Jesus was poor but he wasn't a bum.

Jesus was poor but he wasn’t a bum.

At Vatican Radio:

Pope Francis said on Tuesday that poverty is the great teaching Jesus gave us and we can find his face among the poor and needy.

Does Our Lord teach ‘poverty?’  I know he teaches about poverty in spirit.  I know he exemplified a life of poverty – that great saints show us the ‘discipline’ of poverty, that they take vows of poverty.

Even if the Church did teach ‘poverty’ per say, as if it were a good, what does that have to do with Pope Francis here?  He’s telling us, I think, to love and honor poor people, people with little means for survival, people with few things.  He’s not telling us to be poor so much, as if it were some doctrine.  He wants us to focus effort on ‘the poor.’

I have been fairly poor at times; never without shelter, but broke.  I suppose the Pope would have wanted Catholics to focus on me back then?

Stressing that the poor are not a burden but a resource, he said he wished that both the city of Rome and the local Church community could be more attentive, caring and considerate towards those in need and that Christians could kneel before a poor person. The Pope’s words came during a video message which was broadcast at a charity theatre performance organised by Caritas Roma. 

St. Mary Magdalene knelt before our Lord.  St. Francis knelt before a wayward priest telling him, “These hands bring me Jesus.”  Kings have knelt before popes and knights have knelt before kings.  A man kneels before a woman to ask for her hand.

Poverty, he said, is the great teaching that Jesus gave us and he assured the performers that they are never a burden for us. Instead they represent a resource without which our attempts to discover the face of Jesus would be in vain.

If the poor are never a burden then what is Pope Francis asking us to do, use them?  I think he wants us to share their burdens, yes?

I bristle at calling people resources.  Every company has a ‘Human Resources’ department.  It’s an ugly arrogant term.  But for the Pope poor people are a resource without which we’d never be able to discover the ‘face of Jesus.’

Do you make many attempts to discover the face of Jesus?  I don’t.  I just hope I can see it in the end.  Is the Pope telling me I require ‘the poor’ somehow as a resource to get to Heaven?  Is he saying my Faith is no help without them?  He seems pretty clear.  No wonder he wants me to kneel down and worship homeless people who come into a Church.  They are my saviors!

He concluded his address by saying how much he wished that the city of Rome could shine with the light of its compassion and its welcome for those who are suffering, who are fleeing from war and death,  and respond with a smile to all those who have lost hope. Pope Francis said he wished for the same on the part of the Church community in Rome so that it may be more attentive, caring and considerate towards the poor and vulnerable and recognize in them the face of our Lord. How I wish, he said, that Christians could kneel in veneration when a poor person enters the church.

Do you, does anyone seriously think that Rome would shine if it was completely filled with Libyan boat people instead of the Catholics who have been there for thousands of years?  Wouldn’t it look more like a Libyan barge?  Is it the ‘light of compassion’ to wreck the heart of civilization, to kneel down before ‘poverty’ instead of our Lord at Mass?

Can you imagine what type of Mass Pope Francis would foist on us if he could equal Pope Paul’s ambitions?  What ‘venerations’ would be required of us then?

I know we’ll never rest in Abraham’s bosom if we are careless to poor Lazarus, but Lazarus is Lazarus and Jesus is Jesus.  Please Pope Francis stop mixing them up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another World Leader Wins Coveted Embrace

At the Washington Post:

Pope Francis will visit Washington, D.C. Sept. 22 to Sept. 25, the Archdiocese of Washington confirmed on Tuesday. President Obama hinted at what he expects to speak with Pope Francis when they meet in September at the White House, including poverty, climate change and conflict in the Middle East.

Conflict in the Middle East? Maybe Pope Francis will ask the President to stop creating it.

Obama said they will likely talk about reducing conflict and reducing war in the Middle East “where Christians have been viciously attacked.” Pope Francis has become a force in foreign policy, regularly speaking out against the persecution of Christians.

Yes, but what has this accomplished?  He runs on a lot about dialogue and pacifism, coddles dictators, UN Tyrants, and terrorists, and blasts free markets too.

The leaders will also likely talk about climate change, Obama said in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal. Pope Francis is poised to weigh in on climate change with an encyclical this summer.

