Pope Francis meets participants in the international conference ‘Lines of Development of the Global Compact on Education’ in a room adjacent to the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, June 1, 2022. / Vatican Media.
Vatican City, Jun 1, 2022 / 12:35 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis on Wednesday criticized people who “call themselves guardians of traditions, but of dead traditions,” saying that failing to move forward is dangerous for the Church today.
Speaking to the organizers of a conference on education on June 1, the pope said that it was vital to make progress by “drawing from the roots.”
He said that “there is the fashion — in every age, but in this age in the Church’s life I consider it dangerous — that instead of drawing from the roots in order to move forward — meaning fine traditions — we ‘step back,’ not going up or down, but backward.”
“This ‘back-stepping’ makes us a sect; it makes you ‘closed’ and cuts off your horizons. Those people call themselves guardians of traditions, but of dead traditions.”
Pope Francis underlined that “the true Catholic Christian and human tradition … grows, progresses.”
“Education, for its part, is always rooted in the past, but it does not stop there: it is directed towards ‘forward-looking initiatives,’ where the old and the new converge to create a new humanism,” he said.
The pope underlined that true tradition is “what that fifth-century theologian described as a constant growth: throughout history, tradition grows, progresses: ut annis consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate.”
The pope was referring to St. Vincent of Lerins, who wrote about the development of Church teaching, saying that it “is solidified over the years, extended with time, and refined with age.”
Pope Francis has invoked this quotation numerous times since his election in 2013, including in a letter on Amoris laetitia in 2018.
The pope did not mention the liturgy or Catholic doctrine in his June 1 address, but focused his speech on education.
He said that Virgil’s Aeneid contains an image that “can serve to illustrate the mission of educators, who are called to preserve the past … and to guide the steps of the young towards the future.”
“An eloquent example of how to confront the crisis can be found in the epic figure of Aeneas, who amid the flames of his burning city, carries on his shoulders his elderly father Anchises and takes the young son Ascanius by the hand, leading them both to safety,” Francis said.
“Aeneas saves himself, but not by himself. He brings with him his father, who represents his past, and his son, who represents the future. And so he moves forward,” he added.
Pope Francis said that this representation of tradition being respected and preserved reminded him of “what Gustav Mahler said about tradition: ‘Tradition is the guarantee of the future,’ not a museum piece.”
The pope met at the Vatican with participants in a conference organized to evaluate the work accomplished so far by his Global Compact on Education and to plan for its development in the years to come.
“I thank you for all that you do in the service of education, which is also the specific contribution that you are offering to the Church’s synodal process. Keep moving in this direction, from the past towards the future, continuous growth,” he said.
“And be attentive to the ‘back-stepping’ so much in vogue today, which makes us think that by stepping back, we can preserve humanism,” the pope added.
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Dainelys Soto, Genesis Contreras, and Daniel Soto, who arrived from Venezuela after crossing the U.S. border from Mexico, wait for dinner at a hotel provided by the Annunciation House on Sept. 22, 2022 in El Paso, Texas. / Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
CNA Staff, Sep 9, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Long a champion of immigrants, particularly those fleeing war-torn countries and impoverished regions, Pope Francis last month delivered some of the clearest words in his papacy yet in support of migrants — and in rebuke of those who turn away from them.
“It must be said clearly: There are those who work systematically and with every means possible to repel migrants,” the pope said during a weekly Angelus address. “And this, when done with awareness and responsibility, is a grave sin.”
“In the time of satellites and drones, there are migrant men, women, and children that no one must see,” the pope said. “They hide them. Only God sees them and hears their cry. This is a cruelty of our civilization.”
The pope has regularly spoken out in favor of immigrants. In June he called on the faithful to “unite in prayer for all those who have had to leave their land in search of dignified living conditions.” The Holy Father has called the protection of migrants a “moral imperative.” He has argued that migrants “[must] be received” and dealt with humanely.
Migrants aboard an inflatable vessel in the Mediterranean Sea approach the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney in 2013. Carney provided food and water to the migrants aboard the vessel before coordinating with a nearby merchant vessel to take them to safety. Credit: Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Catholic Church has long been an advocate and protector of immigrants. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) notes on its website that “a rich body of Church teaching, including papal encyclicals, bishops’ statements, and pastoral letters, has consistently reinforced our moral obligation to treat the stranger as we would treat Christ himself.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that prosperous nations “are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin.”
