Interesting little Rip Van Winklery here... Where has Mr. Hellner been the past five years??? It's like someone suddenly finding out that boiling water is hot!
Sometimes the pope seems to have his priorities screwed up
As a practicing Catholic, I have frequently been disappointed in Pope Francis
By Jack Hellner
On his trip to Burma, he somehow failed to directly mention that 600,000 Muslim Rohingya have been chased out of the country into Bangladesh since late August. They're refugees.
He seems to be very selective about what he will talk about harshly.
He has gone against Trump on wanting to be careful on what refugees we allow in. Yet his own Vatican is careful. Why are there walls around the Vatican?
He has railed against capitalism. Somehow he doesn't understand that capitalism is the system that finances the Vatican and has lifted the most poor people out of poverty. It's not socialism or communism.
He seems to think economic systems that make people more dependent on government are superior to a system that gives more people the opportunity to move up the economic ladder.
He talks about greed but not the greed of government officials or the greed of the Church, especially the Vatican.
He continually condemns how global warming and fossil fuels have been tremendous dangers, not seeming to understand that the advent of fossil fuels the last 150 years has yielded great increases in the quality and length of life. Fossil fuels have led to water and sewage treatment facilities, among other things.
Somehow the pope doesn't seem to mind that underdeveloped countries and underprivileged people remain that way because of their inability to utilize fossil fuels. He's offered them no encouragement to develop with fossil fuels.
I have always thought some enterprising person should ask the pope if he doesn't believe that God controls the climate, the weather, the sun, the moon, the tides, and the seas.
- Doesn't he believe that God developed CO2 and all the chemicals in the atmosphere that allow life to thrive on Earth?
- Didn't God create the process whereby humans breathe out CO2, which allows plants to thrive and emit oxygen, which allows humans to live?
- Does he believe that God meant for the natural resources on earth to remain unused or for humans to develop them?
- Didn't God give humans the brains that allow for the development of fossil fuels, cars, and all other inventions powered by fossil fuels and made out of crude oil?
It also seems that the pope would gladly have had a president who supports abortion on demand, including partial-birth abortion, instead of Trump.
Speaking of screwed-up priorities, Antonio Socci cites a recent Bergoglio banality (or rather, his nth iteration of one of his favorite banalities):
'High' Magisterium
Translated from
December 2, 2017
Today in Bangladesh, Bergoglio spoke once again, as he often does, of the terrible scourge that menaces mankind and our faith in God: GOSSIP. Certainly this must be the major problem in Bangladesh! As Johnny Stecchino says in the movie, the worst problem of Palermo is traffic
[vehicular traffic, that is, not the nefarious trafficking that the Mafia deal in].
Yet this is a pope who, as everybody at the Vatican knows - is avid for gossip, and daily collects any and all curial chatter (on the basis of which he can decide throwing people overboard, like a South American dictator disowning suspicious subjects). But in public, he seems to be on a crusade against gossip and gossips.
In Bangladesh, he called it 'terrorism'. The same man who refuses to speak of 'Islamist terrorism' and has never called it 'terrorism'...
The day before, Socci had this comment:
It is difficult to understand Bergoglio's fixation on the Rohingya. There are so many persecuted minorities in Myanmar, including Christian minorities belonging to the Kachin, Karen, Shan and Chin tribes counting with hunreds of thousands of refugees.
But Bergoglio has been insisting always and only on the Rohingya [except not in Myanmar itself where he avoided saying the word]. How about the other persecuted minorities?
Perhaps it's because he is always and only impelled by political reasons and the international powers by whom he is led, so he has been using the Rohingya for geopolitical reasons...
The stunning Bergogliade today was this:
"Today the presence of God is called Rohingya. To which everyone has his own answer". [What a preposterous statement!]
What does he mean 'everyone has his own answer'? That each religion is as good as any other? This is the Christian announcement?
[Well, it's the 'vicarian' announcement from a duplicitous Vicar of Christ.]
Sandro Magister caught the 'all religions are equal' flavor of Bergoglio's recent Asian jaunt on Day 1 of the trip:
The Pope in mission territory - yet
the only mention of Jesus came from a Buddhist
November 28, 2017
There was only one moment when Jesus was named and his Gospel proclaimed on the first day of Pope Francis’s visit to Myanmar.
