Francis, part 7 (2016)

A new thread for a new year; the last one was over 500 posts and getting very slow to load.

Pope Francis urges people to overcome indifference to suffering (Guardian)

Away in a manger: Pope makes secret stop at Nativity scene's birthplace

The pope's holy new year

Both from NCR

Event seeks to explore common ground between Catholics and Protestants (NCR)

This article refers to the book Jesus, Pope Francis and a Protestant Walk into a Bar: Lessons for the Christian Church.

I don't know the background to this video, but someone drew my attention to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI0tiN88ldE&sns=fb

Pope Francis: Why mercy is essential in faith and life (BBC)

And three from NCR:

In new interview, Francis pushes for a church big on mercy, tough on law

The pope’s personal encounters with mercy

Francis explains 'who am I to judge?'

And the book: The Name of God is Mercy

Pope Francis to join Google's Eric Schmidt in rare tech industry meeting (Guardian)

>6 John5918:

That's an amusing meeting. What do the Pope and Eric Schmidt say? And what do they say in fifteen minutes?

Not quite Francis, but relevant

Church of England attendance plunges to record low
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/12095251/Church-of-England-attendance-p...

Official figures – based on an annual pew count – show that only 1.4 per cent of the population of England now attend Anglican services on a typical Sunday morning.

But on the other hand...

Twenty things the Church of England has done for us (Guardian)

And, they have called in a Catholic to try to help them with their current primates' meeting:

JEAN VANIER INVITED TO SPEAK TO BITTERLY DIVIDED ANGLICAN COMMUNION (Tablet)

Pope Francis' hand of friendship to Jews (BBC)

Edited to add:

Pope Francis makes his first papal visit to Rome synagogue (Guardian)

POPE SAYS GOD'S COVENANT WITH JEWS "IRREVOCABLE" IN VISIT TO ROME'S SYNAGOGUE (Tablet)

The gulf between Francis and Trump (NCR)

Pope Francis: a not-so-clear, but very present danger (NCR)

Bishops from Sudan and South Sudan invite Pope Francis to visit both countries (Rome Reports)

Pope Francis meets with Sudanese bishops: "Peace a priority" (Vatican Radio)

The Pope decrees that not only men may be chosen for the washing of the feet in the Liturgy of Holy Thursday (VIS)

Pope Francis preparing document on the family (NCR)

Pressure builds on Francis to relax contraception ban in face of Zika. I imagine he will want to see more proof of causality, before he acts--maybe within a reasonable doubt if not full proof? If Zika is causing microcephaly, surely he will support pragmatism, especially since WHO fears the virus will spread form Americas to naive populations in Asia and Africa?

https://www.inverse.com/article/10901-pope-francis-can-ease-the-zika-epidemic-by...

ETA: I imagine the pope who said we don't need to breed like rabbits might entertain relaxing contraception ban in emergency, but abortion will remain off the table (mercy).

The U.N. office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says women in countries stricken by the Zika virus — which has been linked to an increase in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads — should have access to birth control methods, including abortion in some cases...
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/02/05/world/europe/ap-zika-virus.html?_r=0

I quote a few lines from Richard Rohr's daily meditations which refer to both St Francis and Pope Francis:

The "alternative orthodoxy" of Francis of Assisi... In other words, it was action and lifestyle itself that mattered much more than mentally believing dogmatic or moral positions to be true or false...

Francis didn't bother questioning any of the mainline Christian doctrines. He was not personally oppositional, nor was he an intellectual. He just took the imitation of Christ absolutely seriously and tried to live the way that Jesus lived! This is such a simple and obvious agenda that I think we had to find a way to avoid it. The civil religion we have today doesn't demand changes to our lifestyle or familiar habits. The best way to avoid actually changing is to go into your head and endlessly argue about what "changing" means. Human minds love to argue, oppose, critique, judge, evaluate, and adjust--it gives our little minds a job. Academics, politicians, and seminary professors love to stay right there and rarely hit the streets of the incarnate or suffering world as Jesus clearly did...

Franciscan alternative orthodoxy doesn't bother fighting popes, bishops, Scriptures, or dogmas. It just quietly but firmly pays attention to different things--like simplicity, humility, non-violence, contemplation, solitude and silence, earth care, nature and other creatures, and the "least of the brothers and sisters." These are our true teachers...

Frankly, this is exactly what Pope Francis is doing for the whole church right now, and this is not making some cardinals, priests, and lay people very happy, especially those who live in their heads, always clarifying doctrinal and moral positions, as if God needed them to do that...

Why a meeting between the pope and Russian patriarch is finally happening (Crux)

‘Finally!’: pope and patriarch make history with first meeting in 1,000 years (Guardian)

Unity call as Pope Francis holds historic talks with Russian Orthodox Patriarch (BBC)

Pope and patriarch issue deep call for unity, saying humanity depends on it (NCR)

Francis meets the Russian patriarch, declaring: 'We are brothers' (NCR)

When Pope Francis Meets Patriarch Kirill: Will Eradicating Human Trafficking Be on the Agenda? (Aleteia)

16 contd.

...After a period of saying little, bishops in Latin America are beginning to speak up and reassert the church’s opposition to birth control and abortion — positions that in Latin America are unpopular and often disregarded, even among Catholics.

“Contraceptives are not a solution,” said Bishop Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, the secretary general of the National Council of Bishops of Brazil, and an auxiliary bishop of Brasília, in an interview. “There is not a single change in the church’s position.”

He urged couples to practice chastity or use “natural family planning,” a method in which women monitor their menstrual cycles and abstain from sex when they are fertile.

...according to a large international poll commissioned by Univision in 2014. Seventy-three percent of Catholics in Latin America said that abortion should be allowed in some or all cases, and 91 percent supported the use of contraceptives — a higher percentage even than in Europe or the United States.

...No Vatican department has yet issued a statement about the Zika issue, and it is not clear whether Pope Francis will address it during his trip to Mexico, where he will be until Thursday, said the Rev. Thomas Rosica, the English-language media attaché to the Vatican’s press office.

“The Vatican is very well aware of the seriousness of this issue, and the Holy Father is very aware of it,” Father Rosica said. “We’re waiting to see how the local churches in those countries respond.”

But Father Rosica said church teaching on abortion and contraception remains the same. The Zika epidemic, he said, presents “an opportunity for the church to recommit itself to the dignity and sacredness of life, even in very precarious moments like this.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/world/americas/catholic-leaders-say-zika-doesn...

Is the pope serious about confronting child abuse? (Guardian)

A 'revolution' based on the willingness to be vulnerable (NCR)

Pope Francis Calls Donald Trump ‘Not Christian’ on Immigration (WSJ)

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. This man is not Christian if he talks that way"...

not having seen Mr. Trump’s original statements on immigration, which were summarized for him by a reporter, the pope finally said he would give the candidate the “benefit of the doubt” as to the authenticity of his Christianity...

ON BOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — While strongly rejecting abortion as a solution to the Zika virus now sweeping across Latin America and elsewhere, Pope Francis nonetheless appeared to signal an openness to birth control to prevent infection.

In remarks to reporters on his way back to Rome from Mexico, the pope cited a decision by Pope Paul VI in the early 1960s to allow Catholic nuns in the Congo to take contraceptives to avoid pregnancy due to rape.

Avoiding a pregnancy under such circumstances, Francis said, “is not an absolute evil.” However, he did not say specifically that he would approve contraception in the fight against Zika...

http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2016/02/18/francis-signals-openness-to-birth-contr...

I propose we forbid the Pope to land. He has to stay on the plane 24/7/365, giving interviews. These interviews are gold.

>23 John5918:

I would wish he had been more delicate in his phrasing. But Francis speaks his mind, and I can't but agree that Trump's anti-immigrant moves are deeply contrary to Christian charity. I pray that some defect in his make-up, or some extraordinary sanctity I, in my blindness do not know, make Trump a better Christian than any of us.

>24 margd:

Boom goes the dynamite, as they (used to) say.

Full text of Pope Francis' in-flight interview from Mexico to Rome (CNA)

What he actually said about Trump appears to be:

a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.

A little more nuanced than some of the headlines.

The Grauniad reports Francis' nuanced words quite sympathetically (A papal tiff won Donald Trump more free publicity – but he may lose Catholics):

When a Reuters reporter asked Pope Francis what he thinks of Trump’s border wall plans on the Pontiff’s flight back to Rome, the Holy Father responded that he had not heard about these plans prior, so he’d “give him the benefit of the doubt”. But the Pope then added: “I’d just say that this man is not Christian if he said it this way.”

Pope Francis was so incredulous that such a bombastic individual could exist – or he’s so above petty repartee – that he continued speaking hypothetically rather than condemn Trump’s positions directly.

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said. “This is not in the Gospel.”

And BBC:

Donald Trump praises Pope Francis after US-Mexico wall row

US election: Donald Trump v Pope... who wins?

And the Grauniad on Zika:

Pope suggests contraception can be condoned in Zika crisis

I just love that the Pope green-lights contraception for Zika… and is upstaged by comments about Trump!

Francis signals opening on contraceptives in deadly Zika cases (NCR)

>28 timspalding:

I just love that the Pope green-lights contraception for Zika

Except he did not actually do so, except in the flights of fancy of headline writers. As noted at >24 margd: “he did not say specifically that he would approve contraception in the fight against Zika”.

What he said was:

1) Abortion is a more serious evil than contraception (undoubtedly and un-controversially true);
2) Contraception can intersect between the fifth and sixth commandments (also true and previously mentioned by the Pope);
3) There can be exceptions in relation to the use of the pill (also historically the position of Pope Paul VI), with an example used which might apply to Zika in that it has been pointed out rape is sufficiently common that abstinence might not always be available, though it is otherwise irrelevant to such disease situations (c/f HIV etc);
4) Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil (otherwise NFP and abstinence would be impermissible); and
5) A vaccine would be nice (undoubtedly and un-controversially true).

It is all overly verbose and meandering in his usual way, but it does not amount to green lighting anything.

If anything, the Pope’s habit of avoiding providing an actual answer to these type of questions, mostly shows he does not want the answer he would have to give to lead the media cycle (preferring the poor and the immigrant etc to dominate).

Though I am not sure if his hopeless muddle on if he intervenes in politics or not was a better lead ( the pope is for everybody and he can’t insert himself in the specific internal politics of a country … Thank God he said I was a politician because Aristotle defined the human person as 'animal politicus.').

The disavowal of Italian politics because “the pope is for everybody” also makes a muddle of his emphasis on being firstly the “Bishop of Rome”. Oh dear. How I miss Pope Benedict.

>29 John5918: Francis: "(Abortion) is a crime. It gets rid of one to save another. It's what the mafia does. It is a crime. It is an absolute evil."

Is this the kind of thinking that leads US bishops to forbid removal of miscarrying fetus until heartbeat fully stops, even though death of fetus is certain and the mom might be saved from bleeding to death?

(My sister lost a serious amount of blood giving birth because MD left a bit of placenta behind. Mistake was discovered a couple days later, placenta bit was removed, but by that time she was white as a sheet and about as steady. Amazing how much blood can be lost via just a scrap of retained placenta.)

>30 hf22: Oh dear. How I miss Pope Benedict.

...Pope Benedict said: “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”

Seewald followed this up with a question about whether the Church is “actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms.”

Pope Benedict responded, "She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."..."

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/analysis-what-the-pope-really-said-about-...

>31 margd:

None of Pope Benedict's comments quoted avoid the question or are a muddle. Nor are his other nuanced comnents on contraception, for example in his earlier 1996 book Salt of the Earth around page 200, which might surprise some on returning to them.

Which is partly why the breathless headlines are unsupportable - The teaching has always been more sophisticated than condoms or avoiding pregancy are banned in every circumstance.

So yes, I miss Pope Benedict. We don't get future Doctors of the Church on the throne of St Peter very often, but it was still too short.

>31 margd:

I still find it fascinating that in most of the world we think of cases such as married couples who are HIV-discordant, or women who might suffer from Zika virus, or (as in Francis' recent pronouncement) women being raped during a war, whereas in the Vatican the prime example that comes to Benedict's mind is a gay male prostitute. What does that say about the internal culture of the Vatican?

>30 hf22:

Welcome back, hf22.

the Pope green-lights contraception for Zika

Except he did not actually do so, except in the flights of fancy of headline writers

Well, true, if you are objecting to the rather over-the-top language that we have come to expect in US English. He didn't "green-light" contraception.

But if you take the slightly more nuanced headline from the Grauniad cited in >27 John5918:, "Pope suggests...", well, he does "suggest". According to CNA (>26 John5918:), his words were:

Paul VI, a great man, in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted nuns to use contraceptives in cases of rape... avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil. In certain cases, as in this one, or in the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear.

I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that Francis "suggests" or, as NCR puts it (>29 John5918:), "signals", that there might be an opening there. He does seem to be comparing favourably the two "certain cases" he cites, the nuns in Africa and the Zika virus.

And NCR's first sentence, "Pope Francis has signaled an opening on the use of contraceptives by Catholics, indicating that attempting to avoid pregnancy in the face of circumstances like the spread of the deadly Zika virus may not always be considered evil", is also cautious. "May not always be considered evil" is a far cry from a green light.

What the pope did, and didn’t, mean when he said Trump was not a Christian (Washington Post)

>34 John5918:

I don't think he suggested or signalled. I think he muddled nuance and casuistry, and avoided stating any conclusion.

Because for example, the Church never taught that avoiding pregancy was always (i.e. intrinsically and without qualification) evil.

The resulting confusion is still his fault however, and so I still miss Pope Benedict. Because nuance and casuistry are fine and good, but fail miserably without clarity of thought.

>33 John5918:

That is a hateful insinuation and I demand you withdraw it. Indeed your making it says more about you than Pope Benedict or rhe Vatican.

The case was used as an extreme example, which already has none of the things the HV sought to protect.

>36 hf22: the Church never taught that avoiding pregancy was always (i.e. intrinsically and without qualification) evil.

Well, precisely. So what Francis says is, er, orthodox.

>37 hf22:

The concept of a "gay lobby" in the Vatican was very much in the news two or three years ago. A quick Google search shows that Crux, for example, was still talking about it just last month. And gay prostitution in the Vatican has been in the news again recently, eg The Irish Times just four months ago.

Recognising a gay culture is only "a hateful insinuation" if you somehow think there is something bad about being gay. It's natural that one thinks first of examples from the cultural milieu which surrounds you, which is precisely why HIV-discordant couples in Africa and Zika-affected women in Latin America spring to mind in those contexts more than gay male prostitutes. That's not a value judgement.

There's still a lot of comment on Trump and the pope - here are three today from the Grauniad alone:

I don’t like fighting with the pope, said Donald Trump. And we believe him

Trump is a fool to mess with Pope Francis. He plays in a higher league

The pope should beware of criticising Trump. The church has its own walls and damnations

Suggesting Pope Benedict has gay prostitutes on the brain is a hateful insinuation, and I again demand you withdraw it. There is a history of these hateful suggestions around the former Pope, and your repeating it does you no credit.

>41 hf22:

My apologies if my post >33 John5918: was open to misinterpretation. I hope >39 John5918: has clarified it.

>42 John5918:

It clarifies only that you do not understand the point the former Pope was making, and your happiness to cast aspersions.

HIV discordant couples can't make point the former Pope was making - Because in that case there is a marital act which could be procreative etc, the disruption of which is the evil the condom ban seeks to avoid. But in the gay prostitute example the loveless sterile act outside any marriage bond does not have any of those goods to preserve. The condomn can't make it any worse - And thus only the positive elimination of the infection risk remains.

As to the Vatican culture, the gay lobby thing is overblown. As John Allen I think said, it is neither homosexual nor a lobby. And if there were such a lavender mafia, the money and fame on offer to reveal it would have worked already.

That angry Polish ex-cdf official would that outted them if it existed for example. Instead he spoke of his lack of supportive networks in the Vatican. So there are active gays, but it is not Brideshead Revisited.

