This interview is very interesting. It amuses me to think that we have a pope who sincerely believes that the most serious evil afflicting the Church is that old people are lonely. Don’t get me wrong, it is not like I think we shouldn’t be concerned about that, but really? The most serious evil afflicting the Church? Is this for real?
More depressing, I would say, is the statement that we have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good. So, it doesn’t matter that we KNOW what is Good, but rather we should actually actively encourage people in error because they have their own ideas? People who think that sodomy is good should not be tolerated, or even ignored, but rather encouraged by Catholics to embrace evil and sin because they mistakenly believe it to be good? What kind of thinking is this? And then the whole thing about how the Church has not been open enough to modern culture and that, unlike his predecessors, this pope has “the humility and ambition to want to do something” is just plain frightening. The Church is absolutely infected with modernism, and this pope is decrying that we have failed to do enough in that area? Holy crap; literally. We are in trouble, though I am thankful that the pope is humble enough to brag about how humble he is.
After reading this interview I can only say that now I absolutely know that lonely old people is not the most serious evil afflicting the Church.
That reminds me of my dear departed mother-in-law, who had a habit of saying. "That's the best steak I have ever eaten", or "That's the best best orange chicken I've ever had", etc. Whenever she encountered something good, it was the best ever. It was charming, but the same words spoken in a public review by the world's most famous food critic might have had an unintended result.
So it is when the world's most watched religious leader speaks of evil.
That line cracked me up. The moment you say, "I am humble", you are not.