Pope Francis Says Atheists Who Do Good Are Redeemed, Not Just Catholics

[angus]

This guy is interesting.

Not as interesting as the Hitler Youth guy was.   

Also, you do understand that "reformer" means something totally different among the College of Cardinals than it means at the US Election Atlas Forum, right? 

[angus]

Large part of my family is Catholic and I worked at a Jesuit school, so I know my way around the various factions in the Church - especially the reformist ones (which are of course dominant in Denmark).

Most of my family was catholic too.  Got an uncle who's a priest.  He even smokes French cigarettes.  I also taught in a private school, albeit a Jewish one and not a Catholic one, but it was heavily attended religious scholars of all stripes.  Not sure that gives me (or you) any inside info on the workings of the vatican.  Certainly it's nothing to brag about.  But what do I know, I haven't been to mass in 20 years, and only then on the occasion of my mother's requiem mass.

Anyway, the point about reform was that many folks read it in the wapo or the NYT or whatever, and they make it something that it's not.  To yankees, "reform" means all sorts of things, everything from female altar boys to married priests.  Don't count on any of that.  "Reform" in such circles usually refers to vatican city bureaucracy.  Not that it isn't needed, and it'd be refreshing if any reforms occur, but don't count on your priest being able to come out of the closet and marry his boyfriend in a highly-publicized marriage ceremony officiated by the new Argentine pope.

And yes, I do think Mr. Ratzinger was something of a character.  Not too many popes can claim to have been Hitler youth, and although many of them can claim to have angered the muslims, not many can claimed to find only "evil and inhuman things" in Muhammed's teachings.  At least he had the decency to offend the Danish editorial community only a few months earlier. 

[angus]

This guy is interesting.

Not as interesting as the Hitler Youth guy was.   

you didn't find him interesting either?

Dude, he wrote more than 60 books.  I can't say I've read them but I found him interesting.  For example, he was also known as a "reformer."  During the second vatican council he adopted the idea of return to the purity and originality.  Reading the bible and the writing of early theologians.  During his first papal mass, he wanted to be greeted by a newly married couple and their child rather than the entire college of cardinals.  During his papacy he continued as a reformer, merging administrative duties of several agencies and creating a New Evangelization council.  All the while he maintained a hard line against relativism and talked his predecessor into trying to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by priests more thoroughly.  We have had many threads about him on this forum, and the net impression that one gets from reading them is that he is generally an interesting fellow.  He retired!  How many popes emeriti have there been?  That alone is pretty interesting. 

A couple of months ago, whenever it was, there were all these articles and talking head shows about him and his future legacy.  The main thing I took away from it is that he'll always seem boring to most non-scholars, because he was a cantankerous academic--polls among catholics back this up, showing that few view his legacy as "positive" as they view others--but actually he was a strong teacher-priest who sought to bring the church back to its roots.  I think people who study this sort of thing generally find him to have been very influential.  In my opinion, that makes him interesting.

The new guy may be interesting as well, but so far not as interesting as Hitler Youth Pope.  I think the exceedingly broad ecumenical statement which is the subject of this thread will get lots of circulation, but don't over play it.  Lots of popes have tried varying degrees of magnanimity, with varying degrees of success.  Not only popes.  Hardworking priests do that as well, and on a real scale.  They do it every day.  And they don't expect to have newspaper editorials written extolling their virtues.  They do it because they believe that it's the right thing to do.

[angus]

I'm aware that his father's overt animosity toward the NSDAP resulted in his family's financial ruin.  I'm aware of how such a thing early in life would teach you to go along to get along.  I don't hold it against him.  The Fox News channel made much of the fact that he was a reluctant member and actually refused to attend meetings, and we discussed that here.  Anyway, he was thoroughly vetted, not only by the people who officially do the vetting but by the all-important US Election Atlas Forum, but I'd be lying if I said that the fact that he was a Hitler Youth as well as the Pope isn't interesting.  You'd be lying if you said that as well.  Not many people are going to be able to make such a claim.  That, too, adds to the fascination.  

This is a left-leaning forum, and I understand that feed-the-poor types are always going to be more in vogue here than cantankerous academicians, but I'm just not going to sit idly by while the new guy is called interesting without interjecting that the old guy was at least as interesting.  More so, imho.

Normally, religious matters are beyond my scope, but the Catholic Church is more of a political organization than a religion, so it's fair game.  Their kingmaking ability has no doubt diminished in the past 500 years or so, but they are still major players in world politics.  Don't you agree?

[angus]

Let me restate my position. 

