Pope Francis' death yesterday triggered memories of the positive contributions he made over his tenure. These include extending a spiritual generosity to those outside the RC Church, as well as an attitude of benevolence instead of hostility - including to atheists, Muslims. migrants and gays. These generous approaches, of course, triggered the Vatican's fossils into states of rage and fulmination approaching the Dotard's squealing about "left wing radical lunatics" - just for insisting all those in the U.S. receive due process before being hauled off to a Gulag. Among the most memorable:
Francis delivering a homily in December, 2013 at
the Chapel of the Domus Santa Marta speaking thusly:
"The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of
Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even
the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first
class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ
has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment
for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace.
If we are each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good,
and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of
encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I
don't believe, Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: We will meet one another
there."
Headlines across the world
immediately proclaimed, "Even Atheists Can Go To
Heaven.".
This prompted comedian Bill Maher- a self-proclaimed atheist - on his
'Real Time' show to opine the new Pope "is really an
atheist". Actually, I wouldn't go so far. But the text and words do
pretty well confirm to me that Francis accepts the doctrine of Universal
Salvation.
According to Wikipedia, Universal Reconciliation or Salvation is:
“the doctrine that all sinful and alienated human souls—because of divine
love and mercy—will ultimately be reconciled to God."
I first became acquainted with Universal Salvation while debating an Anglican
Priest in Barbados in 1982. At one point I mocked the concept of “Hell” as
infantile, and basically “apartheid theology” based on gloating over the
suffering of those unlike you, who don’t subscribe to your special beliefs- but
whom you condemn to everlasting perdition. I also mocked the notion that the
presumption of Hell meant every sect or Christian denomination could, in
effect, pass judgment on every other sect or denomination. Fundies and Evangelicals could "Hell bind" Catholics, Catholics could hell bind all non-Catholics and, both could also consign Jews
and Muslims to the everlasting pits as the Muslims could return the favor to
Christians!
It was an afterlife MUTUAL ANNIHILATION PACT!
The Anglican priest laughed and conceded the point, and I won the debate – scored by
objective observers – based on that line of attack. After the debate, however,
the priest confided to me that in the upper echelons of the Anglican hierarchy no
one took Hell seriously and there was no doctrine of Hell or of exceptional
salvation for the few. Instead, all Anglican seminaries taught Universal
Reconciliation – Salvation. The priest told me he didn’t teach it himself nor
did any other Anglican padres he knew. They had to instead teach Heaven or Hell
because that is what their parishioners expected. He told me that if they
attempted to teach the actual doctrine of universal salvation most of the
faithful would leave that Church because their skewed sense of moral right and
wrong dictated the “evil” receive the ultimate punishment. But he said this
dichotomy troubled him no end!
Evidently, it didn't trouble Pope Francis who was prepared to go on record with
his views, to the chagrin of the Vatican's usual sock puppet mouth pieces who
then tried their damnedest to get him to walk it back. Or rather, reframe his words lest the diehards be scandalized.
One Vatican propagandist.....errrrr....spokesman, quickly intervened and issued his "correction", as if the pontiff was an untutored child who needed to be steered in the right direction by his parent. Father Thomas Rosica said:
"People who know the Catholic Church's teaching know a person cannot be saved if they refuse
to enter or remain in her."
Though this Vatican stooge did try his best to dampen the media hubbub,
few people paid much attention as Pope Francis' 'cow had already escaped the barn' while
the hostile hierarchy hireling tried to shut the door
too late. Besides that, the Pope himself never retracted his remarks and in
addition, he'd previously said atheists can be "precious allies"
in the building of a peaceful coexistence between peoples and in the careful
protection of creation.
More to the point, some years later Rome's fossils really went ballistic after Francis rejected the very notion of "Hell", e.g.
Brane Space: Pope Denies Existence Of "Hell" - Why The Big Fuss?
Now, in the interest of honest and full disclosure, let me say
again: I do not believe there is any "heaven" or
"hell". We each create our own heavens and hells on this Earth, in
the here and now. Basically "salvation" is accomplished on one's
own terms to redeem his or her life here on Earth to become the best human he can
be...with the resources allotted him over a finite time. In other words,
there is no hereafter of the kind the orthodox religious types - including
Catholics - believe. I have, however, allowed for the possibility of an
impersonal "life after death" in the form of Stuart Hameroff's model, see e.g.
Moving on: Pope Francis defense of migrants was at the top of his priorities right up until the day before his death. Then, in a meeting with Trump VP and bootlicker JD Vance, he briefly re-affirmed the stance that migrants must not be treated as unwanted criminals to be deported - as Trump and Vance has done. Sending hundreds into a Salvadorean hellhole called CECOT - and with no iota of due process. Earlier, in February, Francis had blasted Trump's deportation designs "that would deprive migrants of their inherent dignity". He also indirectly blasted Vance who'd claimed Catholic doctrine "justified such policies." Vance waffled to the press corps after his Easter meeting, saying there was just "an exchange of opinions on migrants and refugees." Yeah, right. And you got the short end of the stick in this exchange, bozo.
