Father James Martin, SJ, and Pope Francis. / Credit: Kerry Weber via Wikipedia cc 4.0; Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
CNA Staff, Jun 3, 2024 / 16:05 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis has penned an introduction to the Italian version of a new book by Jesuit Father James Martin on the topic of Jesus’ healing of Lazarus, in which the pope wrote that Martin’s book serves as a reminder that “Jesus isn’t afraid of our death, or our sin.”
In the March 11 introduction, released by Vatican News, Pope Francis said Jesus’ raising from the dead of his friend Lazarus, which is recounted in the Gospel of John, shows that “Jesus isn’t scared of coming close to sinners — to any sinner, even the most brazen and undaunted.”
‘[Jesus] has one single preoccupation: that no one goes missing, that none are deprived of the possibility of feeling the loving embrace of his Father,” Pope Francis wrote.
Pope Francis has on several occasions received the controversial Jesuit priest in private audiences at the Vatican and has expressed support for Martin’s ministry to those identifying as LGBT, urging him to “continue this way.” Martin’s most recent book, released in the U.S. in September 2023, is titled “Come Forth: The Raising of Lazarus and the Promise of Jesus’ Greatest Miracle.”
Describing Martin as “the author of many other books that I know and appreciate,” Pope Francis said: “Father James has the perspective of a person who has fallen in love with the Word of God.”
“As I read the careful arguments and exegeses of the biblical scholars he cites, it made me wonder how often we manage to approach Scripture with the ‘hunger’ of a person who knows that that word really is the Word of God,” the pope wrote.
“The fact that God ‘speaks’ should give us a little jolt each and every day. The Bible truly is the nourishment we need to handle our lives. It’s the ‘love letter’ that God has sent — since long ago — to men and women living in every time and place.”
Engaging with the Bible daily, the pope wrote, helps “us grasp the extent to which Scripture is a living body, an open book, a vibrant witness to a God that is not dead and buried on the dusty shelves of history.”
The Christian faith, Francis wrote, is a comingling of “the divine and the human — never one without the other,” thanks to the incarnation of Jesus as a man. Jesus, who described himself as “the resurrection and the life,” made eternal life possible even for sinners.
“All of us, then, are Lazarus. Rooting himself firmly in the Ignatian tradition, Father Martin brings us directly into the story of this friend of Jesus. We’re his friends, too — ’dead’ as we sometimes are on account of our sins, our failings and infidelities, the despondency that discourages us and crushes our spirits. Jesus is hardly afraid to get close to us — even when we ‘reek’ like a dead body that’s been buried for three days,” the pope wrote.
“No, Jesus isn’t afraid of our death, or our sin. He waits just outside the closed door of our hearts, that door that only opens from within, that we lock with a double bolt whenever we think God could never forgive us.”
Pope Francis noted the insight that “our lives all point toward the infinite … We are made for eternity.”
“Of course, the dead rise, but how true it is to recall that we the living never die! Yes, death does come, not just for us, but for our families and those dear to us — for everyone, really. We see so much death all around, unjust and painful death, death caused by war, by violence, by Cain’s abuse of power toward Abel. But we men and women are destined for eternity. All of us are,” he wrote.
Critics have over the years accused Martin of rejecting Catholic teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts, but he has insisted that he does not reject the teaching of the Church. Last winter, after the Vatican issued the declaration Fiducia Supplicans, which opened the door for priests to pastorally bless same-sex couples, Martin said on social media: “Along with many priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex unions.”
Pope Francis last year chose Martin to be one of the 364 bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople who voted in the Synod on Synodality in October 2023.
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Washington D.C., Jan 27, 2023 / 14:40 pm (CNA).
A Democrat-controlled Virginia Senate committee voted down three bills that would have put more restrictions on abortion in the commonwealth, but similar bills are still being… […]
Pope Francis with Cardinal Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery of Divine Worship and Discipline of Sacraments, at the consistory in St. Peter’s Basilica, Aug. 27, 2022 / Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
Rome Newsroom, Aug 27, 2022 / 08:31 am (CNA).
Pope Francis created 20 new cardinals for the Catholic Church during a liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica Saturday.
“Jesus calls us by name; he looks us in the eye and he asks: Can I count on you?” Pope Francis said in a homily addressed to the College of Cardinals and its new members on Aug. 27.
