The Joys and Sorrows of Francis's Magisterium

Dear Dr. Bobus, I have in a way already anticipated McGavin's analysis. I have followed the "dot" method, i.e., collecting Francis-statements from here, there and everywhere and treating them like dost of a puzzle. In other words, I try to connect the dots in order to derive an outline of Pope Francis' behavior, verbal and otherwise.

The biggest double dot was Pope Francis' acceptance of Ferré's analysis of the modern world as "libertine atheism", corrected by the Pope to "hedonistic atheism". Add to this the repeated affirmation of the modern world by the Pope and his disciples, I conclude that Pope Francis affirms the "hedonistic" nature of the (post)modern world. Under "hedonism" I understand more than sense pleasure, rather an affirmation of what this world has to offer -- without reference to an afterlife. This means that the pope strategically is seeking to affect the world "hedonistically", e.g., rock and role masses, all kinds of entertaining novelties, writing social justice (not conversion) large, wearing simpler clothes, breaking traditions (e.g., shoes) and behaving in and for the press as Pope Superstar Francis. From this point of view his jabber-walky language fits in, even if its "holistic" meaning remains obscure.

To reiterate what I have said here before: The Pope is a Jesuit, and the Jesuit approach is not integrated. Even in the so called good old days, when they were neo scholastics, they were not trying to produce intellectual syntheses (excepting Teilhard, who took a cab). Their version of St Thomas, Francisco Suarez SJ, denied the Real Distinction, which is the foundation for the link between ideas and reality.

Thus, for the Jesuits Dialogue is a missionary exercise, not an intellectual one.

The article was excellent and left me in an uniformly fixed confusion. Dia-logue is more than a conversation. I can blab with someone about why my football team lost last night's game. Such a conversation, presuming I am an expert of football, could well, indeed, contain many "words" (= Pope's poorly formed term for ideas, concepts, interpretative undrstanding). No a "dialog" entails a specific theme about which one discusses a specific matter (of importance--one does not dialoque about what cat food is the best for my kitten), e.g., salvation, the meaning of the crucifixion, sin, economic rationality, distinction between the economical poor and spiritually poor, etc. I do hope that I and any reader "think uniformly" here. (I once knew a Kung Fu expert who thought other experts were pursuing him with the intent to kill him. The man ended in a psychiatric ward, whereas the rest of us, "thinking uniformly" (enough), went on are normal lives).

Now a person pops up, full of joy, no, bubbling over with joyful excitement, speaking seldom in "abstract" concepts, let alone, with a moderate conceptualization of the subject matter of importance, and floods my intellect with a mish-mash of examples, "realities" (or so he has interpreted them so--and forgotten this term is a product of an intellectual act), some harsh, some light--all sort of metaphors illustrating his interests, or so I think). What am I to do in order to have a dialogue. Who am I re dialoguing. Well, spread out a bit, I have spent 17+ years of my life studying at universities in 4 countries, among other things logic, taught at various universities in a few countries, literature and philosophy. I am an intellectual, both by disposition, training and passionate vocation. I want an intellectual dialoque whereas the bubbling bundle of joy confronting me wants to suck me into the "holistic" complexity of his emotional simplicity, be the emotion pastoral in nature.

A conversation, rambling and onerous to my personality (except should I have had two or three beers), is supposed to ensue re the illustrations holistically pasted together and, what is more, not getting bugged down in "words" (i.e., rational thinking) because the conversationalist seeking dialogue (sic!) with me is drowning me in his emotionality. I say "drowing me" because he puts down my intellectual manner of conversing. I well know the difference between rational thinking and literary conversing. (Heck, in the Middle Ages in Germany poets would come together and have poetic contests.) Alas, the buyoant conversationalist, Pope Francis, insists on emoting literature, viz., holistic joy, not thinking rationally. The conversationalist offends my intellectuality by uttering simplistic critiques such as "cold syllogism" (and has never read the "hot" passion that Russell and Whitehead felt about syllogisms). A dialogue is seldom a series of syllogisms. That is, to be "holistically" concrete, "bull". Indeed, I would say never! Rational thinking in a dialoque entails more than "cold (sic!) syllogisms", rather entails a rhetorical form such that the conceptualization of a theme can be organized for rational understanding, which, for us intellectual types, can be a quite enthusiatic experience. Alas, Paul-Anthony McGavin has not removed the problems that Pope Francis causes me, only explained why the man in the papal office would be better off with a pastoral job and leaving the thinking to professionals.

Finally, seek out Nicolas Abbagnano, Storia della Filosofia, Vol. 4 and look up the few pages on "modernism". (There are translations in various languages.) I find it easier to understand Pope Francis in the light of Abbagnano's "uniformly" clear presentation than in McGavin's hermeneutic attempt to rationalize the joyous gaudium of an Argentinian "cowboy" (pardon my Pope Francisian mode of communicating).