Just where is Pope Francis coming from?

I've just read my church newsletter which quotes Pope Francis as saying, "Make sure we do not pay attention to disappointed and unhappy people".

WOT? Jesus paid them attention. Lepers aren't likely to be happy people, but Jesus healed them.

"Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened" (Mt 11, 28). Those who labour and are burdened aren't likely to be happy people, but Jesus wanted to refresh them.

What's more, "Seeing the multitudes, HE HAD COMPASSION ON THEM, BECAUSE THEY WERE DISTRESSED" (Mt 9, 36).

Can someone please tell me where Pope Francis, the shepherd of the Church, is coming from?

DISCUSSION AROUND THE 'A' WORD (letter to Dom Post, August 28)

“Part of the conversation needed about suicide in the community” (Number of suicides rises for third year, August 28), is discussion around the abortion factor. Many men who take their own lives may have bitterly regretted the loss of a child or children to abortion, whether or not they were party to the decision to abort.

 

They or their partner were convinced they couldn’t love and care for that child, that its life had no intrinsic value and  so was better ended. It’s only logical that parents of aborted children should decide, if they can no longer love and care for themselves or each other, that their life is better ended also.

 

This “part of the conversation about suicide” just isn’t happening. But if we’re serious about recognising the risks, it should and it must.

IS THE POPE A CATHOLIC? (Letter to Dom Post, August 23)

Theologians doubt Pope is Catholic (August 22) is a pretty fair analysis. Prophecies dating back centuries confirm that “widespread apostasy”, which by now is blatantly visible, will propel the Catholic Church to the brink of a schism some say will be more profound than the Reformation.

 

Thinking Catholics all over the world must be asking themselves, in all seriousness, “Is the Pope a Catholic”?

JESUS WASN'T ANGRY WITH THE MONEY CHANGERS

An ex-priest has been quoted to me as saying, ‘NZ Catholic for me is an occasion of sin. I can get very angry, reading it.’

Surpassing wit. But as the occasion for repeating the remark was a Christian Meditation meeting, it's hardly surpassing charity.

It’s only to be expected that a Catholic newspaper will upset some people. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be doing its job.

What’s unexpected is the anger of a Christian and a Catholic. ‘Let all bitterness, and anger, and indignation … be put away from you, with all malice’ (Eph 4.31).

And please don’t tell me that Jesus Christ was angry when he turned the money-changers out of the temple. I’ve yet to read a translation of that passage which states that he was angry.

Being human, we assume He was angry. We forget that He was divine.

EUTHANASIA LAW AN ASS (Letter to Dom Post, August 12)

The “overwhelmingly negative” response to euthanasia (Euthanasia bill given legal stamp, August 11) in the recent parliamentary investigation shows New Zealanders’ common sense.

 

In the Netherlands where it’s legal, MPs are now considering a “Completed Life Bill” which would allow anyone over the age of 75 to be helped to commit suicide. People with diminished mental capacity due to dementia are being euthanised and doctors - many of them assisted suicide providers - are alarmed at the unchecked growth of euthanasia.

And don’t tell me that the “strict controls” proposed in this bill would prevent the same ghastly incremental effects here.

To quote Charles Dickens, “If the law supposes that” legalising euthanasia wouldn’t infringe on basic human rights to life, then “the law is an ass – an idiot”.

BISHOPS SHOOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT (Letter published in NZ Catholic, September 21

A devout Catholic friend of mine says the NZ Catholic Bishops’ Election Statement has left him, as a voter, “more confused than ever”. In the mainstream press the Bishops’ statement has been called “wishy-washy, touchy-feely and handwringing”.

Let’s look at Pope Francis’ introduction: “Nothing else will change the world but people who fight for justice”. Jesus Christ never fought, and never advised fighting, except by proclaiming the truth – that is, by prophesying. Jesus spoke the truth, because he was Truth - and he was crucified for it.

No such fate awaits the NZ Bishops, but in quoting Scripture - “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Prov 29,18) – they do manage to shoot themselves in the foot.

Because the NRSV and Douay version of  ‘vision’ is ‘prophecy’. Political government has gone madly awry, partly because our moral government has let it. The Bishops state the obvious and avoid unpleasant truths such as the imperative of self-denial to correct imbalances in our society and the planet, and the evil of corporate greed, abortion and euthanasia.

But it’s mainly by understating our urgent need for prayer, as given by Our Lady at Fatima, that the Bishops abrogate their role as prophets, called by God to proclaim the truth to their people.

‘Nothing else will change the world’ but people who pray.

WESTERN SOCIETY HAS A DEATH WISH (Letter to Dom Post, July 28)

Another inference could be drawn from the ‘shocking’ decline in sperm counts in Western countries (July 27).  Blaming chemicals is simplistic, and the experts themselves suggest there must be more to this issue than meets the eye.

 

Decades of contraception and billions of abortions in the ‘developed’ world, while directly affecting only women and children, would suggest Western society has a death wish and falling sperm counts and population replacement indicate that wish is being fulfilled.

 

We’ve abused the planet, so now the planet is abusing us.We’ve abused our bodies and their reproductive capacity, so now our bodies are abusing us too.

 

NO MEA CULPA FOR METIRIA (Letter to DomPost, July 26)

Green’s co-leader Meteria Turei made a confession, yes, but hardly a ‘mea culpa’ as Jane Bowron puts it (Try tax cuts for the childless, July 25).

A mea culpa by definition admits fault, and Turei has done no such thing. On the contrary, she maintains that lying with the intention of defrauding the taxpayer was “the right decision”.

 

And to point that out is not to cast stones as Edith Campbell (Letters, same date) maintains. Voters in a democracy have a duty to protect that privilege by scrutinising candidates for election to Parliament. It would be ridiculous to vote for a law-maker who says breaking the law is okay.

THE BEAUTY ABOUT CHURCHES (Letter published in DomPost with photograph, July 15

“The beauty  is you can come in and just sit your your work clothes”, says Justine Hamill about meditation classes in her Wellington yoga studio.

 

Let’s not forget that there are many other places in Wellington and everywhere else where you can come in and just sit in your work clothes. They’re called churches and they’re purpose-built for meditation.

 

And the beauty about churches is you don’t have to pay.