Another interview with Pope Francis is circulating the interweb. I don’t imagine Jason and the Callers will be pleased. But I’m sure they will do their best to rescue the pope from error.
A few excerpts (the interviewer’s comments are in bold):
It’s a joke, I tell him. My friends think it is you want to convert me.
He smiles again and replies: “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.”Your Holiness, is there is a single vision of the Good? And who decides what it is?
“Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good.”Your Holiness, you wrote that in your letter to me. The conscience is autonomous, you said, and everyone must obey his conscience. I think that’s one of the most courageous steps taken by a Pope.
“And I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”Is the Church doing that?
“Yes, that is the purpose of our mission: to identify the material and immaterial needs of the people and try to meet them as we can. Do you know what agape is?”Yes, I know.
“It is love of others, as our Lord preached. It is not proselytizing, it is love. Love for one’s neighbor, that leavening that serves the common good.”Love your neighbor as yourself.
“Exactly so.”Jesus in his preaching said that agape, love for others, is the only way to love God. Correct me if I’m wrong.
“You’re not wrong. The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God. Abba, as he called the Father. I will show you the way, he said. Follow me and you will find the Father and you will all be his children and he will take delight in you. Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes.” . . .Do you feel touched by grace?
“No one can know that. Grace is not part of consciousness, it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge nor reason. Even you, without knowing it, could be touched by grace.”Without faith? A non-believer?
“Grace regards the soul.”I do not believe in the soul.
“You do not believe in it but you have one.”Your Holiness, you said that you have no intention of trying to convert me and I do not think you would succeed.
“We cannot know that, but I don’t have any such intention.”And St. Francis?
“He’s great because he is everything. He is a man who wants to do things, wants to build, he founded an order and its rules, he is an itinerant and a missionary, a poet and a prophet, he is mystical. He found evil in himself and rooted it out. He loved nature, animals, the blade of grass on the lawn and the birds flying in the sky. But above all he loved people, children, old people, women. He is the most shining example of that agape we talked about earlier.”
I don’t think this is what George Weigel had in mind for the new evangelization.
Update: once again, Francis has made statements that require folks without the appropriate pay grade to tell us what the pope really meant. Here is Jimmy Akin explaining what the chief explainer was supposed to have explained:
8) So what did Pope Francis mean by his comments on proselytization?
He and Scalfari were joking about converting each other in the interview, and Pope Francis assured Scalfari that he wasn’t going to strong-arm him to convert to Christianity right in the interview.
He said that employing such strong-arm tactics is “solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other.”Later he contrasted proselytization with the way Jesus preached the Gospel, which was based on love.
Finally, he emphasized: “I believe I have already said that our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope.”In other words, the Pope believes that evangelization should not involve trying to strong-arm people (proselytization) but that the Gospel should be preached with love and involve a dialogue in which Christians listening to unbelievers and their concerns and help them move toward Christ through a positive demonstration of word and action.
I do not know why St. Patrick sprinkling water on the Irish would be considered strong-arming. In the ex opere operato world of Roman Catholic sacramentalism, baptizing unconverted persons was the surest way to convert them. Baptismal efficacy was one of the reasons why Trent made provisions for non-priests, even Jews and infidels, to perform baptisms on unconverted persons near death. If salvation comes through the waters of baptism, and if the Roman Catholic Church operated according to that logic for almost a millennium, I am not sure why Pope Francis or his interpreters are looking for new ways to evangelize. It looks to this Old Lifer like Vatican II is baaaaack.
Old Life 
Is this guy the gift that keeps on giving or what. Could he be the best gift Roman Catholicism has ever given to the Reformed?
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Obviously running for PCUSA moderator. Bryan Cross is curled up in some holy corner in the fetal position. Don’t inhale one of those beads as you heave and sigh, BC.
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Dr. Hart,
You’re begging the question because Francis is not speaking ex cathedra. Don’t you get the power of the Blessed Principled Means? It is not applicable to everything the Papa says, it only applies under certain circumstances. I’m not sure where or when those circumstances are infallibly delineated, but you can ask the Pope if its unclear…unless he’s not speaking infallibly or if a later Pope explains that even though what he though he was infallibly teaching he actually wasn’t. Thank goodness for the BPM!
