Posted on 03/15/2013 12:18:37 AM PDT by papertyger
Everyone is talking about the new Pope Francis, former Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and there’s indeed lots of reasons to be excited about it.
This is a man that just a few days ago, would take a bus and then walk into some of the worst shanty towns in South America, on his own. Even cops have to organize so as to enter by the dozens in these places, even hundreds when trying to arrest someone hiding there. He would visit them, baptize children there, help organize soup kitchens and spend time with some of the poorest, most needy people in the country while at the same time speak against the government handouts and state sponsored poverty.
A lot has been said about him in these last couple days. A Jesuit, humble man that refused to live in luxury when his position would have allowed him to do so. He lived in a small two room apartment in Buenos Aires and traveled in bus and train. While of course strongly opposed to gay marriage and abortion, he’s not beyond helping those that society sometimes chooses to ignore.
He visited people infected with HIV, washed their feet as a sign of humility and servitude, he visited the victims of the Republica Cromagnon fire that claimed the lives of 194 people and those of the Once train station crash where 51 people died. Pope Francis, then just known as Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio (he didn’t like being called Cardenal) criticized the government. In the first incident, fire exits had been bricked shut or chained closed, clearly someone had bribed the fire inspector. Regarding the train accident its well known that the train failed to stop at the station due to breaks malfunction after decades of neglect by the train company that is subsidized (and supposedly supervised) by the government. The relationship between Cristina Kirchner, her late husband Nestor Kirchner and Pope Francis was “tense” to say the least.
Pope Francis didn’t beat around the bush when it came to calling out the visible corruption problems in the government and the crime Argentines have been suffering for years yet the government refuses still to acknowledge. Many times the then Cardenal Begoglio requested to meet with Cristina and Nestor Kirchner but was ignored. When he opposed the gay marriage law, one of Kirchner’s favorite liberal laws, he was mocked by president Cristina Kirchner, saying he belonged to “medieval times of the Inquisition” .
Typical of the Kirchner regime, Cristina sent her lap dogs so-called journalists and politicians against him. They accused him of collaborating with the military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983. This was proven to be a false accusation without merit and there’s actual witnesses, even victims saying he helped them during the dictatorship . What was Nestor and Cristina Kirchner doing at that same time? Working for banks, friends of the Junta, kicking people out of their homes and flipping them for profit. Nestor Kirchner’s sister, Alicia, actually worked for the Junta during the dictatorship, and now holds the position of Minister of Development.
Pope Francis held no special animosity against the Kirchners. He just called it as he saw it, just like he did when criticizing previous presidents to their faces during mass, Carlos Menem, Fernando DelaRua and Eduardo Duhalde. The problem is , authoritarian people like Cristina Kirchner and her late husband believe that anyone that dares question them is a mortal enemy.
What this got to do with survival and preparedness?
1) I for one, I am happy about Pope Francis. Not because he’s from Argentina like I am but because he will no doubt do at least some much needed cleaning in the Vatican, but also because a lot of people already see him for the honest man he is. During times like these we all need all the faith we can get, and the more people there are out there with strong moral values the better for all of us. And there’s also a lesson to be learned:
2) No matter how much power you have, don’t make fun of others you consider beneath you, even if you are the president of a country and the other guy is an old priest that spends his time helping drug addicts and people sleeping on the streets. You just never know, maybe one day that guy with well-worn shoes will become Pope and you’ll have to drag your sorry %$” over to the Vatican looking for his approval.
Ferfal speaks truth.
So, is the model for Pope Francis to be St. Francis of Assisi, St. Francis Xavier (who founded the Jesuits), or St. Francis Borgia, who abdicated his seat as a Spanish Grandee in favor of his son, and took vows when he was widowed, eventually rising to the position of Superior General of the Society of Jesus?
There is a widespread suspicion that the Jesuits are more “liberal” than other orders within the Catholic Church, but there is also no reason to believe that the new Pope is necessarily in alignment with the thinking of others of that order. In fact, within the political range that does exist among the clergy of the Catholic Church (and rising to the level of Cardinal or Archbishop is very definitely an exercise in the art of politics), Pope Francis I would rightly be considered a “conservative”, even though he had devoted a good deal of his time and energy to service of the very poor. It is altogether possible, indeed, that very conservative views on Church doctrine and social concern for the most impoverished exist side by side, and are not mutual exclusives in any way. In fact, this is the original meaning of “social justice”, before the term was hijacked by the secular progressives.