“The Lord,” he said, “wants to bestow on us his own apostolic courage, his zeal for the salvation of every human being, without exception. He wants to share with us his magnanimity, his boundless and unconditional love, for his heart is afire with the mercy of the Father.”
The pope’s reflection followed a reading from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12, verses 49-50: “In that time, Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!’”
“The words of Jesus, in the very middle of the Gospel of Luke, pierce us like an arrow,” Francis said.
“The Lord calls us once more to follow him along the path of his mission,” he said. “A fiery mission – like that of Elijah – not only for what he came to accomplish but also for how he accomplished it. And to us who in the Church have been chosen from among the people for a ministry of particular service, it is as if Jesus is handing us a lighted torch and telling us: ‘Take this; as the Father has sent me so I now send you.’”
The pope ended his homily mentioning that one cardinal-elect, Richard Kuuia Baawobr of Wa (Ghana), was not present. Francis asked for prayers for the African prelate, explaining Baawobr had been taken ill.
At the beginning of the consistory, Pope Francis pronounced the opening prayer of the ceremony in Latin.
During the ceremony, the new cardinals made a profession of faith by reciting the Creed. They then pronounced an oath of fidelity and obedience to the pope and his successors.
Each cardinal then approached Pope Francis, kneeling before him to receive the red birretta, the cardinal’s ring, and a document naming the titular church he has been assigned.
Pope Francis embraced each new cardinal, saying to him: “Pax Domini sit semper tecum,” which is Latin for “the peace of the Lord be with you always.” Each cardinal responded: “Amen.”
The new cardinals also exchanged a sign of peace with a number of the members of the College of Cardinals, representative of the whole college.
While placing the red biretta on the head of each cardinal, the pope recited these words: “To the glory of almighty God and the honor of the Apostolic See, receive the scarlet biretta as a sign of the dignity of the cardinalate, signifying your readiness to act with courage, even to the shedding of your blood, for the increase of the Christian faith, for the peace and tranquility of the people of God and for the freedom and growth of the Holy Roman Church.”
As he gave each new cardinal the ring, Francis said: “Receive this ring from the hand of Peter and know that, with the love of the Prince of the Apostles, your love for the Church is strengthened.”
In his homily, the pope said: “The Lord wants to bestow on us his own apostolic courage, his zeal for the salvation of every human being, without exception. He wants to share with us his magnanimity, his boundless and unconditional love, for his heart is afire with the mercy of the Father.”
He also recalled another kind of fire, that of charcoal. “This fire,” he said, “burns in a particular way in the prayer of adoration, when we silently stand before the Eucharist and bask in the humble, discreet and hidden presence of the Lord. Like that charcoal fire, his presence becomes warmth and nourishment for our daily life.”
“A Cardinal loves the Church, always with that same spiritual fire, whether dealing with great questions or handling everyday problems, with the powerful of this world or those ordinary people who are great in God’s eyes,” he said.
The pope named three men as examples for the cardinals to follow: Saint Charles de Foucauld, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, and Cardinal Van Thuân.
The consistory to create cardinals also included a greeting and thank you to Pope Francis, expressed by Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the liturgy dicastery, on behalf of all the new cardinals.
Cardinal Arthur Roche speaking on behalf of the new cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica, Aug. 27. 2022. Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
“All of us, coming from different parts of the world, with our personal stories and different life situations, carry out our ministry in the vineyard of the Lord. As diocesan and religious priests, we are at the service of preaching the Gospel in many different ways and in different cultures, but always united in the one faith and the one Church,” Roche said.
“Now, in manifesting your trust in us, you call us to this new service, in an even closer collaboration with your ministry, within the broad horizon of the universal Church,” he continued. “God knows the dust of which we are all made, and we know well that without Him we are capable of falling short.”
Roche quoted Saint Gregory the Great, who once wrote to a bishop: “We are all weak, but he is weakest of all who ignores his own weakness.”
“However, we draw strength from you, Holy Father,” he said, “from your witness, your spirit of service and your call to the entire Church to follow the Lord with greater fidelity; living the joy of the Gospel with discernment, courage and, above all, with an openness of heart that manifests itself in welcoming everyone, especially those who suffer the injustice of poverty that marginalizes, the suffering of pain that seeks a response of meaning, the violence of wars that turn brothers into enemies. We share with you the desire and commitment for communion in the Church.”
