Sunday, May 12, 2013

The Pope and the Nuns on the Bus

Pope Francis sharply chastises the leftie nuns of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which has been reduced over the past decades to a left-wing feminist think tank:
Vatican City, 8 May 2013 (VIS) – “The men and women of the Church who are careerists and social climbers, who ‘use’ people, the Church, their brothers and sisters—whom they should be serving—as a springboard for their own personal interests and ambitions … are doing great harm to the Church.” This is what Pope Francis asserted in his address to the participants in the plenary assembly of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) whom he received in audience this morning. 
The pontiff spoke to the sisters of obedience, poverty, and chastity: “Obedience as listening to God’s will, in the interior motion of the Holy Spirit authenticated by the Church, accepting that obedience also passes through human mediations. … Poverty, which teaches solidarity, sharing, and charity and which is also expressed in a soberness and joy of the essential, to put us on guard against the material idols that obscure the true meaning of life. Poverty, which is learned with the humble, the poor, the sick, and all those who are at the existential margins of life. Theoretical poverty doesn’t do anything. Poverty is learned by touching the flesh of the poor Christ in the humble, the poor, the sick, and in children.” 
“And then chastity, as a precious charism, that enlarges the freedom of your gift to God and others with Christ’s tenderness, mercy, and closeness. Chastity for the Kingdom of Heaven shows how affection has its place in mature freedom and becomes a sign of the future world, to make God’s primacy shine forever. But, please, [make it] a ‘fertile’ chastity, which generates spiritual children in the Church. The consecrated are mothers: they must be mothers and not ‘spinsters’! Forgive me if I talk like this but this maternity of consecrated life, this fruitfulness is important! May this joy of spiritual fruitfulness animate your existence. Be mothers, like the images of the Mother Mary and the Mother Church. You cannot understand Mary without her motherhood; you cannot understand the Church without her motherhood, and you are icons of Mary and of the Church.” 
Continuing, Pope Francis spoke to the superiors about service. “We must never forget that true power, at whatever level, is service, which has its bright summit upon the Cross. … ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them … But it shall not be so among you.’—This is precisely the motto of your assembly, isn’t it? It shall not be so among you.—’Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave’.” 
“Your vocation is a fundamental charism for the Church’s journey and it isn’t possible that a consecrated woman or man might ‘feel’ themselves not to be with the Church. A ‘feeling’ with the Church that has generated us in Baptism; a ‘feeling’ with the Church that finds its filial expression in fidelity to the Magisterium, in communion with the Bishops and the Successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, a visible sign of that unity,” the pontiff added, citing Paul VI: “It is an absurd dichotomy to think of living with Jesus but without the Church, of following Jesus outside of the Church, of loving Jesus without loving the Church. Feel the responsibility that you have of caring for the formation of your Institutes in sound Church doctrine, in love of the Church, and in an ecclesial spirit.” 
“The centrality of Christ and his Gospel, authority as a service of love, and ‘feeling’ in and with the Mother Church: [these are] three suggestions that I wish to leave you, to which I again add my gratitude for your work, which is not always easy. What would the Church be without you? She would be missing maternity, affection, tenderness! A Mother’s intuition.”

Ouch.

Francis provides a sharp precis of the motivation for the nuns' violation of their vows: their aggressive pride, careerism and narcissism. They have substituted their own craving for power and their leftist politics for genuine Christian obedience and charity.

I really love this Pope. He walks the walk, and has a remarkable way of getting to the heart of problems afflicting the Church.

13 comments:

  1. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyMay 12, 2013 at 8:35 AM

    Bravo, Papa!

    As it happens, I just returned last Tuesday from a several-day retreat with Benedictine Trappists. Spending time with these brothers is always a teaching moment, as they move through their days working, meditating, studying, praying, and worshiping God. It's like taking a spiritual shot of oxygen.

    What a contrast with the careerists, the social climbers, the politicians, and the "social activists". Such individuals should be weeded from the ranks of the religious orders. "By their fruits you shall know them", and the "fruits" of these leftists are dissension, tumult, and anger.

