The Vatican Has Fallen

But the article goes on to explain that the Church Code of Canon Law explains what is the rule and such Bishops are going against the code....sort of par for the course today!:

......
Fr. Claude Barthe, editor of the newsletter Catholic Res Novae, wrote in late December that it is likely that a number of dioceses will ignore the new recommendation. Each bishop in France remains free to exercise control over the baptismal registry form in his diocese.

Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, O.P., chair of the pastoral studies department at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, California, told CNA that recommendations from a bishops’ conference are not binding law, and that while a bishop must consider recommendations from the conference as the view of his brother bishops, the recommendations are not binding.

“We sometimes think of a bishop’s conference as a kind of Senate that has legislative power— it does not,” Pietrzyk told CNA.

“It’s simply a pastoral engine for the bishops of a certain area to coordinate their pastoral ministry.”

The Holy See in 2017 addressed how the baptisms of children of same-sex couples should be recorded in a letter from Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, then the prefect of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

“In the current Code, there is not a specific law with respect to the entry of same sex couples or 'transgendered persons' as parents on the baptismal record. The term 'parents' used by the Church's Canon 877 clearly refers to the father and mother, the man and the woman created by God who are united in the sacrament of marriage.”

“The entry of same sex couples or 'transgendered persons' as parents would be contrary to the aforementioned canon and the teaching of Our Lord and of the Church on marriage as God desires it as the union between a man and a woman. If one of the partners is the natural father or mother of the child, it must be mentioned on the record, the other partner cannot be entered,” Coccopalmerio added.

“Given the foregoing instructions, we do not consider it possible to enter on the baptismal record two mothers or two fathers or a 'transgendered father' whose real nature is a woman or a 'transgendered mother' whose true nature is a man,” the letter concluded.

 

I think this strikes at the heart of it. It seems rare that the contemplative life is advanced to anyone let alone existing orders of cloistered nuns held as example of great spiritual benefit at great sacrifice. Everything today revolves around the social order, the "other" as it is put and commitment to action and not only in the Church but in all churches this is the road that is constantly pushed and followed. It seems that there is an effort to destroy the convents left today and given that they are largely silent and unknown to most people hardly anyone is even aware of this. The youth are targeted relentlessly in all manner by these men as the core of every effort to change things.

The CM article linked to this one was well worth the read. I think it was posted before in another thread but I will post some of it here as well.

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/cloistered-nuns-from-quaerere-deum-to-aggiornamento

Cloistered Nuns: From Quaerere Deum to Aggiornamento
by Church Militant • ChurchMilitant.com • December 2, 2018

By Dr. Aldo Maria Valli

On one side there were more than 300 cloistered nuns, coming from Italy and from abroad and belonging to various orders, while on the other side you have the Brazilian cardinal, João Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and the secretary of the same congregation, Spaniard José Rodríguez Carballo.

It is Nov. 21, 2018, and at the Pontifical Lateran University, a meeting takes place, organized by the secretariat for the assistance of cloistered nuns on the occasion of the Pro Orantibus day. It intends to discuss the July 22, 2016 apostolic constitution Vultum Dei Quaerere by Pope Francis on female contemplative life and Cor Orans, the applicable instruction of the apostolic constitution, issued by the congregation on April 1, 2018.

From the onset, the speeches of Braz de Aviz and Carballo raise numerous perplexities, both because of a list of ambiguities and distortions in content and also because of the tone used to address the nuns.

Let us begin with the cardinal. On starting to illustrate Vultum Dei Quaerere, he puts at the forefront the issue of formation: "It is necessary to focus on a formation that is adequate to the needs of the present moment: integral, personalized and well-accompanied, to nourish a creative loyalty to the charism received."

Formation, therefore, is a decisive point. What is the aim behind this? A "creative loyalty" with respect to the charism received. And here we are already faced with a huge ambiguity. What does "creative loyalty" mean? Does it require one to be loyal or not? The cardinal adds: "Then, in the constitution, there are discussed also prayer and many other things, but first formation."

Prayer, therefore, comes afterwards with "many other things" — with respect to formation. But are we speaking about cloistered nuns or about managers?

The heading of the speech by the cardinal is: "Listening to the Lord of Peter in the Church so as to update a millenary contemplative consecrated life." Here, other motives for perplexity come up: if contemplative consecrated life has a millenary tradition, which we have received, this is precisely because, up till now, any updating did not manage to nibble its substance or provoke those damages which have been wrecked in other sectors of the life of the Church.

It is hard, then, not to perceive a touch of haughtiness in the claim of putting oneself as those who can "update" a patrimony of faith and spirituality which, if anything, needs to be safeguarded, treasured, conserved and protected.

