Pope Francis gestures as he answers questions from journalists aboard his flight from Asuncion to Rome (CNS)
Posted on 07/14/2015 12:59:07 PM PDT by NYer
Before arriving in the United States in September, Pope Francis said, he will study American criticisms of his critiques of the global economy and finance.
“I have heard that some criticisms were made in the United States — I’ve heard that — but I have not read them and have not had time to study them well,” the Pope told reporters traveling with him from Paraguay back to Rome on July 12.
“If I have not dialogued with the person who made the criticism,” he said, “I don’t have the right” to comment on what the person’s saying.
Pope Francis said his assertion in Bolivia on July 9 that “this economy kills” is something he believes and has explained in his exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” and more recently in his encyclical on the environment.
In the Bolivia speech to grass-roots activists, many of whom work with desperately poor people, the Pope described the predominant global economic system as having “the mentality of profit at any price with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature.”
Asked if he planned to make similar comments in the United States despite the negative reaction his comments have drawn from some US pundits, politicians and economists, Pope Francis said that now that his trip to South America has concluded, he must begin “studying” for his September trip to Cuba and the United States; the preparation, he said, will include careful reading of criticisms of his remarks about economic life.
Spending almost an hour answering questions from journalists who traveled with him July 5-12 to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, Pope Francis also declared that he had not tried coca leaves — a traditional remedy — to deal with the high altitude in Bolivia, and he admitted that being asked to pose for selfies makes him feel “like a great-grandfather — it’s such a different culture.”
The Pope’s trip to Cuba and the United States on September 19-27 was mentioned frequently in questions during the onboard news conference. US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro publicly thanked Pope Francis and the Vatican last December for helping them reach an agreement to begin normalising relations.
Pope Francis insisted his role was not “mediation.” In January 2014, he said, he was asked if there was some way he could help. “To tell you the truth, I spent three months praying about it, thinking what can I do with these two after 50 years like this.” He decided to send a cardinal — whom he did not name — to speak to both leaders.
“I didn’t hear any more,” he said.
“Months went by” and then one day, out of the blue, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, told him representatives of the two countries would be having their second meeting at the Vatican the next day, he said.
The new Cuba-US relationship was the result of “the good will of both countries. It’s their merit. We did almost nothing,” the Pope said.
Asked why he talks so much about the rich and the poor and so rarely about middle-class people who work and pay taxes, Pope Francis thanked the journalist for pointing out his omission and said, “I do need to delve further into this magisterium.”
However, he said he speaks about the poor so often “because they are at the heart of the Gospel. And, I always speak from the Gospel on poverty — it’s not that it’s sociological.”
Pope Francis was asked about his reaction to the crucifix on top of a hammer and sickle — the communist symbol — that Bolivian President Evo Morales gave him July 8. The crucifix was designed by Jesuit Father Luis Espinal, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Bolivia in 1980.
The Pope said the crucifix surprised him. “I hadn’t known that Fr Espinal was a sculptor and a poet, too. I just learned that these past few days,” he said.
Pope Francis said that he did know, however, that Fr Espinal was among the Latin American theologians in the late 1970s who found Marxist political, social and economic analysis helpful for understanding their countries and their people’s struggles and that the Jesuit also used Marxist theories in his theology. It was four years after the Jesuit’s murder that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said plainly that Marxist theory had no place in a Catholic theology, the pope pointed out.
Fr Espinal, he said, “was a special man with a great deal of geniality.”
The crucifix, the Pope said, obviously fits into the category of “protest art,” which some people may find offensive, although he said he did not.
“I’m talking it home with me,” Pope Francis said.
In addition to the crucifix, Morales had given the Pope two honours, one of which was making him part of the Order of Fr Espinal, a designation that comes with a medal bearing a copy of the hammer-and-sickle crucifix.
Pope Francis said he’s never accepted such honours; “it’s just not for me,” he said. But Morales had given them to the Pope with “such goodwill” and such obvious pleasure at doing something he thought would please the Pope that Francis said he could not refuse.
“I prayed about this,” the Pope told reporters. He said he did not want to offend Morales and he did not want the medals to end up in a Vatican museums storeroom. So he placed them at the feet of a statue of Mary and asked that they be transferred to the national shrine of Our Lady of Copacabana.
Pope Francis also was asked about his request in Guayaquil, Ecuador, that people pray for the October Synod of Bishops on the family “so that Christ can take even what might seem to us impure, scandalous or threatening, and turn it — by making it part of his ‘hour’ — into a miracle.”
The Pope told reporters, “I wasn’t thinking of any point in particular,” but rather the whole range of problems afflicting families around the world and the need for God’s help for families.
Ping!
Hey Vicar of Christ, stick to the spiritual.
Has any Pope in my lifetime “got” America?
Just send him “Road to Serfdom” by FA Hayek.
maybe he’ll learn something if he really does read the criticisms. He sounds to me like he’s never even considered that there’s less poverty where there is a more free economy.....
so.....now he is going to tailor his message to people in each country he visits, based on what they want to hear?
Pope Francis said his assertion in Bolivia on July 9 that “this economy kills” is something he believes and has explained in his exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” and more recently in his encyclical on the environment. In the Bolivia speech to grass-roots activists, many of whom work with desperately poor people, the Pope described the predominant global economic system as having “the mentality of profit at any price with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature.”
