Saturday, January 18, 2020

"We Embraced Each Other" What Francis Confided to the Scalfari


Eugenio Scalfari visited Pope Francis in Santa Marta on January 14. You can read the result here.

(Rome) Yesterday Eugenio Scalfari published three pages, the first three pages of the daily La Repubblica, about his recent conversation with Pope Francis. On the connection with the polemics surrounding the new plea for priestly celibacy by Benedict XVI. and Cardinal Robert Sarah has already been reported (see The New Scalfari: Francis, Ratzinger and the Salvation of the Earth ). But what else did Scalfari report?
Subtitles and highlighted quotes suggest:
"The Church is forced to become more modern: to be with the poor and the weak, not with the rich and strong."
"The planet is under threat, the climate must be our first concern."
"I am only driven by the desire that our church survive by adapting our collective spirit to modern civil society."

The sentences cited are of revolutionary explosive power.
On January 14th, Scalfari and Francis greeted each other in Santa Marta:
"We hugged each other."
Right at the beginning of his detailed report, Scalfari comes back to a particularly valuable topic that he had already spoken to Francis about on previous occasions: the world unity religion, which corresponds to the Masonic spirit:
“There is only one God, that is the opinion of His Holiness. And Pope Francis believes it is the job to fraternize everyone, not just the Catholics and the Protestants, but all the religions that cultivate their God by following his rules: there are other monotheistic religions in the world, and there are polytheistic ones like they used to be. The gods of these religions often ignored each other or fought each other to the utmost. That was the former world: today you don't get to such extremes anymore, but you sometimes ignore the existence of other religions.
Francis is diametrically opposed to this thinking, which explains why there are voices that contradict him, even in the Christian religion.
"But it goes far beyond that. The only God he knows goes far beyond that. ”

"The Church has to adapt to modern civil society"
Scalfari then affirmed that he was "not a believer" but was interested in theological questions, as these "had repercussions on culture in general and sometimes even on people's intellectual lives."
After exchanging a few pleasantries about their health and an exchange of ideas about current issues, which Scalfari does not report, he asked his first question. He took up a question he had already asked during the last conversation: Which saints does Francis personally worship more than others? While in the first part, which is about the new book of Benedict XVI. and Cardinal Sarah, and which contains a whole range of false information, no statements by Francis are quoted as direct quotes under quotation marks, Scalfari now goes all the way and publishes a real interview:
Francis: I remember your question well, and my answer still applies: These are
the saints who have made a major contribution to the history of the church. It is Paul of Tarsus, Augustine the Bishop of Hippo, Saint Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order, from which I come, and Francis of Assisi, the Saint, whose name I have adopted. Why did you ask me this question?
Scalfari comes up in his answer to Augustine and “the subject of grace”. The father of the church was "partly a mystic," said the journalist. The theme of grace was based on mysticism. It has been said that God grants grace to all Christians who accept him until their death, provided they do not commit a grave sin that leads to the loss of grace.
"It was a first version, but there was a second," said Scalfari. "God entrusts grace to only one part of humanity, the other remains without, but in the course of life those who have grace risk losing it and those who do not have it can receive it."
These are two different doctrines of grace, because the second, the grace doctrine of Augustine, let people be more committed in their behavior because they have to acquire grace. Acquiring it is much more difficult than losing it. According to Augustine, this will test humanity.
Scalfari: How do you see this question?
Francis: I fully agree with what you say. Augustine is a very great saint of very great intellect. He also had some mystical relapses that revived his faith and this struggle made his figure great, be it because of his doctrine of grace, be it because of the effort he tried to live out, and at least three or four times he had lived a mystical relationship with the Creator God, who towers above us. Augustine cannot be called a mystic, just like Ignatius of Loyola, although he too had experiences of this kind with God.
Scalfari: Holiness, have you never had episodes of mysticism? Francis of Assisi had it.
Francis: After youthful adventures, Francis happily turned into a mystic in the cheerful way of dealing with his neighbors and paid for the life he had with his unreasonable youth. He was a total mystic, he prayed, he identified himself with God, while he gathered with his body and soul those who thought and prayed the same way as he did. He cultivated the earth at the convent, met the Pope of that time and asked that his followers in Rome be recognized as a religious community. He even went to the Holy Land and also met the Sultan who ruled there. None of this took anything away from his mysticism. He not only exercised it towards humans, but also with animals. He calmed the wildest, including the wild wolves that approached him and licked his hands, as if they were faithful dogs of their master. He died lying on the meadow with his hand in the hand of Clara, who was also canonized."
Scalfari: But you have nothing mystical, or am I wrong?
Francis: No, I have nothing and that's why I took the name Francis. Not because I want to become a mystic, but because I am aware in my mind and soul of what mysticism is. I am driven, as you know, because we have spoken about it several times, from the desire for the active survival of our church to adapt our collective spirit to modern civil society. Religions, and not just Catholic-Christian ones, must know modern society very well and in its cultural, spiritual and active depth. A modern age that begins four or five centuries before today. These were our conversations, about which you even wrote a book that I really liked: “The only God and Modern Society". I also have a book for you that I will give you when we say goodbye.
Scalfari: Holiness ...
Francis: Don't always call me that. I prefer Pope Francis or simply Francis. We're friends, aren't we?
 Scalfari: I cannot promise you that I will succeed, but I thank you very much. I want to talk to you about the deep feelings that each of us has within us, and that guide life for good and for bad. What do you call these feelings?
Francis: Do you know what is the first and most important of these feelings or sensations or ways of being of our soul? The self and the me. In practice, they identify themselves, and that is one of the basic feelings: the I or the self. God created them. He is the creator of the universe, but we humans have received this peculiarity: the I, we ourselves, consciously, to be creatures, who also possess the various abilities which the Creator God has given us, which for our part are creators of the infinite, but to be microscopic creations that we are able to create ourselves.

