Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Pope Francis Roundup

  • In Assisi, Pope Francis slams 'paganism of indifference' Catholic News Agency 09/20/16:
    "Prayer and concrete acts of cooperation help us to break free from the logic of conflict and to reject the rebellious attitudes of those who know only how to protest and be angry," he said.

    Our path toward peace "leads us to immersing ourselves in situations and giving first place to those who suffer," the Pope stated.

    "To taking on conflicts and healing them from within; to following ways of goodness with consistency, rejecting the shortcuts offered by evil; to patiently engaging processes of peace, in good will and with God’s help."

  • On Triumph of the Cross, Pope Leaves No Doubt: "Father Hamel Is Blessed". Rocco Palmo, Whispers in the Loggia 09/14/16:
    Six weeks after Fr Jacques Hamel was murdered at the altar during morning Mass in a savage attack claimed by the Islamic State, the 85 year-old French cleric was commemorated today at another intimate “parish” Eucharist – the Pope’s daily liturgy in the chapel of his residence, the Domus Sancta Marthae, during which Francis expressly placed the priest’s killing as the newest of "this chain of martyrs" who, over two millennia, have "suffer[ed] in prison, with death, torture, for not denying Jesus Christ.

    "This cruelty that asks for apostasy is – let’s say the word – satanic," the Pope said, emphatically repeating twice more that "to kill in the name of God is satanic."

    Yet while the pontiff made no bones about the magnitude of Hamel's example during his homily, he later confirmed a major point he merely hinted at in the preach: in a private conversation with Hamel's ordinary, Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen – who led a diocesan group of 80 attending the Mass – the French prelate later told reporters that Pope had called for a local devotion to the assassinated priest, a statement which (despite the lack of a formal process) is tantamount to beatification, the step before sainthood.

  • Pope okays Argentine doc on Communion for divorced and remarried, by Ines St Martin. Crux. 09/12/16. "Although a recently published set of guidelines for implementing Pope Francis's document on the family in Argentina may have been only preliminary, the pontiff appears to have endorsed their main conclusion, which is that Amoris Laetitia opened the door to Communion for the divorced and remarried."

  • Pope Francis declares care for creation a new work of mercy Catholic News Agency. 09/01/16:
    “May the works of mercy also include care for our common home,” he said, explaining that as a spiritual work of mercy, care for creation “calls for a grateful contemplation of God’s world which allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us.”

    As a corporal work of mercy, he said, it “requires simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness and makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world.”

  • Pope Francis gives homeless in Rome a day out at the beach Telegraph UK 08/15/16. "For the first time in his pontificate, Pope Francis has dug into Vatican funds to provide a day at the seaside to those who normally cannot afford it – the homeless."

  • Most marriages today are invalid, Pope Francis suggests Catholic News Agency. 06/08/16:
    Pope Francis said Thursday that many sacramental marriages today are not valid, because couples do not enter into them with a proper understanding of permanence and commitment.

    While he initially said in unscripted comments that “the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null,” he later approved a revision of these remarks.

    When the Vatican released its official transcript of the encounter the following day, they had changed the comment to say that “a portion of our sacramental marriages are null.”

    • The great majority of Christian marriages are valid, by Ed Peters. In The Light of the Law 06/17/16:
      To assert, then, that “the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null” is really to claim that the great majority of Christians have failed to enter the most natural of human states and have failed to effect between themselves the exact sacrament that Christ instituted to assist them in it. The collapse of human nature presupposed for such a social catastrophe and the massive futility of the Church’s sanctifying mission among her own faithful evidenced by such a debacle would be—well, it would be the matrimonial version of nuclear winter. I am at a loss to understand how anyone who knows anything about either could seriously assert that human nature is suddenly so corrupted and Christ’s sacraments are now so impotent as to have prevented “the great majority” of Christians from even marrying! How can anyone responsibly even posit such a dark and dismal claim, let alone demonstrate it?

    • Pope Francis, Marriage, and the Missing Middle Term, by Edward N. Peters. Catholic World Report 06/17/16. "As happens so often when amateurs plunge into technical areas that they do not understand, Francis has taken a very narrow but plausible point and grossly exaggerated it."

  • Pope Francis announced the upcoming merger of four Pontifical Councils into one new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. The new dicastery – once again neither a Congregation nor as Pontifical Council – will take over and combine the mandates of four separate Pontifical Councils from 1 January 2017.

  • Pope issues motu proprio on removal of Bishops Vatican Radio. 06/04/16. In a new Apostolic Letter, issued motu proprio, Pope Francis has established new norms providing for the removal of Bishops (or those equivalent to them in Canon Law) from their offices in cases where they have "through negligance, committed or omitted acts that have caused grave harm to others, either with regard to physical persons, or with regard to the community itself."

  • Vatican confirms meeting with pope, traditionalist Catholic leader Crux 04/04/16. Confirming reports in the Italian press, the Vatican acknowledged Monday that Pope Francis held a 40-minute meeting on Friday with Bishop Bernard Fellay, leader of a group of traditionalist Catholics known as the Society of St. Pius X that broke with Rome a quarter-century ago.

Commentary

  • Pope Francis and the 'Docat': Book Q&A with Joseph Fessio, S.J. America 09/17/16. On July 26 at World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow, Pope Francis officially released the Docat, a youth catechism on Catholic social teaching collecting various magisterial and papal documents. Following up on the Youcat released by Pope Benedict XVI at World Youth Day in 2012, Ignatius Press was once again selected as one of several international publishers for the Docat, and Father Fessio served as an editor on the English-language edition. On Aug. 18, I interviewed him by email about this book.

  • Vatican diplomacy knocked out…But, just the diplomacy? Denzinger-Bergoglio 08/28/16:
    Recently, invited by Francis, Hebe de Bonafini went the Vatican to have a private audience with Francis – whom she had earlier labelled as a “fascist”, “trash” and other things that can’t be mentioned here, though she now admits: “I did not know of your commitment to the poor.”

    Hebe-de-BonafiniThis pious pilgrim to the Eternal City had “on one occasion publicly expressed her desire for the death of John Paul II, and after he died, she said the Pontiff would “go to hell.”

    She also said clearly : “We want him to burn alive in hell. He’s a swine. Even though a priest told me that a swine is to be eaten, this Pope is uneatable.”

  • Pope Francis vs. Gender Ideology, by Robert R. Reilly. Catholic World Report 08/13/16:
    In Krakow with the Polish bishops [...] Pope Francis declared that, "We are experiencing a moment of the annihilation of man as the image of God." He specifically included within this defacement “[the ideology of] ‘gender’”. He was clearly outraged that, "Today children – children! – are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex…And this [sic] terrible!"

    Then he quoted Benedict XVI, who had said to him recently: "Holiness, this is the age of sin against God the Creator." Francis’ response was that, "He is very perceptive. God created man and woman; God created the world in a certain way… and we are doing the exact opposite."

  • Laudato Si: The 40 Concerns of an Exhausted Layman Unam Sanctum Catholicam 08/08/16. "On my desk, I have had a copy of Laudato Si sitting out for the past year. I've been studying it whenever I have had time in order to really comprehend what the encyclical. Over that year, I have been working on a synopsis of my thoughts on the encyclical, which I am happy to offer now in the form of an eBook."

  • A Pope Like None Before. Somewhat Protestant, by Sandro Magister. www.Chiesa. 07/22/16. The idyll between Francis and the followers of Luther. The alarm of cardinals and bishops against the “Protestantization” of the Catholic Church. But also the distrust of authoritative Lutheran theologians.

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