On May 17th, Maike Hickson reported a rather shocking revelation from Italian journalist and Vatican expert Marco Tosatti:
In the Vatican, unconfirmed reports from good sources have leaked that the Pontiff is on the verge of appointing – or even might have already formed – a secret commission to examine and potentially study changes to the Church’s position on the issue of contraception, as it was laid down in 1968 by Paul VI in the encyclical Humanae Vitae. That was the last document signed by Pope Montini, and it was the formalization of what the Second Vatican Council had developed on this issue.
We have so far no official confirmation of the existence and composition of this entity; but a request for confirmation, or for denial, which was put forward to the competent authorities, has so far not been answered – which could be a signal in itself – in the sense that, if the report was completely unfounded, it wouldn’t take much to say so.
Today, Professor Roberto de Mattei has revealed the truth of this rumor:
It will be Monsignor Gilfredo Marengo, Professor at John Paul II Pontifical Institute, the coordinator of the commission nominated by Pope Francis to “re-interpret” the encyclical Humane Vitae by Paul VI, in the light of Amoris laetitia, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the former’s promulgation, which falls next year. The initial rumors of the existence of this commission, still secret, reported by Vatican reporter Marco Tosatti, were of a sound source.
We can confirm that there is a commission, made up of Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri, Head of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute, Professor Philippe Chenaux, Lecturer in Church History at the Lateran Pontifical University and Monsignor Angel Maffeis, Head of the Paul VI Institute in Brescia. The coordinator is Monsignor Gilfredo Marengo, Lecturer in Theological Anthropology at the John Paul II Institute and member of the Steering Committee of the review CVII-Centro Vaticano II Studi e ricerche.
The commission nominated by Pope Francis has the task of procuring from the Vatican Archives, the documentation related to the preparatory work on Humane Vitae, which took place over a period of three years, during and after the Second Vatican Council. The first study group on the matter “of regulating births” was constituted by John XXIII in March 1963 and grew to 75 members under Paul VI. In 1966 the “experts” delivered their conclusions to Pope Montini, and suggested opening the doors to artificial contraception.
In April 1967 the document reserved for the commission – the one from which the “re-visitation of the encyclical” should start – appeared contemporarily in France in Le Monde, in the U.K. in The Tablet and in the U.S.A in The National Catholic Reporter. Paul VI, however, after two years of wavering, published the encyclical Humane Vitae on July 25th 1968, wherein he affirmed the traditional position of the Church, which has always forbidden the artificial limitation of births. It was, as the philosopher Romano Amerio said, the most important act of his pontificate.
Reading this, I immediately recalled something I wrote several years ago, before I began OnePeterFive. In a long and wide-ranging post about what I saw coming in this papacy on my (now-stagnant) personal blog, I devoted a significant section to the methods used by the members of this commission on birth control, and how this same playbook was being dusted off again for the then-upcoming Synod on the Family. For the purposes of making the connection, I’ll excerpt the entire section below. Its relevance to today’s news, I think you’ll agree, is undeniable.
The ‘Brake’ has Failed: Humanae Vitae and a Half Century of Dissent
If Paul VI unleashed a great deal of turmoil in the Church by capitulating to the liturgical revolutionaries, he made a tremendous stand — perhaps the one example in his papacy of real courage — with the promulgation of Humanae Vitae. When John XXIII called the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control, I don’t know if anyone expected a particular outcome. I think many people’s expectations, regardless what side of the issue they were on, were very much not met. In a grumbling 2011 essay in the National Catholic Reporter, Gerald Slevin describes the controversy within the commission and the unexpected move by Pope Paul to oppose them:
The commission, called by Pope John XXIII in 1963 and later working on the aegis of Paul VI, eventually ended its tenure with a report asking that the church’s ban on all forms of artificial birth control be lifted.
Immediately, a second report, objecting to the commission’s final report, was called for by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and a powerful church conservative at the time.
The commission’s final report was leaked to and published in the National Catholic Reporter and appeared in other publications in 1967. A year later, after widespread expectations Paul VI would take the commission’s report to heart, he issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, affirming the church’s official ban on all forms of artificial contraception.
That last part is important: “leaked to and published”. Though Humanae Vitae served as a bulwark against the crushing tide of sexual licentiousness to follow, the poison of the misinformation let loose in the world during the intervening time between the commission’s report and the encyclical’s publication would create a chronic infection in the life of the faith. The dissent of the majority of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control was widely publicized, creating anticipation that the Church was about to change course and allow Catholics to practice artificial contraception. When Humanae Vitae arrived, it met strong opposition from Catholics — priests, bishops, and laity alike — who had already made up their mind that artificial contraception was just fine.
With the watered-down (and at times outright sacrilegious) liturgical experience, the softening of both Church discipline and teaching that came after the council, the “dialogue as ecumenism” approach to non-Catholics (as opposed to evangelization in pursuit of conversion), a number of syncretistic actions during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, and the absolute lack of discipline for wayward bishops, the faith was already taking heavy damage. But the division over the Church’s sexual teachings that had gained a beachhead in 1967 was where the the wounds that would diminish the Church’s strength really started to fester.
In 2003, 35 years after Humanae Vitae, Kenneth C. Jones published a book entitled: Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since Vatican II. In an article for Latin Mass Magazine, the author summarized his many disturbing findings. Among these, the numbers on sacramental life are telling:
In 1965 there were 1.3 million infant baptisms, in 2002 there were 1 million. (In 1965 there were 287 infant baptisms for every 10,000 Catholics, in 2002 there were 154 — a decline of 46 percent.) In 1965 there were 126,000 adult baptisms in 2002 there were 80,000. In 1965 there were 352,000 Catholic marriages, in 2002 there were 256,000. In 1968 there were 338 annulments, in 2002 there were 50,000.
Mass attendance: A 1958 Gallup poll reported that 74 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1958. A 1994 University of Notre Dame study found that the attendance rate was 26.6 percent. A more recent study by Fordham University professor James Lothian concluded that 65 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1965, while the rate dropped to 25 percent in 2000.
The decline in Mass attendance highlights another significant fact — fewer and fewer people who call themselves Catholic actually follow Church rules or accept Church doctrine. For example, a 1999 poll by the National Catholic Reporter shows that 77 percent believe a person can be a good Catholic without going to Mass every Sunday, 65 percent believe good Catholics can divorce and remarry, and 53 percent believe Catholics can have abortions and remain in good standing. Only 10 percent of lay religion teachers accept Church teaching on artificial birth control, according to a 2000 University of Notre Dame poll. And a New York Times poll revealed that 70 percent of Catholics age 18-44 believe the Eucharist is merely a “symbolic reminder” of Jesus.
Over a decade later, the early results are back from the Vatican questionnaire in preparation for the Synod on Marriage and Family this coming October. And they show continued erosion of core beliefs.
In an unusually blunt report to the Vatican, Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla., said that even most regular churchgoing Catholics in his diocese find the church’s teaching on artificial contraception no longer relevant.
“On the matter of artificial contraception, the responses might be characterized by saying, ‘That train left the station long ago,’ ” he wrote in a Feb. 7 blog about his report. “Catholics have made up their minds and the sensus fidelium [the sense of the faithful] suggests the rejection of church teaching on this subject.”
[T]he German dioceses reported that “‘pre-marital unions’ are not only a relevant pastoral reality, but one which is almost universal,” since between 90 percent and 100 percent of couples who seek a Catholic wedding are already living together, despite church teaching that sex outside of marriage is sinful.
“Many, in fact, consider it irresponsible to marry without living together beforehand,” the report said.
“Many … expressed particular difficulties with the teachings on extra-marital sex and cohabitation by unmarried couples, divorce and remarriage, family planning, assisted human reproduction, homosexuality. The church’s teaching in these sensitive areas is often not experienced as realistic, compassionate, or life-enhancing.”
“Belgian Catholics expect the Church to welcome everyone, regardless of differences or mistakes made. This especially true when it comes to gay people and remarried divorcees,” SIR says.
“Belgian Catholics, inspired by Francis, are calling for a mother Church that embraces all: hence the need to grow in the faith and form lively communities,” SIR highlights. The questionnaires also placed an emphasis on the essential role women can play in Church life: “It is they who pass on the faith to children and guide them,” Belgian Catholics point out.
[…]
According to Luxembourg’s Catholics, the Church does not offer a suitable solution to problematic family situations. “The doctrine on marriage, responsible fatherhood and the family is rejected in non-ecclesial circles (sometimes even in ecclesial ones),” because the Church is seen as a stranger and as not competent in these areas. In their answers Luxembourg’s Catholics refer to “the suffering caused by the exclusion from the sacraments, particularly in terms of reconciliation.” The rule the Church has regarding access to the sacraments appears inadequate. They urge the Church “to put the pastoral mission of mercy into practice and create environments where it can be introduced and experienced.” But Luxembourg didn’t express any precise position or offer any concrete indications as to the issue of gay couples. There was simply an appeal to the Church to “accept reality as it is and not try to change it with moral models” and to be welcoming and merciful.
The Religious Information Service also highlights the difference in viewpoint between the German Church and its faithful on issues such as couples living together before marriage, birth control and contraception. The exclusion of remarried divorcees from the sacraments is seen as unjustified and cruel discrimination. German Catholics also ask for same-sex unions to be legally recognised and seen on equal terms as marriage “as a commandment of justice”.
The number one request Swiss faithful made was for remarried divorcees to be granted the right to receive communion. Although Swiss Catholics fully agree on the importance of sacramental marriage and the Christian education of children, they say it is “difficult to accept the Church’s doctrine on the family, marriage and homosexuality.” “An approximately 60% majority is in favour of the Church recognizing and blessing gay couples.” There is also “strongly disagreement over with the [Church’s] rejection of artificial contraception methods.”