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Do you feel touched by grace?
“No one can know that. …”
No wonder Catholics are so screwed up.
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Far more than simply Vatican II is back:
Pope Francis: The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, Redux
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“Grace is not part of consciousness, it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge nor reason. Even you, without knowing it, could be touched by grace.”
– (Man to his wife) “Dang it, Martha, I think I’ve got a touch of grace again!”
– (elder to potential new member) “I realize that you can’t tell me anything about whether grace has touched you or not since its not a part of your consciousness, sooooooo . . . I guess you’re in! Congrats! You’re a member of Christ’s church!”
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It looks like “Pope Francis is Cleaning House“. He’s on the road to conciliarism, and from the interview, he seems to be quite determined. In the article mentioned in this comment, I’ve linked to the 2007 “Ravenna Document”, which has no official standing, and the Vatican website has put all sorts of disclaimers on it. But we could be soon partying like it’s the year 999. (Note to Zrim: Queue the artist formerly known as Prince!)
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I’m pretty sure the whole point of swimming the Tiber was to avoid private interpretation of infallible documents. Funny though… if Catholics aren’t exegeting Scripture then they’re exegeting the Pope’s words.
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The difference between Akin’s approach and Brandon’s above is telling. One is trying to show how the Pope is right in line with everything else, and you shouldn’t be concerned. The other immediately goes to the ex cathedra defense, which isn’t the first argument of someone who thinks that the Pope is saying things right in line with everything else. It is the first argument used when you bring up contradictory quotations between different Popes. I imagine that Akin’s argument is more amenable to the faithful, and Brandon’s is good for proselytization. In either case, I’m still confused on whether proselytization is acceptable to Romanists.
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Rod Dreher posted the following comparisons by one of his commenters:
These brought to mind Luther’s statement, “…to go against conscience is neither right nor safe…”
I mean it almost sounds to me as if Pope Francis is encouraging people to think for themselves. Next thing you know he will say that Christians have the responsibility to interpret the scriptures for themselves…
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Granted the disunity in Rome, is anyone else as amazed as I am that we have gone from Benedict, who didn’t want to call Protestant communions churches to Francis, who is just a hair this side of full-on universalism.
And we’re supposed to look at Rome and see the Church Christ founded.
Is it a sin to be so delighted in this turn of events?
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Hi Robert — I think it’s possible to have seen this coming. I frequently warned people, “what if you get a bad pope”. Would never have guessed that we’d get “this guy”, this quickly. It seems to me that this pope has a “good” heart — he wants good things for people. It’s hard to tell what kinds of things have influenced him. Postmodernism, certainly. It seems very possible to me that someone (or multiple someones) are already planning his demise. But “conciliarism” has never really been on anyone’s radar screen until he showed up. It’ll be interesting to see how far he goes in that direction.
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Hmm… a Pope Francis quote from the interview –
Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John [XXIII], decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.
Does he mean to say that the RCC erred (or at least veered off course a bit) in previously not being open to modernity with a ‘modern spirit’ (last 150 years) and not engaging Protestants in an ecumenical spirit (last 500 years)… as well as not “dialoguing” with unbelievers (last “2000” years)??
Calling all Callers…
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Not to mention… Is he saying that recent Popes didn’t have ‘the humility’ to do something about what he describes?
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Jack, I think this “ambition” actually makes him dangerous to conservative Roman Catholics. There is no telling where he will go. It really is a matter of Bergoglio saying “trust me on this, it won’t hurt a bit”.
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Thanks John, good point! You picked up on the on word I overlooked – maybe the most important…
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Possibly the more interesting part of the story is the reaction from Protestants back in the States. Few are doing what this blog is doing as almost poking fun at those who thought Rome was a true church. Instead, many are outraged that the Pope would lean toward such relativism and post-modernism.
This is what happens when Protestants abandon their Confessions, Catechisms, and Scripture to instead think of the gospel as political and team up with Roman Catholics on things like the Manhattan Declaration.
When the drive by media turns the topic back to theology many Protestants act shocked at just what the Roman Catholic pope is saying. This recent stuff is mild compared to past Papal statements. Folks do realize this is the same “church” that added books to the Bible in the 1500s, came up with Purgatory, and think dead people perform miracles, right?
