Vatican City, Sep 13, 2017 / 09:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wendesday Pope Francis recalled his recent visit to Colombia, saying the desire for peace in the country is proof that the violence of their past doesn’t have the last word, but rather, the love and mercy of Christ.
“Colombia, like most Latin American countries, is a country in which the Christian roots are strong,” the Pope said in his Sept. 13 general audience.
“And if this fact makes the pain due to the tragedy of the war that has torn it apart even more acute, at the same time it constitutes the guarantee of peace, the solid foundation of it’s reconstruction, the lifeblood of it’s invincible hope,” he said.
Given it’s recent bloody past, Francis said “it’s evident that the Evil One wanted to divide the people in order to destroy the work of God, but it is equally evident that love of Christ and his infinite mercy is stronger than sin and death.”
The Pope spoke to pilgrims present at his general audience, which took place just two days after he returned from his Sept. 6-11 visit to Colombia.
The visit, which marked Francis’ third tour of South America since his election in 2013, took him to a total of four cities, including Bogotá, Villavicencio, Medellín and Cartagena.
In his audience address, the Pope said that while in Colombia, he felt a strong continuity with Bl. Paul VI and St. John Paul II, who visited the country in 1968 and 1986, respectively. He described it as “a continuity strongly animated by the Spirit, which guides the people of God on the streets of history.”
Pointing to the theme of the trip, “Let us take the first step,” he said it refers to the process of reconciliation Colombia is going through after more than 50 years of conflict between the government and guerrilla and paramilitary groups.
Colombia, he said, is trying “to go out of a half century of internal conflict, which has sown suffering and enmities, causing many wounds that are difficult to heal.”
However, he said that “with the help of God the path is now underway,” adding that during his visit he wanted to “bless the effort of that people, confirm them in faith and in hope, and receive their testimony, which is a richness for my ministry and for the entire Church.”
“This visit was intended to bring the blessing of Christ, the blessing of the Church, to the desire for life and peace which overflows from the heart of that nation,” he said.
Francis then recounted the different stages of his visit to Colombia, recalling how in Bogotá he was able to see this desire in the eyes of the “thousands and thousands of children, teenagers and young people” who came to meet him at the Apostolic Nunciature, where he stayed during his visit.
He also noted that he was able to meet the bishops of Colombia and all of Latin America, and gave thanks “that I could embrace them and for having given them my pastoral encouragement for their mission in service to the sacramental Church of Christ.”
Then in Villavicencio, the day was dedicated to reconciliation, and included a large gathering for national reconciliation and a Mass in which the Pope beatified the two modern martyrs Bishop Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve and Fr. María Ramírez Ramos.
The two martyrs, he said, was a reminder “that peace is founded also and above all on the blood of the many witnesses of love, truth, justice and even the true and real martyrs killed for the faith, like the two mentioned.”
Listening to their biographies “was moving to tears: tears of pain and joy together,” he said. And in front of their relics and their faces “the holy people of God felt their own identity strongly, with pain, thinking of the many, too many, victims, and with joy, for the mercy of God extending toward those who fear him.”
Then in Medellín, the perspective for the day was that of “Christian life as discipleship: vocation and mission,” Francis said.
“When Christians commit themselves until the end in the journey following Jesus Christ, becoming true salt, light and leaven in the world, and the fruits are seen abundantly,” he said, explaining that one of these fruits was the children’s home he visited for youth who have lost their families due to violence or poverty.
Finally, the Pope drew attention to his visit to Cartagena, where St. Peter Claver lived. The saint, who was referenced in many of Francis’ speeches during the trip, was an “apostle of the slaves,” he said.
St. Peter Claver and St. Maria Bernarda Bütler, a missionary in Colombia, “gave their lives for the poor and marginalized, and so revealed the path to true revolution; evangelical, not ideological, which truly frees people and society from the slavery of yesterday and, unfortunately, today,” he said.
In this sense, “taking the first step” means above all “drawing near, bending down, touching the flesh of the wounded and abandoned brother,” the Pope said. “And in doing it with Christ, the Lord became a salve for us. Thanks to him there is hope, because he is mercy and peace.”
