Pope Francis chooses to teach, rule and sanctify not exclusively by the traditional means but through gestures, footnotes, silence and controversy which His Holiness provokes. It is a chaotic form of papacy leaving many victims in its wake.
And while he touts a decentralized Church even progressive Catholics know that he intervenes in local Church issues without hesitation and in informal ways, like by calling lay Catholics and telling one who was divorced and remarried that she could receive Holy Communion. This call was to someone in a conservative diocese.
And now, we have the President of the United States saying he likes Pope Francis’ brand of Catholicism. Evidently he does not like Pope Benedict’s brand. And now we see playing out in the public forum a pope who sides with a political figure, politicizing his Catholicism and the pope doing so by throwing a number of bishops in the USA under the bus.
Is this how to keep the pope and bishops in union with him, in union with him? I ask sincerely.
Couldn’t this be handled in a more delicate way, privately and without insulting the president or the bishops? Honestly, I ask the question!
From Reporter, Philip Pedula:
An emotional President Biden, who has come away from his Rome visit with papal backing in his conflict with conservative U.S. bishops, praises Pope Francis for being "everything I admire about Catholicism." reuters.com/world/emotiona…
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Here's what a Spanish bishop had to say about Biden:
Bishop José Ignacio Munilla of San Sebastián, Spain, harshly criticized President Joe Biden’ claim that Pope Francis personally encouraged him to continue receiving Communion despite his open support for abortion.
“These incredible statements reveal the moral character of those who are capable of compromising and manipulating the Pope with the intention of washing their conscience stained by the blood of so many innocent lives unjustly eliminated,” Bishop Munilla said in an Oct. 30 tweet.
Well we have a priest who posts here who is fine with that!
Akita.
May I suggest the Pope or Biden, maybe both, but the real culprit is the mass of bishops and priests that grovel at his feet. Imagine the spot that Francis and Joe would be in if bishops and priests stood in unison and said "NO. PERIOD. NO." But they all lack a spine.
Take away the churches tax exemption, I still believe it muzzles it. Do we worship God or Money?
Shame on those who can't speak the truth!
I agree with Egyptian. Whenever the government helps, it ends up making things worse. Germany's charity tax laws have helped to produce the Catholic Church that exists there. Reagan's law/observation about he scariest words in the English language might be playing out in real time when it comes to the condition of the Catholic Church in the USA. We are heading toward the elimination of the tax deductibility of contributions to our Church and that might be the best thing for us. It will liberate us from big brother who is exploiting her(transgendered) subsidy to exert control over us.
When in college, I worked in government. The dumbest and laziest bunch I ever worked with in my life. About 10 percent carried the load for the rest.
When in college, I worked in government. The dumbest and laziest bunch I ever worked with in my life. About 10 percent carried the load for the rest.
A few words on government.
Everything the government gets its hands on, it either ruins or destroys.
I will never forget getting my marriage license. I had to go into an office in the basement of a large government building. When I got into the large office, there were two black women sitting at desks. I walked up to the one open window at the counter and was ignored. I waited a couple of minutes, and continued to be ignored. Finally, I said, "Excuse me!" just to get someone's attention. One of the women got up and slowly walked up to the window as if she were being asked to shovel snow. She came to the window and without making eye contact, said with seething contempt: "Can I help you?" All subsequent directions about filling out the paperwork were given in a tone to suggest that I was a completely stupid pain in the neck and "don't you mess this up."
A few years later, my mother got very sick and had to go to the emergency room. Because of some financial setbacks, my parents had no medical insurance at the time. I convinced my mother to apply for state assistance/insurance to pay the ER bill. She and my father thought that it would be shameful, but I replied, "You've paid in to this for most of your life--it's people like you who should benefit from it." To apply, we had to go to our county's welfare office. That was a revelation. I have never seen so many indolent-looking people, many of them young sitting around with a bored look on their faces. There were bulletin boards with job opportunities AND NOT ONE PERSON EVER SO MUCH AS GLANCED AT THAT BULLETIN BOARD.
THE GOVERNMENT CREATED THIS CULTURE. WE ENABLED IT. AND I DESPISE THE GOVERNMENT.
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