More Meddling Catholics:
Showing posts with label Eugenio Scalfari. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eugenio Scalfari. Show all posts
Friday, March 30, 2018
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Scalfari writes, “Francis agrees with Lutheran theses”
Inventor of Christianity? On December 17th, the anti-Catholic Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, to whom Pope Francis talks regularly, revealed in La Repubblica how Francis answered the question which saint he prefers. Francis said, “The first is obviously Paul. He is the one who constructed our religion.”
Lutheran theses coincide with what happened in the first centuries: At the end of his article, Scalfari writes, "In the early centuries of Christianity, the sacraments were celebrated directly by the faithful and the priests only served.” Scalfari continues, “Francis agrees on these Lutheran theses that coincide with what happened in the first centuries." The Vatican did not deny Scalfari’s claims.
“When Pope Francis participated in the celebration of Martin Luther and his Reformation it captured the essence of the Lutheran thesis: the identification of the faithful with God with no need of intermediation of the clergy but occuring directly. [from the people] This brings us to the one God and assigns a secondary role to the priesthood. So it was in the early centuries of Christianity, when the sacraments were celebrated directly by the faithful and priests only did the service. Francis agrees on these Lutheran theses that coincide with what happened in the first centuries.”
Scalfari: “80 years of my revolutionary Pope”
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Francis does interview #3 gazillion with his favorite atheist
BOMBS AWAY!!!
Uh oh, another Francis interview with the revolutionary atheist, Eugenio Scalfari. We can already hear the conservatives in the Novus Ordo lamenting...it doesn’t count! Scalfari doesn’t take notes or record his interviews, he does them all from memory! Well, whoopee! Isn’t it possible that Scalfari is 100% accurate with his published interviews, after all the man might possess a phenomenal photographic memory. Even if he doesn’t, Francis keeps going back to Eugenio Scalfari for interview after interview after interview ad nauseam. And remember, Francis has also repeatedly stated that the only newspaper which he reads every day is La Repubblica where Scalfari often publishes his pieces with Francis. So the Novus Ordo conservatives can’t play the Francis is ignorant damage control card. Without further ado, we present Scalfari’s interview with Francis below. This interview was published on 11 November 2016 in La Repubblica and also in the L'Osservatore Romano of 12 November 2016 on page 5.
Pope Francis: "Trump? I do not judge. I care only if he makes the poor suffer"
In his encounter with Eugenio Scalfari the Pope urges Catholics to become engaged in politics again: "Not for power but to tear down walls and inequalities"
Eugenio Scalfari — 11 novembre 2016
I AM WRITING this article the day after Donald Trump's unexpected election victory over Hillary Clinton. But my topic is not what has happened in America but a long-awaited invitation for a meeting with Pope Francis. I had a long phone call with him the previous week because His Holiness wanted to discuss the visit that he would have three days later in Sweden with the Lutheran World Federation and the reform that gave rise to the Lutheran churches half a millennium ago. I refer to this conversation just to explain that although I am honoured to receive frequent phone calls from Pope Francis, we have not met in person for over a year. So I was very pleased to receive his invitation.
We met on Monday 7th and were together for over an hour. Two days earlier, on Saturday 5th, the Pope had met with representatives of the Popular Movements. These are movements with hundreds of thousands of adherents in the main Christian countries. Pope Francis’s speech to these volunteers of the faith takes up six pages of [Vatican daily] L'Osservatore Romano. Of course, when we met two days later, I had already read the full text of that speech. I have often written that Francis is a revolutionary, but this was beyond revolution... And now let's see how and why.
***
We embraced each other after a long time. “You look well,” he said.
You also look well, despite your continuing hardships.
«It is the Lord who decides.»
And “our sister bodily death”.
“Yes, bodily.”
The conversation was immediately profound.
Your Holiness - I asked him - what do you think of Donald Trump?
“I do not pass judgment on people and politicians, I simply want to understand the suffering that their approach causes the poor and excluded”.
What is your main concern at the moment?
