Top Theologian: In Abu Dhabi Statement, Pope ‘Undermines’ the Gospel The former doctrinal chief of the U.S. bishops’ conference has published an article criticizing the Abu Dhabi statement signed by Pope Francis in February, alleging that the statement undervalues the person of Jesus and undermines the Gospel itself. In a joint statement with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, Pope Francis asserted in February that God wills a plurality of religions just as He wills a plurality of colors, sexes, races, and languages. “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom, through which he created human beings,” the statement said. In his article this week, Father Thomas Weinandy took issue with the statement, insisting that the existence of a variety of colors, races, and languages in humanity is very different from a variety of contradictory truth claims about God’s identity and way of acting. Pope Francis later walked back the statement, saying that rather than “willing” a plurality of religions, God really only permits the existence of many religions. In a series of unscripted remarks, the pope attempted to clarify that what God really wills is fraternity among all peoples, while he only allows a plurality of religions. “But someone may wonder: why does the Pope go visit the Muslims and not just Catholics? Why are there so many religions? How is it that there are so many religions?” Francis said. “With the Muslims we are descendants of the same Father, Abraham. Why does God allow there to be so many religions? God wanted to allow this. Scholastic theologians referred to God’s voluntas permissiva [permissive will]. He wanted to allow this reality: that there are so many religions,” he said. “Some are born from culture, but they always look at heaven, they look at God,” he said. “But what God wills is brotherhood among us and in a special way – and this is the reason for this journey – with the Muslims, our brothers and sisters, children of Abraham.” “We must not be frightened by the difference: God allowed this,” the pope continued. “We should be frightened if we do not work in brotherhood, to walk together in life.” The pope did not, however, take back his support for the Abu Dhabi statement or ask to have it amended. In his article, Father Weinandy said that Pope Francis is noted for his ambiguous statements, but the Abu Dhabi text is “the most egregious.” “By implication, it not only devalues the person of Jesus, but it also, and more so, strikes at the very heart of God the Father’s eternal will. Thus, such studied ambiguity undermines the very Gospel itself,” he wrote. With his sloppy and imprecise language, the pope plays rights into the hands of contemporary academics and pundits who argue that Christianity can no longer claim itself to be the one true religion, Father Weinandy said. According to Catholic belief, the priest said, Jesus Christ is “the universal Savior and definitive Lord” and cannot be compared to any other religious founder, guru, or guide. “Christianity is principally founded upon the saving actions of God; first anticipated and prefigured within his saving actions among the Israelites and fulfilled in the sending of his Son into the world – the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” he said. The theologian also cites Saint John Paul II, who wrote: “It is precisely this uniqueness of Christ which gives him an absolute and universal significance, whereby, while belonging to history, he remains history’s center and goal.” Regarding the Abu Dhabi statement itself, Father Weinandy said that one would like to think “that Pope Francis unwittingly, and so not consciously aware of the doctrinal implications of his signature, did not intend what the document seems to declare.” “Regardless, no one, not even a pontiff, can undo or override the will of God the Father concerning Jesus his Son,” he concludes. “In his love the Father has given the world Jesus his Son, and ‘there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12),” he said. https://www.breitbart.com/faith/201...u-dhabi-statement-pope-undermines-the-gospel/
; There might be something in the attached which will be helpful to you: "Cardinal Newman on: The True Notion of Papal Infallibility". http://catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/vatican2/newman.html At the end of the document, the Cardinal quotes an extract from a pastoral letter of Swiss Bishops which had received Papal approbation. Here's some of it: "It in no way depends upon the caprice of the Pope, or upon his good pleasure, to make such and such a doctrine, the object of a dogmatic definition. He is tied up and limited to the divine revelation, and to the truths which that revelation contains. He is tied up and limited by the Creeds, already in existence, and by the preceding definitions of the Church. He is tied up and limited by the divine law, and by the constitution of the Church."Earlier in the document, the Cardinal said much the same about Church Councils. While Pope Francis has said that the Argentinian interpretation of Amoris Laetitia is the only correct interpretation, he has approved different interpretations by other Bishops. If the Magisterium can't make up its mind about what is Church teaching, we can't be out of communion with them if we hold to what was the clear and unambiguous teaching of the universal Church prior to Amoris Laetitia.
That’s correct, Dolours. We can’t be out of communion if we hold to the clear and unambiguous teaching of the universal Church prior to AL. It’s Christ’s Church.
