What irony....coming from those who seem to already have themselves joined the Protestant church with only a few more tweaks to attend to before that goal is reached.
Don't worry Cdl. Gualtiero Bassetti - this Pope has already driven many Catholics into protestant sects -- a Pope who prevaricates about the divinity of Christ, the bodily resurrection, the miracle of the loaves, that the damned are obliterated in Hell etc actually undermines the Catholic faith and the Holy Scriptures! At lease a good Bible believing protestant believes in Christ's divinity and resurrection, the reality of the suffering in Hell and Christ's miracles. The Vatican has indeed fallen!
Yes, sad. Wonder if this is a concerted effort to begin to silence dissent. Did you read Bishop Barron's comments? Hopefully he's talking about the way Father Martin uses social media, right people? https://www.ncregister.com/daily-ne...ears-of-the-good-bad-and-ugly-of-social-media "Bishop Barron said he believes the bishops should consider exercising their authority in the digital sphere “just as John Paul II, in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, called for the bishops to exercise greater supervision of universities operating under the aegis of the Church.” “There are, to be blunt, a disconcerting number of such people on social media who are trading in hateful, divisive speech, often deeply at odds with the theology of the Church and who are, sadly, having a powerful impact on the people of God,” he said. “I do think that the shepherds of the Church, those entrusted with supervising the teaching office, can and should point out when people on social media are harming the Body of Christ.” Bishop Barron suggested that it may be time for bishops “to introduce something like a mandatum for those who claim to teach the Catholic faith online, whereby a bishop affirms that the person is teaching within the full communion of the Church.”
Wait, wouldn't joining the Protestants actually be faithfully following Francis? This is all just so confusing! I kid of course but I could not help it. You know I think that things are going to get so bad that before this is over most Christians who profess Christ, remain charitable and love their enemy will no longer be divided period. End of story. The divisions we are seeing are going to be nothing compared to what is rising up in this world.
German bishops’ synod working doc calls for approval of contraception, homosexuality, women’s ordination The 'synodal path' working doc defended the use of contraception, masturbation, and homosexuality. By Martin Bürger https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/g...-contraceptionhomosexuality-womens-ordination Cardinal Reinhard Marx. Lisa Bourne / LifeSiteNews January 29, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The working documents in preparation for the assemblies of the German bishops’ “Synodal Path” defend the use of contraception, the practice of masturbation, and an active homosexual lifestyle. Additionally, neither the question of the ordination of women nor that of making celibacy optional for priests is taken off the table. In 2019, four panels of experts were preparing working documents to serve as the basis for discussion among the participants of the Synodal Path, a process that begins Jan. 30. A careful study of those four documents reveals that the Church in Germany would, in fact, be reinvented, in spite of claims to the contrary made by Cardinal Reinhard Marx. The head of the German Bishops’ Conference had stated in an interview that the Synodal Path does not want to “reinvent the Church.” With the first assembly being scheduled for the end of January and the beginning of February, the two-year long “Synodal Path” is focusing on sexual morality, the lifestyle of priests, women in the Church, and the abuse of power. The working documents essentially follow the agenda of Professor Eberhard Schockenhoff to loosen the Church's moral teaching, which he outlined for the German bishops at their conference last March. The working document’s chapter dealing with sexual morality is revealingly titled, “On the further development of Catholic teaching on sexuality.” The document demands sexual morality must develop “on the basis of insights of the human sciences, including the life experience […] of (faithful) loving people.” The document describes that relying on the human sciences, namely “psychology, sociology, anthropology,” would open up the many prohibitions of sexual morality as proposed by the teaching authority of the Church, “which sees sexual activity only within marriage, and still directed strongly towards procreation.” Consequently, the document justifies the use of contraception, the practice of masturbation, and an active homosexual lifestyle. Regarding contraception, the document states, “Not every sexual act must remain open to procreation: the principle of responsible parenthood is extended to include the element of family planning through the free choice of a means of contraception appropriate to the respective life situation. Family planning, even by means of artificial contraception, is not a hostile act, but supports the right of a couple to make a responsible joint decision on the number of children, the intervals between births and the concrete means of family planning.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church, on the other hand, refers to the encyclical Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI, teaching “that ‘each and every marriage act must remain open ‘per se’ to the transmission of life.’” The Catechism adds, “This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.” Pope John Paul II wrote in Familiaris Consortio, “When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as ‘arbiters’ of the divine plan and they ‘manipulate’ and degrade human sexuality – and with it themselves and their married partner – by altering its value of ‘total’ self-giving.” Without using the term “masturbation,” the working document in preparation of the Synodal Path in Germany states, “The joyful experience of one’s own body (self sex) can also mean a responsible approach to one’s own sexuality.” Again, the Catechism teaches on this, quoting from a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “‘Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.’ ‘The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.’ For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of ‘the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.’” Finally, according to the working document, “homosexual acts also realize positive meaningful values, insofar as they are an expression of friendship, reliability, loyalty and support in life.” Homosexuality, it adds, should no longer be considered as intrinsically evil. A blessing of homosexual unions is not excluded by the working document. These statements also contradict the teaching of the Church as expressed in the Catechism. There, it says, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” Signaling where the church in Germany is headed,Cardinal Marx, who is the head of the German Bishops' Conference, stated in an interview earlier this month that homosexuals belong to the Church’s “sacramental community” and has defended “blessing” homosexual couples. The working document on sexual morality includes a number of charts. The left column of the charts always presents the majority opinion within the panel of experts. Without fail, the majority opinion is liberal and progressive, which is then also reflected in the actual positions of the working document, as described. While the other working documents are more careful in putting forward controversial positions, none of today’s hot button issues are taken off the table. The document on the role of women in the Church says that not only should women participate more in the life of the Church, but the “question of the sacramental ordination of women needs to be asked.” In this context, the documents poses the question, “Is there even the possibility of achieving certainty about the will of God on this subject with human power of cognition?” Then, the document asks about the degree of authority of the magisterial documents on this question. Considerable time is spent within the document on the question of female deacons, advocating for a “revival of the tradition of the ordination of deaconesses.” Regarding women priests, Pope John Paul II had declared already in 1994, “Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.” He added, “Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” The panel of experts focusing on the lifestyle of priests mentioned the question of female priests, too, but referred it to the panel studying the role of women in the Church. However, when it comes to priests being unmarried, the document asks, while not giving any answers, “Is celibacy the only lifestyle suitable to the nature of the priesthood?” (cont'd)
Only recently, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had admitted that celibacy is not absolutely required by the nature of the priesthood,” but went on to say that “it arises in the most intimate appropriateness from the nature of this sacrament as a representation of Christ as the bridegroom of his bride, the church and the head of his body, the Church, in the power of his mission and his form of life of the total gift of self to God.” “Fundamentally, the church has to work towards a celibate priesthood,” he said. Müller also emphasized that even in the early Church, celibacy was the norm, adding, “In the Eastern Church – departing from the tradition of the early Church, and by no means in its continuation – it was allowed to priests and deacons by the Quinisext Council (691/692), which was characteristically held in the imperial palace and not in a church, to continue married life.” The first assembly of the Synodal Path will take place in Frankfurt, in the heart of Germany, from January 30 to February 1. Roughly 230 people are members of the assembly, including all bishops in Germany, but also representing the Central Committee of German Catholics and other organizations. Earlier this month, an international coalition of lay Catholics called Acies ordinata mobilized in Munich to silently pray in “firm protest against the German Episcopal Conference and its President” Cardinal Marx on account of the prelates’ plan to embark on the controversial “synodal path.” +
It's getting very hard to trust a bishop nowadays...and Barron is no exception. He is just too disinclined to get off the fence. I once read a biography by him of Aquinas. Admittedly, it was written quite a few years ago and while it proposed nothing otherwise unorthodox, he repeatedly referred to God in the feminine which I thought very disturbing and also tried to integrate a version of Creation Spirituality not unsimilar to that espoused by the defrocked Matthew Fox (a character who would not be disciplined by the current Vatican regime, that's for sure). Given the proposals in the German bishops' conference and the regular carry-on from the Vatican, it is very doubtful how 'teaching within the full communion of the Church' is going to be defined. What we do know is that there has been almost complete freedom for the last several decades for those who preached heresy. It seems only when there is finally a concerted reaction against heresy through the new and less controllable medium of the internet that it has dawned on the clerics to consider censorship. Maybe Barron is entirely genuine and his timing is just unfortunate, but I wouldn't bet my house (or a whole lot less) on it.
What is wrong with the Germans? No Joke. Why is so much dissent and heresy coming from Germany? Do they feel like they are above God? There's got to be some spiritual reason. Because evil certainly seems to have a foothold in its culture. Is it due to the evils passed down passively by Luther? Or because of the instillation of the occult by Hitler? (That hypnotised a nation to be so brutal) No wonder so many saints have come from Germany! Just look at what they were up against.
There is something so wrong here. It smacks of preplanned take over to reduce the Church to just another NGO social organization. To quickly strip it of its supernatural destiny. And they are working hard. Too hard. I keep feeling they know their time is short.
