Friday, September 20, 2013

far more impressed with this old soldier of jesus than I am with myself...,


NYTimes | Six months into his papacy, Pope Francis sent shock waves through the Roman Catholic church on Thursday with the publication of his remarks that the church had grown “obsessed” with abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he had chosen not to talk about those issues despite recriminations from critics. 

His surprising comments came in a lengthy interview in which he criticized the church for putting dogma before love, and for prioritizing moral doctrines over serving the poor and marginalized. He articulated his vision of an inclusive church, a “home for all” — which is a striking contrast with his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, the doctrinal defender who envisioned a smaller, purer church. 

Francis told the interviewer, a fellow Jesuit: “It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time. 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. 

“We have to find a new balance,” the pope continued, “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 pope’s interview did not change church doctrine or policies, but it instantly changed its tone. His words evoked gratitude and hope from many liberal Catholics who had felt left out in the cold during the papacies of Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, which together lasted 35 years. Some lapsed Catholics suggested on social media a return to the church, and leaders of gay rights and gay Catholic groups called on bishops to abandon their fight against gay marriage. 

But it left conservative and traditionalist Catholics, and those who have devoted themselves to the struggles against abortion, gay marriage and artificial contraception, on the defensive, though some cast it as nothing new. 

“Nobody should try to use the words of the pope to minimize the urgent need to preach and teach about abortion,” said the Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, who said he spoke Thursday about the “priority of the abortion issue” at a Vatican conference. 

The interview with Francis was conducted by the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, an Italian Jesuit journal whose content is approved by the Vatican. Francis, the first Jesuit to become a pope, agreed to grant the interview after requests from Father Spadaro and the editors of America, a Jesuit magazine based in New York. 

Father Spadaro conducted the interview during three meetings in August in the pope’s spartan quarters in Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse, where Francis said he had chosen to live because it is less isolated than the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace. “I cannot live without people,” Francis told Father Spadaro.

12 comments:

Ed Dunn said...

turning out to be the best Pope in history..does not look like we wll be seeing another non-Hispanic Pope anytime soon...

CNu said...

I figured out a little while ago that rank and file catholicism is a system for safeguarding and enhancing the reproductive odds for males with no game. Seriously. There's a long history of that going back to the witch hunts/inquisition. Obviously, they're not running riot like that anymore, but they've been off on a bad tangent since the mid 1930's on contraception and abortion.

But that said, back in the day, various and sundry orders of the "brides
of Jesus" opened and operated hospitals, orphanages, and much else that
is good and has become the model for civilized standards throughout the
developed world. These good works of the church have been in steep
decline for generations now. With a pope like Francis speaking to what
the church has let slide for generations - there's no telling what may come next.

I engaged and joined the church earlier this year because I was impressed with the workmanlike efficiency of this system in practice in how the church's schools are operated, down to a very granular level. In a month and a half, my son has benefited tremendously from his immersion in this context.

If we contrast this with what's passing for church in the black community nowadays...., well, jes dayyum.

Dale Asberry said...

I figured out a little while ago that rank and file catholicism is a system for safeguarding and enhancing the reproductive odds for males with no game.


Considering that this is very likely the case (and I would argue includes protestantism), cui bono?

CNu said...

Obviously to those cats at risk of being cuckolded and investing significant resources in some backdoor man's spawn. Sherman, step with me into the WABAC machine and let's consider that the wyrdwymyn who provoked the brutal medieval ire of the church were actually sha-wo-man/healers with a vast herbal pharmacopia including highly effective abortifacient plants and weeds.


Now the nobles needed serfs to work, and the serfs needed some assurance that their wymyn weren't off with the green man out in the deep forest ginning up a horde of red-headed step children. Move that forward several hundred years, and put it into a contemporary context - and it still has strong explanatory power.



Outside of the dominionist influenced evangelicals, an offshoot of extreme calvinism, I don't think you can find much of this strain in protestantism. At least, that's been the bulk of my experience. In fact, the further you span across the protestant offshoots, particularly the southern and southern baptist variants and their spawn - the closer you get to a situation of "pimps in the pulpit" where the backdoor man with hella game has hijacked the whole and entire system for both fun and profit.



