¡Vaya lío!

The Holy Father, Pope Francis (or perhaps “Pope Lío“, hereafter), met with young people in the strange cathedral of Rio de Janiero on Thursday, 25 July.  He spoke in Spanish, entirely off the cuff.  Here is the official English translation of the Holy Father’s extemp address with my emphases and comments:

Thank you, thank you for being here, thank you for coming … thanks to those who are inside, and thanks especially to those who are left outside. They tell me there are thirty thousand outside. I greet them from here. They are in the rain … thank you for this sign of your closeness, thank you for coming to World Youth Day. I suggested to Dr Gasbarri, the person who has been organizing my journey, to look out for a place for me to meet you, and in half a day he sorted the whole thing out. I would like to thank Dr Gasbarri publicly for all he has managed to do today.

Let me tell you what I hope will be the outcome of World Youth Day: I hope there will be noise. [Original Spanish: lío, which is really “mess, chaos, havoc”; Italian trans.: chiasso; French: bruit … “noise”? “bruit”? No. Perhaps in an extended sense, “noise”. Italian “chiasso” is closer.] Here there will be noise, I’m quite sure. Here in Rio there will be plenty of noise, no doubt about that. But I want you to make yourselves heard in your dioceses, I want the noise to go out, I want the Church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable, everything to do with clericalism, everything that might make us closed in on ourselves. The parishes, the schools, the institutions are made for going out … if they don’t, they become an NGO, and the Church cannot be an NGO. [He has used this image before.] May the bishops and priests forgive me if some of you create a bit of confusion afterwards. That’s my advice. Thanks for whatever you can do. [¡Va a haber lío! ¿Motivo #5 para Summorum Pontificum?]

Look, at this moment, I think our world civilization has gone beyond its limits, it has gone beyond its limits because it has made money into such a god that we are now faced with a philosophy and a practice which exclude the two ends of life that are most full of promise for peoples. They exclude the elderly, obviously. You could easily think there is a kind of hidden euthanasia, that is, we don’t take care of the elderly; but there is also a cultural euthanasia, because we don’t allow them to speak, we don’t allow them to act. And there is the exclusion of the young. The percentage of our young people without work, without employment, is very high and we have a generation with no experience of the dignity gained through work. This civilization, in other words, has led us to exclude the two peaks that make up our future. As for the young, they must emerge, they must assert themselves, the young must go out to fight for values, to fight for these values; and the elderly must open their mouths, the elderly must open their mouths and teach us! Pass on to us the wisdom of the peoples! [QUAERITUR: So, young people get into the streets and act up a bit.  Is that supposed to get them jobs?  They could reach out to older people even without jobs.  But, how is “asserting themselves” going to get them work… unless he means “get off your backsides and look for jobs” and “don’t be too proud to take a job that pays less because money is not your god”… I’m just asking.  In concrete terms what could he be driving at here? I don’t think he is simply uttering vaguely moralistic catchphrases.]