And even if it existed and its members unexposed, the former Pope sure as hell is not a part of it. And suggesting otherwise without proof is unacceptable.

FAQ on Zika and microcephaly:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/health/what-is-zika-virus.html?_r=0

Two interesting facts:

It's the virus's invasion of large, naive population(s) that unmasked the correlation--in endemic areas, most young mothers would have already been exposed and so there would not be enough cases of microcephaly to make connection. With movement of infected people and mosquitoes (e.g. in shipments of used tires), the virus will no doubt access many, many new, naive hosts, some pregnant, over the next decade or two.

"In roughly 15 percent of cases, a small head is just a small head, and there is no effect on the infant". Which is great, and I hope no effect later, e.g., maternally transmitted HPV16 has been connected with a pediatric epilepsy. I understand that some of these microcephalic infants are so badly compromised at birth, though, that it's a triumph for them to suck (usually one of our first accomplishments), and there can be other problems as well (joints, so can't walk). Sad to hear on NPR the other day that poor moms often find they can't care for the child and abandon them to the state at about one year of age. Brazilian orphanages--not well-funded--expect a tsunami of such children to come into their care.

(Personally interesting to me as a CMV-negative blood donor that Cytomegalovirus also causes microcephaly. My blood is used on babies and immune-compromised patients, sometimes halfway across the country, which makes me feel especially useful. CMV infects 80% of adults, is usually pretty mild, and is easily spread--not just through sex--so apparently I can lose my useful status any time, though. Red Cross is now asking donors to wait 28 days after returning from an area where Zika is spreading...)

>43 hf22: the former Pope sure as hell is not a part of it. And suggesting otherwise without proof is unacceptable.

If you read both posts carefully you will notice that I did not suggest that the former pope is part of it. In >33 John5918: I made it clear (read the last sentence) that I was referring to the internal culture of the Vatican. In >39 John5918: I made it further clear that I am talking about cultural milieux. I'm afraid you have leapt to the defence of a pope who hasn't been attacked.

But you've piqued my curiosity by mentioning Brideshead Revisited. I've never read it, nor watched any of the screen adaptations, so I think I'll have a butcher's. Worth remembering occasionally that LT is primarily a book site!

>45 John5918:

Neither the Vatican culture nor the former Popes cultural milieu are gay cultures. Please stop casting these unproven aspersions, based on nothing more than your inability to understand.

Our best evidence and personal testimony is active gays feel isolated and alone at the Vatican. Not that it is part of the water cooler talk.

So stop it and apologize. It is unchristian.

In terms of Waugh, I actually prefer Vile Bodies. A man who deeply understood the attraction of vice, even in its ludicrous aspects, and yet why it is insufficient.

Pope Francis appeals for global end to capital punishment (Guardian)

Pope Francis has called for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty, saying the commandment “You shall not kill” absolute and valid for the guilty as well as the innocent...

The pope added there was now “a growing opposition to the death penalty even for the legitimate defence of society” because modern means existed to “efficiently repress crime without definitively denying the person who committed it the possibility of rehabilitating themselves”...

>30 hf22:

Some are spinning things the way you are--that the Pope was merely speaking about Natural Family Planning and contraception in cases of rape, because--of course--contraception could never be approved to fight a disease.

But, well, I'm disappointed that you are in the bunch here, and aren't intellectually embarrassed by the effort. The interpretation does violence to what Pope Francis said, and nobody--no secular source, no liberal Catholic source, no mainstream Catholic source--believes or even contemplates that this was what he was "really" saying. It's restricted to a small group of die-hards who can't accept what the Pope said, so they simply make it up.

Then, when Press Spokesman Lombardi explicitly reaffirms that Pope Francis was talking about contraception (that "contraceptives or condoms, in cases of particular emergency and gravity, can be the object of a serious discernment of conscience" source), the nuts decide that the only such emergency could be a woman likely to be raped during the Zika outbreak! So, apparently, if there's a Zika outbreak, and you know you're going to be raped, you can put a condom on your rapist. THAT'S what Pope Francis was talking about! Got it.

If you want the height of this take Pentin's article in the Catholic Register http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/popes-comments-on-contraception-in-accord-w... . I found it laugh-out-loud funny.

Sorry, but it's abundantly clear that the Pope said that contraception--yes, things like condoms, not just family planning--can under some circumstances--extreme but not restricted to rape--be licitly used to prevent infection and suffering. Maybe he shouldn't have said that, maybe he's not really the Pope, maybe he's the anti-Christ—whatever. But that's what happened, and only intellectual dishonesty can obscure it.

Oh dear. How I miss Pope Benedict.

Why? You invent him when he's not there.

But in the gay prostitute example the loveless sterile act outside any marriage bond does not have any of those goods to preserve. The condomn can't make it any worse - And thus only the positive elimination of the infection risk remains.

You are surely aware that, when conservatives spun it this way--that it was about non-procreative sex--that the Press Office explicitly shot down this interpretation. Right?

>49 timspalding:

Calm down. No need for such bombast. The comment was just overtaken by events. I had not seen Lombardi's clarification when I wrote >30 hf22:. What I had read, before the Pope made his comments, was Tina Beattie's piece on The Conversation which said in part (http://theconversation.com/like-aids-before-it-zika-virus-exposes-weakness-in-catholic-moral-teaching-54283):

To preach abstinence or the church’s approved method of natural family planning presumes that a woman has considerable control over whether and when to have sex – and, in the machismo cultures of Latin America, that is a counsel of perfection tantamount to a form of cruelty. In such cultures, wives are often expected to submit to their husband’s sexual demands – and women living in situations of violence, overcrowding and poverty face a high risk of sexual assault and rape. Women should have the right to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy in all such situations, but particularly when the consequences could be so catastrophic.

Hence why I said "in that it has been pointed out rape is sufficiently common that abstinence might not always be available". At the time, pre clarification, it was reasonable to think the not otherwise directly applicable rape example might be a response to this type of prebuttal.

Post clarification, I agree that construction is no longer reasonable, and point of the example must be taken to be that there are exceptions based on facts and circumstances. But given a clarification was required to get to that, and it still does not amount to approval that Zika is such a circumstance, I think my comment was reasonable at the time.

because--of course--contraception could never be approved to fight a disease.

I did not say that, nor do I think that. Last time I checked, the Church's official position on couples with different HIV status was not saying yes or no to condoms (there was a report commissioned under Pope Benedict which said a cautious yes I think, which never got a official response). And the double effect argument on that on appears to me respectable at least - Much stronger than any argument on Zika (where NFP would work as well as it ever does for the avoiding pregnancy effect sought, unlike HIV where it clearly does not stop infections).

But, well, I'm disappointed that you are in the bunch here, and aren't intellectually embarrassed by the effort

I don't know, I would be more embarrassed by judging a comment several days after the fact, based on information not available at the time (or at least clearly not considered, I am not sure when the clarification was actually released in English, just I did not see it until first thing in the morning the next day my time).

nobody--no secular source, no liberal Catholic source, no mainstream Catholic source--believes or even contemplates that this was what he was "really" saying.

Nobody, in the actual text of the articles beyond the headlines, say he "green-lighted contraception for Zika" either. It would still be appropriate to retract that claim.

So, apparently, if there's a Zika outbreak, and you know you're going to be raped, you can put a condom on your rapist. THAT'S what Pope Francis was talking about! Got it.

Oh, how horrible. The Pope used an example about the pill and rape, in a context where rape was being raised beforehand as an argument against NFP and abstinence, in an answer which required a press office clarification, so I must be crazy for thinking maybe his point was about rape.

Sorry, but it's abundantly clear that the Pope said that contraception--yes, things like condoms, not just family planning--can under some circumstances--extreme but not restricted to rape--be licitly used to prevent infection and suffering.

It is clear post clarification that was the point of the example, if not abundantly. But is it not clear Zika is such an example. Further, the fact is HV makes a big deal about the distinction between natural and artificial contraception, and while the Pope's brief comments don't they can't be assumed to eliminate it given his previous support for HV.

The other intervention which also now needs to be considered is the statement of the Filipino Bishop Conference, which has I think a claim to some insight when it puts emphasis on the question of the gravity of offenses. That is, the law of graduality, doing pastoral mercy in public instead of just in private (a difference in Pope Francis' approach noted by Archbishop Coleridge).

Now in recent history the Church has avoided providing public guidance on least worst options from sets which exclude that actually recommended by the Church, and for good reason. But it has always I think done otherwise privately.

You are surely aware that, when conservatives spun it this way--that it was about non-procreative sex--that the Press Office explicitly shot down this interpretation. Right?

I was aware at the time all those years, but clearly forgot in the interim, that it had been mistranslated to add a gender (though the outside marriage part remains vital for that example). I just assumed John's offering was right, and clearly skipped to the memories pre-clarification. My bad.

Though as I pointed out in reference to his earlier book Salt of the Earth, the exceptions made by Pope Benedict clearly extended beyond gay prostitutes.

Anyway, that still makes my main point, that the idea Pope Benedict had gay on the brain is just offensive nonsense. He did not even mention homosexuality in his example!

And I still miss Pope Benedict.

>48 John5918: Another report on the pope and the death penalty, from CNA/EWTN:

Pope Francis against the death penalty: criminals too have the right to life

Post clarification, I agree that construction is no longer reasonable, and point of the example must be taken to be that there are exceptions based on facts and circumstances.

With respect, I submit that your original understanding was driven by what you wanted to hear, not by a dispassionate attention to what he actually said.

But given a clarification was required to get to that, and it still does not amount to approval that Zika is such a circumstance, I think my comment was reasonable at the time.

It amounts to exactly such an approval, or, if you like, to the approval of the approval given when a woman submits the question to their discernment. To claim otherwise is, again, to let what you want to hear lead. It's like a leashed dog that really wants at a dead squirrel, and keeps lunging backwards at it, despite the steady progress of its owner.

Last time I checked, the Church's official position on couples with different HIV status was not saying yes or no to condoms (there was a report commissioned under Pope Benedict which said a cautious yes I think, which never got a official response). And the double effect argument on that on appears to me respectable at least - Much stronger than any argument on Zika (where NFP would work as well as it ever does for the avoiding pregnancy effect sought, unlike HIV where it clearly does not stop infections).

Indeed. The double-effect argument is stronger there. But I don't think he really cares about the relative arguments here.

Think back to his Press Conference that touched on that topic. The press read his avoidance of such a "technical" question, in favor of the "larger" ones through a lense of the Vatican setting capital-P policy, in the mode of Benedict and his CDF. But Francis has shown again and again that isn't invested in a legalistic, one-size-fits-all conception of his office or of Catholic thought. He's not setting policy, he's spreading the Gospel, which, in his view, sets a very high value on discernment and a very low value on the laying down of complicated rules by religious experts.

In other words, if we stop treating Francis like Benedict, and stop expecting him to churn out new "rules," and new clarifications of rules, it should be clear that, if an African woman discerns that it's okay for her to wear a rubber with her AIDS-carrying husband, the Pope is hardly standing in the way of that.

Nobody, in the actual text of the articles beyond the headlines, say he "green-lighted contraception for Zika" either. It would still be appropriate to retract that claim.

Meh. He made it clear that the technical and absolutist argument is dead, and it's a matter of discernement. That's a green light in my mind. Green lights don't tell the drivers they MUST drive, no matter what's in front of them; it tells them they aren't prohibited from doing so.

so I must be crazy for thinking maybe his point was about rape.

Given his words, indeed, I think you were very wide of the mark. And you got there by treating Francis like Benedict, as a font of technical answers, carefully words, to technical questions.

I would add that much of the same tin-ear is often applied to Jesus' own sayings--the common-sense, poetry and thrust of his words being put through a sort of philosophical sausage machine until he comes out a first-century Aquinas—or worse, since Aquinas needed no Aquinas to make sense of himself. The Latin philosophical tradition is particularly bad here, the Greek rather better. Consider, if you will, the sausage-making that turns Jesus' strong condemnation of divorce into the Latin church's gleaming set of rectangular, metal distinctions and regulations.

>53 timspalding:

With respect, I submit that your original understanding was driven by what you wanted to hear, not by a dispassionate attention to what he actually said.

With respect, I think you are at least as guilty as I on that score. And my construction was as I have mentioned less about what I wanted to hear, than about some of the pre-trip context I had on my mind from a progressive source. However the Pope’s approach to such matters is muddled, and we are perhaps all trying to read things in order to them to make sense. And indeed his clarifications often note we need to refer back to Church teaching. For example on his past comments on homosexuality, that clarification he provided was that he was merely providing an on the run precis of the position in the Catechism, rather than trying to replace the Catechism.

It amounts to exactly such an approval, or, if you like, to the approval of the approval given when a woman submits the question to their discernment.

Well no, that is still reading things in. He did not say go do it, or that this would be a case where discernment would provide confirm you should go do it. Nor did the clarification, or the responses by people who know him better than you or I (the Filipino Bishops). Referring to discernment is not a substitute for engaging in discernment, nor is one exception warrant for all others.

In other words, if we stop treating Francis like Benedict, and stop expecting him to churn out new "rules," and new clarifications of rules

Except that is what YOU are doing, and indeed where I think you go wrong. He is not setting new rules – Like for example Ok’ing artificial contraception for Zika. He is just, like Archbishop Mark Coleridge has suggested, acting like a confessor would in private (except now in public). That does not change the rules – HV is still the standard as the Pope has previously made clear (like in the Philippines). But in providing “accompaniment” as repeated noted at the Synod, the moral standards don’t always need to be harped on about. That lack of harping does not however destroy the standard itself.

it should be clear that, if an African woman discerns that it's okay for her to wear a rubber with her AIDS-carrying husband, the Pope is hardly standing in the way of that.

As I noted before, the same can be said about Pope Benedict, who allowed a positive report on this question to stand.

Meh. He made it clear that the technical and absolutist argument is dead, and it's a matter of discernement.

He did no such thing. Like I said, he is doing pastoral accompaniment in public, not changing the moral standards. The moral standards remain assumed and accepted, as he made clear in the Philippines, but it does not need to be repeated every second sentence for that to remain the case. You would like the moral argument of HV to be dead, but it clearly is not to the Pope.

Given his words, indeed, I think you were very wide of the mark. And you got there by treating Francis like Benedict, as a font of technical answers, carefully words, to technical questions.

Bullshit. I was very clear I think Francis could not be further from a font of clear answers. It was reading in, but reading in of something was required for the example to make any sense. The clarification just shows what needs to be read in (i.e. random example of discernment).

I would add that much of the same tin-ear is often applied to Jesus' own sayings--the common-sense, poetry and thrust of his words being put through a sort of philosophical sausage machine until he comes out a first-century Aquinas

And I thought it was only fundamentalists who tried to insist on a literal and historical only sense of Scripture. Scripture, being the inspired word of God, can teach more than its direct thrust. It can say more than what a 1st C Jewish audience was intended to pick up – It can speak new things to the whole Church through-out history just as much as it spoke to the first hearers of Christ. And this is precisely what the Development of Doctrine is – The unfolding of ideas at first only able to be imperfectly understood. The literal and historical sense still applies, including sensitivity to genre and immediate context, but it is not always the only truth being taught to us.

Consider, if you will, the sausage-making that turns Jesus' strong condemnation of divorce into the Latin church's gleaming set of rectangular, metal distinctions and regulations.

Jesus saying no divorce plus marriage as a sacrament basically makes the Latin Church’s position for it. Much of the rest is just changeable application, as seen for example in the recent annulment changes, which no one is suggesting is doctrine. As compared to the Greek position, which to try to make up for ignoring Christ on divorce, ignores him on the fact we are not married in heaven. Which is really taking leave of common sense.

>53 timspalding:

As an aside, it worth quoting the take of the Filipino Bishops linked at >51 margd::

"Francis, however, raised the view "that the evil of contraception was not of the same magnitude as the evil of abortion," Villegas said. "Clearly, this was sound moral reasoning. The evil of stealing a few pesos cannot be compared with the evil of plunder." Francis, he said, was in no way backing away from the church's stand against artificial contraception. "There may be circumstances that invite a re-evaluation of the judgment on artificial means of contraception," Villegas said, adding that once more "the pope has shown his sensitivity to complex human situations" and "allowed the world see the merciful face of the church.""

