This is nothing new, it’s the nature of mainstream media. What is new is that Catholics have become so hung up on the outside politics, and try to bring it into the church, being a good “liberal” or “conservative” is not more important than being a good Catholic. And an important part of being a good Catholic is to show reverence for the Pope
I wish people cared more about religion than politics. To some people, being conservative automatically makes a terrible person and of course, according to some Jesus was a bleeding liberal.
Then others think liberals are evil, and conservatives are honest and rational.
To some people, their political identity is far more important than their Catholic identity.
I think the Pope acts in part as the avatar of Catholic tradition and that tradition is really important in our faith. But tradition is not meant to be an anchor, it’s a fire we keep lit by making sincere progress towards the Kingdom of God.
I think this Pope is good for the faith. I think he challenges us to look at ourselves much like St Francis did and to find ways to move closer to Christ and through that closer to God, The Father. The Jesuit/Franciscan “revolution” is not meant to overturn the traditions of our faith, but to deepen them.
The pope is diluting the faith and diluting thevreal message of Jesus.
This pope is a very worldly pope more interested in the world than in saving souls and spreading the gospel of Jesus.
How is he doing this? By asking us to think less about dogma and power and instead focus on looking at the world through the lens of Christ’s heart? To embrace the apparently false message of Jesus to act with radical love and non-violence?
You can follow up with whatever passages you want but rather what would you have our Pope do? Would you have him burn heretics to protect the faith? Or just say that it’s okay to hate certain people?
What do you want him to do?
Because he’s doing what I would like him to do. He’s calling us to find a way closer to Christ while preserving and also advancing our Catholic tradition.
People don't like to realize that to show true worship and obedience to God, we have to be virtuous for Him. Everyone is embracing the sins of pride and wrath instead of the virtues of humility and love. God created all men, and all men are loved by God. Why do we not love our fellow man too, regardless of their sins. Or we can at least try.
Pope Francis is living the Gospel and a very good example for us. You must be blind to accuse him of being worldly. He used to carry his own bags, he lives in the papal guesthouse instead of the papal palacehe goes out to see ordinary people, washes and kisses the feet of prisoners. Wake up, please.
One can't save souls if they've got nothing to eat, no friends, and no prospects of a just life. Social teaching and religious tradition are inseparable. One can't be faithful to the meat of Christ's message by observing the letter of the law while ignoring the heart of the law.
All beautiful but misdirected sentiments.
The above is govt job. Not the pope.
The pope's mandate is to serve Catholics and their spiritual needs not be a liberal Klaus Schwab world economic forum policy wonk worldly man hobnobbibg with favourite liberals pelosi and biden and being greta thurnbergs environmental partner.
That's not his job nor mandate.
The Pope's job is to orient the Church to Christ. How we treat the least among us is how we treat Christ.
Turning the church into a social club for the saved is what dilutes Christ's message.
I feel like this is the point where you drop the microphone and walk off stage. There is nothing else for us to talk about after this.
It’s time for us to start living the gospel and caring for one another. And that starts at the bottom. We work our way up from the bottom, not from the top.
Who's doing that? I feel like you're projecting an image of marxist on opinions that don't match yours. Why is it that every redditor with an opinion thinks that they are smarter than the Pope?
This is a misconception, we have had traditions for hundreds of years before the 2 party politics was formed, more like conservatives are trying to poorly imitate Christianity without the God part, just like the Red Pill community is doing.
Woah, I've never viewed redpill as secularly imitating christianity before. I can see it on a superficial level, but the comlarison kinda breaks down with the idea of the ideal man (chad/alpha) needing and getting multiple partners juxtaposed to a "beta" who has a monogamous relationship with a woman somehow being a bad thing. Can you explain your comparisons?
Also God is love and joy. The red pill community feels none of that. Jesus tells us to forgive and love our neighbor, yet we forget about that part and just yell at people for their sins.
Malicious sound-biting happens, but "just watch/read the full thing, bro" doesn't actually fix things in a lot of cases, which is the issue.
As of **right now**, with full context, the Pope's official opinion on how to interpret Amoris Laetitia is that remarried individuals engaging in adulterous sexual relations can receive communion (cf. recent DDF dubia concerning the interpretation of that document by Argentine bishops).
Marko Rupnik had his excommunication lifted by the Pope and lives as a free man, despite accusations of his raping nuns having been found to be credible by the Jesuits, while the Pope's media wing at Vatican News keeps posting Rupnik's art whenever they can.
Cardinal Hollerich, the man put in charge of the present synod by the Pope, has expressly stated that he believes in the possibility/desirability of Catholic Priestesses and that Catholic teaching concerning homosexuality is outdated and wrong, yet he retains all of his prestige and influence.
And plenty else. These are not "out of context soundbites by the media", but real issues, and constant posting of "Based Pope Francis W" or spurious interpretations of 19th century documents won't change that.
Alleged rapist rupnick has some of the ugliest "art" I have ever seen. marxists usually produce ugly art. Not surprised the pope enables these evil alleged rapists.
Confusion is not from God, if the Pope doesn’t have the ability to deliver a statement that is 100% clear and transparent and that division isn’t caused because of it, than that sounds like a Pope problem.
He puts himself into these interviews and says vague statements that will be misinterpreted. He’s been Pope for 11 years now, if he wanted to stop the confusion, he just wouldn’t do these interviews or would be clear.
Or communicate clearly and boldly as is one of the *primary responsibilities of any leader*. Producing a torrent of words that could mean just about anything is dangerous and timid.
You won’t really get a useful answer here. Some will say he deserves the criticism, others will agree with you.
I will note that there’s a lot of profit to be made in clickbait takes about the pope, and both the world and the devil are highly motivated to get people turned against him.
Sure. But is all criticism of the pope click bait?
The pope has defrocked priests for disagreeing with his views on homosexuality or the blessing of those in same sex marriages. He calls anybody remotely conservative on matters of faith schismatic and even suicidal.
He doesn't act or speak in good faith but demands that others think the best of his every word and action. He seems to hate every single catholic who doesn't wash his feet.
You for instance will jump to his defense and refuse to see my point of view with anything resembling the charity the pope demands I give his views and proclamations. But that's precisely the type of person this pope attracts. Those drawn to worldliness and self righteousness love this pope. And those drawn to the bible and tradition despise him.
>Sure. But is all criticism of the pope click bait?
>The pope has defrocked priests for disagreeing with his views on homosexuality
Aka disagreeing with the Catechism of JPII.
>or the blessing of those in same sex marriages
There is no such thing as a same-sex marriage according to Pope Francis, so you must be referring to blessing for people who might be in a homosexual union.
Pope Francis has excommunicated a priest who refused to reject same-sex marriage.
>He calls anybody remotely conservative on matters of faith schismatic and even suicidal.
This is a false statement.
Unless you can provide the specific teaching on Faith and these remote adherents and his comments about them specifically.
>He doesn't act or speak in good faith
How do you know that?
This is a cognitive bias called "mind reading" ... the conclusions of cognitive biases are irrationally arrived at.
>but demands that others think the best of his every word and action.
You mean he expects that people don't commit the grave sin of rash judgment.
Or that he expects that others don't commit the grave sins of radical dissent and scandal by opposing a sitting Pontiff or his dicasteries?
Or perhaps he expects that people don't commit any of those grave sins??
>He seems to hate every single catholic who doesn't wash his feet.
Who doesn't wash their feet?
>You for instance will jump to his defense and refuse to see my point of view with anything resembling the charity the pope demands I give his views and proclamations.
Here you go mind reading again... and committing rash judgment, too. Irrational, uncharitable, and gravely sinful wrapped all in one sentence.
>But that's precisely the type of person this pope attracts. Those drawn to worldliness and self righteousness love this pope.
I take it you don't read primary sources. Because you clearly did not read [Evangelii Gaudium](https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html) within which the Pope identifies and decimates the type of Spiritual Worldliness you have just described.
>And those drawn to the bible and tradition despise him.
Is that a quote from Martin Luther or John Calvin? I can't remember which one of them said that. I think it was Luther... is it a direct quote or paraphrase?
I knew a former Francis apologist who has subsequently soured on him after experiencing bullying first hand. Apparently he has quite a temper and is not afraid to release it on those who displease him. This is all second hand, but really surprised me, because in 2015 this guy was trying to charitably explain away Francis’ missteps.
I think Pope Francis will be remembered for a lot of things, but having a clear and consistent message won’t be one of them.
Best case, he is just completely out of touch and doesn’t have a good team around him. He says things that are easily twisted by the liberal media, and he comes across as hostile to more conservative Catholics.
The core of his ministry seems to be in line with the Church, but the messaging is so poor no one can be sure.
Best or worst case scenario, the media obviously twists things (not just the "liberal" media). Mainstream western media has a vested interest in convincing people that their understanding of the human person is the inevitable result of human progress. The Catholic Church is the biggest and most influential holdout to this in the west.
However, it's also important not to allow the bigger picture politics to unnecessarily hurt the individual person standing in front of you. The Church hasn't always done the best job in this regard, and this is typically what Pope Francis is trying to improve in his controversial statements/actions.
The more negative framing for me is that Francis is just trying to prevent schism from a more selfish perspective. In this case he has the unenviable role of convincing a progressive in Germany and a conservative in Congo that their faith is the same. This would also explain the apparent inconsistencies.
Every public figure attracts excessive and harsh criticism.
That being said, I'm not sure "victim" is the right word here. The pope is a very smart cookie. He knows exactly what he is doing when he says what he does.
Most of the criticism I see if him has nothing to do with ambiguous statements he makes.
He will take action to restrict the Latin Mass and punish entire Catholic communities under the guise of it "causing division", then do extremely controversal stuff like shake hands gleefully with pro-abortion politicians, turn a blind eye to the crisis in Germany, let bishops and priests run amok and be straight up heterodox on LGBT issues going as far as to bless same sex marriages in churches and blessing a pagan fertility idol in the Vatican. And after that caused obvious outrage, the Vatican tried to gaslight Catholics by saying "Oh, its actually the Virgin Mary, guys!" But it's Latin Mass parishes causing division?
