Craig St. Clair
Last Friday on the Logos Blog, Faithlife’s own resident “Logos Pro” Dr. Mark Ward posted a piece in response to Pope Francis’s comments made on the “lead us not into temptation” petition in the Our Father. The Pope’s comments were made on Italian TV and caused quite a stir in the Catholic media. Dr. Ward also asked a native Italian speaker to render a translation of the Holy Father’s comments into English from the original Italian, available here in English and in the original Italian. Dr. Ward is not a Catholic and I was pleased to see my colleagues here at Faithlife take an interest in Pope Francis’s remarks. Dr. Ward’s remarks are fair and even-handed, even though he didn’t agree with the fundamental sentiments of the Holy Father’s remarks (I would also note that many a Catholic didn’t agree with the Holy Father’s comments either!).
While the Verbum team does not have our own, full time “Verbum Pro” like the Logos team does, we do have many supportive scholars of Scripture and theology. I reached out to Fr. Devin Roza, LC and Fr. Andrew Dalton, LC. Fr Devin Roza has a licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and is the author of Fulfilled in Christ. Fr Andrew Dalton has a licentiate in Biblical Theology from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. Both currently are theology professors at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome. They graciously agreed to respond both to Dr. Ward’s post, in a spirit of fraternal dialogue, and to offer a Catholic perspective on Pope Francis’s comments.
- Fr. Roza will be commenting directly on the Holy Father’s remarks, providing some additional context, and engaging some of Dr. Ward’s comments as well.
- Fr. Dalton will focus more on the “lead us not into temptation” petition within the Our Father.
We will be posting Fr. Roza’s and Fr. Dalton’s comments next week here on the Verbum Blog. When their posts go live we will update this post with their links below.
Please let us know what you think of this post, as we’re thinking of doing more like this. We ultimately want this blog to be of value to you, so let us know what you think!
Post #1: Pope Francis and the Our Father: Why Context is Key by Fr. Devin Roza, LC.
Post #2, Part I:
Post #2, Part II:
Verbum
This is a great idea! I’m looking forward to reading what Fr. Roza and Fr. Dalton have to say.
I enjoy what Mark Ward has to write, but I do notice that when non-Catholics respond to issues that arise within the Catholic Church or to statements from the Catholic hierarchy that, although they may be well thought out and accurate, they haven’t been raised in the Catholic Tradition and thus don’t always address the nuances of those issues.
So a solid Catholic perspective on issues like this would be a welcome addition to the dialogue.
Thanks for the comment Mike! Fr. Roza’s post just went live and he provides some great perspective from the Catholic point of view. You can view it here:
https://blog.verbum.com/2017/12/pope-francis-and-the-our-father-why-context-is-key/