Interview No. 4:
Francis:
“Many Marxists are Good People”,
No Women Cardinals, won’t Rule Out “Communion” for Public Adulterers, believes in “Ecumenism of Blood”, Non-Catholic Martyrs, says Orthodox have Apostolic Succession
“Many Marxists are Good People”,
No Women Cardinals, won’t Rule Out “Communion” for Public Adulterers, believes in “Ecumenism of Blood”, Non-Catholic Martyrs, says Orthodox have Apostolic Succession
The Italian paper La Stampa has just published an exclusive interview with Mr. Jorge Bergoglio, the loquacious head of the Vatican II Sect, commonly known under his pseudonym, “Pope Francis.”
The full text of the interview has now been released online (previously, only La Stampa‘s print edition had the full transcript):
Interview Highlights – the Most Important Quotes:
- “God always opens doors, he never closes them. He is the father who opens doors for us. The second thing he says is: don’t be afraid of tenderness. When Christians forget about hope and tenderness they become a cold Church, that loses its sense of direction and is held back by ideologies and worldly attitudes, whereas God’s simplicity tells you: go forward, I am a Father who caresses you.”
- “The message announced to us in the Gospels is a message of joy. The evangelists described a joyful event to us. They do not discuss about the unjust world and how God could be born into such a world. All this is the fruit of our own contemplations: the poor, the child that is born into a precarious situation. The (first) Christmas was not a condemnation of social injustice and poverty; it was an announcement of joy. Everything else are conclusions that we draw. Some are correct, others are less so and others still are ideologized.”
- “We cannot think of Christmas without thinking of the Holy land. Fifty years ago, Paul VI had the courage to go out and go there and this marked the beginning of the era of papal journeys. I would also like to go there, to meet my brother Bartholomew, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and commemorate this 50th anniversary with him, renewing that embrace which took place between Pope Montini and Athenagoras in Jerusalem, in 1964. We are preparing for this.”
- “One man who has been a life mentor for me is Dostoevskij and his explicit and implicit question ‘Why do children suffer?’ has always gone round in my heart. There is no explanation.”
- “When I come across a suffering child, the only prayer that comes to mind is the ‘why’ prayer. Why Lord? He doesn’t explain anything to me. But I can feel Him looking at me. So I can say: You know why, I don’t and You won’t tell me, but You’re looking at me and I trust You, Lord, I trust your gaze.”
- About being called a “Marxist” by some “ultra-conservatives”: ”The Marxist ideology is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended.”
- “There is nothing in the Exhortation [Evangelii Gaudium] that cannot be found in the social Doctrine of the Church.”
- On the Eastern Schismatic Patriarchs: The Monophysite Tawadros II “is a mystic, he would enter the chapel, remove his shoes and go and pray. I felt like their brother. They have the apostolic succession; I received them as brother bishops. It is painful that we are not yet able to celebrate the Eucharist together, but there is friendship. I believe that the way forward is this: friendship, common work and prayer for unity. We blessed each other; one brother blesses the other, one brother is called Peter and the other Andrew, Mark, Thomas…”
- “Today there is an ecumenism of blood. In some countries they kill Christians for wearing a cross or having a Bible and before they kill them they do not ask them whether they are Anglican, Lutheran, Catholic or Orthodox. Their blood is mixed. To those who kill we are Christians. We are united in blood, even though we have not yet managed to take necessary steps towards unity between us and perhaps the time has not yet come. Unity is a gift that we need to ask for.”
- “I knew a parish priest in Hamburg who was dealing with the beatification cause of a Catholic priest guillotined by the Nazis for teaching children the catechism. After him, in the list of condemned individuals, was a Lutheran pastor who was killed for the same reason. Their blood was mixed. The parish priest told me he had gone to the bishop and said to him: ‘I will continue to deal with the cause, but both of their causes, not just the Catholic priest’s.’ This is what ecumenism of blood is.”
- “I spoke about baptism and communion as spiritual food that helps one to go on; it is to be considered a remedy not a prize. Some immediately thought about the sacraments for remarried divorcees, but I did not refer to any specific cases; I simply wanted to point out a principle. We must try to facilitate people’s faith, rather than control it. Last year in Argentina I condemned the attitude of some priests who did not baptise the children of unmarried mothers. This is a sick mentality.”
- “The exclusion of divorced people who contract a second marriage from communion is not a sanction. It is important to remember this. But I didn’t talk about this in the Exhortation.”
- On the meetings with the “Super 8″ Cardinal Advisors: ”I am always present at the meetings, except for Wednesday mornings when I have the General Audience. But I don’t speak, I just listen and that does me good.”
- “I don’t know where this idea sprang from. Women in the Church must be valued not ‘clericalised’. Whoever thinks of women as cardinals suffers a bit from clericalism.”
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