Once again, Cynthia, he didn't condemn any of her work. He praised her as a "forgotten great" saying "we must look at what she does". He said that she knows more about Africa than anyone else. Never at any stage did he condemn anything about her. And even if he had condemned her killing of unborn babies, nothing can bring back to life the babies she killed herself, or the babies killed in Europe and Africa as a result of her campaigning. Whether he said it or not, he clearly balanced "what she does" and discounted the dead babies when he called her a "forgotten great". Emma Bonino promotes abortion now and not centuries ago. By praising "what she does" Pope Francis backstabbed the pro-life movement, not only in Italy where she has been one of their fiercest opponents but all across the world. I know the will of God as expressed in the Creed "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life" and as Commanded in "Thou shalt not kill". Abortionists with aid packages aren't mentioned. What a pity Pope Francis wasn't more honest about his beliefs before he connived his way into the papacy. We could have been spared his comic strip antics and his ultramontanist supporters portraying him as the new, improved Jesus. Incidentally, what I said was that were he an ordinary bishop and we had a Pope worthy of the office, his praising of a proponent of evil would and should have had him excommunicated. Occupying the See of Peter doesn't give him the authority to call evil good.
My apologies... I see that I indeed did NOT grasp the essence of what you were saying... I didn't even come close. I agree absolutely that the Enemy is trying to separate Man from his Creator; what I thought you were saying in your previous posts was that by cloning sheep and mucking about with the DNA of corn, etc, man is encroaching upon territory which by rights belongs only to God, and that THAT is a sin worse than murder. Thank you for clarifying!
No, the Pope didn't say "even there, she promoted her anti-life values". You are attributing to Pope Francis something said by the head of an Italian pro-life organisation who thought that the Pope wasn't aware of Bonino's track record on abortion and at that stage was blaming the Vatican's secretariat for the Pope's ignorance. At no stage has Pope Francis ever condemned Emma Bonino for her abortion advocacy. The Italian pro-life activist was saying that Bonino had done some good in Egypt but that "even there, she promoted her anti-life values". Pope Francis has never condemned Bonino's abortion antics. As to praising whatever good she did in Africa, it reminds me of people praising Hitler for improving Germany's infastructure. If the Holy Father would start acting like the Vicar of Christ rather than an agent of the UN, I would be the first to sing his praises. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen. While I do pray for him, I thank God that he's old.
If that was a fact error, I'm sorry - that can happen when we rely upon third party sources instead of direct translations. However, Pope Francis has gone on record time and again for his wholehearted condemnation of abortion - the fact that His Holiness is ProLife is not in question, and he doesn't need to reiterate it every time the subject comes up. Bonino was the Italian foreign minister from 2013-2014, and it is in relation to some of her efforts as a foreign minister that the pope has praise for her, and there's nothing wrong with that. Also, did it ever occur to you that it is not Pope Francis's job to condemn people? The Holy Father's job (and yours, and mine) is to bring people to Christ, and that involves winning sinners, and gently persuading them to repent and walk in the way of Love, and you don't win sinners by reviling them. You would think that more people would realize that, and yet Pope Francis recieved this same kind of flack back in 2015 when he called Bonino about her cancer and invited her to the Vatican..... kind of like when Jesus sat down with prostitutes and tax collectors and ate with them - and then, just as today, Pharisees and hypocrites were quick to pass condemnation upon Someone for his mercy to sinners.
So, you're backtracking on your claim that he has condemned her abortion activities. Abortion is an intrinsic evil. The Pope has a duty to make that known to everyone, including his forgotten favourites and their followers. And spare me the Pharisee claptrap. It's acknowledged that you have committed bible passages to memory. Satan can quote it chapter and verse so that's no great accomplishment.
If admitting that I may have had something wrong is backtracking, well then yes, ma'am, I am doing just that. And, the Pope HAS made it known that abortion is an intrinsic evil - not too long ago, he said, "Abortion is not the lesser of two evils. It is a crime. It is to throw someone out in order to save another. That’s what the Mafia does. It is a crime, an absolute evil." But, when you try to win prostitutes and tax collectors and cancer-ridden old harridans to the Lord, you don't go whomping them over the head with theology and expounding upon their sins - you meet them as human beings, as Jesus did. Certainly Satan can quote Scripture, and those Pharisees back in Jesus's day were pretty good at it too, but you don't win sinners to Christ with chapter-and-verse, you win them with the one thing that Satan can't do - you win them with LOVE. Jesus knew that, and He showed LOVE to sinners, while saving the scripture quotes for the religious hypocrites of his day, who couldn't recognise Love when it was looking them right in the face.
How that happened is of course, once again, beyond me. I never mentioned any specific crimes of this defective material world as you were specifying individually and in rather small numbers. If you get caught in that web the list would have to continue beyond time limitations here!! Glad to be of service when any clarification may be necessary....since human communication is also rather defective. Individual intentions are so often misunderstood....and when they are then it can be difficult as well to exact the change necessary to continue.
Indeed, that is so true - it makes a person wonder how much of the trouble in the world is due to plain, simple miscommunication! God bless, and have a wonderful day!