Popes throughout the years, meanwhile, have expressed sentiments on immigration similar to Francis’. Pope Pius XII in 1952, for instance, described the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt as “the archetype of every refugee family.”
The Church, Pius XII said, “has been especially careful to provide all possible spiritual care for pilgrims, aliens, exiles, and migrants of every kind.”
Meanwhile, “devout associations” throughout the centuries have spearheaded “innumerable hospices and hospitals” in part for immigrants, Pius XII said.
Implications and applications of Church teaching
Chad Pecknold, an associate professor of systematic theology at The Catholic University of America, noted that the catechism “teaches that nations have the right to borders and self-definition, so there is no sense in which Catholic teaching supports the progressive goal of ‘open borders.’”
“There is a ‘duty of care’ which is owed to those fleeing from danger,” he told CNA, “but citizenship is not owed to anyone who can make it across a national border, and illegal entry or asylum cannot be taken as a debt of citizenship.”
Paul Hunker, an immigration attorney who previously served as chief counsel of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Dallas, agreed.
“States have to have responsibility for their own communities, they have to look out for them,” he told CNA. “So immigration can be regulated so as to not harm the common good.”
Still, Hunker noted, Catholic advocates are not wrong in responding to immigration crises — like the ongoing irregular influx through the U.S. southern border — with aid and assistance.
Paul Hunker, an immigration attorney and former chief counsel of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Dallas, says Catholic advocates are not wrong in responding to immigration crises — like the ongoing irregular influx through the U.S. southern border — with aid and assistance. Credit: Photo courtesy of Paul Hunker
Many Catholic organizations offer shelter, food, and legal assistance to men, women, and children who cross into the country illegally; such groups have been overwhelmed in recent years with the crush of arriving migrants at the country’s southern border.
“It’s the responsibility of the federal government to take care of the border,” he said. “When the government has created a crisis at the U.S. border, Catholic dioceses are going to want to help people.”
“I completely support what the Catholic organizations are doing in Mexico and the United States to assist people who are there,” Hunker said. “The people responding are not responsible for these crises.”
Latest crisis and legal challenge
Not everyone feels similarly. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation of multiple Catholic nonprofits that serve illegal immigrants in the state. Paxton alleges that through the services it provides to migrants, El Paso-based Annunciation House has been facilitating illegal immigration and human trafficking.
A lawyer for the group called the allegations “utter nonsense,” though attorney Jerome Wesevich acknowledged that the nonprofit “serves undocumented persons as an expression of the Catholic faith and Jesus’ command to love one another, no exceptions.”
There are considerable numbers of Church teachings that underscore the need for a charitable response to immigrants. In his 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris, Pope John XXIII argued that man “has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own state,” and further that “when there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there.”
In the encyclical Caritas in Veritate, meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 acknowledged that migration poses “dramatic challenges” for nations but that migrants “cannot be considered as a commodity or a mere workforce.”
“Every migrant is a human person who, as such, possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance,” the late pope wrote.
Edward Feser, a professor of philosophy at Pasadena City College in California, noted that the Church “teaches that nations should be welcoming to immigrants, that they should be sensitive to the hardships that lead them to emigrate, that they ought not to scapegoat them for domestic problems, and so on.”
Catholic teaching does not advocate an ‘open borders’ policy
Yet Catholic teaching does not advocate an “open borders” policy, Feser said. He emphasized that the catechism says countries should accept immigrants “to the extent they are able,” and further that countries “may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions.”
There “is nothing per se in conflict with Catholic teaching when citizens and politicians call on the federal government to enforce its immigration laws,” Feser said. “On the contrary, the catechism backs them up on this.”
In addition, it is “perfectly legitimate,” Feser argued, for governments to consider both economic and cultural concerns when setting immigration policy. It is also “legitimate to deport those who enter a country illegally,” he said.
Still, he acknowledged, a country can issue exceptions to valid immigration laws when the moral situation demands it.
“Of course, there can be individual cases where a nation should forgo its right to deport those who enter it illegally, and cases where the manner in which deportations occur is associated with moral hazards, such as when doing so would break up families or return an immigrant to dangerous conditions back in his home country,” he said.