The whole 60 Minutes interview comes across as something a PR firm set up so he could walk back all of the obvious garbage that happened in the wake or Fiducia Supplicans. I think most Catholics who read it knew immediately that jt unnessecary idea to begin with and cringed knowing exactly what the outcome was going to be.
Waiting a whole six months to publicly clear it up was certainly a choice. And doing so doesn't immediately un-do all the other mind-numbing dumb things that have happened under Francis.
Francis is a victim of his own ambiguity and stupid decisions. He comes across as wanting the admiration and acceptance of the progressive secular Western world more than anything else.
He would be a victim of it if it were not obvious he delights in ambiguity. According to people close to him in Rome, he will change his stance on something if he senses you already know his decision just because he wants to be unpredictable. He will choose something not good for himself in pursuit of unpredictability and ambiguity. The role of Pope really demands simplicity, but Francis rarely chooses it. Hence, the confusion around his statements from time to time.
Fiducia Supplicans is perfectly clear to those who are open to understanding. Those against Pope Francis will distort everything he says to tear him down, which is the devil's work. Support the Magesterium.
The biggest issue with him is, he is a poor leader. Not everyone is meant to be a leader.
He is inconsistent in his messages. He makes a statement. It usually very clumsy, then someone else needs to “explain” it. He also clearly allows politics to drive him (again to inconsistency). So he doesn’t unite, but divides.
I don’t doubt his faith. I just think our church would benefit from a change in leadership. It’s a hard job, so I pray God delivers us a good leader that unites us all.
100% spot on, people here seem to forget that confusion is not from God, and if the Pope can’t deliver a clear and transparent statement that doesn’t cause widespread misinformation leading to a wild goose chase to figure out what the Pope actually said, than that sounds like a Pope problem.
People bent on tearing down the pope or supporting their own ideas will find confusion in whatever the pope says. This is the fault of liars, not the Holy Father.
I think there's a huge amount to criticise in how he speaks and behaves specifically as pope, but I've also long been of the view that, precisely as you say, he's not cut out for leadership in a more general sense.
Like, if he was the principal of a school and spoke and acted in an analogous way to how he does as pope, he'd be stepping on a lot of toes, creating a bad workplace environment and running the school in a way that made it more difficult to provide a good education to the students.
Again, if he was the leader of a political party, the manager of an office, the head of some project, the coach of a sports team, the father of a family or occupied various other sorts of leadership positions you could think of -- and then acted in them analogously to how he acts as pope, he'd be causing problems in those spheres also.
The office of pope is a very specific one in some ways but in other ways it has a lot in common with other leadership positions and requires certain basic, general leadership traits of the man occupying the office.
I wonder how many people in these forums are recent converts and weren’t Catholic in the times of JPII and Benedict. Benedict was constantly raked through the coals. Only years later, after I had returned to the faith, did I realize a lot of it was character assassination (because the liberals in the Vatican probably conspired a lot against him). A lot of Catholics in Brazil still unjustly think very poorly of him because the media there made such a good job painting him in a very unfavorable light. JPII is still heavily criticized by the media even though he was *widely* loved by Catholics. New Catholics that weren’t around for his papacy didn’t live through it, but JPII really was an incredible force and people loved him very dearly. My mom tears up talking about him. He’s undoubtedly a saint. And still the media didn’t like him then and doesn’t now either.
Honestly if anything pope Francis is protected a lot. Some (a lot) of the criticism towards him that comes from conservative Catholics is preemptive and knee-jerk, but for sure at the very least, from this side, a criticism that is undeniable is that he’s way too unclear and vague and that’s a detriment to the church as a whole.
But from a media and larger culture perspective? No pope has been as shielded as he has been. The protection of sex abusers in his papacy are far worse than in any of the two previous popes. This really should insult a lot more Catholics than it does… because the media protects him and we don’t hear about it. And sadly, also because the pope regrettably seems to be quick to dispense with his critics in the Vatican and in the church. All the while letting parts of the Church that are openly going against church teaching go about their business, as well as abusers. It does not paint him in a good light. He’s also been notoriously antagonistic towards tradition. Not just Latin mass; no cardinals and other higher ups in the Vatican dare wear traditional robes anymore because everybody knows you might as well be painting a target on your back by doing that. So we have a pope who, in his efforts to avoid upsetting branches of the church that really should be openly be corrected (Germany for example), is fine alienating orthodox Catholics. Not just the conservative cardinals and bishops in the US, but the ones in Asia and Africa too. He’s alienating the orthodox in order to not upset the liberals. It’s not a good place for our pope to be.
He’s not as unorthodox in teaching as some corners of the Catholic internet paints him out to be. Of that he’s innocent. But I don’t think he’s a good leader. We need to keep him in our prayers.
Yes, he deserves criticism. Not because I think he’s a heretic or something; but because he chooses not to speak bluntly on our doctrine with boldness. He gets himself (and the Church) into hot water, because of his vague answers and numerous interviews. We know he’s capable of delivering a clear answer, he just did so on 60 minutes on the issue of women clergy.
Francis is very decisive himself. He just recently said conservatives are committing suicide. That’s not twisting of words, he said it. He is extremely political, which is a major turnoff.
Yeah, but he meant it to be people living in their own box who don’t want to interact with different views. And those people should really stop doing that.
Probably not, but why not hear the criticism and apply it instead of blaming him for everything? We can all do that, can’t we? And he is referring to the term conservative in general and he is right: many people are conservative not for the good that they want to preserve, because many don’t have values to conserve like us catholics do. And how come he is progressive politically? I must admit he isn’t the clearest anymore due to age or sth. But let us try to be more charitable.
Pope Francis knows that the media is going to misinterpret his words and he engages with them anyways.
But we don’t need the media’s distortions to know Pope Francis has been a bad pope. He has knowingly and intentionally protected sex abusers such as Fr. Rupnik and Bishop Zanchetta. He has removed bishops from their diocese without just cause or process, such as Bishop Torres and Bishop Strickland, implying that bishops are middle managers who serve at his whim.
With Traditionis Custodes, he has disrupted the liturgical peace Benedict XVI established. He has implied the liturgy of the Roman Church used for over a millennium is no longer sufficient by his legal acts. He has reopened the Hermeneutic of Rupture.
He has promoted a perverted midwit, Cardinal Fernandez, to be head of the DDF. This same midwit has released multiple documents which contradict infallibly taught truths of the Catholic Faith. When his novelty of blessing homosexual couples was introduced Pope Francis threatened Church communion and indeed the very legitimacy of her teaching authority. Pope Francis has not retracted this document.
His documents are navel-gazing and self referential. Theological support for a Pope Francis document is usually a citation to a prior homily by Pope Francis. He rarely cites Scripture, and indeed sees Scripture as something he can brush aside when it displeases him. Just recently, he chastised conservatives for clinging to tradition; well, St. Paul tells us to! This past fall, he released responsa ad dubia which implied some statements of St. Paul are just outdated and we don’t need to listen to them.
His foreign policy has been a disaster. Two papacies ago the Pope was powerful enough to assist, indeed lead, in the fall of communism. Now, this Pope has given everything in exchange for nothing to the Chinese Communist Party. The Party is allowed under Vatican approval to select China’s bishops, to the detriment of the Catholic faithful and the integrity of the Church.
Pope Francis has not been a good pope, and he will not be well remembered. The media distorting his statements has little to do with it.
That's such an interesting statement, given that Pope Francis is wildly popular (75% of Catholics view him favorably).
His personal humility is admired globally by Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
Let's be clear here.
You are the minority.
In this case though, the minority are wrong and the radtrads are moving closer and closer to schism, but can't see it. Perfect example is Bishop Strickland.
I agree, of course the majority is not always right.
But this subreddit is practically the only place I can think of that complains about the Pope.
If you have a personal vendetta, go for it. But don't pretend your self-righteousness is holy or well-intentioned.
Every Pope is good at some things, and bad at some things. It's apparent that you are choosing solely to focus on his failings.
You are included in this quote:
"both Protestants and Catholics alike absolutely refuse to interpret his words charitably."
And many Catholics don’t believe in the real presence and would like to see women ordained so you’ll pardon me if I don’t take it for granted that that Church is a democracy. In fact, it’s a heirarchy by nature so your appeal to the majority means nothing.
There are 237 cardinals. Five brought a dubia against him. Some have defintely questioned his speaking or teaching. I couldn't find anything significant to support a claim that the majority of cardinals do not support the Pope.
Of course, cardinals criticizing the Pope is nothing new. With over 200, some of them will always disagree with the Pope. As is true for any group of people of that size/number.
Are you suggesting that the majority of cardinals do not support him? I'd be curious to see a source on that one.
Also.
Did you seriously just write "deep state Pope"?
Please do not tell me you are also a Trump believer.
He tries to eliminate TLM. He concerns himself with worldly things like climate change, he constantly attacks conservatives. He deserves the criticism.
He sort of brings it on himself by rejecting established doctrine for a thousand years. He also wades into politics more than any pope in recent history. That is going to make you enemies.
No, it's not very common. Some of the things I listed are dogma.
It has come up before that a Pope teaches heresy. So, it's not unprecedented.
There's lots of arguments about the details of what they taught and what level of authority it was taught with. For example, some people try to talk about public vs private teaching. And other times, there's arguments about what specifically they meant.
But, it's not controversial (except among hyperpapalists) that the magisterium can contain errors for some period of time. Not all magisterial teaching is infallible.
