[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis phones Gianni Vattimo, philosopher of “weak thought”

Fr. Z's Blog ^ | July 9, 2018 | Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

[ebb tide]

Pope Francis phones Gianni Vattimo, philosopher of “weak thought”

Posted on 9 July 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I saw the strangest story at La Stampa.

From Italian:

Pope Francis phones Gianni Vattimo, philosopher of “weak thought”

The Italian scholar sends a copy of his last book to Francis who calls to thank him.  A a short and pleasing conversation about the Church and philosophy: “With this Pope I am not ashamed to call myself Catholic”.

Perhaps someone will translate the whole thing.

This seems so very strange to me.  It leaves me a little confused, frankly.   I’ve written about this guy back in 2013.  HERE  Vattimo, if memory serves, is openly homosexual.  He had his … partner… euthanized in Holland.   Vattimo, who is pretty much against any truth claim and set against just about every moral teaching of the Church, has also spoken of Pope Francis.

I’ve gotten a couple notes asking me what this is all about.  I don’t know.  However, after a little digging around, I found once again a fascinating post that connected Vattimo with Pope Francis, as well as Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.  Have a look at THIS.

Sorondo applauded with obvious satisfaction, as the radical left, gay, Italian philosopher, Gianni Vattimo on 13 March 2015 Teatro Cervantes in Buenos Aires in front of all the prominent left radical figures, to form a new Communist International, which he dubbed the “Papal International” because was supposed to be led by Pope Francis. Vattimo said at the time:

“Pope Francis is the only one who is capable of a political, cultural and religious revolution to lead against the superior power of money in the Civil War, which is already raging in the world, and is disguised as ‘the fight against terrorism’ , but in reality is the class struggle of the 21st century against the large number of the critics of capitalism.”

You will recall that Sorondo was the one who said that Catholic social teaching is exemplified in Communist China. HERE

Vattimo has thought about the Pope quite a bit, it seems.  I wonder if any of this is connected to what I mused about back in 2014.  HERE  Alejandro Bermudez wrote about influences on Pope Francis’ thought.  It is worth a review.

Here is the video.  Conference also with Leonardo Boff.  If you have Italian and/or Spanish, you will be pretty much horrified by this fellow.  Take note at 15:00-51:00.

Pope as point of reference for an international Communism at 24:00.
Mentions ¡Hagan lío! at 49:45.

One wonders if there is a connection between “weak thought” and “weak theology”.  HERE

UPDATE 10 July:

Popes meet with and reach out to all sorts of people. I recall that, early in his pontificate, Pope Benedict reached out to loony Hans Küng and to the brilliant but jaded Oriana Fallaci. I can’t shake the sense, however, that the motives for doing so may have been different from those of Pope Francis in reaching out to Vattimo and some of those others and that the conversations were rather different. Then again, they are very different men, that Pope and this Pope, aren’t they.

[pepsi_junkie]

“With this Pope I am not ashamed to call myself Catholic”.

Well that makes one of us.

[Mr. K]

This is an ‘anti-pope’

[Marchmain]

“Strange, horrifying, confusing”??? It should be completely apparent.

Please Caths, wake up! Stop living in the past. Let’s all focus on supporting the TLM, but stop the obsessing about Vatican 2. Get some simple book summarizing 20th century philosophy and theology. You need to understand what’s happening in world ideas or you will find yourself locked out of Church in a few years. Sure, read this trad stuff so you can rant and rave, but educate yourselves! It’s the only way to be prepared. Listen to Bishop Barron... BECAUSE you think he’s wrong. Learn.