Another concept on which the cardinal touches on is "listening," it having become today a very fashionable concept used as a form of ex officio defense of the Pope.

The prefect says:
It is not a question of listening to anyone of us, a cardinal, a bishop, the pope. No. It is listening to the Lord, who speaks today to us. And he speaks to us through Peter. We are not interested on what is Peter's name. But now Peter is Francis and therefore all forms of nostalgia that put us out of our times or transport the mission of Peter out of our times are not good. We need to always remain with Peter. Nostalgia is a no go. We need to remain always with the pope, whom God has given us. We are not interested in the name of the pope. At this point, Peter is Francis and therefore we need to remain with Francis, a pope who is an unthinkable gift, because through clarity, transparency and simplicity, he is giving us guidelines to follow, at a difficult time for the Church, characterized by so many problems.
So given that he is speaking to cloistered nuns, to persons who radically live their choice of life dedicated to God, such appeal to remain with the Pope is somewhat strange. Here truly surfaces a problem: evidently at the congregation, there must have arrived protests and complaints on behalf of cloistered nuns who are worried that Peter today in many aspects is not in continuity with Peter. And, if that were so, on the part of cloistered nuns, this does not have anything to do with nostalgia for the past, as the cardinal said, but of great worry for our present which should be seriously taken into consideration.

Then, out of the blue, the prefect affirms: "There was no quarrel in the conclave, we were all in agreement on Bergoglio, such that we have elected him in a day and a half, even though we had sufficient food and drink for two weeks."

This is a curious clarification, clearly not in line with the topic. Would this mean that some monastery has conveyed to the Holy See perplexities concerning a legitimate election of Bergoglio?

Moving on, the cardinal says:
The Council asks us to become disciples of Jesus, of our founders and to dialogue with the culture of our times which is not that of the past, without hiding that "all this is tiring," but knowing fully well that "the Holy Spirit today is more a sign of instability than of stability: he moves the waters and leaves us choking with water in our throats, unable to clutch to our securities."
Now, given that the Council requests religious persons to go back to the roots of the charism of their founders, having to listen to a talk about the Holy Spirit being motive of doubt and instability, when on the contrary the Paraclete is the spirit of truth and defender of believers, cannot but cause deep uneasiness. The Holy Spirit does not leave us "choking with water in our throats," he does not prefer doubt and uncertainty. He is, on the contrary, a spirit who comforts and consoles in truth.

With Vultum Dei Quaerere, the cardinal then affirms, the Pope has deemed necessary to offer to the Church a new apostolic constitution on the life of monasteries "in the light of the Council and with great attention to changed socio-cultural conditions," because "we cannot only look at the past" and "the Council asks us to dialogue with the culture of the moment, which is not that of the past."

Here we come before other surprising expressions. Till proven to the contrary, cloistered nuns dedicate themselves to prayerful contemplation. Why is it necessary, therefore, to put the dialogue with the world in the foreground? If anything, it would be necessary to specify that for contemplative life to enter into a relationship with the world, it has to do away with human means, which belong to other vocations (such as gatherings, dialogues, meetings, study sessions, etc.). Its ultimate scope requires of it to privilege a direct and continuous relationship with the supernatural.

He continues: "The update of contemplative life in the light of Vatican II, at this time of rapid progress in human history, is a necessity. Silence, listening, inwardness, stability are the values to look for. Contemplative life is a challenge for today's mentality."

Surely, contemplative life has always been a challenge, but the values of silence, listening, inwardness and stability would all be lost if we were to keep on following such updating and prioritizing dialogue with the world. What end have the expressions of union with God, prayer and offering of self come up to, which expressions the Church once used to indicate the mission entrusted to cloistered nuns? It seems as if the cardinal was afraid of them. In fact, using an expression more seemingly New Age rather than Catholic, he does not speak of prayer but of a generic "inwardness."

Continued...

 

Another affirmation by the cardinal that raises perplexity is the following: "Contemplative nuns are not isolated, they are not an NGO, but are part of the Church. They are not islands, but part of a living body."

Surely, contemplative nuns are not islands, in fact, they live in a community where they conduct fraternal life. It is the monastery which is an island, and so it has to be of its own very nature.

