Pope voices hopes for change in another lengthy interview [CWN]

[anthonymarie]

The Pope probably hopes to silently convert the atheist without using the word “convert”.

From the interview

Question: Your Holiness, you said that you have no intention of trying to convert me and I do not think you would succeed.
Answer: “We cannot know that, but I don’t have any such intention.”

If you are right the pope is being dishonest or at best, as I said in my post, Jesuitical, else he doesn’t want to convert an atheist journalist. This comment should also be taken in the context of his comments on proselytism and the absence of comments on “evangelisation”.

I read the entire content of the latest interview, and the following stood out, although I am not sure if they are translated right.

I read the entire interview too without reading any other news site first so that I was not influenced by them first. What stood out to me was:

I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.

Hmmm

Question: Your Holiness, you wrote that in your letter to me. The conscience is autonomous, you said, and everyone must obey his conscience. I think that’s one of the most courageous steps taken by a Pope.
Answer: “And I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”

Newman pointed out that following your conscience is not enough unless it is formed correctly. An abortionist can follow their conscience and kill children. An SS soldier can follow their conscience and load what they consider sub-humans, in their world view, onto trains bound for death camps. I work in Africa and there are people here who will tell you they are following their consciences and that they spend their lives opening abortion clinics and making abortions more widely available.

Take the words of his own founder, “We should always be prepared so as never to err to believe that what I see as white is black, if the hierarchic Church defines it thus”.

NOTE: He does not say “other popes have said it, you misunderstood them/me”. He says: “And I repeat it here”.

And I believe in God, not in a Catholic God, there is no Catholic God, there is God and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being.

I believe in a Catholic God, that is, a God who is revealed through the teachings of the Catholic Church more fully than through any other religion. Else what does “Catholic God” mean?

NOTE: Even if he meant something quite innocent by this, where is the virtue in saying “not in a Catholic God”? Having just called proselytism “nonsense” and said that he did not want to convert an atheist what is the context?

From my point of view, God is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve it, and a spark of divine light is within each of us. In the letter I wrote to you, you will remember I said that our species will end but the light of God will not end and at that point it will invade all souls and it will all be in everyone."

This makes no sense to me. Is the pope saying he believes in universal salvation and where is he getting this language from? “ . . . at that point it will invade all souls and it will all be in everyone”? What?

I’m sorry if this post seems abrupt. I am genuinely confused by these and other comments that have been made of late.

 

[onmyknees]

That is a little ironic. You are questioning the popes move toward collegiality. The eastern Churches have worked well with collegiality for 2000 years.

Well first of all we don’t know if what the pope is saying is being translated correctly or not.

I actually love how he is bringing souls to Christ by example.

The Catholic Church has also worked well for 2000 years IMHO.

 

[LiberalPrincess]

The Pope probably hopes to silently convert the atheist without using the word “convert”.

How do you silently convert a self-proclaimed atheist? I’m genuinely curious about what you mean.

 

[The_Reginator]

View attachment 18428

 

[SaintAugustine]

View attachment 18428

 

[onmyknees]

How do you silently convert a self-proclaimed atheist? I’m genuinely curious about what you mean.

I think anyone can silently convert an atheist by their loving example over time.

 

[onmyknees]

cute!!! ha! ha!

 

[GraceSofia]

Regarding this interchange from the interview:

Your Holiness, you said that you have no intention of trying to convert me and I do not think you would succeed.
“We cannot know that, but I don’t have any such intention.”

I can imagine Pope Francis chuckling to himself and thinking, “But I am praying that the ***Holy Spirit ***converts you.”

Pope Francis has talked about evangelising and has said, “There is a close connection between these two elements: the transmission of the Christian faith is the purpose of the new evangelization and of the entire evangelizing mission of the Church which exists for this very reason.”

Everything he done has been a form of evangelising.

