Monday, April 25, 2016

Pope: “'But I belong to this religion, or to that one …' it doesn’t matter!"

"I care!"

On Sunday Pope Francis made another "surprise" visit, this time to an Earth Day celebration in Rome, sponsored in part by Focolare. 

Focolare is officially a Catholic group, though some have called it an indifferentist cult.

However, in fairness to Focolare, it wasn't a representative of that group that made the statement of the post title, but the Vicar of Christ himself.

Who needs Focolare when we have Francis?

Here are some excerpts from the Pope's "impromptu" remarks on an outdoor stage (from a Crux translation of a Vatican provided transcript):
Thanks much for everything, and now I’ll do a little improvisation. I’ll leave aside what I wrote down to say to you, and say instead what comes to me … 
Listening to you speak, two images came to me: The desert, and the forest. I thought, these people, all of you, all, are taking up the desert in order to transform it into a forest. They go where there’s desert, where there isn’t hope, and they do things to make a forest of this desert. The forest is full of trees, it’s full of vegetation, but too disorganized … but, life is like that. Passing from the desert to the forest is the beautiful work you do! You transform deserts into forests! (applause) Then, one can see how to regulate certain things in the forest … but there’s life in it, while in the desert there’s death. 
There are many deserts in the cities, deserts in people’s lives who don’t have a future, because there’s always – and I’ll underline a word here – always there are prejudices, fears. These people live and die in the desert of the cities. You perform a miracle with your work of changing the desert into a forest: Go forward that way. 
What’s your plan of work? I don’t know … We’re approaching you, and we’ll see what we can do. Life has to be taken as it comes. It’s like a goaltender in soccer: You have to take the ball where it’s kicked … it comes from here and there. But you must not be afraid of life, or afraid of conflicts … 
...The desert is ugly, both the desert in the heart of all of us, as well as the desert in the city, in the peripheries, which is also an ugly thing. There’s also a desert that’s in the gated neighborhoods … It’s ugly, but the desert is there too. We must not be afraid to go to the desert to transform it into a forest, where there’s exuberant life, and to go dry the many tears so that everyone can smile.... 
...I’ll give you an assignment to do at home. Look at the faces of people when you go into the street: they’re worried, everyone is closed in on themselves, they lack a smile, in other words they lack tenderness, social friendship … they lack this social friendship. Where there isn’t social friendship there’s always hatred and war. We’re living a piecemeal Third World War, everywhere. Look at the geographic map of the world, and you’ll see. 
...There’s a word not to forget in this world, where it seems that if you don’t pay you can’t live, where the person, the man and woman that God created to be the center of the world, to be for that matter at the center of the economy, are thrown out and instead we have at the center a god, the god of money. Today at the center of the world is the god of money, and those who can approach to adore this god … (applause) … they approach, and those who can’t finish in hunger, in illness, in exploitation … Think about the exploitation of children, of young people... 
...Look, these are the things that come to my mind. How to do this? Simply in the awareness that we all have something in common, we’re all human. And in this humanity, we can get close to each other to work together … “But I belong to this religion, or to that one …” it doesn’t matter! 
Let’s all go forward to work together, respecting each other, respecting! I see this miracle: the miracle of a desert that becomes a forest. Thanks for everything you do!

18 comments:

  1. He throws us old, stale, moldy crumbs.

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  2. That's indifferentism being espoused by a pope. it's a sin as I recall. An offense against truth and, ultimately, Jesus.

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  3. Bergoglio is no the vicar of Christ but the Satan he was a heretic in Argentina an heretic can never became a valid pope that what the real Catholic Church Teach us.

    https://gloria.tv/text/yDBPvaBk1Td

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  4. The Cardinal Mercier denounced such latitudinarianism as blasphemy. He warned that "putting the divine religion on the same level with the religions invented by men" is "blasphemy that attracts God's punishments in society far more than the sins of the people and families."
    Even the Vat II Const. Gaudium et Spes says that: The Indifferentism is one of the most radical forms of atheism.
    "The equal toleration of all religions is the same as Atheism." Pope Leo XIII (1810 - 1903)…

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  5. I'll play the devil's advocate and say that, in context, it probably means we should not allow our religious identifications to prevent us from joining together "as humans" to do what we can for the common good.

    And, I don't think anyone would object to that, except maybe Amish.

    But even so, this is the exact sort of thing that is seized upon by people who will interpret it out of context and believe "the Pope said it didn't matter what religion you are, so let's do whatever we want1'

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    1. Well, yeah, but everything is in THAT context (non-religious considerations and goals). as far as I know the only place where Francis has ever even hinted that anything you do in this life might matter in the next life (and that, thus, the next life matters) is when talking about the Mafia. Mafia members must get nice or be damned. Francis has replaced No Salvation Outside the Church with No Salvation Inside the Mafia.

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  6. Beyond that, there is nothing Catholic nor even very Christian in this drivel. My word, how long must we endure this. Aauugh.

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  7. This sounds more like a political speech. Pope Francis is telling the Focolare exactly what they already believe: "Focolare is officially a Catholic group, though some have called it an indifferentist cult."

    Pope Francis wants to win converts to himself not Himself.

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  8. It was reported that Benedict XVI told a Lutheran woman not to convert but to just keep working in Lutheranism. I can't confirm it so its hearsay but quite possibly true.

    The great philanthropist, Mother Teresa, said something similar:

    "Yes, I convert. I convert you to be a better Hindu, or a better Muslim, or a better Protestant, or a better Catholic, or a better Parsee, or a better Sikh, or a better Buddhist. And after you have found God, it is for you to do what God wants you to do.’ ”

    This is just the way it is in the Vat 2 church---read Nostra Aetate! You will be enlightened!!

    Enjoy your revolutionary pope. I don't claim him anymore.

    Seattle Kim

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  9. Oh wait I can confirm that Benedict told a Prot lady not to bother converting to Catholicism:


    http://www.novusordowatch.org/wire/ratzinger-lutheran-convert.htm

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    1. One other little personal story. We used to live in St Louis when Burke was the archbishop. I was working for the archdiocesan Project Rachel program and had an occasion to meet with Archbishop Burke. My beloved agnostic husband was with me at the time and I nervously blubbered out a stupid introduction for him, "this is my husband, he's not a Catholic but I hope he will be someday!" Burke's reply---"well if it's God will he will be." Now I thought for a while that his words were simply not well chosen and I was a little disappointed by them. "Of course it's God's will that he become Catholic," I thought, "it's the Church of Christ!"

      But now I see Burke's words as in keeping with the church of vat 2--nothing more, nothing less. Vat 2==religious indifferentism. You can scream hermeneutic of continuity as loud as you want. It doesn't work.

      Seattle kim

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    2. Yes, Anonymous 2:31am, that act of Benedict pierced my heart with a dagger. I could not believe he would dissuade a person from attaining the Eucharist.

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  10. New vatican theme song:
    https://youtu.be/StTqXEQ2l-Y

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  11. Probably a bad translation. No pope would intentionally say such a thing.

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    1. No more blaming it on "bad translations", just stop. This is a repeated pattern with Bergoglio. "No pope would intentionally say such a thing" is true, because he's not a pope, a blatant material and public heretic.

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    2. Pope Francis would most definitely say such a thing because this is what he believes. Let's at least give him credit for honesty.

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  12. Please let us pray for Pope Francis more than ever

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