(click images to enlarge)
Those are some nice looking cassocks the duo are wearing.
Related:
A Letter from Pope Francis to Leonardo Boff12/17/2018
Pope Francis is suffering great opposition from some of the Roman Curia and, interestingly, also from conservative members of the Trump government, backed by conservative and even reactionary groups of the American Catholic Church, led by Cardinal Viganó.
Showing support for Pope Francis, I wrote him a letter, as I have done at other times. It was sent through the Argentine ambassador to the Holy See, Valdés, under the government of Cristiana Kirchner, and Francis answered me through him. The same was done in writing the encyclical Laudato Sí: on the care of the Common House, thanking me for my modest collaboration.
Here I show the letter of thanks for my support to him with the best wishes for my 80 years of life.
Here is the letter:
Dr. Leonardo Boff
Dear brother,
Thank you for your letter sent by Fr. Fabian.
I am happy to receive it and thank you for the generosity of your comments.
I remember our first meeting, in San Miguel, at a meeting of the CLAR, there for the years 72-75. After that I followed you, reading some of your works.
For these days you will be celebrating 80 years. I send you my best wishes.
And please do not forget to pray for me. I do it for you and your Lady.*
May Jesus bless you and may the Blessed Virgin care for you.
Fraternally.
Francis
Carta do Papa Francisco a Leonardo Boff, Leonardo Boff’s blog leonardoBOFF.com, 17 December 2018
“During the election, next to me was Cardinal Claudio Hummes, a great friend. When the'danger' grew, he would comfort me. And when we reached two thirds, Cardinal Hummes hugged me and kissed me saying, ‘Do not forget about the poor,’ so then in my mind I immediately thought of Francis of Assisi.”
“Not only in the Curia are many other things: the way we do Mass, to evangelization, the new evangelization needs new methods. The pope spoke at the meeting with the cardinals on new methods, we need to find new methods.
But they spoke mostly of the Roman Curia, which needs to be reformed structurally. It is very large, but all this needs study, we do not have many coordinates…
…The church no longer works. The issues which have happened lately show how it does not work. And then, once this new design is finished, you have to look for suitable people to fill these positions, these services.”
“Can the Jubilee of Mercy be an opportunity to rediscover God's 'maternity'? Is there an almost 'feminine' aspect of the Church that must be valued?”
“Yes, God Himself affirms this when He says in the Book of Isaiah that a mother could perhaps forget her child, even a mother can forget, but 'I will never forsake you'. Here we see the maternal dimension of God. Not everyone understands when we speak about God's maternity, it is not part of 'popular' language – in the good sense of the word – and may seem rather elitist; for this reason I prefer to speak about the tenderness, typical of a mother, God's tenderness that comes from his innate paternity. God is both father and mother”.
“Son, this is the truth you must proclaim: though Mary, God was revealed as both God-the-Father and God-the-Mother, also with the characteristics of the feminine: love, tenderness, caring, compassion and mercy. These virtues also are present in men, but they find a more visible expression in women. Son, when you say God-the-Mother you will discover the feminine side of God, with all the feminine virtues.”
“The New Age which is dawning will be peopled by perfect, androgynous beings who are totally in command of the cosmic laws of nature. In this scenario, Christianity has to be eliminated and give way to a global religion and a new world order.”
Rabbi Mark Sameth contends in a soon-to-be-published article that the four-letter Hebrew name for God - held by Jewish tradition to be unpronounceable since the year 70 - should actually be read in reverse. When the four letters are flipped, he says, the new name makes the sounds of the Hebrew words for "he" and "she."
God thus becomes a dual-gendered deity, bringing together all the male and female energy in the universe, the yin and the yang that have divided the sexes from Adam and Eve to Homer and Marge."
This is the kind of God I believe in, the kind of God that makes sense to me, in a language that speaks very, very deeply to human aspirations and striving," Sameth said. "How could God be male and not female?"
“what would you say to someone who has struggled with their sexuality for years and feels that there is truly a problem of biology, that his aspect doesn't correspond to what he or she feels is their sexual identity. You, as a pastor and minister, how would you accompany these people?”
