Viganò versus Pacha Idol

ARCHBISHOP VIGANÒ speaks out againt the Pachamama Idolatry hosted by Pope Francis at the Vatican Gardens, St Peter's Basilica, and the Church of Sta Maria Traspontina. Dr Taylor Marshall is joined by Matt Gaspers to discuss the content of Vigano's latest epistle.

 

 

[taylormarshall.com] 2308.1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Cardinal Müller: "Hundreds of thousands" will leave Church over Pachamama idolatry

DOROTHY CUMMINGS McLEAN reports for LifeSiteNews - The Vatican's former head of doctrine has warned that 'hundreds of thousands' of Catholics from the Amazon region will leave the Church as a result of being scandalized by seeing videos of the pagan idol 'Pachamama' being worshiped in ceremonies during the recently-concluded Amazon Synod in Rome.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, 71, told Die Tagespost, a German Catholic newspaper, that photographs of the 'Pachamama' carvings used during celebrations at the recent Synod on the Pan-Amazonian have exacerbated anti-Catholic feelings in the region and will spark a mass exodus.

'This whole sad story will give support to many aggressive, anti-Catholic sects in South America and elsewhere who in their polemics maintain that Catholics are idol worshipers and that the Pope who they obey is the Antichrist,' Müller said.

'Hundreds of thousands of Catholics in the Amazon area and wherever the videos of this Roman spectacle have been seen will leave the Church in protest,' he continued.

'Did anyone think about these consequences or did they just assume this was collateral damage?'

Müller was chosen by his friend Benedict XVI as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2012. He was dismissed from his post by Pope Francis in 2017.

In a previous interview with Die Tagespost, the cardinal praised the actions of Alexander Tshugguel, the young Austrian layman who removed five copies of the 'Pachamama' statue from the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina and threw them into the Tiber River.

Returning to the subject, Müller noted that the prophets of the Old Testament had behaved even more forcefully against idols, as had St. Boniface, apostle to the Germans, when he felled an oak sacred to the god Thor and made a Christian chapel out of it. He suggested that if the apostles had belonged to this 'age of self-secularization' in the Church, they would have condemned Christ Himself for property damage and battery when he cleansed the Temple of the moneychangers.

The mysterious wooden figures, which were eventually identified by Pope Francis as 'pachamamas,' were used in ceremonies in the Vatican Gardens, in churches and in a Roman street. In a ceremony held in the Vatican Gardens on October 4, worshippers prostrated themselves before the images. On this and other occasions, they danced around them.

The cardinal stated that these ceremonies could not be explained away as an exercise in inculturation.

'You cannot downplay the fuss, which was sponsored by many Euros, as inculturation, or respect for other cultures, or even recognize the painted female fertility figures as a pro-life symbol,' he said.

The cardinal drew a boundary between the veneration of Christian saints and the worship of pagan symbols. He said representations of the saints and their relics are only 'remembrances' of them, and they are honored as witnesses of God's grace. They are not worshipped and glorified as if they were God.

The worship of idols has no place within the Catholic faith. Suggesting that some of the people who took place in the Pachamama rituals in Rome might not have been Catholic, the cardinal said they had no right to perform 'their pagan or non-Catholic rites' in Catholic liturgies.

Müller also quoted St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, saying 'that no idolator has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God' (Eph. 5:5 ).

The use of the Pachamama statues was condemned by a number of other prelates, including Bishop Emeritus José Luis Azcona Hermoso of the Brazilian city of Marajó.

'Mother Earth should not be worshipped because everything, even the earth, is under the dominion of Jesus Christ. It is not possible that there are spirits with power equal or superior to Our Lord or of the Virgin Mary,' the Bishop Emeritus stated in an Oct. 20 homily at the cathedral in the state of Pará.

Addressing a suggestion by an English journalist that the wooden images represented the Blessed Virgin Mary, Azcona said,'Pachamama is not and never will be the Virgin Mary. To say that this statue represents the Virgin is a lie. She is not Our Lady of the Amazon because the only Lady of the Amazon is Mary of Nazareth. Let's not create syncretistic mixtures. All of that is impossible: the Mother of God is the Queen of Heaven and earth.'

'The invocation of the statues before which even some religious bowed at the Vatican (and I won't mention which congregation they belong) is an invocation of a mythical power, of Mother Earth, from which they ask blessings or make gestures of gratitude. These are scandalous demonic sacrileges, especially for the little ones who are not able to discern,' he added later.

[LSN] 2308.2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

George and Jorge

SO, here we go again -- the Church's largest charitable organization, Caritas Internationalis finds itself embroiled in another McCarrick-esque sex abuse scandal.

CNN just dug up the fact that the head of the international Catholic charity's African branch, Salesian Father Luk Delft—a notorious convicted sex offender--was nevertheless promoted to the prominent Caritas position.

Cardinal Luis Tagle -- President of Caritas and popular choice for successor to Pope Francis -- was informed of the Delft situation back in 2017, but elected to presume somebody else would take care of it. Since then, Delft is accused of abusing still more children.

Whoops. So much for last year’s Vatican Clerical Sexual Abuse Summit.

Remnant editor Michael Matt asks the question: How much more scandal will Francis Church orchestrate before ethe Catholic people wake up? If the CEO of any company were this negligent, he would be run out of town on a rail. So, why not the cats running the Vatican?

And, by the way, what in the world is with Pope Francis the Politician's Leftist connections? The man is so in bed with the Left he could be Bernie Sanders' running mate, for Pete's sake.

In fact, Francis’s right-hand man, Bishop Sorondo, invited Bernie to speak at the Vatican a few years back. No wonder they all hate Trump! Finally, brand-new video of pro-abort Jeff Sachs hosting a Sustainable Development Goals UN youth symposium in the Vatican during the Amazon Synod.

You can't make this stuff up. Forget Francis the False Prophet of Revelation. Let’s look at Francis the political hack. What if Francis is a just a radical politician whose job is to run the Catholic Church into the ground in order to make room for the New World Order?

 

 

[Remnant] 2308.2a

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Pope praises document about God willing diversity of religions in "interreligious dialogue" speech

JEANNE SMITS reports for LifeSiteNews - Pope Francis has once again promoted the Abu Dhabi document "Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together" at a meeting organized in Rome by an Argentinian group under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue." Part of the document, which was signed in February by the Pope and a Grand Imam, states that a "pluralism and diversity" of religions is "willed by God."

On November 18, the Pope addressed the participants of the meeting during a private audience in the Vatican, in the presence of the Argentinian ambassador to the Holy See, Rogelio Pfirter, its promoter, in collaboration with the "Instituto de Diálogo Interreligioso" (Institute of Interreligious Dialogue, IDI) of Buenos Aires of which he was himself the initiator in 2002, as Cardinal-Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio.

During a meeting on November 15, attended by Cardinal Miguel Ayuso and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Father Guillermo Marcó of IDI made a "historic announcement" saying that in Argentina a council is being formed between the bishops' conference, the Jewish center AMIA, the Islamic Center of the Argentinian Republic, the Argentinian Federation of Evangelical Churches, and the Institute of Interreligious Dialogue.

Pope Francis especially congratulated the group for having focused on the Abu Dhabi document during its discussions, without expressing any reservations regarding its erroneous claim that "the pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom." Instead, he declared himself "pleased to note that this document, which is universal in nature, is also being disseminated in the Americas."

"I am convinced that the particularity and sensitivity of different countries and continents can truly contribute to a detailed reading of this document and to a greater and more effective understanding of the message it conveys," he said.

Among those present were Rabbi Daniel Goldman, Sheikh Omar Abboud and Father Guillermo Marcó, a Catholic priest, as well as the current Argentinian secretary for religious affairs and the president of the Islamic center of Buenos Aires.

Pope Francis was therefore addressing representatives of Judaism, Protestantism, and Islam when he proclaimed: "Our religious traditions are a necessary source of inspiration to foster a culture of encounter. It is fundamental for there to be interreligious cooperation, based on the promotion of sincere and respectful dialogue that goes towards unity without confusion, maintaining identities."

While some forms of "interreligious dialogue" focus on temporal issues, with the aim of avoiding hostility or bloodshed among believers or promoting natural law together, Pope Francis calls for "unity that transcends the mere political pact."

He quoted a "very wise man, a very wise European politician" whom he said spoke to him about the Abu Dhabi declaration last February in these terms:

"Let us think of the end of the Second World War, let us think of Yalta; in Yalta a balance was struck in order to break the impasse, a balance that was weak but possible. The cake was shared, and a period of peace was maintained, but these documents, this attitude that goes towards dialogue among the transcendent, creates fraternity, surpasses pacts, surpasses the political; it is political in that it is human, but it surpasses this, it transcends this, it makes it nobler."

The Yalta Pact divided the world that had emerged from the Second World War into two zones of influence under the winners of the global conflict: that of America on the one hand and that of Soviet Russia on the other. It left hundreds of millions of people in that country under the heel of communist power. The "peace" that was brokered abandoned large parts of Eastern Europe to Stalin's "influence" and prepared communism's total domination in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States…

The invocation of Yalta as a model, albeit an imperfect one, is surprising if not insulting to the memory of the innumerable victims of communist tyranny after the Second World War.

Pope Francis told the group that "the world observes us, believers, to see what our attitude is to the common home and to human rights" - the "common home" is the expression used by environmentalists who accuse humanity of being responsible for "global warming" and ecological catastrophes - and said collaboration among believers and non-believers is necessary to respond effectively to war, hunger, poverty, "the environmental crisis" and that of the family, and so on. "And, above all, the lack of hope."

Pope Francis' speech showed he believes there is a new element at play since the signature of the Abu Dhabi document:

"The intention of the document is to adopt: the culture of dialogue as a way; common collaboration as conduct; mutual knowledge as a method and criterion. From now on, it can be affirmed that religions are not a closed system that cannot be changed, but with their own identity. And this is the key: identity cannot be negotiated, because if you negotiate identity there is no dialogue, there is submission. With their own identity, they are in motion."

The operative words are: "From now on … " The Pope said in substance that religions must be prepared to adapt to a situation where they maintain their "identity" while accepting to modify their attitudes in favor of world peace and prosperity.

His later comments explain what can be understood from these words. "It is important to demonstrate that we believers are a factor of peace for human societies, and that we will thus respond to those who unjustly accuse religions of fomenting hatred and being the cause of violence," he said.

Innumerable documents emanating from the United Nations or from UNESCO do just that: they accuse national traditions and historic religions of being responsible for hate and conflict within humanity. The point of "interreligious dialogue" that rests on the false premise that true and false religions can find a common denominator to which all can subject their particular sets of beliefs, is here to put all religions and spiritualities on a similar plane. What is new - "from now on" - is the formal acknowledgment of the relativistic attitude that says all men can find God through their particular religion while at the same time cooperating with other religions for the really important things: fighting against "global warming," for instance.

The Pope went on to say "dialogue among religions" is "about changing historical attitudes."

"A scene from The Song of Roland comes to me as a symbol, when the Christians defeat the Muslims and put them all in line in front of the baptismal font, and one with a sword. And Muslims had to choose between baptism or the sword. That is what we Christians did. It was a mentality that today we cannot accept, nor understand, nor can it work anymore," Pope Francis said.

The Song of Roland is actually a medieval "chanson de geste" - or epic poem - with its legendary overtones and disregard for historical reality. The scene evoked by Pope Francis never took place: Charlemagne never conquered Zaragoza as the Song of Roland proclaims, nor were Roland and his knights killed by the Moors at Roncesvalles, but by Basque highlanders, as Bernard Antony, president of the French Christian defense league AGRIF recalled on his blog.

Antony commented:

"But in the Song, what wonderful freshness of soul, poetry, beauty, grandeur, expression of faith, honor and courage, what an exaltation of heroism and of marvelous chivalry!

"All this was certainly added to the historical truth of the fierce conquest of Spain by the Muslim, Berber or Arab hordes of Tariq ibn Ziyad and Abdal Aziz ibn Musa; and then by the dynasty of the three Abd al Rahman, and later by the successive bloody dominations of the Almoravids and Almohads.

"But no more than he has read or understood or remembers The Song of Roland Song, does Francis weigh, as his greatest predecessors did, what would have happened to Christianity if there had not been the long resistance and Reconquista by the Christians of Spain."

Antony went on to say that instead of choosing a true example of Christian culpability, Pope Francis should have "ignorantly and stupidly attacked one of our cultural roots." The cultural roots of France but also of England, since the first known written version of the epic Song of Roland is the Oxford Manuscript of 1170.

Instead, in his concluding remarks to the Interreligious Dialogue group from Buenos Aires, Pope Francis said, "Beware of the fundamentalist groups: everyone has his own. In Argentina, too, there is a little fundamentalist corner. And let us try, with fraternity, to go forward. Fundamentalism is a scourge and all religions have some kind of fundamentalist first cousin there, which forms a group."

Are "fundamentalists" those who believe their own religion to be true, to the exclusion of all others? In the light of the Abu Dhabi document, it would seem so.

The Instituto del Diálogo Interreligioso of Buenos Aires, a civil association, was founded by Cardinal Bergoglio in 2002 as the "crystallization of the interreligious experience that started when, as spokesman for the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, he organized the first ever visit of a bonaerense Archbishop to the Islamic Center of the Argentinian Republic," of which Omar Abboud was then the Cultural Secretary. A similar exchange took place with the Bet-El community where Goldman has been the chief rabbi for 25 years.

Pope Francis has maintained links with the Institute since he was elected to the Chair of Peter.

In March 2018, IDI participated in the "Dawn of Interspirituality Conference" in Costa Rica that included representatives of many religions. The event was organized by the Satyana Institute founded in 1996 to promote training programs in "ecopsychology" and "gender reconciliation" as well as "women's spiritual mastery."

During that event, Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk and "pioneer" of interreligious dialogue from Massachusetts (see his obituary here), told the participants: "You are invited to take a step into the unknown, toward a possible future that can only be imagined, when the religions of the world truly meet each other."

IDI proudly speaks of its presence at that meeting, which was also attended by Fr, Marcó, one of its co-founders. It gave a conference in Moscow on November 11 at the State Pedagogic University.

[LSN.] 2308.3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Money wars at the Vatican. With the Pope among the belligerents

SANDRO MAGISTER blogs from Rome for Settimo Cielo ~ During the same days in which Pope Francis is in Thailand and Japan to preach peace, at the Vatican there is a war of all against all, on questions of money.

Before departing, the pope had announced two key appointments. The one and the other, however, anything but pacifying. The first appointment, made public on November 14, is that of the new prefect of the secretariat for the economy, in the person of the Spanish Jesuit Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, with a background as treasurer in the Society of Jesus.

The position of prefect had in fact been vacant since Cardinal George Pell, its previous officeholder, had left Rome for Australia, hammered with accusations of sexual abuse for which he is now in prison, but which the supreme court has recently decided to take under reexamination, seeing their doubtful reliability.

It must however be noted that the powers of the secretariat for the economy, which were very strong at the time of its foundation in 2014, had already been gutted by Pope Francis well before Pell left Rome, to the great satisfaction above all of the secretariat of state and of the APSA, Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, the one and the other intolerant of any supervision and external control of their respective financial operations.

It is not known, therefore, what actual powers the new prefect will have. There is scepticism even among the most ardent supporters of pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio. One of them, the Jesuit Thomas Reese, has written that 'in order to succeed, Guerrero will need four things, which the pope will probably not give him.'

The second key appointment, announced on November 18, is that of the new president of the AIF, Financial Information Authority, the institute that oversees the correctness of Vatican financial operations, with respect to the international norms and in contact with the 'intelligences' of numerous other states.

In making the announcement, the Vatican press office cautioned that the new president has already been designated but his name will be made public only after the pope returns from Japan.

But what about the outgoing president, the Swiss René Brüelhart, in office for five years? The Vatican statement of November 18 says that he had come to 'the expiration of his mandate.' But that same day, Brüelhart told Reuters that his role did not have any temporal expiration at all, and that he had been the one to resign.

Not only that. With him there also resigned one of the four members of the board of directors, the Swiss Marc Odendall, who told the Associated Press that as of October 1 the AIF has now been reduced to 'an empty shell.'

October 1 is the day on which, on orders from the tribunal of the Holy See, the Vatican gendarmerie under the command of Domenico Giani made a surprise search of the offices of the AIF and of the secretariat of state to confiscate documents, computers, and telephones. And the next day, five Vatican officials were suspended from service, including Tommaso Di Ruzza, director of the AIF.

The result was that the Egmont Group - the network of financial 'intelligences' of 164 states, including the Holy See, that with the confidential exchange of information combat money laundering and other financial crimes - excluded the AIF from this circuit, not tolerating that confidential information in its possession, originating from other states, might fall into the hands of the Vatican gendarmerie or others, as took place with that search.

Over the following days, the AIF released a statement to reiterate the correctness of its operations, and in particular of its director, Di Ruzza. Meanwhile, however, the judicial investigation opened by the Vatican magistracy moved forward.

What started this investigation - as made known by a Vatican statement of October 1 - were the 'charges made at the beginning of last summer by the Institute for the Works of Religion and by the Office of the Auditor General, concerning financial operations carried out over time.'

There has already been one victim of these charges, and it is the AIF, reduced indeed to 'an empty shell' and mutilated of its key men.

But under fire is above all the secretariat of state, the main target of the charges of the IOR.