Read more: ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/did-pope-francis-just-say-that-evangelization-is-nonsense-8-things-to-know/#ixzz2gjImayj6

 

[Tigg]

My point is this: Anyone hoping for — or worried about — a break by Pope Francis from Catholic teaching on matters of substance is going to be mistaken. At the same time, the tone of this pontificate will certainly be distinct from anything in the past century. Pope Francis has been formed by experiences very unlike the factors that shaped John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Archbishop Chaput comments on Pope Francis

catholicphilly.com/2013/10/archbishop-chaput/homilies-speeches/fire-upon-the-earth-a-year-of-faith-personal-conversion-and-the-new-evangelization/

 

[Abba]

Tigg, good morning and thanks for the link. I just read the whole thing. Very nice.

catholicphilly.com/2013/10/archbishop-chaput/homilies-speeches/fire-upon-the-earth-a-year-of-faith-personal-conversion-and-the-new-evangelization/

Up until this week, I had not read nor seen any videos of Pope Francis. My first encounter was on reading a thread here on CAF about the interview and although people focused on criticisms, I did not see that, what I saw was that our Pope is being guided by the Holy Spirit despite of the journalism acrobatics… I was filled with the joy only the Holy Spirit can give. That’s it, I am hooked on this Pope. I wasn’t keeping up for reasons that have nothing to do with him, but as of now, I will keep up with him. I am very pleased.

I hope he will focus also on the needs of the Church in south america and the problems our brothers and sisters there are facing.

I really like Pope Francis. May God bless him abundantly.

Btw, I didn’t now that he already wrote an encyclical :: Pope Francis issued his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei or “Light of Faith,” in June" I don’t know why Bishop Chaput thinks that Benedict : " clearly helped shape the text" do you? I would think the Pope would write his own encyclicals.

I am going to read his encyclical later today. Here is a link for anyone who wishes to read it:

ENCYCLICAL LETTER
LUMEN FIDEI
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
FRANCIS
TO THE BISHOPS PRIESTS AND DEACONS
CONSECRATED PERSONS
AND THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON FAITH
vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei_en.html

 

[GraceSofia]

I don’t know why Bishop Chaput thinks that Benedict : " clearly helped shape the text" do you? I would think the Pope would write his own encyclicals.

Benedict wrote the first draft of it, and Francis completed it. This completed the trilogy on the virtues that Benedict started with encyclicals Deus Caritas Est and Spe Salvi.

Here’s an article, an overview, that explains.
catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/07/05/lumen-fidei-an-overview-of-pope-franciss-first-encyclical/

 

[JReducation]

I just have to let it out. I don’t like the title of this thread. It immediately creates a negative, alarming presentation of the Pope’s interview. What’s wrong with ‘lengthy’ and ‘lengthy’ to whom and according to what requirements? Meanwhile it is a Catholic presenter. Extra, extra here is some more fuel… seems to be the focus not on what the Pope is saying.

 

[JReducation]

I fail to understand why people are going through all of these mental gymnastics about the pope converting this man.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that we (religious and clergy) meet so many people in such short periods of time. If all we had in mind was converting everyone we met, we would be the most obnoxious people in the world, hardly a quality that converts anyone. On the contrary, people would see us and run in the opposite direction, sort of like some of you do on Saturday morning when you see the Jehovah Witnesses coming up the block or the Mormons. You lock the door and pretend you’re not home.

That’s what would happen if every time a non-believer saw a priest or a religious coming in his direction. The pope’s response was very correct. One has to become friends. There is an level of trust and a regard that has to be created before you feel comfortable allowing another person to walk through your soul.

As far as the cleric or the religious is concerned, give him or her a break. They do have the right to enjoy the company of another person without trying to convert them. An intellectually stimulating conversation, humor, storytelling, getting to know another person are all part of social existence. We (religious and clergy) don’t want to end up in psychiatric wards. We have the same psychological and social needs as any human being. One of my favorite examples of this is from my own life.

I love the world of math. My undergrad degree was in math and I taught math for a while. None of our brothers are math inclined. They’re all MA’s and STL’s in theology, but none of them is a math person. I have a friend who an engineer. He’s a Catholic, but certainly not one of the brothers. He can’t quote theology in his sleep and I thank God for that. He and I can get into debates and dialogues about many subjects using pure mathematical reasoning without quoting Aquinas, Bonaventure, De Sales or Ligouri. It’s refreshing for me.

To speak to someone who has a different worldview can be very stimulating. You’re not going to be converted to his worldview, but you’re going to learn something about how others see life. I believe this was what the pope meant when he spoke about the Communist teacher whom he admired. A person who wrote about this a great deal was St. Teresa Benedicta. She had great admiration for her atheist philosopher friends, colleagues and professors. Engagement with them kept her juices flowing. She never tried to convert them. She simply was herself.

