Impossible To Find Jesus Without The Church

These words were uttered by that conservative reactionary, Pope Francis.

And so the Church was a Mother, the Mother of more children, of many children. It became more and more of a Mother. A Mother who gives us the faith, a Mother who gives us an identity. But the Christian identity is not an identity card: Christian identity is belonging to the Church, because all of these belonged to the Church, the Mother Church. Because it is not possible to find Jesus outside the Church. The great Paul VI said: "Wanting to live with Jesus without the Church, following Jesus outside of the Church, loving Jesus without the Church is an absurd dichotomy." And the Mother Church that gives us Jesus gives us our identity that is not only a seal, it is a belonging. Identity means belonging. This belonging to the Church is beautiful.

What a jerk. Anyways, I though that maybe he would send a copy of this homily to the prelates in England who are content with having Catholic parents not impart their faith to their children, as was mentioned in a previous story.

There's also another nugget in the Pope's homily that I thought was pretty hilarious, but I admit that maybe I'm reading a little too much into it. Take a look at this part:

Some, people of Cyprus and Cyrene - not these, but others who had become Christians - went to Antioch and began to speak to the Greeks too. It was a further step. And this is how the Church moved forward. Whose was this initiative to speak to the Greeks? This was not clear to anyone but the Jews. But ... it was the Holy Spirit, the One who prompted them ever forward ... But some in Jerusalem, when they heard this, became 'nervous and sent Barnabas on an "apostolic visitation": perhaps, with a little sense of humor we could say that this was the theological beginning of the Doctrine of the Faith: this apostolic visit by Barnabas. He saw, and he saw that things were going well.

This strikes me as funny since it comes on the heels of the Pope's confirmation of the findings against the whackjob women's religious fringe (aka the LCWR). It might not have been intentional, but his decision to drop the term "apostolic visitation" with an oblique reference to the CDF just seemed a little too out of left field in the context of the story not to have had a deeper meaning.

Again, I'm probably just reading too much into it. It's still funny, though.