Pope Francis, The Church and us
For this post I wanted to talk a little bit about Pope Francis our current Holy Father since 2015.
If you are on social media at all, chances are you have seen some of the criticism. Certainly the Catholic Church has a lot of critics, likewise the office of Bishop of Rome aka Pope (no matter who is seated at the time) also has a lot of critics. I am sure some more than others at times, but people will always find a problem no matter what. And some people just hate everything Catholic and will never even read one word of anything I personally write let alone The Church.
This post is not to defend mistakes made by Pope Francis, or to say he is a perfect man who can do no wrong. It would be wrong for us to assume that the Pope is perfect and impeccable. And in fact, the Church does not teach that! We follow Christ who is perfect and who founded His Catholic Church starting with Peter and the Apostles. Who told us that His Church would be guided by The Holy Spirit! Long story short we trust Christ, not man.
But like with most things people have a problem passing judgment. Now I understand that we must judge a situation in order that we make the right choices. We may make judgment and lock our doors, or make a judgment and just not hang out with that person anymore, etc.. To be faithful Catholic Christians we must not take part in anything contrary to the Teachings of Christ and His Church! No matter who or where the error is coming from and we must hold to the Truth, always. Because The Truth is Jesus Christ!
This is why it is our responsibility and so very important to know the faith and live the faith out in our personal lives. So we must read our bible, and know what the Scriptures say, and we must read the Catechism so we know what the proper interpretation of Scripture is on all matters of faith and morality, because it comes from Christ through His Church.
Certainly if someone is in error then we need to first talk to them and see if we can correct them kindly. First of all if someone is not Catholic or just not a very knowledgeable one, then you can expect them to be in error on some things, so talking to them in love and charity is a must. If someone desires to be a faithful Catholic and in error on some things then refer to the bible and Catechism to correct them, again in love and charity. Encourage them to talk with a good spiritual counselor like a priest, or spiritual director. And you know some people are stubborn and will not listen anyway, so we must also pray for them. Because only God can penetrate the heart of man!
If it is a priest who is in error on something, you need to first talk to him and find out what he means by whatever it is he said. Ask for clarification and he is obliged to answer you. First establish if he is actually speaking against the Church or if there is a miscommunication or misunderstanding involved. If he is in error and will not correct himself then you need to talk to his Bishop about it.
If nothing is done then we must accept it as The Will of God. Perhaps God has a reason for allowing it, and who are we to question God? God always has a good reason for allowing the evils that He does and the reason is for our Sanctification. We must then answer the call of God and go back and become holy ourselves. You know what they say; anytime we are pointing a finger at someone, there are three more pointing back at us. This is so true!
The Bible does have something to say about this. Keep in mind that here Christ is telling this to His Apostles and teaching them how to handle disagreements which lead to sin, within The Church;“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Matthew 18:15-20 ESV
What we should NOT DO!
What we should not do, is criticize our beautiful faith, rejecting her truth, which just creates more scandal. We should not, which is the habit of some, leave The Church, or go off and try to create or join some man made lesser version of it. We should not assume the whole thing in error when some people in their stubborness, and sinfulness choose to be. Christ is God and True, God wills all things good or bad and He does it for our good, for our Sanctification. We must believe that!
The Church is perfect, YES, but not because of man, but BECAUSE OF CHRIST! The proper way to handle error or scandal in the Church is to be holy as Christ is Holy. We need to never shrink at our responsibility to know the faith and to live it out well every day.
We do not go to Church,
WE GO TO MASS IN A CHURCH, A CATHOLIC CHURCH!
We go to mass BECAUSE JESUS IS TRULY THERE IN THE EUCHARIST!
We don't go to see a man, or to hear a homily, or to listen to music, or to visit with our friends.
WE GO THERE FOR JESUS AND ONLY JESUS!
Not that Christ did not and does not use men to carry out His Will in The Church, because He does and always has. It is just that it is all about Christ, He is the center of it all, the reason why we even have a Church to go at all! And it is Him that we celebrate, it is Him that offered Himself up to God as the once and for all Sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins.
The Church (as in body of believers) is only as spiritually healthy as we are as individuals, why? Because we all together form the body of the Church. This includes everyone who has ever been baptized into the Holy Trinity, (trinitarian baptism with water) as most Christians are. We are to regard anyone not practicing the Catholic Faith, yet who are baptized as separated brothers and sisters. And it is our duty to be the change that we want to see in them. This means knowing our faith and practicing it every day, not just Sundays, or once in awhile, we need to evangelize with our life as well. The only way we can do this is to be holy faithful Catholics ourselves!
I really believe that God gives us the Church that we deserve right now. When I think about the evil that I have personally done in my own life despite being a baptized Catholic, and all the evils I see some other baptized Catholics doing, I can understand this. By evil I mean sin, I mean not practicing the faith, and worst actually doing evil things in the world.
God by His Providence and permissive will, will give us exactly what we want, even if what we want will cause us suffering.
Think about that for a moment...
But God allows this to happen for our Sanctification, and we need only to heed the call. If we don't understand this and answer God's call to holiness, then we are lost and will just blame.
As long as we humans are sinners, we will have problems in the world and in the Church. In fact there have been problems in the Church since Judas. Remember Jesus hand picked Judas to be a blessed Apostle and priest in His Church, and even possibly a Bishop, yet Judas still betrayed his Lord. Jesus who is God, knew beforehand that Judas would betray Him. Yet He still picked him to be an Apostle. He still trusted him with a great responsibility. And I believe Jesus loved Judas and still does!
God is a Father and wants to give us good gifts and He wants to help us in our lives. He wants to give us every Grace that we need in this life. And He respects our free will, perfectly. God Will give us what we want in life and like I said before, even if what we want will harm us. Not because God wants to harm us, "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 RSVCE)
Certainly God's plans are for our good, and we can trust that. But if we use the free will that He has given us to turn from His plans, His ways, He respects that too. Any suffering that is a result of that by God's Providential Will, is being allowed by Him. But He is not allowing suffering to harm us but that we will be made more perfect in our suffering. That is His Hope, this is why ALL THINGS ARE TO BE TAKEN AS THE WILL OF GOD! God will not force us to love Him, or force us to do His Will, rather than our own. No, He respects what we want, and He gives us what we want, even if He knows He must also allow great suffering to come upon us.
Why? Because nothing happens unless God Wills it to happen, whether that be permissively or actively Willing things to happen in existence. Good news is that He gives us what we need to endure all things if we call upon His Grace and turn to Him. He does not promise things will be easy or free of suffering but He does promise that He will be with us through it all, and when God is with us, what is there to fear?
So I guess this article is not as much about Pope Francis as it is about ourselves. And our relationship with God. I know I can't control what other people do or how they think, I can only do that for myself. And I know that as long as we as God's Church people are striving for holiness and making holy decisions based on our great faith in Him, then He will take care of things. I know I can Trust Christ and everything that He has put into place in His Church, no matter what. And believe me when I say that I had to learn all of this, the hard way.
I thank God for allowing me all of the suffering that I have had in my life, since through that suffering I am finding God and see Him more clearly. Also I could have avoided a lot of it had I just been open to Him running my life in the first place lol!
Can you relate to that? Let me know in the comments.
Anyway, THIS IS A CALL TO HOLINESS, and not just for the Church, not just for you, but for myself as well.
No one will ever destroy the Church, we can trust Christ on that, not a Pope, not even Satan himself. Jesus tells us; And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18 ESV
And that we can trust!
Thank you for reading, God bless!
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JU
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