“The question of refugees and immigrants. Only a small proportion of them are Christians, but this does not change the situation as far as we are concerned, or their suffering and distress. The causes are many and we are doing everything possible to remove them. Unfortunately, often these policies are opposed by populations that are afraid of losing jobs and of lower wages. Money is against the poor as well as against immigrants and refugees, but there are also poor people in rich countries who fear the arrival of their fellows from poor countries. It is a vicious circle and it must be broken. We must break down the walls that divide us: we must try to increase well-being and make it more widespread, but to achieve this we need to break down walls and build bridges that allow us to reduce inequality and increase freedom and rights. More rights and greater freedom".
I asked Pope Francis if the reasons that force people to emigrate will be exhausted sooner or later. It is hard to understand why a man, a family or entire communities and peoples want to abandon their homeland, the places where they were born, their language.
You, Your Holiness, through those bridges, will facilitate the re-uniting of those desperate people, but inequalities are born in rich countries. There are laws that try to reduce the gap but they do not have much effect. Will this phenomenon never end?
“You have written and spoken several times about this problem. One of the phenomena that inequality encourages is the movement of peoples from one country to another, from one continent to another. After two, three, four generations, these peoples are integrated and their diversity tends to completely disappear".
I call it a universal miscegenation in the positive sense of the term.
“Bravo, that is the right word. I do not know if it will be universal but it will be more prevalent than today. What we want is a battle against inequality, this is the greatest evil that exists in the world. It is money that creates it and that goes against those measures that try to make wealth more widespread and thus promote equality".
You told me some time ago that the precept, “Love your neighbour as thyself” had to change, given the dark times that we are going through, and become “more than thyself.” So you yearn for a society where equality dominates. This, as you know, is the programme of Marxist socialism and then of communism. Are you therefore thinking of a Marxist type of society?
“It it has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom".
Your Holiness, I have always thought and written that you are a revolutionary and even a prophet. But it seems that now you would like the Popular Movements and especially the poor to enter directly into politics proper.
“Yes, that is correct. Not petty politics – squabbling over power, selfishness, demagogy, money – but higher, creative, politics, the politics of great visions. That which Aristotle wrote about".
I saw that in your speech to the Popular Movements last Saturday you called the Ku Klux Klan, and the similar but opposite Black Panthers, shameful movements.
But you said Martin Luther King was admirable. Was he another prophet who made an impression because of what he said in a free America?
“Yes, I quoted him because I admire him".
I read the quotation; I think it is worth recalling for those reading this account of our meeting.
“When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system [...] hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil".
And now let’s return to politics and your wish that the poor and the excluded transform that politics into a democratic will to realise the ideals and the will of the popular movements. You advocated an interest in politics because it is Christ who wants it. “The rich must pass through the eye of a needle”. Christ wants it not because he is the son of God but above all because he is the son of man. But there will be a clash, power is at stake, and power, as you have said yourself, implies war. So popular movements must wage a war, albeit political, without weapons and without bloodshed?
“I have never thought of war and weapons. Blood yes, may be shed, but it will be Christians who are martyred, as is happening almost all over the world at the hands of fundamentalists and ISIS terrorist executioners. They are terrible and the Christians are their victims".
But you, Holy Father, know that many countries are also using weapons to defeat ISIS. Moreover, weapons are also being used by Jews against Arabs, and even amongst themselves.
“Well, it is not that kind of war that Christian popular movements must wage. We Christians have always been martyrs, yet our faith over the centuries has conquered much of the world. Of course, there have been wars supported by the Church against other religions, and there have even been wars within our religion. The most cruel was the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and unfortunately many similar events. But they occurred when the various religions, including ours, sometimes more than others, placed temporal power above faith and mercy".
Yet you, Your Holiness, encourage popular movements to enter politics.Those who enter into politics will inevitably clash with their opponents. It may be a peaceful conflict, but conflict there is, and history tells us that in the conflicts the conquest of power is at stake. Without power you cannot win.
“You are forgetting that there is also love. Often love convinces and thus wins. There are a billion and a half Catholics, eight hundred million Protestants of various denominations; three hundred thousand Orthodox Christians, then there are other denominations like Anglicans, Waldensians and Copts. All together there are two and a half billion Christian believers, perhaps more. Will it take weapons and wars? No. Martyrs? Yes, many".
And so you have gained power.
