Pope Francis: "Liberation Theology Was a Positive Thing in Latin America"

Pope Francis in Interview with El Pais

(Rome) The Spanish daily El Pais published in yesterday's Sunday edition an interview with Pope Francis. In this, the leader of the Catholic church said that "liberation theology was a positive thing for Latin America," that "one can practice religion in China" and that he "must be much more incomprehensible because of my sins." An excerpt.

On Liberation Theology

El Pais : Do you not think that the Church has lost many positions for the benefit of other religions and sects even after the failed attempt of liberation theology? Why is that?

Pope Francis : Liberation theology was a positive thing in Latin America. The part was condemned by the Vatican which opted for the Marxist analysis of reality. Cardinal Ratzinger issued two instructions when he was prefect of the Congregation of the Faith. It was very clear about the Marxist analysis of reality, and a second in which he came back to the positive aspects. Liberation theology had positive aspects, but also deviations, especially in the Marxist analysis of reality.

To the People's Republic of China

El Pais : Can Vatican diplomacy  soon be broadened in China?

Pope Francis : In fact, there is already a Commission working with China and meets every three months, once here [Vatican], once in Beijing. And there is a lot of dialogue with China. China has always had the aura of mystery, which is fascinating. Two or three months ago they were happy with the exhibition of the Vatican Museum in Beijing. And they will come to the Vatican in the coming year with their things, their museum.

El Pais : Will you soon travel to China?

Pope Francis:  When I am invited. They know that. In China, by the way, the churches are full. They can practice religion in China.

Europe

El Pais : Do you think, Holy Father, that the signs are similar in Europe today, which were present in Germany in 1933? [It's like Hitler!!]

Pope Francis : I am not a technician in it, but on today's Europe, I refer to my three speeches. The two in Strasbourg, and the third, when I received the Charlemagne Prize, the only prize which I have accepted as a service because of the moment which Europe is going through. These three speeches say what I think about Europe.

About Paul VI. And misunderstanding

El Pais : 50 years ago there was almost everything. The Second Vatican Council, the journey of Paul VI. And the embrace with the patriarch Athenagoras in the Holy Land. Some say to understand you, they should come to know Paul VI. At a certain moment he was a misunderstood pope. Do you also feel a bit like an uncomfortable pope?

Pope Francis : No, no. I think I am much more misunderstood because of my sins. Paul VI was the martyr of disagreement. Evangelii gaudium  was in the framework of the Pastoral.  What I want to give to the Church now is an update of Evangelii nuntiandi of Paul VI. He is a man who went forward in history. And he suffered, suffered much. He was a martyr. And many things he could not do, because he knew as a realist that he could not, and so he suffered, but he offered that suffering. And he did what he could do. And what Paul VI did best: sow. He sowed things that were later harvested in history. Evangelii gaudium is a mixture of Evangelii nuntiandi and the Aparecida document [2007 Latin American Episcopal Conference]. Things that have grown from below. Evangelii nuntiandi is the best post-conciliar pastoral document and has lost none of its topicality. I do not feel misunderstood. I feel accompanied, accompanied by all types of people, boys, old people, ... Yes, some out there are disagreeable, and that's their right, because if I felt bad, because some disagree. that would be the beginnings of the dictator in my attitude.  You have the right to disagree. You have the right to think that the road is dangerous, that it could bring bad results, that ... they have the right. But always on the condition that they enter into a dialogue, and not that they throw stones and hide their hand, not that. No man has a right to that. [Except for you and your close circle of intimates who rules the Vatican like oriental despots?] Throwing a stone, but hiding the hand is criminal. Everyone has a right to discuss, and hopefully, we will discuss a lot, because this is what sets us apart. The discussion unites. The discussion with good blood, not with slander and all that ... [Unless it's you who's doing the slander, Holiness?]

Introduction / translation: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: OSS / El Pais (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMDG

 to press

Pope Reveals His Contempt for Catholics Faithful to Ancient Liturgy

Edit: we could just as well have stopped at "Pope Reviles Catholics", since those who don't cherish the traditions and doctrines handed down by the Apostles are hardly Catholic themselves.