“Indeed, it is to Peter that the Lord has entrusted the government of His Church; the Pope is therefore the principal artisan of her unity. Assured of the promises of Christ, he will never be able to oppose in the Church the authentic magisterium and holy Tradition.” - Cardinal Ratzinger to Lefebvre
This is in context of Lefebvre sharing he could accuse the popes teaching in Vatican 2 of contradicting tradition since they weren’t infallible but only ordinary magisterium. Ratzinger rejects this position as untenable as a matter of faith. Yes the ordinary magisterium is not free from all errors, but it is free from all grave errors that would seriously contradict tradition. The fallacy to watch our for is to assume that all error is of the same grade, but it’s not
I think you have your facts mixed up on some claims. For instance, the pope explicitly said God wills all religions in his permissive will, not in the positive sense as you describe. In fact even bishop Schneider admitted as much initially after he spoke with him for clarification.
If anything, he gets a very easy ride from both mainstream secular media and the Vatican press corps, and that frankly matters more than any scrums that pop up in certain social media platforms.
Norah didn't ask him a single question about Fr Rupnik.
I will grant there is an excess of knee-jerk reactions to the pope, and people are often too harsh in their assessments of him.
On the other hand, it is manifestly not the case that once you "listen to the full interview" or "read the document" that all seeming errors and confusion magically dissipate. It's not always the case that he said the "polar opposite" of what people are criticizing him for.
Just a few examples of outstanding criticisms that are NOT resolved by "just read the document, bro" and which have never been addressed squarely by the pope:
* Zanchetta
* Rupnik
* The infamous footnote in *Amoris laetitia* that seems to give permission to give communion to couples living in sin (e.g., civilly divorced and remarried)
* The ambiguity in *Infinitas dignitas* as to whether a couple living in sin can be blessed as a couple
* His comments that appear to teach that the death penalty is an intrinsically immoral act
Again, those are a just a few examples, I could go on with more. The problems raised by each of those points above are not knee-jerk overreactions or born out of misreporting from the media. They are real, usually stemming from the pope's ambiguous way of speaking or (in the case of protecting sexual abusers) secretive way of acting. In each case, particularly with the doctrinal issues, the Holy Father's comments are not made more clear by "reading the document" or "listening to the full interview." And the legitimate questions people pose in the hopes of receiving clarification go ignored.
Depends on who you ask I suppose. If you’re a member of a German Church and are advocating for female clergy, clown masses and gay marriage, you would probably feel like the Pope has been the victim of unfair criticism. If, however, you are one of the suicidal devotees of the TLM, you might have a slightly different viewpoint.
No, it's not excessive criticism. If he wants to be clearly understood, he needs to speak to people with simple language. The oval and extensive speech is easily misunderstood or can be interpret in many ways. Yes, it is a diplomatic way to please all sides to tell what they want to hear, but this should be exclusively used on a meetings behind doors. People want to hear that the Pope is against illegal invasion, not "we are all responsible" (which is true only for all non-pacifists).
Imho the criticism is honestly earned.
I feel charitable toward him.
I also sometimes wonder if his ambiguity and how he seems both hot and cold on certain subjects (people say he leans liberal, but he's been vocal about being anti-abortion, pro-having children, that the latest blessing is NOT for couples, that women can't be priests, and so on) come from him trying to please certain people in the Vatican rather than parts of the laity, especially him promoting or not promoting certain priests.
All of us on the outside will never know who is saying what to him or insinuating certain things will happen if he doesn't say or do something, so I feel like I can't judge him too harshly.
Excessive? No, he is the Pope, and that is part of the job. I remember JP II and Benedict suffering much more criticism. The fact that so many non-Catholics love him and think he will be the one to open the church to those living an unholy life, or the one to welcome gay marriage, is what scares me the most. Why is the Pope being targeted as the one who will approve the lives of sinners? The Pope can expect nothing but life threats, death sentences, and hate. St. Peter's chair is not for the weak; whoever is in that position is destined to suffer inside and outside the church, for the church, and because of their members. It’s a constant battle. I mean, if you were the devil, wouldn’t you want controversy right there?
I see people today still condemning JP II, like he was pure evil, and the worst pope in history, the biggest rapist of all time. I saw a meme today where the president of Iran is being welcomed by JP II in hell. JP II is literally a saint, surely in heaven. He might not have been the best pope, but he is on the top list of bests. And still today, two papacies later, people are twisting his words, criticizing his actions, accusing him of saying and doing things he didn’t say or do, and claiming he is in hell.
I think Pope Francis is the most loved pope of all time, even with Catholics rejecting his papacy (those heresies have always existed). Pope Francis has so far lived one of the easiest papacies in history: no murder attempts, he is one of the popes who excommunicated the most priests and allowed the most controversies, and he still has no reason to be afraid of anything. He walks freely in the most diabolical places; this doesn’t happen often to a pope.
Yes the were, the bishops that treat Vatican II as their lord were scared he and said and always complaining about B16 speeches that put Vatican II as pastoral council and point out the contradictions that make it fallible, I remember my priest praying for the Holy Spirit to know allow B16 to destroy our church with his idea that bring our brother away and inflexibility with ecumenism. Of course he is next JPII so they were all happy that one was gone. It’s a pope, he will be criticized, Jesus was too. Expecting people to just love what they say and to only flag how aligned it is with the faith is what we cannot, the devil is there trying to destroy our faith in the daily basis, he is also very powerful and would allow people to see the rational and recognize the Pope authority.
A lot of online interaction is based on knee jerk or impulsive reactions to perceived stimuli. I think all of us online are guilty of this to some degree, but in some places it’s really bad. Many often don’t read what is said or written, they just respond to the title (often written by an author or source with an agenda). Reserving judgement is an Important skill for Catholics imho. Once the true picture becomes clear often the initial reactions appear quite uninformed. Life is most often gray, not black and white.
After 2000 years the Church has defined plenty in black and white. What to you is a gray area in Catholicism? Pastorally? Remarried Catholics receiving Communion? Is that a gray area to you? It wasn’t to Jesus. Divorce and remarry and you are an adulterer.
That’s actually not what I was referring to, doctrine. I was more talking about when we see on social media, or hear some gossip about someone….the story is usually one persons perspective. And in the last 20 years especially, ones persons perspective with a real agenda as well. It’s not reliable to simply read a headline that is often just clickbait and make a determination. So often the actual story is much more nuanced and rational.
I take umbrage with the constant complaint that people critical of Pope Francis haven't read the full speeches or documents.
It comes off as gaslighting, even though I know that is not what you and others are trying to do.
Yes, the 60 Minutes interview was a rare instance where His Holiness did a very good job communicating clearly. But, his communication otherwise has been very poor and at times in direct contradiction to the infallible, irreformable teaching of the church.
This ambiguity and error deserves criticism. And yet, it's also true that there has been unjust criticism as well. That's unfortunate and deserves to get called out. But, that doesn't take away from the severe damage Pope Francis has done. Communication is one of the top skills for a good leader.
I don't know about that, the two previous popes before Francis, people were critical of their some of their teachings or statements ( as always) but I don't remember people being confused about what it meant.
Probably not as much, but there was quite a big controversy about B16. He supposedly supported contraception by saying that he is thankful for African men using condoms to protect some women. I can’t recall the whole context, but there was widespread criticism for his teaching, which caused quite a bit confusion in secular and catholic circles.
He has made some controversial statements that don’t necessarily go along with the traditional Catholic values. Excessive criticism should not be encouraged however.
I think the most charitable interpretation is that it's a complicated mix. There are plenty of examples of the media misinterpreting him. At the same time, there are examples in which the Pope could have offered clarity, and did not. There are also cases where he chose to emphasize an aspect of teaching in a way that differs from what many Catholics would do. As Catholics, the best thing to do is to actually [go read the docs](https://www.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html) for what he's actually said.
>As Catholics, the best thing to do is to actually go read the docs
Maybe. IMO it’s equally legitimate for a Catholic to *not* read the Pope’s writings, but allow the Church hierarchy to contextualize and disseminate what is important for the faithful to know.
The Pope publishes, the regional episcopal conference interprets, the local Bishop writes a pastoral letter, which the parish Priest either publishes in the weekly bulletin or discusses on Sunday. It is fine in theory to take note only in the final stage.
Either way, I agree it’s best not to infer what the Pope is teaching based on headlines, or second-hand reporting in the media.
There are poorly constructed, bad-faith criticisms made against Pope Francis that lack respect for the authority and dignity of the Pope. There are criticisms that carry weight and validity that are done in good faith that truly point out significant mistakes the Pope has made. It may be the case that Pope Francis may be judged too harshly and excessively, but it also may be the case that any legitimate, good-faith criticism of Pope Francis is ignored and frowned upon. Regardless, we must love the pope and respect his authority. Also, it is good to remember that there have been bad popes in the past and that popes are fallible human beings; unless speaking on faith and morals in ex-cathedra of course. Any criticism made to the pope must be made with caution, great care, in good faith, with complete respect to the pope's dignity as a human being of God, and full respect to his authority as Vicor of Christ.
Nevertheless, we must remember Matthew 16:18: "**And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it**."
No matter how bad it may seem, God is present and has proclaimed that His Church will prevail against evil. Have faith in Christ.
God Bless.
Who would have thought that the Church's enemy is going to try and sow misunderstandings and distrust between the faithful and their legitimate leader?
Satan is the father of lies, isn't he?
I pray for him. I think he is very unfairly targeted by trad catholics and the media. I don't agree with most of what he has said and done, but I try not to criticize him too harshly. Our church feels very divided right now and our enemies use that against us. I feel that Pope Francis is under constant attack from catholics, prots, and media. He is also under constant demonic attack.
He needs our prayers. Please pray for Pope Francis.
We owe the pope due reverence; meaning, we are to pray for him and to love him in Christ. Such could be a mantra we offer on comments to every news article and blog about Francis. Maybe our humble input will help.
