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Priest reports: Liturgical abuse in Germany “horrible”. Mass is no longer Catholic. And there’s more…
My colleague said it:
“. I remember, you were pale then and came to my room and hammered your fists against the wall.”
And all this happens even though the bishops, after having been admonished by Rome, sent their priests clear instructions.
You have never let me celebrate, because they have understood that I am a priest who faithfully followed the Roman Missal and fearing perhaps that the faithful could make a comparison. […]
“Not Only Contemptuous Disobedience, but Devilishly”
All this is not only contemptuous disobedience and contempt for the authority of the Church. All this is demonic, because it is non-Catholic thinking and a non-Catholic style in the Catholic Church which is enforced with violence. It not only it thus intended to take away the people of God’s faith, one goes even further: it wants to take away their faith in the Church.
In Rome you know these things exactly. “Perhaps we will soon do something concrete?”
“What?” laughed my colleague. “They will give the Archbishop a cardinal’s hat at the next consistory, because certain Archbishop seats are connected to the dignity of Cardinal. But the owners of this right are obviously not obliged to ensure that their priests obey Church law.”
Liberal Catholicism: It’s as if God doesn’t exist – or if he does, he has no real standards!
“Italy Hails Liberal Cardinal Martini, who wanted Catholic Church to Change.”
That was the headline from the Boston Globe, September 4, 2012, on the death of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. The world’s press was of one voice eulogizing the former Archbishop of Milan, once seen as Papal contender.
As is usually the case, the press loved Martini not for his attachment to the Catholic Faith of all time, but for his zest to challenge it.
The media praised Martini as an “open-minded thinker,” one who “struck an original note in Church affairs.”[1]
What were some of Martini’s radical ideas? In his last interview, which Martini asked to be published after his death, Martini said the Catholic Church is “200 years behind the times”. Martini further said, ”Our culture has grown old, our churches and our religious houses are big and empty, the bureaucratic apparatus of the Church grows, our rites and our dress are pompous.”
Martini encouraged opening up reception of the Eucharist for the divorced and remarried Catholics, counseling against what he called “discrimination.”[2] In the book Night Conversation with Cardinal Martini published in 2010, Martini insisted, “You can’t make God a Catholic God. God is beyond all the barriers and borders we create.”[3]
In the same book, speaking of dialogue with non-Catholics, Cardinal Martini said that once you talk frankly with members of various other religions, “You will even be glad that the other person is a Protestant or Muslim”.[4]
Martini acknowledged the German and Austrian Bishops’ dissent from Humanae Vitae, as “pointing to a direction that we could promote today.”[5] Martini called for a more collegial and synodal approach to Church governance.[6] In 2007, “when the 16th Century Tridentine Mass was introduced as an option for Roman Catholic churches, Martini said he would refuse to celebrate it.”[7] Yet Pope Francis, on the first anniversary of the Cardinal’s death, publicly praised Martini as “a father for the whole Church”.
Francis went on to call Martini a “prophetic” figure, and “a man of discernment and peace”[8] Likewise in his infamous interview with La Repubblica’s atheist Editor Eugenio Scalfari, Francis spoke of Cardinal Martini as “someone who is very dear to me and also to you.”[9]
Optimistic commentators claim we must “read Francis through Benedict”. That may be true in part. It seems more accurate, however, to “read Francis through Martini,” since Francis seems to be following the progressive program outlined by the radical Italian Cardinal.
Read more at Catholic Family News
Submitted by Mark H.
Pa. court reverses conviction of Catholic church official jailed in clergy abuse scandal
PHILADELPHIA – A Pennsylvania appeals court has ruled that a Roman Catholic church official was wrongly convicted for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints.
The Nativity of Christ: Its Historic Reality
The fact is that after centuries of trying to cast doubt on the reality of Christ’s Incarnation into this world, we must say that all the evidence, when carefully examined, indicates that Christ lived in a definite time and place. He was who he said he was. No other explanation suffices to account for the evidence. The effort to show that Christ was unreal or something else has failed.
The Vatican’s official English-language translation of Pope Francis’ prepared homily, to be delivered in Italian, during Christmas Eve Mass
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light”(Is 9:1).
