Said Pope Francis, quoted in "Pope tells transgender person: ‘God loves us as we are’/Pope Francis has previously said 'who am I to judge?' when asked about the LGBTQ community" (NBC News).
Responding to a question asked by a transgender person, Francis also said "the Lord always walks with us. ... Even if we are sinners, he draws near to help us."
"The Lord loves us as we are" is ambiguous in this context. Perhaps he means to be ambiguous, but one could read that statement as advising the transgender person not to change their physical body but to stay as they are, as a person with a mind that seems not to match their body. But he may mean, do whatever you do, perhaps it is sin, perhaps not, but don't worry, God always loves us.
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"he may mean, do whatever you do, perhaps it is sin, perhaps not, but don't worry, God always loves us"
Anything-goes-whatev Catholicism. Just what we need.
To be fair, maybe the original Italian isn't as confusing as the translation.
"God always loves us." True. And He will hold us accountable for unforgiven, unrepentant sinning.
This Pope's problem is that he will be judged to have been more committed to approval by people than by God. Meanwhile, he continues to [mis]lead people down the same path.
God may love us, but He doesn't love our sins.
We are meant for something more.
Says God loves everyone does not mean God condones everything. Does God love the murderer as he is? The rapist? The abortionist? The pedophile? God loves the sinner but the sinner is still supposed to repent.
The Pope is a Jesuit. Of course, he meant to be ambiguous.
He’s a Jesuit. Ambiguity can be their currency, and sometimes that is cowardice and sometimes it is wisdom. Often hard to know.
"The Lord loves us as we are" is ambiguous in this context
This is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of 'ambiguous'.. It is COMPLETELY CLEAR
The Lord loves us as we ARE... Quit cutting!! want me to Quote Chapter and Verse? Okay
Deuteronomy 23:1
No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD.
I Realize, that our Professor is willfully Ignorant.. But, that writing is clear
God loves the sinner, hates the sin.
Yes, this Pope is highly evolved. He is the first Pope to get why God gave Moses "The Ten Recommendations".
The Pope doesn't naturally speak English.
If he does, he's reading what somebody wrote, no?
Pride literally comes before the fall.
He can be very frustrating and counterproductive with his sloppiness. But here is authoritative Pope Francis on the matter:
A "challenge is posed by the various forms of an ideology of gender that denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences...It needs to be emphasized that biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated....It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality. Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent. Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created....
"The young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created, for 'thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation… An appreciation of our body as male or female is also necessary for our own self-awareness in an encounter with others different from ourselves.'... [We] should help young people to accept their own bodies and to avoid the pretension to cancel out sexual difference because one no longer knows how to deal with it."
- Amoris Laetitia (quoting Laudato Si’).
https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf
Not too long ago, Francis referred to transgenderism as a dangerous and destructive ideology.
This is always the difficulty with Christianity.
“We are” the total of our genetics, upbringing, experiences, thoughts, actions, etc.
The True Self is what? How we act most of the time? Do we grade on a curve? Someone was generally a kind, generous, sympathetic person but cheated on a spouse three times so the good outweighs the bad?
Our Essence or True Self is what we think about ourselves?
Does God love men who lie in order to get into the women's locker room? or the women's prison... and then those men rape women and flash women... thus removing women's right to privacy?
Does God love former men who now say they are women, who unfairly compete against women and beat women because they have a stronger physiological build?
and now leftist white women in the US are now saying "If only women had the same training as men" - blah blah blah. Is God OK with this set-up?
Seems like lying is still an issue with God. What say you - POPE?
Homosexuality is becoming a religion. You'd have to have blinders on to not pick up on the cultish overtones of the legbutt movement now. Like a religion it has its dogmas and its priestly class. Transgenders are its Jesuits…the most ardent defenders of the faith and dedicated to its holiness spiral. They are the ringleaders of its Inquisition.
The LGB part of the movement can’t get rid of the T anymore than the church could choose to ignore the protestant reformation. It's why everything is so confusing to us in normieland about why they won't face the insanity head-on. The "T" has totally co-opted and taken over the movement and it all falls apart if the T is seperated from the OG queers.
They even have their own sacraments of conversion. Cutting your dick or your tits off is literally the "T" 'converting' the LGB...gay boys and girls get turned straight again! Think about it.
They don't make 'em like they used to.
Better than the Dalai Lama telling you that on your death bed you will receive total consciousness.
I’m old enough to remember “I am as God made me.”
How disheartening it must be for Catholics to hear God's voice on Earth saying, "Who am I to judge?". Saving people's souls is supposed to be this guy's biggest job.
God loves for people to be cancelled for traditional values.
"The Lord loves us as we are" is not advice; it is a statement about God's unlimited and unlimitable love for each individual person, not matter their personal state of grace, or what damage they have done to their minds, bodies, or souls. The Lord loves us, at all times, no matter what we do.