It was for legitimate theological reasons that WCF 24:3 stated: “And therefore such as profess the true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, papists, or other idolaters: “
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I don’t imagine Jason and the Callers will be pleased.
One, they’re hard to please.
Two, Jason’s busy ignoring the obvious and gearing up to try to convince folks that the Lord’s supper really, really is a sacrifice due to the OT usage of altar and table.
Francis baby?
He’s infallible, dude. Don’t you know?
The MOC checked out, the astrological signs are auspicious and implicit faith, well it is what it is.
You prots think you can reason us out of Rome, but we are real happy and deluded here.
ciao
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Bob,
Oh, I don’t know that they’re that hard to please. You just need to embrace the principled distinction for knowing how the square pegs fit into the round holes when it comes to Roman doctrine, Scripture, and history. With the callers there to show us the way, it isn’t that hard. Just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
In the principled distinction of pretentious papalism.
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sdb, interpret Scripture? Heck, why not form your own canon?
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Robert, it strikes me that John Paul and Benedict were not all that particularist. Lots of universalism there. But they did tow the line on sex and marriage — all that theology of the body. Which may explain why so many RC spokespeople talk about celibacy and pro-life as matters of orthodoxy.
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Dr. Hart,
Oh, JPII was most definitely a universalist, or at least an inclusivist, which is just a universalist who won’t admit it. I’d say Benedict was a bit less so, though after V2 I don’t know how any RC could not be a universalist. I only say that of Benedict because of his hesitation to call Protestant communions churches. Seems like he, more than JPII, was trying to put more of an emphasis on Rome, though admittedly there is no real foundation for that in modern RC. Benedict also said a few things about Islam that were decidedly not PC, and it’s hard for me to imagine JP2 saying them.
What strikes me is that Benedict was hardcore on the celibate priesthood, sex, and marriage, and the new pope’s comments seem decidedly less so. Seems like an awfully fast change from one perspective, but given that these undercurrents have always been there, it does make some sense that the new guy looks to be calling the principled paradigm of perfection into question.
It’ll be interesting to see how and if Jason and the Callers respond to this latest interview.
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Pope Francis probably dislikes the Right Wing. He spent his life in a milieu opposed to “the grim acquistive” convert type.
Always welcomed were the converts who retained their soft-spot for the “old theological life.” They made the best additions: Scripture savvy but unwilling to whore it out. Getting the non-elect inside to realize how right it is to be hated, alongside Esau, by the God of the Gaps and summon up the courage to say goodbye.
May the bastard wing of converts reach for the staff of authority and be chastened by it to within an inch of the collapse of their private judgement.
Shorter version: cradles have always disliked loud-mouthed, aggressive converts alongside loud-mouthed aggressive cradles. Neither is allowed at table for a reason and Pope Francis is reminding everyone of that.
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Well, at least now we know why Ratzinger ran against him in 2005. But of course they are on the same page and intend the same outcome of their papacy. It’s incredibly ironic that the ‘catch more than you learn’ crowd never saw this coming because they weren’t there to ‘catch’ it in the first place. Cradles rule, converts drool.
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OK Robert, they are not hard to please when it comes to convincing themselves,
but when it comes to holding protestantism’s feet to the fire, they got a blowtorch and a gleam in their eye.
For instance, the head caller is arguing now that on the basis of Heb. 13: 10,15 – the plainly figurative “we have an altar” and the exhortation to “offer a sacrifice
of praiseto God,that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name” – means we ought to bring bread and wine to be sacrificed by the priest today just like they did it in the apostolic olden days.I can feel my paradigmatic headache returning.
As in only on the innurnet does such schlock obtain for an argument, right?
We need a theological Margaret Sanger to enforce some euthanistic sanctions in weeding out the more mediocre eucharistic ponderings.