I hope Pope Francis grows to love the Liturgical clean-ups - and allowance for the Extraordinary Form (aka the Latin Mass) - that came about under Pope Benedict XVI.
“So, is the model for Pope Francis to be St. Francis of Assisi, St. Francis Xavier (who founded the Jesuits), or St. Francis Borgia, who abdicated his seat as a Spanish Grandee in favor of his son, and took vows when he was widowed, eventually rising to the position of Superior General of the Society of Jesus?”
Cardinal Dolan said in an interview that Pope Francis told the assembled cardinals that he chose the name after St. Francis of Assisi.
If this man is truly humble, then shortly he will come out with a message that all of the fancy trappings, fancy clothing, ceremony, etc. are really not necessary. The examples from the New Testament clearly oppose all of the pomp and circumstance of what is going on. He will make it clear that right living IS the goal and everyone needs to get to it. (crickets chirping...)
We have a LOT of people in this country who are despotic like that now. We even elected one president.
You first. Let us know when you've sold your house and moved into a homeless shelter.
Is the White House necessary? The Washington monument? The presidential inauguration?
While these things are not necessary, they are fitting.
Remember the Temple? Should the priests' "fancy trappings" have been sold? And all of the ornamentation?
St. Peter's is the Basilica of the Vicar of Christ (Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Rev 3:7). The splendor is proper and fitting.
Actually, St. Francis Xavier wasn't really the sole founder of The Jesuit Order. The person most responsible was St. Ignatius of Loyola who was St. Francis's teacher.
Here's the URL: http://www.jesuit.org/about/our-history/
“Enough of this”? Nobody made you click on the thread. Stay off if you don’t want to read it.
No, it is not. Contrast all of that with the poor the church supposedly serves (well, actually manipulates everyone else to serve, including governments). Contradiction.
Can read, evaluate and respond as I wish. Nice to live in a free country. Or, would you propose to change that?
The Jesuits are helplessly liberal, in a state of absolute collapse, and Pope Benedict XVI’s choice for Superior General made Hussein’s PR guy seem like a sober pessimist in his denial that there was a problem.
Which is why I’m so stoked for this guy.
The Jesuits are too important to disappear, and Francis at once is keenly aware of their dysfunction, has the background to create a diagnosis and prognosis, and now the authority to act.
By the way, the main branch of the Franciscans is also in a state of disaster, 2nd only to the Jesuits, but there are newer orders within the Franciscan tradition which are awesome, thanks in part to the astounding conversion of the Franciscan University of Steubenville.
Mene, you’re joking, right?
Do you have any idea of what’s being discussed?
One pope worked to restructure the Church in preparation for a day when she is shorn of all her political power, her secular institutions, and her lukewarm hangers-on.
He is succeeded by a pope who moved out of the episcopal mansion to live in a flat in an apartment building, do his own cooking and take the bus to work (the mansion was next door to the apartment). Now that he’s pope, he gathered his own bags, took the bus instead of the popemobile (created to protect John Paul II from snipers), refused to wear the papal crown and robes, or even to step up onto the speaking platform above his fellow cardinals.
Will they ever sell off the “Vatican treasures?” I hope not. The treasures are art, created to inspire, and possess only marginal instrinsic value. Arguing for doing so would be like Judas scolding the prostitue for wasting perfume.
Enough of this, indeed.
When are you (third person throughout) going to figure out Bible-thumping is not the only form of Christianity, and surely not the one with the clearest pedigree, nor philosophical cohesion.
I can and have made biblical counter-arguements for just about every accusation thrown at the Catholic Church by you people, and you people don't even have the charity of spirit to acknowledge alternative views even exist apart from "falling away."
You whine about the "trappings?" What of the Temple in Jerusalem? Is God the same yesterday, today, and forever?
You might as well be muslims with your insistence that everything stay the same as when Jesus walked the earth, even though the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Moreover, I find it most telling that if anyone is modeling Pharisees, hurling accusations and myopic scriptural formulae, it ain't us Catholics.
All of which is commendable.
Why?
Wasn't the Temple splendid?
What did Judas say about the woman who perfumed Jesus' feet?
Contrast all of that with the poor the church supposedly serves
Supposedly? How do you expect Catholics to take you seriously? Where are the Protestant Daughters of Charity? Franciscans? Etc.
Thank you for considering what I wrote.
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