I would always be very careful in watching a video with Fr. Kramer's views as he is a known sedevacantist. There may be a lot of truth to what he has to say but until a proclamation by the Bishops that the Pope is not the Pope we must accept that he is. What terrible times we live in when we even have to question the head of the Church. My faith lay upon the teachings of Holy Mother Church that has always been established through tradition as handed down and not through the innovations of the few. We must keep praying for all the Bishops as the battle lines are being drawn.
I did not realize he was a sedevacantist. I know he worked very closely with Fr Gruner. In the interview he spoke of both JPII and Benedict as being popes who strived to stay true to the Catholic faith. Whereas he felt Francis is suspect.
I like listening to Fr Kramer because he has a lot of inside knowledge, and as AED said he worked closely with Fr Gruner who supposedly questioned the legitimacy of Pope Francis on his deathbed. However, Fr Kramer is not a "sede" in the traditional sense - he accepts all the post conciliar popes as valid. It has only been the election of Francis that he questions (and honestly it's not too difficult to understand why, let's be real).
Fr. Kramer is part of a new group of people who have come to be known as the "Benevacantists", so as to distinguish them from those who reject all of the modern Popes since Vatican II who are called sedevacantists. While I think that we are duty bound as Catholics to accept Pope Francis as Pope, it may be important to distinguish between these two groups. Sedevacantists claim that the papacy has effectively been vacant since Vatican II for various inane reasons. Benevacantists say the papacy is now occupied by Pope Benedict. So they are not true sedevacantists in the classical sense of the word. Meaning "the seat is empty". Sedevacantists are rejecting the entire papal line for 50 years while Benevacantists are under some confusion as to who is the true Pope.
Maybe the good Bishops are making a list and checking it twice before they act with the correction. But the declaration of heresy has to come from them. God's timing is His. The new year I'm sure will be full of more suprises, I think Pope Francis has refereed to the Almighty in that sense
For the life of me I never quite get his point or full intention when I read his thoughts....although I try and when he puts a certain amount of passion into his scoldings there still seems to always remain a bigger question as yet to be asked of all. Most often I'm left with a feeling of just "why can't everybody get along" and "don't be so picky"! Just what is that "different way of praying", for just one "little" concern here anyway? Pope Francis talks tough to U.S. bishops, says credibility of church 'is at stake' Pope Francis tells U.S. bishops grappling with priest sex abuse scandal to stop "playing the victim or the scold." Jan. 3, 2019 / 12:48 PM EST / Updated Jan. 3, 2019 / 1:20 PM EST By Corky Siemaszko Pope Francis delivered a blunt message Thursday to his American bishops — stop “playing the victim or the scold” and do something about the “culture of abuse” that has resulted in a crisis of credibility for the U.S. Roman Catholic Church. Francis’ letter, which was dated Tuesday, was delivered as the bishops were at a weeklong spiritual retreat at the Mundelein Seminary north of Chicago. Pope Francis arrives in Piazza Armerina, Sicily on Sept. 15, 2018.Andrew Medichini / AP file “These have been times of turbulence in the lives of all those victims who suffered in their flesh the abuse of power and conscience and sexual abuse on the part of ordained ministers, male and female religious and lay faithful,” Francis wrote in his eight-page letter. “The Church’s credibility has been seriously undercut and diminished by these sins and crimes, but even more by the efforts to deny or conceal them.” Instead of “helping to resolve conflicts,” Francis wrote the actions of the church thus far have “enabled them to fester and cause even greater harm.” “We know that the sins and crimes that were committed, and their repercussions on the ecclesial, social and cultural levels, have deeply affected the faithful,” the Pope wrote. Restoring credibility, Francis added, will not be accomplished by “issuing stern decrees or by simply creating new committees or improving flow charts, as if we were in charge of a department of human resources.” “Clearly, a living fabric has come undone, and we, like weavers, are called to repair it,” he wrote. “This requires not only a new approach to management, but also a change in our mind-set.” Francis told the bishops there needs to be a change in “our way of praying, our handling of power and money, our exercise of authority and our way of relating to one another and to the world around us.” It is time, Francis declared, “to abandon a modus operandi of disparaging, discrediting, playing the victim or the scold in our relationships.” “Our catholicity is at stake,” he wrote. The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of “Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship or Respect, Compassion and Sensitivity,” said Francis’ letter is a “big deal.” “First, it is directed not simply at the