Among the Argentine people, I ask the elderly, from my heart: do not cease to be the cultural storehouse of our people, a storehouse that hands on justice, hands on history, hands on values, hands on the memory of the people. And the rest of you, please, do not oppose the elderly: let them speak, listen to them and go forward. [“go forward” … and… ?] But know this, know that at this moment, you young people and you elderly people are condemned to the same destiny: exclusion. Don’t allow yourselves to be excluded. It’s obvious! That’s why I think you must work. Faith in Jesus Christ is not a joke, it is something very serious. It is a scandal that God came to be one of us. It is a scandal that he died on a cross. It is a scandal: the scandal of the Cross. The Cross continues to provoke scandal. But it is the one sure path, the path of the Cross, the path of Jesus, the path of the Incarnation of Jesus. Please do not water down your faith in Jesus Christ. We dilute fruit drinks – orange, apple, or banana juice, but please do not drink a diluted form of faith. Faith is whole and entire, not something that you water down. It is faith in Jesus. It is faith in the Son of God made man, who loved me and who died for me. So then: make yourselves heard; take care of the two ends of the population: the elderly and the young; do not allow yourselves to be excluded and do not allow the elderly to be excluded. Secondly: do not “water down” your faith in Jesus Christ. [Remember… it’s off the cuff.  But he gets a little more concrete here] The Beatitudes: What must we do, Father? Look, read the Beatitudes: that will do you good. If you want to know what you actually have to do, read Matthew Chapter 25, which is the standard by which we will be judged. With these two things you have the action plan: the Beatitudes and Matthew 25. You do not need to read anything else. [Ummm…?!?  Shall we agree that they are a good start?  And pick up your Bible right now – I am sure you have one next to you and your computer – and read Matthew 25.  It’ll make you nervous.  This is the long chapter which begins with the parable of the wise and foolish virgins and goes on with the parable of the three servants and talents and ends with the Lord’s description of the separation of the sheep and goats at the Judgement.  All three end with someone shut out in the outer darkness to weep and gnash their teeth in eternal punishment.] I ask you this with all my heart. Very well, I thank you for coming so close. I am sorry that you are all penned in, but let me tell you something. I experience that myself now and then. What an awful thing it is to be penned in. I openly admit it, but we’ll see. I understand you. I would have liked to come closer to you, but I understand that for security reasons, it just isn’t possible. Thank you for coming, thank you for praying for me; I ask you from my heart, I need it. I need your prayers, I need them very much. Thank you for that. Well then, I want to give you my blessing, and afterwards, we will bless the image of the Virgin that is to travel all over the Republic. And also the Cross of Saint Francis, which will travel on that same missionary journey. But do not forget: make yourselves heard; take care of the two ends of life, the two ends of the history of peoples: the elderly and the young; and do not water down the faith. [Jesuits when preaching often try to make three points and then repeat them at the end.]

And now let us pray, so as to bless the image of the Virgin, and then I will give you the Blessing.
Let us stand for the Blessing, but first I want to thank Archbishop Arancedo for what he said, because I haven’t had the good manners to thank him before. So thank you for your words!

Prayer

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary …

Lord you left your Mother in our midst that she might accompany us.

May she take care of us and protect us on our journey, in our hearts, in our faith.

May she make us disciples like herself, missionaries like herself.

May she teach us to go out onto the streets.

May she teach us to step outside ourselves.

We bless this image, Lord, which will travel round the country.

May she, by her meekness, by her peace, show us the way.

Lord, you are a scandal. You are a scandal: the scandal of the Cross. A Cross which is humility, meekness; a Cross that speaks to us of God’s closeness. We bless this image of the Cross that will travel round the country.

Thank you very much. We will see each other again in the coming days.
May God bless you. Pray for me. Don’t forget!

Here is the Spanish of the “money quote” part of “Pope Lío’s” talk.  You decide if the English translation got it right or not:

Quisiera decir una cosa: ¿qué es lo que espero como consecuencia de la Jornada de la Juventud? Espero lío. Que acá adentro va a haber lío, va a haber. Que acá en Río va a haber lío, va a haber. Pero quiero lío en las diócesis, quiero que se salga afuera… Quiero que la Iglesia salga a la calle, quiero que nos defendamos de todo lo que sea mundanidad, de lo que sea instalación, de lo que sea comodidad, de lo que sea clericalismo, de lo que sea estar encerrados en nosotros mismos.

Las parroquias, los colegios, las instituciones son para salir; si no salen se convierten en una ONG, y la Iglesia no puede ser una ONG. Que me perdonen los Obispos y los curas, si algunos después le arman lío a ustedes, pero.. Es el consejo. Y gracias por lo que puedan hacer.

We should now perhaps call him…

Pope Lío!

If Ali-Foreman was the “Thrilla in Manila”, then Pope Francis and the … wealthy? complacent? might be the “Lío in da’ Rio”.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Francis and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

24 Comments

  1. AGA says:

    The Holy Father is no conservative in the sense of “conserving” the current moral economy – the materialist separation of Faith and Economics which we’ve lived under for over 200 years.

