Rome Newsroom, Dec 21, 2023 / 11:13 am (CNA).
Pope Francis warned the Roman Curia on Thursday that “rigid ideological positions” can be an obstacle to “moving forward.”
In his annual Christmas address to the cardinals who work in Vatican offices on Dec. 21, the pope underlined that it is important to “keep faring forward, to keep searching and growing in our understanding of the truth, overcoming the temptation to stand still.”
“Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward,” Pope Francis said.
The pope’s speech came days after he gave his approval for priests to give “spontaneous” nonliturgical blessings for same-sex couples and other couples in “irregular situations” — a declaration that has been met with strong reactions, dividing Catholic bishops around the world.
Pope Francis’ speech briefly touched on what he sees as the current division in the Catholic Church, rejecting the usual dichotomy of so-called “progressives” and “conservatives.”
“Sixty years after the Second Vatican Council, we are still debating the division between ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives,’ but that is not the difference,” Francis said.
“The real, central difference is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion. That is the difference. Only those who love can fare forward.”
The pope, who turned 87 on Sunday, added that a zealous priest once told him that “it is not easy to rekindle the embers under the ashes of the Church,” noting that this advice “can also help us in our work in the Curia.”
Pope Francis has often used his annual December address, held in the Vatican’s gilded Hall of Benediction, to offer his frank perspective on the state of the Roman Curia.
In 2014, he famously diagnosed 15 spiritual “diseases” afflicting the Curia, including careerism and idolizing superiors. In 2020, the pope used the word “crisis” 44 times in his speech and called the Church to renewal.
In his 2023 Christmas greetings, Pope Francis did not speak of corruption or even allude to the historic Vatican trial that concluded on Saturday, which found a cardinal guilty of embezzlement of Vatican funds and sentenced him and other former Vatican employees to years in prison.
Pope Francis’ message instead focused on the importance of listening, discernment, and moving forward.
Discernment “can strip us of the illusion of omniscience, from the danger of thinking that it is enough simply to apply rules,” he said. “And from the temptation to carry on, even in the life of the Curia, by simply repeating what we have always done.”
The pope quoted the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a Jesuit theologian and archbishop of Milan from 1980 to 2004.
“As Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini once wrote: ‘Discernment is quite different from the meticulous exactitude of those who live in legalistic conformity or with pretensions to perfectionism. It is a burst of love that distinguishes between good and better, between what is helpful in itself and what is helpful here and now, between what may be good in general and what needs to be done now,’” he said.
“‘Failure to strive to discern what is best often makes pastoral life monotonous and repetitive: religious acts are multiplied, traditional gestures are repeated, without clearly seeing their meaning,’” Francis added, quoting Martini’s 2008 book “The Gospel of Mary.”
Following his custom, Pope Francis gave Vatican officials books as a Christmas gift. This year the pope gave them a book of his Christmas homilies and a copy of a book that he wrote titled “Santi, non mondani: La grazia di Dio ci salva dalla corruzione interiore” (“Holy, Not Worldly: God’s Grace Saves Us from Interior Corruption”).
The book on interior corruption is the same book he gave each of the Synod on Synodality delegates during the first week of the October assembly at the Vatican. It is a compilation of a text published by Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires in 2005 called “Corruption and Sin” and a strongly-worded letter that Pope Francis wrote to all priests in the Diocese of Rome on Aug. 5.
The pope’s speech to the Roman Curia and his following Christmas greetings to employees of Vatican City State were the last audiences on his public schedule before he is scheduled to give a Christmas Eve Sunday Angelus and preside over Midnight Mass at 7:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve in St. Peter’s Basilica.
“The mystery of Christmas fills our hearts with awe … at an unexpected message: God has come, God is here in our midst, and his light has forever pierced the darkness of the world,” Pope Francis told the Curia.
“We need to hear and accept this message anew, especially in these days tragically marked by the violence of war, by the momentous risks posed by climate change, and by poverty, suffering, hunger … and all the grave problems of the present time. It is comforting to discover that even in those painful situations, and all the other problems of our frail human family, God makes himself present in this crib, the manger where today he chooses to be born and to bring the Father’s love to all.”
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Pope Francis wants to canonize Martini who was -is- a Modernist.
