This topic is currently marked as "dormant"—the last message is more than 90 days old. You can revive it by posting a reply.
2timspalding
"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.
“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you."
“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you."
3MMcM
At the bottom:
Read the original Italian text and the Spanish translation of this interview.Uhm, where?
4John5918
I've skimmed it and it is certainly interesting and wide-ranging, but methinks the editor of America was over-hyping his own esteemed organ when he described it as "very major" and "worldwide news".
5timspalding
It may not be worldwide news, but it's fantastic. I love this guy.
“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. 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. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.
“I say this also thinking about the preaching and content of our preaching. A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that the opposite order is prevailing. The homily is the touchstone to measure the pastor’s proximity and ability to meet his people, because those who preach must recognize the heart of their community and must be able to see where the desire for God is lively and ardent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.”
6timspalding
"It is amazing to see the denunciations for lack of orthodoxy that come to Rome."
7John5918
>5 timspalding: British art of understatement! It really is rather good!
8timspalding
Last one:
“If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”
9John5918
>8 timspalding: I first heard the term "restorationist" a few years ago when my good friend Bishop Kevin Dowling was pilloried for using it. Who would have believed that now the pope is using it?
10timspalding
Damn it. I can't stop quoting him.
"St. Vincent of Lerins makes a comparison between the biological development of man and the transmission from one era to another of the deposit of faith, which grows and is strengthened with time. Here, human self-understanding changes with time and so also human consciousness deepens. Let us think of when slavery was accepted or the death penalty was allowed without any problem. So we grow in the understanding of the truth. Exegetes and theologians help the church to mature in her own judgment. Even the other sciences and their development help the church in its growth in understanding. There are ecclesiastical rules and precepts that were once effective, but now they have lost value or meaning. The view of the church’s teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is wrong."The slavery reference is key. Slavery (and usury, etc.) are issues where church teaching has in important ways changed—changed by discovering the deeper principle—but changed. It didn't just develop from the less explicit to the more explicit, or get wiggly and then straight again. The sort of people Francis is disagreeing with minimize that change, or assert that, basically, no such change is possible today.
11nathanielcampbell
I was struck by his references to both Dostoevsky and La Strada, as I've always thought that Fellini's film makes a wonderful parallel/counter-point to The Idiot -- and that whether it's Prince Mishkin or Gelsomina, both characters exemplify the Christ-like innocence that seems to characterize so much of Pope Francis' seemingly naive enthusiasm.
(Is "scurvy dog" really the best pirate-speak to describe Dostoevsky in the touchstone?)
(Is "scurvy dog" really the best pirate-speak to describe Dostoevsky in the touchstone?)
12nathanielcampbell
I've put the portion of the interview on "Find God in All Things" in a Let's Talk Religion thread, as it seems to address many of the issues that come up over there: http://www.librarything.com/topic/159221
15MyopicBookworm
How nice to have a Pope who thinks spiritual life more important than canon law.
16John5918
The BBC's take on it:
Pope Francis: Church too focused on gays and abortion
NCR also has some articles:
Pope rejects church of 'small-minded rules' in Jesuit interview
A Jesuit reflects on the Jesuit pope's interview by Jesuits
I have never been prouder to be a Jesuit or prouder of my church or more surprised by the Spirit.
The Pope's Remarkable Interview
Pope Francis: Church too focused on gays and abortion
NCR also has some articles:
Pope rejects church of 'small-minded rules' in Jesuit interview
A Jesuit reflects on the Jesuit pope's interview by Jesuits
I have never been prouder to be a Jesuit or prouder of my church or more surprised by the Spirit.
The Pope's Remarkable Interview
17nathanielcampbell
Can I just point out that I think what we're seeing is that it's the media who are too focused and "obsessed" with gays and abortion? After all, their headlines and reports are the ones that ignore 95% of the interview and latch onto the single paragraph in which he mentions gay marriage and abortion.
