Pope Francis’ “cultural revolution”

Francis says that theological reflection is called “to a turning point, to a paradigm shift,” to what he calls a “courageous cultural revolution” (Encyclical Letter Laudato si’, 114). He wants a shift to “a fundamentally contextual theology.” The idea is to look to culture and lived experience as guiding the interpretation of the Gospel. “Priority must be given,” the pope said, to people’s “common sense” which he says is a “theological place in which many images of God live.”

The Catholic network EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network), referring to the Nov. 1 letter, noted that

The pope’s shift in emphasis in Catholic theology was reflected in the new statutes issued for the Pontifical Academy of Theology. Ad Theologiam Promovendam shifted the 200-year-old institute’s focus from “promoting the dialogue between reason and faith” to promoting “transdisciplinary dialogue with philosophies, sciences, arts, and all other knowledge.”(2)

Making culture a primary source of insight is fraught with pitfalls. But Catholic theology already accepts tradition as an authority. The current official catechism of the church teaches

…the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of revelation is trusted, ‘does not derive her certainty about all revealed truth from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.’(3)

…sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others.(4)

Whether making Tradition or culture one’s measure, a norm outside the Bible is being added beside the Bible. Francis even calls for priority to be “given to people’s common sense,” and to unexpected images of God.

Those groups which view the papacy as an ally in bringing about social changes they desire will appreciate these Vatican signals. But there is PROPHETIC SIGNIFICANCE. Initiatives such as this Papal position unveiled Nov. 1 suggest that she is an ally to globalist technocrats, themselves fully engaged reshaping culture toward their own ends. For such eyes Francis dresses the papacy as malleable and plastic. The reality is different. The Roman Catholic Church is far-reaching in it’s activities. Moves such as this one by pope Francis only increase papal power in the circles of one-world control. Every principle of the papacy that existed in past ages exists today.(5) Signals sent are one thing; methods modified are another. The record of centuries of Papal oppression calls all to vigilance.

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Notes

1. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/motu_proprio/documents/20231101-motu-proprio-ad-theologiam-promovendam.html, accessed Nov. 8, 2023.
2. https://www.ewtn.no/pope-francis-calls-for-paradigm-shift-in-theology-for-world-of-today/, accessed Nov. 8, 2023.
3. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1994, 82.
4. Ibid., 95.
5. See E.G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 571.