It bears repeating to every person.
I am a believer, though not of the Roman expression. Our church periodically prays for the well-being and wisdom not only of the Bishop of Rome [pope for RCs], but also the "popes" and other leaders of the assorted flavors of Christianity, such as Orthodox and Coptic. Theirs is a burdensome position of awesome responsibity and attention.
The current Roman pope's positions on "liberation theology" -- essentially Marxism wrapped up in Jesus language -- are highly problematic, and he "cherry-picks" theology. This latest is a good example. He's not wrong, but he's incomplete. God does indeed "love us where we are", but loves us too much to leave us there.
That is the secular basis of DBT [Dialectic Behavioral Therapy, a very effective offshoot of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. por CBT]. We are to accept ourselves as we are, right now, but part of who we are is that we very much need to change.
IMO, therin lies the key uncertainty of the Roman pope's statement.
Intentionally ambiguous…Jesuitical. What people need now is the truth that can rescue them, and Catholic thought as expressed in the zTheology of the Body is a great place to start. We are a unity of body and soul, material and spirit. Our bodies have much to reveal about our meaning and purpose in life. A man’s strength — to lead, to lay down his life for others; woman as bearer of life has likewise many expressions and ramifications. Our sexual organs are the only organs in the body which require participation by the complementary sex in order to realize its function: procreation. Our other organs, liver, heart, eyes, intestines, nervous system, brain, function independently. Man and woman are thus made for one another. They literally fit together. They And in an embrace that is face to face they come together to form new life.
It is now fashionable for impressionable, confused young people to suppose that they are “trapped in the wrong body.” And the answer of secular, technological society is to maim and alter the body to mimic the characteristics of the opposite sex.
The Catholic view proposes that such a “fix” can never truly succeed, because tinkering with the material body addresses only part of the problem. The problem, in essence, is a metaphysical one, pertaining to questions of meaning and identity that fall outside the purview of Science and Technology. Body dysmorphie is not a body problem, but an integration problem. The human person seeks a unity of body and soul because that is how God created him— to long for more than an animal nature. Only when he lives in harmony with the created order, integrated, can the human person flourish.
That is not an instant fix, and there isn’t an industry to profit from promoting the hard work that reintegration requires, but I think we owe people the truth and those with ears to hear ought to hear.
"God give me love, love, love, love, crazy love" - Pope Francis in the shower
So are God's pronouns They, Them?
John 8:10-11
10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Catholic HR policies are at this point focused on recruitment of self-hating homosexuals. Thanks a lot, "celibacy". The Vatican is full of gay men. Francis has no instinctive sense of how to respond to transgenderism. He is thus left to ambiguous Delphic pronouncements. He hopes this issue somehow resolves itself through secular processes.
Confucianism is less ambiguous:
身體髮膚
受之父母
不敢毀傷
孝之始也
"Our bodies, hair, and skin are received by us from our parents, and we must not injure or wound them. This is the beginning of filial piety."
From the first paragraph of the Classic of Filial Piety. Not that this kept the Chinese from footbinding, or from shaving their foreheads under the Qing.
"Perhaps he means to be ambiguous, but one could read that statement as advising the transgender person not to change their physical body but to stay as they are, as a person with a mind that seems not to match their body."
I am non-binary and my sister is gay. We discussed this very issue 30 years ago and assuming this is what the Pope meant, we both came to the same conclusion. My sister doesn't need her breasts removed to make love to a woman and I don't need to cut off my Johnson in order to host marvelous soirées. All our parts work fine, just the way they are.
And as I've stated here before, we don't treat anorexic girls with laxatives and diet pills. Which begs the question, when will the diet pill and laxative companies finally wake up and get on board the money train?
I would still like to know what happened to Pope Benedict to put this communist in his place,
Sometimes I allow overtones of contention to creep into my posts. I regret that.
Michael K said...
"I would still like to know what happened to Pope Benedict to put this communist in his place,"
As an ICWT (Irish Catholic White Trash) person I doubt the commies will atempt to asassinate this Pope. Commies dry hump Peronistas.
It's very unambiguous. Jesus loves us the way we are. Everyone. It's part of that whole "God so loved the world..." thing.
Don't presume that the Pope is making any kind of statement regarding transgenderism, surgeries or what not. That's not what the Pope is supposed to do, and why it can be frustrating when people think that he's doing that.
God loves us all
Speaking of human bodies, has anyone else seen the new Jardiance commercial?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEjPDS8Jp1E
"..It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality."
