Vatican City, Nov 19, 2017 / 05:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Sunday cautioned against having a “mistaken” idea of God as harsh and punishing, saying this fear will end up paralyzing us and preventing us from doing good, rather than spreading his love and mercy.
“Fear always immobilizes and often leads us to make bad choices,” the Pope said Nov. 19. “Fear discourages us from taking the initiative, and encourages us to seek refuge in safe and guaranteed solutions, and so we end up doing nothing good.”
To go forward and grow on the path of life, he said, “we must not be afraid, but we have to trust.”
Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square during his Sunday Angelus address on the first-ever World Day for the Poor, which he implemented at the end of the Jubilee of Mercy.
In his speech, the Pope turned to the day’s Gospel reading from Matthew, which recounts the parable of the talents. In the passage, a master goes on a long trip and entrusts three servants with different talents, but when he returns, only two have gained profit from it, while the third buried his out of fear.
This parable “makes us understand how important it is to have a true idea of God,” Francis said, noting that the third servant didn’t really trust his master, but but feared him, and this fear prevented him from acting.
We shouldn’t think that God is “an evil, harsh and severe master who wants to punish us,” the Pope said, explaining that if we have this “mistaken image of God, then our lives cannot be fruitful, because we will live in fear and this will not lead us to anything constructive.”
Fear, he said, paralyzes us and so is self-destructive. So when faced with the unfaithful servant in this parable, each of us is called to reflect on what our idea of God really is.
Turning to the Old Testament, Francis noted how in Exodus God is described as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
Even in the New Testament, Jesus always demonstrated that God is not “a severe and intolerant master,” but a father full of “love and tenderness, a father full of goodness,” Francis said, and because of this, “we can and must have immense trust in him.”
Jesus, he said, shows us his generosity in various ways, through his words, actions, and his welcome towards all, especially toward sinners and the poor and vulnerable. But also with his admonishments, “which show his interest in us so that we do not waste our lives uselessly.”
This, the Pope said, is a sign of the great esteem God has for us, and having this knowledge ought to help us to take responsibility for our every action.
Concluding, Pope Francis said parable invites us to have “a personal responsibility and fidelity which become capable of continually placing ourselves on new roads, without burying the talent, which is are the gifts that God has entrusted to us and of which he will ask us to account for.”
After leading pilgrims in the Angelus prayer, the Pope made a series of appeals, the first of which was for the World Day for the Poor. He prayed that the poor and disadvantaged would be “the center of our communities” not just on special occasions, but always, “because they are the heart of the Gospel, in them we encounter Jesus who speaks to us and challenges us through their sufferings and their needs.”
He also drew attention to beatification of Fr. Solanus Casey yesterday in Detroit, saying the friar was “a humble and faithful disciple of Christ, who distinguished himself with an untiring service to the poor.”
“May his witness help priests, religious and laity to live with joy the link between the announcement of the Gospel and the love for the poor.”
Francis also offered special prayers for those living “a painful poverty” due to war and conflict, and renewed his appeal to the international community “to commit every possible effort in favor of peace, especially in the Middle East.”
He prayed especially for Lebanon, particularly for the country’s stability, “so that it may continue to be a message of respect and sharing for every religion and for the entire world.”
A final appeal he made was for the crew of an Argentine military submarine, who have been missing for several days without a trace.
After concluding the Angelus, Pope Francis made his way to the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, where he had lunch with some 1,500 poor and needy in town for the World Day of the Poor.
Before the meal, Francis said a blessing for the food and for everyone there, asking the Lord “to bless us, to bless the meal, to bless those who prepared it, to bless all of us, our hearts, our families, our desires and our lives, that he give us health and strength. Amen.”
He also offered a blessing for all those eating in other soup kitchens throughout Rome. “Rome is full of these today,” he said, and asked for “a greeting and an applause” for the thousands of others participating in the event.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”><a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PopeFrancis?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#PopeFrancis</a> says blessing before eating lunch, prays for the cooks, the guests, their families & charity organizations in <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rome?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Rome</a>: asks that they receive "health & strength" <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/WorldDayofthePoor?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#WorldDayofthePoor</a> <a href=”https://t.co/jRrW0dN3xc”>pic.twitter.com/jRrW0dN3xc</a></p>— Elise Harris (@eharris_it) <a href=”https://twitter.com/eharris_it/status/932212710749691905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 19, 2017</a></blockquote>
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From the back bleachers, yours truly humbly proposes that “a balanced synthesis between the laws of God and the dynamics of man’s conscience and freedom” respects the immutable and inviolable moral absolutes against intrinsically evil acts, as elaborated in “Veritatis Splendor,” combined with exercise of the moral virtues for matters which are not absolute.
Two points:
FIRST, with regard to such moral absolutes along with God’s infinite mercy, “…the commandment of love of God and neighbor does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, BUT (Caps added) it does have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken” (n. 52).
