Good job Phil Lawler! Well, the pope did tell them that if they had evidence of a cover up, they need to reveal it or be guilty and complicit...looks like Msgr. Figueiredo took that seriously. Good for him. He confirmed Archbishop Viganos claims! Now it needs to be seen how long it will be until his honesty results in his dismissal...maybe PF will wait a bit to exact his wrath for not wanting it to appear so obvious. Msgr. Figueiredo might want to find Viganò. His hideout kept him safe thus far. What a mess isn’t it? Just what the pope ordered......what kind of person actually advises disorder, let alone a pope? This new Vatican dictate had unintended consequences as Phil Lawler pointed out in this article: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=1704
Phil Lawler is a very, very good Catholic indeed very balanced. I listened to them discussing this with Michael Voris, very interesting. Msgr Figueiredo appears to have had some kind of crisis of conscience that pushing him to expose this, bless him. Wouldn't it be really great if some of the folks in the Vatican had a similar crisis and told all? The truth seems to have a habit of bubbling to the surface no matter how deeply you bury it!
We can be in communion with the Holy Father by praying very much him who has so much to suffer. I've been thinking of writing a letter in German to him. Not sure if it would get through or if he His Holiness would read it.
It true...we definitely need to be praying for the pope. It’s our duty. If it results in grace...and he accepts that grace, it may turn things around. Pray he accepts God grace via our prayers. Miracles can happen.
Pope Francis Refuses to Meet with Popular Italian Politician Matteo Salvini Due to His Hardliner Stance on Immigration According to reports from Italy Pope Francis will not meet with Lega (League) Party leader and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini. Salvini is a devout Catholic who regularly attends mass but Pope Francis allegedly won’t meet with him because of his hardliner stance on immigration. Salvini wants to protect the homeland from an invasion of third world and mostly Muslim illegal migrants. Pope Francis has previously met with Fidel Castro, Evo Morales and far left pro-abortion socialist Michael Moore. Via John Gizzi at Newsmax: According to the Italian publications Il Giorno and Il Mio Giornale, Salvini has attempted to secure a papal audience and been rebuffed each time. Both sources reported Salvini had been told “a meeting could not occur if Salvini continues in his tough position regarding migrants.” For his part, Salvini, 46, a practicing Catholic, insists he follows Church teaching and his policies are designed to support immigration for reasons of security and to stop trafficking and smuggling. As examples that his policy on migrants is in accordance with his Church, Salvini and his supporters cite the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Paragraph 2241): “Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.” They also point out Francis’ viewpoint is not universal among Church leaders. Robert Cardinal Sarah of Guinea, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has said a nation has the right to differentiate between refugees and economic migrants. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/20...i-due-to-his-hardliner-stance-on-immigration/
News: I just read that Cardinal Pell’s appeal will be live streamed this coming Wednesday. I have no idea about local times.
Sean, Thank you for posting this. If we are truly in search of the truth in all things than we should be as forthcoming with information like this as we possibly can. I don't read Ann B.'s blog but I hope that she posted an update about this. (Update: Ann B. did here, Called it: Wrongthink will not be tolerated! She is way too prideful & too harsh for my taste.). Imo, I think that Dr. Peter Kwasniewski felt that he needed to clarify his statements. He makes it clear that he believes Pope Francis is the pope. Here is Dr. Kwasniewski's entire comment about Socci's new book including an addendum which he made yesterday: I read this book expecting to be skeptical of an author who would argue that Benedict XVI did not validly or fully resign the papacy. After all, it sure looked as if he intended to do that in his famous speech of abdication, and the world seems to have accepted it as such. Socci, however, gave me much to think about with his careful analysis of Benedict's XVI's utterances on the subject (and there are a surprising number of them!), Archbishop Gaenswein's speeches, and, above all, the interpretations of canon lawyers -- none of them traditionalists, by the way -- who argue that the resignation lacks several conditions for validity. The argument is not based so much on the machinations of the St. Gallen Mafia as on the inherent actions and statements of Benedict XVI and others, all publicly available. In other words, this is no "conspiracy theory" but a soberly argued case. There are certainly steps in the argument that I wonder about or find less than convincing, and the book raises quite as many questions as it purports to resolve, yet the complete picture is nothing less than apocalyptic. Even those who think they have a watertight case in favor of validity should, out of intellectual honesty, grapple with what Socci presents here. If they can defeat his arguments, all the better