Pope Francis recently said of Paul VI’s and Humanae Vitae:
“His genius proved prophetic: he had the courage to stand against the majority, to defend moral discipline, to exercise a ‘brake’ on the culture, to oppose [both] present and future neo-Malthusianism. The question is not that of changing doctrine, but to go into the depths, and ensuring that pastoral [efforts] take into account people’s situations, and that, which it is possible for people to do.”
The idea that Humanae Vitae slowed the cultural descent is, I think, appropriate. But it is now indisputable that this ‘brake’ has failed, and the world’s Catholics have careened at high speed off the cliff of mass apostasy. They no longer believe what the Church believes, or even that the Church has any right to believe it.
The pope says “the question is not that of changing doctrine,” which is the kind of thing one might say when one is readying to make the appearance of doing exactly that.
Later in that same essay, I returned to this theme. I wrote:
More to the point: his [Cardinal Kasper’s] current, ongoing push to find pastoral solutions to provide communion to the divorced and remarried is, I submit, not about marriage at all.
It is about the final destruction of the remaining belief in the Real Presence and the authority of the Magisterium. It is about treating all religions as equally and sufficiently efficacious for eternal salvation and denying the doctrine of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.
This, at last, is the coup de grâce in the century-long onslaught against the Catholic faith that has been waged from within the Church. It is about modernism’s final, momentous triumph.
What the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control could not accomplish in 1967 appeared to be a great victory for the Church. But I have come to believe that Satan and his co-conspirators, so actively at work in the Church, accepted what seemed to be a crushing defeat at the time, knowing that the seeds for a much greater victory had been planted. Dissent blossomed in the Church, with no few bishops leading the charge. Contraception destroyed marriage. Worldwide, it has irrevocably separated the sexual act from procreation, and thus has ushered in the age of virtually ubiquitous extra-marital sex, abortion, pornography, and now same-sex marriage. As the institution of marriage has weakened, the frequency of divorce has increased exponentially. The apparent victory that was Humanae Vitae was not enforced from the pulpits. The faithful were not sufficiently catechized. And now the state of marriage — including Catholic marriage — is in such a bad way that it’s impossible to know how many marriages within the Church were ever valid in the first place. (Ask anyone going through required diocesan marriage prep how many of their classmates are already sleeping together. They’re not shy about it.)
The pastoral situation that the bishops are now facing as they consider the question of communion for the divorced and remarried is of their own making. And I submit for your consideration the idea that this happened not by accident, but by design. With marriage all but destroyed, finding a “pastoral” solution is necessary. It just so happens that this pastoral solution razes the infallible teaching of the Church on the Eucharist as it is implemented. [emphasis in original]
It comes up again time and again in conversations I have with other Catholic writers and academics as we attempt to comprehend the direction of the Church under the current leadership: what is the endgame?
And time and again, the only answer that makes sense is that they are seeking to destroy the Church; to annihilate the faith as we know it and replace it with something of their own making. Daily, we see truth deconstructed. From the pope’s own tirades against hypocrisy as he endlessly contradicts himself to papal spokesman Fr. Antonio Spadaro’s assertion that in theology, 2+2 can make 5 to the redefinition of mortal sin via Amoris Laetitia until the concept loses all meaning, the violation of the principle of non-contradiction has become a weaponized tactic of the Bergoglian regime.
As Hilary White recently said to me, “It’s like I’m saying, ‘Here’s a nice cup of coffee’ and then I hand you a hammer. Drink up!”
Or as she said a little further back, What does Amoris Laetitia mean? “It means what I say it means. It means shut up.” It takes very little imagination to replace the words “Amoris Laetitia” in that sentence with “Humanae Vitae.” And the world’s Catholics, tragically, are only too eager for a chance to be affirmed in their overwhelming use of contraception.
Returning to today’s news, it will not surprise the astute reader to see the continuation of this theme. De Mattei again:
Monsignor Gilfredo Marengo, the prelate Pope Francis has entrusted with the task of re-reading Humane Vitae, belongs, on the other hand, to the category of prelates who are convinced they are able to reconcile the irreconcilable. In September 2015, commenting in Vatican Insider on the work of the Synod on the Family, he suggested “abandoning a conception of the doctrinal patrimony of the Church as a closed system, impermeable to questions and provocations of the here and now, in which the Christian community is called to justify its faith, through its proclamation and testimony:”
In a more recent article in the same Newspaper (Vatican Insider, March 23rd 2017) with the significant title, Humane Vitae and Amoris laetitia, Monsignor Marengo asks if: “the polemical game – the pill yes – the pill no, like today’s – Communion to the divorced yes – Communion to the divorced no – is only an appearance of discomfort and strain, [which is] much more decisive in the fabric of ecclesial life.” In fact, “every time the Christian community falls into error and proposes models of life derived from too abstract and artificially constructed theological ideals, it conceives its pastoral action as the schematic application of a doctrinal paradigm.” “A certain way of defending and acknowledging the teaching of Paul VI – he adds – was, probably one of the factors for which – he cites Pope Francis at this point – we have presented a too abstract theological ideal on marriage, almost artificially constructed, far from the concrete situation and the effective possibilities of families as they really are. This excessive idealization, above all when we have reawakened trust in grace, has not made marriage more attractive and desirable, but quite the opposite.”(Francis).
Got that? Don’t feel bad if the word salad didn’t paint a clear picture. I’ve read it at least five times, and it’s a masterpiece of Jesuit-level opacity and semantic obfuscation. But the key takeaway here is that just like we’ve been told over and over again that Christian marriage is an all-but-unattainable ideal, so if you messed up, no big, enjoy your adultery and by the way, here’s some Holy Communion, this is a mapping of that same “you’re never going to live this so why even try” ethos onto the question of contraception.
And yes, you’re being condescended to. They think so little of your ability to exercise your intellect and your free will in cooperation with God’s grace, that they whip up statements like, “every time the Christian community falls into error and proposes models of life derived from too abstract and artificially constructed theological ideals, it conceives its pastoral action as the schematic application of a doctrinal paradigm.” My forked-tongue to English translator renders that as, “when the Church screws up and makes doctrine that’s too hard for people to follow, smart people like us come up with ways around the doctrine and call it ‘pastoral’.” (He left out, “Just like Jesus always did,” but I’m sure he was thinking it.)
De Mattei continues:
It should be noted that Monsignor Marengo does not propose to read Amoris laetitia along the lines of the hermeneutic of continuity. He does not deny the existence of a contradiction between the two documents: he admits that Amoris laetitia authorizes what Humane Vitae prohibits. But he retains that every theological and doctrinal antithesis should be relativized and superseded in a synthesis which is able to reconcile opposites. The true dichotomy is that between the abstract and the concrete, between truth and life. What counts, for Monsignor Marengo, is to immerse oneself in pastoral praxis, without bending to “too abstract and artificially constructed theological ideals.”
Oh, there’s a hermeneutic of continuity at work all right. You can draw a straight line from the tactics of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control right to the doorstep of Monsignor Marengo’s “pastoral action”. These jackals were interrupted in their theological march of sexual progress by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. They had to endure 35 years of delays while two unexpected popes in a row failed to get with their particular program. Are we really surprised, then, that the Sankt Gallen mafia worked so hard to get Benedict out and their man Bergoglio elected?
In 2014, when I originally quoted Pope Francis on Paul VI and Humanae Vitae as cited above, I admitted my suspicion, but I did not have the benefit of two synods and an exhortation through which to filter my concerns. Now, with Amoris Laetitia as an interpretative key, a much clearer picture emerges from the semantic jiu-jitsu Francis has become infamous for. What at first sounds like a defense of Pope Paul’s landmark encyclical instead takes on an entirely new dimension when read in light of AL, and of Francis’ newly announced plans to re-evaluate and most likely entirely re-interpret HV:
Half a century after Paul VI’s encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” can the Church take up again the topic of birth control? Your confrere, Cardinal [Carlo Maria] Martini [the late Archbishop of Milan] believed it was now time. [NB – Martini is believed to have been the leader of the St. Gallen Mafia; SS]
Holy Father: It all depends on how the text of “Humanae Vitae” is interpreted. Paul VI himself, towards the end, recommended to confessors much mercy and attention to concrete situations. But his genius was prophetic, as he had the courage to go against the majority, to defend moral discipline, to apply a cultural brake, to oppose present and future neo-Malthusianism. The object is not to change the doctrine, but it is a matter of going into the issue in depth and to ensure that the pastoral ministry takes into account the situations of each person and what that person can do. This will also be discussed on the path to the Synod.
He says Paul VI recommended “mercy” and “attention to concrete situations.” Our Amoris Laetitia secret decoder ring tells us that means, “If you follow your conscience, you can do whatever you like.”
He says “the object is not to change the doctrine”. Our Amoris Laetitia secret decoder ring tells us that means, “We don’t need to change the doctrine when we can do an end-run around it.”
He says the Church needs to “ensure that the pastoral ministry takes into account the situations of each person and what that person can do.” Our Amoris Laetitia secret decoder ring tells us that means, “if a doctrine is too hard, we’ll make an exception to it by means of ‘pastoral care’ and ‘personal discernment’.”
He says that Paul VI “had the courage to go against the majority” and “to defend moral discipline”. Our Amoris Laetitia secret decoder ring tells us that means, “If the majority wants to uphold the doctrine of the Church, we have the courage to pursue our agenda anyway and ensure they don’t prevail by rigging the process.”
Professor de Mattei has his own thoughts about courage when it comes to this new commission on Humanae Vitae: “Will there be any priest or theologian faced with this program of the ‘reinterpretation’ of Humane Vitae, [who] have the courage to utter the word ‘heresy’?”
We echo his question. They’re coming for Humanae Vitae and its proscriptions against contraception, and they’re not going to stop until they get what they want. If you’re a cardinal, bishop, or priest and wish you had spoken up sooner when they steamrolled their program through at the synods, and then again through the iron-fisted implementation of AL, you’re being given another chance.
Don’t mess it up this time. The faithful are counting on you.