This is still reading a few things in, but I think these Bishops are closer to the Pope both personally and in terms of worldview than any here. Accordingly, subject to future events such as a treatment of HV in the soon expected response to the Synod (rumoured to be due for mid-March and over 100 pages along according to America), I am willing to defer to their judgement at this point.

Further, it must be said mainstream progressive Catholic outlets such as Commonweal and America are hardly taking the Pope's comments as a green light or the death of HV (http://americamagazine.org/content/all-things/pope-francis-zika-and-contraception and https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/pope-synod-contraception#comments). Nor is "Team Bergoglio" papal biographer Austen Ivereigh - Whose take was "Condoms per se were never 'banned'. Their use in marriage to prevent life was, and still is".

So I think you are out on a limb here, based more on hope than reality*. In your defence the Pope does have a ink blot quality, which invites and sometimes seems to demand speculation. But as seen with my own first take, sometimes speculation needs to be adjusted or dumped.

* If you want real crazy however, the traditionalists on twitter suggesting the Filipino Bishops are now is schism from Francis due to their agreement with him, has to take the cake.

Another thing to note in all this is the Popes imprecision going the other way. Abortion is not in Church teaching, contra the Pope's comments, an absolute evil. Indirect abortion, relying on the same principle of double effect, has generally been deemed acceptable.

And yet does anyone think indirect abortion is considered immoral by the Pope? No? Not even because indirect abortion could similarly be given as an example of exceptions available after discernment? Still no? Neither do I.

Some of the last few posts remind me a bit of this recent piece by Richard Rohr:

A major problem is that theologians and the Church have presented the Bible as a collection of mental ideas about which we can be right or wrong. This traps us in a dualistic and argumentative mind, which is a pretty pathetic pathway to Great Truth. Many people don't expect from the Bible anything good or anything really new, which is how we translate the very word "Gospel"--good news. So we first of all need mature people who can read texts with wider eyes, and not just people who want quick and easy answers by which they can affirm their ideas and self-made identities. The marvelous anthology of books and letters called the Bible is for the sake of a love-affair between God and the soul, and not to create an organizational plan for any particular religion. The Gospel is about our transformation into God (theosis), and not about mere intellectual assurance or "small-self" coziness.

>57 John5918:

Sounds like a smug way of ignoring God in preference for ones own idiosyncratic preferences. Which ironically locks in the most insufferable small self coziness.

Rather than allowing oneself and ones identity to be challenged by the uncomfortable truths of God.

My weakness has never needed the excuse of Zika to fail to live up to HV. My weakness is greater than any who do react to its threats. Standing up for the Church's truth does not make me comfortable - It nags at my conscience and reminds me of my dependence on the mercy of God.

However the Pope’s approach to such matters is muddled

You disagree with him. This is how you see it when you disagree with me too.

And indeed his clarifications often note we need to refer back to Church teaching. For example on his past comments on homosexuality, that clarification he provided was that he was merely providing an on the run precis of the position in the Catechism, rather than trying to replace the Catechism.

The Pope does indeed have a habbit of citing precent when he makes these statements. Yet the precedents he cite are not those cited by his opponents. In this case, for example, he cited a precedent by Paul VI that conservatives disagree with or deny, and slipped past many precedents someone like you would adduce. In the homosexuality case, his precedent was simiarly partial--omitting Ratzinger's "objectively disordered" and his determination that homosexual priests are inherently unfit and shouldn't be ordained.

In other words, if you think all he's doing is glossing the Catechism, you aren't paying attention.

Well no, that is still reading things in. ... Referring to discernment is not a substitute for engaging in discernment, nor is one exception warrant for all others.

Imagine your son wanted to play football. You told that, if he thought about it and felt he really must do it, he can do it. How would you read that? I'd read it as an approval. It's an approval in principle, contingent on your son thinking it through and feeling he had to do it.

He did not say go do it

You're right that's not "go do it," but that's not what "green light" means. Green lights are permission, contingent, I suppose, on thinking about it, not having an old lady and a baby carriage in the middle of the road, and being sure that it's what you actually want to do.

He is not setting new rules – Like for example Ok’ing artificial contraception for Zika.

He is okaying precisely that, in principle. I'm not sure how you can read it another way.

As I noted before, the same can be said about Pope Benedict, who allowed a positive report on this question to stand.

Right. But a report is a report. And when actually asked on the topic, Benedict said nothing of the sort, but asserted that condoms make AIDS worse. The situations would be analogous if Benedict had not intervened against some report that said contraception was allowed against Zika, but replied to an interview question by asserting that contraception make Zika worse.

As compared to the Greek position, which to try to make up for ignoring Christ on divorce,

It seems to me the Greek position is attending to some things Jesus said on the topic (Matthew 19:9, Matthew 5:32), whereas the Latin church is paying attention to more restrictive formulations, and dismissing Matthew.

the death of HV

Nobody is saying it is, because it's not. What's gone is the absolutist interpretation of HV.

What's gone is the grotesque set of interlocking logical certainties that lead some Catholics to believe that the Pope was really talking about women in Zika-infected countries who feared rape. HV remains. It's just no longer happening on Mars.

Nor is "Team Bergoglio" papal biographer Austen Ivereigh - Whose take was "Condoms per se were never 'banned'. Their use in marriage to prevent life was, and still is".

Agree. That was never the tradition. But this hasn't stopped any number of Catholic conservatives asserting that, for example, one must not wear a condom when having sex with a prostitute, or it's a second, and worse, sin. Indeed, you can find lots of "serious" and "orthodox" Catholics convinced that wearing a condom is worse than visiting a prostitute, or indeed rape (e.g., Catholic Answers).

If you want real crazy however, the traditionalists on twitter suggesting the Filipino Bishops are now is schism from Francis due to their agreement with him, has to take the cake.

As I've said before, if you paid attention to "Catholic Social Media," you'd believe that most Catholics believed the Pope was a heretic, or worse. It's a fun-house world of malcontents and Pharisees.

Another thing to note in all this is the Popes imprecision going the other way. Abortion is not in Church teaching, contra the Pope's comments, an absolute evil.

Again, nobody is misled. Everyone understood he was talking about intentional, direct abortion. He's no more wrong than a sign that reads "Abortion is murder!" Do call those signs imprecise because they lack an asterisk.

It's just that some Catholics don't want someone to preach the Gospel with passion and love; they want an exact and boring lecture.

>59 timspalding:

This is how you see it when you disagree with me too.

Sometimes your thinking is muddled. Sometimes you are just wrong. Sometimes you are wrong because of your muddled thinking. You sometimes you are right. I call it as I see it, and give reasons for my judgement.

In this case, for example, he cited a precedent by Paul VI that conservatives disagree with or deny, and slipped past many precedents someone like you would adduce.

The relationship of the precedent with Paul VI is disputed - The validity of the exception itself is not. Which makes the disputed facts beside the point.

In the homosexuality case, his precedent was simiarly partial--omitting Ratzinger's "objectively disordered" and his determination that homosexual priests are inherently unfit and shouldn't be ordained.

The Pope's own words are “On that occasion I said this: If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person?” Pope Francis told Tornielli. “I was paraphrasing by heart the Catechism of the Catholic Church where it says that these people should be treated with delicacy and not be marginalized.”

That is, it was in the Pope's mind a précis of "They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided". That does not eliminate the rest of the Catechism, nor does it need to be repeated on every occasion to remain valid.

Basically, this is why we can't have nice things. Because people like you make it feel necessary to repeat every hard truth on every occasion, even when otherwise inappropriate, by assuming it absence equals its abandonment.

In other words, if you think all he's doing is glossing the Catechism, you aren't paying attention.

Except that is what he explicitly clarified he was doing in that case. Son of the Church and all that. Choosing a difference emphasis is a real and substantial thing, but it is not all you make it out to be.

You told that, if he thought about it and felt he really must do it, he can do it. How would you read that? I'd read it as an approval.

Not what the Pope did. Imagine you son asked if you can take a life. And you told him that in some circumstances, difficult though they are, it might be justified. Does that mean it would be right for him to do so in his present circumstances - I don't think that is implied at all.

Basically referring to discernment is not a replacement for engaging in discernment. Nor is discernment a purely personal thing - It would also need to be applied by the Church in public settings (i.e. do Catholic healthcare providers give out condoms in Zika effected areas etc).

He is okaying precisely that, in principle. I'm not sure how you can read it another way.

It seems most people other than you, and the headline writers, think it must be read another way. Even progressives. There was no such principle offered.

One exception is not warrant for all others (that would be special pleading), nor does failing to mention the natural / artificial family planning distinction mean it has been abandoned.

Right. But a report is a report.

A report you commission and don't kill would seem to have a lot more considered weight than an airplane interview.

It seems to me the Greek position is attending to some things Jesus said on the topic (Matthew 19:9, Matthew 5:32), whereas the Latin church is paying attention to more restrictive formulations, and dismissing Matthew.

The Latin Church does not dismiss Matthew, but gives these passages a much more common sense application than the Coptic etc traditions which rely upon them (the Greeks actually don't seem to base their divorce so much on these passages, as the fact that divorce does actually destroy the sacramental marriage, despite being a sin even for porneia). An exception which consumes it rule is an exception which has been misinterpreted.

But this hasn't stopped any number of Catholic conservatives asserting that, for example, one must not wear a condom when having sex with a prostitute, or it's a second, and worse, sin.

Again, this is why we can't have nice things. That is an open question, because it is mostly moot (advice on how best to sin not being a major topic of recent Church teaching, though it could become so in an environment of graduality and accompaniment). It has been an open question since HV, and remains so. They can have their opinion, you can have yours.

But it being an open question does not mean your opinion prevails. It means it is open.

Do call those signs imprecise because they lack an asterisk. It's just that some Catholics don't want someone to preach the Gospel with passion and love; they want an exact and boring lecture.

Can't have it both ways I am afraid. For the contraception, you demand an asterisk, an exact and boring lecture. Otherwise whatever was left unsaid must have been abandoned! But when it goes the other way, you adopt the opposite tack, within the very same comment no less.

It is stupid and does not work - You just demolished your own argument. Try again.

>59 timspalding:

On a slight tangent, on the open question on non-marital contraception and intellectual consistency, the idea of "lifestyle ecumenism" proposed by Cardinal Schönborn and discussed at the Synod might be relevant*. Some people, including you I recall, were all for the need to recognise the marriage like and good things in non-marital sexual lifestyles and relationships.

Accordingly, just as a stable and supportive gay relationship might be deemed to be morally better than a gay hook up culture, similarly openness to life in a non-marital context would similarly need to be considered a moral improvement (i.e. as being closer to the moral standard of marriage).

I am not sure I would take that view in either case, or I think is anyone required to, but it could not be dismissed as "absolutist" by anyone who wants to recognise "elements of truth and sanctification" in non-marital sexual acts and relationships.

* And receiving some approval in para 71 of the final Synod report:

"The choice of a civil marriage or, in many cases, simply living together, is often not motivated by prejudice or resistance against a sacramental union, but from situations or cultural contingencies. In many circumstances, the decision to live together is a sign of a relationship which wants, in reality, to lead to a stable union in the future. This intention, which translates into a lasting, reliable bond, open to life, can be considered a commitment on which to base a path to the Sacrament of Marriage, discovered as God's plan in one’s life. The path of growth, which can lead to a sacramental marriage, is to be encouraged by recognizing the traces of a generous and enduring love, namely, the desire of a couple to seek the good of others before their own; the experience of forgiveness requested and given; and the aspiration to form a family not for itself but open to the good of the ecclesial community and all of society. While pursuing these goals, value can also be given to those signs of love which properly correspond to the reflection of God’s love in an authentic conjugal plan."

>61 hf22: from situations or cultural contingencies. In many circumstances, the decision to live together is a sign of a relationship which wants, in reality, to lead to a stable union in the future

This has been a very common practice in many parts of Africa. A marriage is not considered stable until the bride price is paid, which often takes many years, and until the marriage has been blessed with one or more children. Thus a couple does not want to take the serious step of sacramental marriage until they are at a certain stage in their civil / cultural / traditional marriage. It is far from being "motivated by prejudice or resistance against a sacramental union"; rather it demonstrates a reverence for the sacramental union. It is very definitely "open to life" with "the aspiration to form a family".

>61 hf22:

Well, you've switched moral categories. It's one thing to commend and encourage openness to life outside of marriage, or--what's rather more than "openness"--when unmarried straight or gay people adopt or otherwise create families with children.

It's quite another to reduce "openness to life" to a simple, binary dichotomy between the sinful and the licit, hedged by an arcane and mechanical set of rules and regulations.

Anyway, I don't think we are to commend a man for refusing to wear a condom with a prostitute, because, in being "open to creating a life," it's a step toward a more moral life.

>63 timspalding:

I am sorry, but that is just blather covering for double standards. We are not talking binaries between sinful and licit - We are talking more or less moral / sinful in the context of already sinful acts.

And if we can't commend openess to life in non marital sexual acts#, we even more so can't commend a more stable gay relationship (it being a greater commitment to the disordered relationship after all). Not at least without hypocrisy or rejecting Church teaching.

The unprincipled use of these ideas, only to the extent they help your view, is tiresome. Seek truth, not support.

# Noting each aspect would need to be considered separately. Openness to life is good, but coercing the other party to the act in relation to such openness would presumably be a more grave negative, leaving you with a worse situation overall morally speaking.

>62 John5918:

It has always seemed to me like the avoidance of baptism in the time of St Augustine. A cheap legalism which cheats people of grace.

>65 hf22:

Interesting. It seems to me to be nothing like the avoidance of baptism and to have nothing to do with legalism, whether cheap or otherwise. It is, I repeat, to do with reverence for the sacrament of marriage. It might be deemed a misplaced reverence, the wrong way to revere it, but it has nothing to do with avoidance, cheapness or cheating. Glass half empty, glass half full; if you want to see (or project?) negativity into everything then of course that's what you'll see.

>66 John5918:

The avoidance of baptism was also because of the high regard it was held in. The high regard drove the legalism.

As in this case. But it is still legalism, and does nothing except deny couples the grace of the sacrament, damaged by sin. No advantage will be gained at the judgement seat of God for not divorcing because you spent years of conjugal life outside marriage. Quite the opposite I would say.

Lord, make me chaste, but not yet! is not the prayer we are called to by God.

Francis conducted Mass in Mayan region of Mexico partly in Mayan languages, asking for forgiveness for the oppression of indigenous peoples--as he has previously elsewhere. Some native people have requested that he rescind the 1455 Bull of Discovery, which authorized some of the worst. Why doesn't he, I wonder, except maybe that it underpins some current law and its withdrawal might prompt huge disruptions? I wouldn't think, though, that he would hesitate to afflict the "money changers"?

>64 hf22:

Well, it depends how you see a gay relationship. If you think that gay relationships per se are simply and exclusively immoral, then anything that strengthens the relationship is, I suppose, immoral.

But I was under the impression Catholics like you were trying your hardest to say--for most I'd rate it no better than "pretend"--it's about the intinsic immorality of gay sex, not about gay people, gay people liking each other, going to movies together, making diner together, and generally enjoying their lives.

In either case, I'm not sure why "context" comes in. Morality is about acts done and not done. It may be immoral for two people to have sex, but it's moral and commendable to have and raise a child well. That this is done in the "context" of two married people, two remarried people, two single people, two gay people or a single person doesn't seem significant to me.(1) Morality is not about "context" in this way any more than, if a couple were to make external charitable acts a cornerstone of their relationship, we'd denigrate the almsgiving of two gay people for its "context" and the way the joint effort increased their "commitment to the disordered relationship."

The avoidance of baptism was also because of the high regard it was held in. The high regard drove the legalism.