At the end of the consistory to create cardinals, Pope Francis convened a consistory for the cardinals to give their approval to the canonizations of Blessed Artemide Zatti and Giovanni Battista Scalabrini.
The new cardinals are:
— Cardinal Arthur Roche, 72, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and former Bishop of Leeds (England);
— Lazarus You Heung-sik, 70, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy and former Bishop of Daejeon (South Korea);
— Jean-Marc Noël Aveline, 63, Archbishop of Marseille, the first French diocesan bishop to get the honor during Pope Francis’ pontificate;
— Peter Ebere Okpaleke, 59, Bishop of Ekwulobia in the central region of Nigeria, who was created bishop in 2012 by Benedict XVI;
— Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, 77, Archbishop of Manaus, in Brazil’s Amazon region, a Franciscan who played a leading role during the Amazon Synod and as Vice President of the recently created Amazonian Bishops’ Conference;
— Filipe Neri António Sebastião do Rosário Ferrão, 69, Archbishop of Goa (India), appointed bishop by St. John Paul II in 1993;
— Robert McElroy, 68, Bishop of San Diego (United States), whose diocese is suffragan to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, led by the President of the USCCB, Archbishop José Gomez;
— Virgilio do Carmo Da Silva, 68, a Salesian, since 2019 the Archbishop of Dili (East Timor);
— Oscar Cantoni, 71, Bishop of Como (Italy), appointed in January 2005 by St. John Paul II, who is suffragan to Milan;
— Archbishop Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, L.C., 77, president of the Governorate of the Vatican City State and of the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State; the Spaniard is the first Legionary of Christ to become a cardinal;
— Anthony Poola, 60, Archbishop of Hyderabad (India), a bishop since 2008 and the first dalit to become a cardinal;
–Paulo Cezar Costa, 54, Archbishop of Brasilia (Brazil), the fourth archbishop of the Brazilian capital to become a cardinal;
— Richard Kuuia Baawobr, 62, Bishop of Wa (Ghana), former Superior General of the White Fathers, and bishop since 2016;
— William Goh Seng Chye, 65, Archbishop of Singapore since 2013;
— Adalberto Martinez Flores, 71, Archbishop of Asunción (Paraguay) and the first Paraguayan cardinal;
— Giorgio Marengo, 47, Italian Missionary of the Consolata and Apostolic Prefect of Ulan Bator in Mongolia, the youngest cardinal in recent history, along with Karol Wojtyla, who also was created a cardinal at 47, during the consistory of June 26, 1967.
Furthermore, Pope Francis appointed the following prelates over the age of 80, who are therefore excluded from attending a future conclave.
Jorge Enrique Jiménez Carvajal, 80, Archbishop Emeritus of Cartagena (Colombia); Arrigo Miglio, 80, Archbishop Emeritus of Cagliari (Italy); Fr. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit and former rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University, who extensively collaborated in the drafting of the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium; and Fortunato Frezza, 80, (Italy) currently a Canon at the Basilica of St. Peter, who collaborated for several years at the Secretariat General for the Synod of the Bishops.
Pope Francis had originally also nominated Ghent Bishop Luc Van Looy, 80, who later declined to accept the post because of criticism of his response to clergy abuse cases.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 4, 2020 / 08:40 am (CNA).- A New Hampshire family has filed suit against the state after a town tuition program refused to pay for their grandson’s Catholic school education. The suit claims that the terms of the program violate religious discrimination laws and go against a recent Supreme Court ruling.
The lawsuit, Dennis Griffin and Catherine Griffin v. New Hampshire Department of Education, was filed in the Merrimack County, New Hampshire, Superior Court on September 3.
Dennis and Cathy Griffin are raising their grandson, Clayton in the town of Croydon, New Hampshire. Clayton, an ingoing seventh-grade student, attends a Catholic school in the nearby town of Sunapee. He would be eligible to have his private school tuition paid for by the town of Croydon, except for a New Hampshire law which prohibits town tuitioning programs from paying for “sectarian” schools, which the family argue is illegal under the Supreme Court’s recent decision Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which struck down a similar exclusion on religious schools.
Croydon, a small town of fewer than 1,000 people, does not have its own public middle school or high school. Instead, the town pays the tuition for resident students to attend public or private schools in nearby towns.
