Reading the honesty written in this blog post by a 34 year-old mother of three one at Faith in Our Families, one can feel her struggle.
Is this bizarre? Who speaks like this? Who is he too judge?
It is time for the Pope to state clearly what it is he wants and to stop talking in gibberish and confusion. He wants to call the faithful names and insult us; we have every right to question him as to his intent.
What it shows is this; Jorge Bergoglio, Bishop of Rome and Pope is losing devoted Catholics. His homily yesterday which I commented on in the post below this is a reminder of what he said in his apostolic exhortation Evangelium Gaudium.
94. This worldliness can be fuelled in two deeply interrelated ways. One is the attraction of gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings. The other is the self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.
What the writer at Faith in Our Fathers has so clearly articulated is that the people that are the worldly and self-absorbed; the clericalist and pharisees are his friends, his patrons, they are not my friends, they are his. They are as she has listed the Kaspers and Cormac O'Connor's of this world and I would add the Rosicas and the rest of those who have surrounded this Pope as if they were nothing more than sycophants. If there is anyone stuck in a "Catholic style from the past" it is the men listed above -- stuck in the 1970's!
And then there is this from yesterday's homily:
And then there is this from yesterday's homily:
“Even our life can become like that, even our life. And sometimes, I confess something to you, when I have seen a Christian, a Christian of that kind, with a weak heart, not firm, not fixed on the rock—Jesus – and with such rigidness on the outside, I ask the Lord: ‘But Lord, throw a banana peel in front of them, so that they will take a good fall, and feel shame that they are sinners, and so encounter You, [and realize] that You are the Saviour. Many times a sin will make us feel shame, and make us encounter the Lord, Who pardons us, as the sick who were there and went to the Lord for healing.”
Is this bizarre? Who speaks like this? Who is he too judge?
It is time for the Pope to state clearly what it is he wants and to stop talking in gibberish and confusion. He wants to call the faithful names and insult us; we have every right to question him as to his intent.