Antonio Socci, who has at various times asserted his own theories on the status and legitimacy of the Francis pontificate (none of which I endorse) has, understandably, a particular interest in stories relating to this topic.
Which is, perhaps, why he took notice of a statement from Archbishop Gänswein — Prefect of the Papal Household and private secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI — about the relationship between Benedict and Francis. His post is long (and only in Italian) and touches on some of his previous theories about the fullness and legitimacy of Benedict’s resignation. But it is the particular (and very odd) statement from Gänswein that caught my attention above all else. It is taken from a larger speech, given on May 20, in which Gänswein reflected on the pontificate of Benedict XVI (our translation):
From the election of his successor, Pope Francis—on 13 March 2013—there are not then two Popes, but de facto an enlarged ministry with an active and a contemplative member. For this reason, Benedict has not renounced either his name or his white cassock. For this reason, the correct title with which we must refer to him is still “Holiness.” Furthermore, he has not retired to an isolated monastery, but [has retired] within the Vatican, as if he had simply stepped aside to make space for his Successor, and for a new stage in the history of the Papacy, which he, with that step, has enriched with the centrality of payer and of compassion placed in the Vatican Gardens.
Edward Pentin, reporting on the same story for the National Catholic Register, also adds this:
Archbishop Gänswein repeated that Benedict’s resignation was “quite different” to that of Pope Celestine V.
“So it is not surprising,” he said, “that some have seen it as revolutionary, or otherwise as entirely consistent with the gospel, while still others see in this way a secularized papacy as never before, and thus more collegial and functional, or even simply more humane and less sacred. And still others are of the opinion that Benedict XVI, with this step, has almost — speaking in theological and historical-critical terms — demythologized the papacy.”
If you take the time to ponder these statements, they’re really quite staggering. What could it possibly mean for there to be “not then two Popes, but de facto an enlarged ministry with an active and a contemplative member”? How is this a “new stage in the history of the Papacy”?
This seems a momentous statement…and one that calls into question the very nature of the papacy.
Another thing that caught my attention was when Gänswein said “For this reason, Benedict has not renounced either his name or his white cassock. For this reason, the correct title with which we must refer to him is still ‘Holiness.'”
You may recall that in 2014, La Stampa’s Vatican Insider blog reported on Benedict’s response, by letter, to questions they posed about his resignation. Among his statements was this:
“I continue to wear the white cassock and kept the name Benedict for purely practical reasons. At the moment of my resignation there were no other clothes available. In any case, I wear the white cassock in a visibly different way to how the Pope wears it.”
In that same letter, Pope Benedict stated emphatically:
“There is absolutely no doubt regarding the validity of my resignation from the Petrine ministry,” Ratzinger wrote in his letter of reply. The only condition for the validity of my resignation is the complete freedom of my decision. Speculations regarding its validity are simply absurd.”
I do not claim, at this time, to have a workable theory that would resolve these apparent contradictions.
Neither can I seem to quite wrap my mind around these peculiar observations of Archbishop Gänswein, who has the unprecedented distinction of working closely with two living popes. Nonetheless, I find them quite noteworthy, and, most likely, historic. When future generations of Catholics look back on this absolutely unique moment in the Church’s two-thousand year history, they will no doubt do so with an attention to what answers were gleaned from precisely these questions.
Who shall we send to check on the well- being of Our Holy Father Benedict?
The cat.
It may be a Richard Simmons-type situation. Seriously.
Archbishop Gänswein’s explanation for Pope Emeritus Benedict’s resignation is not rational & certainly not in keeping with Tradition. You cannot have two Popes (or two halves to one Pope) one active & the other dormant, but in situ. What if PF decides to abdicate (retire) and Pope Emeritus Benedict is still with us, will there then be three thirds of one Pope (mirroring the Holy Trinity) which sounds heretical but in keeping with most of what has been going on for the past fifty years. It doesn’t make sense & it is amazing that all the best Canon Lawyers out there (inc. Cardinal Burke) haven’t spoken about this highly irregular side-step by PEB before now.
This morning, when I read the text of Abp. Ganswein’s speech, my blood chilled. This is just unbelievable. I’m glad that Rorate Caeli has re-posted the pertinent background articles; please see them there.
That BXVI himself developed the “theology” of our present situation, which has no precedent in Tradition, is…well, I’ll leave the ‘language’ to Miss White and Miss Barnhardt, but I am immensely disturbed. What the #^*! is happening?
The nature of the papacy cannot change. Curiouser and couriouser as the revealed part of the Fatima secret says “a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'”.
I thought of that too. Is this in reference to Pope Benedict XV1? Not, ‘It was the Holy Father’ but rather ‘we had the impression’ it was the Holy Father. They ‘had the impression’ it was the Holy Father because ‘he was dressed in white’.
So, there are not ‘two Popes’ but also there is not one Pope.
(((NERVOUS LAUGHTER INTENSIFIES)))
So he hit it? I don’t get it. Please expand. Or do I need to re-read some of your recent articles?
We have two men called pope. We are told that we only have one pope. Ganswein says they are both part of an expanded papal ministry, but as far as I know, anyone who isn’t the pope can’t have that ministry.
And Benedict is, they tell us, no longer the pope.
Stop the carousel, I wanna get off.
Steve, is this the ‘unexplored’ part of VCii that we are not aware of? They say the council is an experiment in progress. I mean, have we even begun to explore the depths of the council yet?
It’s all very logical.
You see, 1+1=1
Or, 1+0=2
It’s very consistent with everything else coming from the Vatican these days!
And which appears to be working in tandem with the other nuts in the WH..another entity that can be said to have flown over the cuckoo’s nest. Have been reading Jon Rappoport for quite sometime…and today Jon has an awesome piece which dovetails with Steve’s writing today as well as yesterday’s podcast—-Fed Up? Laugh and Keep Going. This piece is entitled Pope Francis Speaks to God…this is beyond tongue in cheek. It’s hilarious and so close to the truth it’s frightening beyond belief.
I have long suspected all that he says…and now this coming from him I see that my crap detector has been spot on for a very, very long time.
I won’t put the entire piece here. You can find it on Rappaport’s blog… by the aforesaid title/url I gave above. This one is too good. And like Steve says above, your nervous laughter will intensify.
“The Pope was sitting in his Popemobile bubble outside the UN. He was eating a Twix and looking over his speech notes when the phone rang. He picked up.
Pope: Yes?
God: It’s God, Francis. What’s happening down there?
Pope: What, no hello, how are you doing?
God: Cut the crap. Is the UN buying your end-poverty-hunger-global warming pitch?
Pope: Of course. The UN, Obama, and I are on the same page. That’s why I’m here in New York. You think I’d visit this place otherwise? Looks like they won’t even let me go see the Mets.
God: No blowback so far? What you’re selling is very thin, you know. High-flying rhetoric, no specifics.
Pope: High-flying rhetoric is what I do. We’ve talked about this before.
God: Yeah, but if you were really serious about poverty, you’d offer a plan, a pilot project for one African country, a test case. Nobody is pointing that out? Clean up the contaminated water supplies, give back stolen farm land to the people?
Pope: Not a peep about it.
God: Nothing on the Internet?
Pope: I don’t read the Internet.
God: What about Obama? What are your impressions?
Pope: On the surface, he seems clueless. But he’s on board.
God: On board with what?
Pope: Rockefeller, Brzezinski.
God: I spoke with David R last night. He seemed a little worried. When he’s worried, so am I.
Pope: Look, G, we’re good. Jobs have been leaving the industrialized countries for decades. It’s nothing new. You know, open up new factories in Third World hellholes, pay the workers three cents an hour, dispense with environmental regs. Millions of jobs lost back at home. It’s SOP.
God: And nobody is saying the whole Globalist operation is a cause of poverty?
Pope: Nobody cares about poverty or unemployment in industrialized countries. The story line is all about poverty in Africa and Asia. Again, we’ve talked this through before.
God: That quote of yours is getting more play these days.
Pope: Which one? I’m a quote machine.
God: “I want a poor church for the poor.”
Pope: Not a problem.
God: No? The church has assets worth, what, a few hundred trillion dollars? And collection plates keep filling up.
Pope: People expect rich leaders to talk about ending poverty. It’s perfectly acceptable. You know: “I made it and now I’m going to give back.”
God: Yeah. Well, the history of how the church “made it” is pretty damning.
Pope: Where have you been, G? History is passe.
God: What year is it down there?
Pope: You’re kidding, right?
God: I’ve got a lot on my plate. It’s easy to lose track.
Pope: Take a guess.
God: 1975.
Pope: You’re hilarious. Try 2016.
God: I wasn’t that far off. A century down there is like a minute up here.
Pope: Yeah, sure. This is me you’re talking to, G. Don’t give me that space-time continuum jive.
God: Anyway, I’ve got pressure on me from the Corporate Board. They want more poverty and hunger and chaos.
Pope: Patience. Things are working out.
God: In case you’ve forgotten, the Church does best when times are worst. That’s the whole thrust of the current op. Drive the world back into the Middle Ages. Disease, pestilence, poverty, rampant crime, famine, war, all the usual horrors. That’s the greatness of the Church. It knows how to make hay in that environment. Better than anyone else.
Pope: I’m well aware, G. I’m a Jesuit, remember? Who thought up this whole op centuries ago? Listen, are you okay?
God: Nothing I can’t handle.
Pope: Because it sounds like you’re slipping.
God: The Corporate Board is worried about blowback on the Church. See, this isn’t the Middle Ages. It was one thing to introduce rampant chaos when all the people had were bows and arrows and stones and catapults. But now…I was just reading a weapons catalog the other day. Wow. It’s ridiculous. The firepower. Some of these crazies—
Pope: I get the point. We’re covered. Are you still seeing your shrink?
God: He put me on Lithium for Bipolar. I’ve gained thirty pounds.
Pope: I see. And you were pretty heavy to begin with.
God: I’m roly-poly now. It’s not a good image. I just started on Valproate. I get these blinding headaches.
Pope: You want a suggestion? Find a good psychiatrist and have him slowly withdraw you from the drugs. Don’t stop them all at once, whatever you do. It could be catastrophic. Then, when you’re clean, get a medical card and switch to pot.
God: Hmm. Wouldn’t want that story to get out. ”
To be continued…next.
Pope: Did you see my speech to the US Congress the other day? 130 Representatives and Senators are Catholics.
God: I watched a few minutes. Your accent is thick. I had trouble understanding you. What did Obama say about it?
Pope: He was happy. You know, he’s a devout Christian…
God: Yeah. And I’m a Zoroastrian.
Pope: If we can put this carbon tax piece together with the global warming piece and the poverty and hunger piece, we could hit pay dirt. Create all kinds of planetary disruption.
God: Promises, promises.
Pope: Slow and steady. America is the biggest obstacle. That’s why I’m here. And you know Hillary is waiting in the wings. She’ll pick up from where Obama left off.
God: I talked to Hillary last week.
Pope: What did she say?
God: She called me honey. Can you believe it?
“Pope: I hear she has health problems.
God: Put it this way. If she knew she was going to drop dead her first day in office, she’d still run for President. The woman’s a wolverine.
Pope: If Obama has any concerns, they’re about these upcoming Globalist trade treaties he’s pushing. The TPP, the TTIP. People might start catching on that he’s ushering in deeper poverty. Which, of course, he is.
God: He’s got his marching orders. He knows why he was put in as President. He can’t turn back.
Pope: He doesn’t want to turn back. He’s just skittish about exposure.
