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Opinion: Pontiff’s declaration that he’s a sinner isn’t merely an affectation
The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope and head of the Catholic Church on 13 March this year seemed unprepossessing. His record as head of the Jesuit order in Argentina during the period of the “dirty war” was, in the estimation of many, disreputable. During that period, state terrorism against political dissidents resulted in the murder of between 15,000 and 30,000 dissidents, including trade unionists, journalists, and students. He was head of the Jesuit order in Argentina during much of this period and he never spoke out against the dictatorship.
Along with all the appointees of Pope John Paul II, he toed the line on homosexuality, abortion, contraception, divorce, married priests, and, of course, the ordination of women. There were early signs in his pontificate that he might be different from his predecessors in style. Reportedly, he refused to wear the sumptuous papal cape for his appearance on the balcony at St Peter’s Basilica on his election and made phone calls personally to “ordinary” people. He refused to live in the lavishly-decorated Papal Apartments, insisting on one of the guest houses where he dines with others who happen to be staying there.
Nevertheless, the orthodoxy seemed to persist. He reiterated a rebuke to the US Leadership Conference of Women Religious previously issued by his predecessor Benedict XVI… feminist influences tinged the sisters, focused on ending social and economic injustices and not sufficiently on abortion. Yet, then, there was the interview, published last week in Jesuit magazines globally, where he revealed himself as self-questioning, self-critical, sceptical of “certainties” , open to contradiction, and deeply influenced by Western élite culture… art, classical music, poetry, literature, typical influences of an upper middle-class upbringing. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is different and more interesting than some of us thought.
Asked, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” he appeared surprised by the question. He thought about it and replied, “I’m a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It isn’t a figure of speech, a literary genre. I’m a sinner”. This frank acknowledgement of his inadequacy is almost startling and unusual for anybody. If a pope ever said it previously, it’d be hard to believe it wasn’t an affectation, but here, it seems, it isn’t. There is something convincing, too, about what he said his feelings were on being elected pope. He said that on visits to Rome he’d visited the Church of St Louis of the French, where there’s a painting by Caravaggio, The Calling of St Matthew, which depicts a story from the Gospel according to Matthew, “Jesus saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom house, and said to him, ‘Follow me’, and Matthew rose and followed Him”. Matthew was a tax collector and the paining shows him with four other men, gathering money, and Jesus pointing at him. Pope Francisco said that he felt like how Caravaggio depicted Matthew, as feeling a sense of resignation and awe.
Throughout the interview, he spoke about community, how he feels a sense of loss without it. When he spoke about infallibility, he spoke in terms of the Christian community being infallible (“all the faithful considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief”). That strong sense of community is so much at variance with the ethos of our time, in which we see people as individuals, pared off from society, pursuing individual agendas and interests. He said at one point, “I can’t live my life without others”. He said at another, “No one’s saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us, looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships”. Even for those of us among the “faithless”, this is stirring stuff, challenging the “common sense” of our time.
Pope Francisco spoke movingly about his mother and father and, particularly, of his grandmother, Rosa, “who loved me so much”. He spoke of the Catholic Church which, “sometimes locked itself up in small things”, and, later, “We can’t insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods”. There are dark passages too. He talks of “female machismo” in a dismissive reference to feminism, “A woman has a different make-up to a man”. He should be encouraged to read Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble. This is followed by blather on a new theology of women, diverting attention from the scandal of the church’s promotion in its ceremonies, organisation, and culture of the supposed inferiority of women. The stuff about charity is also discomforting… why the rephrasing of Paul’s “faith, hope, and love” to “faith, hope, and charity?”
However, that aside, this is a welcome clear and honest voice for decency.
25 September 2013
Vincent Browne
The Irish Times
Editor’s Note:
Francisco reminds one of John Paul I (Albino Luciani). Remember this… the cardinals elected both men. Yes, they elected Ratzinger and Wojtyła… but they also elected Luciani and Bergoglio. Many sane Catholics want the abortion, contraception, and homosexual madness to end. Mind you, the Catholic Church isn’t going to embrace abortion… it won’t “normalise” homosexuality… but it can abolish Humanae Vitae, it can take a more accommodating attitude to homosexuals (similar to HH’s, “We respect all human choices, including those of sexual orientation. However, we reserve the right to call sin a ‘sin’”), and it can tone down the abortion rhetoric. Don’t forget… Francisco did say openly, “I’m not a rightwinger”. At present, the US Catholic bishops are in bed with the very neocons who’ve interfered in Latin America for years. Oh, yes, Francisco IS a Latin American, isn’t he? That may come back to haunt them.
