Posted on 03/11/2014 8:18:59 AM PDT by BlatherNaut
When Pope Francis encourages compassion for those judged and excluded by the church, I can't really include myself among those alienated masses. I'm not gay. I'm not a woman. I'm not divorced. But he speaks to me as a lifelong Catholic estranged from a hierarchy too often in conflict with what seem to me to be basic Christian values.
True, Francis has not changed the policies that perpetuate the discrimination I find so objectionable.
What he is changing is the way we relate to one another, shifting emphasis from the doctrine of the church to the message of the Gospel.
The argument that his papacy is more about tone than substance fails to grasp the power of his bully pulpit. By focusing on ways we might make room for one another -- as opposed to issuing directives that defend the rules and close the ranks -- Francis is laying the foundation for a church quite different than the one led by his most recent predecessors.
-snip-
Before moving to Boston last year, my wife and I had been without a parish for several years as a result of our failure to find a church home we found nourishing.
What excites us about our new parish -- The Paulist Center on Beacon Hill -- is the community it fosters within its walls and the welcome it extends to everyone else.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncronline.org ...
A look inside John Kerry's preferred place of worship, the Paulist Center. It's where people who hate the Church go to church.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/376zabkx.asp
IB4TNRC
Well Bill, if you hadn’t set yourself up as your own Pope, and had a little better understanding of Scripture and the Catholic Church, you would find yourself a bit less conflicted.
Tell me about it.
I am an usher in my parish. There are a handful of self-appointed Popes who seem to have come to the conclusion that they have figured out EVERYTHING that the Church is doing wrong.
And, being the only authority figure they can easily get to, they are always coming back to unload on me.
Why post something from the Leftist National Catholic Reporter?
The National Catholic Distorter
I agree. Their motto should be, "Every ax to grind, in defense of Marx and de Chardin"
Why not? Like it or not, in this case, the NCR is simply relaying the facts. That the Paulist Center is a dissident hotbed right in the heart of Gang-of-Eight Cardinal O'Malley's back yard is old news. He apparently is content with the situation since he allows it to persist. And now, as we see, the Paulist Center has seized on the words of Pope Francis to promote its leftist "gathering space". The unfortunate fact is that his off-the-cuff comments seem to condone their views and are easily appropriated and applied to a marketing campaign promoting their agenda. Check out the video if you doubt this is true.
The spirit of the place is reflected in this 60-second video, titled "All are Welcome," released by the center this week as a Lenten outreach. Its creator, fellow parishioner Vincent Rocchio, said he was inspired by a comment by center director Fr. Frank Desiderio as he wondered aloud about a new tagline for the center: "If you like Pope Francis, you'll love us."
During the pontificate of JP the Great I read his Wednesday audiences printed in the Wanderer, and by doing so I was immune to the overtures of the liberals.
JP the Great had a learning curve that he mastered after he was shot. Francis is a quick learner.
When Francis made his recent comments about civil unions he did not intend to inquire how they could be accepted, instead he wants to know why there is such a sudden demand to legalize them.
National Catholic Reporter
Thanks, posting from the National Mullet Wrapper is a timely Lenten penance, as well as a reminder to eat fish.
Exactly. I fail to understand why liberal Roman Catholics don’t just join the Episcopal Church USA. It seems like they could get all the liberalism they could ever want there.
And that about sums it up
National Catholic Reporter is a leftist site that twists and misreports, for their leftist agenda, anything and everything from Francis to try and make him “their pope”. I would never use one word from these pro-abortion, Cafeteria-Catholic types. When you cite anything from their website you are promoting their site.
Anyway, you apparently missed the point. The Paulist Center, where John Kerry worships and over which Cardinal O'Malley presides, is using the "Francis effect" to promote their "cafeteria catholicism". And Cardinal O'Malley (Pope Francis' close advisor) apparently approves. Don't expect to read this story in Cardinal O'Malley's diocesan paper, the Pilot. There you will only find fawning, puff-ball pieces (along with the requisite reference to "xenophobes").
They will find out in due time Francis is changing nothing in the church. And when that happens the National Catholic Disburber will jump on him like a bulldog on a porkchop. And when they constantly use the phrase “who am I to judge”, and take his words out of context to try and make people believe he’s for same-sex “unions” they only have to read the Catechism. Not a word of the Catechism has been changed about homosexuality or will be changed. It is an intrinsic disorder and to practice it is a sin.
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