Posted on 01/26/2018 10:36:09 AM PST by ebb tide
A truly pastoral minister never leaves people to suffer on their own or to become a victim to their own errors and confusion, Pope Francis told members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
An authentically pastoral approach is any effort that seeks to take people by the hand, "when they have lost a sense of their dignity and destiny, so as to lead them with confidence to rediscover God's loving paternity, their good destiny and ways to build a more humane world. This is the great task awaiting your congregation and every other pastoral institution in the church," he said.
The Pope met Jan. 26 with some 80 cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people who were meeting in Rome for the congregation's plenary session.
The doctrinal congregation, the Pope said, supports the bishops in their teaching task by safeguarding the faith and the sanctity of the sacraments and doing so by using pastoral discernment.
Some issues the congregation has had to examine, he said, include cases involving "delicta graviora" "more grave crimes" against church law. That includes clerical sex abuse and questions involving what is known as the dissolution of marriages "in favorem fidei" (in favor of the faith) when a Catholic has married someone who is not baptized.
The congregation's work is critical in such "fluid and changing" times when people "no longer know who they are and, therefore, struggle to recognize how to do the right thing," he said.
The doctrinal congregation's job is to underline the "transcendental vocation of man" and the human person's faculty of reason, which can know the good and the true through faith in Christ. "Nothing helps people know themselves and God's plan for the world better than opening one's mind to the light that comes from God," he said.
Pope Francis thanked congregation members for using their plenary assembly to look at issues regarding terminal illness. The current-day insistence on absolute autonomy and self-determination, he said, has led to an increase in nations allowing euthanasia, and accepting it as a "civilized" choice.
The congregation also was completing a study of the ethical implications of issues in the field of economy and finance by focusing on people being relational and reasonable, and, therefore, able to act in accordance to an objective moral order, he said.
"Economic activity is to be carried on according to its own methods and laws, but within the limits of the moral order," Pope Francis said, quoting from "Gaudium et Spes," the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.
The Pope also mentioned the congregation's work in looking at the nature of salvation and the meaning of redemption. There is an individualistic tendency to believe salvation is due to one's own efforts, he said, when in fact for the Catholic Church, "salvation consists in communion with the risen Christ who, thanks to the gift of his Spirit, introduced us to a new order of relationship with the father and among humankind."
Addressing so many challenges that touch so many people makes the congregation's mission "eminently pastoral," he said.
"Authentic pastors," Pope Francis said, "are those who do not abandon people (to be left) on their own nor do they leave them in the throes of their confusion and their errors, rather, with the truth and mercy they lead them back to rediscover their authentic nature in the good."
Answer the dubia, address the filial correction, Francis, before you babble about "confusion".
And he has the nerve to talk about the "sanctity of the sacraments".
Look in the mirror, Francis...

He could sure use an “authentic” pastor. Maybe an army of them.
Sounds like a self-indictment.
“Authentic Popes” aren’t COMMUNISTS
A friend of mine was hired as a pastor at a small church. He tried to actually teach the bible and was summarily fired.
There were OLD people in that church that attended regularly for their entire life that did not know the difference between the old and new testaments.
Another laughable hypocrisy from Borgoglio, with the pointy finger at every other priest.
Remember, one of his first stage acts, occurring at one of the first large conflabs of cardinals and bishops, was to blister all of them, upfront and out loud, because they were basically not smelling like the sheep, as *holy He” intended.
Francis is a poor communicator.
He’s much more than that.
Translation: “Do not leave people in confusion and error. Take them by the hand and lead them in the wrong direction.”
You're too kind. He's leading them to Hell.
what about authentic Popes ....Frances...
He’s not an authentic Catholic.
It is exactly a self-indictment!! From his lips, Lord, to your ears.
This is just a script. He’s an actor reading lines. This is an allocution to the CDF so probably written by one of his speech writers. As he’s reading it he’s thinking......”what is this $*!#...?”
But who would write such a script? Is there an actual Catholic in the Vatican that Francis doesn't know about?
I think it’s supplied to order for the occasion. There are times when Francis says things which are actually Catholic. It’s like a doctor supplying a sedative from time to time to keep a comatose patient from waking when he shows signs of restlessness. A speech to the CDF is probably a good time to play the part of the attentive pastor.
Oh the irony....ROFLMAO
If anyone ever was confused and error=ridden it’s this Pope.
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