    If you're a nun , brother, or priest who wants to be married, or you're a nun who wants to be called a priest, there are many denominations out there who will gladly accommodate you, for political reasons if nothing else. Go forth and be happy.

    Oh yeah... and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

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  2. Here's what I like about this Bishop of Rome:
    http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130512/DA67NCHO2.html

    He understands the real struggle from without, as well as from within. Glad to see it.

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  3. Bachfiend, if you're out there...

    I picked up a copy of Kenneth Miller's "Only a Theory." I'm on the second chapter, Eden's Draftsmen.

    It's not a topic I've explored before. More to follow.

    Joey

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    Replies
    1. A better book is The Music of Life by Prof. Denis Noble. It demonstrates how modern genetics show that the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, a.k.a. Neo-Darwinism, is completely false.

      Ken Miller is part of the DODO crowd which is slated for extinction.

      (DODO: Darwin Only Darwin Only)




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    2. Pépé recommending a book is very much the kiss of death for it. He's an absolute idiot and doesn't have the brains to understand what it all means.

      Denis Noble's book 'the Music of Life' is just pointing out that genes aren't everything. The expression and modulation of genes is also important. Nothing new.

      But genes are important in the long term, because you need a mechanism to have stable replication of physical characteristics of species over many generations.

      Short term modulation of gene function by epigenetic factors, such as starvation of pregnant Dutch women in 1944-45 causing altered incidence of diabetes and obesity in the offspring doesn't get passed onto subsequent generations.

      Pépé has been predicting the demise of evolutionary biology for years. It won't happen.

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    3. Again, I have succeeded in teasing backfire out of his hole!

      This is getting boring...

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    4. Are ad hominem attacks the best you can do, backfire? I understand you being pissed off realizing your worldview collapsing.

      But I am not the cause of this collapse, so stop blaming me! A lie can only live that long whereas the truth is eternal.

      PS: Joey, I am sorry that backfire did not acknowledge your comment. Try getting under his skin next time. Easy to do, he's full of holes!

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    5. Pépé,

      It's not an ad hominem attack telling the truth about you. You're an idiot, as shown by your faith in 'Plant Fossils of West Virginia' compiled by a coal mining engineer as one of your references on AGW.

      Anyway, Joey hasn't written anything worth commenting on. He's still reading the second chapter after all.

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    6. backfire, you never did address the facts this "coal mining engineer" provided against the AGW hoax. Instead you prefer childish name calling.

      Go here if you really want to learn the truth about Global Warming. The site is maintained by honest climatologists.

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    7. A meteorologist. Weather isn't climate.

      I pointed out that Monte Hieb was wrong in considering only the processes putting CO2 into the atmosphere without considering the processes taking CO2 out of the atmosphere is misleading in asserting that humans are responsible for only 3% of the increase in the level of atmospheric CO2. Humans are responsible for almost all the increase.

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    8. backfire: Weather isn't climate.

      Two sides of the same coin! Are you retarded or what?





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  4. It's good to see Pope Francis resetting the clock for those who think they know better than God.

    But I wonder what Francis will do with all the Vatican wealth?

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    Replies
    1. Pepe,

      As a fellow believer in God I find your disdain for Climate science and evolution interesting and profoundly disturbing. Do you believe that all species of life at one time coexisted, i.e. dinosaurs lived with monkeys, eagles lived with Pterosaurs, trilobites lived with humans, whales lived with crinoids, etc? If not then you likely accept evolution but disagree on the mechanisms involved. I feel that many who feel compelled to a literal creation account have little chance of maintaining that belief after having been presented the evidence in an unbiased fashion unless those persons believe faith is dependent upon natural explanations (science) which is misguided. Even with total ignorance as to the evidence, that virtually all scientists spanning the entire globe, millions working independently of each other, feel both evolution and global warming stand on firm evidential grounds and fully accept the explanations, must have a profound effect the unconvinced. The extremely unlikely explanation of worldwide conspiracy is the only reasonable way reconcile such an awkward. Let your ego go and admit to error. Conspiracy is born of fallacy; that people, the world, the universe, God deceives us. If true, one's mind is product of that same deception making all thought equally unreliable.

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