Here's the way it doesn't work: If the Pope can't come up with some plan, then we can go with whatever half-baked scheme is hatched regardless of how ethically unacceptable it is.
Rather, it actually goes like this: The Pope tells us how we cannot do it. Then we hafta come up with some way to do it without violating those same nonnegotiable parameters.
:techie-eureka:al
What's God's plan?
Wosbald already told you... God's plan is " nonnegotiable parameters."
Homan is already following Francis's demands. We are not sweeping through neighborhoods, corralling illegal families. We are targeting violent criminals, gangs, and searching for lost children -- as we are morally compelled to do as a nation.
Title: Vatican doctrine chief: Dignity lies at heart of church’s stance on gender
Source: America
Link: americamagazine DOT org/faith/2025/03/06/dignity-church-stance-gender-250084
The Money-Quotes:
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The infinite and inalienable dignity inherent in every human being has practical consequences which include protecting everyone’s right to life from conception to a natural end and opposing the “technocratic” ideology of gender, said the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office.
“We don’t want to be cruel and say that we don’t understand people’s conditioning and the deep suffering that exists in some cases of ‘dysphoria’ that manifests itself even from childhood,” said Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Those experiencing profound dysphoria, which is a state of intense emotional discomfort or distress, are “exceptional situations (which) must be evaluated with great care,” he said in a talk given during a conference in mid-February organized by Germany’s Cologne University of Catholic Theology.
What the church opposes is “the ideology that usually accompanies so many sex-change decisions,” which the cardinal said is an ideology that claims “omnipotence” and refuses to recognize the reality of one’s body as a gift, he said in his talk, which was published on the dicastery’s website in Italian and German.
[…]
The cardinal sought to address those points by clarifying the Catholic Church’s defense of the “ontological dignity” of the human person, which is a dignity that cannot be given or taken away and is immutable no matter the person’s state, capacity or circumstances.
It is not to be confused with moral, social or existential dignity, which can be imperfect, lost or harmed, he said. For example, a human being does not lose his or her ontological dignity even when living an “undignified” life in a moral or social sense, such as in a state of sin or in extreme poverty.
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It's good to hear echoes of Wojtyla's (i.e. St. JP2's) Theology of the Body — in the form of a Theology of Gift — being deployed in the Vatican's defense of Human Dignity. It further underscores how fundamental anthropological realities (i.e. Natural Law) are freely bestowed on Man and, thus, are simply not open to either technological manipulation or State capture.
Title: Vatican doctrine chief: Dignity lies at heart of church’s stance on gender
Source: America
Link: americamagazine DOT org/faith/2025/03/06/dignity-church-stance-gender-250084
"Dignity" is a Jesuit dogwhistle word meaning "quietly ignoring the sinfulness of homosexuality and acting like it's okay."
Title: Period of Rest for Pope Francis is getting very active
Source: Crux
Link: cruxnow DOT com/news-analysis/2025/04/period-of-rest-for-pope-francis-is-getting-very-active
The Money-Quotes:
[F]rancis seems to be dispelling any rumors that he is slowing down due to his age and illness.
[…]
Even if Francis is not having regular appointments in the Casa Santa Marta, the press office has been told he has met with several senior curial officials including Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin: the Vatican secretary of state, Venezuelan Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra: sostituto of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State (his chief of staff), British Archbishop Paul Gallagher: Secretary for Relations with States, and Italian Monsignor Luciano Russo: head of the Secretariat of State’s section for diplomatic personnel.
The Vatican schedule for 2025 is a long and arduous one, encompassing the Jubilee of the Pilgrims of Hope and the 1700th anniversary of Council of Nicaea. In addition, Pope Francis has been hoping to continue fostering the Church’s journey toward synodality, a term still not quite clearly defined.
These are things that fill up a schedule and create lots of paperwork. While many of the pope’s chief lieutenants and handlers would certainly not mind seeing much of that schedule and paperwork offloaded to other people, Francis is keeping a great deal on his personal plate and hasn’t given any indication he will be personally settling down.
One other thing is also certain: Pope Francis wants the world to know that he is still in charge.
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For now at least, it seems as if God still has mission in mind for this pope.
