The text is taken from “Hope”, his official autobiography published recently.
The lines right after these ones talk about the horrors of the argentinian anti-communist dictatorship : https://telegra.ph/Excerpt-from-Hope-the-autobiography-of-the-Pope-04-21 (the “she” in the beginning of the quote above designated Esther Ballestrino de Careaga). It was a first-hand account short&instructive enough, that stays in mind.
I also posted six other excerpts, if you’re ever interested : https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7635939
And finally, p.341 :
It is the people who are blessed, not the relationships. It arises from the wish not to ascribe one situation or one condition to the entire life of those who seek to be illuminated and accompanied with a blessing. Everyone in the Church is invited, including people who are divorced, including people who are homosexual, including people who are transgender.
The first time that a group of transgender people came to the Vatican, they left in tears, moved because i had taken their hands, had kissed them…As if i had done something exceptional for them. But they are daughters of God ! They can receive baptism on the same conditions as other believers and can perform the responsibilities of godparents on the same conditions as others, and likewise be witnesses to a marriage. No provision of canonical law forbids it.
More than sixty countries in the world treat homosexuals and transexuals as criminals, a dozen or so with the death penalty, which is sometimes even carried out. But homosexuality is not a crime, it is a human fact, and the Church and christians cannot remain indifferent in the face of this criminal injustice, nor can they respond faintheartedly. They are not “children of a lesser god” ; God the Father loves them with the same unconditional love, He loves them as they are, and He accompanies them in the same way that He does with all of us : being close by, merciful, and tender.
If the Lord says everybody, who am I to exclude anybody ? “Tell me who you exclude and I’ll tell you who you are,” Don Luigi Di Liegro, founder of the Rome branch of Caritas, was fond of saying. He too was the son of a migrant who landed in South America in search of work and was turned away several times.
Throughout my pastoral life, I have always welcomed and accompanied these brothers and sisters in just the same way as others. And if some people have had personal experience of “the refusal of the Church,” i would like them to know, however, that this was the refusal of one person in the Church : because the Church is a mother who calls and gathers together all of her children.
Interesting, I wouldn’t have guessed he had any sympathetic ties to communism. Sounds like he at least sympathized on the level of caring about the plight of the poor, the marginalized, etc.
I’m not religious myself, but I grew up with Catholic teaching and have Catholic family members, so I still have some recollection of the themes of it. And I distinctly remember stuff about, you know, “I was hungry and you gave me to eat” kind of teaching. From that standpoint, his views make sense and I get the comment about it preceding Lenin. But also, not everyone takes that part of the teaching seriously. Or I guess some view it more as a thing where you strive to do charity, but not something to organize society around, and that differs distinctly with communism.
Yes, and also when he writes “It is enough to read it”, that’s to be taken literally, the new testament is overwhelmingly against the wealthy and there’s no need for justifications since it can’t be missed for anyone reading it. Timothy 6:10 will famously state that money is the root of all evil, from Matthew could be cited 6:19-24, 13:22, 19:17-24, just to cite a few but the overall meaning of being humble, serving the others, etc., is also a general rejection of power/wealth/honors, it’s also present in islam, and as most here know the utopian socialism often had christian roots. Well, i’m not counter-argumenting here, just adding some infos/opinions.
By refusing to have a private presidential jet(, i suppose that security forbids to travel alongside everyone else), or having a salary close to the median(, 1, 2), the CCP and Xi Jinping, among other socialist countries, are exhibiting a more christian-like(, buddhist-like, …, virtuous,) behavior than other christian head of states.
I would also add the cleansing of the temple (Matthew 21:12–17 and the related accounts in other books of the Bible) was also against the accumulation of wealth (calling the temple occupied by the market “a den of robbers”) in the same way so many conservative churches worship at the idol of capital today.
Interesting, I wouldn’t have guessed he had any sympathetic ties to communism
He was apparently close to many prominent socialist and had taken a lot of initiatives to have churches under his domain in Argentina to work with them.
However, there’s also accusations that he betrayed many of them to the military junta. Specifically, there’s an accusation that he gave up two jesuit socialist priests working to organizing workers, who then inmediately got “disappeared”. He was also a witness to a mass shooting of socialists in hiding (some his former friends and acquaintances) and there’s an accusation that he led the junta to their location after cutting a deal. This last one is also kind of shown in the movie The Two Popes.
I don’t know how true these accusations are. I’ve never really researched them. I just remember people talking about them when he first became pope.
Weird. So sounds like there’s some contradictory narratives going on. I suppose both could be true and he betrayed them later in spite of initially being sympathetic. It seems strange though overall.
Classic liberalism. He sees the problem and laments it but also does nothing to address the root cause. You cannot help the poor if you do not condemn the rich.
