Pope Francis endorses claim that US Christians are engaged in ‘ecumenism of hatred’

[pearl]

This thread is about politics, not religion, I think.

But the thread is in religious news.

And Bergoglio is a political leader who forgets the Vatican is a foreign country to Italy...and yet he interferes into the Italian political matters...

You can thank Mussolini for the Vatican's sovereign state status.

Francis leads as a Shepherd following Jesus and the Apostolic teaching and could care less who is offended.

 

[exchemist]

Donohue tends to be quite an outspoken hot-head at times, so I can understand your frustration. However, Pro-Life means that-- pro life-- and that which is inside a pregnant mother is not a turnip-- it's a human child.

The issue is the language and the attitude towards other people with different beliefs.

We get plenty of anti-abortion people in the UK church too, but they at least have the Christian charity not to make it an issue of taking sides and then demonising their opponents.

The issue is also not as black and white as some make out, in order to give themselves an easy answer. Speaking as someone whose wife had three miscarriages, I am well aware that the human body itself aborts foetuses all the time when they go wrong, which they do for a variety of reasons. So I'm afraid I do not think it very useful to treat all these failed attempts at life as human children.

It's a big and dangerous subject but I just want to illustrate that there are nuances and different points of view, held genuinely by good-hearted people. Railing against them as murderers strikes me as counterproductive and unChristian.

 

[Estro Felino]

You can thank Mussolini for the Vatican's sovereign state status.

....who was an atheist, btw

 

[metis]

The issue is also not as black and white as some make out, in order to give themselves an easy answer. Speaking as someone whose wife had three miscarriages, I am well aware that the human body itself aborts foetuses all the time when they go wrong, which they do for a variety of reasons. So I'm afraid I do not think it very useful to treat all these failed attempts at life as human children.

Sorry to hear that your wife had these miscarriages.

Not to belabor the point, but there's a difference between what genetically may happen versus us ending a human life, which is why we don't sanction murder. However, with that being said, abortion is not the same as murder.

 

[exchemist]

They certainly did, but their approaches were quite different. John Paul II became an international celebrity and active statesman (almost with a "rockstar quality" given his background in drama), while Benedict XVI took the scholarly and more traditional hierocratic approach.

Francis is very different. He deliberately cultivates the affability, simplicity and down-to-earth approach-ability of your local parish priest - indeed, he wants to appear like a 'parish priest' for the whole world, which is why he so stridently rails against "clericalism" (airs and graces, elitism, obsession with garments and parapharnelia).

With him, dogmatic judgmentalism takes a back seat - and merciful pastoralism, in the form of meeting people where they are and with respect for conscience, has become the main focus (pretty much). The individuals he upbraids are clerics and traditionalists he refers to as "rigids" who want, in his opinion, to use the church's moral teachings as an excuse to "sit in the chair of the Pharisees and throw stones at peoples' lives" (to quote him).

So what one might call 'inflexible dogmatists' are the recipients of his 'righteous' ire. Which, represents quite a substantial tonal shift for the Papacy.

Good for Francis, then.

But I must also thank Benedict for one thing, namely making an effort to revive the music of the church, which had fallen into a terrible state of disuse and is still pretty dreadful, like a c.15th painting covered in soot and neglected, at the back of the church. There is a value in tradition and in the aesthetics of worship which, as I grow older and get closer to the grave, I find more and more important. Something to do with a sense of continuity with "those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith". But I am a choral singer, so this is special pleading.....

 

[pearl]

I had thought quite a few of his recent predecessors had been quite serious about their pastoral duties too, though.

And they did, especially John Paul II, and suffered their own struggles with the powerful Roman Curia, but at the fore was the Church, with Francis it is not so much the Church as the Jesus of the Gospels.

 

[Vouthon]

But I must also thank Benedict for one thing, namely making an effort to revive the music of the church

I think all the recent pontiffs have contributed greatly to the development of doctrine and to the richness of the sacred tradition, just differently.

Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical Caritas was for instance an excoriating indictment of the pitfalls of the global financial order and liberal capitalism, that Francis has very much built upon and expounded in his own way.

For example, many critics of Francis in America allege that he is a "Marxist" sympathiser but it was actually Benedict who wrote a positive appraisal of democratic socialism in 2006:

Democratic socialism managed to fit within the two existing models as a welcome counterweight to the radical liberal positions, which it developed and corrected. It also managed to appeal to various denominations. In England it became the political party of the Catholics, who had never felt at home among either the Protestant conservatives or the liberals. In Wilhelmine Germany, too, Catholic groups felt closer to democratic socialism than to the rigidly Prussian and Protestant conservative forces. In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness.​

Those words were penned by Pope Benedict XVI in an essay published at First Things back in 2006.