whole church, but the US church specifically,” Martin said in an email to NBC News. “Second, Francis does not hesitate to force the US bishops to look at the harsh reality of the ‘sins and crimes’ of abuse, their ‘loss of credibility’ and the cover-ups that have happened in the past. Finally, he is blunt about the many divisions among the US bishops and even the ‘slander’ that prevents them from working together more quickly on this.” Why did Francis drop this letter now on the bishops? “The timing is not only so that they can pray about these topics on their retreat,” Martin wrote. The Pope is schedule to meet next month at the Vatican with the bishops from around the world and he wanted to get this message out now. “The U.S. is a bellwether for many issues in the church, and so you can expect that nearly every bishop who will be attending that summit will read this letter," Martin wrote. In a brief statement, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the bishops "carry with us these days the pain and hope of all who may feel let down by the Church." Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for Cardinal Timothy Dolan and the Archdiocese of New York, called Francis' message a "prophetic call." "I know that Cardinal Dolan, and, I am sure, every bishop in the country, would agree with Pope Francis that the abuse of minors, and especially how that abuse was handled in the past, has undermined and damaged the Church’s credibility, and that only through openness to the Holy Spirit and a spirit of humility and unity can that credibility be regained," Zwilling said. But Dolan has, for many years, been fighting attempts by New York lawmakers to pass a Child Victims Act that would do away with statutes of limitations that have prevented some alleged abuse victims from suing the church — and create a one-year “look-back window” that would allow alleged victims who weren't able to sue in the past to file claims. Dr. Mary Pulido, who heads the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said Francis' words sound to her like an endorsement of the CVA and that Dolan should pay heed to them. "It is time for church leaders in New York to follow the head of their Church and end opposition to the Act, in particular the 'look back' provision," she said. David Clohessy of the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) was not impressed by Francis' letter. "In one brief sentence, he mentions victims," Clohessy said. "But his concerns, in order, are that the church has been badly shaken, lay people have been "confused," the "communion of bishops" has suffered, and the church's credibility has waned." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religi...h-u-s-bishops-says-credibility-church-n954311
Your confusion on what Pope Francis says is not your confusion. I don't even think he is confused. I have come to conclude that this has always been his method of character. He either has some medical condition where he cannot speak coherent or it is diabolical. I pray it us not the later. But there is no doubt he speaks in a confused language when he wants.
That's not a confused language. It's the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues. Fr. Martin is the interpreter. May as well sing grief as cry it. I couldn't choose between these two videos:
The "God of surprises!" is certainly active! Unearthing a vast predatory homosexual network... Financial corruption being revealed... RICO Investigations in the offing... Oh my! Didn't see all that coming did you? Surprise surprise!
Too bad he was such a scold in Chile, but maybe he has learned. Clohessy's concerns make clear that this is essentially about creating a goldmine, I fear. Will this warping of natural justice be employed to the teaching profession, for example? Or is it yet another Tudoresque persecution and plundering of the Catholic Church?
In a world and in the Church that has lost its salt, would the following popularity to both be a good thing? Gallup: Pope Still Among Most ‘Admired’ January 5, 2019 by sd From the Christian Post: According to the December poll, Catholics are less likely than Protestants to continue to trust church leaders. Fewer than a third (31%) give positive marks to clergy, compared to around half Protestants (48%). Fewer than half of American Christians (42%) believe clergy have “high” or “very high” standards of honesty and ethics, according to breakouts provided to CT. Self-identified Christians were about as likely to rate clergy’s ethical standards as just average (43%), and about 1 in 10 (12%) considered them “low” or “very low.” Despite declining trust in faith leaders, a separate Gallup poll recently named Pope Francis as the fourth-most-admired man among Americans. The Dalai Lama is No. 8. This marks the first year in more than six decades that Billy Graham, who died in February, has not made the top 10, which is limited to living people. He was on the list every year since 1955. ShareTweet [ For Full Story ] [Return to www.spiritdaily.com] Pray always for purity and love +++ Please report any inappropriate ads or content
This is why the Warning is so necessary....to correct the conscience of the world according to Divine Truth. Yes, that "goldmine" looms in the background as well.
