"Pope lifts spirits of Rio slum, youths" by Nicole Winfield and Marco Sibaja | Associated Press, July 26, 2013
RIO DE JANEIRO — Pope Francis, dubbed the “slum pope” for his work with the poor, received a rapturous welcome Thursday from one of Rio’s most violent shantytowns and demanded that the wealthy end injustices that have left the poor on society’s margins. He received an even more frenzied welcome as he opened a rain-soaked World Youth Day in a far different setting: Rio’s upscale Copacabana Beach.
Words are cheap.
In between, he showed off some of his offbeat — almost rebellious — personality, telling pilgrims from his native Argentina that he wanted them to make trouble, shake things up in their dioceses, and make a “mess” by going out into the streets to spread the faith.
“We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses!” he said, speaking off the cuff Thursday in his native Spanish. “I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools, or structures. Because these need to get out!”
Amid the stench of sewage and residents’ shrieks, Francis made his way through the Varginha shantytown, in a region so violent it is known as the Gaza Strip. The Argentine seemed at home, wading into the cheering crowds, kissing residents young and old, telling them the Roman Catholic Church is on their side.
“No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!” Francis, 76, told a crowd of thousands who braved a cold rain and stood in a muddy soccer field to welcome him. “No amount of peace-building will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins, or excludes a part of itself.”
The globalist money junkies running the planet certainly don't feel that way.
As for me, I'm becoming insensitive to the agenda-pu$hing, $tatus quo corporate pre$$ and ma$$ media. Just getting these shitty posts to you has been difficult because I don't want to read the Boston Globe anymore. I'm tired of Jewish supremacism and elitist insults passing itself off as news. I'm tired of division and diversion, tired of obfuscations and omissions, tired of the deceptions and lies, tired of the narrative, tired of the whole damn pos AmeriKan pre$$.
It was one of the highlights of Francis’s weeklong trip, his first as pope and one seemingly tailor-made for the first pontiff from the Americas. Later Thursday, he traveled in his open-sided car through a massive crowd in the pouring rain to a welcoming ceremony on Copacabana beach. It was his first official event with the hundreds of thousands of young people who have flocked to Rio for World Youth Day.
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Related: Sunday Globe Special: Pope at the Copa
I know I should be more excited, but I'm just not into my Zionist pri$m called a paper anymore.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Pope at the Copa
I know I should be more excited, but I'm just not into my Zionist pri$m called a paper anymore.
"Pope Francis proves to be a pontiff of surprises" by Lisa Wangsness | Globe Staff, July 27, 2013
On Friday, Pope Francis addressed hundreds of thousands of youth on Copacabana Beach, where a cast of young people portrayed the Stations of the Cross as the problems facing youth, including violence, imprisonment, and illness....
In Rome, Francis has shown no compunction about going against the tide. He has shaken up the Vatican bank and appointed an advisory council to help him reform the church bureaucracy. He did not show up to a classical music gala in Vatican City where he was to have been the guest of honor. But he found time to visit an island in southern Italy where asylum seekers and migrants pour in by boat from North Africa.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: The History of Banking
Related: Sunday Globe Special: The History of Banking
He lives in a modest two-room suite at Casa Santa Marta, a Vatican guest house, rather than the opulent Apostolic Palace. In simple homilies for the visitors and workers there at Mass each morning, he emphasizes doing good and caring for the poor. One day in May, he preached that even atheists can be redeemed, generating headlines around the world....
He prefers open cars or, better yet, walking among the people, as he did this week in Varginha, a slum community so wracked by drug and gang violence that police were sent to occupy it last fall....
I seem to remember a Boston Globe brief or two about it.
I seem to remember a Boston Globe brief or two about it.
Francis, the first member of the Jesuit order to become pope, has dismayed some traditionalists who miss Pope Benedict XVI’s liturgical formality, and disappointed others who complain that the new pope has not emphasized the church’s moral teachings on abortion and same-sex relationships.
Vatican observers took note this week when Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, who is in Rio with the pope, told the National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen that members of the church’s right wing “generally have not been really happy” with Francis and that the pope will have to find a way to “care for them, too.”
He better watch his back and take care wading into the crowds.
He better watch his back and take care wading into the crowds.
But the Rev. Mitch Pacwa, a host on the Eternal Word Television Network, said he has not heard many complaints. What he has noticed — as Chaput noted in that interview — is that people outside the church are paying attention to Francis.
Pacwa said he loves all three recent popes, but for those alienated from the church, “John Paul was difficult to understand because he was a philosopher. Benedict just didn’t connect with them, and he had a lot of bad press, they would call him the Rottweiler, he didn’t capture a lot of people’s imagination.
“But this guy does,” he said. “All the popes are against consumerism, but this guy brings the hay down to where the goats can get it. He told the priests, ‘I don’t want you driving fancy cars.’ ”
It is too soon, most scholars and Vatican observers agree, to assess whether Francis will effectively address the most serious problems facing the church, including alleged corruption and infighting within the Vatican bureaucracy; bishops who fail to enforce sexual abuse protocols; rising secularization in the West; and the tide of Pentacostalism that has diminished the Catholic Church in Latin America....
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Here's a surprise:
"Leon Ferrari, 92; Argentine artist challenged dictators" by Michael Warren | Associated Press, July 27, 2013
BUENOS AIRES — Argentines are mourning the death of world-renowned artist and human rights activist Leon Ferrari, 92, known for works challenging dictators and bishops and a world at war.
Mr. Ferrari was buried Friday in his native Buenos Aires, where he did his most provocative work. His most memorable piece may be a Christ figure crucified on the wings of a US jet fighter during the Vietnam War. Later, his collages mixed images of Adolf Hitler and members of Argentina’s military junta with figures from the Roman Catholic Church.