The motive was not regard, but the belief that baptism was the only occasion for receiving forgiveness of serious sins. You could sin before baptism and be forgiven, but not after. If you believed this, delaying baptism made perfect sense. Insofar as this was a live theological question, I'd say it wasn't legalism at all.

---

1. Indeed, considering that a single parent has a much harder job, and a single Catholic parent has to put up with scolds and Pharisees criticizing their lives, faith and families, and considering that Jesus loves the struggling and suffering and hates scolds and Pharisees, I'd say such "contexts" are holier than most.

>69 timspalding:

it's about the intinsic immorality of gay sex, not about gay people, gay people liking each other, going to movies together, making diner together, and generally enjoying their lives.

Sure. But if the commitment is to the sexual relationship, it would be in that respect arguably worse.

In either case, I'm not sure why "context" comes in ... Morality is not about "context"

And if so, openness to life remains a more moral choice, regardless of marriage status. Which is my point. Being in favour of "lifestyle ecumenism" and trying to limit HV strictly to the married are in conflict. I don't see how a principled person could hold both without a double standard. The text of HV might allow it to be so restricted to the married, but the logic of "lifestyle ecumenism" does not.

So again, you can't have it both ways. Pick one. Because at this point you are arguing against yourself in each alternating comment.

The motive was not regard, but the belief that baptism was the only occasion for receiving forgiveness of serious sins.

Such a belief would be to hold it in high regard.

You could sin before baptism and be forgiven, but not after. If you believed this, delaying baptism made perfect sense.

And you can fornicate before marriage, and still be forgiven and get married, whereas you can’t get remarried. So on the same legalistic basis, delaying marriage makes perfect sense.

Insofar as this was a live theological question, I'd say it wasn't legalism at all.

It is precisely a legalism, seeking to avoid the substance / spirit of the law with its letter. Seeking to be able to sin as much as you can, by delaying an unrepeatable Sacrament. The will of God is that we not sin. Trying to game divine law so you can sin more is legalism.

Jesus loves the struggling and suffering and hates scolds and Pharisees

It is no sin to be a single parent, and the only scold here is your comment. And I doubt Jesus hates orthodox Jews, or anyone else for that matter. So which side of the ledger does that put your comment on?

>68 margd:

There is nothing to rescind. Those bulls ceased to apply centuries ago in a practical and legal sense, and they don't contain any Catholic doctrine which could be disowned (mostly they just sinfully applied just war doctrine by misrepresenting facts#).

We could symbolically rescind them I suppose, but it would not mean anything extra from a Church point of view. The lifting of the 1054 excommunications in modern times were similarly just theatrical symbolism (i.e. as excommunication is lifted by death, so there was no penalty to remove).

# That is, what activists call the Doctrine of Discovery is not a Church doctrine at all, though it was a secular legal doctrine at one point. The Church doctrine used was in essence Just War - The Bulls just assumed non-Christians were all waging wars of aggression on Christians. It was however in reality the other way around in the New World.

Ethiopia's Orthodox Patriarch to meet with Pope Francis (Vatican Radio)

I have met the Patriarch, who has taken an interest in resolving the conflict in neighbouring South Sudan.

Being in favour of "lifestyle ecumenism" and trying to limit HV strictly to the married are in conflict.

I'm unsure what you think I think. So, a reset.

I do think it's commendable for people to be open to life, when that openness isn't irresponsible or worse. So, I think it's commendable when two remarried people have a child, or when two gay people do.

Deciding not to wear a condom on your sex tourist trip to Thailand is not commendable, and indeed immoral, because it's gross and irresponsible. You're precipitating an abortion or a single-mother with a child. You're being open to death or to a life you won't have to support. I'm sure 99.9% of Americans or Australians would agree.

So again, you can't have it both ways. Pick one. Because at this point you are arguing against yourself in each alternating comment.

Can you explain why I am? Are we disagreeing or merely not understanding?

Such a belief would be to hold it in high regard.

Meh. I don't think that we hold baptism in a lower regard now. We just have a more fully-developed theology of sin and repentance.

It is precisely a legalism, seeking to avoid the substance / spirit of the law with its letter. Seeking to be able to sin as much as you can, by delaying an unrepeatable Sacrament. The will of God is that we not sin. Trying to game divine law so you can sin more is legalism.

No, I don't think that's right. If you indeed postpone baptism--or, today, confession--in order to sin more, then that would obviously be a grave sin. But having the measure of yourself, knowing that you'll probably sin in the future, and not wanting to risk your salvation, is not sin.

Sometimes when I confess I know I'll do it again. But I commit myself to trying. If I belied that confession required me to PROMISE I wouldn't do it again, and going back on my promise was a desecration of the sacrament, I'd have to choose between desecrating the sacrament or avoiding the sacrament. That's not a choice between legalism and its opposite. It's just bad theology.

It is no sin to be a single parent

Indeed. My point is that, being beset by people who do believe that--or anyway show single parents all manner of judgment and condemnation--I suspect Jesus loves them all the more.

And I doubt Jesus hates orthodox Jews, or anyone else for that matter.

Indeed, but Jesus hates the attitudes and behaviors of Scribes and Pharisees, and expresses it in ways that are pretty severe. You need only read passages like Matthew 23:1ff.

As for Jews, it's certainly true that modern Judaism is descended from Pharisaic schools. But it doesn't embrace the things that Jesus criticizes in the Pharisees. If, however, a Jew does the sorts of things that Jesus criticizes--making a big and fake show of piety, having no mercy, etc.--then, yes, that criticism still stands.

I have met the Patriarch, who has taken an interest in resolving the conflict in neighbouring South Sudan.

Great. Tell us more about the meeting?

>73 timspalding:

Well, you know what it's like when we little people meet the big people. At a personal level you just get to exchange a few words of greeting and introduction.

He and the other Ethiopian church leaders, including the Catholic Cardinal, invited a group of our senior church leaders (the heads of the seven churches which make up the South Sudan Council of Churches, including our Catholic archbishop) to Addis Ababa last year, and I accompanied them as a technical advisor. We sat in two meetings with the Patriarch and discussed what the Ethiopian church could do to help us bring peace to South Sudan. He was articulate and interested, and left me with a good impression. He and the Cardinal personally took our church leaders to meet the Ethiopian Prime Minister the next morning, and assured us they would do the same again whenever necessary.

>73 timspalding:

I'm unsure what you think I think. So, a reset.

My confusion stems from your comment at >59 timspalding:, dismissing those who think condoms should not used when having sex with a prostitute, or it's a second sin more broadly in otherwise immoral acts. And the continued terming of them as absolutists or tied up in technicalities.

You're precipitating an abortion or a single-mother with a child. You're being open to death or to a life you won't have to support. I'm sure 99.9% of Americans or Australians would agree.

Well that is conflating two aspects, which from a "lifestyle ecumenism" perspective we need to consider separately. So being open to life is good, but not doing so as a couple is bad, as is abandoning a mother or child.

For example the final synod report speaks of “the just way for family planning is that of a consensual dialogue between the spouses, respect for the times of fertility and consideration of the dignity of the partner”. My own confirmation of this was made at >64 hf22: – “coercing the other party to the act in relation to such openness would presumably be a more grave negative”.

merely not understanding?

Possibly. The conflict I see is between saying context means openness to life is not more moral in some non-married situations, whereas things like stability in gay relationships are.

If being closer to the moral standard of marriage is good, then it is always good, regardless of we if we speaking of openness to life or other marriage-like elements in gay relationships.

I don't think that we hold baptism in a lower regard now.

I am not suggesting we do – We continue to hold it in high regard. Nor would I suggest Africans who delay marriage hold it in higher regard than those actually just enter a sacramental marriage.

But having the measure of yourself, knowing that you'll probably sin in the future, and not wanting to risk your salvation, is not sin.

But that is precisely legalism. Trying to game the divine law in order to improve your chances of salvation. But it fails, as sin not timing separates us from God, and he is not tricked by a lawyer’s ruse.

That's not a choice between legalism and its opposite. It's just bad theology.

Not sure what point you are driving at here? Because we really do promise to keep faithful when we marry, and failing in that promise has real consequences. But we try, we receive the grace that means we may succeed.

My point is that, being beset by people who do believe that--or anyway show single parents all manner of judgment and condemnation--I suspect Jesus loves them all the more.

That is not particular a modern Catholic fault, so I don’t really see the relevance here. Or in theory a traditional Catholic one - Repentant prostitutes etc, or those thought to be, not being absent from those enrolled as saints. Also I am not real comfortable with the implication Jesus loves sinners less. God loves – Even the greatest sinner. Hates the sin surely, but loves the sinner no less.

You need only read passages like Matthew 23:1ff.

Sure, no denying. But sinner and sin are not the same – An always important point.

>71 hf22: Just curious about church perspective--I am only vaguely aware of Discovery's importance in US property law and treaties with Native People, having observed some of the treaties play out in fishing rights, and hearing about (Mohawk, Akwesasne) land claims on both sides of the St. Lawrence River. Apparently the Onandaga requested last three popes repeal Discovery, and it's a topic in the Iroquois Confederacy, (includes Onandaga):

...Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the doctrine in a 2005 ruling against the Oneida Indian Nation. The ruling affirmed the government’s sovereignty over lands, even if they’re sold to an Indian tribe.

If the church were to dissavow the decree, (Onandaga) Lyons said it would remove a legal argument against tribal land claims.

(Onandaga) Frichner said Onondaga elders first pushed the church to revoke the doctrine in 1992. Pope John Paul II was open to discussions about the the doctrine, she said, but Pope Benedict shut them down.

Talks “were reduced to, ‘Well, this is old history,’” Frichner said....

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/natives-pope-treat-humans-article-1.128715...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine

Well that is conflating two aspects, which from a "lifestyle ecumenism" perspective we need to consider separately. So being open to life is good, but not doing so as a couple is bad, as is abandoning a mother or child.

Inquiring minds want to know how you feel about wearing a condom from raping someone.

openness to life is not more moral in some non-married situations

When you regard prostitution and rape as a "non-married situation" alongside others morally you lose virtually everyone. You get this, right?

Not sure what point you are driving at here? Because we really do promise to keep faithful when we marry

You've skipped topics.

>76 margd:

Just curious about church perspective

I think the official Church perspective is to be confused and bemused. From a Church point of view, there is no doctrine of discovery to repeal. Does not exist now, did not exist then. There is just some old documents based on lies, repealed centuries ago, with no ongoing doctrinal or legal effect.

I suspect the Church would be happy to oblige the various native people, if only the Church could translate the request into something capable of being done.

If the church were to dissavow the decree, (Onandaga) Lyons said it would remove a legal argument against tribal land claims

Sadly what the Church does or does not do on these questions has zero implications for US law or the approach of the US Supreme Court.

>77 timspalding:

Inquiring minds want to know how you feel about wearing a condom from raping someone.

Heh, this question is a problem for you, rather than me. My answer is stop being an evil fuckwit, and don't rape people. I, with the Church of recent decades, am not real interested in advising people how best to conduct evil actions.

But if like you and the recent Synod another permissible approach is preferred, and you want to insist on being able to identity elements of truth and goodness even in overall immoral situations (i.e. like gay relationships), the same analysis has to be able to be applied to even really fucked up immoral situations. Because otherwise you are just being a hypocrite. Because either elements of good can be recognised in overall bad acts, or they can't. The perceived gravity of the overall badness can't eliminate what, if any, good elements should be recognised.

For myself, if forced to answer what should really be left moot, I would say there are two options. One would be to say it has nothing to do with the marriage act, HV has nothing to say for it, and therefore not using a condom would just be an extension of the evil act of rape (i.e. coercing openness to life is rape and therefore evil). In which case I could also not find positives like stability in gay relationships, because similarly the Church's positive teaching on marriage has nothing to say for it, and stability would just be commitment to the sin.

The other alternative would be to apply "lifestyle ecumenism", and say good elements even if immaterial can be found in immoral acts, to the extent they find commonalty with the closest moral action (i.e. marriage). In which case openness to life would be a good element, though the separate element of coercing the other party to the act in relation to such openness would be a more grave negative (which I suppose remains at stop being an evil fuckwit and don't rape people, but acknowledges what positives as can be found). In which case I could also find positives like stability in gay relationships, because similarly the Church's positive teaching on marriage would speak to it, and stability as a separately identifiable element is good.

Either alternative is I think permissible Catholic view, as presumably are others I have not thought of. But what does not work as a principled Catholic view is trying to apply one standard to gay relationships, and the other standard to things you think are actually sinful.

When you regard prostitution and rape as a "non-married situation" alongside others morally you lose virtually everyone. You get this, right?

No one is pretending they are of the same gravity, or contain the same number of good elements which could be recognised. But they all fall in the category of immoral sexual acts, to which the basic answer is don't do it.

You've skipped topics.

I was talking about the shared legalism between deferring baptism and marriage. I have however lost what objection you were trying to make to that proposal.

And for a convergence of topics, contraception and temptations to legalistic trickery (http://wdtprs.com/blog/2016/02/ask-father-must-sterilized-couple-seek-reversal/).

"Dear Pope Francis: The Pope Answers Letters from Children Around the World"
by Pope Francis (Author)
Amazon: #1 Best Seller in Children's Christian Books

>80 hf22:

I wonder what Fr. Z would say about reversing sex changes in a marriage. I'm guessing he'd be against it in that case, since the line is that any such operation is "mutilation." Or is it acceptable to reverse a mutilation? Can one have two plates of muskrat on Friday, if one started eating on Thursday?

>82 timspalding:

According to the authorities, might be praiseworthy but not required, particularly if burdensome. Also a valid marriage could only be contracted with someone opposite to your actual biological sex (if at all). And existing pre change marriages (and orders) would remain valid unless null for other reasons.

And presumably a real moral question for some, who might find your snark says more about you than its intended target.

You two do always remind me of each other - Your online contributions seem to share many of the same unpleasant aspects, even if applied in different directions.

Pope Francis: The Church doesn't need 'dirty money' (CNA)

Anyone involved in events for 24 Hrs for the Lord at the moment?

Its been really good here, and still going of course. Lots of energy.

Pope Francis changes remarriage rules! (For heads of state) (NCR)

And does not appear to change them for everyone else (http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-mller-cant-receive-communion-you-can-still-participate-in-churchs-life-92048/).

Noting the Pope's Synod Response has reportedly already been written, and that Cardinal Muller has already seen it. No point in public lobbying now, and a public prebuttal against a Pope by his CDF head seems unthinkable even these days.

Yemen conflict: Pope Francis condemns 'diabolical' killing of nuns (BBC)

Pope expresses interest to visit South Sudan (Sudan Tribune)

Vatican imposes new financial rules for saint-making process (Guardian)

Catholic church announces crackdown on multimillion-euro canonisation system

Pope Francis approves new rules for funds of Saints' Causes (Vatican Radio)

Pope Marks Third Anniversary of Election with Talk on Mercy (CNS)

New Parish in honour of Pope Francis’ visit to Uganda (Vatican Radio)

51 contd.

Puerto Rico Braces for Its Own Zika Epidemic
Intensive efforts to stop the virus have begun on the island, where a
quarter of the population will get it within a year, the C.D.C. predicts.

...Roberto González, archbishop of the Catholic Church, publicly criticized the (Puerto Rican) government’s condom distribution plans. Instead, he counseled people to “practice self-discipline, which we believe is the only rational attitude and faith.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/health/zika-virus-puerto-rico.html

ETA: Gonzalez himself obviously suffers himself from acardia (congenital absence of heart) as well as microcephaly:

...Aside from a noticeably smaller head, the following are the most common symptoms of microcephaly.

High-pitched cry
Poor feeding
Convulsions
Increased movement of the arms and legs (spasticity)
Hyperactivity
Developmental delays
Mental retardation

... life expectancy for children with microcephaly is reduced, and the prospects of attaining normal brain function is poor.

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/childrens-hospital/health-info/diseases-conditions...

