What Would You Most Like Pope Francis To Do?

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I also suggest Jesus’ “Great Commandment.” He had a knack for summary.
 
OraLabora said:
Isn’t this what the Anglican Ordinariate already does or attempts to do?

I’m not sure what more the Holy Father can do other than open the door and invite them in. Ultimately, it’s up to the Anglicans to accept the invitation. I think the door has already been opened by Benedict XVI, and about all Pope Francis can do is reiterate the invitation and hold out a welcoming hand.
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I have several Anglican friends (two of them are priests), and they are considering this move. They follow the 1789 Book of Common prayer, but sometimes celebrate in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Both of them are close English translations of the Roman Rite, the latter being an almost exact English translation.

The fact that they are considering it is big. It’s going to take more careful thought on their part as to whether they actually make the move. Like the Catholics, the Anglicans change slowly.
 
TimSpalding said:
I also suggest Jesus’ “Great Commandment.” He had a knack for summary.
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Just understand that “summary,” in the ancient world, had a completely different reference point than it does for reductionistic 21st-century-sound-bite folks. Summary in the ancient world was, on the contrary, expansive, incorporating the entire moral code in that Love of God and Love of Neighbor.
 
FWIW: “Summary” in Greek or Latin does not mean what you think it means. I think you’re importing theology into prose.

But I agree with your basic point. As many have noted, Jesus’ summaries have precedent and context in 1c. Jewish thought. It was apparently a thing to ask rabbis their summary. In the case of Rabbi Hillel, a gentile asked him to “teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot” (an Aramaic idiom meaning in a short time). Hillel replied “What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor. That is the whole torah; the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.”

So, yeah, the great commandment is the summary. The rest of the teaching of the church are the commentary. Go and learn them.
 
TimSpalding said:
FWIW: “Summary” in Greek or Latin does not mean what you think it means. I think you’re importing theology into prose.
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No. You used the term summary. I did not. Own your words, please. If you, not I, are going to import the word summary into Scripture, then understand what Jesus meant by what you described as “summary.”
So, yeah, the great commandment is the summary. The rest of the teaching of the church are the commentary. Go and learn them.
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Apparently I’m not the one lacking in learning, but thanks anyway. 😉
 
I would like for him to do good, to follow God’s promptings, to show love and mercy, to be a public figure I can admire and learn from. 🙂

I am very excited about Pope Francis and I believe he will be a wonderful Pope.

Peace,
~ PetiteFoi
 
TimSpalding said:
against the notion that “No part of the Catechism is up to debate,” here’s an example of part that is.
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No, that is a terrible example and does NOT speak to what I quoted JReducation as accurately stating. He did not talk about “no part of the CCC,” but rather no part that concerns faith and morals. Like many of us on CAF, he has been trained in theology and gone a step further, being a religious.

The discussion on which you elaborate does not dispute faith and morals. It is merely a portion of a discussion.

The second very important thing to note is that the CCC is not exhaustive, particularly not in technical matters such as the discussion of perpetual viriginity and other “allowable diversions” which are in fact not definitely mandated by the Church.

The CCC could not possibly contain within itself all discussion of allowable assent and dissent. It does not try to do that. It proclaims the essentials of the faith and provides some of the more important details, via footnotes.
 
For those still possibly interested in distinctions, here are some more thoughts on terms such as “infallible” and “no error,” as well as the important aspect of authority.
JReducation said:
Popes cannot teach moral or doctrinal error. They don’t have to call upon the Ex Cathedra umbrella for a pronouncement on morality or doctrine to be error free.

Here is where moral law gets very interesting. There are two kinds of moral law. There is moral law that is divinely revealed in natural law and in scripture. “Thou shall not kill”. That’s pretty easy to understand.

However, the pope can explain the nuance behind the commandment. He can say that killing is always objectively grave sin, no exceptions. HOWEVER, a person may commit an act that is objectively grave and not be culpable or less culpable. For example, someone who kills to protect his life or that of an innocent is being forced to commit a gravely sinful act. He has no choice. Therefore, he’s not culpable of sin. He’s culpable of the act, but not the moral effects. A drunk driver who kills is culpable of the act. He is culpable of grave sin, but is he as culpable as a murderer? No. He did not set out with the intent to kill. He is culpable to the degree that his irresponsible behavior and choice contributed to the accident.

