LA CAGE AUX FOLLES |
“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, 'You are mad; you are not like us.” ― St. Antony the Great
Monday 25 November 2019
The Pervert Protecting Pontiff
Labels:
Perverts,
Team Bergoglio
Fifty years of Novus Ordo garbage
Two week ago, I attended my first Novus Ordo Mass in over two years. A friend was being ordained to the transitional diaconate. I could have done without the serviettes in the sanctuary and the Cardinal's jokes, but other than that, it was tolerable.
When I think back to my childhood and my memories of Mass, I can recall in my mind's eye, six candles lit on the altar at the principal Mass which we always attended (there were maybe five in total) and maybe the Kyrie and Sanctus were sung, but that was it. It was a essentially a Read, or Low Mass with some music sprinkled here and there. Everyone knelt all the time and some had hand missals, my parents certainly did. One Sunday, there was a plywood table covered in one cloth and two stubby candles in the sanctuary and poor Father Michael Carroll, a good and saintly man, looked totally flummoxed. I can remember my mother saying, "Well, this is Vatican II." She didn't like it. That was 1965 and I was nine years old. Two years later, at the first class for the new crop of Altar Boys, we were told, "Congratulations Boys, you're the first class that does not need to learn Latin!"
This was the interim 1965 Missal which was the already slimmed down 1962 but in the vernacular up to the Offertory from then on, it was still Latin. The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar were shortened as in the Requiem, without the Judica Me and could be eliminated if one did the Asperges. The Epistle could be read by a layman (man!), there were fewer genuflections and crosses by the priest, the priest now said, "The Body of Christ" and we responded, "Amen" and the Last Gospel was gone. From there it was downhill. By 1967, Latin was gone, the music was atrocious and every week there was something new. We were told this was the New Mass. We did not know we were yet to get a New, New Mass.
By the time November 30, 1969 came, nobody really noticed. There were so many innovations from 1967 on that it was brought in my stealth. The only difference were the readings and some new "Eucharistic Prayers." The chaos blinded us all.
Nobody asked for this - the laity did not demand it.
If there was a problem, it was the ever-present Sunday and Feast Day Read or Low Mass, but that is for a different post and maybe a series.
The Novus Ordo liturgy of Montini has been a disaster for the faith. There is not one thing good which can be said about it but if you can try, please do, in the combox.
Please dear reader, abandon it, if you can. Find the traditional Mass, diocesan, FSSP. ICRSS, SSPX, drive as far as you must.
And read this and note the quotes from the alleged Saint, Montini, and tell me you don't here Bergoglio!
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2019/11/paul-vis-contempt-for-catholics-who-did.html
When I think back to my childhood and my memories of Mass, I can recall in my mind's eye, six candles lit on the altar at the principal Mass which we always attended (there were maybe five in total) and maybe the Kyrie and Sanctus were sung, but that was it. It was a essentially a Read, or Low Mass with some music sprinkled here and there. Everyone knelt all the time and some had hand missals, my parents certainly did. One Sunday, there was a plywood table covered in one cloth and two stubby candles in the sanctuary and poor Father Michael Carroll, a good and saintly man, looked totally flummoxed. I can remember my mother saying, "Well, this is Vatican II." She didn't like it. That was 1965 and I was nine years old. Two years later, at the first class for the new crop of Altar Boys, we were told, "Congratulations Boys, you're the first class that does not need to learn Latin!"
This was the interim 1965 Missal which was the already slimmed down 1962 but in the vernacular up to the Offertory from then on, it was still Latin. The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar were shortened as in the Requiem, without the Judica Me and could be eliminated if one did the Asperges. The Epistle could be read by a layman (man!), there were fewer genuflections and crosses by the priest, the priest now said, "The Body of Christ" and we responded, "Amen" and the Last Gospel was gone. From there it was downhill. By 1967, Latin was gone, the music was atrocious and every week there was something new. We were told this was the New Mass. We did not know we were yet to get a New, New Mass.
By the time November 30, 1969 came, nobody really noticed. There were so many innovations from 1967 on that it was brought in my stealth. The only difference were the readings and some new "Eucharistic Prayers." The chaos blinded us all.
Nobody asked for this - the laity did not demand it.
If there was a problem, it was the ever-present Sunday and Feast Day Read or Low Mass, but that is for a different post and maybe a series.
The Novus Ordo liturgy of Montini has been a disaster for the faith. There is not one thing good which can be said about it but if you can try, please do, in the combox.
Please dear reader, abandon it, if you can. Find the traditional Mass, diocesan, FSSP. ICRSS, SSPX, drive as far as you must.
And read this and note the quotes from the alleged Saint, Montini, and tell me you don't here Bergoglio!
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2019/11/paul-vis-contempt-for-catholics-who-did.html
Bergoglio has his own hand in the Vatican's financial corruption
Labels:
Corruption,
Team Bergoglio
Saturday 23 November 2019
"Sometimes the combox is better than the blogger."
In my morning perusal of my favourite blogs (all are on the left column), I read this on Non Veni Pacem. It struck me because the of what my fellow blogger, Mark, wrote:
As a blogger, I could not agree more. It is one reason why the combox is open and free and while moderated, generally uncensored with 99.9% of comments being published.
There was a reason why on March 13, 2013 I wanted to vomit. It was because I was looking into the face of evil. Not a shepherd, not a vicar, not a pastor, but the face of a man who gave himself over to Satan. I knew it, deep in my bones.
People are awakening. Others think as I; and furthermore, I consider that Ann Barnhardt has been on to all of this for quite a while.
Read this and please, read every comment.
https://nonvenipacem.com/2019/11/22/the-throne-of-peter-has-a-demonic-spawn-squatting-on-it-orchestrating-hells-circus/
"Sometimes the combox is better than the blogger."
As a blogger, I could not agree more. It is one reason why the combox is open and free and while moderated, generally uncensored with 99.9% of comments being published.
There was a reason why on March 13, 2013 I wanted to vomit. It was because I was looking into the face of evil. Not a shepherd, not a vicar, not a pastor, but the face of a man who gave himself over to Satan. I knew it, deep in my bones.
People are awakening. Others think as I; and furthermore, I consider that Ann Barnhardt has been on to all of this for quite a while.
Read this and please, read every comment.
“The throne of Peter has a demonic spawn squatting on it, orchestrating Hell’s circus”
https://nonvenipacem.com/2019/11/22/the-throne-of-peter-has-a-demonic-spawn-squatting-on-it-orchestrating-hells-circus/
Letter of Saint Athanasius to His Flock (4th Century A.D.)
“May God console you! … What saddens you … is the fact that
others have occupied the churches by violence, while during this time you are
on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises — but you have the
Apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true
Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within
you. Let us consider: what is more important, the place or the Faith? The true
Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in the struggle — the one who
keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith?
True, the premises are good when the Apostolic Faith is
preached there; they are holy if everything takes place there in a holy way …
You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the
Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has
come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has
tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the
ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis.