I just do not understand how these people can have read the Scriptures and come up with this crap. Seriously? For 2000 years it has not been ok to lay with the person of the same sex. For 2000 years it has not been ok to masturbate. Thou shall not kill is one of the 10 commandments, which is basically what ABC is. So having all these "new" and modern ideas (which by the way they are not new) is going to give us happiness and a Utopia on Earth. Nope, I will stick with what has been taught thank you very much. I want to go to Heaven and not live in the pits of hell for eternity
I would be very, very surprised if this notion of censoring the laity originated with Bishop Barron. My guess is that he has been chosen to promote it because they like to portray him as a moderate, othodox Bishop who avoids being caught up in factions within the Church. Didn't Fr. Rossica suggest something along similar lines, only for the plan to die a death when the plagiarism put an end to him being the great Catholic voice? Who do you think is the main target for censorship? It has to be people with a large social media following. Granted, Fr. James Martin (EssJay) has a big twitter following but global warming will be an ice age before they clip his wings. The targets have to be people whose audience are mostly orthodox Catholics - the type of people that would otherwise be the core audience for the "approved" online presence and are deserting them in droves. Who do the stalwart ccommenters on those "approved" sites attack most virulently? From what I have seen, LifeSite News tops their list. There's an obsessive hatred, bordering on the demonic, directed at LifeSite News. Church Militant would be next on the list, although the attacks are more guarded possibly because of a fear of being sued by Voris. But LifeSite and Church Militant don't really fit the description of websites teaching Catholicism. Taylor Marshall teaches Thomism. Marshall doesn't fit the "hater" profile but my guess is that the Bishop would be very glad to see the back of him. Attacks on Marshall usually come in the form of "I liked him at the start when he had some good videos about the faith, but I don't watch him now" or "He's a convert from Protestantism who is less Catholic than those of us raised in the faith". Here's a really interesting discussion between Taylor Marshall and Chris Ferrara. It's long but worth the time because Chris Ferrara is not a waffler (and I agree with him about 2029 being the significant anniversary with regard to Fatima):
Catholics organize public rosary in Frankfurt on first day of German bishops’ ‘synodal path’ 'We think that it's our duty to give a public sign to our bishops and to the Church that the actual synodal process is not representative of German Catholicism,' said one of the organizers. FRANKFURT, Germany, January 30, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A group of lay Catholics held a peaceful prayer assembly today in front of the Frankfurt Cathedral in opposition to the proposed reform agenda of the German “synodal path.” The “synodal path” is organized by the German Bishops' Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK). Hedwig Beverfoerde, a German pro-family activist who recently participated in the January 18 Acies Ordinata prayer assembly against the synodal path in Munich, told LifeSiteNews: “These young people – the future of the Church – have picked up the spirit of the original Munich prayer assembly Acies Ordinata and they carried it to Frankfurt, right in front of the bishops.” This spontaneous prayer assembly took place on the first day of the first synodal assembly that is happening in Frankfurt from January 30 to February 1. A group of about 25 young lay faithful stood outside the Frankfurt Cathedral and prayed the rosary and sang songs. One of the faithful held up a picture of Blessed Catherine Emmerich (d. 1824), a German mystic and stigmatist who had many mystical visions, among them one about a deep Church crisis. Another carried a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. According to one source, this group of young Catholics prayed to Our Lady for the Catholic Church, for the conversion of her enemies, and for the “preservation of the traditional faith.” One of the organizers of this prayer vigil, Markus Roth, made the following statement which LifeSiteNews is permitted to publish herewith: “We have organized a vigil in front of the cathedral with young Catholics from different local parishes to give Our Lady the honour she deserves and to pray for the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. We think that it's our duty to give a public sign to our bishops and to the Church that the actual synodal process is not representative of German Catholicism. Many Catholics here suffer under the ambitions to liberalize the doctrine and discipline of our Church. We know that many bishops are afraid to speak up in public for the defense of the truth. To them we would like to say: The Catholic laity needs your guidance! We pray for you with all our heart that you'll be true shepherds to your flock. We received the Faith through the successors of the apostles, now help us to remain faithful! With the prayer of the holy Rosary we also expressed our deep confidence in the power of Our Lady. We're not afraid of the future and the things to come. We know that her Immaculate Heart will triumph. We want to preserve the traditional Faith, we want to live and die Catholic!” The feminist group Maria 2.0 also was present at the Frankfurt Cathedral, holding images of the face of the Blessed Mother with tape on her mouth, as if women are put aside in the Catholic Church. This group, which is calling for the female “priesthood” and access to all Church offices, organized last year a women's strike on a Sunday, thus calling upon Catholics to commit a mortal sin by not fulfilling their Sunday obligation to go to Mass that day. (read the rest at https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/...t-on-first-day-of-german-bishops-synodal-path) +
There won't be any (formal) schism. The outcome of this synodal path was most likely decided in St. Gallen many years ago along with the "magisterial" document providing papal cover for it. So, will the first "female priest" in the Catholic Church be a German bishop who announces that he has had a sex change operation? I wonder if there are any bookmakers offering odds on the likely candidates? Will Pope Francis host the "coming out" party in Santa Marta. Will all the Pope's weirdo friends be invited to the celebration, getting free accommodation in one of Europe's most expensive cities? Would anyone be surprised if the answers are "yes" and "yes?