Here is the latest World Over, it is another great episode. "Published on Jun 6, 2019 FR. GERALD MURRAY, canon lawyer and priest of the Archdiocese of New York and ROBERT ROYAL, editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing.org, discuss the the "Figueiredo Report", the Vatican’s ongoing investigation of Theodore McCarrick and the latest Catholic news. STEVEN MOSHER, China expert and president of the Population Research Institute with analysis of Communist China's crackdown on religious minorities, and Christians in particular, despite the Vatican-China agreement."
It is only possible because the one who included it in the official Magisterium has no lawful authority to do so. That's the only possible conclusion.
It's an awful dilemma. That statement of Pope Innocent III surely belongs, at the very least, in the category of "ordinary teaching on faith and morals". Although of the past, Innocent remains a valid Pope. If one feels compelled to obey Pope Francis, one automatically disobeys the teaching of Innocent. Are our duties to the Church Triumphant not as real as those to the Church Militant? Your Dark Night of the Soul seems a consequence of the most sincere and genuine attempt to square a most difficult circle. I think it is bringing you much Grace, but that's just an ignorant layman's opinion.
Perhaps, it would be helpful to define the term 'obedience'. For example, an officer who took an order from his general and loyally implemented it, despite his own personal reservations, could not be accused of disobedience, whether or not his reservations were correct. Going further with this example, the responsibilities of the officer in question present him with limits of obedience. Those officers in the Nazi death camps were not exonerated by the claim that they were only obeying orders, so obedience in this case was certainly not an absolute. Such officers were expected to have been capable of reasoning that such obedience was not acceptable. Mere obedience was not enough, no matter how much such obedience was valued by their superiors. Has anyone a detailed knowledge of Church teaching on obedience and its limits, with particular emphasis on mental reservation, genuine open and public debate among the laity of the issues concerned, and the role and duties of the informed conscience in the matter? Do one's duties of obedience extend merely to one's actions or are one's genuine and informed mental reservations also bound by them? I'd be very grateful for some clarification here.
DeGaulle, I really do not know the answers to your questions. I know that God on His throne sees the situation right now. In my deepest being, I believe that He knows that I believe in the Papacy which He established through His Son, Jesus. God knows I don't believe that divorced and remarried couples should receive Holy Communion. The Papacy stands, but the Pope is fallible when not speaking ex cathedra. I don't trouble myself any more than that. Assenting to the Papacy is the thing which I do as a Catholic. That doesn't mean that I assent to something which the Pope does/decrees which is contrary to Faith and morals. A Pope is not infallible. Right now, all Heaven is aware of our plight. I don't hear any admonitions from Heaven against practicing my Faith.
Cardinal Kasper Says Pope ‘Would Probably Accept’ Married Priests If Proposed by Synod Edward Pentin | June 5, 2019 The possibility has raised concerns that allowing such an exception would signal the end of mandatory priestly celibacy in the Latin Rite. Pope Francis and European Populism: Is More Dialogue Needed? Edward Pentin | June 7, 2019 Prosecution falters during Cardinal Pell appeal hearing https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/prosecution-falters-during-cardinal-pell... June 6, 2019 Edited to add: Michael Matt is keeping positive and Patrick Coffin appears to be fed up It's almost like they did a switch-a-roo, "Freaky Friday-like". "Published on Jun 7, 2019 The day before the 2019 Pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres, U.S. coordinator Michael J. Matt explains the significance of the largest international traditional Catholic annual rendezvous in the world today--the Notre Dame de Chretiente Pentecost Pilgrimage to Chartres. With over 10,000 traditional Catholics coming into Paris from all over the world, Michael comments on what this is, its history and what it portends for the future of the Catholic Church..." "Premiered Jun 1, 2019 ... This week has been a banner week for papal confusion and the shading of reality. A new website compiled by Msgr. Anthony Figueiredo, a former aide to the laicized homosexual molester Ted McCarrick, the former cardinal archbishop of Washington, DC, documents years of correspondence, most of which is quiet at odds with what McCarrick and now (in theory) retired Donald Cardinal Wuerl have said about McCarrick's eclipsed activities by order of then Pope Benedict XVI. The link: www.TheFigueiredoReport.com. It all coheres with what Carlo Maria Viganò claimed in his letters. Pope Francis also told Mexican TV journalist Valentina Alazraki that he didn't remember—a LOT of things—especially things related to the pervert ex-prelate McCarrick. Quotes: “I knew nothing, obviously, of McCarrick. Nothing, nothing. I said several times that I didn’t know, that I had no idea. You know that I didn’t know anything about McCarrick; otherwise, I would not have stayed quiet.” There’s only one problem. He never denied a thing about McCarrick in public. Not once. In the same TV interview, the Pope responded to the heresy accusations in last month’s Open Letter by telling her that he reacted “with a sense of humour, my daughter.” "
I would resolve this by going back to this by going deeper into the subject of what the, 'Magisterium', really is and where and how it is applied. Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote well on this. If a Pope for instance tells us we must walk under a bus and claims his instructions are Magisterial I doubt we have to do so. I doubt the Good Lord's intent was that we turn into robots. I will have to read and study up on this myself. Sigh. Such a shame we have to second guess a Pope. I had a dream this afternoon. I dreamt I was in my kitchen and I was wearing a Arran sweater ( you only only wear one of these in very, very cold weather indeed so I suppose this is in the future). I was praying to St Catherine of Siena and thinking of the state of the Church when I began to cry very hard with tears streaming down my cheeks and offered my life up for the conversion of the Church.