The then-Buenos Aires archbishop who is now Pope Francis called Mr. Ferrari a blasphemer after he put statues of the Virgin Mary in a blender, little saints in baby bottles, and Christ figures in a toaster to criticize how religion is fed to the masses.
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"Pope Francis challenges bishops to reach out" by Nicole Winfield | Associated Press, July 28, 2013
RIO DE JANEIRO — Pope Francis took his message to shake up the Catholic Church to bishops from around the world on Saturday, challenging them to get out of their churches and go to the farthest margins of society to find the faithful and preach.
In a separate appearance, he donned a feathered headdress as he embraced members of Brazil’s indigenous tribes and was swarmed by little ballerinas eager for a kiss on the head.
During a Mass with 1,000 bishops in Rio’s modern cathedral, Francis echoed the message he has delivered to pilgrims at World Youth Day all week: A radical call to renew the dusty church, which has seen its numbers dwindle in Europe from general apathy and in Latin America in the face of competition from charismatic evangelical congregations....
It was a slightly more diplomatic expression of the direct, off-the-cuff exhortation he delivered to young Argentine pilgrims on Thursday. In those remarks, he urged the youngsters to make a ‘‘mess’’ in their dioceses and shake things up, even at the expense of confrontation with their bishops and priests.
Francis himself is imposing a shake-up in the Vatican’s staid and dysfunctional bureaucracy, setting in motion an overhaul plan and investigations into misdeeds at the scandal-plagued Vatican bank and other administrative offices.
Francis’ target audience is the poor and the marginalized — the people that the first pope from Latin America has highlighted on this first trip of his pontificate.
He has visited one of Rio’s most violent slum areas, met with juvenile offenders and drug addicts, and welcomed in a place of honor 35 trash recyclers from his native Argentina....
He carried that message to a meeting with Brazil’s political, economic, and intellectual elite, urging them to look out for the poorest and use their leadership positions to work for the common good. He also called for greater dialogue between generations, religions, and peoples.
But the recent and ongoing protests are not mentioned.
But the recent and ongoing protests are not mentioned.
‘‘Between selfish indifference and violent protest there is always another possible option: that of dialogue,’’ he said in a reference to the protests that have wracked Brazil in recent weeks. ‘‘A country grows when constructive dialogue occurs between its many rich cultural components: popular culture, university culture, youth culture, artistic and technological culture, economic culture, family culture, and media culture.’’ He added that religion plays a critical and unifying role.
He has a point there; however, so many bad things have been done in the name of religion.
He has a point there; however, so many bad things have been done in the name of religion.
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I guess I've just had enough preaching being done at me, readers, be it the Pontiff or the Globe. Sorry.
"Pope Francis draws 3 million in Rio de Janeiro; One of the largest papal Masses in history" by Nicole Winfield | Associated Press, July 29, 2013
RIO DE JANEIRO — An estimated 3 million people poured onto Rio’s Copacabana beach on Sunday for the final Mass of Pope Francis’ historic trip to his home continent, cheering the first Latin American pope in one of the biggest turnouts for a papal Mass in recent history in his final homily of World Youth Day.
The pope’s trip, which ended when he took off for Rome on Sunday night, was hailed as a great success by clergy, pilgrims, and everyday Brazilians. The pope’s nonstop agenda was followed live on television for all seven days. His good nature and modesty clearly charmed the nation that has more Catholics than any other....
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I must admit, that is a hell of a lot of people.
I guess I've just had enough preaching being done at me, readers, be it the Pontiff or the Globe. Sorry.
"Pope Francis draws 3 million in Rio de Janeiro; One of the largest papal Masses in history" by Nicole Winfield | Associated Press, July 29, 2013
RIO DE JANEIRO — An estimated 3 million people poured onto Rio’s Copacabana beach on Sunday for the final Mass of Pope Francis’ historic trip to his home continent, cheering the first Latin American pope in one of the biggest turnouts for a papal Mass in recent history in his final homily of World Youth Day.
The pope’s trip, which ended when he took off for Rome on Sunday night, was hailed as a great success by clergy, pilgrims, and everyday Brazilians. The pope’s nonstop agenda was followed live on television for all seven days. His good nature and modesty clearly charmed the nation that has more Catholics than any other....
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I must admit, that is a hell of a lot of people.
Also see:
Need a ride back to the rectory?
"Drunken driving charges unlikely to cost Worcester bishop his post; US precedent, local sentiment favor McManus in drunk-driver case" by Lisa Wangsness | Globe Staff, May 27, 2013
The drunken driving case against Bishop Robert J. McManus of Worcester is scheduled to take its next turn this week in a Rhode Island courtroom. The prelate faces civil penalties and criminal charges, which include an allegation that he left the scene of an accident.
But past practice suggests it is unlikely that his employer, the Roman Catholic Church, will take strong action against him...
Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, noted that a number of US bishops have survived drunken driving cases in the past. Salvatore J. Cordileone, the archbishop of San Francisco, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in 2012, when he was still archbishop-elect; he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and went on to be installed.
Related: Catholic Church Crimes in California
The late Archbishop John Roach of St. Paul and Minneapolis was arrested for drunken driving in 1985; he lost his license temporarily but served another decade before retiring.
The bishop of Phoenix, on the other hand, resigned in 2003 after his arrest in a fatal hit-and-run. It was an egregious case that came shortly after he acknowledged covering up sexual abuse cases....
Thus far, the reaction in Worcester to the charges against McManus has been muted....
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Related: Worcester Bishop Drove Wasted
It's not like he abused a kid or anything.