Homosexuality is to blame for sexual abuse, not Catholic church, claims German cardinal A German cardinal on Friday provoked anger and controversy when he claimed the Catholic church was not responsible for sexual abuse by its clerics, and instead sought to pin the blame on homosexuality. “What has happened in the church is no different from what is happening in society as a whole,” Cardinal Walter Brandmüller said. “The real scandal is that the Catholic church hasn’t distinguished itself from the rest of society.” A study commissioned by the German Bishops Conference and published last year found that more than 3,600 children were sexually abused by Catholic clergy in Germany between 1946 and 2014. But Cardinal Brandmüller claimed that only a “vanishingly small number” of clergy had committed abuses. He said the real problem was homosexuality and claimed it is “statistically proven” that there is a link between homosexuality and abuse. Society “forgets or covers up the fact that 80 per cent of cases of sexual assault in the church involved male youths not children,” he told Germany’s DPA news agency in an interview a few days ahead of his 90th birthday. Cardinal Brandmüller’s outburst comes days after the Pope urged Catholic bishops in the US to confront the “sins and crimes” of sexual abuse by the clergy and “the efforts made to deny or conceal them”. “Everything we do risks being tainted by self-referentiality, self-preservation and defensiveness, and thus doomed from the start,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter to American bishops ahead of a spiritual retreat to reflect on the issue. “As we know, the mentality that would cover things up, far from helping to resolve conflicts, enabled them to fester and cause even greater harm to the network of relationships that today we are called to heal and restore.” Cardinal Brandmüller has been one of Pope Francis’ most outspoken critics within the Catholic church, and is one of four cardinals who have repeatedly challenged the Pope’s teachings on love and family life. The cardinal’s comments were swiftly condemned on social media and by leading German commentators. “What a shameful way for the Catholic Church to relativise guilt and defame homosexuals. Disgraceful,” Ulf Poschardt, the editor of Welt newspaper, wrote on Twitter. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...lame-sexual-abuse-not-catholic-church-claims/
Reforms, trips and personnel moves loom for pope in 2019 Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with members of the Circus of Cuba, during his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall, at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019. (Credit: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini.) ROME - With 2019 already off to a running start, Vatican-watchers can expect a packed year of surprises, updates and new twists and turns. The to-do list includes the papal reform agenda, the clerical abuse crisis, international travel and possible new appointments to key dioceses and curial offices. This spring alone will be a marathon for Pope Francis, beginning with his Jan. 23-27 visit to Panama for the global World Youth Day gathering. He’ll take at least three other international trips before summer: to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Feb. 3-5; to Morocco March 30-31; and to Bulgaria and Macedonia May 5-7. Rumor has it the pope will also travel to Japan in the fall, fulfilling his longtime dream of traveling to the country as a missionary. However, the trip has yet to be confirmed. In between trips to the UAE and Morocco, the pope will oversee a Feb. 21-24 gathering of the heads of all bishops’ conferences to address the clerical sex abuse crisis. Given the scandals that prompted the summit, many of which have instilled doubt in the minds of ordinary Catholics about Francis and his own credibility, the gathering is arguably the highest-stakes maneuver so far in Francis’s papacy. Compounding the issue and reinforcing doubt in Francis on the abuse front were accusations in August from a former Vatican ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who served as papal ambassador in Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006. On Aug. 26, the last day of Francis’s overnight visit to Ireland for the World Meeting of Families in Dublin, Viganò released a statement asserting that he had informed Francis of sexual misconduct concerns against McCarrick in 2013, but that the pope had failed to act. He called for Francis to resign and issued a series of accusations against other prelates in the Roman Curia who he said covered for McCarrick as part of a gay lobby. In the wake of the uproar Viganò’s statement caused, the Vatican authorized a “thorough study” of their archives to determine how McCarrick was able to rise to power despite the fact that rumors of his sexual misconduct with priests and seminarians had been an open secret for years. The Vatican promised the results of the study would be released “in due course,” and with those results yet to be published, it’s possible they’ll come sometime this year. Other possible areas where the pope will almost certainly make a move this year are the reform of the Roman Curia, specifically in the communications and financial sectors. Due to