After a decade of verbal and emotional abuse spewing garbage like the heretical innovations of the late Cardinal Martini, I bet most of the Curia subjected to this humorless hammering went straight out afterward to get a martini.
Alas, about being “rigid,” PROGRESSIVISM IS THE DEEPEST RUT OF ALL.
About which, Ratzinger offered this about the ideological theologians:
“Monocracy, the sole rule of one person, is always dangerous. Even when the person in question acts out of great ethical responsibility, he can stray into unilateral positions and become RIGID [!] [….] Theology is interpretation […]When it no longer interprets but, so to speak, lays hands on the substance of the faith and alters it [!] by inventing a new text for itself [!], it ceases to be theology” (The Nature and Mission of Theology, Ignatius, 1995).
What we have with the blessing of gay couples (rather than individual persons) is nothing less than a GALILEO MOMENT! How different history might have been (!), and now again seems doomed to become in the future!
Consider this remark from a still-inquisitive astronomer of Galileo’s day, Fr. Grienberger, SJ:
“If Galileo had only known how to retain the favor of the Jesuits [!], he would have stood in renown before the world, he would have been spared all his misfortunes, and he could have written what he pleased about everything, even about the motion of the earth” (in Giorgio de Santillana, “The Crime of Galileo,” [1955], “The Problem of the False Injunction”; p. 290 with footnote: a confidential admission documented in one of Galileo’s letters).
So much for today’s hybrid “Jesuit spirituality.”) How simple, instead, to just bless persons as individuals rather than now as couplings.
But, good company…Galileo “walking together” WITH Strickland, Burke, Muller, the bishops of Malawi, Zambia and Kazakhstan, and others who are at least cautious as in the United States, and the peasant laity just as in the troubled days following Nicaea, when some 80 percent of the bishops woke to find themselves Arians.
This poor man is a fount of confusion. I don’t think Bergoglio knows the definition of ideology or the reality of sin. There is no “forward” – there is only Christ crucified and resurrected and he will return again on day.
Bilbo setting out on the road that goes ever on. At the Gilded Hall of Blessings His Holiness appears an effigy. “Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward. We are called instead to set out and journey following the light that always desires to lead us on, at times along unexplored paths and new roads”. Heartened by Tucho the Wizard. The game is up. A surprise only that it occurs so soon. No more hedging or double talk now. Saruman [played by the late Card Carlo Maria Martini of St Gallen fame wizardry] will suffer no laggards.
Humor if only to lighten the tragedy of what may be the beginning of the end at a time when we celebrate the end and the beginning, “the end of this year of grace and the beginning of the next, setting us once again on the path that will make present Christ in all of the mysteries of His Redemption” (Sisters of Carmel). Ye faint-hearted, take courage and fear not. Behold, our God will come and save us (Communion verse, 3rd Sunday of Advent).
All rigidities are equal, but some rigidities are more equal than others.
Judging from a long career of watching gamesmanship among secular politicians, part of me senses that for this name-calling ecclesial game (with love eclipsing truth), the wheels are starting to come off. Maybe overreach from Fernandez is an ironic gift from the chaotic workings of the real Holy Spirit.
I’ve concluded he’s rigidly committed to two things. Achieving recognition in the Guinness Book of Records for the number of times in a row he can create aphorisms for “moving forward”, wherever the magical land of forward happens to be, while continuously insulting those who do not “move forward”, and his second commitment is to continue as a low-faith, if any, narcissistic ideologue while calling faithful non-ideological Catholics faithless narcissistic ideologues without any awareness of irony and never be called out for it to his face. Actually, there is evidence in this latest disaster, in paragraph 25, that he considers God to be a narcissistic ideologue as well, given that Catholics believe, that is, as Catholics know, the moral order comes from our creator and is not a contrivance of narcissistic and authoritarian elitism as this document insists.
The Bergoglian Papacy will go down in history as known, not for its love of Christ and the salvation of souls, but for its Weaponized Ambiguity. For this, Christ Himself told us, He will spit them out of His mouth.
As far as I’m concerned, Bergoglio has forfeited any and all moral authority to exercise the Petrine ministry
Frankly, I’m getting tired of Pope Francis’ rigidity.