Then another surprising point comes up:
The Pope speaks of the encounter of Moses with God at the burning bush and draws from there a very important reality: being attracted by the face of God and by the sacred ground, that is the other. Underlined is the importance of man and woman who walk with me in contemplative life. The relationship with the other is an experience of the mystery of God. We should remove our sandals near the sacred ground of the other, male or female. We should not let relationships fall into mediocrity. A too individualistic spirituality does not help to enter such spirituality. In a society dominated by morbid curiosity, the Church needs another type of relationship: the sacredness of the other.
Now, it is fine that one points out to the sacredness of the other and highlights an expression used by Francis in Evangelium Gaudium. But putting at the forefront the interpersonal relationship seems to be a total overturning of perspective. In the case of contemplative life, everything draws its meaning from the relationship with God. Its view of the space and time of God, one should indeed take off one's sandals. In the choice of life made by contemplatives, everything — including the relationship with the other (small "o") — draws meaning from the relationship with the Other (capital "O"). And it is from here that such example comes forth to all in the Church. While often the Church is reduced to being a social agency, all in it need to return to relating to the sacredness of God.

The cardinal continues: "Let us remember what Thomas à Kempis says, in Book I of The Imitation of Christ: When we enter into vocational crisis and want to depart it is better not to leave, because the Lord then comes back and does not find the person there any longer."

This reference, between the lines, goes to nuns who, in the face of abuses by the Vatican, choose to leave, as in the clamorous situation of the Little Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer, at Laval in France. Thirty-four sisters out of 39 chose to renounce to their vows after having been commissioned for being too "traditionalist" and attached to prayer. It is better not to leave, the cardinal implores. Does this mean that other cloistered nuns have manifested similar intentions?

And then, listen to this:
We have to enter into this apostolic constitution without reservations created by our traditions or doubts from ideas about the Pope or his desire to destruct anything. If such way of thinking were to enter it would do great harm. I trust Peter. I trust such necessity that contemplative life has to care about the new mentality that is in the new culture. Today's culture does not want any longer persons who dominate over others. Names such as superior and inferior are doing us harm. Why superior and inferior? Superior to whom and inferior to whom? Should not all of us be brothers and sisters?
Therefore, in summary: Tradition is only something that creates dangerous "reservations," contemplative life needs to tune itself to "the new mentality" and "the new culture," and superiors do not have to be so any longer. Does this also mean that no one has any longer authority to teach? All are equal? How could one here not perceive the echo of an ideology seemingly originating from the late 60s which by any expected standard has arrived here far too late?

If these directions were to be put in practice, we would have a contortion not only of cloistered religious life, but more widely of religious life as such. Without obedience, religious life would not exist anymore. And, at any rate, how lowly does the cardinal view the relationship existing between who teaches and who is at the receiving end! He speaks of persons that dominate over others, but cloistered nuns do assure us that in monasteries this does not happen. In obedience, a religious is realized in Christ, because the certainty of every action, even the smallest, brings one to the union with God.

And now let us come to the speech by Abp. Carballo, dedicated to Cor Orans.

The archbishop starts off with a captatio benevolentiae ("appeal for kindness") comprising also a scolding: "It is truly very nice to be together! In any case, we know that the walls of the monastery have many doors, therefore one that opens to a meeting such as this is most beautiful! Say this to those who have chosen not to attend, say it!"

In fact, the great majority of cloistered nuns (in the world there are more than 3,500 monasteries) did not attend the meeting in Rome. And if this were their decision, there must be a reason for it.

Carballo continues: "Cor Orans is an applicative instruction. It is not a repetition of Vultum Dei Quaerere: there one finds the principles, here the applications. Let us welcome the voice of the Church with openness and availability even if it does not fully coincide with our desires!"

Desires? At issue here are not "desires," but vows, conscience, an oath made solemnly to God, a totality of life absorbed in consecration, in the following of one's founders, of millenary traditions.

Carballo continues:
Accompany them always with fraternal love by treating them as adult ladies, respecting their competences, without undue interferences. These are words of the Pope to the delegates and vicars of consecrated life. Adult ladies! I love these words. You are adult ladies! Take hold of your life as adult ladies, not as adulteresses: with a yes to what is convenient and a no to what is not convenient!
I find this tone definitely unacceptable. The play on the words "adult ladies" and "adulteresses" is indeed offensive. Was Carballo thinking that he was speaking to unconscious girls? This is not an issue of convenience, but of loyalty to one's charism and to an oath made to God. In this, there is also noticeable a slight male chauvinist vein: Would His Excellency speak likewise if he were in front of an audience of male monks?

This use of the word "adulteresses" also reveals that at this time the Church is not respiring chastity. Only up till a few years ago, no archbishop would ever have thought of speaking in such vulgar manner in the presence of consecrated women. But now vulgarity has entered the Church.

