What We Can Learn from "Paradigm Shift" Chapter One

This review of the book by Jose Ureta will be done in chapters that appear one day at a time.  

Chapter 1 “Pastoral Retreat From ‘Non-negotiable Values’ “

You know how sometimes you just get an uncomfortable feeling about something and you can’t quite put your finger on it but you know something isn’t right.  Maybe you are getting sick, or you are in a stuffy room that badly needs a window open.  I felt like that for the entire “Year of Mercy” that Francis rolled out.  I thought it would NEVER end.  I was mercyed to death before it was over.  I felt if I heard the word mercy one more time I would scream.  I guess that sounds pretty unmerciful of me, but it’s the truth.  A WHOLE YEAR of nothing but mercy mercy mercy.   As it turns out, this was maybe the best way to get you and me and every other Catholic on the planet to relax a little, to not worry so much about serious stuff, to just chill out and love our neighbors.  Stop all this “is it a sin” if so, “how bad a sin.”  Does it really matter anyway or should we not just accompany people and try harder to see things from their perspective.  You know:  BE MERCIFUL!  Take a “pastoral approach” to things and get beyond the boundaries we have around stuff like sin and doctrine. 

Book Review: Pope Francis's Paradigm Shift

Who would ever imagine the humanitarian crisis on our southern border would have anything to do with the indigenous tribes in Brazil.  I would never have connected those dots until I read the newly published English translation of Pope Francis’s Paradigm Shift, Continuity or Rupture in the Mission of the Church? by Jose Antonio Ureta.  This is “An Assessment of His Pontificate’s First Five Years.” 

I’ve read two other books on Pope Francis that have been informative, but neither comes close to the quantity and quality of direct quotes and scholarly detail in concise text and extended footnote explanations.  The book is only 172 pages long and some pages are only half text.  (The other half taken up in footnotes with source information including many useful links to You Tube that you might never otherwise find on your own.)  This small book should be in everyone’s reading range.  It is available now on Amazon in print.  When I first saw it mentioned there was a reference to an online PDF, but I went straight for the hardcopy.  You can access the book online in three languages.  For English, go to: http://www.tfp.org/paradigm-shift-a-critical-assessment-of-the-francis-pontificate/    If you click this link and read even the 8 page introduction you will be STUNNED.  I finished the whole thing in three days.  Very hard to put it down.