Much to the disappointment of this Catholic, Pope Francis balked on a golden opportunity to convey to the world just how fundamentally, how vehemently, the vision of the Church differs from that of President Obama when the two met a couple of weeks back.<\/p>\n
Why?\u00a0 Can it be that Francis is the fellow traveler that the left-wing press has been making him out to be?<\/p>\n
Resoundingly, Roman Catholic writer Selwyn Duke answers this question in the negative.<\/p>\n
Pope Francis, he writes, has been \u201cvictimized\u201d as much as anyone by the \u201ccommon media tactic\u201d of \u201ccut-and-paste propaganda [.]\u201d\u00a0 Though he\u2019s been depicted as castigating Catholics for obsessing over abortion and other issues of sexual morality, what the Pope has actually said is that \u201c\u2018it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time\u2019\u201d because <\/i>\u201c\u2019the teaching of the church\u2026is clear and I am a son of the church<\/i> (emphasis original) [.]\u201d<\/p>\n
For certain, Duke is correct that the left has been determined to make Francis appear as one of their own from the outset.\u00a0 But the forgoing quotation from the Pope, far from undermining this appearance, strengthens it.<\/p>\n
Francis\u2019 remarks could have just easily flowed from the mouths of any Catholic Democratic politician.\u00a0 In not so many words, they have.\u00a0 <\/i>Pavlovian-like, Catholic Democrat politicians, particularly at election time, reflexively assure voters that while they personally <\/i>oppose (say) abortion, they refuse to impose their \u201creligious beliefs\u201d upon others. That \u201cthe teaching of the Church is clear\u201d is a proposition that they readily concede.<\/p>\n
In short, the Pope sounds evasive.<\/p>\n
In Francesca Ambrogetti\u2019s and Sergio Rubin\u2019s, Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words, <\/i>Francis is \u00a0questioned whether the Church\u2019s \u201creprimands\u201d \u201cscare\u201d people off. He replies: \u201cOf course.\u201d\u00a0 Francis immediately adds that it is not \u201ca good Catholic attitude to go looking solely for the negative,\u201d for this not \u201conly makes our message distorted and frightening,\u201d \u201cit also implies a lack of acceptance [.]\u201d<\/p>\n
And \u201cChrist accepted everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are a few rather disturbing things of which to take note here.<\/p>\n
First, like any skilled politician, Francis answers this question without actually answering it. It is obvious that a preoccupation with \u201cthe negative\u201d is never a good thing.\u00a0 Yet it is also irrelevant to the question.<\/p>\n
Second, only a Biblical illiterate, a New Ageist, or a PC politician could believe that \u201cChrist accepted everything.\u201d Jesus accepted anyone <\/i>who believed in Him, it is true. But even this was conditional upon the sinner\u2019s admitting their sinfulness and resolving to \u201cgo and sin no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it came to criticizing His opponents, and even His disciples, Jesus was often relentless, and He would not hesitate to assure them of the eternal fate awaiting them lest they repent and \u201csin no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Third, that the Pope accepts the premise of the question, the idea that Catholics\u2019 obligations <\/i>are reprimands <\/i>handed down on high from \u201cthe Church,<\/i>\u201dreflects either a fundamental ignorance on his part or a sincere, yet covert, belief that they really are burdensome restrictions.<\/p>\n
The Catholic, like every other believer in God, sees his duties as a source of liberation, not oppression.\u00a0 To paraphrase the Church\u2019s \u201cangelic doctor,\u201d Thomas Aquinas, we have the duties we do because of the nature we have.\u00a0 Since God is our Creator, He knows that it is by way of fulfilling our duties that we perfect our nature. In fulfilling our duties we promise to flourish as human beings made in His image.<\/p>\n
Finally, it is telling that Francis regards focus on abortion, divorce, sexual morality, and the like as a focus on \u201cthe negative,\u201d but does not regard a focus on issues of \u201csocial justice\u201d as such.<\/p>\n
Selwyn Duke observes that while the leftist press portrays the Pope as an enemy of \u201ccapitalism,\u201d Francis has only ever urged the cultivation of \u201ca God-centered ethics [.]\u201d\u00a0 Again, though Catholics like Duke, Francis, and I think it is axiomatic that we should all \u201ccultivate a God-centered ethic,\u201d what\u2019s axiomatically true is also\u00a0trivially<\/i> true: it is true but insufficiently enlightening.\u00a0 Is capitalism a God-centered ethic? What about socialism?<\/p>\n
In point of fact, just 42 pages after he warns against obsessing over \u201cthe negative,\u201d Francis unequivocally declares that lest we \u201cshare our food, clothing, health, and education with our brothers,\u201d Christ will \u201ccondemn us [.]\u201d Now, it is true enough that charity is the greatest of all Christian virtues, but this doesn\u2019t appear to be all that Francis is talking about, for, curiously, within this same paragraph he insists that he is not a communist.\u00a0 \u201cSome may say, \u2018This priest is a communist!\u2019 That\u2019s not it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis may not be \u201ccommunist\u201d (again, whatever exactly this means), but he is <\/i>sympathetic to so-called liberation theology. The latter, he says, \u201chas its good points and its bad, its restraints and its excesses.\u201d The Pope remarks that some liberation theologians are guilty of \u201cmissteps,\u201d but \u201cthousands\u201d of clerics and laypersons under the influence of liberation theology have been \u201cthe honor of our work, the source of our joy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe Obama was right and he and Francis really do agree on more than some of us would care to think.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Much to the disappointment of this Catholic, Pope Francis balked on a golden opportunity to convey to the world just how fundamentally, how vehemently, the vision of the Church differs from that of President Obama when the two met a couple of weeks back. Why?\u00a0 Can it be that Francis is the fellow traveler that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n