While Francis is our valid Pope, I think it is quite plausible that the present unprecedented role of the Pope Emeritus is part of God's plan in a situation that is also without precedent, even if only to help us remember how it is proper for a pope to act and behave. However, He could have other plans way beyond my thankfully limited imagination. In the light of how most of us are sticking with PF, despite all that has happened and continues to happen, maybe you should reconsider that last sentence! Finally, Father Z suggests, via Monsigneur Charles Pope, that we should all now pray for a Humanae Vitae occurrence, in the hope that Pope Francis will shock the world with a synodal closing document that rejects everything that has been suggested, much as Paul VI did with HV. Both men are not so naive that they don't realise that this is a huge long shot requiring miraculous intervention. But that's why we pray. Let us pray for this miracle.
Lumena, thank you for your concern. I'd rather die with my own than survive with strangers. If it comes to what you fear, I might be more use at home.
Since I was about 13 years old, the Lord has shown me in dreams, huge walls of water coming to our coastlines here in the South Island of New Zealand. As a result, I do not like the sea, I fear it. I ask: " Lord, please do not let me die that way, in cold, dirty ocean water that inundates the towns and cities, carrying with it everthing in its path. "
De Gaulle, are you able to provide a link to Monsignor Pope's peice? Its excellent. Ive just read it. He repeats we are on the precipice, several times. Ive only got my cell phone right now, so I cant do it.
Lumena, I got it. Oct. 28, 2019 Pray for a Miracle — An Initial Reaction to the Close of the Synod Pray for an apostolic exhortation that glorifies and lifts up Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation. Msgr. Charles Pope | http://www.ncregister.com/blog/msgr-pope/pray I, like many of you, feel overwhelmed by the events of the past month in Rome. Many an evening, late into the night, I have come before the Lord in the rectory chapel in lament for the confusion and chaos in the Church, the Lord’s beautiful bride and our mother. Oftentimes too in the fourth watch of the night, between 3 and 4 a.m., I return to the chapel, for with my cares I cannot long rest. Reported from Rome are terrible and seemingly impious things at worst, and confusing and ambiguous things at best. In the final document of the synod are included proposals for married priests on a wide scale and women “deacons.” The Church is currently deeply divided and, I would argue, on the brink of schism, if the Pope includes such proposals in his apostolic exhortation and plan. We must pray for him as never before to hold the line, much as Pope Paul VI miraculously held the line in 1968 when he wrote Humanae Vitae, upholding the Church’s perennial view of the nature and purpose of human sexuality and the ancient forbiddance of contraception. He did this against pressure from the spirit of the age — a pressure that was even stronger than the pressure Pope Francis currently encounters. And, like Francis, Paul VI was no conservative and was very friendly with the agents of radical change. This makes Humanae Vitae all the more miraculous, and we must allow this to give us hope now that Pope Francis will issue a document that does not take us over the brink. But frankly, it would seem it is going to take a miracle. Pope Francis is deeply enmeshed in the Amazon Synod and its outcomes. It is clear that the Synod was stacked with liberal — even radical — members and that all the matters that ordinary Catholics feared going into the synod have been realized. Pope Francis was certainly at the helm in this Synod and seems to have learned his lessons well at previous Synods where he was publicly resisted. There was a tight leash on the proceedings and press conferences were highly scripted. Catholic reporters did a worthy job, asking often tough questions. The usual reply to these questions by the hand-picked press panel was to express surprise and outrage that such questions were even raised. The whole process has been steeped with the jargon and ambiguity that is the hallmark of this papacy. And the ambiguity reaches to the most serious matters. Even well before the Synod assembly there were claims in the media that the pope holds annihilationism (that God simply annihilates the souls that choose hell). And even worse, that the Eternal Son, Jesus was not divine. Do not such wild claims that the Pope holds such views, touching on the deepest roots of our faith, deserve immediate disavowal from the Pope himself? At the very least we deserve more than the vague assertions by the Vatican that these remarks attributed may not be accurate. Really? Is that the best we can get? Do not the faithful need and require a clear reiteration of the truth? And should not such a disavowal of error and reiteration of the truth also include a clear rebuke of Eugenio Scalfari, the journalist for his deeply erroneous reporting? Yet, not only is he not corrected and rebuked, he remains esteemed and is granted repeated access to the Holy Father — an access some of his own cardinals and bishops are refused. The point is that matters like these are not handled forthrightly and clearly. Instead, they are left in a fog of ambiguity. Add to all this the appalling event in the Vatican Gardens, attended by the Holy Father and a number of Synod participants and fathers. There are pictures of some of them, bowing fully prostrate before a wooden statue of a naked, pregnant woman. After weeks of silence we are told by the Pope that this was not idolatry and there was no idolatrous intention. But then why did people, including priests, prostrate before it? Why was the statue carried in procession into churches like St. Peter’s Basilica and placed before altars at Santa Maria in Traspontina? And if it isn’t an idol of Pachamama (an earth/mother goddess from the Andes), why did the Pope call the image “Pachamama?” What am I to think? And why am I not reassured by the ambiguous and contradictory statements? How is this not analogous to the “abomination or desolation” that foretold