Francis is going to monkey with Humanae Vitae?
Ohhhh wow……..who saw that coming???
With a final goal to change it to “Contraceptionis Laetitia” as I saw this correct term by Mundabor.
After Amoris Laetitia I presume that we will get “Adulteris laetitia”.
Indeed, even in in adultery there is love, and love forgives all, isn’t it ?
Right. Except not that love, love of satan who loves only himself and even that on a very wrong way which is – love to be coursed and dead for EVER.
Next year is the 50 year anniversary of Humanae Vitae. Resist any false interpretations of HV by celebrating it in its full truth, any way you can.
I just… I can’t do this anymore. Every. Single. Day. it seems like we get something else insane that’s going on. At least once a week. As often as I’m here in the comments, for the last week or so I haven’t come. Because I can only take so much of this. This is absolutely insane. I try with all my energy (of which I don’t have much because of health problems) to fight this battle, and then, with whatever little bit is left, do everything I can to forget it. I’m a convert. I became Catholic because, first, of the undeniable truth of the Catholic faith and, secondly, because of the surety of the safety of the Church’s doctrine that is found in the pope. My first inkling toward anything Catholic, without ever having read a thing about it, was when a protestant friend of mine made a critical statement about a married couple who, in the midst of financial hardship, announced another pregnancy and he said “Can’t they use protection?” I dumbly nodded, but inside I could tell something was off about that statement. It wasn’t until years later that I realized what exactly it was, after I had become Catholic. I’m Catholic in large part because of St. Peter and the office Christ established with him and his successors. And now the successor, whom Vatican I affirmed was guarded to protect the faith, is leading the charge. I know the conditions for infallibility, but those seem like an excuse now. I don’t know… I’m here… and I’ll be here until the end… but… it’s just too much. How long Lord will you let your Church suffer? How long will Your children languish in pain? How long Lord? Must we all perish before you save us? “The gates of hell shall not prevail…” Then why must it seem they are indeed prevailing?
I’m sorry, brother. And I’m sorry if asking you to man the comment boxes has contributed to this feeling. Believe me, I get it, and I’m a cradle Catholic.
Not at all. Doing my part. I can handle people here. It’s the people in the Vatican that get to me.
So much bad news coming from Rome . My son says
the latest status symbol is…..SLEEP.
Ever heard of the False Prophet?
Yep. And if this isn’t him, it’s a good trial run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g3ICLVmWCs
Christ and the Papacy are inextricably linked.
It’s complicated.
I hear ya. It’s ok to admit that this is incredibly painful. Here is one example of the effects from just this morning’s Twitter:
But then I read this soon after: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/june-16th-2017/i-attacked-the-ordinariate-now-im-a-catholic/
The point being only that in this Vale of Tears (and I believe this is the worst thing the Church has ever experienced and the worst thing the world has experienced since the crucifixion of God) Our Heavenly Father *still* draws souls to Him and His Church, and can still give us consolations – like reading of the conversions which still happen, even now. I often pray that God will give me little signs, or consolations, during this testing time. He’s very good to us. None of us will keep the Faith without God’s grace – I say this as a reminder to myself.
Just a technical issue, btw. I attempted to upload a picture just now, but it’s telling me I must be logged in. But I am logged in (disqus).
Maybe just try reloading the page? I don’t think that’s something we can fix on our end…
Thanks for the reply. I’ll try that next time.
I could’ve written this myself. Us converts who proclaim to the world at especially protestants in heated debate “all with Peter to Jesus through Mary” are now like ..”….To Jesus through Mary…because Peter, right now I can’t even”.
I’m a convert too. Everything you said could apply to me as well. No one is going to fight for us. We need to organize a protest in St. Peter’s Square in Rome and demand, loudly, for an answer to the Dubia. Why this hasn’t been done yet has to do with the fact that protests of this kind in the Church are associated with liberals. But this was not how it was in the past. Catholic laity in the past have stormed the Vatican, mobbed the Curia, and even locked up Cardinals. Protesting in St. Peter’s Square is mild compared to that. I believe it has to be done because no one else will do it for us.
Can we demand a new Pope instead?
How long? I believe the answer is until the sifting of wheat and chaff is completed and every single person (lay and clergy) has chosen. Christ and His Church or Satan and the anti-Church. To not choose and/or to remain silent will also be a choice. Either way, the decision will be an eternal one. Heaven or Hell. And to say there is no such being as Satan/ Lucifer and no such place as Heaven/ Hell …. well good luck with that.
Hang in there, Jafin. I’m a cradle Ukrainian Greek Catholic (same Pope, different Liturgy).
To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, the Church has died and risen many times because Our Lord knew the way out of the grave.
I have wondered about you, your background and formation that is, because of your solid Catholic responses. Funny thing is that my daughter in law is Ukrainian. (Kharkiv) But she is Russian Orthodox. She didn’t get good formation however being raised in the communist era. A blessing she got anything at all! I, however, incidentally received a good education albeit for only the first 3 years at St Ludmilla school in Chicago in 1953- 1956. Gotta love St Ludmilla!!!!!
Jafin,
Be open to shutting down all input… for a while or a long while if sadness grows in you from all this. If a saint stared everyday at e.g. the details of God’s permissive willing…e.g. those killed in the British fire this week…nearly 20 females burned by ISIS in iron cages this week for refusing sex…if a saint stared at all the pain God does not prevent in one week worldwide, he’d go slowly toward the greatest sin of all…hatred of God which opposes the highest virtue…love of God. There are low demons and there are ex cherubim demons perhaps…but there are a variety…some with incredible iq’s and subtle goals. That group wants you to look at evil too long. Looking at a distant beautiful woman too long leads to mortal sin but looking at evil too steadily leads to an even greater mortal sin…the ones that oppose the three theological virtues.
Even Steve should beware too. Following this Pope too intimately or following a Bishop that permits Eucharist to active gays in his diocese ( Newark last month according to the NYTimes)…will chip away at your faith in God. There are things God does not want us to stare at too long….other women and sad evils.
And the present chaos could be that thing for you. It is for me. Don’t stare too long at the multiplicity of evil that God permits in ths present crisis…unless off line, you really change to refreshment as a rule…and that keeps you hopeful and renewed. There are demons whose goal is much more ambitious than lust…despair, unbelief and hatred of God. Those demons won’t bring Megan Fox before your eyes. No….their aim is much higher in their terms.
Good advice.
Yes. The danger is real.
Good advice, and thank you for it. I’ve actually been decreasing my input lately. There are also external factors not to be shared here that contribute to overall weariness. Funny, I’ve so often been the one to give the very advice you suggest. Maybe I should take it more often.
Been there this week. I see the psalms as crucial for me….just in short verses.
But I have read “As One Listens to the Rain” by Octavio Paz with more attentiveness this week than I gave to the psalms.
I had never thought about it in those terms.
Tolkien made reference to your idea with the “Palantir” (seeing stones). Gandalf kept them safely covered and remained “The Grey”; ultimately became “The White” without that Palanitir knowledge. Saruman used them, for “practical” reasons and was corrupted, overthrown, and lost “The White”. Just one small look at the “knowledge stone” was too much for Pippin .
My Catholic blogs have been steadily reduced down to this one. I stay here for the content, but also the comments. Very edifying; solid stuff.
Lol….I never read Tolkien but I lived out exactly and way deeply….”Ramblin’ On” by Led Zeppelin which is based on it.
Dear Jafin,
“Be still and know I am the Lord.”
I will prayer my evening rosary for you that God’s peace envelop you.
In Christ,
Tim
I think many of us are in the same boat right now and I’m sure that’s exactly what the spirits of wickedness in the high places want, i.e. to spiritually beat us into submission.
But in midst of all this outright evil and almost omnipresent mocking of God, it remains reassuring to see that the little people, people like you guys here at 1p5 and the guys over at the Remnant, are not willing to give up the fight or to let yourselves get dragged down to the their level.
As a revert, I’m often surprised by the lengths converts are willing to go to keep the Faith and share it with others and this definitely doesn’t go to waste, it has been a call to action for some of the people I’ve shared this site with.
I would like to say that, after writing this message, and a few conversations I’ve had, and some time with Our Lord in the sacraments, I feel somewhat rejuvenated and strengthened. Everything I said here still applies, 100%, except those first seven words. Or perhaps, more accurately, it’s still very true, I can’t do it anymore, but Jesus Himself carries a bit more of the load. I don’t know for sure. But I’m still in this fight. Until the end and glory.
God bless your conversion and God bless you! These are dark times, for certain. The papacy has been filled by the blackest of behavior in the long past. We have been blessed to have such a long period of papal orthodoxy and clarity of teaching- and we’re so used to that that this smarts and scandalizes all the more. But, Christ has told us that he has conquered the world. Where else would we go? He (through His Church and the Sacraments) has the words of everlasting life! May God protect and preserve every acknowledgement of and adherence to the Truth in us! St. John Paul II, pray for us!
If the endgame is destroying the Church, which I agree it is, I don’t get why they bother with going to the effort to avoid changing the doctrine outright.
Because the Devil is a legalist, and he knows, on some level, that he can’t.
Besides to change doctrine was Luther’s method. And everyone, especially Luther, knew he was setting up a new, different church. For Francis to do this outright would be telling us, plainly, that his new church was not the Catholic Church. Then we would really see clearly the split that Francis is trying to sneak in through the bafflegab. Francis wants to ‘change’ the Catholic Church without openly testing The Holy Ghost. I guess he thinks The Holy Ghost goes off duty at 5.
Luther didn’t like the stinky, smelly, cramped “Ark”, filled with too many animals and people he found annoying. Walls closing in on him, he grabbed an old unused 2 x 4, called it the new “ark” and jumped overboard with it along with some other dissatisfied complainers. And they floated away.
I don’t like his ark. I like the one Jesus Christ gave us, even though it has its problems, as the storms rage and the floods have not yet receded. I’d prefer the trial be over. One day, though, we’ll open the door and be thankful for it.