The war against the Reform of the Reform continues apace and it is only its resemblance to true and authentic public worship and the faith which they seem to abhor.  It causes the Pope to sneer and revile young people who embrace it.  You will recognize some of the usual slights made by leftist and effeminate clergy against the faithful who remain true to the traditions of the Church.  We were wondering when he'd take a swipe at Pope Benedict's project to restore the liturgy after the depradations of a half-century of modernist innovation.

Picked this article up from Catholic Culture and Catholic Family News:

He also discussed the sacred liturgy. Crux reported:

Asked about the liturgy, Pope Francis insisted the Mass reformed after the Second Vatican Council is here to stay and “to speak of a ‘reform of the reform’ is an error.”

In authorizing regular use of the older Mass, now referred to as the “extraordinary form,” now-retired Pope Benedict XVI was “magnanimous” toward those attached to the old liturgy, he said. “But it is an exception.”

Pope Francis told Father Spadaro he wonders why some young people, who were not raised with the old Latin Mass, nevertheless prefer it.

“And I ask myself: Why so much rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something, insecurity or even something else. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.”

Communion for All, Even for Protestants

Edit: For the record.

In addition to the divorced and remarried, for Luther’s followers as well there are those who are giving the go-ahead for the Eucharist. Here is how “La Civiltà Cattolica” interprets the pope’s enigmatic words on intercommunion.

by Sandro Magister

ROME, July 1, 2016 – In his way, after encouraging communion for the divorced and remarried, in that it “is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” Pope Francis is now also encouraging Protestants and Catholics to receive communion together at their respective Masses.

He is doing so, as always, in a discursive, allusive way, not definitional, leaving the ultimate decision to the individual conscience.

Still emblematic is the answer he gave on November 15, 2015, on a visit to the Christuskirche, the church of the Lutherans in Rome (see photo), to a Protestant who asked him if she could receive communion together with her Catholic husband.

The answer from Francis was a stupefying pinwheel of yes, no, I don’t know, you figure it out. Which it is indispensable to reread in its entirety, in the official transcription:

“Thank you, Ma’am. Regarding the question on sharing the Lord’s Supper, it is not easy for me to answer you, especially in front of a theologian like Cardinal Kasper! I’m afraid! I think the Lord gave us [the answer] when he gave us this command: 'Do this in memory of me'. And when we share in, remember and emulate the Lord’s Supper, we do the same thing that the Lord Jesus did. And the Lord’s Supper will be, the final banquet will there be in the New Jerusalem, but this will be the last. Instead on the journey, I wonder – and I don’t know how to answer, but I am making your question my own – I ask myself: “Is sharing the Lord’s Supper the end of a journey or is it the viaticum for walking together? I leave the question to the theologians, to those who understand. It is true that in a certain sense sharing is saying that there are no differences between us, that we have the same doctrine – I underline the word, a difficult word to understand – but I ask myself: don’t we have the same Baptism? And if we have the same Baptism, we have to walk together. You are a witness to an even profound journey because it is a conjugal journey, truly a family journey, of human love and of shared faith. We have the same Baptism. When you feel you are a sinner – I too feel I am quite a sinner – when your husband feels he is a sinner, you go before the Lord and ask forgiveness; your husband does the same and goes to the priest and requests absolution. They are ways of keeping Baptism alive. When you pray together, that Baptism grows, it becomes strong; when you teach your children who Jesus is, why Jesus came, what Jesus did, you do the same, whether in Lutheran or Catholic terms, but it is the same. The question: and the Supper? There are questions to which only if one is honest with oneself and with the few theological lights that I have, one must respond the same, you see. 'This is my Body, this is my Blood', said the Lord, 'do this in memory of me', and this is a viaticum which helps us to journey. I had a great friendship with an Episcopalian bishop, 48 years old, married with two children, and he had this concern: a Catholic wife, Catholic children, and he a bishop. He accompanied his wife and children to Mass on Sundays and then went to worship with his community. It was a step of participating in the Lord’s Supper. Then he passed on, the Lord called him, a just man. I respond to your question only with a question: how can I participate with my husband, so that the Lord’s Supper may accompany me on my path? It is a problem to which each person must respond. A pastor friend of mine said to me: 'We believe that the Lord is present there. He is present. You believe that the Lord is present. So what is the difference?' – 'Well, there are explanations, interpretations…'. Life is greater than explanations and interpretations. Always refer to Baptism: “One faith, one baptism, one Lord”, as Paul tells us, and take the outcome from there. I would never dare give permission to do this because I do not have the authority. One Baptism, one Lord, one faith. Speak with the Lord and go forward. I do not dare say more.”

