Pope slams conservative ‘fanatics’ who make doctrine an ‘ideology’
John-Henry Westen
ROME, Italy, May 23, 2017 (LifeSiteNews)
Extract:
‘Although the Pope admitted that “It is a duty of the Church to clarify doctrine,” he said that it is a “problem” and “great error” when “doctrine becomes an ideology.” ’
It would seem that, for Pope Francis, doctrine is an “ideology” which he reinterprets to suit his fancies.
Since an “ideology” =creed/dogma/beliefs/meaningful belief system, the reality is as Fr James V Schall, S.J. has so eloquently explained in Does Catholicism Still Exist? (Alba House, Society of St Paul, 1994):
“But of late religious leaders and teachers, in an extraordinary lack of perception, have followed a fashionable social or psychological ideology and have confused such ideology, in the minds of the faithful and many other sympathetic observers at least, with good policy and even with good sense or with faith itself.” [p 47-48].
“Because the Church claims its teachings to be precisely true and makes a strong, consistent and intelligent case for itself in all the particulars of life and reason, it challenges at their very core the counter ideologies, religions, and philosophies of our time, particularly the ones that would deny the possibility of truth at all. Whatever be their proper limits, tolerance and compassion have led us to a position where nothing seems true and nothing disordered except the claim to truth itself.” [p 157].
“Belloc put the problem well: ‘It is hard to accept mysteries and be humble.’ ”
“And yet it is precisely this humility that is considered to be the greatest of the weaknesses of Catholicism, the claim that it must be faithful to what is handed down, and not to what man makes for himself.” [p 255].
Pope Francis, and many others, would do well to understand this.
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