"Following are excerpts from Pope Francis's interview with Jesuit publications on Thursday, as translated by the U.S. Jesuit magazine America:"
- On what the Church needs: "I see the church as a field hospital after battle... The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules."
- On priests: "The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark night with them...but without getting lost. The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials."
- On homosexuals: "It is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person... It is necessary to accompany them with mercy."
- On sexual morality: "We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods...I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that.... We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel."
- On women: "I am wary of a solution that can be reduced to a kind of ‘female machismo,' because a woman has a different make-up than a man... Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed... The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions."
Reuters
18 comments:
"It is necessary to accompany them with mercy."
It doesn't even matter who the them is.
I especially liked this passage:
“I see clearly,” the pope continues, “that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... And you have to start from the ground up.
i think that is a helpful passage for those seeking the context that the media coverage leaves out. Think of cholesterol and blood sugar as metaphors for sexual morality and you get a sense of how he's coming at this. Some folks are criticizing as though he's of a kind with liberal pseudo- Catholics like Nancy Pelosi. Not so; using this analogy, she' claim that we can just redefine healthy cholesterol and blood sugar levels. He is not saying that at all, but he is showing that these are symptoms of a crisis of spritual health, and you don't necessarily start by dealing with those symptoms head on.
"Father, I have helped an old lady across the street. I found a home for a stray cat I found starving in an alley," I began in one such typical appearance, in the shadowy arbor, at the age of eleven or twelve. "I did my homework without being told, and I returned a dime I found in the schoolyard to a boy I knew it belonged to. Instead of keeping it." That was the week that was.
There is a rustle beyond the lattice work, as of the cloth getting a firm grip on itself. At last the whispered response: "And now you are puffed up about these things. Spiritually vain."
"I suppose. I put part of the dough I made at the parish bowling alley in the poor box, and let's see, what else? I don't have pimples from impure thoughts, even though I'm old enough to be thinking about girls. My complexion is clear. All that is pretty well under control, Father. Things are in pretty good shape. In fact apple-pie order."
Another rustle in the ecclesiastical half of the arbor, and this time the answer coming quickly and sharply.
"If you wish to confess the sin of pride, then do so without the commercial if you please. Because I'm busy and there are others waiting. Two Hail Marys."
Peter deVries _The Vale of Laughter_
C. Stanley,
That is a beautiful interpretation, and one that I think gets it right. Every time I read a headline about something a pope says that is supposed to be shocking then I go and read what the pope actually said, I am left wondering what the fuss is about. It's never anything that shifts Church doctrin or teaching or even philosophy. He's just reminding people not too be too much of a Pharisee.
PS - Should be "doctrine." My "e" key is sticking.
As I will continue to say, when they elected the first Jesuit I knew he would shake up things. The church had lost its way and this man can lead it back to its real purpose. And, the real purpose of religion is really quite simple. The Good Lord put us on earth to help each other. Life is too difficult to be a solo endeavor. Nothing pleases God more than when we help someone, not for credit or acclaim, but just because it's the right thing to do. It's really quite simple. St. Francis was a simple man. That's why this pope chose his name.
I do like a lot of what this guy stands for, but I wish he'd say it like this more often.
One of the nice things about being Pope is you get to leave the specifics to others.
Althouse wonders about women's place in the church.
It's nagging, the same as everywhere else, if they don't want to show a man they're satisfied with him.
I agree that the Pope did not signal a change in church doctrine.
But a little clarification is in order.
The Pope has to realize that his every word will be twisted by the enemies of the church like the Evil Blogger Lady.
Althouse doesn't understand anything about women & God--or people and God--if she's asking stupid trite questions about QUOTE women and the church UNQUOTE. But that's not a surprise.
The cardinals chose well.
At a moment in history when the relativists are advancing on every front and destabilizing societies everywhere the Catholic Church should stand like a rock for certain absolutes. One of those absolutes must be no homosexual priests, period. This Pope is not only not doing that, he is signaling surrender.
I don' think that is true ricpic. The slant that the enemies of the church like the Evil Blogger Lady and the Main Stream Media is putting on this is getting them all excited that he is going to abandon bedrock principles in favor of the latest fads in feminism and pederasty.
That is not going to happen.
I think you're right C Stanley and phx is right too.
First, you've got to expose people to the Good Word of God. Let them feel his Spirit working in their lives. If they don't get that, then there will be no impetus to change. But if they've got it, then they will do whatever it takes to have more of it in their life. And really, it doesn't matter what the behavior is. It's a remedy for all of us.
Paul Schmidt reported that religious experience can be duplicated by drugs, but you can tell the difference because the drugs leave a hangover and religious experience doesn't.
So philosophically it was still open about holy spirits.
I think you're exactly right C Stanley.
Thanks, and I'm glad y'all could read that with all my typos.
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