I’m old enough to remember when “Is the Pope Catholic?” was a Rhetorical Question

Posted: December 23, 2019 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine
Tags: , , ,

One of the advantages of actually reading scripture, having been brought up by devout Catholics and having a faithful priest is that if a Pope says something like this:

The first is all. In front of an unbeliever the last thing I have to do is try to convince him. Never. The last thing I have to do is speak. I have to live consistent with my faith. And it will be my testimony to awaken the curiosity of the other who says: “But why do you do this?” And yes, I can speak then. But listen: Never, never bring the gospel by proselytizing. If someone says they are a disciple of Jesus and comes to you with proselytism, they are not a disciple of Jesus. Proselytism is not done, the church does not grow by proselytism. Pope Benedict had said it, it grows by attraction, by testimony. Football teams proselytize, this can be done. Political parties, can be done there. But with faith there is no proselytism. And if someone says to me: “But why?” Read, read, read the Gospel, this is my faith. But without pressure.

emphasis mine

I can reference the opinion of a higher authority in the Church (again emphasis mine):

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.  When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.

Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go, therefore,  and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

Matt 28:16-20

Furthermore I recall a fellow named Paul who said this:

I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by (the) grace (of Christ) for a different gospel (not that there is another). But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach (to you) a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed!  As we have said before, and now I say again, if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed! Am I now currying favor with human beings or God? Or am I seeking to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ

St. Paul to the Galatians 1: 6-10 Emphasis mine

Now I don’t pretend to be anywhere near as well trained and educated in theology than the Holy Father nor more familiar with scripture as a whole but as a person with a Computer Science Degree I can certainly read and comprehend a plan set of instructions with the best of them.

So while the Holy Father’s words on living your faith and setting an example are well taken I think I’ll decline to share his advice to judge those who choose to spread the Gospel in the very way that the apostles were instructed by Christ.

Incidentally if you told me as little as ten years ago that I’d hear a Pope say something like this I wouldn’t have believed you, but I’m not worried.

Given the Catholic church survived the Romans, the Huns, the Rest of the Barbarians, the 1st Islamic Invasion, the Black Death, Napoleon, Hitler & the Cold War it’s certainly going to outlast Francis we’ve had 2000 years of Popes and lately we’ve had a good run of saintly ones so I guess we were overdue for a Lemon.

After all Lemon Pope is still the Pope until God decides he isn’t so I will endeavor to give all the respect that the chair of Peter set up by Christ himself deserves trusting that God knows what he’s doing even if I don’t.

And don’t forget pray for the Pope remembering that he is no more and no less deserving of and in need of the mercy of God than anyone else.

Update: Forgot to give a hat tip to Insty here, my bad.

Update 2: Lemon Pope? sounds like a song…

♬ Lemon Pope very iffy

And his message ain’t so sweet

but the truth of the old Gospel

Is impossible to beat ♬

I’m here all week, try the veal.

Review: The Two Popes

Posted: December 22, 2019 by John Ruberry in catholic, Church doctrine, culture, entertainment, media
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

“I’m not familiar with this part of the garden,” Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) tells Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) as they enter an area overrun by brush and deadwood in The Two Popes. Benedict then asks the Argentinian, “Which way?”

That garden, at the Vatican’s Palace of Castel Gandolfo outside of Rome, could rightly be called Benedict’s garden, as he was the Pope. Yet Benedict asks the man who ends up as his successor, Bergoglio, who became Pope Francis in 2013, for direction. Oops, I mean directions.

Clearly the scriptwriters and the director of The Two Popes favor the liberal leadership under Francis–the garden scene neatly ties up that sentiment in a bow.

Later, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio decries inequality, repeated images of ugly walls are shown.

