The Synod has started....

But then again, didn't Jesus know about Judas...Jesus allowed judas to stay with Him. Wouldn't you say the "created one" infiltrated the apostles (church)...but Jesus gave him opportunities, all the way till the end, to change.

So difficult...Our Holy Fathers burden

 

Brothers and Sisters

I like the fact that we can talk about these things without attacking one another or acting superior. That can be a temptation for any of us. Cardinal Arinze said yesterday:


Marriage creates an indissoluble bond, the Nigerian cardinal insisted, and “not even the authority of the Church can break it.” He added: “We cannot improve on what Christ has said… We cannot be more merciful than Christ.”

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26449



Jesus did not lower the bar so that more could get into heaven. Rather, he raised the bar (Be Perfect . . .Mt 5:48) _then laid down his life for us in order to raise us up so that all who repent and follow him can get into heaven. Judas chose not remain and left on his own even though he heard Jesus, walked with him, ate with him, saw the miracles etc. Yes, Jesus knew who Judas was, even as scripture says, "Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?” He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he who would betray him, one of the Twelve" (Jn 6:70-71). In the end, Judas left before receiving the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

I do agree with Praetorian. I think that Pope Francis opened Pandora's Box but he is the Vicar of Christ and God's Will will be done in the end. Having said that, at least the masks have begun to come off

 

From Lifesite News:

Archbishop Cupich lays out pathway for gay couples to receive Communion at Vatican press scrum

ROME, October 16, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago — who is participating in the Synod of the Family at Pope Francis’ personal invitation — said at a press scrum in the Vatican press office this afternoon that the conscience is "inviolable" and that he believes divorced and remarried couples could be permitted to receive the sacraments, if they have "come to a decision" to do so "in good conscience" - theological reasoning that he indicated in response to a follow-up question would also apply to gay couples.

During the lengthy press briefing, the archbishop also spoke approvingly of the so-called "Kasper Proposal," which would permit divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion in some cases. Cupich explained that he had distributed Cardinal Walter Kasper's book, The Gospel of the Family, in which the cardinal had laid out this proposal, to all of the priests in his diocese.

“In Chicago I visit regularly with people who feel marginalized: the elderly, the divorced and remarried, gay and lesbian individuals and also couples. I think that we really need to get to know what their life is like if we’re going to accompany them,” he said.

When asked to give a concrete example of how he would accompany the divorced and remarried in their desire to receive the sacraments, Cupich replied: “If people come to a decision in good conscience then our job is to help them move forward and to respect that. The conscience is inviolable and we have to respect that when they make decisions, and I’ve always done that.”

When asked by LifeSiteNews if the notion of accompanying people to "the Sacrament" who had a clear indication of conscience to do so also applied to gay couples in the Church, Cupich indicated an affirmative answer.

“I think that gay people are human beings too and they have a conscience. And my role as a pastor is to help them to discern what the will of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the Church and yet, at the same time, helping them through a period of discernment to understand what God is calling them to at that point,” he said. “It’s for everybody. I think that we have to make sure that we don’t pigeonhole one group as though they are not part of the human family, as though there’s a different set of rules for them. That would be a big mistake.”

 

I am hopeful that just as Pope Francis has 'opened Pandora's Box' he can close it at any time. I still feel he is allowing all the wolves in sheep's clothing to expose themselves and then he will slam the lid shut on dissent from doctrinal teachings. Nothing else makes sense.

 

Well, the Freemason clergy are exposing themselves.

 

These pigeons make their own holes and put themselves in them. They make their own rules. We are all subject to certain immutable articles of faith by which we love God and our neighbour. No one is excluded except by their own choice. Our faith defines our path to salvation. We cannot change our faith to accommodate those who have chosen not to follow this way. If we do, we put them and ourselves, if we decide to adopt such changes, outside the church. And we all know there is no salvation outside the church. Scripture lists very clearly what conditions exclude entry to heaven. This list is the Word of God and Jesus Himself tells us "If you love Me, keep My word." In this sense love is not unconditional. It has conditions. We can try to make it as easy as possible for all to comply with these conditions but we cannot change them; we cannot change the Word of God. Despite popular belief that homosexuality is genetic no physical genetic markers have been identified. Like all sin it is subject to free will. It must be extremely difficult for those with a strong attraction to others of the same sex to resist this temptation. For them there is no natural sanction of an unwanted pregnancy. They cannot see their condition as intrinsically disordered because they have been led to believe this us how they are and cannot change the way they live. But it can be no more difficult for them than it is for the rest of us to resist our own sinful habits, compulsions and obsessions. Otherwise God's justice in it its equality of exercise would be drawn into question. We are all equal in the sight of God and each of us is loved sufficiently for salvation. I don't want anyone to lose this chance but it's their choice just as it is ours. Like Fatima I believe Pope Francis will confirm Church teachings.