This prophecy of Isaiah never ceases to touch us, especially when we hear it proclaimed in the liturgy of Christmas Night. This is not simply an emotional or sentimental matter. It moves us because it states the deep reality of what we are: a people who walk, and all around us – and within us as well – there is darkness and light. In this night, as the spirit of darkness enfolds the world, there takes place anew the event which always amazes and surprises us: the people who walk see a great light. A light which makes us reflect on this mystery: the mystery of walking and seeing.
Strange Things Have Been Known To Happen on the Night of Christmas
Jesuit Father Segundo Llorente (1906-1989) was an outstanding missionary to the faithful of Alaska. A brilliant and humble priest, Father Llorente spent himself in the service of the indigenous of Alaska for decades.
Years ago, in a meditation entitled “Strange Things Happen on the Night of Christmas,” this Spanish religious offered his thoughts on the adoration due the Most Holy Eucharist. This powerful essay, which was published in the February 1998 newsletter of the Catholic Society of Evangelists, seems more pertinent now than when it first was penned.
A priest told me what happened to him once in his first parish. After the Midnight Mass on Christmas Day he personally locked the church. With the keys in his pocket he went to his room and had a good sleep. At 7:30 in the morning he got up and went back to the church intending to have one hour of prayer all to himself. He opened the side door leading to the sacristy, turned on a light and then turned on the lights for the church. As he opened the sacristy door and walked into the church, he literally froze. Strange people clad in the poorest of clothes occupied most of the pews and all were in total silence. No one so much as wiggled and nobody cared to look at him. A small group was standing by the Nativity Scene contemplating the manger in total silence.
The priest recovered quickly and in a loud voice asked them how they got in. Nobody answered. He walked closer to them and asked again. “Who let you in?” A woman answered totally unconcerned: “Strange things happen on the night of Christmas.” And back to total silence The priest went to check the main door and found it locked just as he had left it. He was now determined to get the facts and turned his face to the pews; but they were empty. The people had vanished.
Saint Padre Pio’s Christmas Meditation
Far into the night, at the coldest time of the year, in a chilly grotto, more suitable for a flock of beasts than for humans, the promised Messiah – Jesus – the savior of mankind, comes into the world in the fullness of time.
There are none who clamor around him: only an ox and an ass lending their warmth to the newborn infant; with a humble woman, and a poor and tired man, in adoration beside him.
Nothing can be heard except the sobs and whimpers of the infant God. And by means of his crying and weeping he offers to the Divine justice the first ransom for our redemption.
He had been expected for forty centuries…
Seen on the web: Man’s got to know his limitations.
Willaim P. Walsh on Saturday, December 21, A.D. 2013 at 3:50pm
A&E went after Phil Robertson because St. Paul of Tarsus is beyond their reach.
Doctors give unborn boy zero chance of survival before he gives them a ‘true miracle’.
Doctors reminded the couple that any child with Down syndrome and severe heart defects would not survive. Because Amy and Aaron were against abortion, a doctor offered another option – inducing early labor at 28 weeks when the baby would be too young to survive. But Amy knew that was the same thing as abortion.
The Vawters soon found themselves switching to a Catholic hospital in Spokane, WA because it was closer to family and their support network. The doctors there didn’t once pressure Amy to abort and she says she was very happy with their attitude towards her and her baby.
Editor’s note: Somebody should send this article to the ACLU – which recently filed a law suit against Catholic hospitals because they do not do abortions – although I doubt they would care to read it.
Comet fragment may have hastened the fall of Roman Empire, subsequent world-wide ascendance of the Catholic Church.
by Doug Lawrence
There’s no historical doubt that the Catholic Church preserved and then successfully rebuilt modern Western Civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire. What hasn’t been known – until now – is the possible extra terrestrial and/or supernatural impetus.
Seen on the web : Liberation theology and the Jesuits have wreaked havoc on the Church in much of Latin America.
Penguins Fan on Wednesday, December 18, A.D. 2013 at 5:22pm
…Jorge Bergoglio shows many of the symptoms so clearly exposed in Mario Vargas Llosa’s book, The Guide to the Latin American Idiot. Vargas Llosa is from Peru, however, Vargas Llosa has an extensive knowledge of all Latin American countries. Vargas Llosa skewers the pseudo-intellects that blame the United States and/or capitalism for their problems and embrace liberation theology or Marxism or caudillos (Chavez, Peron, Castro) for their solutions. These pseudo-intellects can be found in Latin American higher education, politics and especially the Catholic Church. This bunch has a tenuous grasp on reality – if they have one at all.