Mark quoting Pope Francis 12:20
God loves even NBC TV anchors and meant something better for each of them to be than to be the cringing lap dogs fawning on corporate power and lying on behalf of Bong Boy which they now are. They have eternal souls but NBC News will be gone someday. So maybe these we now see mumble-shuffling the truth like mini-Joe-Bidens will go washing out with NBC News into the blank white spaces which are re-appearing on our digital mental maps. Drifting, and thinking "If I had served my God as I have served Jeff Bezos and his kind, He would not have deserted me as they have done when the cancel mob came."
God loves us so much, He won’t force us to be in His presence. The damage you do to yourselves and others is on you. He has clearly stated His perfect plan.
Jesus refused to condemn the woman accused of adultery. But he also said "Go, and Sin no more".
Not "Hey, God is love. whatever".
God loves us, yes. As we are? Sure, in the sense that you love your teenager when the cops catch him lighting a cat on fire.
These words are completely devoid of any meaning. They are specifically designed to allow a person to apply whatever meaning they wish to them. That's their magic. The church figured this out a long time ago. It took politicians longer, but they now do it too.
"The Lord walks with us ..." is he walking with the Gilgo serial killer, watching him brutalize all those women ... waiting to "help" him? But not them?
The Pope seems to be saying that it's OK to live a life of sin because God loves us anyway. Which explains a lot of what goes on in that church.
That Lake of Fire thing must only be for keeping evil men warm in the winter.
All this discussion over an entity who exists only in imagination.
The answer to Is the Pope Catholic? was such a certainly it was a punchline. Now it is a philosophical question…
Romans 1:26-32: “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
Does not matter if homosexual men.. or women. To do so is to commit mortal sin.
And
Leviticus 18:22
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. "
Hunter's taxpayer funded etc., I commend to you the comment by pious agnostic: according to Christian doctrine, yes, God loves the man who lies about being a woman in order to gain access to vulnerable women, and the rest of your examples. Yes.
But God also expects us to try to decline from sin and incline to virtue, as the prayer says. This is why parenthood is the dominant paradigm for the Judeo-Christian understanding of God: you don't stop loving your toddler when he throws food on the floor or calls you a poopy head (a friend of mine told me that she thought it was cute when her daughter called her that... until she realized that her child was calling her literally the worst words she knew). You keep loving the child, and sigh, and try again to teach them to behave the way you want, and perhaps punish them if they're old enough to comprehend that they're being punished. Over time you expect better of them, and they may disappoint you all their lives, but still - God help you - you love them.
I'm glad whoever it was up thread posted Francis's more complete comments. An important lesson Christianity has for us is that it isn't all about us - even our own lives are not, at root, about us. What happens to us may be an occasion of greater understanding or grace for someone else, even though we may suffer undeservedly. I remember when Terri Schiavo, in a probably vegetative state, was being starved to death by her husband although her parents were desperate to take on all her care and expenses; that event was juxtaposed, in time and in my mind, with the slow and painful death of John Paul II. That pope took the opportunity of his death explicitly to teach Catholics about the bearing of suffering.
This pope presumably doesn't suffer from gender dysphoria, so he can't use himself as a vessel for teaching; that's likely to make him less effective in the minds of some in our victimhood culture. But for him to say that we are as God made us and our life is about accepting that reality and striving to be the selves that God made us to be, in spite of our own suffering, will, I hope, resonate anyway.
If God loves us "as we are", who are doctors and pharmacists to alter us?
"More Catholic than the Pope" seems to be a low bar nowadays.
As an outsider to the club I don't take sides, but this fellow can't be good for the brand.
Said Pope Francis, quoted in "Pope tells transgender person: ‘God loves us as we are’/Pope Francis has previously said 'who am I to judge?' when asked about the LGBTQ community"
"God loves us as we are."
Ahh um no wrong.
Three words...
Sodom and Gomorrah. (Could have used a lot more but this gets the point across}
For those people waiting for the return of the messiah, hang in there we're getting close.
Many Catholics (myself included) truly wonder if Francis is trying to force a schism between the left and right wing factions within the church. His various doctrinal moves to crush the burgeoning Latin Mass parishes (effectively taking control from diocesan bishops and pulling it to Rome) as well as the scandalous acceptance of divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Holy Communion.
It's highly suspect that Bishop Strickland was recently raked over the coals with a visitation from the big-wigs at the Vatican immediately following his very visible and vocal opposition to the shenanigans in LA with the Dodgers and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (spit). It's a distinct possibility that he could be stripped of his bishopric and sent to the Galapagos to minister to the rare bird life on the island. (I'm exaggerating here for effect, but you get my point.) And don't think that Archbishop Vigano's exile from Twitter wasn't due to a request from on high. Both of these men are tremendous examples of pious and faithful shepherds and sadly, because they understand the requirement of obedience, will be punished.