It’ll be interesting in the Vatican for some time yet. One last thing… none of the American bishops has followed their pope’s example. They all live high, they all have ostentatious chauffeured limos, they all suck up to Establishment politicians, and they all move in all the “right” circles. Is Francisco going to appoint men of his ilk? Time will tell us…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
The New Pope and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church: From the “Economist”… Not Spot-On at All, but it’s a “Read n’ Heed”
Tags: Catholic Church, Christian, Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Church, Galicia, Galician Uniate, Jorge Bergoglio, Kievan Rus, Moscow Patriarchate, Orthodox, Orthodoxy, political commentary, politics, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, right-wing, Russia, Russian, Russian Orthodox Church, Soviet Union, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Ukraine, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Unia, Uniate, Uniates, Western Ukraine
This is a typical Galician Uniate nutter… can you truly take such sorts seriously? After all, they DID collaborate quite willingly with the Nazis…
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Editor’s Foreword:
Here’s another piece to read n’ heed… its wrong, but it tells you the viewpoint of the papists and the Anglosphere élite, and that’s a good thing to know. Caveat lector…
BMD
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Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, recently expressed hope that the new pope, Francisco Bergoglio, will continue the policy of rapprochement with the Orthodox Church and that he won’t support, what [Hilarion] calls the expansion of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics, saying, “The Unia is the most painful topic in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, in relations between the Orthodox and the Catholics. If the pope supports the Unia, then, of course, it’d bring no good”. The metropolitan is worried… it’s said that the new pope has an affinity for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). So much so, that one Russian commentator claimed that in Francisco, “we have a Ukrainian pope”. This may worsen relations between Orthodox and Catholics.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church confuses most outsiders; it’s an Eastern rite church in communion with the Vatican. Drawing on the Christian legacy of medieval Kievan-Rus‘, it was officially founded through the 1596 Union of Brest (hence, the church’s other widespread name, Uniate). “Greek” was added later to distinguish it from the Roman Catholic Church. Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the UGCC, said that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the new pope, had a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest as his mentor, and is familiar with the Church’s rites, says . Previously, Major Archbishop Shevchuk served in Buenos Aires and got to know the future pope there. Many in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church hope that Francisco would elevate it to a patriarchate, from its status as a Major Archiepiscopate. Today, Greek Catholics make up about 15 percent of the Ukrainian population. Most of them live in the west of the country, including the city of Lvov, and they have a strong presence in the Ukrainian diaspora. After almost half a century of persecution under Soviet rule, the Church resurfaced as one of the pillars of national identity in the Western Ukraine. It’s an influential force here, although it has kept its distance from politics.
Someone once quipped, “In the rest of the Ukraine, religious people go to church; in Lvov, everyone goes to church”. The city is famous for its panoply of churches, most of them now Greek Catholic, although it still has both a Roman Catholic and an Armenian cathedral. Up until 1941, Lvov was also an important centre of the Jewish religion. In the mornings, the sound of the liturgy, sung in Ukrainian, spills out into the cobbled streets. Lvov Business School, part of the Ukrainian Catholic University, affiliated with the [Ukrainian Greek Catholic] Church, combines business education with ethics. Sophia Opatska, the School’s chief executive, said that they try to encourage “trust, openness, and ethics” in the new generation of business leaders, to help change negative trends in the Ukraine. She added that this is especially important in the Ukraine, where “business often takes on social and economic responsibilities that belong to government in democratic countries”.
On 7 April, crowds of Greek Catholics joined a procession through Lvov representing the Way of the Cross, slowing down traffic. The Church’s leaders have already invited Pope Francisco to visit the Ukraine. The new pope himself has made no special mention of the Ukraine since his election as the Ukrainian media pointed up. All the same, many of Ukraine’s Greek Catholics eagerly await the visit of Pope Francisco, the closest they’ve had to a Ukrainian pope.
12 April 2013
The Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/04/ukraines-greek-catholic-church
Editor’s Afterword:
The Galician Uniates are the Great White Hope of not only the papists, but of the American rightwing. Indeed, they wish to separate Orthodox in the Ukraine from the MP and entice them into the Western-dominated Unia. Such is their project; it’s clear to all concerned. I’ll predict that its only result will be a strengthening of Orthodoxy and a rededication to our opposition of the Unia and all its works. The Westerners and righties will regret having stirred up this pot… they’ll have woken up a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve. Thus always to tyrants and their machinations…
Oh, one last thing… do note the deafening silence by the author on the Orthodox clergy killed and the churches stolen or destroyed by Western-financed Uniate mobs… in the West’s eyes, some people ARE “more human” than others are. None dare call it what it is… after all, the West doesn’t engage in such things, dontcha know (their media tells us so daily, doesn’t it?)…
BMD