ĐỨC GIÁO HOÀNG FRANCIS QUÀNG CỜ VNCH - VIỆT CỘNG LÀM CÁCH NÀO ĐỂ PHẢN ĐỐI CHỨ???./-Mt68

Mấy bữa nay truyền thông nhanh chóng đưa tin hình ảnh Đức Giáo Hoàng Phanxicô choàng chiếc khăn Hoàng Kỳ trong buổi tiếp kiến hôm thứ tư tuần qua tại Đại thính đường Phaolô VI. Như thường lệ, những người hành hương từ khắp năm châu tiến về Giáo Đô Roma trong đó có gia đình ông Vicent Nguyễn Văn Rị cùng vợ, con, dâu, rể và cháu, tổng cộng là 18 người đang sinh sống tại giáo xứ Thánh Linh thuộc thành phố Mönchengladbach Đức Quốc. May mắn thay gia đình ông được Linh mụcJohannes Van der Vorst chánh xứ Thánh Linh cùng đồng hành và hướng dẫn đi chung trong chuyến hành hương này.

TÂN GIÁO HOÀNG LÃNH ĐẠO CÔNG GIÁO VỚI ĐÔI GIÀY "DÍNH BÙN" - BÙN Ở ĐÂY ÁM CHỈ CÁC LINH MỤC LÀM BẬY TRẺ CON - NẾU ĐỨC GIÁO HOÀNG DÁM LÀM : "TUYÊN BỐ LỘT CHỨC HẾT THẢY CÁC LINH MỤC BẬY BẠ" - LÀ ĐƯƠNG NHIÊN ĐGH FRANCIS 1 SẼ TRỞ THÀNH VANG DANH VÀ BẤT TỬ NGAY LẬP TỨC ./- Mt68

Pope Francis I: A leader with mud on his boots

• BY:GREG SHERIDAN, FOREIGN EDITOR 
• From:The Australian 
• March 16, 2013 12:00AM

• 

Pope Francis, third from right, celebrates his inaugural mass with cardinals inside the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. Source:AP

THE choice of the name, Francis, by the new Pope, is a stroke of genius. St Francis of Assisi is perennially the Catholic Church's most popular saint. To use the dreadful terminology of our time, St Francis is one of the most positive brands within the vast treasury of the Catholic Church.

This choice, which no doubt also reflects the Pope's spirituality, is a sign that the new man on St Peter's throne may have something of that genius for communications - or more crudely, public relations instinct - which so characterised Pope John Paul II, was so absent in the retired Benedict XVI, and is so essential in a modern pope. As Australia's Cardinal George Pell points out, the new Pope is a formidable man.
Argentina is a tough school. The Pope has done well there.
The main, indeed the only serious, reason people thought he was not a front-tier candidate before the election is his age. At 76 he is nearly the age at which Benedict became pope, only to feel he had to resign in his mid-80s.

