This encyclical begins with Francis of Assisi traveling to meet with the Sultan and his people. Our Pope fails once more to mention Francis' intention of turning the Sultan's heart to Christ. However, a little further on, he brings up a topic which resonates in the hearts of many on MOG: The end of historical consciousness 13. As a result, there is a growing loss of the sense of history, which leads to even further breakup. A kind of “deconstructionism”, whereby human freedom claims to create everything starting from zero, is making headway in today’s culture. The one thing it leaves in its wake is the drive to limitless consumption and expressions of empty individualism. Concern about this led me to offer the young some advice. “If someone tells young people to ignore their history, to reject the experiences of their elders, to look down on the past and to look forward to a future that he himself holds out, doesn’t it then become easy to draw them along so that they only do what he tells them? He needs the young to be shallow, uprooted and distrustful, so that they can trust only in his promises and act according to his plans. That is how various ideologies operate: they destroy (or deconstruct) all differences so that they can reign unopposed. To do so, however, they need young people who have no use for history, who spurn the spiritual and human riches inherited from past generations, and are ignorant of everything that came before them”.[10] 14. These are the new forms of cultural colonization. Let us not forget that “peoples that abandon their tradition and, either from a craze to mimic others or to foment violence, or from unpardonable negligence or apathy, allow others to rob their very soul, end up losing not only their spiritual identity but also their moral consistency and, in the end, their intellectual, economic and political independence”.[11] One effective way to weaken historical consciousness, critical thinking, the struggle for justice and the processes of integration is to empty great words of their meaning or to manipulate them. Nowadays, what do certain words like democracy, freedom, justice or unity really mean? They have been bent and shaped to serve as tools for domination, as meaningless tags that can be used to justify any action. It's promising, yet so far no mention of the Person of Christ. There is a focus including a number of paragraphs on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I like the following: 74. One detail about the passers-by does stand out: they were religious, devoted to the worship of God: a priest and a Levite. This detail should not be overlooked. It shows that belief in God and the worship of God are not enough to ensure that we are actually living in a way pleasing to God. A believer may be untrue to everything that his faith demands of him, and yet think he is close to God and better than others. The guarantee of an authentic openness to God, on the other hand, is a way of practising the faith that helps open our hearts to our brothers and sisters. Saint John Chrysostom expressed this pointedly when he challenged his Christian hearers: “Do you wish to honour the body of the Saviour? Do not despise it when it is naked. Do not honour it in church with silk vestments while outside it is naked and numb with cold”.[58] Paradoxically, those who claim to be unbelievers can sometimes put God’s will into practice better than believers. Then in paragraph 85, PopeFrancis points a little more clearly toward the Gospel. Will he hit the nail on the head? 85. For Christians, the words of Jesus have an even deeper meaning. They compel us to recognize Christ himself in each of our abandoned or excluded brothers and sisters (cf. Mt 25:40.45). Faith has untold power to inspire and sustain our respect for others, for believers come to know that God loves every man and woman with infinite love and “thereby confers infinite dignity” upon all humanity.[61] We likewise believe that Christ shed his blood for each of us and that no one is beyond the scope of his universal love. If we go to the ultimate source of that love which is the very life of the triune God, we encounter in the community of the three divine Persons the origin and perfect model of all life in society. Theology continues to be enriched by its reflection on this great truth. I'm one-third the way through. That's enough for now.
I'd rather watch paint dry than read another one of this Pope's documents. I might look at it if I could be certain that the likes of Jeffrey Sachs didn't have a major input. God bless you, Mario, for your perseverence.
The encyclical FT confirms the Popes personal and novel teaching that capital punishment is now inadmissible. Is Pope Francis right or tradition right? Both cannot be right.
In addition in the new encyclical the Pope undermines the concept of a just war. He may very well soon make just war inadmissible. As we say in Ireland he's some pup. Me thinks his 3 encyclical are the most irrelevant and confusing in 2000 years of Church history. That takes some doing.
I admire you for reading this, Terry and putting so much thought and heart into it. In order to read a spriitual work like this I would have to have Faith in the writer, the more Faith the better and in this case I have no Faith and Trust so it would be a waste of time. What a sad thing to write regarding a Pope but it is the simple truth. It would for me be like walking through a mine field, I would be checking every word I was reading. I remember years ago I used to read the writings of a very famous hermit who wrote on the Spiritual Life. Then I heard through the grapevine he had an affaire whilst in his hermitage with a young woamn from the town. I just stopped reading him at once. ...'as I say we need trust. So very,very sad.