There’s a lot in that sentence. A lot. ^
I think the Devil must get a thrill out of playing by the rules. Every idiot sub-devil dreams of crushing the Church under Nazi jackboots, sure, but destroying the Church with her own leaders while playing by her own rules? Now that’s Lucifer-worthy. His time runs short, he only has so much time left to make our world into a hell before hell.
Then where are we? I’m seriously trying to figure this out. If the church is changing doctrine, not explicitly, but implicitly, isn’t it still changing doctrine?
To change doctrine would be too obvious. The enemy is too cunning for that; he is an expert on double-speak, and will continue to speak heresy without overtly making changes in the teachings. The next “accompanyment” will be welcoming practicing homosexuals to the Church in the name of “mercy” and “compassion”, but without addressing the need for repentance, and conversion from the lifestyle. He’s a devil, that one, and is surely showing himself to be the Fase Prophet.
But it’s so obvious as it is!
Well said. The best theologian I ever knew (RIP) told me a long time ago to always remember: praxis leads theology. That’s how the Revolution has been accomplished: step by step.
Who was he?
Yes, we saw this week that the Sicilian bishops will be ‘accompanying’ ( code for sacrilegious Communions ) also those who cohabit and those married by the state……drip drip drip….
… he made a tremendous stand — perhaps the one example in his papacy of real courage — with the promulgation of Humanae Vitae.
It’s clearly and indisputably in first place, but I might propose that Mysterium Fidei, his 1965 encyclical smacking down certain raging heretical ideas on the Eucharist, should get a look-in for Honorable Mention. Which is not to say I can look back on his pontificate with any real pleasure or comfort.
At the time I wrote that, I was ignorant of Mysterium Fidei. But yes. He was a harbinger of troubling things.
It was a sharp poke in the eye to Schillebeeckx and Rahner. Would that it had been accompanied by a sharp proscription on writing or speaking on theology, too. But he said some things that needed to be said just as the Revolution was cranking up to full throttle.
Still, Humanae Vitae remains the real shining moment in his otherwise disastrous pontificate. And evidence, if we needed it, that the Holy Spirit actually does work to preserve the Papacy from formal error on faith and morals. Because I can’t explain it otherwise.
I know people who are in sixties and seventies and eighties now (in the Netherlands) who have their bookshelves full of heretical garbage of mainly Schillebeeckx, but Rahner and other heretics too, and one of them has recently as a good educated theologian (according his own words!) openly denied Christ’s Deity!! In front of at least 15 people who seems to be Catholics, and no one to ask the question or to say something.
I could not stand up that kind of I class heretical crap, and I say to him and all others that they are a heretics as Schillebeeckx is, and if they keep going this way, they’ll end in the Hell.
I noticed also, that many aged people, especially so-called lay or cleric-theologians, and clerics who are now 60, 70 years and older, are (not all of them of course but) many of them totally spiritually destroyed by that creepy and devilish “liberation theology” and all its misguided advocates. So is Jorge Mario also one of them, pushing it and promoting it with each sign, word and act.
Your post (thank you for sharing it) brings to mind an article I came across some months ago on the collapse of the Church in the Low Countries, “Not a Church Tower in Sight: The Secularisation of the Netherlands,” where collapse is arguably worse than anywhere else:
Very well written article. I live here for about 20 years, and I can surely say exact the same.
And indeed, this came first: “It’s easy enough to say that material prosperity has taken the place of faith…”
This as second: “Not a church tower in sight…”
And this lastly: “except for the pointed towers of the minarets…”
We can see that clearly, who wants to see it. But here are more than enough people who are blind, and even more people who just pretend to be blind, but both groups prefer to keep it that way…
About a year ago, one of the bishops of the Netherlands said from 6000 churches in this country 90 procent
will disappear or be converted into, museums, pubs, or even mosques of course… But I don’t think so. It will happen earlier, and it will be probably much worse than just that.
This is going to happen about a week! And that will happen in the Cathedral of st John the Baptist, who is a martyr for the fifth sacrament, on his feast day 24.06., which is also my nameday.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-cathedral-welcomes-pink-saturday-gay-pride-gathering-with-bishops
St John the Baptist pray for us!
St Thomas More pray for us!
St John Fisher pray for us!
But I don’t think so. It will happen earlier, and it will be probably much worse than just that.
Very sad to hear that.
But, I am not pesimistic. It could be (and should be other way, easy way, better way).
Here I am thinking on our Blessed Virgin Theotokos, Mother of God Himself, our Lady of Fatima, and also the fifth marian dogma which the Church should have proclaimed already, a 57 years ago…
Until Christ has not come for the second time, He gives us the chances. But He will not even save us against our own free will. We know that.
PS. I saw this news right now!
https://gloria.tv/hashtag/newsMkqbsxmkvr
That sacriledge will not happen in Cathedral of st John the Baptist.
Thank you Lord!
And thank you st John, st Thomas, and st John!
(They are all my special saints)
Where are you, Ivan? I’m in southeast Pennsylvania.
And I am a few thousands miles away from you, in Low Lands, where this talk above goes about.
I have people that age in Holland too. I was an exchange student there in 1965 in Grubbenvorst. I love them and pray for them daily as they have all lost the faith. Their children and grandchildren never seemed to have it to even lose. Such sorrow. I love The Dutch people.
Dear Leslie, it’s very nice to hear that. Thank you very much. May God bless you for all your prayers for this people.
PS. Just a small correction here. We should never say never, and neither word ‘all’ in negative sense. Surely not all of them have lost the true Faith.
You are right. The papacy of “Paolo Sesto il mesto” (Paul 6 the sad) was a disaster, except Humane Vitae that was not at all in line with this modernist Pope. One may acknowledge that the Holy Spirit had still control upon him for mysterious reasons, possibly because much more people actually prayed for the Pope than nowadays.
actually MF was one of the documents I read sitting in the reading room of the reference section of the Victoria Public Library when I was 17 and trying to figure out what was true. It was pretty convincing.
Our prelates will blow it, period. They will mess up because they are just about all cowards. Even the few that seem to be not entirely cowardly are not exactly doing much of anything. It’s like they are all inwardly waiting for “the moment” to do “the big thing”. What are they waiting for? They are waiting for something. We hear a faintly, vaguely encouraging word here and there. It’s like a crumb from the table, and sustains faith in the least possible way. What are they waiting for? Get on with it. Man up. If you are going to talk heresy, now is the moment. Speak plainly and just get ON WITH IT. Lose your life! Lose your position! Charge the line NOW. Man up! Is there some prize waiting for those who say nothing about this utter catastrophe?
If it’s cardinal against cardinal, bishop against bishop, then let’s get on with it. Name names. Throw the first punch and denounce the heretics. Just do it. Does waiting for more damage make the inevitable less damaging? Are any of you reading this, and you know who you are!
I mean, if your plan is to just go along and die a slow death, at least JUST TELL US. Just say “so and so is a heretic and there is nothing we can do. Those of us that believe, we will just die together”. Be a father to us and speak plainly. Tell us your plan, plain and simple.
That said, I’m confident that evil men in the Vatican will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But not before the Church is nearly entirely destroyed. It feels like we well into overtime.
I still hold hope that all of this could change in an instant. Whatever that looks like, Fatima, conclave, whatever, I’m eternally hopeful for that sudden moment when all the tears drain into the abyss and we stagger about like men suddenly awoke from a nightmare, to find the sun shining and birds singing.
I’ll publish this but I may delete it later.
Do not delete it later. Please.
Oh silly… you imagine that their task is to teach the Faith that Christ gave us?
They’re certainly not going to “blow it”. They’re most definitely going to brilliantly fulfil the task set before them to dismantle the last bastion of Catholic orthodoxy that the fashionable “conservatives” recognise as such. It’s their job, and they’re eager to do it. They’re going to do great!
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
Barack Obama
Your point?
“Think not that I came to bring peace…”
Jesus
“I confronted Peter to his face because he was wrong…”
Paul
Romulus: yes, we are the ones that have to take up the task to correct the Pope, not the dubia brothers, not the polish bishops, not the african bishops, not any cardinal or bishop or even priests. The only bishop that has spoken clearly is auxiliary bishop Athanasious Snider (God bless this bishop who not coincidentaly is named Athanasious). He is a voice preaching in the desert.
Consequently, it is to us, the faithful, to whom it corresponds to make manifest to this Pope that we are opposed to the heretic views expressed in his documents and to his entire papacy project and we can ennumerate the policies that he has
implemented in various important matters such as sodomy, abortion, and relationship with heretics and other relations.
So I propose to write a document expressing our opposition to his papacy and all his heresies, and we will call them that “heresies”.
Some of the most gifted witers in the traditional movement can redact this document, to be signed by all the catholics of good will, from the traditional movement as well as other various movements that want to associate to this project on which we will manifest our opposition to this papacy, and reject to obey his heretical views.
There has been a movement from well recognized catholics to beg the “Holy” Father to answer the famous “dubia”. without a response; so the time is ripe for this new step on the part of the faithful, and any priest or bishop that wants to associate to it.
Carlos M. Martínez
I earn 85 bucks per hour for freelancing at home. I never thought that it was legit but my good friend earns $10k monthly doing this and she recommended me to try it. Check it out by visiting followin link>>OnlineNetMoneyLinkWeb.
The Great Clarification goes on.
butbutbut… Cardinal Burke will save us! I bet he’s got a cunning plan, all set and ready to go!
Also the Poles!
And the Africans!
(Oh, this is too fun!)
I had been wanting to write something like this myself, over the last two weeks.
I would not have written it as well as you.
Please dear Douglas, do NOT delete this post, it is very clear and beautiful ! Fathers of the Church, read this a hundred times if needed, but DO something! Choose!! Choose the side of Jesus Christ, not the side of the world.
https://youtu.be/pYeOOxlbBbs
Why, you speaketh the truth, stay with it!