Pope Francis closed his address by entrusting Colombia to the care and intercession of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá, whose statue he venerated in the cathedral of Bogotá.
“With the help of Mary, each Colombian can everyday take the first step toward their brother and sister, and so build together, day by day, peace and love, in justice and in truth.”
After his audience, Pope Francis greeted individuals and groups of pilgrims from different countries around the world, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who became Catholic in 2007 and has established several foundations and non-profit organizations based on faith and global advancement.
[…]
Pope Francis’ connection to the severe side of the Holy Spirit’s scripture in this and in the death penalty ( Rom.1:26-27/Rom.13:3-4) is non existent. His two predecessors were likewise disconnected from other severity related themes ( EV sect.40/ Verbum Domini sect.42). It’s pandemic and started in the early 20th century movement of Catholic biblical scholars towards Protestant liberal biblical scholarship which has good points and very bad habits also. Both the bad and the good entered Catholicism and the problem at its root is Biblical. Romans one is implicitly saying between the lines that heterosexuality is a result of passing many tests of loving God and homosexuality is the result of drift from God into excess which gradually leads to gay acts. The one exception I see would be the biological chimera who is the result of two fraternal twin eggs ( boy and girl) lying too close and merging into one embryo..the resulting one person then has both male and female dna which is the one case I know of…of sincere, non sinful gender confusion.
Hardly ‘disconnected’ with John Paul II.
A temptation regardless of the origination.
The actual act in homosexuality is always a choice.
He called the death penalty “ cruel and unnecessary” in St. Louis in 1999 and sought world abolition of it despite his own catechism being a little better than that. To call some action cruel in itself is tantamount to calling it intrinsic evil and is to contradict the over 33 death penalties God gave to the Jews…and one death penalty God gave the Gentiles. He was not connected to all scripture as Aquinas was.
The defenders of Pope Francis will either embrace this or spin it. Let us see if there is a press release from the Vatican on Monday or Tuesday.
Pope Bergoglio’s statement is blasphemy since he claims that the All-Good God has committed “an act of grave depravity” by creating a homosexual person who, as such, is “intrinsically disordered” morally. This statement is also manifest heresy, directly contradicted by the entire Magisterium of the Church and explicitly summarized in the post-conciliar Catechism.
I can just imagine the press release that is being crafted by Vigano that will attempt to explain this latest example of Pontifical prudential absurdity.
New Gospel fragment discovered in Jordanian cave: “And Jesus said unto him, ‘you’re fine just the way you are; go, and change nothing about yourself.”
Pope Francis seems to flatly disagree with St. Paul’s assessment of the matter. If only Paul the Apostle could have understood Jorge Bergoglio’s take on humility and mercy, I’m sure he would have agreed with our Argentine pontiff and backed off all that nasty stuff we find in Romans 1:18-27. Of course, who could be expected to equal the theological brilliance and consequent insights that Francis has, as Vatican insiders assure us? Ah, we’re just so fortunate to live in this pope’s era of enlightened Christianity!
Oh, yes!!! And if only Bergoglio could have lived 2000 years ago, penned the gospels
and omitted the pesky warnings of Jesus which St. Paul reiterated, there would be so much less confusion in the world!! You need to hand it to Bergoglio. He is doing his best with a false torch of enlightenment to lead the masses already in darkness into a fiery abyss. Bergoglio told an abuse victim that God made him gay and that he should be glad to be gay??? Strange, many former homosexuals claim that sexual abuse was a cause of their homossexuality. Is Bergoglio suggegsting the the guy should be glad that he was abused????
According to what has been reported, Pope Francis did not say homosexual acts were o.k. If Pope Francis did say “God made you that way” he is going against what is in the Catechism in section 2357 says about homosexuality, that is “…Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained…”
One item that would be quite tragic in all of the clergy abuse scandals that I haven’t seen addressed is if the abuse may be at the root of some of the victims’ homosexual tendencies.
Here’s the section in the Catechism on Homosexuality in its entirety:
Chastity and homosexuality
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”