A solid opinion from a respondent to Father Z: "Pope Francis’ obsession with mercy and forgiveness, his “devil” talk and simultaneous denial of Hell is itself symptomatic of cognitive dissonance and an emotional imbalance. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is terrified of Hell and Satan and he should be." We already know that our Pope has a 'psychological' history. And St. Padre Pio's take on it: “They’ll believe in hell when they get there!”
This again in the news at the same time......more than likely such modern "training courses" will exclude the only prayers Fr. Amorth claimed (and was allowed to save by C. Ratzinger at the time as a choice other than the new rite) to have any real power of the demons. Vatican to hold exorcist training course after 'rise in possessions' The Vatican is to hold a training course for priests in exorcism next month amid claims that demands for deliverance from demonic possession have greatly increased across the the world. The Vatican-backed International Association of Exorcists, which represents more than 200 Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox priests, said the increase represented a “pastoral emergency”. According to a priest from Sicily, the number of people in Italy claiming to be possessed had tripled to 500,000 a year, and an Irish priest has said demand for exorcisms has “risen exponentially”. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...se-after-rise-in-possessions-exorcism-priests
“Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetita appears to contain such heresy. Paragraph 297 states: “No one can be condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel! Here I am not speaking only of the divorced and remarried, but of everyone, in whatever situation they find themselves.”https://romalocutaest.com/2017/03/07/does-amoris-laetitia-297-deny-hell/
That is exactly what I was thinking,.. time will tell. How truly disturbing we could all think this came out of the mouth of the Holy Father. Our thoughts at this time should be one along the journey of the cross of Our Lord. Christ have mercy
I found the following from EWTN. They remind us that Pope Francis has spoken of Hell in the past. The article is similar to Edward Pentin's article and others on this subject but here it is nonetheless. Vatican: Don’t trust report that Pope Francis denied reality of hell By Hannah Brockhaus Vatican City, Mar 29, 2018 http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/Vatican.php?id=17245 Pope Francis arrives in St. Peter's Square for the general audience Sept. 21, 2016. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/EWTN. Related news: A good priest makes Christ present to his people, Pope says at Chrism Mass Kiss from Pope Francis a wish come true for boy with Down syndrome Pope Francis: A person transformed by Christ cannot be corrupt Nothing can stifle the joy of the Gospel, Pope says on Palm Sunday On Thursday the Holy See stated that a reported interview between Pope Francis and an Italian journalist, which claims the Pope denied the existence of hell, should not be considered an accurate depiction of Francis’ words, but the author’s own “reconstruction.” A recent meeting between Pope Francis and Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, 93, was a “private meeting for the occasion of Easter, however without giving him any interview,” the March 29 communique stated. “What is reported by the author in today’s article is the result of his reconstruction, in which the literal words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted. No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.” Scalfari, a self-proclaimed atheist, is the founder and former editor of Italian leftist newspaper La Repubblica. In an article published on the site March 29, Scalfari claims that Pope Francis told him, “hell doesn’t exist, the disappearance of the souls of sinners exists.” Scalfari’s fifth meeting with Pope Francis, it is not the first time he has misrepresented the Pope’s words following a private audience. In November 2013, following intense controversy over quotes the journalist had attributed to Francis, Scalfari admitted that at least some of the words he had published a month prior “were not shared by the Pope himself.” In a meeting with the journalists of the Foreign Press Association of Rome in 2013, Scalfari maintained that all his interviews have been conducted without a recording device, nor taking notes while the person is speaking. “I try to understand the person I am interviewing, and after that I write his answers with my own words,” Scalfari explained. He conceded that it is therefore possible that “some of the Pope’s words I reported, were not shared by Pope Francis.” Scalfari also falsely reported that Pope Francis had made comments denying the existence of hell in 2015. Vatican spokespersons have dismissed the texts of Scalfari as unofficial. In 2014, Fr. Federico Lombardi, past papal spokesperson, told CNA that “if there are no words published by the Holy See press office and not officially confirmed, the writer takes full responsibility for what he has written.” Pope Francis has previously spoken about the existence of hell in public speeches, including at a prayer vigil in March 2014. There he gave an address in which he said that members of the mafia should change their lives, “while there is still time, so that you do not end up in hell. That is what awaits you if you continue on this path.” EDITED TO ADD:
This fools nobody, but a fool. The Vatican has recently shown how quickly they can deal with the writer of 'The Dictator Pope', but expect us to believe the pretense that all this disastrous confusion cannot be immediately ended by the simple expedient of the Pope ceasing his 'private(!)' meetings with his 'friend'. What kind of a friend publicly discloses a false account of a dialogue that is supposedly intended to be private (not that I am very convinced that this is what's actually going on)? The entire episode is dreadful, God help us.
Unless the conversation started with "forgive me Father for I have sinned, it has been a lifetime since my last confession" there is no reason why the Pope should not release his version of the conversation including whatever he shared with Scalfari about his belief or lack of belief in Hell. As the Vicar of Christ, that's the least he should do on the day we commemorate the Crucifixion. But he won't. Instead, there'll be a big Good Friday event in Rome with the "liturgy" written by someone chosen by him whose belief in anything Catholic is questionable. And he will do something for the cameras to move the focus from Jesus and onto him. Same old, same old..............