First of all: in my life as a priest and bishop, even as Pope, I have accompanied people with homosexual tendencies, I have also met homosexual persons, accompanied them, brought them closer to the Lord, as an apostle, and I have never abandoned them. People must be accompanied as Jesus accompanies them, when a person who has this condition arrives before Jesus, Jesus surely doesn't tell them 'go away because you are homosexual.' What I said is that wickedness which today is done in the indoctrination of gender theory...a French father told me that he was speaking with his children at the table, he and his wife were Catholics, 'rosewater Catholics,' but Catholics! And he asked his 10-year-old son: 'What do you want to be when you grow up?'- 'a girl.' The father realized that at school they were teaching him gender theory, and this is against the natural things. One thing is that a person has this tendency, this condition and even changes their sex, but it's another thing to teach this in line in schools in order to change the mentality. This is what I call ideological colonization. Last year I received a letter from a Spaniard who told me his story as a child, a young man, he was a girl, a girl who suffered so much because he felt he felt like a boy, but was physically a girl. He told his mother and the mom…(the girl) was around 22 years old said that she would like to do the surgical intervention and all of those things. And the mother said not to do it while she was still alive. She was elderly and she died soon after. She had the surgery and an employee of a ministry in the city of Spain went to the bishop, who accompanied (this person) a lot. Good bishop. I spent time accompanying this man. Then (the man) got married, he changed his civil identity, got married and wrote me a letter saying that for him it would be a consolation to come with his wife, he who was she, but him! I received them: they were happy and in the neighborhood where he lived there was an elderly priest in his 80s, an elderly pastor who left the parish and helped the sisters in the parish. And there was the new (priest). When the new one he would yell from the sidewalk: 'you'll go to hell!' When (the new priest) came across the old one, he would say: 'How long has it been since you confessed? Come, come, let's to so that I can confess you and you can receive communion.' Understood?
Life is life and things must be taken as they come. Sin is sin. And tendencies or hormonal imbalances have many problems and we must be careful not to say that everything is the same. Let's go party. No, that no, but in every case I accept it, I accompany it, I study it, I discern it and I integrate it. This is what Jesus would do today! Please don't say: 'the Pope sanctifies transgenders.' Please, eh! Because I see the covers of the papers. Is there any doubt as to what I said? I want to be clear! It's moral problem. It's a human problem and it must be resolved always can be with the mercy of God, with the truth like we spoke about in the case of marriage by reading all of Amoris Laetitia, but always with an open heart. And don't forget that chapter Vézelay, it's very beautiful, eh! Very beautiful.
“Throughout my life as a priest, bishop and even as Pope, I have accompanied people with a homosexual inclination and who practice homosexuality. I have accompanied them and brought them closer to the Lord, some are not able… But people must be accompanied as Jesus accompanies them. When someone with this condition comes before Jesus, he will certainly not say: ‘Go away, for you are homosexual!’ What I am referring to is that wickedness shown today, by indoctrinating people with the gender theory. A French father told me that he was chatting with his children at table once and asked his 10-year-old son: ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ ‘A girl!’ the boy said. The father realised that school text books were teaching the gender and this goes against what is natural. For a person to have this inclination, or this option or those who change sex, is one thing. It is quite another to teach according to this line at school, in order to change people’s mentality. This is what I call “ideological colonisations”. Last year I received a letter from a Spanish male who was telling me about his story as a child and as a teen. It was a female child, a girl who had suffered a great deal. She felt like a boy but was physically a girl. She had told her mother about it, saying she wanted to have a sex change. The mother asked her not to have it done while she was still alive. She was elderly and died soon. The girl had the surgery and he now works at a ministry in Spain. He went to see the bishop and the bishop gave him a great deal of guidance. He was a good bishop, he “wasted” time accompanying this man. The man later married, changed his civil identity and he – who was a she but is now a he – wrote to tell me he would take comfort in coming to see me. I received them. He told me that in the neighbourhood where he lived there was an elderly priest, the old parish priest and the new one. When the new parish priest saw him, he would shout to him from the sidewalk: ‘You will go to hell!’ When he came across the old man, he would say to him: ‘How long has it been since your last confession? Come, come…’
Life is life and things must be taken as they come. Sin is sin. Inclinations or hormonal imbalances cause many problems and we need to be careful when claiming all cases are the same: we need to embrace and study each case, accompany the person, discern and integrate them. This is what Jesus would do today. But please don’t go and say now: the Pope is going to sanctify transsexuals! I can just picture the front pages of the newspapers…It is a human problem, a moral problem. And we need to resolve it as best we can, always with God’s mercy and with truth but always with an open heart.”
“Communion for the divorced and remarried is for some -- very few, certainly not the majority of synod fathers -- it's only the tip of the iceberg, it's a stalking horse. They want wider changes, recognition of civil unions, recognition of homosexual unions”.