The institution of the celibate priest is one sure way to keep the overwhelming majority of pimps out of the pulpit. Like keepding foxes out of the henhouse...,

Tom said...

What an improvement. Who knew the Church was about to start dishing out Christianity all of a sudden?

CNu said...

Thou shall nots are easy. Love thy neighbor on the other hand..., not so much.

Uglyblackjohn said...

Lately, Pat Robertson seems to be even MORE impressed than you Craig.

BigDonOne said...

The Catholic Church -- you mean that Outfit has any money left to do Good Works after paying out all the settlements to sexually abused kids/families at the hands of a not-quite-so-celibate priesthood...??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases
http://fightforsexualabusevictims.com/clergy-sexual-abuse/catholic-priest-child-sexual-abuse-lawsuit

.
.
....ad infinitum...

CNu said...

Wha'choo doin watchin the 700 Club?

Uglyblackjohn said...

Well... I... Ummm. Errrr.. No but seriously. I was just flipping through channels and saw Mr Robertson extolling the virtues of the new Pope. I thought I was just imagining what I was hearing until I read other articles which mentioned times when each agreed. I
KNOW Pat is pretty messed up. I was waiting for him to say something like, 'Seashore, New Jersey is being punished because of the sin of Snookie'.

Dale Asberry said...

Sorta...


This here subject was the very thing that got me seeing the pervasiveness of "livestock management" before coming around to these parts. From evolutionary biology, we get a couple of interesting facts: 1) humans are moderately sexually polygamous (the wymyns prefer the fitter studs in the forest) while being mostly socially monogamous (seemingly "pair bonding", the wymyns like to hide the forest visits so as to increase the survivability of their offspring). 2) Comparative DNA studies show that nearly all women have reproduced throughout history, while only 80% (ish) of men have of which 10% were the fathers of 50% of today's worldwide population. 3) Current studies show that in polygamous societies, the cuckolded men tend to be significantly more violent and less socially stable. 4) All of the Abrahamic religious traditions socially clamp down on female sexuality (the Catholic system is clearly more sophisticated, and arguably superior, because that Catholic circumspect valuation -- namely, sexual guilt/shame -- excels at achieving compliance without those messy stonings and such). 5) Religion of one sort or another is practiced by all human societies.


Now, if I were a member of elite governance, I could use that knowledge to achieve the behavior goals I want, without any need for explicit governance controls. I could instill a disgruntled, violent, male warrior class, maybe lock them up until needed... and I could subvert the religious traditions so that the vast majority of the male proletariat class would remain docile and compliant - so as to hold on to those "only six meals away" precarious breeding privileges...

Dale Asberry said...

Sorta...

This here subject was the very thing that got me seeing the pervasiveness of "livestock management" before coming around to these parts. From evolutionary biology, we get a couple of interesting facts: 1) humans are moderately sexually polygamous (the wymyns prefer the fitter studs in the forest) while being mostly socially monogamous (seemingly "pair bonding", the wymyns like to hide the forest visits so as to increase the survivability of their offspring). 2) Comparative DNA studies show that nearly all women have reproduced throughout history, while only 80% (ish) of men have of which 10% were the fathers of 50% of today's worldwide population. 3) Current studies show that in polygamous societies, the cuckolded men tend to be significantly more violent and less socially stable. 4) All of the Abrahamic religious traditions socially clamp down on female sexuality (the Catholic system is clearly more sophisticated, and arguably superior, because that Catholic circumspect valuation -- namely, sexual guilt/shame -- excels at achieving compliance without those messy stonings and such). 5) Religion of one sort or another is practiced by all human societies.

Now, if I were a member of elite governance, I could use that knowledge to achieve the behavior goals I want, without any need for explicit governance controls. I could instill a disgruntled, violent, male warrior class, maybe lock them up until needed... and I could subvert the religious traditions so that the vast majority of the male proletariat class would remain docile and compliant - so as to hold on to those "only six meals away" precarious breeding privileges...

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