    Watching the Holy Father is not as interesting as watching American Catholics interpreting him. “Conservative” Catholics have locked themselves into a certain political and economic ideology. They struggle to understand the Holy Father’s philosophy – which at its heart is a form of “anti-Americanism” (insofar as America symbolizing Capitalism).

    By comparison, Pope Benedict is an Americanist. Having watched the USofA liberate both his country and his continent from two terrible tyrannies, its no wonder. But Pope Francis doesn’t suffer from this background.

  2. Robbie says:

    The NGO comment is very interesting to me and it caught my ear when Francis said it not long after his election. I agree with it, but does the dominant theme of Francis, poverty and serving the poor, somewhat contradict that comment? If the theme of his pontificate is poverty and serving the poor, can’t that create the impression the Church is just a spiritual NGO? I don’t know the answer, but I think it highlights just how different the challenges and priorities of the Latin and South American Church are from Europe and the USA.

  3. iPadre says:

    This is my take on it. We need our young people to “act up” or “make a mess.”

    Get out there and act up for the truth. Stand firm in your solid Roman Catholic traditions and morals. Stand up against a culture of death and culture that seeks to destroy the human person and traditional marriage. Act up against all that goes agains the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church and don’t be afraid, even if it means giving up your life for the sake of the King of kings.

    For too long our Church has been worried about speaking out for the Truth. It is time to make a “mess,” and let the chips fall where they may. If they come to take us away, so be it. Viva Cristo Rey!

    [¡Va a haber lío! ¿Motivo 5 para Summorum Pontificum?]

  4. Tamquam says:

    I am an American raised in Mexico and am fluent in Spanish. I would not have thought to translate the word ‘lio’ as ‘noise,’ which would be ‘ruido’ or ‘bulla.’ Lio, according to my ancient dictionary, means ‘scrape, imbroglio, difficulty, embarrassment.’ As I read the sense of his words I gather that he wants people to confront and challenge the status quo with the Gospel. I’m for that.

    I attend a moderately conservative parish in Los Angeles, and everybody’s heart is in the right place, but there is no action. I recently attended a parish council meeting (thank heavens I am not a member!) to make a report on the status of the Confirmation program. As part of the agenda a little ferverino was presented to the effect that we need to leave the 99 and go get the one that was lost. My rather acid comment was that in a parish whose geography contains 28,000 households, 80% of which are hispanic the fact that there are just over 800 registered families tells me that that the 1% need to go out and get the 99.

    Oh, everybody agrees, but there is no action. I find the youth very receptive and spiritually hungry, but there is no outreach. The confirmation program is directed by people who feel that if a teen rubs two synapses together his head will explode. As I am merely a volunteer, and conservative (tsk, tsk!) marginalized and silenced. I would love to reach out to Catholic youth, which means, so far as I can figure, staying inside the Catholic parish system which is more interested in raising money for the new rest rooms than searching out the 99.

    So, yeah. Bring on the ‘lio.’

  5. LittleShepherds says:

    The Pope emphasized 3 things, even repeating these several times and counting with his fingers the 3 things the young people are not to forget: do not let yourselves be marginalized, do not water down the Gospel, and “hazed lio”. About the issue of marginalization, youth unemployment, he said “haganse valer”, in essence, don’t take no for an answer, challenge the structures, make them realize that you are worth a chance, keep fighting, persevere. In my opinion, this is a call to raising awareness against some type of injustice the Holy Father sees in youth unemployment. He is telling the youth to not take it lying down, challenge, argue, let them know your worth, insist on a place at the table — be a productive part of society, the workforce. See, in S American society, the “who you know” is almost more important of what your skills are when getting a job. He could be saying that the youth are not to stand back and take it when they get turned down for jobs that are given to people with connections, that they should challenge those structures and make themselves be valued.

  6. jmgazzoli says:

    His speech is called “Go for it!”

  7. Tamquam “Oh, everybody agrees, but there is no action.” and that is what i believe Pope Francis is speaking to and trying to lead by example in as much as it is possible. Unfortunately i think your take on it-no action-is not limited to your parish. Perhaps it is a malaise in our parishes that he’s trying to get us to wake up from.

