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Pope Francis' 2013 Apostolic Exhortation Is Coherent -- and Beautiful! (REVIEW ESSAY)

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https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2019/documents/papa-francesco_20190804_lettera-presbiteri.html

For further discussion of emotional contagion, see Olivia Fox Cabane's 2012 book The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism (New York: Portfolio/ Penguin, esp. pages 145-146).

For further discussion of Cabane's 2012 book, see my OEN article "The Different Charisma Styles of Pope Francis and President Trump" (dated September 7, 2019):

https://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Different-Charisma-Sty-by-Thomas-Farrell-Brain_Catholic_Charisma_Consciousness-190907-920.html

Now, not surprisingly, in his discussion of women in the Roman Catholic Church (paragraphs 103-104), Pope Francis reaffirms the premature and unreasonable position taken by Pope John-Paul II, saying, "The reservation of the priesthood to males . . . is not a question open to discussion" (104). Not surprisingly, Pope Francis also reaffirms the church's unreasonable position on abortion (paragraphs 213-214), saying that "the Church cannot be expected to change her position of this question" (214; his capitalization).

For further discussion of Pope Francis' doctrinal conservatism, see my OEN article "Pope Francis on Evil and Satan" (dated March 24, 2019):

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Pope-Francis-on-Evil-and-S-by-Thomas-Farrell-Abortion_Catholic_God_Homosexuality-190324-51.html

Now, I would commend Pope Francis for taking a hint from St. Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, on love of beauty. Pope Francis says, "If, as Saint Augustine says, we love only that which is beautiful, the Incarnate Son, as the revelation of infinite beauty, is supremely lovable and draws us to himself with bonds of love." The new pope also says, "Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in him and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties" (paragraph 167).

In addition to not marking each time Pope Francis mentions the Holy Spirit in his 2013 apostolic exhortation, I did not mark each time he uses the polysemous words encounter and dialogue. Suffice it to say that he gets a lot of mileage out of those two words. I especially liked his discussion of true openness in the subsection on "Inter-religious dialogue" (paragraphs 250-254). He says, "True openness involves remaining steadfast in one's deepest convictions, clear and joyful in one's own identity, while at the same time being 'open to understanding those [convictions] of the other party' and 'knowing that dialogue can enrich each side'" (paragraph 251).

The new pope's operational definition and explanation of true openness in dialogue is equivalent to Ong's discussion of what he refers to as "open closure" in his 1977 book Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Ithaca, New York and London, England: Cornell University Press, pages 305-341).

Also see my OEN article "Pope Francis = 'Open Closure'; But Catholic Traditionalists = Closed-Systems Thought" (dated August 30, 2019):

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Pope-Francis--Open-Closu-by-Thomas-Farrell-Catholic_Catholic-Church_Catholicism-Vatican-Pope_Pope-Francis-190830-788.html

Incidentally, in addition to discussing "Inter-religious dialogue" (paragraphs 250-254), Pope Francis discusses "Dialogue between faith, reason and science" (paragraphs 242-243), "Ecumenical dialogue" (paragraphs 244-246), "Relations with Judaism" (paragraphs 247-249), and "Social dialogue in a context of religious freedom" (paragraphs 255-258).

Finally, I would be seriously remiss if I failed to mention that Pope Francis' over-arching theme in his 2013 apostolic exhortation is God's mercy and our mercy toward one another. Granted, the new pope works with a lot of themes in his 2013 apostolic exhortation I had to work hard with my highlighter and my pen to take notes and follow all of his themes. But in the subsection "From the heart of the Gospel" (paragraphs 34-39; his capitalization), Pope Francis says, "Thomas [Aquinas] thus explains that, as far as external works are concerned, mercy is the greatest of all virtues: 'In itself mercy is the greatest of the virtue, since all others revolve around it and, more than this, it makes up for their deficiencies. This is particular to the superior virtue, and as such it is proper to God to have mercy, through which his omnipotence is manifested to the greatest degree'" (paragraph 37).

For further discussion of Pope Francis' 2013 apostolic exhortation, see the German Cardinal Walter Kasper's article "Open House: How Pope Francis Sees the Church" (dated March 13, 2015) in Commonweal Magazine:

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/open-house

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Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book (more...)
 

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