Wait, maybe Francis will fire up the
Tribunal of the Holy Office of the InquisitionCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith once again and dissolve all in the Vat2 dialectic.LikeLike
Occasional commenter Aimee Bird interviewed on Reformed Forum:
http://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc297/
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dgh: I do not know why St. Patrick sprinkling water on the Irish would be considered strong-arming. In the ex opere operato world of Roman Catholic sacramentalism, baptizing unconverted persons was the surest way to convert them. Baptismal efficacy was one of the reasons why Trent made provisions for non-priests, even Jews and infidels, to perform baptisms on unconverted persons near death….salvation comes through the waters of baptism, and … the Roman Catholic Church operated according to that logic for almost a millennium…
mark: I do not know why Peter Leithart defended Constantine when Constantine refused to be baptized until almost the end of his life (when he took off the purple). Constantine was not even a Christian yet when he sacrificed the lives of his enemies (including wife and children) and began to act as a bishop in the Church. How do we know? Not because of his continual sacrifices, of course. But because Constantine has not been baptized in order to be saved from original sin.
Leithart, Defending Constantine, p341–“All baptisms are infant baptisms.”
mark–what is the meaning of the EXPERIENCE of the parents when their infant is watered? A compulsory belonging to the entire society? Or a compulsory gesture which is the beginning of a re-socialization into a church which refuses to be a chaplain (or a prophet) to “the culture”?
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Squaw, nice to hear from you. “May the bastard wing of converts reach for the staff of authority and be chastened by it to within an inch of the collapse of their private judgement.” That rivals our favorite trophy Protestant convert, Sean.
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Leithart, Against Christianity, p 97–“Biblical religion is emasculated by (voluntary) intellectualization and/or privatization….Transformation of life is not an implication of the gospel but is the gospel. The good news is about transformation of life.”
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McMark, oldlife is the gospel. straight face.
not
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Leithart, I and 2 Kings, p163—“God does not play softball. God is a warrior who fights to win, and deception is part of God’s art of Holy War.”
Leithart’s mentor, John Milbank, “power is necessary for peace”—It is Christ’s kingly role which is eternal, and not his mediating priestly role…The uncomfortable HISTORICAL FACT is the debt we owe to kings. Should Christian kings have simply laid down their swords? if one feels that laying down their swords would have ensured their salvation, then one has to add that their laying down their swords would have rendered impossible our own salvation within the course of historical time.”
mark: So much for Christ’s cross-work and the martyrs! Why don’t we all simply give up our individualism and desire for private salvation and bow before Milbank’s “historical facts”. And also his conjectures about what “would have” happened…..When the “secular” is just about to triumph, what “gospel” will work to keep that from happening?
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After months of courting and negotiations, Jason and the Callers make it official:
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/10/called-to-communion-welcomes-jason-stellman/
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Robert the dynamic is still odd to me. I know what devout, latin-rite RC looks and acts like, and it still doesn’t behave like CtC and even less Jason. More and more I see protestant fundy, but not backwater types, it’s analytic theology adherents, who on the other side of the apologetic facade are losing themselves in the mysticism of the mass and eucharist, which is why the latin-rite is their nirvana. I don’t even think this is what anglo-catholics really function like. Talk about a group who is a sliver of a slice of a part of a half.
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To D.G.: I’ve been reading you for some time now and I like Old Theological Life. I appreciate the piety and knowledge I find inside.
To all: Based on my own experience of fleeing communion, it can’t be examined without first examining the simultaneity of its creeping agnosticism so that when you arrive –it’s not a conversion; Geneva or Rome to Jerusalem would be a conversion- you do so with “a monkey on your back” as one Lutheran put it. My simpler formulation is that you arrive with something dark to disprove. And if you try too hard to disprove it, the settled and peaceful communion you flee to recognizes that something is terribly wrong.
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sean, you missed the upgrade.
What was implicit faith is now implicit fanboys.
Invincible ignorance?
Well some paradigms are obviously more paradigmatic than others.
And your motive of credibility is showing.
Just so you know.
(Ain’t humble arrogance grand?)
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From a Roman Catholic who happens also to be a writer at National Review, an opinion magazine that almost always leans favorably toward the RCC:
It would help… if Pope Francis spoke about these matters with more care and precision. “We don’t want this globalized economic system that does us so much harm. At its center there should be man and woman, as God wants, and not money.” These are not intelligible propositions; they do not help us think through any actual challenges in our economic or moral life. To what is “this globalized economic system that does us so much harm” supposed to refer? If the criticism is not meant to imply support for tariffs or regret for the expansion of markets to new parts of the world, then what does it mean? Wouldn’t any economic system have at its center the question of how men and women make and use money? The interpretive challenge of filling these words with actual intellectual content can perhaps be met; but only through an extreme act of charity.