If my tracking of the trajectory of this relationship between the pope and this journalist is correct, the journalist wrote the pope a letter that the pope found stimulating and he responded to the letter. From there followed a desire to meet the pope and the pope followed up on that desire. He invited the man to visit him. Then came the conversation between them, which was very informal and frank. There was nothing formal or authoritative about it, because the pope did not invite him in order to catechize him. He invited him as he said in his telephone call, “You said you wanted to meet me, didn’t you? I would like to meet you too.” Observe the term “meet”.

The pope is allowed to have friends who are non-believers and non-believers are allowed to seek out the pope as a friend.

If you ask most missionaries, the greatest conversions often come after years of being together. Sometimes, the person who finally ends up receiving you into the Church is not the original friend. That friend may have passed on or moved away, but you remain connected to other believers, because you’ve had a positive experience. It’s down the road that something lights up in your head and you start to think past the friendship and more about the faith.

One of the best examples in modern times was Malcolm Muggeridge. He was a friend of Mother Teresa. They originally met because he was doing an assignment on her work. A friendship continued. His admiration for her and her work led him to questions about his faith. But Mother Teresa was not there when he was received into the Church. Yet, had they not had such a strong friendship that was non-threatening, I wonder if he would have maintained on ongoing contact with Catholics or just moved on to another assignment.

 

[SaintAugustine]

I fail to understand why people are going through all of these mental gymnastics about the pope converting this man.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that we (religious and clergy) meet so many people in such short periods of time. If all we had in mind was converting everyone we met, we would be the most obnoxious people in the world, hardly a quality that converts anyone. On the contrary, people would see us and run in the opposite direction, sort of like some of you do on Saturday morning when you see the Jehovah Witnesses coming up the block or the Mormons. You lock the door and pretend you’re not home.

That’s what would happen if every time a non-believer saw a priest or a religious coming in his direction. The pope’s response was very correct. One has to become friends. There is an level of trust and a regard that has to be created before you feel comfortable allowing another person to walk through your soul.

As far as the cleric or the religious is concerned, give him or her a break. They do have the right to enjoy the company of another person without trying to convert them. An intellectually stimulating conversation, humor, storytelling, getting to know another person are all part of social existence. We (religious and clergy) don’t want to end up in psychiatric wards. We have the same psychological and social needs as any human being. One of my favorite examples of this is from my own life.

I love the world of math. My undergrad degree was in math and I taught math for a while. None of our brothers are math inclined. They’re all MA’s and STL’s in theology, but none of them is a math person. I have a friend who an engineer. He’s a Catholic, but certainly not one of the brothers. He can’t quote theology in his sleep and I thank God for that. He and I can get into debates and dialogues about many subjects using pure mathematical reasoning without quoting Aquinas, Bonaventure, De Sales or Ligouri. It’s refreshing for me.

To speak to someone who has a different worldview can be very stimulating. You’re not going to be converted to his worldview, but you’re going to learn something about how others see life. I believe this was what the pope meant when he spoke about the Communist teacher whom he admired. A person who wrote about this a great deal was St. Teresa Benedicta. She had great admiration for her atheist philosopher friends, colleagues and professors. Engagement with them kept her juices flowing. She never tried to convert them. She simply was herself.

If my tracking of the trajectory of this relationship between the pope and this journalist is correct, the journalist wrote the pope a letter that the pope found stimulating and he responded to the letter. From there followed a desire to meet the pope and the pope followed up on that desire. He invited the man to visit him. Then came the conversation between them, which was very informal and frank. There was nothing formal or authoritative about it, because the pope did not invite him in order to catechize him. He invited him as he said in his telephone call, “You said you wanted to meet me, didn’t you? I would like to meet you too.” Observe the term “meet”.

The pope is allowed to have friends who are non-believers and non-believers are allowed to seek out the pope as a friend.

If you ask most missionaries, the greatest conversions often come after years of being together. Sometimes, the person who finally ends up receiving you into the Church is not the original friend. That friend may have passed on or moved away, but you remain connected to other believers, because you’ve had a positive experience. It’s down the road that something lights up in your head and you start to think past the friendship and more about the faith.

One of the best examples in modern times was Malcolm Muggeridge. He was a friend of Mother Teresa. They originally met because he was doing an assignment on her work. A friendship continued. His admiration for her and her work led him to questions about his faith. But Mother Teresa was not there when he was received into the Church. Yet, had they not had such a strong friendship that was non-threatening, I wonder if he would have maintained on ongoing contact with Catholics or just moved on to another assignment.

Very well stated. We still pray for conversion and will, of course, guide someone there when we can, but we can still develop friendships and loving relationships without active attempts to convert.