 

What worries me about many of the responses in this thread is that they are effectively saying, "I am sure Pope Francis is seeing things the same way as I do because I can't believe he agrees with all these other wolves in sheep's clothing".

I believe that instead of this response, we should all be thinking, "Maybe I do not fully understand some of these points of view but I know I can and must follow God's chosen leader of His flock on earth". Pope Francis may well surprise some on this forum. Are we ready to be surprised and remain faithful to Peter?

 

We believe Pope Francis will adhere to dogma in all its fullness not only because he is a good Catholic and a good man but because he is protected from error in faith and morals ex cathedra. I do not think for one moment he sees things the same way as I do. His vision is far far better than mine .

 

You and Praetorian are right. Huge damage is being done . Now.

 

My concern is there are those on this thread that think doctrine can change. It cannot and it will not. What has always been held in regards to faith and morals can never change. Whomever divorces and remarries commits adultery. These are our Lords own words. No one who commits Sodomy will inherit the kingdom. This is pure scripture. 'Peter' cannot error in teaching doctrine. This will surprise some on the forum.

 

How to Be a Loyal Catholic Today?
By Being Loyal to the Bishop of Rome
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Not too many years ago this would have been a strange title for a lecture, “How to Be a Loyal Catholic Today.” The reason is obvious. Catholics were Catholics. They were not Protestants, or Mormons, or Jehovah's Witnesses.

But much has happened in the last thirty or so years. Nowadays there are so many people who call themselves Catholic but really are not. There are books published and periodicals; there are conferences given, and symposiums held; there are religious programs and celebrations sponsored, and all professedly Catholic. But so many of these are Catholic only in name and not in reality.

In plain English, a revolution has taken place. The revolution is a revolution in doctrine and morality. But the heart of the revolution is a widespread rejection of the papacy.

What good is it for Pope John Paul II to write in his encyclical The Splendor of Truth that a flood of errors in our day distorts or denies the most fundamental premises of Christianity? Unless Catholics believe that Pope John Paul II is the Vicar of Christ, why should anyone believe him?

The errors prevalent in the modern world undermine every single truth on which sane doctrine and sound morality are based. What are the roots of these erroneous ideas? The first root is to detach human freedom from its essential and necessary relationship to Truth. The second root is the denial that there is any visible authority on earth that is divinely authorized to teach the truth. We Catholics believe that this visible authority is the Bishop of Rome.

We return to our title for this conference, “How to be a Loyal Catholic Today?” The answer is obvious. “By being loyal to the Bishop of Rome.” To be a loyal Catholic we must know the truth taught by the Holy Father, live this truth, and suffer for this truth. The truth, of course, is the teaching of Jesus Christ.

After all, that is what loyalty means. Loyalty means fidelity to the truth. Except that the truth to which we are to be faithful is no mere abstraction. The truth we believe is the living God who became man and appointed Peter and his successors as His spokesmen for the truth.

To know the truth is to believe what the Incarnate God told us about Himself, about ourselves and about our purpose for existence. Christ could not have been more plain.

We are human beings who live here on earth for a short time in order to prepare ourselves for a heavenly eternity. Nothing in this world has any value except as a means of leading us to our heavenly destiny. We are to use our free wills to choose what Christ told us we must do and avoid at any cost what He forbade. On Mt. Sinai, God gave the chosen people the Ten Commandments through Moses the prophet. But when God became man, He personally taught his followers that the Ten Commandments were to be elevated as He explained them. The fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Saint Matthew's Gospel are a compendium of what Jesus called the New Law.


Know the Truth
It is one thing, however, for Christ to have revealed the moral truths of Christianity. It is something else for us to know them. To know this truth we must submit our minds to the divine mind of the Son of God who became the Son of Mary. We must submit our minds to the mind of the Vicar of Christ whom Christ told, after His resurrection, to “feed my lambs …feed my sheep.” Our children are the lambs and we are the sheep whom the Bishop of Rome has been appointed by Jesus Christ to feed us with the truth that God became man to teach us.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ told married people they are to be two in one flesh, that Christian marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power.