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Jack, here’s a little background on the Jesuits and Francis. Ratzinger was actually wary of Francis and willfully ran against him in 2005. You aren’t a Jesuit in Latin America much less a superior and NOT a liberation theologian.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1303902.htm
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Sean,
I’ve seen you and others state that Ratzinger ran against Bergoglio in 2005. I’m not necessarily surprised, just curious as to your sources for this.
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Robert, vatican journalists, I believe NCR and Italian newspapers. La Repubblica is a good source, they’re the ones who have been conducting recent interviews with both living popes.
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hi sean… yeah, I’ve pretty much gotten the low-down on Francis’ Jesuit/liberation theology leanings. What gets me on the above quote is the “interpreter” of RCC doctrine is apparently reciting vague, left leaning economic boilerplate that isn’t clear and thus is in need of interpretation or remediation!
To me, this is another bit of light that exposes the thin reed of papal infallibility. Not that his statement was put forth as an infallible; rather – if he can’t be clear enough for Ramesh Ponnuru (a Roman Catholic and writer on economic matters) to understand, then “papal infallibility” apparently has little to do with the real man in the office and everything to do with the papal occupant just getting zapped from above at a moment of inspiration and becoming a different man who then is able to authoritatively and rightly divide the Word of God. I guess one can debate the clarity issue in even those moments (how many have there been?)…
I’m reminded the old Kathryn Kuhlman healings where one is told that God has lengthened his shorter leg to be equal to the other even though the evidence shows otherwise. “Just believe it! It’s true! God has healed you” Doesn’t matter if the evidence shows otherwise or that it doesn’t make any sense. You’re just thinking too rationally and with not enough blind faith…
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Robert, here you go;
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/papabile-day-men-who-could-be-pope-13
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Here’s an interpretation of the “interpreter’s” words on the above mentioned economics from Stephen P. White, a fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360318/re-pope-and-his-politics-stephen-p-white
Interpretation 101 – http://youtu.be/-xLUEMj6cwA
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Sean — I’m not sure about your phrase “willfully ran against him” — Its not like Ratzinger wasn’t already the leading contender. I don’t know how they do their choosing, but my understanding is that you don’t “willfully run” for pope. There would certainly be jostling, but there’s also the saying, something about “being pope going into the conclave and a cardinal coming out of it” — meaning precisely that those having the ambition to be the pope are often rejected.
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“those having the ambition to be the pope are often rejected.”
Awwwww maaaaannnnn! I was hoping that someday I would be the first Protestant Pope! Vaty II opened the doe, yo!
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John, I understand your point. However, after reading a number of articles by journalists assigned to the Vatican and reading through the tenure of Ratzinger’s role as head of the CDF and whether one is revisiting incidents such as, Kung’s dismissal or Ratzinger’s regard for the first 50 years post Vat II as a ‘virtual’ or media creation and only now were we seeing the ‘real’ spirit of Vat II(under his papacy, particularly). I find the claims by many observers that Ratzinger actively politicked for the office and particularly that he presented himself as a conservative bulwark against the liberalism of the ‘spirit of Vat II’ adherents and now as a pope emeritus remaining in Vatican city with his dosier of inside information on the curia and HIS personal secretary serving in the same capacity to Francis, as all lending not only plausibility, but probability to the idea that Ratzinger viewed/views himself as a necessary principal in preserving RC. I think when his own butler undid him, the burden of his age and the depth of corruption he was actually up against drove him to quit.
There’s no question Francis’ papacy is neither the style nor substance of Ratzinger’s and that ideologically, at least as regards the role of the office, it is readily apparent that they inhabit each other’s contrary position of the post.
Course that’s an opinion and I could be wrong. But I doubt it.
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I should say it’s not my opinion. It’s more the observations and insights of many who have a better view of it than you or I. And the behavior and reporting seem to back it up.
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Sean,
Well, since you have no principled way to separate your opinion from divine truth, you are simply begging the question and doing so uncharitably.