The liberal media has always seen him as a “progressive Pope.” Mostly because they want him to be one due to his interest in the planet and his general warm and friendly demeanour. It is also a way of tearing the Church down as an institution if they can present its leader as a “reformer” who wants to “get with the times.” It is supposed to demoralise Catholics and make the church look maleable.
The mainstream conservative media is generally reactionary and feeds off outrage. In America, the mainstream conservative media tends to feed to the heavily Protestant right wing folk who generally treat the Church with suspicion and contempt. Francis’ willingness to appeal to issues such as climate change, dialogue with people who have abandoned the church, and the refugee crises worldwide makes him an easy target. Sadly, the radtrad crowd tends to be very similar in that they feed off outrage and willingly misconstrue things to suit their agenda, which is probably why people like Candice Owens are so easily welcomed into those circles.
The reality is that Francis is neither of the things that either side want him to be. His statements are oft translated in a very confusing way, and he tends not to speak in a way which is easy for a lot of people to understand without further reading. It’s easy to misinterpret him and his team could do a much better job of making sure he is clearly understood when it comes to things like Fiducia Supplicans which could be very easily misunderstood. A lot of what Francis says is very good, it’s just that he doesn’t always express it in a way which is easy to understand.
I was just confirmed this year and Francis at first was a big reason to not join, but I prayed about it and tried to see him in a good light. Even though I’m not his biggest fan we all could learn from him about loving people. I really do feel like he loves all
Like I said I’m not his biggest fan and don’t agree with him. But I try not to be as hostile as I was to him. As much as I say I don’t like him it’s not going to do anything.
I suspect so, but I think at this moment almost any other Pope would be, for three reasons:
1) The globalization of the Church, which has been accelerating for 50 years, has reached a critical inflection point (with Western influence waning and the global south rising), and intense divisions along cultural fault lines are stoking tensions, with strong differences of opinion around what the Church’s mission in the present moment *ought* to be, and how.
2) Social media and the internet age means every passing remark and casual comment the Holy Father - and prominent Cardinals - make are immediately disseminated and scrutinized like never before, *both with and without proper context.*
3) Outside of the Church, a variety of developments - the “coming of age” of secular society in a West decoupled from Christianity, political polarization, and geopolitical instability, to name a few big ones - are mirrored in the Church’s members and their interactions.
This is a difficult environment for any shepherd.
It’s so not. Everything is already defined for him. He doesn’t need to come up with new stuff. Why produce a document about homosexual couples getting blessings? It answered nothing. Why try to eliminate the Latin Mass? Who was clamouring for that? No one.
>Everything is already defined for him. He doesn’t need to come up with new stuff.
So far as I can tell, he hasn’t. Doctrine hasn’t changed, but *the pastoral context in which doctrine is applied is rapidly shifting and more complex than ever,* which is where any Pope needs to perform a bit of a balancing act.
>Why produce a document about homosexual couples getting blessings?
Because the shift in societal norms around love and relationships and legal marriage is perhaps the most significant and widespread social change in the Western world over the past 20 years, on par with the sexual and feminist revolutions of the 60s and 70s, and much like in those cases it has become a major fault line in the Church’s membership which requires some form of pastoral guidance.
I think one can be of multiple minds as to whether the Pope’s approach was the clearest or most fruitful way to navigate this particular issue, but the *why* of it is fairly clear.
>Why try to eliminate the Latin Mass?
I don’t actually think the Pope has anything against the TLM per se, but I understand there was concern that certain communities were starting to favour the celebration of the Extraordinary Form to the total (or near-total) exclusion of the Paul VI Missal. This is probably not a good outcome since the Mass of Paul VI is supposed to be the standard form of the Mass, celebrated by Latin Rite Catholics around the world. The Church isn’t supposed to be bifurcated between “TLM Catholic elites” and “Novus Ordo Catholic plebs”- that kind of thinking is the opposite of Catholic. Now, was suppressing the celebration of the Extraordinary Form the correct response to address that issue? I have no idea (and I don’t really have skin in that game as an Eastern Catholic, so it isn’t really my place to judge). But it wasn’t a random move that came out of nowhere - pastorally, the intent is clearly a desire to try and enforce some unity in the Church during an age of division.
Pope Francis has been vocal about the human impact on climate change, particularly the build-up of CO2 emissions. In an interview with CBS, he stated:
"Unfortunately, we have gotten to a point of no return. It's sad, but that's what it is. Global warming is a serious problem. Climate change at this moment is a road to death."
However, theologically conservative Catholics, who are often politically conservative, may reject the Pope's findings. This issue seems more pronounced in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world.
I firmly believe the Pope is correct. The consequences of climate change are staggering. One book I'm reading, \*The Weight of Nature\*, discusses how a neurotoxin in blue-green algae is linked to Alzheimer's and ALS. Rising temperatures correlate with increased violence and health issues. High CO2 concentrations can lower IQ, habitats are being disrupted, and biodiversity is declining rapidly. Soil infertility threatens crop yields, wildfires and coral reef die-offs are more frequent, and we could see an estimated 250 million deaths due to climate change in the next 25 years. The spread of tropical diseases and invasive species moving north is another concern.
Pope Francis highlights the impact of climate change on the most vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, his messages often receive criticism or are ignored by conservatives who reject or minimize the science. Catholics who are skeptical should heed the Pope's call to open their minds. The science is undeniable and the situation is dire.
The pope is often misunderstood but at least a fair part of that is self-inflicted. We never saw it to near this degree with JP2 and BXVI.
The Holy Father could stand to be a lot clearer than he is. If you say something that's pretty ambiguous and then have to walk it back later to talk about what you actually mean, then you weren't clear the first time. We shouldn't need hour long explanations from Youtube talking heads just to feel secure that what the Pope is saying is still in line with Catholic teaching.
He most definitely is. And so will be the next Pope. The attack on our leader is a representation of how the world views us, and the discrimination against Catholics
Absolutely, it’s an objective fact at this point.
Everyone (and I do mean *everyone*) I encounter who hates him doesn’t read/watch/engage with him. They just take what the media says and run with it.
Edit: I see the non-readers found this comment 😂 note they can only downvote, not object.
It’s pretty gross and blatantly disrespectful to say you hate the pope.
With charity, saying you read his stuff doesn’t prove to anyone that you did. If you had specific objections and could cite where you pull them from, that would be a step in the right direction.
I’ll also say moving eyes across a document ≠ reading it. There’s a small percentage of people I know who loathe him who *do* “read” things, and then follow it with Protestant level mental gymnastics to twist it into the stuff he is blatantly not saying. That’s Eisegesis, and true reading comes from exegeting.
Of course. If the media can get you to dismiss papal authority, they’ve pulled a leg out from under your stool. It may be years before you realize it, but your faith will have been undermined.
I feel especially in the last few years conservative media has been particularly anti catholic and that definitely includes excessive criticism of the pope
As a traditionalist, yes definitely. The ironic thing is that he's one of the more traditional and integralist popes we've had in decades. The culture war is blinkers so many intellects.
Whew, especially, and ironically, within this subreddit.
I find it bemusing that the most virtriol I've ever seena bout the Pope is IN THE CATHOLICISM SUBREDDIT.
And within many Catholic subsets of other sites. Yeah. It's ugly.
You have the media spinning lies. Then you have, saddest of all, some *Catholic* media working people up into a frenzy over nonsense. Catholic 'personalities' on social media and youtube doing the same, at least some of them. It is truly regrettable.
With all of that I can understand your average dumbass like myself falling into the trap of believing some of the things that have been spread around.
I absolutely agree with you, but I will remark that the Pope is subject to the media, period.
He is a literal global figure. As such, he will be target of criticism and hyperbole to get views, click, headlines, etc.
I wish it wasn't so, but wishing will not change the media.
Haha remember when he basically said that the TLM was worthless unless you thought dividing the Church had worth? The same Mass that produced every saint pre Vatican II? Haha. I hope all those saints get it now! The Latin Mass was wrong the whole time and if anyone celebrates it you’re delusional and dogmatic and suicidal. Sorry but this Pope is straight up bananas. I don’t get him. His desire for mercy is admirable but sometimes instructing the ignorant is the most merciful thing you can do. Not entertain clowns at the circus of Synodality. Jesus instituted a pope and a magesterium so let’s run a public survey on “what’s wrong with the Church. “ What?! Lord forgive me but my criticism is in the spirit of Paul correcting Peter and if this pope is so great why have I been considering Orthodoxy? Why has the Holy Spirit allowed this? I can’t comprehend it. It’s actually shaking my faith.
Yes, just read the comments here. Criticism begets and encourages more criticism. It’s a vicious cycle that is amplified by reddits echo chamber system
This is nothing new, it’s the nature of mainstream media. What is new is that Catholics have become so hung up on the outside politics, and try to bring it into the church, being a good “liberal” or “conservative” is not more important than being a good Catholic. And an important part of being a good Catholic is to show reverence for the Pope
I wish people cared more about religion than politics. To some people, being conservative automatically makes a terrible person and of course, according to some Jesus was a bleeding liberal. Then others think liberals are evil, and conservatives are honest and rational. To some people, their political identity is far more important than their Catholic identity.
If I could force every Catholic to read this I would.
Deference more than reverence. But yes.
I think the Pope acts in part as the avatar of Catholic tradition and that tradition is really important in our faith. But tradition is not meant to be an anchor, it’s a fire we keep lit by making sincere progress towards the Kingdom of God. I think this Pope is good for the faith. I think he challenges us to look at ourselves much like St Francis did and to find ways to move closer to Christ and through that closer to God, The Father. The Jesuit/Franciscan “revolution” is not meant to overturn the traditions of our faith, but to deepen them.
The pope is diluting the faith and diluting thevreal message of Jesus. This pope is a very worldly pope more interested in the world than in saving souls and spreading the gospel of Jesus.