The Two Popes is largely fictionalized story centered on the theological divide between the 265th and the 266th pontiffs. After a limited theatrical release, including a showing at the Chicago International Film Festival, which was sold out, preventing Mrs. Marathon Pundit from seeing it, the film debuted Friday on Netflix. The Two Popes is worth seeing, whether you are a Catholic or not, or a believer or not. The Welshmen in the lead roles, Hopkins and Pryce, provide superb performances. Of course Hopkins’ career has been justifiably rewarded, including gaining four Academy Award nominations, and winning the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Amazingly, despite stellar work in such movies as Something Wicked This Way Comes, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Pryce has never been honored with an Academy Award nomination. He deserves it for his performance as Francis, but my guess is that the Academy will overlook Pryce again.

The interplay–and the arguing–is what keeps The Two Popes going.

As for the fiction, there is plenty of it here. There were no long meetings between Benedict and Bergoglio; the catalyst for their movie summit was an offer of resignation from the cardinal, which is harshly rejected as a challenge to Benedict’s authority. The future Pope Francis turned 75 in 2011, it is customary for archbishops to retire at that age. It can be assumed that the pair never discussed the Beatles or their Abbey Road album. And it’s quite likely that Benedict’s favorite television show is not Kommisar Rex, an Austrian detective program where a German shepherd solves crimes. This sidetrack is probably a sly reference to Cardinal Ratzinger’s long term as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican under John Paul II, where he picked up the nickname “God’s Rottweiler.”

There are numerous flashback scenes involving Francis, including his early romance, his call to the priesthood, his muddled legacy from Argentina’s “Dirty War,” his rise, then fall, and his rise again within the Argentine Catholic Church. 

In the garden walk scene, Bergoglio condemns Benedict’s handling of the pedophile crisis within the priesthood, which included confession of the guilty–he calls it “magic words.” Benedict’s retort is harsh and telling, “Magic words, is that how you describe the sacrament?”

The Two Popes gives viewers plenty to think about. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Woke vs UnWoke Crime and Punishment

Posted: December 22, 2019 by datechguy in crime, culture, News/opinion
Tags: , , , ,

In Iowa last week a most extraordinary jail sentence was passed down.

Despite confessing to the crime on camera, Martinez pleaded not guilty and took the case to trial, where a jury convicted him. This pleased the church’s pastor, Eileen Gibbie, who told the Des Moines Register, “I often experienced Ames as not being as progressive as many people believe it is, and there still is a very large closeted queer community here. But 12 people that I don’t know, who have no investment in me or this congregation, said this man committed a crime and it was crime born of bigotry and hatred.”

This “crime born of hatred” was the burning of a rainbow flag that he stole from the Pastor’s church.

I’m not a fan of theft nor arson but I suspect that if Adolfo Martinez had stolen a American Flag from a Knights of Columbus Chapter and burned it the ACLU would be all over this case defending the burning of the US flag as his right of free expression and calling this sentence of travesty.

Instead the ACLU is silent as he is sentenced to more than double the six years that Donald Thurman was given for armed robbery.

What, you don’t know who Donald Thurman is? Well he is a young man who was released on parole a year ago after serving two year of a six year sentence for armed robbery and then did this:

Donald Thurman is a 26-year-old Chicago man who has been charged in the murder and sexual assault of University of Illinois at Chicago student Ruth George. The 19-year-old UIC student was raped and strangled in her own car in a university parking garage, police said.

Thurman followed George into the garage and then sexually assaulted and killed George because he was angry that she ignored his catcalls, prosecutors said in court, according to The Associated Press.

Thurman was taken into custody not long after George was found dead on Saturday, November 23. UIC Police identified Thurman as the suspect

The fact that you likely haven’t heard of this crime leaves Robert Stacy McCain perplexed:

Given how often feminists have expressed concern about “violence against women,” and considering how loudly feminists insist that sexual assault on university campuses is a problem deserving national attention, you might suppose that feminists would have mentioned this crime. And yet they remain strangely silent about it, for some reason.

Poor Miss George, if only Mr. Thurman had stolen and burned a rainbow flag instead of merely committing armed robbery he might have gotten a sentence long enough so that her family could have enjoyed her company at Christmas instead of mourning her death.