In the IOR, Pope Francis has two men under strict obedience to him, in two crucial rules, both of them placed there personally by him: director general Gian Franco Mammì, former head of client relations for the Vatican 'bank' in Latin America and close to Bergoglio since then, and the 'prelate' Battista Ricca, a former career diplomat called back to Rome on account of his homosexual excesses but publicly absolved by Pope Francis at the beginning of his pontificate with the famous phrase: 'Who am I to judge?'

It is unthinkable, therefore, that the charges of the IOR were made, in the summer, without the pope's assent.

But what are the 'financial operations' that have ended up under investigation, not specified in the Vatican statement of October 1?

It is well known by now that among these operations the main one concerns the purchase, on the part of the secretariat of state, of a large building in a prestigious neighbourhood in London, at no. 60 Sloane Avenue. A very extravagant purchase carried out through convoluted means of dubious integrity by the first section of the secretariat, the one directed by the 'substitute,' who until a year ago was Giovanni Angelo Becciu, now a cardinal, while currently it is the Venezuelan Edgar Peña Parra. In November 2015 Cardinal Pell, at the time still in Rome, made known to Becciu his complete opposition to the operation, but this was not even taken into consideration.

To close the deal, at the beginning of 2019, Becciu's successor as head of the first section of the secretariat of state asked the IOR for another large amount. And it was there that the disagreement broke out that led to the blitz of the gendarmerie on October 1. The IOR not only refused to furnish this sum, but it judged the entire operation as improper, on which it filed charges with the Vatican tribunal, also involving the AIF, accused of neglectful oversight.

But more than Peña Parra, the one who ended up in the eye of the hurricane was Becciu, under whose authority and at whose prompting the main part of the London operation developed. It is no coincidence that among the officials suspended from service on October 2 was also Monsignor Mauro Carlino, head of the information office of the secretariat of state and previously secretary to Becciu.

Becciu immediately and forcefully defended, in various public statements, the propriety of his operations. But on October 30 cardinal secretary of state Pietro Parolin, who until then had kept himself out of the fray, also took the field against him, calling 'opaque' the operation to purchase that building and leaving to the Vatican magistrates the task of bringing clarity.

Becciu's reaction was immediate and furious. 'There was nothing opaque,' he said, and these accusations are only 'mudslinging against my person.' Meanwhile, however, another intricate Vatican operation came to the attention of the media, this one also attributed primarily to him: the purchase by the secretariat of state of a substantial share in a specialized hospital in Rome, the Dermatopathic Institute of the Immaculate, IDI, owned by a religious order and ultimately bankrupt.

For this purchase Becciu had asked in 2015 for a large loan from the IOR, which had refused to give it to him in the conviction that the loan would never be repaid. And Cardinal Pell had also said he was against it.

Becciu then switched the request for money to the APSA, at the time headed by a cardinal who had entered into the good graces of Pope Francis, Domenico Calcagno. And this time the money came. But with a subsequent precautionary move. To protect itself from the foreseeable failure to repay the loan, the APSA asked for a donation of 25 million dollars from the Papal Foundation in the United States. And to overcome the foundation's reluctance over the expenditure two cardinals swung into action, Donald Wuerl and Theodore McCarrick, this latter still going strong at the time. In 2017, the foundation released 13 million dollars, and at the beginning of 2019 it got this sum turned from a donation into a loan, to be repaid.

When these events occurred, it was common knowledge at the Vatican that Becciu played a leading role in the matter, at least as long as he held the office of 'substitute' at the secretariat of state, that is until June 29, 2018.

Today, however, Becciu denies that he was the one who managed the purchase of the IDI. And a few days ago, all of a sudden, Cardinal Parolin also came to his aid.

Questioned on November 20 by the US-based Catholic News Agency, the cardinal secretary of state claimed that he was the one who had conducted the operation of the purchase of the IDI, with the involvement of the APSA and of the Papal Foundation.

Parolin denied that there had been a 'curial plot' to blame the deal on Becciu and muddy his reputation. And in any case he kept himself out of it: 'I am completely extraneous to any operation of the kind: if there were such an operation I would condemn it in the strongest possible terms.'

Above all he took pains to emphasize that the purchase of the IDI was 'carried out with fair intentions and honest means.'

To an outside observer it is not clear how much is true or put on in this role play between the cardinal secretary of state in office and the one who from 2013 to 2018 was his 'substitute.'

There remains the fact that the purchase made by the secretariat of state through the APSA of a substantial share in the IDI seems to violate the European banking laws agreed on in 2012 and kept under observation by Moneyval, which prohibit the APSA, as the Vatican central bank, from making loans to individuals and from taking part in commercial transactions.

But that's not all. Because on his return from Rome Francis will find himself facing a question that for him is even more pressing, which also has to do with the APSA but more properly with the man who two years ago was placed by the pope in the brand-new role of 'assessor,' Argentine bishop Gustavo Óscar Zanchetta.

Zanchetta has been a friend and spiritual son of Bergoglio since this latter was archbishop of Buenos Aires and he himself was undersecretary of the Argentine episcopal conference. After becoming pope, Bergoglio immediately promoted him as bishop of Orán, from which however Zanchetta resigned for unspecified 'health reasons' in 2017. And in December of that same year the pope called him to the Vatican at the APSA, as none other than 'assessor,' in spite of the fact that he had no proficiency in administrative matters. The reason for this appointment, in fact, was entirely different. It was to shelter his friend from the consequences of substantiated accusations of his sexual offenses against his seminarians, forwarded to Rome beginning in 2015 by churchmen from the diocese of Orán.

There followed the opening of a double proceeding against him, canonical and civil. About the former there has been no news. But the second is in full swing in Argentina, and on November 21 it arrived at the request for an international arrest warrant for Zanchetta, who is still domiciled in Vatican City State, in the residence of Santa Marta.

The request for the arrest warrant was forwarded to the adjudicatory tribunal of Orán by public minister Maria Soledad Filtrin Cuezzo, criminal prosecutor of the office on gender violence and on crimes against sexual integrity.

But it will not need to be put into effect, because on the evening of Saturday, November 23 Zanchetta's canonical defender, Javier Belda Iniesta, announced that the defendant - who continues to proclaim his innocence - 'on the afternoon of Monday November 25 will get on a plane and land at the Salta airport on the morning of November 26.'

 

On papal flight, Pope Francis talks Vatican financial scandal

HANNAH BROCKHAUS reports for CNS ~ Although investigators are looking into a controversial Vatican investment in a luxury London property development, whether the deal was corrupt is still an open question, Pope Francis said Tuesday.

Answering questions aboard the papal plane from Tokyo to Rome Nov. 26, the pope said that investing funds from Peter's Pence is an acceptable form of financial management if the investments are solid.

The pope also said Vatican financial reforms are working well, and he is happy the Vatican prosecutor, called the Promoter of Justice, had filed reports about some instances of corruption inside the Vatican. While acknowledging ongoing investigations in several cases, the pope did not weigh in on the London property investment, saying it is "not yet clear."

The pope discussed Vatican financial scandal and reform in response to a question related to the Secretariat of State's investment of some $200 million in a London property development at 60 Sloane Avenue in Chelsea. CNA has reported that the investment was financed by a short-term loan package secured by the Secretariat of State through Swiss banks, with part of the funding coming from BSI, a bank later closed by Swiss financial authorities for systematically failing to act against suspected money-laundering activities by sovereign wealth funds.

The pope explained that good management of Peter's Pence, the papal fund supported by annual donation appeals in Catholic parishes around the world, often includes investments, and that this is a more prudent use of resources than keeping them in a "drawer."

"First of all, in good administration it is normal for a sum to come from the Peter's Pence, and what do I do? Put in a drawer? No, this is bad administration," Francis said. "I look to make an investment, and when there is the need, to give… when there is the necessity, in one year, you take it. Your capital you do not devalue, if it maintains or if it grows a little. This is good administration."

"Peter's Pence should be spent in one year, one year and a half, until the other collection arrives which is made world-wide. And this is good administration," he said, but added that the Church must be ethical in its use of funds. "If from Peter's Pence you invest in a weapons factory, the pence is not a pence there, eh?"

Even investment in an apartment building can be fine, he said, under the right circumstances. "But with sureties, with all of the safeties, for the good of the people of the Pence."

"Then, it passed what passed: a scandal," Francis said in response to a question about the London investment. "They have done things that do not seem clean."

The pope did not clarify who was intended by "they," or what they did which was not "clean." He went on to say that he was encouraged that internal reporting mechanisms appeared to be working and that the reports of corruption "did not come from the outside."

Francis said that the "reform of the economic methodology, that Benedict XVI had already started, is going forward."

On Nov. 19, CNA also reported that two of the directors of the London-registered holding company used to control the investment had been caught up in raids by Vatican police, while a third was initially listed on company filings as a "Vatican citizen" despite having no apparent curial role and being linked to several businesses and individuals investigated for fraud and money laundering, including by the Vatican.

Last month, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin described the London investment as "opaque" while promising to look into the matter further. Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who arranged the investment during his tenure as sostituto at the Secretariat of State, has defended the deal as "accepted practice."

Pope Francis also said he had signed the authorization for the investigation of several Vatican offices. On Oct. 1, Vatican gendarmes raided the offices of the Secretariat of State and the Financial Information Authority (AIF), the Vatican's internal financial watchdog. Subsequently, a total of five employees and officials were suspended and blocked from entering the Vatican, including Tommaso Di Ruzza, the director of the AIF.

"And in this I remained content," the pope said, "because you see that the Vatican administration now has the resources to clarify the bad things which happen inside, like in this case, that - if it is not the case of the apartment in London, because this is not yet clear - but in that [other instance] there were cases of corruption."

Pope Francis said he believes questioning of the five suspended employees will begin within a month or two, and stressed the importance of the presumption of innocence.

"It's a bad thing, it's not good what is happening in the Vatican. But it was clear that the internal mechanisms are beginning to work, those which Benedict XVI had already begun to make," he said.

"And I thank God. I do not thank God there is corruption, but I thank God that the Vatican monitoring system is working well."

On the papal flight, the pope was also questioned about wider issues facing the AIF, which was recently suspended by the Egmont Group, through which 164 financial intelligence authorities share information and coordinate their work.

The suspension of Di Ruzza, the recent resignations of AIF's president René Brüelhart, and AIF board member Marc Odendall were all noted during questions.

Pope Francis confirmed that Di Ruzza is still suspended, despite a press release from the AIF last month that affirmed the agency's full confidence in him and expressed hope that the matter would be "clarified soon."

Di Ruzza was suspended because of suspected "bad administration," the pope said, adding that "it was AIF that did not control, it seems, the crimes of others. And therefore [it failed] in its duty of controls. I hope that they prove it is not so. Because there is, still, the presumption of innocence."

While the concerns of the Egmont Group were "a bit disturbing," Francis said, the group is not an official international body and issues of sovereignty had to be considered.

Egmont is a "private group," the pope noted, adding that "MONEYVAL will carry out the scheduled inspection for the first months of the next year, it will do it."

Concerning the recent resignation of AIF's president, Rene Brülhart, the pope said he had found a replacement of "the highest level, in juridical and economic terms, national and international," and that after his return to Rome work with and at AIF would continue.

Pope Francis was asked how the international financial community, and Catholics, can have a guarantee that Vatican financial reform will continue to advance and not return to bad "habits of the past."

The pope said that reports of corruption coming from inside the Vatican are a sign that controls are working.

"To guarantee this? Look, it's the first time … it is discovered from the inside," he said.

Pope Benedict XVI "began a process that matured," he added, to the point where people had the courage to make a written report against the five suspended people.

Francis also noted that concerns about the Secretariat of State's investments and the AIF to one side, there was clear progress in financial reform in other Vatican institutions.

"The Vatican has made steps forward in its administration," the pope said. "For example, the IOR [often called the Vatican Bank] today has the acceptance of all the banks and can act like the Italian banks, normal. Something which was not there a year ago."

"There is progress," said the pope.

[L'Espresso / CNS] 2308.4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Pope plans new Catechism change to condemn nuclear deterrence

CWN reports - Pope Francis has announced that he plans to change the Catechism of the Catholic Church to say that the possession of nuclear weapons- even for purposes of deterrence- is immoral.

"The use of nuclear weapons is immoral, which is why it must be added to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Pontiff told reporters during an in-flight interview as he returned from a visit to Thailand and Japan. "Not only their use, but also possessing them."

The Pope's remark matched a statement that he had made in Hiroshima, saying that the possession of nuclear weapons was immoral. That stand was a significant step beyond previous Church teaching, which had condemned the offensive use of nuclear weapons but left open the possibility that a country might be justified in holding nuclear weapons in order to defend against a threat posed by other nations, including hostile nations that might retain a nuclear force.

When asked by a reporter whether he was rejecting the concept of legitimate defense, the Pope did not answer directly, saying that "there are issues regarding the international equilibrium that I cannot judge right now."

"The idea of legitimate defense is always valid," the Pope conceded; "even moral theology allows for it, but as a last resort." He stressed: "Legitimate defense with weapons is a last resort." But he did not amend his statement that nuclear weapons could not be used for defensive purposes.

Pope Francis also expressed misgivings about the use of nuclear power for peaceful purposes: for the production of energy. "Safety systems have not yet been worked out," he said. "It is my personal opinion, but I would not use nuclear energy until its use is completely safe."

Answering a question from a Japanese reporter, who had mentioned the Fukushima disaster, the Pope said that an accident at a nuclear power plant is immensely more dangerous and one at a conventional power plant.

In answer to another question, the Pope repeated his insistence that capital punishment can never be morally justified. "The death penalty cannot be carried out; it is immoral," he said. He went on to say that it is also unacceptable to commute a death sentence into life imprisonment, because "any sentence must always allow for reintegration; a sentence without a ray of hope is inhuman."

[CWN] 2308.5

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Benedict XVI weighs in on female diaconate in weird footnote

BENEDICT XVI recapitulated the history of the International Theological Commission in a four page greeting address for its 50th anniversary, gloria.tv reports.

He mentions as “great figures of the Council” people like Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, Karl Rahner and as "important theologians" Hans Urs von Balthasar, Heinz Schürmann, Rudolf Schnackenburg, and Johannes Feiner, although they had a ruinous influence on the Church.

Rahner and Feiner even left the Theological Commission because the Catholic Church did not become a member of the ecumenical World Council of Churches which at the time was heavily influenced by the Soviet KGB.

Benedict XVI mentions the anti-Church German Cardinal Karl Lehmann (+2018) positively as a “new generation” of theologians in the Commission, and presents him on the same level as the Italian Carlo Caffarra (+2017) who later formulated the Dubia directed at Francis.

On the other side he calls the truly Catholic Moral theologian William May (+2014), a father of many children, a supporter of "the most rigorous ancient conception," a disparaging judgment he also reserves for the great moral theologian John Finnis, 79.

In a footnote, Benedict mentions the Commission’s 2003 document about female deacons, claiming that it concluded that a "purely historical perspective" did not allow to reach a "definitive certainty," but that the question had to be decided "on a doctrinal level."

However, this assessment is incorrect. The document clearly opposes female deacons and argues that early Church deaconesses were not ordained but only acted as social workers. It therefore re-affirms the unity of deacon, priest and bishop as one sacrament.

Back then general secretary of the Theological Commission, Father George Cottier OP, was asked by La Croix if after this document the female diaconate was still an option. Cottier replied that the document “tends to support the exclusion of this possibility.”

In a second footnote, Benedict reveals human considerations admitting that as the Commission's President he once skipped the meeting of the Plenary Session because of his personal friend Father Juan Alfaro SJ.

Alfaro had become a passionate supporter of the heretical Liberation Theology but Cardinal Ratzinger did not want to confront him and "to lose his friendship.”

[gloria.tv] 2308.SU1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

 

 

HUMANAE VITAE

 

The Fifth Prophecy of Humanae Vitae

T.A. MYLOR writes for OnePeterFive ~ In his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI prophesied four serious consequences if contraception became embraced by the culture and the family: infidelity/moral decadence, lost respect for and use of women by their husbands, government's abuse of power, and man's absolute dominion. Tragically, all four prophecies have come to fruition, wreaking havoc on the Church and our world, fifty-one years later.

Although not explicitly mentioned in Humanae Vitae, a fifth prophecy has unfolded before our eyes: women abdicating their roles as stay-at-home mothers, especially as it pertains to homeschooling. Repugnance toward homemaking and educating one's children is a byproduct of contraception, one of her most pernicious fruits. The serpent who tempted Eve in the garden tempts every mother in a similar manner: 'You should be like your husband. You don't need to be tied down by your children.' C.S. Lewis begged to differ when he declared, 'Homemaking is surely in reality the most important work in the world.' Yes, mothers have an extraordinary vocation in God's eyes as co-creators of life and co-formators of supernatural life.

Contraception helped initiate the trend of more mothers entering the workforce, which in turn has played a major factor in the vocations decline. For instance, a 2017 study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown found that one out of ten men in the seminary was homeschooled and that homeschooled men are four times more likely to join the seminary compared to those who study in Catholic institutions. Remove the mother from the home, and you remove vocations from the Church.