Gays and abortion weren't the focuse of the interview -- but you wouldn't know that from the media coverage. I have yet to see a single media report that looked at the interview's initial (surprising) question, "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?", and the Pope's bracing answer, "I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon."
The two sides of that statement--I am a sinner, and the Lord has looked upon me with mercy (miserando et eligendo)--set the space for the entire interview.
But has that been mentioned or noticed by the media reports? No.
So who is it that's actually obsessed with gay marriage and abortion? Is it the Church? Or is it the media who like to poke the Church's eye on its opposition to those things?
Gays and abortion weren't the focuse of the interview -- but you wouldn't know that from the media coverage. I have yet to see a single media report that looked at the interview's initial (surprising) question, "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?", and the Pope's bracing answer, "I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon."
The two sides of that statement--I am a sinner, and the Lord has looked upon me with mercy (miserando et eligendo)--set the space for the entire interview.
But has that been mentioned or noticed by the media reports? No.
So who is it that's actually obsessed with gay marriage and abortion? Is it the Church? Or is it the media who like to poke the Church's eye on its opposition to those things?
18John5918
>17 nathanielcampbell: Well, to be fair, quite a lot of the Church does seem to be obsessed with abortion and gay marriage. I think it's one of those NCR pieces which suggests that Pope Francis' attitude should be a wake up call to the USCCB, for example. But what you say about the actual focus of the interview is absolutely correct.
19nathanielcampbell
Or there's this passage, discussing his time teaching secondary-school literature, which should come as a ripple of delight to students of modern literature and theory:
Then I also started to get them to write. In the end I decided to send Borges two stories written by my boys. I knew his secretary, who had been my piano teacher. And Borges liked those stories very much. And then he set out to write the introduction to a collection of these writings.
20enevada
#19: I'm thinking of suggesting to the Jesuits at our children's school that they scrap anything they've planned for theology lessons this year and just work off the interview. Ditto for the language arts curriculum.
21John5918
Is the pope Catholic? (Guardian)
Pope Francis's more relaxed views on gay people and abortion chime well with atheists, but probably less so his own church
But don't worry, bears are still defecating amongst the trees...
Pope Francis's more relaxed views on gay people and abortion chime well with atheists, but probably less so his own church
But don't worry, bears are still defecating amongst the trees...
22enevada
#21: Ha! Bears in woods... yes, Johnthefireman that is true. And one thing the Guardian column does is to show the modern tendency to think of the Church as a corporation which “markets” a message to would-be consumers. This doesn't and never will work with the Church.
Also of interest is Elizabeth Scalia's take (in the Washington Post and on Patheos) that the world is making an idol of Pope Francis: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/09/18/is-the-world-making-a...
from which this observation: The Bishop of Rome is already like Jesus in one way: As we edit his statements into all that is comforting and self-affirming, we are giving him the pal-Jesus treatment.
I admit to this tendecy, and would agree that idolatry is part and parcel of human nature – but it is only the very first step of identification with, a sense of kinship with...that may attract us initially but is an incomplete encounter.
To complete the encounter requires deeper study and – another point made repeatedly by Francis in the interview – discernment. Perpetual discernment, in many ways, that is, thought that is ever alive and active and doesn't calcify into a dead artifact of faith.
Above all, the message from Francis in this interview alone, that both attracts and challenges me is this:
“When does a formulation of thought cease to be valid? When it loses sight of the human or even when it is afraid of the human or deluded about itself. “
I like to crystalize ideas, to wash off the human stench and treat them like rarified gems- hey, I'm a Platonist, out of favor these days - and this Pope is calling me out on it. It's a bit startling.
Also of interest is Elizabeth Scalia's take (in the Washington Post and on Patheos) that the world is making an idol of Pope Francis: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/09/18/is-the-world-making-a...
from which this observation: The Bishop of Rome is already like Jesus in one way: As we edit his statements into all that is comforting and self-affirming, we are giving him the pal-Jesus treatment.
I admit to this tendecy, and would agree that idolatry is part and parcel of human nature – but it is only the very first step of identification with, a sense of kinship with...that may attract us initially but is an incomplete encounter.