John Paul II, likewise, was notably exemplary in putting interreligious dialogue at the forefront of church relations with the rest of the world. He really took Nostra Aetate's teaching that "seeds of the truth" were to be found in all religions and all people to heart more than any of his predecessors, and endured a lot of hate from traditionalists for doing things like blessing Quran's, statutes of the Buddha and other such things that many on the right found offensive.

But Francis has still taken a very bold step away from his predecessors fixation with sexual morality, dogmatic judgment and their hierocratic understanding of their office. He has taken some inspiration from liberation theology in South America, quite clearly, even inviting it's founder for a private papal audience and exalting elements of it that had been relegated for perceived conflicts with orthodoxy, by emphasising a truly Christian (rather than Marxist) iteration of it.

And all the other things already mentioned in this thread.

 

[Ouroboros]

If only they extended the same respect to the pregnant person.

And to children and migrants held at detention camps at the border.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If I may ask, in what way has Pope Francis preached an "ecumenism of hatred" for his stance to be as you say?

I was thinking more the "hatred" part than the "ecumenism" part.

The most recent example that comes to mind is when he called critics of the Church's handling of the predator priest scandal - including many who were victims of abuse by priests themselves - "friends of the devil:"

Pope Francis decries critics of church as 'friends of the devil'

Edit: another recent hateful example:

Pope Francis Says Abortion, Even of a Sick Fetus, Is Like Hiring a ‘Hitman’

 

[MikeDwight]

Whatever boy! You got a lot of words for hand tying.

 

[Vouthon]

The most recent example that comes to mind is when he called critics of the Church's handling of the predator priest scandal - including many who were victims of abuse by priests themselves - "friends of the devil:"

Only he wasn't referring to critics of the predator priest scandal or their victims as "friends of the devil" (as certain media reports wrongly alleged), so far as I am aware.

That particular statement was made the day after Cardinal Raymond Burke and Cardinal Walter Brandmüller (two of his conservative critics, who have been working with Steve Bannon) wrote an open letter to the presidents of bishops’ conferences attending that week’s Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse, calling on them to “raise their voices” on the moral corruption in the Church and blame it on "homosexuals" in the clergy, and after a coalition of 100 traditionalist Catholic laity mobilized in Rome’s historic center to silently “oppose the Vatican’s policy of silence about homosexuality” in the abuse crisis.

The cardinals and laity in question were accusing Francis's Vatican of being too lenient towards homosexuals and refusing to recognise a connection between clerical homosexuality and abuse in dealing with it. I don't think the 'implications' of that narrative need further teasing out - surely you know where they are going with it?

I think that homophobia, like any form of xenophobic sentiment towards a group of people, is quite 'devilish'. And I don't think trying to exploit the paedophile scandal to target homosexuals in the church is very honourable on the part of Burke et al.

The remark about a "hitman", though, I agree was an indelicately and insensitively phrased off-hand remark that is wide off-the-mark - by the sounds of it, although I would like to see the original text of the speech.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Only he wasn't referring to critics of the predator priest scandal or their victims as "friends of the devil" (as certain media reports wrongly alleged), so far as I am aware.

He used the term to describe "critics of the church" at an event where the loudest critics of the church were abuse survivors who were protesting outside.

 

[Vouthon]

He used the term to describe "critics of the church" at an event where the loudest critics of the church were abuse survivors who were protesting outside.

I think you may be unaware of how the term 'accusers' has, in the last two years, been used in Vatican politics - and precisely what Francis was referencing (he wasn't using the term from thin air).

In December 2018, the Pope’s editorial director of Vatican communications, Andrea Tornielli, named Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò as the “Great Accuser.”

From the Jesuit magazine La Croix:

'How America wanted to change the pope.' Chapter 2: The accuser

'How America wanted to change the pope.' Chapter 2: The accuser
How the ambitious and intriguing apostolic nuncio in Washington, Carlo Maria Viganò, develops his grievances against Pope Francis


As stated, having not read the original transcript for the other statement, I agree with you on the "hitman" comment (which is an ugly remark by the looks of it) - but not this.

The group labelled by Francis-allies, "the accusers" have a clear identity - and it's not secular/lay critics of child-abuse cover-ups or the victims, as you claim.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think you may be unaware of how the term 'accusers' has, in the last two years, been used in Vatican politics - and precisely what Francis was referencing (he wasn't using the term from thin air).

In December 2018, the Pope’s editorial director of Vatican communications, Andrea Tornielli, named Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò as the “Great Accuser.”