for the defense of truth. If they cannot or will not, however, this would seem to indicate a moral or mental weakness. I would be happy to see a refutation, but it has to go beyond the anodyne statement that "general acceptance of a pope is equivalent to the validity of a papacy." We are in uncharted waters, and we need to recognize that the safe and sound ecclesiology of the preconciliar period is being burst open in all sorts of ways. I would like to add that I have not read anything else by Socci on the question of the Ratzinger/Bergoglio dilemma, and it seems to me that he does not come down clearly *in this book* on the question of whether, or in what sense, Francis is Pope. If anything, he seems to be agnostic and ambivalent, suggesting a kind of papal diarchy, even while recognizing that this makes little sense in a classical perspective. Without a doubt, he thinks that Benedict thinks that both Francis and Benedict are simultaneously the pope, albeit in a bifurcated manner. While I find Socci's interpretation of Benedict XVI's motivations overly positive (he adulates Ratzinger as much as he denigrates Bergoglio), the way he tries to place current events in a prophetic and specifically Marian context is extremely helpful. A last note, due to the explosive nature of this subject: based on the morally unanimous universal acceptance of his papacy, I still consider and acknowledge Pope Francis to be the Roman Pontiff, and pray for him as such. (Indeed, I could not have signed the Open Letter released on April 30, 2019, had I not thought he was the Pope!) Socci has not been able to alter this view of mine. But -- I will repeat -- Socci brings into clear relief the bizarreness, irregularity, and incoherence of the current situation, and causes in the reader a salutary perplexity. ADDENDUM 5/30/19: Some are claiming that in my revisions to this review, I am "backtracking" and "sanitizing" my original position. This is not so. Rather, I have sought perfect clarity in expressing my conflicting thoughts about this book and its principal thesis. I think too many people in this debate are expecting (and in some cases, believe they have attained) clear answers where there are none and may never be until we quit this life or until the inexorable progress of events shows, beyond gainsaying, where the truth lies. This, to me, is not a discouragement of further thought and debate, but a warning against celebrating premature certainties.
Thank you for those wonderful thoughts. I don't think this papacy is failing, our Holy Father is offering prayers in his silent seclusion every day. He is the one who signs with Pontifex, the signs are clear.
There's none of us saints, Padraig, least of all myself. Every time I criticise or draw attention to what's evidently being done to Christ's Church, I'm plagued with guilt-ridden reminders of my own far from exemplary character. The question is: does our own sinfulness restrict us to silence in the face of evil or is it an excuse for a failure to oppose evil? I don't know the answer, other than what we have been given to understand - that failing to speak out against evil makes us complicit in evil. I don't think that Pope Francis is anything like the young man you were. He strikes me as someone who has set himself a target and worked out how he intends to achieve it. While madness doesn't exclude the ability to calculate how to reach a pre-determined conclusion, the ability in itself isn't a sign of madness. If it were, most successful businessmen and leaders in many walks of life would be certified lunatics. The only confusion is on the part of Catholics twisting themselves inside out trying to reconcile what Pope Francis is doing with what the Church has always taught. I suspect that more than a few of those claiming to be confused are using it as an excuse to remain silent when they should be speaking out. Confusion as part of a pre-determined strategy is not a sign that the person causing the confusion is, himself, confused or crazy. It's simply an indication that the strategy is working. Spread confusion, introduce doubt, refuse to clarify, make off-the-cuff remarks suggesting the contrary interpretations are valid, permit contrary interpretations via pastoral practice, let the practice become the norm, paving the way for the hand-picked successor to enshrine the contrary interpretations into official Church teaching via Magisterial documents. That's not madness. It's cunning. And it's working like a dream. Dissenters who have been lobbying for years to have Church teaching changed aren't at all confused. They know exactly what's happening and they and their extremely wealthy friends in the anti-Catholic media and special interest lobby groups are loving it. Fence sitters claim there's nothing to worry about. And of those who know exactly what's going on, only a handful have the guts to try putting a stop to it. If you want to know what the remnant looks like, look no further than those faithful clergy and Catholic scholars who have raised their voices in defence of Church teaching. The rest will follow the zeitgheist all the way to hell, signposted with a wealth of material from a Pope, and they'll wallow in it like a pig in the proverbial. You only have to look at the self-proclaimed "Pope Francis Catholics", what they support and how they treat those who disagree with them to know who will be persecuting the Remnant.
