Meet the new faith, same as the old faith

By 
  • October 3, 2013

I found myself unwittingly joining in a fun new Catholic game last week. Ever since Pope Francis’ interview with La Civilta Cattolica was published in Jesuit journals around the world, there has been both within and without the Church great huzzahs that under the new Holy Father everything will be, well, new, new, new! So here and there more knowledgeable Catholics than one would find at, say The New York Times, or for that matter, at some of those same Jesuit publications, have highlighted this or that revolutionary quotation from the interview, only to reveal that it in fact was said five years ago by Pope Benedict XVI.

The capacity of Pope Francis to attract the world’s attention to his proclamation of Jesus Christ is a moment of great evangelical potential. The new quotation game points out that what he is preaching is the same Catholic faith, the faith once delivered to the saints.

“Following Christ is thus the essential and primordial foundation of Christian morality,” Pope Francis said, explaining that before the moral rules comes the encounter with the Lord Jesus. “This is not a matter only of disposing oneself to hear a teaching and obediently accepting a commandment. More radically, it involves holding fast to the very person of Jesus, partaking of His destiny, sharing in His free and loving obedience to the will of the Father.”

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