Posted on 09/20/2013 3:30:31 AM PDT by NYer
This is a list of 12 selected quoted from Pope Francis’ recent exclusive interview with La Civiltà Cattolica.
This interview with Pope Francis took place over the course of three meetings during August 2013 in Rome. The interview was conducted in person by Antonio Spadaro, S.J., editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal. The interview was conducted in Italian. After the Italian text was officially approved, America commissioned a team of five independent experts to translate it into English. You can read the full interview here
1. “I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.”
2. “when I took possession of the papal apartment, inside myself I distinctly heard a ‘no.’ The papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace is not luxurious. It is old, tastefully decorated and large, but not luxurious. But in the end it is like an inverted funnel. It is big and spacious, but the entrance is really tight. People can come only in dribs and drabs, and I cannot live without people. I need to live my life with others.”
3. “In my breviary I have the last will of my grandmother Rosa, and I read it often. For me it is like a prayer.”
4.”This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.”
5. “Pope Benedict has done an act of holiness, greatness, humility. He is a man of God.”
6. “I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds…. And you have to start from the ground up.”
7. “The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much of a rigorist or too lax. Neither is merciful, because neither of them really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands so that he leaves it to the commandment. The loose minister washes his hands by simply saying, ‘This is not a sin’ or something like that. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.”
8. “We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind of disease and wound. In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.”
9. “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”
10. “We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman. Only by making this step will it be possible to better reflect on their function within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.”
11. “When we desire to encounter God, we would like to verify him immediately by an empirical method. But you cannot meet God this way.”
12. “Christian hope is not a ghost and it does not deceive. It is a theological virtue and therefore, ultimately, a gift from God that cannot be reduced to optimism, which is only human. God does not mislead hope; God cannot deny himself. God is all promise.”
I am glad to read that.
His Holiness said: “it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time”. Because without conversion to the Catholic Church you cannot expect to fix the society, and the conversion has to be for Christ, not merely against our legal system, awful that it is.
Contraception is just as evil as an abortion. It prevents the formation of a fetus and harms the woman too.
BTTT!
**draw them to Christ’s love and the mercy he will give them...and they will come to understand and change.**
Amen.....you nailed it.
**What does abortion, homosexual marriage, and other social issues have to do with faith?**
Now go one step deeper into your statement. Are abortion, homosexual marriage and other issues part of some people’s LACK of faith?
Bring them back to Christ gently.....that’s what the Pope is saying.
Kelly, I am including you in this response, as well. Freeper melsec has presented a very good understanding of how Pope Francis approaches sin in contemporary society. Perhaps because modern man is more educated than previous generations, he has elevated himself above church teaching. As melsec points out "Sometimes a preoccupation with specific sin/sinners seems to undermine, in people’s minds, the story of God’s salvific capacity to change people!"
Essentially, to reach sinners, preaching is no longer sufficient. It creates a gap which some are unable to bridge. The pope points out first and foremost that he too is a sinner. He stretches forth his hand to help guide these souls back to God. He does not back down from church teaching. If anything, he takes from the Gospels and applies it to present day events.
Consider Luke 19. Here we meet Zacchaeus, "a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man". That's 2 strikes against him, in that society. {Tax collectors are generally described as being greedy, and taking more money than they are entitled to.) Zacchaeus is "seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature". So he runs ahead of Jesus and climbs a sycamore tree in order to get a better view. What happens next? When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house." Now, look at the reaction of the crowd: When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying, "He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner." There was outrage from the crowds that Jesus would rather be the guest of a sinner than of a more respectable or "righteous" person.
How does Jesus react? He says: "Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost."
Jesus was a very controversial figure in His time. According to scripture, many of His disciples walked away because His teachings were too hard to follow.
With the above quotes, one must step back and look at the big picture. The church has tried to preach to sinners, but some are too attached to their sins to listen. Pope Francis is modeling himself on the actions of Jesus and reaching out to the sinners, inviting them to meet Jesus, the only One who can convert hardened hearts.