Too often families break up, and the mother is left to take care of the child alone. The least affluent in sub/tropical areas are most exposed to the disease-carrying mosquito.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-zika-women-idUSKCN0WD21D

He who makes a law, and immediately treats himself as above it, has not done an admirable thing (http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/pedilavium-or-foot-washing-such-wealth.html?m=1).

Especially when there was nothing requiring the restriction he included and ignored. Generally from the People of God, from amongst those present. All theologically fine and consistent with the meaning he revised the rite to have.

It reflects poorly.

>93 hf22:

The Lord did not, as people sometimes carelessly assert, "wash the feet of his disciples"

Apparently St. John is careless, since it's a direct quote from the Biblical text.

Rapists and Paedophiles? Victims of ecclesiastical prejudice such as the Franciscans of the Immaculate? Suicide Bombers?

Eye-roll.

himself washed Moslem feet

The word you're looking for is "Muslim." "Moslem" hasn't been the word since at least 1890. Intentionally using outdated racial and religious words is both stupid and offensive.

See https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=muslim%2Cmoslem&year_start=180...

>94 timspalding:

Not good points#, nor relavant to my point. So shrug.

# St John's is not the only account, the test of mercy are sins you actually hate, and older gentlemen sometimes use spelling variants current when they were formed.

St John's is not the only account

It's simply not reasonable to assert that the accounts require that the only people there during the meal and after were the Twelve alone. Who cooked the meal—the twelve?

Even if it weren't ambiguous—if Jesus washed only the apostles—it has no necessary implications for whom the Pope can wash. What else happened that night? The institution of the eucharist. Are we to imagine this requires the church to restrict the eucharist to the Twelve?

People around the world are moved by this—thinking that washing the feet of prisoners and refugees is exactly how a Pope should demonstrate love and service today. On the other side there are a large number of Catholic bigots screaming about how the Pope is washing the feet of terrorists, and a smaller number of liturgical fussers colluding with the bigots because they prefer a static ritual over dynamic love.

Which category is your author in? I say the bigot side:

"How endearingly Traditionalist that ISIS should impose the old Ottoman tax on Christians in Mosul!

I think this could turn out to be very helpful to community relations in this country. As everybody knows, our own Islamic community is opposed to extremism and intolerance; indeed; those who know much more than I do about Islam inform us that the actions of ISIS are anti-Islamic.

So: all that the Islamic communities in our country need to do is to have collections and to use their financial resources to supply to the Christians of Mosul the money which the latter are having to pay to ISIS in order to avoid being martyred.

This will deal a powerful blow to Islamophobic bigots in this country, and convince ordinary people that our Moslem fellow-countrymen share fully our sense of decency and fair-play."

You can just see him snickering over this little bit of sarcastic fun.

older gentlemen sometimes use spelling variants current when they were formed

Meh. You're just not being sensitive to nuance of language. If you read Catholic trad and anti-muslim sites, and normal Catholic websites, and particularly comments by such people, you'll see that "Moslem" is not a neutral term used by old people or something. It's tinged, like the relative propensity for certain people to say someone is "a Jew" and others to say someone is "Jewish."

>96 timspalding:

It's simply not reasonable to assert that the accounts require that the only people there during the meal and after were the Twelve alone. Who cooked the meal—the twelve?

How could it be reasonable to refer to the accounts of the other evangelists, who note that Jesus “sat at table with the twelve disciples” (Mt 26:20; cf. Lk 22:14 and Mk 14:16). How could it be reasonable to refer to the nature of the norms of the relevant social custom, to which Jesus was referring and somewhat subverting, where it was the feet of guests who were washed? How could it be reasonable to refer to the venerable interpretation of the Church, who has prayerfully soaked itself in Scripture over centuries, and where the apostles only view has found much favour?

How indeed when we can invent others not demanded by the text and not consistent with the context? How indeed when we can spout agenda driven and out of context proof texts?

It is pathetic, shallow and untenable. And does not even achieve anything, now the attempt to make it support the case for women priests has become obsolete, which I will address with your next comment.

It has no necessary implications for whom the Pope can wash.

Indeed. Which is what makes your mangled exegesis, or better eisegesis, so silly. Because this was PRECISELY one of the main points of Fr. Hunwicke's blog post, and why he said:

I persist, against all the traddy shock-horror, in considering this No Big Deal ... Since the Pedilavium is, in historical terms, a very recent and completely optional importation into the Liturgy of a ceremony which (where it was done at all) used to be extra-liturgical and took varying forms, I cannot see why any Roman Pontiff ... should not be entitled to juggle around with it, and to give it whatever new meaning or meanings he chooses to suit his own specific social context.

Which your comments might have taken into account, if they exhibited any interest in dialogue with real people, rather than shadow boxing with caricatured stereotypes.

On the other side there are a large number of Catholic bigots screaming about how the Pope is washing the feet of terrorists, and a smaller number of liturgical fussers colluding with the bigots because they prefer a static ritual over dynamic love.

Again, your comments are targeted at your own caricatured stereotypes, and have failed to engage with what you have purported to have read. Because neither Fr. Hunwicke or myself are suggesting the Pope can't wash the feet of anyone, even a terrorist if it came to that, because the mercy of God is not so limited.

What we are suggesting is, that if you are going to change a law which includes a specific limitation and then ignore it, you have done a discreditable thing. Is the Pope as Supreme Legislator incompetent - He meant to include Muslims, which he could have without an theological objection from either Fr. Hunwicke or myself, and failed. Or is his as Supreme Legislator thinking he is above his own law, which is not a desirable relationship with power. Or something else?

Which category is your author in? I say the bigot side:

Your comments are the only thing which appear to fall into the bigoted side of things, in the way they dehumanise our Muslim brothers and sisters. But then as Pope Francis would affirm, angry and self-righteous comments aimed at the mote in a brothers eye rather than the sinful log in our own, so often are.

For you see, gently and humorously suggesting a group might find it easier to excuse their own is not bigoted, because that is a fault of all us members of fallible humanity. For a Catholic example, we need look no further than diaspora Irish Catholics in places like Australia and the USA, who had little trouble making excuses for the civilians killed by the IRA, while continuing to provide financial and other support. I catch myself doing it often enough, and surely I do not catch every time I do.

But when you seek to exclude others from our sinful humanity, you precisely Other them, dehumanise them. It is the soft and paternalist bigotry of the civilised, but no less degrading and dangerous for that.

Meh. You're just not being sensitive to nuance of language

The reds under the beds codeword stuff is stupid. This is the modern internet - If people want to be racist then they just come out and be racist. No codewords, no dog whistles.

Not to mention that: "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

Normal people just are not super-sensitive to supposed nuances of language. They say things like the Jews and the Christians, not because they are anti-semitic, but because that is natural to them (whereas Jewish people may not be). An Australian may call a person from Pakistan a Paki, not because Paki is considered racist in the UK, but by analogy with the perfectly acceptable way he himself is called an Aussie. Indeed a friend of mine used to refer to a stomach flu as a stomach "wog", not because it was once an ethnic insult for people of Greek / Italian extraction, but because that was what they called it when she was growing up even though that meaning has been lost in contemporary Australian usage (and why it became an insult - to call people a germ).

you read Catholic trad and anti-muslim sites ... you'll see that "Moslem" is not a neutral term

I am not massively familiar with anti-Muslim sites, but from my experience, when they want to use an insulting and out of date term, they use Mohammedan or similar (it has a pleasing analogy with other founder named things, like Arianism, Nestorianism, Lutheranism, Calvinism etc).

But I have no evidence Fr. Hunwicke is using it in a pejorative sense. And as I say, words have the meaning the author give them, not the ones you as a reader might give them if you had spoken them.

As Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino so gracefully made manifest, words are not magic, not even much more explicitly racist ones. Friendship expressed in old-fashion words is still friendship, and bigotry comes in not being able to recognise that, not merely in speaking the language as it was taught to you.

Your comments are the only thing which appear to fall into the bigoted side of things

"How endearingly Traditionalist that ISIS should impose the old Ottoman tax on Christians in Mosul!

I think this could turn out to be very helpful to community relations in this country. As everybody knows, our own Islamic community is opposed to extremism and intolerance; indeed; those who know much more than I do about Islam inform us that the actions of ISIS are anti-Islamic.

So: all that the Islamic communities in our country need to do is to have collections and to use their financial resources to supply to the Christians of Mosul the money which the latter are having to pay to ISIS in order to avoid being martyred.

This will deal a powerful blow to Islamophobic bigots in this country, and convince ordinary people that our Moslem fellow-countrymen share fully our sense of decency and fair-play."

If you can't see the bigotry in this paragraph, I am appalled, but, beyond that, I can't help you. You can take that as "othering" if you like.

>98 timspalding:

If you can't see the bigotry in your own comments, I am beyond appalled. Muslims, like all of us, find it easier to excuse their own. And when we fail to point that out, because we fail to respect their membership of our fallen humanity, we cause suffering.

I have, as I have mentioned here before, a family connection with the Australian indigenous community (my wife and daughters identify as such). And via the connection I have seen people, real people, suffer because of well-intentioned bigotry like that represented by your comments.

Indigenous men, women and children abandoned to be victimised by criminality and abuse, by the very people tasked to protect them, because of fears offenders will cry racism. School children left with inadequate education, because of low expectations. Corruption which takes millions of dollars straight out of the mouths of our most disadvantaged, keep quiet by those charged with exposing it, in case those who have enriched themselves play the race card.

It is disgusting. It is intolerable to know these people, and see the suffering in their eyes, and know nothing will be done so that rich white people can feel smug and self-satisfied. To know that I fail in my duty to help them, and pass on, because I am not trapped as they are. Or at least it would be intolerable, if I lived up to my calling by Christ, but in my sinfulness I manage to turn my mind to other more selfish things.

Pointing out real failings in communities to which we do not belong is not bigotry, it is doing no less than what we would do for our own community. And more so, it models that we DO belong to a common community, and need these services returned by our brothers and sisters just as much. Because we have these failings, and blind spots, just as much. I as much or more than most – Missing my own partisanship, excusing my own failures to love my neighbour as myself.

Failing to point out these failings, just because they are Other, is however precisely bigotry. It is precisely failing in our duty of service to those others, a failing in our duty to perform acts of mercy, which is exemplified by Pope Francis’ foot washing.

As Christ said:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Or as Pope Francis said:

Drop the innocent look and the habit of judging others, Pope Francis said; recognizing one’s own faults and failings is the first requirement of being a good Christian … Pope Francis said it is so easy to shift the blame. “We are all experts, we have Ph.D.s in justifying ourselves: ‘But it wasn’t me, no, it’s not my fault. Well, OK, but it wasn’t that bad, you know. That’s not how it went.’ We all have an alibi to explain away our failings, our sins,” he said. “So often we are able to make that face that says, ‘Who, me?’ that face that says, ‘Well, I didn’t do it, maybe it was someone else,’ playing innocent,” he said. “But one doesn’t progress in Christian life this way.” … When people can see their own faults, he said, it is easier to ask God for mercy and to be merciful toward others. “When someone learns to accuse oneself, one is merciful toward others: ‘Yes, but who am I to judge if I am capable of doing worse things?’” The phrase, “Who am I to judge,” he said, comes from listening to Jesus telling his disciples to “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.”

>99 hf22:

Reading the last few posts on a hand held device thingie rather than a proper computer, on a slow and intermittent internet connection in Holy Trinity Peace Village, I'm having difficulty working out what it is all about.

But I am a little confused by your quoting this particular scriptural text on hypocrisy here. You seem to be suggesting that we should point out the mote in our brother's eye, which seems to be the opposite of what Jesus is saying. Now there might sometimes be practical reasons for doing so, as you explain in your personal example, but I'm not sure that this is the appropriate scripture text to reinforce it. What both Jesus and Francis say does not imply that we should be criticising others; quite the opposite.

The scripture is about a real mote in someone's eye, anyway.

It isn't about deciding that someone in Australia has a mote in their eye because some other people in their 1.6-billion member entho-religious group, 7,000 miles away in Iraq, has a mote in their eye. That's called "bigotry."

>100 John5918:,>101 timspalding:

What both Jesus and Francis say does not imply that we should be criticising others; quite the opposite.

I am pointing to two distinct things.

One is that akin to the spiritual works of mercy. To say to a brother or sister, we all have blind spots, I as much as you. Let me point to yours, that you cannot see, just as I would ask you to do for me. This we do for those who we see as part of Us – We point out for example to our countrymen that they sometimes minimise the faults of our own country’s foreign adventures, which they would not accept in another country. And this is what is being done when we point out, aware of our own flaws, that Muslims as a group can be and be seen to be finding excuses for unjustifiable acts carried out in the name of their faith. That this is a true thing can be provide by the polling data of which I am sure you are all aware, just as similar blind spots can be found in Western populations (i.e. think of support for torture when done by the “good” guys, Catholics trying to minimise the scope of the Church’s culpability for child sex abuse etc).

The second is akin to the hypocrisy condemned by Christ and Pope Francis. To say to another you are a bigot, because you would dare to perform the same service to the Other, that you would perform for Us. Because when we do this, in our self-righteous joy at being able to point to the apparent sin of someone who is our opponent, we have been blind to our own sinfulness. That the bigotry is ours, because we are the one dehumanising the Other, by denying their membership with us in a common humanity and community.

The difference, in short, between:

1. Gently pointing out, as Fr. Hunwicke has done, that a community shares with us a flaw which they should address, just as we would do within our own community; and
2. Demonising ideological opponents, as Tim’s comments do, by denouncing them as bigots for doing no more or less to another community than they would do for their own, and in turn failing pray to precisely the fault being denounced in the other.

But then for us as much as our Muslim brothers and sisters, it is always easier to excuse ourselves and our own, while blaming our opponents.

>102 hf22:

Fair comment, except that I really wonder whether the Muslim community needs us to point out "their blind spots". As far as I know, there are plenty of voices within the global Muslim community, large and diverse as it is, who are reflecting deeply (and often more accurately than we outsiders) on their issues. I know some of them personally. Of course this reflection does not get much air time in western circles. And of course their influence on the radical militant Islamist is very limited, but nevertheless it is ultimately more likely to bear fruit than unsolicited and often flawed criticism from outsiders.

>103 John5918:

That is also a fair comment - Internal voices certainly are more effective in these matters.

But blind spots are hard to see from the inside (and often require considerable personal bravery to confront once seen). Just as the Catholic Church needed people on the outside to help it see the scope of the sexual abuse crisis, so do other groups need the same help. Something, ironically, Tim recognized in the context of the movie Spotlight.

The people who exposed the Church's failings around child abuse were not bigots, despite some Catholics then and now calling them so. Instead they provided the Church with an act of mercy it badly needed.

And so, it is not bigotry when we return the service to others, instead it is bigotry if we fail to do so. A bigotry whose damage I have seen first hand in the context of my indigenous friends.

As I say, we need to keep our own sinfulness and duty to others top of mind. And we need to fight the strong temptation to seem or feel good, rather than be good, to which we all fall prey from time to time. But it is a task we should seek for ourselves, and welcome in others who make our blind spots their task.

The apostolic exhortation will be called 'Amoris Laetitia', and will be released on Friday April 8 (http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/03/31/april_8_release_of_post-synodal_apostolic_exhortation/1219333).

The purpose of giving these documents Latin names, when it appears there is not even a Latin version yet from which its first words could be taken, escapes me. Particularly as Pope Francis now gives them actual titles / subtitles - On Love in the Family in the case, On the Care of Our Common Home for Laudato si. Why not just call it by the translatable name "On Love in the Family"?

There appears to be many pixels being wasted on the import of it being presented by Cardinal Schönborn (http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2016/03/31/cardinal-who-backs-progressives-tapped-to-present-family-manifesto/). I can't see however how much can be read into it. Cardinal Schönborn and the two married professors joining him were also together for one of the Synod pressers, and Cardinal Schönborn speaks excellently in all the languages of the Synod (German, English, Italian, French and Spanish), such that I am sure the TV and other media will appreciate his presence. Looks more like a Vatican Press Office decision than a signal about content, even though Cardinal Schönborn did appear to be the architect of the German Group third way which euthanized the Kasper proposal.