What the…? ????
Francis said that he wanted to “make the Church unrecognizable, in an irreversible way”.
We must not fool ourselves: Francis is about to make another church, a church that is no longer the Catholic Church, the Bride of Christ.
Then he is “interpreting” the Church’s teachings. Look at Fr Sosa Abascal, the head of the jesuits who denies the Devil’s existence, who question the Gospel and what Jesus actually said since “there was no tape recorder in this time”… Did he get any public rebuke from Bergoglio, from Muller? In other times he would have been fired on-the-spot. Under Francis he is free to spout his insanities without anyone in the Vatican caring.
Everything has become a matter of “interpretation”: These apostate jesuits are very well skilled in Marxist dialectic and they are able to make the Sacred Texts and the Scripture saying the exact contrary of what they said for two millenaries.
And the cafeteria catholics, abt ninety p.c. of the flock, are applauding such a maestria.
We should keep in mind that as Sosa so all other Babadook’s must have expose themselves who they really are!
That can be only possible with this one at the top of their own religion, which is NOT ours.
I presume and I really hope when they all are exposed, as those who are lukewarm too, then will come time to separate wheat from corn.
I like calling them Babadooks!
I would not argue. It sounds to my ears too, very appropriate .
I don’t think he did say that. I think his buddy Cardinal Maradiaga said it about him. What he did say, with a laugh and a jolly nudge-nudge, was that he might just bet he pope who “splits the Church”.
Maradiaga? The cartoon villain?
BWWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!! Ooop! just fell off my chair for a second there…
Hang on, where was I?
Oh yeah…
Being right again. Come sempre.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/107330da1d2361b5aff126251ebcf4595a08eeed3d37fe2aff43730fe6bbbacb.png
These are awkward days for George Weigel.
lol
I’m sick of you being right all the time. Stop it.
Imho she’s just venting. I’m sure she wishes she was wrong too. However, God gave her certain talents and wants her to use them. The world would be much poorer without Hilary White.
Oh I know! I only mean I wish she were not right all the time.
Correct, for 50 dollars.
Sorry, it has to be in euros. 😉
The pontificate of Francis the destroyer is a punishment upon the good for not being good enough. During the pontificates of St John Paul II and Benedict XVI we left the ‘enemy’ half dead, now they have resurged and inflicting their revenge upon us. The near-end game will be further apostasy and further devastation of what is left of the Church. The time has come for what is left of the faithful at all levels in the Church to resist, to shout out “Enough is enough!” and to call out this evil pontificate for its heresy, schism and nurturing of apostasy. This evil pontificate fulfils the words of Sr Lucia to Cardinal Caffara, “The final battle between God and the Devil will be fought over the family.” The battle is being fought now and we must fight to the death. Either we fight now or lose. Either we fight now or more souls will end up in Hell. Pray for an end to these evil days. Pray for Francis’ conversion. If he does not convert, pray for an end to this evil pontificate in God’s way in God’s day! But fear not little flock, the end-game will be the destruction of their evil plans and the failure and fall of Francis the destroyer.
I must respectfully disagree. John Paul II and Benedict set the table for the present Pontificate. Neither governed; both were (are) tinged with the Modernist heresy. They are both heralds of Vatican II and the historical rupture that took place there. Benedict appointed almost all of the present heretical Cardinals in Germany. Both were avid devotees of the post-conciliar Mass. Before Francis it was Chinese water torture for the Church. Francis simply has pushed 50 years of Modernism over the brink and has inaugurated the insanity in which Holy Mother now lives.
Here, here!
Disagree, there, sen. For all their faults, Bob is correct that we had true Catholic popes in John Paul and Benedict. There was no rupture in Vatican II. But I’ll grant you that they appointed many men to the cardinalate that should never have been promoted.
Hello Todd. We could create our own thread that would stretch from here into the fall of 2017, but I doubt either of us have the time. But just think about something. In the section on marriage within the document “Gaudium et Spes” there is a significant alteration in the Church’s traditional language on the ends of marriage (1917 Code; 1930 Casti Conubii; Holy Office decree 4/1/44). From the language of primary and secondary ends (primary being the procreation and education of children) we are treated to the novelty of “essential ends of marriage” (unitive and procreative). As Father Robert Levis RIP (certainly no “rad trad”) states: “. . .no document in the writings of Vatican II expresses the superiority of the classic primary end over the secondary end. The statement used is ‘the essential ends of marriage’.” This is the pedigree of Amoris Laetitia.
Whether or not this was intended to have the consequences that ensued is another discussion. Just know that this alteration of language had been pushed by German Modernists in the 1930s and soundly rejected (re the HO Decree above). So the theologians who inserted this language into GS knew of its controversial history (the great majority of the bishops at the Council who were mostly preoccupied figuring out how to read the wine menus in Roman ristoranti did not). The fact remains it’s in the document and it has been utilized to enable a post-conciliar praxis that has ushered into the annulment revolution which was the groundbreaking that helped to smooth the path for AL.
Primary architect of Gaudium Spes #48-#51? Karol Wojtyla (who already had pushed the idea in his “Love and Responsibility” — originally published in Polish in 1960). He KNEW of the controversy in 1930s Germany; but he embedded the revolutionary language in there anyway.
Sorry for the long and technical response. But a serious discussion/reconsideration of AL is going to have to go here eventually.
Thanks for that enlightening history.
Really, you and others are doing an excellent job exposing the truth, but although it’s not your intention, all we hear lately sounds like what an anti-Catholic would use to mock the Catholic Church and show its man-made nature… And please don’t tell me don’t read these news go back to your Bible and Catechism (which one? because even the latest one is attacked by traditionalists, and liberals want to “update” it already), etc. Isn’t that what protestants and schismatics do, go back to the sources that are supposedly pure before the latest Roman contamination? And who determines which point is that? We are supposed to listen to our pastors, especially the bishops and the pope, not filter, select, compare and contrast and come up with our own orthodox interpretations after considering the analyses from different bloggers. It’s hard to keep the faith when you don’t even know what you have to believe.
Really? You say, it-s hard to keep the faith? Go and read the Bible, the CCC, but pray firstly before you read. And read the writings as -Imitation of the Christ’, and some other works of our Church fathers like Francis of Sales, P. Canisius, R. Bellarmin, A. Liguori, and many other real shephers as F. Sheen, etc…, and don’t forget to pray Holy Rosary, daily. Then you’ll know what you have to believe. No matter what anybody else say to you.
Thanks, but the problem is that there should be a continuity between those works and the current Vatican. Anyway, I don’t think my post contributes anything but despair so I’ll probably delete it.
Don’t delete it. I have had many days like that. I think the struggle is a sure sign you are on the right path.
What Ivan mi je ime says is really true, and I hope you take it to heart. The only thing that keeps me going many days is the 2,000 year line of continuity, beginning in Christ. Our particular living set of days, weeks, years are quite small in comparison to that line; just a tiny little subset. We have our living actors, and they are not doing us any favors; encouraging us to take a detour off the “straight and narrow” line. But the edifice of Tradition remains and it is true and no one can take it away.
The “living”, fallen as we all are, are not the only ones who count in the Faith. They have an equal vote with all who came before. And right now, the living are in the distinct minority. The “dead” take their measure and find them lacking. I stand with the majority which includes the names “Ivan” mentions above. They all say essentially the same thing.
Connect all the conflicting and strange opinions of the day to livIng Tradition and see what endures that test. If it does, then it is true.
Well said Aqua. Thank you. Especialy this is great said: “But the edifice of Tradition remains and it is true and no one can take it away.”
When the word- tradition is used for, and means transferring a continuous and invariable Truth then we really must write that word with a great initial letter – Tradition.
And here’s why is this even more important? Because of this:
“But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3,8)
This words of first Peter, Kefa, are just too important for all us to keep it in mind all the time. As the same were mentioned before in the prayer about the fragility of man (Psalm 89, 4).
This knowing and bearing it always in mind, it makes for us all, the torment much bearable.
I get encouragement from posts like yours. Another, named New Elijah, had some great common sense advice a few months ago (“stop writing, go outside and oil your chain saw”). The Great Stalin has a good one now, “for those struggling to remain Catholic” including a poem by Richard Aldington, that begins: “Why should you try to crush me? ….”
I recommend “Notung” go over to the comments on Fr. Martin and find that comment. Tradition is a rock. Christ is a rock. We are too, if we choose correctly.
Amen. Thanks to good God in Heaven for this possibility that we get and this kind of blogs and people who are running it and sustain it (also with the comments of course). All brave warriors of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of all universe! May Most Holy Triune God gives us many blessings, protect us and leads safely to His eternal Heavenly Home!
Yes, this is the key. Hold up what Francis and his minions are teaching beside anything on a similar topic taught say before 1950 and you will see the difference. This is how we figure this out. The previous teachings must be adhered to, not anything novel that brings us to a different belief. The Faith is a package, a package that hangs together – this is guaranteed. Nothing may be changed. Nothing.
We’ve heard it said over and over but we get lost in all the crap coming out of Francis: HIS ONLY JOB IS TO CONSERVE THE FAITH THAT WAS HANDED TO HIM, AND PASS IT ON. That’s it. If he doesn’t do that he’s not to be listened too, no matter how good he sounds (whaaaa???).
That is exactly what Catholics have been agonizing over in disbelief., especially since Amoris Laetitia…that the hermeneutic of continuity HAS been ruptured. We are like post traumatic stress disorder victims who still can’t believe what has actually happened.
We really do need to accept that it is possible to have a Pope who is completely at odds with Our Lord’s teaching. He is badly damaging the Church, but cannot completely destroy it. To oppose this Pope’s actions is not to oppose the Papacy per se.
“(He left out, “Just like Jesus always did,” but I’m sure he was thinking it.)”
