I ask Pope Francis what it means exactly for him to “think with the church,” a notion St. Ignatius writes about in the Spiritual Exercises. He replies using an image.

“The image of the church I like is that of the holy, faithful people of God. This is the definition I often use, and then there is that image from the Second Vatican Council’s ‘Dogmatic Constitution on the Church’ (No. 12). Belonging to a people has a strong theological value. In the history of salvation, God has saved a people. There is no full identity without belonging to a people. No one is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.

“The people itself constitutes a subject. And the church is the people of God on the journey through history, with joys and sorrows. Thinking with the church, therefore, is my way of being a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this infallibilitas in credendo, this infallibility in believing, through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking together. This is what I understand today as the ‘thinking with the church’ of which St. Ignatius speaks. When the dialogue among the people and the bishops and the pope goes down this road and is genuine, then it is assisted by the Holy Spirit. So this thinking with the church does not concern theologians only.

“This is how it is with Mary: If you want to know who she is, you ask theologians; if you want to know how to love her, you have to ask the people. In turn, Mary loved Jesus with the heart of the people, as we read in the Magnificat. We should not even think, therefore, that ‘thinking with the church’ means only thinking with the hierarchy of the church.”

After a brief pause, Pope Francis emphasizes the following point, in order to avoid misunderstandings: “And, of course, we must be very careful not to think that this infallibilitas of all the faithful I am talking about in the light of Vatican II is a form of populism. No; it is the experience of ‘holy mother the hierarchical church,’ as St. Ignatius called it, the church as the people of God, pastors and people together. The church is the totality of God’s people.

“I see the sanctity of God’s people, this daily sanctity,” the pope continues. “There is a ‘holy middle class,’ which we can all be part of, the holiness Malègue wrote about.” The pope is referring to Joseph Malègue, a French writer (1876–1940), particularly to the unfinished trilogy Black Stones: The Middle Classes of Salvation.

“I see the holiness,” the pope continues, “in the patience of the people of God: a woman who is raising children, a man who works to bring home the bread, the sick, the elderly priests who have so many wounds but have a smile on their faces because they served the Lord, the sisters who work hard and live a hidden sanctity. This is for me the common sanctity. I often associate sanctity with patience: not only patience as hypomoné , taking charge of the events and circumstances of life, but also as a constancy in going forward, day by day. This is the sanctity of the militant church also mentioned by St. Ignatius. This was the sanctity of my parents: my dad, my mom, my grandmother Rosa who loved ​​me so much. In my breviary I have the last will of my grandmother Rosa, and I read it often. For me it is like a prayer. She is a saint who has suffered so much, also spiritually, and yet always went forward with courage.

“This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity. And the church is Mother; the church is fruitful. It must be. You see, when I perceive negative behavior in ministers of the church or in consecrated men or women, the first thing that comes to mind is: ‘Here’s an unfruitful bachelor’ or ‘Here’s a spinster.’ They are neither fathers nor mothers, in the sense that they have not been able to give spiritual life. Instead, for example, when I read the life of the Salesian missionaries who went to Patagonia, I read a story of the fullness of life, of fruitfulness.

“Another example from recent days that I saw got the attention of newspapers: the phone call I made to a young man who wrote me a letter. I called him because that letter was so beautiful, so simple. For me this was an act of generativity. I realized that he was a young man who is growing, that he saw in me a father, and that the letter tells something of his life to that father. The father cannot say, ‘I do not care.’ This type of fruitfulness is so good for me.”

Edited by ilmdge (Sept. 23, 2013 04:54:32)

Agnus_Dei posted:

Prometheus doesn't even exist.

Excuse me? He had his liver plucked out until Cheiron took his place... and for what? So ungrateful people could be warm at night? Show some respect. For he who believes in Prometheus shall enjoy eternal light from a nice warm campfire.

tpaine posted:

i kind of doubt young kids think the pope is cool because he doesn't hate gays as much as his predecessors

i do! but then again im 40, and, gay

Lykourgos posted:

All worship Prometheus, for Prometheus so loved the world that he submitted to die daily upon the rock that everyone might have fire. *wipes tear from eye*

roseweird posted:

i dont think lykorgos knows what he's doing, i mean prometheus wasn't really a magical or cult figure in the ancient era, praying to him for fire would be a little bit like praying to edison for your electric lights to work

haha you're wrong and I'm pretty sure Americans do pray to Edison, along with Washington, Lincoln, and all the other American heroes

tpaine posted:

hi i write serious research papers about marxism and such; my avatar is a pic of my 15 year old self shirtless and hairless

if that's what the revolutionary vanguard requires of me, then... *tears off break-away slavic tuxedo and sets iphone filter to sepia*

roseweird posted:

Lykourgos posted:

haha you're wrong and I'm pretty sure Americans do pray to Edison, along with Washington, Lincoln, and all the other American heroes

lykourgos is a crude ai whose program shifts between outputting grade school level knowledge of classical culture/mythology and his best standup impressions of medicare recipients in south carolina

Prometheus did receive worship and reverence in the ancient world, so... you are wrong, it's not like modern americans worshipping Edison and creating a cult and religious/superstitious traditions around him, sorry. Don't know what "grade school" is but you are wrong. wrong, you are. so wrong. read pausanius pr something, I guess? or just keep being wrong, wrong-poster.