In the principled distinction of pretentious papalism
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Jack,
“papal infallibility” apparently has little to do with the real man in the office and everything to do with the papal occupant just getting zapped from above at a moment of inspiration and becoming a different man who then is able to authoritatively and rightly divide the Word of God. I guess one can debate the clarity issue in even those moments (how many have there been?)…
Well, since I had one RC tell me that the pope can be fallible even when he thinks he is infallible, you are exactly right. Just don’t ask me how an infallible man who is fallible about when he is infallible is supposed to make me feel better or think Rome has something Geneva doesn’t.
What strikes me about all of these Prot-Catholic converts is the wish fulfillment syndrome. They really, really, really need the visible church to be infallible to feel intellectually and spiritually fulfilled, so they’ll invest so much stock in a theory that has no actual value on the street and that no one raised as a RC actually believes anyway. What good is infallibility when the infallible Magisterium can’t really be understood without the fallible Jason and the Callers?
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Robert… What good is infallibility when the infallible Magisterium can’t really be understood without the fallible Jason and the Callers?
Indeed, well said!
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Sean: I find the claims by many observers that Ratzinger actively politicked for the office and particularly that he presented himself as a conservative bulwark against the liberalism of the ‘spirit of Vat II’ adherents and now as a pope emeritus remaining in Vatican city with his dosier of inside information on the curia and HIS personal secretary serving in the same capacity to Francis, as all lending not only plausibility, but probability to the idea that Ratzinger viewed/views himself as a necessary principal in preserving RC.
The first part of this statement certainly seems more plausible, and I’ve seen some of the comments to the effect that Ratzinger “retired” in order to keep an eye on things, but I still wonder how much of an effect that the ailing Ratzinger can possibly have at this point.
“Francis” does seem to be “the spirit of Vatican II” run amok.
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Word of advice from Roman Catholic convert Ramesh Ponnuru that the “Callers” converts would be wise to consider:
More generally, I think that people should not let the laudable instinct to read the Pope’s statements charitably become an obligation to defend everything he says.
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Sean, and others who know: Does the “assumption of Mary” mean that Mary didn’t die? At any rate, the Wheaton professor who teaches the course on Mary says that doctrine is “within the bounds of orthodoxy”.
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Mark: Does the “assumption of Mary” mean that Mary didn’t die?
If you look at the original document, Munificentissimus Deus, there is only one small portion of it that Roman Catholics claim to be “infallible” in the sense described at Vatican I — and that is the very small paragraph near the end which reads:
So note that it doesn’t say whether she died or not. It only makes one claim — the issue with that one claim is that it is “a divinely revealed dogma”. For Protestants, only Scripture is “divinely revealed”.
At any rate, the Wheaton professor who teaches the course on Mary says that doctrine is “within the bounds of orthodoxy”.
It depends on what he means by “orthodoxy”. Those who hold to Sola Scriptura say that no, this is not in the Scriptures, and nor is it something that “by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”.
In the Munificentissimus Deus document, the main line of reasoning is that “we’ve always held that God did good things for Mary, that she was important — this is just sort of the necessary capstone of all the things that round out the supernatural aspects of her life as ‘Mother of God'”.
The absolutely heinous thing about Rome is that it requires that “the faithful” believe this with the assent that it is “divine revelation”. It has been known for a long time that this notion about Mary first saw the light of day in fifth-century Gnostic literature. But it caught on among the popular masses.
The Eastern Orthodox, too, hold that Mary was taken bodily into heaven at the end of her life. They don’t make it a dogma, however.
(And this is a point at which, I think, confessional Protestants play into Roman hands — in the thinking that the church — in whatever form — has the authority to bind consciences as to what God is or isn’t saying).
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But what about following Jesus or praying to Mary?
In a recent interview, Pope Francis offered 10 guidelines to achieving greater happiness. These included:
Live and let live;
Be giving of yourself to others;
Be kind, humble, and calm;
Have a healthy sense of leisure;
Make Sundays a day for family time, not work;
Find dignified work for young people;
Care for creation;
Let go of the negative;
Inspire through witness and engage in dialogue; and
Promote peace.
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I count 14 exhortations or nuggets of life advice there. Sounds Californian.
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Bait and switchNew evangelism in Chicago (and Germany):LikeLike