And Carballo proceeds:
Do not let yourself be manipulated! You are the ones who have to manage your lives, as adult ladies! Not one, but three grates are necessary to divide you from those persons who want to manipulate you, even if they may be bishops, cardinals, friars or other persons. You have to discern, because there are persons who are doing a lot of harm to you. Because they are projecting their own ideas on you.
These are seriously grave affirmations. If Carballo is truly convinced that anyone is manipulating cloistered nuns he should be saying their names and contextualizing such circumstances. Why should he worry cloistered nuns in this way, given that they already have so many problems?

The archbishop says then that the dicastery has elaborated its documents "after having heard very seriously" the responses received to a questionnaire sent to the monasteries: "I can tell you that, in general, you are the authors of these two documents. Scrupulous respect has been afforded to the majoritarian opinion and I believe that this is the first time that you are those who have written!" In reality, we have got to know that only a minority of convents has responded.

The tone of the archbishop becomes once more very little respectful, I would say quizzical, when he speaks about autonomy which is rightly at the core of monasteries: "Sui iuris monasteries enjoy juridical autonomy, therefore the federations, we need to say this for the umpteenth time, will not take away the autonomy which you desire so much to keep. Keep it! If you think that in this the Lord is giving you any dogmas which you need to defend, well."

It would seem from this that autonomy is some fixation of cloistered nuns, while truly it is the core of the problem, and the archbishop does not enjoy any right to make fun of such rightful preoccupation: "Nobody will take away your autonomy, absolutely. Autonomy is not a right, it is not a privilege that one acquires once and for good. It is something that one may acquire, but which one may also lose."

Then, in criticizing some abbesses that remain in office for 30 years, Carballo says:
Let us finish with so many stories, dear sisters. It seems that some sister was born to govern throughout all her life and the others obey. No, the service of authority is a service that you welcome to serve, and then you let go. And it will not be a catastrophe. Saint Francis renounced. The provost of the Jesuits also renounces. And also the Pope! Let us keep this in mind!
"Let us finish with so many stories"? Once more, this tone is unacceptable. Besides, the archbishop seems to forget that an abbess or prioress is elected and eventually reconfirmed with a two-thirds majority. She is not a usurper who takes hold of an office. Truly, in monasteries, cloistered nuns generally reconfirm the same superior, because they do not love change for its own sake and they desire stability.

But at the congregation, where reasoning follows ideology, all this is no good: for them what counts most is change.

Continued..

 

After having highlighted also the importance of formation, Carballo addresses the issue of isolation and once again reprimands cloistered nuns in an offensive tone:
It is absolutely necessary that you avoid isolation from other monasteries of the institute or of the diocese. A while ago, a monastery wrote to us, asking for dispensation from being in a federation because, they said, "We are the poorest, we are the most observing, we are the most this and the most that and the most." This is spiritual pride which in front of God I shall not tell you what it shall provoke! Take care of preserving yourself from the malady of self-reference. This is a sickness!
Apart from the fact that is hardly credible that some cloistered nuns would have written in such a manner, there remains the fact that many monasteries write to the congregation to ask for dispensation from the obligation to be part of a federation — this is the truth. Which dispensation, however, for ideological reasons, is being declined in order to impose one's vision. And so, mention of the word "self-reference," another term that is highly fashionable in the Church of today, is made and used to delegitimize any awkward person or community.

And listen to this: "Do not separate yourselves totally from the world! The link to the world is important! The Pope says so. Otherwise for whom do you pray? For a world that does not exist?"

Yet again the perspective is overturned. Does Carballo realize that he is speaking to cloistered nuns, to religious females who have consecrated their entire lives to prayer and separation from the world?

And is it possible that a ranting against the media would be left out? Here it is:
Be careful not to have a portable grate (expression of the Holy Father). Do not keep in touch with gossiping media. I am convinced that if you are not cautious about these two elements, you would be putting your contemplative life at risk. Let go of the blogs and tweets! Now everything is like that. Gossiping media is an expression of the Holy Father. Therefore, yes be linked, but also careful not to fall victims of these media. I am convinced that enclosure, as we stand today, passes more through such means than through the grates. And I believe that in this, excuse me, exaggerations do happen in monasteries, and you should form yourselves. Which does not mean prohibition, no, you are adults! Communitarian discernment exists for this reason. Physical enclosure and enclosure of the heart need to move on together!
Why all this fear from mass media? And why does the archbishop at a certain point also wave caution with respect to blogs saying that monasteries shall be distorted and put at risk through the new Vatican documents? Is he afraid that truth may be revealed?