“Priority climate change; Mixing to create new, better people ”
Scalfari: They are all creations, but not always positive. This means that the Creator God does not enter into the matter, but grants the creative ability, for good as well as for bad. That is what the Catholics call malevolence. Descartes is at the origin of the ego question: Cogito, ergo sumIt was a Cartesian revolution with these three words that distinguished us from animals, but were in any case a divine creation. May I ask you, dear Francis, about the meaning of our self-creation?
Francis: God created us and among other attributes that is responsibility. So: religiosity, responsibility, awareness, but also ambition and anger, love, but also hatred of neighbor. The substance our soul contains positive aspects and negative aspects. To whom? The neighbor, who often represents the weak and the poor, not the rich and the strong.
Scalfari: So do we baptize the soul, which besides many other qualifications also possesses malice?
Francis: In addition to malice, there is also kindness and the ability to freedom and equality.
Scalfari: Politics too?
Francis: Yes, also politics.
Scalfari: a good one or a bad one?
Francis: Good or bad, the judgment itself is good or bad.
Scalfari: So God endures?
Francis: I said Mass in Santa Marta this morning and among the various things I mentioned was one that I said: Authority is not command, but coherence and testimony. Jesus had authority because he was coherent in what he taught and in what he did and how he lived. The authority shows itself in this: coherence and testimony.
Scalfari: Can I, Holy Father, bring up the subject of intermingling (Mestizentum), which you mentioned several times?
Francis: This is a very important topic in our time, but in a way mestizum has always existed. They are peoples who are looking for places and societies all over the world that are able to house them and even to transform them into citizens of the country to which they came. They probably a have wife and children in this country. In this way, the peoples of our species tend to create a new people, in which the qualities and shortcomings of the original peoples merge to create one that is hoped to be better. This is the topic of migrations and immigration that has always been topical, not just now: The population of our planet has constantly changed in its physical and mental characteristics and in personality. The same can be said of the world we live in. For example, now there is the climate problem. In some zones the sea level rises, in others it decreases. This is a topic of great interest that we all have to shoulder.
Scalfari: Historically there have been battles and massacres motivated by religious differences. Religion has triggered wars and slaughter in certain cases, one of which we remember historically: Saint Bartholomew's Eve. It happened in Paris in 1572 and the French guards, driven by the government, massacred the 20,000 Calvinists. This is just one case that stands out among others because of the era and the number of people affected. The only God did not intervene to prevent a collective crime of this magnitude? How do you explain that?
Francis: The only God gave mortal creatures the freedom to act.
Scalfari: So man was sovereign of himself: doesn't it seem to you, dear Francis, that the man created is himself a creator?
Francis: Obviously, God created a free species, good and bad. Man, if we wanted to define him in one word, is freedom, and Jesus is the example according to what we know about him. The Gospel of Mark tells us about Jesus who taught in the temple and the reaction that his way of teaching triggered among people. The difference lies in the inner authority, just as with Jesus: It is the style of the Lord, this nobility, let's put it this way, with which the Lord moved, taught, healed and listened. Coherence. Jesus had authority because there was consistency between what he taught and how he lived. This agreement is an expression of a person who has authority. The authority shows in it: coherence and testimony. "
Farewell.
"We say goodbye. He accompanies me, as he always does when we meet, to the outer entrance and helps me into the car that is waiting for me. "
Scalfari expresses the hope of seeing Francis again soon, "at least I think of him with great affection and he gives it back to me with the same feeling".