These two maybe should have gone on Jeopardy! After all a professional gambler was just $58,000 from being the top winner. I'm surprised though that a gambling addiction was never mentioned for an excuse. In this day and age, targeting the Church due to its assumed deep pockets, may cause this case, esp. before the 9th Circuit, to grow very large: The Gambling Nuns of Torrance, California https://www.gq.com/story/gambling-nuns-of-torrance-california
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/v...shop-michael-bransfield/ar-AACyo5K?li=BBnb7Kz Vatican cardinal, other priests to return cash gifts from ousted West Virginia bishop Michael Bransfield A cardinal at the Vatican and eight other Catholic clerics pledged on Friday to return money to the diocese of West Virginia after revelations that the bishop there used church funds to give cash gifts of $350,000 to fellow clergymen. Over 13 years, until his recent ouster for alleged sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield wrote personal checks to clerics and was reimbursed with church money, according to a Washington Post investigation published Wednesday. Bransfield sent the checks, many for amounts in the four figures, to 137 clergymen, including two young priests he is accused of mistreating and more than a dozen cardinals. Among those returning money is Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who said through a Vatican spokesman Friday that he would give back $29,000 that Bransfield sent for renovations to his apartment in Rome. The checks have angered many parishioners in West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the nation. They have also raised concerns about the prevalence of clerics giving such gifts to those who hold sway over their careers, as well as about the propriety of accepting those gifts. The gifts were given during years when Bransfield was building a reputation in West Virginia for living a life of opulence and allegedly sexually harassing young priests and seminarians. “The first thing I feel is just anger and that it suddenly makes sense why there was no ability to have accountability here,” Molly Linehan, a Catholic school administrator in Charleston, W.Va., said Friday about the cash gifts clerics received from Bransfield. “And although anger is the immediate thing, almost just as immediate is sorrow.” Several recipients of the checks denied in interviews that the money was intended to buy their silence or pliability. Some said they received checks — described in diocese records obtained by The Post as gifts — after delivering sermons or writing speeches. Other checks marked special occasions, such as birthdays or holidays, they said. Their decisions to return the money followed Archbishop William E. Lori’s announcement Wednesday, after receiving questions from The Post, that he would return $7,500 he had received from Bransfield. Lori oversaw an investigation of Bransfield that was ordered by the Vatican in September after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. A team of lay investigators detailed their findings in a confidential draft report to Lori in February, recommending that Bransfield be removed from ministry for alleged sexual harassment and financial abuses. Lori ordered that the names of senior clerics who received gifts — including himself — be edited out of the final report to the Vatican, The Post reported Wednesday. He said he thought inclusion of the names would be a distraction. On Friday, Lori said he regretted that decision. “If I had to do it over again, especially at a time when we’re trying to create greater transparency and accountability, the report would have included the names of those bishops who received gifts, including my own, with some notation that there was no evidence to suggest that those who received gifts reciprocated in any way that was inappropriate,” he said in a video statement posted to the archdiocese’s website. “Transparency also includes admitting when a mistake in judgment has been made and that is certainly the case here.” In an interview with The Post, he said such gifts are unusual. “I don’t get a lot of gifts like that,” he said. Several recipients said they believed Bransfield was sending his own money. “I had absolutely no idea that he was submitting these checks to people and getting reimbursed by the diocese,” said Bishop George V. Murry of Youngstown, Ohio, who received three checks totaling $3,000 from Bransfield, money he said he would return. “I thought it was a kind thing to do. I just assumed it was from his account.” Murry said he does not send checks to fellow clerics as gifts. Bransfield, 75, drew on revenue from oil-rich land in Texas that had been donated to the diocese more than a century ago and that has generated annual revenue averaging nearly $15 million in recent years. Bransfield spent lavishly on chartered jets, luxury hotels, a private chef and a $4.6 million renovation to his church residence, the investigators found. Bransfield has denied the allegations, telling The Post in a brief interview that “none of it is true” and that critics are “trying to destroy my reputation.” It is Bransfield’s cash gifts that are raising questions about prelates outside West Virginia. Through a spokesman, Farrell told The Post that, in addition to Bransfield’s gifts, he received “voluntary donations” from laity, priests and bishops for the renovation of his apartment