the recent resignations of Greg Burke and Paloma Garcia Ovejero, director and vice director respectively, of the Vatican Press Office, Francis will at some point have to fill their positions. With the appointments of veteran Vatican analyst Andrea Tornielli and Italian professor Andrea Monda to the Vatican communications office, much of the final outcome of the reform has yet to be seen. On the financial front, the Vatican in 2018 made major headway in the direction of achieving credibility and transparency, finally getting approval to enter the European banking system. However, reform of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), a longtime source of concern when it comes to financial shenanigans in the Vatican, is still in the initial stages after the appointment of Archbishop Nunzio Galantino in June 2018. The new year could bring either further progress, or further scandal, depending on which side of the coin lands face-up. Also expected on the reform front for 2019 is the publication of the pope’s new apostolic constitution outlining the role and structure of the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s administrative bureaucracy, called Praedicate Evangelium (“Preach the Gospel”). A draft is being reviewed by the pope after having been prepared and presented to him by his international Council of Cardinals - the so-called “C9” - in June of last year. When published, the document will replace John Paul II’s 1988 curial constitution, Pastor Bonus, and it will incorporate changes made by Francis during his 5-year tenure, which so far have focused on simplification and decentralization. Also slated for 2019 is the highly-anticipated special Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, set to take place during the month of October and which is expected to focus largely on the plight of indigenous peoples in the Pan-Amazonian region - which includes parts of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guyana, Guyana, Peru, Venezuela and Suriname - as well as the environment and missionary activity in the area. However, since the release of the synod’s preparatory document, titled “Amazonia: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology,” in June 2018, rumors have been swirling that Francis could approve of the ordination to the priesthood of viri probati - a term referring to mature, married men - as a response to the priest shortage in the area. According to the document, key themes for the meeting will include the role of women in the Church, the rights and traditions of indigenous people, and the exploration of new ways to provide greater access to the Eucharist in a region where numbers of clergy are slim, with many speculating that the question of ordaining viri probati men will not only be put forward by bishops from the Amazon, but welcomed by the pope. It’s also possible that Francis will hold another consistory, naming new cardinals as he’s done every year apart from 2013, the year he was elected Bishop of Rome. Many heavy-hitters this year who hit 75, the age when prelates are obliged to submit their retirement letters to the pope, could be replaced, as well as others who have surpassed the age of retirement but have remained in their positions with replacements yet to be announced. Key prelates who could be replaced this year are Nigerian Cardinal John Onaiyekan, who has been archbishop of Abuja since 1994 and who will turn 75 on Jan. 29; Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who will turn 75 in April; Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, who will turn 75 in June; Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who will also turn 75 in June; Cardinal Luis Cipriani, archbishop of Lima, who turned 75 Dec. 28, 2018; Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, who will be 77 this year, and Cardinal Wilfred Napier of Durban, South Africa, who will be 78. Along with these possible retirements is the expectation of the appointment of a new archbishop of Washington following the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl Oct. 12, 2018, largely due to pressure following the publication of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report over allegations that he mishandled abuse cases while serving as archbishop of Pittsburg. In an unprecedented move, Wuerl resigned and was named apostolic administrator, a temporary position overseeing the diocese until a successor is named, until his replacement has been appointed. With all this and more expected in the months to come, 2019 could turn out to be a defining year for both Pope Francis and the global Catholic Church. https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2019/01/04/reforms-trips-and-personnel-moves-loom-for-pope-in-2019/
One would wonder...How much does the Vatican and the Holy Father know? What if the US Council of Bishops have so much dirt, on so many people...they don't know what to do. Maybe some just accept the drip approach and clean things up as they go. But maybe the Pope knows the gig is up. Maybe the Pope knows the US government is going to unmask everything. The Popes advise is to tell all and start over. I am happy the Holy Father wants the US Council of Bishops to clean up. But his statements should be for the whole church including the Vatican.