SECOND, regarding other and more problematic matters, still governed still by the moral virtues (courage, temperance, justice and especially prudential judgment), and mostly the responsibility of those directly accountable for the common good, we can turn to the Catholic Social Teaching as synthesized, already, in “The Compendium” (2004). And, which might be organized to better effect into, first, the always central “transcendent dignity of the human person” and then, second, the following binaries:
(1) Solidarity & Subsidiarity, always together; (2) Dignity of the human Person & Family; (3) Rights & Responsibilities; (4) well-formed Conscience & faithful Citizenship; (5) Option for the Poor & the dignity of Work; (6) Personal Property & intergenerational care for God’s Creation.
SUMMARY: Town hall “synodality” is not enough, and Cardinal Fernandez (Fiducia Supplicans) is too much.
A balanced synthesis . . ? Hopefully an error in translation of the Pope’s words.
Isn’t this universe, world, & our human species (according to The New Testament witness) subject to the Stoikheia – that is the tenant Principalities, Powers, Dominions, Rulers, Authorities, Governments, & Thrones that reject GOD’s authority, self-identifying as “a whole host of evil in high places”.
Aren’t The Church’s many problems caused by melding with these intrinsic evils?
Isn’t the Christ-given work of The Church to confront ‘the ways of the world & its prince’ with our Holy Spirit-anointed radical obedience to & our persevering proclamation of GOD’s holy commandments; whilst not counting the cost . . ?
Now, that’s a challenge young Catholics will respond to – if given half a chance!
“Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat.”
“Think of the love that The FATHER has lavished on us, by letting us be called GOD’s children; and that is what we
A balanced synthesis . . ? Hopefully an error in translation of the Pope’s words.
Isn’t this universe, world, & our human species (according to The New Testament witness) subject to the Stoikheia – that is the tenant Principalities, Powers, Dominions, Rulers, Authorities, Governments, & Thrones that reject GOD’s authority, self-identifying as “a whole host of evil in high places”.
Aren’t The Church’s many problems caused by melding with these intrinsic evils?
Isn’t the Christ-given work of The Church to confront ‘the ways of the world & its prince’ with our Holy Spirit-anointed radical obedience to & our persevering proclamation of GOD’s holy commandments; whilst not counting the cost . . ?
Now, that’s a challenge young Catholics will respond to – if given half a chance!
“Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat.”
“Think of the love that The FATHER has lavished on us, by letting us be called GOD’s children; and that is what we are. Because the world refused to acknowledge Him, therefore it does not acknowledge us.”
“No created thing can hide from Him; everything is uncovered & open to the eyes of The One who to whom we must give an account of ourselves.”
“A balanced synthesis?”
About a year ago a friend thought to balance my bookshelf by unloading seven volumes of the complete works of St. Alphonsus de Liguori (1926!), lifted many years ago from a real pastor who passed away in 1988. I need to spend some time with this…
Thinking about “God’s mercy” and turning almost randomly to Part I of “The Way of Salvation and of Perfection,” we find many dozens of Meditations, including VIII: “The abuse of God’s Mercy”:
The reader is counseled to avoid both despair and presumption [….]. Second, “God is merciful, but he is also just [….]. Then third, “God is not mocked [….] The hope of those who commit sin because God is forgiving, is an abomination in his sight: their hope, says the holy Job, is an abomination [much in italics].”
Any “synthesis” conforming to “the spirit of St. Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori” will be a daunting and sobering task, given the 3,000 pages of unambiguous fine print such as this.
SUMMARY: Not much here on “time is greater than space.”
A presumption there is a synthesis. If we’re addressing Hegel’s thesis antithesis synthesis it’s argued that Hegel does not give evidence of using the formula in any of his works (see Leonard F Wheat in Undiscovered Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis Dialectics).
Intelligence in Man is not distinguished by level rather by kind. Among animal species only man can make the following comparative distinctions: 1. universal and particular 2. one and many 3. union and separation 4. essence and existence 5. divine and human 6. inner and outer 7. in itself and for itself 8. potential and actual 9. unconscious and conscious 10. artificial [man-made] and natural 11. God and man. 12. Father and Son Jesus (Wheat).
The proposition of synthesis poses a presumption these appositional parings can be synthesized. Except for the Father and Son Jesus. If we take a moral principle [principle here replaces absolute] can we modify it to satisfy its opposite and retain a morally acceptable compromise? For example communion for divorced and remarried. If using Amoris Laetitia as a guide can we retain the precept Adultery and allow communion – even if based on mitigating circumstances? Is that not accommodation rather than synthesis?
It seems Pope Leo’s premise “balanced synthesis’ between God’s law, human freedom” cannot satisfy both principle/precept and freedom. A solution is found when it’s shown as given the example of Alphonsus Ligouri that a famished man secretly taking fruit from someone’s orchard is not stealing because life or death presents a right. Whereas taking another man’s wife for sensual fulfillment presents an evil. The natural law that undergirds our conscience tells us that.
Leo XIV has made a terrible decision to open up doctrinal moral principles for discussion in reaching a synthesis with human freedom – in a regional Bogotá setting attended by a cadre of Redemptorist lecturers, professors from Columbia, a handful from elsewhere – with immense repercussions [particularly doctrinal fragmentation] for the universal Church.