“Governments should take account of this when formulating and enforcing policy,” he said.
The tension between responding charitably to immigrants and ensuring a secure border was perhaps put most succinctly in 1986 by the late Father Theodore Hesburgh, who served as chairman of the U.S. Select Commission for Immigration and Refugee Policy that was created by the U.S. Congress in the early 1980s.
“It is not enough to sympathize with the aspirations and plight of illegal aliens. We must also consider the consequences of not controlling our borders,” said the late Father Theodore Hesburgh, who served as chairman of the U.S. Select Commission for Immigration and Refugee Policy that was created by the U.S. Congress in the early 1980s. Credit: Photo courtesy of University of Notre Dame
Writing several years after the commission, Hesburgh explained: “It is not enough to sympathize with the aspirations and plight of illegal aliens. We must also consider the consequences of not controlling our borders.”
“What about the aspirations of Americans who must compete for jobs and whose wages and work standards are depressed by the presence of large numbers of illegal aliens?” the legendary late president of the University of Notre Dame reflected. “What about aliens who are victimized by unscrupulous employers and who die in the desert at the hands of smugglers?”
“The nation needn’t wait until we are faced with a choice between immigration chaos and closing the borders,” Hesburgh stated nearly 40 years ago.
That’s because humanist progressivism is his religion, rather than Christianity. This has been obvious from day one, when he stepped out onto that balcony to proclaim a false gospel of “a church for the poor”. It’s been a long time since we have had an out-and-out pagan for a pope, and we don’t know what to make of it. Cognitive dissonance, and all that.
“Church of the poor” is “false gospel”? have you read the Bible at all? Or do you fringe fruitcakes have your own gospel? It sounds like you have your own religion. Maybe come up with a catchy name for it and start your own service.
The Church, containing the Spirit of God and the Presence of Christ’s Body and Blood, is RICH. Did those points get lost in a penurious reading of the gospel?
We read: “The pope was referring to St. Vincent of Lerins, who wrote about the development of Church teaching, saying that it ‘is solidified over the years, extended with time, and refined with age.’”
Based on St. Vincent of Lerins, St. John Henry Cardinal Newman (the “Father of the Second Vatican Council”) gave the Church his “Development of Christian Doctrine,” not much of which seems to be respected today under the tradition (!) of Jesuitical nepotism.
From Newman:
“I venture to set down seven notes of varying cogency, independence, and applicability to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as follows: There is no corruption IF IT RETAINS”:
(1) One and the same TYPE [doctrine/natural law v. a disconnected degree of pastoral “accompaniment”?],
(2) The same PRINCIPLES [sound philosophy v. neo-Hegelianism?],
(3) The same ORGANIZATION [the Barque of Peter v. all religions equivalently (?) “the will of God”?];
(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases [Catechism/Veritatis Splendor v. normalization of homosexual activity, etc.?], and
(5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [Veritatis Splendor/Familiarus Consortio v. the bogus social-science “arc of history”?];
(6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL [Neww Evangelization v. Amazonia/ Germania?], and
(7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…” [steadfastness because also fully engaging new challenges v. photo-op signaling and double-speak, or the tactics of silence?].
I cannot think of anything positive to say in response to this pope, other than may Almighty God have mercy and remember him when he lies among all of the dead traditions he so callously despised.
Taking one step forward and two steps backward cannot be our way of proceeding. Wise elderly citizens of the Planet say, rigidity in thought, word, and action needs to be replaced with a healthy dose of flexibility. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” – says the Gospel according to John.
Folks out in the West Coast, woke [it seems wokeness is more prevalent out there] before us East Coasters unfairly get to these articles hours before us stealing whatever thunder we possess. At any I’ll give a tardy try.