About 15 years ago, I stumbled upon a really weird catholic mass in a rainforest in Guatemala.  It was near Iximché, which is an ancient Highland Maya temple site built in honor of the corn goddess.  Late Postclassic period, if you're into that sort of thing.  Anyway, I was hot and sweaty and broke, walking back toward my rented room on the shores of Lago Atitlan, where I had a dime bag and a bottle of Venezuelan rum waiting for me.  I came to a clearing in the forest and noticed all these folks speaking Quiche or Kaqchikel, and occassionally Spanish with a thick, lilting indigenous accent, and pouring out some alcohol or other local firewater on the ground.  They were burning large piles of corn and other crops to ask the corn goddess for a good yield.  All of it happened under the aegis of a formally robed priest.  I was aware that Rome allowed the local bishops a great deal of latitude in dealing with the indigenous populations, but that was the first time I'd witnessed it firsthand.  In later years, I'd notice something similar in the Andes.  "I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall have no other gods before me.  Well, ye shall have some other gods and goddesses from time to time as it is necessary to ensure peace and spread the Word, and ye shall allow the people to maintain their prior religions, so long as ye continue to try to teach them Spanish and baptize them."

Consider the tens of thousands of Jews who converted to Christianity in Italy and Austria during the late 1930s and early 1940s.  It turned out not to do them any good, but do you suppose that the priests asked if they really meant it?  Of course they didn't.  They didn't have to do any soul-searching to decide if it was right for them to try to save lives.  Or to make peace.  This is what priests do.  They don't need permission from Rome either.  Well, officially they do, but on a day-to-day level, priests do this every day. 

Let's consider what Francis actually said:  “Il Signore ha redento con il sangue di Cristo: tutti, non soltanto i cattolici. Tutti! ‘Padre, gli atei?’. Anche loro. Tutti!"

There you have it!  (FYI:  Tutti = everybody.  atei = atheists.)

So, yeah, it's like it says in the OP:  "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics.  Everyone!  ...even the atheists.  Everyone!"  This is not a controversial statement.  It's a bit informal, but it is a reasonable restatement of church dogma.  Note, importantly, that redento = redemption.  I suspect that there's some general ignorance in the public about the word redemption.  It does not mean the same thing as salvation.  He does not articulate the salvation of atheists.  Be clear on that.  Also, he goes on to say that "atei che fare il bene haberre redento."  Or something like this.  That is, atheists who do good will be "redeemed."  (It seems to me that the central message here is:  Tutti abbiamo il dovere di fare il bene.  So, all spin aside, he definitely did not say:  Tutti gli atei andranno in paradiso.)

Still, somewhere, right now, there's a grieving mother, an staunchly observant Catholic, who has lost an infant child who hasn't yet been baptized.  Maybe it was stillborn.  Maybe it died soon after its birth.  Does the priest tell her that the baby's soul will be lost forever in blackness and permanent death?  Of course not.  He tells her that the baby is now with its grandparents and with Jesus, and that it is not suffering.  The statement by Francis isn't a new idea.  It's what priests do every day. 

It's a good time to lament the fact that neither Supersoulty nor jmfcst post here any longer.  This thread could have evolved into a titanic debate between those two.  No matter.  Fare il bene. 

Also, Peace be with you. 

[angus]

The refreshing thing about Francis is that this guy actually acts like a priest, not a scholar or a bureaucrat. This emphasis could potentially make him a reformer.

It's the stress on the importance of good works I like. 

Va bene, sono d'accordo.  (It's all good.)

As for the difference between salvation and redemption, Father Guido Sarducci from Saturday Night Live used to have a very practical view when he explained salvation:  "Life is a job. You get, like, $14.50 a day, but after you die you have to pay for your sins. Stealing a hub cap is around $100. Masturbation is 35 cents.  It doesn't seem like much, but it adds up. If there's money left when you subtract what you owe from what you've earned, you can go to heaven. If not, you have to go back to work. Sort of like reincarnation--many nuns are Mafia guys working it off."

It's probably funnier when Father Guido says it.

Ciao. 

[angus]

It's almost like saying that it's "fascinating" that Richard Nixon served in the U.S. military during World War II.

Don't kid yourself, man.  Nothing is as interesting as a Nazi pope.  Well, except maybe a Jewish pope.  I don't really see that happening, though.

[angus]

Being in Hitler Jugend in 1941 was not a sign of Nazi symphaty, neither from him nor his parents.

We all understand that.  In fact, I specifically mentioned his parents' disdain for the Nazis in this thread.  Anyone who has read this far must have encountered it.

Moreover, people don't necessarily have anything against all Nazis.  There was a very famous member of the NSDAP named Oskar Schindler that has a tree planted in his name on the Avenue of the Righteous in Jerusalem.  Pretty impressive for someone who was a Nazi, a philanderer, and an exploiter of child labor.