Despite the above study combined with the flourishing of traditional religious orders and seminaries, especially in dioceses with an orthodox bishop, many in the hierarchy continue to deny reality and truth by staunchly advocating for female priests and deacons. These same cardinals and bishops, who condone contraception, have failed to adequately address one of the most fundamental causes of the vocation's crisis: contraception and its sinister effect to remove mothers from the home. Instead of being sidetracked by their own agendas, our religious leaders, especially priests, need to encourage and laud mothers for their noble and sacrificial decision to homeschool. Make no mistake: the more mothers reclaim the heart of their homes by educating their children rather than sending them to pagan schools, the more likely vocations will flower and new saints will arise.

Imagine if St. Joseph and Our Lady sent Jesus away to be taught by the Romans so they could devote all her energies to building a lucrative carpentry business. Perhaps they considered sending Jesus to the Temple permanently to be instructed by the greatest scholars of the law because they felt ill equipped for such a daunting task. Clearly, God the Father could have willed that His beloved Son be born into home of the world's greatest intellectuals, but this was not the case. Instead, God wanted to be raised by the most virtuous parents in the history of the world. The home, the domestic church, is the greatest school of virtue. After all, which is more important: getting our children into Heaven or Harvard?

In his book Christus Vincut: Christ's Triumph over the Darkness of the Age, Bishop Athanasius Schneider is asked specifically about the rise of homeschooling in United States along with its suppression in other countries like Germany. He declares,

This is a dictatorship. Under Communism in the Soviet Union, education in the family was also forbidden, as it was under the Nazi regime. The prohibition against homeschooling is a dictatorial law. We have a challenge and duty to restore civilization and the reign of Christ in our families, in our society.

Bishop Athanasius further comments, 'So, it will always be a battle, a fight.' The battle for our children's eternal salvation is real. Having attended Catholic schools my entire life and having been instructed by a beautiful teaching order of nuns, the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George, did not guarantee me a virtuous life. By God's grace and due to my parents' and these holy nuns' witness, I was protected from the debauchery that infiltrated my Catholic high school. Many of my classmates who came from decent homes were not so fortunate. Their parents seemed distracted by their own careers or cared only about their sons' and daughters' intellectual prowess. Consequently, my classmates did whatever they wanted, so long as they maintained their GPA, made this varsity team, and got into that prestigious college. Sin was overlooked; secularism and egoism reigned. In effect, these parents entrusted their children to many faith-filled Catholic educators while sadly renouncing their fundamental right to educate their children, especially in the ways of morality.

Reflecting on my past, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't insist upon being homeschooled because I too fell for the culture's lie that academic and athletic success is more important than loving God and living a moral life. Having heard about the devastating effects of two families who stopped homeschooling their children years ago, I felt compelled to write this article. At one point, both families lived a simple life, but the opportunity for a more comfortable lifestyle allured the mothers into the workforce. The husbands were on board. Having homeschooled their older children until they became adolescents, the two mothers decided they had had enough. Within a short time, years of solid religious formation vanished as their children were dragged into the culture of death by their godless public high school peers. Drinking, drugs, and sex replaced faith, hope, and love. Today, several of the children have the left the Faith and are living in serious sin. In conversations with their adult children who still practice the Faith, they point to their mothers' absence from the home as the catalyst for the breakdown of their families. Even though both sets of parents attend Mass every Sunday, frequent confession, pray the rosary, and lead their families in prayer before meals, their decision to stop homeschooling was more costly than they realized.

At the same time, homeschooling cannot always keep our children on the narrow road due to their own free will. And for some parents, solid Catholic primary and secondary schools (which are rare but do exist) are the best fit based on circumstances or a child's specific needs. Yet homeschooling provides countless opportunities for grace, such as daily Mass; siblings growing together in virtue; spending timeless moments with your children; and, above all, safeguarding our children's purity and faith from numerous evil forces found in pagan public schools and nominal Catholic schools.

When a mother chooses her career over her children for any other reason than absolute necessity, she exposes her innocent children to a world of vice. A quick read of St. Teresa of Avila's autobiography reveals how wicked relatives and friends were leading her to Hell had she not repented.

The Devil knows that we have only a short time to form our children - eighteen years is brief, likely not even one fourth of their lives. Therefore, he relentlessly tempts us to squander this precious window by spending more time on social media and watching television than being with our children, by allowing other adults and our children's peers to have more influence on our children than we do, and by allowing our careers to take precedence over our children's eternal salvation. On our deathbeds, will we regret that we didn't spend enough time with our children and do enough to keep them from Satan's grip? I pray not!

The time is now for mothers to be that heroic and unheralded heart of their homes. The time is now for fathers to support their wives, so their children receive the finest religious and intellectual formation, even if it means working two jobs. If we fathers want to know how to raise a saint, we must look no farther than St. Padre Pio's father, Grazio, who traveled twice to the United States for work so that his son could become a priest. Despite the distance, Grazio closely monitored Pio's education. In fact, Grazio once convinced his wife to have Pio transfer schools because the one was run by an ex-priest and lacked sound formation. The time is now for parents to raise great saints like Padre Pio.

Even though the fifth prophecy of Humanae Vitae has been fulfilled, maybe it's not too late to reverse it since nothing is impossible for God. However, in order for us to 'restore civilization and the reign of Christ in our families, in our society,' it must start with one family at a time - specifically, one mother at a time, who courageously says 'yes' like the Blessed Mother to the glories and sufferings of home life.

[1P5] 2308.6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

 

 

CHINA SUPPLEMENT

 

Portraits replace Catholic symbols in churches

TANG ZHEA reports for Bitter Winter ~ A Catholic Church in Ji'an, a prefecture-level city in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, was built this year at the cost of more than one million RMB (over $ 140,000), which had been raised by believers. It was named "The True and Original Source of the Universe" (????), a reference to the name inscribed in 1711 on a plaque the Kangxi Emperor (Xuanje, 1654-1722) donated to a Catholic church in Beijing. Not long after it opened its doors, the church became the target of the local government's persecution.

In late September, local officials ordered the congregation to paint over the sign with the name of the church, replace it with "Follow the Party, Obey the Party, and Be Grateful to the Party," and display the national flag at the entrance.

What has hurt the congregations the most was the removal of a painting of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, later discarded into a dark corner of the church. Instead, a portrait of president Xi Jinping was hung in the centre of one of the walls, surrounded by propaganda slogans on both sides.

A few days later, officials confiscated the keys to the church and locked all its doors and windows. The congregation lost their place of worship.

The same month, a Catholic meeting venue that is not part of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in Jiangxi's Poyang county was ordered to cease religious activities. Local officials threatened to revoke retirement pensions of elderly congregation members if another meeting were to be held. The church's cross, a painting of the Virgin Mary, and religious couplets were removed, and portraits of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong were displayed instead.

In early May, another Catholic venue in Poyang county was shut down on the grounds that "any church refusing to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association is a xie jiao (cult)." Congregation members said that they would rather worship at home than join the state-run church.

In September, in preparation for an inspection by Wang Yang, the president of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, local officials ordered the congregation of the state-run St. Joseph's Cathedral in the Linchuan district of Jiangxi's Fuzhou city to display slogans supporting the CCP and promoting traditional Chinese culture outside the church. The church now looks like a government propaganda agency.

After the inspection, the provincial CPCA and the National Administrative Commission of the Chinese Catholic Church convened a special meeting to discuss and study speeches by Wang Yang. The CPCA clergy proclaimed their support for the Party leadership, love for the country and religion, pledging "to contribute their share to realize China's Dream - the great renewal of the nation."

A local priest commented that the government-run church only seems like a place of worship, but in reality, it worships the CCP and promotes its ideology.

"Falling under communist control is a calamity to the church. Joining the CPCA is equivalent to handing oneself to the devil," a retired priest from the northeastern province of Jilin remarked on the regime's pressure to make all Catholic churches join the CPCA. He added that he chose to retire because he does not want to undergo CCP's indoctrination and help it to indoctrinate believers.

[Bitter Winter] 2308.7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Faithful bishop on the run from communists highlights Vatican/China deal disaster

STEVEN MOSHER reports for LifseSiteNews ~ Bishop Vincent Guo was supposed to be the poster child of a successful rapprochement between the Vatican and China, as well as a sign that the longstanding rift between the Underground Catholic church and its state-run counterpart had been healed. Instead, he is on the run from the Communist authorities. How did this happen?

Until last year, Bishop Guo was the ordinary of the Diocese of Mindong, located in the southern province of Fujian. He was recognized by the Holy See, but not by the Party-State, which had imposed an unpopular—and unrecognized--Patriotic “bishop” by the name of Zhan Silu on the same diocese. While the Underground church was thriving—with 80,000 members, 57 priests, 200 nuns, 300 consecrated lay people and hundreds of lay catechists—the Patriotic church counterpart run by Msgr. Zhan boasted less than ten thousand members served by only 12 priests.

With the signing of the “provisional agreement” between the Vatican and China on September 22, 2018, the diocese was turned upside down--literally. The excommunication of Msgr. Zhan and six other invalidly ordained bishops was lifted by Pope Francis, and Bishop Guo stepped down as the ordinary of the Mindong diocese in favor of Bishop Zhan, and became his auxiliary.

AsiaNews reported that Pope Francis had actually asked for this "sacrifice" from Msgr. Guo the year before--in December 2017--in order to promote the “unity of the Church and guarantee the signing of the agreement between China and the Holy See.” In other words, Bishop Guo was demoted at Beijing’s request.

But even this wasn’t enough for the Communist Party officials who set out to enforce the new agreement. That agreement, they said, required all Underground priests and bishops to join the schismatic Patriotic Catholic Association as a condition of being allowed to continue their priestly ministry. Anyone who refused would not be allowed to function as a priest.

Bishop Guo, who apparently knew that the agreement said no such thing, refused to sign. As a result, he has been relentlessly harassed, threatened, browbeaten and even has “disappeared” for short periods of time. For most of the past year he has been under constant police surveillance, with two police officers assigned to watch him day and night. He recently managed to escape his handlers and is, of this writing, in hiding. When asked about him, one of his flock said, “Please pray for the safety of our bishop. He is very tired.”

While Bishop Vincent Guo may be, as AsiaNews puts it, the best-known “victim of the Sino-Vatican agreement”, he is by far not the only one. Nor is he the most harshly persecuted. Because the diocese of Mindong has been chosen by the Communist Party as a “model” for the implementation of the agreement, Bishop Guo and his priests have probably not been as badly treated as Underground bishops and priests in other parts of China, some of whom have simply gone missing or have been summarily “laicized” by the Party-State when they, too, refused to join the Patriotic Catholic Association.

While the provisions of the agreement remain secret, it reportedly deals with bilateral relations and the ordination of bishops. It does not call for Underground bishops and priests to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), which remains in the eyes of the Vatican a schismatic creation of the Chinese Communist Party, but it does apparently acknowledge that Catholic clergy will be required to register with the Communist authorities. And that concession was all the Communist authorities needed to begin strong-arming Underground clergy into joining the CPCA as part of the “registration” process.

It took nine months—and countless pleas from Underground clergy—for the Vatican a formulate a response to this violation of the Sino-Vatican Agreement. The “Pastoral Guidelines” issued to bishops and clerics in China in June of this year, however, only added to the confusion.

First, the Guidelines imply that the decision to register with the authorities is entirely up to the individual bishop or priest in question, but since the Vatican has already approved such registration, on what grounds is a member of the Underground clergy to object when Communist officials come calling?

Second, the Guidelines, using oddly convoluted phrasing, suggests that, “if … the text of the declaration required for the registration does not appear respectful of the Catholic faith,” a priest may sign. But there is no “if” about it. Such “declarations” always require joining a schismatic organization, the CPCA, and therefore are always “disrespectful of the Catholic faith.”

Third, the Guidelines instruct a priest to “specify in writing” that he is signing the declaration “without failing in his duty to remain faithful to the principles of Catholic doctrine.” They add that, when such a written clarification “is not possible,” the priest may do so orally and “if possible” in the presence of a witness.

As one who has been arrested in China and forced to write a “confession,” I can personally attest to the fact that there is exactly zero chance that a beleaguered priest will be allowed to either call witnesses, amend the “declaration” in any way, or even openly declare that he disagrees with its contents. Reading such advice calls to mind a Chinese saying: “One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

In fact, the advice from the Vatican was so obviously unworkable that it led Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong to journey to Rome to lodge a protest with the Pope, who said that he would “look into it.”

It is hard to say what the Vatican has gotten in return for an agreement that Cardinal Zen openly calls a “sellout” of the Underground church. It is perhaps easier to say what it has not gotten. It has not gotten China to consent to the ordination of the roughly 20 bishop candidates identified by the Holy See within the Patriotic church, some of whom have already been secretly ordained. It has not gotten the Communist authorities accept a significant number of bishops of the underground community. In fact, of the 40 or so underground bishops, only one has to date been officially recognized by the Communists.

As far as the future selection of bishops is concerned, candidates will be proposed by the Communist Party for ratification by the Pope. The Pope may veto one or two candidates, to be sure, but Communist officials have made it clear that he cannot indefinitely delay the process, nor continuously veto one candidate after another. If this happens the official implied, Party officials will simply return to illicitly ordaining bishops.

Pope Francis claims that this process preserves his authority. “The Pope names the bishops,” he has repeatedly asserted. Whether the ability to exercise a (temporary) veto power over the process actually does preserve papal authority not only for him, but for his successors, seems questionable, however.

No one should be surprised by this outcome. The only thing that the Vatican and the Chinese authorities seem to have in common is a belief that there should only be one Catholic church in China. For General Secretary Xi Jinping and his minions that means eliminating the Underground church. For the Vatican it means encouraging everyone (without explicitly saying so) to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which it seems to believe offers a safe, legal haven for Catholics to practice their faith.

But it doesn’t. The CPCA is merely an instrument that the Chinese Communist Party is using to bring all Catholics under Party control. The ultimate goal of the atheistic Communists who run China remains the same: to destroy all religious faith within China’s borders.

The Pastoral Guidelines state that the Holy See will continue negotiating with the CCP regarding the civil registration of bishops and priests. Bishop Guo Xijin commented that some Vatican officials have been very vocal about encouraging Chinese priests to join the CPCA, but have been very reserved when it comes to supporting underground priests as they fight to maintain their faith and principles. The Guidelines themselves are so vague that neither clergy nor laity are able to decipher its meaning. This vagueness has emboldened Communist authorities to boldly use not only the Sino-Vatican Agreement, but also the Guidelines themselves, to pressure priests into joining the CPCA. All of this puts Catholic conscientious objectors in a difficult, if not impossible, position.

“If before the signing of the Agreement we remained fearless and maintained our faith no matter how much we were coerced, the Holy See would have supported us, too,” the bishop said. “But now, we’re really helpless. To be frank, whoever persists will suffer greater suppression and persecution from the CCP.”

The road of persecution is still very long, Bishop Guo added, and Catholics must use it to strengthen their faith.

Bishop Guo is living out his words on his own long Via Dolorosa--as he tries to keep one step ahead of the Communist authorities.

[Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute and the author of Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to the World]

[LSN] 2308.cs2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

 

SANCTIFYING SODOMY

Vienna Cardinal Schönborn to host "blasphemous" pro-LGBT benefit concert in Cathedral ~ again

DOROTHY CUMMINGS McLEAN reports for LifeSiteNews – Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn is yet again allowing a pro-LGBT benefit concert to take place in Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Catholic Cathedral.

This is the third time Vienna’s Archbishop has allowed the “LIFE+” association to use the cathedral as a venue for the World AIDS Day charity concert that will take place on Saturday, Nov. 30.

The event last year, which the Cardinal attended, featured a shirtless actor known for playing homosexual roles standing on the altar rail, loud rock and electronic music, and actors dressed as demons.

This year, Austria’s infamous drag queen “Conchita Wurst,” who won worldwide fame when he represented his nation at the 2014 Eurovision contest, is one of a number of performers scheduled to appear at the “Believe Together” fundraiser in Vienna’s 14th-century mother church. The cathedral show, titled “The Yearning for the Angels…,” will be the main event among 15 being held across Vienna on November 30 to raise money for AIDS relief projects.

The organizer of the event, homosexual activist Gery Keszler, thanked the cardinal when he announced the show.

“We are very grateful for the trust placed in us by Cardinal Schönborn,” he said.

Keszler is particularly eager for this year’s concert to be a success, for his annual fundraising “Life Ball” has been discontinued, resulting in the loss of up to 500,000 Euros to Viennese AIDs and HIV charities, he said.

The show is being co-sponsored by the Knights of Malta of Austria.

Alexander Tschugguel, who removed Pachamama pagan idols from a church in Rome during the Amazon Synod, told LifeSiteNews that Austrian Catholics “really don’t like the cathedral being used to promote the LGBT cause.”

Tschugguel, who lives in Austria, underscored that the LIFE+ events ultimately give Austria’s most prominent LGBT activists a pulpit in the Catholic cathedral.

“Keszler is one of the main LGBT activists in Austria,” Tschugguel said. “He is one of the big faces because of his Life Ball.”

The Life Ball, which Keszler founded in 1992, was believed to be Europe’s largest annual fundraiser for AIDS/HIV research and charities. The star-studded event ended its 27-year run with a final party in Vienna’s town hall this June.

The Life Ball was canceled, Tschugguel said, because Keszler lost the support of corporate sponsors through both his unbridled hedonism and allegations he misused charitable donations to fund his lavish lifestyle.

“[Keszler] is known to be very gross,” Tshugguel stated. “And many times he has used the Cathedral to promote LGBT.”

Tshugguel said he is less concerned about “Conchita Wurst’s” performances than he is about Cardinal Schönborn allowing the “gay icon” and other major LGBT activists to speak their minds “in our beautiful cathedral.”

