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I am loving the new pope. Pope Francis went further in his sermon to say:
“The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”.. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”
The whole article is here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/pope-francis-good-atheists_n_3320757.html I have become a firm advocate that doing good is better than belief. Go Pope Francis!
It’s interesting when others teach things that are core to the pure theology of Mormonism. I applaud the Pope for saying that, and I wish I heard it more often from our pulpits – while I recognize that I HAVE heard it more often in the past decade or so from those pulpits more than the previous couple of decades. Can’t we all be more like this. I have made it my mission on the HC to teach this very thing. As I learned last week some appreciate it more than others. I think this is the message for our time and it might be what saves the LDS Church as well as the Catholic Church. Old-Timer wrote:It’s interesting when others teach things that are core to the pure theology of Mormonism. I applaud the Pope for saying that, and I wish I heard it more often from our pulpits – while I recognize that I HAVE heard it more often in the past decade or so from those pulpits more than the previous couple of decades.
I found it ironic that the Pope (head of the church that was once explicitly declared as the ‘Great and Abominable’ and ‘the mother of harlots’ and that gave birth to the creeds that seemed to be the anti-thesis of the First Vision) would be teaching from the core of pure Mormonism. Then it hit me,
💡 Perhaps the core of pure Mormonism and the core of pure Catholicism are one and the same!I believe it is the same core – and our historical issues absolutely pale in comparison to theirs. That’s not a slam on Catholicism (even though I have no problem with labeling much of what was done in its name throughout history as greatly abominable); it just points out that things aren’t as bad in our history as we often think in the difficulty of the emotional crisis. If a current Pope can say that and rightly be applauded for it, given his church’s history and the actions of so many of his predecessors, there is plenty of hope for Mormonism.
It’s also interesting that we recognize that we shouldn’t hold those historical actions of others against him and what is happening now in his denomination. There is a lesson in that for us. Historically, we are where the Catholic Church was before it was the Catholic Church of the Holy Roman Empire – when it was a whipping post of that empire. I’m encouraged that we’ve come as far as we have as quickly as we have, when I look at history and make comparisons.
Martha wrote:I have become a firm advocate that doing good is better than belief.
Yes, and I go a step further. I say doing good is belief.
…after all isn’t Faith a verb?
Having tried to read a lot from the early fathers of the Catholic church I truly believe that they do have the same core. I think the sola fidebeliefs of evangelical Christianity are the most deviant from Christ’s intentions. Faith without good works never made sense. The idea that a buddhist who lived a good, moral life would be damned because of never hearing the name “Jesus Christ” while someone who said the phrase “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior” and then never changed from his life of sin would be saved is so appalling.
I’m glad that’s not taught in the mormon or catholic church. Although this goes a step further than I’ve seen either church go recently. Reading that struck a chord and gives me a bit more hope.
I think it’s a problem with basically all religion that we can get so focused on the specifics of who believes what and trying to convert others to our beliefs instead of just working to relieve suffering and make the world a better place for everyone.
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