From the Jesuit magazine La Croix:

'How America wanted to change the pope.' Chapter 2: The accuser

'How America wanted to change the pope.' Chapter 2: The accuser
How the ambitious and intriguing apostolic nuncio in Washington, Carlo Maria Viganò, develops his grievances against Pope Francis


As stated, having not read the original transcript for the other statement, I agree with you on the "hitman" comment (which is an ugly remark by the looks of it) - but not this.

The group labelled by Francis-allies, "the accusers" have a clear identity - and it's not secular/lay critics of child-abuse cover-ups or the victims, as you claim.

When Francis makes a statement that was taken the wrong way, usually someone from his office issues some sort of correction or clarification. Did he in this case?

 

[Vouthon]

When Francis makes a statement that was taken the wrong way, usually someone from his office issues some sort of correction or clarification. Did he in this case?

I'll have a look and see, but his actual statement did not make any reference to critics of how the church has handled child abuse or to the victims and it was made not in the context of a discussion of the child abuse scandal but a homily on the life of St. Padre Pio.

He was using Padre Pio as an example of a contrast with the "accusers" (i.e. clerics, the bishops I mentioned, like Padre part of the church hierarchy but not acting as he did).

As I said, the term "the accusers" has been in use for two years now - and the group so designated are known. i.e. from a traditionalist Catholic news site critical of Francis, in May 2019:

The association of this call with the “divisions” to which Archbishop Viganò contributed, hence to the Devil — the Great Divider, or in Francis preferred nomenclature, the Great Accuser — continue an insinuation Pope Francis began in the late Summer of last year.
​

The speech from which this remark you brought up was sourced, also reiterated this "Great Accuser" thing again (i.e. Vigano).

The whole affair is tawdry, unsavoury and politicized (Bannon was even involved with Cardinal Burke). But it is "intra-hierarchy" politics rather than referring to folks outside the clerical apparatus.

 

[74x12]

Pope Francis endorses claim that US Christians are engaged in ‘ecumenism of hatred’ - CatholicCitizens.org

VATICAN CITY, September 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― In an address to Jesuits in Mozambique, Pope Francis recommended an infamous 2017 article that characterized the cooperation between U.S. Catholic and Evangelical social conservatives as an “ecumenism of hatred.”

In the same address, the Pope criticized a woman who professed joy that two young people had converted to Catholicism. And he suggested young priests who wear cassocks are expressing a form of “rigid clericalism” that conceals “moral problems.”

The Pope’s September 5 speech was published today, September 26, in La Civiltà Cattolica by Antonio Spadaro, SJ, one of the two co-authors of the 2017 article.

Responding to a question about Protestant sects that recommend their faith to Africans as a way to become rich, Francis said:

… We must distinguish carefully between the different groups who are identified as ‘Protestants.’ There are many with whom we can work very well, and who care about serious, open and positive ecumenism. But there are others who only try to proselytize and use a theological vision of prosperity ….

Two important articles in Civiltà Cattolica have been published in this regard. I recommend them to you. They were written by Father Spadaro and the Argentinean Presbyterian pastor, Marcelo Figueroa. The first article spoke of the “ecumenism of hatred.”
​

This article, “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A surprising Ecumenism”, first appeared in July 2017. It argues that American conservatives, including many Catholics, have been influenced by Protestant fundamentalism, and that Catholic and Evangelical voters who work together on social issues like the right to life and traditional marriage have transformed ecumenism into “an ecumenism of hatred.”

Spadaro and Figueroa wrote:

Appealing to the values of fundamentalism, a strange form of surprising ecumenism is developing between Evangelical fundamentalists and Catholic Integralists brought together by the same desire for religious influence in the political sphere.

Some who profess themselves to be Catholic express themselves in ways that until recently were unknown in their tradition and using tones much closer to Evangelicals. They are defined as value voters as far as attracting electoral mass support is concerned. There is a well-defined world of ecumenical convergence between sectors that are paradoxically competitors when it comes to confessional belonging. This meeting over shared objectives happens around such themes as abortion, same-sex marriage, religious education in schools and other matters generally considered moral or tied to values. Both Evangelical and Catholic Integralists condemn traditional ecumenism and yet promote an ecumenism of conflict that unites them in the nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state.

However, the most dangerous prospect for this strange ecumenism is attributable to its xenophobic and Islamophobic vision that wants walls and purifying deportations. The word “ecumenism” transforms into a paradox, into an “ecumenism of hate.” Intolerance is a celestial mark of purism. Reductionism is the exegetical methodology. Ultra-literalism is its hermeneutical key.​

American conservatives who noted that articles published in Civiltà Cattolica are vetted by the Holy See worried that these thoughts reflected the mind of Pope Francis and condemned the authors’ ignorance of the United States.