“Conchita Wurst,” whose real name is Thomas Neuwirth, gave a speech in the “Stephansdom” in 2017 when Cardinal Schönborn permitted at LGBT-themed prayer service. Keszler was the co-organizer of this event, too.

Keszler embroiled Schönborn in another controversy when he claimed in 2018 that the cardinal had blessed him and his homosexual partner at a private dinner party. After the blessing, said Keszler, “his confidant had brought a bottle of champagne, and he loosened the cork, and after this blessing, this cork bursts into the air, comes thundering down, and breaks his plate – my most expensive Meissen plate!”

“This was no little bit of a forced outing for the cardinal,” Keszler said, “but since he has done it, he probably will also be fine with me saying it.”

Last year Cardinal Schönborn received criticism for allowing and attending the event at the cathedral. Austrian Father Johannes Maria Schwarz published an article afterwards on the website Kath.net critiquing the use of the iconic cathedral for the secular event. While the money went to a good cause – an HIV hospice in South Africa – Father Schwarz remarked that this house of God, “the heart of Catholic Vienna,” has been turned into a “multipurpose hall.” The event might well show “the death of a feeble Church,” he added.

Part of last year’s event was the performance in the cathedral of adaption of a 1911 Austrian play called “Jedermann.” The revamped “Jederman” starred Philipp Hochmair – a celebrated Austrian actor known for his homosexual roles in different pro-LGBT movies – and featured his rock band God's Electrohand (Elektrohand Gottes).

In pictures, he is shirtless, standing on the altar rail. The concert was loud, with flickering lights, and many actors were dressed as demons. The Jedermann (Everyman) play depicts a wealthy man who realizes in his last hours of life that neither his friends nor his money will follow him into the grave. He then converts to Christianity. The organizers stated afterwards that they had received 68,000 euros in donations.

 

Contact information for respectful communications:

Cardinal Schönborn's secretary Dr. Hubert Philipp Weber
Email: ebs@edw.or.at

[LSN]2308.FR2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

 

 

WORLD NEWS

AUSTRALIA Archbishop convicted of hiding child sexual abuse.
.
MURIEL PORTER reports for the Church Times ~ The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, the Most Revd Philip Wilson, has been found guilty of concealing child sexual abuse when he was a newly ordained priest in the Hunter region of New South Wales, in 1976. He will be sentenced next month; imprisonment for two years is a possibility.

He has been Archbishop of Adelaide since 2001. He is believed to be the highest-ranking Roman Catholic cleric convicted of failure to report abuse.

Archbishop Wilson, who is 67, and who has not stood down from his see, was accused of not reporting allegations brought to him against another priest, Fr James Fletcher, who was later imprisoned for child sexual abuse. He has since died.

The Archbishop, who denies the allegations, has issued a statement saying that he is “disappointed” with the decision of the Newcastle Local Court, and is considering his options.

The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference has been criticised for its failure to call on Archbishop Wilson to stand down; its brief statement, however, says that “the safety of children and vulnerable adults is paramount for the Church and its ministries.”

The co-chair of the South Australian Law Society’s criminal law committee, Craig Caldicott, has said that the verdict is important because of the precedent it sets. It was, he suggested, the “tip of the iceberg”, and other church leaders could potentially face similar charges in the future.

 

[CT] 2308.7a

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

CANADA Toronto’s Catholic schools bow to the Rainbow Mafia

DONALD De MARCO, Ph.D., reports for Crisis Magazine ~ On the night of November 8, 2019, the Toronto Catholic District School Board, after a long and heated debate, voted to adopt four gender terms into its code of conduct: "gender identity," "gender expression," "family status," and "marriage status". The chairman of the board, who supported the 8 to 4 vote, stated that "we need to celebrate our differences and make sure our children from the LGBTQ community and families from the LGBTQ community are supported and welcomed". This view, however, is contrary to that of the archdiocese, which responded: "We do not accept the view of the human person which underlies this terminology, since that view is not compatible with our faith."

This is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Students at Catholic schools are equally protected by law and school policy from unjust discrimination, ridicule, and assault and battery. Since everyone is equally protected, there is no need to give special attention to any specific group. Bullying is, fundamentally, indiscriminate. Students are better protected by the enforcement of the regulations that are already in the book, and not by the school adding controversial terms to its code of conduct. Here, the responsibility lies with the administration and its teachers.

In addition, there is no such group as the "LGBTQ," let alone the nonsense that they live in a "community". This fabrication even lacks logical cohesion: bisexual implies the reality of two different sexes, while transgendered persons often deny that there are two sexes, and even deny that any particular sex is enduring. Moreover, the notion of "queer" is unintelligible to most people. Where is the NDDKO (Nerds, Dweebs, Dummies, Klutzes, and Oafs) community? It is well known that such individuals are often the prey to bullies. When will the Catholic School Board address their plight?

The real issue involves the political aims of the LGBTQ group, whose aims go far beyond mere acceptance, which they've achieved already and then some. As a political faction, they will not stop at anything short of ridding others — especially Christians — of any moral objection to their practices. They have vandalized Chick-fil-A restaurants and forced one to close before the fast food chain decided this week to cease donating to Christian charities. They have driven bakeries and wedding photographers out of business; they have brought lawsuits against the Knights of Columbus. And all because they cannot tolerate anyone who defends traditional marriage. This is why the appellation "LGBT mafia" has been coined: this sordid consortium has shown its true colors, and they are not to be found anywhere in the rainbow.

* * *

A mother of two who identifies as a Catholic strongly supports the Catholic School Board's decision. In an op-ed for the Toronto Star, she states that all schools should prioritize "the safety of LGBTQ students or of [sic] students who come from queer families". Of course, that sounds like preferential treatment — if not prejudice. The author does not seem to consider the vastly greater and more prevalent needs of Catholic families seeking to teach their children the Catholic faith in authentically Catholic environs.

Catholic teachers in Toronto who oppose the Board's decision are rightly wary of what the future holds for them and their students. It has been well documented that the Catholic positions concerning homosexual sex and same-sex marriage have been targeted by the LGBTQ not only as "offensive" but as constituting "hate speech." In the unnecessary attempt to be more "inclusive," Catholic teaching is in danger of being excluded. If the "offensive" and the "hateful" are removed from the curriculum, Catholic education will suffer a mortal blow. It is a case of stretching the rubber band until it breaks. The old bromide comes into view: "give a person an inch and he thinks he's a ruler".

In another Catholic school district — Ontario — a workshop is scheduled for December 6, 2019. One of the speakers is a certain Kevin Weldes Godin, an advocate for LGBTQ-inclusive education. He will be presenting to Catholic teachers — on their day of spiritual development — his view on gender and sexuality. Another workshop is entitled, "Equity: Building Capacity for LGBTQI2S+ Students." Also on the program are activists from a company called "unlearn.", which promotes the notion of multiple genders and the idea that white children are bigoted against other races due to an "unconscious bias."

Catholic education should be Catholic. The secular world can be enticing, but Catholicism has something better to offer. Curiosity can be a dangerous temptation — Josef Pieper has referred to the vice of curiosity as "the roaming unrest of spirit." Catholicism should not, as Jacques Maritain warned, find itself "kneeling before the world."

[Publishedby LifeSiteNewsxwith permission from Crisis Magazine].

 

[LSN] 2308.7b

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

ITALY Bishop apologizes to unrepentant adulterers, invites them back to the sacraments

DIANE MONTAGNA reports for LifeSiteNews - In a remarkable pastoral letter, issued by Bishop Renato Marangoni of the northern Italian diocese of Belluno-Feltre, those who have separated from their legitimate spouses and attempted marriage in a civil forum have received an apology for the Church's prior fidelity to her unbroken apostolic discipline, which had hitherto prevented them from receiving absolution and the Eucharist.

The bishop also invites them to attend a 'friendly and familiar meeting,' where they will reflect on the words of Pope Francis in his 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Chapter 8 of the document, titled 'Accompanying, discerning and integrating weakness,' ignited a doctrinal dispute over fundamentals of the Catholic faith on marriage, the sacraments, and the moral life.

Addressing divorced Catholics who have begun 'new experiences of union' through civil remarriage or without attempting marriage to their new partners, Bishop Marangoni opens his letter (see full text below), saying: 'There is a first word I wish to confide to you: Sorry! This word contains our awareness that we have often ignored you in our parish communities.'

Implying a recent change in the Church's unbroken doctrine and discipline, Marangoni, 61, who was appointed bishop of Belluno-Feltre, near Venice, in February 2016, writes: 'For a long time, we have also said that you could not be fully admitted to the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, while in many of you there was a desire to be sustained by the gift of the sacraments and by the warmth and affection of a community.'

'In this we have become rigid in a very formal vision of the family situations you are in,' the prelate says apologetically.

Bishop Marangoni is not the first Italian bishop to issue such an invitation.

In recent days, his counterpart, Bishop Corrado Pizziolo of the neighboring diocese of Vittorio-Veneto, announced in the diocesan newspaper what he called 'a novelty.' The bishop said it consists in 'providing for certain couples who do not live Christian marriage fully the possibility of access to sacramental participation.'

And in an Advent letter to the faithful of his diocese one year ago, Bishop Gianmarco Busca of the northern Italian diocese of Mantua said, '[T]he faithful who are divorced and remarried, or who live stably in a second relationship, can embark on an ecclesial journey of reconciliation which, in some cases, can lead to the possibility of gaining access to the sacrament of Penance and Eucharistic Communion.'

Busca, also appointed by Pope Francis in 2016, presented his new directives as the fruit of Amoris Laetitia.

Here below is an English translation of Bishop Marangoni's letter.

* * *

To you who have chosen to be a family and have gone through situations that have led to separation or even divorce and, beyond this, to begin new experiences of union for which some have chosen to remarry civilly or not to marry ... to you is this letter addressed!

I address you with a greeting meant to open a relationship of knowledge, esteem and dialogue. I speak to you on behalf of the diocese of Belluno Feltre, whose bishop I am.

There is a first word I wish to confide to you: Sorry! This word contains our awareness that we have often ignored you in our parish communities. Perhaps you have also suffered from attitudes among us of judgment and criticism towards you. For a long time, we have also said that you could not be fully admitted to the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, while in many of you there was a desire to be sustained by the gift of the sacraments and by the warmth and affection of a community.

In this we have become rigid in a very formal vision of the family situations you are in. We were wrong not to consider as much the personal situation, the dreams that you had nourished, your vocation to married life with the life plans it entailed, even though you had to face troubled family events, where many factors may have been decisive in hindering all of this. It is precisely in these complex situations that personal responsibility needs to be supported and helped in its frailty.

To those of you who have been discouraged and left our parish communities, we are here to confide that we miss you and that we feel that we need you and your witness of life. We know the troubled events that you have gone through and that have disturbed and wounded your family relationships, can help us all to consider life as a gift that should never be taken for granted, as a responsibility that never ends, as a way to begin again down the path of life for the promise that it represents.

A word from Jesus resonates with us: Take heart, rise, he is calling you! It is a word he pronounces over every life, even when it seems compromised in its roots.

It is because of his word that we would like to meet people who feel open wounds in their family relations or who have rebegun a life together and wish to place it alongside Jesus's word of life.

Here is the invitation we wish to give you: on the afternoon of Sunday, December 1, at 3:00 p.m., at the Pope Luciani Center in Col Cumano of Santa Giustina. We will meet together with other people, including some married couples, who are dedicated to the pastoral care of the family within the Diocese of Belluno Feltre.

Believe it... Believe it...: it will be a friendly and familiar meeting, where we will also listen to the Word of Jesus and also rediscover the encouraging words of Pope Francis, that he wrote in one of his exhortations: Amoris Laetitia.

We are waiting for you!

Belluno, November 22, 2019

Renato, bishop

oOo

 

Successors of the Apostates?

CHRISTOPHER A. FERRARA writes for Fatima Perspectives ~ And so it begins. Three Italian bishops, two of them elevated by Pope Francis, have announced the admission of public adulterers in “second marriages” to Holy Communion.

As reported by Diane Montagna of LifeSiteNews (above), Bishop Renato Marangoni of the northern Italian diocese of Belluno-Feltre, made a bishop by Francis in 2016, has issued a “pastoral letter” in which he literally apologizes for the Church’s bimillennial teaching and practice, based on the words of Christ Himself, denying absolution and Holy Communion to people living in adultery. Quoth Marangoni (translation by Montagna):

“There is a first word I wish to confide to you: Sorry! This word contains our awareness that we have often ignored you in our parish communities. Perhaps you have also suffered from attitudes among us of judgment and criticism towards you. For a long time, we have also said that you could not be fully admitted to the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, while in many of you there was a desire to be sustained by the gift of the sacraments and by the warmth and affection of a community.

“In this we have become rigid in a very formal vision of the family situations you are in. We were wrong not to consider as much the personal situation, the dreams that you had nourished, your vocation to married life with the life plans it entailed, even though you had to face troubled family events, where many factors may have been decisive in hindering all of this. It is precisely in these complex situations that personal responsibility needs to be supported and helped in its frailty.”

How can one be “sustained by the gift of the sacraments” while continuing to engage in sexual relations with a partner in adultery? Quite the contrary, as the Church has always taught and practiced, someone in that situation “eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.” (1. Cor. 11:29)

Montagna notes that in the Diocese of Mantua, Bishop Gianmarco Busca, another Francis bishop, had already declared in an Advent letter that “[T]he faithful who are divorced and remarried, or who live stably in a second relationship, can embark on an ecclesial journey of reconciliation which, in some cases, can lead to the possibility of gaining access to the sacrament of Penance and Eucharistic Communion.” So, according to Busca, not only the divorced and civilly “remarried” can receive Holy Communion while continuing their adulterous relations, but also people who are merely cohabiting without even the pretense of a civil “remarriage.”

Montagna further reports that in the Diocese of Vittorio-Veneto, which adjoins Marangoni’s diocese, Bishop Corrado Pizziolo “announced in the diocesan newspaper what he called ‘novelty.’ The bishop said it consists in ‘providing for certain couples who do not live Christian marriage fully the possibility of access to sacramental participation.” This is supposed to be part of what Pizziolo, aping Amoris Laetita as do the others, calls “journey of accompaniment” — accompaniment in the habitual sin of adultery.

This is nonsense, of course, based on a buzzword — “accompaniment” — that Francis has introduced (along with “discernment”) into the cloud of buzzwords that have plagued the Church since Vatican II.

Even the secular news site Brietbart has reported on this insanity, noting that the Catholic website Radio Spada has said of Marangoni’s “pastoral letter” that “More than a letter of a successor of the Apostles, it’s a letter of a successor of the Apostates.”

Indeed it is, given that apostasy, as Saint Thomas Aquinas explains, involves not only a total abandonment of the Christian faith (which may also be at work here) but, short of that, “a backsliding from God” by one who is “rebelling in his mind against the Divine commandments…” — in this case, the Sixth Commandment.

The apostasy that began at the top with a rebellion against the Sixth Commandment, which Francis has dared to label “authentic Magisterium” — it is no such thing — now spreads in the Italian dioceses. Soon, barring unforeseen circumstances, it will spread throughout the Church.

Never before has the Church seen anything like this. Can the divine resolution of this disaster be long in coming?

[LSN/FP] 2308.8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

SWITZERLAND Bishop explains why he dares to raise concerns about Pope Francis

BISHOP Marian Eleganti, the auxiliary bishop of Chur, Switzerland, has not shied away from defending Church teaching the past several years. Speaking to John-Henry Westen, His Excellency continues his outspoken approach and explains why he raises concerns about Pope Francis.

 

 

[LSN] 2308.FR1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

UK (Wales) Cardiff University students "risk excommunication"

RUTH SAX reports for Premier Christian Radio ~ Catholic students have been told they cannot take part in official societies at Cardiff University after the students' union adopted a pro-choice policy on abortion.

The university chaplain, the Very Rev Fr Sebastian Jones, said that no Catholic could remain a member of an organisation that upholds 'the promotion of, and material support for, the procurement of abortions'. He added: 'For a Catholic to participate in such an organisation would risk them incurring excommunication.'

The students' union said it recognised its responsibility to uphold freedom of speech and to allow students to take a stance on sensitive issues.

'If students vote in favour of a position, it does not mean that students who have opposing views are censored or their views are not welcome,' it said.

Cardiff University Students' Union adopted an official pro-choice stance last Thursday.

The chaplain said that Catholic students and those opposed to abortion would be unable to hold offices in societies or voice 'opinions that while acceptable by civic society… are to be surprised at Cardiff University'.

He likened their plight to the historical discrimination experienced by Catholics barred from holding public office until the 1880s.

[PCR] 2308.9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

UNITED KINGDOM Catholic schools indoctrinating children with LGBT curriculum

JULES GOMES reports for ChurchMilitant.com ~ Catholic parents are outraged after discovering that a pro-LGBT+ education program, opposed by Muslim parents, is being used by Catholic primary schools after it was authorized by the archdiocese of Liverpool.
In its summer newsletter, the archdiocese's Department of Education endorses the "No Outsiders" curriculum, fiercely criticized for seeking to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism among children, as "still current and fine to use in school."

The archdiocese advises teachers and parents to conceal this information and use an alternative nomenclature for the sex education syllabus: "Given the current climate, it might be better not to post on social media and use the term 'All are Welcome' for the time being to avoid adverse publicity."