God: All he has to do is keeping saying the treaties are a great deal for everyone. He’s good at saying the same thing over and over. Broad brush strokes, empty homilies.
Pope: We’ve got a high wall at Vatican City.
God: I was going to talk to you about that. Not a good look for you. Your immigration policy comes off like zero tolerance.
Pope: We may have to let in a couple of migrant families and showcase their sympathetic stories. Of course, we’d vet them to make sure they’re docile.
God: Don’t mess it up. What’s new on the pedophile priest front?
Pope: More hush money to victims. Priest relocations. We sent one guy to a little chapel in the north of Alaska. He’s locked down. The whole pedophile thing is a disaster, of course, but, traditionally, proximity to young boys has been a strong selling point to applicants for the priesthood.
God: I don’t want any connection made between pedo-priests and other pedo-networks.
Pope: We’re on it.
God: All in all, Francis, I can’t say I’m happy so far with your term in office. It’s shaky. You’re vulnerable.
Pope: Do I need to remind you that you’re getting a considerable cut of our action? You don’t have to lift a finger. The money keeps rolling in.
God: About that, Francis. For the past three years, my gross has been declining significantly.
Pope: Our 1.2 billion members are the exclusive result of our promotional work. Without us, you might be living in a small condo.
God: You work for me.
Pope: So you claim. In case you’ve forgotten, Church members can only approach you indirectly, through our priests. We own the pipeline.
God: Another conversation for another time.
Pope: That’s what a cartel does. It builds and maintains a pipeline.
God: Stay safe, Francis.
Pope: What’s that supposed to mean?
God: Whatever you want it to mean. You’re the Pope, right? I’m just a figurehead.
Pope: That’s not what I said”
TO READ THE REST of this go below that purple sign on Jon’s blog.
Pope Francis speaks with God: conversation highlights
by Jon Rappoport
May 23, 2016
That Jon Rappoport sure is a nutcase.
Sorry for you that you don’t get the real message he is conveying. Simply put, the Vatican is on the same page with the political elites and Obama in an evil quest for the PC MC nonsense. Add the global warming scam and refugee situation being made by men to overturn countries and create chaos.
Apparently you Mark, are in the dark about the church making millions of dollars (our tax dollars) for simply bringing in head-choppers. What do you not understand about the church and its trillions of dollars? Do you really think that Christ wanted the RC religion/Vatican making millions off the suffering of others?
Hence, Rappoport’s talking to God explaining how they, the clergy have made their God into what they want Him to be.
Mark, I imagine you’re under 30 years of age, for if you were double that age, you would know the RC church has made appeals for eons for the poor of the world…Africa and many more… I have watched for over fifty years a church which has done jack to improve the lives of those they continue to make money off of.
I see it as a ruse to keep millions poor…just as our gov’t gets a cut of monies they give to other countries, so too you have to be blind not to see the criminal element within both gov’t and church. Wake up Mark, they work in tandem.
You repeatedly call me Mark but my name is clearly Matt. Rappoport promises that I will wake up and quit being a sucker if only I pay 500 bucks for his crappy DVDs. Something doesn’t add up!
Sorry Matt, getting late and I should have gone back up and checked your real name…pls forgive me. Regarding Jon R, do you really discount the veracity of his writing?…I read him often and never once have given a penny…of course, he is trying to make money on his writings. All he said in that tongue in cheek piece was right on if you are a truth seeker!
You don’t have to spend a penny to enjoy his writing!!
So now you tell me how he is any worse than a church who for over 50 years has amassed more wealth than any entity on planet earth…yet, is hoping to make more on wars, global eco scams, people starving? Will you be a sucker buying into the clergy as beggars, to ‘help the poor’? Take in illegals?? I’d think you could easily see that Rappoport isn’t pushing evil!!
Obviously anyone with three brain cells knows the millions that have been given to the church for eons have not made a dent in helping ‘the poor’, BUT, they sure have helped the church get richer. How is that any different than our gov’t?
The only suckers that I see are those who refuse to see. At least Rappoport is making an honest buck..telling truth!!
If two Popes, why not three, or four… or more….
This does not seem good.
That opinion seems to be a shared one.
That has to be the most charitable understatement of the year so far. IOW, I agree with you. ?
Yep, how many times I have pondered this myself! And no, it cannot be good. Jesus gave the keys to PETER, NOT to PETER, JAMES, JOHN and however many his followers thought fit. I would say, this statement from Ganswein is more than ‘odd’ or ‘confusing’, again it is ‘anti Christ’.
There is one Pope and his name is Francis. I know we’re not all doing back flips about it, but there it is. Whatever statements are being made here, I believe, need to be taken with this fact firmly in mind.
I’ve always been led to believe that Benedict did not resign from the spiritual ministry, but only from the pastoral. He (Benedict) claimed to be suffering from health problems (in other words old age) and wanted a second pope to look after the pastoral part of the ministry for which he felt he no longer had the strength to continue doing.
You can’t step down from part of the papacy – either you’re the pope or you’re not. Benedict of all people knows this. Abp. Ganswein has simply left the reservation.
Benedict has left the reservation, if Ganswein accurately reports Benedict’s view. Under all the usual obfuscatory words, there is a real rupture in the theology of the Papacy attributed not to Abp. G but to the Pope ‘Emeritus.’ Ganswein is BXVI’s mouthpiece and makes it clear that BXVI has “thought for years” or whatever about the ‘expansion’ or ‘enlargement’ of the Petrine ministry.
Benedict is getting pretty old and might not be quite in his right mind at this point so, yes, he may well be off the reservation. This is all very odd and unfortunately my mind isn’t fully with me today.
I wish it were his mental capacity that I question, but sadly, it is not.
I wonder why Gainswein feels the need to make such a claim.
What exactly ARE Socci’s theories regarding the legitimacy and status of the pontificate of Francis?
I haven’t really looked at them. He wrote a book entitled, “It’s Not Francis” arguing that Benedict is still pope, and then later backed away from some of it. I haven’t read it, so I can’t comment beyond that.
Hi Steve & Vertias,
In a vision, as described by Sister Lucia of Fatima, Lucia writes, ” . . . a Bishop dressed in White, we had the impression that it was the Holy Father . . .” This description speaks volumes, since she was not sure (perhaps confused) if this bishop dressed in white was indeed the pope or not. As we have in our time, “confusion”: Which bishop in white is truly the pope? Who do we have as an impression of who is the pope?
Hmmm, further study and prayer is needed here, indeed. Anyhow, once catholic always catholic; once priest always priest; once pope always pope. Could there be two popes? I have the impression that we do???!!!??? But that does not makes any sense at all. Correct?
For instance, my earthly father is my true earthly father; my earthly mother is my true earthly mother. If one or both abdicate from their status, then, nonetheless, they are still my true earthly parents.
JAMLY,
euie
The Vatican seems determined to tell us that Tradition is changing now. I am not scandalized. One pope resigned for reasons of declining physical and spiritual strength (if I recall correctly), and another took over. What I am scandalized about is that while the words Pope Benedict used to explain his stepping down were weighed carefully by him, and taken apart many times by the biggest intellects in the Church and many common faithful alike, they were different from this new statement. It seems truthfulness is of little value to these people. They don’t seem to respect us.
But even this doesn’t scandalize me as much as what I have just read on “Vatican Radio” site:
“Holy Father explained that the Holy Spirit “guides us into new life
situations with an eye to Jesus and, at the same time, open to events
and to the future.” “He takes care of the wounded flesh of humanity from
injustice, oppression, hatred and greed.” …
Then the Pope described how the
Trinity is a family of three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit which is not closed in on itself, but it is open.”
Is the Holy Trinity really a family? I must have missed in my religion classes. Is the Holy Spirit taking care of the wounded flesh of humanity from injustice, oppression, hatred and greed? Were we not told to seek the Kingdom of Heaven first, so all the rest would be added on to us? Isn’t this obsessive focus on social justice and poverty very materialistic and contradicting the Word of God? If truth is relative to subjective feelings and opinions (sarcasm), isn’t poverty even more so? Has Jesus told us to walk with an eye on Him and the other eye on current events and on the future? Isn’t He the Way, the Truth and the Life? Shouldn’t both our eyes be on Him as we go through daily events toward salvation in Him?
The language of this homily is shockingly un-Catholic. Am I exaggerating or does anyone else see what I think I see? We are told here that Jesus is somehow the past, and current events and the future are where we are called to fix our gaze. Is this the one world religion Bergoglio is announcing again, where Jesus Christ will be officially delegated to just one of many ways? Unofficially Jorge Bergoglio says it all the time.
The part that God is a family is OK, you know, Father and Son, and Holy Ghost, the Person Who is Their Love of Each Other. The rest of it, well…
They taught me this mystery – God is One in three Persons.
It was beyond my understanding, obviously. I should have left it there – a mystery to me.
As I grew older, I figured – incorrectly, that God was my Father, I was equivalent to His Son Jesus, and the Hoy Spirit was equivalent to our communication. When I stated it to a priest, he got very excited and began praising God – apparently I was spiritually advanced. Only apparently. I might have been under some ungodly influences.
The human family is modeled after the Most Blessed Trinity. The love of mom and dad, united as one flesh in marriage, results in a new person – the child. Thus unity and love create persons.
Are you sure this is theologically sound?
One can analogously relate the mystery of the Trinity with the known family. This, of course, falls short of the infinite mystery and perfection of the Trinity, but it can be useful. Just as “Eyes Opened” used it, it is better to relate the family to the Trinity as a shadow to the sun than to think the fullness of the Trinity is grasped by understanding the family.
You get the idea. Speaking of shadows, I have a personal meditation that the Three Divine Persons are really a “shadow” or “image” of a higher-dimensional Divine Being (God in His Unity) which is “reflected” into our limited space-time understanding (4D). God is of a higher dimensionality than 4D. Why Three Persons? Look analogously at our soul – memory (Father), intellect (Son) and will (Holy Ghost). Physics has string theory which claims higher dimensions, and the book Flatland explains a bit of how dimensions work. You can find Carl Sagan using that explanation of dimensions on YouTube.
I’m confused now by your reduction of the Three Persons to mere shadows. Are you saying that the use of “Person” in the Godhead is merely nominal and does not reflect reality? If so, I would have to disagree with you.
Trying to explain it will help me hone my meditation. I am not reducing God but rather saying that to our point of view, our understanding, God’s higher dimensionality of One Divine Substance is forced into our understanding to be Three Persons, in other words we are limited to our dimensionality and that’s how God appears to us because of our space-time limitations. If you take a bright flashlight and shine it on a cube so that the shadow is on a paper, that shadow has limited capability to reflect the 3D reality of the cube. So the Three Persons is like the shadow on the lower dimensionality paper (2D). I am trying to explain 3 & 1 using a physics analogy.
This is Modalism/Sabellianism. God is not three “to our point of view, our understanding.” Rather, God is three objectively, in himself. To say that God is three from our perspective, but one in himself, is in fact the textbook definition of Modalism. God is triune prior to our perspective, and would be triune whether there was a universe or not. This is not a limitation on our part (although our grasp of this truth is of course finite).
The problem is not with your use of a physical comparison. After all, the beauty and power of the physical world does teach us about God (Wis 13; Rom 1:20), and so things in the physical world can help us to understand something about the Trinity, once Christ has already revealed the mystery to us. The problem is with the Modalism that your comparison implies.