>105 hf22:

I thought it might be worth starting a dedicated thread for Amoris Laetitia, here.

Fair comment, except that I really wonder whether the Muslim community needs us to point out "their blind spots".

Telling Australian Muslims that they should send money to ISIS to buy off Christians and show that, in fact, they aren't violent extremists, and share "fully our \sic\ sense of decency and fair-play," isn't pointing out a blind spot. It's stupid bigotry in a lame joke. It is indefensible.

>107 timspalding:

Of course. When you look at where most of it comes from, and how it is presented, it is anything but cordially and constructively pointing out blind spots.

Edited to add: I was catching up on Richard Rohr's daily reflections today after not having a reliable internet connection for a couple of weeks, and I was struck by his quote from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

Might be worth bearing that in mind before trying to point out someone else's blind spots.

>107 timspalding:

British Muslims. Fr. Hunwicke is English.

And continually repeating that your ill considered gut reactions are self evidently true is not impressive. Such attitudes are the very well spring of bigotry, and are again the cause of your bigotry here.

You well know that Muslims, like all of us, find excuses for their violent co-religionists. You have seen the polling. You have seen Catholics do the same for our own in Ireland and in the sex abuse mess.

But pointing to that evidenced fact, that flaw our own community shares, is bigotry in your view? That is beyond indefensible - It is mindnumbingly stupid.

>109 hf22: You well know that Muslims, like all of us, find excuses for their violent co-religionists

If you had said "some Muslims", then indubitably it would have been true, just as it would have been true to say "some Catholics". But when you simply say "Muslims", you are implying it is true of a whole group of people, which is patently false. There are plenty of Muslims who do not "find excuses for their violent co-religionists". I know some of them personally. Their voice must be heard, recognised and respected, and ultimately it is a far more important voice than that of non-Muslims who claim "that Muslims, like all of us, find excuses for their violent co-religionists".

>108 John5918:

You might not be self aware enough to recognise your own often one eyed tribal partisanship. One only has to think of the excuses you are willing to make for murderous dictators who came from your own political tribe.

But I am well aware of mine. Of what I catch, and indeed what I fail to catch. I am very aware for example innocent life lost due to Western military action overseas impacts me emotionally much less than Western innocent life lost to terrorism, despite those lives having equal dignity in the sight of God. And that it is therefore much easier for me to excuse even war crimes committed our troops.

And so I know these flaws precisely because they are MY flaws. That if I were a Muslim I would sympathize with some of the violence, because I would sympathize with some of the aims. And that I would much prefer to talk about Islamophobia than confront that uncomfortable reality.

These blindspots are OUR blindspots. Admittedly they are easier to identify in others than ourselves. But that is why we need to point them out for each other, and why it is an inexcusable bigotry not to do so because we have Othered our brothers and sisters.

>110 John5918:

No, I think nearly all of us find it easier to excuse Us rather than Them. As I say, I certainly do. This is not a Muslim thing - It is human nature.

Which is why it can't be bigotry to mention it.

But pointing to that evidenced fact, that flaw our own community shares, is bigotry in your view? That is beyond indefensible - It is mindnumbingly stupid.

The Australian Muslim community are not responsible for ISIS.

For starters, large numbers aren't even Sunni, let alone the very specific branch of Sunni Islam that goes in for violent Jihad. Not a few fled persecution by extremists themselves. Blaming Australian Muslims as a whole for ISIS is rather like blaming the Christians of Kenya for the faults of the Boston Catholic Archdiocese, or to "Australian Christians" for The Lord's Resistance Army. It makes no sense at all, except from a perspective of bigotry.

In fact, however, many have in fact gone out of their way to condemn the far-away group. There is something sad about this, but I understand that they need to make sure Australian bigots don't leap to the conclusions that, failing to continually criticize a group thoughtless Australians lump them in with, they sympathize with them.

>113 timspalding:

The Australian Muslim community are not responsible for ISIS.

No one is suggesting they are. Or even that they support it. Global polled Muslim support for ISIS is nominal.

Indeed only your stereotyping of others, the inherent prejudice in your comments, could lead to suggesting Fr. Hunwicke or I think otherwise.

large numbers aren't even Sunni

Indeed. Shia, or Kurd etc, sympathies will be first with their own ethnic and religious sub-groups. Just as my sympathies are instinctively with Catholics in an inter-Christian conflict, but yet with Christians more generally in other contexts.

It makes no sense at all, except from a perspective of bigotry.

Nor would it, if anyone here was doing that. But since they are not blaming anyone for ISIS, the only bigotry is yours.

There is difference between pretending Western Muslims support ISIS, and recognising that it is easier to find excuses for unjustifiable things done in the name of something you support, as compared to things you do not.

There is something sad about this

It is not sad at all.

Just as I don't get to complain that I must denounce the Church's global failings regarding sexual abuse every time someone finds out I am Catholic. I never covered up any abuse - I was not even Catholic at the time it mostly happened. But it is important, both for myself and others, that I maintain a clear eyed denunciation of those failings. Rather than, as would be so easy, complain that it is nothing to do with me, that the Church is being unfairly picked on, that anti-Catholic bigots are pushing unrelated agenda. Children were abused, a horrific crime, and it is completely unjustified (however tempting - and it is tempting) to pretend I am a victim because people say things which feel hurtful (and it often does feel hurtful).

I must denounce it because my common identity means I DO have a temptation to sympathize. I DO get the instinct to protect the Church from harm, and cover up the truth whose release has undoubtedly harmed the Church.

Just as, if I were a devout Muslim, I would find it hard to get upset about someone introducing something mandated by the Quran (like taxes on non-Muslims in Muslim lands are mandated, and were traditionally applied by Muslim polities like the Ottoman Empire). And so, because I am not a bigot and understand our Muslim brothers and sisters share the same human nature, I can understand the difficulty.

And why pretending such difficulties can't exist is bigotry - It denies their membership of our common humanity. And bigotry with good intentions is still bigotry, and just as harmful, as I have seen with my Indigenous friends and relations.

So put aside your bigoted gut reaction, stand in the shoes of those others, and stop letting your good intentions diminish their humanity.

And for the record, if you want to see what an actual anti-Islamic traditionalist Catholic bigot looks like, you can try the pseudonymous bloggers at Rorate Caeli.

Actual use of out dated terms for ideological purposes, being Mohammedanism (http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/03/st-john-bosco-on-mohammedanism.html#more). Actual bigoted treatment of ordinary Muslims as terrorists (https://twitter.com/RorateCaeli/status/716381378485551105).

But just as terrorism can't be equated with Islam, nor can anti-Islamic bigotry be equated with traditionalist Catholics (not that I am one of those, but which Fr. Hunwicke is a slightly odd example, celebrating the old rite but mostly being the Oxford Anglo-Papalist he was before he joined the Ordinariate).

Francis meets traditionalist Society of St. Pius X leader, who seeks 'full communion' definition (NCR)

Pope Francis set to visit Greece to show support for refugees on Lesbos (Guardian)

In meeting with Fellay, Pope Francis shows double standard in the 'culture of encounter' (NCR)

>117 John5918: Wonder when Francis et al. plan to visit. (Refugees have two weeks to move into government camps.)

92 contd. Hope these images prompt the Vatican to issue more forceful permission--preferably, direction--to use of contraceptives by those facing this horror in absence of vaccine. No wonder affected babies are said to have piercing, persistent crying?

Frightening images show the insidious way Zika appears to attack babies’ brains
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/04/11/frightening-ima...

Patricia P. Garcez et al. 2016. Zika virus impairs growth in human neurospheres and brain organoids. Science. 10 April 2016.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/04/08/science.aaf6116

Pope replaces ambassador to U.S. who set up Kim Davis meeting

...He wasn't fired, exactly. Bishops are required to submit their resignation to the pope when they turn 75, and Vigano reached that milestone in January. But many bishops are allowed to serve past that point at the pope's discretion. That's true of Vatican ambassadors, called apostolic nuncios, as well.

Officially, then, the Pope accepted Vigano's resignation, and replaced him with Archbishop Christophe Pierre, a seasoned diplomat who was previously the papal nuncio in Mexico, where Francis just finished a successful trip in February.

...Vigano, an Italian prelate, had reportedly been sent to Washington in 2011 as a punishment for exposing financial corruption during former Pope Benedict XVI's papacy. In the United States, Vigano seemed more interested in the culture wars than diplomacy.

Even before the Davis affair, American gay rights groups complained about Vigano. The Human Rights Campaign wrote a letter to the Pope in 2015, urging him to reign in his nuncio and prevent Vigano from speaking at a rally against same-sex marriage in front of the Supreme Court...

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/12/europe/pope-vigano-resign/index.html

So it is being reported that while Pope Benedict was going reexcommunicate the SSPX if they failed to sign his doctrinal preamble accepting that Vatican II does not contain error, Pope Francis is planning grant them a personal prelature without any doctrinal requirements (http://tradinews.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/dici-sermon-de-mgr-bernard-fellay-au.html?m=1).

And from other sources it seems this could occur before the end of the Year of Mercy.

A bad idea in lots of ways, but particularly in its abandonment of Vatican II, which will have a real impact on future theological developments. I suspect a few more people, if not in the SSPX, are going to start to miss Pope Benedict.

Pope Francis flies to Lesbos to highlight humanitarian crisis in Europe (Guardian)

Migrant crisis: Pope Francis arrives in Greece to visit Lesbos camp (BBC)

Wow--Francis is putting refugees up in Vatican apartments? Some Canadians I know housed a Syrian family of 12 (+ two to come + a baby due in May) in a townhouse, and those folks thought THEY were in heaven! Such an undertaking just to get to one's new home, but then the real works begins--not least learning a new language. (Volunteers and family rely greatly on a Google app those first few months, causing much hilarity when app screws up.) The youngest family members plunge right in, though, and are THRILLED to find themselves in school right off the bat. I imagine Vatican refugees will have that kind of support. Usually much more difficult when governments have primary responsibility. Apparently, there are entire hotels filled with govt-sponsored refugees near the Toronto Airport. Greece has been nothing if not hospitable, not least the wonderful people of Lesbos. Kudos, too, to Angela Merkel. Still, those boat-trips from Turkey to Greece are too unsafe to not discourage. Then there's the Libya route... And the proposed wall on the hazardous US-Mexican border...

ETA: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/plucked-from-the-uncertainty-of-lesbos-12-syrian-ref...

‘Before they are numbers, these people are human beings’: pope’s poignant visit to refugees in Lesbos (Guardian)

From Lesbos, Francis and patriarchs warn Europe: Eternal judgment based on refugee treatment (NCR)

Fr. Charles Curran: Pope Francis' reforms are 'more than just style' (NCR)

Pope Francis hailed as saviour by Syrian refugees taken in by Vatican (Guardian)

Look at your own sins before judging others, Pope says at audience (Catholic Herald)

Pope Francis tells teens 'happiness is not an app you can download' (Guardian)

Pope / SSPX deal in the offing (http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2016/04/27/pope-francis-may-be-on-verge-of-deal-with-traditionalists/).

I fear that the Pope's latitudinarian# tendencies are going to lead to Nostra Aetate being thrown under a bus:

Pozzo addressed this issue in his discussion with La Croix, saying that he considers Nostra aetate as “directives for pastoral action, directions, and suggestions or exhortations of a practical pastoral nature,” adding that “the acceptance of the texts on relations with other religions is not a prerequisite for the canonical recognition” of the society..

Not something Pope Benedict would have done and not I think a good idea.

Also shows why latitudinarian approaches always fail to bring the mutual acceptance their proponents seem to expect. Progressives might like their loony / evil ideas being able to be discussed, but will not accept the same tolerance for the loony / evil ideas of traditionalists (which with the SSPX can reach outright anti-semitism and support for dictatorial regimes).

# In respect of things which are not his priorities. On the poor for instance not so much leeway allowed. But on stuff where his care factor is lower, there is a tendency, particularly if his priorities are shared.

FR HANS KUNG SAYS POPE HAS RESPONDED TO HIS CALL FOR DISCUSSION ON INFALLIBILITY DOGMA (Tablet)

>131 John5918:

Meh. Till he releases the actual letter, it sounds like normal Francis generalities. When you welcome dialogue with everyone, it will cover heretics as well.

Plus you know, the latitudinarian tendency, which even Kung will not like when he realises it covers his opposites as much as himself.

>131 John5918: What does Kung want? A repeal of the dogma? How does that work?

>132 hf22: When you welcome dialogue with everyone, it will cover heretics as well

Well, of course it will. But are you suggesting that Kung is a heretic? As far as I am aware he has never been excommunicated and he is still a priest in good standing, albeit he has been reprimanded for some of his theological views and his licence to teach theology in a Catholic institution has been revoked.

even Kung will not like when he realises it covers his opposites as much as himself

I suspect you are underestimating him, or perhaps projecting a conservative tendency onto him.

>133 justanotherjohn: What does Kung want? A repeal of the dogma? How does that work?

In his own words, he appears to want "to give room to a free, unprejudiced and open-ended discussion on the problem of infallibility", "theologically discussing the different issues which the infallibility dogma raises in the light of Holy Scripture and Tradition with the aim of deepening the constructive dialogue between the 'semper reformanda' 21st century Church and the other Christian Churches and post-modern society" and "the clarification of the dogmatic definitions".

While doctrine doesn't get repealed, it does develop, and our understanding of it develops and deepens. That doesn't happen if there can be no discussion about it. It seems Kung is requesting that the conversation be allowed to be reopened.

>134 John5918:

But are you suggesting that Kung is a heretic?

Yes, he had his ability to teach Catholic theology revoked, because he was teaching error. In the words of the CDF at the time, he "has departed from the integral truth of Catholic faith", as defined by the "Vatican Council I and confirmed by Vatican Council II" no less(http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19791215_christi-ecclesia_en.html).

I suspect you are underestimating him

And no, Fr. Kung is not real keen on others (say a Pope) contradicting him. He thinks his view is true full stop, not just true for him. As do most theological Catholic progressives to be fair. Those who just don't really care about doctrine because social justice or whatever are actually a different group of progressives, not usually academic theologians, which should be distinguished.

>135 John5918:

Oddly enough, on papal infallibility, Fr. Kung wants to un-develop a doctrine (i.e. re-fight Vatican I).

>134 John5918:

And just to prove the point regarding Fr. Hans Kung, from his Christianity and World Religions: Paths to Dialogue With Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism (pp.xviii-xix & pp.120-12), we find that he affirms that where a relativist considers all religions and their truth as relative or equally true, that "leads only to cheap tolerance, to 'anything goes', to a falsely understood liberalism in which ones trivialises the question of truth or no longer even dares to ask it". And similarly his other writings, and how they are understood by others, makes clear Fr. Kung rejects (in his own words) an "untenable indifferentism". Which is why I make the point of distinguishing between self-described "theological" progressives, and those who would self-describe as pastoral or social justice progressives (and who tend to latitudinarian or indifferentist views).

Just so we are clear who is projecting their own tendencies onto people from a position of ignorance.

Have you read that cited book, hf? Would you recommend it?

>139 justanotherjohn:

I read a fair sampling while waiting for my wife once at a local libary, though I have never owned it or read it cover to cover (so not in my catalogue here).

I would not recommend it, though mostly because it was a strange combination of introductionary need to knows about the listed world religions, and Kung's own idiosyncratic proposals for a global ethic in a pluralist world.

For the world religion intros I would prefer something standalone and written by people from the relevant traditions. And the global ethic stuff is meh. Kind of a why can't we all agree on the stuff about my own tradition that I like (i.e. sermon on the mount etc).