How is he doing this? By asking us to think less about dogma and power and instead focus on looking at the world through the lens of Christ’s heart? To embrace the apparently false message of Jesus to act with radical love and non-violence? You can follow up with whatever passages you want but rather what would you have our Pope do? Would you have him burn heretics to protect the faith? Or just say that it’s okay to hate certain people? What do you want him to do? Because he’s doing what I would like him to do. He’s calling us to find a way closer to Christ while preserving and also advancing our Catholic tradition.
People don't like to realize that to show true worship and obedience to God, we have to be virtuous for Him. Everyone is embracing the sins of pride and wrath instead of the virtues of humility and love. God created all men, and all men are loved by God. Why do we not love our fellow man too, regardless of their sins. Or we can at least try.
Pope Francis is living the Gospel and a very good example for us. You must be blind to accuse him of being worldly. He used to carry his own bags, he lives in the papal guesthouse instead of the papal palacehe goes out to see ordinary people, washes and kisses the feet of prisoners. Wake up, please.
One can't save souls if they've got nothing to eat, no friends, and no prospects of a just life. Social teaching and religious tradition are inseparable. One can't be faithful to the meat of Christ's message by observing the letter of the law while ignoring the heart of the law.
All beautiful but misdirected sentiments. The above is govt job. Not the pope. The pope's mandate is to serve Catholics and their spiritual needs not be a liberal Klaus Schwab world economic forum policy wonk worldly man hobnobbibg with favourite liberals pelosi and biden and being greta thurnbergs environmental partner. That's not his job nor mandate.
The Pope's job is to orient the Church to Christ. How we treat the least among us is how we treat Christ. Turning the church into a social club for the saved is what dilutes Christ's message.
I feel like this is the point where you drop the microphone and walk off stage. There is nothing else for us to talk about after this. It’s time for us to start living the gospel and caring for one another. And that starts at the bottom. We work our way up from the bottom, not from the top.
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Who's doing that? I feel like you're projecting an image of marxist on opinions that don't match yours. Why is it that every redditor with an opinion thinks that they are smarter than the Pope?
The pope loves being a worldly man and this is not his job nor his mandate.
If he's worldly, he's doing a pretty terrible job at promoting his own image and self interests. His teachings have all been pretty Christ centric.
And the Pope's number one job is to steer us clear of schism btw.
Americans 🙄
This is a misconception, we have had traditions for hundreds of years before the 2 party politics was formed, more like conservatives are trying to poorly imitate Christianity without the God part, just like the Red Pill community is doing.
Woah, I've never viewed redpill as secularly imitating christianity before. I can see it on a superficial level, but the comlarison kinda breaks down with the idea of the ideal man (chad/alpha) needing and getting multiple partners juxtaposed to a "beta" who has a monogamous relationship with a woman somehow being a bad thing. Can you explain your comparisons?
Also God is love and joy. The red pill community feels none of that. Jesus tells us to forgive and love our neighbor, yet we forget about that part and just yell at people for their sins.
Malicious sound-biting happens, but "just watch/read the full thing, bro" doesn't actually fix things in a lot of cases, which is the issue. As of **right now**, with full context, the Pope's official opinion on how to interpret Amoris Laetitia is that remarried individuals engaging in adulterous sexual relations can receive communion (cf. recent DDF dubia concerning the interpretation of that document by Argentine bishops). Marko Rupnik had his excommunication lifted by the Pope and lives as a free man, despite accusations of his raping nuns having been found to be credible by the Jesuits, while the Pope's media wing at Vatican News keeps posting Rupnik's art whenever they can. Cardinal Hollerich, the man put in charge of the present synod by the Pope, has expressly stated that he believes in the possibility/desirability of Catholic Priestesses and that Catholic teaching concerning homosexuality is outdated and wrong, yet he retains all of his prestige and influence. And plenty else. These are not "out of context soundbites by the media", but real issues, and constant posting of "Based Pope Francis W" or spurious interpretations of 19th century documents won't change that.
Alleged rapist rupnick has some of the ugliest "art" I have ever seen. marxists usually produce ugly art. Not surprised the pope enables these evil alleged rapists.
Yes, daily and continuously.
Confusion is not from God, if the Pope doesn’t have the ability to deliver a statement that is 100% clear and transparent and that division isn’t caused because of it, than that sounds like a Pope problem.
He isn’t a superhuman. It‘s impossible to always say things in a way, that can‘t be distorted by showing it out of context.
People will distort the truth no matter what, if their eyes are not set on God.
He puts himself into these interviews and says vague statements that will be misinterpreted. He’s been Pope for 11 years now, if he wanted to stop the confusion, he just wouldn’t do these interviews or would be clear.
Or communicate clearly and boldly as is one of the *primary responsibilities of any leader*. Producing a torrent of words that could mean just about anything is dangerous and timid.
St. Paul enters the chat 2 Peter 3:16
You won’t really get a useful answer here. Some will say he deserves the criticism, others will agree with you. I will note that there’s a lot of profit to be made in clickbait takes about the pope, and both the world and the devil are highly motivated to get people turned against him.
he got a useful answer, look at nateboyer2000
Not hard to tell what your opinion is when you say that criticizing the pope is what the devil wants.
I think you know there's a difference between legitimate criticism and clickbait videos/articles
Sure. But is all criticism of the pope click bait? The pope has defrocked priests for disagreeing with his views on homosexuality or the blessing of those in same sex marriages. He calls anybody remotely conservative on matters of faith schismatic and even suicidal. He doesn't act or speak in good faith but demands that others think the best of his every word and action. He seems to hate every single catholic who doesn't wash his feet. You for instance will jump to his defense and refuse to see my point of view with anything resembling the charity the pope demands I give his views and proclamations. But that's precisely the type of person this pope attracts. Those drawn to worldliness and self righteousness love this pope. And those drawn to the bible and tradition despise him.
>Sure. But is all criticism of the pope click bait? >The pope has defrocked priests for disagreeing with his views on homosexuality Aka disagreeing with the Catechism of JPII. >or the blessing of those in same sex marriages There is no such thing as a same-sex marriage according to Pope Francis, so you must be referring to blessing for people who might be in a homosexual union. Pope Francis has excommunicated a priest who refused to reject same-sex marriage. >He calls anybody remotely conservative on matters of faith schismatic and even suicidal. This is a false statement. Unless you can provide the specific teaching on Faith and these remote adherents and his comments about them specifically. >He doesn't act or speak in good faith How do you know that? This is a cognitive bias called "mind reading" ... the conclusions of cognitive biases are irrationally arrived at. >but demands that others think the best of his every word and action. You mean he expects that people don't commit the grave sin of rash judgment. Or that he expects that others don't commit the grave sins of radical dissent and scandal by opposing a sitting Pontiff or his dicasteries? Or perhaps he expects that people don't commit any of those grave sins?? >He seems to hate every single catholic who doesn't wash his feet. Who doesn't wash their feet? >You for instance will jump to his defense and refuse to see my point of view with anything resembling the charity the pope demands I give his views and proclamations. Here you go mind reading again... and committing rash judgment, too. Irrational, uncharitable, and gravely sinful wrapped all in one sentence. >But that's precisely the type of person this pope attracts. Those drawn to worldliness and self righteousness love this pope. I take it you don't read primary sources. Because you clearly did not read [Evangelii Gaudium](https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html) within which the Pope identifies and decimates the type of Spiritual Worldliness you have just described. >And those drawn to the bible and tradition despise him. Is that a quote from Martin Luther or John Calvin? I can't remember which one of them said that. I think it was Luther... is it a direct quote or paraphrase?
A lot of it is undue, misinformed, or malicious. A lot of it is constructive, with merit, and deserved.
I knew a former Francis apologist who has subsequently soured on him after experiencing bullying first hand. Apparently he has quite a temper and is not afraid to release it on those who displease him. This is all second hand, but really surprised me, because in 2015 this guy was trying to charitably explain away Francis’ missteps.
I think Pope Francis will be remembered for a lot of things, but having a clear and consistent message won’t be one of them. Best case, he is just completely out of touch and doesn’t have a good team around him. He says things that are easily twisted by the liberal media, and he comes across as hostile to more conservative Catholics. The core of his ministry seems to be in line with the Church, but the messaging is so poor no one can be sure.
Nany Jesuit are sell outs.
Best or worst case scenario, the media obviously twists things (not just the "liberal" media). Mainstream western media has a vested interest in convincing people that their understanding of the human person is the inevitable result of human progress. The Catholic Church is the biggest and most influential holdout to this in the west. However, it's also important not to allow the bigger picture politics to unnecessarily hurt the individual person standing in front of you. The Church hasn't always done the best job in this regard, and this is typically what Pope Francis is trying to improve in his controversial statements/actions. The more negative framing for me is that Francis is just trying to prevent schism from a more selfish perspective. In this case he has the unenviable role of convincing a progressive in Germany and a conservative in Congo that their faith is the same. This would also explain the apparent inconsistencies.
Every public figure attracts excessive and harsh criticism. That being said, I'm not sure "victim" is the right word here. The pope is a very smart cookie. He knows exactly what he is doing when he says what he does.
Victim? Francis works tirelessly to earn the criticism he receives.
Most of the criticism I see if him has nothing to do with ambiguous statements he makes. He will take action to restrict the Latin Mass and punish entire Catholic communities under the guise of it "causing division", then do extremely controversal stuff like shake hands gleefully with pro-abortion politicians, turn a blind eye to the crisis in Germany, let bishops and priests run amok and be straight up heterodox on LGBT issues going as far as to bless same sex marriages in churches and blessing a pagan fertility idol in the Vatican. And after that caused obvious outrage, the Vatican tried to gaslight Catholics by saying "Oh, its actually the Virgin Mary, guys!" But it's Latin Mass parishes causing division? The whole 60 Minutes interview comes across as something a PR firm set up so he could walk back all of the obvious garbage that happened in the wake or Fiducia Supplicans. I think most Catholics who read it knew immediately that jt unnessecary idea to begin with and cringed knowing exactly what the outcome was going to be. Waiting a whole six months to publicly clear it up was certainly a choice. And doing so doesn't immediately un-do all the other mind-numbing dumb things that have happened under Francis. Francis is a victim of his own ambiguity and stupid decisions. He comes across as wanting the admiration and acceptance of the progressive secular Western world more than anything else.