No, it is not modalism, which is related to states of matter in the physical world analogy (e.g. water, ice, steam). That is one of the benefits of the dimensions analogy, since all three exist at the same time in the analogy as well, versus only conditionally for modal analogy. Look at a 2D drawing of a 3D cube and all sides are present all the time. No modes.
You may not intend Modalism, but what you said leads directly to it. I’m not trying to pick an Internet fight with you here; it’s just that the doctrine of Trinity is so very important (it’s the core of the Christian faith), I have to say something to you in response to this, in a friendly manner.
Here’s a direct quote from your post:
“The Three Divine Persons are really a “shadow” or “image” of a higher-dimensional Divine Being (God in His Unity) which is “reflected” into our limited space-time understanding (4D).”
Here’s another direct quote:
“Our understanding of God as Three Persons is like the shadow. Just as the cub is greater than its shadow, so is God greater than our understanding.”
Here’s yet another:
“God’s higher dimensionality of One Divine Substance is forced into our understanding to be Three Persons, in other words we are limited to our dimensionality and that’s how God appears to us because of our space-time limitations. If you take a bright flashlight and shine it on a cube so that the shadow is on a paper, that shadow has limited capability to reflect the 3D reality of the cube. So the Three Persons is like the shadow on the lower dimensionality paper (2D).”
It’s not entirely clear from these quotes whether you are saying (a) that God is absolutely one, but in our limited human perception we see one as three, or (b) God has many dimensions, more than we can understand, but we see three of them and call these three that we can see ‘Trinity’ because we’re 3D beings and can’t imagine something more (the whole Flatland metaphor).
But in either case, this is not the Catholic doctrine of Trinity. The first (a) is Modalism, because Modalism consists in the claim that God is absolutely one, but that we humans see him as three from our created vantage point. The second (b) would mean that God is not really Trinity but something far more than Trinity, but we can only grasp him as Trinity because that’s as far as our minds can go, at least in the present life.
In either case, what you are saying is “Trinity isn’t the deepest truth about God, it’s only the truth to the extent that we can see it currently.” This isn’t me twisting your words; in all three quotes above, you use the example of a flashlight shining on a 3D block, casting a 2D shadow on the wall. You explicitly state in all three quotes that our understanding of the Trinity is comparable to the 2D shadow, whereas the reality of God is the 3D block. So Trinity is a limited, provisional concept, whereas God is 4D (beyond Trinity).
But this is the nub of the issue. There is nothing deeper than Trinity. There is no deeper Godhead ‘beyond’ the three divine Persons. The Trinity is the deepest mystery of God; we do not fully grasp that mystery, even in the beatific vision, but the deepest mystery has nonetheless already been revealed to us by Christ when he reveals the Trinity. The Church has explicitly stated in her formal, magisterial teaching that there is no Godhead beyond the Father, meaning no Godhead beyond the relations of the three hypostases.
Again, I’m not saying this for the sake of an Internet debate. This doctrine is the core of the Faith. If I understand you correctly, what you intend to express is that because the reality of God is beyond us, we are like 2D beings trying to grasp something 3D. But the way you are using that comparison is problematic, because you place Trinity on the 2D side of the metaphor.
It is perfectly fine to have this debate because it is a clarification process for my meditation. A real argument is all about arriving at the truth. It is possible to have arguments without being uncharitable. This is the first time I put out this thought on a combox, and honing the words is obviously useful. I certainly don’t want to mislead anyone.
Let me try with different words after pondering the input: our *understanding* of God as Three Persons is the shadow, since we cannot fully comprehend God as He is. Thus even the dogmas of the Trinity are really limited to what we humans can comprehend, and can only be expressed in our 4D (space-time) way. Recall Aquinas says that knowledge is received in the mode of the receiver. Our mode is 4D. God is beyond that, He is Transcendent.
The higher dimensionality of God (Transcendence) is reflected into our 4D understanding like a 3D cube is reflected into a 2D drawing of a cube on paper. The 2D drawing is the shadow of the 3D cube. In fact even the idea of dimensionality is limited to our human capability. The 2D drawing looks different than what it represents. Therefore our representation of the One God is reflected in our concept of Three Divine Persons (our dogma). God is One in a higher dimension, but as understood in our 4D world He is Three Persons. Thus 3 Persons in One God is not contradictory or illogical since they both exist simultaneously just at different levels of comprehension. And why 3? Our soul as the image of God helps us infer – memory, intellect and will.
Jesus used parables all the time which used common knowledge of the day, like farming and herding, so I am just using a “scientific parable” using science. BTW, read up a bit on string theory of physics to get some idea on this dimensions concept. It is not easy.
For a thought experiment, picture a 3D sphere going through a 2D plane. What would you see as a 2D creature? Before it enters, nothing. As it enters, starting at a point, an widening line, with the widest point being the center of the sphere, then a shrinking line going to a point, then nothing as the sphere leaves the plane. Good old geometry. So the single sphere has multiple views to the 2D creature. Analogously the One God has different views (3 Divine Persons) to us 4D creatures. Look up Flatland on YouTube for some displays of this type of concept.
So that is my next round. Any better?
Lastly, I don’t see at all how any of this leads to modalism.
I am not trying to ‘win’ our discussion, but I have to answer honestly and say No, it’s not better. Here’s the heart of the issue:
You say (in this last post above): “God is One in a higher dimension, but as understood in our 4D world He is Three Persons.”
Again: “So the single sphere has multiple views to the 2D creature. Analogously the One God has different views (3 Divine Persons) to us 4D creatures.”
This is precisely what is not true, and what is in fact Modalism. Modalism consists in the claim that God is one in himself, and three in our perception of him; by contrast, the doctrine of Trinity consists in the affirmation that God is truly three as much as he is truly one, not only in our perception, but in his own reality.
Even if he had not created anything, even if there was no creature whatsoever to perceive him, neither angel nor human nor anything else, he would be eternally three, just as truly as he is eternally one. He is not one in himself, but three to us. He is one in himself, but he is also just as truly three in himself. In other words, the three-ness goes just as deep as the one-ness. He is not more truly one than he is three; his very essence is three, because the essence is not deeper than the Persons, the Persons (truly distinct from one another, not only in our perception but in reality) are the essence.
I’m not a physicist, but I have for most of my life read about physics as a hobby, because I find it very interesting. So I’m pretty well informed (to the extent that one can be as a non-expert) on string theory, including multiple dimensions and all of that.
The issue is not with your use of a physical metaphor. The issue is that God is both one and three in himself, not one in himself and three to us.
I hope this is more clear than what I wrote before.
I am a science buff myself, and not formally trained in that but electrical engineering and computer science. I spent some time looking up various definitions of modalism and taking the Catholic Encyclopedia as a very brief summary, “three modes or characters of one person”. The focus was on God being One Person under different aspects. I am not saying that. You seem to take that and expand it to any form of Oneness of God, which makes me question your definition and/or understanding of modalism.
When we say God “is” X (generic term), the “is” is limited to our human capabilities and ways of expression. That’s the basis of my perception comments. I see how you are taking my perception comment and implying that the 3 only applies to us humans because we exist and interpret God that way and therefore I am denying the true Threeness of God, that I am proposing a perception is not reality type of error. It’s like saying that if no one is in the forest, does a falling tree make a noise? Of course the answer is yes, it does make a noise even if no one can hear it. The dimension idea supports the simultaneous existence of both Three and One when it comes to God.
How do we deal with that Threeness? By attribution, by explaining the relationships between the Persons as distinct. A dimensional “model” does not deny that.
A dimensional model is not “stepped” or “sequential” or “in parts” either, all dimensions exist simultaneously. So the higher dimensional Oneness of God exists simultaneously with the 4D, hence the Threeness and Oneness are never separated or modal, even though we can only understand / perceive the 4D portion.
So that’s my next round.
BTW, what would you tell St. Patrick using his shamrock to explain the Trinity? What problems does that lead to? Parts, modalism, something else?
Since my opinion means very little, I offer the following quote from the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas. “Relations exist in God really.” Summa I Q 28 Art. 1
Yes the Father is not the Son is not the Holy Ghost. The relations are part of the mapping into our lower dimensionality.
But that just isn’t correct. God exists outside of all spatial dimensions.
That God exists outside of space-time is a higher dimension to us, to our understanding, relative to us.
This is not the Catholic understanding at all. I will stick with the Creed.
It’s a scientific analogy, not a statement of theology.
You seem to be making God material and He is not. I agree with Matt that such a belief is not Catholic.
It is rather that you misunderstand. Remember this is an analogy, not a statement of God’s Substance. Let me try saying it a differently. Our understanding of God as Three Persons is like the shadow. Just as the cub is greater than its shadow, so is God greater than our understanding.
As long as you agree that God is truly Triune – that He is truly and really Three Persons and the Trinity is not just a way for us to understand Him – and are only speaking analogously, then sure. I would not find such an analogy helpful since it seems to try to conform God to material science. Perhaps you’d like to breakdown your thought into a cohesive article? You’d be welcome to do so on http://www.freedomsdiscourse.com if you’d like.
Of course I accept the creed and everything that the Catholic Church teaches. Do you accept any analogies at all about God, or only theological definitions?
I do. As I stated, two such analogies are the family and the three-leaf clover. What I disagreed with is the following “to our point of view, our understanding, God’s higher dimensionality of One Divine Substance is forced into our understanding to be Three Persons, in other words we are limited to our dimensionality and that’s how God appears to us because of our space-time limitations.” It seemed that you were not saying that analogously. Forgive me if I have misunderstood.
Look at a 2D drawing of a 3D cube and maybe that will better illustrate what I mean about “forced into our understanding.” The 2D drawing has no concept of height and therefore the lines are “forced” into a particular way based on the angle on which you represent the cube on paper (e.g. based on geometry). In fact in drafting there is an agreement on the angle (30 degrees if I recall right) to use so that everyone will be consistent in their view. Our space-time limitations are the 4D that we can understand, and God is “higher” than that physical limitation obviously, as we say Transcendent. It is impossible to define God using our finiteness, so this is merely an attempt to better explain how God can be One and Three Persons at the same time; to understand more.
Analogies of the Trinity are aids to the imagination, but the Trinity is so outside our categories that they are always limited at best. It’s best to stick to definitions and approach it with our intellect rather than imagination.
Your first post indicated that you believed what you were saying was the reality, and now you’re saying it’s only an analogy. I don’t think you’re trying to mislead, but it comes across as confusing.
Analogies can be useful tools for teaching and learning, especially to those without faith, so I disagree that we should avoid them entirely. My first attempt to post such a meditation in a combox obviously needs some work.
Well I don’t mean to be harsh, Eyes Opened, I’m sorry. There’s a lot of people deliberately and knowlingly making a hash of the Faith these days, it’s easy to get a hair trigger about it, and you’re not trying to do that.
Please explain in your understanding why it’s not sound.
In case of a family there are two distinct persons, whose natures complement one another. Out of this complementarity a new person emerges, who is neither one nor the other. The two initial persons aren’t related to one another before they meet. Not being related is recommended to ensure the health of their offspring.
The three distinct persons of the Holy Trinity, to my understanding, are separate aspects of the same Being, they are identical in essence, each perfect, and not complementary.
Well, you asked, and I gave it a try. At 50 years old I am finally learning to be less arrogant than in the first 5 decades, and I have no desire to understand. My desire is to have faith that moves mountains (not for any purpose of my own, only if it pleased God), and not to ask too many questions. You have no idea how shocked and dismayed my family is at this… loss of my dignity, downfall of my humanity. I am a little surprised myself. Until recently I would despise this person I have become for cowardice and blind obedience.