Phil Lawler of the Catholic Culture website called the essay “ignorant” and “intemperate.”

“The authors of the essay claim to embrace ecumenism, but they have nothing but disdain for the coalition formed by Catholics and Evangelical Protestants in the United States,” Lawler wrote.

“They scold American conservatives for seeing world events as a struggle of good against evil, yet they clearly convey the impression that they see American conservatism as an evil influence that must be defeated.”

Rod Dreher of American Conservative magazine wrote that the essay “reads like deaf men criticizing a chamber music performance.”

“They have very little idea what they’re talking about,” he continued.

“Many American watchers of the Vatican know that Father Spadaro is very close to Francis, but many others — including me — did not know who Marcelo Figueroa, the co-author, is. Turns out he’s an Argentine Presbyterian and personal friend of Pope Francis hand-picked by the pontiff to launch an Argentine edition of the official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.”

In his speech to the African Jesuits, Francis next condemned both the prosperity gospel and proselytism:

The second (article in Civiltà Cattolica) was on the “theology of prosperity.” Reading them you will see that there are sects that cannot really be defined as Christian. They preach Christ, yes, but their message is not Christian. It has nothing to do with the preaching of a Lutheran or any other serious evangelical Christianity. These so-called “evangelicals” preach prosperity. They promise a Gospel that does not know poverty, but simply seeks to make proselytes. This is exactly what Jesus condemns in the Pharisees of his time. I’ve said it many times: proselytism is not Christian.

​

The pontiff revealed that he was feeling bitter after meeting a woman who had introduced him to two young converts to Catholicism. One had been Hindu, the other Anglican. Francis said he had reproved the woman.

Pope Francis also took aim at clericalism, which he felt was embodied by young priests who wear traditional clerical garb.

“Clericalism has a direct consequence in rigidity,” he said.

“Have you never seen young priests all stiff in black cassocks and hats in the shape of the planet Saturn (the saturno) on their heads? Behind all the rigid clericalism there are serious problems.” he continued.

“I had to intervene recently in three dioceses with problems that expressed themselves in these forms of rigidity that concealed moral problems and imbalances.”

The pontiff also said an “exclusive moral fixation on the sixth commandment” (God’s prohibition against adultery, fornication and other sexual sins) was another dimension of clericalism.

“We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies,” he said.

“The Church today needs a profound conversion in this area.”​

Never trust a Jesuit anyway. I see he is part of the bash America agenda.

 

[metis]

Never trust a Jesuit anyway. I see he is part of the bash America agenda.

I never trust stereotypes like the above.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Pope Francis endorses claim that US Christians are engaged in ‘ecumenism of hatred’ - CatholicCitizens.org

VATICAN CITY, September 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― In an address to Jesuits in Mozambique, Pope Francis recommended an infamous 2017 article that characterized the cooperation between U.S. Catholic and Evangelical social conservatives as an “ecumenism of hatred.”

In the same address, the Pope criticized a woman who professed joy that two young people had converted to Catholicism. And he suggested young priests who wear cassocks are expressing a form of “rigid clericalism” that conceals “moral problems.”

The Pope’s September 5 speech was published today, September 26, in La Civiltà Cattolica by Antonio Spadaro, SJ, one of the two co-authors of the 2017 article.

Responding to a question about Protestant sects that recommend their faith to Africans as a way to become rich, Francis said:

… We must distinguish carefully between the different groups who are identified as ‘Protestants.’ There are many with whom we can work very well, and who care about serious, open and positive ecumenism. But there are others who only try to proselytize and use a theological vision of prosperity ….

Two important articles in Civiltà Cattolica have been published in this regard. I recommend them to you. They were written by Father Spadaro and the Argentinean Presbyterian pastor, Marcelo Figueroa. The first article spoke of the “ecumenism of hatred.”
​

This article, “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A surprising Ecumenism”, first appeared in July 2017. It argues that American conservatives, including many Catholics, have been influenced by Protestant fundamentalism, and that Catholic and Evangelical voters who work together on social issues like the right to life and traditional marriage have transformed ecumenism into “an ecumenism of hatred.”

Spadaro and Figueroa wrote:

Appealing to the values of fundamentalism, a strange form of surprising ecumenism is developing between Evangelical fundamentalists and Catholic Integralists brought together by the same desire for religious influence in the political sphere.

