Posted on 03/25/2014 7:03:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
Last week, Pope Francis warned Italy's Mafia leaders that if they continue their evil ways, they will go to hell.
Hooray for the pope. More power to him for threatening evil people with hell.
I had begun to despair that in my lifetime I would hear such talk from mainstream Christian or Jewish leaders. For the past two generations, God has rarely been depicted as judging and punishing. Instead all we have heard is the phrase, "God Is Love," which, when offered as the one description of God, is morally meaningless -- and even morally dangerous.
If your aim is to produce moral behavior -- and that should be the primary aim of every religion -- "God is love" is no more helpful than "Dad is love" is to producing a good son. Morally speaking, "God will judge you" is a far superior message. As a recent academic study by Azim Shariff, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, published on the science website Plos One, concluded: "Belief in hell predicted lower crime rates; whereas belief in heaven predicted higher crime rates." (Italics in original.)
Because we live in the most secular age in recorded history, our age lacks any concept of an afterlife reward and punishment. Making things worse, it is also a wisdom-challenged age that believes people are basically good -- and therefore don't need threats of punishment. Worst of all, this thinking has spread to mainstream Judaism and Christianity, most of whose clergy find threats of hell intellectually primitive and morally useless.
The "God is love" message alone is also religiously inaccurate. In Judaism and Christianity, God is many things. He is, for example, a "God of war" (ever heard of the "Lord of hosts"?) And most important, "God is just," which means that God rewards and punishes. Indeed, if God doesn't reward and punish, He is not a loving God.
There is a second reason Pope Francis's message is so important.
It puts the spotlight on world Muslim leaders.
Wouldn't it be morally refreshing if leaders of Sunni and Shiite Islam made a similar pronouncement?
It is not enough for Muslim leaders to issue routine condemnations of violence and terrorism. Without specifying the Muslims who are the world's premier practitioners of murder in God's name, these condemnations of violence and terror are worthless.
Muslim religious leaders -- from Al-Azhar in Cairo to local imams throughout the world - need to say exactly what Pope Francis said to the Catholic members of the Mafia: "Any Muslim who commits an act of terror -- that is, deliberately murders civilians of any nationality or religion -- goes to hell."
This would be particularly effective given how many Muslim terrorists have been convinced by some religious leaders that blowing up, shooting, or slitting the throats of men, women and children guarantees that they will go straight to heaven (where, moreover, they will be attended to by dozens of virgin women).
Condemnations of actions in general mean nothing. Only when the perpetrators are specified and their actions are specified is there hope of having a moral impact. Pope Francis specified exactly whom he was addressing and for what sins.
Muslim religious leaders around the world need to specify that members of organizations such as these will go to hell unless they repent: al-Qaida and its affiliates around the world (such as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Qaida in Mesopotamia); Hizb ut-Tahrir; the Syria-based Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; the Taliban and Haqqani Network in Afghanistan and Pakistan; the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (perpetrators of the Mumbai massacres); and the Nigeria-based Boko Haram (that routinely slaughters Christians).
Of course, such a proclamation is unlikely to happen. Muslim leaders are far more active in condemning "insults" to Islam or Muhammad. But at least the juxtaposition offers the world clarity about the contemporary moral state of Christian and Muslim leadership.
Just wait until he threatens Hell to anyone in business to make a profit.
Like the Sopranos version of Hell? A big card game where all the great Italians from throughout all of history are sitting around a big table playing cards with the Irish?
And the Irish win every hand?
Condemning the mafia is a safe bet that most everyone will rally around. It is also something that won’t affect the coffers. When he says the same thing about the abortionists, which will absolutely impact the cash flow, I’ll really be impressed.
LOL. I started watching reruns of Sopranos - actually a pretty good show.
Didn’t know that Jews believe in the concept of hell.
(That's one of the things the Mafia were doing, by the way: illegal disposal of toxic waste.) He's never going to invoke hell on anybody who is making an honest profit that harms no one.
Isn’t there a contradiction between his approaches to different sins? With regard to homosexual sin and whether that would prevent them from going to heaven it was - “who am I to judge” but with regard to Mafia sin it’s - “you will go to hell”. What’s the difference? I’m not trying to troll here because I’ve tried to keep an open mind on this Pope but he does seem to be contradictory and a bit vague.
Paulie figured out that was purgatory and figured in light of eternity a 10,000 year stretch in puragory was a piece of cake. "I could do that standing on my head."
Yeah. I think he needs our prayers, and perhaps a lesson or two from the “school of hard knocks”.
Pope Francis said we must defend the right to life, even if the other side throws us into prison or kills us.
WE'VE been sayin' it since .... John
His quote was, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?” This is merely a restatement of the RCC’s position that being gay is not a sin in an of itself - homosexual acts are. The quote also talks about the person seeking God, which would mean following his laws. Again, nothing new.
This is different than a criminal actively choosing evil as a career.
This is a pretty fine distinction that I'm not sure the average listener would grasp, especially given that many don't see that one can "be gay" apart from engaging in homosexual acts. One would think that he would also add that engaging in the behavior would consign one to hell, just as he did with the mafia, and make clear the distinction he is drawing. But I also know that the media has been very selective on how they quote this Pope and I shouldn't draw a conclusion without reading everything he said on the matteer in context during the interview.
The Pope has enough of his own violations of the Ten Commandments to repent for. He may end up with them.
This is a reference to the paragraphs in the Catechism (LINK), where it says that homosexual acts are acts of grave moral depravity, but people who experience psychosexual tendencies in this direction are called to chastity.
That's what he said --- "The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well." I don't have a problem with that.
I do have a problem with lazy reporters who omit the reference to the Catechism, where it clarifies that he was talking about accepting persons of good will (in context, that would be "chaste") -- and not unchaste conduct.
I don't think it's lazy reporters so much as dishonest reporters. The media, especially American mainstream media, wants desperately to create the impression that the Catholic Church is now on board with the entire liberal/secular agenda. Thus, they will twist and misstate everything the Pope says to that end. If the Church clarifies clumesy statements, it will never be reported. It's all about creating and maintaining perceptions. The false portrait the media wants to paint of this Pope has become very clear. Thus, the Pope needs to be very cognizent of this and be very careful and clear with everything he says. Also, traditional Cathoic media needs to be very forceful in giving honest accounts of the Pope's statements and have a rapid response to secular media distortions.
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Some homosexuals don't want to be called "homosexual" anymore, because that word originated in clinical literature, and makes it sound like a psychosexual disorder (which it is). They want to be called "gay," which pairs semantically with "Gay Pride."
But some object to that: for instance, the CDC found that a lot of men at risk for AIDS from anal sodomy, don't respond to health literature directed toward "gay men" because they don't classify themselves as "gay men," they classify themselves as just regular "men who have sex with men." So the CDC came up with the term "MSM."
Unless you go for extensive footnotes, you can't assume people know quite what you're talking about. And Pope Francis --- yes, I agree that should talk, on the whole, less, and also a alot more precisely. But he's not the kind of guy who footnotes when he's talking off the cuff.
That's one thing I loved about Pope Benedict XVI, by the way. Precision. But BXVI has a professor's gifts, training and temperament.
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