As for myself, one of my most treasured possessions is a small piece of furniture wooden furniture made in France before the Terror and given to my mother long ago by a former Hitlerjugend.  That it once belonged to a Hitler Youth is among the least interesting of its attributes. 

You people read far too much in between the lines.  I don't know who is sillier, those who think that Pope Francis suddenly said, "Oh, and by the way now all dogs go to heaven" or those who feel the need to defend Ratzinger's honor. 

I still think Ratzinger's a very interesting fellow, but I'm not going to argue any more about it.  Also, I don't disagree with the point you and anvi made about Francis.  Never did.  Never claimed to.

[angus]

Large part of my family is Catholic and I worked at a Jesuit school, so I know my way around the various factions in the Church - especially the reformist ones (which are of course dominant in Denmark).

Most of my family was catholic too.  Got an uncle who's a priest.  He even smokes French cigarettes.  I also taught in a private school, albeit a Jewish one and not a Catholic one, but it was heavily attended religious scholars of all stripes.  Not sure that gives me (or you) any inside info on the workings of the Vatican.  Certainly it's nothing to brag about.  But what do I know, I haven't been to mass in 20 years, and only then on the occasion of my mother's requiem mass.

Certainly not bragging and obviously not claiming any inside knowledge about the Vatican, but you used a very condescending tone implying that I had no knowledge of the subject apart from what I got from this forum:

"Also, you do understand that "reformer" means something totally different among the College of Cardinals than it means at the US Election Atlas Forum, right?"  

So lose the arrogance and stop being such a prick (as in saying "some Nazis are popular, just look at Schindler") or calling Benedict a "Hitler Youth Pope".

The posts herein inspired a condescending tone, and as other posters have pointed out the statement by Francis has been misconstrued.  As for your inferences, do not misinterpret them as implications on my part.  I accept that you have thought about this.

As for Mr. Ratzinger, I only referred to him as the Hitler youth guy.  I never once made a judgement about that.  Others have attributed statements to me that I simply have not made.

You are also misquoting me.  I never said that some Nazis are popular.  Of course if I'd wanted to make such a statement, I'd have far better examples than Oskar Schindler.  Many Nazis were in fact very popular.  Some remain so.

You want me to argue against a strawman that you have created, and I will not do it.  What I will do is stand by my post:  I simply find Ratzinger a more interesting man than Francis.  You're free to find Francis more interesting if you want to, but I don't.  I will refer to him as Ratzinger because I think his influence subsumes his papacy.  Or at least it transcends it.  He was a well-respected academic whose writings helped inform church policy long before he became Benedict.  His academic career was very well established even by the time John Paul II became pope, and I gave some examples of this earlier.  Moreover, he was also called reformer just like John Paul II was and just like Francis is.  It seems de rigeur now for the press to label all newly-elected popes "something of a reformer."  In Ratzinger's case, he was reforming long before he was elected pope.

[angus]

It's almost like saying that it's "fascinating" that Richard Nixon served in the U.S. military during World War II.

Don't kid yourself, man.  Nothing is as interesting as a Nazi pope.  Well, except maybe a Jewish pope.  I don't really see that happening, though.

I could have sworn Peter was Jewish.

More seriously, are there any statistics on the numbers of ethnic Jews today who practice other religions?

Yeah, that's the urban legend (not the part about there being a peter, and not about him not being a goy, and not about him being acquainted with Jesus, and not about Jesus saying something about rocks, but the part about him being the "first pope.")  At what point does the Bishop of Rome become more important than other bishops?  I don't think that happens suddenly when Peter shows up in Rome.  I think it's about 500 years after Jesus' death, at least.  Matter of fact, there's some serious debate about whether Peter ever really went to Rome--chastise, chastise, chastise!  I can feel the heat of the fried spam hitting me already.  Probably I shouldn't have even brought it up--but anyway, I don't think the word pope (or actually the Greek version of that word) was used until circa AD400.  Certainly, since popes have really been politicians, and since the Church evolved into a political organization, they have all been goyyim. 

But only one was ever in the Hitlerjugend! 

As for the serious question, I don't know.  How many ethnic Jews practice Judaism, for that matter?

[angus]

the Catholic Church, not God, gets to decide who's allowed in Heaven.

This is a fact, but it has very little to do with the pope's statement as you originally posted.

Everything in the original article was valid, and everything that the pope said is pretty traditional rhetoric.  The new article you post says clearly that  "people misunderstood the pope."  This is also the point that I and others have made in this thread.  Have you read Rosica's statement in its entirety?  It's probably good that he made it, and not because of the pope's incompetence, but because of the ignorance of those who have reported on the pope's original statement.

[angus]

I fail to see why the Pope would need to send someone else to clarify something he said.

