Sorry if this was posted already https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/a...es-not-remarried-divorcees-is-western-churchs African cardinal: Empty churches, not ‘remarried’ divorcees is western church’s main problem Amoris Laetitia , Catholic , Communion For Remarried , Empty Churches , Homosexuality , John Onaiyekan March 7, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – An African cardinal said he is “astonished” to see the church in the west fixated on “remarried” divorcees and on welcoming homosexuals and not on the bigger problem of empty churches. In a March 2 interview with the Austrian public service broadcaster ORF (Österreichischer Rundfunk), the Nigerian Cardinal John Onaiyekan — who is archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria — said he was “astonished that these are the themes that people [in Europe] are concerned about,” referring to the topics of “remarried” divorcees having access to the sacraments as well as homosexuality. Europe should be more concerned about the sad fact that “the churches are getting more and more empty and that many people are not any more coming at all.” While Europe is increasingly secular, the Catholic Church in Nigeria is growing. When it comes to the question of the practice of homosexuality, the cardinal said there exists a resistant consensus among Christians and Muslims in his country. Onaiyekan explained that homosexuality is rejected in many African countries, including Nigeria, and is even legally forbidden. The Church should not “demonize” homosexual people, he adds, but the Church's doctrine is, for him, very clear in this matter, “and to deviate from it is not an option,” in the words of the ORF report. The cardinal also insisted that it is not a sign of backwardness when the Catholic Church in Africa refuses to “approve” of homosexuality. The acceptance of same-sex relationships in Europe and North Africa is “not progress,” he said. When touching upon the controversy concerning Amoris Laetitia and especially “remarried” divorcees and their possible access to the Sacraments, the Nigerian cardinal said that he explains to such couples that, while they may not receive Holy Communion, they are still encouraged to come regularly to Church. “I tell them: 'You are not excluded.'” Onaiyekan admits that it is sometimes difficult for him to keep some of these couples away from the Sacraments, especially when one of the spouses had been simply abandoned. “Often, we cannot reach people with our ideals, but that is not a reason for the Church to throw them overboard,” he said. It is not the first time that Cardinal Onaiyekan gently defends the Church's doctrine on marriage and the family. In 2015, the Nigerian cardinal himself had contributed an essay to the Eleven Cardinals Bookconcerning this same topic. At that time, he tried to convince the upcoming second Synod on the Family to steer away from both the topic of homosexuality and of Holy Communion for the “remarried” divorcees: The synod [on the family] has not been called to decide whether or not divorced and remarried couples may receive Holy Communion. This is certainly not the purpose of the synod. Nor has the synod been called to discuss the issue of homosexuality and whether or not two Catholic men or two Catholic women can present themselves at the altar for marriage. […] These are issues that are already clear in our doctrines. Synods are not called to change the doctrines or teachings of the Church. In his March 2 interview, the African cardinal also touched upon the problem of priestly vocations in the West. “One should talk about the question as to why there so few men who wish to become priests,” Cardinal Onaiyekan said. “The fact should also worry us that it is not any longer clear what it means to be a Christian,” he added.
Brian, The following link was posted by member Aviso on his own site. I remember you stating that you didn't always agree with Louie (AkaCatholic) and I can't say that I do either but I am offering the following for discussion purposes, "The Francis effect: Intelligent men denying reality" https://akacatholic.com/the-francis-effect-intelligent-men-denying-reality/ . Louie includes this video that he created four months ago.
What we have is a movement without a leader. There is an army of faithful Catholics that are just waiting for direction and they are not getting it. At least they are not getting enough of it. Yes we have a few faithful clergymen who have spoken up, but it is disjointed and not strong enough. When darkness has arisen in the past men (and women) rose up to fight it. People who otherwise would have probably gone down in history as not being memorable. When World War II started Churchill was at the end of a long career that was dotted with missteps and failures. Surely he would only be a footnote today had Hitler not arisen. Of course perhaps part of our Chastisement will be that no leader will be given to us in this time of trial.