Open homosexual Andrew Moffat, author and promoter of "No Outsiders," candidly states in his introduction to the 87-page coursebook that children must be told that "to be a person who is gay or lesbian or transgender or bi-sexual is normal, acceptable and ok."

A Church Militant investigation found more than 10 Catholic primary schools in the Liverpool archdiocese using the syllabus that provoked Muslim parents into launching nationwide protests after they detected children being indoctrinated by "No Outsiders" at Parkfield Community School in Saltley, Birmingham.

The schools include Sacred Heart (Liverpool), St. Basil's (Widnes), Our Lady's Bishop Eton (Liverpool), St. John Fisher (Knowsley), St. Edmund and St. Thomas (Waterloo), St. Joseph's (Huyton), Our Lady and St. Philomena's (Liverpool), Corpus Christi (Rainford), St. Ambrose (Speke), Ursuline Catholic Primary School (Crosby) and Much Woolton Catholic Primary School (Woolton).

Sex historian Dr. Lisa Nolland, who has joined hands with Muslim parents in opposing the "queering of the classroom," called "No Outsiders" the "perfect LGBT Trojan Horse."

Speaking to Church Militant, Dr. Nolland explained how "it alters children's understanding of sex, marriage and even reality," noting: 'When we teach "about" gay relationships, adult realities are foisted onto immature youngsters, damaging healthy psychosexual, moral and cognitive development. What madness is this? Catholic bishops ought to have done their homework before signing on to what is actually pure propaganda, and toxic to boot!

Catholic Education Service (CES) of England and Wales told Church Militant that they could not comment, "as it is a specific diocesan matter."

"The only curriculum the CES 'endorses' is our own model RSE curriculum which delivers RSE in line with Church teaching," a spokesperson said.

According to its website, CES's management committee is headed by the archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm McMahon, whose diocese is promoting the disputed curriculum.

Church Militant found that CES had deleted from its website an inspection report for the archdiocese that noted that "Sex Education (RSE) [lessons] are planned, well taught and reflect Catholic teachings … beginning to embed Journey in Love and No Outsiders into lessons to support."

Anxious parents alerted Church Militant to the introduction of "No Outsiders" after children displayed signs of being influenced by the lessons.

A mother revealed, on condition of anonymity, how her five-year-old daughter came home "obsessing over kissing her female friend on the lips."

Another parent said her daughter started calling her "Mommy" instead of "Mummy" after the school introduced the textbook Mommy, Mama and Me, normalizing lesbian relationships and gay adoption by depicting "the gentle, nurturing relationship of a lesbian couple and their little one."

Evangelical Christian parents Dave Bratt and Monica Rincon-Plata told Church Militant that their three children were left traumatized after being exposed to the "Spongebob Squarepants" cartoons at Evelyn Street Community Primary School, Warrington, a non-Catholic school geographically within Liverpool archdiocese.

"This cartoon character is apparently an LGBT community (gay men's) heroic icon," the parents wrote in a letter of complaint to headteacher Mrs. J. Hindley.

All three children objected to being forced to participate in the sessions. "Given that the programming contains cross-dressing, LGBT parenting and other aspects that we have withdrawn our children from, is it anything other than 'grooming' which tramples upon parental wishes and principles of safeguarding?" Bratt and Rincon-Plata asked in their complaint.

"Our children are demonstrably being psychologically affected in a negative way by the materials, which we perceive to be child-sexualizing, they are being exposed to at school, but which we understand they are being forced to watch and engage with against their wishes and (their own, personal) verbal objections," Bratt told Church Militant.

The Catholic schools named, however, openly promote "No Outsiders" and have even been commended by the government's education authority for doing so.

"Their [St. Ambrose Catholic Primary School] work on 'No Outsiders' has had a massive impact in the school," states the inspection report of June 2019.

While noting that "all Relationship and Sex Education will be in accordance with the Church's moral teaching," Corpus Christi School says it uses "No Outsiders" as part of "our day-to-day interactions in school."

Saint Basil says it uses "No Outsiders" to teach children "equality and diversity."

Our Lady's Bishop Eton, like many other schools named, says the syllabus had been adopted "following guidance from our Archbishop and Archdiocese ... as it is concerned primarily with nurturing the human wholeness of our pupils."

Naming and displaying the textbook, Bishop Eton School insists that "the lessons are not one-off sessions, the ethos is part of our school," since "the programme delivers the objectives outlined in the Equality Act 2010 ... ."

Saint John Fisher School even publicizes the fact that its children have been focusing on a book called And Tango Makes Three, the story of two male penguins who start a same-sex family and successfully hatch baby Tango from a motherless penguin egg.

Our Lady and St. Philomena's declare on their Relationships and Sex Education page: "God loves us no matter what," as a rationale for adopting "No Outsiders" - which "has been recommended to us by the Liverpool Archdiocese to support our RSE curriculum."

The school quotes from "No Outsiders," which aims at children leaving "our school happy and excited about living in a community full of difference and diversity, whether that is through ethnicity, gender, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or religion. Children must be excited about living in a diverse 21st century, and we want to keep it like that - not fight against it."

In April, secular feminist Shelley Charlesworth slammed "No Outsiders" for "queering the primary [school] classroom.

In a detailed critique, the former BBC journalist demonstrated how gay author Andrew Moffat was pushing "textbook gender identity theory with gender being 'assigned' at birth."

Moffat "is using the cover of the Equality Act to teach what is his main interest, LGBT, and within that, gender identity."

The program advises teachers to search "gay animals in zoos" online to show their class, she noted.

The "No Outsiders" project began in September 2006 at the University of Sunderland, led by Dr. Elizabeth Atkinson and Dr. Renee DePalma, with a grant of £575,435.

"The danger of accusations of the corruption of innocent children … has led team members to make repeated claims that this project is not about sex or desire - and that it is therefore not about bodies. Yet, at a very significant level that is exactly what it is about," reads an excerpt from a blurb at a "No Outsiders" seminar delivered by Moffat at the University of Exeter.

In an email to bishops and in its newsletter, Catholic Truth has sounded an alert to the "very grave threat increasingly posed to young Catholics by the brazen promotion of homosexuality, transgenderism and the rest, in our schools."

Muslim parents are continuing to protest against the "No Outsiders" curriculum.

The archdiocese of Liverpool Dept. of Education did not respond to Church Militant's request for comment.

Contact information for Abp. Malcolm McMahon:

Address: 19 Salisbury Road, Liverpool, L19 0PH, UK

Email: archbishop.liverpool@rcaolp.co.uk

Phone: 011-151-494-0686

[CMTV] 2308.SA2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Concerns over new RSE plans for schools
.
HUMANISTS UK has welcomed the High Court’s decision to uphold an injunction that permanently prohibits anti-LGBT protesters from holding intimidating rallies near Anderton Park Primary school in Birmingham.The campaigning group said it was a ‘sensible’ decision at a time when attitudes toward LGBT people have been worsening. They reported a 333 per cent rise in homophobic attacks in one area of Birmingham, which has reportedly been linked to the protests outside the school.

Anderton Park Primary has been at the centre of a debate over LGBT-inclusive lessons. In recent months, hundreds of protesters have gathered, with some shouting homophobic comments while children walked through the school gates.

Church leaders have written a letter this week saying that ‘early adoption of the new Relationships and Sex Education Regulations (RSE), which becomes mandatory in September 2020, has provoked countrywide protests and safeguarding concerns’.

It argues that ‘well-funded lobbying organisations are being allowed to promote their propaganda in schools’ and that ‘ideological material is being introduced top-down, without proper consultation and over-riding parental concerns’.

Signatories of the letter include Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, General Secretary for the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion (EFAC), Bishop Henry Scrivren, Thomas Ward, President of the NACF, Anderton Park demonstrator representing the Birmingham Parent Forum, Amir Ahmed, Dand the Rev David Holloway, Vicar of Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The letter also argues that ‘concerned parents, including those from minority ethnic communities, are being condemned for protesting against teaching that violates their faith or best judgement, and that ‘schools have not respected their concerns’, which ‘overrides their civil liberties and human rights as parents’.

“The RSE provisions, as framed, prematurely sexualise children and confuse their natural development. Children from the age of four are being taught that gender is a matter of choice, which pushes them towards permanently life-changing decisions they lack the competence to make,” says the letter.

“The parental right to withdraw children from teaching they deem inappropriate has been downgraded at secondary level to a right of request,” they added.

The letter concludes by saying that ‘the new Regulations have already proved controversial, yet the time for preparation and possible negotiation, combined with proper training and guidance, has been foreshortened due to the unforeseen election’.

They argue that ‘the date set for compliance must be delayed in order to give time for the issues to be resolved’.

oOo

The full text of the letter from faith leaders and others

Sir, Early adoption of the new Relationships and Sex Education Regulations (RSE), which becomes mandatory in September 2020, has provoked countrywide protests and safeguarding concerns. Further time is needed to ensure that the controversy is properly resolved.

SRE was introduced in 1993 to safeguard children against the threat of HIV/Aids, STIs and to prevent teenage pregnancies. It failed. The expressed aim of the new Regulations is not protection, but to teach children ‘British values’ – to prepare them for life in modern Britain. Their introduction has justifiably provoked controversy.

We raise the following concerns:

• Well-funded lobbying organisations are being allowed to promote their propaganda in schools. Such political activity is illegal and needs investigation.

• Much ideological material is being introduced top-down, without proper consultation and over-riding parental concerns.

• Many concerned parents, including those from minority ethnic communities, are being condemned for protesting against teaching that violates their faith or best judgement. Schools have not respected their concerns. This overrides their civil liberties and human rights as parents.

• The RSE provisions, as framed, prematurely sexualise children and confuse their natural development. Children from the age of four are being taught that gender is a matter of choice, which pushes them towards permanently life-changing decisions they lack the competence to make.

• The parental right to withdraw children from teaching they deem inappropriate has been downgraded at secondary level to a right of request. This is a violation of parental rights under UK and international law.

The new Regulations have already proved controversial, yet the time for preparation and possible negotiation, combined with proper training and guidance, has been foreshortened due to the unforeseen election. The date set for compliance must be delayed in order to give time for the issues to be resolved.

Rev Lynda Rose, CEO, Voice for Justice, UK

Lord Curry of Kirkharle

Dr A Majid Katme (MBBCh,DPM), Ex-President, Islamic Medical Association/UK

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester

Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Buckingham

Bishop Henry Scriven, Hon Asst Bishop of Oxford and Winchester

Bishop Keith Sinclair, Bishop of Birkenhead

Rabbi Shraga Stern

Amir Ahmed, Birmingham Parent Forum

Sola Aina, HR Analyst

Dr Tope Aina, Paediatrician

Pastor Henry Akintunde, Lead Minister, Christ Image Assembly, Northampton

Professor Geoffrey Alderman, Professor of Politics and History, University of Buckingham

Rev Isaac Attram. Youth Rescue Project Inc.

Rev Simon Austen, Rector, St. Leonard’s Exeter

Rt Rev Dr Gavin Ashenden, Bishop, the Christian Episcopal Church

Canon David Banting, Member of General Synod

Dr Stephen Brooke, Specialist in Child Health

Belinda Brown, Writer/Researcher

Sidney C Cordle MBE, Leader Christian Peoples Alliance

Ed Costelloe, Chairman, Grassroots Conservatives

Dr Alison Davies MRCGP

Cllr Mary Douglas, Wiltshire Council

Jane Ezimako, Recruiter

Caroline Farrow, Campaign Director CitizenGO UK and Ireland

Sarah Finch, Member of General Synod

Fr. Francis Gardom, Priest and Philanthropist

Rev’d Dr Jules Gomes, Editor of Rebel Priest

Kathy Gyngell, Editor, The Conservative Woman

Benjamin Harris-Quinney, Chairman The Bow Group

Rev David Holloway, Vicar of Jesmond, Newcastle

Emmanuel Ibitomisin, Accountant

Clive Ireson, Association of Christian Teachers

Clifford Jacob, Bsc PGCE High school teacher

Dr Will Jones, Writer

Louise Kirk, UK Co-ordinator, Alive to the World.

David Kurten, London Assembly Member

Dr Peter May MRCGP

Susan Mason B.Bus., M.A., CPA School Gate Campaign

Edmund Matyjaszek, B.A. Principal, Priory School our Lady of Walsingham, IoW

Dr Julie Maxwell, Community Paediatrician

Cllr Delyth Miles, Walton on the Naze

Rev Barry Morrison, Higher Education Chaplain

Ngozi Nduka, Solicitor

The Revd Dr John Nolland, Former Vice-Principal, Trinity College Bristol

Dr Lisa Nolland, Convenor, Marriage, Sex, Culture Group, Anglican Mainstream

Rev. Dr. Temilolu Odejide, Senior Pastor, House on the Rock London

Pastor Efe Oluwatosin, Parish Pastor – RCCG House of Joy for all Nations.

Joseph Oluwatosin, Retired Accountant

Pastor Seyi Olusile, Resident Pastor World Global Harvest Church

Pastor Kunle Oyedeji, Lead Pastor The Cornerstone Church

Rev James Paice, Southwark Good Stewards Trust

Canon Charles Raven, Head of Operations, Global Anglican Future Conference

Dr Christopher Shell, Manager, St Paul’s by Westminster Cathedral

Kola Taiwo, Senior Pastor New Wine Church, Woolwich

Dr. C.K.Tan, Member of General Synod, Church of England

John Tan, Marketing & Operations Manager

Rev Melvin Tinker, St John’s, Newlands, Hull

Dr Kevin Vaughan MB B Chir

Dr.Thomas Ward, President of the National Association of Catholic Families

Alan J Williams MA, Chairman Support 4 the Family

Canon Dr Chris Sugden, Chairman, Anglican Mainstream

[COEN] 2308.TH1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

UNITED KINGDOM Over 140 women have had eight abortions

GOVERNMENT DATA, obtained through Freedom of Information requests, indicate that five teenagers were among the 718 UK women who underwent their sixth abortion in 2018, reports LifeSiteNews. In 2018, 143 UK women had their eighth abortion.

'A woman seeking her seventh or eighth abortion could easily be in an abusive situation where she is being repeatedly coerced into having an abortion,' said Antonia Tully, Director of Campaigns for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). 'Alarm bells should be ringing loudly when teenage girls are having repeat abortions. Is anyone asking questions about why a teenager, possibly underage, keeps presenting for abortion?'

SPUC reported that the numbers also show:

• Five teenagers were among 718 women who had at least their sixth abortion in 2018

• 143 women had an abortion last year having previously had seven or more terminations - a 19% increase on 2017 and a 27% rise on 2016

• 172 women had their seventh abortion in 2018 - a 26% increase on 2016

• 403 women had their sixth termination - 10% up on 2017 and a 33% increase on 2016

• 1,298 women - including five teenagers - had their fifth abortion in 2018, while 4,389 women - including 23 teenagers - had their fourth termination

• Overall, 84,258 repeat abortions were performed in Britain in 2018, including 3,332 on teenagers - with the overall figure up 7% on 2017 and an 11% rise on 2016

'Among the reasons for the increase in repeat abortions is almost certainly the dangerous propaganda that abortion is safe and simple. Women in Britain can have abortions at home, away from any medical supervision,' said Tully, referring to the abortion pill. 'This harmful policy ignores the evidence that women aborting at home, often alone, can be left with serious mental health problems.'

Abortion company Marie Stopes UK was dismissive over the numbers of women having undergone eight abortions, according to SkyNews, because they were but a tiny fraction of the 205,295 women who aborted their unborn children throughout England and Wales in 2018.

Abortion is legal through 24 weeks of pregnancy in England. Ireland voted to legalize it in 2018, ending its legacy as one of the world's most pro-life nations. The UK government imposed abortion and same-sex 'marriage' on Northern Ireland last month after the Stormont assembly failed to fully assemble.

In 2012, the Daily Mail reported that British taxpayers were funding repeat abortions to the tune of £1 million a week.

[LSN] 2308.10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

UNITED KINGDOM Two political parties pledge to "decriminalise" abortion if elected

SEÁN WRIGHT reports for LifeSiteNews - The Labour and Liberal Democrat parties have announced plans to "decriminalise" and radically deregulate abortion should they win December's General Election.

The Liberal Democrat Manifesto pledges to "decriminalise abortion across the UK whilst retaining the existing 24-week limit", and to "legislate for access to abortion facilities within Northern Ireland" (p 61). It contains 15 references to LGBT policies, including plans to teach about "LGBT+ relationships" in "Relationships and Sex Education" in schools (p 33).

The Labour manifesto pledges to "uphold women's reproductive rights and decriminalise abortions", and claims that "women in Northern Ireland should have access to abortions in Northern Ireland" (pp 48 and 83). It gives no indication of any time limits, and so could allow abortion up until birth. The Labour manifesto also includes 16 references to LGBT policies, and promises to "put LGBT+ equality at the heart of government" and to "provide sufficient funding for schools to deliver mandatory LGBT+ inclusive relationships and sex education" (p 69).

Abortion was illegal in Northern Ireland until it began to be introduced by the Conservative Government in July. Before this, women seeking abortions needed to travel to Great Britain.

Abortion is permitted in England under exceptions to earlier laws which make it a criminal offence. The Abortion Act 1967 allows abortions up to 24 weeks, providing it is carried out by a registered doctor, and that two doctors agree that the mother's physical or mental health is at risk, or that the child will be seriously disabled.