Over the centuries since the Savior died on the cross, there have been many breaks with the Catholic Church. In the thirteenth century whole nations broke with the Roman Catholic Church, to become what we now call orthodox Christians. In the sixteenth century millions of once professed Catholics again broke with the Holy See. They formed what now amount to over four thousand Protestant denominations throughout the world. From the dawn of Christianity to the present day, there have been hundreds of millions who have separated themselves from the Catholic Church. On examination, we find that every major break with Catholic unity has been over the Papal insistence on the indissolvability of Christian, consummated marriage.

The lowest official figure for the number of abortions of innocent unborn children every year is now over seventy million. Who is the only authority in this world that still defends the right of unborn children to be born? Who alone defends the rights of the aged to remain alive and not be put to death? Who is it? It is the Bishop of Rome. Never before in human history has the need for Papal authority been, I don't say important, nor do I even say indispensable. Obedience to the teaching of the Bishop of Rome has become the norm of moral sanity.

Every human being is a believer. My favorite definition of man is not that of Aristotle who defined man as a rational animal. I prefer to define man as a believing animal. But what a difference between believing what you like and believing you are to do what you strongly dislike.

All of this is locked up in what is the first condition for being a loyal Catholic. A loyal Catholic submits his mind in accepting everything that Christ teaches through the Bishop of Rome. We must surrender our proud intellects to accept what we do not comprehend. And believe that we have a free will for one purpose: to submit our freedom to the divine will.

And how is Christ teaching us today? He is teaching us through the Bishop of Rome, on whom He promised to build His Church against which the gates of Hell would not prevail.


Live The Truth
There is no substitute for knowing the truth that Christ told us to believe. But knowing this truth by faith is not enough. To be a Catholic it is not enough merely to believe what the Church teaches. We must also put into practice what we believe. To be a loyal Catholic means especially living what we believe.

One pope after another over the centuries has insisted that Catholics understand what they believe. But this understanding must correspond with what the Bishops of Rome tell us is the truth of our faith.

In approving the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992, Pope John Paul II declared he was doing so “by virtue of my Apostolic Authority.” He further declared, it “is a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion. May it serve the renewal to which the Holy Spirit ceaselessly calls the Church of God, the Body of Christ, on her pilgrimage to the undiminished light of the Kingdom!”

Thus, the Bishops of Rome since Peter's time have insisted not only that we know what is revealed truth but that we understand it. Speaking to you, I would say from the depths of my heart, learn what the latest Catechism of the Catholic Church really teaches. The only absolute assurance you have that you are learning what Christ wants us to learn is by following this Catechism and those explanations of its contents which correspond to the teaching of Pope John Paul II.

 

continued................
Suffer for the Truth
We are now in a position to answer the hardest question on “How to be a loyal Catholic today.” To be a loyal Catholic means to pay dearly for one's faith in Jesus Christ. It is impossible to exaggerate; shall I use the word “expensive”? It is not just to call oneself a Catholic or be considered a Catholic but to be a loyal Catholic.

As we said in the beginning of this conference, we are now living in a world that is literally trying to destroy each human being as a person. Our faith teaches us that every human being is a person who has a free will, which is to be submitted to the will of God. What is the world teaching in our day? It is telling everyone from infancy that “Your own free will is the only real norm for morality. What you want to do is right, and everyone must respect your rights.”

Those who challenge this new paganism are faced with a difficult option. Either they conform to this philosophy or they are faced with the prospect of martyrdom.

To the best of my knowledge, never in the history of the Church, has any pope spoken and written more clearly about the need for martyrdom than has Pope John Paul II. The reason is obvious. He has no illusions about what it means to be a loyal Catholic on the eve of the third millenium. He quotes from Sacred Scripture to show that Jesus Christ was the primary witness for proclaiming the truth. Christ was followed by Saint Stephen and the apostles and by now twenty centuries of men, women, and children who have laid down their lives rather than deny or compromise Christ's teaching on mortal sin.

The Holy Father asks how martyrdom is a witness to both God's holiness and man's personal dignity. He answers: martyrdom witnesses to God's holiness by testifying to the grace that God gives the martyr. He also testifies to man's personal dignity because our highest act of virtue is to suffer martyrdom rather than disobey a divine moral law.

