Posted on 10/21/2013 9:32:05 AM PDT by armydoc
Pope Francis called for a more open-minded Church on Thursday, suggesting that when a Christian “becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith.”
Francis said because ideology is rigid and non-inclusive, it pushes people away and leaves out the grace of God.
“And, even worse, the Lord cannot be close to the people,” Francis said.
“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology,” he said. “And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid.”
It is judgmental and without exception, which Francis says is not the Lord’s message.
“The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people,” he said. “But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians.”
He said the Church does not want to keep the door shut and the key in its pocket.
He also claimed Christians who lose faith and prefer the ideologies are “rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness.”
“The key that opens the door to the faith is prayer,” he said. “If there is no prayer, you always close the door.”
A person who does not pray is “arrogant, is proud, is sure of himself. He is not humble. He seeks his own advancement.”
That being said, he also warned, “It is one thing to pray, and another thing to say prayers.” He said people who are obsessed with Christian ideology don’t pray; they simply recite the same prayers they’ve memorized years ago.
Sorry, but you are defining ideology as “bad ideology.”
Here is #1 definition from Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary.
1. the body of doctrine or thought that guides an individual, social movement, institution, or group.
Christianity is itself an ideology.
Well said. The Pope is a spiritual idealist in the mode of St Francis, he is not a beurocrat.
Indeed. “but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;” I Corinthians 1:23
New Papal statement:
The gate isn’t really narrow. It’s as wide as we can make it. Y’all come! And you of the Faithful? You ain’t all that!
Which mean you define "love" by what the bible tells us about God - You don't define God by worldly notions of what constitutes "love".
Exactly!
When we come to know and love Christ, he loves us back and we take his love into every encounter we have with others.
Ideologies, good or bad, are things which can be manipulated and so can be strong temptations for those who depend on their own strength and wisdom instead of the strength and wisdom of Christ.
Where do you draw the line between ramaining faithful to “the whole counsel of God” and Ideology? It’s not phariseeism because the sin if the pharisees was hypocrisy. They didn’t practice what the preached. Nobody condones that. What is being tossed around as “ideology” here is something different than that but the Pope never quite defines it.
I don’t define love at all. God is.
>>All churches have man made rules. There are no exceptions.
Some have more rules than others. Most rules are administrative in nature and govern how to operate the church, not in who qualifies for communion, etc.
Absolutely correct. Thus, the Pope's devotion to helping the poor is an ideology. Is he saying this is a bad thing? Or is it just holding true to biblical precets that the world doesn't like what constitutes bad "ideology"? And if so, why?
“Christianity is itself an ideology.”
I believe it is not. (Perhaps there is a ‘faith’ pun there.)
All other religions are. (Human nature desires structure, rules, etc. for security. But humans cannot follow the rules (any rules). Islam as we see it appears attractive today for these reasons.)
Ideologies do not work. That’s why Christianity is different, and why God is the True God.
I wasn't referring to you personally in the post. My point was that the world wants to define God by its conception of love rather than defining love by what the bible tells us of God.
I have noticed that just excerpts of the Pope’s remarks in the press can be insufficient. This was part of his homily given at mass last Thursday.
There is more context, including his references to Bible verses, in the text of the article which I linked in Reply #19.
I’d start with finding out what he really said instead of these stupid articles that take soundbites from him and make a mountain out of a molehill.
Anybody got a link to the full speech.
Constantine destroyed Christianity for 1500 years.
Every Christian who has judged or sought to impose Christianity on anyone is a Constantine Christian with an ideology.
A true Christian is tolerant of sin even as he/she lives and espouses another way.
Muslims are all about ideology, judging, which leads to a will to sanction and enforce, which is Pharisaical and against Christ’s will.
Well lets see, drowned instead of sprinkled, once saved always saved, raise your hands and shout, baptism makes a baby born again, predetermination.............those don't sound administrative.
It looks like it would be posted on the page linked below (not there yet) - see also link in #19 above.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/homilies/2013/index_en.htm
This pope will not destroy the Church but he’s doing the best job that he can do toward that effort. Our Lady of Fatima warned that many terrible things would happen to the Church, and we are now seeing that prophesy play out as no one could have ever imagined. The very foolish and uninformed will follow his heretical lead, but faithful Catholics will hold fast to the traditional teachings of our Church and pray that the Holy Spirit instill some truth in his heart. But through this all we have only one pope and he is it. And as painful and as incongruous as it may seem, this heretic will remain our pope until the Holy Spirit allows otherwise. God help us all.
You are defining not the difference between ideology and not-ideology, but rather the difference between (what you believe) to be True ideology and a variety of other ideologies that contain elements of truth and error to varying degrees.
That a belief system is True does not make it any less an ideology.
We have a winner. I love this admonition from the Pope... and I’m not even Catholic.
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