I'm Starting to Like This Pope

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Intra-Thread Trackbacks: pg 91 / pg 91 / pg 91 / pg 91 / pg 91 / pg 91


Theologians, cardinals defend pope’s theology in wake of heresy charge [In-Depth]

Pope Francis attends an ecumenical and interreligious meeting with young people, in Skopje's pastoral center, North Macedonia, Tuesday, May 7, 2019. (Credit: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

A week after the realeas of an open letter accusing Pope Francis of Heresy, cardinals and theologians in Rome take the pontiff's defense

ROME — In the wake of an April 30 open letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy signed by 19 clergymen and scholars, demanding the pontiff’s resignation, theologians and cardinals at a conference in Rome on Wednesday instead praised Francis’s theology and magisterium.

“Pope Francis is the pope, and when he speaks it’s magisterium,” Italian Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, told Crux after the event.

The symposium, called “Theology and Magisterium in the Church with Pope Francis,” took place May 8 in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University to present a new collection of books titled The Theological Seeds of Francis.

[…]

In a message to the event, Italian Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, looked at how Francis’ documents and speeches depict a renewed path for theologians that rooted in reality.

“The ease with which the texts and documents of Pope Francis can be read must not fool people or lead them to hurried conclusions,” he said.

“His thought is not at all improvised, but the fruit of a deep and lively theological reflection drawn from his experience as a pastor and theologian.”

According to Father Maurizio Gronchi, professor of Christology at the Urbaniana Pontifical University, the impact of Francis’ style could be compared to the 13th century introduction in Italy of the Dolce Stil Nuovo literary style, due to its poetic and emotional charge.

“Francis’s approach is elliptic, and gravitates around two permanent hearts, the heart of man and the heart of the gospel,” Gronchi said.

[…]

“In this moment, the fundamental thoughts of the Second Vatican Council have a chance of to take hold like never before,” said Dario Vitali, director of the Department of Dogmatic Theology at the Gregorian.

While cautioning against those who would like to see in Pope Francis a theologian, Vitali said that his magisterium contains “theological informarions.”

“Some dare to treat this magisterium as if it were an opinion,” he said, pointing the finger at economic and traditionalist lobbies.

Pierangelo Sequeri, one of the curators of the new books and Director of the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II, also criticized those who vocally oppose Francis’ pontificate during his speech.

“Those who always repeat the same old song don’t honor the revelation,” he said making an analogy with music, “but those who think that everything you play is music, are greatly mistaken.”

According to Sequeri there is a need for a better formation of theologians capable of interpreting and deepening the knowledge of the Gospel and the understanding of the Catholic faith.

“The world of ecclesiastic chatter is inhabited by weak nobodies who act as if they are Pope Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura,” he added.

Theologians are called to bring new life and enthusiasm to the Church, he continued, which has become “excessively melancholic” and therefore prone to aggression and polarization.

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Francis: Decision on women deacons cannot be made 'without historical foundation'

Pope Francis greets a nun during a meeting with 850 superiors general May 10, at the Vatican, who were in Rome for the plenary assembly of the International Un𝗂on of Superiors General. (CNS/Vatican Media via Reuters)

Vatican City — Pope Francis announced May 10 that he has given the report of the Vatican commission studying the history of women deacons in the Catholic Church to the global umbrella organization of women religious that requested the group's creation three years ago.

In a nearly hour-long audience at the Vatican with members of the International Un𝗂on of Superiors General (UISG), the pontiff repeated his earlier remarks that the 12 members of the commission had been unable to come to agreement about the role of women deacons in the early centuries of Christianity.

[…]

In his May 10 audience with 850 UISG members, in Rome for the group's triennial assembly, the pontiff gave a bit more detail. Some on the commission, he said, thought the church "must go forward" and reinstitute an order of women deacons. Others, he said, "say we must stop here."

"We must study this," said Francis. "I cannot make a sacramental decree without a theological, historical foundation."

[…]

The range of topics touched was vast and included clergy sexual abuse, how doctrine develops in the church, and a possible papal visit to South Sudan.

After hearing the pope's initial remarks about the women deacons commission, one sister told Francis that women like her were seeking to serve the church on an equal setting with men. She asked why the question of whether women could serve as deacons rested on historical practice.

