First of all, I confess I am a Catholic, so in this article
I won’t try to explain or debate the existence of God or the divinity of Jesus
Christ because I already assume it. Rather, I want to quickly point out issues
surrounding the Pope and the Catholic Church. So if you’re not a Catholic, I
can understand your objections.
First, Pope Francis is the most misquoted and taken out of
context Pope in history. Every so often we can see memes on Facebook, his
picture, with a quote that was never said. Or when reading about him on a right
wing or left wing news organization, they
will use only the quotes that are more in line with the reporter’s ideology.
This is why I always recommend reading about Pope Francis directly from a
Catholic News Organization, also, read his full encyclicals instead of having
to read it from a journalist who picks and chooses and whose purpose is to gain
support on a political issue.
The Right,
specifically Protestants, will use him to get Catholics to sway towards
Protestantism, while the Left will use him to advance any secular ideology of
the times. However, the blasphemy coming from the Far-Left is intriguing to
say the least. It’s been so during the Cold War, and currently.
In Nicaragua, the Virgin Mary made apparitions in Cuapa
during the 80s to a man named Bernardo Martinez. Martinez recalled how Cuban
social workers would go to his community and be astonished when Nicaraguans
would say “Thank God I ate today”. The Cubans would correct them and say “In
Cuba, we say thanks to Fidel we ate today. You should say, thank you to Thomas
Borge we ate today”. This was and is always done with the purpose of praising a
leader and a political party instead of God. Martinez also recalled how he was
offered a bribe that consisted in land and cattle with the condition that he
proclaim that the Virgin Mary was Sandinista. You could read more about that
here
Hugo Chavez for example use to claim that Jesus was a
socialist, trying to use Jesus for political gains of his party (PSUV), justification
for reelection, for centralizing and expansion of government power. Nicolas
Maduro followed by making Hugo Chavez to be like a Holy Spirit, when he claimed
Hugo Chavez talked to him and came down like a Bird, duplicating what’s described
by the Gospel of John 1:32 in The Bible. He also tried to have Chavez’s body preserved
(but failed) artificially, also trying to duplicate the miracles of the
uncorrupted bodies of Catholic Saints. A quick Google search can fill you in
that subject. In fact, the attempt to make Chavez a Saint by the Socialist party of Venezuela
has gone as far as building a Chapel named “Saint Hugo Chavez” where they pray
to him. (See image) They have even created their own version of “Our Father who
art in heaven” (from Matthew 6:9) to “Our Chavez who art in heaven”. Of course this is all blasphemous and heretical by all Catholic Doctrine.
Last year Ortega said “In order to get to Marx (Karl Marx),
you have to get to Jesus” which reorganizes scripture for once again,
justifications and political party gains. This tries to duplicate John 14:6 and
many other passages affirm Jesus as the gateway to God the Father. In this
example, Marx is being made the father or god. I could list at least 20 more
examples of this kind and still fall short.
Recently, the liberation theology movement started to gain
traction again. The beatification of Oscar Romero (who did NOT believe in
liberation Theology and often preached against Marxism as well as capitalism)
is of course being used by the left and the right for the reasons I mentioned
in the beginning of this article. The last two Popes, including Saint John Paul
II preached extensively against liberation theology because it mixes scripture
for justification and political purposes. It attempts to make Jesus something
he was not, a type of socialist revolutionary, some type of Che Guevarra. Of
course, Jesus came to preach salvation and to teach individuals how to reach
eternal life through him. He did not come to restructure a political system. Like Pope Bennedict XVI said “Christ does not propose a revolution of a
social or political kind”. So it’s important for Catholics to do more research
whenever we see Pope Francis being used for the political gains of an ideology.
The Popes job is to evangelize, promote conversion and spread Christianity and
its message throughout the world, and he is doing a great job on that. Liberation Theology will never be adopted by
the Catholic Church for many reasons, but a reporter for the Boston Globe said
it best:
“Attempts
by the church to dictate political solutions end in disaster, among other
things performing a disservice to the poor by reducing the social appetite for
God. Preoccupied with secularism as he is, Benedict XVI knows well that
rejection of religious faith in the West is, at least in part, a reaction
against centuries of theocracy and clerical privilege.” –John Allen-