After all, Pope Francis pretty much calls himself Jesus every day. But a new, improved Jesus, the thumbs-up, you-go-girl Jesus Modernia has been waiting for.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54a5bccb0bc71096e4b335fa46f5e04b6c82599bf7cc6d98686323e04dfcd387.jpg
Two of the spiritual acts of Mercy are to “instruct the ignorant” and “admonish the sinner”. In all the talk about mercy, these duties are never mentioned. Our leaders have lost interest in their spiritual duties and are only interested in a cheap “happiness” in this world.
“the faithful are counting on you…”
HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAaaaaaa…
No.
We’re not.
Seriously. It’s too late for that. The apostasy is total. Only Christ, now. He doesn’t change, doesn’t apostasize. He’s coming soon.
I’m counting on Our Lady.
Francis said within the past 6 months that he may be the Pope who brings a schism to the Church. It looks like he probably had on his mind his commission to “reinterpret” “Humanae vitae.”
I don’t say this lightly; this would probably do it.
If this were 5th century Constantinople, it would be the laity taking ownership of the faith, demanding orthodoxy, and running out of town heretic bishops and their backers. If the clergy today are paralyzed, for whatever reason, let the rowdy laity, indignant and offended by threats to their eternal salvation, unburdened by religious vows and promises, and not conflicted by fears for career and livelihood, take it to the bishops’ doorsteps.
I said organize a massive protest against AL in st. Peter’s Square. During the Papal address.
Pope Francis: “The question is not that of changing doctrine, but to go into the depths”
The depths of where, Holiness? Hell?
Don’t place your hope in false shepherds. Nearly every last one of them is a deviant who refuses to speak out against the man of sin sitting in Rome. They line their own pockets off the backs of the faithful and grow fat off the legacy of the Church of God, all the while feeding the faithful with excrement. They carry on with “business as usual” ignoring the elephant idol in the middle of the room, not wanting to offend anybody, but God, not wanting to refuse anybody, but God, always wanting to please everybody, but God.
“Ez 34,1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
2 Son of man, prophesy concerning the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to the shepherds: Thus saith the Lord God: *Wo to the shepherds of Israel, that fed themselves: should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds?
3 You eat the milk, and you clothed yourselves with the wool, and you killed that which was fat: but my flock you did not feed.
4 The weak you have not strengthened, and that which was sick you have not healed; that which was broken you have not bound up, and that which was driven away you have not brought again, neither have you sought that which was lost: but you ruled over them with rigour, and with a high hand.
5 And my sheep were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and they became the prey of all the beasts of the field, and were scattered.
6 My sheep have wandered in every mountain, and in every high hill; and my flocks were scattered upon the face of the earth, and there was none that sought them; there was none, I say, that sought them.
7 Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:
8 As I live, saith the Lord God, forasmuch as my flocks have been made a spoil, and my sheep are become a prey to all the beasts of the field, because there was no shepherd; for my shepherds did not seek after my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flocks:
9 Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:
10 Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I myself come upon the shepherds, I will require my flock at their hand, and I will cause them to cease from feeding the flock any more; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more: and I will deliver my flock from their mouth, and it shall no more be meat for them.”
Deacon…I love that reading. I never tire of listening to it. But I bet you, if you look at #4…Francis would say that that is what he is trying to do…going out to the peripheries and he would point the finger at the ‘pharisaical’ priests and bishops who are caught up in the ‘law’.
One example of the weak and the sick that are not being healed is the ‘gay’ community, who are like lost sheep careening over the mountainside with the Father Martins and Bishop Tobins ( not the good Tobin from Rhode Island) of the world whilst the lost are invited to approach the altar. Stunning!
Since none of the cardinal has opposed Francis seriously, I think we can assume they’re all useless. Dark times.
“My forked-tongue to English translator renders that as, “when the Church screws up and makes doctrine that’s too hard for people to follow, smart people like us come up with ways around the doctrine and call it ‘pastoral’.” (He left out, “Just like Jesus always did,” but I’m sure he was thinking it.)”
LOL!
*The more man advances in the mystery of God, the more he loses speech. Man is enveloped in a power of love, and he becomes mute from astonishment and wonder. Before God, we disappear, snapped up by the greatest silence.* (87)
*Silence is not the exile of speech. It is the love of the one Word. Conversely, the abundance of words is the symptom of doubt. Incredulity is always talkative.* (140)
(The Power of Silence-/Cardinal Sarah)
Today, nothing but useless, heretical chatter coming from Rome. And yet we have to stay with her. There’s the pain.
I’ve been visiting an Eastern Orthodox church. They believe infallibility is only exercised in a full ecumenical council of bishops East and West, they have to come to unanimous agreement, not just a majority, and no matter how long it takes (some early councils lasted years off and on until they got there). And then the Bishop of Rome also has to agree and ratify it. That’s how they did it in the first 1000 years of the Church. Regional bishops can meet and make their own local decisions, but they are not considered infallible unless accepted by the entire rest of the Church.
I think we should go back to that. Imagine if Pope Paul VI had called a full church council to make all the bishops East and West sit down together and grapple with the REAL tradition on birth control, instead of just issuing a top-down document, which provoked a de facto schism in the West. And now Pope Francis is governing top-down too and trying to reverse it. That is NOT how the early Church worked!
Btw, the Eastern bishops do not believe the Catholic councils since are true ecumenical councils, but only regional councils, because only comprising the Western bishops with no input from the East, and not received by the East, thus not infallible. If the Catholic Church would acknowledge that, it would make reunion with the East a heck of a lot easier!
It would also mean heresy, since everything you said is heresy (not judging you, you may not have known it is heresy). Where did you get the idea there is unanimity in orthodoxy? They can’t even decide how many ecumenical councils there were. The Orthodox are not united at all, they even call each other heretics over a calendar. Just look at the Pan-Orthodox council, which was like a foodfight in a cafeteria.
So the undivided Catholic Church was committing heresy for the first 1000 years, half of its existence? I’m just suggesting we do things how we did then, work out serious matters of doctrine in ecumenical council. It worked well because it forced our bishops to work it all out until they reached unanimous agreement and unity. Since when is that a bad thing?
Frankly the Orthodox look at us with all our dissidents walking up to receive communion and all the trouble Pope Francis is causing, and shake their heads. We’re not exactly unified in the Catholic world either, we’re not even unified in my own parish, whether it’s gay marriage or which hymns to sing at Mass. And music wars are completely absent in the Orthodox parish, thanks to the beautiful liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. As a former battle-scarred music director who almost got thrown out for introducing Latin chant to the NO Mass crowd, the beautifully chanted Orthodox liturgy with not a single kumbaya-style hymn in sight is a blessed relief!
Hey, don’t forget about the Eastern Catholic Churches! We have the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and are in full communion with the Holy See. Please find an Eastern Catholic Church if you love the Divine Liturgy (or see if there’s a SSPX/ICK/FSSP chapel near you).
Yes, thanks, I have visited a couple in the past and love them, but unfortunately there are none near me. Nor is there a Latin Mass near me. If there were I’d go! The Orthodox parish near me interestingly is almost all western converts, founded by a former Protestant pastor, all in English and open to visitors, not an immigrant church trying to preserve a different culture and language. It’s nice to be able to visit and enjoy the beautiful liturgy, but without feeling like an “outsider!”
Unless I missed it, the article omits the numbers of Catholics who *disagree* with the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception and things like IVF—usually quoted to be in the 80-90% range, which anecdotally seems about right.
And that’s really the problem. They are not ignorant of Church teaching; they have rejected it.
It’s only 80-90% in the West (and even that includes apostate and heretics who still call themselves Catholic). Don’t forget about the far more faithful Catholics in other nations.
Steve, this is one of your best.
Pope Francis is destroying the Church.
#birdpoop
Ah, Father, the glories of succinctness!
Meanwhile, the Yellowstone Caldera is waking up, and the Cascadia Subduction Zone is showing signs of slipping. Chastisement, anyone?
Don’t forget the New Madrid Fault. But of course, to dare even to suggest such a thing is “heresy”. That’s not the “God” that the vast majority of Catholics believe in anymore. God would never do that (that meaning chastise or punish) and anyway, Sodom and Gomorrah is a story about treating strangers with hospitality. (sarcasm off tag).
This could be a great opportunity to reaffirm Church teaching and warn women about the ill effects of the pill and its abortifacient effects ..the pill can kill tiny infants in the womb. Will this great opportunity be missed?
Keep strong my fellow Catholics and be persistent and faithful !! Not easy, not at all. But so extremely neccessary for our souls.
As a retired Natural Family Planning teacher I want to make a suggestion for discussions on this issue. It is correct to speak of “artificial birth control.” Contraception, by it’s very nature is artificial. There is no such thing a natural contraception. The word itself comes from contra=against and conception=the union of the sperm and the egg. To talk about “artificial contraception” is not only redundant but it implies that there is another kind of contraception that is not artificial. But all the methods of contraception involve drugs and plugs: pills, chemicals, diaphragms, jellies,sponges, injections, IUDs, etc. It’s ALL artificial and it’s all directly aimed at making the act sterile. It attacks the good of conception by treating fertility like a disease that needs fixing. The only method of family planning that doesn’t act against the God’s gift of fertility is periodic abstinence which is what NFP is. And it should only be used for serious reasons. The greatest gift God gave us was the ability to participate in God’s creative act. To attack that reflects a real spiritual blindness.
…does this mean I can finally take down my picture of Pope Francis in my family devotional? …I keep checking in and asking every six months when a new heresy pops up ; )
Take it down. I haven’t had the papal image up since the Pope gushed about Kasper. St. Peter himself would approve. 😉
How I wish it were only the heretic Pope. Most of the clergy, Bishops and Cardinals are OK with this. The Pope is only the gasoline on the fire. Oh where is the visible Catholic Church when most of its leadership rejects its constant teaching of two thousand years? How did these heretics reach their positions?