But it was not by the Pope, rather by the Burmese state counsellor and foreign minister Aung San Suu Kyi, who is Buddhist:
"Jesus himself offers a 'manual' for this strategy of peacemaking in the Sermon on the Mount. The eight Beatitudes provide a portrait of the person we could describe as blessed, good and authentic. Blessed are the meek, Jesus tells us, the merciful and the peacemakers, those who are pure in heart, and those who hunger and thirst for justice.
This is also a programme and a challenge for political and religious leaders, the heads of international institutions, and business and media executives: to apply the Beatitudes in the exercise of their respective responsibilities. It is a challenge to build up society, communities and businesses by acting as peacemakers. It is to show mercy by refusing to discard people, harm the environment, or seek to win at any cost.
It is true that San Suu Kyi took these words from the pope's own message for the next World Day of Peace on January 1, 2017. But it is striking that she chose to mention Jesus and his Gospel, where Christ's own 'vicar on earth' did not.
The speech delivered immediately afterward by the pope was completely 'secular', except for the final invocation of “divine blessings of wisdom, strength and peace" on those present.
> "A peace based on respect for each ethnic group and its identity"
w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/november/documents/papa-francesco_20171128_viaggioapostolico-myanmar-autor...
Also on the morning of Tuesday, November 28, in meeting with representatives of the various religions present in Myanmar – Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Anglican and Catholic Christians – Francis did not say anything specifically Christian, but instead,
he insisted on the fact that “every confession has its wealth, its traditions to give, to share”; he invoked a “harmony” among the religions in respect for differences; he condemned the “cultural colonization” that presumes to “make all equal” and therefore to “kill humanity”:
And yet, was not a Church that “goes forth,” more “missionary” than ever, precisely the objective that pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio put in first place in the agenda-setting text of his pontificate, the exhortation "Evangelii Gaudium"?
[But that was the deceptive part of the Bergoglio agenda from the beginning! He falsely wooed the cardinal electors with those words. Yet it became quite clear early on - and he has made it explicit again and again - that he is not interested in converting anyone to Christianity, much less to Catholicism, and has called 'proselytism' evil. He has failed to support the missions as every pope has done before him because he himself has chosen to discard the mission directly mandated by Christ to "go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit". Instead, his chosen mission has been to promote himself and Bergoglianism. Benedict XVI in October 2014 sent a message to an institution that promotes genuine Catholic mission to underscore that 'dialog' does not constitute mission and is no substitute for it!]
And what could be more “forthgoing” and more “missionary” than a journey of the successor of the apostle Peter to a “periphery” of the world like Myanmar, which remains almost entirely to be evangelized?
[Of course, all irony is lost on Bergoglio who follows his own mind alone, and thinks he knows better than anyone about everything, as he thinks he knows better than Jesus himself what is good for 'the Church'.]
A reader, responding to Socci's link to the Magister article expressed it very well: "In preaching a Church that 'goes forth', this pope has left the Catholic Church. Therefore, he no longer cites Jesus - because he thinks himself better than Jesus!"
Socci, in fact, has been keeping track of Bergoglio's banalities. Some two weeks ago, he commented on the pope's address to Italian state and railway police:
High spirituality!
The memorable and profound Magisterium of Bergoglio: "Do not use your cellphones while driving!" Soon he will be asking us not to forget to collect our dog poop!
A reader's comment:
"Well bravo! After advising us to sort our garbage, and telling us that smoking is dangerous to our health [so he bans the sale of cigarets in Vatican territory] here's some new practical advice. Next, we shall be told: do not write on the walls, do not walk on the lawn, use a helmet when you are on a bike or motorcycle, pay your bus fare, don't speak to the bus driver... How about something to lift our hearts to God? No, what we get is sermons in obviousness."
Ah, what would we do without our nanny pope?
On the Rohingya, in fairness to the Pope:
Read the CNS story here:
www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/12/03/i-raised-concerns-about-rohingya-with-burmas-leaders-sa...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/12/2017 13:53]