Posted on 11/18/2014 2:54:50 PM PST by NKP_Vet
A colleague offers the following capsule summary of Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield's latest report on Pope Francis, in which the pontiff's defense of traditional church teaching seems to baffle the Vatican correspondent:
Francis is a RADICAL – no, no, sorry about that–he is now a conservative who sounds just like Benedict -- NO, WAIT -- he really is a liberal at heart, but he is being FORCED by those evil, evil right-wing conservatives to cave--he is at WAR with his own CDF chief (you know, the one he re-confirmed -- but never mind) -- AT WAR, I TELL YOU!
I thought he was exaggerating – until I read the actual story. "Pope Reinforces Traditional Family Values" is a classic example of the kind of story that makes us at GetReligion ask, "What is this?" Is it meant to be hard-news journalism, or is it meant to be advocacy or commentary? And if it's commentary, or analysis, why is it not labeled as such? Why is the AP selling it to news outlets as straight reporting?
Here's the lede:
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis is seeking to reassure the church's right-wing base that he's not a renegade bent on changing church doctrine on family issues – weeks after a Vatican meeting of bishops initially proposed a radical welcome for gays and divorced Catholics.
Give the AP credit at least for not beating around the bush. Winfield, or her editor, is telling us upfront that, in the AP's eyes, Catholics who uphold church doctrine are "right-wing." The AP well knows that "right-wing" is a loaded political term. As I wrote in this space when USA Today labeled the late Rev. Benedict Groeschel "conservative,"
Basically, is someone a conservative for defending church doctrines? So moderates are for changing doctrine and liberals are for changing doctrine really fast? What do these words mean, in debates about doctrine?
The AP story continues:
Francis on Monday opened an interreligious conference on the "complementarity" of men and women in marriage and sex. He said marriage between a man and woman is a "fundamental pillar" of society and that children have the right to grow up with a mother and father.
It was the second papal speech emphasizing church doctrine in as many days: On Saturday, Francis pronounced some of his strongest words yet against abortion, euthanasia and in vitro fertilization, sounding more like his predecessor, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, than the Argentine Jesuit who famously said "Who am I to judge?" about gays.
It really does sound as though Winfield is trying to wrap her head around the fact that the pope is Catholic. I have written in this space before about the befuddlement that takes place among mainstream news reporters when Francis doesn't fit the "progressive" image that they have carved out for him. We see that clearly as the AP fumbles to explain the pope's straying off his supposed liberal talking points:
Vatican officials concurred that the interventions could be read as a response to the conservative backlash that erupted after the recent meeting of the world's bishops on family issues.
What officials? The AP doesn't say. I haven't seen any other news outlet report a similar comment from "Vatican officials." And why is the AP characterizing Francis's statements as "interventions," as though the pope violently inserted them into his own papal discourse, like some bizarre right-wing version of Tourette syndrome?
The rest of the story includes the bizarre reference to the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that was noted by my colleague:
The conference is being organized by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose conservative prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, helped lead opposition to Francis' radical agenda at the synod.
So the AP is now pitting the "conservative" prefect of the CDF against the pope's "radical agenda." Seriously, what is this? Pope Francis himself confirmed Muller in his job. To claim that the pope's own doctrinal head is locked in an ideological battle with him is a serious charge. And how can Pope Francis have a "radical agenda," if he speaks in favor of traditional Catholic doctrine on marriage, abortion, euthanasia, and IVF? If this story is truly intended as reporting, and not analysis, then the AP's spin machine has officially gone off the rails.
He has positively contradicted those principles. He was overruled by his fellow bishops after he encouraged them to give a pass on the legislation of homosexual unions in Buenos Aries. He has not denied that he phoned a divorced and remarried adulterer to find another Church and receive Holy Communion.
On the first, I don't know what was being proposed as a civil union. Was it something that was an explicit parallel of marriage? In this case it would be out of the question. But if it was just some sort of civil contract pertaining to property, taxation, inheritance and such things --- one which could be applied to people with no stipulation that they must be sexual partners (e.g. two elderly sisters sharing the family home) --- then it would be unobjectionable from a moral point of view.
On the second, "He has not denied..." yadda yadda, does not prove a thing. We know about this alleged incident because the woman's husband put it on Facebook. Then Pope Francis, through Lombardi, acknowledged that the phone conversation took place, but more than that he did not say, saying it was not an official act in any sense, but private.
Neither doctrine nor discipline are determined by private phone calls, or promulgated third hand on Facebook. He was, therefore, staving off any interpretation that had made a ruling or grant an absolution.
Even Religious News Service --- which I think is aggravatingly left-leaning in its tendencies --- thought the story was dubious.
"[The Hemeneutic of Continuity can be used as] a crutch in that the hierarchy of the Church no longer feels obligated to clarity in its communications, but regularly unitizes and embraces ambiguity out of laziness or even possibly sometimes with more nefarious motives."
True. And that is about the polar opposite of what Benedict meant when he coined this phrase. But the abuse of a principle does not mean that the principle itself is wrong.
"And I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place."
This Vatican-centric view neglects the world around us. I do not share this view and I'll do everything I can to change it.
"I have the humility and ambition to want to do something."
