The New Yorker Profile on Pope Francis

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I got as far as the title: “Who Am I to Judge”

Educated Catholics of course know that the Pope was simply sticking to what the Church has always taught about homosexuals.

But I am so tired of the liberal media blasting these five words in our faces all the time.

I am seriously thinking about writing to the Pope and asking him to clarify his remarks for the impossible liberal media and setting them straight.
 
MonikaBarbara said:
I got as far as the title: “Who Am I to Judge”

Educated Catholics of course know that the Pope was simply sticking to what the Church has always taught about homosexuals.

But I am so tired of the liberal media blasting these five words in our faces all the time.

I am seriously thinking about writing to the Pope and asking him to clarify his remarks for the impossible liberal media and setting them straight.
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The problem is that the American media thinks Catholics have the exact same conceptions of sin and judgment as Evangelical Protestants do, and when it appears it does not, they assume he must agree with liberal heresies because he natually disagrees with the heresies often held by Protestant conservatives. The problem is that of Weltanschauung of the establishment of a country ill at ease with Catholicism.
 
Cojuanco said:
The problem is that the American media thinks Catholics have the exact same conceptions of sin and judgment as Evangelical Protestants do, and when it appears it does not, they assume he must agree with liberal heresies because he natually disagrees with the heresies often held by Protestant conservatives. The problem is that of Weltanschauung of the establishment of a country ill at ease with Catholicism.
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That’s exactly right.
 
I can’t say I like or dislike the article, because I haven’t finished it. It’s very long. So far, what I have read doesn’t say what some people above thing it says.

To be honest, I’m not sure what the point is. Maybe I have to read further. I can only say what it has not said yet. It has not said what folks think. Maybe it’s coming. Let me finish it.
 
I have not read the article but I hear the author on NPR today. He is a former priest (from 1969-1974) who had a clear bias against the Church.
 
JeffMVance said:
I have not read the article but I hear the author on NPR today. He is a former priest (from 1969-1974) who had a clear bias against the Church.
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That has not come through so far. As I said, it proved longer than I expected. I had to stop to go to evening prayer. 🤷
 
The writer tells us he left the priesthood after five years. I would feel better about the article if it had been written by someone other than an ex-priest, perhaps by someone on the staff of Catholic Answers or Catholic World Report, who have good writers as well.
 
JimG said:
The writer tells us he left the priesthood after five years. I would feel better about the article if it had been written by someone other than an ex-priest, perhaps by someone on the staff of Catholic Answers or Catholic World Report, who have good writers as well.
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The fact that he’s a laicized priest is not a bad thing. I know many who have been laicized an are exemplary Catholics. I was laicized and now I’m back. Don’t ever let the term laicized make you think that the person is an enemy of the Church. There are those too. But the majority are good Catholics. They have an advantage over the laity. They have a theological education and pastoral experience under their belts.
 
From the article:*With those five words, spoken in late July in reply to a reporter’s question about the status of gay priests in the Church, Pope Francis stepped away from the disapproving tone, the explicit moralizing typical of Popes and bishops. … His break from his immediate predecessors—John Paul II, who died in 2005, and Benedict XVI, the traditionalist German theologian who stepped down from the papacy in February—is less ideological than intuitive, an inclusive vision of the Church centered on an identification with the poor.*As if Francis’ predecessors did not have an “inclusive vision.” This article is filled with secular media drinking-game buzzwords. It seems unaware of Francis’ “explicit moralizing” on abortion the day after he made all the quotes mined from his famous interview. It’s another article advancing Pope Rohrshach.

Another example that we are not being too cynical toward the media? The article states:
*As Pope, Francis has simplified the Renaissance regalia of the papacy…Instead of the traditional red slip-ons, Francis wears ordinary black shoes. *Different color shoes! Those other Popes simply perpetuated papal non-simplified regalia with their technicolor shoes, suggests the author. (the shoes actually symbolize the blood of martyrs).

Then there was this loaded excerpt:*Early in his papacy, Benedict gave a speech that insulted Islam. He reinstated the Holocaust-denying bishop Richard Williamson, brought back a Good Friday ritual that includes a denigrating reference to Jews…*You read that paragraph as a secular outsider, you’d think Benedict was some whip-toting dictator. The author is either unaware of the context of some of these matters, or simply doesn’t want to provide them. Benedict=bad; Francis=good. That is the common denominator in these kinds of articles.

So far, I’m with the other respondents above. While the article purports that Pope Francis is something really new, this article itself isn’t.
 
MarcoPolo said:
Benedict=bad; Francis=good. That is the common denominator in these kinds of articles.
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I didn’t see the article as saying that Benedict = bad, although it did indeed proclaim the message Francis = good.

As far as the latter message, I say, “Hear! Hear! More of that, please!”

There was a remarkable and astonishing lack of catechesis from the author, who ought to know better. To wit: saying that there was “profound doctrinal changes” regarding “No Salvation Outside the Church”. As well as declaring that the rationale for a male-only priesthood to be because an “all-male character is said to have been set by Jesus’ choice of twelve men as apostles”.

(NB: the above is indeed part of the rationale for an all-male priesthood, but it belies a stunning lack of understanding regarding the ontological nature of the priesthood. Curious, coming from an ex-priest.)
 
MarcoPolo said:
Benedict=bad; Francis=good. That is the common denominator in these kinds of articles.

So far, I’m with the other respondents above. While the article purports that Pope Francis is something really new, this article itself isn’t.
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It’s really not surprising especially when many Catholics also make the comparison though maybe unintentionally. I think liberal Catholics did not like the that one of Pope Benedict’s focus was on the Liturgy and his support of the TLM which made him conservative in their eyes.
 
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