Well....Cardinal Burke and those who signed the Dubia were very good , but they were old and kinda outta the loop. People like Bishop Schneider are wonderful. But I kind of think at the moment and in the Traditions of the Church and Scripture that the Finger of the Holy Spirit will startle us by picking one of the very least of the Brethren to lead us. A poor forgotten one. It would not surprise me at all to find this might be a woman, or even a child. It is the kind of joke the Holy Spirit loves to play.
Now can anyone explain to me why Pope Francis would sign a decree of dissolution against a flourishing religious order at a time we are in dire need of good orthodox priest's? Saturday, 14 April 2018 Pope Shuts Down Traditional Order When Francis began his attacks on the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, despite the fact that the vast majority of the Friars wanted to celebrate the TLM exclusively, and despite the fact that the Order had followed the law to the letter in taking that decision, I made a prophecy. I said that, whilst he would never 'abrogate' Summorum Pontificum, he would continue to attack Catholics of Faith, as Mr Buck calls us, especially by destroying those few Orders and Institutes dedicated to orthodox doctrine and praxis, in particular those offering the Tridentine Mass. I prophesied that when he had reduced the TLM to being celebrated only in a garage in Podunk, he would say, 'See! The TLM is still available. What are you whingeing about?' Whilst I had hoped I would be proven to be a false prophet, I am very much afraid that I am being proven right. The FFI has been effectively destroyed, one of the most vibrant, growing Orders in the Church, reduced to a shell of what it had been, with men asking to be released from their vows. The Canons Regular of St John Cantius are under attack in Chicago, based on unsubstantiated and unproven rumours, coupled with violation of Archdiocesan policy in how it's being handled, and now this. How long, O Lord, how long!? https://musingsofanoldcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2018/04/pope-shuts-down-traditional-order.html
SpiritDaily (which I used to read all the time but for some reason now rarely do) has an article today (http://blog.spiritdaily.com/news/the-prophetic-pulse-metaphors) that has a long quote from Father Michael Scanlan of Franciscan University. He was allegedly given this "word of knowledge", as Michael Brown puts it, in 1980. It seems to me to be extremely relevant to our day. "The Lord God says 'Hear My Word.' The time that has been marked by My blessings and gifts is being replaced now by a period to be marked by My judgment and purification. What I have not accomplished by blessings and gifts, I will accomplish by judgment and purification. My people, My Church, is desperately in need of this judgment. They have continued in an adulterous relationship with the spirit of this world. They are not only infected with sin, but they teach sin, pamper sin, embrace sin, dismiss sin… Leadership unable to handle it… fragmentation, confusion throughout the ranks. Satan goes where he will and infects who he will. He has free access throughout My people and I will not stand for this. My people specially blessed in this renewal are more under the spirit of the world than they are under the Spirit of My baptism. They are more determined with fear for what others will think of them, fears of failure and rejection in the world, loss of respect by neighbors and superiors and those around them than they are by fear of Me and fear of infidelity to My Word. Therefore your situation is very weak. Your power is so limited. You cannot be considered at this point in the center of the battle and the conflict that is going on. So this time is now come upon all of you – a time of judgment and of purification. Sin will be called sin. Satan will be unmasked. Fidelity will be held up for what it is and should be. My faithful servants will be seen and will come together. They will not be many in number. It will be a difficult and a necessary time. There will be collapse, difficulties throughout the world, but – more to the issue – there will be purification and persecution among My people. You will have to stand for that which you believe. You will have to choose between the world and Me. You will have to choose what word you will follow and who you will respect. And in that choice what has not been accomplished by the time of blessing and gifts will be accomplished. What has not been been accomplished in the baptism and the flooding of gifts of My Spirit will be accomplished in a baptism of fire. The fire will move among you individually, corporately, in groups and around the world. I will not tolerate the situation that is going on. I will not tolerate the mixture and the adulterous treating of gifts and graces and blessings with infidelity, sin, and prostitution. My time is now among you. What you need to do is to come before Me in total submission to My Word, in total submission to My plan. In the total submission of this hour, what you need to do is to drop the things that are your own, the things of the past. What you need to do is to see yourselves and those whom you have responsibility for in the light of this hour of judgment and purification. You need to see them in that way and do for them what will best help them to stand strong and be among My faithful servants. For there will be casualties. It will not be easy, but it is necessary. It is necessary that My people be in fact My people, that My Church be in fact My Church, and that My Spirit in fact bring forth the purity of life, purity, and fidelity to the Gospel." I found the use of the word "necessary" interesting. I have been convinced for quite a while now that what we have been seeing in the Church, terrible and heartbreaking though it is to witness, is the inevitable conclusion of the past 50 years -- the diabolical "climax" if you will -- and is also necessary for the imminent (I hope and pray) purification of the Church. The purification may or may not be imminent but this too I believe is inevitable.
