Paven

John Allen skriver om utnevnelsen av biskop Blase Cupich til ny erkebiskop i Chicago – andre skriver at dette kanskje hadde med å gjøre at Cupich kjenner erkebiskopen/kardinalen av Boston, O’Malley, og denne kardinalen er en av pave Frans’ spesielt utvalgte rådgivere. Men han skriver også om hva slag biskoper pave Frans ønsker:

… by now we have a fairly clear picture of what Francis wants.

First, he wants moderates rather than ideologues, men who will defend church teaching but whose first instinct isn’t political confrontation, and who keep lines of communication open with all camps.

Second, he wants bishops of the “Social Gospel,” meaning leaders with a special concern for the poor, for immigrants, and for those at what he’s called the “existential peripheries” of the world.

Third, he wants men who see themselves as pastors rather than bureaucrats or diplomats, shepherds who, in his memorable image, “carry the smell of their sheep” because they’re close to the ordinary people they’re called to serve.

By all accounts, that’s what Francis has got in Cupich, an Omaha native whose previous job was as the bishop of Spokane in Washington.

Alexander VI, pave fra 1492 til 1503, er ofte regnet som en av de alle mest umoralske paver, med mange barn etc … , men nå har jeg nettopp hørt en (lyd)bok som viser at disse anklagene rett og slett er falske: The Borgias: The Hidden History, By G. J. Meyer, Random House, 2013

……… Again and again, Meyer contends that there’s an equally simple counter-explanation:

This aspect of the puzzle would disappear if Alexander could be shown to have been utterly cynical, without belief in the creed he professed and therefore exempt from any sense of sinfulness. He is often, even usually, depicted in exactly that way, but such an interpretation of his character is unquestionably false. He was a believer and a devout one, displaying particular devotion to the Virgin Mary and unqualified so far as we know in his acceptance of the teachings of the Church he led. It is at least possible that, while believing in damnation (he would be a remarkable fifteenth century European if he did not), he was not “dark with fear and gloom” for the simple reason that he was hopeful of escaping it and saw reason to be so.

And if so, then why all the dark tales in the first place? Again, there’s a disarmingly simple explanation:

These stories appeared when they did in part because there was a voracious one-man market for them: Alexander’s successor Julius II, Giuliano della Rovere, who had been blocked by the Borgias from winning the papal throne first in 1492 and again in September 1503 and who had spent most of the intervening years in seethingly bitter exile.

In Meyer’s version of events – which is entirely, magisterially convincing – the animus of Pope Julius was sufficient to keep the Borgia name under a cloud long enough for the Protestant Reformation to hit full swing and need for its own reasons exemplars of Catholic wickedness and duplicity …..

Janne Haaland Matlary siteres i Vårt Land «om den nye tid i Roma» – med ny pave. Hun sier at paven er svært populær og medienes yndling, men det er også ting hun selv har opplevd eller hørt som ikke bare er positivt:

… I kurien er meningene svært delte. En venn som er teolog og meget moderne, sier: «Han konsulterer aldri, sier bare det han vil og hvis han spør noen, er det en argentiner. Det er mangel på respekt for vårt arbeid». Det er ingen tvil om at den mektige romerske kurien er tilsidesatt, men med det er også finformuleringene av doktrine. Paven sier ting på en så folkelig måte at alle nås og forstår, men samtidig blir det svært enkle svar som ofte misforstås.

Mens forgjengeren Benedikt aldri ble medias venn da han nettopp uttalte at det ikke finnes enkle svar på kompliserte spørsmål, er denne paven noe så merkelig som populær i mediene. Men det enkle er muligens ikke alltid det beste? …

Min kritiske venn i kurien sier at paven alltid har tre poeng i sine prekener og at de alle er så enkle at enhver kan forstå dem, men at dette også skaper forvirring fordi det som sies, ikke forankres. Ja, det er vel samme oppskriften som Jesus selv brukte, for lignelsene er jo en pedagogisk metode.