Decriminalizing abortion means repealing sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act (1861), and the Infant Life Preservation Act (1929). As UK abortion regulations presume that abortion is a criminal offence, this would make the Abortion Act exceptions irrelevant and deregulate the industry. It would allow abortion-on-demand, in any place, for any reason, and without medical supervision.

Right to Life UK spokesperson Catherine Robinson has called this "the most extreme abortion law in the world".

Both manifestos refer to reproductive rights, but "there is no right to abortion in any human rights convention anywhere in the world", says Michael Robinson, Director of Parliamentary Communications and Campaigns at the UK's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). What is more, he says, the concept contradicts "the right, recognised in international law, of the unborn child to be protected by law".

Robinson called decriminalization "the biggest expansion of abortion provision in over fifty years", which would "leave women at the mercy of the for-profit abortion industry". He believes that "online abortion pill businesses" - which allow abortions to take place without medical supervision - "are likely to proliferate under such a regime".

Right to Life UK has expressed fears that abortions could be carried out by nurses or indeed anyone, without a doctor present - despite the risks of abortion complications - and in mobile facilities or even schools. Decriminalization would also remove existing conscience protections for medical professionals and make it harder to convict people who have forced non-consensual abortions.

While the Liberal Democrats intend to retain the 24-week limit, they make even more radical pledges to "fund abortion clinics to provide their services free of charge to service users regardless of nationality or residency" (p61).

Robinson responded to this, saying: "Abortion providers already receive millions of pounds for performing taxpayer funded abortions, so it is quite incredible that the Liberal Democrats are promising to fund abortions on women who might not even be eligible for genuine healthcare in this country. If no regard is given to nationality or residency, what is to stop women getting a cheap flight to end their baby's life at the British taxpayer's expense?"

The Liberal Democrats further intend to impose what SPUC has called "draconian censorship zones" around clinics and intend to "make intimidation or harassment of abortion service users and staff outside clinics, or on common transport routes […] illegal" (p 61).

SPUC said that this will prevent people "offering help to women outside abortion clinics; women who might desperately want to keep their babies but feel they have no choice […] What is liberal or democratic about offering free abortions but denying these women any other help or choice?"

These manifesto pledges come as Labour Member of Parliament Diana Johnson recently tried to "hijack" debates regarding the Domestic Abuse Bill to propose a repeal of sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act. Her amendments would have deregulated abortion up to 28 weeks. Even pro-abortion MPs such as Maria Miller have said that "while there is a strong case for reform", a bill on domestic abuse "is not the place to do it".

The Conservative Party manifesto was released on Sunday, November 24, 2019, and contained no references to abortion or "reproductive rights," and two references to LGBT policies. However, in September 2019, the Conservative government of the UK also pledged to give £600 million of taxpayer funds to the UN for "family planning", which includes abortions.

The Brexit Party's "Contract with the People" contains no reference to abortion or LGBT policies. They are not standing in seats won by the Conservatives in 2017.

[LSN] 2308.11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

INTERNATIONAL The World Over with Raymond Arroyo

 

 

[EWTN] 2308.12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

INTERNATIONAL A few more headlines of the week

Australia: Convert to Islam threatens to behead cops: 'Allahu akbar, you're all dead'

Bangladesh: Muslims scream 'Allahu akbar' as they are sentenced to death for murdering 22 non-Muslims

Egypt: Muslim demands Christians not sit outside their house, stabs them when they refuse

International: Muslim organization wants international law criminalizing criticism of Islam

Netherlands: Two Muslims arrested for plotting jihad massacre with daggers, axes and car bombs

Nigeria: Muslims with machetes murder four Christians as they slept in their beds

Turkey: Directorate of religious affairs organises loudspeaker broadcasts of Quran 'Conquest' chapters: 'Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are ruthless to unbelievers . . .

USA: Muslim migrant gets 8 years for sending money to the ISIS to buy US military uniforms

USA: Muslima charged with conspiring with her family to kill her sister for converting to Christianity

USA: Muslim encourages 'inflicting harm' on non-Muslims with bombs and knives in NYC subways

USA: Muslim who wanted "establishment of Islamic law" plotted jihad massacres of "enemies of Islam"

Vatican: Pope cites French work of fiction to prove Christianity is as violent as Islam

 

[CF News] 2308.13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

INTERNATIONAL gloria.tv.news

 

[gloria.tv] 2308.14

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

INTERNATIONAL Michael Voris

Vade, propheta ad populum meum '. . flicking his whip at the Bishops, cutting them in tender places, throwing stones at Sacred Congregations, and discharging pea shooters at Cardinals' (Newman).

[CMTV] 2308.15

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

 

 

NEWMAN

 

The Conversion of St. John Henry Newman

'…Moreover, obtain the victory of Our Holy Mother Church over her enemies, the conversion of sinners, the return to the Catholic faith of heretics and especially England, for which you prayed so much …', from the traditional novena to Saint Paul of the Cross for his feast day, April 28th, according to the old calendar, in Filotea ossia l'anno santificato (book of prayers and meditation, viz. the year sanctified, pg 313, Rome, 1923)

ALBERTO CAROSA writes for The Remnant ~ Strangely enough, as was the case with his beatification on September 19th, 2010, also on the occasion of his canonization on October 13th, 2019, as far as one could see, the fascinating background history leading to the conversion of St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was almost ignored by the overwhelming majority of the main mainstream secular and non-secular printed and electronic media. Yet, as one can reasonably argue, his conversion did not come out of the blue, but can be regarded the end result of a century old process dating at least as far back as 1694, the year when Saint Paul of the Cross (1694-1775), founder of the Passionists, was born in Ovada, a town in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont. But what does Saint Paul of the Cross have to do with Saint John Henry Newnan? Very briefly, everything.

In 1845 John Henry Newman was received into the Catholic Church by a Passionist father, Blessed Domenico Barberi (1792-1849), also known as Domenico della Madre di Dio (Dominic of the Mother of God), who was precisely a spiritual son of Saint Paul, who had mandated him to establish a Passionist mission in England. Incidentally, whether by coincidence or design, Blessed Newman canonisation has taken place in October 2019, which was proclaimed Extraordinary Missionary Month to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV's Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud (That Momentous) in order to foster greater awareness of 'missio ad gentes' (mission to all peoples).

 

 

Again, but why a mission in England? What most people may be not aware of is that for mysterious reasons, England's return to the Catholic fold became one of Saint Paul's main apostolic concerns, up to the point that he made this a specific purpose of his apostolate. As recounted in his biography by Passionist father Luigi-Teresa di Gesù Agonizzante (S. Paolo della Croce, Rome, 1952), during his first trip to Rome in 1721 he prayed in front of the miraculous image of Our Lady Salus populi romani in the basilica of Saint Mary Major, vowing to propagate the devotion to the passion of Our Lord around the world (pg 69). The central position of England in this mission, as revealed in the biography (pgs 248-249), he himself was not able to explain in human terms, as if a mysterious force was pushing him in this direction. Since it was not his will to do so, therefore it was certainly mandated by God. He prayed for the conversion of England for over fifty years, first and foremost in every morning mass. One day, during one of these masses, he was reported as having had a half an hour vision of England in the future, while another day at the end of his mass he exclaimed: 'Oh. what did I see this morning! My sons, the Passionists, in England!', bursting into tears of consolation. As a matter of fact, the saint's dream for the establishment of a Passionist mission started to come true when the Passionist father Blessed Domenico Barberi landed in England in 1841.

Thus, if Pope Francis was able to canonize John Henry Newman we must be grateful to Saint Paul because if he was indirectly responsible for his conversion, it was Blessed Domenico Barberi who was directly responsible for it. In fact, as reported in his biography by the Passionist father Federico dell'Addolorata (Il Beato Domenico della Madre di Dio, Isola del Liri, 1963), he played a major role in Newman's conversion (pg 398) and it was him who formally received the then leading Anglican priest and intellectual into the Catholic Church on October 9th, 1845 (pgs 383-385).

'The significance of Dominic Barberi to John Henry Newman cannot be overestimated', the English Provincial Fr John Kearns was quoted as saying in Independent Catholic News online (October 15th, 2019). 'Even before reaching England Bl Dominic maintained a significant, supportive correspondence with the Oxford Movement and in this way became known to, and appreciated by, the new Saint'. Newman is on record for having said that 'he still needed to see something from the Catholic Church which he could not find within his own tradition, that is, someone who would go poor and barefoot amongst the most neglected members of society. In Dominic this he saw, and so it was not by accident that John Henry asked the Passionist to receive him into the Roman Catholic Church. Newman said that there was something special about Dominic, so much so that even looking at him made him aware of the presence of God' (cit.)

As quoted by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith in Catholic Herald (28 August, 2017), this is what Newman himself had to say about the Italian Passionist:

'Father Dominic was a marvellous missioner and a preacher filled with zeal. He had a great part in my own conversion and in that of others. His very look had about it something holy. When his form came within sight, I was moved to the depths in the strangest way. The gaiety and affability of his manner in the midst of all his sanctity was in itself a holy sermon. No wonder that I became his convert and his penitent. He had a great love for England'.

Albeit known for his kindness and his sense of humour, Fr. Lucie Smith goes on:

'It was zeal that was his chief characteristic, which drew souls to God. He actually believed with all his heart what he wanted other people to come to believe as well, and his converts knew it. That was why there were so many of them'.

As a matter of fact, Blessed Barberi had to pay a high price for the fruits of his apostolate during his years in England, where he established three churches and several chapels, preached innumerable missions and received hundreds of converts. At the heart of his action were very simple secrets: tireless prayer and harsh penance. After all this is the basic recipe for a successful apostolate, there are no shortcuts. Suffice thinking of Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney (1786 - 1859), commonly known in English as Saint John Vianney and often referred to as the 'Curé d'Ars' (the parish priest of Ars), who started his mission in Ars with his local parish church totally empty, a bitter consequence of the religious crisis triggered by the French revolution. But by his incessant prayer and penance, slowly but surely the church began to fill up, with the end result of increasingly interminable hours spent at the confessional for penitents coming from around France and beyond.

In much the same way, the penance and ensuing sufferance endured by Blessed Barberi were at the base of his success, in terms of increased numbers of faithful and converts in his initial community in Aston and Stone. This penance was manifold, including the frequent verbal and physical hostility of ordinary people, protestant ministers and even local Catholics, whose main fear was that these 'intruders' might have sparked a new spate of persecutions. To the youths who threw stones and mud to him while he was walking along in his Passionist habit, he reacted by kissing each stone that hit him and putting it in his pocket. Two of them were so edified that subsequently decided to become Catholic. And here, incidentally, one cannot but think at the similar episode during the 'Breccia di Porta Pia', viz. the capture of Rome on September 20th, 1870, when the Piedmontese-led Italian army ended the existence of the Papal States under the Holy See after over a millennium: one of the officers leading the charge on the eternal city subsequently repented and became a priest.

But the sufferings of Blessed Barberi prior to Newman's conversion is just one of the sides of the medal, the second being the sufferings endured by Newman himself after his conversion. 'One of the most important aspects of his life is the long and difficult journey he made into the fullness of faith in the Catholic Church', the Bishop of Westminster and head of the English bishops' conference, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, was quoted as saying in a September 29 pastoral letter (Cf. Catholic News Agency, September 30, 2019). It cost him dearly. Yet it is an essential part of his witness'.

His words were echoed on October 14, 2019, on the occasion of a Mass of Thanksgiving for Newman's canonization, celebrated at the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome by the British Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, Msgr. Robert Byrne. In fact, as reported in Catholic Herald (October 15th, 2019):

'Newman's 1845 conversion to the Catholic faith was controversial in England, and resulted in the loss of many friends, including his own sister, who never spoke to him again'.

But to make up for it, 'he did much to promote the Christian cause in bringing the Congregation of the Oratory to England, founding a University in Ireland and a school in Edgbaston' Msgr. Byrne was quoted as saying during the Mass (cit.). 'He worked tirelessly as a Parish Priest and had a fatherly care for his Oratorian community. He guided countless people with letters of spiritual direction and counsel. He gave light to those who were searching for the truth and continues to do so through his published works of theology, philosophy, sermons and prayers'.

In other words, the import and impact of his legacy was 'immense', as His Royal Highness himself, the Prince of Wales, acknowledged in his article in honour of the newly-proclaimed saint in Osservatore Romano of October 12th, 2019. As immense is probably the number of those, especially English-speaking people, who embraced the Catholic faith thanks to this lasting legacy, so much so that many of them were reported to have been in attendance of his canonization (see Newman converts' come home to Rome for canonization', Catholic News Agency, October 13th, 2019).

In an interview in ZENIT (23 September 2010) Joseph Pearce, a British scholar and a Catholic convert who has published numerous books on the great Christian intellectuals, including Newman, was quoted as saying that:

'The number of converts who owe their conversion, under grace, to Newman, at least in part, are too numerous to mention. As such, a few will suffice to illustrate the point'.

Among others, he mentioned 'Gerard Manley Hopkins, arguably the finest poet of the Victorian era, (who) was received into the Church by Newman in 1866'; Oscar 'Wilde's ultimate deathbed conversion … (that) was due in part to the beguiling presence of Newman's enduring influence'; 'Hilaire Belloc and J.R.R. Tolkien (who) both studied at the Birmingham Oratory School, which had been established by Newman … Newman's role in their Christian formation contributed to the faithful fortitude that animated their lives as Catholic writers of the utmost importance'; others like 'Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark could be mentioned among the many others, documented in my book 'Literary Converts? (Ignatius Press), who owed their conversion, at least in part, to Newman's benign influence'. Lastly, 'I must mention that Newman's beautiful and profound 'Apologia pro Vita Sua' played a significant role in my own path to conversion'.

The above interview took place at the time of Benedict XVI visit to the UK, where he beatified Newman in Birmingham on September 19th, 2010. This visit, almost forgotten by now, turned into an exceptional success that stunned both supporters and detractors. 'During the four days of engagements, millions of people in England and Scotland truly opened their hearts to the Pope and his message of faith and reason amid the quagmire of a decaying culture', noted Pearce in his interview (cit.). 'Newman is rightly considered to be the father of the Catholic revival and the seismic power of his conversion continues to reverberate throughout the English-speaking world'

It's no exaggeration to claim that Blessed Father Barberi with his Passionist confreres, and before them Saint Paul of the Cross himself--who as already stated prayed for the conversion of England for fifty years leaving this commitment as a spiritual legacy to his congregation--must also be credited for the above overwhelming success. In fact, Blessed Father Barberi did not limit to accept all the trials inevitably associated to his apostolate, but 'he made a vow to renounce all material and spiritual consolation and offered himself to the Lord for the conversion of England' (cf. Independent Catholic News online, cit.), thus literally consuming his life for this purpose on the English soil. No surprise then if his grave in Sutton, St Helens, has become a place of pilgrimage. This is also the shrine of the Passionist Servants of God, Fr Ignatius Spencer (another of Barberi's converts and ancestor of Princess Diana) and Mother Elizabeth Prout, the founder of the feminine Passionist branch in England. Interestingly, her spiritual trajectory was a bit similar to Newman's: in her early twenties she converted to Catholicism under the influence of Father Barberi, as well as another Passionist, Father Gaudentius Rossi, but her conversion was initially met with great hostility by her parents, both of whom however subsequently converted to Catholicism.

[Remnant] 2308.16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

 

BOOKS

 

Cardinal Sarah rebukes the clergy ~ Without prayer, your works are in vain

The Day Is Now Far Spent. Cardinal Robert Sarah with Nicolas Diat, Ignatius Press, 385 pages, $16.96 paperback, $12.97 e-book

JONATHAN COE writes for OnePeterFive ~ The new book by Cardinal Robert Sarah with Nicholas Diat, The Day Is Now Far Spent, brims with wisdom and understanding, especially concerning the present crisis and scandal in the Church. Worth the purchase price is Sarah's strong rebuke, especially to priests and prelates, for neglecting prayer and the sanctification and renewal that come with spending time in the presence of God:

"Without union with God, every attempt to strengthen the Church and the faith will be in vain. Without prayer, we will be clanging cymbals. We will sink to the level of media hypesters who make a lot of noise and produce nothing but wind. Prayer must become our innermost respiration. It brings us face to face with God. Do we have some other purpose?"

This repeated theme in his book reminds me of listening to Catholic radio not long after I had been received into the Church. A well known priest lamented that among the clergy, many spiritual obituaries begin with the words "Father stopped praying."

I've seen a similar pattern among the laity over the years, where a threefold pattern emerges. First, they stop praying, and because their lives are no longer infused with the grace that comes from prayer, they become offended at God when this vale of tears visits them with significant affliction. They expected life to be "X," and it turned out to be "Y."

Phase 3 is when they return to their former way of life - i.e., the world - like the disciples who were offended by Christ's teaching on his flesh and blood (Jn. 6:66).

Cardinal Sarah, the prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, exhorts the clergy to humble themselves, and we know that humility precedes prayer. It's no coincidence that Moses, the humblest man on the face of the Earth (Num. 12:3), had a unique relationship with God in that "the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Ex. 33:11).

The humble soul has a radical dependence on God that drives men to their knees. They resonate with Christ's words: "… apart from me, you can do nothing" (Jn. 15:5b).