Noted in comments previously much of what Francis commends as renewal is, if examined “is solidified over the years, extended with time, and refined with age” is viable, except when assessed in context of outcome. What the Church [many of its clerical members] has practiced privately for centuries, praxis of discernment in hardship cases of dispensing the Eucharist while avoiding scandal is now openly propagated in Amoris Laetitia as universal policy. It would be beneficial and marvelous if that were limited, and scandal were avoided as the pontiff and supporters frequently claim. But it’s not. The practice of giving the benefit of the doubt to the penitent living in manifest sin has become widespread, so widespread that in many regions the difference between the elements for worthy reception and continuing to live in sin is lost. The reason is the principles for discernment in AL inviolability of personal conscience devoid of doctrinal formation, the conflated principle of mitigation, contention that universal principles are not universal [misinterpreting Aquinas in ST 1a2ae 94, 4] opened the floodgates leaving reception of the Eucharist to one’s private judgment.
Lerins never suggested that refinement of doctrine meant its morphose from a butterfly into a caterpillar. That a sacramental marriage is invalid [by simply discerning that a previous sacramental marriage was invalid, or may be set aside due to circumstances for the benefit of the divorced and remarried outside the Church].
What is most apparent is that the indiscriminate dispensing of the Eucharist will and does inevitably give the impression that we receive a God who really isn’t interested in our behavior, that doing as we wish contrary to his revealed life modifies our image of a God who doesn’t appear to be God. Human nature, as when a parent permits a child to do as they wish, absent of discipline perceives an absence of love and with that an unfatherly father. Which is why so many Catholic laity and priests disbelieve in the real presence.
I should modify,”It would be beneficial and marvelous if that were limited, and scandal were avoided as the pontiff and supporters frequently claim” – not on the basis of hardship alone, rather when there’s indication of evidence for annulment that is no longer available for submission to a tribunal. There are exceptions in this context when leniency may be in order. Although the only viable evidence is written or given testimony. I haven’t had that experience during my priesthood, others have. Fr Thomas Weinandy referred to such instances. So conceivably it could be a good. That is the theoretical premise Pope Francis submits in Amoris Laetitia, although he undergirds it with the dissolution of principles necessary to protect the sanctity of marriage. This is where AL fails to be compassionate since it is detrimental to valid marriages especially those with children. That’s what’s occurring now with many simply leaving their valid commitment for another relationship assuming marriages are more than likely dissoluble. That, supported by clergy who give them the benefit of the doubt based on principles contained in Amoris Laetitia.
This Pope doesn’t seem to realize there is nothing deader and more useless than the hippie 1970’s “Spirit of Vatican II” garbage his ilk have shoved down the throats of the laity for the bast fifty years.
As usual, the most charitable thing to be said about the Pope is that, assuming he is not heretical, no one has any idea what the heck he is talking about.
When someone doesn’t have a shread of anything intelligent to say, he always talks about going beyond or going forward. He will never tell you what or where this magical mystery place of forward is or what it is or where it is located.
Interesting. Bergoglio is all about progressivism.
But no mention of truth.
That’s because humanist progressivism is his religion, rather than Christianity. This has been obvious from day one, when he stepped out onto that balcony to proclaim a false gospel of “a church for the poor”. It’s been a long time since we have had an out-and-out pagan for a pope, and we don’t know what to make of it. Cognitive dissonance, and all that.
“Church of the poor” is “false gospel”? have you read the Bible at all? Or do you fringe fruitcakes have your own gospel? It sounds like you have your own religion. Maybe come up with a catchy name for it and start your own service.
The Church, containing the Spirit of God and the Presence of Christ’s Body and Blood, is RICH. Did those points get lost in a penurious reading of the gospel?
Back-stepping to the ’70s, say?
We read: “The pope was referring to St. Vincent of Lerins, who wrote about the development of Church teaching, saying that it ‘is solidified over the years, extended with time, and refined with age.’”
Based on St. Vincent of Lerins, St. John Henry Cardinal Newman (the “Father of the Second Vatican Council”) gave the Church his “Development of Christian Doctrine,” not much of which seems to be respected today under the tradition (!) of Jesuitical nepotism.
From Newman:
“I venture to set down seven notes of varying cogency, independence, and applicability to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as follows: There is no corruption IF IT RETAINS”:
(1) One and the same TYPE [doctrine/natural law v. a disconnected degree of pastoral “accompaniment”?],
(2) The same PRINCIPLES [sound philosophy v. neo-Hegelianism?],
(3) The same ORGANIZATION [the Barque of Peter v. all religions equivalently (?) “the will of God”?];
(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases [Catechism/Veritatis Splendor v. normalization of homosexual activity, etc.?], and
(5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [Veritatis Splendor/Familiarus Consortio v. the bogus social-science “arc of history”?];
(6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL [Neww Evangelization v. Amazonia/ Germania?], and
(7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…” [steadfastness because also fully engaging new challenges v. photo-op signaling and double-speak, or the tactics of silence?].