«We have spread the faith following the example of Jesus Christ. He was the martyr of martyrs and gave humanity the seed of faith. But I know better than to ask martyrdom of those who grapple with a politics oriented towards the poor, for equality and freedom. This politics is something different from faith and there are many poor people who have no faith. Nevertheless, they have urgent and vital needs, and we must support them as we support all the others. As we can and as we know".
As I listen to you, I am ever more convinced of my opinion of you: that papacies such as yours have been few and far between. But you have many opponents inside your Church.
“I would not call them opponents. Faith unites us all. Of course, all of us as individuals see the same things in different ways. Objectively the picture is the same, but subjectively it is different. We have said it many times, you and I".
Your Holiness, I have kept you too long and will leave you now.
At that point we said goodbye with an affectionate embrace. I told him to get some rest now and then and he replied: "You too should rest, because a non-believer like you should be as far from ‘bodily death’ as possible".
It was the 7 November.
Translated by Kathryn Wallace
Screenshot of page 5, 12 November 2016, L'Osservatore Romano
Screenshot of front page of 11 November 2016, La Repubblica
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
the first of what will certainly become many volumes...
...Interviews and Conversations with Journalists
A sure to be a best-seller with the interviews of Francis, including two with the atheist Scalfari! Watch as your favorite Francis apologists ignore the publication of this book. These same apologists told you not to worry about the Scalfari interviews as he is senile, doesn't take notes, and is a communist. No we're not talking about Francis but Scalfari! Remember, what we here at Call Me Jorge... wrote in Another Francis interview by atheist Scalfari,
How can anyone take these excuses seriously? Did Francis not invite this atheist back for a third interview? His first rate pro-sodomy public relations machine logically told Francis how the interviews were being received. So why does Francis keep repeating the same behavior if his words are being misconstrued? When one plays the card game poker, one needs to always know who the fool is. If one doesn't know who the fool is then more often than not they are the fool. Francis loves playing his followers for fools. It is all part of his humble act.
The Scalfari interviews in question were on the Vatican's website, then off, then back on, and then back off again. Now the Vatican's publishing house is releasing a book with these interviews in them. Maybe its an evil plot by scheming bishops and cardinals to make Francis look bad! Don't bet on it. These interviews are a critical part of Francis' magisterium in which he ignores the traditions of the church and instead makes up his own.
Relive all your favorite un-Catholic lines of Francis such as,
"Who am I to judge?"
"There is no Catholic God!"
and many, many more!
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Another Francis interview by atheist Scalfari
We here at Call Me Jorge... know this is late but it is difficult keeping up with Francis. We can't believe people keep falling for the same tricks over and over. Recently, on 10 July 2014, Francis granted another interview to Eugenio Scalfari. The Vatican and its Novus Ordo apologists have gone into full spin mode. One hears such things as,
"Scalfari doesn't keep notes and he is an old man losing his mind, etc..."
How can anyone take these excuses seriously? Did Francis not invite this atheist back for a third interview? His first rate pro-sodomy public relations machine logically told Francis how the interviews were being received. So why does Francis keep repeating the same behavior if his words are being misconstrued? When one plays the card game poker, one needs to always know who the fool is. If one doesn't know who the fool is then more often than not they are the fool. Francis loves playing his followers for fools. It is all part of his humble act.
The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Lombardi said,
"[I] strongly reiterate that the single Pope Francis’ sentences reported, in the way they are worded, cannot be attributed with certainty to Pope Francis."
Notice Fr. Lombardi is playing a lawyers' game. He says nothing of dismissing the ideas contained in the interview just the way his answers are worded are not direct quotes.
The Vatican & Francis are playing people!
The former president of the United States of America, George W. Bush has some advice on tricks like these.
"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
—George W. Bush—
Sunday, July 20, 2014
'FOBs' the Friends of Bergoglio
.jpg)
‘FOBs’ driving the train under Pope Francis
by John L Allen Jr.
by John L Allen Jr.
During the Clinton administration, American politics developed a new bit of argot: “FOB,” meaning “friend of Bill,” an intimate of the president who enjoyed access to the corridors of power and perhaps helped shape his agenda.
Today Catholicism has its own emerging “FOB” class, in this case standing for “friend of Bergoglio.” The reference is to those with personal ties to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, better known to the world as Pope Francis, who could be positioned to influence his papacy.