See, our family is made up of persons very different in essence. Our love for one another doesn’t prevent us from being enemies, unfortunately. They are enemies of God, they refuse to to acknowledge a God such as this One, they despise Him and His law, so – as horrible as it is, they are my enemy too, whom I love very much.
At this point it is hard to have a respectful conversation – irreconcilable differences.
First of all, you are trying to take an analogy as a definition, that is taking it too far, looking to make all aspects “match.” That is not what analogies do. The Love between two Divine Persons generates a Third Divine Person. The love between two human persons (man and woman) generates a third person – the child. The Father and Son is a familial relationship. A husband and wife and child is a familial relationship. That’s the extent of the analogy. Second of all, what is interesting is that in the early days of the human race, which was still practiced for thousands of years mainly with royalty, the two initial persons were “directly” related to each other – as brother and sister. It is only in today’s world that they must be “unrelated.” But we are all related, back to Adam and Eve, literally. The difference today is that the commonality of relation is many generations ago so that is considered unrelated. So your unrelatedness requirement fails in its essence. What I am learning is that many people cannot properly distinguish between a definition and an analogy. We have debated much before over definitions and inferences, so this is no different.
The Trinity is a MYSTERY, and as such we will never understand it. Our own understanding and opinions are not very helpful and can lead others to beliefs that are more protestant in flavour. Let’s just adore the Trinity and let the mystery wait until we get to Heaven.
Your approach is one of lack of wonder as I would put it and would never result in development of understanding or doctrine. The Church believed in the Immaculate Conception for more than a millennium without understanding it until someone later thought about it to provide the answer. Following your approach that understanding would not have occurred. The more you know about God the more you love Him. You can wait until Heaven, while I will pursue more of the mystery now, and neither will I tell anyone to suppress their desire to know more as you have.
Christopher Ferrara’s books would say otherwise. The Father begets the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from them both – (as well, the Holy Spirit can never be understood as feminine.) This was in his book on EWTN – wherein he refutes the “family” as an explanation of the Blessed Trinity -as this is one of the hallmark explanations that Scott Hahn uses.
I would agree that the family does not explain the Blessed Trinity nor should one rely on the specifics of the family to understand the relationship of the Trinity. For those who are apt, St. Thomas’s Summa I Question 30 has a splendidly thorough examination on the Trinity. However, for those who are not up to that understanding (which I likely fall within), more simple and general analogies can be helpful. I think of not only the analogy of the family, but also of St. Patrick’s three-leafed clover. Both fall utterly short of the Blessed Trinity, but can be used to help raise man up to the contemplation of the Divine. But if the analogy is presented as containing the truth of the Trinity and is an effort to reduce the Trinity to man’s understanding, then such analogies should be condemned.
That the family is modeled after the Trinity is analogous, not exact. I would disagree with Ferrara based on your quote of him since I haven’t read whatever book you refer to. Father and Son is a familial relationship. And I never said the Holy Ghost is feminine, that’s an inference on your part. Yes, I know about the begetting and proceeding, it in the Nicene Creed.
We feel as you do, what emanates from PF could shock us on a daily basis if we paid attention to it. Better to just practice your faith and wait for better days.
I came back to correct this. We DO pay attention to it, but are only able to take what he says via blogs like this one. I can’t take it “straight” any longer, but only diluted.
You are correct, PlushGrizzly. The supernatural content of the Church–for which she exists to give to us, has been replaced by a humanistic, political, and secularly–orientated ‘new church’. Bergoglio is a tool and figurehead of the new world order. Once one understands that, it is better, as the insanity that the bishop of Rome blathers can be disregarded more easily.
Gainswain’s analysis of the present papal predicament is startling and very strange, to say the least. I do not believe that Pope Benedict had any part in this latest Vatican reaction to the assertions of unrevealed parts of the third secret of Fatima. He seems almost a prisoner of the Vatican.
I wish very much it could be true about Pope Emeritus. Some are saying that it is not, and are providing his own contradictory statements over decades.
My problem is that I can’t believe in Church teaching on papacy, seeing all of this unfolding. And while choosing to not believe a part, I, according to Church teaching, am an apostate. Isn’t it true?
I am attracted to the beauty and Truth in the Church, and trust that my heavenly Father will not condemn me.
I’m not sure I understand your comment, it’s unclear to me. But I can tell you that I, for one, am struggling to reconcile my rejection of much of what Pope Francis says with my obligation as a Catholic to respect the authority of the papacy. It’s a very confusing time. But history shows us that there have been heretical popes before, and somehow the Church dealt with it.
Maybe I make no sense. I can’t even blame myself, considering the deceptions and chaos caused by these believers in “a god of surprises”.
I am simply asking, whether God has been present in the Catholic Church and some protestant churches or – if you prefer, “churches” equally, because His Church is not exactly what our Church has always taught. Maybe it has been all the people who followed Jesus Christ to the best of their ability. I know this is highly unorthodox, but I see many Protestants (small percentage, but not irrelevant numbers) who seem more Catholic than Francis Bergoglio, who is not one at all. I believe that Bergoglio will deny divinity of Jesus Christ for the sake of false peace and false unity, provided that he hasn’t already,
I think that the true Church is the body of all people who believe that Jesus Christ is God, that He is the only Way, the Truth and the Life. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is not part of this true Church.
The hierarchy is as truly part of the Church as Caiaphas was truly the High Priest and Judas was truly an apostle chosen by Our Lord Himself. We are just going through one of those periods when it seems that the majority of the hierarchy are faithless hirelings rather than true shepherds.
Our Lady has warned us that the rot will start at the top, so we should not be surprised when her words are borne out by the facts. I know how you feel, though!
And yet, even the remaining faithful Cardinals, when speaking about these faithless hirelings, call on us to show them due (allegedly) respect. It is simply wrong. Why should I show respect, when these people lead souls astray, maybe a billion of them? I would like to stand up in church, and say: You are a faithless hireling! You misrepresent our Lord Jesus Christ! You lead souls astray! You preach lies! You are a liar!
If I did do this, I would be condemned even by orthodox Catholics. The place where we gather to worship God, is a place of offence and abomination against Him. Yet I am expected to just go through the motions, as though they are not crucifying and mocking God all over again. Take Jorge Bergoglio – he is using the Mass to bash faithful Catholics over and over again. Where he is obliged to faithfully teach the Word of God, he uses his position to twist it. He worships the poor more than he worships God, and he does it as the head of the hierarchy. Everyone witnessing it is just sitting there, saying nothing.
Why should anyone respect us, Catholics? Why should God forgive us this indifference? Who do we worship – God or the hierarchy?
We show no anger, where anger is due. How is that not completely cold and calculating, levels worse than lukewarm, which we are told by God not to be? Won’t He spit us out of His mouth for lukewarmness? When I speak like this, everyone goes quiet, as though I am embarrassing myself, or… offending the holy cows of the hierarchy?
Calling them out in the middle of Mass risks the sin of scandal and of being disrespectful to Our Lord. There is nothing wrong with just getting up, walking out and refusing to have any part in it.
Exactly my point. The priest can contradict and insult our Lord Jesus Christ all he wants. We are expected to say nothing, while it is going on.
If your father were insulted in your presence, would you say nothing for fear of scandal? Oh, our Father God is not visible to us, so it is OK to let Him be insulted.
I am just saying… We have been conditioned to allow great injustices and offences against God, offences we wouldn’t tolerate, were they directed at people.
I’ve struggled with this. Here’s my working solution.
Jesus urged respect for the Jewish elders (e.g. Pharisees) and obedience to their teaching, at the same time excoriating them personally, publicly and as a group.
That may be the teaching to use. The offices were instituted by Christ. The hirelings occupying the posts betray Him. Sin is against the Trinity. Vengeance belongs to God.
We are not permitted much, but our first loyalty must be to the Man who is also the Truth. We cannot allow him to suffer alone in this new Gethsemane.
Jesus founded the Church and promised that it would last forever.
Francis compared Jesus sending his discipline to convert people with the violent islamic conquest.. Even atheists and secularists had their jaw dropping and were astonished how the Pope could make such comparison. Some asked themselves since when it became the duty and the job of the Pope to defend Islam. So the Pope not any longer defend Christianity but Islam even at the expansive for attacking Christianity. So we have another new tradition. In Europe one of the biggest promoters and supporters of spreading Islam, building mosques and islamic mass-immigration to Europe are the Churches, bishops and the Pope.
It seems unreal, and yet it is definitely happening – the Pope doesn’t care for Jesus much, he uses his position to spread social justice and peace. All the history of these movements for humanity, conducted without and against God, has taught him nothing, let alone the Word of God. He, of all people, is believed to be humble. A nightmare.
I didn’t see the Pope’s comments, so I don’t know, but it is true that Islam is the only other world religion besides Christianity that was given a mandate by its founder to go out and convert people. Bernard Lewis, probably the foremost expert on Islam in the U.S., wrote a book called The Crisis of Islam in which he made that point, among others. But unlike Francis, Lewis looked squarely at the problem: namely, that since both religions have a mandate from their founder to go out and convert the world, they are bound to come into conflict. There is no escaping this. (And of course, only one of those mandates allowed coercion and violence to achieve those conversions!) We all know that Islam and Christianity cannot coexist indefinitely. The only solution, long-term, is for Muslims to convert to Christianity. Not to mention that Jesus died to save these fellow human beings, and they deserve to know that. Therefore it is OUR responsibility to communicate the Good News to them in a way that they can hear — and THAT is what the leader of a billion Catholics should be talking about!!
Islam is not a “world religion” it is a cult. Let’s stop using the language of the enemy.
Compare the life of Christ with that of Mohammad, one born of a virgin birth, the other a uqestionable birth. Compare miracles performed by Jeus and seek ANY miracles performed by Mohammad. One taught peace and love, the other murder, rapes, enslvements because he had “visions?”
One taught to go into the world “baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the other taught Sharia Law and for infidels ( pagans ) who refused, to be slaughtered. Compare the Catholic Bible and it’s writings and teachings and see how much was copied and stated in the Quran as “new insightful words” by Mohammad. Catholicism had a 200 year direct link to Jesus, now show me a direct link to Mohammed with competing versions of Islam…….Shi’ites versus Sunni’s and smaller sects ? A faith of love and peace?
That first sentence is based on a misreading of what the HF said. The English is here: http://www.la-croix.com/Religion/Pape/INTERVIEW-Pope-Francis-2016-05-17-1200760633
The paragraph is as follows:
INTERVIEWER: “The fear of accepting migrants is based partly on a fear of Islam. In your view, is the fear that this religion sparks in Europe justified ?”
POPE FRANCIS: “Today, I don’t think there is a fear of Islam as such but of ISIS and its war of conquest, which is partly drawn from Islam. It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus sends His disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.
In the face of Islamic terrorism….”, etc.
[my emphasis]
That is the whole of the offending quotation. And the Pope is correct: both religions could be thought of as intending to “conquer” the entire world. That “possible…interpret[ation]” is the extent of the comparison. All the fuss is based on failing to see what the HF said. Does the HF say he agrees with the “possible…interpret[ation]” he mentions ? No. He doesn’t. His words describe an hypothesis, to which he does not commit himself. This entire fuss is made up.
However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus sends His disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.
The difference is night and day and it is not possible to conceive of Christianity and that false faith as having the same idea of conquest as Jesu spoke of conversion not conquest.
Islam is totalitarian and spread by the sword and Mahomet was a murdering Jew-Killing brigand who was also a psychotic pedophile. Mahomet is the perfect man in Mahometanism and, thus, the pluperfect model for actualising that most miserable of false faiths.