The substantial contempt for cloistered nuns, but also for the very history of monasticism, surfaces anew when Carballo passes to make an ex officio defense for federations among monasteries. This has been imposed by the Holy See even against the will of the same monasteries, for the sake of "coordination" which rather seems more like a kind of normalization: "You do not realize! Isolation will make you become manipulable! The more isolated you are, the more you will have manipulators around you."

So a millenary tradition, built on autonomy and isolation, which has allowed monasticism to arrive to us bringing with it a treasure of spirituality (one should re-read the lecture by Benedict XVI at Collège des Bernardins, Paris, in 2008), is branded as being a source of "manipulation." This is truly a wonderful analysis!

Then, as regards the great number of monasteries that are requesting the dispensation from being federated, here is once more a note of chauvinism: "You have requested that the president [of the federation] would have more authority, and now you are afraid! Because you know that a woman would insert her finger in the wound much more than a man!"

But truth almost escapes Carballo's mouth: "The president has to verify the administrative situation of the monasteries." The true reason for which there is so much insistence on federations is, in fact, this: being able to put hands on the goods and property of monasteries.

The quotes reported above would seem incredible. While Pius XII spoke about Christian virgins being the "most elect part of the flock of Christ," about "evangelical life," about "treasures of religious perfection hidden in monasteries," about "flowers and fruit of holiness," we have today ecclesiastics that allow themselves to address cloistered nuns with sarcasm, as if they were speaking to uncouth or dissolute school girls, arriving at calling them "adulteresses."

Our dear cloistered nuns, notwithstanding all of this, live in the perspective of quaerere Deum and you truly do not deserve to be knocked around in such a manner.

Official English translation by S. Michael.

 

Thank God for a good healthy prayer life.

Otherwise I would go insane.

 

Of course, a secular view here....

Retired Pope to be removed as celibacy book author

The cardinal who co-wrote a book backing priestly celibacy with the retired Pope has said Benedict XVI's name will be removed from future editions.

Some saw the apparent intervention by Benedict as a challenge to his successor, Pope Francis.

Pope Benedict, who is 92, reportedly said he could not remain silent.

Francis is considering whether to relax the rules for married men in the Amazon region.

Cardinal Robert Sarah tweeted (in French) that in light of the controversy the publication had provoked, it had been decided that in future the named author would be himself alone, with the contribution of Benedict XVI noted. The text would remain completely unchanged, he said.

Pope Benedict's private secretary said he had asked Cardinal Sarah to request the changes.

The cardinal rejected accusations that he had taken advantage of the frail former pontiff, saying that Benedict knew that the project would take the form of a book.

Pope Benedict still lives within the walls of the Vatican in a former monastery.

A theological conservative with traditional views on Catholic values, he pledged to remain "hidden from the world" when he retired citing poor health.

But since then, he has made his views known in articles, books and interviews, advocating a different approach to Pope Francis, who is seen as more progressive.

What is the proposed change?
In October, Catholic bishops from around the world gathered for a meeting, known as the synod, to discuss the future of the Church in the Amazon.

At the conclusion of that meeting, a document detailing issues affecting the Church was released. In it, there was a suggestion that in remote parts of the Amazon, older, married men should be ordained.

South American bishops have advocated this in an effort to address the shortage of priests in the region.

Pope Francis will consider it, along with many other proposals, including the environment and the role of women in the Church. He is expected to make a decision on the matter within the next few months.

There are already some exceptions, such as priests in Eastern Catholic Churches and Anglican priests who convert.

Why is it controversial?
Priestly celibacy was introduced about 900 years ago, and before then clergy were often married.

It is not explicitly required by the Bible but is a discipline required by the Church.

For many, celibacy is a key part of being a Catholic priest, one who is supposed to devote himself to the Church and not be distracted by what some consider to be worldly concerns like a wife or a family.

For traditionalists, this is about the direction in which Pope Francis is taking the Church.

Some critics regard the idea of allowing married priests in the Amazon as a pretext to abolishing celibacy as a requirement altogether.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51109116

 

Catholic Cardinal on Denying Communion to Pro-Abortion Joe Biden: More Priests Should Do This!

Prominent Catholic Cardinal Raymond Burke said a South Carolina priest was “right and just” to deny communion to Joe Biden because of his abortion advocacy.


The Christian Post reports Burke, who serves on the highest court of the Vatican, suggested that more priests should do the same with Catholics who openly oppose the faith.

“What the priest did in South Carolina was right and just — would that more priests would act in a similar manner!” Burke told The Wanderer in a recent interview.

Biden, a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, claims to be a devout Catholic, but he supports legalized abortion on demand.

