Posted on 03/17/2013 10:02:44 AM PDT by Steelfish
Pope Francis Delivers Message of Mercy to Crowd of 300,000
VATICAN CITY, March 17, 2013 Before an astounding crowd of some 300,000 in and around St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis today delivered his first angelus as pontiff, urging the faithful to be merciful and forgiving.
Hours earlier, the humility and spontaneity of the 76-year-old Argentine was on display when he greeted onlookers near the edge of Vatican City.
As the pope was entering a mass in St. Anna Parish, he decided to stop and greet a crowd of people awaiting his arrival. Walking up to the crowd, Francis shook hands, held a baby, and even motioned for two priests he recognized in the crowd to bypass the barricades and approach him.
It was the latest sign of the informality of the new pontiff. In the days since he was selected by his fellow cardinals to lead the Roman Catholic Church, Francis has shunned the fancy red shoes of his predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in favor of simple black shoes, declined a ride in a limousine in favor of a mini-van, and donned simple white robes and a wooden cross. The new informal style has been welcomed by followers and colleagues worldwide.
"I think just the way he is behaving is very discreet. It is very ordinary," Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of South Africa said. "It's very much like, 'I am the pope, but I can still sit down at any table with anybody. I can share my stories. I can talk about my life. I can share about my ministry.'"
In St. Peter's Square today, Americans in the crowd marveled at the pope's humility.
"He just seems very humble in the way that he presents himself," said Christina Senour, who now lives in Rome.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
What a stark contrast to Islam’s message of hate and threats.
On a visit to his native Germany, Pope Benedict XVI weighed in Sept. 12 before an audience at Regensburg University, where he once taught, on the contentious issue of rapport between Islam and the West.
Calling for a “genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today,” he began his speech by quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, in a conversation with a “learned Persian” on Christianity and Islam — “and the truth of both.”
But the words he quoted from the emperor were: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” He went on to say that violent conversion to Islam was contrary to reason and thus “contrary to God’s nature.”
Hey, ABC, Mass is spelled with a capital M. It distinguishes between a “mass” which means a large group of something, and a religious rite.
His point being that the fideism that characterizes Islam, a concept of God that reduced him to pure will unrelated to rationality, is the cause of Islam’s social lethargy. why Islam has never been hospitable to science, or at least those aspects of Greek thought that go beyond the practical.
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