https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/2...st-pope-francis

What's your opinion on the article, bro-n-sis in Christ?


Excerpts:-

"This mixture of hatred and fear is common among the pope’s adversaries. Francis, the first non-European pope in modern times, and the first ever Jesuit pope, was elected as an outsider to the Vatican establishment, and expected to make enemies. But no one foresaw just how many he would make. From his swift renunciation of the pomp of the Vatican, which served notice to the church’s 3,000-strong civil service that he meant to be its master, to his support for migrants, his attacks on global capitalism and, most of all, his moves to re-examine the church’s teachings about sex, he has scandalised reactionaries and conservatives. To judge by the voting figures at the last worldwide meeting of bishops, almost a quarter of the college of Cardinals – the most senior clergy in the church – believe that the pope is flirting with heresy."

"With more than a billion followers, the Catholic church is the largest global organisation the world has ever seen, and many of its followers are divorced, or unmarried parents. To carry out its work all over the world, it depends on voluntary labour. If the ordinary worshippers stop believing in what they are doing, the whole thing collapses. Francis knows this. If he cannot reconcile theory and practice, the church might be emptied out everywhere. His opponents also believe the church faces a crisis, but their prescription is the opposite. For them, the gap between theory and practice is exactly what gives the church worth and meaning. If all the church offers people is something they can manage without, Francis’s opponents believe, then it will surely collapse."

"The curia, as the Vatican bureaucracy is known, grew more powerful, stagnant and corrupt. Very little action was taken against bishops who sheltered child-abusing priests. The Vatican bank was infamous for the services it offered to money-launderers. The process of making saints – something John Paul II had done at an unprecedented rate – had become an enormously expensive racket. (The Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi estimated the going rate for a canonisation at €500,000 per halo.) The finances of the Vatican itself were a horrendous mess. Francis himself referred to “a stream of corruption” in the curia. ..... The curia, he said “sees and looks after the interests of the Vatican, which are still, for the most part, temporal interests. 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.” He said to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica: “Heads of the church have often been narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the papacy.”

"The church, says Francis, should be a hospital, or a first-aid station. People who have been divorced don’t need to be told it’s a bad thing. They need to recover and to piece their lives together again. The church should stand beside them, and show mercy. At the first synod of the bishops in 2015, this was still a minority view. A liberal document was prepared, but rejected by a majority. A year later, the conservatives were in a clear minority, but a very determined one. Francis himself wrote a summary of the deliberations in The Joy of Love. It is a long, reflective and carefully ambiguous document. The dynamite is buried in footnote 351 of chapter eight, and has taken on immense importance in the subsequent convulsions. The footnote appends a passage worth quoting both for what it says and how it says it. What it says is clear: some people living in second marriages (or civil partnerships) “can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end”. Even the footnote, which says that such couples may receive communion if they have confessed their sins, approaches the matter with circumspection: “In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments.” Hence, “I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy.” And: “I would also point out that the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak’.” “By thinking that everything is black and white,” Francis adds, “we sometimes close off the way of grace and growth.”

My opinion? Not important.

Personally, at emotional level, I support what Pope Francis is doing. He's putting love above all other things, .... and God is Love. Simple, right?

At intellectual level, I think I understand what the conservatives are worrying about ... maybe they're scared that Pope Francis might set a dangerous precedence, might undo, void or conflicted what previous Popes have done ... which might bring the matter of Pope's infallibility on Church's teachings into the spotlight again.

Although the difference isn't a drastic as The Ten Commandments in Old Testaments vs the Greatest Commandment in New Testaments, it feels like such. Hand holding lists of what-to-do and what-not-to-do, vs minimal enlightened way of life. Maybe the old cardinals are the former, while Pope Francis is the latter. Not to say the former are wrong, but with time and changes, the true principle should be able to withstand the test of time, no matter how many Vatican Councils are held or how our Traditions might further elaborate the Bible ... our RC should be a constantly living religion, not a static one.

Dear yeeck,

why lah quote or read from www.breitbart.com site ... that's associated with Steve Bannon and Alex Jones.

Hmm ... I thought most Protestants are Fundamentalist, i.e. they rely only on The Bible; where in the Holy Book is it mentioned that God sometimes does bad things (or simply let bad things happened ... Job's one can be argued...) to us?

Waaat??? Are they real Christians?

If they imply that God is the source of evil, it's like they think that God is bipolar or has dual personality, or they're verging towards polytheism (got a God who is Good, and another who is Evil) ... becoz it's hard to reconcile that a God who is Love, and can be Hateful as well.

I like to read the philosophical/theological debates regarding Epicurus ... one could never learn enough.
But could we do without the name callings and angry replies? Cool minds produce wittier rhetoric, no?

I don't know much, but I always believe that until human beings understand our brain 100%, our method of communication through language is limited; and any discourse will only be best of effort. Let's say we don't use English to debate among us, if there's a language that's not ambiguous, wouldn't it be clearer? (mute point here, since this is forum using mainly English language)

And until we could define the metaphysics of God or the higher being who created us, all our understanding of the nature related to God will just be approximation to what our brain could perceive.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/compendium_c...ium-ccc_en.html

"163. How are non-Catholic Christians to be considered?

817-819
870

In the churches and ecclesial communities which are separated from full communion with the Catholic Church, many elements of sanctification and truth can be found. All of these blessings come from Christ and lead to Catholic unity. Members of these churches and communities are incorporated into Christ by Baptism and we so we recognize them as brothers."

Rest in Peace, Fr. OC Lim.
Inspiring sermons when I attended mass at SFX previously.

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him.