“The difference is night and day and it is not possible to conceive of
Christianity and that false faith as having the same idea of conquest as
Jesu spoke of conversion not conquest.”
## They are both universal religions. And both have notions of conquest – very different notions, to be sure; but both have them. Conquest of souls is no less real a conquest for being bloodless and life-giving. Is the Holy Father not allowed to use a metaphor without being hauled over the coals for it ?
And both are totalitarian (since you mention that) – again, in very different ways. That difference, very great as it is, does not mean both are not totalitarian.
Water is a very different liquid from whisky – does it follow that because whisky differs very greatly from water, it can in no sense be compared with it, has nothing in common with it, and must not be called a liquid in any sense ?
Dear James. As can easily be seen, Franciscus is allowed to do anything he desires.
O, and would you choose to, say, compare your wife to a whore, and expect others to defend that by citing the various ways they are similar as women?
You’re parsing words. Most people are only going to take away the comparison between Islam and Christianity. Splitting hairs as you are doing is only enabling our church to go into a steeper and steeper decline. You are an enabler for the church’s enemies, who are now clearly within.
I do not know what you mean by “parsing”. The HF was being grievously misquoted, so I quoted what he really said. If some people prefer to believe he said what he did not say, that is not his problem, but theirs. I was under the impression that truth, honesty, accuracy in giving quotations, fair-mindedness, refusing to attack a man for what he has not said, & defending someone from being unjustly attacked, were desirable qualities; how can the Church be weakened by them ? It is evils like lies and hatred, malice, slander, uncharity, calumny, paranoia, willingness to believe evil of people, disappointment that they are not as black as they are painted, partisanship and refusal to hear any side but one’s own, that weaken the Church. Was the Gospel spread by calumny and bearing false witness ? If not, what makes them Christlike now ?
So violent oppression is the same as words and logic?
Awesome.
….that’s what they teach on college campuses, hence the “need” for safe spaces.
“His words describe an hypothesis, to which he does not commit himself.”
This summarizes the difficulty of having Francis as Pope. Instead of taking on the job as it was give he seems intent on posing a bunch of irrelevancies, making a confusing mess, and then not taking a position.
…as if he is baiting infighting instead of leading with the truth to forestall it.
May I remind everyone that the statements that were attributed to Pope Benedict XVI, regarding his resignation, came from somewhere inside the Vatican. There is no evidence that Benedict wrote these statements. He has not been heard from, on video, since his so-called resignation. Do not be deceived! You cannot trust anyone in the Vatican hierarchy. I still think it possible that Benedict is being drugged. He is more or less a “figure head” where you see photo’s of him, but, that is it. What is going on with Benedict is connected to the real 3rd secret of Fatima, and 1 peter 5 stumbled onto a hornets nest, by its recent article that was posted. Remember, in the New(Jew) World Order, nothing is, as it seems.
I also feel Jewry has a lot to do with Freemasonry & Modernism – they put Jesus to death and now are Hell-bent on destroying His Church. The idea they don’t need to be evangelised is demonic. Everyone needs to hear the Truth and given the opportunity of redemption won for them by Our Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary.
YouTube for E. Michael Jones’ The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit.
Great link. I wonder has PF any Jewish blood – that would be worth following-up.
Jews don’t have bad DNA, or are inherently bad people. It is their religious culture’s rejection of Christ which leads them to revolutionary behavior.
I don’t wish to imply that they are, after all the Holy Family was Jewish, but as you say their rejection of Christ has brought this debacle on everyone. They must be evangelised (as indeed the Muslims). The Vatican’s stance is not correct.
Only Paul was called apostle to the gentiles. That shows the unusual quality of the charge. But even he always started each mission by evangelizing in the synagogue.
Evangelising the Jews FIRST as Christ ordered things seems to be
I am glad you are talking about this. It is shocking that a small panel of theologians and rabbis would decide after 2000 years that Jews don’t need Jesus for salvation after all, and that after the historic announcement so little was said about it. I wonder if rabbi Skorka had something to do with setting up the stage for this… surprise.
I remember. My natural trusting predisposition is pretty much gone. At this point it would equal irresponsibility. Aren’t we supposed to be innocent as doves, sly as foxes? I am neither one nor the other, but just like before I required a reason to not trust a person, I now want a reason to trust.
“Wise as serpents” Quiet animals that are unsentimental but not cruel. They don’t look for fights but will defend themselves.
Embarrassing to me – these foxes.
Thank you for kind correction.
John Paul II compared the Trinity to a family: w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19790128_messico-puebla-seminario.html
See the section beginning: “It has been said, in a beautiful and profound way…”, about half-way down. So Pope Francis is in good company. Why do people notice these things only when Pope Francis says them ?
The “social gospel” destroyed the mainline protestant churches as any sort of force. Now the Catholic Church herself it being assaulted. The push is for globalism by the elites. In ages past. kings and rulers often influences the selection of Bishops. even Popes. Maybe that is what is happening now.
I might be wrong. but have become aware of some fact hard to overlook. If we are really talking and really trying to get to the root of the problem, facts about the Jesuit Order should not be omitted despite the Name they use for their world-wide paramilitary organization. I believe it is Jesuits who coined the term “social justice”, who promote and spread homosexuality and the flood of Muslim immigration around the world, and who infiltrate all levels of society and rule via indoctrination hubs like Georgetown University. It is Jesuits who have been kicked out of the Catholic Church many times, and always came back with their wicked casuistry and hypocrisy. They incorporate paganism and elements of false god worship into the Catholic Church, and push a situational ethics. They don’t even hide the prevalence of homosexuality among the brethren, love for sodomy almost seeming a precondition for admission to the order. Personal poverty as a front, they strive for world-rule. Social justice is a front for a sinister agenda.
When Jorge Bergoglio was announced pope, Masonry was celebrating: “The world is never going to be the same again”.
Wonder who will get named the third person of the holy papacy?
Father Thomas Rosica naturally.
Ahahahahaha!!!
Living in Canada and having had interactions with Rosica, not pleasant ones, all I can say is God help us.
Gee and it’s only Monday! What WILL tomorrow bring.
I don’t know that things can get any weirder than they are. I don’t know what to say about this. It can only be called bizarre. Hang tight to the old faith, never let it go.
This is the papal equivalent of concelebration. The post-VII laicization of the priesthood pterodactyls have come home to roost – and they’re ravenously hungry. What was it that Dr von Hildebrand said about infiltration going to the very top? Never mind. I’m sure it’s just a conspiracy theory.
I’m confused.
Along with the rest of the church.
http://www.eyeofthetiber.com/2016/05/12/pope-to-commission-study-to-find-more-ways-he-can-confuse-people/
This commenter sums it up well..and this goes hand in hand with Jon’s Rappoport’s quotes I have above. Basically the Pope is saying to you all, “Gotcha and there’s nothing you can do about it”.
“Hi, I’m Jimmy Akin, and here’s 10 things you need to know about Pope Francis’ new efforts to cause confusion:
1) He’s the pope, therefore he can never commit heresy even when he commits heresy.
2) He’s the pope, therefore he’s infallible even when he’s fallible.
3) Not everything the pope says is doctrinal – especially when he changes doctrine.
4) The pope is not anti-Catholic – even when he spews anti-Catholic nonsense.
5) Nothing the pope says is nonsense – even when he spews nonsense.
6) The pope is not God – even though the pope really is God.
7) The pope is the most humblest person in the world – and he’s very proud of that fact.
8) Jesus answers to the pope – even though the pope is Jesus.
9) The pope is not a communist – even though he thinks like them, speaks like them, sympathizes with them, befriends them, and obsessively advances their agenda.
10) The pope can do no wrong. Ever. And I don’t just get paid a six figure income to say that. Okay. Maybe I do…….
That Bishop Jimmy understands the situation so well means that he’ll be getting the red hat from me. The colour won’t match his beard, but I’m sure something can be arranged.
I especially like items #6 and #8 on his list. They fill me with the joy of the gospel, the joy of love and a strong desire to care for our common home. Regarding #10 though, Cardinal-to-be Jimmy will have to up his game in order to hang with his soon-to-be brother Cardinal Reinhard. That dude is swimming in the filthy lucre something nasty. He’s got a new bachelor pad here in Rome, you know. And he knows how to throw a dinner party, which is obvious to anyone with eyes.
What a horrid photo-collage. I can’t bear a whole cadre of ring-wraiths of this guy. One is plenty even if he is only half of the papacy.
Hey! Maybe they’re laying the groundwork to prepare us for Hans Kung’s return to reinvent the papacy as Francis mentioned.
Either way, Benedict XVI himself got this silly ball rolling with statements differentiating between ‘active’ and ‘spiritual’ ministries of a papacy divided, and that somehow he still bears the mark and this is why he still retains the title of a ‘retired pope’ and wears white and keeps the same papal court of arms. Even in retirement Benedict couldn’t help but reintroduce to us some new novelty.
Compare that to Celestine who knew what he was doing, took back his old title, wore his old clothes etc. so as to leave absolutely no doubts in anyone’s mind that he was no longer pope. And for good measure his successor locked him away. Why? Because both men were smart and wanted to head off any claims that someone may not be the Pope and therefore the turmoil that would occur as a result of any excuse.
But in the glorious age of vague pastoralism, it’s like the hierarchy is just looking for more excuses to create more problems and conspiracies than it solves. This is why we need extreme clarity and our yes mean yes and no mean no.
Get ready for Ecumenism and Collegiality 2.0. I wonder if this enlarged papal ministry has room for the inevitable female Archbishop of Canterbury & the various Orthodox Patriarchs?
Sha-zam! Garsh, I always thought there was just one Pope, now there’s two. Why I’ll be, I bet it’s one of them there surprises. I sure am surprised. Are you surprised Barney? I know I’m sure surprised. How bout you Andy? Are you surprised? I bet your surprised too! Gall-lee, I’m sure surprised! Sha-zam!
These two popes are not popes at all, isn’t that obvious.
So now we have two certifiable looneys in the papacy at once. Talk about diabolical disorientation – sheesh!
“There is absolutely no doubt regarding the validity of my resignation from the Petrine ministry,” Ratzinger wrote in his letter of reply. The only condition for the validity of my resignation is the complete freedom of my decision. Speculations regarding its validity are simply absurd.”
I do not claim, at this time, to have a workable theory that would resolve these apparent contradictions.”
I have to say that when I read your previous post on the Vatican statement purportedly quoting P Benedict denying the Fatima story, I immediately thought of this so called letter of P Benedict to Tornielli… too quick to be for real. And why would the pope write to Tornielli when he had Socci’s address on file? Would he not have at least copied it to Socci so Socci could not question it’s veracity.
If Pope Benedict really believed this, then one could seriously argue his resignation was invalid owning to mental impairment.
Whatever the truth is, this whole mess is from Hell.
On the mental impairment, it reminds me of the Catch-22 movie with Alan Arkin.
Reports from Rome seem to get increasingly bizarre by the day.
Does anyone recall that lightning struck the Vatican on the night that Pope Benedict resigned? A coincidence?
A message of La Salette spoke of the latter times, with “two worm-ridden popes.” See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_WJHWPdrH4 This is a 9-minute video of an interview with Fr. Hesse, RIP
It says that the video does NOT exist!
That is strange. A friend recently brought it to my attention and I watched it! I found it again by going to http://www.youtube.com, and then in their search bar, I entered: Father Hesse, La Salette, worm-ridden popes It came right up.
