thundering judgmentalist regarding how Catholics worship. Heck, he doesn’t mind the NeoCatechumenal Way, evangelicals, Protestants, Muslims, atheists. . .but somehow a small group of Catholics who are worshipping in a way that is perfectly acceptable and valid are the only bad people on the planet in their rigidity?

No, this does not sound like Pope Francis at all. My comfort is the more he actually gets to know the ‘young people’ and others --and he will, because he is caring and concerned and likes to go to ‘the peripheries’–the more he’ll come to see beyond what he’s being, um, ‘guided’ to see.

 

[abucs]

…
Pope Francis, in virtually every other aspect of Catholicism, is courteous, gentle, patient, mild, loving, and understanding.
…
My comfort is the more he actually gets to know the ‘young people’ and others --and he will, because he is caring and concerned and likes to go to ‘the peripheries’–the more he’ll come to see beyond what he’s being, um, ‘guided’ to see.

Amen.

 

[abucs]

Rigidity is not a virtue. And it doesn’t necessarily prevent weakening of faith and corruption and perversity. Rigidity can bring on subversion and rebellion, just as St. Paul said that sin is awakened by the law of Moses. The modernists were successful in undermining the Church because there were many Catholics who were secretly weary and resentful of its rigidity and wanted more liberty. Charity and zeal protect the integrity of the Church better than rigidity.

As above.

Rigidness without context is not a virtue but it equally should not be a pejorative IMHO.

I believe the modernists took the church in the wrong direction and part of that was to portray the church as rigid and use it as a pejorative. We shouldn’t be using their language and definitions and we need to distinguish between good rigidity and bad rigidity.

Being able to distinguish is a great tool of the intellect in which, in my opinion the Church has been spectacularly supportive of for the great majority of its history.

If the church has been rigid in the wrong thing in the past then let us distinguish between the rigidity and the wrong.

 

[graciew]

It is your own language so I suggest you check what rigidity is through Daniel Goleman, for instance. It can help.
Adaptability,flexibity,empathy,integration…but rigidity? Mmmm…
It is interesting,
At some point though not opposites,there is chaos in one extreme and rigidity in the other one.
At least you may find an interesting perspective about rigidity and how it plays out .
Just suggesting.,for everyday life.I ve always enjoyed neuroscience though.

 

[abucs]

It appears there are quite a few people who are rigid in their insistence that rigidity can only ever be a negative.

Please consider the internal incoherence of this philosophical position.

 

[graciew]

It appears there are quite a few people who are rigid in their insistence that rigidity can only ever be a negative.

Think about this please.

I m thinking with you. But I won t mess with your language,OK?
Think of this: leader at the workplace. Democratic and consults at times,laissez- faire when appropriate and autocratic when he needs to.
For example,an emergency,a fire. It isn t the time to call for a meeting to listen to opinions. He/She holds the power of decision,gives orders…
What is that word? Firm? It would n t be rigid…but I honestly do not know if you use it differently colloquially.

 

[abucs]

Well the boss could rigidly stick to the evacuation rules which put the safety of the workers above any personal desire he has for a meeting.

Someone else might be very rigid in constantly ensuring all of the workplace fire equipment is in good working condition.

It all depends on what is being called rigid.

Rigidity in itself is not a bad thing.

 

[JPUSC]

2011

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI’s easing of restrictions on use of the 1962 Roman Missal, known as the Tridentine rite, is just the first step in a “reform of the reform” in liturgy, the Vatican’s top ecumenist said.

The pope’s long-term aim is not simply to allow the old and new rites to coexist, but to move toward a “common rite” that is shaped by the mutual enrichment of the two Mass forms, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said May 14.

In effect, the pope is launching a new liturgical reform movement, the cardinal said. Those who resist it, including “rigid” progressives, mistakenly view the Second Vatican Council as a rupture with the church’s liturgical tradition, he said.

catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2011/pope-s-reform-of-the-reform-in-liturgy-to-continue-cardinal-says.cfm

2016

Asked about the liturgy, Pope Francis insisted the Mass reformed after the Second Vatican Council is here to stay and "to speak of a ‘reform of the reform’ is an error.”

In authorizing regular use of the older Mass, now referred to as the “extraordinary form,” now-retired Pope Benedict XVI was “magnanimous” toward those attached to the old liturgy, he said. “But it is an exception.”

Pope Francis told Father Spadaro he wonders why some young people, who were not raised with the old Latin Mass, nevertheless prefer it.

“And I ask myself: Why so much rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something, insecurity or even something else. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.”

catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=29904

My, how things have changed in five years.

 

[graciew]

Well the boss could rigidly stick to the evacuation rules which put the safety of the workers above any personal desire he has for a meeting.

Someone else might be very rigid in constantly ensuring all of the workplace fire equipment is in good working condition.

It all depends on what is being called rigid.

Rigidity in itself is not a bad thing.

OK. Thank you then.
I understand you now,what you mean,Abucs.