JUST WHAT THE HECK DOES THIS MEAN?
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Jul 25, 2013 / 12:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis told a gathering of some 30,000 youth from his homeland that they are to “make a mess,” shaking up the comfort, self-satisfaction and clericalism of a Church closed in on itself.
“What do I hope for from World Youth Day? I hope for a mess, such a mess: that the Church takes to the streets. That we defend ourselves from comfort, that we defend ourselves from clericalism,” the Pope told a group of pilgrims from Argentina during this week's World Youth Day.
“The Church must be taken into the streets,” he said in the cathedral of Rio de Janeiro July 25.
MY CONJECTURE COMMENTS:
Pope Francis is known for using colorful language that needs interpretation. But one wonders just what the pope means when he tells the youth of the world to go out into the streets with their Catholicism, faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, and make a mess of things, turning things upside down. So this is my take:
1. I suspect with all the damn scandals we've had in the Church, including the ones involving the Vatican, that we now have a circle the wagons mentality and want to avoid the world and just have tea and crumpets as our primary ministry, shut-in and closed off from the world where we are afraid to acknowledge our Catholicism and priestly people status.
2. We've circled the wagons these past 50 years and we've focus in on all the the churchy things we thought Vatican II meant for us to dwell upon ad nauseam like councils, liturgy, lay churchy ministries and the like.
3. We're afraid to engage the world and other Christians because many of today's Catholics are so ill-informed about their faith that when they begin a dialogue with other Christians and the world they convert to the world's perspective and abandon the Catholic faith. Catholics, unlike our Evangelical brothers and sisters, are not 100% convinced of the truths of our faith as they are of theirs. This is certainly true in the Protestant South!
So to go with our Orthodox Catholic Faith into the streets means uncircling the wagons and going in a straight line to dialogue and evangelize with our Catholic Faith, which will make a mess of things in a world that wants to isolate us Catholics to our church buildings. This is what the world, including secular governments, wants to do to us! So the pope is, in a veiled and not so veiled sort of way, telling youth not to let the world, meaning secular governments, do this to us!
So what kind of mess are our youth to make in the streets with their orthodox Catholicism?
1. Publicly be pro-life and call politicians who are pro-choice and others to task and make them uncomfortable, be revolutionary in their witness to being pro-life, from conception to natural death by:
a. standing up for the human rights of the unborn and protest the culture of abuse and death that pro-choice politicians encourage toward children in the womb. If the children in the womb had advocates and lawyers who could sue those who abuse and kill them, what a change there would be.
b. standing up for the guilty and protecting their God-given right to life
c. Assisting the poor in soup kitchens and the like and working for political change that will improve the lives of the poor, in other words, social justice based upon the great teachings of the popes and of the Second Vatican Council.
2. Stop tinkering with the Liturgy and trying to redefine it, read the black, do the red and then "Go in peace glorifying the Lord with your life!" As Catholics we have two forms of the one Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. Do them as the books prescribe. The OF has more flexibility built into it than the EF, but not so much flexibility to change the core, foundational meaning of the two liturgies. They have one meaning. The Mass, whatever form, makes present in an unbloody way the One Sacrifice of Christ which saves the world from sin and death when each person by his free will accepts this gift (many with do this, not all) and worthily receives our sacrificed Lord in the Banquet of the Most Holy Eucharist by consuming the Holocaust and all that this consumption means, whereby God, through His Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit makes us a part of the Body of Christ with Jesus as our Head, what we call the Holy Bride of Christ, the Spotless Bride of Christ, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church! Either form of the Catholic Mass and all forms of the Mass that are Orthodox have has their goal to make us by God's grace into a new creation saved from sin and eternal damnation and empowered by God's grace to evangelize the world by being commissioned at the end of Mass to "Go in Peace, glorifying the Lord by our lives."
My final comments: What the pope does is to imply that what is wrong with so many older Catholics today, those who think they are post-Vatican II Catholics, like the politicians we have who are pro-choice, pro-death penalty, pro-redefining of marriage, pro-cutting back on assistance to the poor and so on and so on.
Vatican II called all Catholics to go to the streets with their Orthodox Catholic faith, the laity in particular and in particular in the vocation or avocation of their life. What we see in prominent Catholics in politics, media and entertainment is exactly the opposite of what Vatican II called them to do. They have become the spokespersons for faith divorced from public life. It cannot be that way for our youth today is what the pope is telling them!
So, youth are to love all people, but hate sin and damnation. They love their gay brothers and sisters but call them as well as their straight friends to chastity but living chaste lives themselves and model the virtue of modesty, modesty, modesty.
They hate the use of drugs and the abuse of alcohol and they model for their friends and others modesty and moderation out of love for them and call them to moderation.
They treat all people, no matter who and how sinful with love and respect, like Pope Francis is modeling.
They hate the contraception, abortion mentality of the world and call people to respect natural law, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. They call people to love children and populate the earth!
16 comments:
It probably doesn't mean much at all. JP II and B XVI measured their words carefully, and I well remember the former, having been given the "superstar" treatment on his visit to Ireland, addressing young people in quite a stern manner (this was at a time when sectarian violence in Northern Ireland was at its peak). Francis is more spontaneous, and although his homilies in St Peter's have been brief and to the point (no-one should preach for more than ten minutes in the context of a lengthy liturgy), he does stray from the prepared text. That's his style - I can get used to it.
Francis wants to enthuse the youth, that's all. Pondering over the deeper implications of his extempore remarks is as much use as Roman augurs examining flocks of birds and chicken's entrails.
No, John, it is possum entrails and wooly worms...these give more profound results than your silly flocks of birds (budgies, no doubt) and the rather pedestrian chicken entrails. Sheesh!