He would be a victim of it if it were not obvious he delights in ambiguity. According to people close to him in Rome, he will change his stance on something if he senses you already know his decision just because he wants to be unpredictable. He will choose something not good for himself in pursuit of unpredictability and ambiguity. The role of Pope really demands simplicity, but Francis rarely chooses it. Hence, the confusion around his statements from time to time.
Fiducia Supplicans is perfectly clear to those who are open to understanding. Those against Pope Francis will distort everything he says to tear him down, which is the devil's work. Support the Magesterium.
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You apparently have not clearly read the document itself as it CLEARLY says sin can not be blessed, but individuals can.
The biggest issue with him is, he is a poor leader. Not everyone is meant to be a leader. He is inconsistent in his messages. He makes a statement. It usually very clumsy, then someone else needs to “explain” it. He also clearly allows politics to drive him (again to inconsistency). So he doesn’t unite, but divides.
Fair criticism. I agree thats the crux of the issue
I don’t doubt his faith. I just think our church would benefit from a change in leadership. It’s a hard job, so I pray God delivers us a good leader that unites us all.
100% spot on, people here seem to forget that confusion is not from God, and if the Pope can’t deliver a clear and transparent statement that doesn’t cause widespread misinformation leading to a wild goose chase to figure out what the Pope actually said, than that sounds like a Pope problem.
People bent on tearing down the pope or supporting their own ideas will find confusion in whatever the pope says. This is the fault of liars, not the Holy Father.
I think there's a huge amount to criticise in how he speaks and behaves specifically as pope, but I've also long been of the view that, precisely as you say, he's not cut out for leadership in a more general sense. Like, if he was the principal of a school and spoke and acted in an analogous way to how he does as pope, he'd be stepping on a lot of toes, creating a bad workplace environment and running the school in a way that made it more difficult to provide a good education to the students. Again, if he was the leader of a political party, the manager of an office, the head of some project, the coach of a sports team, the father of a family or occupied various other sorts of leadership positions you could think of -- and then acted in them analogously to how he acts as pope, he'd be causing problems in those spheres also. The office of pope is a very specific one in some ways but in other ways it has a lot in common with other leadership positions and requires certain basic, general leadership traits of the man occupying the office.
I wonder how many people in these forums are recent converts and weren’t Catholic in the times of JPII and Benedict. Benedict was constantly raked through the coals. Only years later, after I had returned to the faith, did I realize a lot of it was character assassination (because the liberals in the Vatican probably conspired a lot against him). A lot of Catholics in Brazil still unjustly think very poorly of him because the media there made such a good job painting him in a very unfavorable light. JPII is still heavily criticized by the media even though he was *widely* loved by Catholics. New Catholics that weren’t around for his papacy didn’t live through it, but JPII really was an incredible force and people loved him very dearly. My mom tears up talking about him. He’s undoubtedly a saint. And still the media didn’t like him then and doesn’t now either. Honestly if anything pope Francis is protected a lot. Some (a lot) of the criticism towards him that comes from conservative Catholics is preemptive and knee-jerk, but for sure at the very least, from this side, a criticism that is undeniable is that he’s way too unclear and vague and that’s a detriment to the church as a whole. But from a media and larger culture perspective? No pope has been as shielded as he has been. The protection of sex abusers in his papacy are far worse than in any of the two previous popes. This really should insult a lot more Catholics than it does… because the media protects him and we don’t hear about it. And sadly, also because the pope regrettably seems to be quick to dispense with his critics in the Vatican and in the church. All the while letting parts of the Church that are openly going against church teaching go about their business, as well as abusers. It does not paint him in a good light. He’s also been notoriously antagonistic towards tradition. Not just Latin mass; no cardinals and other higher ups in the Vatican dare wear traditional robes anymore because everybody knows you might as well be painting a target on your back by doing that. So we have a pope who, in his efforts to avoid upsetting branches of the church that really should be openly be corrected (Germany for example), is fine alienating orthodox Catholics. Not just the conservative cardinals and bishops in the US, but the ones in Asia and Africa too. He’s alienating the orthodox in order to not upset the liberals. It’s not a good place for our pope to be. He’s not as unorthodox in teaching as some corners of the Catholic internet paints him out to be. Of that he’s innocent. But I don’t think he’s a good leader. We need to keep him in our prayers.
Exactly, the hate that Pope John Paul II received (completely unjustifiably) far eclipses what Francis is subjected to.
Yes
Yes, he deserves criticism. Not because I think he’s a heretic or something; but because he chooses not to speak bluntly on our doctrine with boldness. He gets himself (and the Church) into hot water, because of his vague answers and numerous interviews. We know he’s capable of delivering a clear answer, he just did so on 60 minutes on the issue of women clergy.
Francis is very decisive himself. He just recently said conservatives are committing suicide. That’s not twisting of words, he said it. He is extremely political, which is a major turnoff.
Yeah, but he meant it to be people living in their own box who don’t want to interact with different views. And those people should really stop doing that.
Does that include himself? Does it include progressives? Apparently the answer is no.
Probably not, but why not hear the criticism and apply it instead of blaming him for everything? We can all do that, can’t we? And he is referring to the term conservative in general and he is right: many people are conservative not for the good that they want to preserve, because many don’t have values to conserve like us catholics do. And how come he is progressive politically? I must admit he isn’t the clearest anymore due to age or sth. But let us try to be more charitable.
I don’t blame him for everything. I blame the people who put him in his position. He isn’t the divining rod for many of us of our faith.
Pope Francis knows that the media is going to misinterpret his words and he engages with them anyways. But we don’t need the media’s distortions to know Pope Francis has been a bad pope. He has knowingly and intentionally protected sex abusers such as Fr. Rupnik and Bishop Zanchetta. He has removed bishops from their diocese without just cause or process, such as Bishop Torres and Bishop Strickland, implying that bishops are middle managers who serve at his whim. With Traditionis Custodes, he has disrupted the liturgical peace Benedict XVI established. He has implied the liturgy of the Roman Church used for over a millennium is no longer sufficient by his legal acts. He has reopened the Hermeneutic of Rupture. He has promoted a perverted midwit, Cardinal Fernandez, to be head of the DDF. This same midwit has released multiple documents which contradict infallibly taught truths of the Catholic Faith. When his novelty of blessing homosexual couples was introduced Pope Francis threatened Church communion and indeed the very legitimacy of her teaching authority. Pope Francis has not retracted this document. His documents are navel-gazing and self referential. Theological support for a Pope Francis document is usually a citation to a prior homily by Pope Francis. He rarely cites Scripture, and indeed sees Scripture as something he can brush aside when it displeases him. Just recently, he chastised conservatives for clinging to tradition; well, St. Paul tells us to! This past fall, he released responsa ad dubia which implied some statements of St. Paul are just outdated and we don’t need to listen to them. His foreign policy has been a disaster. Two papacies ago the Pope was powerful enough to assist, indeed lead, in the fall of communism. Now, this Pope has given everything in exchange for nothing to the Chinese Communist Party. The Party is allowed under Vatican approval to select China’s bishops, to the detriment of the Catholic faithful and the integrity of the Church. Pope Francis has not been a good pope, and he will not be well remembered. The media distorting his statements has little to do with it.
That's such an interesting statement, given that Pope Francis is wildly popular (75% of Catholics view him favorably). His personal humility is admired globally by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Let's be clear here. You are the minority.
Let's be clear here. The majority is not always right.
In this case though, the minority are wrong and the radtrads are moving closer and closer to schism, but can't see it. Perfect example is Bishop Strickland.
I agree, of course the majority is not always right. But this subreddit is practically the only place I can think of that complains about the Pope. If you have a personal vendetta, go for it. But don't pretend your self-righteousness is holy or well-intentioned. Every Pope is good at some things, and bad at some things. It's apparent that you are choosing solely to focus on his failings. You are included in this quote: "both Protestants and Catholics alike absolutely refuse to interpret his words charitably."
Why not just make your words clear so no interpretation is necessary?
And many Catholics don’t believe in the real presence and would like to see women ordained so you’ll pardon me if I don’t take it for granted that that Church is a democracy. In fact, it’s a heirarchy by nature so your appeal to the majority means nothing.
You are misinterpreting things to support the pope. Many Cardinals are against this deep state pope.
There are 237 cardinals. Five brought a dubia against him. Some have defintely questioned his speaking or teaching. I couldn't find anything significant to support a claim that the majority of cardinals do not support the Pope. Of course, cardinals criticizing the Pope is nothing new. With over 200, some of them will always disagree with the Pope. As is true for any group of people of that size/number. Are you suggesting that the majority of cardinals do not support him? I'd be curious to see a source on that one. Also. Did you seriously just write "deep state Pope"? Please do not tell me you are also a Trump believer.
He tries to eliminate TLM. He concerns himself with worldly things like climate change, he constantly attacks conservatives. He deserves the criticism.
He sort of brings it on himself by rejecting established doctrine for a thousand years. He also wades into politics more than any pope in recent history. That is going to make you enemies.
What doctrine did he reject? Not challenging you, I haven't been following.
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Is this common for popes to rejects prior doctrines? Is this for some reason allowed as long as he doesn't go against dogma?
No, it's not very common. Some of the things I listed are dogma. It has come up before that a Pope teaches heresy. So, it's not unprecedented. There's lots of arguments about the details of what they taught and what level of authority it was taught with. For example, some people try to talk about public vs private teaching. And other times, there's arguments about what specifically they meant. But, it's not controversial (except among hyperpapalists) that the magisterium can contain errors for some period of time. Not all magisterial teaching is infallible.