"The first thing I decided was to appoint a group of eight cardinals to be my advisers. Not courtiers but wise people who share my own feelings. This is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down but also horizontal. When Cardinal Martini talked about focusing on the councils and synods he knew how long and difficult it would be to go in that direction. Gently, but firmly and tenaciously."
All emphasis above is mine. Francis, on numerous occasions, has announced he's on a mission to change the Church; of course he'll never succeed. I understand Scalfari did not record the above interview but the same was vetted by the Pope and placed on the Vatican's website until the resultant uproar from concerned Catholicss caused it to be scrubbed from the website.
To pull this out of the fergit-it file and go over it again is just to needlessly extend the foolishness.
I hope that Burke had something to do with Francis’ remarks, but he has always stood for marriage of a man and woman and no abortion of any type. Now he needs to clarify once and for all the Catholic position on homosexual “unions”, which is they are not allowed in any way, shape or form. And there are no “gifts” that a practicing homosexual can offer the church, just as there are no gifts that a practicing drug addict,thief, pornographer or murderer can offer the church.
Well a fool of a pope vetted it before it was posted on the Vatican website; and it was up for quite a while.
Don’t you think you’re carrying the hermeneutic of continuity to an extreme? The Catholic Church was governed by Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict for over 34 years. Now Francis comes in and announces he plans to “change” that Church; “to make a mess”.
Cardinal Kasper could also exclaim, “I’m a son of the Church!” That doesn’t mean he is one.
Nancy Pelosi has insisted she’s a “good Catholic”. Cardinal Burke thought otherwise:
“Certainly this is a case when Canon 915 must be applied,” Burke in a Sept. 5 interview with The Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly, CNS News reported Monday. “This (Pelosi) is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin — cooperating with the crime of procured abortion — and still professes to be a devout Catholic.”
We all know what Francis thinks of Cardinal Burke, don’t we?
Pope Lauds Moral Teachings
November 18, 2014
Bill Donohue comments on two recent statements by Pope Francis:
On November 15, in an address before the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors, Pope Francis took direct aim at those touting “quality of life” arguments. “There is no human life that is more sacred than another...just as there is no human life qualitatively more significant than another,” he said. Thus did he reject the grounds upon which the doctor-assisted suicide movement is promoted.
The pope also spoke of a “false compassion” which promotes scientific ways to “produce” a child. Specifically, he said, “We are living in a time of experimentation with life. But a bad experiment. Making children rather than accepting them as a gift, as I said. Playing with life.”
Importantly, the pope defended the Church’s teaching on abortion on scientific grounds, not on religious or philosophical ones. Abortion, he said, is a “scientific problem because there is a human life there, and it is not lawful to take out a human life to solve a problem.”
On November 17, at a Vatican colloquium on “The Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage,” the pope stressed the complementarity of “the two sexes,” and how “each man and woman brings his or her distinctive contributions to their marriage and to the formation of their children.” Similarly, he said, “Children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity.”
Notice the pope did not speak about “gender,” or socially learned sex roles, but of the “sexes,” meaning nature-produced differences. This was intentional. That is why he did not say that children have a right to grow up in a family of two adults, no matter how loving: he was exact in citing the need for children to have “a father and a mother.”
Don’t look for the media, and some in Catholic circles, to punctuate these remarks by the Holy Father. Which is why we did.
I see you change you tag line as often as Francis insults Catholics.
How is this news at all? As another poster has so aptly put it, this is a timely serving of "prolefeed", and does not change the fact that the Gang of Eight, comprised of modernists and porno-publishers, the papal-sponsored Kasper attack on doctrine, the relatio containing heterodox statements, the brutal persecution of the FFI, the banishment of Burke, the vile treatment of Bishop Finn, and the current confusion and chaos encompassing the Church all remain continuing causes for dismay. It seems rather futile to endlessly analyze and parse his latest statements, desperately searching for proof that all is well, since his actions speak louder than his words.
The key word here is "disjointed." If we try to teach these life-giving principles in a fragmentary way, not showing how they are related to a much larger, holistic vision of the holiness of God--- why then, it's just a bunch of incomprehensible shalt-nots.
Both you and Francis are echoing Joseph Cardinal Bernadin (Archbishop of Chicago from 1982 to 1996) and his infamous "seamless garment" argument. Bernadin in that period did tremendous damage to the Catholic Church.
Francis has just promoted another Joseph to be Archbishop of Chicago. I fear Cupich will follow in Bernadin's footsteps, with Francis' approval.
LOL!
“The Pope is Still Catholic”
editor- “We can’t print that, are you crazy?”
I think for some as long as it appears that the big political issues don’t officially change (abortion, etc), then everything is hunky dory.
So far no one has mentioned that Francis’ comments in the OP were made in an INTERRELIGIOUS meeting. That alone is a Modernist-heretical action and contradicts hundreds of years of Catholic teaching. Contradictions don’t only have to be the big moral issues that FReepers focus/vote on so much. Contradictions stem from much larger ecclesiastical issues that originated from Vatican II like a huge one: false ecumenism.
And also “in context”, he said:
“The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful. It needs nearness, proximity,” he said. “The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules.”
LOL!
He is a Jesuit. I’ve given up trying to figure him out.
Going on retreats based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyala helps. The priest who gave the retreat last year told us that he said to another Jesuit: “Finally, we have a Pope we can understand.”
Indeed.
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