Paven Frans har altså valgt en stil som er fullstendig konsistent med kjernen i det kristne budskap: pastoral omsorg og oppfordring til omvendelse, praksis fremfor ord, konsentrasjon om hovedbudskapet.

Da vi sist var i Vitenskapsakademiet, var det en liten håndskrevet lapp fra ham på spansk til oss med beskjed om å jobbe med ‘trafficking’ i alle dets aspekter, fra prostitusjon til tvangsarbeid og det som verre er. Ingen normal oppgave for et vitenskapsakademi, og innbudte talere var heller ikke de vanlige akademikerne, men folk fra søppelplukkernes og gateselgernes organisasjon i Buenos Aires. Så vi skal utvikle sosialpolitikk nå. Hva er mest nyttig; det eller vitenskaplige analyser? Det umiddelbare svaret er sosialpolitikk, men det er ikke det opplagte svaret i et lengre perspektiv. …

Rorate Cæli forteller om dette, og har også med et utdrag av en tale om abort av moder Teresa (som hun vel holdt i Oslo ved nobelprisudelingen i 1979):

I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing – direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child – I will not forget you – I have carved you in the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of His hand, so close to Him that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God. And that is what strikes me most, the beginning of that sentence, that even if a mother could forget something impossible – but even if she could forget – I will not forget you. And today the greatest means – the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. And we who are standing here – our parents wanted us. We would not be here if our parents would do that to us. Our children, we want them, we love them, but what of the millions. Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child – what is left for me to kill you and you kill me – there is nothing between.

Jeg så dette bildet på denne bloggen, og syns det er trist at vår pave emeritus nå er blitt så skrøpelig.

I dag kl 11.20 ble følgende melding lagt ut på Vatikanradioens nettsider:

Pope Francis has approved the promulgation of the decree for the cause of beatification of his predecessor Pope Paul VI. The approval was announced Saturday.

The beatification ceremony is scheduled to take place October 19, 2014, at the conclusion of the III Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the family. ….

Denne videoen på Youtube fra CTV viser hele messen på Petersplassen i dag. Selve messen er på ca to timer, men programmet begynner 40 minutter før, og etter messen er det ca en time med hilsener o.a.

Vi ønsker pave Benedikt «gratulerer med dagen» i dag. For meg har han vært den aller viktigste personen i Kirken helt siden jeg ble katolikk for snart 20 år siden.

Les om ham HER og HER (på engelsk) og se dokumenter og taler fra hans tid som pave HER.

Det har flere ganger blitt diskutert om Kirken bør eller kan få flere gifte prester. Det ble diskutert på bispesynoden om Eukaritisen i 2005, men da endte biskopene med å svare nokså negativt. Jeg har også i det siste hørt signaler om at Roma akkurat for øyeblikket vil være forsiktige med å gi dispensasjoner fra sølibatsplikten (som jeg fikk i 1999) – men i det anglikanske ordinariatet fikk man et par hundre gifte katolske prester for noen få år siden. Det er jo også en hel del praktiske utfordringer (og her er jeg selv igjen et eksempel) mht hvordan man skal bruke oh lønne en prest som har familie.

Men nå har det nettopp kommet nyheter om at pave Frans kanskje vil kunne åpne for flere gifte prester – slik leser vi i the Tablet:

A bishop who met with Pope Francis in a rare private audience on 4 April has said in an interview that the two men discussed the issue of the ordination of “proven” married men – viri probati – in a serious and positive way.

Bishop Erwin Kräutler, Bishop of Xingu in the Brazilian rainforest, spoke to the Pope about Francis’ forthcoming encyclical on the environment, and the treatment of indigenous peoples but the desperate shortage of priests in the bishop’s huge diocese came up in the conversation. According to an interview the Austrian-born bishop gave to the daily Salzburger Nachrichten on 5 April, the Pope was open-minded about finding solutions to the problem, saying that bishops’ conferences could have a decisive role. …..

I dag, fredag før Palmesøndag, sa pave Frans i prekkenen i sin morgenmesse (prekenreferat ved zenit.org):

Pope Francis said today during the homily of his morning Mass in the Casa Santa Marta that we are the victim of temptations because the devil doesn’t want our holiness.