There are approximately 50 towns in New Hampshire that do not have public schools for all grades, and many of these towns have a contract with a specific nearby public or private school. Croydon does not have this kind of contract and allows its school-age students to pick where to go to school. In Croydon, students in fifth grade and above are given a set dollar amount for tuition at either a public or private non-sectarian school.
In order to be eligible for a tuitioning program in New Hampshire, a private school must be “non-sectarian,” comply with various regulations regarding health and fire safety, be incorporated in New Hampshire, and administer an annual academic assessment.
Mount Royal Academy, where Clayton is a student, is a lay-run and lay-founded Catholic school, where students are educated in the classical model. The school was incorporated in New Hampshire, complies with all health and safety regulations, and administers standardized assessments. However, as Mount Royal Academy is a Catholic school, the Griffins have to pay tuition.
The school was formally recognized as a Catholic school by the Diocese of Manchester in 2006, which the school’s website describes as “giving our school community the greatest gift we could ever receive, the Eucharistic presence of Jesus Christ on campus.” It was the first lay-founded school in the diocese to receive this recognition.
The Griffins say that the state prohibition is a violation of their First Amendment rights, and are asking for the New Hampshire courts to allow religious schools to be eligible for town tuitioning programs.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that Montana’s income tax credit program unconstitutionally discriminated against religious schools and those who attend or wish to attend them. The Griffins are arguing that the New Hampshire Superior Court should consider the precedent created in Espinoza and change state law.
Kirby West, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, the law firm representing the Griffins, told CNA that while the case is similar to Espinoza, the situation is different as the prohibition on sectarian school tuition payments is state law.
“In Espinoza, the Montana Supreme Court struck the scholarship program down under their state Blaine Amendment because the program included religious schools,” West told CNA.
“Here, although New Hampshire also has a Blaine Amendment, the anti-religious language is also written directly into the tuitioning statute. So the tuitioning program excludes religious schools on its face,” she said.
In Espinoza, the Supreme Court ruled that as school choice programs are not mandated, religious schools cannot be left out of the program on the basis of religion–something that is happening in New Hampshire.
“The principle at issue, however, is exactly the same,” West said. “Once it decides to create an educational choice program, a state cannot exclude religious schools solely because they are religious.”
“The Griffins qualify for New Hampshire’s tuitioning program in all respects except for the fact that they chose a religious school for their grandson. As the Supreme Court made clear in Espinoza, this discrimination violates the First Amendment,” she said.
Should you post a comment I cannot believe it would be anything other than a spiritual work of mercy. Some truths go down hard but who can exist long without the truth?
Pope Francis is not making sense in this area with homosexualism and the other area with James Martin. Truth remains absent. The FS. The misrepresenting of Benedict. The mocking of seminary faggotry. The telling the expelled one to “follow your vocation”. The “legalize homosexual civil union”.
He could have any number of reasons for deliberately positioning those things.
Yet here we are sustained by the Spirit of God contrary to your assertion. This is the Catholic experience, I say, as when a Christian is thrown into a cell without explanation or recourse and endures the effacement in the love of God.
Your conceptions of belief and works are off. Maybe you’re like James Martin, you would just have them for simmering for their own sakes and your penchants’?
The article: “Pope Francis said Jesus’ raising from the dead of his friend Lazarus, which is recounted in the Gospel of John, shows that “Jesus isn’t scared of coming close to sinners — to any sinner, even the most brazen and undaunted.”
It is risky to comment on something I have not read. I base my words on what is said in the article.
The words of the Pope “Jesus isn’t scared of coming close to sinners” registered with me as being out of a place. The word “scared” is the key here as somewhat inappropriate in this contact, if accessed by a heart. It makes Our Lord small. Also, the very Incarnation was dropping into the thicket of human sinfulness permeated with the evil which caused Christ constant suffering. If He was not “afraid” of that – He was eager to save us then He cannot be “afraid” of the proximity of sinners.
But well, supposedly the obvious fact that Christ did not see beneath Himself to deal sinners has to be stated. Would it not be appropriate then to pick up an example of yet unreformed sinners which are abundant in the Gospels like woman caught in adultery or tax collectors or others? In fact, Our Lord went around sinners (including Pharisees) non-stop!