That’s a superb summary! It’s worth posting in full here: When Popes Collide by Christopher A. Ferrara April 13, 2018 An astonishing aspect of the ecclesial crisis that Pope Francis has provoked with Amoris Laetitia (AL) is the diametric opposition of his program to the teaching of the very Pope he has canonized. Never before in the history of the Church has a Pope blatantly contradicted the teaching of one of his own predecessors on a matter of faith and morals. AL announces the utter novelty — and therefore, the utter falsity — of the moral teaching that the Sixth Commandment represents an “ideal” one cannot expect the divorced and “remarried” to follow in every case. To quote the already infamous paragraph 303: “Yet conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal. In any event, let us recall that this discernment is dynamic; it must remain ever open to new stages of growth and to new decisions which can enable the ideal to be more fully realized.” In defense of his own teaching in Familiaris consortio, upholding the Church’s bimillenial discipline, rooted in divine law, which forbids Holy Communion to public adulterers, John Paul II taught precisely the opposite in line with all his predecessors: “It would be a very grave error to conclude from this that the norm taught by the Church is itself only an ‘ideal’ that must be adapted, proportionately, accommodated, it is said, to the ‘concrete possibilities of man’: according to a ‘balancing of the various goods in question.’ But what are the ‘concrete possibilities of man”? And of which man is one speaking? Of man dominated by concupiscence or of man redeemed by Christ? Thus, it is this which is involved: the reality of man redeemed by Christ. Christ has redeemed us: he has given us the possibility of realizing the entire truth of our being; he has liberated our freedom from the domination of concupiscence. Moreover, in Veritatis Splendor, John Paul rejected precisely AL’s false appeal to conscience and a nonexistent disjunction between exceptionless negative moral precepts and their “pastoral” application: The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance. It is a matter of prohibitions which forbid a given action semper et pro semper, without exception, because the choice of this kind of behaviour is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbour. It is prohibited — to everyone and in every case — to violate these precepts. They oblige everyone, regardless of the cost… “Some authors have proposed a kind of double status of moral truth. Beyond the doctrinal and abstract level, one would have to acknowledge the priority of a certain more concrete existential consideration. The latter, by taking account of circumstances and the situation, could legitimately be the basis of certain exceptions to the general rule and thus permit one to do in practice and in good conscience what is qualified as intrinsically evil by the moral law. “A separation, or even an opposition, is thus established in some cases between the teaching of the precept, which is valid in general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ solutions contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept. “No one can fail to realize that these approaches pose a challenge to the very identity of the moral conscience in relation to human freedom and God’s law…” The “normalists,” with their tortured attempts to defend the indefensible, can no longer hide the undeniable truth about this pontificate: it represents, incredibly enough, the attempt by a Pope to overturn the infallible teaching of the Church on the moral law. The faithful must not only reject that attempt but actively oppose it in any way they can according to their stations in the Church. We must obey God rather than man, even if the man in question sits on the Chair of Peter. For the Pope is but a servant of the Truth that makes us free, not the Oracle of Rome.
It's just a simple matter of basic logic here. Either Pope St John Paul 2 (and all previous Pope's who taught exactly the same thing as the saint) is right. Or Pope Francis with his brand new , 'merciful,' revolutionary' , teaching is right. That can't both be right. It's a case of, 'either', 'or'. I know where I put my money.
