You are probably overly optimistic. Back in the seventies this was the trope of those eager to take the miracles out of the Gospels. Whether the Pope agrees with this, or uses this rubbish to foster his basic misunderstanding of economics, I will leave up to the reader.
No Matter How Low Your Opinion of the Pope is:
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I’ve heard this explanation of the miracle of the loaves and fishes before; that the food was always there and Jesus influenced the crowd to share. I was so gratified that when portrayed in The Chosen, there is no doubt that there was only five loaves and two fish and the baskets became filled to overflowing.
Thomas Jefferson also excised any miracles or supernatural events from his “Bible.” Trump shouldn’t be selling Bibles but at least they are not subjectively edited.
“After the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the crowd sought to make Jesus king by force, but He withdrew to a mountain alone to avoid this.”
Shouldn’t we all?
I have no words of wisdom to add. I despise, loathe, abhor, and hold in utter contempt and disdain this kind of liberal progressive re-interpretation of the plain meaning of Sacred Scripture. May Pope Leo XIV be deposed and anathematized.
Frank the hippie Pope needs to be updated.
Actually, I do have something more to add that His Holiness, being a Democrat from Chicago, doesn’t understand.
In 2nd Thessalonians 3:6-15 Saint Paul clearly negates the idea of free handouts by saying that if anyone will not work, neither should he eat. He wrote that after 1st Thessalonians in which he described the coming of the Lord at the Parousia. Some people at the Church in Thessaloniki got lazy, hearing that soon the Lord would come, and thought they would get free handouts from others sharing with them while they waited for the Parousia. Saint Paul trashed that idea. No work, no food: starve!
Then in John 6:22-27, the crowd followed Jesus around the lake after the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Jesus clearly told them that they followed Him because their bellies were full, and they should work for the food that doesn’t perish but lasts for eternal life. Guess what, Folks! The crowd did NOT get another free handout! NO socialism. NO sharing. WORK for the food that doesn’t perish. See verse 27.
So when I hear hippie Bob from Chicago mouthing off this sharing nonsense, I get mad as he11. He should know better, and I think he does, but his Democrat Party ideology outweighs his theological sense. So yes, may God depose and anathematize him! I am sick and tired of this heretical crap.
I have started calling him FBM – Fr. Bob the Modernist. Pacifism, downplaying the supernatural, denial of national character. I remember hearing this sort of the nonsense as a kid in the 80’s. I guess this is the culmination of the Liberal Boomer Experience.
There’s no sugar-coating this. Denial of Christ’s miracles is heresy.
Leo needs to get pushback on this at least as fierce as what Francis faced over his religious indifferentism in Singapore, or John XXII’s denial of the Beatific Vision.
Lord have mercy, people showed more loyalty to Mark Driscoll than I’m seeing for the Holy Father here.
What he actually said, not a cherry picked excerpt:
After flying to the southwestern Cameroonian city of Douala on Friday morning, Pope Leo XIV presided at Mass at the Japoma Stadium, joined by around 600,000 faithful.
In his homily, the Pope reflected on Jesus’ miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes for a great crowd.
Just as in Jesus’ time, he said, people hunger for bread and wonder: “Where is God in the face of people’s hunger?”
Pope Leo said Jesus offered his response to this question by sharing what he and those around him had with all.
“A serious problem was solved by blessing the little food that was present and sharing it with all who were hungry,” he said. “The multiplication of the loaves and the fish happened while sharing: that is the miracle!”
As long as bread is not stolen in strife, hoarded through rationing, or wasted by those who gorged themselves, there is food for everyone, said the Pope.
Besides our material necessity, we also hunger for the bread of life in peace, freedom, and justice, and our every act of solidarity and forgiveness becomes “a morsel of bread for humanity in need of care,” he added.
“Yet this alone is not enough,” said Pope Leo. “The food that sustains the body must be accompanied, with equal charity, by nourishment for the soul—a nourishment that sustains our conscience and steadies us in dark hours of fear and amid the shadows of suffering.”
Christ gives Himself to us in the Eucharist, sustaining the Church and strengthening us on our journey, he said.
The Pope encouraged Catholics to receive the Eucharist as a sign of God’s love, as the Father invites us in Christ to share what we have so that it may be multiplied in the Church’s care.
He does say that the miracle happened “while sharing.” He didn’t say that sharing was the miracle. Might also recall Elijah and the widow at Zarephath: she shared bread with Elijah first and then never ran out.
Matthew’s right, although his post doesn’t have many quotation marks. Here’s the official complete text of the homily.
It’s deliberately vague and flowery, and so one could easily interpret if to mean “sharing is the miracle” or not. He walks right up to the line, he’s not stupid enough to cross it (at least in the official transcript). It’s not a bad homily, other than the vagueness … Jesus thanked His Father, we too should thank God. Jesus gave; we too should be charitable to those in need. Nothing wrong with that.
Still, pacifist and pragmatist … immanentist wouldn’t be a huge shock.
I barely know what it is like to be able to listen to clergy without sifting out error. Sometimes blatant, sometimes intentional, sometimes merely sloppy thinking, sometimes just implied.
If I do actually arrive in the place that Christ is “preparing” for me, one of the primary comforts there will be that there no longer any such sifting to be done.
I have no idea what Leo means to say here about the event of the loaves and fishes, much less what he believes about it.
As pope, that IS the problem.
Bishops are tasked with transmitting the Faith *clearly* Popes even more so. I have zero respect for the intentional ambiguity that they think is just so clever.
See Theodore Dalrymple’s account of his time in Rhodesia and of his experience as a GP with African immigrants living in Britain. Among African populations, the pull of family obligation can be quite remarkable and a man with a handsome professional job often lives very modestly because he is a river to his extended family. Plenty of sharing. The principal issue in Africa is low productivity in every sector (and the necessary reliance on the expertise of foreigners. (Another issue is general disorder).