This Pope is inspiring people to be their best selves. His humility and his optimism are a breath of fresh air in our greedy, cynical world.
Here is my take. 1) He is not making law. 2) The Vatican is a “state” and the Pope is its head of State.
The 1st says that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or impeding the free exercise of religion.
I don’t have a problem with it. I’m just surprised there haven’t been others who do.
I wonder if sensitivity to that is the reason Francis did not evoke Jesus Christ by name.
The reason no one objects to the pope speaking in front of congress is very simple, there is nothing wrong with someone of faith speaking in front of a government body, speaking of issues they feel are important, because in no way is that directly translating into law or the government doing something. If the Pope got up there and said something like “the Bible should be the law of the land”, I am sure people would object, but his speech (which also was as a head of state) was simply speaking his mind about issues he feels are important, and no special weight was put on his words or him speaking there.
The Pope also made an unscheduled visit to the people who are leading the fight against Obamacare’s inclusion of contraceptives. I believe it was the same day as his Congressional address. This organization operates “more than two dozen” nursing homes and doesn’t want mandated contraceptive coverage for their employees. There is danger in mixing church and state!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pope-francis-little-sisters-of-the-poor_56035cd4e4b0fde8b0d14479
Good point. I didn’t realize they were still fighting even after the outside carrier at no cost to them compromise. The idea of nuns fighting to deny contraception coverage is jarring to me.
I agree. Especially since it’s not just for them, but for many, many other people.
@greenwhitch:
Not surprised, Francis in many ways is just as conservative as his predecessors, and so it isn’t surprising they would be fighting the contraception in insurance still. When it comes to religious aligned groups (as opposed to working directly for a church), there is a major issue there, because those organization hire people of all kinds of religious beliefs, or none at all, and thus are basically are a secular employer more than a religious one (for example, a Catholic associated hospital). What concerns me more than the contraception issue is how this will play out with other issues, does this mean for example that an employer who is of a religious belief that for example thinks gays are horrible, or Jews, should be allowed to discriminate, and claim religious belief? More importantly, if we use the example of a Catholic Hospital that receives public money, should they be allowed to violate state,federal and local law claiming ‘belief?’. Alito in Hobby Lobby claimed it was a narrow decision related only to contraception, but will that hold up the next time someone comes into the court where it isn’t contraception. The idea of putting religious belief above other laws and rights is troubling, it is carving out theocratic exemptions that could have huge consequences (funny, though, how the religious who push for these don’t understand it could come around and bite them; I wonder what people like Charles Carroll and those who had faced religious bigotry and oppression, who put in the first amendment to protect against that kind of thing, would think about this…whether they would see why it could be dangerous, of if because it matched their own views they would have supported these exemptions…)
There are many that do not understand Catholicism or Catholic teachings - including people that identify themselves as Catholic. The men and women that are Catholics and also all those in Catholic leadership are not perfect. Doing good works sometimes doesn’t always come through, but no one can deny the impact of Catholic charities and the Church throughout the centuries, also fostering education including higher ed in the US. Of course one can always point out situations that have not had things ‘harmonious’.
Each of the Popes in my lifetime have contributed to leading the Church. Pope Francis is ready for the challenges now - and he is 79. Doctor has him on a dietary program according to EWTN Raymond Arroyo. As a world leader, he has multiple reasons for directing his various messages to his audiences - and from what I have heard, he chooses his words carefully for maximum effectiveness. His mission is for good outcomes and to lead people to positive and good.
I would challenge anyone who identifies themselves as Agnostic or Atheist to truly explore a spiritual and theological dimension in their lives. Be open to grace and faith.
I’m just glad he got out of Philadelphia without anything bad happening to him! There was that robot and all…
@momofwildchild:
I am sure that WC fields would agree:)
The problem I have is when they get political. When DC was on the brink of legalizing same sex marriage, Catholic Charities threatened to stop all the services they provide to the homeless and others. They were paid something like $25 million a year to provide those services by the city government. DC would have had a huge gap to fill and Catholic Charities would have lost half it’s income. It’s very risky for a government group to have contracts with another institution that will not respect the validity of their laws.
greenwitch, can you provide cites about Catholic Charities threatening to stop all the services they had contracted to supply to homeless and others? Did they threaten to abrogate the contract, or to not renew it, or what?
I would say 98% of my friends on Facebook have been touched by the Pope’s visit and his obvious compassion for the poor and sick. Friends of all faiths or of none. But I have a couple of born again friends who have been posting really awful things about him. Well, they are mostly Sharing posts from people they follow about what an evil man the Pope is. It’s actually very disturbing to me. I disagree with a lot of things about the Catholic church, but i am also not going to forget that they do some good charitable work and that this Pope, to me, cares deeply about his church and people in general.
Has anyone else seen opposition to Francis? It is truly troubling to me that we can’t even agree in this country that this Pope has a few good qualities (even if there are other things we disagree with).
I did see a very negative post from a conservative acquaintance. It was after his address to Congress, and her issue was he wasn’t there for the Catholics in that he did not make a strong enough statement against abortion. She also stated that he was being “political”. I did not see that at all. I was going to comment that the Church has multiple interests, not just abortion. And I don’t need the Pope to reflect the Church’s policy on abortion, it is well-known. He touched on it, but his message was about unity, helping those in need, etc. Plus, he was addressing Congress, not a Catholic organization.
I am Jewish, and most of my Jewish friends and family have found him to be inspirational. So, maybe he wasn’t there for conservative Catholics, but he was there for the Jews 
.
I’ve seen opposition to the Pope from the left, about his canonizing of Junipero Serra and about his position on abortion. But the opposition I’ve seen was particularly directed toward those positions, rather than saying the Pope was evil incarnate or something.
The posts I am seeing seem to center on his comments about immigration and also anything to do with Islam. The posters are ardent Islam haters and sound almost paranoid at times.
It’s depressing to me if this is a preview of the elections next year.
Okay enough on that tangent. It was truly lovely to see so many people getting along this weekend in Philadelphia!
I definitely saw lots of negative, almost all of it on one FB post in particular. A woman who I follow on FB is a Christian writer and speaker with a loyal following. She posted about how inspirational his speech to Congress was, and, wow, some hard-core Christians pounced, saying the pope was indeed evil incarnate.
It seems some people want to fit the Pope into the divisive definitions of left leaning-right leaning, liberal-conservative, Republican-Democrat and from everything I've read, this is not what he is about at all. He is preaching outside of ideologies, political and religious, using his bully pulpit to spread a message of unity and inclusion --- that is his great appeal.
It is a mistake to view Francis’s words and actions in the narrow prism of ideology. In 2013, he gave an insightful sermon warning against rigid adherence to ideology of any kind, which closes out and divides people, and worse, mutes or negates Christ’s message (a profound observation, imo.)
Food for thought.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/pope-francis-vs-ideology
“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid.* And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought**… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.”
The Pope continued, Jesus told us: “You burden the shoulders of people [with] many things; only one is necessary.” This, therefore, is the “spiritual, mental” thought process of one who wants to keep the key in his pocket and the door closed:
“The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people. But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh? Already the Apostle John, in his first Letter, spoke of this. Christians who lose the faith and prefer the ideologies…*