Notice even the usage of the very same words to convey two exactly opposite teachings: “It would be a very grave error to conclude from this that the norm taught by the Church is itself only an ‘ideal’ that must be adapted, proportionately, accommodated, it is said, to the ‘concrete possibilities of man’: according to a ‘balancing of the various goods in question.’" -Pope John Paul II "It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal." -Pope Francis
I do not feel sorry for the dioceses when I hear a of a "lack of vocations". Make no mistake this is being done on purpose and has been for a long time. If you are a good and holy seminarian who has a love of the faith they don't want you. If you are a priest or seminarian who speaks of the Rosary, novenas, Our Lady, Latin Masses, devotions and the importance of prayer they don't want you. If you are a "social worker" type who is tepid, worldly, homosexual, lukewarm and poorly catechized go to the head of the line. Obviously this is not true everywhere and there are some very good bishops who foster good vocations, but by and large worldwide orthodox and fervent vocations are turned away. I do feel bad for the parishioners who are being denied good priests. This has been engineered though, it is no accident.
GREAT video Our worst nightmare coming true It sounds like we are further along the downhill slide than we thought
Cardinal Burke discusses possibility of excommunication by Pope Francis John-Henry Westen Follow John-Henry catholic , excommunication , pope francis , raymond burke , rome life forum ROME, April 17, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A single line in Cardinal Raymond Burke’s address at the recent "Catholic Church: Where are you going?" conference concerned the consequences of necessary disobedience to Pope Francis. Burke has already faced demotion at the hands of Pope Francis but many have wondered what he’d do if the penalty for his resistance to the Pope’s departure from Church teaching would be intensified to excommunication. LifeSiteNews asked Cardinal Burke if he has ever envisioned such consequences for himself as he has walked his path of resistance to the Pope’s direction on communion for divorced and "remarried" Catholics. In his talk at the April 7 conference, Cardinal Burke referred to the writings of Cardinal Henry of Susa, called Hostiensis, a 13th-century canonist. “Apart from public admonition and prayer for divine intervention, (Hostiensis) does not offer a remedy for the (papal) abuse of the fullness of power,” said Cardinal Burke. “If, a member of the faithful believes in conscience that a particular exercise of the fullness of power is sinful and cannot bring his conscience to peace in the matter, ‘the pope must, as a duty, be disobeyed, and the consequences of disobedience be suffered in Christian patience.’” Cardinal Burke told LifeSiteNews: “I have envisioned such consequences” of resisting the Pope including excommunication. “Yes, the consequences could be very severe,” he said. “One has only to remember how Saint Athanasius, for example, was exiled for defending the truth of the two natures in the one Divine Person of Our Lord.” Pope Francis and Cardinal Burke. St. Athanasius was banished five times over his 45-year bishopric for maintaining the truth of the Incarnation fighting the Arian heresy. Under duress, Pope Liberius excommunicated Athanasius for a time. “Suffering with Christian patience means that one remains faithful to Christ in His holy Catholic Church, even if one suffers at the hands of certain leaders in the Church,” explained Cardinal Burke. “That is what the great saints like Saint Athanasius and Saint John Chrysostom, for example, teach us.” St. John Chrysostom, who was known for criticizing the abuse of authority of both religious and political leaders, was exiled for years. He died en route to a further banishment. Even in exile, his writings were very influential. “To suffer with Christian patience means to be concerned ultimately with only one judgment, the judgment of Our Lord, when we appear before him at our death and at the Final Judgment,” concluded Cardinal Burke in his email response to LifeSiteNews. On May 17-18 life, family, and faith leaders will gather in Rome to strategize on the current crisis in the Vatican at the annual Rome Life Forum. The event will feature two leading voices of faithfulness to Catholic teaching, Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider. It will be an opportunity for gathering together faithful from around the world to intercede for the light of the Holy Spirit to guide the Church in this time of great crisis. To register for the Rome Life Forum click here. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/c...ossibility-of-excommunication-by-pope-francis
These words bring to mind Archbishop Lefebvre, what he did, why he did it, and his subsequent excommunication. Can anyone really blame him? What else can Catholics faithful to our Lord do, but resist and disobey 'those who preach another gospel'?