However, Lazarus is not an unreformed sinner. First, he was a disciple who later was to become the Bishop of the Church in Cyprus, according to Church tradition. We do not know whether Lasarus was a thick sinner before meeting Jesus or not. It is quite clear though that he and his sisters were disciples of Jesus and that Jesus used to stay in their house quite often; unlike a mere dining with sinners, it was a place of respite for Him. How Martha and Mary relate to Jesus also shows the depth of their discipleship. Them and Lasarus were definitely not dead because of sins. And so, Lasarus’s death and resurrection is a very poor illustration of “sins which make us dead”. Noteworthy, just like in “Jesus was not afraid” Our Lord was made somewhat small Lazarus also was made small here, for the need of an analogy. This is an important and prominent feature of homilies given for the sake of “a current agenda” which subtly twists the Church’s teaching. To match the agenda, a speaker has to reduce or twist the character from the Scriptures he uses to back his point.
Second and very important, a poor empathy/understanding of human relationship/attachment is evident here. Gospels state that Our Lord loved Lasarus’s family dearly. When one loves someone, he is not “afraid” to approach him or his body after death. I am speaking here about a totally human reasoning which seems to be missing in the Pope’s and Fr Martin’s discourse. Speaking superhumanly, Our Lord went to resurrect Lasarus because he wanted to reveal to his disciples the power of God and strengthen them before His Passion. By definition, He could not be “scared” of his friend’s dead body because He loved him or of any body because He is the Creator of those bodies, God and Man together in one Person. Being Life Himself, He would be naturally repelled by death but not “afraid”.
And so, both dead in body Lazarus and Jesus Who came to resurrect him for the same of showing the glory of the Kingdom appear to be a very bad paradigm for “spiritual death of sin which the Lord is not afraid of” the Pope was talking about. In fact, the story of the resurrection of Lazarus is the exact opposite of that. Lazarus is alive in spirit because of his discipleship and he is dead in body. An unrepentant sinner is dead in spirit and alive in body, just like the pharisees were. Pharisees then would be a far better example – and it is very evident that Our Lord could hardly be around them because not only they were dead, they were proud of their own deadness = unrepentance (very narcissistic), just like many of those in the modern world who reject Christ and His Words.
It appears that an analogy “Lasarus – dead in sin” was caused not by contemplation of the Scriptures but by the need to back the agenda “You, faithful, must go to sinners (modern pharisees) and be with them as if they were not sinning, just like Our Lord went to dead Lazarus in the tomb”. I repeat, the problem is that Our Lord, the Truth and the Life, made Lasarus’ spirit permanently alive first when He met him via manifesting to him the Truth and then resurrected his body later. If we are to follow Our Lord here, we are to try to make sinners (modern Pharisees) alive via preaching/manifesting the truth to them – i.e. doing the exact opposite of what the Pope wants.
Hence, I think it would be far better for Fr Martin and the Pope to draw on Our Lords’ dealing with Pharisees who refused to acknowledge the Truth when they beheld Him.
Yes, “none are deprived of the possibility of feeling the loving embrace of his Father…” But, on the one hand and on Calvary Christ promised paradise to one robber (actually an insurrectionist), but not to the other. So, why is that?…
Well, clearly, Jesus Christ hadn’t read the new book (all genuflect, a book!) by guru James Martin! Problem solved!
Even when we reek of death after three days, that is the death of sin as made clear by Fr Martin and Pope Francis that is proffered as analogous to Lazarus being raised from the grave by Christ, a miracle to demonstrate his divinity. What the drift of the book says, as analyzed by Francis, is the suggestion that whatever our sins [our door to reconciliation locked with a double bolt] Christ will save us.
That then is what dead Lazarus encourages us to believe, that whatever the sin, even an unrepentant death will not prevent Christ from absolving us. This is consistent in context of a favorite Francis religious homoerotic artifact, a naked Christ carrying a naked Judas over his shoulder. There aren’t many, perhaps any clergy who accommodate homosexuality who hold belief in Christ’s judgment and the prospect of eternal punishment [that’s usually consistent with condoning, or remaining silent on contraception and abortion]. It would be wonderful if we could rest assured that we’ll all be saved. Reality, what’s revealed by Christ and conveyed by the Apostles assures us that’s a false hope.
