On Fratelli Tutti (Brothers All)

 If you've not read Pope Francis' most recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, please give yourself an evening or two to go over it.  I beg you to read it for yourself and look for what it says, what speaks to the heart because there is much there.   

I also suggest avoiding the commentary.  Those who dislike Pope Francis and question his authority in this time, shred Pope Francis because it makes them appear detatched, cerebral, and clever.  
With the rise of instant access, people have become conditioned to distrust any piece written by anyone of authority if someone they like or approve of, questions or criticizes it. There are many in Catholic circles who distrust this pope, I am not one of them. I have news for people who engage in ritualistic constant harping on the Holy Father and armchair quarterback his every utterance, much less writing so as to indicate that they are smarter than the pope and take issue.

You are not being Catholic. 

You think you are acting like Saint Catherine of Sienna, but you're not.  This pope has done nothing close to what led the Doctor of the Church to counsel Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, and those dissenting have not garnered a world wide reputation for their deep asceticism.   They're not reluctant but glowering in their critique of this pope for his words and deeds because they don't like the style of this pope, and think they know how to evangelize better. In some cases, they might.  But these blogs and videos and crititiques are not evanglizing, they're not inviting people to dive deeper into love with Christ or his church.   They are sowing division, pushing people away from the Pope, away from other Catholics, and declaring everyday excommunications.  That's not Catholic. 

Catholic is universal. Catholic calls us to the table, to the Eucharist, to be part of one Body of Christ, and to be about the business of healing all the places where there are holes that flesh should be. 

 I would direct anyone to read the very strong piece by Mike Lewis, The Inanity of CTRL-F Criticism.   It's my opinion, that in this time of seemingly infinite crisis, everyone is hanging on by a shred, and for some of those hanging by the shred, shredding others feels like something better than the nothing of every day we've endured since March 13th.   

We are not called to shred or deconstruct or destroy. 
We aren't called to be clever. We're called to be faithful.  We're not called to fisk everyone else, we're to fisk ourselves for all the ways in which we've failed to rend our hearts and help heal the wounds of the world by our words, actions and prayers. 

The Holy Father is reminding us, that in all things, we are brothers all first, united in Christ.  Having read his work, I think the Holy Father is trying to speak to a world that thinks it knows Christ and the mission of His church, but only has the poor represenation and current reputation put forth by professed followers.   

President Wikipedia

In blogging, you never know what will resonate, but you keep throwing things out there, hoping that something will catch people's attention and tickle their hearts or move them. Sometimes, you lavish time over a piece, crafting it to your own perception of perfection. No hits. No interest. In blogging as in life, you can pitch what you perceive as a perfect game and still lose. But once one attains viral attention, it's hard to lose that hold on the public. Perception trumps reality.

And so it is, that we can have amazing deficit spending, high unemployment, stagnant house sales, declining 401k's, lost jobs, lost opportunities, and homes that are underwater, owing more than the mortgage demands, but according to the editor of Newsweek, the President is sort of God.

We've seen Brian Williams bowing to the Commander in Chief. We've heard about tinglies in the leg. We've seen women faint and men gasp with shock and awe at his presence. He's historic; he's beyond Jefferson, JFK, Martin Luther King, Lincoln and the Roosevelt’s historic. And yet, everything that was before him is prequel. We shall have the P.B.O. (Pre-you know who) era, with the new chronology beginning with 2009.

He's the first athiest president, and the most religious but ecumenical, understanding nuance in a way that men who confine themselves to one practice of faith Can't be.

He's metro-sexual, he takes off his shirt when he swims and has a date night. He's hot. He's cool. He's like jazz that everyone likes and knows, but that isn't so overly familiar as to be pedestrian. He can spend more money than we ever have before, percentage wise or absolutely, and then preach that we must become more fiscally responsible. What can't this man say or do?

He can preach at Notre Dame and the University of Cairo. He can claim we're not a nation of Christians and be understood to mean we're bigger than just one orientation of faith, and we're a nation of Muslims and be known to be talking to a specific audience about the lack of citation of the gifts and contributions of Islam.

Pointing out any over glossing or exaggeration about anything historical or factual is just pettiness, partisan or envy. You shouldn't do that you know; it's not good for you.

And so we waft along sipping our overpriced Grande Starbucks coffee, knowing we can't afford it, enjoying how cool we look for having it, and fiercely resisting and resenting any attempt to point out, "It's just coffee in a paper cup."

Because we have our President, our emotional teleprompter, who shall tell us when to get up and when to sleep, how much to work and what to eat, what to drive, how much we should earn and how we should live, so that one day, maybe, we might ...well wait a minute..He’s never said what the reward was for doing all this stuff.

Think maybe we should ask?