I feel like I am in a time capsule going back to 2015. Gee, where have we heard these words by Francis before. “It’s not about changing doctrine”…oh yes it is that pastoral thing again. When I think about those who have sacrificed and had large families, those who have thrown out their contraceptives to live courageously in the truth of church teaching, because when they heard Her they heard Christ, those who went into surgery to correct their sterilizations to get right with God……for what? Well,… for Christ of course, even if Christ’s apostles betray Him and write new rules to accommodate the culture of death. These prelates have lost faith in the Holy Spirit, who JP11 told us would be with us in our difficulties and that these were NOT ideals but could be lived out with His grace.
I’m a priest and I want to do something. My problem is being out here by myself. Not a terribly creative or, I confess, courageous person, I don’t know what to do as one priest but I know I’m not alone. I read these comments and I am more than ever saddened and sickened. My brother priests, is anyone out there? Can we connect? Do something? Be courageous and loving for God’s Church? Steve, can you connect us somehow?
Dear Father, dont know whether you are a fan of Fr. John Hardon SJ but Fr. was saying the real Church was underground in the 1980’s (if not before!). He said to keep under the radar, say nothing, do something. Good plan to network – hope your plan is realised! God bless!
Father John Hardon SJ…He was a holy man and a wise man. Good advice. Thankfully I’ve got some years under my belt, so I can even be a tad above the radar! 🙂
I love you as a good faithful priest. Never give up, we love all our good priests who carry such a great burden.
Thanks so much. Keep praying. I am sure God will show a way.
Thank you for your post. I wonder what our faithful priests are thinking and don’t dare ask them because I don’t want to put them in a position that would hurt them with their Bishop. After all, priests have to work under a Bishop. So what can they really do or say except be sort of ” underground” stay under the radar and keep trying to help us remain faithful. Our pastor always asks for prayers. Please God help him and you and all our good priests.
Certainly faithful lay Catholics help me remain faithful. They remind me of my responsibility to celebrate the Mass and sacraments seriously and prayerfully and to preach and teach the Catholic faith. And i think there are some ways that we priests, or at least some of us, can be a bit more “above ground” especially given the growing crisis in the Church. We need the light of the Holy Spirit to see what that looks like.
Please see my email to you, Father.
Father, we all feel this loneliness, whether laymen of ordained. Christ felt it too, that frightful gnawing within, just before his crucifixion. His friends, almost all his closest associates (Mary, of course, never joined them in this), didn’t seem capable of grasping how desperate things had become; they were so calm before the impending storm that they could actually fall asleep! But now we’re stuck in this nauseous situation and WE MUST DO SOMETHING. Prayer is primordial, but you already know that. What I suggest beyond prayer comes to me from my stubborn Catholic ancestors, all thick-headed Irishmen. The English thought they had destroyed them and their “pestilential popery” a hundred times, but they rose up again and again against impossible odds. To the seven heavenly virtues of prudentia, castitas, temperantia, caritas, patientia, benevolentia, and humilitas, the Irish added contumacia. I say let’s follow their lead, and let’s make our very first contumacious act be to hit the DONATE page here at 1P5. Perhaps not as dashing as dynamiting the local RIC barracks, but satisfying nonetheless.
From another hard headed Irish man…great comment. A nauseous situation. Yes it is.
Thanks, Johnny. And I’m one step ahead having just donated after putting it off for too long. God bless!.
Father, there are several things that come to mind. First, talk with brother priests whom you trust. If you have a decent relationship with your bishop, tell him of your/our concerns. Also, if there are orthodox laypeople in your parish who seem friendly and sober, establish some social activity with them if you haven’t already. (We love our priests. Sometimes it’s difficult to take the first step of say, inviting Father over for dinner.)
Speak truthfully in your homilies about crisis points in today’s Church. You’ll need prudence, of course, but parishioners who are aware of problems are probably more numerous than you think. And those who are not aware- I think many priests think it’s better for them to remain unengaged. I don’t agree.
Chilling though it may sound, priests who can do so should probably develop skills and contacts related to their personal financial stability.
Concurrently, contact some of the higher-profile traditionalists- priests and laymen who publicly express what you think privately. The internet is a wonder! Many are surprisingly accessible and would be especially glad to hear from a priest.
There are the SSPX, the FSSP, and so e small traditionalist orders, all of which have men who could give you good advice/support, depending on your situation.
That’s just for starters. I hope others will leap in here, too. We laymen and laywomen really do worry about our excellent priests. We pray for you and many will help with your needs as this crisis continues. But first, we must know who is who, on a personal basis. I hope you understand, Father.
SAF, thanks so much for what you say. It’s encouraging. You’re right, the internet is a wonder and I have made contacts, including some good ones among the FSSP, the SSPX and other groups. As I said above, there are ways to do this. We need the light of the Spirit to help us see. Steve’s article and the comments following impress so greatly upon me the seriousness of the crisis the Church finds itself in. We need to pray for the Bishops out there who are much more isolated than we priests.
I’m very glad, Father, that you found my comment encouraging rather than hectoring. (“Tone” is difficult to interpret on the ‘net sometimes, and I was concerned about that.) If you are making contacts as indicated, it may be very helpful in the long run.
You’re right about praying more for our bishops, of course. That they are “much more isolated than we priests” is an insight I hadn’t considered. And please remember that we (the laity) are more grateful for the work of good priests than we can possibly convey. We have different roles but we’re in this together. May the Lord bless and keep you, Father.
Your faithfulness is greatly appreciated. The antidote to deceit is truth. It would be ever so helpful if one single priest were to speak during the homily the traditional and historic teachings of the Catholic faith. And.Not.Remain.Silent.
My suggestion: answer the dubai publicly to your parishioners even though it is not addressed to you. Those questions are for all of us, lay and clergy alike. Adultery is still a grave matter and a mortal sin. And commandments are not “ideals”.
There are many in the ranks of clergy who seem to believe that if they ignore it or if they remain silent, it will go away. No, it will not. It will grow and fester, consume and destroy. And that is exactly what it is doing.
I find it ravaging when priests praise and recommend and quote Francis. Even if what is quoted from Francis is solid Catholic teaching, I ask myself if the priest is in denial, is deceived or is a true believer in FrancisChurch? Light.With.Darkness.
I am sorry that the comments at 1P5 add to your pain. The great majority of folks here are well educated and informed about the Catholic faith. We are cradle Catholics, converts, and reverts. We are devout and we are articulate.
This website is a safe place for us to come and grieve and share and learn and mourn and rage and weep. There is a community of like minded people here who see clearly … eyes wide open … and who are not afraid to speak.
The loneliness would be unbearable otherwise. Welcome and God Bless.
Susan, Thanks for your insightful comments. I too find 1Peter5 to be “a safe place to come and grieve…” I am also encouraged because I know that “the great majority of folks are well educated and informed about the Catholic faith…(both) devout and articulate.” We so need that. I so need that.
The state the Church is in… well there’s a long trajectory, what did Fr. Hardon say about being underground since 1980. Modernism was seemingly overcome by Pope Pius X but many think it just went underground. We had sort of a reprieve during John Paul II and Benedict’s pontificates and now it’s raging once again.
Just this morning I read this in St. Louis Marie de Montfort’s prayer for missionaries. “The House of God is on fire! Souls are perishing in the flames! The sanctuary itself is ablaze…Arise (Lord) in your might, your mercy and your justice and create this bodyguard of handpicked men who will protect your house, defend your glory and save the souls that are yours.”
It’s a call, perhaps not to do anything dramatic but just the needed things as you suggest “answer the dubbia” and preach and teach over and over, day to day the truth.
My experience is that more people than we’d think appreciate that and more people than we think see the confusion being created by the lack of doctrinal clarity coming from the top these days.
Yes, simple everyday things. If we are faithful in the little things, God will reward us and entrust us with greater things. Yes, the House of God is on fire. If it were tongues of fire as in the book of Acts, it would be a glorious thing.
Unfortunately, it is a firestorm of confusion and chaos, brought about by those in the highest rankings of Christ’s Church. Yes, people see the lack of doctrinal clarity (and lack of continuity/ consistency), but they do not know what to do.
Dear Father,
I hope this helps you:
http://www.fatima.org/essentials/whatucando/
Scroll down and there’s a link for priests.
In Christ the King,
Margaret
Thank you very much, Margaret. I’ll follow that link!
You’re welcome, Father.
A few days late, and more than likely several dollars short as well, but here I am.
Father, remember that it isn’t your job to win the day, nor save the world. You can’t, alone. But it is your job to be the instrument of Christ’s Will and ministry. Keep the job small, and focus on your role. Let God handle the big picture. You don’t need to see the entire map to know where to put your next footstep. Just pray to be shown where the next step goes.
I’ve posted this here before, and will again. I still find it helpful to remember these things:
When things are darkest, when hope seems to fade, and all seems lost, we will need to cling to our principles. Holding to these principles will give us the strength, courage, and determination to keep going, to hold the line, and to never surrender.
We fight for something greater than ourselves. Should we as individuals break down, drop the ball, fail, or even fall to despair, then still we will not have lost, because we do not fight only for ourselves. The fight will go on, and we will each be held to account only that we gave our last measure in pursuit of these principles.
What are these principles? Faith, Hope, and Love. Practice love, practice charity. Spread Joy and Truth and Love to everyone you encounter in your daily life. Smile, wish others a good day, or a happy afternoon, and rejoice in the day that God has given you. Do what you can to make the day of everyone you encounter just a little bit better.
Always remember, evil is not the opposite of good. Evil is the absence of God, much as darkness is the absence of light. There is no force of darkness, no power of darkness, no speed of darkness. Merely the absence of light.
To that end, darkness wins not by overcoming or overpowering the light, but merely having the light withdraw. Once the light is gone, the darkness is there, unsummoned, unbidden. No further acts need to occur for the darkness to be absolute. All that is required is the light to be gone. Hence, why all that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.
All this does not mean that there are not dark forces out there, or forces aligned with the darkness. We must fight them constantly.