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: MiL / La Repubblica (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dumb and Dumber.

Constantine said...

Sclafari is intelligent and consistent. He does not believe, ergo he does not respect religion.
Bergoglio supposedly believes, but wants to subjugate the Faith under the modern world.

JBQ said...

I have an acquaintance who is an Orthodox priest from a foreign country which was Communist. I visited that same country while in the Navy on a shipboard state visit while it was still a Communist country. We actually transported in a number of CIA personnel who stoked the revolution.--He recognizes Communism quickly as did John Paul II. He told me that Bergoglio is a Communist. Scalfari is an atheist. The parents of Bergoglio were evidently atheistic Communists who left Italy under pressure.----If you read Archbishop Sheen's description of the Anti Christ, the key point is that he will have a secret. That hidden belief is that he will not believe in God. Bergoglio has already stated that he does not believe in the divinity of Christ according to this same Scalfari.----The writings of Malachi Martin (died in 1999) point to a future man with the same description (elected in 2013). God is allowing his seeming apostasy as part of the divine will. We are moving toward a one world religion and one world government.---Without a doubt, that is the agenda of the Argentinian. He is destroying the traditional Church and creating a new inclusive one on its ashes. The question and problem is just how he is able to espouse the role of atheists in the new world order.

PW said...

Just when the cause appeared to be lost, in comes Popeye on the good ship Lollypop guns blazing, hurling Malachi Martin stink bombs at those Commie bastards and their ecclesiastical running dogs..
Toot toot.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it's frannie that's the atheist. Not opus devil. Wonder why tradition in action never covered this:

The Right’s New Clothes
A network of Conservative Think-tanks & Foundations from the United States, such as Koch, Cato & Templeton, are financing young Latin Americans to fight Left Governments and defend old positions with a new language

“Our body is the first private property we have. It is up to each of us to decide what to do with it,” says a young blonde woman in Spanish with a firm voice while moving gracefully across the stage at the Liberty Forum, which is adorned with the logos of the event’s official sponsors: Tobacco company Souza Cruz, Gerdau Group, Petróleo Ipiranga and the RBS Group (a local Globo TV affiliate). A sold out crowd at the 2000-seat auditorium of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre (PUC-RS) bursts into laughter and applause for Gloria Álvarez, a 30-year-old Guatemalan daughter of a Cuban father and a mother descended from Hungarian immigrants.

“An intellectually honest leftist must recognize that the only way out is employment and a modern, 21st century rightwinger must recognize that sexuality, morality and drugs are individual problems. He is not the moral authority of the universe,” she continues, amid thunderous applause.

Álvarez studied at UFM and “became a libertarian, but she is a little less conservative than her professors, who are a mix of neoliberalism and Opus Dei [a conservative religious institution]. She declares herself to be an atheist and a supporter of abortion rights.

http://www.brasilwire.com/the-rights-new-clothes/

Anonymous said...

From the same article:
With the exception of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Institute, all the organizations mentioned in this article are part of the Atlas Network in Brazil, along with Gloria Álvarez’s MCN, the Francisco Marroquin University and Students for Liberty (which was founded inside the Atlas Network in 2012). Furthermore, in addition to the aforementioned resources, there are much more sizeable programs operated by the Atlas Network, which are funded by other foundations.

Sitting in the VIP room of the Liberty Forum, Mr. Chafuen rose to his feet to greet Kim Kataguiri, who made a surprise visit. The undisguised glee from this demure gentleman, a libertarian with ties to Opus Dei, was my cue to ask for an interview. The main parts are transcribed below.

