Vatican contradicts the Pope...

[SCG]

But the Pope said "even atheists who do good are redeemed." Does that mean that atheists who do wrong are not redeemed?

[Mothlady]

Well someone else who has already posted in this thread may answer it better, but I think it can be explained by what Pope Francis' intent was. I believe he meant that if a professed atheist is doing good, that he is unknowingly following God's laws. There are some who die without baptism or knowledge of God and some who cannot either see or speak, but if such a person as these follows the laws of God, it is his actions which redeem him. If he in his heart rejects God, I believe that any action of love would be impossible on his part, because God, our creator is love itself, perfect love.

God judges us by our actions. A person may think that there is no god, but if he exercises God's law to love one another, he does in fact "believe in God."

Jesus said that not everyone who professes to believe in or call on God will enter heaven, but "...he who does the will of my Father..."

And Scriptorium has reminded us that you can't trust a non Catholic publication such as The Huffington Post to include ALL of what the Holy Father said. Pray for him, for since he is human, we want to give him all the spiritual support we can to do his job. And always question the press. Christ did not pass the keys of the kingdom to them...

[StCeciliasGirl]

NC Register article might shed some light on all this:

Let's start with the context in which Pope Francis made the remarks: One of his homilies at daily Mass, celebrated in St. Martha's House (where he lives).

Pope Francis is in the habit of saying daily Mass for the people at St. Martha's House and invited guests, and when he does so he gives an off-the-cuff homily (rather than reading from a prepared text).

This is actually something new.

John Paul II and Benedict XVI did not do this. They did not celebrate daily Mass as publicly as Pope Francis, and they did not have daily homilies published in this way. Instead, they occasionally delivered prepared homilies at public Masses on special occasions, and only these were published. As a result, if you look at the Vatican web site, there are surprisingly few homilies listed in their sections!

As a result, the Vatican web people aren't scaled up for this volume of homilies, and--MADDENINGLY--you can't find complete texts of Pope Francis's daily ones on the site.

They, apparently, aren't running these homilies through "the usual process," which involves transcribing what the pope says in off-the-cuff remarks, showing him the transcript so that he can revise it if needed, and then translating and publishing them.

As a result, we're not getting complete transcripts of these homilies, only partial ones, such as those carried by Vatican Radio.

And that, right there, is a problem. It drives me nuts, because these homilies contain interesting information, but I hesitate to comment on anything for which I don't have a complete text.

As they say, a text without a context is a pretext. Without seeing the full text, we run the risk of misunderstanding.

ICAM: in his first week he was "being" quoted with random "words" here and there and the rest was "up to the editor" and editor could make it mean anything. I'd go to vatican.va to see what was said, and it simply wasn't there. It's not so hard to put up a recorder and transcribe his words. The Vatican HAS a press. Part of the Curia. He's the Holy Father. ...it's almost like getting the Gospel from Simon Magus' 3rd wife's brother's best friend: "Yeah, then the Lord said not to "kill" people and there was a dinner party." <---FAIL!

Was Pope Francis Even Talking About Heaven?

If so, you wouldn't know it from the transcript of what he said.

Let's back up a bit. Remember, Pope Francis was just talking about the duty to do good:

"And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace."

So if everyone does good, we have a path toward peace. That's the goal he's discussing.

"If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good.

Note the parallelism between the phrases. Pope Francis is talking about a path "toward peace" and wants us to "meet there" by doing our part and doing good so that we build "that culture of encounter" and "meet one another doing good."

He's not talking about heaven at all.

He's talking about earth.

It's in that context that he has the imaginary interlocutor say:

‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’

And he replies:

"But do good: we will meet one another there.”

What he's saying is that even atheists need to do good on earth to build their part of the culture of encounter that promotes peace and allows people to "meet together" in harmony.

So Akin finishes with what most of us had concluded: the Press purposefully tried to twist the HF's words so he'd sound like he was saying something he wasn't. He's talking about "let's not battle each other: we believe, you don't, but that doesn't mean we should waste our time warring each other." (HEAVILY paraphrased). He did NOT say, "You sodomites and atheists and Hindus will go to Heaven if you don't shoot someone."