As a postscript to my initial comment, “false hope” regards salvation for all has varied perspectives, one being that we may hope that all from this given point all will be saved. Some say that’s what von Balthasar, Bishop Barron, including my own perspective on the theological virtue of hope. Then there’s the looming questing of the dead prior to that given point in time. Here the Church in its wisdom offers no judgment, although as many point the words of Christ regarding Judas ‘better he had not been born’. Then there’s the possibility, for some at least, that prayer and intercession after the fact [of death] may possess real value regarding judgment, that based on the timeless dimension in which God is, who is pure act, a reality beyond our complete comprehension.
Is Pope Francis referring to a form of judgment beyond the limits of time? Or is he saying that whatever our sins, God’s mercy is greater than ourselves? Judgment requires an either or decision to be definitive as judgment. We do know that Angels were condemned and remain so. Fr Martin’s book, insofar as its commentary by Francis does not deny that judgment can be favorably affected by post death intercession – after all Judas Maccabeus ordered his troops pray for the fallen, all of whom wore condemnable talismans. However neither Martin nor Francis speak of intercessory prayer. They paint a picture of a dead Lazarus as one who died in his sins, reeking of the stench of sin that doesn’t prevent an all merciful God from forgiveness. This is the anomaly that would interpret the crucifixion as a universal act of salvation regardless of whether we repent of our sins. A prescription to do as we wish, the justice due to the effect of sin removed.
First it’s several private meetings at the Vatican, then public endorsement of his book. What’s Francis’ end game with Martin here? Is the pope preparing the way for promoting this homosexualist priest to a higher office in the church? What’s the agenda here?
That there is something of Christian value in a homosexual “relationship” so long as it is acknowledged “it is not marriage”, is a spurious non-correlation on more than one level.
First it remains homosexual, it does not derive a “relationship” of Christian or natural merit.
Second, it does not address the a priori issues or precedent problems, that apart from the question of marriage and irrespective of such a question, the homosexualism is abhorrent both in itself and to society in general. Which is where the real matter lies.
The “resolving of the question of marriage” is a total irrelevance, not just “non-resolving”; yet that also sets up serious prejudice against true teaching and method (pedagogy) while impugning the sincerity of the protagonist.
And it doesn’t matter who does the acknowledging of the non-marriage aspect of the “relationship” or of the “relationship”.
Philosophy is taught in seminary to help the priesthood guard itself. It isn’t taught because it is “something Catholic and traditional how to remain in a lag” and “to restrain acting on difficulties by holding them inside complexity”.
Some of what we are hearing about being accommodating of everyone, can come under the heading “Rogerian”. See in the WIKIPEDIA link. Whatever the merits might be in Rogerianism, many things can conform to Christian charity but Christian charity is not limited by them nor is it defined and determined by them.
“Even the non-believers can be Rogerian” -it doesn’t just so equate with Christianity or find an equivalence.
The priest is called to let homosexuals know they must separate.
If I were to comment about Father Martin’s book and Bergoglio’s endorsement I’d be having to march myself off to Confession. Therefore, I’ll refrain.
Should you post a comment I cannot believe it would be anything other than a spiritual work of mercy. Some truths go down hard but who can exist long without the truth?
Pope Francis is not making sense in this area with homosexualism and the other area with James Martin. Truth remains absent. The FS. The misrepresenting of Benedict. The mocking of seminary faggotry. The telling the expelled one to “follow your vocation”. The “legalize homosexual civil union”.
He could have any number of reasons for deliberately positioning those things.
Yet here we are sustained by the Spirit of God contrary to your assertion. This is the Catholic experience, I say, as when a Christian is thrown into a cell without explanation or recourse and endures the effacement in the love of God.
Your conceptions of belief and works are off. Maybe you’re like James Martin, you would just have them for simmering for their own sakes and your penchants’?
https://onepeterfive.com/francis-appoints-homosexualists-to-shape-doctrine/
(I posted this earlier but seems not to be coming through; so I try again, its’ worth it.)
Bergoglio is way, way wrong. Jesus isn’t resigned to sin. He doesn’t accept sin. He doesn’t surrender to sin.
And, because He loves us — infinitely, ecstatically, insanely — Jesus doesn’t abandon us to sin.
Because embracing sin is not “understanding,” or “walking with,” or “acceptance.”
Accepting sin results only and always in death and misery, destruction and despair.