Asked if he planned to make similar comments in the United States despite the negative reaction his comments have drawn from some US pundits, politicians and economists, Pope Francis said that now that his trip to South America has concluded, he must begin “studying” for his September trip to Cuba and the United States; the preparation, he said, will include careful reading of criticisms of his remarks about economic life.
Lol! One of the things they have politely omitted is a very crude expression he used to explain himself to the reporters (equivalent to I’m not f’n with you). Personally, I think he’s an elderly leftist gone gaga and driven wild by the publicity and power - mostly to get back at his “enemies,” which would be orthodox Catholics.
Benedict. Read some of the speeches and interviews he gave during his visit here in April of 2008:
____
Fr Lombardi: Thank you, Your Holiness. Now a question that refers to American society and, to be precise, to the place of religious values in American society. Let us give the floor to our colleague Andrea Tornielli, who is on the Vatican desk of an Italian newspaper.
Holy Father, in receiving the new Ambassador of the United States of America, you noted that the public “values the role of religious belief in ensuring a sound democratic order” in the United States. I wanted to ask you if you consider this a plausible model for a secularized Europe too, or whether you think there can also be the risk that religion and God’s Name could be used as a vehicle for certain policies, even war.
The Holy Father: Of course, in Europe we cannot simply copy the United States: we have our own history. But we must all learn from one another. What I find fascinating in the United States is that they began with a positive concept of secularity, because this new people was composed of communities and individuals who had fled from the State Church and wanted to have a lay, a secular State that would give access and opportunities to all denominations, to all forms of religious practice. Thus, an intentionally secular new State was born; they were opposed to a State Church. But the State itself had to be secular precisely out of love for religion in its authenticity, which can only be lived freely. And thus, we find this situation of a State deliberately and decidedly secular but precisely through a religious will in order to give authenticity to religion. And we know that in studying America, Alexis de Toqueville noticed that secular institutions live with a de facto moral consensus that exists among the citizens. This seems to me to be a fundamental and positive model. It should be taken into account that in Europe in the meantime, over 200 years have passed with many developments. Today, there is also in the United States the attack of a new secularism, quite a different kind. Whereas, at first the problems concerned immigration, but later in the course of history the situation became complicated and therefore differentiated. But the foundation, the fundamental model also seems to me today to be worthy of being borne in mind in Europe.
Can he just stay in Rome? We got enough false prophets here in the States. We don’t need another, even if he is just visiting.
Ditto! Religion is his field, altho he’s often off the path even there.
I’ve been thru a lot of Popes in my lifetime, and never saw one like this!!! Seems to love the limelight.
Nice. Quick kids, cover your ears -- the Pope is talking!
Very, very nice. Thank you so much for educating me! I miss him and think he was forced to step down for very dark reasons. (And no, that’s not a knock on Benedict.)
I think the problem is that he is extensively educated in economics.
Even in the US the odds of getting Friedman or Mises Austrian School of Economics oriented approach is about the same as winning the powerball jackpot.
So his extensive background follows the trend of most economic approaches of the 20th Century which is a Marxist approach.
So the odds of changing his mind is extremely small.
My pleasure. We all miss him. He is a brilliant, incisive theologian. This was part of his speech at the White House:
___
“From the dawn of the Republic, America’s quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator. The framers of this nation’s founding documents drew upon this conviction when they proclaimed the “self-evident truth” that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights grounded in the laws of nature and of nature’s God. The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles, and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society which faithfully embodied these noble principles. In that process, which forged the soul of the nation, religious beliefs were a constant inspiration and driving force, as for example in the struggle against slavery and in the civil rights movement. In our time too, particularly in moments of crisis, Americans continue to find their strength in a commitment to this patrimony of shared ideals and aspirations...
Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience – almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate. In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good (cf. Spe Salvi, 24). Few have understood this as clearly as the late Pope John Paul II. In reflecting on the spiritual victory of freedom over totalitarianism in his native Poland and in eastern Europe, he reminded us that history shows, time and again, that “in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation”, and a democracy without values can lose its very soul (cf. Centesimus Annus, 46). Those prophetic words in some sense echo the conviction of President Washington, expressed in his Farewell Address, that religion and morality represent “indispensable supports” of political prosperity.”
http://benedictinamerica.blogspot.com/2008/04/benedicts-address-at-white-house.html
When this guy gets over here I’m waiting for his visits to where the poor live . When the TVs, air conditioners, refridgerators, and washing machines, will all suddenly dissappear from view. In any New York Times,Wapoo,CNN coverage as he launches his crusade against capitalism.
A Pope or Economist only God knows
“not had time to study them well”
He’s had many decades to study economics and hasn’t. What are the odds he won’t catch up in a week? He is typical of most from Catholic institutions.
DePaul has a good econ prof. But he is rare. One centuries long mistake is confusing what Jesus and the Bible tell Christians to do with forcibly imposing that religious practice on everyone through government.
A second mistake that is becoming increasingly common is the religion of Cain. Cain wanted to avoid answering God’s question. So Cain came up with Satan’s theology.
No, I am not my brother’s keeper. I am my brother’s brother. There is a big difference. They “keep” pets, prisoners, zoos, slaves, plantation dwellers. That is not the Christian way of relating to one’s brother.
I agree that the office has gone to his head. To be charitable, I think that the positive attention he's received from theological and political leftists, and the criticisms he's received from the right, has caused him to incline in leftists' direction. To quote H.I. McDunnough from the movie Raising Arizona, speaking of Reagan: "They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused."
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