I can agree, but do not compromise your principles! Christ said he will bring brother against brother. If they hated Me they will hate you. Compromise is a slippery slope that leads to spiritual ruin. Ala. United Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, American Baptist, etc. etc. “Go and sin no more”
The life of the unborn and one man, one woman, one life cannot be compromised.
What does he mean by that?
Further into the article, "the Church, has locked itself up in small minded rules," as well as his quote two months ago when asked about gay priests, "Who am I to judge?"
He's absolutely right on that one, he isn't The One who judges but does he think active homosexuals have any place in the Church he was placed in charge of?
Whew, my head is spinning here!
Where did I speak about compromising principles?
The Catholic Church is the only church that has stood staunchly against contraception, homsexual marriage, abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, in-vitro fertilization, etc.
I haven’t seen compromise.
When Pope Francis explicitly defends the Sanctity of Life, does it get covered in the news?
This is absolutely worth the less-than-a-minute it will take to get the gist and read the comments too.
Your response was absolutely beautiful. I agree with all that you said, especially with: “Pope Francis is modeling himself on the actions of Jesus and reaching out to the sinners, inviting them to meet Jesus, the only One who can convert hardened hearts.”
Okay, Okay, Okay . I ask your forgiveness for disparaging Pope Francis. Honestly, I am an evangelical that looks to the leadership of the Catholic church to define and reinforce orthodoxy. I am extremely critical of any attempt by any church or anybody to compromise the verbal and plenary inspiration of holy scripture. I’ve read Bonhoeffer and realize the damage that is done when the Church compromises with societal or political norms.
Oh for pete’s sake. There is nothing that he has said that is any different from anything the Church has taught since the beginning. The problem of many people here, however, is that with the miserable instruction they have received since Vatican II, they don’t really know what the Church has been teaching all along and the Pope’s statements on it come as a complete surprise to them.
However, that said, he gave a long talk to a group of medical professionals yesterday on the sanctity of life, how it was the duty of the medical profession to defend life at all times, how it was the essential right, how the lives of everyone, even the most socially marginalized (unborn, handicapped, elderly), must be defended at all costs, etc.
Exactly what else is it that you wish him to say?
I understand the gist of where he’s coming from. But his words have implications. I don’t think he should have used the term “small-minded” when talking about abortion and gays. The Catholic Church is the last line of defense for that which we hold dear — the sanctity of life and the sacrament of marriage. He should choose his words carefully.
“Essentially, to reach sinners, preaching is no longer sufficient. It creates a gap which some are unable to bridge.”
Jesus had that problem too. So when people rejected him for saying, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe....For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me....”, he went on to say, “But I love you and will walk beside you and care for you and we can work out the details later”. THEN the masses followed Jesus...
Or is that NOT the way the story goes? Hmmm...
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
You write:
“The church has tried to preach to sinners, but some are too attached to their sins to listen. Pope Francis is modeling himself on the actions of Jesus and reaching out to the sinners, inviting them to meet Jesus, the only One who can convert hardened hearts.”
But neither Jesus nor the Apostles sought to convert everyone. Nor did they modify their message. Peter’s message was “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
Stephen preached:
““You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.” Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.”
In Acts 13 we read:
“Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about:
“‘Look, you scoffers,
be astounded and perish;
for I am doing a work in your days,
a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’”
...And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.”
You cite Luke 19, but “Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
We must go to the lost, but we cannot just take them in without repentance. We must accept the truth of the parable of the sower...
Catholics were the only ones that stood up for life after Roe v. Wade. It’s good to see that after 40 years other Christian faiths are with us. 40 Days for Life was started by a Catholic. Catholic orphanages have closed down because they refuse to place children with same-sex couples. Catholics have spoken loud and clear about the evils of unnatural marriage. It is the media that is obsessed with it, and will not report anything other than positive stories from liberals. Catholics are ignored in the media, unless there is some type of scandal involved.
They’re never going to repent unless they get called by the Lord and fall in love with God. They have to acknowledge that they’re doing wrong before they can repent, and the only way they can know what is wrong is by first finding what is good.
The Pope is saying that if we’re starting with a focus on how evil people are before anything else, nobody was ever converted by that.
AMEN to that!
Post number 38 is correct.
See Luke 7:36-50.
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