Pope warns Catholic Church may fall ‘like a house of cards’ if it continues its obsession with abortion, gay marriage and contraception


Pope Francis said he was resolved to reform the church which had a tendency to get caught up in 'small minded things'

DAILY MAIL

The Catholic Church could fall ‘like a house of cards’ if it continues in its obsession with abortion, gay marriage and contraception, the pope has warned.
In a remarkable 12,000 word interview to mark six months in the church’s top job, Francis said he was resolved to reform the church, which had a tendency to get caught up in ‘small minded things ‘.
He said: ‘We need to find a new balance otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall into a house of cards.’
‘It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,’ he said.
‘We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods.’
The extraordinarily frank interview, conducted by a Jesuit priest in Rome, was published simultaneously by 16 of the order’s newspapers around the world.
In a typically humble stance Francis declared himself a sinner.
‘This is the most accurate definition,’ he said, when asked what sort of man he was. ‘It is not a figure of speech or a literary genre. I am a sinner.’
He also claimed he had made mistakes earlier on during his career as Archbishop of Buenos Aires and had a propensity to become ‘authoritarian.’


THE BOROWITZ REPORT THE NEW YORKER

Scalia Forms Search Committee for New Pope

Posted by Andy Borowitz

 

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Saying he was “sorry it had to come to this,” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said today that he was forming an “independent search committee” to select a new Pope.

The visibly upset jurist appeared at a press conference with the sole other member of the newly formed search committee, Justice Clarence Thomas.

Justice Scalia said he had “no other alternative” but to pick a new Pope himself after reading what he called a “disturbing” interview with Pope Francis today: “The Pope said he doesn’t want to speak out against abortion and gay marriage. Well, sorry, my friend, but that’s the entire job description. You should have thought of that before you let them blow that white smoke in Rome.”
Justice Scalia acknowledged that only the College of Cardinals has the legal authority to choose a Pope, but added, “Quite frankly, those jokers got us into this mess. Right, Clarence?”

Justice Thomas had no comment.

WE HAVE A WINNER! FROM ARGENTINA, POPE FRANCIS.

We have a pope! Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina has been selected as the new leader of the Catholic Church, the first pontiff from Latin America and the first from outside of Europe in over 1,000 years. ( In 1900, two-thirds of the world’s Catholics lived in Europe. Today only 20 percent do ) The 76-year-old will take the name Francis I. Shortly after being selected, Francis spoke from Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and asked Catholics to say a prayer for his predecessor. “I’d ask you to pray to God so that he can bless me,” Bergoglio told the cheering crowd. He delivered his first tweet from @pontifex, writing “HABEMUS PAPAM FRANCISCUM.” According to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the new pope’s first act will be to visit recently retired Pope Benedict tomorrow at the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, Italy. Not too shabby for a first day.

Francis is known as a humble man who spoke out for the poor and led an austere life in Buenos Aires. He was born to Italian immigrant parents and was raised in the Argentine capital.

The new pope inherits a church wrestling with an array of challenges that intensified during his predecessor, Benedict XVI, including a shortage of priests, growing competition from evangelical churches in the Southern Hemisphere, a sexual abuse crisis that has undermined the church’s moral authority in the West and difficulties governing the Vatican itself.

Amid changing mores on sexuality, including same-sex marriage, Francis' traditional views have clashed with cultural changes in Argentina. Before the nation legalized same-sex marriage in 2010, Francis called it a “destructive attack on God’s plan.”
In a 2007 address at a large meeting of Latin American bishops, Francis emphasized that belief. "We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least," he said. "The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers."
At the same time, the new pope is expected to uphold church orthodoxy on sexuality, abortion, marriage and contraception. The same year he said same-sex marriage attacks God's plan, he also said gay people adopting children is an act of discrimination against children.

Terence McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability.org, an organization that tracks bishops' records on clergy abuse, had more pointed words about Francis.
"There is some evidence that Bergoglio is well aware that rebuilding the church will entail much more work on the abuse crisis than was done by Pope Benedict. For example, last year Bergoglio was outspoken regarding the case of accused (Argentine) priest Justo José Ilarraz," McKiernan said.

But while "Pope Francis’ meetings with survivors of sexual abuse will be less formal than Pope Benedict’s pioneering encounters," McKiernan said Francis "encountered many cases of sexual abuse in the years when he was an auxiliary bishop and then the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Yet he has been content for the most part to remain silent."