When a Jesuit in Slovakia asked Pope Francis, “How are you? “, The Pope stunned them with his response:” Still alive, even though some people wanted me to die.
“There were even meetings between prelates who thought that the Pope’s condition was more serious than the official version. They were getting ready for the conclave, ”Pope Francis said.
This statement was not the only striking information given by the Pope during his conversation with 53 Jesuits in Slovakia. The group met at the Bratislava nunciature on September 12 during the Pope’s visit to the country. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, editor-in-chief of the Jesuit review La Civiltà Cattolica,was present at the meeting and released the full transcript of the conversation today.
When a Jesuit in Slovakia asked Pope Francis, “How are you?
During the question-and-answer session, another Jesuit told Francis that in the Slovak church “Some even see you as heterodox, while others idealize you. We Jesuits try to overcome this division. He asked the Pope: “How do you treat people who look at you with suspicion?
Pope Francis remarked: “There is, for example, a large Catholic television channel that does not hesitate to continually speak ill of the Pope. He said, “I personally deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner, but the church does not deserve them. They are the work of the devil. I also said that to some of them.
Although Francis did not name the “big Catholic television station” in his response, his remark “I also said this to some of them” offers a clue as to which station he was referring to. America learned from three different Vatican officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak, that the Pope brought up the same subject on his Rome-Baghdad flight on March 5, when he greeted each of the reporters of the flight.
“Personally, I deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner, but the church does not deserve them. They are the work of the devil. I also said that to some of them.
On this occasion, when the Pope contacted the EWTN reporter and cameraman, one of them told him that they were praying for him. He replied that maybe Mother Angelica, the founder of EWTN, is in Heaven praying for him, but that they – referring to the whole network – “should stop talking bad about me” . He used the Italian word sparlare, which means “denigrate”, “say nasty things” or “say bad things”. AmericaThe Vatican correspondent was on the papal flight and learned about it immediately after the visit to Iraq.
EWTN and its associated publications, the National Catholic Register and the Catholic News Agency, as well as its more than 500 affiliated radio stations, have strongly criticized Pope Francis. The National Catholic Register was one of two media outlets that published the explosive 2018 ‘testimony’ of former US nuncio and QAnon conspiracy theorist Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò calling on the Pope to step down. Raymond Arroyo, host of EWTN’s “The World Over”, interviewed many of Pope Francis’ most ardent critics, including Archbishop Viganò, Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon and Cardinal Raymond Burke.
But, Pope Francis told the Slovak Jesuits, it is not just one Catholic television station that talks badly about him. “There are also religious people who make nasty comments about me,” he said. “I sometimes lose my patience, especially when they make judgments without entering into a real dialogue. I can’t do anything there. However, I continue without entering their world of ideas and fantasies. I don’t want to go into it, and that’s why I prefer to preach.
Francis added: “Some people accuse me of not talking about holiness. They say that I always talk about social issues and that I am a communist. Yet I wrote a whole apostolic exhortation on holiness, ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’.
“There are also clerics who make nasty comments about me. I sometimes lose my patience, especially when they make judgments without entering into a real dialogue.
Commenting on his decision to publish “Traditionis Custodes”, restricting the celebration of the Latin Tridentine Mass and the liturgy, Pope Francis said: “I hope that with the decision to stop [allowing priests to automatically opt in to celebrating] the old rite, we can return to the true intentions of Benedict XVI and John Paul II ”, who hoped to maintain the unity of the Church and heal schisms by approving the celebrations of the pre-Vatican II mass.
Pope Francis reiterated that his decision was “the result of a consultation with all the bishops of the world made last year,” which, he said in a note accompanying the decision, showed him that the Rather, the opportunity to celebrate Tridentine Mass, intended to foster unity, has been “exploited” to increase divisions in the church.
Addressing the Slovak Jesuits, the Pope said: “From now on, those who want to celebrate with the ordo vetus [the old form of the Mass]must ask permission from Rome, as is done with biritualism ”, ie permission to celebrate in two different rites, such as Byzantine and Roman rites.
“There are young people who, after a month of ordination, go to the bishop to ask [permission to celebrate the Tridentine Mass]”, continued the Pope.” It is a phenomenon which indicates that we are retreating. “
“Some people accuse me of not talking about holiness. They say that I always talk about social issues and that I am a communist. Yet I wrote a whole apostolic exhortation on holiness.
He told the story of a cardinal who received a visit from two newly ordained priests requesting permission to study Latin. “With a sense of humor, he replied, ‘But there are a lot of Hispanics in the diocese! Study Spanish so you can preach. Then, when you have studied Spanish, come back to me and I will tell you how many Vietnamese there are in the diocese, and I will ask you to study Vietnamese. Then, when you have learned Vietnamese, I will give you permission to study Latin. ‘ “
Francis said that the cardinal had “landed” the young priests; he brought them back to earth.
“I am going forward, not because I want to start a revolution,” he said. “I do what I feel I need to do. It takes a lot of patience, prayer and a lot of charity.
Another Jesuit who had lived in both Slovakia and Switzerland told the Pope that he experienced “pastoral creativity” as the church was suppressed under Communist rule in Slovakia, but more recently he had seen “that many people want to go back or seek certainties”. in the past…. What vision of the church can we follow?
Pope Francis replied: “Life scares us…. Freedom scares us. In a world so conditioned by addictions and virtual experiences, it scares us to be free. “He quoted a passage from the scene” The Grand Inquisitor “by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Karamazov brothers, in which the inquisitor approaches Christ and “reproaches Jesus for having given us freedom: a little bread would have been sufficient and nothing more”.
“It scares us to celebrate [Mass] before the people of God who look us in the face and tell us the truth. It scares us to move forward in pastoral experiences.
“That is why today we are looking back: to seek security,” said the Pope. “It scares us to celebrate [Mass] before the people of God who look us in the face and tell us the truth. He scares us to move forward in pastoral experiences. I am thinking of the work that was done – Father Spadaro was present – at the Synod on the Family to make people understand that couples in a second union are not already condemned to hell. It scares us to accompany people with sexual diversity.
The first Jesuit Pope concluded his response: “Today I believe the Lord is asking the Society to be free in the areas of prayer and discernment. It is a fascinating time, a beautiful time, even if it is that of the cross.
Another Jesuit asked the Pope about his frequent references to “ideological colonization,” a term the Pope often linked to the idea that gender is separate from biological sex.
“Ideology always has a devilish appeal, as you say, because it is not embodied, ”the Pope said. “The ‘gender’ ideology you’re talking about is dangerous, yes. As I understand it, this is so because it is abstract in relation to the concrete life of a person, as if a person could decide abstractly at will whether and when to be a man or a woman. Abstraction is always a problem for me.
The Pope stressed: “It has nothing to do with the homosexual issue, however. If there is a homosexual couple, we can do pastoral work with them, move forward in our encounter with Christ.
François concluded: “When I speak of ideology, I speak of the idea, of the abstraction in which everything is possible, not of the concrete life of people and their real situation.
