MAGISTER: “words and gestures left purposely vague”
At the Italian site Italia Oggi there is an interview with long-time vaticanista Sandro Magister. He answers questions about Pope Francis and his pontificate.
Magister has been around for a while, working as a journalist for some 40 years.
I don’t have the energy or time to translate the whole thing.
In summary, however, Magister notes carefully that many people have a hard time figuring out what Pope Francis is saying, what he wants to convey. He messages seem, at times, to be contradictory or vague. It is difficult to discern to whom he is addressing them. He notes also that many bishops are having the same problem, both in Italy and abroad.
On another topic, he points out that Francis, while fairly loquacious for a modern Pope, is silent about some topics, such as the cases of Asia Bibi, the Nigerian girls who were kidnapped, and the Christian couple recently burned alive in a furnace.
But more than once he comes back to the topic of how hard it is sometimes to understand what Francis is saying.
A sample,
Magister: It is another of the paradigms of expression recurring in this pontificate: reprimands towards both sides. However, if you want to inventory them, his beatings of traditionalists, legalists, rigid defenders of arid doctrine, appear to be much more numerous and focused. When, on the other hand, he gets angry with the liberals, you can’t figure out whom he is talking about.
And toward the end:
Magister: When he was in Bethlehem, he stopped by a wall that divides the territories from Israel and he remains absolutely silent: you don’t know what he was trying to say. When he was at Lampedusa, he shouted “shame”, and it isn’t clear who was supposed to be ashamed. Italy, which has saved thousands and thousands of lives? Why doesn’t he say? Often there are words and gestures left purposely vague.
The interview is long, but it remains pretty focused. Perhaps someone will translate it or you can use one of those online translators to get the sense of it.
Moderation queue is ON.
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