Leo, a canon lawyer, must be aware that what occurs regionally by a group of unknowns [despite the heady title International Congress of Theologians] with his papal sanction will be taken elsewhere as the rule or at least the option, and for other such regional discussion of doctrine.
Hegel, when addressing thesis antithesis synthesis, theorized these dynamics in reference to the history of nations and cultures. Not to definitive moral principles.
These secular philosophers also know their ruminations including dialectics are taken as rules and options for other things beyond the initial application.
Becoming popularized or well spread it takes on bulk or immenseness sometimes personalized or “authored” and in general through “autonomous” anonymity.
Thanks, dear Fr Dr Peter Morello for illuminating what appears to be yet another crafty scheme to deceive & manipulate The Church towards blatant denial of GOD’s strict but benevolent instructions, that enable us to live a life of Grace.
Ps 118 “How shall we remain sinless? By obeying Your Word.”
“I have sought You with all my heart: let me not stray from Your commands”
“I treasure Your promise in my heart, lest I sin against You.”
“Blessed are You, O LORD, teach me Your statutes.”
Not to dismiss your analysis–which applies especially to the past twelve years–my proposition is that a synthesis of the Hegelian vintage is not possible if attempted within the spirit of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. Which is why I used the terms “daunting and sobering.”
Thomists celebrate Aquinas’ “synthesis” of Faith and Reason, and this direction is clearly not Hegelian. With you, I would prefer if Leo XIV had used the better term “coherence” instead of synthesis, which was preferred by Benedict XVI.
A Hegelian outcome would/will (?) be out of step with Liguori. That’s my point–a not-entirely-subtle invitation for theologians to consider that what the magisterium upholds about God and human freedom is not “rigid, bigoted, fixistic and backwardist.”
Agreed.
Although Peter, Faith and Reason cohesive by nature [as God ordained] are not two opposing premises. God’s Law and human freedom are opposed. Unless we attribute freedom to following God’s Law. Which is not a true synthesis. The phrasing by Leo XIV means freedom from God’s Law.
Although Peter, Faith and Reason cohesive by nature [as God ordained] are not two opposing premises. God’s Law and human freedom are opposed. Unless we attribute freedom to following God’s Law. Which is not a true synthesis. The phrasing by Leo XIV means freedom from God’s Law.
Faith is a gift. Reason a natural faculty. Neither are opposed although differ, both compliment the other.
“God’s Law and human freedom are opposed”?
“It follows that the authority of the Church, when she pronounces on moral questions, in no way undermines the freedom of conscience of Christians. This is so not only because freedom of conscience is never freedom ‘from’ the truth [!] but always and only freedom ‘in’ the truth [!], but also because the Magisterium does not bring to the Christian conscience truths which are extraneous to it; rather it brings to light the truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith” (St. John Paul II, “Veritatis Splendor,” 1993, n. 64).
“God’s Law and human freedom are opposed. Unless we attribute freedom to following God’s Law”.
By ordained nature the will is not opposed to God’s law. By tendency due to original sin it is opposed.
Jesus Christ is the balance between the laws of God and the dynamics of man’s conscience and freedom.
“It brings to light the truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith” (St. John Paul II, “Veritatis Splendor,” 1993, n. 64).
John Paul is not precise in this diagram in reference to the natural law within, that prescient knowledge that all men possess realized in the act of apprehension of good from evil. ‘We do not require grace to apprehend this law within’, which law is a reflection of the divine law. That is why all men are subject to judgment if they commit intrinsically evil sin. It is this natural law that undergirds conscience. Insofar as freedom it belongs to the will. Which is why Aquinas holds, evil is in the will.
Faith enlightens the intellect regarding natural law and strengthens the will to observe the law. Whereas revealed knowledge of heroic virtue required for salvation are not found by reason, rather they are gifts of the Holy Spirit, knowledge of which and adherence by grace surpass Man’s natural capacity.
A correction to “John Paul is not precise in this diagram”. John Paul is likely focused on the baptized who are certainly recipients of grace at baptism, and other non baptized to whom God wishes to confer grace – all of whom would be subject “to [the] light [of] truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith”.
“Balanced synthesis”? The corruptions going on in liturgy said to be according to VATICAN II the pastoral Council, are not pastoral.
At least, this sounds properly Papal –
‘The interview appears in the Spanish-language book “León XIV: ciudadano del mundo, misionero del siglo XXI” (“Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century”), a biography by Crux correspondent Elise Ann Allen, published on Sept. 18 in Spanish by Penguin Peru. English and Portuguese editions are expected in 2026.
In the book, Pope Leo, a longtime missionary in Peru before he was pope, underlines that the Church’s primary mission remains spiritual, not political.
“My role is announcing the good news, preaching the Gospel,” he said. “I don’t see my primary role as trying to be the solver of the world’s problems. I don’t see my role as that at all, really, although I think that the Church has a voice, a message that needs to continue to be preached, to be spoken and spoken loudly.”’