The pontiff responded that the church develops its teachings "in fidelity with revelation." He said the nature of revelation is "continual movement to clarify itself."

"The way of understanding the faith today, after Vatican II, is different than the way of understanding the faith before Vatican II," said Francis. "Because there was a development of understanding."

The awareness of faith, the pope said, "grows with the years."

"It is in continual growth," he said. "Not change. It grows. It gets wider with time. It is understood better."

"If I see that this, what we think now, is in connection with revelation, good," said Francis. "But if it is a strange thing that is not according to revelation … it doesn't work."

"In the case of the diaconate, we have to see what was there at the beginning of revelation," said the pope. "If there was something, let it grow, let it live. If there was not something … it doesn't work."

"We cannot go beyond revelation and dogmatic expressions," he said. "We are Catholics. If someone wants to make another church, they are free to do so."

[…]

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Pope invites young people to pledge to build a new economy

The Basilica of St. Francis is seen in Assisi, Italy, Sept. 6, 2011. Pope Francis has invited young economists and entrepreneurs to take part in an initiative to be launched in Assisi March 26-28, 2020. The initiative seeks to find new ways to do business, promote human dignity and protect the environment. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS)

ROME — Pope Francis has invited young economists and entrepreneurs around the world to help create a “new and courageous culture” that finds new ways to do business, promote human dignity and protect the environment.

“We need to correct models of growth incapable of guaranteeing respect for the environment, openness to life, concern for the family, social equality, the dignity of workers and the rights of future generations,” the pope said in a letter inviting young people to take part in a new initiative.

The initiative, to be launched at an event in Assisi March 26-28, 2020, invites young men and women studying or working in the field of economics or business to join the pope and “enter into a ‘covenant’ to change today’s economy and to give a soul to the economy of tomorrow.”

The aim is to build and promote a different kind of economy: “one that brings life not death, one that is inclusive and not exclusive, humane and not dehumanizing, one that cares for the environment and does not despoil it,” the pope said in the letter, released by the Vatican May 11.

The letter, addressed to “young economists and entrepreneurs,” said that given “a need to ‘re-animate’ the economy,” there was no better place to launch the initiative than in Assisi, “which has for centuries eloquently symbolized a humanism of fraternity” and peace, and would be “a fitting place to inspire a new economy.”

St. Francis of Assisi is the church’s “outstanding example of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology,” the pope said, which is why the event in Assisi is titled “The Economy of Francis.”

[…]

“Your universities, your businesses and your organizations are workshops of hope for creating new ways of understanding the economy and progress, for combating the culture of waste, for giving voice to those who have none and for proposing new styles of life,” he wrote.

“Only when our economic and social system no longer produces even a single victim, a single person cast aside, will we be able to celebrate the feast of universal fraternity,” Pope Francis said.

[Hovannes]

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Intra-Thread Trackbacks: pg 91 / pg 91 / pg 91 / pg 91 / pg 91 / pg 91


Theologians, cardinals defend pope’s theology in wake of heresy charge [In-Depth]

Pope Francis attends an ecumenical and interreligious meeting with young people, in Skopje's pastoral center, North Macedonia, Tuesday, May 7, 2019. (Credit: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

A week after the realeas of an open letter accusing Pope Francis of Heresy, cardinals and theologians in Rome take the pontiff's defense

ROME — In the wake of an April 30 open letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy signed by 19 clergymen and scholars, demanding the pontiff’s resignation, theologians and cardinals at a conference in Rome on Wednesday instead praised Francis’s theology and magisterium.

“Pope Francis is the pope, and when he speaks it’s magisterium,” Italian Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, told Crux after the event.

The symposium, called “Theology and Magisterium in the Church with Pope Francis,” took place May 8 in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University to present a new collection of books titled The Theological Seeds of Francis.

[…]

In a message to the event, Italian Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, looked at how Francis’ documents and speeches depict a renewed path for theologians that rooted in reality.

“The ease with which the texts and documents of Pope Francis can be read must not fool people or lead them to hurried conclusions,” he said.

