The Pope’s prayer intention for June was announced today:
“That a culture of dialogue, listening, and mutual respect may prevail among peoples.”
Here’s his mission intention:
“That where secularization is strongest, Christian communities may effectively promote a new evangelization.”
LCWR, anyone?
@Paul Robertson – comment #1:
Oh my goodness, Paul. Yes, and it shows that we have some work to do to begin this culture right here, at home.
Pope Benedict published the Pope’s intentions for the year A.D. 2013 before he retired. I wonder whether this intention was on Benedict’s list (maybe with the SSPX and the LCWR and others in mind) or if Pope Francis changed the intention?
Is this a culture of dialogue, listening and mutual respect? Various opinions from one of our usual commenter’s blog: (to borrow his favorite term – see these *bombshells*)
– “The LCWR and other bogus leadership organizations that oppose the legitimate authority of the Church are the problem not the EF Mass or kneeling for Holy Communion or Intinction!”
– “….Praytell, Collegeville, MI’s Benedictines who are ultra liberal and run a Catholic university that is moving in the direction of post-Catholicism, St. John University.
The poll was just for priests (clericalism, ain’t it?) As we know, Praytell makes fun of the new, wonderful English translation of the Mass and derides in the most negative ways by name calling, those other academics who assisted in the new translation. This crowd of critics are like pit bulls, they just won’t let go and get on with Pope Francis’ agenda which opposes intellectuals who know nothing of beauty and are ideologues and self-referential.
Well, it turns out as I wrote on the Praytell blog, that the poll was biased and not only that I knew my responses would be in the minority simply because of the name on the survey, Collegeville and the Benedictines there. They stacked the deck in other words and even an amateur like me could figure that out!
– “The Collegeville survey is self-referential and clericalism at its worst! So who are you going to think is right, a biased group of priests who are into clericalism or a survey of unbiased priests and laity that uses scientific means to take the survey? I report, you decide!”
– ” For example there was a rather dubious survey of priests from an institution which has continuously whined, cried, bemoaned and regurgitated its dislike of the new and much improved English translation of the Mass. Their survey is skewed because it appeals to their groupies. They whine over authority issues; castigate those in authority who took their bogus authority away from them. They whine that priests, some of them, especially their groupies, don’t like it. Talk about arrested academic development.”
@Bill deHaas – comment #4:
Is this a culture of dialogue, listening and mutual respect?
Is your skewering of him such?
@Bill deHaas – comment #4:
+1, Bill.
Here is the list for the year from EWTN:
http://www.ewtn.com/faith/papalprayer.htm
So this intention is from Benedict, and is clearly an echo of Paul VI. I’d be very surprised if Francis changed it or EWTN updated their site already, so the chances of both happening are pretty small.
It is called *accountability* – something that appears lacking in some pastors and, unfortunately, even more bishops.
It goes along with gospel notions such as integrity, building up the community, respect for others, etc. (you will even find these virtues in the Baltimore Catechism)
Bill deHaas : It is called *accountability* – something that appears lacking in some pastors and, unfortunately, even more bishops. It goes along with gospel notions such as integrity, building up the community, respect for others, etc. (you will even find these virtues in the Baltimore Catechism)
So, does it follow that if one is unaccountable (to whom? you and yours?), one is undeniably wrong? By whose standards? Yours? Is your way the only way to ‘build up the community’? There is no other way?
Explain that logic, please. It isn’t self-evident.
You’re saying that because someone was mean, or used less than a polite tone, he must be wrong on every count? I don’t think so. An uncharitable tone isn’t a guarantee for error. But, sometimes, meanies make people cry. If a man is busy crying and is unable to stop giving himself over to emotional excess, he’ll be unable to discern the real message.