in the Vatican. Cardinal Carlo Maria Viganò — who served as the apostolic nuncio, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, from 2011 to 2016 — said he received checks from Bransfield and a handful of other bishops during his tenure. He described the practice as unique to the United States in his experience. “Around the Christmas holiday, I started receiving gift checks from several bishops in the United States,” he said in an email, recalling his arrival in 2011. “I had worked in nunciatures around the world and had never seen anything like that.” The checks were typically between $100 and $1,000, he said. Aides told him “money gifts among bishops were customary in the United States, and not accepting them would be an affront to the donors,” Viganò told The Post. Viganò received $6,000 from Bransfield. He said he donated the money to charities shortly after he received it. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who the report says was given $23,600, said through a spokesman Friday that he received honoraria for speaking invitations and other events, in addition to gifts to mark personal celebrations. The biggest single gift to Wuerl — $10,000 — was for the renovation of a church in Rome, he said. Wuerl has not said whether he intends to return the money, the spokesman said. The spokesman did not respond to questions about whether Wuerl has given any cash gifts or received them from other clerics. Monsignor Kevin Irwin, former longtime head of the theology department at the Catholic University of America in Washington, received $6,500 from Bransfield, according to diocese records. Irwin said Friday that the money was in exchange for writing and teaching he did and that he didn’t feel obliged to return it. Irwin said Bransfield’s large gifts to clerics who apparently performed no service seemed out of the norm. “I was sickened by it,” Irwin said, describing his reaction to disclosures in The Post’s report. “Money corrupts. If you follow the money, whether in the church or out of the church, it can corrupt. A big check for doing nothing? Use it on yourself? I don’t know where that came from. Mine came from working in my office. And I’ve never been given a check for something I didn’t do.” The Rev. Michael Weston and monsignors Walter Rossi and Vito Buonanno at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, where Bransfield was stationed before he was sent to West Virginia, are returning $10,800 collectively, a spokeswoman said. “Over the course of the past few years, the priests of the Basilica have received modest financial gifts from Bishop Bransfield for their assistance with diocesan pilgrimages and to celebrate significant days such as birthdays and anniversaries,” said spokeswoman Jacquelyn Hayes. “The priests have never had cause to question the source of the funds,” she wrote in a statement. “As other clergy have pledged, the priests at the Basilica will return the personal gifts from Bishop Bransfield to the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, where the money can be used to serve the needs of the community.” The most frequent recipient of checks, the Rev. Richard Mullins of the District of Columbia, said Bransfield had encouraged him to become a priest and was a longtime friend. Mullins, who received 38 checks from 2013 to 2018, said they were generally for birthdays or holidays, according to the records obtained by The Post. “I’m deeply saddened that church funds would be used for personal activities,” he said.
Maybe I am innocent in the ways of the Vaican. But I am 63 years old and no one had given me a cash gift me entire life since childhood. If someone was to hand me a cash gift I would at once smell some kind of rat hanging from the end of it. What where these people doing taking free hand outs in the first place? Uncle Ted McCarrick was at the same thing. These people had to know it was some kind of pay off.
One way to solve this; the Pope is lying. And throwing around words. Just using the word "Magesterium" like it's a toy boat of his doesn't make it so. "Worship Baal! Magesterium!" No, Holy Father. Second way to solve this; Pope Francis is not actually the Pope, but the Mass is still valid. Third way to solve this; Pretty much block out everything the Holy Father says and does, unless it's helpful or articulate or he canonizes someone, and just keep carrying on. Follow Christ, receive Christ. I pray on a tree stump in my back yard. Passing by a Catholic Church from the outside is the highlight of my week. Month. I'm not smart. I'm not a theologian. I don't care all that much anymore. I know that Sola Fidé is a bunch of baloney, Saint Peter was the first Pope, the Bible has Seventy Three books, and Christ is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. That's all I got to know. I have literally watched people "smart" themselves out of union with Rome. Don't do that, Sean. Go to Mass, receive Christ. Sin is not enshrined in the Magesterium. It can't be. The Holy Father is lying.
I'm glad that PF is so interested in global warming and the politics of elitist globalism. They leave him less time for faith and morals. We should encourage him. Perhaps a papal visit to the Antarctic...next Christmas?
Exactly where did the recipients of these cash “gifts” think this money was coming from? It wasn’t growing on trees. Boy, when it comes to the almighty dollar, how quick one can forget almighty God.
