Wherein Francis explains it all to Bono

14 Comments

1. JonPatrick says:

   20 May 2022 at 7:27 AM

   What a strange answer! Yet what one has come to expect from this pontificate.

   “since the afternoon of the apple, women are in charge”. Silly me, thinking all this time that God was in charge. The “afternoon of the apple” not exactly a shining moment in the history of womanhood. Maybe a better example is the Annunciation.
2. Grant M says:

   20 May 2022 at 8:52 AM

   The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshipers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.

   G.K Chesterton

   What, then, is Nature, and how do we come to be imprisoned in a system so alien to us? Oddly enough, the question becomes much less sinister the moment one realizes that Nature is not all. Mistaken for our mother, she is terrifying and even abominable. But if she is only our sister—if she and we have a common Creator—if she is our sparring partner—then the situation is quite tolerable.

   C.S Lewis
3. rwj says:

   20 May 2022 at 9:34 AM

   Sooo a 2 sided- interpretation

   1. Original Sin was woman “taking charge”?

   2. The women being “in charge” is an effect of original sin?

   Better have a synod about this…
4. Ariseyedead says:

   20 May 2022 at 9:44 AM

   Are those lyrics to some obscure rock song that didn’t make it onto one of U2’s albums?
   Please say yes…please!
5. DavidJ says:

   20 May 2022 at 12:18 PM

   Of all the questions you could ask the Holy Father….that’s the one you pick?
6. Not says:

   20 May 2022 at 1:04 PM

   Sorry to burst the bubble of Eve’s sin. Father Malachi Martin told me years ago that Adam was responsible for Eve’s sin. (feminist beware) . Adam was responsible for everything, including Eve. He left Eve to her own devices while he went about his business. The sin is on Adam. How about women will have pain in childbirth, but man must work by the sweat of his brow…for life. hahahaha. I am a senior citizen and still sweating.
7. Benedict Joseph says:

   20 May 2022 at 3:40 PM

   Give me strength. He never fails to mortify.
8. Suburbanbanshee says:

   20 May 2022 at 4:36 PM

   1. That was funny. I’m willing to say that. Kinda walks that line between feminist and misogynist.

   2. When you’re pope, you’re supposed to use humor that is fitting, and have a teaching tool. But if Pope Francis normally was circumspect in his speech, nobody would take this badly.

   3. OTOH, I’m glad that the Pope is in good spirits, seeing as he’s been sick. And it’s Bono, so I’m not sure one is obliged to make sense, when Bono often asks silly questions.

   4. Of course I wish that Francis would do better. But this isn’t one of his worst, so I’ll take it.

   5. How about that Archbishop Cordileone?!!! What a bishop!
9. Eugene says:

   20 May 2022 at 6:14 PM

   Padre, with all due respect can I ask you to please stop blogging about what Bergoglio says about anything?
   It is mostly injurious to my faith and I am long past tolerating his views on almost everything.
   I do my best to live my faith and that brings enough battles but to be spiritually attacked by someone who is supposed to be our Papa for the last 8 years has taken a heavy toll.
   With my respect and prayers for your good Padre.
10. Mojoron says:

    21 May 2022 at 7:47 AM

    Ugg.
11. Cornelius says:

    21 May 2022 at 2:18 PM

    It was a stupid question. It got an equally stupid answer. All in all, a complete waste of time. Two miserable leftists stroking each other. Bleh.
12. TonyO says:

    21 May 2022 at 4:13 PM

    It is true that “nature” (if you want to use that expression for the rest of physical creation) is a creature (more properly, many creatures), and we are creatures. In that sense, we are “alike” in being creatures of the same God.

    But we are unlike in important, even critical ways. For one: (1) we are not even with physical creation, we have immortal souls and we exist forever – physical things will pass away. (2) We are destined for union with God, physical creatures are not. (3) God put us in dominion over the rest of the world, so it not even like “nature” is our younger sister, it’s more like nature is our servant. (4) Finally, unlike each one of us, there is no principle of unity within the physical order that makes the REST of the physical universe a one being that has a specific essence and a specific end purpose to it, Rather, the whole created order (including us) is a hierarchy of many beings which is ordered by God’s Providential plan, not by some “mothering” principle within nature itself operating to pursue “her” agenda. The purpose is God’s and is not nature’s. The plan is God’s and not inside of “Nature”. The intention is God’s, not Nature’s.

    Adam was responsible for everything, including Eve. He left Eve to her own devices while he went about his business.

    I have heard this theory before, but I have heard little of the basis for it by which we could know this. God told Adam to “tend and keep” the Garden – which presumably took time and attention. We don’t have any knowledge of how long things went on in the Garden before Satan attacked Eve, so it might have been quite a while until he got his chance. The notion that Adam was supposed to keep watch over Eve every minute of the day, indefinitely, seems silly.

    The other theory I have heard, which fits more with what the Bible actually says later, is that Adam’s sin was the more grievous in that he not only ate the fruit she gave him, but that he SHOULD have stopped short and corrected her error. All of the passages in St. Paul that refer to original sin call it the sin of Adam: arguably, it was Adam’s consent that sealed their fate and our fate of falling to the state of Original Sin, and if Adam had rejected the offer from Eve, the whole debacle would have been avoidable, and Eve’s failure repairable or reversible without The Fall of the whole human race. It is in this sense that Adam failed his duty.
13. APX says:

    21 May 2022 at 6:12 PM

    Interesting. I too was told that Adam was responsible for Eve’s sin, but because he was standing next to her and said nothing to try and stop her and thus failed in his duties as her husband, but instead pointed the finger at her and blamed her.
14. GregB says:

    25 May 2022 at 12:10 PM

    Dr. Brant Pitre did a presentation on the Jewish Roots of Holy Week where he said that Jewish tradition says that the forbidden fruit tree was the fig, and that the Tree of Life was the olive tree. He has a video excerpt from it on YouTube, “Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree and Cleanse the Temple of the Money Changers”
    *
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KXpAiLIOzQ
    *
    The fig tree segment starts at the 9:16 time mark.
    *
    It is my understanding that Adam was the priest of Eden. There is a Catholic News Agency article about it, “Adam: High priest of humanity”
    *
    https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resource/55702/adam-high-priest-of-humanity

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