In October, the Rev. Robert E. Morey of St. Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina, said he refused to give communion to Biden while he was campaigning in the state. Morey said Biden’s open opposition to basic protections for the unborn was his main reason.

“Sadly, this past Sunday, I had to refuse Holy Communion to former Vice President Joe Biden,” the priest said at the time. “Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that. Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching.”

Though some criticized Morey, Burke defended the priest.

“I demonstrate that in the whole tradition of the Church, the discipline with regard to not admitting people who are involved in public grave sin, after having been admonished, has been constant and that it certainly applies to those who publicly support abortion and so-called same-sex marriage legislation,” he said.

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

Burke said the matter has nothing to do with politics; it is a question of morality.

“The moral law applies to politicians as much as anyone else,” Burke said. “If one is ignorant of the truth and promotes abortion legislation, that is one thing. But if one is a professed Roman Catholic who has been admonished that he (or she) cannot support legislation against the natural moral law, he (or she) is bound to be obedient to that law.

“How can bishops stay out of the matter, when politicians who profess to be Catholic are giving scandal to the whole nation by voting in favor of abortion? How can they silently stand by?” he continued.

Burke recalled an incident in 2004 when a government leader asked him if the Catholic Church would consider changing its teachings about the sanctity of human life and abortion.

“‘How can you ask that question?’” Burke said. “After all, the question was one of the natural moral law and did not have to do with any specific denominational or confessional matter. ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘I could give you the names of probably 80 to 100 Catholic legislators who regularly vote in favor of abortion legislation. So I figure it cannot be a very firm teaching of your Church.’ This is a major scandal!”

Biden is one of many so-called Catholic politicians who support abortion on demand. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is another.

Though Biden once was more moderate, he recently has embraced his party’s extreme platform on abortion. In June, he announced that he no longer supports the Hyde amendment, which restricts taxpayer-funded abortions.

Biden’s health care plan would expand abortions. His plan would codify Roe v. Wade into federal law, prohibiting states from passing even moderate restrictions that protect unborn babies from late-term abortions. It also would force insurance companies to cover abortions as “essential” health care under Obamacare.

In direct opposition to Catholic teachings about the sanctity of human life, Biden said he also would force American taxpayers to fund Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers by restoring the cuts President Donald Trump made to their funding.

Biden has a strong pro-abortion voting record that goes back for many years, and he supported President Barack Obama’s leadership as the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history. As the vice president, he supported the administration’s pro-abortion policies, including Obamacare, which forced religious employers to pay for drugs that may cause abortions.

https://www.lifenews.com/2020/01/14...ortion-joe-biden-more-priests-should-do-this/

 

I hope I'm interpreting their motives correctly. They ought not give an inch to the perverted.

 

The baptism should be done privately by the priest and not in the Church.

It is a grave scandal to have a child baptised publicly of such unions in a Church full of witnesses.

 

This is astute. Right.
In our area, we suffer from the opposite situation. Our priest doesn’t want to baptize a child if the parents aren’t members of the parish, do not complete some kind of intake talk, or give plenty of notice. The godparents must provide documentation from their parish, and I feel rightfully so. But the other conditions make it very difficult sometimes, and the outcome might well be that parents avoid the baptism hoopla altogether. My son was almost 2 months old before he was baptized. I like the idea of baptizing very early. I feel too much emphasis is being put on fear of the possible outcome that the child might not be brought up Catholic. We can’t nail jello to a wall.

 

This article was mentioned on the World Over tonight.

Rome’s Shame in China
Robert Royal | Monday, January 13, 2020 | https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2020/01/13/romes-shame-in-china/

China is a large, strange, complex, contradictory thing, even before you get to the large, strange, complex, contradictory, and murderous form of Communism that has come to dominate its various peoples. No one understands it very well. But those closest with a real say – the Hong Kong protesters who know what submission to Beijing means, and Taiwanese voters who roundly resisted mainland pressure in elections this weekend – are united in believing that China is simply not to be trusted.

It’s worth trying to think through why the Vatican seems to have a different view.

Living in Washington, I’ve met any number of sincere and dedicated public figures, as well as many scamps, scalawags, con men, and outright liars. But the few encounters I’ve had with Chinese officials set the gold standard for shameless lying – particularly about religious persecution.

Even secular journalists with little love for religion routinely report these days on China’s increasing outrages against believers. Their reports tend to focus on religious groups Western secularists favor – the 1 million Uighur Muslims in China, for example, who are now being brainwashed in “re-education” camps.

Journalists are much less interested in China’s 100 million Christians (Protestants and Catholics). Or how religious bodies are being brutally “sinicized,” even forced – incredibly – to re-write their scriptures to bring them in line with Communist ideology.

