Discussion: Pope To Bishops: Be Creative About Family Needs Like Contraception

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Discussion for article #228430

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Pastors lay intolerable burdens on the shoulders of others because the official teachings of the Catholic Church are irrational, outdated, and above all, misogynistic.

“work generously with authentic freedom and humble creativity” sounds like a Sarah Palin world salad, although I grant in his case it probably was more elegant in the original language.

His subtext appears to be that he hopes priests will start ignoring Catholic teaching. In which case, why on earth doesn’t he change it?

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Quandary: noun, plural quandaries.

  1. a state of perplexity or uncertainty, especially as to what to do; dilemma.

On the one hand you want Francis’ initiative to succeed because of all the suffering the present course is causing. On the other hand, the RCC was doing such a good job of making itself completely irrelevant before that you are sorry to see it recuperate.

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Watusie: it has to do with the edict of papal infallibility. A lot of decisions that are being challenged were made ex cathedra. If PF1 starts suggesting those decisions by his predecessors were wrong, he undermines the whole notion of papal infallibility, which paints him into a corner. Now, you can (legitimately) argue that papal infallibility is an absurd notion, but if you look at it from PF1’s perspective, I think you can see what he is trying to play both ends against the middle.

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The Catholic church considers divorced Catholics who remarry to be living in sin. It says those Catholics can only receive Communion by abstaining from sex with their new spouses.
The Catholic church says ; not God/Jesus .

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And next week Cardinal Dolan will deny the Pope said anything about it. . . . . .

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This is not accurate. The doctrine of papal infallibility was formalized in the nineteenth century and has been used only twice, both of those instances regarding Mary doctrines: the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and her Assumption into heaven.

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Francis is not saying that contraception, divorce, or gay unions are OK with the Church. What he is saying is the Church needs to get back to the mission of ministering to people, instead of shunning them.

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The beliefs are wrong, so such creativity as there is, will have to come from changing the subject. Contraception, family planning and yes, safe, medical abortions are all good things. So maybe preach more healing the sick and compassion for the poor, instead.

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Pope Francis is arguably the most humanitarian pope of the late modern era. It is still unlikely he will be able to lift the behemoth out of the contradictory pit into which it has dug itself, because you know, there is the important work of imposing guilt to subjugate masses for profit. In this world, it seems, there is not enough time or clarity to undo the sins of the church without decimating it, or it would probably have already happened.

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Actually, Jesus said it here, in Matthew 19:3-9:

"Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”