www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West What does the Pope mean by this?

I read that interview yesterday, which is why I said in an earlier post that my concern grows "with every interview Pope Francis gives to the media."

Yes. There are some very disturbing comments.

Read the following article Francis in Dialogue with the World [firstthings.com] from First Things.

Excellent article by Pope Benedict!

I'm very happy, Todd, that you have become such a papist with respect to His Holiness Pope Benedict!!

Alex

It is with great sadness that I say this: Pope Francis needs to attend numerous Catechism classes before he should be allowed to speak to the press. His remarks are only going to undermine all evangelizing efforts by Christ's true faithful.

We must understand that Popes and Patriarchs speak on a profound spiritual level, and aren't always understood easily.

If we read the above 'troubling' statement in context, and carefully, we will see that it is not so bad--(as if we are in a position to judge, LOL)

I am not seeing the part where it's not so bad. I have taken considerable consolation in the part of his exhortation where His Holiness makes a point of saying that people oughtn't expect the Pope to have all the answers, or even very good answers, all the time.

I think it is entirely possible to take the Pope's remarks about conscience in a way that really isn't troubling at all. I am a little troubled that some insist on taking his remarks only in ways that they find troubling. Isn't the Pope entitled to a little charity too?

Agreed.

Eastward,

I think you've got the right idea. We tend to express our faith in terms of propositions. While this isn't a bad thing in itself, it can become problematic when somebody expresses the same faith from a different perspective and uses different concepts or cultural images, and it *seems* to contradict the faith as we know it, according to our propositions.

However, we sometimes need to remind ourselves that our faith is not in any set of propositions, but in God Himself, Whose truth transcends all human expression.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

That's all well and good. But the title of the post is "What does the Pope mean by this?"

I am not asking for controversy or speculation. Even with the explanation of propositional logic, is there not any sort of propositions that are universally agreed upon by the Catholic church?

We do use propositions to define our faith, the creed is one example. This is not a game of gotcha, it is a question.

I take your point, chadrook. My appeal for interpretive charity wasn't really aimed at your initial question but at what I thought was a more recent installment of the thread.

All I meant to say is that I think it's possible to understand what Pope Francis had to say in a way that's in line with what the Catholic tradition has often had to say about conscience. It needn't be taken as underwriting or even reproducing relativism.

I'm no ultramontanist, but .

Anyone who has dealt with the press should know that they frequently take comments out of context. Dealing with the secular press is very difficult because of their liberal bias. If someone like the Pope says that we should loved gays, they take it and run with it and make it sound like the Pope is thinking about changing the Catholic position on these homosexuality to a more politically correct position. We all know that nothing could further from his mind.

Fr. John W. Morris

Good point Stuart I made this same comment in my homily last Sunday when I spoke of the importance of Baptism.