Francis is going to be a central figure in global cultural dialogue, in the West, in Latin America, really in all parts of the world.
His election, so unpredicted, has wrong-footed the Western commentariat. This is even more the case because in many ways he defies simple labels. Is he radical, liberal or conservative, left-wing or right-wing, democratic or authoritarian, collegial or centralist? These labels have little application in this papal election. In any event, Francis is a complex man.
Certainly, he is doctrinally orthodox. He believes in the physical resurrection of Christ, the inerrancy of scripture, the promise of eternal life. These are his central beliefs. Almost his first official statement was to point out that without a spiritual rebirth, the church is in danger of becoming just another charity. This point is important even to non-Catholics, because it will colour everything else he says and does.
Second, the Pope is socially conservative, or perhaps more correctly, morally conservative. A pope from the global south, from the developing world, was always going to be a huge disappointment to Western liberals. Catholicism in the global south is much more conservative than in the secular West.
The new Pope's position on contentious issues is the same as previous popes, but he expresses these views with what would be regarded as shocking political incorrectness in the West. For example, he describes abortion as "equivalent to a death sentence". Gay marriage, he says, is "destructive of God's plan".
In many senses the Pope wants to put the church at the service of society, but one part of that service is to point out to society, at times rather trenchantly, where it has gone wrong.
But another dimension of the Pope's identity is his passionate advocacy of the poor. Latin America is the demographic heart of the Catholic Church. It is also a continent with many millions of very poor people. Francis regards extreme poverty as a violation of human rights. Yet he is a strong opponent of the now nearly dead liberation theology movement. His own example is salutary. Despite being archbishop of Buenos Aires, he lived humbly and spent much of his own time with the poor.
In Francis, the cardinals have elected a pope who truly has "mud on his boots". But to describe Francis as a social justice pope may be something of a misnomer. Enormous amounts of fatuous nonsense, and some downright nastiness, has been promulgated by Catholic peace and justice bureaucracies in the West, so many of which were, for a time at least, captured by the political Left.
That is not Francis's way. His views seem more akin to those of Mother Theresa, who was often criticised by the Left for not taking a more systematic opposition to the excesses of capitalism. But her approach was that as a Catholic and as a human being she should provide support and solidarity for the marginalised. The technical questions about how best to run an economy so that it produces enough to sustain the basics of a good life for all its citizens is not the subject of church doctrine.
Nonetheless, as an expert in his own society, Francis has criticised both the IMF and some of the tenets of neoliberalism as it has been practised in some Latin American countries. In all of this, he is intellectually at one with his immediate predecessors. But this dimension of their statements and teachings never received much emphasis. It will be fascinating to see how Francis develops this side of his social teaching.
A few other points. His election will have an electrifying effect on all of Latin America. Argentines aren't naturally the most popular Latin Americans. They are more affluent than most of their continent and they are sometimes seen as too self-consciously proud of their European heritage. And Francis, after all, is the son of Italian migrants.
But this is a tiny qualification to what will be a continent-wide sense of vindication and arrival. Latin Americans often feel strangely isolated, despite their intimate connections to the US, and to Spain and Portugal. The continent is in some sense a world of its own. Francis himself betrayed something of this view when he said the cardinals, in selecting him, had gone "to the end of the Earth" to find a bishop for Rome.
Few Latin Americans occupy key international jobs. In many ways, the election of Francis is Latin America's most telling contribution so far to global leadership.
Although the vast majority of Latin Americans are Catholics, the church there is robustly challenged by ultra-activist, evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal movements. Something similar is happening in The Philippines. These churches are often more conservative than the Catholic Church, but they are also often more vigorous. Francis promises great dynamism and renewal in Latin America.
The old and utterly discredited allegations that he somehow didn't oppose the Argentine junta with sufficient vigour illustrate only that any Catholic cardinal anywhere in the world will confront some species of allegations about their past.
Francis faces immediate, specific challenges. He has to work out a way of confronting, in his papacy, the legacy of clerical child abuse. He must reform the Vatican bureaucracy, the Curia. This is a dull process task but it is essential. John Paul II ignored the Curia. Benedict tried to reform it but his will was too feeble. Francis is an outsider to the Curia but, as an experienced cardinal, knows all about how it operates - or, too often, doesn't operate. He needs a brilliant secretary of state whom he invests with full authority.
The main question mark over Francis is his age and health. His new job will require heroic vigour. He needs to manage himself carefully. Septuagenarians have often provided vigorous leadership: Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Konrad Adenauer. He can't micro-manage. He needs to teach and inspire.
The best form of leadership is to set the direction and appoint good people. Despite his age, Francis is emphatically post-post-Vatican II. He supports the so-called "new movements" in the Catholic Church, such as Communion and Liberation and the Neocatechumenal Way and many others which are vigorous and doctrinally orthodox.
It's a big, big job. But manifestly, he's a good man.

TÂN ĐỨC GIÁO HOÀNG FRANCIS 1 NGƯỜI Á-CĂN-ĐÌNH

ARGENTINA'S BERGOGLIO BECOMES FIRST LATIN AMERICAN POPE

AFPUpdated March 14, 2013, 6:01 am

• tweet
• Email
• Print

VIDEO PLAYER CONTROLS

Jorge Bergoglio announced as new pope

Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio, has been announced as the new leader of the Catholic Church after white smoke signalled the election of a new pope.

AFP ©Enlarge photo

RELATED LINKS

• : White smoke signals new pope elected
• : Cardinals elect new pontiff
• : Cardinal Pell angered by newspaper 'smear'

VATICAN CITY (AFP) - Argentina's Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis I on Wednesday, becoming the first Latin American pontiff in a surprise decision that raised the prospect of a more open Catholic Church.