The subject of the Pope’s homily was Satan, as Francis affirmed that Satan continues to exist today and it’s naive to ignore him. Pope Francis also said that if we listen to the Gospel, we can fight against his temptations.

Pope Francis acknowledged that the Christian life is one which involves constantly fighting against evil, just as this was true for Jesus’ life. The Pope underscored that, as Christians, we struggle against the devil and resisting his temptations.

He said, «We too are tempted. We too are the target of attacks by the devil because the spirit of evil does not want our holiness, he does not want our Christian witness, he does not want us to be disciples of Christ. And what does the Spirit of Evil do, through his temptations, to distance us from the path of Jesus? The temptation of the devil has three characteristics and we need to learn about them in order not to fall into the trap. What does Satan do to distance us from the path of Jesus?»

Pope Francis then answered: «Firstly, his temptation begins gradually but grows and is always growing. Secondly, it grows and infects another person, it spreads to another and seeks to be part of the community. And in the end, in order to calm the soul, it justifies itself. It grows, it spreads and it justifies itself.”

The Pope said Jesus’s first temptation was «like a seduction.» He reflected on the devil telling Jesus to throw himself down from the temple to prove to the people that he was the Messiah. However, Jesus did not listen. So, the devil left, came back with others, and pressured Jesus again, but with greater persistence. The Pope highlighted how the greatness of the temptation had magnified.

Continuing with his theme, the Pontiff said, «we have a temptation: it grows and infects others.» He gave an example, saying «Let’s look at gossip: I’m a bit envious of this or that person and at first I’m just envious inside and I need to share it and go to another person and say: “But have you seen that person?’.. and this gossip tries to grow and infects another and another… This is the way gossip works and all of us have been tempted to gossip! Maybe not one of you, if you’re a saint , but I too have been tempted to gossip! It’s a daily temptation. And it begins in this way, discreetly, like a trickle of water. It grows by infecting others and in the end it justifies itself.”

Concluding his address, the Holy Father gave some advice to those present: “We are all tempted because the law of our spiritual life, our Christian life is a struggle: a struggle. That’s because the Prince of this world, Satan, doesn’t want our holiness, he doesn’t want us to follow Christ. Maybe some of you might say: ‘But Father, how old fashioned you are to speak about the devil in the 21st century!’ But look out, because the devil is present! The devil is here… even in the 21st century! And we mustn’t be naïve, right? We must learn from the Gospel how to fight against Satan.”

Dette sa pave Frans tidligere (18/3) i årets fastetid:

Lent is a time to “adjust your life,” “to get closer to the Lord.” That was the message of Pope Francis at Mass this morning at Casa Santa Marta. The Pope warned against thinking of ourselves as “better than others.” The hypocrites, he warned, “disguise themselves as good people” and do not understand that no one is made just by his own efforts; we all need to undergo justification.

Pope Francis began his homily stressing “conversion” as the key word of Lent, a favourable time “to grow closer” to Jesus. Commenting on the First Reading, from the book of Isaiah, he said that the Lord calls two “sinful cities” like Sodom and Gomorrah to conversion. This shows us that we all “need to make a change of life,” to take a “good look into our soul” — where we always find something. The purpose of Lent, then, is precisely “to adjust my life,” to draw closer to the Lord. Jesus, the Pope said, wants to be close to us; He assures us the He is “waiting for us in order to forgive us.” However, he cautioned, the Lord wants “a sincere approach;” and warns us against being hypocrites …

Men det er ikke bare i fasten vi trenger å omvende oss, sier pave Frans i denne to uker gamle videoen:

John Allen regnes som en av de aller mest kunnskapsrike kirkejournalister, og han skriver i The Boston Globe (der han nylig er blitt ansatt) om det første året med pave Frans:

One year ago Thursday, a relatively obscure prelate from Argentina made his debut as the new leader of the world’s oldest Christian church, stepping out onto the fabled balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square and joking that his brother cardinals had gone to “the end of the earth” to find a pope.