Pope Francis is a man who, his personal orthodoxy notwithstanding, has shown little understanding of the Catholic Church or the world outside of his archdiocese. His off the cuff comments about almost any subject show little insight or research and lots of uninformed opinion. He has also shown that he is a man not to be crossed.
My wife is from Colombia. She learned her Catholicism from Jesuits. My Catholic instruction as a child was shallow and minimal. Hers was often just plain wrong. One of the authors she was encouraged to read was Anthony DiMello, a former Jesuit priest, whose writings were censured in no uncertain terms by Cardinal Ratzinger. Liberation theology and the Jesuits have wreaked havoc on the Church in much of Latin America.
The Man They Still Hate
The world has long since forgiven Julius Caesar. Nobody today finds Socrates or Cicero irritating. Few of us resent Alexander the Great or his tutor, Aristotle.
No, only one man in the ancient world is still hated after two millennia: Jesus Christ.
This does not in itself prove the divinity of Christ, but it does show that his words and example haven’t dated. They still have an amazing power to provoke hatred as well as adoration.
Of course the hatred of Christ usually pretends to be directed at side targets: St. Paul, the “institutional” Church, or, more vaguely, “organized religion” (as if religion would be all right if only it were a solitary activity). The cliché of the Christ-haters, including many “liberal” theologians, is that he was a “great moral teacher” who “never claimed divinity,” but that his “simple message of love” was “corrupted” by his followers.
But why would anyone want a man crucified for preaching an innocuous message of benevolence? Jesus was accused of blasphemy for equating himself with the Father: “I and the Father are one.” “No man comes to the Father but by me.” And if his claim were untrue, the charge of blasphemy would be fully justified.
Submitted by Mark H.
Media firestorm: Duck Dynasty star tells the truth about immoral behavior – homosexual and otherwise.
Speaking with GQ, Robertson lamented that when “everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong … sin becomes fine.” So just what qualifies as sinful in his book?
“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there — bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he declared.
Phil probably should have cut himself off at this point, but instead he paraphrased Corinthians. “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers — they won’t inherit the kingdom of God,” he warned. “Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”
What’s more, according to him, it’s basically incomprehensible. “It seems to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man’s anus,” he explained. “That’s just me. I’m just thinking, ‘There’s more there! She’s got more to offer.’ I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”
Editor’s note: The lynching by militant perverts of all variations is tentatively scheduled for tomorrow. Let’s see who has the “guts” to stand up and defend him.
Just plain dumb: Pope Francis’ unfortunate “Self-Absorbed Promethean Neopelagian” slur.
Inspired by Pope Francis’ phrase in Evangelii gaudium 94
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Perhaps one reason we have never had a Jesuit pope before, is that so many Jesuits write in a jargon-laden fashion that is hard for non-Jesuits to figure out. Case in point: self-absorbed promethean neopelagian. Pope Francis uses this baroque insult in Evangelii Gaudium:
Read more from The American Catholic
Editor’s note: The essence of Vatican II has finally devolved into a debate over crass clerical name-calling vs. Religious Liberty.
Religious Liberty is an essential teaching of Vatican II while name-calling is sanctioned and approved only in the (unofficial) Liberal Cleric’s Playbook. Yet after almost fifty years, there is still no religious liberty in the Catholic Church for those with a more Traditional orientation.
You can’t make this stuff up!
Judgment call: Nothing to St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt abuse claim.
by Doug Lawrence
I’m betting that the accusation against Archbishop Nienstedt is a political hack job, totally made up by his many liberal opponents, within and without the Church – and with absolutely no basis, in fact.
If there’s any bright side to this, it will be a Catholic bishop knowing precisely what it feels like to be falsely accused and subsequently removed from active ministry, based on scant evidence – with the rest of his life hanging in the balance.
Let’s pray for no double standards here!
The Vatican’s Left Turn Under Francis
American conservative Catholics who defend Pope Francis keep saying that Francis is truly orthodox, despite the fact that the liberal US media love him. Maybe they’re right. But the further we go into this pontificate, the more I wonder if liberals understand something about Pope Francis that conservatives do not.
Editor’s note: Under Pope Francis, if you like your Mass – and it’s Traditional – you’re a heretic and you CAN’T keep it!
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