“His thought is not at all improvised, but the fruit of a deep and lively theological reflection drawn from his experience as a pastor and theologian.”

According to Father Maurizio Gronchi, professor of Christology at the Urbaniana Pontifical University, the impact of Francis’ style could be compared to the 13th century introduction in Italy of the Dolce Stil Nuovo literary style, due to its poetic and emotional charge.

“Francis’s approach is elliptic, and gravitates around two permanent hearts, the heart of man and the heart of the gospel,” Gronchi said.

[…]

“In this moment, the fundamental thoughts of the Second Vatican Council have a chance of to take hold like never before,” said Dario Vitali, director of the Department of Dogmatic Theology at the Gregorian.

While cautioning against those who would like to see in Pope Francis a theologian, Vitali said that his magisterium contains “theological informarions.”

“Some dare to treat this magisterium as if it were an opinion,” he said, pointing the finger at economic and traditionalist lobbies.

Pierangelo Sequeri, one of the curators of the new books and Director of the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II, also criticized those who vocally oppose Francis’ pontificate during his speech.

“Those who always repeat the same old song don’t honor the revelation,” he said making an analogy with music, “but those who think that everything you play is music, are greatly mistaken.”

According to Sequeri there is a need for a better formation of theologians capable of interpreting and deepening the knowledge of the Gospel and the understanding of the Catholic faith.

“The world of ecclesiastic chatter is inhabited by weak nobodies who act as if they are Pope Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura,” he added.

Theologians are called to bring new life and enthusiasm to the Church, he continued, which has become “excessively melancholic” and therefore prone to aggression and polarization.

It would be quite a spectacle if theologians would settle their issues via a tie-team wrestling matches.
The Jesuits would likely be the cheaters

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Pope Francis’ almsgiver restores power (illegally) to homeless shelter in Italy

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, visits the Hope and Peace Center for refugees near the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos May 8, 2019. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

In what he described as a desperate gesture, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the pope’s almoner, climbed down a manhole last Saturday evening, May 11, to restore electric power to a building in Rome occupied by some 450 homeless people, including more than 100 children. They had been without electricity and hot water for almost a week.

The municipal electric company cut off the power supply because the occupants — who had lived in the state-owned property as squatters since 2013 — had run up a substantial unpaid electric bill.

Asked if it was true that he personally lifted the manhole cover and climbed down to reconnect the building to the power main, Cardinal Krajewski told the newspaper, Corriere della Sera: “It was a special situation. Desperate. I repeat, I assume all the responsibility."

By reconnecting the building to the power supply and breaking the seals that prevented the building from having power, the papal almoner broke the law. But he was unrepentant, as the Vatican daily, L’Osservatore Romano, made clear this afternoon, noting, “It was a gesture of humanity carried out with an awareness of the possible consequences that he could face, in the conviction that it was necessary to do so for the good of these people.”

“If a fine should arrive, I will pay it,” the paper quoted him as saying.

[…]

It was, the 55-year-old Polish priest said, a situation that called for “an act of humanity,” given that the city officials who could have resolved this problem did not work over the weekend, and he could find no one to speak to with the authority to restore power.

“Don Konrad,” as he is popularly known, is the man Pope Francis chose in August 2013 to be his right hand in assisting the poor and vulnerable of Rome. Pope Francis made him a cardinal last year to emphasize that “the poor are a priority in this pontificate.”

[…]

La Repubblica, one of Italy’s main newspapers, labeled him “the Robin Hood of the Pope” on its front page on May 13, but Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister of Italy and the vice premier and leader of the xenophobic Northern League, did not share that view. He declared, “Supporting illegal behavior is never a good signal [to give people].”

[…]

At the pope’s request, Cardinal Krajewski reaches out to the poor in many ways every day, providing food, clothing, sleeping bags and medicine to them. He has undertaken many creative initiatives, too, with the pope’s full backing, like installing showers and barber’s services for the homeless people right under the window in the Vatican palace where the pope gives his Sunday greeting and recites the Angelus. He has also installed a medical service free of charge for the poor, and last week he went down to Lesbos to help migrants on that Greek island.

These acts in favor of the poor gain much approval from people but have also provoked a negative reaction from a small but vocal political minority who look to Mr. Salvini as their leader and who last Sunday staged a small protest near St. Peter’s Square.