And, trust me, I know what I’m talking about, being a sinner from way back.
yawn
The article: “Pope Francis said Jesus’ raising from the dead of his friend Lazarus, which is recounted in the Gospel of John, shows that “Jesus isn’t scared of coming close to sinners — to any sinner, even the most brazen and undaunted.”
It is risky to comment on something I have not read. I base my words on what is said in the article.
The words of the Pope “Jesus isn’t scared of coming close to sinners” registered with me as being out of a place. The word “scared” is the key here as somewhat inappropriate in this contact, if accessed by a heart. It makes Our Lord small. Also, the very Incarnation was dropping into the thicket of human sinfulness permeated with the evil which caused Christ constant suffering. If He was not “afraid” of that – He was eager to save us then He cannot be “afraid” of the proximity of sinners.
But well, supposedly the obvious fact that Christ did not see beneath Himself to deal sinners has to be stated. Would it not be appropriate then to pick up an example of yet unreformed sinners which are abundant in the Gospels like woman caught in adultery or tax collectors or others? In fact, Our Lord went around sinners (including Pharisees) non-stop!
However, Lazarus is not an unreformed sinner. First, he was a disciple who later was to become the Bishop of the Church in Cyprus, according to Church tradition. We do not know whether Lasarus was a thick sinner before meeting Jesus or not. It is quite clear though that he and his sisters were disciples of Jesus and that Jesus used to stay in their house quite often; unlike a mere dining with sinners, it was a place of respite for Him. How Martha and Mary relate to Jesus also shows the depth of their discipleship. Them and Lasarus were definitely not dead because of sins. And so, Lasarus’s death and resurrection is a very poor illustration of “sins which make us dead”. Noteworthy, just like in “Jesus was not afraid” Our Lord was made somewhat small Lazarus also was made small here, for the need of an analogy. This is an important and prominent feature of homilies given for the sake of “a current agenda” which subtly twists the Church’s teaching. To match the agenda, a speaker has to reduce or twist the character from the Scriptures he uses to back his point.
Second and very important, a poor empathy/understanding of human relationship/attachment is evident here. Gospels state that Our Lord loved Lasarus’s family dearly. When one loves someone, he is not “afraid” to approach him or his body after death. I am speaking here about a totally human reasoning which seems to be missing in the Pope’s and Fr Martin’s discourse. Speaking superhumanly, Our Lord went to resurrect Lasarus because he wanted to reveal to his disciples the power of God and strengthen them before His Passion. By definition, He could not be “scared” of his friend’s dead body because He loved him or of any body because He is the Creator of those bodies, God and Man together in one Person. Being Life Himself, He would be naturally repelled by death but not “afraid”.
And so, both dead in body Lazarus and Jesus Who came to resurrect him for the same of showing the glory of the Kingdom appear to be a very bad paradigm for “spiritual death of sin which the Lord is not afraid of” the Pope was talking about. In fact, the story of the resurrection of Lazarus is the exact opposite of that. Lazarus is alive in spirit because of his discipleship and he is dead in body. An unrepentant sinner is dead in spirit and alive in body, just like the pharisees were. Pharisees then would be a far better example – and it is very evident that Our Lord could hardly be around them because not only they were dead, they were proud of their own deadness = unrepentance (very narcissistic), just like many of those in the modern world who reject Christ and His Words.
It appears that an analogy “Lasarus – dead in sin” was caused not by contemplation of the Scriptures but by the need to back the agenda “You, faithful, must go to sinners (modern pharisees) and be with them as if they were not sinning, just like Our Lord went to dead Lazarus in the tomb”. I repeat, the problem is that Our Lord, the Truth and the Life, made Lasarus’ spirit permanently alive first when He met him via manifesting to him the Truth and then resurrected his body later. If we are to follow Our Lord here, we are to try to make sinners (modern Pharisees) alive via preaching/manifesting the truth to them – i.e. doing the exact opposite of what the Pope wants.
Hence, I think it would be far better for Fr Martin and the Pope to draw on Our Lords’ dealing with Pharisees who refused to acknowledge the Truth when they beheld Him.
Sin is not love. Sin is death.
And I don’t think love is enabling friends to live in sin and confusion. What sort of friend does that?
Yes, “none are deprived of the possibility of feeling the loving embrace of his Father…” But, on the one hand and on Calvary Christ promised paradise to one robber (actually an insurrectionist), but not to the other. So, why is that?…
Well, clearly, Jesus Christ hadn’t read the new book (all genuflect, a book!) by guru James Martin! Problem solved!