Last week, a Congressional committee on China issued a blistering report, which began: “Observers have described religious persecution in China over the last year to be of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.” It documented how not only “foreign” religions (i.e., Christianity and Islam) are being squeezed, but even traditional faiths like Buddhism and Hinduism are under a full-court press against religion now.

Just the next day, Pope Francis gave his annual address to diplomats, and did not utter a word about Chinese persecution. Indeed, his 2019 address to the diplomats claimed that the Vatican’s Provisional Agreement with China “is the result of a lengthy and thoughtful institutional dialogue that led to the determination of certain stable elements of cooperation between the Apostolic See and the civil authorities.” [Author’s Correction: An earlier version of this column mistakenly attributed this quotation to the 2020 address. – RR]

How is such stone-blindness possible?

There’s an answer perhaps in A Hidden Life, Terrence Malick’s moving new film about the martyrdom of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian Catholic whose conscience would not allow him to swear allegiance to Hitler. I’ve had an interest in him since I wrote my book The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century.

A mea culpa: He was one of my very favorites among many modern heroic and holy figures, almost totally ignored by historians. But I had to write about him as a historian myself, with only the broad outline of his personal struggles as he thought about how his wife and children would have to cope without him. How his friends and fellow villagers regarded him as a traitor (they, of course, felt guilty that they had compromised with evil and took it out on him and his family). How, as the Nazis never tired of telling him, his death would change nothing; no one would ever know about it; his stubbornness would only bring suffering to those he loved.

Some have criticized the slow, lengthy treatment of these matters in the film. But how else to convey what it’s really like to live under relentless persecution, day after day, and deal with tortures and doubts to a degree that would drive most of us mad?

But even that was not the worst. Franz’s pastor and bishop (Joseph Fliesser of Linz) nervously suggested he be obedient to public authorities, as St. Paul counseled. (Rom. 13) These men were not monsters, or Nazi shills. They did not intend to destroy the Church, but thought that by passively going along they were actually saving as much of the Church as could be saved, in terrible circumstances. There was also personal cowardice, of course, mixed in with the other motives. They were wrong, massively wrong, as anyone can see today.

Something similar is going on in China right now. The Vatican, by its accord with an evil government, has essentially told Chinese Catholics that they are wrong to remain independent of a regime they see quite clearly is murderous and hell-bent on forcing the Church to be re-defined along lines that will make it harmless to government interests.

Reliable sources say that the same instruments of manipulation officials used so effectively in imposing the “one-child policy” are now carrying out the sinicization of religious bodies.

So where are the bold Catholic voices protesting the intimidation and taming of the Church? We have Hong Kong’s retired Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, who just issued a heartfelt letter to all the Catholic Cardinals, which ends on a personal note to each of them, “Your Eminence, can we passively witness the murder of the Church in China by those who should protect and defend her from her enemies? Begging on my knees, your brother. . .”

There’s been silence about this letter – to say nothing of the horrors it describes – at the highest levels in the Vatican, i.e., Cardinal Parolin, the Secretary of State, who worked out the Provisional Agreement with China, and Pope Francis himself.

We’ve heard from Parolin that we must be patient and keep up hope, but the facts on the ground are beyond dispute: the Church has been had. The belief that “dialogue” – which like “diplomacy” has become something of an idol in certain internationalist circles – is possible with certain forms of evil will someday be seen, as is clear already to many of us, as a foolish experiment that many Chinese – and not only Chinese Catholics – will pay for with their liberties and lives.

And it won’t stop there because other malefactors around the world are watching. If you have to suffer and perhaps die anyway, better to do so like Franz Jägerstätter – as he told his captors, as a free man, although he was imprisoned – than to accept a false peace, which is, sooner or later, only the peace of the graveyard.

Edited to add:
I think that Robert Royal should have included this photo in the article instead of the one of Parolin which I did not post.

“Hold! Hold! Look for the Chinese people! They are losing the Faith!!” stated this Chinese woman to Pope Francis.

***


World Over - 2020-01-16 - Full Episode with Raymond Arroyo
Published on Jan 16, 2020
REP. JIM SENSENBRENNER, US Congressman from Wisconsin and member of the House Judiciary Committee on the next step in the process of the impeachment of the President now that the articles of impeachment were brought to the US Senate this week.

EDWARD PENTIN, Rome correspondent for The National Catholic Register reports on the Benedict XVI/Cardinal Robert Sarah book controversy and the latest news from the Vatican.