  8. Priam1184 says:

    Alright, Holy Father, you tell the young to get out into the streets and make some noise (or chaos, or confusion, a ‘bouleversement’ of our society if one wants to take the French view of things). Forgive me but I don’t see it. If one tells the young in this day and age to ‘get out into the streets’ in this day and they are more likely to forget the Beatitudes and remember Tahrir Square instead. That is why words without an example behind them are so dangerous. There is more to the problems of the world than a simple worship of money, though that is an issue. The problem is the spiritual emptiness of the Western (and increasingly the entire) world, and the substitution of money for God is merely a symptom of that. Telling people to take care of the elderly is a wonderful thing, but if they are not given the spiritual foundation and discipline to do that then those words will wither on the vine like so many other wonderful papal addresses have during my lifetime. How about you lead by example Holy Father: stop giving snappy speeches and start giving us proper Liturgy and Worship of our Creator and Redeemer. Everything else will follow from that.

  9. Scott W. says:

    Sadly, my guess is that this will translate into the usual mantra: Disturb Thy Neighbor.

  10. The Masked Chicken says:

    Well, I would caution the Holy Father that it was primarily the youth of America who elected Obama. The youth of today are among the most energetic, but gullible people every to walk the Earth. They do not need to be running around creating noise. Noise will simply meet noise – there are many other youth running around shouting a different chant – a worldly chant.

    What the youth need, desperately, these days, is a sense of history. That can only come from a slow simmering study. These idealistic youth he is stirring up know nothing of evil, at least beyond the immediate moment. They will get crushed by their opponents unless they have either extreme wisdom or extreme purity at the outset. Adolescence is a difficult time to ask for purity and it is an equally difficult time to ask for wisdom. Both of these will come only by studying the reactions of men – such is the study of history. St. Paul wrote (1 Cor 10:11):

    “Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come.”

    Youth need to study the warnings of the past, unless they have a special grace of discernment from the beginning or until such time as they have begun to understand what resides in the hearts of men. Only. then. should they consider making a sound. If they are to make a noise, it must be a noise that is tuned.

    We see the same phenomenon in the U. S. – the marginalization of the very old and the very young – coincidentally, I might point out, the very two classes of people who are not often fooled by a magician’s tricks. Why do you think that Obama developed his base from the adolescents, the young, the thrill-seekers? It was because they had not yet grown pure enough or wise enough to spot a trickster.

    It is the tricks that the youth of today must be able to expose and they will never be able to do that without real, practical knowledge of the art of illusion. Before I would send out any youth to do battle, I would, first, make sure that they are properly armed. If you just tell them to go out and feed the poor and clothe the homeless without telling them what this really means, they will go out in greats waves of energy that will, largely, be dissipated.

    Matthew 25 follows on the heels of Matthew 23 and 24 – the confrontation of Christ with the leaders of Israel in Jerusalem – the ones who were supposed to be wise and learned. Matthew 23 – 25 is, more than a blueprint for social action, really an extended plea for wisdom.

    After Jesus confronted the Pharisees, who had no real wisdom, except a wisdom of the world, he goes out and laments (Matt 23:37 – 39):

    “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!
    Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate.
    For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, `Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'”

    Why is their house forsaken? Because they lack wisdom. This is made clear in the parallel passage in Luke (Luke 19: 41 – 44):

    “And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

    Wisdom is that special faculty that allows one to see as God sees and to act as God acts. Jesus is not saying that social workers will inherit the Kingdom of God. He is saying that the wise will inherit the Kingdom of God, but who are the wise? Ironically, the wise are the poor, the homeless, the naked. Haven’t you ever noticed that? It is not that in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked that your will prove that you are a good person (oh, how I wish we would get rid of that notion – we have too many mere philanthropists in the world, today, thinking they are doing God’s work by giving money). Rather, by feeding the homeless and clothing the naked it is YOU who will learn from THEM what is most dear to God’s heart. The world has it so backwards. You are not serving them as the one above to the one below. Never think that. It is they who are serving you as the one beatified (for such the Beatitudes proclaim) to the one who yearns for beatification. It is their poverty, their nakedness that will teach you. In their suffering, you will learn wisdom – the only thing that will save you on the Day of Judgment. It is only by attending to them as a student to a master that you will learn from them that this is truly your hour of visitation and that this is true wisdom – that it is the poor that have the Gospel as their dowry.