No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved
Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day.
Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of
worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that
they represent the Church; but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling
themselves from it and going astray.
Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a
handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.”
(Coll. selecta SS. Eccl. Patrum, Caillau and Guillou, Vol.
32, pp. 411-412)
Labels:
Blogs and Bloggers,
More Bergoglian heresy
Friday 22 November 2019
Viganò, Pope is subjecting Church to ‘powerful forces’ that want world government
Archbishop Carlo Viganò calls out Bergoglio as the Globalist dupe that he is.
A monster. A man who hates Christ, faithful Catholics and the Nation-State.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/abp-vigano-pope-is-subjecting-church-to-powerful-forces-that-want-world-government
A monster. A man who hates Christ, faithful Catholics and the Nation-State.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/abp-vigano-pope-is-subjecting-church-to-powerful-forces-that-want-world-government
Labels:
Carlo Maria Viganò,
More Bergoglian heresy
Thursday 21 November 2019
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Pachamama was worshiped at Vatican and it wasn’t harmless
Bishop Athanasius Schneider has written an article for Kath.net and has authorised an approved English translation at LifeSiteNews.
His Excellency lays out the idolatry and blasphemy committed by Bergoglio and the others over the worship of pagan deities in Rome. It reads as a lawyer's opening statement in a devastating trial. He has convicted Jorge Mario Bergoglio and others of being the false prophets that they are and even worse. They are devils.
"For all of the gods of the gentiles are devils; and the LORD made the heavens."
"Blessed be the name of the LORD."
Read all of this at:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/bishop-athanasius-schneider-pachamama-was-worshiped-at-vatican-and-it-wasnt-harmless
His Excellency lays out the idolatry and blasphemy committed by Bergoglio and the others over the worship of pagan deities in Rome. It reads as a lawyer's opening statement in a devastating trial. He has convicted Jorge Mario Bergoglio and others of being the false prophets that they are and even worse. They are devils.
"For all of the gods of the gentiles are devils; and the LORD made the heavens."
"Blessed be the name of the LORD."
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/bishop-athanasius-schneider-pachamama-was-worshiped-at-vatican-and-it-wasnt-harmless
Friday 15 November 2019
BERGOLIO DECLARES FAITHFUL CATHOLICS TO BE "NAZIS" - INVENTS NEW "SIN"
In a stunning statement, Jorge Bergoglio has labelled faithful Catholics who speak out against sodomitical behaviour and the political agenda of homosexualism as "NAZIS"
He is playing us, he is psychologically projecting.
It is Bergoglio that is the NAZI.
“It is no coincidence that in these times, emblems and actions typical of Nazism reappear, which, with its persecutions against Jews, gypsies and people of homosexual orientation, represents the negative model par excellence of a culture of waste and hatred, and I must confess to you that when I hear a speech [by] someone responsible for order or for a government, I think of speeches by Hitler in 1934, 1936. In the last century we saw so many brutalities against the Jewish people, and we were all convinced that this was over. But today the habit of persecuting the Jews, brothers and sisters, is here reborn. This is neither human nor Christian."
More can be read here.
Who is this pontificating pervert protector speaking of? Is it this writer? Is it you, dear reader?
Who is this pontificating pervert protector speaking of? Is it this writer? Is it you, dear reader?
The man is a sociopath, he never names his target but only makes innuendo. This is of Christ? This is a pastor?
He continued on to declare the "sin" against the environment in keeping with his recent pagan worship of "mother-earth"
If that is not enough, he reiterated his rejection of a life sentence in prison which he has done numerous times before.
This man is not of Christ. He is evil. That is plain to see. He hates Our Lord Jesus Christ, he refused to genuflect or kneel before the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar but he sanctioned and attended the literal worship of a pagan idol.
It is without a doubt in the mind of this writer that Jorge Bergoglio is most perfectly possessed. He is a megalomaniac. A nasty, brutish, pompous dictator.
He is playing us, he is psychologically projecting.
It is Bergoglio that is the NAZI.
It is Bergoglio that is the coprophiliac.
And nobody confronts this evil monster to his face.
Labels:
More Bergoglian heresy
Tuesday 12 November 2019
Protest against Pope Francis's sacrilegious acts
I add my name.
We the undersigned Catholic clergy and lay scholars protest against and condemn the sacrilegious and superstitious acts committed by Pope Francis, the Successor of Peter, in connection with the recent Amazon Synod held in Rome.
These sacrilegious acts are the following:
On October 4, Pope Francis attended an act of idolatrous
worship of the pagan goddess Pachamama.
He allowed this worship to take place in the Vatican
Gardens, thus desecrating the vicinity of the graves of the martyrs and of the
church of the Apostle Peter.
He participated in this act of idolatrous worship by
blessing a wooden image of Pachamama.
On October 7, the idol of Pachamama was placed in front of
the main altar at St. Peter’s and then carried in procession to the Synod Hall.
Pope Francis said prayers in a ceremony involving this image and then joined in
this procession.
When wooden images of this pagan deity were removed from the
church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, where they had been sacrilegiously
placed, and thrown into the Tiber by Catholics outraged by this profanation of
the church, Pope Francis, on October 25, apologized for their removal and
another wooden image of Pachamama was returned to the church. Thus, a new profanation was initiated.
On October 27, in the closing Mass for the synod, he
accepted a bowl used in the idolatrous worship of Pachamama and placed it on
the altar.
Pope Francis himself confirmed that these wooden images were
pagan idols. In his apology for the removal of these idols from a Catholic
church, he specifically called them Pachamama,
a name for a false goddess of mother earth according to pagan religious
belief in South America.
Different features of these proceedings have been condemned
as idolatrous or sacrilegious by Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Cardinal Gerhard
Müller, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Bishop
Athanasius Schneider, Bishop José Luis Azcona Hermoso, Bishop Rudolf
Voderholzer, and Bishop Marian Eleganti.
Lastly, Card. Raymond Burke has given the same assessment of this cult
in an interview.
This participation in idolatry was anticipated by the
statement entitled “Document on Human Fraternity”, signed by Pope Francis and
Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, on February 4, 2019. This statement asserted that:
“The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex,
race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created
human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom
of belief and the freedom to be different derives.”
Pope Francis’s involvement in idolatrous ceremonies is an
indication that he meant this statement in a heterodox sense, which allows
pagan worship of idols to be considered a good positively willed by God.
Moreover, despite privately advising Bishop Athanasius
Schneider that “You [the Bishop] can say that the phrase in question on the
diversity of religions means the permissive will of God…” , Francis has never
corrected the Abu Dhabi statement accordingly. In his subsequent audience address of April 3,
2019 Francis, answering the question “Why does God permit that there are so
many religions?”, referred in passing to the “permissive will of God” as
explained by Scholastic theology, but gave the concept a positive meaning,
declaring that “God wanted to permit this” because while “there are so many
religions” they “always look to heaven, they look to God (emphasis
added).” There is not the slightest
suggestion that God permits the existence of false religions in the same way He
permits the existence of evil generally.