I have found it misleading to translate "lio" in Spanish into "mess" in English as it has been done. Mess always has a negative connotation in English, no one wants to be involved in a mess. This in Spanish would be 'desorden.'
'Lio' however can be a positive or a negative thing. So when the Pope calls us to "hacer lio," he wants us shake things up in a positive way in society, not to create a mess.
When I saw it translated as 'mess' yesterday I immediately thought it would cause non-Spanish speakers to wonder what the Pope was talking about. I certainly don't want to make a mess!!!
"Omnis traductor traditor"
Every translator is a traitor.
PI, is that why you use only Latin in your celebrations?
Ignotum per Ignotius...LOL!
John Nolan - Given the new Roman Missal translation, I find myself in the unenviable position of the cotton farmer whose crop is infested by different pests, having to choose the lesser of two weevils.
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam is all I can say.
Serving the poor:
In a Sistine Chapel Mass with cardinals on his first day as Church leader, the pontiff said: "If we do not confess to Christ, what would we be?
"We would end up a compassionate NGO. What would happen would be like when children make sand castles and then it all falls down."
These NGO's in some cases are like "quasi-governmental" and not
especially "Non-governmental" because of the government funds they receive.
In serving the poor, Pope Francis(I believe) is telling us Church goers to do more, especially since these
people are also spiritually poor.
I've seen many cases of people who grew up poor or in some cases were still living in poverty who just ended up abandoning the Church.
In South America, the situation is especially severe with the poor in large numbers leaving the Church and
joining evangelicals and other Protetant sects. South America and Central America is where the largest percentage of Catholics live and it is providential that God has in our time given us a Pope from that area of the world which is in such greta need of re-conversion.
South America is a Marxist sump, and a nest of "liberation theology." I would not trust any money sent there to be used for its intended purpose, rather to buy guns, Rolexes, and Mercedes for their tin pot dictators. It is a great example of how the church confuses charity with Leftist causes. That is why I, and others, do not trust this South American Pope yet. If the people do not like poverty and oppression, rise up and get a new government. We did it...
Pin/Gene - As if your not trusting the pope made one iota, one scintilla of difference! Who cares if you (and others) don't trust the pontiff? No one.
The pope's job is to be the Vicar of Christ and call us to holiness, not to wait around for your approval.
Ignotus, This is an opinion blog. I am merely expressing my opinion and do not really care what you or anyone else thinks about it. I know there are many on this blog who agree with me, which is encouraging. My opinion actually affects no one...
Your apostasy and dishonesty, on the other hand, is of some consequence. You live a lie before your parishioners (who, however, may be all just like you for all I know) and you parade your apostasy, cynicism, and anti-pastoral identity on a blog of mostly devout Catholics, thereby tempting them to sin and, perhaps, misleading some ambivalent neophytes into Modernism and various apostasies.
Alsdo, a Pope, like a Priest, should not sow division and doubt. Let's hope this Pope is aware of that...unlike you, Priest, whose very presence on this blog has been the source of much ill-will and turmoil. Now, run along to your Teilhard or your Kung or whichever apostate hack you are currently muddling through...
Pin/Gene "Mostly devout Catholics" don't 1) skip mass because they don't like the way it's celebrated - you do; 2) refer to African-Americans as a "feral minority" - you do; 3) don't refer to the USBBC as the United States Cabal of Communist Bishops - you do, and 4) don't denigrate women by telling demeaning "jokes" about them - you do.
As soon as you can, please post ANYTHING heretical that I have said or written, or that gives evidence of my "apostasy." Enquiring minds want to know . . .
Ignotus, anyone can follow the letter of the law, and anyone can play word games and prevaricate in order to avoid showing their true colors. You have always thrown that little caveat up about "well, show me where I have said anything heretical" as a taunt...which only proves my point. Yet, you would not answer another blogger when he asked you directly if you believed in the literal bodily resurrection of jesus of Nazareth and in the Real presence. So, in a situation where a simple yes or no would have sufficed, you engaged in all kinds of verbal contortions to avoid answering it. You don't NEED to say anything heretical...I think we get the point very well.
Now, you list some things I have done that you don't like...but, who are these other devout Catholics you mention? I was not referring to myself in my post because I do not presume regarding my own devotion.
Oh, and what is the USBBC...do we have a British network that I do not know about?
Pin/Gene - It's not a taunt - it is a challenge, and one that you apparently are not up to. So I offer it again:
"As soon as you can, please post ANYTHING heretical that I have said or written, or that gives evidence of my "apostasy."
Without evidence you can claim anything you want about anyone you want. It is the evidence that matters, not your opinion.
The "mostly devout Catholics" are your words, not mine.
There are plenty of indications, beginning with your refusal to answer the simple question about belief. Your vigorous support and indignant defense of the Female Episcopal Bishop who says Jesus is not the son of God and is in favor of gay marriage, homosexual ordination, and birth control. You had a flippin' fit when several of us condemned her and made fun of her. Your advising old Millie not to answer the same question about belief to which I referred above because, you siad, "it is a trap." Your constantly quoting and recommending books by various Left wing theologians and apostate Catholics. Your using Margaret Nutting Ralph's books for Bible study. She doesn't believe in the resurrection, either. There are many more. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
The Church in Latin America today speaks so much of the poor because poverty is so extreme and you cannot avoid it.
The Church in the USA today speaks of abortion and euthanasia because the culture of death is so extreme and you cannot avoid it.
The Church speaks to the challenges faced in particular regions.
The Pope speaks so much about the poor not because he is a liberation theologian (most bishops in Latin America today are flat out against it) but because the level of poverty in Latin America is horrendous and the Church recognizes Christ in them.
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