What He Actually Said! Excerpts from Wide Ranging Interview With Pope Francis on Return Trip from the Holy Land

Rather then enter into the misguided mix of what purports to be journalism surrounding this Pope, I choose instead to offer to our readers the first English translation of many of the excerpts of this truly fascinating, informative, frank and faithful interview. I ask our readers to actually READ what the Pope said! Pray about his responses. Pray for him. Pray for the Church. Be a good Christian - and do not join the ranks of the propagandized lemmings, repeating the opinion of this purported journalist or that purported journalist. We are living in an historic moment in Church history! Francis is a prophetic and pastoral Pope who has already made his mark on that history - and appears to just be warming up. He is a man with a deep relationship with the Lord Jesus; a man of constant prayer. He is an evangelical Catholic Pope, filled with the hope and joy which comes from the Gospel. 

TEL AVIV, Israel (Catholic Online) - The media will spend Tuesday, May 27, 2014, and probably  the entire last week of May, speculating about the hour long, wide ranging, spontaneous interview given by Pope Francis to the journalists who accompanied him upon his return from his historic visit to the Holy Land.

For any observers who had thought that the wide ranging, spontaneous style of Francis with the Media would soon end, they were simply wrong. This is a warm-hearted, pastoral, confident in his faith and office, Pope - and he is on a mission for the Lord He serves.

His remarks, completely spontaneous, will be picked apart, placed under the media version of a microscope (or even a kaleidoscope), then reinterpreted through the prism of political ideologies and theological speculation.

They will also be recast in accordance with various agendas, both political and theological. They will be used to advance the narrative of people who often do not care about what was actually said.

Then, they will be used to speculate about the future of the Catholic Church - as if these answers were some new kind of ecclesiastical tea leaves. They are not. They are the heartfelt responses of a genuine, spirit filled Christian Leader who actually is transparent - and does not just use the word.

Rather then enter into the misguided mix of what purports to be journalism surrounding this Pope, I choose to offer to our readers some excerpts from the first English translation of this truly fascinating, informative, frank and faithful interview.

I ask our readers to actually READ what Pope Francis said!

Then - Pray about his responses. Pray for him. Pray for the Catholic Church. Pray for all Christians. Be a good Christian and do not join the ranks of the propagandized lemmings, simply repeating the opinion of this purported journalist or that purported journalist. We are living in an historic moment in Church history!

These may be challenging times, but they are our times. We were born - and born again - for these times!

Catholic Christians need to move beyond allowing themselves to be pulled along by the currents of the age. We must stop assuming that what we read on the front page of our newspapers, or on this or that internet news "source" is actually accurate!

We have an obligation to become men and women of prayer, grounded in the Bible and actual teachings of the magisterium (the teaching office) of the Catholic Church. We need to be ready to defend the Church. We also have a special obligation to work with our other Christian friends as they try to sort though what this Pope is actually saying, in the morass of often propagandized media reports.

Francis is a prophetic and pastoral Pope who has already made his mark on history - and appears to just be warming up. He is a man with a deep relationship with the Risen Lord Jesus; and a man of constant prayer. He is an evangelical Catholic Pope, filled with the hope and joy which comes from the knowing the One revealed in the Gospel. 

The following excerpts are taken from one of the many English translations which are now being circulated in the European media. I am sure a more accurate translation will be offered by the official Vatican sources.

However, given the flurry of speculation, parsing and propaganda pretending to be journalism already flooding the integrated media, I wanted to get the actual remarks out as soon as possible.

The translation of these remarks were offered by the very competent and reliable journalist Andrea Torniella, writing for La Stampa, the Vatican Insider. The questions preceding them are not the translation of the actual questions asked on the plane but a summary of the topic which was apparently raised by a journalist in the context of such questions.

*****
 
1) When asked about the abuse of minors by Catholic clerics:

"At the moment there are three bishops under investigation. One has already been convicted and the punishment needs to be decided. There will be no preferential treatment when it comes to child abuse. In Argentina we call those who receive preferential treatment "spoiled children". There will be no "spoiled children" in this case. It is a very serious problem.

Instead of steering him or her towards the sainthood you create a problem that will stay with him or her for all of his or her life. Next week, from 6 to 7 June, there will be a mass with some abuse victims in St. Martha's House. Then I will hold a meeting with them. A zero tolerance approach needs to to be adopted with regards to this issue."

2) When asked about allegations of financial impropriety, IOR reform and the Vatican bank 

"The Lord Jesus once told his disciples: scandals are inevitable, we are humans and all of us are sinners. The issue is preventing more from happening. Economic administration requires honesty and transparency.

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The two commissions, the one which investigated the IOR and the one which looked into the financial and economic situation of the Vatican as a whole, have now reached their conclusions and will carry forward the recommended reforms, along with the ministry and Secretariat for the Economy headed by cardinal Pell.

But there will still be incongruities, there always will be because we are humans. And the reform process needs to be ongoing. The Church's fathers said the Church must be "simper reformanda". We are sinners, we are weak. The Secretariat for the Economy will help prevent scandals and problems.

