Forum Post: Pope Calls for Global Solidarity in New Year blessing | Love This Pope!
Posted 10 years ago on Jan. 3, 2014, 7:10 a.m. EST by WSmith
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Pope calls for global solidarity in New Year blessing: ‘We have to stop on this road of violence!’
By Agence France-Presse | Wednesday, January 1, 2014 10:08 EST
Pope Francis salutes the faithful gathered on July 14, 2013 in front of his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo (AFP)
Pope Francis on Wednesday called for greater solidarity in the world in his first New Year blessing as pontiff in front of crowds of pilgrims on St Peter’s Square.
“We all have a responsibility to act so that the world may be a community of brothers who respect each other, who accept their diversity and who take care of one another,” the pope said on Catholic World Peace Day.
The first pope from Latin America said violence and injustice “cannot leave us indifferent or immobile” and said 2014 should bring “a real commitment to build a society with more justice and more solidarity”.
“We have to stop on this road of violence! What is happening in the heart of man? In the heart of humanity? We have to stop!” the pope said.
Francis said he hoped that greater “fraternity” and a “cry for peace” from war-torn parts of the world would encourage more dialogue and “tear down walls that prevent enemies from seeing each other as brothers”.
At a New Year mass in St Peter’s Basilica earlier on Wednesday, Francis prayed in his homily for people “who hunger and thirst for justice and peace” in the world.
He also called on the faithful to show “strength, courage and hope” in the year to come, speaking in his homily in front of thousands of people in the church.
Francis was elected in March 2013 following his predecessor Benedict XVI’s momentous resignation — a first for the Catholic Church since the Middle Ages.
His down-to-earth style and commitment to reforming the Vatican have raised hopes in the Roman Catholic Church following a years of turmoil due to shocking child sex abuse scandals and growing secularisation in the West.
The 77-year-old Francis has called for the Church to reach out more to the vulnerable and has said it should be a “poor Church for the poor” that is less “Vatican-centric” and gives more power to local bishops.
Home Depot founder worries Pope Francis neither loves nor understands rich Americans
By Scott Kaufman | Monday, December 30, 2013
[Yet another reason to boycott Home Depot.]
In an interview on CNBC on Monday, Home Depot founder and devout Catholic Ken Langone said that the Pope’s statements about capitalism have left many potential “capitalist benefactors” wary of donating to the Church or its fundraising projects.
According to Langone, an anonymous, “potential seven-figure donor” for the Church’s restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral is concerned that the Pope’s criticism of capitalism are “exclusionary,” especially his statements about the “culture of prosperity” leading to the wealthy being “incapable of feeling compassion for the poor.”
Langone said he’s raised this issue with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who yesterday praised Pope Francis for “shattering the caricature of the Church.”
“I’ve told the Cardinal,” Langone said, “‘Your Eminence, this is one more hurdle I hope we don’t have to deal with. You want to be careful about generalities. Rich people in one country don’t act the same as rich people in another country.’”
Cardinal Dolan told CNBC that he had, in fact, spoken to Langone, and had told him that “that would be a misunderstanding of the Holy Father’s message. The pope loves poor people. He also loves rich people.”
He then thanked Langone for bringing this anonymous donor’s concerns to him, and insisted that “[w]e’ve got to correct — to make sure this gentleman understands the Holy Father’s message properly.”
Langone further said that, in the future, he hopes Pope Francis will “celebrate a positive point of view rather than focusing on the negative.” He does worry, though, because of “the vast difference between the Pope’s experience in Argentina and how we are in America. There is no nation on earth that is so forthcoming, so giving.”
Dolan assured Langone that he had communicated to the new Pope the “legendary generosity of the Catholic Church in the United States.”
Watch the segment from CNBC below.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/30/home-depot-founder-worries-pope-francis-neither-loves-or-understands-rich-americans/
Viral Fake Pope Francis News
By Rod Dreher • January 4, 2014, 10:42 AM
I bet many of you have noticed your Facebook feeds filling up these past two weeks with fake news stories saying that Pope Francis has declared that “all religions are true,” has said that Adam and Eve did not exist, that Hell is not real, and so forth — basically, a liberal theological wish list. I notice that I’ve gotten them from non-Catholics; even liberal Catholics seem to understand enough about their religion to grasp that these stories can’t possibly be true. It is interesting, though, how eager many are to believe them — and how believable they seem, given the things this new pope has said, or at least the way he has said them.
Here’s one that’s not fake, but that’s caused a minor stir among my Catholic FB friends: Pope Francis, the Loaves & Fishes, and the Miracle Of Sharing. The Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin notes that the pope’s statements appear to endorse a liberal Catholic chestnut: that the real miracle in the Gospel’s Miracle of Loaves & Fishes was the “miracle of sharing.” Akin quotes the pope to this effect, but jumps impressively through a number of hoops to explain why Francis didn’t really say what it sounds like he said. Akin writes:
It’s understandable, the way Pope Francis phrased himself, that people would be perplexed. But we know Pope Francis often phrases himself in a way that can require further clarification.
That’s just part of who he is, so we should expect things like that.
We also know that, despite the way he phrases himself, particularly when speaking off the cuff (as he often does), that he’s a fundamentally orthodox man—a “son of the Church” as he puts it.
Knowing these two things, we should do the following:
First, ask how his statements might be understood in harmony with tradition (the “hermeneutic of continuity” that Pope Benedict stressed).
Second, read his statements in context to see what light that sheds.
Third, see what else he has said on the subject, to see if that sheds light on it.
Conservative Catholics in my FB feed are complaining that it’s a big problem when the pope’s defenders have to explain all the time that what the Pope said is really orthodox Catholicism, despite appearances.
As if this RW BS is not completely fake and more of the usual RW BS!!!