THE PAPAL POSSE...FR. GERALD MURRAY, canon lawyer and priest of the Archdiocese of New York and ROBERT ROYAL, editor-in-chief of TheCatholicThing join us with in-depth analysis of the new book defending priestly celibacy by Cardinal Robert Sarah and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the controversy surrounding it, Vatican-China relations, and the upcoming Apostolic Exhortation on the Amazon Synod.

 

Dutch Bishop Says Amazon Synod Made a ‘Mockery of the Faith’

ROME — Dutch bishop Rob Mutsaerts said this week that last fall’s Vatican Synod on the Amazon was a smoke screen to sneak in the issues of married priests and female deacons.

The official post-synodal text by Pope Francis has reportedly been completed and will be released in the next month, with some hoping and others fearing that the pontiff will open the door to ordaining married men to the priesthood when necessary for “pastoral” reasons.

“Let’s hope that Pope Francis destroys the final document of the Amazon synod,” said Mutsaerts, the auxiliary bishop of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands), “but there is little chance of it.”

In an interview with the Italian daily Il Giornale, the bishop had harsh words for the synod, saying it had “deceived the faithful and made a mockery of the faith,” adding that in this synod the Church had “invested itself in something outside its mission of leading the faithful toward Christ.”

Mutsaerts believes, moreover, that the synod, held in the Vatican in October 2019, was a “cover” to smuggle in a progressive agenda for the whole Church under the guise of addressing specific, local problems.

“The key words of the final document of the Synod were not Mother Earth and ecosystem, but viri probati, women deacons and Amazon rite,” the bishop said, pointing to progressive Brazilian Cardinal Hummes as a key player in pushing the final document in this direction.

“Of course, the consequences will not be limited to the Amazon region,” Mutsaerts said. “Pandora’s box is open and there will be implications for the whole Church. Local bishops, beginning with the Germans, will ask for the same thing.”

Mutsaerts said the push for ordaining married men in the Amazon region is a sham, since their situation is not very different from many other parts of the world.

“Eighty percent of the Amazon population lives in large cities,” the bishop said, and therefore “the problem of the lack of priests is not different from that of many other areas of the world.”

The problem, he insisted, is not so much a lack of priests as “a lack of faith,” which is not resolved by ordaining married men, as is evidenced by the situation in other churches that have married clergy.

“It’s enough to look at what is happening in the Anglican Church where married priests are common,” he said. “The crisis in other churches is bigger than that of the Catholic Church and the collapse of the faith is dramatic.”

All the synod brought was “confusion and controversies,” the bishop said. “It had nothing to do with revelation, redemption or what is essential in Catholic teaching.”

“Even Jesus was barely mentioned,” he said.

The bishop’s interview took place in the midst of a brouhaha over a new book on the importance of a celibate priesthood with a section written by emeritus Pope Benedict. The book has been seen by some as an attempt to persuade Pope Francis not to accept the idea of married priests in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation.

https://www.breitbart.com/faith/202...ays-amazon-synod-made-a-mockery-of-the-faith/

 

He is speaking babble. There will be no peace among the people of the world till the purification from heaven has finished and it has barely begun. If he were teaching the truths of the faith with the clarity and prestigious the previous two popes have done, then his hopes would bear fruit. But as it is, his ambiguity towards the faith teachings handed down and taught more explicitly by St. Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict have greatly hindered any hope of unity in God and His truth.

 

Cardinal Sarah has announced that he has met with Benedict and that both stand firm. That should put an end to their critics...if the latter continue, they will only embarrass themselves even more. Archbishop Vigano magnifies the questions that Ganswein must answer-is he a servant or a gaoler? According to Archbishop Vigano, Ganswein has been 'Gestapo' over Benedict since the beginning of his pontificate.

 

That is chilling to hear--that he has been Gestapo since the beginning of B16's papacy. Prisoner of the Vatican indeed. Just like the prophecies.

 

The notion of a pope 'imprisoned in the Vatican' lead me to read the 1634 prophesy of Our Lady of Good Success. It is an uncannily accurate description of our times. Our Lady even described how corruption would enter into the heart of our homes and attack our children (television and internet?).

 

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/b...st-german-bishops-synodal-path-of-destruction

Breaking now, Archbishop Vigano came out of hiding in Munich.

 

Wow, Professor de Mattei calling for an end to voluntarily paying the Church tax in Germany would have an immediate and rather large impact I would think. I was wondering when someone would step up and put this idea forward.

Rather long but a good read on the events there. Thank God for those with courage to speak out.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/c...ng-german-church-down-schismatic-synodal-path

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1218544347299426305

Michael Matt's short video
Archbishop Vigano is at the 27 second mark in a tan coat