I honestly try to be as charitable as I can, but just because the Pope has mentioned Hell in the past doesn't mean he didn't make these statements. This is at least the second time Scalfari has said that the Pope told him he believes in the annihilation of souls and not eternal damnation. In essence he has said the Pope does not believe all Catholic tenets. Could there be any greater accusation against a pontiff? The answer the Vatican gave is in no way satisfactory. They said: “What is reported by the author in today’s article is the result of his reconstruction, in which the literal words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted. No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.” That is not a refutation. All it says is that Scalfari did not use the exact words of the Pope. When people give testimony in court they do not use exact quotes, they reconstruct from memory. That testimony is enough in some countries to put people to death. If it is not true that the Pope said this then the Vatican needs to say "The Pope never said anything of the sort. Scalfari is making this up out of whole cloth or is confused." It has not said that. I'm sorry, but the statement made by the Vatican in my humble opinion only makes the matter worse.
Praetorian, I have selected "like" on many of the posts that have been made on this subject, I believe that I agree with most of what has been stated about this. It's more of the same that we have received from Pope Francis & the Vatican - confusion at the least and lies at the worst. As DeGaulle stated we would be fools to be fooled about these things. I hope that everyone takes the time to watch the latest World Over episode that I posted above, they do not discuss this latest controversy but imho they confirm that we would be fools to not be suspicious about what is occurring in the Church and the Vatican right now. In addition, included in this World Over episode is a beautiful tribute to Mother Angelica who passed away two years ago on March 27, 2015. The tribute is very well done, it will have you both laughing and crying - well I did.
If there is no Hell, Christ is reduntant. This might well be the return of Arianism. The last Arians all became Mohammedans-why resist accepting one unitarian creed rather than another; hardly worth death, banishment or Jizya. Is history about to repeat itself?
Plausible deniability is the ability of people (typically senior officials in a formal or informal chain of command) to deny knowledge of or responsibility for any damnable actions committed by others in an organizational hierarchy because of a lack of evidence that can confirm their participation, even if they were personally involved in or at least willfully ignorant of the actions. In the case that illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such acts to insulate themselves and shift blame onto the agents who carried out the acts, as they are confident that their doubters will be unable to prove otherwise. The question of whether Francis did indeed imply there is no hell is, therefore, subordinate to a bigger question: Why does Francis repeatedly engage in interviews with Scalfari, only to later say Scalfari misquotes his words? Catholic columnist Ross Douthat, whose To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism came out this week, interprets Francis’s friendship with Scalfari as a kind of “back door” form of information dissemination. By speaking to Scalfari, Douthat notes, Francis can explore (and, to an extent, “leak” to the public) unorthodox theological ideas while maintaining a veneer of plausible deniability. Francis’s “doublespeak” puts him in a precarious spot But by participating in a kind of bait and switch — putting forth potentially heretical ideas, then formally denying them — Francis leaves himself open to the charge of disingenuousness. He’s able to signal sympathy for progressive theology, but does not have the responsibility of answering to conservatives or formally advocating for doctrinal change. It’s a canny political move, but one that destabilizes the nature of the Catholic Church as a centralized, formal body: the very thing that sets the Catholic Church apart from other Western Christian denominations. But in this case, Francis may have gone too far in riling his conservative critics while directly challenging church orthodoxy. While the Vatican’s solution to the growing controversy has been to deny — once again — Francis and Scalfari’s exchange, Francis’s consistent reliance on Scalfari as a potential mouthpiece for heterodox thought renders each denial a little less plausible. https://www.vox.com/2018/3/30/17179952/pope-francis-hell-vatican-interview-scalfari-italian
Blizzard, This is similar to what "The Papal Posse" states in regard to "The Pre-Synodal Meeting with Young People" which occurred last week. This can be reviewed at @9min. mark through @13min. mark in the above video. They basically question the language used in the documents coming out of the synod as coming from insiders in the Church and the Pope himself as opposed to the youth themselves. In the Pope's address to the youth on 3/19/18 he states, '...And you challenge us to emerge from the logic that says, “but it’s always been like that”. And that logic, please, is poisonous. It is a sweet poison, because it calms your soul and leaves you as though you were anesthetized, unable to walk. Emerge from the logic of “it has always been done this way”, so as to follow creatively the tracks of authentic, yet creative, Christian tradition...' http://w2.vatican.va/content/france...ts/papa-francesco_20180319_visita-pcimme.html Robert Royal also wrote a little bit about this in the following article which Jarg posted on Monday, https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2018/03/26/two-youths/ . In addition, from @17:35min. mark through @20min. mark in the video it is stated that a revolution is being encouraged as opposed to encouraging that the Catholic teaching be better explained. Here is another link to the video, World Over - 2018-03-29 - Full Episode with Raymond Arroyo - Duration: 59 minutes. Personally, I also question the Pope's use of "Christian tradition" as opposed to "Catholic tradition" in the above quote considering the youth in attendance were not all Catholic but there were youth from other Christian denominations and Muslims in addition to the Catholic youth in the audience.