To complete the encounter requires deeper study and – another point made repeatedly by Francis in the interview – discernment. Perpetual discernment, in many ways, that is, thought that is ever alive and active and doesn't calcify into a dead artifact of faith.
Above all, the message from Francis in this interview alone, that both attracts and challenges me is this:
“When does a formulation of thought cease to be valid? When it loses sight of the human or even when it is afraid of the human or deluded about itself. “
I like to crystalize ideas, to wash off the human stench and treat them like rarified gems- hey, I'm a Platonist, out of favor these days - and this Pope is calling me out on it. It's a bit startling.
23John5918
>22 enevada: the modern tendency to think of the Church as a corporation which “markets” a message to would-be consumers. This doesn't and never will work with the Church
Agreed. One of my first thoughts when reading the Guardian piece was that they misunderstand Church. As well as the point you make, I think they also fail to understand what "catholic" (small c) means.
we edit his statements into all that is comforting and self-affirming
I do hate it when "we" is used in this way, as if it includes all of us. While his statements may be comforting and self-affirming at a certain level, deep down I find them very challenging indeed. Living up to the ideals he is preaching is a lot more difficult than following rules and regulations.
We love this story because its take-away message seems to affirm our modern belief that God knows we are good people, and so the judgment of others is evil (speaking of John 8, the story of the woman taken in adultery)
This is another "we" from the Washington Post article. Who is this "we"? I think she completely turns around the message. It's got nothing to do with thinking of ourselves as good people, in fact quite the opposite; we are all sinners which is why we should not judge others' sins. Or, as Francis has said elsewhere, "Who am I to judge?"
Agreed. One of my first thoughts when reading the Guardian piece was that they misunderstand Church. As well as the point you make, I think they also fail to understand what "catholic" (small c) means.
we edit his statements into all that is comforting and self-affirming
I do hate it when "we" is used in this way, as if it includes all of us. While his statements may be comforting and self-affirming at a certain level, deep down I find them very challenging indeed. Living up to the ideals he is preaching is a lot more difficult than following rules and regulations.
We love this story because its take-away message seems to affirm our modern belief that God knows we are good people, and so the judgment of others is evil (speaking of John 8, the story of the woman taken in adultery)
This is another "we" from the Washington Post article. Who is this "we"? I think she completely turns around the message. It's got nothing to do with thinking of ourselves as good people, in fact quite the opposite; we are all sinners which is why we should not judge others' sins. Or, as Francis has said elsewhere, "Who am I to judge?"
24enevada
#23: While his statements may be comforting and self-affirming at a certain level, deep down I find them very challenging indeed. Living up to the ideals he is preaching is a lot more difficult than following rules and regulations.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
I think the "we" for Scalia is the media, the chattering class, the well-educated western audience - but I may be wrong. Certainly it isn't me ! ; )
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
I think the "we" for Scalia is the media, the chattering class, the well-educated western audience - but I may be wrong. Certainly it isn't me ! ; )
25nathanielcampbell
A really good analysis of the interview by a friend of mine: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/09/prophet-pope
26enevada
#25: Thanks, Nathaniel. The other Nathaniel's reading is similar to mine, especially this paragraph:
Francis sees those to whom the Church is called to minister as deeply wounded, as walking off a battle field. This underscores his profound sense of sin and idolatry that have emerged in writings and homilies. Sin is grave and real and kills souls. Our souls, therefore, require the most potent and unexpected medicine of all: the mercy found in the blood of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps because I am also immersed in the writings and life of Catherine of Siena at the moment - this is familiar territory. But to a modern reader with his lacuna of knowledge regarding Church teachings from antiquity and especially of the medieval saints, this may feel like new ground. I can't help but wonder, though, in the post I'm-OK-You're-OK world, what they'll make of the term "wounded".
Take umbrage, is my guess, once the honeymoon period is over. But, maybe not.