In his Easter homily following the 20-minute Vance meet,
Francis touched on “how much contempt is stirred up at times towards the
vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants.” The address also warned against
elected officials (like Vance and Trump) who “yield to the logic of fear, which
only leads to isolation from others.”
Francis during his tenure also came out frequently against the excesses of capitalism especially the predatory form that has now insinuated itself into every nook and cranny- most often via the vehicle of "private equity." A bunch now taking over hospice care across the country - with detrimental effects, e.g.
Francis would also be mightily chagrined at the Trump administration's and Repukes efforts to dismantle Medicaid (and likely Medicare, soon) to get a 4.3 trillion tax cut passed for oligarchs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Francis, to his credit, was also rare among religious or political leaders for his dogged push for climate action. António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, yesterday credited Francis for spurring nearly 200 nations to adopt the landmark 2015 Paris agreement to fight climate change. (Of course Dotard Trump has since knocked the U.S. out of it - see some of the consequences that will now emerge in my Earth Day post.
But let me be honest, while I concurred often with Francis' climate action message, there were some major disagreements. While his encyclical (Laudato Si) on global warming and the care of the Earth, has much to commend it there were a few misfires.
As a teaching
document (predicated on the Church's 'Magisterium' or teaching office) it was unique in holding all humans to account to care for the Earth. The Pope, in the
183 page document, wrote:
"The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an
immense pile of filth"
Yes, indeed it is! One doesn't have to look far to see that, whether
viewing waste pits in Delhi or immense refuse and garbage piles in U.S. dumps
or fracking -devastated lands. Francis also aptly targeted the consumptive
capitalist economic system, i.e.:
"Economic powers continue to justify the current global system where
priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain. As
a result, whatever is fragile is defenseless before the interests of the
deified market which is the only rule"
Totally nailing the predatory capitalist imperative, now prepped to metastasize even
further if the Trump felon -traitor administration decimates all remaining agencies that serve the poor and elderly to feather the nests of the oligarchs - and Trump himself.
The Pope also defined the scientific aspect:
"A very solid scientific consensus indicates we are presently
witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system, contributing to a
constant rise in sea level and an increase in extreme weather events."
Adding that:
"A number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in
recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon
dioxide, methane, etc.) released mainly as a result of human activity."
Having called out humans as prime culprits, the Pope went on to assert:
"Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle,
production and consumption, in order to combat this warming, or at least the
human causes which aggravate it."
All very well and good, except that in one small paragraph the Pope effectively
drops the proverbial 'turd' into the punch bowl. Must we suck it up? Must we
ignore it? I believed then as now - even after his death- the answer is 'no' to the first and 'yes' to the second.
This is the paragraph that all the Pope's green cheerleaders appear to have missed. For those who may have missed
it, let me highlight it below in the context of the Pope's observation of the
"two extremes":
"At one extreme we find those who doggedly uphold the myth of progress
and tell us that ecological problems will solve themselves simply with the
application of new technology without any need for ethical considerations or
deep change.
At the other extreme are those who view men and women and all their
interventions as no more than a threat, jeopardizing the global ecosystem, and
consequently the presence of human beings on the planet should be reduced and
all forms of intervention prohibited."
The Pope then compounded that misfire by referring to deliberately childless couples as "selfish", a stance which merited powerful pushback by me:
Brane Space: Why Pope Francis Is Totally Out Of It To Assert Couples Without Kids Are "Selfish"
As I noted in that post:
But this is not merely about one couple''s choice - or even millions of cuples. Because, in fact, human population IS the biggest contributor to global
warming, climate change, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/earth-day-alert-biggest-problem-remains.html
As I noted therein:
"At the root of all the problems, including fouled water, polluted air and
soil, melting glaciers, severe crowding - not to mention mass panic migrations
(such as claimed over 850 lives this week) is overpopulation."
Sadly, then, the Pope was too much a mental hostage to the "natural law" nonsense churned out in Church dogma. Nonsense that would value excess or surplus human lives at the expense of those who are already inhabiting the planet. In an infinite world, the presence of ever more humans would not be an issue, and perhaps such a world would also sport the reservoirs to absorb all the extra CO2. But we don't inhabit such a world, but rather a finite one. This is why I was never able to accept Francis' take on this issue, as when he proclaimed:
“A society with a greedy generation that doesn’t want to surround
itself with children, that considers them above all worrisome, a weight, a
risk, is a depressed society. The choice to not have children is selfish.
Life rejuvenates and acquires energy when it multiplies: It is enriched, not
impoverished.”
But on the contrary, the choice not to have children means we are realists and
also grasp the world is overburdened with a human plague as it is -
contributing to everything from trashing the environment so nothing is left for
future generations, to greenhouse warming (which will lead to the same end),
to mass extinction of other species, to ever scarcer and more costly
resources - including food. As science writer Arthur C. Clarke once put it when he challenged Pope John Paul II's anti- birth control stance; "Would really want 1 billion deaths from starvation and destitution on
your hands?"
See e.g.
Yes, Francis and I had disagreements, some marked and vehement, but on the whole I credit him with bringing a more generous attitude into the Church that I actually left decades ago. For those who remain in it, one hopes the next Pope will continue that positive arc,
See Also:
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