The text of the apostolic exhortation does not go further, but footnote 351 states: “In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments.” The pope uses the conditional, so he is not saying that they must be admitted to the sacraments, although he does not exclude this in some cases and under some conditions. Pope Francis develops the previous magisterium in the line of the hermeneutic of continuity and of exploration, and not in discontinuity and rupture. [Underlining is in the original document.]and a little bit further reads,
But when the concrete circumstances of a couple make it feasible, meaning when their journey of faith has been long, sincere, and progressive, it is proposed that they live in continence; if this decision is difficult to practice for the stability of the couple, “Amoris Laetitia” does not rule out the possibility of accessing penance and the Eucharist.
Amoris Laetitia does not ignore the difficulties of this option (cf. footnote 329) and leaves open the possibility of access to the sacrament of reconciliation when they fail in this commitment (cf. footnote 364, according to the teaching of St. John Paul II to Cardinal W. Baum of 03/22/1996)...If you realize that in a particular case there are limitations that mitigate responsibility and guilt (cf. footnote 301-302), particularly when a person considers that he would fall into subsequent sin that hurts the children of the new (adulterous) union, Amoris Laetitia opens up the possibility of access to the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist (cf. footnotes 336 and 351). These in turn will dispose the person to mature and grow with the help of grace.
“a few months ago he [Jorge Bergoglio] explicitly permitted a homosexual couple to adopt a child. He kept in touch with priests who were expelled from the official church because they had gotten married. And no one could ever persuade him to change his position, which was: we have to be on the side of the poor, even if it means opposing the powerful.”
“He [Jorge Bergoglio] told me. ... 'I'm in favor of gay rights and in any case, I also favor civil unions for homosexuals, but I believe that Argentina is not yet ready for a gay marriage law.'”
Boff told me that Pope Francis has accepted the most primitive concept of liberation theology in his program. "Remember, Juan, that theologian Carlos Scanone, who launched that theology in Argentina, was a professor of Bergoglio, the future pope, when he was teaching theology in a school on the outskirts of Buenos Aires."
“After seeing the Pope, I left with my head held high. I went Mass and took communion. Read between the lines.”
...“they ask me how after all that has happened to me that I still believe, and tell them for me, the Church is what I'm living now. The church is called Bergoglio, it is called Father Angel*, the church is on the ball and not separating, it is a church that is welcoming and not judging. This is the church that I have always wanted.”
“I refuse to stop believing in God that I want. Something inside you tells you that you're right ...”
“A sinner, of course. But a sick, never. They call you sick, they say you are a frivolous, it’s vicious, they call you a lesbian ... they do not know. Transsexualism is a difficult subject to understand, and I understand. It’s complicated, I have never asked anyone to understand me. But let me go on my way. I'm not picking on anyone, I just want to survive. I just want to be happy, because living in the prison of a body that does not love you is frightening, and now I find no freedom, because I will never reach it, you have to must be realistic ...”
“This Pope is opening doors, fresh air is entering into the Vatican that I believe has never entered (before). This will change it over time.”
“I started to get nervous, he laughed and told me that he had my letter in hand...That conversation is the least that I remember, because we have spoken more times since. He said to me, listen, I want to see you in Rome. He was calling me, and he did. Every time I had contact (with him) it was he who called. There has never been a middleman.”
“But I took to the feeling of being a normal person, and stopped feeling like I was doing something wrong. You asked me before if I felt doubt, when they pressured me, if I was in sin, I would have had to change everything... But I am what I am. The meeting with the Pope was a shower with the best (shower) gels, of purity, of tranquility, of security. I'm still the same nobody as ever, but I left there with my head high saying, I am safe.”
“I'm going to live again for that which I had refused myself, or what I had forbidden myself, such as communion and the sacraments...I do not intend to make this a spectacle.”
“You can not be appropriating of a God who is not only yours. The Creator loves all of us equally, no matter the race, the religion, the social class or the sexual identity we have.”
“If you have no money, when you’re both here I’ll give you an envelope to cover your expenses, that’s no problem. You know I live with other priests in the Santa Marta guesthouse. When you get here, tell the Swiss Guards you have a meeting with me, and that’s it.”
“It’s not that I was angry with the Church beforehand. But there were attitudes often expressed that I didn’t like. But not from everyone, because the bishop has always been very good to me, and I’ve been well supported by him. But it’s been hard at times.”
“My prison was my own body because it did not correspond at all with what my soul felt.”
