Posted on 11/18/2013 4:02:48 AM PST by markomalley
God save us from the "hegemonic uniformity " of the "one line of thought", "fruit of the spirit of the world that negotiates everything", even the faith. This was Pope Francis' prayer during mass this morning at Casa Santa Marta, commenting on a passage from the Book of Maccabees, in which the leaders of the people do not want Israel to be isolated from other nations , and so abandon their traditions to negotiate with the king.
They go to "negotiate " and are excited about it. It is as if they said "we are progressives; let's follow progress like everyone else does". As reported by Vatican Radio, the Pope noted that this is the "spirit of adolescent progressivism" according to which "any move forward and any choice is better than remaining within the routine of fidelity". These people, therefore , negotiate "loyalty to God who is always faithful" with the king. "This is called apostasy", "adultery." They are, in fact, negotiating their values, " negotiating the very essence of being faithful to the Lord ."
"And this is a contradiction: we do not negotiate values, but faithfulness. And this is the fruit of the devil, the prince of this world , who leads us forward with the spirit of worldliness. And then there are the direct consequences. They accepted the habits of the pagan, then a further step: the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and everyone would abandon their customs. A globalizing conformity of all nations is not beautiful, rather, each with own customs but united, but it is the hegemonic uniformity of globalization, the single line of thought . And this single line of thought is the result of worldliness . "
And after "all peoples had adapted themselves to the king's demands, they also accepted his cult , they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath ."Step by step", the moved along this path. And in the end "the king raised an abomination upon the altar of devastation". "But, Father , this also happens today ! . Yes, because the worldly spirit exists even today, even today it takes us with this desire to be progressive and have one single thought . If someone was found to have the Book of the Covenant and if someone obeyed the law, the king condemned them to death : and this we have read in the newspapers in recent months . These people have negotiated the fidelity to the Lord and this people , moved by the spirit of the world , negotiated their own identity , negotiated belonging to a people, a people that God loves so much that God desires to be like Him . "
The Pope then referred to the 20th century novel, "Master of the World" that focuses on "the spirit of worldliness that leads to apostasy". Today it is thought that "we have to be like everyone else, we have to be more normal , like everyone else, with this adolescent progressivism ." And then "what follows is history": "the death sentences, human sacrifices". "But you think that today there are no human sacrifice s? There are many, many ! And there are laws that protect them ."
" But what consoles us faced with the progress of this worldly spirit, the prince of this world , the path of infidelity, is that the Lord is always here, that he can not deny Himself , the Faithful One : He is always waiting for us, He loves us so much and He forgives us when we repent for a few steps, for some small steps in this spirit of worldliness, we go to him, the faithful God. With the spirit of the Church's children, we pray to the Lord for His goodness, His faithfulness to save us from this worldly spirit that negotiates all , to protect us and let us move forward, as his people did through the desert , leading them by the hand like a father leads his child. The hand of the Lord is a sure guide".
The book he is talking about is "Lord of the World" by Robert Hugh Benson. If you haven't read it, it is well worth the read. You can get it as a free e-book at Project Gutenberg.
I am glad to hear the Pope say this. I hope it gets some traction. He needs to say this repeatedly until it sinks in.
Sorta hard to put on a bumpersticker.
In the beginning there was “right” and “wrong”, and we’ve been negotiating in the wrong direction ever since.
PERFECT! Looking for loopholes, that’s what man has been doing ever since!
The rationalization of moral values so you can do whatever you want without accountability or consequences type liberal thinking ? I think that’s been tried and failed too many times to count. Sodom & Gomorrah comes to mind. Do What Thou Wilt (do whatever you want) is one og the maint tenets of Satanism.
It seems to me that when this pope takes the time to think through what he's going to say, he can be profound. The main problems seem to be when he speaks off the cuff, or when he lets things be published that supposedly represent what he's said without vetting them carefully as being fully accurate.
But that may be a false impression on my part, as I haven't paid very careful attention.
What do you think?
sitetest
The resident Pope Francis bashers will be curiously silent on this posting.
My thoughts exactly.
bookmark for later
I don’t know a lot about the popes but I do listen to what they say and I connect more with this one’s arguments and statements than others I’ve listened to in the past. I’m saying this taking him at face value without doing any research on him though.
Boy howdy!
Why wouldn’t they be silent? Is there something in this thread that anyone here disagrees on? It seems to be a pretty basic message to me. I didn’t think most of the Religion forum posters were progressives.
I tend to think that the off-the-cuff comments are more indicative of how he thinks.
Most of the Catholic bashers on FR agree with nothing Francis says. If they agree this posting please let us know. You will see the tooth before that happens.
IMO, posting when one agrees with everyone is boring. If I’m going to just repeat what everyone else has already said, why do it? Do we need threads with 100 posts all agreeing? Yuck.
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