For example, 1600 illegitimate accounts have been closed down in the IOR. The IOR is there to help the Church, bishops, dioceses, Vatican staff, their widows and embassies have the right to an account with the IOR, but no one else. It is not an open thing.

And this was work well done, closing down the accounts of those who were not entitled to have one. I would like to say one thing: the question regarding the 15 million Euros is still being looked into; it is not yet clear what happened."

3) When asked about his invitation to Rome, to pray for peace, which he spontaneously issued to both the Israeli and Palestinian Leader

"The most genuine gestures are those which are made spontaneously. I had thought something could be done but none of the concrete gestures I made was conceived that way.

The two presidents and I will only meet to pray and I believe that prayer is important and doing this helps. Then they will go home. There will be a rabbi, a Muslim and me. I have asked the Custody of the Holy land to deal with the practical side of things."

4) When asked about the possible meaning of recent European elections and the shortcomings of the global economic system:   

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"I only had time to pray the Our Father a few times but I have had no news regarding the elections.

It is an inhumane economic system. Like I said in Evangelii Gaudium, this economic system kills."

5) When asked about the political controversies over Jerusalem: 

"There are many proposals regarding the Jerusalem issue, the Catholic Church and the Vatican's position is based on a religious point of view: a city of peace for the three religions. Concrete measures for peace must be negotiated, it may be decided that this part will become the capital of one state and the other part, of the other state ...

But I don't feel it is my place to say that this or that must be done, it would be foolish on my part, I think we need to go into this in a spirit of fraternity and mutual trust, following the path of negotiation. Courage is needed and I pray to the Lord that these two presidents have the courage to go on. About Jerusalem, all I will say is that it should be the city of peace of the three religions."

6) When asked about the possibility of admitting married men to the candidacy for priesthood in the Latin Rite:

"The Catholic Church has married priests in the Eastern rites. Celibacy is not a dogma of faith, it is a rule of life that I appreciate a great deal and I believe it is a gift for the Church.

The door is always open given that it is not a dogma of faith."

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7) When asked about his conversation with orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew and efforts toward full communion with the Orthodox Church:

"With Bartholomew we talked about unity, that comes along the path, during a journey, we could never create unity at a theological congress. He confirmed to me that Athenagoras did tell Paul VI; "Let's put all theologians on an island and we'll go on together."

Bartholomew and I speak as brothers, we love each other and we talk about the difficulties we face as leaders. We spoke a great deal about ecology and coming up with a joint initiative to deal with this problem."

8) When asked about upcoming Asian trips and his concern about Religious Freedom as a fundamental human right

"There are two Asian trips planned: one to South Korea and then next January, a two-day trip to Sri Lanka and the Philippines, to the area affected by the tsunami. The problem of the lack of freedom in the practice of religion is not only limited to some Asian countries but extends to others too.

Religious freedom is something not all countries have. Some control to some extent, others take measures that end up being full on persecution. There are martyrs today, Christian, catholic and non-Catholic martyrs. In some place you are forbidden from wearing a cross, possessing a bible or teaching children catechism. I think there are more martyrs now that the early Church had seen.

We need to approach certain places carefully, to go and help them, pray a lot for these Churches that are suffering, suffering a great deal and even bishops and the Holy See are working with discretion in order to help Christians in these countries, but it's not easy task.

In one country, for example, people are forbidden to pray together. Christians there want to celebrate the Eucharist and there's a man who is an ordinary workman but acts as a priest and he goes there to the table with the others: they pretend they're drinking tea but they are celebrating the Eucharist.

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If the police turns up, they hide the books so it just looks as though they are having tea."

9) When asked about the possibility of his own resignation  in the future

"I will do what the Lord tells me to do. Pray and try to follow God's will. Benedict XVI no longer had the strength and honestly, as a man of faith, humble as he is, he took this decision.

What will happen with Popes Emeritus? We need to look at Benedict XVI as an institution, he opened a door, that of the Popes Emeritus. The door is open, whether there will be others, only God knows. I believe that if a bishop of Rome feels he is losing his strength, he must ask himself the same questions Pope Benedict XVI did."

10) When asked about the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the family

"The Synod will be on the family, the problem it is facing, its assets and the current situation it is in. The preliminary report presented by Cardinal Kasper contained five chapters, four of which outlined positive points regarding the family and their theological foundation.

The fifth chapter was to do with the pastoral problem of separation and the annulment of marriages and the administration of communion to divorced people who marry a second time, comes into this.

What I didn't like, was what some people, within the Church as well, said about the purpose of the Synod: that it intends to allow remarried divorcees to take communion, as if the entre issue boiled down to a case.

We know that today the family is facing a crisis, a global crisis, young people don't want to marry or they live together. I wouldn't like us to fall into this question: will it be possible for communion to be administered or not? The pastoral problem regarding the family is vast.

Each case needs to be looked at separately.

I would like to return to something Benedict XVI said on three occasions: the procedures for the annulment of marriage must be looked into, the faith with which a person enters marriage must also be examined and we also need to make it clear that the divorced are not excommunicated.

So often they are treated as thought they have been excommunicated. Choosing the theme for the Synod on the Family was a powerful spiritual experience, the discussion turned slowly towards the family. I am sure it was the Spirit of the Lord that guided us to this point." ...

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