Yes each of us is different St Paul was very very different from the other Apostles How boring if we were all the same
A sheep dogg that does not have a good bark when it sees wolves in the sheepfold is not much of a sheep dog. Certainly he disturbed people and annoys them, but that is what a sheepdog is meant to do. Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the news .
Well thank you for your comments. I must say there seems to be personal judgements that I am not active, just because I said I wont name call. It's amazing how this took off.... anyway I will be taking a break for a bit. Thanks
If I may chime in... I believe that calling out evil and errors when it needs to be done in order to protect souls from going astray is quite a different thing from calling the pope bad names and attributing intentions to him as if we were inside his mind reading his heart. We are especially warned to be very careful in avoiding criticizing God's priests. God Himself was very clear about this when speaking to St. Catherine of Siena. Even if we know the pope is utterly wicked, it is not our place as lay people to attack and accuse him with our words, lest we be guilty of scandal and irreverence toward him who represents Christ to us. We don't get to do everything Jesus does. Let Him and those who represent Him call out bad prelates if they need to to protect their flocks. It is very easy to call people bad names. I see nothing about that to be proud of. And no one has ever accused me of choosing niceness over truth. I'll tell you what's difficult, and what we lay people are actually called to do...and that is to be humble, and make sacrifices for our prelates. One of those sacrifices may be to bite our tongue when we want to rant about how nasty we think the pope is. Did Padre Pio criticize those above him in the Church? Would God approve if we even ranted to others about our own earthly father and called him the worst father ever, a real nasty piece of work, etc? Or would He prefer that out of the respect and love we have for him as our father, that we refrain from smearing him to others and instead pray as hard as we can for him, only pointing out specific actions if necessary to save his soul or another's? In my opinion, it isn't necessary for anyone's soul to call the pope such broad bad names as nasty and wicked. If he says something against truth and we need to explain it to others, than we can certainly do that. If anyone has an example of a saint expressing their own feelings about a pope or specific priests being bad, I'd like to see it.
If you took my post to be aimed at you, it wasn't intended to be. Sometimes you have to vocalize objection forcefully to be taken notice of. Pope Francis seems not to take notice of charitable adversity, especially the Dubia. Thank goodness for all the people praying and commenting to limit his agenda. Saint Jerome was very different from Saint Terese Lisieux and both are Doctors of the Church
Actually, Augustine and Jerome got into a few good rows via letters, with Jerome firing most of the darts. Augustine would then sweet-talk him to quiet Jerome down. It was a workable relationship.
I’m too busy with my prayers and my daily duties. Edit: but my prayer intentions encompass the situations in the Church and the world, and of course, souls. Lamp is lit.
St. Paul rebukes our first Pope St. Peter in front of Christians in Antioch. (Galatians 2:11-14) (Galatians 2:11-14) https://bible.usccb.org/bible/galatians/2
I don't see name-calling and disgust here. I see straightforward calling out of error by one prelate to another.
Don't forget the pushback of Alexander Tschugguel who threw the Pachamama idol into the Tiber River. Who knows, maybe it mitigated the chastisement because of that...
Okay PF, I thought you were looking if there was a saint who criticized a pope who acted badly in a situation...
I don't know who here has read The Dialogue, but I highly recommend it if you haven't. Not only is it deeply moving to hear from God Himself, but it was particularly eye-opening for me to read that God severely frowns upon people speaking badly about His priests. I will share some excerpts: God the Father speaking to St. Catherine: "The reverence you pay to [priests] is not actually paid to them but to me, in virtue of the blood I have entrusted to their ministry. If this were not so, you should pay them as much reverence as to anyone else, and no more. It is this ministry of theirs that dictates that you should reverence them and come to them, not for what they are in themselves but for the power I have entrusted to them, if you would receive the sacraments of the Church…. "So the reverence belongs not to the ministers, but to me and to this glorious blood made one thing with me because of the union of divinity with humanity. And just as the reverence is done to me, so also is the irreverence, for I have already told you that you must not reverence them for themselves, but for the authority I have entrusted to them. Therefore you must not sin against them, because if you do, you are really sinning not against them but against me. This I have forbidden, and I have said that it is my will that no one should touch them. "For this reason no one has excuse to say, “I am doing no harm, nor am I rebelling against holy Church. I am simply acting against the sins of evil pastors.” Such persons are deluded, blinded as they are by their own selfishness…. It is me they assault, just as it was me they reverenced. To me redounds every assault they make on my ministers: derision, slander, disgrace, abuse. Whatever is done to them I count as done to me…. "By not paying me reverence in the persons of my ministers, they have lost respect for the latter and persecuted them because of the many sins and faults they saw in them. If in truth the reverence they had for them had been for my sake, they would not have cut it off on account of any sin in them. For no sin can lessen the power of this sacrament, and therefore their reverence should not lessen either. When it does, it is against me they sin. "If all the other sins these people have committed were put on one side and this one sin on the other, the one would weigh more in my sight than all the others. "The virtuous must not lessen their reverence, even should these ministers fall short in virtue. And so far as the virtues of my ministers are concerned,…[they are] stewards of…my Son’s body and blood and of the other sacraments. This dignity belongs to all who are appointed as such stewards, to the bad as well as to the good. "You should hold [these sinful ministers] out to me with tears and great desire, so that I in my goodness may clothe them with the garment of charity… Indeed, I have appointed them and given them to you to be angels on earth…as I have told you. When they are less than that, you ought to pray for them. But you are not to judge them. Leave the judging to me, and I, because of your prayers and my own desire, will be merciful to them. "The more you offer me sorrowful and loving desires for them, the more you will prove your love for me. For the service neither you nor my other servants can do for me you ought to do for them instead. Then I will let myself be constrained by the longing and tears and prayers of my servants, and will be merciful to my bride by reforming her with good and holy shepherds."