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Top Vatican official says Americans misunderstand pope’s social agenda

Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS)

Calling Pope Francis a communist is flat out wrong, according to one of his top advisors.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, tapped by the pontiff to head the Vatican’s super-dicastery on integral human develop, said Tuesday that every time he goes to the United States, the pope’s social agenda is misinterpreted as adopting either a socialist or communist approach to the economy.

Speaking to journalists present at a May 14 briefing on the upcoming “Economy of Francesco” event set to take place in Assisi in March 2020, Turkson recalled how after receiving the Charlemagne prize in 2016, Francis was asked what type of economy he preferred.

In response, the pope said he was in favor of “the social economy” — an answer Turkson said was misinterpreted from the beginning, and which continues to be.

A social economy “is not to be confused with the socialist economy,” he said, explaining that “this is a problem we often find in the United States when we go to present the message of the Holy Father. Many accuse him of being socialist or communist.”

Speaking to Crux, Turkson said the concept of the social economy is based on the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, which he said can be a taboo in certain places.

“When you go to certain environments and speak of the social doctrine of the Church, they immediately say, ‘don’t bring your communist agenda here!’ Using the word ‘social’ for some cultures implies socialism, or communism.”

“But this is an intolerable reductionism,” he said, since each person is a member of society, meaning the concept of the Church’s social doctrine “already existed without implying any communism,” and nor does it refer to totalitarian regimes which have arisen throughout history.

“This is not the meaning of the social economy,” Turkson said, stressing what Francis is advocating “is not Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand,’” invoking the Scottish economist’s image illustrating the unintended social benefits of the self-interested actions of the individual.

Rather, what the pope is promoting is “the very visible hand of fraternity, solidarity and the common good,” he said, adding, “These principles become the visible hand of an economy which is able to serve all members of the community well.”

Turkson spoke at the presentation Tuesday of the March 26-28, 2020, “Economy of Francesco” event, which will be held in Assisi and which will draw young economists and entrepreneurs from all over the world.

In addition to young people, some of the world’s top economists and entrepreneurs are expected to attend the event.

[…]

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In the College of Cardinals, European dominance slowly wanes

Pope Francis at a consistory to create 14 new cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on June 28, 2018 (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the former archbishop of Krakow and longtime secretary to St. John Paul II, celebrated his 80th birthday on April 27, ending his eligibility to vote in a conclave for a new pope and returning the number of electors in the College of Cardinals to 120. That is the maximum limit established by St. Paul VI, one that has been frequently set aside for months at a time over the past three decades.


Europe no longer accounts for a majority of electors in the College of Cardinals...

The Catholic Church currently has 221 cardinals, who come from 87 nations. The 120 cardinals under 80 years of age and, therefore, eligible to enter a conclave, come from 65 countries, a result of Pope Francis’ practice of naming several cardinals from countries that have never had one before. In all, Pope Francis has created 75 cardinals (two of whom have since died) from 50 countries, 15 of which had never before had a cardinal, including the first Scandinavian cardinal since the Reformation. His efforts, however, have not yet made the percentage of cardinals from one geographical region necessarily match the percentage of the world’s Catholics found in that region.


… but Europe still has almost twice as many cardinals as its share of the global Catholic population would suggest.

According to Vatican statistics published in February, 21.8 percent of the world’s Catholics live in Europe, while 48.5 percent live in the Americas. In the current College of Cardinals, 42.5 percent of the cardinal electors come from Europe, while 17.5 percent come from Latin America and another 10 percent come from Canada and the United States. Still, Pope Francis has visibly shifted the college’s makeup, with fewer members coming from Europe and many more from Africa and Asia. In the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005, after the death of St. John Paul II, 50.4 percent of electors were from Europe. Eight years later, when Pope Benedict resigned, 52.1 percent of the electors were from Europe, almost 10 percentage points higher than in the current College of Cardinals.


There has been a steady increase in the number of countries represented at the College of Cardinals.

Following the 2018 consistory, 59 of the cardinal electors had been appointed by Francis, 47 by Pope Benedict XVI, and 19 by Pope John Paul II.