If you want to know what the Pope thinks, focus on his non-scripted remarks, and his remarks to his fellow Jesuits in Mozambique on September 5, 2019 is a treasure trove of the main themes of his papacy:
The Pope gives some recommended reading:
What you say is very important. To start with, we must distinguish carefully between the different groups who are identified as “Protestants.” There are many with whom we can work very well, and who care about serious, open and positive ecumenism. But there are others who only try to proselytize and use a theological vision of prosperity. You were very specific in your question.
Two important articles in Civiltà Cattolica have been published in this regard. I recommend them to you. They were written by Father Spadaro and the Argentinean Presbyterian pastor, Marcelo Figueroa. The first article spoke of the “ecumenism of hatred.”
The recommended article, which combined equal amounts of ignorance about the American political scene with dollops of Leftist paranoia, may be read about here.
The Pope of course usually manages to berate young, orthodox priests, you know the men he is supposed to be a father figure for, and he did not disappoint on this occasion, no doubt to the merriment of his Jesuit audience:
Clericalism has a direct consequence in rigidity. Have you never seen young priests all stiff in black cassocks and hats in the shape of the planet Saturn on their heads? Behind all the rigid clericalism there are serious problems. I had to intervene recently in three dioceses with problems that expressed themselves in these forms of rigidity that concealed moral problems and imbalances.
The problem with the Church in the eyes of the Pope often comes down to sex:
One dimension of clericalism is the exclusive moral fixation on the sixth commandment. Once a Jesuit, a great Jesuit, told me to be careful in giving absolution, because the most serious sins are those that are more angelical: pride, arrogance, dominion… And the least serious are those that are less angelical, such as greed and lust. We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies. The Church today needs a profound conversion in this area.
On the other hand, great shepherds give people a lot of freedom. The good shepherd knows how to lead his flock without enslaving it to rules that deaden people. Clericalism, on the other hand, leads to hypocrisy, even in religious life.
The above is revealing in that it helps explain the protection that the Pope has engaged to crony clerics of his engaging in predatory sexual behavior, what the Pope might describe as venial sins of the flesh.
Of course no remarks of the Pope are ever complete without a slam at an ordinary believing Catholic he encounters and for whom he frequently has a boundless contempt:
Today I felt a certain bitterness after a meeting with young people. A woman approached me with a young man and a young woman. I was told they were part of a slightly fundamentalist movement. She said to me in perfect Spanish: “Your Holiness, I am from South Africa. This boy was a Hindu and converted to Catholicism. This girl was Anglican and converted to Catholicism.” But she told me in a triumphant way, as though she was showing off a hunting trophy. I felt uncomfortable and said to her, “Madam, evangelization yes, proselytism no.”
Go here to read the rest. If one had to distill the essence of this Pontificate, PopeWatch would point to these remarks. The Pope not only has no answers to the ills that afflict the Church, he has no idea what the ills are, as he spends his time battling traditional Catholics, always the chief villains of his fevered imagination. Heckuva job Conclave of 2013, heckuva job. Future Conclaves here is a thought. It might be a good idea to elect as Pope someone who actually likes Catholicism and believing Catholics. A radical idea PopeWatch knows, but it might just work.
Grotesque is what this papacy is.
Simply grotesque.
And so, the little shepard boy brought the two stray lambs to his father, who shrugged his shoulders and said, “meh, hyenas gotta eat too.”
The End
Comment of the week Ernst! Take ‘er away Sam!
It occurs to me that one of these days a good ol’ fashioned fire’n brimstone “come to Jee-SUS” type evangelical, you know, the “the Catholic church is the whore of Babylon and the Pope is the anti-Christ” type, is going to decide to “save” Catholics by pointing to Francis and arguing that even the Pope doesn’t want to be Catholic, so why should anyone want to be.
Ever notice how rigid the pope is when you don’t agree with him?
Judgemental too. Huntress with a trophy. Good grief. Don’t tell him about The Journey Home. Marcus Grodi might get excommunicated or something.
Yes E.S…….that day may come, but I recall that a remnant Church will not just survive, but thrive;
“Otherwise believe for the very works’ sake. Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do.” -St.John 14:12
Poor Frankie.
Infamous Pope Ambiguous.
His legacy unaware.
[…] THE NEXT CONCLAVE MIGHT THINK ABOUT ELECTING SOMEONE WHO LIKES CATHOLICISM AND […]
V. Let us pray for our Pontiff Francis:
R. The Lord preserve him
Give him life,
Make him blessed upon earth,
Deliver him not to the hands of his worst enemy:
Jorge Mario Bergoglio
Boomers had familial connections to the Church, so they stayed, not believing it; GenX claimed to be Catholic, cuz they thought it was like being Irish or Polish; Millenials don’t falsely claim affiliation, but they sometimes wanna get married in our churches cuz they’re pretty; Zoomers hate the Church.
In 50 years, all of them will be consciously and proactively outside the Church, and my kids will be left, far more numerous, and running the place in the name of Jesus.
Clay is onto something. In the “long term” the demographics are in favor of faithful Catholics who hold and keep the teachings of the Faith, including contraception. Secularists, humanists, dissidents despise Church teachings on morality, and on contraception in particular. They will likely contracept themselves into near extinction. Faithful Catholics will not. It may take a generation or so for the impact to realized.
The future always belongs to those who bother to show up.
I’ve joked before that atheists are too cowardly to fully embrace their ideology.
After all, if all is materialism, then religious belief is genetic. And if it’s genetic, then the simple observation is that the folks carrying the religious gene are going to win the natural selection challenge. If they hope to survive by converting the more numerous religious kids, then they have to admit that something exists out there beyond the material…
Remember Chance the Gardener? After reading the Pope’s spoken words Chance comes to mind. Only Chance was not mean.
Based on the Pope’s statements, I guess that he must regard Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and all the virgin saints as being too sexually rigid. By his non-standards their chastity must be completely unacceptable to the modernist wing of the Church.
Our Lady of Fatima said that more people go to Hell because of their sexual sins than bcs of other sins.
I would like to hear the Pope’s stance on this.
Right now I prefer to heed our Lady’s warnings on this issue instead of the Pope’s heterodox opinion bordering to heresy.