Always remember, too, that light is invisible unless it shines upon something, or you view the source directly (in which case, the light is shining directly on your retinas). The brightest flashlights when viewed from the side appear to not be on at all. It is only when the light strikes an object that the brilliance is unveiled, and the luminescence is apparent. We are each charged, therefore, to show up. The light cannot be denied as long as we stand. We reflect the Light, and the Light is the Truth, and the Way, and the Son.
Do not be afraid to walk in the Valley of Darkness, for the light is there, though you do not see it, and in you being there, you become a beacon of Light not of yourself, but because of the Light shining on you.
Go forth and represent the Light. Go forth and fear no darkness. Go forth and bear witness by your mere presence, and fight for Him and His Truth always, even if you can do nothing more than stand silently by and let the Light shine upon you to be reflected where it is impossible to ignore.
Look to Love, and be a beacon of Light and Love in this world.
Thanks, Cetera, your first paragraph says it all. Keep it small, pray for the wisdom to take the next step. I do that. I often think of Mother Benedict, the foundress of the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut. They asked her how she knew what to doing founding a monastery. Her reply was something like, “I just did the next thing that needed to be done.” Steve’s post today is excellent about knowing “why” we do what we do. Ours is a big huge why, the salvation of the world! But we do that by being faithful, answering the call to holiness each day and being “firm in the faith” (1 Peter 5:9) I pray the traditional breviary and that reading is included every night at Compline. A good point to examine myself on each day. This is not a bad time to be a Catholic, religious and priest but the right time and a very good and blessed time. The call to holiness and courage in the mission, has never been clearer to me!
Thanks for being a priest, and for answering the call. I’ll pray for you. Please pray for me, and for all of us here, and out there. May God bless us, for we surely need it.
I’m glad I was able to help just a little.
Father, please contact Michael Voris @ Church Militant. It seems he’s in touch with a lot of faithful priests; please unite and fight for us!
Thank you, EC, I’d not thought of Michael Voris. Msgr. Nicola Bux has an interview with Edward Pentin in the Register. Msgr is no wild talker. He uses the term “apostasy”. We need to be connected with one another to do the Lord’s work in the midst of the confusion and division and darkness. Remind one another that Jesus is the light of the world and we are his priests, who are to radiate that light.
Has anyone considered organising a “pilgrimage of protest”, in which a large group of us go to St. Peter’s Square and protest vociferously about AL and ask Pope Francis to step down during his papal address, as the Venezuelans did only larger (hopefully)? Orthodox Catholics are not used to it, but in medieval times lay Catholics would’ve resorted to worse measures, so it’s actually quite mild. NO ONE ELSE IS GOING TO STAND UP FOR US. WE HAVE TO DO IT OURSELVES.
I believe some laity did this in response to the new Mass and Pope Paul VI. He ignored them.
Yes but he wasn’t so fetishistic about his own popular image like our current Holy Father, who likes to present himself as universally loved by the laity. Remember his thin-skinned reaction to the posters. And even if he did nothing it would be captured in the media and encourage even more Catholics worldwide to keep doing things like that to keep the pressure on.
Yes, I’ve been thinking the same thing for years. Here in the US with the freedom of speech, people will protest just about anything. I think the Vatican City would have more restrictive speech laws (no wonder) so it might be harder to pull off there. The fact that travel would be involved, makes me think there must be a group of Roman citizens who would like to make their feelings known to the Pope. If they could just organize to stage a protest that would be wonderful. You are right, it is past time for laity to stand up where they can be seen by the Pope, and, most importantly, the media.
My post mysteriously disappeared. ????
A couple of things caught my eye in this article. Firstly, this:
In an unusually blunt report to the Vatican, Bishop Robert Lynch of St.
Petersburg, Fla., said that even most regular churchgoing Catholics in
his diocese find the church’s teaching on artificial contraception no
longer relevant.
Lynch is, by some distance, the absolute worst bishop in the US and that is really saying something considering that he has intense competition from the likes of Cupich, McElroy et al. The Vatican should pay no attention whatsoever to anything Lynch says. This is the man who actually forbade Eucharistic adoration in his diocese. This is the man who completely washed his hands of the Terri Schiavo horror and arranged to be out of the country when she was being killed by the state and was in her final agony. This is the man who made homosexual advances on diocesan workers.
Then there’s this from Francis:
The question is not that of changing doctrine, but to go into the
depths, and ensuring that pastoral [efforts] take into account people’s
situations, and that, which it is possible for people to do.”
This says it all, especially the part in bold. What a terrible, minimalist approach to the Gospel. What a negative, faithless approach to God. Francis is telling us that with God, some things are not possible. With God, some things are out of our reach and not an option. This far and no further can we go.
No Francis, you dissembling liar. Jesus tells us that “you then are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5: 48). This means that, with God’s grace, there is no limit to what we can do. Why are you putting limits on the Gospel’s power to transform us, you faithless rogue? At the heart of Amoris laetitia and indeed the whole of this lousy pontificate, there is a faithlessness, a disbelief, a mundane pragmatism which denies the Gospel and God’s power to transform our lives.
My posts keep disappearing. ???? I don’t understand why…
Your posts are below. I’ve just been reading them. If your settings say “Sort by best” they may disappear down thread. Change your settings to “Sort by Newest” and they’ll come to the top.
I see, thanks.
We are not disappearing them. I am checking in briefly before a busy afternoon, so I don’t have time to check the spam filter, but I just wanted to let you know your thoughts are not being taken out by a comment sniper. 😉
Undermining Humane Vitae will crumble the foundation for ALL Catholic Moral Teaching – the enemies of Truth know this – it has been their goal since its release. We have been given the tactic of those who cannot accept the teachings of Christ: “make a mess”- exact words of this Pope. We are faced with two obvious scenarios, either God intervenes or God is calling his soldiers on Earth to intervene. God has already intervened with the outcome of Humane Vitae realizing that no one expected this. Some say He intervened regarding John Paul I. Could God be asking His Church Militant to take the stand this time? Regardless, if nothing is done we will end up with a “reinterpretation” filled with “footnotes” in order to “make a mess” of all defining clarity which the Church has provided for 2,000 years. These next couple of years will be the defining moments of this generation not only for the Church Hierarchy but for the entire Body of Christ. Will we allow the teachings of Christ be “made a mess of” or is it time to “mess up” the serpents of deceit who are literally teaching His flock how to sin and to think one can get away with it? Steve and many others are a God-given Gift to us with exposing the evil that has entered the Church. We all need to echo this and be loud and clear with our CCD teachers, Catholic School Principles, Parish Priest and our Bishops…and be un-popularly relentless. Silent majority no more. Above all pray continuously.
If Francis destroys Humanae Vitae….why should anyone take any notice of anything he has said or written on any subject? A Pope’s infinitely malleable teachings have as much authority as the scribblings of any ethics lecturer.
Ok, that was a thing of beauty. Thank you. It is just this straightforward and simple.
We accept however, that most of our clergy are sycophants and cowards. When we are not thinking well of them, we consider them sodomites and sodomite-enablers.
What’s the difference, they’re all fracturing the Church into a thousand pieces.
This is an auspicious year, 2017, may these things not go unanswered for much longer.
Hey, they’re denying that this story is even true. Who’s surprised? Let’s have a show of hands!
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/is-there-a-pontifical-commission-to-reinterpret-humanae-vitae-94702/
Jazz hands here!
Uh huh.
Ah, the old leak the story to see the how people respond so they can be even more deceitful in their tactics. Now the newly enlightened crowd float the notion they are going to “study” so they can “deepen” the “document”. Their response is ripe-to-rotten with innuendos.
You have arrived! Denial now means that it is official.
Do what thou wilt; shall be the whole of the law………..
I submit that at least one small factor in all this mess is our continued use of the phrase “artificial contraception.” That phrase is fatally misleading. It makes it sound like the problem is that contraception is artificial. Well, heart pacemakers are artificial; surgery to remove a tumor is artificial; eyeglasses are artificial! The forces against use our perceived argument against “artificial” to portray us as silly, backward and anti-human.
Let us speak clearly and unambiguously. The problem with contraception is not that it is artificial; the problem is that it is CONTRACEPTION. We need to be willing and able to explain to people why contraception — in and of itself — is evil.
Well said. Contraception is intrinsically evil. Contraception is never natural.
We now have five solas of the Catholic Church. The god of surprises and make a mess theology does not disappoint. Under the banner of “pastoral care”, they are as follows:
sola mercy
sola charity
sola accompaniment
sola discernment
sola conscience
We just couldn’t let the Protestants have their five solas without coming up with five of our own. It took five hundred years, but hey, what is that when compared with eternity?
Are you kidding me,this Pope is a Hack,our Faith is going down in flames under the leadership of Francis,people are leaving in droves,the leadership of the Church is doing the opposite instead of doing rite,they should be teaching orthodox Catholic Faith,teach the Sacramentals the ancient Liturgy and I guarantee the Faith will grow a flourish,but under Francis it will wither an die out,Jesus please send us help,Please……
Wow. Just wow. I am reading this after a 2.5 hour argument about this very thing with another faithful Catholic. In the argument, the other Catholic (without my knowing it) delivered all the liberal talking points (Francis is all about mercy; he is being ambiguous on purpose, and it’s a good thing!; Jesus broke the rules too; the Church’s rules are too much for so many and Pope Francis is their angel of mercy; what exactly is a ‘formed conscience’ anyway?; the key to understanding the question of divorce is the word ‘lawful’; Cardinal Burke and the issuers of the Dubia are causing division- they have no right to question the pope, and the pope has every right not to answer them). Yet, this Catholic is in full agreement with Catholic teaching on contraception, abortion, etc. So, even the faithful are being distorted, and with such papal authorization as justification, there is no getting through to them. And this is now the subsequent wave of danger after all the other waves of dissent. How is this to be resolved?