Meanwhile, Fr. James Martin, the out and proud homosexual priest (and a fellow Jesuit, natch) who has made such a nuisance of himself over the last decade or so, has been kicked upstairs with a promotion to Rome.
gilbar said "This is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of 'ambiguous'.. It is COMPLETELY CLEAR
The Lord loves us as we ARE... Quit cutting!! want me to Quote Chapter and Verse? Okay
Deuteronomy 23:1..."
Are you adhering to the rules in Deuteronomy? Are you writing from prison?
"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people."
Presumably you don't eat pork or shrimp or lobster. And you're keeping up with your tithing and canceling debts every seventh year. Etc. etc.
Don't we all understand that religion is an implement of tribal power? Catholic, Aztec, Protestant.
At this point, why do we care?
Because we can make new religions of global warming or we can close development of anything because 1 x 10^(-12 ) will die.
The white man should have left the Inca and Aztca to cut the hearts from captives, that would have been a good native American thing.
The Spaniards in South America were evil bastards, they were the worst of crooks, only less crooks than the evil murdering thieves that were the Inca kings.
The Aztecs were murdering bastards.
"as we are" is big tent.
Mark clarified the Pope's official position, which in no way conflicts with the Church's central tenet that God is with all of us and loves us despite our sin.
It's the most traditional statement this Pope has issued in a while.
And this is good news. It's not some silly word game. Consider its magnificence.
From the article...
"His comments, released by Vatican media on Tuesday, were in a podcast in which Francis listened and responded to audio messages from young people ... One of the young people was Giona, an Italian in their early 20s who said they were 'torn by the dichotomy between (their Catholic) faith and transgender identity.'"
To me it's clear: Francis is addressing feelings of alienation and isolation that a member of his flock is dealing with by reminding them that God loves them and they can turn to Him for support.
Turning this into a virtue-signaling cosmic discussion on (the evils of) transgenderism is not what Giona needs right now.
Presumably you don't eat pork or shrimp...
I have no stomach for biblical debate...but..
Lots of these things are just common sense.
We cook pork to 160F. But not lamb, or beef. Why is that? When you get the answer, dont snark at the bible, but wonder in amazement, how spot on the bible is. Then repeat.
I don't know if he loves us exactly. He certainly tolerates us. I know I wouldn't put up with half the monkeyshines you lot get up to.
He gave us a perfectly good list of rules that, for some reason, the vast majority of you have a hard time following.
Robert Cook said...
"All this discussion over an entity who exists only in imagination."
Like the fairy storey of Socialism?
If God loves is as we are, and made us so, then why is the Pope encouraging illegal immigration? Deus Vult!
Gordon Pasha: The Pope is as politically infallible as any other human. Catholics are not required to follow his political views.
So, yes; this is a serious question...
What does this say about Roman Catholics in the U.S., as litigants in civil rights cases involving LGBTQ+ rights questions, who claim that "religious freedom" is their preeminent cause, superseding other competing rights?
Can it still be a "sincerely held religious belief," to claim that your Roman Catholicism forbids you from designing a cake for a gay wedding? Or designing a webpage for a gay wedding? Or cutting the hair of someone who is transgender?
Fn. - I am somewhat eliding the important distinction between baking and selling masses of cakes versus designing the decoration of such cakes. Or the difference between writing standard computer code which may or may not get employed in a webpage for a gay wedding ceremony, versus authoring the text of a page extolling the wonderfulness of a same-sex wedding. Those distinctions are a critical, but separate, discussion.
I am also eliding another distinction; between "religious exemptions" from LGBTQ+ civil rights legislation on the one hand, and the resistance to "forced speech" on the other. That's another important discussion topic. But it is separate from the discrete question of whether Roman Catholics can even have a "sincerely held religious belief" that somehow requires them to distance themselves from the LGBTQ+ community.
"All this discussion over an entity who exists only in imagination."
No. The Pope really exists; I saw him on television with my own two eyes. Snappy dresser.
"and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (spit)."
They got nothing on the Imams of Perpetual Pederasty. Funny how they never show up at events.
"We cook pork to 160F"
Which is no longer necessary.
"Gone are the days of sad dry pork. Now we can confidently eat pork at a safe 145 degrees. Resulting in tender juicy pork goodness. The National Pork Board's recommendations for cooking whole muscle cuts like pork chops, pork roasts, or tenderloin is an internal temperature of 145° F, followed by a three-minute rest."
Source: The National Pork Board
What does this tell you about G-d's anticipatory skills or lack thereof?
"Like the fairy storey of Socialism?"
That's "story."
Remarkably, the Roman Catholic Church has not changed itself. Love the sinner, hate the sin, encourage repentance.
Robert Cook said...
"Like the fairy storey of Socialism?"
That's "story."
Yes it is. A fairy story.
I for one rejoice that there is such a thing as the National Pork Board.
Ohh! No delay!
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