Q: One last question, please, to dispel rumours. The ties between the Koch foundation and Students for Liberty, through direct funding as well as funding from other foundations associated with the Koch brothers have aroused suspicions, since the Kochs own oil industries that could have interests in this country.

A: The Atlas Network receives 0.5% in funding from the Kochs. The Students for Liberty, I don’t know. Goodbye.

The Atlas Network (the trade name for the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, adopted in 2013) is a type of meta think tank that specializes in promoting the establishment of libertarian organizations throughout the world. It receives funds from its partner libertarian foundations in the US, or from local entrepreneurial think tanks that are geared toward the fostering of young leaders, especially in Latin American and Eastern Europe. According to its Form 990, which all non-profit entities must file with the IRS, Atlas Network’s revenue in 2013 totalled $ 11,459,000. Resources allocated to programs outside the US were US$6.1 million, of which US$2.8 million were directed to Central America and US$595,000 to South America.

Van Hattem also took courses at the Acton Institute University, the most religious of the organizations that are part of the Atlas and Koch Foundation fellowship network.
Acton lists combatting “sin” as one of its core principles, stating that the ubiquity of sin requires the limitation of the state.

http://www.brasilwire.com/the-rights-new-clothes/

Anonymous said...

The Acton Institute in the name of opus devil supports the cause of commie romero:
"With particular reference to Archbishop Romero, whose cause for canonization now advances, one finds a rather traditional theology is manifestly evident in his esteem for Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei. In a letter to Pope Paul VI on July 12, 1975, shortly after the Escriva's death, Romeo recounts his personal encounters with him and discloses that he was personally under spiritual direction by priests of Opus Dei in El Salvador. He closes by asking that the pope open the cause of canonization, which St. John Paul II celebrated in 2002."
https://acton.org/pub/commentary/2015/03/18/real-oscar-romero

Tancred said...

Opus Dei sucks, but what does any of this have to do with the article above?

Anonymous said...

Chafuen is now at the Acton Institute advocating that opus devils and s/h/its work together (as if they don't already). And even as opus devil works to unite the Americas in one slave labor camp for the globalist Koch bros. who are funding politicians who believe no border no wall no usa at all, Chafuen writes: "While Marxists of the recent past failed to implement their entire agenda, they are winning in some areas. Atheism is growing in most of the West. They were also globalizers, as Ocáriz says: “[Gradually], as with Marxism-Leninism, or all at once as Trotsky dreamed, who long ago . . . argued that nation-states are barriers ‘to the development of productive forces.’”

He also declares opus devils: "enjoy freedom of opinion in political and economic matters, I can’t expect him (the head of opus devil) to write an introduction to “cultural Marxism” or to “21st-century socialism.” So opus devils as well as scalfari and frannie can be communists, socialists, nazis and cia/fbi coup d'etat assassins.

https://blog.acton.org/archives/110444-alejandro-chafuen-in-forbes-opus-dei-and-jesuit-priests-against-socialism.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrochafuen/2019/07/22/church-voices-on-socialism-and-cultural-marxism/#37f0b03b796b

https://blog.acton.org/archives/tag/charles-koch

https://griid.org/2018/03/27/donors-trust-dark-money-and-their-ties-to-west-michigan/

https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Trump-attacks-Koch-brothers-with-antisemitic-dog-whistle-563841

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/09/10/billionaire-koch-brothers-launch-super-pac-to-support-open-borders-politicians/

Anonymous said...

More on opus devil publicity stunts (you know where the democrats and the republicans pretend they're against each other & plan a rally to defend 2nd amendment rights in VA on MLK Day (yeah sure the bay of pigs/watergate/cia/fbi/opus devil deep state scum black ops planned that one too--yeah bozzell: you're pro-death, pro-devil, and out to destroy the USA. How demonic: fomenting trouble and getting innocent people labelled terrorists, racists and haters.)):

3.22.19 Yet this pipe-smoking 71-year-old autodidact, philosopher and former astrologer is almost unknown outside Brazil. Conservative US firebrand Steve Bannon, who co-hosted the screening, wants to change that. “In the US, the conservative movement has peaked-out of good ideas. That is why Olavo is so important,” the former Trump adviser said. The 80-odd guests at the Trump International Hotel also included Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son and a powerful politician in his own right. “We couldn’t have won the election without Olavo,” Eduardo said. “Without Olavo, there would be no President Bolsonaro”.