Alas we live in an era so woke that if a Billionaire Author who was once on welfare tweets that a woman shouldn’t be fired for asserting biological reality she must be ostracized so unless you have the right victim and the right perp some crimes are not only unworthy of national attention but are, unfortunately for Miss George and her family, unworthy of decade long sentences.

This incidentally will continue as long as we permit it

Pelosi Plays Her Role

Posted: December 21, 2019 by julietteochieng in Always look at the bright side of Trump, elections, News/opinion, politics, war
Tags: , , , , ,

Who will gavel who?

Nancy Pelosi during less stressful times — at least for her.

by baldilocks

Finger pointed forever.

“He just got impeached. He’ll be impeached forever. No matter what the Senate does. He’s impeached forever because he violated our Constitution,” she said.

Trump doesn’t care about the stigma of impeachment. He knew they were planning it before the election and, once he got elected, it was on.

Some of them even said so in public on Inauguration Day.

So, after the Mueller investigation came up empty, President Trump goaded them into doing it; he was the one who made sure that the second Ukraine call got into the hands of the “whistle-blower.” I theorized about this weeks ago.

He did it so that there would be a trial and, of course, during the trial, all eyes will be watching. That’s when all the things that our government has been doing to us will come out and those things will come out of the mouth of the President of the United States.

That’s when we’ll find out the height, weight, breadth and time length of all the graft and money-laundering that has been going on in the US government at least for the last 50 years, perpetrated by all three branches of government and by both parties.

Pelosi knows this and it’s why she’s holding up progress. The House voted in favor of impeachment and then promptly departed for Christmas break without sending the articles of impeachment to the senate, as is necessary for a true impeachment to occur.

She didn’t want the impeachment at all for this very reason. But her caucus is much dumber and more vocal than she is, so she had no choice. So, now she’ll play the role of Grand Impeacher of Trump and avoid sending the articles of impeachment to the senate for as long as she can. She knows it won’t last, but she’ll play Trump-slayer — figuratively speaking — while she can.

Her caucus and her constituency will buy this because they, too, care more  about looking tough against Trump, even while barely knowing anything about how the process is supposed to go. Fun fact: many Democrats thought that the House impeachment meant that President Trump was supposed to be immediately thrown out of office.

So, Pelosi will bask in the sunlight as Anti-Trump Champion while she can because she knows it will end soon.

How could she not know what’s coming? Thomas Wictor has been pointing out for months that President Trump plans to be the lone witness for the defense during the senate trial and once you see that and listen to what the president says about it, you’ll discover that he has warned the Democrats over and over again that this is what he will do.

But they are blind and deaf to their own error.

And here’s something interesting: the State of the Union address is coming up in February. On her way out the door for Christmas break, Speaker Pelosi invited President Trump to the House to give it, as if everything is normal.

Will that be the grand collision of powers? Will President Trump decide to spill the beans then?

This SOTU address will be an all-eyes-on-Trump affair, too, and I suspect that there will be a lot of misbehavior by the audience-in-attendance during that speech. The Speaker may be setting the President up for that, but I bet his set-up for her and for the rest of the Democrats will be grander, not to mention more effective than, say, Rashida Tlaib leading a screeching chorus of “IMPEACHED MOTHERF*CKER!!” (I hope they try that. Heh.)

Speaker Pelosi is correct in observing that President Trump will have the distinction that only two other presidents have. But I bet he will also have the distinction of showing the entire world how crooked those who claim to lead us and represent us have been for decades. If he does that, he’ll be by himself in history.

I think that he’ll do it and so does Madame Speaker, as do many of the other beak-wetters, past and present.

It’s why they have hated him from the beginning.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Update DTG: Instalanche, thanks Glenn. Nice to have you here, check out my five thoughts on impeachment, plus five key quotes from the Dem debate, let Jon test your knowledge of the Bill of Rights and let RH explain why we should call out Russia.

If you’re free Sunday from 6 AM to 8 AM EST listen to me guest host the Joe Mangiacotti show on the 50,000 watt WCRM AM 830 in Worcester MA and if you have any info on shoulder surgery either if you had surgery or used therapy instead let me know here.

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