In latest sensation, Francis writes nonbeliever to urge dialogue

[rug]

by John L. Allen Jr. | Sep. 11, 2013

Although the big Vatican story in the English-speaking media today is based on comments by Archbishop Pietro Parolin, the new Secretary of State, on celibacy and democracy, attention in Italy is focused instead on the latest sensation from Pope Francis himself: a personal letter to a renowned journalist and nonbeliever, splashed across the front page of La Repubblica, the country's most widely read daily.

In the letter, Francis makes three points that have all been said before, including by popes, but rarely with such clarity or in this kind of venue:
• God has never abandoned the covenant with the Jewish people, and the church "can never be grateful enough" to the Jews for preserving their faith despite the horrors of history, especially the Shoah, the Hebrew word for the Holocaust.
• God's mercy "does not have limits" and therefore it reaches nonbelievers, too, for whom sin would not be the lack of faith in God, but rather, failure to obey one's conscience.
• Truth is not "variable or subjective," but Francis says he avoids calling it "absolute" -- truth possesses us, he said, not the other way around, and it's always expressed according to someone's "history and culture, the situation in which they live, etc."

Popes have engaged in exchanges with journalists before, including John Paul II's interview book with Vittorio Messori, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, in 1994, and Benedict XVI's conversation with Peter Seewald that became 2010's Light of the World.

This is apparently the first time, however, that a pope has personally responded to questions put to him in two newspaper editorials. Eugenio Scalfari, one of the founders of La Repubblica, penned the essays in early July and again in early August, musing about questions he'd like to ask Pope Francis if he ever had the chance.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/latest-sensation-francis-writes-non-believer-urge-dialogue

[struggle4progress]

1. Quelle horreur!

[msongs]

2. In other words the catholic church is still the only true way and everyone else is wrong nt

[rug]

3. OMG!

[2ndAmForComputers]

6. In other words, everybody who disagrees with the Catholic Church is as psycho as Jack Chick.

[rug]

7. That's unkind. I did not say everybody.

[cbayer]

4. He's really an interesting character. Did you hear the story about the car?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24036965

NPR just did a great story on it.

[rug]

5. Lol, no, I hadn't.

You know, PR or not, it really doesn't take much to shift people's attitudes in the right direction.

[dimbear]

8. Here is a rather clumsy English translation of the letter:

http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/09/11/news/the_pope_s_letter-66336961/

Most of it consists of quoting scripture to show the nonbeliever his errors. A usually rewarding pastime.

[rug]

9. I didn't see much scripture quoting but this is an interesting passage:

The first circumstance - that refers to the initial pages of the Encyclical - derives from the fact that, down in the centuries of modern life, we have seen a paradox: Christian faith, whose novelty and importance in the life of mankind since the beginning has been expressed through the symbol of light, has often been branded as the darkness of superstition which is opposed to the light of reason. Therefore a lack of communication has arisen between the Church and the culture inspired by Christianity on one hand and the modern culture of Enlightenment on the other. The time has come and the Second Vatican has inaugurated the season, for an open dialogue without preconceptions that opens the door to a serious and fruitful meeting.

Thanks for tracking this down.

[dimbear]

10. It's interesting that he finally settles once and for all which gospel came first, Mark, as most

of us suspected.

[rug]

11. In truth, he's probably simply accepting the state of scholarship rather than settling it.

[dimbear]

12. Probably letters to the popular press aren't considered to be ex cathedra.

It would have been a disappointment to those few and various scholars who maintain the primacy of, strangely, every one of the other canonical gospels.