The following section is from the Journal’s interview released today.

Seib: What are you going to tell him? What do you expect he’s going to want to tell you?

Obama: Well, I’ve had the honor of meeting him already once, an extraordinary individual, I think, a transformative leader, not just within the Catholic Church but globally.

Why are liberals always being transformative?  Aren’t they happy with the nasty ways they already are?  And why is everything always global?  Isn’t ruining their own families and neighborhoods and running their own cities into the ground enough?  When will leftist world leaders stop celebrating how Pope Francis is turning Christianity into their vehicle to ride the globe into Hell?  Don’t they see how they give themselves away?

And excluding the pervasive hype, what is so extraordinary about Pope Francis, other than the fact that he can awkwardly blend bits of vague sentiment into something wishful thinkers can pretend is Catholic teaching?  (He does have a unique way with words.)  What is extraordinary though, is that an anti-Christian like Obama, who is never loose with his praise, can gush over the Vicar of Christ today.

That’s rare in the extreme.

 

 

 

 

Down for the Unholy Cause

Down for the Unholy Cause

At Breitbart James Delingpole reports:

Papal heavies shut down an awkward question at a Vatican press conference today when a journalist asked UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon his views on climate sceptics.

Marc Morano, covering the Vatican climate conference for Climate Depot, asked Ban Ki-Moon whether he had a message for the Heartland Institute delegation of scientists who have flown to Rome to urge the Pope to reconsider his ill-advised position climate change.

But before he could finish the conference hosts interrupted to ask which organisation he worked for, then directed the microphone to a more tame questioner, while a security guard came over to mutter in Morano’s ear “You have to control yourself or you will be escorted out of here.”

Not a peep of a smidgen of a question about science permitted during this ‘catholic’ event, only about what to do about the climate Armageddon.

Morano, together with Christopher Monckton (one of the Heartland delegation) and your correspondent, only narrowly made it into the carefully stage-managed conference where – as known climate sceptics – they were apparently not welcome.

“Ah. So you made it in here?” said a somewhat surprised looking member of the Vatican press team to Morano, when he realised that he had bypassed the Vatican’s security and infiltrated the press pack who had come to cover the conference.

As luck would have it, a heaven-sent shower of torrential rain had created such chaos that security wasn’t as tight as it might have been.

God intervened to thwart the Catholic Church leaders’ infamous plans?  I thought they were on His side?

However, the three sceptics (Morano, Monckton, Delingpole) were watched very carefully throughout the proceedings lest they attempt to ruffle the feathers of key speakers Ban Ki-Moon, left-wing economist Jeffrey Sachs and Cardinal Turkson, the Ghanaian priest who has been co-ordinating the Vatican’s position on “climate change.”

In the end, Secretary-General Ban did answer a similar question, albeit one expressed more delicately by a journalist from the Catholic media, when he was asked what his views were on those members of the Catholic community who had reservations about the Pope’s position on climate change.

Perhaps this was a response to Ban’s rather bold and very moot declaration that “Religion and science are united on the need for action on climate.”

Isn’t the outrageously-treated Heartland Institute comprised mainly of scientists, and acting on their behalf?

“I don’t think faith leaders should be scientists,” said Ban, in reply to the question. “I’m not a scientist. What I want is their moral authority. Business leaders and all civil society is on board [with the mission to combat climate change]. Now we want faith leaders. Then we can make it happen.”

I’m not a scientist.  ‘Faith leaders aren’t scientists.  Only scientists are scientists and they ALREADY KNOW THERE IS GLOBAL WARMING!

Now it is up to us to ACT.  WE MUST HAVE FAITH LEADERS. THEN WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN. THE POPE FOLLOWS US. NOW YOU MUST FOLLOW HIM!

Why is it that these Hitlerian expressions must be as insane as they are brutal?  Why do modern societies always seem to crash in the wake of these pitiful assertions and dogmas?  We are the master race, destined to rule the earth!

Global Warming is false from every angle.  It doesn’t exist, and even if it did it would still have nothing to do with all the things they blame upon it, and nothing they propose doing will ever impact it.  It’s a perfect nothing, except for the fact that every living mouth on the planet may only speak of it as true.

Even Christians.