Posted on 04/08/2016 5:58:24 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Pope Francis said Friday that Catholics should look to their own consciences more than Vatican rules to negotiate the complexities of sex, marriage and family life, demanding the church shift its emphasis from doctrine to mercy in confronting some of the thorniest issues facing the faithful.
In a major church document entitled “The Joy of Love,” Francis made no explicit change in church doctrine and upheld church teaching on the lifelong bond of marriage between a man and a woman.
But in selectively citing his predecessors and emphasizing his own teachings in strategically placed footnotes, Francis made innovative openings in pastoral practice for Catholics who civilly remarry and signaled that he wants nothing short of a revolution in the way priests guide Catholics. He said the church must no longer sit in judgment and “throw stones” at those who fail to live up to the Gospel’s ideals of marriage and family life. […]
On thorny issues such as contraception, Francis stressed that a couple’s individual conscience — not dogmatic rules imposed on them across the board — must guide their decisions and the church’s pastoral practice. “We have been called to form consciences, not replace to them,” he said. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Here’s a Catholic site, and a very good one at that.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3418736/posts
Any “Catholic” bishop that ignores him is just as guilty.
And I predict that there will be very few, if any, who will do anything about this.
I'm afraid we'll see a repeat of what's happened every other time the goalposts have been moved in the last 60 years: All the "conservatives" will shuffle over the line they'd drawn in the sand and pretend things have always been this way.
The problem is that most "conservatives" don't even have the Catholic Faith whole and entire. And those that do do so because they actually lived before Vatican II.
I put “conservatives” in quotes, I should have written “pope-oloters”. When JPII was around they were solidly behind his agenda, whatever it happened to be, the same with BXVI and now Francis. There’s a rather large personality cult in the Church that doesn’t care about who the personality is as long as there is one. I suppose this isn’t catastrophic when there’s a solid pope, but in these days it’s a complete mess.
This is the worst thing Pope Francis has said since the Cardinals selected him Pope.
It will lead a lot of people into a sinful way of life.
People will be lulled into a doing whatever feels good type of mood if they are not following the rules laid out for them in the bible.
A lot of people need the regimentation laid out for them. If left to their own devices, they would thing anything goes.
Pope Francis is leading people astray with this.
Let us hope Jesus finds a way to correct this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.