Sarah understands that it is in the presence of God that much sanctification occurs. He cites the example of the calling of Isaiah (Is. 6:1-6). In the year king Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord and his glory filled the temple. Out of this encounter, the prophet became acutely aware of his own sinfulness: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" The first pope had a similar experience in the story of the great catch of fish: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Lk. 5:8).

But just as the presence of God is a place where our sins are revealed, it is also a place where sanctification can happen. With Isaiah, one of the seraphs flew to him with a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs and touched his mouth with it and said, "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." That coal is a type of Christ.

Peter would experience his own deep sanctification after the Resurrection in the presence of the Lord. While in the presence of God, today's orthodox Catholic can, in the light of his own frailties and sin, go to the throne of grace and find help and mercy in a time of need (Heb. 4:16).

This process isn't as mystical and ethereal as some would think. For example, it's common for practicing Catholics to go through phases where they feel tight-fisted with their time, talent, and treasure. Money is tight, time is constrained, and we aren't in the mood to give our gifts for the benefit of others. But then in our morning devotional time, we read the story of "The Widow's Mite" in the Gospel reading for the day.

Sarah laments that many prelates and priests have neglected prayer and sanctification and have turned their ministry into an NGO with religious vestments: "I deplore the fact that a good many bishops and priests neglect their essential mission, which is their own sanctification and the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus, in order to get involved with sociopolitical issues like the environment, migrants, or the homeless."

Sarah says these are worthy issues to discuss, but if the clergy "neglect evangelization and their own sanctification, their advocacy is in vain." The Church can become a large social justice agency that secondarily, as a bonus, also has religious services.

With great interest I read Cardinal Sarah's allusion to the conversation between the Roman prefect Rusticus and the Christian Hierax, one of the early martyrs. Rusticus asked him, "Where are your parents?" Hierax replied: "Our true father is Christ, and our mother: faith in him."

When prelates and priests neglect prayer and the presence of God, they are like fatherless children. The catastrophic consequences of fatherless families are well documented: higher rates of poverty, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, lower educational achievement, poorer physical and emotional health, earlier pre-marital sexual activity, and alarming rates of illegitimacy.

Denzel Washington said: "If the father is not in the home, the boy will find a father in the streets. … If the streets raise you, then the judge becomes your mother and prison becomes your home."

If our clergy are fatherless, then this accounts for a significant amount of the ecclesial malfeasance in the Church: homosexual activity and predation, cover-ups, pay-offs, financial impropriety in general, embezzlement, and the whole laundry list of the seven deadly sins.

When we grow up in the presence of a good father, he models hard work, responsibility, integrity, and sanctity for us. Jesus did what He saw the Father do, and we should imitate Christ, but we cannot do that with much success if we are not in His presence.

In calling the clergy to sanctification and renewal through prayer, Sarah puts a strong emphasis on adoration. He exhorts worshipers to have seasons of prayer where "they ask for nothing." He knows that the believer must first know the love of God before he can return that love with adoration. "We love because he first loved us" (1 Jn. 4:19). The good cardinal writes: "Man remains prostrate, literally crushed by the immense love God has for him. To adore is to let oneself be burned by the divine love."

We become like what we adore. You see this with young actors and actresses. If they idolized Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep growing up, there's often something in their demeanor, body language, or voice that resembles their idols.

Older orthodox Catholics may ask, "Where are the Fulton J. Sheens of today?" The answer is itself a question: "Where are the priests and prelates willing to spend one hour a day before the Blessed Sacrament as Sheen did?"

Instead, as Sarah avers, we see many in the clergy dancing around different "golden calves" related to Aquinas's four substitutes for God: wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. This is because, like Aaron, they are not in the presence of God and are instead listening to their own voice (subjectivism) and the voice of the people (the Zeitgeist).

Without a divine perspective, only idolatry can emerge (e.g., the Amazon Synod) and, with it, death. Ancient Hebrew wisdom tells us, "There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death" (Prov. 14:12). We become our own gods, the arbiters of truth and morality. The teaching of the Magisterium is jettisoned, and "every man does what is right in his own eyes" (Judg. 21:25).

Though we know that the clergy will receive their own particular judgment before Christ (1 Cor. 3:1-15), everything that Cardinal Sarah says about sanctification and renewal through prayer in his new book also applies to the laity. We are not off the hook.

If we are to criticize priests and prelates, then we must "take the log out of [our] own eye, and then [we] will see clearly to take the speck out of [our] brother's eye" (Mt. 7:5). We can then begin to fulfill Bishop Sheen's prophecy that the laity will save the Church, and the mission he described will be attainable: "to see that the priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and the religious act like religious."

[1P5] 2308.17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

 

 

COMMENT FROM

THE INTERNET

 

Steve Skojec on Rule for Retrogrades 

STEVE SKOJEC writes for OnePeterFive ~ Many of you are followers of Dr. Taylor Marshall's podcast series on YouTube, and are familiar with Tim Gordon, who co-hosted with Marshall for the first year of the show.

What all of you may not know is that Tim and his brother Dave (who have both written articles for 1P5 - see here and here) along with their friend Chris Plance, who teaches high school theology, have started a new show called Rules For Retrogrades.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu3jDGYr-BHurx6mNFGto_A

They have been absolutely cranking out content, and are already 13 episodes into their new show.

I had the honour of being their most recent guest.

I want to share the show with you here because I think it was a solid discussion in which we covered a lot of important ground, from Twitter battles to uniting the clans to Pachamama, the Death Penalty, the migration of folks to the TLM, and the Zanchetta coverup.

But I also want to say that I genuinely enjoyed having this conversation with these guys. It's great to talk through the issues in the Church with a group of red-blooded, knowledgeable men who aren't afraid to tackle tough issues decisively but keep a sense of humor about everything that's going on.

We need more of this balance, because it keeps things in perspective, and I think it's hugely helpful in getting us through this mess. I have a personal mantra of 'laughing through the apocalypse' because if you're not careful, staying too dialed into the crisis will drive you mad.

I hope you enjoy this show as much as I enjoyed making it.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

<iframe width='644' height='362' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/F7yAoCKo9BI' frameborder='0' allow='accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture' allowfullscreen></iframe>

[1P5] 2308.18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

The Amazon Synod and the Church as laughingstock

MAUREEN MULLARKEY writes for OnePeterFive ~ The synod is done. But the mutant thing lives on in its final document, 'Amazonia: New Ways for the Church and for a Holistic Ecology.' Prudence and discretion, rationality itself, are baffled by its opening hysteria.

'The Amazon rainforest … is in an unbridled race to death. It requires radical changes with great urgency, a new direction that can save it. It is scientifically proven that the disappearance of the Amazonian biome will have a catastrophic impact for the whole planet'!

In all its turbulent history, the Church has never made a laughingstock of itself. Not until now. Scientifically proven? Our bishops have lost the ability to distinguish between contention and settled fact. They concentrate their indignant energies on facile borrowings from the climate change script, conventional academic leftism (e.g., multiple references to 'extractivism,' the 'technocratic paradigm,' the argot of victimology), and what Pascal Bruckner called 'the racism of the anti-racists.'

When they are not sermonizing, the bishops descend into guidance counseling: 'The Church's job is to accompany them [young people] to deal with any situation that destroys their identity or damages their self-esteem.' Emphasis on the 'rights of the young' serves to spotlight the cruel silence of the Vatican on - to take one example - China's tyrannical exclusion of anyone under 18 years of age from entering a church. In reality, the Vatican is no more interested in the young of the Amazon than they are in the Chinese. What matters is the utility of the one, and the non-utility of the other, in positioning the Vatican as a bureau within the United Nations.

The prose alone is an embarrassment. It is easy to imagine the document having been written by undergraduate journalism majors over a beer with middlebrow social justice warriors:

'We note that human intervention has lost its 'friendly' character, to assume a voracious and predatory attitude that tends to squeeze reality until the exhaustion of all available natural resources. … Together with the Amazonian peoples, we request that governments stop considering the Amazon as an inexhaustible pantry'.

Chapter One, 'Amazon: From Listening to Integral Conversion,' takes the cue for its title from Hillary Clinton, who made listening tours famous: 'Listening to the Amazon, in the spirit of a disciple and in the light of the Word of God and of Tradition, leads us to a profound conversion of our plans and structures to Christ and his Gospel.' Throwing itself at the feet of climate-change dogmatism and pop-culture psychosis, the Church contorts itself to what it has heard.

Note the direction conversion takes. The synod reverses two millennia of evangelization by urging us to convert ourselves to 'the voice and song of the Amazon.' Free-range bishops have discerned a proto-Gospel in the ancient ways of indigenous peoples. From the rainforest come extra-biblical insights that beckon Western man back to the Pleistocene for the salvation of his venal colonizing soul.

Overall, the text testifies to a morally and intellectually exhausted Vatican, one that mocks itself with manic complicity between religious references and a secular ideology with a tainted history. Its ideological core germinated outside the Church and in contradiction to it.

Turgid with religiosity, there is little recognizably Christian about the final document unless you accept fashionable loathing for Western identity as a central dogma of the Church. Michael Pakaluk

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/11/06/the-amazon-synods-self-subverting-vision/

is one of the few who grasped the document's failures on the ground of its animus toward Western civilization: 'The contempt it shows for the West and, indeed, for the existing Church as inserted in Christendom compels the inference that it means ultimately to replace the one with the other.' The 'other' refers to a sanitized version of traditional indigenous culture.

The single most damning aspect of the synod was inadvertently divulged by Bishop Erwin Kräutler, friend of Pope Francis and coauthor of the instrumentum laboris. Ten years ago, he admitted knowledge of the continuing practice of infanticide among various indigenous tribes. He remains opposed to prosecuting it as a crime. Maike Hickson writes in LifeSiteNews: 'Kräutler explicitly rejects the idea that the state could prosecute those who commit such crimes. He is, rather, in favor of 'convincing the people, with pastoral patience, that the culturally prescribed death of a child is anachronistic and undercuts their own strategy of life.'

'We have always fought for the physical and cultural survival of the Indians,' he continues, 'and we do so on the foundation of the Gospels, and not with help of the gospel of fundamentalism.'

'Thus, he rejects ideas of penalizing infanticide, because 'here, in the name of human rights and under the pretext of suppressing infanticide, a broad ethnocide, a cultural murder, is being installed.'

Note the wording. Infanticide is 'anachronistic' and not optimal for a 'strategy of life' - whatever that means. But unlike murder, it appears not to violate divine command. Any culturally insensitive suggestion to the contrary can be dismissed as 'fundamentalism.' In that one statement, Kräutler exposes the covert truth that 'a Church with an Amazon face' entails more than an indigenous liturgy. It establishes a separate moral order as well.

In Kräutler's view, suffocating a newborn - strangling him, or bashing his skull against a tree or a rock - is a lamentable folkway. This, while in the wider Church, even non-abortive contraception has been deemed an intrinsic evil. The disjunction will not be lost on Catholic consciences in the developed world where the Church is already in decline.

[1P5] 2308.19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Award-winning photographer becomes a Catholic religious

 

 

[LSN] 2308.20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

How Islam plans to conquer the West without using weapons

MARIO ALEXIS PORTELLA writes for the American Thinker - Many in the West today are grappling with how Islam has been able to get a foothold in our society. We know of Islamists' present-day means to get government officials to capitulate to their whims through lobbying and the mainstream media, presenting themselves as victims of the same Western society that has helped them. But how have they been able to acquire such political leverage? Apparently, there has been a willful lack of circumspection or foresightedness.

Back in the 1970s, the late archbishop Marcel Lefebvre said:

'As long as Muslims are an insignificant minority in a Christian country, they can live on friendly terms, because they accept the laws and customs of the country that receives them. But as soon as they become numerous and organize, they become aggressive and try to impose their laws, which are hostile to [Western] civilization'.

Protagonists such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar - both supposed allies of the United States and the European Union - have been able to forge or manipulate situations involving politicians and the mainstream media directing attention to military conflicts in the Middle East, such as Syria and Afghanistan, or 'exclusively' focusing on the Iranian regime as the principal source of terrorism. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali explained, because of the West's obsession with terror, we have become blind to the broader threat of the dawa (Islamic proselytizing), the ideology behind the terror attacks - and what drives numerous Muslims to Islamize us. In other words, by leading us to believe that the threat of Islam is only in distant lands, Islamists have been able to conceal their ultimate weapons of Islamization: exploitation of democracy and pluralism, immigration, and the multiplication of progeny.

Since its foundation, Islam has always been transnational as it spread across the world, when the nation-state and national identity were at best inchoate and more often non-existent. This has impelled many Muslims, regardless of their views of democracy, to utilize the democratic instruments of pluralism and freedom of expression to insert themselves into society with the goal of propagating Islam at the expense of others. The most salient example has been the election of Ilhan Omar to the House of Representatives. Notwithstanding marrying her own brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, to get him a green card to the U.S., even before being sworn into Congress on a Quran, she successfully demanded that Congress reverse a 181-year ban on the wearing of any headgear on the floor of Congress. In her case, she was able to wear the hijab, a piece of religious attire, when lawmakers cannot even display a cross.

Like a Trojan horse, Islamists have been able to infiltrate, for example, the Western field of education, creating an environment of receptivity and understanding for the next generation of Americans to accept their sharia-based lifestyle. Saudi money has financed institutions alongside multitudes of other Islamic organizations across the world and within the United States. (Eighty percent of 1,200 mosques operating in the United States were built after 2003.) Qatar's equal vision for America is being peddled through our children's classrooms, targeting a pliable population with a long shelf life.

This has reciprocally occurred with the assistance of terror-linked NGOs, such as the Council for American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America, which have bought off Washington influencers and think-tanks to have them capitulate to Islamic 'needs' in our society.

Reading the collapse of Western demographics, Islamists see our century as the time to make their move if they are going to have a realistic opportunity to Islamize the West. While a key strategy has been immigration, a more effective weapon, as already indicated, has been the multiplication of progeny in opposition to the demographic collapse. As of 2017, there are about 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, according to the Pew Research Center - nearly one fourth of the world's population - making Islam the world's second largest religion after Christianity. Within the second half of this century, Muslims are expected to become the world's largest religious group. The Pew Research Center estimates that by 2070, Islam will overtake Christianity, due to a faster birth rate (2.7 children per family vs. 2.2 for Christian families).

According to some experts, a reason for the latter is that Millennials are not having or postponing having children because of financial strains. Yet those with a family income of less than $10,000 had a birth rate of almost 50 percent higher than for those with family incomes of $200,000 or higher. As Jeremy Carl, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, explains, '[t]he lack of commitment of middle-class and wealthy Americans to having and parenting their own children goes hand in hand with our elite's casual approach to other issues - in particular, mass immigration.' The understanding that we can simply import foreigners to make up for the child-rearing job we have refused to do ourselves completely ignores the cultural, civic, and economic impacts of immigration - as well as the impacts to ourselves when we bring in foreign adults as a substitute for raising our own children. In any case, in 1970, there were one hundred thousand Muslims in America; today, there are nearly four million.

The fact that the most popular name for babies born in both Belgium and Berlin last year was Muhammad is reflective of what former Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gaddafi stated in 2006:

'We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe - without swords, without guns, without conquest - will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades'.

Chilling words, but this had been foreseen already by Algerian then-president Houari Boumendienne. In an address to the United Nations, he stated:

'One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory'.

Perhaps this is why President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an told his fellow Muslim Turks who are already living in Europe: 'Have not just three, but five children.' Apart from the observance of polygamous marriages, the fact that Muslims for the most part do not practice abortion or artificial contraception and the increase of the child rate per family in comparison to the low birth rate in the West mean that Muslims are geared to take over. At this rate, unless Western society finally wakes up, it may be just a matter of a few generations before this happens.

 

[Published by LifeSiteNews with permission from the American Thinker].

[AT] 2308.21

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Why Stay Catholic?

WITH so many crazy things happening in the Church — from idolatry to religious indifferentism to seemingly constant changes to established teaching — Dr. Michael Sirilla, professor of Systematic and Dogmatic Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville discusses with Steve Skojec what the faithful should think — and why they should stay Catholic.

 

 

For the following related links go here

The Auspicious Meeting of Pachamama and Gaia (Boff/Pressenza)
Italian bishops’ mission org publishes ‘prayer to Pachamama’ in official booklet (Lifesite)
Bishop Schneider Obtains Entirely Unhelpful Peronist Response From Francis on “Diversity of Religions” (1P5)
Bp. Schneider: Pope’s Revised ‘Diversity of Religions’ Take ‘Remains Insufficient’ (1P5)
Pope asks universities to disseminate his claim ‘diversity of religions’ is ‘willed by God’ (LifeSite)
Pope praises document about God willing diversity of religions in ‘interreligious dialogue’ speech (LifeSite)
The Greatest Commandment: Did a Council and Two Popes Teach Error? (1P5)
Islamic Converts Ask Pope in Open Letter To Change His Teaching on Islam (1P5)
Pope Francis Is Wrong about the Death Penalty. Here’s Why. (1P5)
On the Modes of Exercise of the Magisterium – Part I (1P5)
On the Modes of Exercise of the Magisterium – Part II: Evaluating Amoris Laetitia (1P5)
Donum Vertitatis (Vatican)
Pope Francis and Schism (The Catholic Thing)
We’re Going to Keep Talking About Schism! Wherein Steve Rants. (1P5)

[1P5] 2308.SA1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Why chant will never die, but will rise again as Church recovers sacredness of her worship

DR PETER KWASNIEWSKI writes for LifeSiteNews ~ Few documents have had so lasting an impact on the cultivation of sacred music as did Pius X's motu proprio Tra le Sollecitudini, promulgated on November 22, 1903, the Feast of St. Cecilia, patroness of musicians.

