I hope Pope Francis has a food tester. His growing criticism of extremists within the Roman Catholic Church is making the far right elements have fits and Francis seemingly is challenging some of the most cherished positions of the hierarchy favored under his two predecessors which included an obsession with gays, abortion and contraception. As Raw Story reports, Francis has now described these far right elements as a "serious illness" within the Church. I can only agree with his analysis. I'd go even a step further and say that these far right elements are mentally ill. Here are article highlights:
Speaking at daily Mass last Thursday, Pope Francis warned Christians against turning their faith into a rigid ideology.
“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology,” he said, according to Radio Vatican. “And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid.
“And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.”
“The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people,” Francis added. “But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh?”
He said Christian ideology was the result of a lack of true prayer.
As the Washington Post has also reported, "conservative" Catholics are none too pleased with Francis' more open approach and outreach to those that far right Catholics love to hate, especially gays. Like too many evangelical Christians, far right Catholics are all about hatred of others and fear of anything that upsets their house of cards belief system.
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