{"id":21839,"date":"2023-12-25T02:04:08","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T08:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=21839"},"modified":"2023-12-25T02:04:15","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T08:04:15","slug":"archbishop-chaput-pope-franciss-criticism-of-u-s-catholics-unjust-and-uninformed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=21839","title":{"rendered":"Archbishop Chaput: Pope Francis\u2019s Criticism of U.S. Catholics \u2018Unjust and Uninformed\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ROME \u2014 American Archbishop Charles Chaput has sharply criticized Pope Francis for sowing confusion and ambiguity as well as for his \u201cunjust\u201d criticism of U.S. Catholics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confused teaching is \u201cnever excusable,\u201d writes<\/a> Chaput, the redoubtable former archbishop of Philadelphia, and the transmission of Christian truth \u201cdemands clarity and consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deliberate or persistent ambiguity, on the contrary, \u201cis not of God,\u201d he adds, and it \u201cinevitably results in damage to individual souls and to our common Church life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The archbishop\u2019s essay, published in First Things<\/em> under the title \u201cThe Cost of \u2018Making a Mess,\u2019\u201d followed on the announcement that the Vatican had reversed<\/a> its position on the blessing of gay couples, something the Church has never allowed in its 2000-year history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This decision has resulted in massive confusion among the faithful, who cannot understand that \u201cGod cannot bless sin,\u201d as a 2021 Vatican text affirmed, and yet suddenly he can bless homosexual couples, whose very identity is based on their sinful behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vatican\u2019s latest document \u201cis a doubleminded exercise in simultaneously affirming and undercutting Catholic teaching on the nature of blessings and their application to \u2018irregular\u2019 relationships,\u201d Archbishop Chaput notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhether the hearer is delighted or angered by the latest Vatican text, the practical fallout is a wave of confusion in the bloodstream of the Church at Christmas \u2014 a season meant for joy, but now tangled up with frustration, doubt, and conflict,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To add insult to injury, the pope attributes pushback against the document to fearfully \u201csticking to rules,\u201d rather than a genuine concern for the eternal good of the faithful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Chaput notes, complaints about rigid ideological positions are now \u201cthe Holy See\u2019s default response to any reasoned reservations about, or honest criticism of, its actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the pope\u2019s ongoing criticism of American Catholics in particular \u201chas too often been unjust and uninformed,\u201d the archbishop observes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, \u201cpastoral leaders are accountable for their words and their actions,\u201d and as St. Paul said so long ago, \u201cGod is not the author of confusion but of peace,\u201d Chaput concludes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breitbart<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROME \u2014 American Archbishop Charles Chaput has sharply criticized Pope Francis for sowing confusion and ambiguity as well as for his \u201cunjust\u201d criticism of U.S. Catholics. Confused teaching is \u201cnever excusable,\u201d writes Chaput, the redoubtable former archbishop of Philadelphia, and the transmission of Christian truth \u201cdemands clarity and consistency.\u201d Deliberate or persistent ambiguity, on the contrary, \u201cis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[10444,8146,7301,2891,7300,22514],"class_list":["post-21839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-america-2","tag-catholics","tag-faith","tag-politics","tag-religion","tag-social-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21841,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21839\/revisions\/21841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}