The pope's purpose in writing this motu proprio was to set in motion a general reform of sacred music in the life of the Church. His notion of reform was never to jettison the past and usher in novelties (as would appear to be the notion entertained by many Catholics over the last fifty years), but rather to return resolutely to the wellsprings of Tradition and to let the rushing flow of that clean water clear away the debris that had gathered in decadent periods.

By decadent, Pius X did not have in mind the Middle Ages, the glorious era of Christendom, which post-war liturgists generally regarded as a falling away from the homely simplicity of early Christians. As Pius XII was to state 44 years later in Mediator Dei, the Holy Spirit stirs up liturgical developments in each age as further ways to sanctify the people of God. These developments stand in a continuous line, so that what comes about in a later century builds upon and elaborates what is already present in nucleo. For example, the switch from a kind of Communion in the hand in ancient times - not the way it is practiced today, as Bishop Schneider carefully shows in Dominus Est and Christus Vincit - to Communion on the tongue was an organic development that flowed out of the very reverence and adoration toward the Eucharist that had already been present and was growing under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Corruptions are also possible, when a new feature or practice contradicts the letter or spirit of what is already in place. Thus, to take up the same example, the reintroduction of Communion in the hand was a clear corruption, not a development or a restoration. More to the point, the introduction of ornately operatic styles of music into the Mass during the classical and romantic periods was a corruption because it turned the liturgy into a concert and detracted from its otherworldly orientation. This was the view of St. Pius X: though doubtless an admirer of the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Italian composers on its own terms, he judged their style poorly suited to the temple of God and the holy mysteries enacted therein. As Tra le Sollecitudini explains, God had already generously provided an intensely contemplative music for the liturgy of the Roman Rite - namely, Gregorian chant, a music that grew up organically with this rite, has always adorned it, and sets the tone of all sacred music fit for use in the temple of God.

Pius X's teaching decisively shaped the subsequent Magisterium, from his successors Pius XI and Pius XII through the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium down to Benedict XVI's apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. In all of these documents we find an unqualified recognition of the primacy of Gregorian chant for the Roman rite, even though there is also a welcoming of musical compositions in other styles, as long as they harmonize with the liturgical action - which, unfortunately, cannot be said to be true for most of what passes for 'church music' nowadays, as I have discussed in other articles here and elsewhere.

The noble vision of Pius X is not unrealistic or unachievable. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century and well into the 1960s, schools all over the world were teaching children to sing chant, priests chanted the High Mass (even if Low Mass was more popular), and religious communities chanted their Divine Office. Chant was such a prominent marker of Catholicism that Hollywood could instantly create 'Catholic atmosphere' with a few seconds of chant. It may come as a surprise to know that Thomas Merton, who became so controversial later for his political involvement and interreligious activities, was staunchly opposed to the abandonment of Latin and chant. As he wrote in 1964 to Dom Ignace Gillet, abbot general of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance:

'This is what I think about the Latin and the chant: they are masterpieces, which offer us an irreplaceable monastic and Christian experience. They have a force, an energy, a depth without equal. All the proposed English offices are very much impoverished in comparison - besides, it is not at all impossible to make such things [Latin and chant] understood and appreciated. Generally I succeed quite well in this, in the novitiate, with some exceptions, naturally, who did not understand well. But I must add something more serious. As you know, I have many friends in the world who are artists, poets, authors, editors, etc. Now they are well able to appreciate our chant and even our Latin. But they are all, without exception, scandalized and grieved when I tell them that probably this Office, this Mass will no longer be here in ten years. And that is the worst. The monks cannot understand this treasure they possess, and they throw it out to look for something else, when secular people, who for the most part are not even Christians, are able to love this incomparable art'.

The difficulty rather came from a false notion of 'updating' or modernization - the view, which grew slowly in influence and finally dominated the liturgical reform and its implementation, that older prayer forms and modes of art are foreign to modern people, alienating, excessively demanding, a temptation to elitism and escapism. But such a negative judgment does not appear to have been common among most Catholics, who did not ask for their cultural heritage to be taken away from them, nor is it the experience of Catholics today who rediscover these things and appreciate their beauty and appropriateness, like the thoughtful 'secular people' Merton talks about.

Life reminds us again and again of the truth of Chesterton's quip: 'The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.' If the great man will permit me to adapt his statement: The Gregorian ideal for liturgical music has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left aside. Yet even here, one may question just how difficult it is. Yes, the Propers (changing chants for particular Sundays or feasts) are quite challenging and require a trained schola. But the Ordinary of the Mass - the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei - and the common responses can be and often are sung with gusto by everyone, including little children who un-selfconsciously deliver what they have received by ear. In working as a choir director with youth for 30 years, and as one who has taught chant or worked with those who have taught chant to every category of people, I know the reality: it has been found unwanted, and therefore left untried. Whenever it is wanted, it flourishes to the benefit of all.

Gregorian chant has never been more available for those who seek it. All the old liturgical books of chant have been republished; all the Solesmes books for the Ordinary Form are still in print; new resources like The Parish Book of Chant are plentiful; most chants can be listened to online or printed off at one click; free tutorials can guide self-study, and well attended workshops happen year in, year out. This great treasure of liturgical music will not go away; it will rise again from the ashes, as the Church recovers the sacredness of her worship.

Although there are hopeful signs that Catholic liturgical music, after decades of lucrative secularization and horizontal banality, is beginning to experience a true renewal in continuity with the Church's tradition, the way the music is done at most parishes indicates that we are still far from a universal implementation of the sound principles of St. Pius X. The primary characteristic of modernity, according to many scholars, is its 'deep pluralism,' and that mentality seems to obtain among Catholics in their liturgical worship: 'all we like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way.' May the combined prayers of St. Cecilia and St. Pius X move us to venerate once again 'the musical icon of Roman Catholicism' (Joseph Swain), for the glory of God and the sanctification of souls.

[LSN] 2308.22

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Our Dead: a legion of souls sustaining us in the battle

ROBERTO de MATTEI writes for Corrispondenza Romana / Rorate Caeli ~ As the years go by, the number of those we have known and who have left this earthly life before us increases. What will their eternal destiny be? Only God knows the ultimate destiny of souls, but it is sure that a great number of those who died in a state of grace suffer the pains of Purgatory, in anticipation of the definitive glory of Heaven. These souls are part of the Church Suffering which, together with the Church Militant and Triumphant, form the one Church of Christ. Indeed, as St. Augustine says, “Tota enim in Christo Ecclesia unum corpus est” (Enarr. In Ps, 148, PL, 51, 423): “the entire Church forms one body in Christ”.

The Mystical Body of Christ is the foundation of the Communion of Saints comprised of three churches: The Militant, The Suffering and The Triumphant, formed respectively by those fighting on earth, those being purified in Purgatory and those triumphant in Heaven. This Civitas Dei battles against the civitas diabuli, which has no purgatory, but is formed only of the damned and those militant on earth in the armies of Satan against the armies of Christ.

The Church then, together alongside the Angels and Saints of Heaven, deploys a legion of Holy Souls in Purgatory, who can exercise a decisive role in this battle. They cannot do anything for themselves, yet they can do a lot for us, through their intercessory prayer.

St Augustine explains how the departed don’t know about human things the instant they occur, but can know about present, past and future events through Divine revelation or through the Angels or the souls that join them after leaving this world. The departed thus take part in earthly events, not by their nature, but by virtue of Divine power. God is the means through which we can reach the departed and through which they can reach us (Mons. Antonio Piolanti, Il mistero della comunione dei santi, (The Mystery of the Communion of Saints), Desclée, Roma 1957, pp. 317-318).

St Gregory the Great, to whom we owe the providential use of “the Gregorian Masses” recounts in his Dialogues, visions and episodes wherein the souls of the departed ask for suffrage and make us understand that it is by these means they are freed from their pains. St. Thomas, in 14 articles of question 71° in the Supplement to the Summa Theologica, explores everything on the question of suffrage. After proving their existence by means of Holy Scripture, the Fathers, the customs of the Church and arguments of reason, he explains that among those who have passed into eternity, only the suffering souls can be helped by our suffrage. These souls, in fact, not having yet reached their final end, are in a certain sense, still in a state midway. The living can help them ‘serve their time’ and hence pay their debts to Divine justice. The Holy Mass, almsgiving, prayers and indulgences are the practical means by which we sustain these suffering souls.

The Souls in Purgatory are souls confirmed in grace, sure of their eternal salvation, who suffer, but accept their suffering with joy. “The soul suffers as the saints suffer on earth, in complete union with the Divine Will and, we may say, is full of joy for every fault that is purified by the painful fire, which heightens its love and yearning for God, Infinite Love” (Don Dolindo Ruotolo, Chi morrà vedrà…Il Purgatorio e il Paradiso, Casa Mariana, Frigento 2006, p. 42).

Purgatory is not only a “state” but, like hell, is a “place” and the fire tormenting the souls is not an allegorical fire, but real. Those who deny the existence of Purgatory, as St. Thomas has previously stated against the heretics of his time, “go against the authority of the Church and incurs heresy” (IV Sent., d. 21, q. 1, a. 1, sol. 1).

From earliest times, the faithful have always had a vivid belief in the intercession of the souls in Purgatory. In 1891, at Santa Sabina in Rome, an epigraph was found that said: “Attico, rest in peace, certain of your salvation; and pray with solicitude for our sins”; another inscription in the Cemetery of San Callisto, says: “Ianuaria, enjoy your respite and pray for us”.

From the very beginning the Church has prayed for the liberation of the dead from the pains of Purgatory. Thus the Catechism of St. Pius X affirms that the Saints receive our prayers, the deceased our suffrage and they return our love by their intercessions to God (n.123).

Every time we ask someone to pray for us or assure them of our prayers, we are affirming a great truth of the Faith: the Communion of saints. Our supernatural goods can be communicated to others, just as the goods of God are communicated to us. For this it is important to ensure the protection and help of the Souls in Purgatory. They are grateful for this, and their incessant prayers obtain for us enormous benefits, as much for our spiritual life as for our corporeal life.

We must pray not only for those who have been near and dear to us, but also for those that have misunderstood, calumniated or fought against us. For if they died in a state of Grace, they are now living in Divine charity. If yesterday they opposed us, today they love us, and we must love them, since the law of the Mystical Body is Charity. Leo XII, in his encyclical, Mirae Caritatis, of May 28, 1902, writes: “The Communion of Saints is nothing other than the reciprocal communication of aid in atonement, in prayers and good works, among the faithful who delight in the Heavenly Country with those in the flames of expiation and those still on the earthly pilgrimage: all of them form one City, the Head of which is Christ, the form of which is Charity”. The Church is the union of all the people connected to each other by one and the same Charity. It is Charity, Christian love, that creates a relationship of solidarity and interdependence among us and our brethren, forming the one Mystical Body, under the one Head: Jesus Christ.

The bond of Charity is not broken by death and now unites the defenders of ‘the good cause’ who are resisting the army of evil, now infiltrated even in the Holy Place. Alongside the Choirs of Angels, let’s invoke the help of souls, who, even if they didn’t go to Heaven immediately, had nevertheless, the immense gift of final perseverance, and despite being amid sufferings, are certain of their eternal salvation. Let’s ask their intercession so that the Lord also grants us the gift of perseverance in this battle, and most of all in the last moment of our life.

St. Augustine doesn’t even rule out the possibility that some of the Holy Souls are sent among the living (De cura pro mortuis gerenda, 15, 18; PL 40, 605-606).Queen Claudia of France, wife of Francis I, after her death at the young age of twenty-four, on July 20th 1524, appeared more than once to Blessed Catherine of Racconigi, telling her of the French invasion of Italy, the defeat and capture of her husband and finally, his liberation, thanks to the prayers of the Saint (Pier Giacinto Gallizia, Vita della ven. suor Caterina de’Mattei, chiamata la B. Catterina da Racconigi, Mairese, Torino 1717, p. 101). It is not an isolated case. God may permit a soul triumphant in Heaven, or one suffering in Purgatory to render themselves visible on Earth so as to encourage the sons and daughters of the Church Militant. This may even happen in the course of future trials.

Souls still in need of purification, of whom many defended the Church in theological disputes or on the fields of crusades, now, by their suffering and prayers sustain those who continue fighting the battle against the ancient enemy. Acies ordinate * is a deployment of suffering and triumphant militant souls, united in affirming the honor of the Church, the glory of God and the good of souls. Enrollment is open.

* To enroll: https://www.aciesordinata.org/

 

 

[RC] 2308.22a

 

 

 

 

 

---

CF NEWS

Why is Pope Francis so fond of tyrants?

CHRISTOPHER A.FERRARA writes for Fatima Perspectives ~ Pope Francis has had plenty of criticism for the leaders of democratic regimes, primarily Donald Trump, for “building walls” he deems immoral — with the convenient exception of the massive walls that surround him in Vatican City, built on a scale that Trump can only dream of. But when it comes to socialist or communist tyrants, Francis exhibits only bonhomie coupled with a curious reticence in the face of brutalities that evoke protests around the world.

Whether it’s holding hands with Fidel Castro, the mass-murdering jailer of an entire nation, or blessing Nicolas Maduro, the socialist destroyer of Venezuela who has reduced his people to starvation, or receiving (and bringing home with him to the Vatican) a blasphemous hammer-and-sickle Crucifix from the tyrannical socialist dictator of Bolivia, Evo Morales, Francis consistently demonstrates that he has never encountered a communist or socialist dictator he doesn’t like or whose depredations he is willing to criticize. Exhibit A, of course, is the sellout of the Underground Church in China to the butchers of Beijing, whose genocide of the unborn seems to have escaped Francis’ ever-vigilant pursuit of what he considers social justice.

But the case of Evo Morales, with whom Francis has met at the Vatican no fewer than six times, is also particularly telling. Father Raymond de Souza, writing for the Catholic Herald, addresses the question: “Why did Evo Morales find such favour at the Vatican?” Morales has just been driven from the country after attempting to rig an election that would have given him a totally unconstitutional fourth term as President. As Father de Souza notes, though Morales did not plunder the economy in the manner of Maduro, he “demonstrated ruthless tendencies early on, suppressing opponents, seizing control of the courts and using the electoral authorities for his own benefit.” Even the Organization of American States, called in by Morales himself in an effort to validate his sham election to a fourth term, “reported that there were too many irregularities to make the elections credible.” As Bolivia was being convulsed by nationwide protests against Morales’ tyranny, “the military leadership ‘suggested’ that it was time for Morales to go, [and] he resigned and fled to Mexico.”

Father de Souza notes the revelation by Edward Pentin that Morales “was a ‘key figure’ in the presence of the Pachamamas at the recent Amazon synod.” Pentin tweeted that Morales “who’s just resigned as Bolivia’s President, had a devotion to the Pachamama and reportedly was a key figure in reviving it & having it at the #AmazonSynod,” as shown by Morales’ own “tweet from Aug. 1 in which he gives thanks to Pachamama/‘Mother Earth’ in a ritual.”

When asked about Morales’ abrupt departure from Mexico during the in-flight press conference on the way back to Rome from Japan, Francis failed to exhibit his usual uncontainable volubility, declaring instead: “I wouldn’t want to say one word more because I am incompetent and I haven’t studied well and I honestly don’t understand it well.” One wonders how well Francis studied the problems of mass illegal immigration in the United States and elsewhere before he issued his blanket judgment to the world that “Builders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build.” And what about the prisoners of nations ruled by Leftist tyrants? Not a word from Francis in more than six years.

Father de Souza reports that “the new interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, has taken a rather different tack. She took office holding an enormous Book of the Gospels, announcing that ‘the Bible was back’ in the presidential office.” Father de Souza poses an appropriately acerbic query: “The hammer and sickle and Pachamama are no longer the accoutrements of the Bolivian president. How long before Jeanine Áñez is given a warm welcome at the Vatican?”

The same self-answering question might be posed as to the anti-socialist, pro-Christian President of Brazil, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, elected in 2018 after having barely survived an assassination attempt. Speaking at the United Nations this year, Bolsonaro rejected the entire globalist agenda to which Francis seems determined to commit the Church and dared to cite Sacred Scripture and obedience to God as the foundation of justice in this world:

“We are not here to erase nationalities and overrule sovereignty in the name of an abstract ‘global interest.’ This is not the Global Interest Organization! This is the United Nations organization. And so it must remain…. When it comes to matters related to climate, democracy, human rights, to the equality of rights and duties between men and women and many others, all we need to do is contemplate the truth, following John 8:32. ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’…

“Over the past few decades, we let ourselves be seduced by ideologies that sought not truth, but absolute power… Ideology has invaded our homes and tried to dismantle what is the celula mater of any healthy society: the family. It has also tried to destroy the innocence of our children in an attempt to corrupt even their most basic and elementary identity: the biological one.

“Ideology has invaded the human soul to rip it apart from God and from the dignity He bestowed on us…. And with these methods, ideology has always left a trail of death, ignorance, and misery wherever it went. I am living proof of this, I was cowardly knife-stabbed by a leftist militant and only survived by a miracle. Once again, I thank God for my life.”

That even a nominally Catholic politician sounds far more