Some who profess themselves to be Catholic express themselves in ways that until recently were unknown in their tradition and using tones much closer to Evangelicals. They are defined as value voters as far as attracting electoral mass support is concerned. There is a well-defined world of ecumenical convergence between sectors that are paradoxically competitors when it comes to confessional belonging. This meeting over shared objectives happens around such themes as abortion, same-sex marriage, religious education in schools and other matters generally considered moral or tied to values. Both Evangelical and Catholic Integralists condemn traditional ecumenism and yet promote an ecumenism of conflict that unites them in the nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state.

However, the most dangerous prospect for this strange ecumenism is attributable to its xenophobic and Islamophobic vision that wants walls and purifying deportations. The word “ecumenism” transforms into a paradox, into an “ecumenism of hate.” Intolerance is a celestial mark of purism. Reductionism is the exegetical methodology. Ultra-literalism is its hermeneutical key.​

American conservatives who noted that articles published in Civiltà Cattolica are vetted by the Holy See worried that these thoughts reflected the mind of Pope Francis and condemned the authors’ ignorance of the United States.

Phil Lawler of the Catholic Culture website called the essay “ignorant” and “intemperate.”

“The authors of the essay claim to embrace ecumenism, but they have nothing but disdain for the coalition formed by Catholics and Evangelical Protestants in the United States,” Lawler wrote.

“They scold American conservatives for seeing world events as a struggle of good against evil, yet they clearly convey the impression that they see American conservatism as an evil influence that must be defeated.”

Rod Dreher of American Conservative magazine wrote that the essay “reads like deaf men criticizing a chamber music performance.”

“They have very little idea what they’re talking about,” he continued.

“Many American watchers of the Vatican know that Father Spadaro is very close to Francis, but many others — including me — did not know who Marcelo Figueroa, the co-author, is. Turns out he’s an Argentine Presbyterian and personal friend of Pope Francis hand-picked by the pontiff to launch an Argentine edition of the official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.”

In his speech to the African Jesuits, Francis next condemned both the prosperity gospel and proselytism:

The second (article in Civiltà Cattolica) was on the “theology of prosperity.” Reading them you will see that there are sects that cannot really be defined as Christian. They preach Christ, yes, but their message is not Christian. It has nothing to do with the preaching of a Lutheran or any other serious evangelical Christianity. These so-called “evangelicals” preach prosperity. They promise a Gospel that does not know poverty, but simply seeks to make proselytes. This is exactly what Jesus condemns in the Pharisees of his time. I’ve said it many times: proselytism is not Christian.

​

The pontiff revealed that he was feeling bitter after meeting a woman who had introduced him to two young converts to Catholicism. One had been Hindu, the other Anglican. Francis said he had reproved the woman.

Pope Francis also took aim at clericalism, which he felt was embodied by young priests who wear traditional clerical garb.

“Clericalism has a direct consequence in rigidity,” he said.

“Have you never seen young priests all stiff in black cassocks and hats in the shape of the planet Saturn (the saturno) on their heads? Behind all the rigid clericalism there are serious problems.” he continued.

“I had to intervene recently in three dioceses with problems that expressed themselves in these forms of rigidity that concealed moral problems and imbalances.”

The pontiff also said an “exclusive moral fixation on the sixth commandment” (God’s prohibition against adultery, fornication and other sexual sins) was another dimension of clericalism.

“We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies,” he said.

“The Church today needs a profound conversion in this area.”​

The Bible is again prescient, and had predicted a Roman move from persecution of believers to absorption via ecumenism.

 

[metis]

The Bible is again prescient, and had predicted a Roman move from persecution of believers to absorption via ecumenism.

 

[pearl]

But I must also thank Benedict for one thing, namely making an effort to revive the music

Benedict was certainly a traditionalist, right down to reviving the 'ermine collar' once worn by the pope. I found his theology, which I have a great respect for, and his traditionalism a strange combination. But as far as music is concerned you are absolutely right. In his book, 'Feast of Faith' he devotes a whole chapter to liturgical music. "A Church which only makes use of "utility" music has fallen for what is, in fact, useless. She too becomes ineffectual. For her mission is a far higher one. As Hebrew Scripture speaks of the Temple, the Church is to be the place of "glory".
The Church must not settle down with what is merely comfortable and serviceable at the parish level, she must arouse the voice of the cosmos itself and by glorifying the Creator, elicit the glory of the cosmos itself, making it also glorious, beautiful, habitable and beloved. To ask what is "suitable" must always be the same as asking what is "worthy", it must constantly challenge us to seek what is "worthy" of the Church's worship. Are we to compel people to sing when they cannot, and, by doing so, silence not only their hearts but the hearts of others too?

source 'Feast of Faith'