I opened this thread with the above, but I've come across a clip by Jimmy Akin that urges caution due to the context of Pope Francis' speech and his mannerisms. Though it is the most convincing of all the defenses I've heard, it is far from ironclad. As with Amoris Letitia and all that has followed, the damage has been done. Anytime I enter into a conversation on apologetics with non-Catholics, there'll be a lot of pushback provided by Pope Francis.
I liked the post to thank you for posting, but every time something comes from him it's just so blatantly anti Catholic How long Lord! Penance, penance, penance....
Yes, even the evangelicals/ Pentecostals/ fundamentalists/ born again/ bible only/ independent Christians know heresy when they see or hear it. This guy on the Chair of Peter is making Catholic apologetics extremely difficult. Even if you convince them of the historical and scriptural Truths of the Church, most will not consider formal conversion under this heretic. Saturday I had a long conversation with the committed Christian Baptist who swapped ultralight aircraft engines with me in Maine. He had a shop accident and while in the hospital his Baptist minister came to visit him. During the conversation he said whenever he closed his eyes, he had a vision clear as day of two sweet elderly sisters sitting at the foot of his bed, in very traditional old fashioned habits, quietly praying for him. Whenever he opened his eyes, all he could see in his hospital room was his Baptist minister. As soon as he closed them - while wide awake! - he only saw, clear as day, the two sisters seated at the foot of his bed, praying quietly for him! This happened several times until he was afraid to close his eyes again. But he refused to mention it to his Baptist minister. It made him intrinsically understand the Communion of the Saints, and eventually explicitly. I said to him, “Don’t you think God was trying to tell you something?!” He sheepishly replied, “Yes.” But going to the local Baptist church across the street was, frankly, easier. He could hear and understand the minister. He had gone several times to the local Catholic Masses in northeast Maine but the priests spoke quietly with a thick French Canadian accent and he couldn’t understand them. I made some points about God calling him to the Holy Eucharist but I hoped he wouldn’t mention the current papacy because there’s no Catholic defense for it. Fortunately that never came up.
I cringe at the above double usage of the word, sometimes, by Michael Haynes! Such potential sophistry by Vatican officials (Chiodi in this case) is often a warning shot over the bow. Lord have Mercy!
I think some of the homilies I've heard that were the best were some of the ones in Spanish that I couldn't understand.
His experience shows that God is reaching out to all. You were there to continue the planting of seeds that the Lord will germinate at the proper time. Matthew 13: 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6 but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears, let him hear.”
Perhaps you could talk to him about the message of Fatima, which warned about the current apostasy, and draw an analogy between the bad kings of Israel and the bad popes that God sends throughout history as punishment for the disobedience of His people.
The evil one likes to spin a good yarn. The plot of all souls getting to Jesus after death is the easy part. The hard part is what comes next. Will He recognize Himself in us? The Catholic Church is His Mystical Body of which His members are the building stones. Living stones which will be judged harshly by our enemy, but which can withstand any trial because of Who we are a part of, the One whom we stand before. Only God can recognize God. To come before Jesus is the easy part, but will He recognize us?
That area of Maine is richly Catholic. Or at least it used to be. Back in the day all the devout priests were sent north--or so the common understanding went. Priests like Fr. Roux ( Marian Movement of priests) What a gift to have him as one's pastor.
Recently I had a thought that Our Lady inspired joyful laughter when with the apostles in her later years. It was a heartening thought. Also, that the Holy family must have shared joyful laughter in their home. People who inspire laughter are restful to others, I think.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/fr-murray-popes-claim-that-every-religion-is-a-way-to-god-contradicts-christ-himself/
Taylor Marshall has just done a fairly good youtube entitled "P. Francis triples down on all Faiths lead to God". I'm sorry I cannot link to it. Can someone provide a link to it? Taylor gets a couple of questions / comments at the end, about the Chastisement, which leads to Taylor making some interesting observations. Taylor says we are in the Chastisement now and that he believes we will decline as a society slowly like Rome did, I.e. it won't be an overnight thing, it will be long and torturous. E.g. the economy won't need a stock market crash, it will just be a painful time of economic distress. I feel I agree with him there. E.g. the past 3 years here in NZ of high interest rates have meant that there is no money left over for discretionary spending and all the family income goes to pay the mortgage to hold on to the family house. The worry of not being able to pay it is drawn out over years, the uncertainty of how long the rates will stay high leads to the years long fear that one day it will mean the family home will be lost. So all the worry and tension goes on and on and is hard to bear. And no one I know buys new clothing any more. When we need something, we go to a charity thrift store. And the society continues to degrade. The teenager school students in my city, 90 % seem to only be able to speak with foul and vicious language. ( I hear them as I take the bus everywhere. ) Everything is a joke to them and they mock everyone. And every weekend they look forward to parties and frankly debauchery, it's all they can talk about. They don't mind who is listening as they have no shame. I hear them plotting about lying to their parents, or talking about their drugs, alcohol, hookups and unplanned pregnancies. It makes me feel that there is too much degradation to hope for the next generation of little ones growing up in this sewer. "Innocence will no longer be found in children." - Our Lady to Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, Quito, Ecuador.
We had just come out of the initial phase of plague / pestilence years, to be then faced with the mortgage interest rates crisis in which the official cash rate just kept on rising, every quarter, and our Reserve Bank Governor frankly stated that he would need to engineer an Economic Recession to get inflation under control - . Which they did, and we have negative GDP as a result, no economic growth. And many of our young and middle aged people are now leaving NZ to go to Australia in the hope of finding work and being able to buy a house there. However, Australia is also having economic tough times- to put it mildly. And now we have the specter of more plagues / pestilence coming our way in the form of new and worse diseases. And the Chastisement of the current Pontificate with Pope Francis (and Tucho) also drags on and on interminably and means there is a spiritual void or vacuum and no clear direction or safe place to run to, seemingly. Difficult to direct these hardened teenagers to a Church where apostasy resides in the highest echelons. So I was expecting a Chastisement that would be sudden and extremely dramatic, but in every way, it is long and drawn out and incrementally worsening as each day goes by. Somehow we in my own family are holding on and thanking God for that, but wheras I used to hope for a new generation of grandchildren in my family, I now feel very concerned that my one and only grandchild ( so far) will grow up in such a wicked and perverse generation that ....well I can't find it in me to hope for more grandchildren. I know this is wrong and I never thought I would be in this place. It's as if we have to live in a seige mentality and barricade the rest of the world out from our homes/ enclaves. And not much hope of sending our children or grandchildren to schools - as the schools are such cesspools now. Sorry for complaining... but yesterday I found that the teenagers on the bus and their conversations had me so sorrowful that I was praying for the mountains to fall on us and the hills to cover us.
You are right, of course. I find myself praying rosaries and the Fr Dolindo Surrender Prayer. Jesus has overcome the world, but sometimes we become overwhelmed by it all. He quieted the stormy seas. He’s the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Have faith as if a grain of mustard seed. I am a retired high school teacher. The teenagers today are very worldly and sin is endemic. But not all are like that.