How annoying would I be at my family gatherings (My wife’s family is mostly Catholic. I converted…none of my family is Catholic) if I did nothing but preach with the goal of converting them all every time I saw them?

 

[onmyknees]

JR, Great post!

So true! If we are humble we don’t need to know if we or someone else lead a soul to Christ and his Church!

 

[JReducation]

Very well stated. We still pray for conversion and will, of course, guide someone there when we can, but we can still develop friendships and loving relationships without active attempts to convert.

How annoying would I be at my family gatherings (My wife’s family is mostly Catholic. I converted…none of my family is Catholic) if I did nothing but preach with the goal of converting them all every time I saw them?

I would never invite you to my home. :nope:

JR, Great post!

So true! If we are humble we don’t need to know if we or someone else lead a soul to Christ and his Church!

One of the comments that the pope made to the Franciscans in Assisi today was about this. He was admiring the fact that Francis and his friars have never been into proselytism. In other words, we have never been annoying people. He said that Francis and his friars had converted many by their way of life and their witness to the Gospel.

We have an obligation to the Gospel This means that we have to call a spade a spade, if that’s what it is. But we don’t have an obligation or the right to become mosquitoes.

 

[Sirach2]

JReducation:

I would never invite you to my home. :nope:

We have an obligation to the Gospel This means that we have to call a spade a spade, if that’s what it is.** But we don’t have an obligation or the right to become mosquitoes.**

 

[_Abyssinia]

Vatican: Scalfari Interview Misses Details, Conflates Facts

 

[saintjohnxxiii]

I fail to understand why people are going through all of these mental gymnastics about the pope converting this man.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that we (religious and clergy) meet so many people in such short periods of time. If all we had in mind was converting everyone we met, we would be the most obnoxious people in the world, hardly a quality that converts anyone. On the contrary, people would see us and run in the opposite direction, sort of like some of you do on Saturday morning when you see the Jehovah Witnesses coming up the block or the Mormons. You lock the door and pretend you’re not home.

That’s what would happen if every time a non-believer saw a priest or a religious coming in his direction. The pope’s response was very correct. One has to become friends. There is an level of trust and a regard that has to be created before you feel comfortable allowing another person to walk through your soul.

As far as the cleric or the religious is concerned, give him or her a break. They do have the right to enjoy the company of another person without trying to convert them. An intellectually stimulating conversation, humor, storytelling, getting to know another person are all part of social existence. We (religious and clergy) don’t want to end up in psychiatric wards. We have the same psychological and social needs as any human being. One of my favorite examples of this is from my own life.

I love the world of math. My undergrad degree was in math and I taught math for a while. None of our brothers are math inclined. They’re all MA’s and STL’s in theology, but none of them is a math person. I have a friend who an engineer. He’s a Catholic, but certainly not one of the brothers. He can’t quote theology in his sleep and I thank God for that. He and I can get into debates and dialogues about many subjects using pure mathematical reasoning without quoting Aquinas, Bonaventure, De Sales or Ligouri. It’s refreshing for me.

To speak to someone who has a different worldview can be very stimulating. You’re not going to be converted to his worldview, but you’re going to learn something about how others see life. I believe this was what the pope meant when he spoke about the Communist teacher whom he admired. A person who wrote about this a great deal was St. Teresa Benedicta. She had great admiration for her atheist philosopher friends, colleagues and professors. Engagement with them kept her juices flowing. She never tried to convert them. She simply was herself.

If my tracking of the trajectory of this relationship between the pope and this journalist is correct, the journalist wrote the pope a letter that the pope found stimulating and he responded to the letter. From there followed a desire to meet the pope and the pope followed up on that desire. He invited the man to visit him. Then came the conversation between them, which was very informal and frank. There was nothing formal or authoritative about it, because the pope did not invite him in order to catechize him. He invited him as he said in his telephone call, “You said you wanted to meet me, didn’t you? I would like to meet you too.” Observe the term “meet”.

The pope is allowed to have friends who are non-believers and non-believers are allowed to seek out the pope as a friend.

If you ask most missionaries, the greatest conversions often come after years of being together. Sometimes, the person who finally ends up receiving you into the Church is not the original friend. That friend may have passed on or moved away, but you remain connected to other believers, because you’ve had a positive experience. It’s down the road that something lights up in your head and you start to think past the friendship and more about the faith.