Then you must have lived under a rock all your life.  Maybe you have never heard of Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow.  You must never have watched television news in the United States. Sensationalism sells.  (As does sex, but even the best network news execs have a tough time working that angle in here.)  Comments are taken out of context with regularity.  Well-intentioned, well-educated folks are misquoted and misrepresented constantly.  Even in this very thread I have been deeply and profoundly misrepresented and misquoted.  Several times, in fact.  I sympathesize with this pope precisely because of that (although I still find Ratzinger more "interesting")

this part of your post was meant as a joke.

to the same degree that yours was, I assume.  That's rather like asking whether Father Guido is a joke, isn't it?  Of course we can make it glib, but it underlies a truth.  Your statement had the ring of sarcasm, and one take it at face value and make a similarly sarcastic one, but at the same time, one can easily recognize both our statements as literary fact.  Of course Heaven (and Hell!) are literary constructs.  They come from Sheol and Gehenna, ancient Hebrew ideas.  They were co-opted by Christians, of course--St. Thomas Aquinas, Dante's Paraiso, the echatology of St. Augustine of Hippo, Bonaventure, Luis Molina, etc., etc.  You know the drill.  You're an educated guy.  Yes, the political organization known as The Catholic Church can certainly decide its own ideology.  And why not?  

Anyway, this gets far, far off topic.  Great literature, like the Bible and the works of the scholars and philosophers of catholicism, deserves its own thread.  We're here to talk about the validity of Francis' recent statement.  A scholar walks out and reminds people of what he really said and you snidely interpret that as incompetence on Francis' part?  Who's the joker here?  Not I.

[angus]

Scott, before I get in over my head--I'm not a religious scholar and I don't claim to be one.  Like I said earlier I really wished supersoulty still posts here--I felt it was important to clarify what Francis really said.  Back when I first started posting here Gustav used to call me "Mr. I-can-read-Italian-and-I-like-showing-off" but that's not exactly true.  My Italian is very rusty.   I'm actually Mr. I-wish-I-could-read-Italian-Much-Better.  No matter, I read it well enough to know that Francis didn't say anyting about atheists going to heaven, and there are enough bona fide translations out there anyway that you can read it in English.  I think Huffington understands that as well.  (By the way, she reads Greek!  How cool is that?)  You know as well as I do that people like President George and King George and Pope George have spokesmen.  That's what guys named George have, and by "guys named George" you do know that I don't mean "guys named George" I assume.  (I assume that you also know that his real name is Jorge, which is George in Spanish.)  Anyway, the point is that he said, basically, that everyone is redeemed.  Take it for what it's worth, not a cent more.  The Rosica clarification is to be expected.  Despite Politicus' sentient comments about the new Argentine pope acting like a real priest, George Bergoglio not having a press secretary would be like George Bush not having a press secretary.  Do you get this weird every time Jay Carney walks out to explain to reporters what President Obama meant?  Of course you don't.

As for all that recruiting business, I'll let religious scholars speak to that.  I really don't know how a church goes about recruiting new members.  My point wasn't to pass judgement on whether it's a good or a bad technique, but don't overlook the fact that the popes were kingmakers and kingbreakers for hundreds of years, so the political power built on some fairly simple assumptions (and a shitload of effective fundraising) can't be dismissed outright. 

[angus]

One of the interesting and to me subtle differences between my Protestant and Catholic acquaintances is that the Protestants are always much surer of their salvation. "I accept Jesus as my savior - I know I'm going to heaven." That was also very Protestant in my experiences in Methodist and non-demoninational churches as a kid. That was a core belief. But Catholic folks who I have met are always far less certain, so again, this thing could be the eons old "works" or "belief" issue. As a Jesuit, I am naturally presuming that Francis would elevate works above mere belief.

It's all very strange to me. How can anyone know, assuming Christianity is the "right" religion?- and that's very far from assumed.

...as religions go, Christianity seems pretty low maintenance.  You simply have to accept a creed.  Islam is like that too.  In those religions no one is drawing blood or demanding that your first born male child be thrown into a volcano. 

Anyway, I think you hit upon the whole point of Protestantism.  If Jesus Christ, Inc., had never evolved into a political organization, then Protestantism would not have evolved.  Also, you're speaking of a certain brand of Protestantism when you talk that born again language.  There are other brands.  Calvinism, for example, speaks of the Elect.  (Baptists are the uniquely American version of Calvinists, in my understanding.)  In calvinism, you say "I know I'm saved" because you think that if you say it enough, it will be true.  That's not to be confused with the Evangelical sort of Protestantism, starting with Luther.  In that tradition, you know you're "saved" simply because you know you're saved.  There are several brands of that religion here as well.  I think Methodism is an offshoot.  (Wesley was into Free Will as opposed to predestination.)

I don't think you can lump all protestants together, even though it's both convenient and fashionable.