Bishop says secular Danes like Francis enough to ‘forgive him’ for being Catholic
- John L. Allen Jr. and Ines San MartinJune 17, 2017
- June 17, 2017
Bishop Czeslaw Kozon in St. Ansgar's Cathedral after celebrating Mass. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons.)
Denmark, like other Nordic countries, is considered to be one of the most thoroughly secular cultures on earth, which means that traditional Catholic teaching on issues such as abortion, women priests and gay marriage often generates reactions ranging from incomprehension to hostility. Such is Pope Francis's popularity, however, that Bishop Czeslaw Kozon says most Danes "forgive him" for upholding those positions.
25 comments:
That's OK. It is an opportunity for conversion. Even if every Dane were a devout Catholic today we must be concerned with the growth and conversion of each new generation. Coasting or just hoping the obvious will penetrate their minds with no effort from us won't work and risk our own souls by doing so. Vatican II proved that.
Catholics make up 0.7% of the Danish population. They are easily outnumbered by Muslims (3.7%). So whatever Francis does or does not teach matters little. I get the impression from the interview that 'popularity' is an overstatement - Danes may appreciate his 'green' credentials and get the impression from the media that he is on course to abandon traditional Catholic moral teaching.
Nice to see Bishop Kozon sporting a Roman chasuble and pontifical dalmatic, though.
The Vatican is defending the appointment (to the Vatican) of an Anglican "moral" theologian who believes that abortion is just fine up to the 18th week. The Pope continues to oversee the Church becoming a really bad joke.
The Danes are Lutherans. They gave us Soren Kierkegaard...a faux Christian existentialist philosopher who raised subjectivity in theology to new heights.
I still can't get over the fact that they think he is Catholic. The man refuses to uphold Church teaching, has allowed error to spread throughout the Church. He says the most outrageous heterodox things. How is this man a Catholic?
Pope Francis will tower over the popes of the last two centuries in history books
"Pope Francis will tower over the popes of the last two centuries in history books"
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. But anyone who knows Church history to put Francis above stellar popes like Pius X, Leo XIII, Benedict XV, Benedict XVI, Pius XII, John Paul II, even Paul VI and Pius XI is arguably ridiculous. That is like putting Saint Jacinta on the same level as St. Augustine. It's just not the same thing. Both are saints but there is a huge difference between Augustine and Jacinta.
Francis will certainly hold a special place in the history books, but it will be a place of infamy. I'm sure he'll be mentioned as the culmination of the preceding popes: John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, although the latter will have a special place as an abdicator, especially once we find out why he resigned.
All of these popes will stand in stark contrast with the popes who came before. St. Pius X and Leo XIII condemn the Vatican II and post-Vatican II popes, so one must understand them in order to understand what has gone errant in since the 1960s.
The history of the papacy in the 20th and 21st centuries will surely have a special place in history since it started so strongly and ended so poorly as one bad pope after another ascended to the papal throne in order to expedite the auto-demolition of the Church.
'Pope Francis will tower over the popes of the last two centuries in history books'. Is this the same Anonymous who can't distinguish between historical evidence and received opinion? Perhaps if Francis stands on a three-decker 19th century political biography (Morley's 'Gladstone' springs to mind, and Monypenny and Buckle's 'Disraeli' has no fewer than six volumes) then he might achieve this feat in purely physical terms.
Confronted by such a soothsayer (who sticks firmly to the indicative mood because he has never heard of the subjunctive) one has two options - to stand in awe or to expose nonsense for what it is. I subscribe to the latter, and shall continue to do so. Magna est veritas et praevalebit.
Oh good the news from Rome is that Catholic Francis is getting ready to allow contraception! What's not to love about this great Catholic Pope.
Burke and company what are you waiting for?!
Yes, indeed, just what we need...a Pope who will move the Church into the "modern world..." Let the good times roll, Baby!!!
Anonymous at 5:40 p.m.
What is your basis for this claim? Does it have to do with the zika virus (there was some discussion about that issue last year). Please cite a reliable source.
Am I right to assume that you are on vacation, Father? If so, enjoy your time off!
Funny how people view the requirements and benefits of orthodoxy: just had a conversation with a coworker who is our corporate Quality Officer. People were looking for waivers from the rigorous standards he felt were not all the difficult. "We aren't trying to go all Roman Catholic on them" he exclaimed in frustration. He knows me pretty well and stopped for a second to appologize. I laughed and said I thought was a complement.
Anonymous 2
Agreed. Too many commentators here seem to have scant regard for evidence and at least one, who posts anonymously, seems to hold evidence-based argument in contempt.
Bee here:
"...the news from Rome is that Catholic Francis is getting ready to allow contraception!"
Don't know if this is true or not, but I if this were to happen I would feel so very bad, as if the enemy made a great breach to our defenses.
I think of all the great saints who were willing to suffer the most severe persecution for belief in Jesus Christ --- who went to their deaths upholding the doctrines of the Church rather than bend to the prevailing winds (St. Thomas More comes to mind). What is the value of their sacrifice if we now make it worthless by caving in to the demands of sinful people?
God has revealed Himself to mankind for ages upon ages, to tell mankind a wonderful truth: one way of life leads to happiness, the other to death and destruction.
Mankind does not want to hear this truth, as St. John so eloquently puts it, because "...man loved the darkness..."(John 3:19) Now we have come to a time where those who love the Light are fewer and fewer, and even our Church leaders crumble under the pressure to embrace the darkness.
I don't love the darkness. I love the Light, and will conform myself to the Light regardless of cost to me.
I thank God for the grace of good parents who showed me the Light and taught me to love the Light. My heart aches for this generation and those coming afterwards, who will not even be told the truth so that they may be saved.
