Leo XIV Attributes a Quote from Liberation Theology to St Augustine
In his first Apostolic Exhortation 'Dilexi Te', Leo XIV writes the dubious line:
“For Augustine, the poor are not just people to be helped, but the sacramental presence of the Lord.”
There is no footnote to substantiate the quote of an alleged "sacramental presence".
Augustine spoke about a real encounter with Christ in the poor, but he did not refer to this presence as sacramental.
Applying the term 'sacrament' to social issues was popularised by liberation theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff and the Jesuit Jon Sobrino ("Los pobres son sacramento de Cristo").
A similar theological simplification was made by another Jesuit, Jorge Bergoglio: "To touch a poor person, to care for a poor person, is in the Church a sacrament." (Francis, 13 November 2024).
Marxists Robert Prevost, along with his mentor Bergoglio, should receive the award for best actors of the century. But the Word of God gives them a much better title: "false prophets," since they blatantly lie in the name of God and His saints.
For these Marxists, the poor replace God. That's why the apostate Bergoglio said he had to kneel before the poor (the new sacrament of Marxist atheists), just as we kneel when Christ enters the Church in the Eucharist.
On the book Communism and the Consciousness of the West by Bishop Fulton Sheen he wrote this in the 1940’s. He will tempt Christians with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ. The temptation to turn stones into bread as an earthly Messiahs will become the temptation to sell freedom for security, making bread a political weapon which only those who think his way may eat. The temptation to work a miracle by recklessly throwing himself from a steeple will become a plea to desert the lofty pinnacles of truth where faith and reason reign, for those lower depths where the masses live on slogans and propaganda. He wants no proclamation of immutable principles from the lofty heights of a steeple, but mass organization through propaganda where only a common man directs the idiosyncrasies of common man. Opinions not truths, commentators not teachers, Gallup polls not principles, nature not grace – to these golden calves will men toss themselves from their Christ. The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion – one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God’s.
Wait a second. May I give some fraternal correction? You are wrong on this criticism. "Sacrament" is not a univocal term. There are multiple meanings. There is a general sense of a sacred sign. For example a married couple showing kindness to each other is a visible sacred sign of their marital love which is invisible. And a more specific use like the 7 sacraments instituted by Christ. This is a standard traditional understanding. I am not making this up, see the Magisterium AI site and the catechism AI site magisterium.com/search/26c31bc2-ddf7-443f-9cc0- … and mastercatechism.com/search/8937afdf-3926-4a2c- … Just because Gutierrez, Boff and Sobrino recognize this way of using the term does not mean it is wrong. Yes, the liberation theologians made some mistakes. Some were wrong on their social analysis, some were wrong on their hidden Hegelian assumptions, some were wrong on hidden modernist assumptions. But not everything they said is wrong. They got a following because they got somethings correct. They were serious thinkers trying to get a theologically informed grasp of serious social and political problems. I have studied Liberation Theology with an important Liberation Theologian and I have studied St. Thomas Aquinas with one of the top Thomists of the USA. I celebrated many NOM in precarious settings while working in South America. I now have the good fortune to celebrate the TLM 6 x week. Please take this fraternal correction with the same respect and care with which it was given. It is traditional to recognized theological and philosophical complexity while keeping the faith and practice of our forefathers.
When everything is a sacrament nothing is a sacrament. How do you distinguish the 7 sacraments of the church with "sacrament" of making the hubby breakfast. This conflation of language is along the same lines of the seamless garment. Using different words for different things allows us to describe and distinguish the differences. The failure to distinguish concepts/things/operations with accurate language leads to a lack of clarity of thought and belief.
Liberation Theology is Marxism/Communism wrapped up in sheep's clothing. Similar to Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV embracing "globalist" ideology rather than Catholic doctrine.
In any case, for St Augustine it is not a"sacramental presence" of the Lord, but a real presence. Only for Liberation Theology it became sacrament and for these Jesuits...
I do not accept this explanation because it is just a other example of the "weaponized ambiguity," that Modernists have made use of to push their agenda. It relies on people with education and training to suss out those distinctions in order to make their arguments more palatable. It's a real-life example of the 'AkShUaLy" meme. The Pope does not lead intellectuals solely. He leads all Catholics. And if one must engage in mental gymnastics to explain how the statement is technically orthodox, the original communication is fundamentally flawed. In other words "Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no."
Every Catholic church is filled with the poor- namely sick, crippled, lame deaf, dumb and in some places hungry and homeless. To point to the lack of material wealth as the primary measure of poverty smacks of a materialistic mind. If he had a Catholic understanding of poverty and the desire to alleviate it what happened in Charlotte and elsewhere would never have happened.
A heretic is someone who contradicts any one of the de Fide truths. Let's assume there are only 300 de Fide truths. If someone contradicts one of the 300 truths, then the percentage is 0.33%. Thus, such a heretic could write absolutely orthodox things 99.67% of the time, but still be just as much of a heretic as someone who contradicts 299 of the 300 truths.