Rather, the clear implication is that God permits the existence of “so
many religions” because they are good in that they “always look to heaven, they
look to God.”
Worse, Pope Francis has since confirmed the uncorrected Abu
Dhabi statement by establishing an “interfaith committee”, which later received the official name of
“Higher Committee,” located in the
United Arab Emirates, to promote the “goals” of the document; and promoting a
directive issued by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue
addressed to the heads of all the Roman Catholic institutes of higher studies,
and indirectly to Catholic university professors, asking that they give the
“widest possible dissemination to the document", including its uncorrected
assertion that God wills the “diversity of religions” just as He wills the
diversity of color, sex, race and language.
The rendering of worship to anyone or anything other than
the one true God, the Blessed Trinity, is a violation of the First Commandment.
Absolutely all participation in any form of the veneration of idols is
condemned by this Commandment and is an objectively grave sin, independently of
the subjective culpability, that only God can judge.
St. Paul taught the early Church that the sacrifice offered
to pagan idols was not offered to God but rather to the demons when he said in
his First Letter to the Corinthians:
“What then? Do I say, that what is offered in sacrifice to
idols, is any thing? Or, that the idol is any thing? But the things which the
heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. And I would not
that you should be made partakers with demons. You cannot drink the chalice of
the Lord, and the chalice of demons: you cannot be partakers of the table of
the Lord, and of the table of demons.”
(1 Cor. 10:19-21)
By these actions Pope Francis has incurred the reproach
uttered by the Second Council of Nicaea:
“Many pastors have destroyed my vine, they have defiled my
portion. For they followed unholy men and trusting to their own frenzies they
calumniated the holy Church, which Christ our God has espoused to himself, and
they failed to distinguish the holy from the profane, asserting that the icons
of our Lord and of his saints were no different from the wooden images of
satanic idols.”
With immense sorrow and deep love for the Chair of Peter, we
beg Almighty God to spare the guilty members of His Church on earth the
punishment that they deserve for these terrible sins.
We respectfully ask Pope Francis to repent publicly and
unambiguously of these objectively grave sins and of all the public offences
that he has committed against God and the true religion, and to make reparation
for these offences.
We respectfully ask all the bishops of the Catholic Church
to offer fraternal correction to Pope Francis for these scandals, and to warn
their flocks that according to the divinely revealed teaching of the Catholic
faith, they will risk eternal damnation if they follow his example of offending
against the First Commandment.
November 9th, 2019
In Festo dedicationis Basilicae Lateranensis
“Terribilis est locus iste: hic domus Dei est et porta cæli;
et vocabitur aula Dei”
Protest against Pope Francis's sacrilegious acts
Dr Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg, The Netherlands
Dr Robert Adams, medical physician in Emergency & Family
Medicine
Donna F. Bethell, J.D.
Tom Bethell, senior editor of The American Spectator and
book author
Dr Biagio Buonomo, PhD in Ancient Christianity History and
former culture columnist (1990-2013) for L'Osservatore Romano
François Billot de Lochner, President of Liberté politique,
France
Rev. Deacon Andrew Carter B.Sc. (Hons.) ARCS DipPFS Leader,
Marriage & Family Life Commission, Diocese of Portsmouth, England
Mr. Robert Cassidy, STL
Dr Michael Cawley, PhD, Psychologist, Former University
Instructor, Pennsylvania, USA
Dr Erick Chastain, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Associate,
Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fr Linus F Clovis
Lynn Colgan Cohen, M.A., O.F.S.
Dr Colin H. Jory, MA, PhD, Historian, Canberra, Australia
Rev Edward B. Connolly, Pastor Emeritus, St. Joseph Parish
St. Vincent de Paul Parish, Girardville PA
Prof. Roberto de Mattei, Former Professor of the History of
Christianity, European University of Rome, former Vice President of the
National Research Council (CNR)
José Florencio Domínguez, philologist and translator
Deacon Nick Donnelly, MA Catholic Pastoral & Educational
Studies (Spiritual Formation), England
Fr Thomas Edward Dorn, pastor of Holy Redeemer Parish in New
Bremen OH in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati
Fr Stefan Dreher FSSP, Stuttgart, Germany
Dr Michael B. Ewbank, PhD in Philosophy, Loras College,
retired, USA
Fr Jerome Fasano, Pastor, St John the Baptist Church, Front
Royal, Virginia, USA
Dr James Fennessy, MA, MSW, JD, LCSW, Matawan, New Jersey,
USA
Christopher A. Ferrara, J.D., Founding President of the
American Catholic Lawyers’ Association
Fr Jay Finelli, Tiverton, RI, USA
Prof. Michele Gaslini, Professor of Public Law, University
of Udine, Italy
Dr Linda M. Goulash, M.D.
Dr Maria Guarini STB, Pontificia Università Seraphicum,
Rome; editor of the website Chiesa e postconcilio
Fr Brian W. Harrison, OS, STD, associate professor of
theology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico (retired),
Scholar-in-Residence, Oblates of Wisdom Study Center, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Sarah Henderson DCHS MA (RE & Catechetics) BA (Mus)
Prof. Robert Hickson PhD, Retired Professor of Literature
and of Strategic-Cultural Studies
Dr Maike Hickson PhD, Writer and Journalist
Prof., Dr.rer.pol., Dr.rer.nat. Rudolf Hilfer, Professor of
Theoretical Physics at Universität Stuttgart
Fr John Hunwicke, Former Senior Research Fellow, Pusey
House, Oxford
Fr Edward J. Kelty, OS, JCD, Defensor Vinculi, SRNC rota
romana 2001-19, Former Judicial Vicar,
Archdiocese of Ferrara, Judge, Archdiocese of Ferrara
Dr Ivo Kerže, prof. phil.
Dr Thomas Klibengajtis, former Assistant Professor of
Catholic Systematic Theology, Institute of Catholic Theology, Technical
University Dresden, Germany
Dr Peter A. Kwasniewski, PhD, USA
Dr John Lamont, DPhil (Oxon.)