Besides the video not existing, I have studied much prophecy, including La Salette and it’s many versions of secrets (from the French book by Fr. Rene Laurentin). I have never heard of “two worm-ridden popes” ever in anything I have studied. This sounds very dubious to me. Yes, the lightning is not a coincidence, nothing is.
The video does indeed exist. You can go to http://www.youtube.com, then put the following words in their search-bar: Father Gregory Hesse, La Salette, worm-ridden popes . I, too, have read a goodly amount of prophecy, but not Rene Laurentin’s book that you cited. Apparently this is a little-known prophecy.
It is definitely not in La Salette. The supplied video link is dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5C248xgBg4
I don’t believe this for a second as I have done great study on La Salette.
Habemus popeye!!
Maybe Benedict and Francis are actually TWINS! And as siblings do are SHARING
the Papacy! Thereby giving everyone a CHOICE! After having examined their INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT , that is!
Seriously though, this is a grisly and cruel
game being played out at the expense of faithful Catholics everywhere! The Endgame will, without doubt, become apparent in the fullness of time! Maranatha Lord Jesus and forgive us our sins !
The big stories this week are Boys in Girl’s Bathrooms, Women Deacons, and Two Popes. What is going on, world?
Wish I could say that all of the recent ramblings and events surrounding this pope were something new, but alas, not so. Like with Pope John Paul II’s Gospel of the Body, for years we’ve seen the traditional stance morphing into madness. It all ties in with what kids are being taught today. And not just in public schools but within Catholic catechism classes. If you have not seen GIL or Growing in Love series, you should check it out. They have been preparing the kids for a couple decades now into the weird and whacky group stink think of the culture at large….diversity…the lgbt bs…the family and it’s different ways of being…this is nothing new for those of us who have observed for decades the morphing of doctrine…Francis is not the first to get out of line and won’t be the last.
http://archive.wf-f.org/03-1-GILComment.html
I’ve just read the info on that link you posted. It is so true! I checked my kids text books. Jesus is reduced to a simple human, treated like another prophet. They say He toyed with the idea of joining some other sect that was available in his lifetime, however he opted for creating his own sect…the Nazarenes. Also one of the books it says is not his death or the Cross that save us, it is the lfe he had, his , his love for the poor, again he’s just like Martin Luther King or Gandhi. The wording is so ambiguous it reminded me of the infamous A.L.
Ambiguity is where it’s at for la papa…very tricky, those Jesuits known for some of the most god awful pedophilia and torture of orphaned children in Ireland for decades…if you take the time to research there are still some older folks who were at the Catholic schools where these kids were used as personal slaves. They tell of the horrors and the life long repercussions of molestation.. Nuns were also perps too.
It really makes what I observed my first year in a catholic high school eons ago, look like peanuts in comparison.
One of the girls in our religion class was always pulled out within a minute of class starting. Naïve me, I had no clues back then, but would learn in time this red headed priest would take her down the hall into an empty room, pull the shades, lock the door and then tell her that God wanted him to teach her about sex.
I don’t know and I sort of doubt he ever ‘did it’ to her, but the poor shy girl so obedient to a man of the cloth was so well endowed for a girl her age..let’s say 42dd and a 22″ waist. He would ask her to take off her blouse and slip..and then I gather he just wanted to see her lovelies. Apparently he wasn’t a faggot, but was a sick fool.
The upshot of that story was that she ended up living a horrible life thanks to that priest…she wrote something for one of our high school reunions for the book and in it she
implied she had walked around the block since high school
If you can find any school books on GIL, you will see how they too, just like the public schools, are poisoning kids minds with information that no child should have. Thus they are setting up these kids for a lifetime of abuse, or STDs or other, such as trying out and becoming any of the now 32 variations of LGBT. Yep, just yesterday heard the latest with Deblasio/NY.
If you as a biz owner do not know the chosen sex of your customer, you can face a hugh penalty for being in the dark!!
Think up to $250,000 for not knowing what’s in a dude’s pants!
Find the Washington Post’s piece from yesterday entitled, New York businesses face hefty penalties for ‘misgendering’ customers—-one thinks the final pinnacle of insanity has been reached…then out of hell comes yet again more psychopathy.
“The Gotham mayor’s Commission on Human Rights says entities that fail to address customers by their preferred gender pronouns and titles are in violation of the law and could be subject to penalties of up to $250,000.
The commission issued a “legal enforcement guidance” for the New York City Human Rights Law, which now “requires employers and converted entities to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs.) regardless of the individual’s sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the individual’s identification.”
From Church Tradition, there could never be Two Popes, one was the True Successor to St. Peter and the other was the anti-pope; but in the early days of the Church, I read some where before the Pope was martyred, before the Church using a conclave to elect a Pope; he would do so by himself, but the man he selected wouldn’t become Pope until the death of the one before him. Too much weird statements are coming from the Vatican, someone needs to go and find out the truth.
So in effect we have a dual papacy. One speaks, the other is the diviner. Got it.
If this is how Benedict sees the papacy then I am horrified.
1:”there can only be one pope and neither Francis or Benedict know who is really pope, so wait until both die.”
2:”our job is to focus on surviving the coming wrath , or recognizing the unlikelihood of that, ensure the soul survival of ourselves and as many as we can.”
3:is there a good book(s)/paper(s) presenting the prophecies and statements of visionaries and saints regarding the last times (I’d prefer them to avoid sedevacantist theories) and these times.
4:Benedict may have been truly incommunicado since the resignation, and all interactions with him have been parsed and contested by others.
If reports are correct (and why not?), apparently PB16 decided to bifurcate the Papacy i/n/o expanding it. The Petrine Ministry has been reduced to the tag team of Pope Inside (PB16) and Pope Outside (PF). If true, their hubris and apostasy is breathtaking….even by PF standards.. The story has “legs” because PF has proven his arrogance is without limit. Fiction is now reality. This is really Modernism Metastasized in the Church. The idea sounds so crazy that it actually makes sense. Rome has replaced San Francisco as the capital of La-La Land. It has been thoroughly compromised by the fruits and nuts mindset of girly-men land. There are no limits to any actions taken to “Make a Mess” i/n/o “Mercy”
True, but only one has free reign, which means it is possible the other is being controlled. Certainly, our Holy Father, Benedict would have spoken out about the last anti Catholic synod where those who dissent from The Deposit of Faith were given free reign without any fraternal correction or threat of anathema.
“Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent.” – Rev. 3-19
This makes about as much sense as everything else coming from the Vatican these days. What we are witnessing is the 3rd Secret of Fatima being fulfilled. Next? The Great Chastisement. Prepare accordingly.
I converted to Catholicism from drunkenness 6 years ago. Now weekly I need reminders of why I’m not converting to Greek Orthodox. Sigh.
Ben, notice in this picture, the two do not see eye to eye?
There Is only One Spirit of Perfect Love Between The Father and The Son, Who Proceeds from both The Father and The Son, in The Ordered Communion of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy and Undivided Blessed Trinity.
Why was the Creed added to – with the phrase “and the Son”. When and by whom? What issue or crisis preceded the insertion? Was the addition acknowledged with universal acclaim by the whole Church?
As I said previously I lived among the Orthodox for many years. They have it in their heads that the Latins, in their formulations, tend to demote the *person* of the Holy Spirit by relegating the Spirit to a relation. This puts into question, according to the Orthodox, the co-equal sharing (participation) of all Three Persons of the Trinity of the Godhead.
Don’t be silly. Stay in the boat.
Why all the confusion?
Page 117, of the pope’s book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex unions
“If there is a union of a PRIVATE NATURE, THERE IS NEITHER A THIRD PARTY NOR IS SOCIETY AFFECTED. Now, if this union is given the category of marriage and they are given adoption rights, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and female mother that can help them shape their identity. – Jorge Mario Bergoglio
Approval of same-sex sexual unions is approval of same-sex sexual acts.
“The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: “one is not born a woman, one becomes so” (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term “gender” as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.”
Excellent.
Dear Steve et al,
I have been reading your well-written site with my wife every day for about a year but have only recently put my name up to Disqus.
I hope I am wrong, but I can’t help but see shadows of the Helgelian/Marxist Dialectic in this whole situation. Archbishop Ganswein’s acknowledgement of the struggle between the ”Salt of the Earth” group and so -called ”St. Gallen Mafia” and all that this entails seems to me to positively invite such an analysis.
In such a situation, Pope Benedict and his ”school” would represent a Thesis. Pope Francis and his group would be an Anti-Thesis. Then the sharing out of the papacy into ”active” and ”contemplative” elements would be a Synthesis.
None of which is objectively legal or valid of course! It contradicts Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, Canon Law and even the Second Vatican Council; for Christ built His Church on the Rock of Peter, not on two, or more, Peters…
Anyway, these are some of the thoughts that have troubled me in the wake of this latest bombshell!
In Christ,
Alan Houghton
Torch of The Faith (UK)
With all due respect, the sharing of a thesis and an anti-thesis would result in an anti-thesis. One cannot add an element of anti truth to the truth, or subtract an element of truth from the truth, without ending with error. Serving The Common Ground, which compromises The Truth, is not the same as serving for The Common Good.
Yes indeed, you are quite right.
The point I am making is that from a Hegelian point of view it would be seen/presented as a new synthesis. It is arguable that this model has been applied in the gradual take-down of Western civilization/ the attempted take-down of the Church.
I am pointing it out as a danger, not encouraging it as an application!
That I also agree with your point about serving the common ground not being the same as serving the Common Good is evident from my point that this all contradicts Sacred Scripture e.t.c.
And why it is all so troubling…
I know you were.; I apologize if you thought I did not understand your clear and profound comment. This information coming from The Vatican is very disturbing and needs to be addressed by The Faithful.
The Orthodox explain the “Chair of Peter” as being shared equally by all bishops. They point to a quote by St. Gregory the Great that says the See of Peter is one in three consisting of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch.
So there may be a bit more to this new conception of the papacy than it first appears, especially when combined with Kasper’s statements about re-examining infallibility.
“To be Truly Orthodox is to be in Communion with Peter’s See.”
This includes Peter.
http://www.dailycatholic.org/cumexapo.htm
Right. So you can understand how important the definition of “Peter’s See” is.
True, Peter’s See affirms there Is and can only Be One Spirit of Perfect Complementary Love, Who Proceeds from both The Father and The Son, in The Ordered Communion of Perfect Love, The Most Holy and Undivided Blessed Trinity.
Stop doing that dumb stuff. Schism is for the birds. Time is short, so get on the boat!! Sure, the waves are crashing over the top and there’s a big fight at the wheel and 99% of the crew are in mutiny and we’re being boarded by pirates, but so what? You have no hope in the open sea.
Did you mean to reply to me? You seem to have missed the point of my comment completely.
It’s quite possible. I can be very stupid sometimes. Maybe you can explain it for me. I don’t function well before midday and probably shouldn’t have said anything!
My point is that it is possible that we are seeing our hierarchy slowly play things out so as to adopt a more collegial understanding of the Petrine ministry that would ultimately bring the papacy in line with the Orthodox conception. After all, if the See of Peter can have two aspects resting in two different people, why can it not have multiple aspects resting in every bishop, sharing in the ministry in a geographically unique, but otherwise the same, way?