Thank you, Carol, for posting the link to that World Over episode. I've just finished watching it and agree with your comments. In case others missed it or can't find it on the thread, here's the link again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=pRFm2FnyaNY
Frankly, this Easter I find President Trump's comments/wishes less confusing than the Pope's: (video) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
It's coming fast and furious now A Priest Praised by the Pope: A Female Pope is a Possibility in the Future Maike Hickson April 2, 2018 0 Comments Screenshot Augsburger Allgemeine: “Father Anselm Grün can well conceive of a female pope.” While we are still recovering from a recent interview by a French priest in which he reveals that Pope Francis had given him his approval for the blessing of homosexual and “remarried” couples, there comes now yet another priest dropping new bombshells. And he, too, has received personal support from the pope. This priest now claims that a female pope is very well a possibility in the future. On Good Friday, 30 March, the German newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine published an interview with Father Anselm Grün, a prolific book author and progressive German monk who had just received public praise by Pope Francis, in February of 2018. Speaking at that time to Rome’s clergy about the “mid-life crisis” of priests – when they are between forty and fifty years of age – the pope gave some book recommendations to his clergy. He then said: There are two writings that I know […] : there [first of all] is a modern book, closer to us, also a dialogue with psychology, of that Austrian [sic] monk-psychologist Anselm Grün, The Middle-Age Crisis [sic – title is incorrect, it is, rather, Lebensmitte als geistliche Aufgabe – Middle-Age as a Spiritual Task],this can help. It’s a spiritual-psychological dialogue on this moment. Already in 2013, it was reported by the newspaper La Nación in Argentina that Pope Francis, as a cardinal, had had on his nightstand a book written by Father Grün, among other books, which were altogether “texts that he uses to recommend to those people who place themselves under his spiritual guidance,” in the words of La Nación. That specific Grün book is entitled Wege zur Freiheit (Paths to Freedom). It is this German priest – Father Grün – who received the honor of being publicly praised by the pope – who now also has given an interview in which he makes some stunning and quite heterodox comments. First, he introduces himself by saying that “Fundamentalist circles like, at times, to call my theology, my spirituality, heretical…” Later on in the interview, Father Grün touches upon topics that might explain the stern assessment of some “fundamentalist circles,” when he says that “There are no theological reasons that speak against an abolishment of priestly celibacy or against female priests, female bishops, or a female pope. Only here it is about historical processes.” Such things “need time,” he adds. But for him, “the first step has to be now the ordination of women as deaconesses.” Concerning the question of priestly celibacy, this priest also says that “that should be free for each individual to decide upon.” Grün also explains that he works “with some homosexual priests – and they are good priests. They can speak with us openly about their problems and they feel that they are being accepted.” “That is very important,” he adds. Father Grün’s own comments about a female pope in the new 30 March interview are a response to a question from the interviewer about the views of his colleague, Wunibald Müller, who is the founder and, until 2016, the director of the Recollectio Haus (House of Recollection) for priests and religious who are in existential crises, and which is located in Grün’s own Benedictine monastery Münsterschwarzach in the diocese of Würzburg. Father Grün is the spiritual director of this Recollectio Haus. Moreover, Müller – who is himself a lay theologian and a psychotherapist – is, in Germany, a prominent public defender of homosexuals and a promoter of the blessing of homosexual couples. In a recent 7 March 2018 panel discussion in Neuss, Germany, it was he himself who first proposed the idea that there should be a female pope. Müller then said (at minute 35:50): “For me, it is a scandal that women, for example, cannot be ordained as female priests; and someday perhaps even as female bishops, someday perhaps even as pope – why not?” He doubted that “God would have one minute a problem with it, that a woman would become a female priest.” Müller is the same man who has written, in 2013 and 2014, open letters to Pope Francis asking him to give the permission for married priests. “I asked for a relaxation of celibacy. There should be married priests as well as celibate, homosexual as well as heterosexual [priests],” he said in an interview which the Italian Vatican specialist Sandro Magister had quoted in 2016. At the time, Müller also spoke about the response he had finally received from Pope Francis: Francis thanked me for my reflections, which made me very happy. He says that my proposals cannot be realized for the universal Church, but I think that this does not rule out solutions at the regional level. Francis has asked the Brazilian bishop Erwin Kräutler to find out if in his diocese there are married men, of proven experience, who could be ordained priests. The pope is seeking places where something can be changed that can then develop a dynamic [sic] of its own. (Read the rest at https://onepeterfive.com/a-priest-praised-by-the-pope-a-female-pope-is-a-possibility-in-the-future/)
One of the first things our Pope asked for, upon his election, was prayers. We certainly need to pray for him, and a part of him, that might not be absolutely convinced of absolute, unconditional, non-Judicial mercy, knows that.