Dr Dorotea Lancellotti, catechist, co-founder of the website:
https://cooperatores-veritatis.org/
Dr Ester Ledda, consecrated laywoman, co-founder of the
website https://cooperatores-veritatis.org/
Fr Patrick Magee, FLHF a Franciscan of Our Lady of the Holy
Family, canonical hermit in the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts
Dr Carlo Manetti, jurist and lecturer, Italy
Dr Christopher Manion, PhD, KM, Humanae Vitae Coalition,
Front Royal, Virginia, USA
Antonio Marcantonio, MA
Michael J. Matt, Editor, The Remnant, USA
Jean-Pierre Maugendre, general delegate, Renaissance
catholique, France
Msgr John F. McCarthy, JCD, STD, retired professor of moral
theology, Pontifical Lateran University
Prof. Brian M. McCall, Orpha and Maurice Merrill Professor
in Law, Special Advisor to the Provost for Online Education, University of
Oklahoma
Patricia McKeever, B.Ed. M.Th., Editor, Catholic Truth,
Scotland
Mary Angela McMenamin, MA in Biblical Theology from John
Paul the Great Catholic University
Fr Cor Mennen, lecturer canon law at the diocesan Seminary
of ‘s-Hertogenbosch and member of the cathedral chapter
Rev Michael Menner, Pastor
Dr Stéphane Mercier, Ph.D., S.T.B., former research fellow
and lecturer at the University of Louvain
David Moss, President, Association of Hebrew Catholics, St.
Louis, Missouri
Dr Claude E Newbury, M.B. B.Ch., D.T.M & H., D.P.H.,
D.O.H., M.F.G.P., D.C.H., D.A., M. Prax Med.
Prof. Giorgio Nicolini, writer, Director of “Tele Maria”
Fr John O'Neill, STB, Dip TST, Priest of the Diocese of
Parramatta, member of Australian Society of Authors
Fr Guy Pagès, Archdiocese of Paris, France
Prof. Paolo Pasqualucci, Professor of Philosophy (retired),
University of Perugia, Italy
Fr Dean P. Perri, Diocese of Providence, Our Lady of Loreto
Church
Dr Brian Charles Phillips, MD
Dr Mary Elizabeth Phillips, MD
Dr Robert Phillips, Professor (emeritus) Philosophy: Oxford
University, Wesleyan University, University of Connecticut
Prof. Claudio Pierantoni, Professor of Medieval Philosophy,
University of Chile; former Professor of Church History and Patrology at the
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Prof. Enrico Maria Radaelli, Professor of Aesthetic
Philosophy and Director of the Department of
Aesthetic Philosophy of the International Science and Commonsense
Association (ISCA), Rome, Italy
Dr Carlo Regazzoni, Philosopher of Culture, Therwill,
Switzerland
Prof. John Rist, Professor emeritus of Classics and
Philosophy, University of Toronto
Dr Ivan M. Rodriguez, PhD
Fr Luis Eduardo Rodrìguez Rodríguez, Pastor, Diocesan
Catholic Priest, Caracas, Venezuela.
John F. Salza, Esq.
Fr Timothy Sauppé, S.T.L., pastor of St. Mary’s (Westville,
IL.) and St. Isaac Jogues (Georgetown, IL.)
Fr John Saward, Priest of the Archdiocese of Birmingham,
England
Prof. Dr Josef Seifert, Director of the Dietrich von
Hildebrand Institute of Philosophy, at the Gustav Siewerth Akademie,
Bierbronnen, Germany
Mary Shivanandan, Author and consultant
Dr Cristina Siccardi, Church Historian and author
Dr Anna M. Silvas, senior research adjunct, University of
New England NSW Australia.
Jeanne Smits, journalist, writer, France
Dr Stephen Sniegoski, PhD, historian and book author
Dr Zlatko Šram, PhD, Croatian Center for Applied Social
Research
Henry Sire, Church historian and book author, England
Robert J. Siscoe, author
Abbé Guillaume de Tanoüarn, Doctor of Literature
Rev Glen Tattersall, Parish Priest, Parish of St. John Henry
Newman, Australia
Gloria, Princess of Thurn und Taxis, Regensburg, Germany
Prof. Giovanni Turco, associate professor of Philosophy of
Public Law, University of Udine, Italy
Fr Frank Unterhalt, Pastor, Archdiocese of Paderborn,
Germany
José Antonio Ureta, author
Adrie A.M. van der Hoeven, MSc, physicist
Dr Gerd J. Weisensee, Msc, Switzerland
John-Henry Westen, MA, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief
LifeSiteNews.com
Dr Elizabeth C. Wilhelmsen, Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature,
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, retired
Willy Wimmer, Secretary of State, Ministry of Defense,
(ret.), Germany
Prof. em. Dr Hubert Windisch, priest and theologian, Germany
Mo Woltering, MTS, Headmaster, Holy Family Academy,
Manassas, Virginia, USA
Miguel Ángel Yáñez, editor of Adelante la Fe
Monday 11 November 2019
Nuncio to the U.S.A. demands obedience to the Francis Magisterium
Christophe Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States has spoken at the USCCB Central Committee demanding that all bow down and adore at the name of Francis and his magisterium.
So now, we have the "Francis Magisterium."
Pierre can follow Bergoglio straight into Hell.
Where they both belong.
So now, we have the "Francis Magisterium."
Pierre can follow Bergoglio straight into Hell.
Where they both belong.
Labels:
Christophe Pierre,
More Bergoglian heresy,
USCCB
At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
We will remember them.
Labels:
Remembrance Day
Sunday 10 November 2019
Fascists/Communists/Socialists attack Church in Chile
Other than Breitbart and Fox News where is this in the media?
Interesting coincidence? The same date as the November Pogroms against our Jewish brothers and sisters in Germany - Kristallnacht.
Interesting coincidence? The same date as the November Pogroms against our Jewish brothers and sisters in Germany - Kristallnacht.
Has Bergoglio made comment?
Labels:
Anti-Catholic Bigotry
POPE SACHS CHURCH: Vatican Embraces United Nations Goals
Bergoglio hugs Bono.
La cage aux folles.
Saturday 9 November 2019
The Novus Ordo Mass becomes a cult of toxic Marxism - Zita Tradlinger Fletcher reports
Zika Tradlinger Fletcher has reported extensively on
Germany's heretical Catholic Church for Catholic Fake News Service. She is a regular reader of Vox Cantoris blog and we have received this report from her while on special assignment.
The Novus Ordo Mass becomes a cult of toxic Marxism
By Zika Tradlinger Fletcher.
Zika Tradlinger Fletcher |
By Zika Tradlinger Fletcher.
The Novus Ordo Mass becomes a cult of toxic Marxism
One culture within the Catholic Church needing major
reform is that surrounding the practice of the New Mass, a.k.a. Novus Ordo
Mass.
In this new era, the New Mass is merely a disjointed and
substandard way of celebrating the liturgy in the United States. In the wake of
the not needed reforms instituted by the Second Vatican Council, the New Mass
has become a rallying point for change-obsessed radical sects within the
church. The ultra-liberalism practiced by these Novus Ordo Mass groups is
radical and empty-headed. They utilize the Novus Ordo Mass structure to wield
control over believers — particularly men, who are reduced to a state of
discriminatory subjugation in Novus Ordo rites. The stubbornly resistant,
anti-Traditional practices of these Novus Ordo Mass adherents border on
cultism.