Title: JD Vance's Easter visit to Vatican could help resurrect his Catholic credentials
Source: National Catholic Reporter
Link: ncronline DOT org/vatican/vatican-news/vances-easter-visit-vatican-could-help-resurrect-his-catholic-credentials
The Money-Quotes:
U.S. Vice President JD Vance is heading to Rome over Easter weekend on a visit that could offer the high-profile Catholic convert a chance of a public reconciliation with Pope Francis following his nasty row with the pontiff and the U.S. bishops over immigration policy earlier this year.
[…]
During a Feb. 28 speech at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, the vice president said that he was "surprised" by the papal pushback [to his political positions and, especially, his theological justification of them] and that he didn't think it was constructive for Christians to fight with each other.
As Vance now prepares for his first ever tête-à-tête with the pope and his top deputies, he will walk a diplomatic tightrope — both attempting to appease his anti-immigrant boss and base, while also seeking to repair relationships with leaders of his own church.
[…]
Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Vatican's Pontifical Commission for Latin America, told NCR that "the pope in no way interferes in the internal political affairs of countries."
"He only speaks out in support of those who suffer, and always within the limits of the Catholic Church," said Cuda.
[…]
"I suspect Francis the pastor can't help but want to bless Vice President Vance, a self-described 'baby Catholic,' " who joined the church six years ago.
Yet because of the explicitly Catholic dimension of their disagreements — with Vance attempting to use the church's theology to help justify policy positions that put him sharply at odds with the pope — [Stephen Schneck, the former, longtime director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America,] noted that this has only heightened the tensions leading up to Vance's visit.
"Vance knows he's created a Catholic stink," Schneck said. "The vanity of his imagined Catholic theological expertise when he defended cuts to humanitarian programs by citing Augustine's ordo amoris drew a sharp papal rejoinder."
Now, Schneck said, Vance is gunning for a "photo op to lessen the stink. He wants the photo to legitimate him in the public eye as a good Catholic."
∗∗∗
I pray that our Vice President is receptive to having his Catholic obligations further clarified by the Pope.
Title: JD Vance's Easter visit to Vatican could help resurrect his Catholic credentials
Source: National Catholic Reporter
Link: ncronline DOT org/vatican/vatican-news/vances-easter-visit-vatican-could-help-resurrect-his-catholic-credentials
It's cute that National Catholic Reporter thinks that they can delete VP Vance's faith by wishing it so.
NCR has never approved of any Republican, Catholic or no.
Wosbald wrote: 18 Apr 2025, 10:18Title: JD Vance's Easter visit to Vatican could help resurrect his Catholic credentials
Source: National Catholic Reporter
Link: ncronline DOT org/vatican/vatican-news/vances-easter-visit-vatican-could-help-resurrect-his-catholic-credentials
It's cute that National Catholic Reporter thinks that they can delete VP Vance's faith by wishing it so.
NCR has never approved of any Republican, Catholic or no.
I, for one, certainly hope Vance resurrects his Catholic creds. I wish him well and hope some Popetime does him good.
And though I can't speak for every NCR contributor (they've got a fair number) — and I don't think the paper has an official editorial stance regarding the VP's Catholic creds — I can't see why they'd oppose patching things up with the Magisterium (and thus, perhaps becoming an influential voice tempering Trump's policy excesses).
Wosbald wrote: 18 Apr 2025, 10:18Title: JD Vance's Easter visit to Vatican could help resurrect his Catholic credentials
Source: National Catholic Reporter
Link: ncronline DOT org/vatican/vatican-news/vances-easter-visit-vatican-could-help-resurrect-his-catholic-credentials
It's cute that National Catholic Reporter thinks that they can delete VP Vance's faith by wishing it so.
NCR has never approved of any Republican, Catholic or no.
I, for one, certainly hope Vance resurrects his Catholic creds. I wish him well and hope some Popetime does him good.
And though I can't speak for every NCR contributor (they've got a fair number) — and I don't think the paper has an official editorial stance regarding the VP's Catholic creds — I can't see why they'd oppose patching things up with the Magisterium (and thus, perhaps becoming an influential voice tempering Trump's policy excesses).
NCR doesn't have "official" stances. They just have a not-so-hidden agenda and subtle propaganda positions. Like CNN.
It is important to remember that NCR staff are publicly excommunicated as dissidents.
They are in no position to lobby for strange new support for Pope Francis, hoping that some of JD Vance's popularity with American Catholics will rub off on Francis .... Especially as they are the ones who painted Francis as a big marxist-Catholic moral leader, in the first place.
