Apparently, Pope Francis left some important things unsaid in his exchange with the atheist founder of Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari. And so another interview.
I’ll have more to say on its contents later, but based on its opening paragraph, the title to the interview is appropriate:
The Pope: how the Church will change
Pope Francis told me: “The most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old. The old need care and companionship; the young need work and hope but have neither one nor the other, and the problem is they don’t even look for them any more. They have been crushed by the present. You tell me: can you live crashed under the weight of the present? Without a memory of the past and without the desire to look ahead to the future by building something, a future, a family? Can you go on like this? This, to me, is the most urgent problem that the Church is facing.”
Youth unemployment? Lonely old folks? This is the most serious of evils afflicting the world?
No humanism here folks, move on.
This Pope is either VERY naive—-or a Modernist on steroids!
In either case, we’re in big trouble!
The good news: My family of three converts can relax now! We have the third Papal approval in a row that we not have to make converts in our protestant/atheist family whose members since our conversion years ago already think that we are idiots. So we can from now listen again to their completly material and carnal desires without telling them that there is a hell for all people who do not want to believe in the catholic God that according to Pope Francis even doesn´t exist.
“I believe I have already said that our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope. We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace,” he stated.
Text from page http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/10/01/pope_shares_his_vision,_reform_of_church_with_italian_daily/en1-733344
of the Vatican Radio website
“And I believe in God, not in a Catholic God, there is no Catholic God, ”
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pope-to-repubblica-how-church-must.html#more
While our Lord promised the gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church… We sure do have our faces pressed up pretty hard against them.. What a sick joke.
I really wish the Pope had left ALL of this unsaid.
He smiles again and replies: “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.”
What then of the Great Commission of Our Lord?
Interviewer: Your Holiness you wrote that in your letter to me. The conscience is autonomous, you said, and everyone must obey his conscience. I think that’s one of the most courageous steps taken by a Pope. “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.”
The existence of pro-abortionists refutes your argument, Holy Father.
read this interview on rorate caeli . Bishop Francis has been reading the Freemasons handbook. I`m so thrilled to find out God the Father is not Catholic.!!! not!!
Yes, here go again indeed. The hits just keep on coming. We are in really serious trouble with this Pope and I am sure its going to be cataclysmic for the Church. As a serving priest I can see how the liberal diocesan establishments love Francis, because he gives the green light to all those who want to carve a Church in their own image.
The good news herein is: My family of three converts can relax now! We have the third Papal approval in a row that we do not have to make converts in our protestant/atheist family whose members since our conversion years ago already think that we are idiots.
So we can from now on listen again to their completly material and carnal desires without telling them that there is a hell for all people who do not want to believe in the Catholic God who according to Pope Francis even doesn´t exist.
“I believe I have already said that our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope. We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace,”
“And I believe in God, not in a Catholic God, there is no Catholic God, ”
Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Did you get that? Ancient, barbaric cultures sacraficed unwilling victims to pagan Gods. We kill our own babies out of convinience and selfishness. Does Satan care where the blood comes from and how it is spilled? How can God bless a nation and a people who support such demonic practices? Oh yes, enemployment and lonliness are truly the great evils of our time. God help us all. Whatever you people do, don’t leave Jesus to hang on the cross alone. Let us suffer with Him in this time that we live. He WILL deliver His people. God builds a kingdom with the stones refused. Heaven is populated with the souls of the unwanted babies of this sick world.
James you are so fixated and obsessed.
Just because Our Pope is Our Cross is no reason to panic
Louie, admire your work and insights. This pope is so confusing (and verbose!). Putting some of my own (admittedly confused) thoughts out there ad hoc: 1. Does he really accept the fullness of the One True Faith (of which he is the leader)? If not, Holy Father, please accept the precedent of the Pope Emeritus and resign. 2. Based on this last interview, is HE a Pelagian (in the true sense – not his distorted version given in apparent sly condemnation of Trads)? 3. Is he an Immanentist? 4. It is capable of being deduced from his more recent statements that, despite what he said to the contrary in one of his very first papal public statements, his apparent aim IS to make the Church simply an NGO. In this regard, consider the following sentiments which he seems to me to be espousing: solve unemployment, comfort the elderly, be good social workers you priests and religious (get dirty!), BUT don’t worry so much about saving souls AND whatever you do, DON’T preach to convert souls – even when you have dialogue with high profile athiests. What’s REALLY important is that everyone here on earth is dealt with in an egalitarian way. We’ll all get to heaven (including athiests!) if we simply DO THE RIGHT THING. (What IS “the right thing” you might ask? Oh, well – YOU can decide that yourself and God will be OK with that as long as you are true TO YOURSELF! After all, God is love – and that’s ALL that matters. You don’t need worry about the CROSS any more. That’s old hat – for all those old sourpuss Trad fogies who pray far too many Rosaries. As the (enlightened!?!) Protestants believe, we are all saved already – no sweat! 5. The last point leads into another important one: Many of the things he has said (or acts he has done) appear to clearly contradict other statements made by him previously. The NGO statement is but one example. So is the “obsession” with the Church talking about abortion, etc one day then condemning it in the strongest terms the next. It would be open to a cynic to consider he did this for some devious purpose in acknowledgement that he may have overstepped the mark with his comments in THE interview published he day before and that his anti-abortion speech was not entirely genuine. (These are but 2 of numerous examples.) 6. If point 5 is accurate, this can only lead to the conclusion that the Holy Father is being deceitful. That is clearly a horrendously scary prospect as any spirit inspiring deceit is certainly not of the Holy Spirit. I am not making any definitive statements here as I have not come to any final conclusions yet as to the matters raised. I will (as I am duty-bound as a practicing Catholic) give Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt at this point in time and pray much for discernment and for his Holiness’ mind and soul and communication ability (if that is the only source of his weakness). Problem is, it seems to all intents and purposes (and my gut feeling is) that the more rope is given to the pontiff in this situation, the more lethal the final self-hanging. I truly hope and pray I am wrong. Holy Mother of God and our mother, please pray for your Son’s Church at this critical time and for her nominal leader. But in the end, God’s will be done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG9UuMMjkEc
Yes, here we go again and I almost pity the Girondists in the catholic conservative collective, especially the well-read Baron of The Brick By Brick Bund, how can they all keep claiming that he is not saying what he is clearly saying?
Charitably interpreted, “there is no Catholic God” could simply mean that God is the God of all and everything, not just Catholics. He could have been a little more clear about that, but this conversational interview style does not lend itself to clarity unless great effort is taken. He seems to get caught up in the moment of the interview and does not carefully measure his words.
On the seemingly relativist statements , I suppose he could have meant something along the lines that if someone at least recognizes the existence of good and evil (however defined), and one is trying to move toward the good (however mistaken one’s subjective concept of the good is from the objective concept of the Good), at least that is something to work with. Again, it would help matters greatly if a little more precision was exercised in explaining the concepts clearly.