Accurate Roman Catholic theology is the product of prayerful reflection upon Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the perennial Magisterium. It is nothing less than a support for freedom for the individual and entirely liberating.
Fiducia Supplicans is a clear exhibition of rigidity. Its citations are primarily Bergoglian — 65% of the 31 provided in the document. Divine Revelation ceased with the death of St. John the Evangelist. There are no biblical references provided. From whence does this new teaching emerge?
Rigid ideological perspective is the product of a mind unconformed to the Truth.
The poetic dissonance employed as a defense of this document and its erroneous content is simply disturbing.
We read here the Pope’s attempt to establish a defense for Fiducia Supplicans: “The real, central difference [between “progressives” and conservatives] is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion. That is the difference. Only those who love can fare forward….” emerges from the Chair of St. Peter?
We reason as Catholics, not as adolescents.
Franklin Graham provided a rebuke today to the Vatican. It is a moment in the history of Catholicism that will not soon be forgotten.
With this document Pope Francis undermines not only Divine Revelation and moral theology, but the entire spectrum of Roman Catholic reasoning. Is this what he intends? Whether or not, it he and his righthand man have accomplished it – at least in the short term.
James, Yes, but try as he may, no way does Francis undermine “Divine Revelation and the entire spectrum of Roman Catholic reasoning.”
Francis has ATTEMPTED to undermine Roman Catholic reasoning and Divine Revelation. Francis’ actions in fact demonstrate only that has has major deficits of intellect, faith and reason. He has acted unjustly toward Christ and toward those who love Christ. Francis’ actions manifest a great, progressively increasing rigidity and inability to Love the Savior.
Meanwhile, the Savior/Judge awaits Francis. As pope, Francis has openly, brazenly, yet inconspicuously(?) revealed himself as small-minded, uncharitable, unjust. Francis has, progressively and with great rigidity, failed in the job The Word Made Flesh graciously allows him to hold for a few more days, weeks, months or years [God forbid.]: “Feed my sheep, feed my lambs. Strengthen thy brothers.”
Pope Francis warned the Roman Curia on Thursday that “rigid ideological positions” can be an obstacle to “moving forward.”
True, Francis, but morally bankrupt progressive ideologies do that also, in case you weren’t clear about that.
Right on, dear ‘Athanasius’.
The present incumbent of The Chair of St Peter has * directional confusion! *
His ministry is to help Catholics: “Move upwards!”, to be more spiritual & less worldly; not to “Move forward” with the world, in defiance of The Holy Spirit.
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
Rigid ideological positions
….Ten years later…
Rigid ideological positions
After a decade, I am starting to think that the Pope wants us to not have
Rigid ideological positions
Umm…
Pope Clichémeister is creatively uncreative.
Taking one step forward and two steps backward cannot be our way of proceeding. Rigidity in thought, word, and action prevents ongoingness and togetherness. Life is a dynamic movement forward.
What gobbledygook!
Since I can’t ask Francis, I’ll ask you. Where is the magical land of forward? Does forwardist thinking mean doing more things that used to be thought of as evil, as per God’s endowed truth, will now become good? I know Francis believes morality can change. Do You as well? Does
God need to shape up, change His mind, and follow along? This is something else Francis believes, do you as well? Could Hitler and Stalin, or perhaps Charles Manson have been right after all? Will being a murderer or a rapist become a new form of prophesy in some distant future after some “rethinking” about morality? Tell us. Backwardists need to know. Have mercy on poor backwardists who believe such things that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
“Life is a dynamic movement forward.” Quo vadis?
“Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.” – Shunryu Suzuki
This pontificate has long since sailed out and sunk.
Rather than a dichotomy between conservatives and progressives, he seems to be setting up a dichotomy between those whose reason is ruled by their passion, and those whose passion is ruled by their reason.
Vacuous poetics worthy only of the Bergoglian school.
Bergoglio’s refusal to perceive his own “rigid ideology” is a terrifying sign of spiritual blindness.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/pope-francis-same-sex-couples-catholic/2023/12/20/id/1146680/
“Pope Francis’ Christmas gift to the church was finally confirming that he is a heretic and quite likely an antipope,” wrote X user Nathaniel Eliason, whose bio describes him as Catholic. “He must be opposed completely now, and any bishop who doesn’t is complicit.”