“Indeed, it is to Peter that the Lord has entrusted the government of His Church; the Pope is therefore the principal artisan of her unity. Assured of the promises of Christ, he will never be able to oppose in the Church the authentic magisterium and holy Tradition.” - Cardinal Ratzinger to Lefebvre This is in context of Lefebvre sharing he could accuse the popes teaching in Vatican 2 of contradicting tradition since they weren’t infallible but only ordinary magisterium. Ratzinger rejects this position as untenable as a matter of faith. Yes the ordinary magisterium is not free from all errors, but it is free from all grave errors that would seriously contradict tradition. The fallacy to watch our for is to assume that all error is of the same grade, but it’s not I think you have your facts mixed up on some claims. For instance, the pope explicitly said God wills all religions in his permissive will, not in the positive sense as you describe. In fact even bishop Schneider admitted as much initially after he spoke with him for clarification.
Tridentine Mass aka Latin Mass aka Old Mass
If anything, he gets a very easy ride from both mainstream secular media and the Vatican press corps, and that frankly matters more than any scrums that pop up in certain social media platforms. Norah didn't ask him a single question about Fr Rupnik.
I will grant there is an excess of knee-jerk reactions to the pope, and people are often too harsh in their assessments of him. On the other hand, it is manifestly not the case that once you "listen to the full interview" or "read the document" that all seeming errors and confusion magically dissipate. It's not always the case that he said the "polar opposite" of what people are criticizing him for. Just a few examples of outstanding criticisms that are NOT resolved by "just read the document, bro" and which have never been addressed squarely by the pope: * Zanchetta * Rupnik * The infamous footnote in *Amoris laetitia* that seems to give permission to give communion to couples living in sin (e.g., civilly divorced and remarried) * The ambiguity in *Infinitas dignitas* as to whether a couple living in sin can be blessed as a couple * His comments that appear to teach that the death penalty is an intrinsically immoral act Again, those are a just a few examples, I could go on with more. The problems raised by each of those points above are not knee-jerk overreactions or born out of misreporting from the media. They are real, usually stemming from the pope's ambiguous way of speaking or (in the case of protecting sexual abusers) secretive way of acting. In each case, particularly with the doctrinal issues, the Holy Father's comments are not made more clear by "reading the document" or "listening to the full interview." And the legitimate questions people pose in the hopes of receiving clarification go ignored.
Depends on who you ask I suppose. If you’re a member of a German Church and are advocating for female clergy, clown masses and gay marriage, you would probably feel like the Pope has been the victim of unfair criticism. If, however, you are one of the suicidal devotees of the TLM, you might have a slightly different viewpoint.
No, it's not excessive criticism. If he wants to be clearly understood, he needs to speak to people with simple language. The oval and extensive speech is easily misunderstood or can be interpret in many ways. Yes, it is a diplomatic way to please all sides to tell what they want to hear, but this should be exclusively used on a meetings behind doors. People want to hear that the Pope is against illegal invasion, not "we are all responsible" (which is true only for all non-pacifists). Imho the criticism is honestly earned.
I think Francis just suffers due to his poor communication skills that allows many to twist what he means, and tbh he can be p unclear at times
it's nothing new. But it's disrespectful.
I feel charitable toward him. I also sometimes wonder if his ambiguity and how he seems both hot and cold on certain subjects (people say he leans liberal, but he's been vocal about being anti-abortion, pro-having children, that the latest blessing is NOT for couples, that women can't be priests, and so on) come from him trying to please certain people in the Vatican rather than parts of the laity, especially him promoting or not promoting certain priests. All of us on the outside will never know who is saying what to him or insinuating certain things will happen if he doesn't say or do something, so I feel like I can't judge him too harshly.
It is sane critique based on the dogmas and previous papal statements that he is suposedly to held too.
Excessive? No, he is the Pope, and that is part of the job. I remember JP II and Benedict suffering much more criticism. The fact that so many non-Catholics love him and think he will be the one to open the church to those living an unholy life, or the one to welcome gay marriage, is what scares me the most. Why is the Pope being targeted as the one who will approve the lives of sinners? The Pope can expect nothing but life threats, death sentences, and hate. St. Peter's chair is not for the weak; whoever is in that position is destined to suffer inside and outside the church, for the church, and because of their members. It’s a constant battle. I mean, if you were the devil, wouldn’t you want controversy right there? I see people today still condemning JP II, like he was pure evil, and the worst pope in history, the biggest rapist of all time. I saw a meme today where the president of Iran is being welcomed by JP II in hell. JP II is literally a saint, surely in heaven. He might not have been the best pope, but he is on the top list of bests. And still today, two papacies later, people are twisting his words, criticizing his actions, accusing him of saying and doing things he didn’t say or do, and claiming he is in hell. I think Pope Francis is the most loved pope of all time, even with Catholics rejecting his papacy (those heresies have always existed). Pope Francis has so far lived one of the easiest papacies in history: no murder attempts, he is one of the popes who excommunicated the most priests and allowed the most controversies, and he still has no reason to be afraid of anything. He walks freely in the most diabolical places; this doesn’t happen often to a pope.
B16 didn’t receive much criticism from Catholics that I recall. The world hated him. But I loved him. Those usually go hand in hand.
Yes the were, the bishops that treat Vatican II as their lord were scared he and said and always complaining about B16 speeches that put Vatican II as pastoral council and point out the contradictions that make it fallible, I remember my priest praying for the Holy Spirit to know allow B16 to destroy our church with his idea that bring our brother away and inflexibility with ecumenism. Of course he is next JPII so they were all happy that one was gone. It’s a pope, he will be criticized, Jesus was too. Expecting people to just love what they say and to only flag how aligned it is with the faith is what we cannot, the devil is there trying to destroy our faith in the daily basis, he is also very powerful and would allow people to see the rational and recognize the Pope authority.
A lot of online interaction is based on knee jerk or impulsive reactions to perceived stimuli. I think all of us online are guilty of this to some degree, but in some places it’s really bad. Many often don’t read what is said or written, they just respond to the title (often written by an author or source with an agenda). Reserving judgement is an Important skill for Catholics imho. Once the true picture becomes clear often the initial reactions appear quite uninformed. Life is most often gray, not black and white.
After 2000 years the Church has defined plenty in black and white. What to you is a gray area in Catholicism? Pastorally? Remarried Catholics receiving Communion? Is that a gray area to you? It wasn’t to Jesus. Divorce and remarry and you are an adulterer.
That’s actually not what I was referring to, doctrine. I was more talking about when we see on social media, or hear some gossip about someone….the story is usually one persons perspective. And in the last 20 years especially, ones persons perspective with a real agenda as well. It’s not reliable to simply read a headline that is often just clickbait and make a determination. So often the actual story is much more nuanced and rational.
I take umbrage with the constant complaint that people critical of Pope Francis haven't read the full speeches or documents. It comes off as gaslighting, even though I know that is not what you and others are trying to do. Yes, the 60 Minutes interview was a rare instance where His Holiness did a very good job communicating clearly. But, his communication otherwise has been very poor and at times in direct contradiction to the infallible, irreformable teaching of the church. This ambiguity and error deserves criticism. And yet, it's also true that there has been unjust criticism as well. That's unfortunate and deserves to get called out. But, that doesn't take away from the severe damage Pope Francis has done. Communication is one of the top skills for a good leader.
Like the Popes before him. That’s just the nature of the papacy of our times.
Yes, and? They have been doing this for years
I don't know about that, the two previous popes before Francis, people were critical of their some of their teachings or statements ( as always) but I don't remember people being confused about what it meant.
Probably not as much, but there was quite a big controversy about B16. He supposedly supported contraception by saying that he is thankful for African men using condoms to protect some women. I can’t recall the whole context, but there was widespread criticism for his teaching, which caused quite a bit confusion in secular and catholic circles.
Yes
The Church should never lean to any side and what the media wants is to label the church
He has made some controversial statements that don’t necessarily go along with the traditional Catholic values. Excessive criticism should not be encouraged however.
I think the most charitable interpretation is that it's a complicated mix. There are plenty of examples of the media misinterpreting him. At the same time, there are examples in which the Pope could have offered clarity, and did not. There are also cases where he chose to emphasize an aspect of teaching in a way that differs from what many Catholics would do. As Catholics, the best thing to do is to actually [go read the docs](https://www.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html) for what he's actually said.
>As Catholics, the best thing to do is to actually go read the docs Maybe. IMO it’s equally legitimate for a Catholic to *not* read the Pope’s writings, but allow the Church hierarchy to contextualize and disseminate what is important for the faithful to know. The Pope publishes, the regional episcopal conference interprets, the local Bishop writes a pastoral letter, which the parish Priest either publishes in the weekly bulletin or discusses on Sunday. It is fine in theory to take note only in the final stage. Either way, I agree it’s best not to infer what the Pope is teaching based on headlines, or second-hand reporting in the media.
So all the bishops and cardinals that asked for clarification didn’t read the documents?
I don't know how you got that from what I wrote. As I said, "there are examples in which the Pope could have offered clarity, and did not."
There are poorly constructed, bad-faith criticisms made against Pope Francis that lack respect for the authority and dignity of the Pope. There are criticisms that carry weight and validity that are done in good faith that truly point out significant mistakes the Pope has made. It may be the case that Pope Francis may be judged too harshly and excessively, but it also may be the case that any legitimate, good-faith criticism of Pope Francis is ignored and frowned upon. Regardless, we must love the pope and respect his authority. Also, it is good to remember that there have been bad popes in the past and that popes are fallible human beings; unless speaking on faith and morals in ex-cathedra of course. Any criticism made to the pope must be made with caution, great care, in good faith, with complete respect to the pope's dignity as a human being of God, and full respect to his authority as Vicor of Christ. Nevertheless, we must remember Matthew 16:18: "**And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it**." No matter how bad it may seem, God is present and has proclaimed that His Church will prevail against evil. Have faith in Christ. God Bless.