Francis sees those to whom the Church is called to minister as deeply wounded, as walking off a battle field. This underscores his profound sense of sin and idolatry that have emerged in writings and homilies. Sin is grave and real and kills souls. Our souls, therefore, require the most potent and unexpected medicine of all: the mercy found in the blood of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps because I am also immersed in the writings and life of Catherine of Siena at the moment - this is familiar territory. But to a modern reader with his lacuna of knowledge regarding Church teachings from antiquity and especially of the medieval saints, this may feel like new ground. I can't help but wonder, though, in the post I'm-OK-You're-OK world, what they'll make of the term "wounded".
Take umbrage, is my guess, once the honeymoon period is over. But, maybe not.
27John5918
>25 nathanielcampbell: The Christian life is not a dogmatic ideology, but one sinner inviting another to walk along the way to Jesus Christ. It is not a “lab faith” to keep in your head, but a “journey faith” to be lived out—and to be challenged and deepened in that living-out. “God is always a surprise, so you never know where and how you will find him”
I love that bit.
I love that bit.
28enevada
Let me qualify my use of "they" in 26, lest I draw Johnthefireman's gentle and well-placed ire: specifically I am referring to writers and readers of NYT op-eds and latte drinkers. : )
29nathanielcampbell
>26 enevada:: The other Nathaniel
FYI: That's actually how we refer to each other. (We're both medieval theologians with a focus on the twelfth century.)
FYI: That's actually how we refer to each other. (We're both medieval theologians with a focus on the twelfth century.)
32nathanielcampbell
So apparently, the day after the interview was released and the worldwide media swooned to hear that the Church was no longer going to harp on narrow issues like abortion, Francis met with a group of doctors and counseled them never to peform abortions, saying, "Every unborn child, though condemned to be aborted, has Christ's face."
The AP can't seem to wrap it's head around this: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2013/09/20/francis-confounds-the-assoc...
The AP can't seem to wrap it's head around this: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2013/09/20/francis-confounds-the-assoc...
33dekesolomon
Finally, at long last, Catholics of the world have a truly great leader.
37MyopicBookworm
We've had a pretty good run once we got rid of the Borgias and Medicis
I don't rate any of them highly, except John XXIII.
I don't rate any of them highly, except John XXIII.
38nathanielcampbell
Michael Gerson: Pope Francis the Troublemaker (Washington Post)
True religion, {Jesus} said, is not found in obedience to the letter of the law; it is an affair of the heart. And this friendship with God often comes easier to the simple, powerless and outcast — children, sinners, women, gentiles and the poor. It was a message calculated to offend legalists in every generation: Ethical religion without love is arid and misleading. Relationships — with God and your neighbor — come first. Ethics arise from a grateful and transformed heart.This is a superb analysis, I think, that brings the media's blaring headlines into conversation with the substance of Francis' approach: not a doctrinal revolution, but a missionary one.
(...)
Rather than surrendering the moral distinctiveness of the Catholic Church, Francis is prioritizing its mission. In the America interview, he vividly compared the church to “a field hospital after battle.” When someone injured arrives, you don’t treat his high cholesterol. “You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else.” The outreach of the church, in other words, does not start with ethical or political lectures. “The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.”
There is a good Catholic theological term for this: the “hierarchy of truths.” Not every true thing has equal weight or urgency.
But this does not adequately capture Francis’s deeper insight: the priority of the person. This personalism is among the most radical implications of Christian faith. In every way that matters to God, human beings are completely equal and completely loved. They can’t be reduced to ethical object lessons. Their dignity runs deeper than their failures. They matter more than any cause; they are the cause.
So Francis observed: “Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person? We must always consider the person.”
This teaching — to always consider the person — was disorienting from the beginning. The outsiders get invited to the party. The prodigal is given the place of honor. The pious complain about their shocking treatment. The gatekeepers find the gate shut to them. It is subversive to all respectable religious order, which is precisely the point. With Francis, the argument gains a new hearing.
39dekesolomon
Francis is trying to turn the Roman Catholic Church into a Christian institution. More power to him, I say.
Join to post