Francis rails against child sexual abuse, saying abusers must be 'severely' punished (NCR)

Pope condemns pedophilia as details of girl's death shock Italy (Reuters)

Pope Francis castigates Europe in speech on solidarity (Guardian)

Pope lambasts weary and ageing Europe as he picks up prestigious Charlemagne Prize (Tablet)

The refugee crisis and ideological conversions to Catholicism (Global Pulse)

All the pope’s women…

So far Pope Francis has been all talk and no action when it comes to women

Pope Francis prepares to make major appointments

'The Church is not an elite (group) of priests, consecrated persons and bishops

Both from Global Pulse

>134 John5918:

And just to prevent future mock innocent suggestions Hans Kung is not a heretic, the Head of the CDF confirms he is one because (http://www.periodistadigital.com/religion/espana/2016/05/03/el-prefecto-de-doctrina-de-la-fe-niega-iglesia-religion-dios-jesus-papa-esperanza-madrid-rouco-muller-kung-divorciados.shtml):

First, because "neither his Christology and ecclesiology are Catholic." And besides, "he does not believe in the divinity of Christ or the Holy Trinity".

With views like that, how can he keep his faculties as a priest?

>147 justanotherjohn:

I think the language of theologians is usually much more nuanced than the headlines suggest. Often the technical points of disagreement are much smaller than it sounds when put into non-technical language.

Edited to add: I think when you take a cross-section of ordinary Catholics, including bishops and priests, you will find a much broader and more bizarre divergence in what people actually believe, in their understanding of ecclesiology, Christology, divinity, Holy Trinity and indeed Eucharist. It doesn't stop them from being Catholics. The sanction is to stop Kung from publicly teaching such beliefs in an official Catholic capacity.

>147 justanotherjohn:

The mock innocent "in good standing" nonsense regarding Kung is untrue. Canon 1364.1 provides that "an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication; in addition, a cleric can be punished with the penalties mentioned in Canon 1336".

Thus Kung, a heretic in accordance with the Head of the CDF, is excommunicated latae sententiae (i.e. automatically by his own actions). Nor would he be the only one in that situation.

Canon 1336 provides that dismissal from the clerical state is an extra penalty which may be imposed for heresy, but the way the code is structured indicates it is not expected this will be applied to every heretical priest.

>148 John5918:

I think the language of theologians is usually much more nuanced than the headlines suggest.

Cardinal Muller is undoubtedly a theologian, and his words point to a massively real difference. You can try to make denying the divinity of Christ disappear in deluge of dense technical language, but all it will be is pseudo intellectual nonsense, covering for dishonestly. It will not fly - Stop making these dishonest comments.

It doesn't stop them from being Catholics.

But it does, when the denial or doubt is “obstinate" (i.e. willingly and knowingly – formal heresy), make them excommunicated. Which in the case of a theologian, who very clearly knows what he is about, is a bar which is jumped quite simply.

Not so in the case of material heresy (i.e. actual but unknowing) which is so common amongst the laity of course. But if one was a Bishop of the Catholic Church, and managed to be material but not formal heretic on a basic matter like the divinity of Christ and the Holy Trinity, then one would be clearly unfit for ones role anyway (Bishops are called, by Vatican II, to be “true and authentic teachers of the faith” - Christus dominus 2).

Also, pretending that still being "Catholic" means something in relation to the Church's discipline, is misleading and dishonest. A baptised Catholic is "Catholic" by virtue of their baptism, even when excommunicated. Even a "formal act of defection" by the person concerned, which can only be done by the person concerned and not by the Church, still leaves you technically Catholic for some purposes in the eyes of the Church (i.e. because you can't get unbaptised, no matter what you or the Church do).

And if anyone is interested is Kung's denial of Christ's divinity, it can be found in his own words, in the works On Being A Christian and Does God Exist.

Where one will find the assertions that one must carefully avoid “identifying Jesus tout court with God” (better to consider him God's representative), that Jesus “never gave himself any messianic title,” and that the divinity of Jesus simply meant that “the real man, Jesus of Nazareth, is, for believers, a real revelation of the one true God and, in this sense, God’s word, his Son.”

Just to make clear any assertion otherwise has no basis in Kung's actual published views.

Pope Francis to consider ordaining women as deacons (Guardian)

Pontiff to create commission to study the issue, signalling an openness...

Pope tells women religious Vatican will study women deacons (CNS)

And a few from NCR:

Francis' female deacon commission brings hope, caution

Francis to create commission to study female deacons in Catholic church

Full text of questions to Francis from women religious

Deacons: Synod puts women deacons on the table

Women want to be deacons, want clergy to speak up about it

The media storms over nothing this Pope can create!

Firstly some walk back of the idea the Pope is actually proposing to progress this idea (http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2016/05/12/pope-agrees-to-set-up-commission-to-study-women-deacons/):

"Senior Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said to the Washington Post on Thursday that it was not yet clear what the pope’s intentions were. He said Vatican officials will need to more closely examine transcripts of his comments, which Lombardi described as coming in the form of a “spontaneous conversation” with a nun who asked a question at Thursday morning’s meeting. The pope may, Lombardi said, have simply been calling for a study into the historical role of women as deacons in the early church. Asked if that also opened the door to a commission on whether women should be permitted to serve as Catholic deacons today, Lombardi said: “I think it’s too early to say what the pope has exactly in mind.""

Secondly, a study along the lines of that the Pope suggested he might ask the CDF to prepare, has already been prepared by the CDF 14 years ago (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_pro_05072004_diaconate_en.html)#. Which even points the way to what the restoration of deaconesses would have to look like!

Not that there is not points around deaconesses which don't need to be clarified, and certainly once they are clarified deaconesses of some kind could be introduced, as I have outlined in this forum previously. But off the cuff papal musings about commissioning studies which already exist is not yet the major news everyone seems to assume this is.

# It should be noted since the 2002 document, the Code of Canon Law and Catechism were changed so that deacons are no longer described as acting in persona Christi, which distinguishes them from presbyters and bishops. This might change the suggestions of the 2002 document more towards male / female deacons being the same, but both being meaningfully separate from priests / bishops (allowing us to affirm that it is possible for women to be deacons the same as men, but that equally it is impossible for them to be priests / bishops).

>153 hf22:

Come on, don't be a wet blanket! Those of us who are aware of all the small print of Catholic teaching know of course that this is not so new and may not lead to what some hope, but it is still exciting and it's still good to make sure that the world knows. And despite the fact that ordaining female deacons may not require a change to existing doctrine, as you yourself have argued, nevertheless the (re-)emergence of female deacons would indeed be a major event for the Church. The gospel is Good News, not a boring secret for the initiated!

More walk back (http://www.cruxnow.com/cns/2016/05/13/pope-didnt-say-hed-ordain-women-deacons-spokesman-says/).

>154 John5918:

But is not exciting or interesting. If the headline were accurate, ie ignorant# Pope orders study which his predecessor already published, that would be clear.

It would be news if he actually announced an intention to reintroduce deaconesses. But the point is he did not do so.

And even if he did, giving women a fancy title to do the work they already do, is not precisely the Good News we need to share with the world.

# Ignorant of the ITC study anyway. His recall of his discussion with the old professor was pretty good, and a reasonable summary of the state of play.

Female deacons could lead to female priests – and the Vatican knows it (Guardian)

>157 John5918:

Andrew Brown does write such blather. The idea that there is a widespread cultural pew sitter resistance to women clergy, is in the west at least plainly false. Western congregations already have no cultural objections to such things, so they hardly need female deacons to get them used to it. And in places where there was such an objection, female deacons are unlikely to be used, so it does not matter there either.

And therefore the idea of deaconesses as a cultural stalking horse for women priests is stupid, no matter what your view of women priests. They could be a theological stalking horse, if the question of the relationship of deaconesses to the unity of holy orders was not first clarified, but of course that is precisely what needs to be clarified before deaconesses can be reintroduced.

Seriously, if anyone is interested, I will bet at 100:1 odds that no study commission of deaconesses is ever created under Pope Francis. It was a thought bubble, not an announcement.

How Pope Benedict May Have Cracked Open the Door to Womwn Deacons (http://aleteia.org/blogs/deacon-greg-kandra/how-pope-benedict-may-have-cracked-open-the-door-to-women-deacons/).

More detail on the canon law development I noted at >153 hf22:.

Vatican downplays expectations for women deacons; UISG president expresses hope for decision (NCR)

Catholic Women React to Pope Francis’s Latest Initiative For Women (Huffington Post)

Edited to add: I'm struck by one of the more "conservative" voices quoted in this article, it’s a mistake to clericalize women.

This is often heard from that wing of the Church in one form or other, including warnings against clericalising the laity in general. It seems to me that if avoiding clericalism is a worthy goal (and certainly I would be in favour of less clericalism), then de-clericalising the clergy would be a good place to start.

It reminds me a bit of nuclear disarmament. Those who already have nuclear weapons are against nuclear proliferation; they don't want to see anybody else have nuclear weapons. But none of them (with the sole and honourable exception of South Africa) is willing to get rid of their own nuclear weapons. Likewise many clergy (particularly on the "conservative" wing) oppose the broadening of clericalism but are quite happy to defend their own clericalism.

Pope: World Mission Day calls us to missionary discipleship

Pope: Gift of the Spirit renews our relationship with God

Pope Francis' Message for World Mission Day 2016: full text

Regina Coeli: May our hearts be open to gift of the Spirit

All from Vatican Radio

>161 John5918:

Heh, they are not arguing in their own voice. Rather they are just pointing back to an argument of Pope Francis, that to ordain a good layman would be clericalism.

An argument he just made again in Le Croix as it happens (http://www.la-croix.com/Religion/Pape/INTERVIEW-Pope-Francis-2016-05-17-1200760633).

Which as always makes me wonder if male permanent deacons will survive married priests. Because I rather think not, and that their reintroduction will be rather truncated historically speaking.

>163 hf22:

That Le Croix interview also has some walk back on the SSPX, suggesting there will need to be some agreement which respects that VII "has it value".

>163 hf22:

And for the record, I don't approve of people adopting their opponents arguments for purely tactical reasons (i.e. not because they agree with the argument, but because they like its outcome).

Nor would I object if we did put neay every really committed Catholic in minor orders of some kind. The early Church had that tendency, so why not? It might even serve as a replacement for the long retreat of religious orders from parish and other service.

Francis effect growing among seminarians, says Theological College rector (NCR)

This sounds like good news. I have heard a lot of concerns expressed by ordinary Catholics about the attitudes of many of the younger generation of priests, including clericalism.

Bishop Ayuso speaks on minorities in Muslims majority countries at the UN Alliance of Civilisations this week in Tokyo.

Edited to add: Actually I intended to post this in the Catholic Social Thought thread, not this one, but now it's here it might as well stay here, and it does make reference to the pope.

SHOW COMPASSION FOR EACH OTHER, NOT YOUR PET CATS AND DOGS, SAYS POPE (Tablet)

>166 John5918:

Reports from seminarians concerned suggest the outgoing rector might not be publically trashing his students, if he had ever bothered to get to know them, rather than stereotyping them for various reasons.

>166 John5918:

From Deacon Greg Kandra's blog:

http://aleteia.org/blogs/deacon-greg-kandra/seminaries-feel-the-francis-effect-y...

UPDATE: The following was posted on my Facebook page in response. It comes from a priest —Fr. Kyle Doustou, from Portland, Maine, who posted it on his Facebook page.

This gives a dissenting view:

“This article, written from an interview given by the out-going Rector of my former seminary, is very hurtful. The men who were formed in and ordained from Theological College over the past 10 years are some of the best and most pastoral men and priests that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Inventing a false dichotomy between a love for the Church’s traditions and a love for the people of God is a manipulative, ideological tool used to push forth one’s personal agenda.

I have known Father Brown for many years, and have a great deal of respect and admiration for him personally, but this public interview he gave with an openly dissenting ‘Catholic’ publication warrants an alumnus response.

As one of the many cassock-wearing, Communion-on-the-tongue-receiving, Latin-loving, Extraordinary-Form-Mass-saying young priests that have passed through the halls of Theological College, allow me to say plainly to anyone who would agree with the tone and sentiment of this article that you have deliberately and painfully pigeon-holed men who love the Church and cast us to be pompous little monsters simply because we have a different theological/liturgical outlook than you. You condescend towards us as if we were not thinking, opining, and sincere men. You gossip about us, ensuring that we are ‘put in our places’ and ‘taught a thing or two’ by your confreres. You confuse our strong convictions with arrogance and accuse us of being staunch when we are trying more than anything else to be faithful, helpful, and loving.

But let’s be quite honest…you don’t really know us because you never took the time to get to know us. You saw us when we were in the seminary chapel or over breakfast…but that’s about it. Have you seen us at 2:00 AM in the hospital? Have you seen us working late into the night on a funeral homily? Have you seen us giving up our one day off a week to visit with a lonely elderly parishioner? Have you seen us on our knees at night before the tabernacle weeping because we just buried a child earlier that day? Have you seen us celebrate four Masses on a weekend, hear hours of confessions, and still show up to Sunday evening Youth Ministry? Have you seen us wear the same pair of socks two days in a row because we simply ran out of time to do laundry? Have you seen us muster a smile even when we’re exhausted, or miss Christmas with our families because we’re assigned 300 miles away, or forget to eat dinner because there’s another meeting to go to? The answer is no. What you see are the cassocks and birettas and fiddleback chasubles and accuse us of being “out of touch.” Well the reality is, you are guilty of the very thing you accuse us of. You ignore our humanity, our struggle, our sincerity, and you fixate on external things to make your judgments.

As difficult as it is at times, I love being a priest with my whole heart. Not because it offers me an exalted status or any privileges, but because it offers me, and the people I serve, the means by which to attain salvation. I love the people I serve to death, and I would do anything within my means to help them. If you look at my cassock and presume otherwise, I can only feel sorry for you.

Myself and the other men who were indirectly insulted in this interview are the ones on the battlefield. As parish priests, we work hard, sacrifice hard, and try daily to live solely for God in Jesus Christ. Instead of insinuating that Theological College had to somehow put up with a decade or more of rigid, overly-conservative, and ideological seminarians, why not offer us a word of encouragement and perhaps even a prayer or two?”

>170 justanotherjohn:

That is the one - Thanks.

Islam and Christianity share 'idea of conquest', says Pope Francis (Guardian)

Pontiff condemns ‘ghettoisation’ of migrants and hails Sadiq Khan’s election as first Muslim mayor of London

>168 John5918: I wonder why the Pope seems to think in terms of people/pet dichotomy? Never had one?

>173 margd:

I'm not sure it's a real dichotomy nor does it necessarily refer to all pet-owners, but perhaps a comment on a context whereby pets do sometimes appear to be more important than humans.

Full disclosure: I keep pedigree Ridgebacks.

According to NCR Online interview with Francis's sister, his most significant relationship with animals was as a young man with dog and parakeet owned by seminary. That might explain?

(My husband grew up without pets and opposed getting a dog, though he's been very good to our rescue Jack Russell (mix?) once I brought her home. I should have named her "Penance", instead of "Annie", though, as she is not without traits of the breed, however mild... Far outweighing her downsides is the emotional growth she engendered in our sons--fun, kindness, and responsibility for a small being. I think the boys may be better husbands and fathers for having had her around in their teens.)

NCR...(At this stage in the interview, the family cat strolled over.) By the way, does your brother like cats, as Benedict does?

(Maria Elena Bergoglio:)Honestly, I don’t have any idea. He always knew he couldn’t have a pet, because he never knew where he was going to be living and that he wouldn’t have time to take care of it. He never seemed to want a pet. I know that when he was in the seminary they had a dog, and he loved that dog, but I never heard him saying he wished he could have one.

When he was younger, wasn’t he also fond of a parakeet?

Yes, when he was in the novitiate, they had a parakeet and Jorge loved it. He taught it to say some things … knowing him, it probably wasn’t a prayer but some sort of insult! He loved animals, but he always knew he’d never be in a position to take care of one.

There’s a children’s book supposedly written by Pope Benedict’s cat. Maybe one day there’ll be a book from the dog that went to seminary with Pope Francis.