The 76-year-old moderate emerged smiling on to the balcony of St Peter's Basilica to the cry of "Habemus Papam!" ("We Have a Pope!"), as tens of thousands of pilgrims cheered, cried and applauded.

Francis called for "brotherhood" among the Church's 1.2 billion Catholics and prayed the Hail Mary together with the crowd in St Peter's Square.

He said he felt as if cardinals had gone to "the other end of the world" to find him -- and across the Atlantic Ocean in Buenos Aires celebrations erupted.

Francis also publicly thanked his predecessor Benedict XVI, who shocked the world by resigning last month in a move unseen for seven centuries.

The historic election after 85-year-old Benedict's abrupt resignation last month was being followed around the world on live television as well as through social media and smartphone apps -- this is the first ever tweeted conclave.

The papal Twitter account @pontifex announced his name in Latin: "Habemus Papam Franciscum".

Latin America has the highest number of Catholics in the world and there had been growing calls for the new pope to come from the southern hemisphere for the first time but Bergoglio was never considered one of the frontrunners.

"I can't believe it! An Argentinian pope!" said Silvia Pastormerlo, a 50-year-old from Argentina in St Peter's Square.

Also in the crowd was Julio Cesar Attaremo, a 42-year-old notary from Santa Fe, in Argentina. "We're very happy and proud, not just for Argentina but for the whole of South America," he said.

"Bergoglio has character. He's very humble and he's someone who really goes out to the people."

The new pope is seen as austere and media-shy. He is believed to have been the runner-up at the conclave in 2005 that elected Benedict -- although details of the deliberations are secret.

White smoke earlier billowed from the chimney on the Sistine Chapel and the bells of St Peter's Basilica rang out, signalling the election had taken place after five rounds of voting -- one more than when Benedict was elected.

Bergoglio is the first Jesuit to become pope.

The Argentinian of Italian descent, who is the 266th pope in the Catholic Church's 2,000-year history, retired to a chamber known as the "Room of Tears" immediately after the nomination to don his white papal vestments and then prayed in the Pauline Chapel.

Bells pealed in churches across Italy to celebrate the announcement and residents of Rome raced to the floodlit 17th-century Vatican plaza, running out of their homes and cafes to reach the square in time.

Cardinals have been locked up behind the Vatican walls and cut off from the outside world since Tuesday, meeting in a sublime Renaissance chapel swept for recording devices and installed with scramblers to prevent any communication.

Pilgrims in the square had braved rain that had fallen most of the afternoon, but it stopped after the election of a pope was announced by the white smoke.

"I didn't think I would cry but I guess the adrenaline's taking over!" said Rebecca Hine, a student from Canada.

Benedict's eight-year papacy was riven by scandals and the new pope will face immediate challenges -- stamp his authority on the Vatican machinery and try to bring back a Catholic flock that is deserting churches across the West.

Benedict's style was often seen as too academic and he was never as popular as his predecessor Pope John Paul II. Many of the cardinals have called for the new pope to be a better communicator, able to reach out particularly to young people.

Conclaves are usually only held after a pope dies and are sometimes decades apart -- the last one was in 2005, the one before that 1978. A popular Italian expression for things that happen very rarely is "at every death of a pope".

But the 85-year-old Benedict broke with tradition, becoming the first pontiff to resign since the Middle Ages. He has said he will retire to a former nunnery inside the Vatican -- an unprecedented and delicate situation for the Church.

In one of his last acts as pope, he issued a decree allowing cardinals to bring forward the date of a conclave in the event of a pope's resignation -- a move seen by many as potentially setting a precedent for ageing pontiffs in the future.

The scandal of hushed-up sexual abuses of children by paedophile priests going back decades has also cast its shadow over the conclave.

The US group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) called for over a dozen cardinals to be excluded from the deliberations either for covering up abuses or for making tactless remarks about the scandals.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi on Wednesday defended the cardinals and accused SNAP and other activists of showing "negative prejudices".

"None of us are surprised that they have tried to take advantage of these days to repeat their accusations and give them greater resonance," he said