"Pope Francis calls on church to change focus" by Lisa Wangsness | Globe Staff, September 20, 2013
Pope Francis, in an extraordinary interview that electrified the Catholic world, said that the Roman Catholic Church has become unduly obsessed with condemning abortion, gay marriage, and contraception.
The church, he said, should emphasize compassion and mercy instead of “small-minded rules.”
“We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel,” the pope said in the 12,000-word interview, published by major Jesuit publications around the world, including the New York-based America magazine....
In the interview, the pope said that although he embraces church doctrine, which defines gay relationships and abortion as sinful, “it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”
Which the Globe then spends the rest of the article talking about.
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Also see: Cardinal O’Malley says pope’s comments on social issues have drawn wide attention
He said let's not talk about and what does he do? Talks about it.
"Pope Francis reaffirms church stance on abortions; Denounces a ‘throw-away culture’" by Nicole Winfield | Associated Press, September 21, 2013
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis offered an olive branch of sorts to the doctrine-minded, conservative wing of the Catholic Church on Friday as he denounced abortions as a symptom of today’s ‘‘throw-away culture’’ and encouraged Catholic doctors to refuse to perform them.
Francis issued a strong antiabortion message and cited Vatican teaching on the need to defend the unborn during an audience with Catholic gynecologists.
It came a day after he was quoted as blasting the church’s obsession with ‘‘small-minded rules’’ that are driving the faithful away. In an interview that has sent shock waves through the church, Francis urged its pastors to focus on being merciful and welcoming rather than insisting only on such divisive, hot-button issues as abortion, gay marriage, and contraception.
I'm agreeing with him -- and you can pipe up regarding the global war machine, too!
Even before the interview was published, some conservatives had voiced disappointment that Francis had shied away from restating such church rules. Francis explained his reason for doing so in the interview with the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, saying church teaching on such issues is well-known, he supports it, but that he doesn’t feel it necessary to repeat it constantly.
He repeated it on Friday, however....
Do I have to type it?
Greg Burke, the Vatican’s senior communications adviser, insisted Friday that Francis was by no means calling into question the papacies and priorities of his predecessors.
“The pope is not condemning his predecessors,” Burke told the Associated Press. “What he is saying is, ‘We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the boundaries. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about what is sin and what’s not. Now let’s move on. Let’s talk about mercy. Let’s talk about love.’ ”
Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Ireland’s most reform-minded Catholic leader, said Francis’ comments will be tough for the church to put into action because there is a tendency to get “trapped” into the right and wrong, black and white of Catholic teaching.
We call it hell.
“It’s a way of thinking that will actually be very hard for the right and the left of the church, either of them, to accept,” he told RTE radio. But he said Francis wasn’t dismissing everything that has been taught to date. “He’s saying let’s move in a different direction.”
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Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who as head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken a lead role in voicing the US church’s opposition to contraception and gay marriage, said the church isn’t the only one obsessed with such issues — today’s culture is....
As is the jewspaper I'm reading.
Speaking of today's culture, didn't he help hide church money from lawsuits?
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Related:
Pope Grabs Ass at Aparecida
Pope Host's Hell's Angels
Pope Gives in to Gays
Pope Heads Home
Sunday Globe Special: Pope at the Copa
"Pope demotes conservative Italian cardinal; Keeps cleric who cracked down on liberal US nuns" by Frances D’Emilio | Associated Press, September 22, 2013
VATICAN CITY — After six months on the job to study the workings of the Vatican’s curia, or bureaucracy, Pope Francis has now put his imprint on several key positions that help administer the Roman Catholic church’s worldwide flock....
In a separate development, the Vatican confirmed that Francis would lead an assembly of cardinals on Sept. 30 in the Apostolic Palace to announce the much-awaited date for the ceremony to make Pope John XXIII and John Paul II saints.
Also see: Retired pope defends record on abuse crisis
A first plan to hold the solemn ceremony for both widely beloved pontiffs envisioned holding the canonization on Dec. 8, when the Church celebrates a feast day in honor of the Virgin Mary.
But that date soon was deemed as impractical, since great numbers of Poles from John Paul’s homeland would risk driving or taking buses on what could be dangerously icy roads to come to the ceremony. Sometime in spring 2014, when weather is milder, is considered the likely choice.
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Related: Pope Francis offers wisdom for Catholics, non-Catholics alike
UPDATE:
"Pope reaches out by telephone" by Nicole Winfield | Associated Press, August 23, 2013
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has charmed the masses with his informal style, simplicity, and sense of humor — and a handful of strangers have gotten the treatment up close, receiving papal phone calls out of the blue after writing him or suffering some personal tragedy.
Francis, 76, has a fondness for making calls the old-fashioned way, using landlines and placing the calls himself, often surprising recipients by simply announcing, ‘‘It’s the pope.’’
After his election in March, Francis reportedly called his newspaper stand in Buenos Aires to cancel his daily delivery, and the receptionist at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome thought he got a crank call when Francis phoned two days after being chosen pope looking for the Jesuit superior.
Francis has since called an Italian man whose brother was killed, a Colombian woman who works in Rome to thank her for a book, and a teen who left the pope a letter after Mass on Aug. 15.
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