Blessedly, rather than a political tract, the film was a homage to Mr Carvalho’s domestic life. He left Brazil in 2005 and now lives in (cia) Virginia.

Mr Carvalho replied the US should help Brazil so it is not sold off to China. “The two countries produce over half of the world’s food. They can make an alliance,” he said. When I followed up, “Do you mean a cartel?” Mr Carvalho exploded. “I didn’t call it a cartel. You are putting words in my mouth. You are distorting, malicious. You are a liar.” After he railed about our exchange on Twitter, I suspected a publicity stunt — a “fantasy” to use Mr Carvalho’s own words. Mr Bannon was more surprising about journalists and “fake news”. The American had told me earlier, “I love the Financial Times, even if we go hard against each other.”
https://www.ft.com/content/bf1296f6-4bd8-11e9-8b7f-d49067e0f50d

Anonymous said...

Apparently opus devils not only have freedom in political and economic matters, they can consult astrologers (and use taxpayer funds to do it):

8.29.15 Documents obtained from the municipal government of Buenos Aires reveal that Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta has earmarked 430,000 pesos ($14,000) this year for the services of an astrologer. … Rodríguez Larreta is seen as the head of the PRO's moderate wing. He backs abortion rights, and has stepped up investments in public housing and other public works since becoming mayor in 2015.
https://upload.democraticunderground.com/110862687

In order to "raise the spiritual temperature", the OD constantly and overlapped bridges with institutional and business power. As an example, they were linked - or they are still as supernumerary - Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, former judge and menemist official Rodolfo Barra and the reappeared Gustavo Béliz.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Jesica-Cirio-y-el-Opus-Dei&prev=search

http://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Jesica-Cirio-y-el-Opus-Dei

PW said...

You really need to come up with a great deal more evidence to sway an ecclesiastical court on this one, old boy.

Constantine said...

Capitalism, Free Speech, Free Press, Libertarianism, are all illusions that many Catholic Organizations have tried to adapt themselves to. This is what is portrayed as the new "Right". But they are purely Positivist. Humans are not created for purely quantifiable reality. There is the supernatural. And we are deceived by universities and the current that Positivism is "Right" and that any moral or subjectivist understanding is "Left". This is the political paradigm we are lead to believe exists. But we are never given to think that the Enlightenment itself is the problem.

Anonymous said...

Dear Constantine, one cannot be both “intelligent” and an atheist. One cannot be guided by reason while looking at creation and not know there is a Creator. He can however, be a denier and a bald-faced liar.

Anonymous said...

"Gloria CIA Álvarez, a 30-year-old Guatemalan daughter of a Cuban father and a mother descended from Hungarian immigrants"
http://www.brasilwire.com/the-rights-new-clothes/

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80b01676r004000170003-9

Wisner, who had been involved in creating this propaganda, told friends that he felt the American government had let Hungary down. He pointed out that they had spent a great deal of money on Radio Free Europe "to get these people to revolt". Wisner added that he felt personally betrayed by this behaviour. During the Hungarian Uprising an estimated 20,000 people were killed. Wisner told Clare Boothe Luce, the American ambassador in Italy: "All these people are getting killed and we weren't doing anything, we were ignoring it." In December, 1956, Wisner had a mental breakdown...Frank Wisner killed himself with one of his son's shotguns on 29th October, 1965.
https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKwisner.htm

The Bay of Pigs invasion met its ignominious end on the afternoon of 19 April 1961. Three days after the force of Cuban émigrés had hit the beach, the CIA officers who planned the assault gathered around a radio in their Washington war room while the Cuban Brigade's commander transmitted his last signal. He had been pleading all day for supplies and air cover, but nothing could be done for him and his men. Now he could see Fidel Castro's tanks approaching. "I have nothing left to fight with," he shouted. "Am taking to the woods. I can't wait for you." Then the radio went dead, leaving the drained and horrified CIA men holding back nausea.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/winter98_99/art08.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Guatemala

https://whowhatwhy.org/2012/05/07/watergate-revelations-the-coup-against-nixon-part-1-of-3/

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKhuntH.htm