    Never think that you gain honor by feeding the poor. You might become smug. The word makarios, the Greek word that starts each Beatitude which is usually translated as blessed, is really a tribal word referring to a status of honor. A more proper translation might be, “How honored by the tribe are the poor in spirit.” What tribe? The tribe of white-washed robed martyrs and saints.

    By feeding the homeless and clothing the naked, you say to them, “I wish to know what you know, to see what you see. I wish to have the wisdom of the sons of God.”

    Look at the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Again, this is a plea for wisdom. The foolish virgins started out without taking any oil with them. They were, in a sense, doomed from the start, because they had not thought ahead and made provisions. The sad thing is that the oil was freely available if only they had bought some before they went out to meet the Groom. In a sense, the oil was the dowry for the wedding. You cannot buy this special oil by merely giving money to the poor. You must go to the dealers to obtain it. Who are the dealers? Why, is it not the very same homeless and the naked? Do you still not understand? It is the poor and the homeless who are the merchants of charity. Long before they want your money, they want your love. Their price for giving you the oil of wisdom is nothing other than to belong to them. For that one moment, when you look into each other’s eyes, if love is not exchanged, if, for that one moment you do not belong to them and they to you, if the flask of your heart is not captured within their heart, how will they fill it with the only thing they have to give – the precious oil of their beatitude?

    In serving the poor, both you and they are on a journey. The Ten Virgins were on a journey to meet the Groom. The men who were given the talents were given to them by a man on another journey – a journey that would eventually bring him back to them. The poor are that man on a journey that must, eventually come back to you. Who are the Virgins and who is the Groom? Who are those given talents and who are those who would collect them? They are all on a journey that will unite them in honor or dishonor, in beatitude or shame. It is a journey of seeing.

    When you stand before God at the time of your judgment, he will only do one thing: look at you. Now, there is a sense (a sense) in which one can say that God really only sees Himself. If He looks at you and sees His Divine Love within you, then you will go to Heaven – you will have too – because heaven is where God is and if He sees Himself in you, then it would be unfitting for That which is within you not to be in that place where He is.

    It is this very thing that plays out when you serve the poor. It is a journey for both of you: one to see and the other to be seen. In serving the poor and in the poor letting themselves be served by you (for the poor can be quite proud, sometimes), this is exactly the warm-up, the rehearsal, for the final confrontation that will be your judgment. To see and to be seen… It is not enough to throw money at the poor. This is like showing up at Heaven’s gate and demanding to be let in because you paid for it. Well, you didn’t pay for it – you can’t pay for it, but you can belong to it if you really belong to the poor. You must, first of all, really willing to be what they are. If you are not willing to be that, then this translates, very directly, into not being willing to be what God is, for it is only a supernatural charity, a genuine love for the Brethren, that can unite you to the poor and to God. “Whatsoever you do to the least of these little ones, you do to me.” If you will not be united to them, you will not united to Him. What else can He say, except, “Away from me. I never knew you.” One of the most frightening things is to realize that when God says, “I never knew you,” , speaking from within His voice, you will hear every single voice of the poor to whom you could have given back your talents – after all, for whom else were they made – and you didn’t.

    If only you had had the wisdom to see and be seen. If only you had recognized the hour of your visitation.

    In the most profound sense, it is this habit of seeing that belong to the very young and the very old – the most needy. It is for the youth, before they run headlong out into the streets in a frenzy of enthusiasm to serve the poor, to learn why they do it or else, paradoxically, in serving the poor they will miss seeing what they are supposed to and, sadly, they will miss the whole purpose for what they do. They must learn not to objectify the poor. It is as bad as pornography. It is this self-mastery that I wish the adolescents to learn, first, that they might be able to serve the poor as their servants and not their masters. It is because of this that I wish the youth to behave like the noise of fireworks – there is always a deep silence before the explosion goes off.