Well said, Cynthia. I've avoided 'liking' your posts because that could be viewed as a 'kiss of death' due to my support for the Pope! But what you say here is at the heart of why Pope Francis' critics are mistaken. Your exchanges today with Dolours had me looking for some more material on the topic and found this page which hits the nail on the head regarding the Pope's position on Bonino: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scottericalt/life-site-news-gets-a-pope-story-wrong/ Here are a couple of paragraphs from the article: It would have been more accurate to the context of the pope’s remarks if the LSN headine had been something like “Pope praises Emma Bonino, advocate for refugees.” But instead, LSN chooses a detail about Ms. Bonino that has not a thing to do with the subject of the pope’s remarks or the reason he felt she should have some praise spoken about her. As it is, a scandal is made out of a non-story; no one knows what efforts the pope has or has not made to lead her to Christ or to speak privately with her about abortion. His public witness on that topic has always been clear, as in his interview on the flight back from Mexico (to cite just one of many examples). The pope need not pause to condemn abortion before naming something great about Ms. Bonino in order to prove his pro-life credentials. It would be just as accurate to write a headline that said, “Pope praises writing of known adulterer Charles Dickens.” Surely no one would assume that the pope’s praise for Charles Dickens the writer implied that he approved of the adultery. Nor should the pope’s praise of Emma Bonino the foreign minister who promoted understanding of Africa imply that he is indifferent to her views on abortion. No such inference can fairly be made. Praise and kindness might be what draw her to the light.
Well, Light, I'm not sure either, now - that was a long and convoluted thread and a number of people were commenting. It started out with Dolour and me, arguing over whether today's society is the most depraved ever, or whether (as I maintained) the society Ancient Rome was even worse, and it grew from there.
I thought I’d share that the sermon I heard this morning touched on this subject. The priest said that often it’s very easy for us to look at the Jews in the Old Testament, for example, and condemn them for their faithlessness. They had miracles in the desert for 40 years, and yet time and again they doubted and turned from God. However, the priest related that we are worse than they, because we have the Holy Sacrifice, we have the Eucharist, and yet we doubt time and again and sin. As I reflected on this, I thought of all the apparitions of Our Lady over the last 200 years, and that over and over she pleads with us to pray, to convert our hearts. At no other time in history has there been so many apparitions. We have the Gospel, we have the Eucharist, we have Our Lady, and yet we still turn from God. Unlike previous societies without Baptism, without the Gospel or the rest of the sacraments, we have graces to refuse sin that they did not. So yes, I think these several generations are the worst in history, because we have Jesus, and yet we still reject Him. We have no excuses, unlike heathens from previous societies. That is what Satan did - he knew God, and yet he rejected him. This is so much worse. We must pray, because when the chastisements come upon us, or our children or grandchildren, as I’m sure they will soon, we must stand strong in Faith in order not to be lost.
And you know.... if the Pope had to reiterate his disapproval of the sundry sins (and especially, the sins of adultery) of which the various heads of state are guilty each time he grants one of them an audience, he wouldn't get much else done.
The thing I notice about Pope Francis is he speaks often with a forked tongue. His actions to not match his words and sometimes his words are 180 degrees from what he said previously. The biggest gap in Pope Francis theology is that when asked through a Dubia for clarification, the Vicar of Christ does not answer, and allows for more confusion and more cardinals, bishops and priest to dissent form the Gospel as well. This is his pattern. Clarity is no friend of this pope. We must continue praying for him that he will speak with the truth of the Gospel and 2000 years of magisterial teaching and not situation ethics, proportionalism and the fundamental option.
Well, I wouldn't call it a forked tongue, because that implies dishonesty, but I have to agree that His Holiness is not the best public speaker - he sometimes appears to speak first and think afterwards, instead of vice versa. Hopefully he will become more skillful with time.
It's real, but what is it? Looks to me like another fine show by the folks who brought us Anonymous, 4Chan, and Arab Spring.
And this may or may not be coincidence, but I just looked up Q anon.... if you take out the space and spell it Qanon, you have the alternate spelling of Qanun: Qanun is an Arabic word (Arabic: قانون, qānūn; Ottoman Turkish: قانون, kānūn, derived from Ancient Greek: κανών kanōn, which is also the root for the modern English word "canon").[1][2][3][4] It can refer to laws established by Muslim sovereigns, in particular the Ottoman sultans, in contrast to sharia, the body of law elaborated by Muslim jurists. It is thus frequently translated as "dynastic law". The idea of kanun first entered the Muslim World in the thirteenth century, as it was borrowed from the Mongol Empire in the aftermath of their invasions.[5] The 10th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Suleiman was known in the Ottoman Empire as Suleiman Kanuni ("the Lawgiver"), due to his code of laws. After the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258, a practice known to the Turks and Mongols transformed itself into qanun, which gave power to caliphs, governors, and sultans alike to "make their own regulations for activities not addressed by the sharia."[6] This became increasingly important as the Middle East started to modernize, thus running into the problems of a modern state, which were not covered by sharia. The Qanun began to unfold as early as Umar I (586–644 CE).[6] Many of the regulations covered by qanun were based on financial matters or tax systems adapted through the law and regulations of those territories Islam conquered.[6]
I do think it’s someone inside the Trump White House with military intelligence experience trying to clandestinely warn the American people 1) that there is great evil in the efforts of leading Democrats and the FBI/DOJ they’re trying to expose and prosecute and 2) they need the voice of that same American public to demand the release of the security memo that exposes that treasonous collusion, to accomplish what they’re trying to do because the MSM is working against them in collusion with the Democrats and the deep state. And the military recruited Trump to work against this liberal anti-Constitutional deep state for this purpose as an outsider, and this ultimately involves human trafficking and pedophilia among the elite. I think this is what Fr. Ripperger was referring to in his recent videos where he mentions satanic pedophilia. Regardless of Trump’s past and possibly present character flaws, I think he’s playing a role like that of Constantine, doing very much the right things, even if not yet completely for the right reasons.
I suppose anything is possible, but I don't think Trump has anything to do with this ... speaking from my gut and only my gut, I think that this is an action on behalf of people who would destabilize our country, Europe, and even - perhaps especially - the Church itself, for the sake of watching it burn. That's what Anonymous and 4Chan are all about, and this Qanon has their smell all over it. Dollars to donuts says that this is coming straight out of Anatolia and/or Armenia.