The Novus Ordo Mass fosters heretical structures in the
church. The liturgy — spoken in a vernacular, colloquial language no longer the
traditional, sacred language usage — places all power in the hands of the
people and Susan from the Parish Council. The priest keeps his back turned to
the Tabernacle, where the Most Blessed Sacrament is reserved, for most of the
ceremony. Aside from making occasional responses, the priest plays no active part in worship. All people
inside the church are not expected to kneel on cue at various points. The
priest is at the center of the spectacle. His ministry is not longer
differentiated from the people he is supposed to worship with, and the altar
rail is the structure that marks the sacred space and reserved for his
ministry, and where to receive the Body of Christ Novus Ordo people refuse to
kneel at His feet.
Meanwhile, the new modernist innovations oppress men. Men
are expected — indeed, in some cases almost commanded — to wear T-shirts, cargo
pants, and flip flops, instead of collar shirts, trousers and shoes, and women
uncover themselves with revealing clothing, mini skirts and tight yoga pants.
No such rules exist for the seniors. It is discrimination, and therefore the
New Mass actively endorses agism and attacks decorum. Instead of a unifying
form of worship, the New Mass has become an instrument of oppression and a
gathering point for Catholic fundamentalists.
In most cases, it is useless to politely disagree with
people in the Novus Ordo Mass sect. Their attitude creates blindness — not only
to true faith, but to their own behavior. They treat others with pride and
animosity, but their conscience fails to kick in because they are convinced
their way is holy and other ways are not.
Anyone who may accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking
about — a favorite indictment of the Novus Ordo Mass ideologues — would be
wrong. My opinion is based on facts and personal experiences.
I grew up in a household of steady and solid faith, which
grew stronger over time. My parents stayed married until death. My mother was
Catholic who had been to church all her life. In the branches of my family tree
were relatives who might best be described as Catholics, and others as
Christian. My mother decided to be faithful to the Catholic Church when she was
young. From an early age, I believed in Christ because I was Catholic — others
tried in vain to convert me to atheism and modernism while I was still in
elementary school.
Maybe this sounds like the beginning of a happy story of
faith and discovery. It was. My family's journey into the Catholic Church was a
long, steady and pleasant road marked by a series of a wonderful treatment by
Catholic clergy, religious, schools and parishioners. (It's a miracle that I'm
Catholic and became a Catholic journalist.)
The Novus Ordo Mass rears its unveiled head in the
unholy, modernist rebellious history at several points. The last Latin Mass my
mother remembered attending took place just after the Second Vatican Council,
so unwillingly she started going to New Masses when she stayed in the church
because they were imposed. The church was going to welcome us Traditional
Catholics, she thought. The treatment we got was slightly shy of the Communist
gulags.
Needless to say, anything in the church looking remotely
Traditional was completely veiled. The people had the humor of a second-rate
comedy club crowd and the pastor, arrayed in modern vestments, was more like a
prima dona. After over an hour spent every Sunday drowning in pablum, I was
incensed, and getting sneered at, we did not feel any closer to God.
Rules, also, were a strange issue. For example, the
chapel veil was forbidden to be worn in the church. A confessor there hit one
of my family members with a "permanent daily practice"— a positive
thought every day, forever, to atone for an alleged life of iniquity. After
some while of this torture, my mother spoke with a different priest about the
unbearable situation. He advised her that genuine Catholic faith did forbid
wearing immodest clothes or allow priests to inflict a "penance" for
sins. Immediately we stopped going to Novus Ordo Mass at that parish.
But it wasn't the last time I would run into New Masses —
or the Novus Ordo Mass sectarians, present today in many Catholic
organizations.
After staying in the church as a teenager, I chose to be
a more faithful Catholic by learning and practicing the true Faith and
devotions — following the perennial Magisterium of the Church and Tradition,
and attending the very few churches where the Latin Mass was celebrated. On one
instance, a Novus Ordo priest noticed I was showing up regularly and approached
me with a persuasive speech to convert me to the Novus Ordo Mass faction —
disguising discrimination as encouragement. "You should come to the Paul
VI Mass instead and not wear a veil. Women look the most beautiful in church
when they are not veiled," he tried to persuade. "The long hair types
are the best kind — the really long ones, past the shoulders. I recommend it to
you — you have such pretty red hair, but it would even look nicer if you didn’t
wear a veil over it. I think it would be best for you."
Most disturbing about this conversation was his effort to
make impiety sound positive. Of course it made no sense that my hair would
somehow look better if people could see it. Indignant, I asked him to explain
why he thought I should consider not covering my head. “Because it's
disrespectful," he replied solemnly.
When asked why it wasn’t respectful to veil the hair that
God had glorified in women — and why men in church did have to uncover their
heads — he was not able to answer. He reacted badly because I challenged his
authority. Anyway, I had no intention of listening. I knew I was called to keep
my belief in God in a Traditional church. I never returned to that modernist
church afterwards.
The priest's attitude towards veiling women is typical of
Novus Ordo Mass cultists. They seem to believe that women look better in church
when people can see them. They try to sell immodesty to girls as a symbol of
feminine freedom. They hold that not covering up and not hiding yourself is
beautiful although such a practice is the very opposite of natural beauty.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter how pretty, sexy or raunchy
clothes may seem to potential wearers — cloths are meant to conceal female
beauty and prevent people from ogling women. By not promoting the chapel veil,
Novus Ordo Mass fundamentalists rob women of freedom, while trying to make it
seem like a liberating choice. Their attitude is not much different from
extremists under Communism.
Given such practices, it should come as no surprise that
a contingent of women active within the sectarian Novus Ordo Mass environment
have sexist and misandrist worldviews. These types believe they are superior to
men simply because they are female.
I cite two examples to support my view. One occasion that
remains burned into my memory was when I attended a Novus Ordo Mass at a Catholic
university. It was a busy Sunday and the Sunday obligation demanded I attend
Mass. I did not know it was a Novus Ordo Mass until I stumbled over the
doorstep. The atmosphere was typically liberal. I was surprised to recognize
some people there. One of them was a professor who was known to be a
namby-pamby person. When I saw his wife, I was shocked — and suddenly realized
the ugly extent of his weaknesses. His wife was a mere ghost of a woman. She
was almost naked from head to toe. Her dress was so short that you could see
her underwear. Even her entire legs and her arms were “weapons of mass
distraction.” She kept her head high and always walked in front of everybody.
She carried a cell phone and looked physically slinky — almost sexy.
The professor, by contrast, looked deprecated and
unhealthy. He ambled around and didn’t chat with others in church as she
strutted around and in front of him like a peacock. Seeing this, I believed I
had witnessed a very dark side to the professor's wife spirituality. Her
religion was a mechanism of abusive control.
My second example concerns a younger Catholic age group —
many of whom are apparently falling victim to the ultra-liberal Latin Mass
ideology promoted in Catholic activity groups and on college campuses. A female
acquaintance of mine, about my age, decided to brave the Catholic dating scene
— a recipe for disaster, in my personal opinion. Among the stories I heard from
her were of liberal Catholic males shopping for dates, asking her and other
girls, "Are you willing to get laid?" before marrying them. These men
did not want to associate with women whom they couldn't sexually dominate.