I don't think that this has been posted yet and it was a pretty good episode this week. In addition, this video could help anyone who is not up to date on many of this thread's most recent discussions. "Published on May 30, 2019 RAYMOND CARDINAL BURKE, former prefect of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura joins us to talk about the latest testimony by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Pope Francis and the populist wave that swept the recent EU elections, immigration/migration and more. GEORGE WEIGEL, columnist, theologian and author of The Fragility of Order: Catholic Reflections on Turbulent Times discusses the recently released documents that may confirm the Vatican’s restrictions placed on former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and other Catholic news of the week." Edited to add: Most importantly, at @ the 48 minute mark George Weigel confirms that Archbishop Vigano's discussion of former Cardinal McCarrick with Pope Francis took place because he states that Archbishop Vigano told him about it soon after the conversation took place.
Praying for someone doesn't put us in communion with them. If it did, everyone praying the Rosary for the conversion of Muslims would be in communion with Muslims. If Pope Francis has much to suffer, it's hard to tell where the suffering will come from during his life on earth. At the rate he curries favour with enemies of the Church, keeping him safe and well is their most effective weapon against the mystical body of Christ. His two predecessors certainly suffered much, thanks mostly to the work of the group of perverts who conspired against them and succeeded in getting Pope Francis installed in the Holy See. Good luck with your letter to the Holy Father. If it contains any request for him to defend Church teaching, it will get no further than the litter bin. Any language should be ok although Latin might cause him some distress.
I think Frank Markus and you are discussing different popes. Frank Markus said: ↑ We can be in communion with the Holy Father by praying very much him who has so much to suffer. I've been thinking of writing a letter in German to him. Not sure if it would get through or if he His Holiness would read it.
Ahhh! The penny has dropped. Thank you Sam. It did strike me as odd that Frank would choose the German language to communicate with Pope Francis. Then again, some Germans find favour with Pope Francis. I need to give this stuff a miss for the sake of my own soul and peace of mind. Time to count my blessings and offer some prayers for the faithful in China. God help them for they know what it's like to suffer for the Faith: http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Bitt...Christians-for-Our-Lady-at-Sheshan-47091.html My apologies to Frank, and of course I will pray for the Pope Emeritus.
I should watch this video, but it's almost an hour long This is great testimony that vindicates Archbishop Vigano. Also, remember that McCarrick actually slandered George Weigel in one of his (McCarrick's) letters to PF.
I'm not sure of all of the ins and outs. I think that if one has committed a crime such as murder, rape, pedophilia, etc. but is unwilling to turn themselves in to the authorities then they are not properly disposed and thus should not receive absolution. We live in an era when Grace is expected to be given "cheaply". It was not always so. In the case you cited above where the murdered person is not available to make direct restitution to then the murderer would be making restitution by turning themsleves in. I am not sure what you meant by someone else being accused. It wouldn't matter who was accused. If someone was murdered the person doing the murdering would need to turn themselves in to the police. I don't see how one could be truly sorry if they weren't willing to make restitution for their crime.
I thought the idea was to turn yourself in as the penance given by the priest. You don't do the penance, then you aren't absolved right?
My understanding is that if you deliberately do not do the penance then you invalidate the absolution. There may be some room for interpretation if you honestly forget. http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Sacraments/Sacraments_004.htm What I was talking about though was the priest asking the person to report themsleves in to the police and reserving granting absolution or issuing penance until later. I had heard this on Sensus Fidelium at some point. I think it was in relation to pedophilia, but I may be wrong on that point.