Where’s the culture of dialogue among the church leaders in Rome who decided that their perspective regarding the English translation of the Mass was superior to the collective competence and wisdom of all English language episcopal conferences. Oh, I forgot. Vatican I defined papal authority over every other authority in the church. Is that what Jesus intended when he gave Peter the power of the keys? Are popes, in the Divine Will, absolute rulers? I’m combing my mind trying to recall from scripture and Tradition the antecedents of this understanding. The only thing coming to me at the moment is the one about Jesus coming to serve and not be served and the rest of that passage as well.
Francis did say the following as part of his MORNING MEDITATION IN THE CHAPEL OF THE DOMUS SANCTAE MARTHAE for 27 March 2013
Never speak poorly of others
Speaking poorly of someone else is equivalent to selling them. Like Judas, who sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
When we visit an acquaintance and the conversation turns into gossip, into back-stabbing and the person at the centre of our babbling “becomes a commodity. I do not know why”, the Pope said further, “but there is some arcane pleasure in scandalmongering”. We begin with kind words, “but then comes the gossip. And we begin to tear the other person to pieces”.
And it is then that we must remember that every time we behave like this, “we are doing what Judas did”; when he went to the chief priests to sell Jesus, his heart was closed, he had no understanding, no love and no friendship.
And if we realize that our gossiping can hurt someone, “let us pray the Lord, let us speak to the Lord about this, for the good of the other: Lord, help him”. So it must not be me, he therefore concluded, “who does justice with my own tongue. Let us ask the Lord for this grace”.
Calling these Meditations rather than Homilies is very interesting. Francis gets up early in the morning and spends a hour in meditation (a traditional Jesuit practice) preparing for Mass.
Although longer these “meditations” seem to have a function similar to the “sayings” of the Desert Solitaries, i.e. a word of spiritual advice to the people who visited them. Note the hotel setting of the meditations.
Francis has made clear through Lombardi that he does not want these taped for radio or television since it would intrude on the personal character of the sharing, including the fact that Italian is his second language.
He has also made it clear that if they were to be recorded and he had to edit them that it would be take time and effort and that the end result would be a different genre.
Francis
MORNING MEDITATION IN THE CHAPEL OF THE DOMUS SANCTAE MARTHAE for 9 April 2013
THE TEMPTATION TO GOSSIP ABOUT OTHERS AND BATTER THEM WITH WORDS IS ALWAYS JUST ROUND THE CORNER. THESE “ARE DAILY TEMPTATIONS, ENEMIES OF GENTLENESS” WHICH “CONFRONT US ALL AND ME TOO”.
“In the First Reading”, Pope Francis said, “we have as it were a foretaste, a preview of what ‘new life’ will and should be like. The multitude of those who had become believers were of one heart and one soul: that unity, unanimity and harmony of feelings of love, mutual love, thinking “others are better than me”, and this is lovely isn’t it?”.
But this does not happen automatically after Baptism. It must be brought about within us, “on the journey through life by the Spirit”. “ This gentleness is a somewhat forgotten virtue: being gentle, making room for others.
There are so many enemies of gentleness, aren’t there? Starting with gossip. When people prefer to tell tales, to gossip about others, to give others a few blows. These are daily events that happen to everyone, and to me too”.
“They are temptations of the Evil One”, he continued, “who does not want the Spirit to create this gentleness, in Christian communities. In the parish the ladies of catechesis quarrel with the ladies of Caritas”.
These conflicts always exist, in the family, in the neighborhood, even among friends. And this is not new life.
When the Spirit causes us to be born to new life, he makes us gentle and kind, not judgmental: the only Judge is the Lord”.
The proposal to be silent fits in here. “If I have something to say, let me say it to the individual, not to the entire neighborhood; only to the one who can remedy the situation”.
The Blogosphere.
Telling tales. Gossiping about others. Giving others a few blows.
Temptations of the Evil One.
A culture of dialogue, listening and mutual respect???
John Allen has pointed out the tribalism of contemporary Catholicism. Not just liberals and conservatives but out sorts of groups out there doing their thing. Francis summed it up well with his image
In the parish the ladies of catechesis quarrel with the ladies of Caritas
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