Listen, at this stage, nothing seems impossible!

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/popes-sister-francis-plenty-tough-enough-le...

...or maybe it's true that some pet owners eschew responsibility to their fellow humans in order to pamper their pets?

Surely a venial sin--over-loving an animal--if that, and not something worth attention of the Holy Father (twice, at least)? A personal pecadillo, i think!

(Miss Annie is still missing a favorite siesta spot, a bunkbed that I gave to a refugee family, and so I claim "balance" in the people/pet dichotomy. :-)

>177 margd:

The sin is ignoring our obligation to the poor, and the Pope is very clear that is a mortal sin. The grave sin on which he puts the most emphasis as a matter of fact.

And even calls mortal (http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/05/19/pope_the_rich_who_exploit_the_poor_are_bloodsuckers/1230913), even though on his own logic on adultery you can't do that, because even pet lovers and bad bosses surely might be excused by subjective factors. But then this Pope has never been good at taking his own advice.

Still, a strange focus for pope named Francis, but not without precedent, I guess. From the catechism, especially #2418:

Respect for the integrity of creation

2415 The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity.195 Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man's dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.196

2416 Animals are God's creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory.197 Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.

2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image.198 Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.

2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.

(With climate change and a (sixth?) great extinction upon us, I think Church should renew emphasis on respect for integrity of creation, and kindness to its critters--true stewardship--if only to avoid human misery and to preserve quality of life for generations to come.)

>179 margd:

To be fair to the Pope, dotting on pets resources which by rights belong to poor, has very to do with respecting the intrigity of creation.

Pope Francis to new Ambassadors: creative work for peace (Vatican Radio)

Those who exploit for cheap labor are bloodsucking leeches, pope says (CNS)

>180 hf22: Still, strange to me that pets would be singled out. I suspect we westerners spend more on a great many other luxuries than we do on our pets! (Well-appointed homes, fancy cars, travel, cosmetic surgery, clothes, ...)

Even Leona Helmsley's dog, bequeathed $12 million ($2 million in court), was no doubt not the largest competitor for her charity. Her housekeeper testified at tax trial that the "Queen of Mean" once told her: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

Anyway, a small point and I am sure that folks want to move on, so I accept that others don't likewise find odd Francis's focus on pets...

Pope Urges Summit Participants to Alleviate Suffering of Millions (CNS)

'Our meeting is the message': Pope Francis embraces senior imam (Guardian)

Sainthood sometimes includes biting your tongue, pope says (CNS)

>152 John5918: ff

CAMPAIGNERS FOR WOMEN'S ORDINATION HAVE UNPRECEDENTED MEETING WITH VATICAN REPRESENTATIVE (Tablet)

FRANCIS SAYS CHURCH SHOULD GET POLITICAL ON MODERN SLAVERY (Tablet)

Francis to priests: Get your hands dirty; people aren't just 'cases' (NCR)

Pope Francis has exhorted Catholic priests not to see people who approach them for spiritual help merely as "cases" to be handled but to instead enter into the complications of people's lives, unafraid of being drawn in to unclear or messy situations...

Not the first time he has addressed this theme.

Pope Francis is no Baptist: A wedding without wine is 'shameful!' (NCR)

Although as a Briton I would take issue with his disparagement of tea!

Pope horrified by deadly attack in Orlando (CNA)

Pope Francis rejects donation from Argentinian president with 666 in sum (Guardian)

You are 'artisans of wonder,' Pope Francis tells performers (CNA)

Too many couples do not understand marriage is for life, pope says (NCR)

Because most people today do not understand that sacramental marriage really is a bond that binds them to each other for life, many marriages today can be considered invalid... "We are living in a culture of the provisional"...

Christians don't exclude, they welcome, pope says at general audience (CNS)

Pope speaks of Armenian 'genocide' in Yerevan visit (BBC)

Pope Francis 'angry' over media slant on women deacons (CNA)

Benedict endorses Pope Francis in unprecedented Vatican ceremony (Guardian)

Breakaway Catholics accuse pope of causing 'painful confusion' (Guardian)

>197 John5918:

Retired Pope Benedict XVI Says He 'feels protected' by Pope Francis (CNS)

Benedict XVI talks resignation, Pope Francis in new book-length interview (CNS)

"People who thought they were at the periphery, but Pope Francis said, 'No, you're not!'" (NCR)

Francis to visit John Paul II's homeland (NCR)

Managing "listless" contemplative nuns...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/celia-wexler/pope-francis-tightens-the_b_11157162....

Pope Francis calls for solidarity with refugees during speech in Kraków (Guardian)

Edited to add:

Pope Francis urges youth to accept migrants on visit to Poland (BBC)

Kraków's Jews on pope's Auschwitz visit: 'It's so important to tell the truth' (Guardian)

Pope Francis tells the young: don't ruin your lives looking for thrills (Guardian)

Pope Francis says it is 'not right' to identify Islam with violence (Guardian)

Pope Francis has said it was wrong to identify Islam with violence and that social injustice and idolatry of money were among the prime causes of terrorism.

“I think it is not right to identity Islam with violence... This is not right and this is not true.”

The Guardian view on Pope Francis in Kraków: what religions are really about - Editorial (Guardian)

When he went to Auschwitz, he showed what he believes religions are really about. He had no words. What was done there went beyond politics: it was an attempt to annihilate all meaning from humanity. In the face of that horror, he prayed in silence, and he asked “for the gift of tears” for himself. That is sometimes the greatest eloquence.

Googling my vague recollection that the west learned chivalry from Muslims, I came upon this term in wikipedia--a tradition that's worth celebrating and encouraging among young people of all backgrounds:

Futuwwa (Arabic: فتوة, "young-manliness" or "chivalry") is a Sufi term that has some similarities to chivalry and virtue. It was also a name of ethical urban organizations or "guilds" in medieval Muslim realms that emphasised honesty, peacefulness, gentleness, generosity, avoidance of complaint and hospitality in life. According to Ibn Battuta, a member was called fata (youth, pl. fityan) and group leaders were called akhi.

In modern-day Egypt, the term is used for youths who try to do quasi-chivalrous acts such as helping others resist intimidation by rival group...

>206 margd: hospitality

If I were asked to choose one single word to sum up my experience of living in a Muslim country for the best part of three decades, it would be hospitality. Absolutely stunning hospitality.

Guardian assessment:-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/31/the-guardian-view-on-pope-...

Has the Church offered refuge to any pregnant women in Zika zones, I wonder?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pregnant-women-told-to-wear-long-sleeves-in-...;

In brief Assisi visit, Pope Francis hears confessions, asks all to forgive others (NCR)

Pope Francis makes surprise visit to former prostitutes (BBC)

Life isn't black and white – teach priests to discern the gray, Pope says (CNA)

Interestingly Richard Rohr's meditations this week are on non-dualistic thinking.

>209 margd:

Just wondering what you mean by "offered refuge"?

Pope Francis and the Challenge of being Church today

An inspirational lecture by Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv, Bishop of Parramatta, Australia

>213 John5918: Re refuge, I was thinking how terrifying it must feel for a pregnant woman to be trapped in an area where she's inevitably going to be bitten by a mosquito. Many such areas are largely Catholic. The Puerto Rican bishop, who forbade contraception in the age of Zika, has in his diocese churches, schools, hospitals, residences, seminaries(?), and administration buildings that I assume are largely screened / mosquito-free. Has he, for example, offered refuge to even a single such woman? I realize, of course that many such women have family and work responsibilities that would preclude their accepting such an offer...

POPE FRANCIS ANNOUNCES NEW SOCIAL JUSTICE DEPARTMENT (Tablet)

Pope announces new super-dicastery (Global Pulse)

>215 margd:

There was a bit on Zika in Haiti yesterday on NPR. They've only had three confirmed cases, but all were from microcephalic children--they can't test anyone. They asked one mother if she had been told to avoid mosquito bites and she laughed vigorously--that sort of thing is simply impossible in a place like Haiti. It's mosquito country, with no money for any sort of pest control, and no screens on windows, even if people could avoid going outside. Ziki in Haiti is a nightmare on a nightmare.

Francis names 17 new cardinals (NCR)

>218 John5918:

Crazy list. Indianapolis!

>219 timspalding:

As a matter of interest, which do you find "crazy" - the location of the diocese or the actual person elevated to cardinal?

A little more detail on the new African cardinals:

Pope Francis Names 17 New Cardinals, Three within African Territory (CANAA)

Edited to add the view from the Grauniad:

Pope Francis rejects rightwingers with US cardinals' appointment

The Church should be an ‘open house’, Pope tells missionary order (Catholic Herald)

>222 John5918: Can you please check your link? It takes me to an error page.

>223 2wonderY: Strange. I've just clicked on it and it takes me to the correct page.

That's alright, I googled the headline and got the story from another of their outlets.

Cupich, Tobin and Farrell react to their cardinal appointments (NCR)

Pope Francis' cardinal choices bring surprises, especially for the US church (NCR)

"surprises, especially for the US church" - but probably not surprising to the Church anywhere else in the world.

"a roomful of social justice Catholics" - is this a new label in the US culture wars? I was not aware that there was such a thing as "social justice Catholics". Social justice is a routine part of Church teaching for all Catholics, explicitly so for 135 years now, since Rerum novarum.

>226 John5918:

Standard-issue descriptions in a US context, I'm afraid.

Article on Francis the manager--surprising, secretive, shrewd--reminded me of President Obama's use of executive orders to accomplish stuff in face of recalcitrant Congress (not Curia or bureaucracy in his case). Effective in the short term, but if a term-limited president or years-limited pope has the time and energy, better for society in long run to work through/fix the underlying problem(?) Next president/pope could likewise be high-handed in ways some of us won't like?

..."He is sometimes like the leader who says 'I don't care what the generals say, I will tell Lieutenant so-and-so to take that hill'," said a source, adding that the pope enjoyed rattling an inefficient bureaucracy with what the source described as "joyful destruction"...

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-management-insight-idUSKCN12Q0WD

>228 margd: he tries to push through a progressive agenda to make the Church more welcoming in the face of conservative opposition

Much of what is said in this article seems fair enough, but I don't like the "culture wars" language of this particular quote. While it is certainly true that Francis is trying to make the Church more welcoming, I'm not sure that "progressive" and "conservative" are the right words. Perhaps "pastoral" woiuld be a better word to describe his agenda?

>229 John5918:

I don't know. At some point, the thing is the thing. The Conservative language of their views being merely the the views of "faithful" Catholics, of "tradition," of the "immemorial belief" and on and on are just as wrongheaded as insisting that Francis is not in some sense a "progressive." Pope Francis doesn't just have different plans to implement the single Catholic thing that everyone agrees on; he believes different things.

Both deny a fundamental fact--the church and its teaching are not a monolith. They contains a diversity of views. This spectrum does not only divide into left and right, or conservative and traditionalist. But, if you're going to resort of simplifications, that's hardly the worst one to choose.

The unity of Francis is the unity of Benedict and Pope John Paul--all are a participant in a long-running conversation, guided by love and agreeing, obviously, on the most important things. That doesn't preclude some people being usefully called "progressives," others "conservatives," etc.

>230 timspalding:

Well, yes and no. I agree that the Church is not a monolith and it legitimately contains many different, sometimes apparently conflicting, views. I'm just not sure that framing the narrative in terms of "progressive" and "conservative" is very helpful, particularly as those have become polarising terms. That's why I would suggest that there might be better narratives, such as the "pastoral" one.

Francis joins Lutherans for first ecumenical global commemoration of the Reformation (499 yrs). Also, it's 60 years since Lutheran World Federation (LWF) was founded.

...Perhaps the main task of today’s ecumenical acts in Lund and Malmö is simply to help both Lutherans and Catholics “receive” the results of 50 years of dialogue between the two Churches. The result of that dialogue is a series of agreements - as well as persisting disagreements - ably summed up in the joint document prepared for the occasion, From Conflict to Communion*.

Yet who knows about it? William G. Rusch, Professor of Lutheran Studies at Yale’s Divinity School and a leading ecumenist, believes “the task before us is to receive the fruit of 50 years of dialogue,” the results of which have not been “rejected” so much as “neglected.”

Which is why, said Rusch, the mere fact of the pope appearing today in Lund - where in 1947 the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) was founded - is “an enormous step, compared to where we’ve been.”...

https://cruxnow.com/analysis/2016/10/30/restless-reforming-pope-can-help-heal-re...

* FROM CONFLICT TO COMMUNION. Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/lutheran-fed-docs...

>232 margd: “the task before us is to receive the fruit of 50 years of dialogue,” the results of which have not been “rejected” so much as “neglected.”

Well said, I think. I remember getting on for forty years ago, when I was studying theology, there was great excitement in theological circles around the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue, as well as ARCIC. Then it all just seemed to get forgotten...

I worked for LWF for three years in the late 'nineties - or rather, I actually worked for an ecumenical consortium of which LWF was a member, and LWF held my contract on behalf of the consortium. And earlier this month I back was at their HQ in Geneva, which is also the WCC HQ, where I was a speaker in a public panel presentation on peacebuilding in South Sudan which they organised.

Although he made no reference to the issue of the Eucharist, Francis in Sweden has issued some of the most positive language ever used by a pope to describe Martin Luther and his beliefs.

https://cruxnow.com/papal-visit/2016/10/31/pope-sweden-heaps-praise-luther-no-br...

Catholics and Lutherans must ‘move beyond controversies of the past’, says Pope Francis (Catholic Herald)

Lutheran - Catholic humanitarian cooperation alive and well in Africa (Vatican Radio)

Catholic Herald: some Lutherans long for shared Communion...
Good luck with THAT!

Pope Francis says women will never be Roman Catholic priests (Guardian)

Pope Francis confirms finality of ban on ordaining women priests (NCR)

Francis proposes six new Beatitudes for the modern era (NCR)

Francis then proposed six new beatitudes for the modern era:

"Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others, and forgive them from their heart;
"Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized, and show them their closeness;
"Blessed are those who see God in every person, and strive to make others also discover him;
"Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home;
"Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others;
"Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians."

Pope Calls All Religions to Follow Path of Mercy (Zenit)

Pope asks authorities to grant clemency for prisoners during Jubilee (CNA)

NO WINKS, NO NODS
The American Who Would Impeach Pope Francis, if Only He Could
In a move not seen in centuries, Cardinal Burke, Francis’s ultra-conservative critic, is forcing the liberal pontiff to spell out exactly where the church stands on divorce and LGBTs.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/20/the-american-who-would-impeach-...

Interesting graphic on ages of cardinals appointed by popes Francis, Benedict, JP2, and even Paul (one lone survivor):

Pope Francis’ Race Against Time to Reshape the Church
Pope Francis Has Appointed About a Third of the Cardinals Eligible to Choose the Next Pope
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/18/world/europe/pope-francis-cardinal...

A few of the pope's reflections which have come across my desk in the last month which I think are worth sharing:

Now is a time of mercy: Pope issues new Apostolic Letter (Vatican Radio)

APOSTOLIC LETTER Misericordia et misera OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE OF MERCY (full text)

Pope: Full text of homily for Solemnity of Christ the King (Vatican News)

Pope’s Morning Homily: The Lukewarm Miss Out on the Beautiful Things of God (Zenit)

Pope: Priests are called to console, not heap obligations on people (NCR)

When God starts pointing out a new path to follow, doubts over whether it is orthodox or heretical can creep in, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass.

https://cruxnow.com/cns/2016/12/15/doubt-crops-devil-interferes-pope-says/

>245 margd:

Thanks. Inspiring.

Edited to add: Pope's zeal for change undimmed as he reaches 80 (BBC)

POPE MEETS WITH COLOMBIAN LEADERS AT ODDS ON FARC PEACE DEAL

POPE FRANCIS CELEBRATES 80TH BIRTHDAY WITH THE HOMELESS AND DETAINEES

Both from the Tablet

Francis denounces resistance to Vatican reform in Christmas speech to curia (NCR)

I've started a new thread for Francis for 2017 - here