Men she met in this liberal Catholic peer group would
interview girls about sexuality before deciding to spend time with them — they
were arrogant and believed they were somehow morally superior to the women.
Instead of standing up for her own dignity, she decided to cave into the
pressure — go to liberal services and start wearing shorts. I still don't
understand why she wanted to associate with that group, or why she decided to
give in to oppression.
It is very unfortunate that younger generations of
Catholics seeking to deepen their faith are getting sucked into this vortex of
toxic, liberal radicalism. I saw few young families at a Novus Ordo Mass
recently when I was invited to attend a speaking engagement at a liberal
church. I happened to arrive before the Protestantized Mass was quite over —
having nowhere else to go before the event, and wishing to receive Holy
Communion, I decided to kneel during the Mass. Unsurprisingly I found myself
surrounded by almost naked women who entertained themselves in between chatting
bouts by casting disapproving glances at my chapel veil and rosary.
Looking around, I was astonished to see few college-aged
men and women among the crowd. The priests seemed to be in their 70s. Clearly
these people were too old to celebrate the times before Vatican II. Yet
something had drawn them here. Parental influence? Doubtful. It seemed to be a
shared spirit of ultra-liberalism. I found it frightening to reflect on how the
closed, Novus Ordo Mass mindset had managed to replicate itself over time and
spread like a virus.
Unsurprisingly, while there I had another memorably bad
experience. I went to receive Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue. Most
liberal-type priests I'd encountered in my lifetime would give me the Eucharist
only in the hands. This pastor too. He literally made a scene at the altar and
jerked the Eucharist away from me when I put out my tongue to receive it — as
if my tongue would contaminate the very Jesus who, according to the Catholic
faith, seeks Communion with my soul. I seriously considered walking out of the
church at that point, but decided not to receive the Eucharist and make a
Spiritual Communion instead, since I wanted to pray. After Mass I gave the
priests a piece of my mind.
Liberal clericalism defined the response I received. When
I informed an assisting priest that the pastor had been very rude to me at the
altar and asked that my views be relayed, he replied: "I won't throw our
pastor under the bus. He's the pastor. I refuse to tell him to correct his
behavior," the priest said. I reminded him that, as a priest, he was
supposed to worship God and value my feedback as a believer. The priest took a
step back and looked at me in astonishment, as if the notion of worship to God
had never occurred to him. "Very well. I'll tell the pastor what you
said," he said condescendingly. "But I don't think he did anything
wrong." His attitude was a trademark example of the culture within the
Catholic Church that encourages abuse. His first reaction was to default to
absolute loyalty to his pastor, then dismiss my views. When pressed further, he
flat-out denied all wrongdoing. To liberal modernists, Traditionalists are
always the problem — not those who belong to the herd, and certainly not
modernist clergy.
With liberal rigidity, the modernist priest argued in
defense of his liberal pastor against the traditions of the "Old
Mass"—a derogatory term used by Novus Ordo cultists to denote regular
Latin-language Masses. He said the Latin Masses I regularly attended were
abandoned “over 40 years ago" — as if that devalued them somehow —and
insisted they were only "allowed to exist, but not standardly
recommended." He claimed the church only allowed Communion on the tongue
“in extreme cases." Of course, I know this is not true. He capped his
radical fundamentalist arguments by saying the Novus Ordo Mass is a solemn rite
equal to Byzantine and Coptic rites and that rules cannot be changed for
anyone. He accused me of being "rude" by not expecting them "to
change their rites."
I feel it necessary to point out — lest readers be
confused by his illogicality — that the Byzantine and Coptic rites originate in
the traditions of distinct Catholic churches in foreign countries. The Latin
Mass, by contrast, is merely the perennial model of tradition practiced in the
United States and all countries since the early Church, and was never abrogated
by the Church nor adopted in almost every single country. Therefore the Latin
Mass can be compared to Coptic and Byzantine churches as Eternal Rome can be
compared to the New Jerusalem. Saints, martyrs and our forefathers will be
disenfranchised by changes made to the Latin Mass — just faithful Catholics
unable to let go of the sacredness and beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass.
What I gained from this experience was a deeper
recognition of how the Latin Mass foments a reverential, beautiful and rich
culture within the Catholic Church that Pope Francis is actively working to
change.
In his homily earlier last month, Pope Francis warned
Catholics against hypocrisy. He described liberal hypocrisy as "appearing
one way, but acting in another," and said that a hypocritical attitude
"always kills." Jesus did not tolerate hypocrisy, according to Pope
Francis, but enjoyed unmasking it. "A Christian who does not know how to
accuse himself is not a good Christian," the pope said.
The intolerant atmosphere against the Latin Mass stands
in clearly follows Pope Francis's description of what the new Church is being
forced to be.
“The post II Vatican Council Church is a fortress, a tent
incapable of expanding and offering access to people the richness, spiritual
depth and beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass, the Mass of the Angels”, a
Traditional Pope would have said. "The church is 'following Tradition’ or
it is not the Catholic Church, either it is worshipping, always widening its Traditional
room so that all may enter or else it is not the Catholic Church."
Tradition defines true Catholicism. Radical liberal
modernists who cling to the guitars, felt banners and empty-headed, mindless
hippie rituals of the outdated 60s practices would do well to follow the advice
of St. Paul to the Galatians, Chapter 1: “But though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let
him be anathema.”
Labels:
Zita Ballinger Fletcher
Friday 8 November 2019
Bergoglio the racist. It’s called “projection”
In typical Marxist fashion, Bergoglio has determined that anyone who opposes the error at the Amazon Synod is really a bigot and a racist.
What a disgusting, evil man.
What disgustingly effeminate Cardinal and Bishops that do not confront this man for his hatred of Christ and his flock.
For the record, my wife is African from Capetown, Irish, Dutch, and mostly Black and the blood in my veins is from Mount Lebanon.
Bergoglio is an evil monster. He is a sociopath. A bully and an abusive man.
"Francis excoriated certain “circles and sectors” who .. consider much of humanity a “lower-class entity” with scant “spiritual and intellectual life.” These unnamed individuals, the pope opined, hope out of racism or bigotry to withhold the Gospel."
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-11/pope-francis-interview-valente-mission-book.html?fbclid=IwAR3QGWNrmcndrD7f2JK1uJO_ipWYKh8pikdb23tf5KE6-MBvF0WCWAKfMBs
The Pope and mission: “Without Jesus we can do
nothing”
At the end of the Extraordinary Missionary Month, we are
providing a few extracts from the book-length interview of Gianni Valente from
Fides News Agency with Pope Francis, in which the Pope emphasizes that “Either
the Church evangelizes or she is not Church”. The book, published by Libreria
Edictrice Vaticana and Edizioni San Paolo will be available in bookstores as of
November 5th.