This is why I love to read the Great Spiritual Classics, the writings of the saints. These rather than modern authors. I don't have to second guess or do any checking. Perfect trust makes easy reading.
As a young boy I was taught that the taking of a life is permissible under three circumstances : self-defence if no other option is available, during a just war, and the lawful execution of a legally convicted criminal. When did this teaching of the church change?
Our beloved Holy Father Francis is tone deaf to every call from those who fear where Holy Mother Church is headed on his watch. The only way out of this is to beg Mama to talk to him. Please say the following prayer every day until Heavenly Mama helps us. Prayer for the Holy Father to Consecrate Russia. O Immaculate Heart of Mary, you are the holy Mother of God and our tender Mother. Look upon the distress in which the Church and the whole of humanity are living because of the spread of materialism and the persecution of the Church. In Fatima, you warned against these errors, as you spoke about the errors of Russia. You are the Mediatrix of all graces. Implore your Divine Son to grant this special grace for the Pope: that he might consecrate Russia to your Immaculate Heart, so that Russia will be converted, a period of peace will be granted to the world, and your Immaculate Heart will triumph, through an authentic renewal of the Church in the splendour of the purity of the Catholic Faith, of the sacredness of Divine worship and of the holiness of the Christian life. O Queen of the Holy Rosary and our sweet Mother, turn your merciful eyes to us and graciously hear this our trusting prayer. Amen. P
I've finished reading paragraphs 87-169. Pope Francis has, apart from a few Biblical references, excluded the Gospel from his call to a human fraternity. Sometimes he utilizes Christian constructs such as 1) charity which God infuses (para. 91), 2) love made possible by God's grace (para. 93), and 3) You are all brothers (taken from Matthew in para. 95). However, (1) and (2) are disconnected from the context of Catholicism, specifically the necessary gift of the sacraments. And (3) is a reference to Matthew 23:8 in which Jesus says: 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. Clearly, this verse references to only disciples and their relationship to Christ, the Teacher. So when Pope Francis declares "Fraternity is a liberty directed above all to love..,(para. 103)" he is referring only to a natural love, not to supernatural charity. Now, he does state that, "Concupiscence, however, can be overcome with the help of God." (para. 166) But where is the role of the Holy Spirit and cardinal virtues mentioned in this discussion? Nowhere. Constantly, his call to fraternity focuses only on creating a fraternity based on fulfilling temporal and humanistic priorities; never is the gifting of temporal needs perceived as a stepping stone to the sharing of the "kerygma", the Gospel of salvation. A number of times Pope Francis denounces a nationalism (para. 141) that precludes the necessity of globalism (para. 138) and a worldwide organization for mediation. This confirms his ongoing relationship with the UN and related personalities. I will plow through the rest of the encyclical, so that what I share is not dependent on the Press, but it is very discouraging. Come Lord Jesus! Maranatha!
I agree: my trust level is low, but Francis is Pope. As such my respect for him demands that any praise or criticism I may publicly state should be based on original sources as much as possible. Safe in the Barque of Peter!
Pope Francis changed the Catechism to state that the death penalty is inadmissible. In this new encyclical he seems to want to do the same thing with the concept of just war.
We know a lot of Protestants take issue with Catholics calling our Priests Father, and they quote the Bible in defence of their belief, they say Catholics are going against the Bible when we call Priests Father. I notice you have quoted the reference to not calling Pastors or Priests Rabbi. but the same is said about not calling anyone Father. Just wondering if the next thing to come might be finding a new title for our Priests, so as not to offend the Protestants. I am voting for their new title to be Big Brother (Bro), Jesus never said don't call anyone Bro. And the protestants can stop calling their Church men Vicar or Pastor or Preacher. Maybe we could all get united and call the boys in black with the dog collars Big Bro. We could write a new hymn starting on line one; Big Bro, let it flo, Jesus loves ya, don't you know. We all know who Tutti Frutti is, his name is sorted, bless him.
When you're finished reading it, Mario, do a word search and see how many times Jesus is mentioned. Then check how often the Pope cites his own documents or speeches.
I could not determine the number of times the name of Jesus is mentioned. Of the 288 footnotes, the writings and/or addresses of Pope Francis are referenced 164 times. However, in an attempt to be unbiased, I have compared the above to the number of footnotes in John Paul II's encyclical, Dominum et Vivificantem, written 7 years into his pontificate. His encyclical had a similar number of footnotes: 297. Of those 67 referenced to his writings. Does that mean since Pope Francis' rate of self-reference is 57% and the saintly John Paul's II rate of self-reference is 22.5 %, then Francis is already 39.5% of the way to canonization? I love you Lord Jesus!