@petrus100452 Yes, modernism is quite old. More than 100 years. But only after so-called Vatican II the friendly meeting of religion of man that makes himself God met the religion of God that became man (Paul) produced Hegelian synthesis like this: "Christ the Redeemer "fully reveals man to himself"... The name for that deep amazement at man's worth and dignity is the Gospel, that is to say: the Good News. It is also called Christianity. " (Redemptor hominis)
@V.R.S. Your quote from Redemptor Hominis is indeed one aspect of the Good News. The Gospel encompasses more, of course, but JP II rightly said that man can only find his true identity in Christ. What's wrong with that? It's nonsense to call that “modernism.”
@petrus100452 "It's nonsense to call that “modernism.”" --- No, the above is nonsense. Christ revealed to men: 1) Most Holy Trinity, 2) fallen condition of Man and necessity of Redemption, 3) the same Redemption, not "man to himself" The Gospel is a story of the Redemption of fallen man not "deep amazement at his [alleged] worth". Of course, in modernism everything must be anthropocentric. Christ said He is the Way, but, no for JPII in Redemptor hominis "For the Church all ways lead to man" and "man is the way for the Church, the way for her daily life and experience" Of course, the RH text is full of worst and most heterodox blunders of "Vatican II" like "man is the only creature on earth that God willed for itself" and "by his Incarnation, he, the son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man" as JPII the Great Scandalist loved them.
Yes, the most destructive, monstrously destructive heresy, which he expounded in his very first encyclical, "Redemptor Hominis," is the idea of "integra permanet." This heresy destroys our entire religion at its roots. Paolo Pasqualucci / La controversa eredità di …
@V.R.S. en @Denis Efimov Modernism is when faith is interpreted exclusively in anthropocentric terms. But of course, the revelation of who God is and what God's work of salvation is also has consequences for human self-understanding. God is Trinity, but man is the image of God, so understanding who God is also has a direct impact on man's understanding of himself. We are children (and the image) of God. That is not modernism but a consequence of the revealed faith of who God is.
@petrus "We are children (and the image) of God." --- We are, as baptized, adopted children of God (cf. John 1). Our dignity of children of God is supernatural not natural. "But of course, the revelation of who God is and what God's work of salvation is also has consequences for human self-understanding" --- Perhaps in modernist immanentism yes. In Catholicism where God is trandescent "the revelation of who God is" does not pertain to human self-understanding. Moreover, "human self-understanding" has a power to bring "salvation"only in the religion of man who makes himself god.
@V.R.S. You manage to fundamentally contradict yourself in just a few sentences. You say that “our dignity as children of God is supernatural and not natural.” At the same time, you say that “the revelation of who God is does not pertain to human self-understanding.” But the understanding of our dignity as children of God is the result of the revelation of who God is: our Father who has adopted us as His children in Christ. So I would say, don't be too quick to think that everything you don't understand is modernism or immanentism. You could be very wrong...
@petrus100452 "You say that “our dignity as children of God is supernatural and not natural.” " --- Yes, and post-conciliar novelties you notoriously forget about the above key point. "At the same time, you say that “the revelation of who God is does not pertain to human self-understanding.” " --- Yes, "the revelation of who God is" pertains to the understanding of God by mankind. The first and most important commandment is to love God (and to love God you have to know Him first) not to improve your self-understanding. Of course, for "Vatican II" revolutionaries who say e.g. that "According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown" (Gaudium et spes 12) or "This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself" (GS 22, which Fr. Gherardini aptly calls "metaphysical nonsense") the opposite is true.
@V.R.S. Just one question: were does your understanding comes from that your dignity as a child of God is supernatural (if Gods' revelation does not pertain to human self-understanding)?
@petrus100452 "Just one question: were does your understanding comes from that your dignity as a child of God is supernatural" --- 1. My understanding that for humans any possibility of being children of God is supernatural, in fact, does not need any revelation as in the order of nature the gap between God the Creator and its creation is enormous and insurmountable. So, you can establish the above merely on the basis of the right reason. What God reveals to me is His ineffable love by which He offers me the Redemption & sonship by adoption - not by any my merits (or from necessity or obligation arising from some immanent "dignity of man" or "creature willed for itself" - another JPII&Vatican II baloney ) but by His Will and Grace (cf. e.g. Acts 20:24) My "self-understanding" is completely irrelevant here (only for neo-modernists is as they reverse the Catholic teaching&order putting man in the centre - in the place of God). 2. In the Gospel God does not reveal me to myself or fallen men of times of Christ to themselves but shows that only He can bring them Redemption and Salvation. St. Paul himself explains us the essence of the Gospel: "1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2 which he had promised before, by his prophets, in the holy scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh, 4 who was predestinated the Son of God in power, according to the spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead...For I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and to the Greek" (Romans 1) No sick anthropocentrism here as you see.