Posted on 11/15/2013 1:07:43 PM PST by Kaslin
"Pope Francis doesn't want cultural warriors; he doesn't want ideologues," said Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash.:
"The nuncio said the Holy Father wants bishops with pastoral sensitivity, shepherds who know the smell of the sheep."
Bishop Cupich was conveying instructions the papal nuncio had delivered from Rome to guide U.S. bishops in choosing a new leader.
They chose Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., who has a master's degree in social work, to succeed Archbishop Timothy Dolan whom Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times describes thus:
"[A] garrulous evangelist comfortable in front of a camera, [who] led the bishops in their high-profile confrontation with the Obama administration over a provision in the health care mandate that requires most employers to have insurance that covers contraceptives for employees."
That mandate also requires employers to cover abortion-inducing drugs and sterilizations.
Yet here is further confirmation His Holiness seeks to move the Catholic Church to a stance of non-belligerence, if not neutrality, in the culture war for the soul of the West.
There is a small problem with neutrality. As Trotsky observed, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." For the church to absent itself from the culture war is to not to end that war, but to lose it.
What would that entail? Can we not already see?
In America, the family has disintegrated. Forty percent of working-class white children are born out of wedlock, as are 53 percent of Hispanic children, and 73 percent of black children. Kids from broken homes are many times more likely to drop out of school, take drugs, join gangs, commit crimes, end up in prison, lose their souls, and produce yet another generation of lost souls.
Goodstein quotes the Holy Father as listing among the "most serious of the evils" today "youth unemployment." And he calls upon Catholics not to be "obsessed" with abortion or same-sex marriage.
But is teenage unemployment really a graver moral evil than the slaughter of 3,500 unborn every day in a land we used to call "God's Country"?
Papal encyclicals like Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno have much to teach about social justice in an industrial society.
But what is the special expertise of the church in coping with teenage unemployment? Has the Curia done good scholarly work on the economic impact of the minimum wage?
The cultural revolution preached by Marxist Antonio Gramsci is continuing its "long march" through the institutions of the West and succeeding where the violent revolutions of Lenin and Mao failed. It is effecting a transvaluation of all values. And it is not interested in a truce with the church of Pope Francis, but a triumph over that church which it reviles as the great enemy in its struggle.
Indeed, after decades of culture war waged against Christianity, the Vatican might consider the state of the Faith.
Our civilization is being de-Christianized. Popular culture is a running sewer. Promiscuity and pornography are pandemic. In Europe, the churches empty out as the mosques fill up. In America, Bible reading and prayer are outlawed in schools, as Christian displays are purged from public squares. Officially, Christmas and Easter do not exist.
The pope, says Goodstein, refers to proselytizing as "solemn nonsense." But to proselytize is to convert nonbelievers.
And when Christ admonished his apostles, "Go forth and teach all nations," and ten of his twelve were martyred doing so, were they not engaged in the Church's true commission -- to bring souls to Christ.
Pope Francis comes out of the Jesuits.
Hence, one wonders: Did those legendary Jesuits like St. Isaac Jogues and the North American Martyrs make a mistake proselytizing and baptizing, when they could have been working on youth unemployment among the Mohawks?
An Italian atheist quotes the pope as saying, "Everyone has his own idea of good and evil," and everyone should "follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them."
Does this not reflect the moral relativism of Prince Hamlet when he said to Rosencrantz, "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so?" Yet, is it not the church's mission to differentiate good and evil and condemn the latter?
"Who am I to judge," Pope Francis says of homosexuals.
Well, he is pope. And even the lowliest parish priest has to deliver moral judgments in a confessional.
"[S]ince he became pope," writes Goodstein, Francis' "approval numbers are skyrocketing. Even atheists are applauding."
Especially the atheists, one imagines.
While Pope Francis has not altered any Catholic doctrines in his interviews and disquisitions, he is sowing seeds of confusion among the faithful, a high price to pay, even for "skyrocketing" poll numbers.
If memory serves, the Lord said, "Feed my sheep," not "get the smell of the sheep." And he did not mean soup kitchens, but more importantly the spiritual food essential for eternal life.
But then those were different Jesuits. And that was long ago.
Seems to me that satan is in a cultural war with the west and this is stating that the Pope wishes to ignore satan and his war?
Fascinating. What he might be looking for is "studied ambiguity":
To be sure, the contents of the letter to Ryan weren’t just a product of Dolan’s need to appease both sides in the intra-Church struggle. It was also a classic example of a style of ecclesiastical document that the Vatican employs in complicated situations....This style of writing aims at “studied ambiguity,” a Vatican diplomat explained to me, noting that the people who write such letters are trained to think in terms of centuries, not sound bites. “So you always need to be able to say fifty years on, ‘Well, of course we never meant that,’” the diplomat said.
-- from the thread Mixed Blessing: The Ryan budget and the raging battle within the U.S. Catholic Church
the coo dee graw to the question is the pope catholic
LOLOLOLOL
No, I think you should pronounce the “p” in coup.
If not me, who? If not now, when? If not here, where? The culture war is very real and can only be won or lost. We are losing now. What will the final outcome be if one of the men with the highest profile and strongest platforms in the world will not participate? What if John Paul II said the same thing about Solidarity in Poland? Ronald Reagan said that about the Berlin Wall?
Posted by a bighead with a pea brain
Pat’s doing his usual distortion.
This pope has already quietly expelled or silenced a number of heretics, is launching an initiative to restore the teaching of orthodox Catholic doctrine on marriage and family, and has probably done more than his predecessors (while building upon them) in a short few months to restore credibility to the Church than I would have thought possible.
Pat Buchanan is a dog in the manger and always has been.
Nam Vet
who are you to judge
LOL
by the Grace
That's the problem of judging a man based on one thing he says among many:
It is true that going out on to the street implies the risk of accidents happening, as they would to any ordinary man or woman. But if the church stays wrapped up in itself, it will age. And if I had to choose between a wounded church that goes out on to the streets and a sick, withdrawn church, I would definitely choose the first one. Pope Francis
Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practise it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good. Pope Francis
Let me tell you what I hope will be the outcome of World Youth Day: I hope there will be noise. … I want you to make yourselves heard in your dioceses, I want the noise to go out, I want the Church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable, everything to do with clericalism, everything that might make us closed in on ourselves. Pope Francis
We need a Church unafraid of going forth into their night. We need a Church capable of meeting them on their way. We need a Church capable of entering into their conversation. We need a Church able to dialogue with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone, with their own disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of generating meaning. Pope Francis
Dear young people, please, don’t be observers of life, but get involved. Jesus did not remain an observer, but he immersed himself. Don’t be observers, but immerse yourself in the reality of life, as Jesus did. Pope Francis
Do not be afraid to go and to bring Christ into every area of life, to the fringes of society, even to those who seem farthest away, most indifferent. Pope Francis
The only explanation I can come up with is that perhaps the Pope realizes that to change the world, we must first change ourselves. Thus, his focus is on that. Better people mean better societies and governments.
I an hope, right?
and im the idiot
Pat Buchanan is arrogant.
coup de grâce
noun
the conservative vote in the third district delivered the coup de grâce to his campaign: death blow, finishing blow, kiss of death, final blow; informal KO
Well done.
Think about it
and im the idiot
If you don't understand the definition of clericalism and fail to grasp the proper and distinctive roles of clergy and laity, you may well be.
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.