    So, if the youth must be noisy, let it be the noise of the silent virgins, let it be the noiseless industry of the worker applying his talents. They must find in their noise that silence that knows God. What they must seek is not the wisdom of this age, but the Wisdom of the Ages. It is as near as the lonely hand of the poor person next door. If only they would train their eyes by study and prayer to see by that lonely light.

    The Chicken

  11. Scott W: What I suspect will happen is that some rad-libs, the badly-motivated and the low-information types will form a collation and, with the help of the National Schismatic Reporter, turn Papa Lío’s words into a call for an Occupy [FILL IN THE BLANK].

  12. tioedong says:

    actually it’s a good speech: Get off your tushies and help in the slums. In South America, as in the Philippines where I live, often the middle class and rich live in “gated communities”, go to private schools, and attend churches with little or no social outreach except for leftist causes. It’s easier to be a “nun on the bus” or an “occupy” type than to get your hands dirty, and the Pope is telling the kids to get their hands dirty.

    But how we do that depends on our state in life: I am a doc, so it means working with NGO’s and church institutions, but it could also mean helping the food bank or paying for a fiesta, or even starting a business so that people have jobs (Protestants here in the Philippines stress this last one: and often teach rules so poor people can get ahead).
    and I am glad he mentioned the kids and the old people: Lots of street kids need mentoring, and some of the saddest cases here are of elders who have no one to care for them (such cases are still rare, but we see them: an alcoholic man in our town who had no family just shot himself last week).
    That doesn’t mean not having Eucharistic adoration (which is popular here in the Philippines).

  13. Minnesotan from Florida says:

    Masked Chicken, I have often admired your contributions, but your post here is beyond praise. Thank you. God bless. Oremus pro invicem.

  14. Bea says:

    “Lio in Rio”

    My best Spanish translation of the word “lio” would be “upheaval”.
    Which is kind of what Christ called us to: Luke 12:51-52

    Perhaps what he was “trying” to put forth in Matthew 25 was the 3 fold teaching:
    .1. Wisdom (the wise virgins) and he brought up the elderly with his later reference to them. sometimes we elderly, don’t speak up because we will be censored/ridiculed/etc.
    2. Talents: we should not waste our talents. (I imagine talents tempered with wisdom, for if the young go out into the “streets” with our Faith but without Wisdom, they will soon lose heart).
    3. The Poor (his favorites) Charity/doing things for others.

    But then he cancels it out with the Beatitudes:
    Blessed are the Poor in Spirit/the Meek. This doesn’t really sound like “upheaval” to me.

    As far as “making noise” if he said: “hagan ruido” in Spanish it would just mean to “speak up” not noise as we understand noise. If the Spanish translations are not well done, the youth will certainly get another meaning and go out into the streets and riot/protests/general chaos but it seems like what he means is: “Speak up, share your values with the world at large”.

    Is there anyplace I could find the original words in Spanish?
    If there is, anybody, please enlighten me.
    Thanks

    Now if Pope Lio would be another Pope Leo, that would not be a bad thing.
    Maybe we could have the Leonine prayers re-instituted after all Masses, even N.O. Masses.

  15. Tamquam says:

    boxerpaws1952; Oh, I agree, just venting. I know well that there are more active parishes. My brother’s parish in AZ has a young adult group that puts on nice dresses and ties (in a town where the girls dress up in postage stamps to go out) and go door to door inviting people to come to Mass. I am not often reminded that the Holy Spirit has a lot more going on than I am aware of.

  16. Suburbanbanshee says:

    It’s a very interesting word. It comes from a kind of braided rope or cord, a “lía.” The verb used to describe wrapping stuff up in lías, or wrapping anything up, or tying everything up into a complicated thing or a mess, is the verb “liar.” And then the result of this is a “lío” — and the first meaning in the Spanish dictionary is “complication” or “problem”; then “bundle” as something you do with real objects, like clothes. “Confusion” or “mess” is after that.

