Highlights & Lowlights…

More Interviews:
3 with Francis, 1 with Benedict

The barrage of words from the Vatican will not let up: In the past few days, a total of four major interviews hit the news, three that were conducted with the “Pope”, Francis, and one with the “Pope Emeritus”, Benedict XVI. Let’s take a look at the actual texts and some highlights, in chronological order:

Interview with Francis by Henrique Cymerman for Israeli Media (Nov. 28):

  • Full Text in English here
  • Francis says he harshly condemns any kind of violence in the name of God
  • On Jerusalem: It “should be the capital of the three religions” — not exactly what our Lord thought when He wept over the city’s rejection of Him as the Messiah (see Mt 23:37)
  • On the afterlife: “What awaits us [is] Heaven on earth”
  • On interreligious prayer and events: “God … likes to surprise, and now we are waiting to see how he will surprise us”
  • On Talmudic Judaism (as opposed to the Judaism of the Old Covenant, which ceased with the promulgation of the Gospel): “…our roots are in Judaism. In every Christian, there is a Jew; and you can’t be a true Christian if you don’t recognize your Jewish roots. I don’t mean Judaism in the ethnic, origin, sense, but from the religious aspect. And I think interfaith dialogue must place an emphasis on the inseparable connection between the religions, on the fact that Christianity grew from within Judaism.”
  • Cracks a joke involving our Lord and our Lady
  • Says the Jews were not responsible for the death of Christ — contradicting the words of our Blessed Lord in John 8:37 and those of St. Peter in Acts, who said to the Jews: “you by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain” Jesus Christ (Acts 2:23)
  • And much more!

Press Conference with Francis on Return Flight from Turkey (Nov. 30):

  • Full Text in English here
  • Francis indicates he believes the Koran preaches peace, not war or violence
  • On the bloody persecution of Christians: “Christians are being chased from the Middle East. In some cases, as we have seen in Iraq, in the Mosul area, they have to leave or pay a tax that may be unnecessary. Sometimes they chase us away kindly.”
  • On his prayer with the Mufti at the mosque: “I went to Turkey as a pilgrim, not as a tourist… When I entered the mosque, I could not say: now I’m a tourist! I saw that marvellous place; the Mufti explained things very well to me, showing great meekness; he quoted the Quran when he spoke about Mary and John the Baptist. At that moment I felt the need to pray. So I asked him: Shall we pray a little? To which he responded: ‘Yes, yes’. I prayed for Turkey, for peace, for the Mufti, for everyone and for myself … I said: Lord, let’s put an end to these wars! It was a moment of sincere prayer.” (So, not only did he actually pray at the mosque, he is the one who initiated the prayer! Keep in mind the Vatican II Church teaches that Catholics and Muslims worship the same god; see Nostra Aetate, n. 3 — so it can truly be said that Francis worshipped the Muslim god)
  • On Ecumenism: “Then there is ecumenism of the blood: when they kill Christians, bloods mix. Our martyrs are crying out: we are one. This is what ecumenism of the blood is. We must follow this path courageously and carry on moving forward. Perhaps some are not able to understand this. The Eastern catholic Churches have a right to exist, but uniatism is a dated word, another solution needs to be found”. (This, of course, is absolutely heretical — see Council of Florence, Decree Cantate DominoDenzinger n. 714)
  • And much more!

Interview with Benedict XVI by Frankfurter Allgemeine Newspaper (Dec. 7):

  • Full Text in German here
  • Snippet in English here
  • Benedict says he would have preferred the title “Father Benedict” over “Pope Emeritus Benedict” but didn’t think he could convince enough people to accept it (on that, see this interesting story from earlier this year)
  • He has a good relationship with Francis and does not want to be seen as a “side Pope”
  • On the revision of his 1972 essay on sacraments for public adulterers: Benedict denies trying to join the debate, says this is not his intention and the timing was accidental

Interview with Francis by Elisabetta Piqué for La Nacion Newspaper in Four Parts (Dec. 7):

  • Part 1: Full Text in English here
  • Part 2: Full Text in English here
  • Part 3: Full Text in Spanish here
  • Part 4: Full Text in Spanish here
  • Francis denies he removed “Cardinal” Burke to punish him: “It is … not true that I removed him because of how he had behaved in the synod.” (Louie Verrecchio masterfully dismantles Francis’ comments on Burke right here)
  • Francis says the reform of the Roman Curia will not be ready in 2015
  • Acknowledges there has been resistance to his “reforms” but he says it’s good when disagreements are voiced openly
  • Says the reason people are leaving his church is “clericalism”
  • Denies “firing” the head of the Swiss Guards
  • Francis: “We have to find a way to help that father or that mother to stand by their [homosexual] son or daughter.”
  • Francis: “We must move forward” (But why and to what? Where are we going? Why this constant obsession about “moving” and always “forward”?)
  • Francis: “In the case of divorcees who have remarried, we posed the question, what do we do with them? What door can we allow them to open? This was a pastoral concern: will we allow them to go to Communion? Communion alone is no solution. The solution is integration. They have not been excommunicated, true. But they cannot be godfathers to any child being baptized, mass readings are not for divorcees, they cannot give communion, they cannot teach Sunday school, there are about seven things that they cannot do, I have the list over there. Come on! If I disclose any of this it will seem that they have been excommunicated in fact! Thus, let us open the doors a bit more. Why can’t they be godfathers and godmothers? ‘No, no, no, what testimony will they be giving their godson?’. The testimony of a man and a woman saying ‘my dear, I made a mistake, I was wrong here, but I believe our Lord loves me, I want to follow God, I was not defeated by sin, I want to move on’. Anything more Christian than that? …Things need to change, our standards [!] need to change.” (Unlike for Francis, the standard of our Lord, preached by the Church for 2,000 years, is good enough for Catholics: “Go, and now sin no more” [Jn 8:11])
  • Francis: “…the Church isn´t into proselytism. The Church doesn´t want to engage in proselytism because the Church does not grow on proselytism, it grows on attraction, as Benedict said. The Church needs to be a field hospital and we need to set out to heal wounds…” (Francis loves to speak in metaphors because they make great soundbites, require no real theology, and they are ambiguous enough to where he can always say, “I didn’t mean that”)
  • And much more!

By the way, Bergoglio recently revealed that as a child he was fed donkey’s milk. Now that would explain the asinine comments he keeps making. There simply is no better advertisement for the Sedevacantist position than Francis himself speaking freely and off the cuff.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Mondarte)
License: CC BY-SA 4.0

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