There is another situation. There are times when the Church decrees that something is a mortal sin. This is not a sin because it’s divinely revealed law. It’s a sin, because the Church has the authority to bind and unbind. An excellent example of this is meat on Fridays. The law for Friday abstinence is not the same for all Catholics. In some of the Eastern Churches, it is a mortal sin to eat meat on Fridays. In some religious orders it is also a mortal sin to eat meat on Fridays. In some dioceses in Spain they never had Friday abstinence. They were exempt from that law by the pope, because of favors that they had done for the Church.

When a pope commands that something must or must not be done under pain of sin, it is binding on the target person or target population. Infallibility does not come into play here. This is about the power to bind. The Church shares this power to bind with bishops and religious superiors of men. As a superior can I command a brother under pain of mortal sin. It has to be something serious. I can’t command him to take out the garbage under pain of mortal sin. That is not a grave matter. It won’t stick. Sending him to a mission in Siberia is a grave matter and it will stick

Whenever a pope or a bishop commands on a grave matter, we are bound to obey or be guilty of grave sin. The more serious the matter the more serious the sin.

Such commands can be withdrawn at any time, because they do not come from Revelation. They come from authority and authority has its rights and privileges. The part that comes from Revelation is the authority to bind and unbind. This was revealed by Christ.

Let’s take Humanae Vitae. HV is based on what has been revealed about conjugal love, which is the union and sanctification of the spouses and procreation. In the past, the wording was inverted with procreation being first. Pope Paul VI changed the order to be more logical. Procreation follows the union. If you have procreation without union, there is still something lacking in the marriage. You can certainly have a marriage without procreation, because of a legitimate medical condition or simply age. This part of the document is absolute truth. The pope did not create it. He is simply restating it.

Then we come to the next part. Since the ends of marriage have been revealed to us by God, there is no way on this earth that a pope can change those ends. Again, we have another infallible concept in this document.

The third part is where you get into the pope’s personal thoughts. He attempts a catechesis to explain why marriage has these ends and the benefit to humanity. His explanation may be clunky, too abstract, too brief, too long or as time passes the language that he uses sounds so archaic that people no longer read it and another pope has to write again on ABC. But the heart of the matter, which is the ends of marriage does not change. No one can change this
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No, that is a terrible example and does NOT speak to what I quoted JReducation as accurately stating. He did not talk about “no part of the CCC,” but rather no part that concerns faith and morals. Like many of us on CAF, he has been trained in theology and gone a step further, being a religious.
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Actually, what he actually wrote was (emphasis added):
The CCC is a Megisterial Document that containes infallible doctrines and morals, as well as canons and other disciplinary laws that are binding on all Catholics. No part of the Catechism is up to debate. As Pope Benedict has said, the more you dissent with the Catechism the further you get from communion with the Church. That’s a thought worth pondering.
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He doesn’t use the phrase “faith and morals” there. The contrast is surely between the infallible doctrines and morals, and the laws—only the former of which is infallible, but neither of which are up for debate. If a man says “no part of the Catechism is up for debate,” I take him for his word—and he’s quite wrong.
 
Regarding the poster’s question about papal pronouncements relative to their predecessors and successors:
JReducation said:
No pope has the authority to bind another pope. The only law that can bind a pope is divine law found in natural law, divine law found in revelation and revealed dogma.

Once a pope dies, he ceases to govern. He cannot govern from the grave. The same is true of councils. Pope are not bound by councils. Even the mighty Council of Trent does not bind the pope. What binds the pope is any dogma that was defined at Trent, not rules, laws, disciplines, customs or renewals.

People often hear that the pope is infallible or that Trent was infallible and don’t know that both statements are highly exaggerated. The pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals, even when he exercises the ordinary magisterium. In other words, he does not have to speak ex Cathedra to speak infallibly on faith or morals. If he talks about the upcoming Olympics, I wouldn’t bet on his team.