“The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who
encounter Jesus”. Thus begins the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium,
published by Pope Francis in November 2013, eight months after the Conclave
during which he was elected Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter. That
programmatic text of his pontificate invited everyone to re-harmonize every
action, reflection and ecclesial initiative with “the proclamation of the
Gospel in today's world”. Six years later, the Holy Father called for an
Extraordinary Missionary Month to be held in October 2019, and at the same time
convened the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome dedicated to the
Amazon Region, with the intention of suggesting new paths for the proclamation of the Gospel in
the "green lung", martyred by predatory exploitation that violates
and inflicts wounds “on our brothers sisters, and on sister earth” (Holy
Father’s homily for the closing Mass of the Synod for the Pan-Amazon Region).
During this period, Pope Francis has included in his public
discourses insistent references to the specific nature of the Church’s mission
in the world. For example, the Holy Father has repeated numerous times that
evangelization is not “proselytism”, and that the Church grows “by attraction”
and by “witness” – a host of expressions all of which are oriented toward
suggesting by association what is the dynamism of each apostolic work, and what
its source can be.
Pope Francis speaks about all this, and much more, in the
book-length interview entitled Without Him We Can Do Nothing: a Conversation
about Being Missionaries in Today’s World. Here, Fides News Agency provides a
few pre-publication excerpts.
Holy Father, you said that as a young man you wanted to go
to Japan as a missionary. Can we say then that the Pope never became
missionary?
I don’t know. I joined the Jesuits because I was struck by
their missionary vocation, of always going to the frontiers. At the time I
could not go to Japan. But I have always felt that to proclaim Jesus and His
Gospel always involves a certain outgoingness and being on the move.
You always repeat: "A Church that is on the move".
Many have picked up this expression, and sometimes it seems to have become a
hackneyed slogan, used by a growing number of people who spend their time
lecturing the Church on what she should or should not be.
"A Church on the move" is not a fashionable
expression that I invented. It is Jesus’ command, who in the Gospel of Mark
asks His followers to go into the whole world and preach the Gospel “to every
creature”. The Church is either on the move or she is not Church. Either she
evangelizes or she is not Church. If the Church is not on the move, she decays,
she becomes something else.
What does a Church that does not evangelize and is not in
movement become?
It becomes a spiritual association, a multinational that
launches ethical and religious initiatives and messages. There is nothing wrong
with that, but that is not the Church. This is the risk of any static
organization in the Church. We end up taming Christ. You no longer bear witness
to what Christ does, but speak on behalf of a certain idea of Christ. An idea
that you have appropriated and domesticated. You organize things, you become
the little manager of ecclesial life, where everything happens according to an
established plan, to be followed only according to instruction. But the
encounter with Christ never happens. The encounter that touched your heart at
the beginning doesn’t happen anymore.
Is mission itself an antidote to all this? Is the will and
effort to “go out” on mission enough to avoid these distortions?
The mission, the "Church on the move", is not a
program, an intention to be carried out by sheer force of will. It is Christ
who makes the Church go out of herself. In the mission of evangelization, you
move because the Holy Spirit pushes you, and brings you. And when you get
there, you realize that He is already there, and is waiting for you. The Spirit
of the Lord arrived first. He has already prepared the path for you, and is
already at work.
In a meeting with the Pontifical Missionary Societies, you
suggested that they read the Acts of the Apostles, as a habitual text to pray
over. Why is it a narrative of the beginnings, rather than a “modern” strategic
missionary manual?
The protagonist of the Acts of the Apostles is not the
apostles. The protagonist is the Holy Spirit. The apostles are the first to
recognize Him and testify to Him. When they communicate the decisions
established by the Council of Jerusalem to the community in Antioch, they
write: “We have decided, the Holy Spirit and us”. They realistically
acknowledge that it was the Lord who daily added to their number “those who
were saved”, rather than the persuasive efforts of men.
And is it the same today as it was back then? Has nothing
changed?
The experience of the apostles is like a paradigm that is
always valid. Just think of how things happen spontaneously in the Acts of the
Apostles, without coercion. It is a human story, in which the disciples always
arrive afterwards, they always arrive after the Holy Spirit has already acted.
He prepares and works on hearts. He upsets their plans. It is he who
accompanies them, guides them and comforts them in all the circumstances they
find themselves living. When problems and persecutions come, the Holy Spirit
works there too in an even more surprising way with His comfort, His
consolations, as happens after the first martyrdom, that of Saint Stephen.
What happens next?
A time of persecution begins, and many disciples flee
Jerusalem, going to Judea and Samaria. And there, while they are dispersed and
fugitive, they begin to evangelize, though they are alone and without the
Apostles who remained in Jerusalem. They are baptized and the Holy Spirit gives
them apostolic courage. There we see for the first time that baptism is enough
to become evangelizers. That’s what mission is. Mission is His work. There’s no
point in getting agitated. There’s no need for us to get organized, no need to
scream, no need for gimmicks or stratagems. All we need to do is ask to be able
to repeat the experience today that makes us say, “We have decided, the Holy
Spirit and us”.
And without this experience, what do the calls for
missionary mobilization mean?
Without the Spirit, wanting to do mission becomes something
else. It becomes, I would say, a plan to conquer, the pretext that we are
conquering something. A religious, or perhaps an ideological conquest, perhaps
carried out even with good intentions. But it’s another thing.
Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, you often repeat that the Church
grows by attraction. What do you mean? Who attracts? Who is attracted?
Jesus says it in the Gospel of John, “When I am lifted up
from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself”. And in the same Gospel, he
also says: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him”.
The Church has always recognized that this is the proper form of every movement
that brings us closer to Jesus and the Gospel. It is not a conviction, a
rationalization, it’s not taking a position; not a pressure, or a constraint.
It is always an attraction. The Prophet Jeremiah already said “You duped me, O
Lord, and I let myself be duped”. And this applies to the apostles, to the
missionaries, and to their work.
How does what you have just described take place?
The Lord's mandate to go out and evangelize comes from
within, by falling in love, by loving attraction. One does not follow Christ,
and even less become an evangelizer, because of a decision made sitting around
a table, or by one’s own activism. Even missionary thrust can be fruitful only
if it takes place within this attraction, and transmits it to others.
What is the meaning of these words with respect to the
mission and the proclamation of the Gospel?
It means that if you have been attracted by Christ, if you
move and do things because you are attracted by Christ, others will notice it
without effort. There is no need to prove it, let alone flaunt it. Instead,
anyone who thinks he or she is the protagonist or manager of the mission, with
all the best intentions and declarations of purpose, often ends up attracting
no one.
In the Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii gaudium, you
recognize that all this can "can cause us to feel disoriented". It's
like those who dive into the ocean not knowing what they will find. What did
you want to suggest with this image? Do these words also concern mission?
