A priest friend told me he finds Pope Francis confusing, laughing, he said, "He's different, isn't he?"
I get the feeling Francis confuses many people.
Today I discovered that he even confuses Cardinal George, and Sandro Magister as well.
“He says wonderful things,” Cardinal George said about Francis in an interview on Sunday, “but he doesn’t put them together all the time, so you’re left at times puzzling over what his intention is. What he says is clear enough, but what does he want us to do?”
Cardinal George, who is 77 and being treated for cancer, remains a voting cardinal until age 80 and says he would like to travel to Rome to see Francis: “I’d like to sit down with him and say, Holy Father, first of all, thank you for letting me retire. And could I ask you a few questions about your intentions?” - source
I'm confused about a lot of things though, and I have personal business to take care of, so I'll leave it to the bishops and priests to sort out.
Magister: It is another of the paradigms of expression recurring in this pontificate: reprimands towards both sides. However, if you want to inventory them, his beatings of traditionalists, legalists, rigid defenders of arid doctrine, appear to be much more numerous and focused. When, on the other hand, he gets angry with the liberals, you can’t figure out whom he is talking about. - source
.gif)
I don't get why people are so upset about having to think about what Pope Francis says? So many people seem to be the type who desperately want to live by a set of "rules," spelled out for them with step a and step b, etc. They remind me of those kids in school that wanted very firm direction on how to complete an assignment and how to go about problems. Francis is making people talk and debate and "think" about things which I think is why he is doing this. The best teachers let students make their own way to answers.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I was never one for rules so I just don't get some people who want guidelines on how to do everything.
I never read instructions and wrecked all my toys when I was little.
DeleteNo, people are desperate to want to know God's will and to live it. That is what enflames a faithful person's heart. The 'rules' are not arbitrary to them, or things they can joke about. Christ must have been a really poor teacher, then. He did a lot of directing and commanding and instructing and laying out God's will. He didn't preach an endless 'faith journey' into some rabbit hole of subjectivism.
DeleteToday's First Reading is Providential:
Delete"Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son."
I'll bet our Lord confused a few people when He said, "You must eat my body and drink my blood", and "Destroy this temple and I will raise it in 3 days", just to name a couple of things. Could it possibly be that the Holy Father knows a few things we don't, and that the problem is with us and not him?
ReplyDeleteHe knows way more than I do.
DeleteCatholics don't worship the Pope or put him on the same pedestal as Christ. The Pope is His servant, as we all should be. No one, especially not the Pope, has been given a divine mandate to confound and befuddle. Quite the contrary, it is to lead others to Him, to pass on and guard what has been received. This 'piety' is absolutely absurd.
DeleteThose shoes...
ReplyDeleteI know! ;)
DeleteSome things aren't up for discussion. If you play football you have a rule book. If you want to follow soccer rules, you can't plan. The Ten Commandments are rules. The doctrines of the Church are rules. Catholics study the Catechism to know the faith and follow the rule book for our own good.
ReplyDeleteThe pope says a lot of lovely things. He also does things that imply undermining the faith. As Cardinal Burke said, the Church at present appears to be like a ship without a rudder. I think the lack of clarity and the "beatings of traditionalists..." is a serious problem. I don't think Jesus was confusing at all. Disciples left because his preaching in John 6 was absolutely clear and they couldn't take it. "Who can take this?" They couldn't and they left. (I wish the Nuns on the Bus would do that.)
Soooo.....I pray for the pope and for Holy Mother Church and the confused people in the pew, like myself, who long for a voice that speaks with authority.
^ This
DeleteBeing confused isn't a sin of course. I'm still happy with the Pope. If I don't get something it isn't my concern then. I'm like you though - I pray for him every night.
DeleteReading too much about him from other sources doesn't help me at all though. I get even more confused.
"..beatings of traditionalists," ...who exactly has been doing that? I do think it is funny that people on the far right (and most "Traddies," seem to be linked arm and arm with the far right of the Republican Party...) for years have bemoaned the "Victim Culture," that supposedly homos and others have embraced, are doing the exact same thing now that they aren't the only game in town, or in their usual position of driving the narrative..("They are taking away our religious rights," they are "beating on us!")
DeletePope Francis is a typical Jesuit...who says things to make others think and engage in conversations with him, in a very" non-linear" way. The truth is the same, just how you get to it is different. I think this is a prime example of different learning styles. Some people like to be taken by the hand by a JP II and Benedict and led to well and told, "This is the truth." While others might like Francis style, taking you through a garden maze, "Here let's go this, way, oh no, let's go that way..which way do you think? Ah, lets stop here and admire the hedge.." I think it really depends on the person..I think Francis makes you think about things in a different way.
And really, if doctrines are rules and that is that, then what does it matter what any Pope says? I think Francis wants us to think about the "why," of the rules as we study, not just "Well these are the rules no memorize them and they are for your own good." That like the rote learning that kids used to get in school. They knew the dates in history but did they learn any lessons from that history?
I have to say, Burke is a smart man, getting the Traddies all worked up by his little bon mots and then sitting back and waiting for his perhaps eventual chance at the Papacy. I would think that their is almost a "cult," growing around him now.
“…the confused people in the pew, like myself, who long for a voice that speaks with authority.”
ReplyDeleteTry Jesus. :)
The people were amazed at his teaching because he spoke with authority. (Luke 4:32)
Some of the disciples became very agitated when the boat they were sailing in got tossed about in the storm.
Jesus sussed the condition of their hearts and said to them: “Why are you so frightened, you men of little faith?” (Matt 8:26)
Then the voice of authority took over and Jesus stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea and all was calm again. The men were astounded and said, “Whatever kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him.”
Isn’t that amazing? The winds and the sea obey the voice of Jesus, the voice of authority!
For myself, I often forget Jesus is in the boat with me. And when this happens I find myself taking on board the voice of fear and confusion in my own heart and of others.
Our faith is always tested. It how faith grows. Every branch that bears fruit is pruned to make it bear more fruit. (John 15-2)
And we know that every branch that does not bear fruit is taken away.
Perhaps it is a pruning process the Church is experiencing at present?
Thanks for the reminder, bg, but the Church is supposed to echo Jesus voice of authority on earth. What's hard to take is confusion coming from the heart of the Church. But then, Pope Paul VI said the "smoke of Satan is in the sanctuary" and all that smoke can make things pretty confusing. Hopefully we won't all be overcome and die from inhaling Satan's smoke. Who's got the extinguisher?
ReplyDeleteBeside every oasis is the desert...
ReplyDelete