The Pope things too many young people in the Church are too rigid:
Pope Francis said Saul’s early life reminds him of “many young people in the church today who have fallen into the temptation of rigidity. Some are honest, they are good and we must pray that the Lord help them grow along the path of meekness.”
Others, the Pope said, use rigidity to cover up their weaknesses, sins and personality disorders and to assert themselves over others.
They are the rigid with the double life. They show themselves as beautiful, honest, but when no one is looking, they do bad things,” he said.
Saul, on the other hand, was rigid, but honest, the Pope said, and he let himself be led by the Lord, who spoke to him on the road to Damascus with “a language of meekness: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’”
Saul was called with “the force of the meekness of the Lord” to become Paul, preach the Gospel and suffer and die for the Lord, the Pope said.
Saul’s conversion shows dialogue between condescending rigidity and meekness, a dialogue between “an honest man and Jesus who speaks with kindness.”
“This is the path of a Christian: going forward following Jesus’ footsteps,” which is “a trail of preaching, a trail of suffering, the trail of the cross” and resurrection, the Pope said.
The Pope asked people to pray to Saul for those Christians who are rigid — “for the honest-rigid like him, who have zeal, but get it wrong, and for the hypocrite-rigid, those with a double life.”
Go here to read the rest. This is a hoot. The Pope is an inflexible leftist and for him to criticize other people as too rigid is hilarious.
When it comes to orthodoxy, the Pope is like an old hound dog I once knew who would get upset when he sniffed perfume. Once he did, no matter how faint, he would set up a dreadful racket. The Pope’s nose is always on the alert for orthodoxy and when he detects it, no matter how faint, he deploys his usual insults of rigidity, hypocrisy, etc. It is heartening that he detects the smell of orthodoxy among the young, probably among young priests, and this clearly alarms him. How did the Cardinals ever decide that this loon should head the Church?
Which one is he?
Who are the young people who are rigid? Heck-who/where ARE the young people at all? We had a big to-do at our parish yesterday, and in all honesty, not good. Very few young people. Mostly those in their 70’s and 80’s.
“…probably among young priests…” I believe you are correct, Donald. I find the young priests to be well educated in the true faith and on fire with their calling. It is a wonderful change. God does take care of his flock.
I notice that when it comes to issues near and dear to his heart, Pope Francis can be, based on what I glean from his statements, pretty rigid.
“As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind?'”
Doesn’t this Pope understand the etymology of the word religion? It comes from the Latin “religare” which means “to bind again – to fasten, to tie, to unite.” What is more rigid and unbreakable than all those reeds bound securely together so that they cannot break, but which individually when unbound are shaken and tossed about by every wind that comes along?
Depose and anathematize this Argentinian heretic!
Rigidity is a problem regardless of whether you are left, right, or middle. I get the impression sometimes that when certain issues are addressed, some overvigilant folks on the right assume Himself is talking about them. Maybe. Then again, maybe it’s not all about you, but everyone. I would love our pope and Catholic leaders everywhere to speak up plainly re Catholicism vs. the world. All we get by and large is warm, huggy Care Bear mush.
He can’t read the signs the Lord has given us. So confused and so suspicious he can’t or won’t discern good fruit from bad.
Maybe he has a special “missionary of mercy” confessor or spiritual director and has no one to speak truth to him. God have mercy on him and his advisors.
I think the linkhttp://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2015/02/cardinal-carlo-maria-martini-sj.html
shines a light on the spiritual battle that led to the cardinals electing him
[…] I SMELL ORTHODOXY IN SOME OF THESE CHILDREN. WE MUST BURN THAT […]
My son is in seventh grade and has been saying he was meant to be a priest since he could talk. Perhaps. We encourage him to follow where God leads and, if to the priesthood, then we will be happy to see him fulfilling his vocation.
The thing is that, the more I read about seminary experiences, and the more priests I come to know, the more I worry that my son’s natural affinity for liturgy and clear senses of right and wrong, will be rebuffed.
Perhaps that is why I take His Holiness’ criticisms so badly for, is there room in the Church for the Orthodox when our Pope hates us?
It is easy for me to say “yes.” I have no oath to keep to any bishop but a seminarian? A priest?
I pray that Pope Francis is not followed by an equally inflexible and uncharitable pontiff.
Over at The American Spectator, there are several pieces from George Neumayr’s book about the current Roman Pontiff. In short, the roman Pontiff is a political leftist, not a man who upholds Church teaching. He is more concerned with politics and praises Communists. Any member of the clergy who praises Communism – still a condemned ideology – should be disqualified for any role within the Church.
I consider his politics to be the refuge of the stupid. Leftism has utterly failed in its alleged goals. It does entrench the leftists in power and makes everyone else miserable.
Jorge Maria Bergoglio has a mess for a mind. His politics are repugnant. His order is borderline heretical and in Latin America many of them have crossed that line. His home country is a perpetual mess. The Church there is weak and afraid to confront abortion and gay marriage – two items the current Roman Pontiff apparently cares nothing about.
He complains about rigidity but he is mind numblingly rigid himself. Yet the hypocrisy of his words goes right over his head.
He is who he is. I said before that the greater sin was the acts of the cardinals who openly schemed to get him elected Pontiff, such as the disgusting Daneels of Belgium.
The Church is in the midst of a long Lent. None of us know how long it will last. The infiltration of Modernism, the watering down of the Faith, the trashing of the Latin Mass and the utterly banal way the Novus Ordo Mass is far too often observed throughout the world – these are just a few things.
Yet, only a few months after his elevation to the pontificate, Francis stated, ” Unless you are rigid in your Faith, you are on the road to apostacy”. I wonder how he squares this?
Good catch Don!
An interesting read on a similar dynamic in another church: https://www.premierchristianity.com/Blog/Why-GAFCON-s-decision-to-appoint-its-own-bishop-is-good-news-for-the-Anglican-Church
I wonder if Pope Francis thinks Christ was rigid when He didn’t come down from the Cross when taunted.
How sad, and how damaging to unknown numbers of Catholics including myself: a Pope (or “Bishop of Rome” as he prefers) wandering in the Land of Oz.
Where are You, Lord?