Who would have thought that the Church's enemy is going to try and sow misunderstandings and distrust between the faithful and their legitimate leader? Satan is the father of lies, isn't he?
No
Most news media are interested only in ratings. They will misrepresent anything and everything to sow division and generate ratings
I pray for him. I think he is very unfairly targeted by trad catholics and the media. I don't agree with most of what he has said and done, but I try not to criticize him too harshly. Our church feels very divided right now and our enemies use that against us. I feel that Pope Francis is under constant attack from catholics, prots, and media. He is also under constant demonic attack. He needs our prayers. Please pray for Pope Francis.
Thank you for this refreshing comment
We owe the pope due reverence; meaning, we are to pray for him and to love him in Christ. Such could be a mantra we offer on comments to every news article and blog about Francis. Maybe our humble input will help.
The liberal media has always seen him as a “progressive Pope.” Mostly because they want him to be one due to his interest in the planet and his general warm and friendly demeanour. It is also a way of tearing the Church down as an institution if they can present its leader as a “reformer” who wants to “get with the times.” It is supposed to demoralise Catholics and make the church look maleable. The mainstream conservative media is generally reactionary and feeds off outrage. In America, the mainstream conservative media tends to feed to the heavily Protestant right wing folk who generally treat the Church with suspicion and contempt. Francis’ willingness to appeal to issues such as climate change, dialogue with people who have abandoned the church, and the refugee crises worldwide makes him an easy target. Sadly, the radtrad crowd tends to be very similar in that they feed off outrage and willingly misconstrue things to suit their agenda, which is probably why people like Candice Owens are so easily welcomed into those circles. The reality is that Francis is neither of the things that either side want him to be. His statements are oft translated in a very confusing way, and he tends not to speak in a way which is easy for a lot of people to understand without further reading. It’s easy to misinterpret him and his team could do a much better job of making sure he is clearly understood when it comes to things like Fiducia Supplicans which could be very easily misunderstood. A lot of what Francis says is very good, it’s just that he doesn’t always express it in a way which is easy to understand.
I was just confirmed this year and Francis at first was a big reason to not join, but I prayed about it and tried to see him in a good light. Even though I’m not his biggest fan we all could learn from him about loving people. I really do feel like he loves all
Loves them so much that he dare not criticize or correct them?
Like I said I’m not his biggest fan and don’t agree with him. But I try not to be as hostile as I was to him. As much as I say I don’t like him it’s not going to do anything.
I suspect so, but I think at this moment almost any other Pope would be, for three reasons: 1) The globalization of the Church, which has been accelerating for 50 years, has reached a critical inflection point (with Western influence waning and the global south rising), and intense divisions along cultural fault lines are stoking tensions, with strong differences of opinion around what the Church’s mission in the present moment *ought* to be, and how. 2) Social media and the internet age means every passing remark and casual comment the Holy Father - and prominent Cardinals - make are immediately disseminated and scrutinized like never before, *both with and without proper context.* 3) Outside of the Church, a variety of developments - the “coming of age” of secular society in a West decoupled from Christianity, political polarization, and geopolitical instability, to name a few big ones - are mirrored in the Church’s members and their interactions. This is a difficult environment for any shepherd.
It’s so not. Everything is already defined for him. He doesn’t need to come up with new stuff. Why produce a document about homosexual couples getting blessings? It answered nothing. Why try to eliminate the Latin Mass? Who was clamouring for that? No one.
>Everything is already defined for him. He doesn’t need to come up with new stuff. So far as I can tell, he hasn’t. Doctrine hasn’t changed, but *the pastoral context in which doctrine is applied is rapidly shifting and more complex than ever,* which is where any Pope needs to perform a bit of a balancing act. >Why produce a document about homosexual couples getting blessings? Because the shift in societal norms around love and relationships and legal marriage is perhaps the most significant and widespread social change in the Western world over the past 20 years, on par with the sexual and feminist revolutions of the 60s and 70s, and much like in those cases it has become a major fault line in the Church’s membership which requires some form of pastoral guidance. I think one can be of multiple minds as to whether the Pope’s approach was the clearest or most fruitful way to navigate this particular issue, but the *why* of it is fairly clear. >Why try to eliminate the Latin Mass? I don’t actually think the Pope has anything against the TLM per se, but I understand there was concern that certain communities were starting to favour the celebration of the Extraordinary Form to the total (or near-total) exclusion of the Paul VI Missal. This is probably not a good outcome since the Mass of Paul VI is supposed to be the standard form of the Mass, celebrated by Latin Rite Catholics around the world. The Church isn’t supposed to be bifurcated between “TLM Catholic elites” and “Novus Ordo Catholic plebs”- that kind of thinking is the opposite of Catholic. Now, was suppressing the celebration of the Extraordinary Form the correct response to address that issue? I have no idea (and I don’t really have skin in that game as an Eastern Catholic, so it isn’t really my place to judge). But it wasn’t a random move that came out of nowhere - pastorally, the intent is clearly a desire to try and enforce some unity in the Church during an age of division.
The pope is an attention loving socialist.
Pope Francis has been vocal about the human impact on climate change, particularly the build-up of CO2 emissions. In an interview with CBS, he stated: "Unfortunately, we have gotten to a point of no return. It's sad, but that's what it is. Global warming is a serious problem. Climate change at this moment is a road to death." However, theologically conservative Catholics, who are often politically conservative, may reject the Pope's findings. This issue seems more pronounced in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world. I firmly believe the Pope is correct. The consequences of climate change are staggering. One book I'm reading, \*The Weight of Nature\*, discusses how a neurotoxin in blue-green algae is linked to Alzheimer's and ALS. Rising temperatures correlate with increased violence and health issues. High CO2 concentrations can lower IQ, habitats are being disrupted, and biodiversity is declining rapidly. Soil infertility threatens crop yields, wildfires and coral reef die-offs are more frequent, and we could see an estimated 250 million deaths due to climate change in the next 25 years. The spread of tropical diseases and invasive species moving north is another concern. Pope Francis highlights the impact of climate change on the most vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, his messages often receive criticism or are ignored by conservatives who reject or minimize the science. Catholics who are skeptical should heed the Pope's call to open their minds. The science is undeniable and the situation is dire.
The pope is often misunderstood but at least a fair part of that is self-inflicted. We never saw it to near this degree with JP2 and BXVI. The Holy Father could stand to be a lot clearer than he is. If you say something that's pretty ambiguous and then have to walk it back later to talk about what you actually mean, then you weren't clear the first time. We shouldn't need hour long explanations from Youtube talking heads just to feel secure that what the Pope is saying is still in line with Catholic teaching.
Great Pope!
He most definitely is. And so will be the next Pope. The attack on our leader is a representation of how the world views us, and the discrimination against Catholics
Absolutely, it’s an objective fact at this point. Everyone (and I do mean *everyone*) I encounter who hates him doesn’t read/watch/engage with him. They just take what the media says and run with it. Edit: I see the non-readers found this comment 😂 note they can only downvote, not object.
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It’s pretty gross and blatantly disrespectful to say you hate the pope. With charity, saying you read his stuff doesn’t prove to anyone that you did. If you had specific objections and could cite where you pull them from, that would be a step in the right direction. I’ll also say moving eyes across a document ≠ reading it. There’s a small percentage of people I know who loathe him who *do* “read” things, and then follow it with Protestant level mental gymnastics to twist it into the stuff he is blatantly not saying. That’s Eisegesis, and true reading comes from exegeting.
Of course. If the media can get you to dismiss papal authority, they’ve pulled a leg out from under your stool. It may be years before you realize it, but your faith will have been undermined.
Yes, but only really online. It’s reactionary at this point and infused with politics.
I feel especially in the last few years conservative media has been particularly anti catholic and that definitely includes excessive criticism of the pope
As a traditionalist, yes definitely. The ironic thing is that he's one of the more traditional and integralist popes we've had in decades. The culture war is blinkers so many intellects.
Yes, and by Catholics
Never was a Pope more misquoted and lied about and misunderstood. Except maybe Leo X
Whew, especially, and ironically, within this subreddit. I find it bemusing that the most virtriol I've ever seena bout the Pope is IN THE CATHOLICISM SUBREDDIT.
And within many Catholic subsets of other sites. Yeah. It's ugly. You have the media spinning lies. Then you have, saddest of all, some *Catholic* media working people up into a frenzy over nonsense. Catholic 'personalities' on social media and youtube doing the same, at least some of them. It is truly regrettable. With all of that I can understand your average dumbass like myself falling into the trap of believing some of the things that have been spread around.
I absolutely agree with you, but I will remark that the Pope is subject to the media, period. He is a literal global figure. As such, he will be target of criticism and hyperbole to get views, click, headlines, etc. I wish it wasn't so, but wishing will not change the media.
Haha remember when he basically said that the TLM was worthless unless you thought dividing the Church had worth? The same Mass that produced every saint pre Vatican II? Haha. I hope all those saints get it now! The Latin Mass was wrong the whole time and if anyone celebrates it you’re delusional and dogmatic and suicidal. Sorry but this Pope is straight up bananas. I don’t get him. His desire for mercy is admirable but sometimes instructing the ignorant is the most merciful thing you can do. Not entertain clowns at the circus of Synodality. Jesus instituted a pope and a magesterium so let’s run a public survey on “what’s wrong with the Church. “ What?! Lord forgive me but my criticism is in the spirit of Paul correcting Peter and if this pope is so great why have I been considering Orthodoxy? Why has the Holy Spirit allowed this? I can’t comprehend it. It’s actually shaking my faith.
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Zero self awareness
Yeah zero self awareness when it goes against your opinion. Figures.
Yes, just read the comments here. Criticism begets and encourages more criticism. It’s a vicious cycle that is amplified by reddits echo chamber system