The challenge here against the unity of the papal office, combined with the previous challenge to the doctrine of infallibility, mixed in with the hyper-ecumenical tendencies of the modern Church, leads me to be suspicious of what their endgame might be. We do know that Francis wants to unite with the Orthodox somehow, and given his “flexibility” when it comes to doctrine, I think it is a legitimate concern that Vatican theologians are able to openly question settled Catholic doctrines with respect to the papacy.
At the very least, this whole thing is problematic because it demonstrates the love that our prelates have for innovation. They’ve never met an innovation that they didn’t like.
So, my ultimate point is that compromising our God-given doctrine to gain acceptance from false religions is something that we should be worried about since we have seen the evidence in the last 60 years that the Vatican is more than willing to do so. I am concerned that the remarks from this bishop are testing the waters for still further change.
Right. I hadn’t had my coffee when I first replied and was beginning to think you were advocating Orthodoxy. Mea culpa. Although, my own opinion is that the Pope just wants to make a mess.
What a splendid image you write!
POPE ONE
&
POPE TWO
Pope one and Pope two
A mess of a stew
These Vatican men
Have no class
They tell me “You’re Church”
So from where I do perch
I excommunicate their
Fluffy-sad ass!
Well, that’s short and to the point! lol
Tell us another one, Eminence!!
Catholics have the best stuff! Even the best crises!
Man, can’t help but notice what a striking likeness to a rodent Ratzinger has.
No doubt, the site has been hacked most likely by those who deny The Catholic Church’s teaching on morality.
Sorry?
Equating Pope Benedict to a rodent lacks respect for Catholic Morality.
I didn’t equate him to a rodent. Just a passing observation on his appearance and his name. My wife jokingly calls me an ostrich sometimes. I suppose she’s immoral, too.
The theological liberal with a traditional liturgical outlook Benedict is not my sacred cow.
Neither it seems, is restraint and respect.
Eh. Leaves a bad taste perhaps. Can’t help but notice such a thing.
I can’t imagine this statement will be allowed to stand without some kind of clarification/correction.
In my home diocese, there were for awhile two retired bishops still alive when the current bishop first became bishop of the diocese. One of these retired bishops died in 2012, but the other retired bishop is still alive, and residing in a nursing home.
Benedict’s retirement establishes a precedent to do something similar with the papacy.
The crucial issue that makes the question more complex in the case of the Bishop of Rome, is the fact that there is only one Peter, whereas there are many apostles (i.e., many bishops). Benedict, being a theologian of the highest caliber, would have meditated on this question quite a bit before deciding to retire.
Personally, I trust that Pope Benedict’s understanding of the theological issues involved is sound. My diocese has a clear bishop, even though there were for awhile two other retired bishops still living in the diocese. The Church has a clear Pope, even though Benedict is still alive. I think the reason why people are paying so much attention to the two living popes issue is that Francis’ teaching in some areas seems deliberately open to misinterpretation. If Francis was very clear and solid on doctrine, I don’t think we’d be having discussions like this, or at least the question would not be posed so urgently.
I still hold out hope that one day Bendedict will jump out into the middle of a synod laughing: “Fooled you!” Then he apologizes to bergoglio for making the object of scorn and ridicule – but then excommunicates the whole masonic, demonic cabal and adherents to any variety of modernism.
Dream big, right?
We have three living bishops in my diocese – one in a nursing home, one in a monastery out of state, and then the current and active one. That said, Peter was never simply the Bishop of Rome, and Our Lord does not specify this – although he does say something about Peter’s death. In fact, his death in Rome, of which he was indeed the bishop, is probably what cemented the connection.
So maybe the problem is not the papacy but Rome? It’s been taken over by heretics and will be overrun by Islam pretty soon. The Fatima prophecy supposedly had something about Rome moving. And I’m not a “fatimista,” by any means, although I have always found valuable things from the many “fatimistas” out there. I just don’t like to get into revelations and prophecies – too charismatic for my blood! But I’m looking a Fatima a whole different way now mostly because of the opposition to it.
Veer very strange times. I’ve been re-reading my favorite childhood book, Alice in Wonderland, and it’s long positively logical now.
Isabel, if your impression of prophecy has been formed by association with charismatics I can understand why you would say this. I guess I could be called an ex-charismatic, although my association with them ended so long ago – back in the early 80’s – that I often forget that part of my life. When I do remember, I remember being very uncomfortable with so much that was going on there, and one of the worst things was all the fake prophecy. It always seemed to be given to the ones who sat up at the front of the room, who needed to be seen as just a little holier then the rest of us, the “elite” of our group for whom Heaven had given special favor. I remember feeling a little envious of them – because they were always at the social center of our group and I never was, but I always felt disturbed by the acceptance of the pretense, as well as how less then aw- inspiring God sounded when he spoke to us through them – which was at least 2 or 3 times every prayer session. But years later the internet came along and I was finally given a chance to really learn the faith – and now I feel somewhat embarrassed about that part of my life.
Real prophecy – properly approved by the Church – is not at all like that. Real prophecy doesn’t ramble on – vainly – in repetative small talk with no real purpose – this would be beneath the dignity of God and Our Lady. The message of any one prophecy is always consistent with the others – there are never contradictions from one to the other, in fact some form a continuum. Akita directly relates to Fatima, and seems to be heavens by-passing of the vatican, to give us the warning intended by the unreleased part of the third secret – that would have been given to us if the Vatican had done as Our Lady commanded. The urgency of Fatima is better understood when one keeps in mind Our Lord’s comments about the fate of the King of France when his ancestor ignored Our Lady’s instruction given him by Margaret Mary Alacoque. La Salette provides an overview of the future from that point until the end of time, which makes it easy to eliminate false prophecies and apparitions such as Medjugorje. From all this we can see just how urgently Jesus and his Mother have worked to warn us – therefore we should listen – after all scripture tells us to “despise not prophecy”.
Does it not appear the “dictatorship of relativism” has taken out two of its most ardent holdouts? Classical Roman Catholicism is not given to such confected reasoning. It is a sad day when those regarded as irrational conspiracy theorists are given credence by the actions and words of those one has held in esteem. My olfactory sense is picking something up and it is not the odor of sanctity. Codswallop?
There is a convergence of events and utterances that are not adding up to anything good, and you wonder who is orchestrating all of this. Our pastors are called to pastor, not lobby and run interference for aberrance. It is as if there is a clerical chorus that is all giving voice but that has lost the lyrics, improvising as they muddle along. There is no substitute for the
Gospel, the Apostolic Tradition and the Magisterium. Can you reinvent the wheel? To gild the lily is by its nature counterproductive and an exercise in futility.
There are a host of issues of the recent past upon which many would wish to hear beloved Benedict and his confreres comment. Within days we have a panicked response regarding Fatima and a revisioning of the papacy. Is this a response to a perceived but unarticulated crisis?
That the Pope abdicated but still possesses part of the petrine ministry is entirely reasonable in the same way that when Quarterback Joe Montana was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs, he still wore his San Francis Forty Niners uniform and continued to call the plays for the 49ers and the Chiefs and every NFL Fan was jake with that because the day Joe Montana was traded he did not have a Kansas City Chiefs uniform in his possession and Lord knows he had had no time since the trade to acquire a new uniform and so he played for the Kansas City Chiefs while wearing a 49ers uniform so as to not confuse the fans of his new defacto Petrine-substitute-Quarterback-something-or other..ah: no, wait.
The Law of Excluded Middle
One logical law that is easy to accept is the law of non-contradiction. This law can be expressed by the propositional formula ¬(p^¬p). Breaking the sentence down a little makes it easier to understand. p^¬p means that p is both true and false, which is a contradiction. So, negating this statement means that there can be no contradictions (hence, the name of the law). In other words, the law of non-contradiction tells us that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time. This law is relatively uncontroversial, though there have been those who believe that it may fail in certain special cases. However, it does lead us to a logical principle that has historically been more controversial: the law of excluded middle.
The law of excluded middle can be expressed by the propositional formula p_¬p. It means that a statement is either true or false. Think of it as claiming that there is no middle ground between being true and being false. Every statement has to be one or the other. That’s why it’s called the law of excluded middle, because it excludes a middle ground between truth and falsity. So while the law of non-contradiction tells us that no statement can be both true and false, the law of excluded middle tells us that they must all be one or the other. Now, we can get to this law by considering what it means for the law of non-contradiction to be true. For the law of noncontradiction to be true, ¬(p^¬p) must be true. This means p^¬p must be false. Now, we must refer back the truth table definition for a conjunction. What does it take for p ^ ¬p to be false? It means that at least one of the conjuncts must be false. So, either p is false, or ¬p is false. Well, if p is false, then ¬p must be true. And if ¬p is false, then p must be true. So we are left with the disjunction p _ ¬p, which is exactly the formulation I gave of the law of excluded middle. So we have just derived the law of excluded middle from the law of non-contradiction.
If anybody else can make sense of all that, kudos to you. But I think I get the gist of what Spartacus is talking about, or at the very least alluding to.
Dear Samantha. Well, the sarcasm was slathered on with a rhetorical trowel, wasn’t it?
“I continue to wear the white cassock and kept the name Benedict for purely practical reasons. At the moment of my resignation there were no other clothes available. In any case, I wear the white cassock in a visibly different way to how the Pope wears it.”
Did he surprise himself with his abdication so there was no time to secure, say, a black cassock? Even if that were true, he has had time since his abdication.
If Franciscus abdicates and chooses to join the prior abdicator, , will we Catholics then have an old Popes home (Three popes) ?
Reducing the Papacy to essentially the equivalence of a CEO is prolly not that great of an idea.
My comment was in response to the section explaining the law of non-contradiction. No offense was meant on my part, and if I did offend, I apologize. I wholeheartedly agree with you about this odd situation in the papacy!
Dear Samantha. No offense was taken
That is why a Catholic serves The Common Good and not The Common Ground.
I don`t know if I understand you correctly.
In your opinion: is it true or false to say: God is light- or is it true or false to say: God is not light as the “negative theology” teaches?
In Europe, I am German, there are, surprisingly, al lot of black Madonnas like in Jasna Gora, Poland. I interpret this phenomenon in regard to the “negative theology”.
Our human understanding and language is in some ways limited (after the sinfall by Adam and Eve) and therefore I guess, during all times, there were mystics (male and female), to “declare” us the secrets of God and His Revelation(s). “School-theolgy” of today has a great lack in dealing with mystics and that`s why, in my opinion, we have this great spiritual crisis in Church and world.
This is the “modern” crisis and has its origin in a somehow false theology reaching back to the Middle Ages: the wrong theology could obviously not be stopped and found its way outside the Church in this “Reformation” by Luther, Calvin etc. – and all the other errors following that wrong course.
It is wrong (blasphemous actually) to say that God is not light (See Bible, Tradition, approved Creeds)
This is not wrong at all to say that God is “no light” according to the “negative theology” by some “Church-Fathers”, among them (Ps.) Dionysius Areopagita, who was said to have been baptized by the apostle St. Paul, then in Athens (Acts of the Apostels) and being the first bishop of Athens and of Paris/France (St.Denis).
This man had- and still has- a high influence on roman-catholic theology in the Middle Ages until today.
Most of the theologians in the Middle Ages and also in the “Newtime” until the 20th. century took his scriptures as an unavoidable source of true wisdom. And just 100 years ago or so has happened this rupture in catholic theology by misregarding St. Dionysius with all the bad results for the Church.
He is very well known, although rejected by the unmystical and therefore widely “unknowing protestants”- and halfway forgotten by todays theology.
One cannot understand f.ex. the great Church-teachers St.Thomas of Aquin or St. Albert the Great without St.Dionysius Areopagita.