Anna above – Thanks for your patient analysis of what is wrong with Pope Francis’ reading of the story of Lazarus.
Even when we reek of death after three days, that is the death of sin as made clear by Fr Martin and Pope Francis that is proffered as analogous to Lazarus being raised from the grave by Christ, a miracle to demonstrate his divinity. What the drift of the book says, as analyzed by Francis, is the suggestion that whatever our sins [our door to reconciliation locked with a double bolt] Christ will save us.
That then is what dead Lazarus encourages us to believe, that whatever the sin, even an unrepentant death will not prevent Christ from absolving us. This is consistent in context of a favorite Francis religious homoerotic artifact, a naked Christ carrying a naked Judas over his shoulder. There aren’t many, perhaps any clergy who accommodate homosexuality who hold belief in Christ’s judgment and the prospect of eternal punishment [that’s usually consistent with condoning, or remaining silent on contraception and abortion]. It would be wonderful if we could rest assured that we’ll all be saved. Reality, what’s revealed by Christ and conveyed by the Apostles assures us that’s a false hope.
As a postscript to my initial comment, “false hope” regards salvation for all has varied perspectives, one being that we may hope that all from this given point all will be saved. Some say that’s what von Balthasar, Bishop Barron, including my own perspective on the theological virtue of hope. Then there’s the looming questing of the dead prior to that given point in time. Here the Church in its wisdom offers no judgment, although as many point the words of Christ regarding Judas ‘better he had not been born’. Then there’s the possibility, for some at least, that prayer and intercession after the fact [of death] may possess real value regarding judgment, that based on the timeless dimension in which God is, who is pure act, a reality beyond our complete comprehension.
Is Pope Francis referring to a form of judgment beyond the limits of time? Or is he saying that whatever our sins, God’s mercy is greater than ourselves? Judgment requires an either or decision to be definitive as judgment. We do know that Angels were condemned and remain so. Fr Martin’s book, insofar as its commentary by Francis does not deny that judgment can be favorably affected by post death intercession – after all Judas Maccabeus ordered his troops pray for the fallen, all of whom wore condemnable talismans. However neither Martin nor Francis speak of intercessory prayer. They paint a picture of a dead Lazarus as one who died in his sins, reeking of the stench of sin that doesn’t prevent an all merciful God from forgiveness. This is the anomaly that would interpret the crucifixion as a universal act of salvation regardless of whether we repent of our sins. A prescription to do as we wish, the justice due to the effect of sin removed.
First it’s several private meetings at the Vatican, then public endorsement of his book. What’s Francis’ end game with Martin here? Is the pope preparing the way for promoting this homosexualist priest to a higher office in the church? What’s the agenda here?
Who would read anything from either of these gents…
Jesuits are doing themselves in…poor things need pity (& prayer)
That there is something of Christian value in a homosexual “relationship” so long as it is acknowledged “it is not marriage”, is a spurious non-correlation on more than one level.
First it remains homosexual, it does not derive a “relationship” of Christian or natural merit.
Second, it does not address the a priori issues or precedent problems, that apart from the question of marriage and irrespective of such a question, the homosexualism is abhorrent both in itself and to society in general. Which is where the real matter lies.
The “resolving of the question of marriage” is a total irrelevance, not just “non-resolving”; yet that also sets up serious prejudice against true teaching and method (pedagogy) while impugning the sincerity of the protagonist.
And it doesn’t matter who does the acknowledging of the non-marriage aspect of the “relationship” or of the “relationship”.
Philosophy is taught in seminary to help the priesthood guard itself. It isn’t taught because it is “something Catholic and traditional how to remain in a lag” and “to restrain acting on difficulties by holding them inside complexity”.
Some of what we are hearing about being accommodating of everyone, can come under the heading “Rogerian”. See in the WIKIPEDIA link. Whatever the merits might be in Rogerianism, many things can conform to Christian charity but Christian charity is not limited by them nor is it defined and determined by them.
“Even the non-believers can be Rogerian” -it doesn’t just so equate with Christianity or find an equivalence.
The priest is called to let homosexuals know they must separate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogerian_argument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause
Life and eternal life are precious gifts. Lazarus is an inspiration to the living and to the dead.