the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Matthew 24:15)? To any average person this has idolatry written all over it. Simply saying there is no idolatrous “intention” does not remove what the eye can plainly see. I would be shocked even to see the faithful prostrating before statues of the saints. Kneeling can indicate mere prayer, but prostration — which photos of the event seem to clearly depict — indicate full worship of adoration. These are but three very grave matters that touch on the divinity of Christ, the First Commandment, the doctrine of hell and the very nature of Holy Orders. God’s faithful deserve more than ambiguous and confusing replies. Much analysis will be made of the 33-page Synod report. But in a certain sense the report doesn’t matter. Everything depends on the Pope now; everything is on his desk. Reports that the apostolic exhortation will come soon suggest he has already written the bulk of it — maybe even before the Synod took place. No one would have dreamed that Pope Paul VI would have decided the way he did in 1968. Humanae Vitae stunned the world. We must pray for a miraculous stunner now as well. Pray for an apostolic exhortation that glorifies and lifts up Jesus as the only way to salvation. An exhortation that focuses not merely on a clean environment but purified souls. An exhortation that doesn’t speak of listening to the spirits of the rainforest, but of listening to Jesus, the Eternal Word of the Father. An exhortation that summons us to prayer, to the sacraments, to the Word of God and to the ancient and perennial teachings of the Church. Pray for an exhortation that casts aside Pachamama and points to Mary, who leads us to her Son! Let us pray: Help us, Lord. Save us and have mercy on us, and draw us back from the brink. We acknowledge our sins Lord and that all of us have fallen short of the glory and holiness to which you have summoned us. But now, on the edge of a precipice, we pray for a miracle — indeed, Lord, one that will stun the world. Guide the Holy Father, who now writes an apostolic exhortation, and may his thoughts be directed only to you and the precious faith you have revealed. Lord, we are poor and needy — whom do we have but you, O Lord? To whom else can we turn? In these times of deep confusion and division we ask a miracle, Lord — yes, a miracle. Mother Mary, intercede for us. Amen. *** Edited to add: I don't always understand Pope Francis' statements, like some in this article but I suppose that I am posting the link to this article to inspire us to pray as fervently as possible which is probably mostly a reminder to myself. Oct. 27, 2019 Pope Asks for Focus on ‘Diagnosis’ of Amazon Synod Report The Holy Father said main dimension is proclamation of the Gospel; and he will reopen the Church’s study of the possibility of women deacons. Hannah Brockhaus/CNA | http://www.ncregister.com/daily-new...s-of-amazon-synod-report#.XbajLiy5nHk.twitter
I find any hard conclusions concerning the plants a bit of a stretch. I can't see the potted plants as an idol, however I don't believe on the high altar was the proper place to put them. In fact, plants at the base of the altar might be a reasonable expression of Amazonian culture, similar to flowers around the altar at Easter here in the States. We will drive ourselves to distraction by putting every variation under the microscope. 2 Thess 3:16 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with you all.
Old Romanian grandmother’s saying: If you look for something with a lit candle, you will find it. (Spoken with irony) RIP, Grandmother.
In the west, we have been trained that little things don’t matter. That it is just art or someone’s ideas. People really don’t mean it. That things don’t really have any ramifications. Songs and movies are just art. The church is just trying to be open to other cultures. That has put us in a very dark place.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this entire crisis goes back to the Protestant Revolt. Sola Scriptura led to a rejection of Catholic Typology and the adoption of shallow one-one allegories, and that ultimately leads to what you've just described. Countless Protestants of have asked what's the difference between a statue Our Lady and a statue of this She-devil, as though merely having a statue of a woman, or any statue or image of any religious person or creature constitutes idolatry. A statue of Martin Luther in Rome, leads to a statue of the Antimary in Rome.
Haha! You can´t make this stuff up. The Amazon document was changed in its English translation. They left a whole section out! Go to about 1:00 in the video below.
If I´m not mistaken, Prof. Plinio Oliveira, founder of Tradition, Family, Property https://www.tfp.org/ identified three main revolutions that ushered in the period of chaos and the great apostasy, that would bring about the chastisements and the second coming of Christ: The Protestan Reformation The French Revolution The Russian Revolution 1) The author shows the First Revolution was in the Theological Ground during the Protestant (Pseudo)Reformation: The Primacy of the Individual to Interpret Scripture without the Magisterium. 2) The Second Revolution came then as a revolt-reform against the First Revolution through the Age of Enlightenment: The Primacy of the Individual in all aspects of Life. 3) Then finally the Third Revolution is the revolt-reform of the Second Revolution through Communism which had its intellectual foundation in Enlightenment Age thinkers: The Revolution in a Full Realization of Political Life. It´s like he sees one single revolution unfolding in three different stages. He predicted (after the fall of soviet communism, I believe) that a Fourth Revolution would subtly infect and destroy the West now that many of those living under Communist Rule and the Communist Ruling Elite were being welcomed without suspicion into many Western Nations, especially the more Powerful ones: The Revolution in Subtle and Day-to-Day Living, wherein we do not realize an Unseen War is unfolding. This is what we may be witnessing now.
You can't have God as your Father if you don't have Mary as your Mother, and you can't have Pachamama as your mother without having Fraud-a-papa as you father. Lord have mercy!