Link to Chiesa... AMDG

Pope Downgrades the Church's Message on Bioethics

Edit: this came in the e-mail with the observation from a reader that the pope is outrageous to say this.  I'm sure we've all heard this sort of thing from the elderly Call to Action lady, the Sinsenawa Dominican who serves as an escort at an abortuary or a fly by night Nouvelle Theologian.  Surely, the Church has a privileged voice in this field and to suggest otherwise is monstrous. What of the unborn, the handicapped, the elderly and most fragile members of society?    Francis doesn't feel the same when it comes to the myth of man-made global warming, does he?

Here's something from Vatican Downslider:

“Everyone is aware of how sensitive the Church is to ethical issues but perhaps it is not clear to everyone that the Church does not lay claim to a privileged voice in this field…,” Pope Francis said in a meeting with the Italian Committee for Bioethics today, highlighting the risk of utility and profit being the only reference points for developments in science and biological and medical technologies. He urged this advisory body of the Italian government, headed by Francesco Paolo Casavola, a Catholic, to look further into environmental degradation, “disability and the marginalisation of vulnerable individuals”. He asked them in other words to tackle the challenge of countering today’s “throwaway culture” which “takes on many forms, including treating human embryos as disposable material, as well as sick and elderly people approaching the end”. The Pope also asked them to harmonise standards and norms in the biological and medical fields.

Just monstrous:

Bioethics, established by the President of the Council for Ministers in Italy 25 years ago,” Francis said. “Everyone is aware of how sensitive the Church is to ethical issues but perhaps it is not clear to everyone that the Church does not lay claim to a privileged voice in this field; in fact it is a source of great satisfaction for the Church when civic responsibility at different levels is able to reflect, discern and act according to a free and open way of thinking and inspired by integral human and social values. This mature civic responsibility is a sign that the seed of the Gospel – which has been revealed and entrusted to the Church – has produced fruits, successfully fostering the search for truth and good in complex human and ethical questions”

"Gay Marriage": Bishops Uncertain About Pope's Course -- Which Led to Defeat in Argentina in 2010

(Rome) The Family Day, which is the planned demonstration for the 30th of January, organized by the Italian Manif pour tous, and the Pope's attitude about it, has set off a battle royal in the Italian Bishops' Conference -- between its President Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco and the General Secretary Bishop Nunzio Galantino.  Additionally it's still being discussed in Argentina to this day whether Jorge Mario Bergoglio, had favored the introduction of "gay marriage"  when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires and Primate of Argentina in 2010.

DISPLAY 

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The president  of the Italian Episcopal Conference is automatically the pope as Bishop of Rome. However, he appointed as representative  both a delegated President [He was voted in by a majority vote, which was then considered a snub to the pope.] as well as the Secretary-General. Cardinal Bagnasco was acquired by Pope Francis from his predecessor. Bishop Galatino, however, was introduced by him and is considered a "man of the pope". On the first Family Day, on June 20, 2015   a million people took part to protest against the introduction of "gay marriage" and against the gender ideology in schools.  Now the debate begins in Parliament, which is the reason for a second Family Day, to tell the representatives of the people what the Catholics and other people of good will do not want.