One of the best examples in modern times was Malcolm Muggeridge. He was a friend of Mother Teresa. They originally met because he was doing an assignment on her work. A friendship continued. His admiration for her and her work led him to questions about his faith. But Mother Teresa was not there when he was received into the Church. Yet, had they not had such a strong friendship that was non-threatening, I wonder if he would have maintained on ongoing contact with Catholics or just moved on to another assignment.

Since you seem to be an expert in Papal matters perhaps you can answer my questions regarding these interviews.

1. What did he mean when he said that the church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules? I am sure we all have our own interpretations of it but I want to know what his is.
2. When he said that it isn’t necessary to speak about abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods all the time, I would agree with this. However is he talking about the secular media? While that does get discussed here all the time I doubt he is even aware of CAF. I read a comment that Father Frank Pavone of PFL and he had lunch with the Pope and Father Pavone said not to worry about it.
3. What is proselytism?

 

[JReducation]

Since you seem to be an expert in Papal matters perhaps you can answer my questions regarding these interviews.

DISCLAIMER; I’m not an expert on papal matters. I’m just good at theology and language.

1. What did he mean when he said that the church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules? I am sure we all have our own interpretations of it but I want to know what his is.

I think that we have to remember that he’s talking off the top of his head, not making a formal pronouncement. But I can see examples of what he’s talking about. There are times and groups in the Church who become slaves to rules and don’t understand where these rules came from and why they came to be. When you change the rules, they become very upset.

Archbishop DiNoia gave a talk this morning on this subject. He explained it this way. We have to become immersed in the Gospel, the message of Jesus Christ. From that message we develop rules. The message is to become like Christ. We create rules or steps that will help us become like Christ. The goal is Christ, not the rule.

I remember when the Liturgy of the Hours was revised. There were religious who were very upset. After speaking to them, we just heard over and over again, “We’ve done it this way for X number of years.”

They had forgotten that the LOTH was a Jewish custom that came into Christianity and that Christ continued it, because man should give honor and glory to God at every hour and in every age. The key to the LOTH is to give glory and honor to God. Whether you say 150 psalms in one week or one month won’t make much difference to God, if the desire to honor and glorify him are not present.

It’s things like this that the Holy Father means. To say to someone that you must do this and you may not do that without teaching about God’s love for us, is arid. Faith become a matter of rules. It should never be that. Everything that we do or not do must be an act of love, not observance of the law. This observance of the law was what Paul condemned. The old Jewish teachers taught many moral laws, but said very little about God’s love and much less about how much God wants to forgive those who fail and how he encourages us to continue to try.

1. When he said that it isn’t necessary to speak about abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods all the time, I would agree with this. However is he talking about the secular media? While that does get discussed here all the time I doubt he is even aware of CAF. I read a comment that Father Frank Pavone of PFL and he had lunch with the Pope and Father Pavone said not to worry about it.

I’m just going to cut and paste what I wrote for our Franciscan Brothers of Life on this subject.

See for yourself the alleged offending statement.

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time."

Let’s break this down.

1. He’s speaking to a reporter. Every reporter wants to know what the pope thinks about these three topics. He’s saying that we can’t just talk about these. There is much more to Catholicism. These leads to the next point. He can’t elaborate in 300 words or less in 90 seconds given to answer the question.
2. We must speak about these things in context. OK, so what’s the context.
3. The teaching of the Church is the context. And he adds that the teaching of the Church is clear. If it’s clear, there is nothing that we can add to it and nothing that we should take away from it. For that matter, who does not know the teaching of the Church on these three questions?
4. If he’s a son of the Church, why would he have something different to say? It makes no sense to ask someone a question if you know the answer.
5. It’s not necessary to talk about these issues all the time. That’s a matter of opinion. If one stops to think about it, a pope has many issues to address, whereas a group, a religious community, a diocesan pro-life ministry can zero in on these issues 24/7. In one sense it’s true. A pope does not have to talk about these issues 24/7 for people to know what the Church teaches.

In today’s world, we have many means of communication that previous popes did not have at their disposal. It’s going to take time for the popes and the people to get used to using these means. But it must be clearly understood that an interview is a conversation, not an encyclical. Popes don’t do encyclicals in Q & A form. An encyclical is a motu proprio. An interview is not a sermon. A sermon is the pope breaking open the Word of God. An interview is the pope having a conversation with the world. A conversation is much more informal. So much so, that the person can change his mind.