Someone should ask him for an example. Not that he’d answer them lol.
I cannot think of anything positive to say in response to this pope, other than may Almighty God have mercy and remember him when he lies among all of the dead traditions he so callously despised.
Taking one step forward and two steps backward cannot be our way of proceeding. Wise elderly citizens of the Planet say, rigidity in thought, word, and action needs to be replaced with a healthy dose of flexibility. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” – says the Gospel according to John.
Folks out in the West Coast, woke [it seems wokeness is more prevalent out there] before us East Coasters unfairly get to these articles hours before us stealing whatever thunder we possess. At any I’ll give a tardy try.
Noted in comments previously much of what Francis commends as renewal is, if examined “is solidified over the years, extended with time, and refined with age” is viable, except when assessed in context of outcome. What the Church [many of its clerical members] has practiced privately for centuries, praxis of discernment in hardship cases of dispensing the Eucharist while avoiding scandal is now openly propagated in Amoris Laetitia as universal policy. It would be beneficial and marvelous if that were limited, and scandal were avoided as the pontiff and supporters frequently claim. But it’s not. The practice of giving the benefit of the doubt to the penitent living in manifest sin has become widespread, so widespread that in many regions the difference between the elements for worthy reception and continuing to live in sin is lost. The reason is the principles for discernment in AL inviolability of personal conscience devoid of doctrinal formation, the conflated principle of mitigation, contention that universal principles are not universal [misinterpreting Aquinas in ST 1a2ae 94, 4] opened the floodgates leaving reception of the Eucharist to one’s private judgment.
Lerins never suggested that refinement of doctrine meant its morphose from a butterfly into a caterpillar. That a sacramental marriage is invalid [by simply discerning that a previous sacramental marriage was invalid, or may be set aside due to circumstances for the benefit of the divorced and remarried outside the Church].
What is most apparent is that the indiscriminate dispensing of the Eucharist will and does inevitably give the impression that we receive a God who really isn’t interested in our behavior, that doing as we wish contrary to his revealed life modifies our image of a God who doesn’t appear to be God. Human nature, as when a parent permits a child to do as they wish, absent of discipline perceives an absence of love and with that an unfatherly father. Which is why so many Catholic laity and priests disbelieve in the real presence.
I should modify,”It would be beneficial and marvelous if that were limited, and scandal were avoided as the pontiff and supporters frequently claim” – not on the basis of hardship alone, rather when there’s indication of evidence for annulment that is no longer available for submission to a tribunal. There are exceptions in this context when leniency may be in order. Although the only viable evidence is written or given testimony. I haven’t had that experience during my priesthood, others have. Fr Thomas Weinandy referred to such instances. So conceivably it could be a good. That is the theoretical premise Pope Francis submits in Amoris Laetitia, although he undergirds it with the dissolution of principles necessary to protect the sanctity of marriage. This is where AL fails to be compassionate since it is detrimental to valid marriages especially those with children. That’s what’s occurring now with many simply leaving their valid commitment for another relationship assuming marriages are more than likely dissoluble. That, supported by clergy who give them the benefit of the doubt based on principles contained in Amoris Laetitia.
This Pope doesn’t seem to realize there is nothing deader and more useless than the hippie 1970’s “Spirit of Vatican II” garbage his ilk have shoved down the throats of the laity for the bast fifty years.
Folly and doctrine that injures the church, seems to be in vogue. However, do they know Jesus and His message to the church?
So much gobbledygook, and physical metaphors. But that what you get when you mix papal infallibility with an ignorance of actual Catholic praxis.
As usual, the most charitable thing to be said about the Pope is that, assuming he is not heretical, no one has any idea what the heck he is talking about.
When someone doesn’t have a shread of anything intelligent to say, he always talks about going beyond or going forward. He will never tell you what or where this magical mystery place of forward is or what it is or where it is located.
Consider. Would Francis recognize a living tradition if it woke him from the dead?