    So basically you can’t avoid problems; you have to do what’s needed, which is complicated and not easy to solve. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with mess, except that complicated problems are messy.

  17. Suburbanbanshee says:

    I don’t know if twine counts as lía.

  18. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Oh, and “lioso” is “complicated, difficult, hard.”

    So it may just mean he wants kids to do the hard things. (Cue JFK’s space speech….)

  19. Priam1184 says:

    Thank you Chicken. You have pointed out something very key that is almost universally forgotten when one speaks these days about Christian teaching on care for the poor. That it is a two way street and both streets come to their end in the face of Christ. Thank you.

  20. Elizabeth D says:

    lío report: I was curious enough to tune in via YouTube to the live WYD Mass, during the offertory. There was pop music going on. I turned the sound off. Although there are many words about joy, the candles seem to be yellow beeswax. One of the gift bearers also gifted the Holy Father a t-shirt–during the offertory.

    Then the preparation of the gifts involved a scruple spoon to put water into the chalice.

    Now there are some handsome priest crooners in chasubles singing the Sanctus at microphones.

    There are some (many) priests in chasubles wearing backpacks during Mass, even some of those clearly holding a chalice (or ciborium–it looks like a chalice) and purificator and apparently going to distribute Holy Communion– though they may have had little choice because of not having anywhere to put things.

    There is applause during the sign of peace.

    What looks like a novice Sister is singing.

    There is Communion by intinction with no patens anywhere. On the other hand, communion on the tongue seems to be the rule for everyone.

    They are on a beach, and there are over 3 million people; under these conditions you have some lío. There are arial shots of the beach, there are a LOT of people. A few people, not many, are swimming or playing in the water during Mass.

    A man praying fervently has a holycard of Our Lady tucked into the neck of his t-shirt.

    A man says in English and people say also in other languages, if you have just received Holy Communion, let’s have a moment of silence for personal prayer.

    A Cardinal is reading some remarks in Spanish or Portugese.

    The Holy Father gives stand-up cutouts of Christ the Redeemer with WYD logo to several pairs of representatives of the pilgrims.

    Finalmente, el Santo Padre dice… sounds like the next one is in Krakow

  21. Bill F says:

    I realize I’m a bit late to the party, but could lio perhaps also be translated as “ruckus,” as in the Holy Father encouraging young people to raise a ruckus in promotion of the Lord and His Gospel?

  22. mike cliffson says:

    Late, but will citing a secular opposite castillian homeland case help? ” Lio ” was avoided hushing up a case of student harrassment and mobbing, not religious persecution, not colour, race, gender, etc, simply and solely envy of a hardworking teen who did well academically and “needed to be taught a ( long continuous persistant)lesson”Teen dropped out.No fuss, no justice, movealong there, nothing to see: lio evitado.
    Lio has plenty of possible unwholesome , sinful etc connotations, but static is very weak for instalado ,(covers tea every Friday at the white house, static dont) and comodo IS comfortable, but……
    I maybe reading myself into the holy father, but in context, LIO looks in opposition to what strikes me, though a description of the temptations, of the church in Argentina. as a description of the “Church of nice “in Europe.
    Maybe the church of nice stateside is different and doublepluus good, your call on that.
    May be the holyfather speaking plain language to his fellowcountrymen wasn’t being very nice.
    May be he isn’t.
    May be …

  23. anna 6 says:

    It is interesting to contrast the Holy Father’s words about “making noise” to the words Benedict XVI spoke to young people in NY:
    “Have we perhaps lost something of the art of listening? Do you leave space to hear God’s whisper, calling you forth into goodness? Friends, do not be afraid of silence or stillness, listen to God, adore him in the Eucharist. Let his word shape your journey as an unfolding of holiness.”

    And another mention of “silence” in a GA last year:
    “Silence can carve out an inner space in our very depths to enable God to dwell there, so that his word will remain within us and love for him take root in our minds and hearts and inspire our life.”

    Silence and Noise. Two different ways of being Christians.
    Reading Francis through Benedict.

  24. Pingback: WYD Special Edition - BigPulpit.com

Comments are closed.