John Allen asks: Is Pope Francis ordering Catholics to stop trying to convert people and bring them into the Church?

A very valid interpretation.

Are Catholics supposed to be trying to convert people and bring them into the Church, or not?

It's unbelievable that John Allen believes the Pope has flushed such a toilet of confusion into our baptismal promises, he felt the need to explain it - but it is what it is.

Pope Francis has repeatedly said and done things to convey conversion of souls isn't necessary in his modernization of 2000 years of Church teaching and practices.

To Allen's credit, he does explain the distinction between conversion and proselytism.

But here's something interesting: Allen goes on to explain that the reason that Pope Francis was simply addressing the pockets of Catholics using aggressive and coercive techniques.

I know what you're asking.

Where are the Catholics using aggressive and coercive techniques?

I will tell you.

They're with with the non-existent priests obsessively and compulsively teaching about contraception.

I think there is another tribe who is with prolifers who reject Church teaching on sharing money, food and shelter with the indigent.

Cardinal Bernadin's imaginary Isle of Urban Legends where you use tall tales to pervert Church teaching.

Where the self-absorbed, Promethean neo-Pelagian Restorationists are afraid to dance and only speak Latin.

Honestly, I think Pope Francis was probably talking about you-know-who - the political science of islam that mass murders those who will not convert. But, the Pope's unwillingness to effectively express who and what he is talking about leaves us in a place where the National Catholic Distorter types use it to 'rip' effective teaching and converting.

Every clown in the circus capitalizes on the confusion the Pope is imposing to pull down his pants and show us what's in his diapers.

Here's one that said the Roman luminaries are simply trying to figure out how to circumvent unchangeable doctrine to help people who don't enjoy the fullness of Christian marriage.

Isn't that sweet?

Regrettably, I am dreading the Holy Father's address to Congress.

I am concerned the mission of the Church is going to change from feeding the substance of souls to feeding stomachs.

I am afraid the seeds of communism Pope Francis planted with the behind-the-scenes collaboration with Hugo will be fertilized and watered.

Pope Francis can say he is a not a communist all he wants. He talks like one and he walks like one and his work with Hugo put an end to any doubts I once had.

The reckless disregard for the people of Cuba suffering violence and oppression to get another cover on the photo of TIME magazine as, of all things, 'a peace-maker', didn't have its intended effect at my home.

Saying he is not a communist is about as sensible as picking the well-known apostate to lead theology on his synod on the family and then tell us it isn't his intention to mislead our children with heresy.

The intellect of mothers is just too sophisticated in America. We've had to develop it because the priesthood became a place that indoctrinated their own same-sex attractions into the minds of two generations of children. They continue to do so.

When Pope Francis made his announcement he wasn't going to make any judgments about two decades of the pleas of mothers to relieve us of the agenda, we got the message.

There is a lot of talk about 'the seamless garment' we all see without making reference that the force behind the current manifestation of its intellectual dishonesty is the Pope.

Jimmy Akin wrote a piece about its intellectual dishonesty.

In essence, it's priests obstruct moral theology, discredit and insult those who teach it's practice and make claims that when Christ asked Peter as the Head of His Church to accept the martyrdom of loving Him enough to feed His lambs, He was talkin' 'bout bread, cheese and milk.

America is a war zone. American mothers welcome the Pope's presence here. But we are as likely to permit him to gather the people we love and roll out communism with the seamless garment as we are likely to set up a pedophile brothel using our children for the Roman Curia.

In fact, as I've repeatedly mentioned before, we would sooner do the latter.

Put.The.Garment.Back.in.its.Closet.

Pope Francis is merely the current occupant of our Chair of Peter. They come and they go. He's going to preserve doctrine the easy way or the hard way. And, he is not going to mitigate it with a set of instructions on how to teach our people to ignore it through pastoral practices.

Put it away, or we shall rip it to shreds along the credibility of this papacy.

I leave you with this week's homily from Fr. Rutler.

FROM THE PASTOR

January 25, 2015

by Fr. George W. Rutler

The great edifices of classical cultures are also morally edifying by their anonymity. The artists and artisans who embellished them are generally unknown because they were honoring something greater than themselves.

The desire to be known, however, is not unworthy of human dignity, provided it is not just selfish pride. Homo faber, man the builder, is entitled to take just satisfaction in an accomplishment, provided thanks for the inspiration are accorded to the Divine Inspirer.

Humility refers all things to God, but it dispenses with the false modesty, like that of Dickens’ Uriah Heep, that solicits praise but pretends not to want it. When Michelangelo carved his name very visibly on his Pietà, he wanted people to know that God had done a great thing through him. That is different from those who want their names known just to advertise themselves. “Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue forever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names” (Psalm 49:11).

Once a man desires to please God first, he will begin to understand that he is not just a statistic in the divine regard. “Non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam—Not unto us Lord, but unto thy name give the glory.” St. Paul warned St. Timothy not to be a “man pleaser” because that distracts from the primary relationship with God who made us for his delight. To be dependent on human recognition is to forfeit the radical dignity that God alone gives us. “We love him because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

No one wants to receive mail addressed only to “Occupant.” Christ does not address us as statistics, the way a bureaucrat does. St. Paul wrote his epistles to churches composed of individuals, each of whom he was willing to die for, as Christ died for him. He does not end his letter to the Romans without naming them: Phoebe, Prisca, Aquila, Epaenetus, Mary, Andronicus, Junias, Ampliatus, Urbanus, Stachys, Apelles, Aristobulus, Herodion, Narcissus, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis, Rufus, Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, Philologus, Julia, Nereus, and Olympas. It is quite like the list of names with which Cardinal Newman ended his Apologia pro Vita Sua. That is the greatest modern autobiography in the English language, and he named his friends because he had shown them that they were friends of God.

The pantheon of fame has its cracks. I recently spoke with a college student who had never heard of Bing Crosby. The only recognition that matters is how we are known to the Lord. Should we be blessed to meet him in glory, he will not say, “How do you do?” He will not even say, “I think I remember you.” He will say, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5).

n.b. Isn't it ironic that while Pope Francis issues rebukes to pregnant women about tools the Church gives us to make responsible judgments about whether there's enough money to feed another mouth, he and Cardinal O'Malley pretend they don't know that the money of working people in this country isn't enough to sustain the people in it - and yet they are at the borders promoting illegal entry of millions more.

They will bankrupt our people into poverty and make a third-world country out of America before they ever apply the principle of responsibility to the economic collapse they're working on with Obama and the communists in Cuba.

How 'bout we needlepoint that onto your seamless garment?