Proselytism

Submitted by LocutusOP on Mon, 04/29/2019 - 23:52
Author: 

     

Dr. Adam DeVille, E sapelion , John F. Kennedy , Amateur Brain Surgeon, Prayerful
Date: 
Monday, April 29, 2019 - 23:45
Article link: 
Proselytism

 

Dr. Adam DeVille said...

Are we sure this isn't the kind of proselytism the current bishop of Rome had in mind in his recent comments? Certainly among many Eastern Christians, Catholic and Orthodox, especially in the former Soviet bloc, this is arguably the first thing they think of when they hear the word 'proselytism'--one Christian or Christian group using something (often food, a building, or some promise of political freedom) if they but convert to the other side. Ukrainian Greco-Catholics know this only too well (e.g., Patriarch Joseph Slipyj was apparently promised the throne of Moscow--to become patriarch--if he abandoned the UGCC in 1945 and 'converted' to the Russian Orthodox Church).

10 April, 2019
E sapelion said...

I knew someone who was a child caught up in the Bengal famine of 1943. As a six year old, he was instructed by the nuns who taught him to baptise people he found dying by the roadside on his way to and from school.

10 April, 2019
John F. Kennedy said...

Seems to be the "new" policy of "c"atholic China. All with Rome's blessing

11 April, 2019
Amateur Brain Surgeon said...

On October, 8, 1965 The 145 General Congregation addressed the matter of Missionary Importance ...

The ecumenical council’s completely revised schema on the missions offers a remedy for the modern crisis of the missionary conscience, Joseph Cardinal Frings of Cologne, Germany, declared in the name of “many missionary bishops.”

The Cardinal outlined the agonizing question some missioners are asking themselves: If God can save men who remain outside the visible Church, why carry the Gospel to them?

(His peritus, Father Joseph Ratzinger, once he became Pope, began to publicly deny the salvific necessity of missionary activities directed at Jews.)

...

Cardinal Journet, after asserting that the Church is subject to the new law of preaching the Gospel to every creature, said it would be erroneous to think that today’s plurality in religion is a part of God’s plan. Missionary activity is not optional for the Christian but an urgent precept, he said….

++++++++ end of quotes+++++

Well, the good Cardinal can be excused for not then jumping on the Bergolian Bandwagon as it did not then exist because the, uh, deepening of doctrine had not yet occurred.

It is important to remember that while doctrine does not change it does deepen and even though the deepening results in doctrine that quite clearly contradicts The Doctrine of Catholic Tradition that is a contradiction in appearance only and so do not become a pickle faced pharisee and identify the glaring contradiction but meekly accept the fake continuity coming from the mouth of the betrayers because obedience and religious submission of will.

11 April, 2019
Prayerful said...

Souperism was a notable tactic of some landlords and proselytisers, that is, Bible Societies, during the Great Famine. The Quaker, by contrast, provided an exemplary example of non Catholic charity to Catholics whose own priests were dying of disease and hunger.

12 April, 2019

 

 

 

Own comment: 

It is extremely important never to read Catholicism into whatever Bergoglio says, especially when what he means is unclear.

That 'proselytism' can be used in various ways and that people's faith can be changed by good or bad ways is obvious, but proselytism and evangelisation have pretty much been used interchangeably, and for good reason. Therefore, in the Catholic sense pre-Bergoglio, proselytism was not a bad word.

In fact, when he first uttered the non-sensical words that "proselytism is soemn nonsense", it was in response to a journalist asking telling him that his friends had warned him that Bergoglio would try to convert him. In other words, it was precisely about what people would most often refer to as evangelisation, and not even proselytism, which carries with it connotations of a missionary zeal and combative purpose.

This is the same man who has said that it is a "sin" (against ecumenism, whatever that means) to try and convert Lutherans, and presumably all protestants. When Bergoglio implies he is against proselytism, let it be clear that it means he is against making people Catholic, or keeping them that way.