God help us.
God bless you all.
Bee
John and Anonymous 2, it was widely reported in the last couple weeks that Francis had set up a commission to review Humanae Vitae in light of Amoris Laetitia. It was so widely reported that the Vatican responded to those reports.
So there is something behind what this particular anonymous is saying. On the other hand, there are enough fact-based problems with this papacy and the modern hierarchy that we need not turn to unsubstantiated or denied rumors in order to be bothered by the current state of affairs.
Bee, shake off your dispair. More of these idiots are redeemable than we know.
As we speak the 'Church of England' is considering 're-christening' so-called transgender people. It won't involve a second baptism, you understand, simply a renewal of baptismal promises with the person's new name and identity. Not that most Anglicans will appreciate the distinction.
Pope Francis is on record as opposing 'gender politics' but like a lot of things he claims to be opposed to, he fights shy of actually defining it. By now Leo XIII would have written an encyclical on the subject in precise and elegant Latin, leaving no-one in any doubt as to what was being condemned and why. Unlike all his predecessors, Francis does not appear to see that it is his duty to 'confirm the brethren'.
Quite how he envisages his role is unclear. We are left to rely on hints from his cronies and varied interpretations of his often inchoate utterances.
Perhaps Mark Thomas, who believes that all popes are Oracles of God, can shed some light on the matter.
Marc:
Thank you for the link clarifying the situation. I was unable to find anything in my own Google search. However, in light of the information given in the linked article, Anonymous’ unsubstantiated assertion that “the news from Rome is that Catholic Francis is getting ready to allow contraception” would appear to be wildly inaccurate and quite unwarranted by the available evidence. I wonder how many others have further disseminated this “fake news” in social media.
All of us who commit our thoughts to print should be mindful that while we might properly value freedom of speech, nevertheless “our words have consequences” for which we might also properly be held responsible and accountable.
Anonymous 2,
In fairness to anonymous, prior to the repudiation of the story from the Vatican, there were credible reports from reputed Vaticanists that such a commission had been established.
I don't agree that the reporting of credible reports constitutes "fake news" simply because those reports turned out to be false (or are claimed to be false by a Vatican spokesperson). It is the nature of journalism to miss the mark from time to time. I generally dislike this phenomenon of labeling things "fake news" -- much like the news it is attempting to target, it is rife with hyperbole and subjectivity and, as a result, typically a mere label used to denigrate something with which one personally disagrees.
Words indeed have consequences. The use of otherwise credible sources in journalism is a proper methodology and is an important part of our valuable freedom of speech. We run the risk of going too far in the opposite direction if we attempt to limit reporting that turns out to be in error when the person doing the reporting is relying on credible sources. That would undo our freedom of speech tremendously. In sum, journalists should be given the benefit of being wrong from time to time, provided that their being wrong is not knowingly or malicious.
I'm sure you and I agree on that, so please excuse my preaching to the choir!
I just got a communication that my attempted post failed and I needed to try again. My apologies for double posting if that turns out to be incorrect.
Marc:
I am all for treating people fairly. So, if there were indeed_credible_reports that “Pope Francis is getting ready to allow contraception,” then I agree that Anonymous’ comment was not unsubstantiated or unwarranted. I do not read Italian and therefore was unable to evaluate the Italian language reports linked in the English language report on the denial that you linked. That report referred to “rumors” (another word for gossip?). Also, your own reference to “unsubstantiated or denied rumors” weighed with me as I took it to be your characterization of Anonymous’ assertion about Pope Francis.
Are you (or is someone else) able to evaluate the “reports” or “rumors” in question in order to determine whether they were credible? If indeed they were not credible reports, then I assume you would not object to labeling them (and Anonymous’ reliance upon them -- assuming even that he did indeed rely upon those reports as opposed to a scurrilous website) as “fake news.”
More fundamentally, let us not lose sight of the main point here. Do you think it is appropriate for people to make such an assertion as “the news from Rome is that Catholic Francis is getting ready to allow contraception” without even citing one source to support it?
Well, there was the autistic rug salesman who was always preaching to the coir...
I object to labeling just about anything "fake news" because it's a meaningless and unnecessarily charged phrase used primarily to gain political points.
The Vatican is full of rumors. Those that get reported have a sense of credibility. Based on the various accounts I read, which were all over the Catholic blogs I frequent, I assigned some credibility to them. That the Vatican denied them doesn't really make me think they're less credible, actually. But, as I said, there are enough known problems today without worrying about tomorrow's problems.
Marc:
As I did before my initial post at 12:12 p.m. on June 20, I have just now once again done an internet search using the search term “Pope Francis and contraception” but nothing later than early 2016 comes up. This time I also varied the search parameter to “Pope Francis getting ready to allow contraception,” with the same results. (I did not look beyond the first three pages of results as I imagine any relevant report on such “hot news” would be very much towards the beginning of the listings.) How can this be if, as you say, the news was all over the various Catholic blogs you visited?
I am not doubting your veracity at all; I just don’t understand why I cannot find references to these discussions using these search parameters, and I would like to understand.
As for your dislike of the term “fake news,” I am fine with using other terms such as “lie” or “falsehood.” Goodness knows, I have had to debunk several such instances that were further propagated on this Blog during the last few years. And in the current Trump era, the problem of rampant lies and other falsehoods is worse than ever.
As you doubtless know from these posts, honesty ranks very high in any listing of virtues for me, and I am appalled at the willingness of some people, including I am sad to say some fellow Catholics, to further disseminate falsehoods, whether intentionally or unintentionally (but uncritically due to the influence of confirmation bias).
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