Mission is not a tried and tested company plan. Neither is
it a public spectacle organized to flaunt how many people are associated with
it thanks to our marketing. The Holy Spirit works as He wills, when He wills
and where He wills. And this can lead to "vertigo". Yet the high
point of freedom rests precisely in this letting oneself be carried by the
Spirit, renouncing the need to calculate and control everything. This is
precisely how we imitate Christ Himself, who in the mystery of His Resurrection
learned to rest in the tenderness of the Father’s embrace. Mission’s mysterious
fruitfulness does not consist in our intentions, in our methods, in our
impulses and in our initiatives, but rests precisely in this
"vertigo": the "vertigo" we perceive when we hear Jesus’
words: “without me you can do nothing”.
You also often repeat that the Church grows “by witnessing”.
What are you trying to suggest by insisting on this?
The fact that attraction makes us witnesses. This witness
testifies to what the work of Christ and His Spirit have really accomplished in
our life. After His Resurrection, it is Christ himself who reveals Himself to
the apostles. It is He who makes them witnesses. In addition, this witness is
not self-serving. We are witnesses to the Lord’s works.
Something else you repeat often, in this case in a negative
sense: the Church does not grow through proselytizing, and the mission of the
Church is not proselytism. Why do you insist on this so much? Is it to maintain
good relations with other Churches and dialogue with other religious
traditions?
The problem with proselytism is not only the fact that it
contradicts the ecumenical journey and interreligious dialogue. There is
proselytism wherever there is the idea of making the Church grow by putting
less emphasis on this attraction on the part of Christ and the work of the
Spirit, focusing everything on any type of "wise discourse".
Therefore, proselytism first of all cuts out Christ Himself and the Holy Spirit
from the mission, even when we claim to speak and act nominally in Christ’s
name. Proselytism is always violent by nature, even when it is hidden or
exercised with white gloves. It does not tolerate the freedom and graciousness
with which faith can be transmitted from person to person by grace. This is why
proselytism is not only something of the past, of bygone colonialist times, or
conversions forced or bought with the promise of material advantages.
Proselytism can also exist today even in parishes, communities, movements, religious
congregations.
So what does it mean to evangelize?
To evangelize means delivering Christ's own testimony in
simple and precise words, like the apostles did. But there is no need to invent
persuasive discourses. The proclamation of the Gospel can even be whispered,
but it always passes through the overwhelming power of the scandal of the
cross. And it has always followed the path indicated in the letter of the
Apostle Peter, which consists in simply "providing reasons" of one’s
hope to others, a hope that remains a scandal and foolishness in the eyes of
the world.
How do we recognize a Christian "missionary"?
A distinctive feature is that of acting as facilitators, and
not as controllers of the faith. Facilitating, making easy, without us placing
obstacles to Jesus' desire to embrace everyone, to heal everyone, to save
everyone, not being selective, not imposing "pastoral tariffs", not
playing the part of the guard at the door controlling who has the right to
enter. I remember parish priests and communities in Buenos Aires who set up
many initiatives to facilitate access to baptism. In the last few years, they
realized the number was growing of those not being baptized for various
reasons, even sociological ones, and they wanted to remind everyone that being
baptized is something simple, that everyone can request it, for themselves and
for their own children. The path taken by those parish priests and those
communities had one objective: not to add burdens, not to make claims, to
remove any cultural, psychological or practical difficulties that could push
people to postpone or drop the intention to baptize their own children.
In America, at the beginning of evangelization, missionaries
discussed who was "worthy" to receive baptism. How did those disputes
end?
Pope Paul III rejected the theories of those who claimed
that the Indians were by nature "incapable" of accepting the Gospel
and confirmed the choice of those who facilitated their baptism. They seem to
be things of the past, yet even now there are circles and sectors that present
themselves as ilustrados [enlightened], and even sequester the proclamation of
the Gospel through their distorted reasoning that divide the world between
"civilized" and "barbaric". What irritates them and makes
them angry is the idea that the Lord might have a predilection for many
cabecitas negras [a derogatory term]. They consider a large part of the human
family as if they were a lower class entity, unable to achieve decent levels in
spiritual and intellectual life according to their standards. On this basis,
contempt can develop for people considered to be second rate. All this also
emerged during the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon.
Some tend to drive a wedge between the transparent
proclamation of the faith and social work. They say that we must not reduce
mission to a type of social activity. Is that a legitimate concern?
Everything that is within the scope of the Beatitudes and
the works of mercy is in agreement with mission, is already proclamation, is
already mission. The Church is not an NGO, the Church is something else. But
the Church is also a field hospital, where everyone is welcome, as they are,
where everyone’s wounds are healed. And this is part of her mission. Everything
depends on the love that moves the heart of those who do things. If a
missionary helps dig a well in Mozambique because he is aware that those he
baptizes and evangelizes need it, how can it be said that that work is separate
from evangelization?
Today what are the new focusses and sensitivities to put
into practice in the processes aimed at making evangelization fruitful in the
various social and cultural contexts?
Christianity does not embrace only one cultural model. As
John Paul II acknowledged, “while remaining completely true to itself, with
unswerving fidelity to the proclamation of the Gospel and the tradition of the
Church, Christianity will also reflect the different faces of the cultures and
peoples in which it is received and takes root”. The Holy Spirit embellishes
the Church, with the new languages of persons and communities that embrace the
Gospel. Thus the Church, taking up the values of different cultures, becomes
“sponsa ornate monilibus suis”, “the bride
bedecked with her jewels”, of which the Prophet Isaiah speaks. It is
true that some cultures have been closely linked to the preaching of the Gospel
and to the development of Christian thought. But in the period we are living,
it becomes even more urgent to bear in mind that the revealed message is not
identified with a particular culture. And when meeting new cultures, or
cultures that have not accepted the Christian proclamation, we must not try to
impose a determined cultural form together with the evangelical proposition.
Today, in missionary work as well, it is even more important not to carry heavy
baggage.
Mission and martyrdom. You have often recalled the intimate
bond uniting these two realities.
In Christian life the reality of martyrdom and
evangelization both have the same origin, the same source: when the love of God
poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit gives strength, courage and
consolation. Martyrdom is the maximum expression of the recognition of and the
testimony rendered to Christ, which represents the fulfillment of mission, of
apostolic work. I always think of the Coptic brothers slaughtered in Libya, who
quietly uttered Jesus’ name while they were being beheaded. I think of Saint
Mother Teresa’s Sisters murdered in Yemen, while they were taking care of
Muslim patients in a home for disabled elderly people. The sisters were wearing
work aprons over their religious habits when they were killed. They are all
victors, not "victims". And their martyrdom, to the point of the
shedding of blood, illuminates the martyrdom that everyone can suffer in
everyday life, with the witness rendered to Christ every day. It’s what can be
observed when visiting old missionaries in their nursing homes. They are often
battered by the life they have had. A missionary told me that many of them lose
their memories and no longer remember anything about the good they did.
"But it does not matter", he told me, "because the Lord
remembers it very well".
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