'Pope Francis devoted the catechetical portion of his weekly General Audience on Wednesday to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which this year is dedicated to a question taken from the First Letter to the Corinthians: “Has Christ Been Divided?”. The English-language synthesis, read out after the main reflection delivered by Pope Francis in Italian, said, “We know that Christ has not been divided; yet we must sincerely recognize that our communities continue to experience divisions which are a source of scandal and weaken our witness to the Gospel.”
In reproaching the Corinthians for their divisions, Paul reminds them to rejoice in the great spiritual gifts which they have received. His words encourage us to rejoice in the gifts God has given to other Christians, gifts which we can receive from them for our enrichment. To be able to do this calls for humility, discernment and constant conversion.
Pope Francis asked all Christian faithful to pray that, as we reflect on Paul’s teaching during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we may be confirmed, together with all Christ’s followers, in our pursuit of holiness and fidelity to the Lord’s will.'
Papal homilies would appear to be undergoing severe redaction and editing. Aside from the desire to be fed by the Successor of St Peter, I'd like to know why his actual words are receiving such censure. Any ideas?
16 comments:
Clearly they're out to cut off your "book of insults" off at the pass ;)
My plans thwarted yet again!!
Ann Barnhardt thinks the following is the reason why the Vatican publishes only summaries:
"Pope Francis cannot speak with any coherence or sophistocation when he speaks off the cuff. I know people who have personally witnessed his weekday morning homilies in Rome. They are painful, rambling, incoherent streams of consciousness filled with excruciatingly awkward pauses, verbal ticks, and lost trains of thought in MID-SENTENCE. This is why the Vatican media does not publish the verbatim transcripts but rather “summaries”. They CAN’T publish the verbatim transcripts because the verbatim transcripts are massively embarrassing in their inarticulateness."
http://www.barnhardt.biz/2013/11/28/unpacking-the-latest-hot-mess-from-pope-francis/
Good question. Precision in language is not the Holy Father’s most notable ability.
I’m no theologian, Deo Gratias, but I would have thought the last sentence in your quote might have been more clearly put. What about “... to the Lord’s will that you all become Catholics”.
But on reflection, that’s not very PC, so the editors wouldn't pass it.
Martina - absolute nonsense. The verbatim scripts of Francis' weekday homilies are not publicised because he said he doesn't want them to be. He preaches to those assembled only. Not every word uttered by a pope needs to be placed on record. Francis preaches using a classic Jesuit 3 point style. I too have heard Francis preaching in the Santa Martha Hostel and he was very good, certainly not incoherent or rambling. I can remember the main message from his sermon even though it was a few months ago that I heard him, much more so than the convoluted overly academic life-less preaching from a script by Benedict.
Damage limitation?
We must remember that many old people are 'rambling and incoherent' and the Pope is an old man. His recent predecessors were exceptions rather than the rule when considering the aged. I think that the Pope's advisers, if not the Pope himself, must be becoming increasingly aware that his fabled spontaneity is in fact merely a tendency to 'lose the thread' and speak without due regard to the effect of his words and they will obviously seek to manage the resulting confusion more rigorously as the true situation has revealed itself.
Ann Barnhardt is nuts, right?
Neither L'Osservatore Romano or Vatican Radio publishes anything on Wednesdays any longer so as not to detract from the audience. I'm not sure that he's not preaching, but they haven't been published for months. In terms of Ann Barnhardt's comment, I think that that's hogwash. Having read every single daily homily that's been published, in Italian and in English, they're anything but incoherent, but are deep explanations of the readings of the day. Are there some pauses and some verbal ticks? Of course there are. First, Italian's not his first language and he'll occasionally search for a word. Second, even if he were speaking in Spanish there would be some pauses and verbal ticks. Few people in history have been able to speak live in a form that could immediately be published. Let's be real.
There are other sources that give much more detail. Do you ever look to just one source to support your statements? Not very good blogging if you do.
Here is an excellent so puce of the pope's daily homilies:
http://www.news.va/en/sites/reflections
Padre Rogelio; then, in your opinion, did he really say that Jesus pretends, or that Our Lady could possibly have called God a liar? or, like so much are these two bizarre innovations either not at all true or, not at all true, seriously?
Mark Totten: You spoil your comment by criticising Pope Benedict. The Catholic Herald has a column "Papal Teaching" which is almost always something written by Pope Benedict about the saint of the week. I always find it a model of clarity, conciseness, informing and inspirational. I wonder why so far they have not used something from Pope Francis.
It is for the best.
I'll take Ann over 90% of the professional Catholics any day. But this obsession with everything the Pope says is unhealthy. His off the cuff thoughts are not required for our Faith.
Nicholas Bellford - I was specifically referring to Benedict's homilies not his writing. Secondly, the Catholic Herald probably don't use Francis' writings because (a) he's not so well published yet, and (b) because they don't like him. The paper has move decisively to the far fringe right in recent years (which is why hardly anyone buys it nowadays). Many of their writers are crazies like William Oddie. Nobody takes this paper seriously anymore.
Simple. They are trying to hide the heresies as long as possible in order to create the one world religion in preparation for the Antichrist. Don't you know what season we live in? Jesus said that we should know, rather then be asleep.
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