A council is infallible when it affirms a dogma or moral law that is already believed by the Church. For example, Vatican I affirmed papal infallibility and proceeded to unwrap it for us. But Vatican I did not pull papal infallibility out of the collective sleeves of the bishops. This was believed from the first generation of Christians up to today.
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Liturgy, canon law, discipline (such as priestly celibacy), these can change from Pope to Pope, age to age. Not so faith and morals. Those will remain constant. Hope that helps.
 
TimSpalding said:
Actually, what he actually wrote was…
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I know what he wrote. No need to re-quote it. Read the rest of the quotes from him on this thread. The context is clearly faith and morals only. Not commentary.

What you did is go off into some technical diversion which is not helpful to the poster in question. She didn’t ask for tributaries about perpetual virginity. The Church has spoken on what is essential to believe and what is not essential to believe. And that core doctrine is contained within the CCC. That is the part that JR meant when he said “none is up for debate.” All the rest of his posts and discussions confirm that.
 
einna said:
Thank you. I do not consider myself a liberal Catholic so I have never given much thought to women priests, but I will now know more the depth for the reason men only. Little pieces at a time.🙂
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You’re quite welcome, einna. 🙂
 
TimothyH said:
Jesus said that the oil was for his burial, not his glory. It was so that he could be properly buried after he was murdered for you and I.

-Tim-
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Every Mass is the unbloody re-presentation of His sacrifice upon Calvary.

No extravagance is too splendid for Our Lord. There is enough wealth to tend to the poor and to honor Christ. I hold any view in suspicion that presents any reason why we should deprive Our Lord of honors.
 
OraLabora said:
10thCrusader;10489703:
I would like to see Pope Francis preach, teach, and uphold all the doctrines of the Holy Faith with untiring vigor. I would like to see him crush all heresies that have spread through the Church

I also think there is a great opportunity to gain some unity with Anglicans. The Old High Church Rite per the 1928, 1789, and 1662 missals is very similar to the Roman Rite. With a few small wording changes, they could fold right back into the Catholic Church. The Low Church is more problematic, as they have women priests.
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Isn’t this what the Anglican Ordinariate already does or attempts to do?

I’m not sure what more the Holy Father can do other than open the door and invite them in. Ultimately, it’s up to the Anglicans to accept the invitation. I think the door has already been opened by Benedict XVI, and about all Pope Francis can do is reiterate the invitation and hold out a welcoming hand.
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Forgive me if someone has already posted this:

telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/9933614/Pope-Francis-dismissed-Anglican-branch-as-quite-unnecessary.html

Now I know we must be awfully careful about holding the new Argentinian primate’s prior opinions aloft as if they are “papal”, but I found this quite positive really, and am intrigued by “told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the Church needs us as Anglicans.”
 
This is just me but I would really like there to be a some sort of a bridge between protestants and catholics. We are so much alike and yet we hate each other’s beliefs because of the way we do it. I think that rather than separating catholics and protestants we should create that bridge and all be called christians because thats what we both are. Followers of Christ. It would really clear up the tensions at home
 
confusedgirl said:
This is just me but I would really like there to be a some sort of a bridge between protestants and catholics. We are so much alike and yet we hate each other’s beliefs because of the way we do it. I think that rather than separating catholics and protestants we should create that bridge and all be called christians because thats what we both are. Followers of Christ. It would really clear up the tensions at home
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We are Christians.

But sometimes we believe profoundly different things about what that means.
For instance the source and summit of the Catholic faith is the Eucharist. Few protestants can share that belief and it is quite a HUGE belief.
 
=TimSpalding;10489575]But we don’t always know the extent of that. If serious papal pronouncements about morality are ipso facto part of the inerrant moral law, then slavery is right and just, charging interest a crime against humanity, democracy a heresy, and the Jews the most wretched villains on earth.
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:bigyikes:

Slavery at the time could go back to long dated OT practices. Further thre TREATMENT of such was part * of the old “laws” added to the commandments. It was a “normal” and expected as well as accepted practice that lacked today’s understanding of morality.

Charging Interest is a BUSINESS practice and not immoral unless it is excessive.

Your democracy postion is simply not understood by me? WHYand How i it intrinsically “imoral” or a heresy?

And your final statement is even less clear 2 me]🤷

I’m 68 and a bit slow; so humor me:)

God Bless,
pat/PJM*
 
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