“God loves all his children, however they are; you are a son of God, who accepts you exactly as you are. Of course you are a son of the Church!”
The title of the book is 'El Despiste de Dios' which translates into English as 'The Mistake of God' The Spanish word despiste can also mean absentmindedness. The first blurb on the cover reads,"En las criatura imperfectas es donde Dios encuentra toda su grandeza." This translates into English as, "(it is) In the imperfect creature is where God finds his greatness." This quote is from Pedro Almodóvar, who is a Spanish film director whose films are know for transgressing sexual morals boundaries. Notice on the cover the hexegram mitre the two-faced bishop is wearing. It looks just like the one Benedict XVI wore on 11 October 2009 for the canonization ceremony of five new saints.
It has all sorts of kabbalistic magic symbolism on it. This is Talmudic Judaism exaltedly imposing its amoral sexual mores over Christianity. Not only is the two-faced bishop a symbol of the two-faced double-minded God, Janus, but also it is a symbol of rabbinic Judaism's hermaphrodite god. This, taken into account with Naria's sex transformation, is an example of Tikkun Olam being performed in the world as Neria is restored to the prefall hermaphroditic state with male and female reunited. Neria's DNA says she is a female but she appears as a he on the outside. This is the nightmare of a world which the rabbis and, their noahide buddy, Francis want to create.
Fornication, Birth Control, Sodomy
These three terrible practices share one common goal, self-gratification.
In fact, any sexual act which is not in conformity with God’s law is simply an act of proud defiance. We like to place ourselves over God. We like to satisfy our own pleasures while ignoring God’s.
We like to make excuses for our disobedience, but its time to admit that all impure acts share essentially the same nature. Each and every one of these terrible crimes is an act of pride–the placing of our own wishes above Almighty God’s.
This means that any poor soul embracing any impure act cannot logically condemn any other impure act. When the principle is established, what follows are just details. The principle of impurity is pride, and the circumstances surrounding the impurity do not much matter.
Any offense against this virtue is always a serious sin.
“It is by loving that the God-who-is-Love is proclaimed to the world: not by the power of convincing, never by imposing the truth, no less by growing fixated on some religious or moral obligation. God is proclaimed through the encounter between persons, with care for their history and their journey.”
“It is not Catholic [to say] ‘this or nothing:’ This is not Catholic, this is heretical.”
“Anyone who does not recognize the Jewish people and the State of Israel — and their right to exist — is guilty of anti-Semitism.” (source)
“To attack Jews is anti-Semitism, but an outright attack on the State of Israel is also anti-Semitism. There may be political disagreements between governments and on political issues, but the State of Israel has every right to exist in safety and prosperity.” (source)
“...inside every Christian there is a Jew!” (source)
“Who am I to judge?”
“Then you spoke of the gay lobby. Agh… so much is written about the gay lobby. I have yet to find on a Vatican identity card the word gay. They say there are some gay people here. I think that when we encounter a gay person, we must make the distinction between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of a lobby, because lobbies are not good. They are bad. If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge that person? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this point beautifully but says, wait a moment, how does it say, it says, these persons must never be marginalized and “they must be integrated into society.”
The problem is not that one has this tendency; no, we must be brothers, this is the first matter. There is another problem, another one: the problem is to form a lobby of those who have this tendency, a lobby of the greedy people, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of Masons, so many lobbies. This is the most serious problem for me. And thank you so much for doing this question. Thank you very much!”
“He [Francis] IS the new evangelization! You can read all the theoretical texts that there are on the new evangelization. But if you want to see it in Technicolor, look at him.”
Do you think this (Francis' announcement of allowing priests to forgive the sin of abortion without the permission of their bishop during reconciliation) anticipates a doctrinal change within the Church?
I think the Pope will not discuss the doctrines. He always says that reality is above doctrines. If the reality is that today there are many divorces, the concept of family is changing more and more, and for him the important thing is that there is love. Where there is love, whether in the first or second marriage, there is something of God.
The Pope referred to your (Boff's) writings to prepare the encyclical (Laudato si') that was launched this year on ecology?
It is not good to talk about this. But three times I was asked to send materials by the Argentine ambassador to the Holy See. With great joy I have found (in the encyclical) that many things were used. But the it is the Pope's encyclical, not mine. What's new in the encyclical is that it goes beyond the vision of ecology as a environmentalism. It is not a green encyclical, it is a comprehensive encyclical of ecological, political, economic, spiritual, and not only of the relationship with nature. The Pope is now part of the new paradigm.