Does rigid ideological positions include Peronism? Just asking!
More gobbledygook mumbo-jumbo socialist
leftist nonsense from the not-the pope…
This is SO typical – he comes up with crazy ideas like blessing same-sex couples and when people object, he immediately characterizes them as having “rigid ideological positions” or some such nonsensical accusation, thereby putting those who disagree with him – and there are MANY of us – in a bad light.
Plus ca change, plus la meme.
After the sex abuse crisis in which the John Jay study reported that 80% of the reported abuse cases were homosexual acts between priests and post-pubescent boys (ephebophilia), we now have come to this, blessing for gays. Jesus came to find and gather the lost sheep of Israel. Francis is hell-bent on perniciously dividing and scattering his flock. I’ll keep my eyes on Jesus, rigidly so.
I have completely had it with Pope Francis.
All popes are infallible…..until they aren’t.
Said Brother Brian, infallibly…
The inattentive reader will miss the clever evasiveness of the recent Declaration—sidestepping the rigorous infallibility requirements, and much like the faithy sola Scriptura Martin Luther who edited the Letter of James to omit the word “works,” and this only after he relented to include James in his version of Scripture.
About the narrow requirements, the Catholic convert (!) John Newman shined a more damning light that Brother Brian when he (Newman) looked further back than very recent history:
“What have excommunication and interdict to do with infallibility? Was St. Peter infallible on that occasion at Antioch when St. Paul withstood him? Was St. Victor infallible when he separated from his communion the Asiatic Churches? Or Liberius when in like manner he excommunicated Athanasius? And, to come to later times, was Gregory XIII, when he had a medal struck in honour of the Bartholomew massacre? Or Paul IV in his conduct towards Elizabeth? Or Sixtus V when he blessed the Armada? Or Urban VIII when he persecuted Galileo? No Catholic ever pretends that these Popes were infallible in these acts” (from a Letter to the Duke of Norfolk [1876], in Vincent Blehl (ed.), The Essential Newman [New York: Mentor Omega, 1963]. 269).
But, thank you brother Brian for yet another predictable tutorial.
But also worthy of pause…It’s almost as if Luther’s false dualism between faith and works is being aped today in the false dualism between love and truth (or “backwardists”). Makes me wonder about Hinduism and whether James Martin is the reincarnation of namesake Martin Luther?
You have no idea what you are talking about. Get a brain.
Olson’s sieve must have developed a tear or gone missing. How else would you have gotten in??
Fundamentalist Brian chiming in again, directing his Oedipal rage at the pope. Nothing new here folks 🙄
“The real, central difference is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion. That is the difference. Only those who love can fare forward.”
Pace this man’s warped understanding of love, the difference is between those who live by the truth and those who live by lies.
Right? Caritas in Veritate wasn’t that long ago. Only those who believe the truth know which way forward is.
Few among the faithful pay him much mind anymore, except to roll their eyes and wave him off in disgust. When will the cardinals, who have pledged to defend the faith with their own blood, have the spine to rise up? No, they all sit there panting like a bunch of lapdogs waiting to be petted. They won’t even risk their careers, let alone their blood and lives for the faith. All decked out in red, these cowards should be draped in yellow.
Brilliantly put, jpfhays!
Moving forward is a relative term. Forward toward where? The language does not reflect Biblical language or teaching. Christ’s messages are clear – He doesn’t speak vaguely. “Moving forward” is something one puts on a bumper sticker in election year.
With humility, dare one say that the Pope is so rigid to as not being able acknowledge his own rigidity? There should be a concentration on what allows the flourishing of Christ’s love amidst humanity. Tall order, I know. Sin gets in the way. Good old selfish and arrogant sin.
Roughly 130 years from Galileo’s death to the suppression of the Jesuits. Perhaps it was better for him the way it actually went, he stayed to the Will of God.
If I worked in the Curia I’d avoid the annual papal Christmas meeting with Francis like the plague. I’d even schedule a root canal without anesthesia to avoid his annual gripe session with the people he’s chosen who are supposed to be his collaborators. This “rigidity” shtick got old fast long ago: the only “rigid” person around Rome seems to be Francis and his syncophants who demand the rigidity of Gumby (exc. when it comes to their “pastoral developments”).