The Vicar of Christ finally asks whether there is such a thing as a living martyrdom. He answers without qualification; yes we are living martyrs when we accept the opposition of this world for the sake of eternal rewards. For the last time, therefore, we ask how are we to be loyal Catholics? We answer: to be a loyal Catholic today we must love the Cross - because we love the God who became man in order to die on His Cross out of love for us. Either we are ready to embrace the Cross out of love for Jesus Christ, or we are Catholic only in name.

Who are the living martyrs today? They are those who hear in the Bishop of Rome the voice of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is on earth in two ways. He is on earth physically present in the Holy Eucharist, the same Jesus who died on Calvary and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.

But Jesus Christ is also on earth in the Bishop of Rome. He is on earth teaching us through His Vicar what He wants us to believe and follow.

Anyone who thinks that this is either pious rhetoric or mere poetry is living in a dream world. Thank God, you and I know better.

 

Poor Pope Francis. Of course none of this is new. What is new is that in a so called Catholic broadcast on the Vatican none of it refers to the good and great work that Pope Francis is trying to accomplish and the truly Christian aporoach in his ministry of Mercy. Nothing but mocking cynicism for that. The Pope knows about the homosexual lobby and its aims. He openly condemns it. No praise or support for our Holy Father in this presentation. He will always preserve the Eucharist from sacrilige. It seems to me this Michael is not for us......oh what does scripture say about those people..."those who are not for us are against us." Satan is cunning. "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive"-and to divide. I suggest we stay with Peter and Francis. Sorry for all the quotes but "heavy lies the head that wears the crown." The spiritual crown that Francis wears is heavier than the physical one he rejected. He needs our support, our rosaries. Here is a good place to remind us that only last week Conchita of Garabandal expressed her enthusiastic approval of the idea that we should pray a rosary each day of the synod that the Holy Spirit will guide our Holy Father.

 

I dont think anyone is expecting an ex cathedra pronouncement Joe. Rather a change to discipline and pastoral care. The Holy Ghost does not promise to protect this.

 

You are qiite right Mac. No one is expecting an ex cathedra ruling but he is still protected by the Holy Spirit and supported by the prayers of millions. We are told that when two of Christ's followers agree to ask for something it will be given. We know that Mac ...how quick OLPS answered our prayers. Just think how powerful are the prayers of millions of Catholics in agreement. There will be something like a schism but unless I see Truth desecrated this Catholic is not for turning.

 

So do you think if Cardinal Kasper and Cupich pray together for what they are wanting, it will be given?

 

Still laughing Mac and my kids giving funny looks. Hard day at work today actually been hard for ages (MHNurse ). Often unwilling to read comments but really your comment is priceless. I'm worried not that the possibility of change exists but that poor souls end up believing the very words of Jesus can be set aside. Remember when cardinal ratzinger talked of simple bible based faith being seen as fundamentalism? Consider Cardinal Kasper referring to a fundementalist reading of Jesus words on marriage. Anyone see a pattern?

 

Nah St Paul has that one sorted...."if your prayers are not answered you are not praying right." Or something like that. On a more brainy level, heaven forbid, when we pray for something it has to be within the realm of truth. In other words it has to be real. If it is not real it is not prayer. Therefore the promise does not apply. God can never be unfaithful to his own nature which is truth. Not even slightly. It does not matter how sure we are that our prayers are good and true and real. If they are not in line with God's will, God will not grant those requests. But He may tweak them so they can be answered in His way. Maybe not in the way we hope but they are always answered in the way that is best for us. "Never was it known" to be any other way. The danger is that Satan listens out for prayers motivated by selfish and dishonest desires. He grants them whenever possible and causes death destruction, corruption and chaos. But you know all this already. I am just affirming again that in much we are on the same page. All of us on this forum are. We just are a wee bit different in how we see things and how we express ourselves. Some of us put more importance on some things, others less. Some of us do get it wrong some of the time. We are not infallible. We are not impeccable. God bless us all and keep us safe and sound in body, mind and spirit.

 

If two people agree to ask for something evil in Jesus's name the prayer is firstly null and void as it is not recognised by love, goodness and truth (which are three definitions of Jesus) and secondly it would be a blasphemy and therefore a sin in itself!