For an institution legendary for taking itself rather seriously, that flash of humor alone communicated that this wasn’t going to be your grandfather’s kind of pontiff.

By taking the name Francis, the new pope awakened images of St. Francis, the beloved poor man of Assisi. He then knelt to ask the crowd to pray for him before imparting his official blessing, seemingly inaugurating a new era of papal humility. …

… The Boston Globe spoke to a dozen cardinals from various parts of the world in late February and early March. Based on that unscientific sample, reaction seems a mix of satisfaction and astonishment. While some admit to elevated blood pressure levels, there appears to be little buyer’s remorse — in part because having a popular pope simply makes their lives easier.

Few cardinals anticipated the way in which the new pontiff would capture the imagination of the world, or how quickly he would do it.

Asked if he would have predicted a year ago that the new pope would enjoy astronomic approval ratings and grace the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, vice president of the US bishops’ conference, could scarcely have been more definitive. “No, no, and no,” he told the Globe.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York amplified the point. “We knew we were electing a man of the poor, and we knew we were electing a good manager,” Dolan said. “We had no idea we were electing a rock star.”

Dolan’s experience is typical of many churchmen. He reports that when he does media interviews today, the questions generally aren’t about pedophile priests, crackdowns on nuns, or bruising political fights inside the Vatican. Instead, they’re largely adulatory inquiries about the new pontiff.

Cardinals also say that politicians and diplomats are less inclined to be hostile to church interests, because no one wants to be on the wrong side of a popular pope, and that when they mingle at the grass roots, even outside the confines of the church, they generally find delight. ….

…. Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto, admits that there have been times when the pope’s almost casual rhetorical turns and his spirit of openness have created heartburn.

“There have been things which are hard to explain,” Collins said, referring specifically to one of the headlines from an October interview Francis granted to a left-wing Italian paper: “God is not a Catholic.”

Still, Collins said, when he reads the full text of what Francis has said, as opposed to sound bites, he generally finds nothing to worry about. “You read the whole text and it’s great,” Collins said. “You may have to work a little harder to get the proper context, but it’s always there.” …

På www.chiesa kaller man de siste dagene av februar «Nine days of fireworks on the way», og forteller om fire hovedsaker som vi snart skal få oppleve:

To begin, from Monday the 17th to Wednesday the 19th there will be a meeting of the council of cardinals appointed ten months ago by Jorge Mario Bergoglio to help him in the governance of the universal Church and in the reform of the curia.

This is the third collegial meeting of the eight cardinals coordinated by the Honduran Salesian Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga. They will attend to the reform of the curia … …

… On Thursday the 20th and Friday the 21st of February there will be a meeting at the Vatican of all the cardinals, including the new ones who will formally receive the scarlet on Saturday the 22nd.

This is a consistory that, at the behest of Pope Francis, will discuss the pastoral care of the family. The only talk scheduled has been entrusted to German cardinal Walter Kasper, after which there will be ample space for free discussion. The debate promises to be rather heated, above all on access to the Eucharist for the divorced and remarried …

… On Saturday, February 22, the feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Pope Francis will create the first new cardinals of his pontificate and the following day, Sunday the 23rd, will celebrate a solemn Mass with them at Saint Peter’s.

The pontiff’s decision to destine most of the scarlet for pastors of Churches in the southern hemisphere is in effect unprecedented and recalls, as the signal of a sea change …

… Finally, on Monday the 24th and Tuesday the 25th of February there will be a meeting of the council of the general secretariat of the synod of bishops, coordinated by the new cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri.

That assembly will begin to evaluate the responses to the questionnaire concerning the upcoming extraordinary synod in October, also dedicated to the pastoral care of the family.

The episcopal conferences of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have already seen to spreading all over the world, through detailed press releases, the responses that have come to them, tipped very much out of balance toward the progressive side.

But this diffusion has been judged as a «unilateral initiative» and «not correct» by Baldisseri, who reiterated in an interview how the publication of these materials, which were supposed to have been sent «confidentially» to the Vatican, were by no means authorized. …