IANS is not to keen on Apophatic Theology as it makes no sense to claim, as you did, that one can both confess that God is light and God is no light.
http://www.waragainstbeing.com/partiii
IANS could spend an entire year in an opium den reading the Kabbalah and still not see how your claim makes any sense.
God is not a contradiction, thus, He can not be light and not light
Denzinger’s, The Sources of Catholic Dogma:
(Exposition of Nicene Creed proposed to certain catechumens in the Orient)
13 We believe in one God, the father almighty, the creator of all things invisible and visible; and in one lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, the only begotten born of God the father, that is of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, consubstantial to the father, by whom all things were made, both those in heaven and those on earth, both visible and invisible, who for us melt and for our salvation came down and became man, that is was completely born of holy Mary ever-virgin by the Holy Spirit, was made man, that is, assumed perfect human nature, soul and body and mind, and all whatever is man except sin, not from the seed of man nor by means of man, but having fashioned unto himself a body into one holy unity; not as he lived in the prophets and talked and worked in them, but became man completely (“for the word was made flesh,” he did not submit to an alteration, nor did he change his own divine nature into human nature); he combined both the divine nature and the human into the only holy perfection of himself; (for there is one Lord Jesus Christ, and not two; the same God, the same Lord, the same King); but the same suffered in the flesh and arose again and ascended into heaven with the very body and sits in glory at the right hand of the Father, in that very body he is coming in glory to judge the living and the dead; of whose kingdom there shall be no end:-and we believe in the Holy Spirit who spoke in the law, and taught by the prophets, and descended to the Jordan, spoke by the Apostles, and lives in the saints; thus we believe in him: that he is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the perfect Spirit, the Spirit Paraclete, uncreated, proceeding from the Father and receiving of the Son, in whom we believe….
I fully agree with you.
But to give you a hint of what “negative theology” means, I would like to cite the following”:
“Negative theology, also known as Apophatic theology, is a theological approach that describes God by negation, speaking of God only in terms of what He is not (apophasis) rather than presuming to describe what God is.
In negative theology, it is maintained that we can never truly define
God in words. In the end, the student must transcend words to
understand the nature of the Divine. In this sense, negative theology is
not a denial. Rather, it is an assertion that whatever the Divine may be, when we attempt to capture it in human words, we will inevitably fall short.”
So one could say that God is “light” and at the same time “not light”. And both is right in a certain sense. God encompasses everything. I think that is what “negative theology” wants to make us aware of. And Jesus Himself said: for God all things are possible even that a camel goes through a needle`s eye.
And then there is this mystery of evil. But that has nothing to do with “negative theology”.
If Benedict went so far as to resign from the papacy, is it really a stretch that he would, in his poor health, commit himself to a life of prayer and contemplation in support of the current papacy?
Conspiracy theories aside, Benedict is well qualified to decide the merit of his resignation.
The archbishop, given his theories on the legitimacy of the resignation and Francis is clearly prone to imaginative ideas.
Perhaps not, but one cannot deny that any Pope, who would remain silent in regards to the apostates in the heirarchy who have been exposed through the resignation of Pope Benedict, either is being controlled by some human force, or is part of the lobby.
No doubt, the wolves were at his door; the question is, is Our Father, Benedict, with them, or against them?
The evidence shows he is not with them.
It is important to note that prior to being elected pope, Jorge Bergoglio condoned same-sex sexual relationships as long as they were not called marriage and no children were involved. To deny God’s intention for marriage and the family, and thus Genesis, is to deny That God Is The Author of Love, of Life, and of Marriage. How can the election of a pope who denies Genesis be valid?
Page 117, of the pope’s book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex unions
“If there is a union of a PRIVATE NATURE, THERE IS NEITHER A THIRD PARTY NOR IS SOCIETY AFFECTED. Now, if this union is given the category of marriage and they are given adoption rights, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and female mother that can help them shape their identity. – Jorge Mario Bergoglio
Approval of same-sex sexual unions is approval of same-sex sexual acts.
“The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: “one is not born a woman, one becomes so” (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term “gender” as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.”
Why not tell those men and woman, who have developed a same-sex sexual attraction the truth? It is because we Love you, and respect your Dignity as a beloved son or daughter, that we cannot condone the engaging in or affirmation of any act, including any sexual act that demeans your inherent Dignity as a beloved son or daughter.The desire to engage in a demeaning act of any nature, does not change the nature of the act. We Love you, and because we Love you, we desire that you will always be treated with, and will always treat others with Dignity and respect in private as well as in public. We will not tolerate the engaging in or condoning of sexual behavior that does not reflect the upmost respect for the human person.
Rumors about Benedict XVI
https://en.denzingerbergoglio.com/2016/05/24/rumors-about-benedict-xvi/
Given this travesty of one “active” pope and a “contemplative” one, I am reminded of Field Marshal Moltke’s Four Types of Military Officers:
• Smart & Lazy: I make them my Commanders because they
make the right thing happen but find the easiest way to accomplish the mission.
• Smart & Energetic: I make them my General Staff Officers because they make intelligent plans that make the right things happen.
• Dumb & Lazy: There are menial tasks that require an officer to perform that they can accomplish and they follow orders without causing much harm
• Dumb & Energetic: These are dangerous and must be eliminated. They cause things to happen, but the wrong things, so they cause trouble.
I know which category I’d put Pope Francis in…..
The simplest explanation, speculative I admit, is that Benedict was coerced out of office, kept the titles and dress intending to formulate a justification (not the type to cling out of resentment), initially gave pithy answers when asked about it, and only more recently has fully developed an explanation.
I don’t for a second believe that he established this role as a model for future shared Petrine ministries. He made it for himself after unimaginable deliberation to accommodate his surviving years into ecclesial territory already foretold by Marian mystics.
Laudetur Iesus Christus!
Et Maria Immaculata!
http://www.conchiglia.net/
http://www.conchiglia.us/IT_index.html
http://www.conchiglia.net/C/Conchiglia_2016-02__VERITA_BEN_XVI.pdf
Maranathà
Laudetur Iesus Christus!
http://www.conchiglia.net/
http://www.conchiglia.us/IT_index.html
http://www.conchiglia.us/UK/UK_index.html
http://www.conchiglia.us/Conchiglia/15.310_TU_E_LUI_UNITI_PER_DIRE_BENTORNATO_MIO_SIGNORE_13.05.15.pdf
http://www.conchiglia.us/C_DOCUMENTI/Sacerdoti_Vescovi_Cardinali_e_Conchiglia.pdf
RILEVANTE :
[…] E siccome i vertici Cattolici in Vaticano
e i vertici ebraici che sono dentro al Vaticano…
conoscono bene la Mia Parola che dono oggi attraverso di te
e conoscono ancora più bene…
ciò che hanno omesso… modificato e tagliato riguardo alle Sacre Scritture…
ora che per Volere di Dio e « sotto la guida di Dio » sei libera di agire…
sono letteralmente terrorizzati per quello che potresti dire e fare.
[…]
Gesù a Conchiglia – 21 marzo 2016
http://www.conchiglia.net/C/Conchiglia_2016-02__VERITA_BEN_XVI.pdf
http://www.conchiglia.us/LATINO/LATINO_index.html
Maranathà
There is enough evidence now for any reasonable person to recognize that this is what led to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2012/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20121221_auguri-curia.html
Page 117, of the pope’s book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex unions
“If there is a union of a PRIVATE NATURE, THERE IS NEITHER A THIRD PARTY NOR IS SOCIETY AFFECTED. Now, if this union is given the category of marriage and they are given adoption rights, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and female mother that can help them shape their identity. – Jorge Mario Bergoglio
Approval of same-sex sexual unions is approval of same-sex sexual acts.
“The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: “one is not born a woman, one becomes so” (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term “gender” as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.”
Why not tell those men and woman, who have developed a same-sex sexual attraction the truth? It is because we Love you, and respect your Dignity as a beloved son or daughter, that we cannot condone the engaging in or affirmation of any act, including any sexual act that demeans your inherent Dignity as a beloved son or daughter.The desire to engage in a demeaning act of any nature, does not change the nature of the act. We Love you, and because we Love you, we desire that you will always be treated with, and will always treat others with Dignity and respect in private as well as in public. We will not tolerate the engaging in or condoning of sexual behavior that does not reflect the upmost respect for the human person.
Here is the teaching of The Catholic Church in regards to the current state of apostasy:
http://www.dailycatholic.org/cumexapo.htm
“6. In addition, [by this Our Constitution, which is to remain valid in perpetuity We enact, determine, decree and define:] that if ever at any time it shall appear that any Bishop, even if he be acting as an Archbishop, Patriarch or Primate; or any Cardinal of the aforesaid Roman Church, or, as has already been mentioned, any legate, or even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy:
(i) the promotion or elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless;
(ii) it shall not be possible for it to acquire validity (nor for it to be said that it has thus acquired validity) through the acceptance of the office, of consecration, of subsequent authority, nor through possession of administration, nor through the putative enthronement of a Roman Pontiff, or Veneration, or obedience accorded to such by all, nor through the lapse of any period of time in the foregoing situation;
(iii) it shall not be held as partially legitimate in any way;
(iv) to any so promoted to be Bishops, or Archbishops, or Patriarchs, or Primates or elevated as Cardinals, or as Roman Pontiff, no authority shall have been granted, nor shall it be considered to have been so granted either in the spiritual or the temporal domain;
(v) each and all of their words, deeds, actions and enactments, howsoever made, and anything whatsoever to which these may give rise, shall be without force and shall grant no stability whatsoever nor any right to anyone;
(vi) those thus promoted or elevated shall be deprived automatically, and without need for any further declaration, of all dignity, position, honour, title, authority, office and power.
7. Finally, [by this Our Constitution, which is to remain valid in perpetuity, We] also [enact, determine, define and decree]: that any and all persons who would have been subject to those thus promoted or elevated if they had not previously deviated from the Faith, become heretics, incurred schism or provoked or committed any or all of these, be they members of anysoever of the following categories: the Cardinals, even those who shall have taken part in the election of this very Pontiff previously deviating from the Faith or heretical or schismatical, or shall otherwise have consented and vouchsafed obedience to him and shall have venerated him;
Castellans, Prefects, Captains and Officials, even of Our Beloved City and of the entire Ecclesiastical State, even if they shall be obliged and beholden to those thus promoted or elevated by homage, oath or security; shall be permitted at any time to withdraw with impunity from obedience and devotion to those thus promoted or elevated and to avoid them as warlocks, heathens, publicans, and heresiarchs (the same subject persons, nevertheless, remaining bound by the duty of fidelity and obedience to any future Bishops, Archbishops, Patriarchs, Primates, Cardinals and Roman Pontiff canonically entering).
To the greater confusion, moreover, of those thus promoted or elevated, if these shall have wished to prolong their government and authority, they shall be permitted to request the assistance of the secular arm against these same individuals thus promoted or elevated; nor shall those who withdraw on this account, in the aforementioned circumstances, from fidelity and obedience to those thus promoted and elevated, be subject, as are those who tear the tunic of the Lord, to the retribution of any censures or penalties.”
It seems to be of interest that early on Ganswein displayed at least some semblance of cognitive dissonance, as it relates to the contrast between Bergoglio and Ratzinger, specific to the task of serving them in the pontifical household. Now, he takes an entirely different tack, as though he is assimilating them into one in the same monster.
This pope is a classic example of NOT “rendering truly under God, that which is of (and for God), and to render under Ceasar, that which is of Caesar’s !”