Post by homeschooldad on Aug 14, 2023 2:50:47 GMT
Here's what I think he means:
“We need normal seminarians, with their problems, who play soccer, and who don’t go to the neighbourhoods to dogmatise,” Pope Francis said.[.quote]
To dogmatize is to tell people that they need to follow rules, and the rules call for using the Baltimore Catechism, reading the Bible in archaic languages, attending Mass in Latin, spending as much as possible on making sure that everything needed for a traditional Mass is in place because it's an aesthetic thing, and any other thing, like sexual abuse, crime rates, kids playing soccer and smoking joints, should be set aside because the only thing that matters is nostalgia.
In contrast, to be "normal" is to meet people in those neighborhoods in a way that one is part of the same. That is, one speaks to them in languages that they understand thanks in part to the same gift that the Holy Spirit gave the apostles, and to become aware that like Jesus one will be talking and eating and working with the equivalent of lepers, prostitutes, and tax collectors, i.e., the outcasts of society. The catechism that one employs will also have to be suitable to their conditions because many of them will likely be very cynical, not only accusing the same Church of being hypocrites for shielding their own sex and financial abusers, but that the hell that they're in right now is bad as it is. Several victimized in the same places by their own kind will question a divine being that allows these to happen. And if they're not well-educated (and that's highly likely), they won't understand hifalutin speech but only the language of "soccer".
Pope Francis is very aware of this, as he used to work in "villas miserias" in Argentina, and even though it has been doing better economically, Argentina is still part of the poor which make up not only the bulk of the world but even of the Catholic world.
Meanwhile, if one insists on making this a personal issue, then here's something that traditionals will appreciate:
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/pope-francis-cordoba-exile-humble/402032/
(If it's paywalled, then you can probably use a bypass paywalls addon to view it or look for an archived copy. For now, I can't find any.)
To dogmatize is to tell people that they need to follow rules, and the rules call for using the Baltimore Catechism, reading the Bible in archaic languages, attending Mass in Latin, spending as much as possible on making sure that everything needed for a traditional Mass is in place because it's an aesthetic thing, and any other thing, like sexual abuse, crime rates, kids playing soccer and smoking joints, should be set aside because the only thing that matters is nostalgia.
In contrast, to be "normal" is to meet people in those neighborhoods in a way that one is part of the same. That is, one speaks to them in languages that they understand thanks in part to the same gift that the Holy Spirit gave the apostles, and to become aware that like Jesus one will be talking and eating and working with the equivalent of lepers, prostitutes, and tax collectors, i.e., the outcasts of society. The catechism that one employs will also have to be suitable to their conditions because many of them will likely be very cynical, not only accusing the same Church of being hypocrites for shielding their own sex and financial abusers, but that the hell that they're in right now is bad as it is. Several victimized in the same places by their own kind will question a divine being that allows these to happen. And if they're not well-educated (and that's highly likely), they won't understand hifalutin speech but only the language of "soccer".
Pope Francis is very aware of this, as he used to work in "villas miserias" in Argentina, and even though it has been doing better economically, Argentina is still part of the poor which make up not only the bulk of the world but even of the Catholic world.
Meanwhile, if one insists on making this a personal issue, then here's something that traditionals will appreciate:
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/pope-francis-cordoba-exile-humble/402032/
(If it's paywalled, then you can probably use a bypass paywalls addon to view it or look for an archived copy. For now, I can't find any.)
I would look to Pope Francis to clarify what he meant by the word "dogmatize", rather than providing a list such as yours, which I am willing to bet wasn't even what he had in mind.
I am all in favor of priests reaching people any way they can. If soccer is one of those ways, I'm all for it.