The degree to which those friends have the pope’s ear makes the Vatican’s official chain of command less revealing these days about who’s driving the train in the Catholic Church than, say, the pontiff’s Facebook account. (That is, it would be if Francis were actually on Facebook.)
The latest FOB to pop up is Giovanni Traettino, leader of the Protestant “Evangelical Church of Reconciliation.” The Vatican announced this week that Francis will travel July 28 to the southern Italian city of Caserta to see Traettino, who became friends with Bergoglio a decade ago while serving in Argentina.
In Caserta, Francis will join Evangelicals and Catholics for prayer at Traettino’s church. Though not unprecedented, it will mark one of just a handful of occasions when a pope has ventured into a Protestant church to pray.
The trip is part of a recent pattern of outreach from Francis to the Evangelical and Pentecostal worlds, in each case driven by people he knows.
In January, Francis sent a video message to a conference led by American Pentecostal Kenneth Copeland in which the pope offered a “spiritual hug.” That prompted a group of Evangelicals and Pentecostals to visit Rome, an event capped off when the pontiff and televangelist James Robison high-fived over the need for Christians to have a personal relationship with Jesus.
“God has begun the miracle of unity,” Francis said in his video, quoting Italian novelist Alessandro Manzoni that “God never begins a miracle he does not finish well.”
As it turns out, the video was a byproduct of a FOB. An Anglican Evangelical and charismatic named Bishop Tony Palmer, who had become friends with Bergoglio in Argentina, visited him in Rome earlier in January, and told him about Copeland’s gathering, prompting Francis to volunteer to send greetings.
As for Traettino, he got to know Bergoglio through an Argentine movement called “Renewed Communion of Evangelicals and Catholics in the Spirit.” In 2006, Bergoglio took part in a prayer service sponsored by the movement that drew 7,000 people to Luna Park in Buenos Aires, a venue ordinarily used for boxing matches.
At one stage, Bergoglio knelt and allowed himself to be prayed over by some 20 Protestant clergy. That act led disgruntled traditionalist Catholics to declare the see of Buenos Aires “vacant” on the grounds that it was occupied by a heretic, but the future pope was undaunted.
Francis’ tendency to set policy through friendships is clear across a range of issues.
On Catholic/Jewish relations, no one has more influence than Rabbi Abraham Skorka, rector of a Jewish seminary in Buenos Aires with whom Bergoglio co-authored a 2010 book and produced a 30-episode TV talk show. Similarly, with Islam, Francis relies on his friend Omar Abboud, former director of an Islamic center in Buenos Aires.
Friendship is also the heart of Francis’ media relations strategy, such as it is. The sit-down interviews he’s given haven’t been arranged through official channels, but have come either with friends or through friends.
Jorge Himitian, another Argentine Evangelical FOB, told the Globe’s Inés San Martín on Thursday that Bergoglio and his circle see friendship as the key to ecumenical progress.
“We’ve learned that the institutional road . . . always becomes a dead end because it runs into doctrinal and practical differences,” Himitian said.
“The dialogue we have is based on friendship and spirituality,” he said. “We hope that the rest will eventually fall into place.”
To be sure, this reliance on friendship has its down side.
For one thing, people who could help the pope on many issues find themselves at a significant disadvantage if they’re not already inside his circle. Deference to friends may also mean that Francis feels obliged to act on their suggestions, even if they’re half-baked, and it runs the risk that friends may oversell their access or misrepresent the pope’s intentions.
Twice, for instance, the pontiff has sat down with a 90-year-old Italian journalist, Eugenio Scalfari, whom Francis considers a chum, and twice the Vatican has had to distance Francis from the fallout. The latest case came July 13, when Scalfari hinted that Francis was about to jettison priestly celibacy and a Vatican spokesman had to walk it back.
For good or ill, however, relationships matter to this pope. The primary reason he opted to live in the Santa Marta hotel rather than the papal apartment, for instance, is because he craves the company of other people.
For those seeking progress on issues such as ecumenism and relations with Jews and Muslims, therefore, the good news is that Francis is not driven merely by abstract conviction. He’s fueled by friendship, which with this pope is akin to saying he’s “all in.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)