Thank God for Abp. Chaput!! As far as prophecies relating to Rome, there are many older prophecies, so we need not refer to current ones, which as we all know could be made by anyone watching current events. If I worked at the Vatican, I'd be looking for a "backup" location from which operations can be run in case Rome becomes too dangerous.
With respect, Padraig, I don't think that Our Lady would want us making nasty remarks about the Vicar of Christ. Yes, we can question his apparent winks and nods towards heresy, but we must pray that the Holy Spirit will set him straight. We must also pray for the bishops who are speaking out against this apparent heresy. We are only on the sidelines. We don't know whether Vatican politics are involved in this. We don't know whether the apparently orthodox bishops are being inspired by the Holy Spirit. The stuff you posted about looking good on the outside while being rotten inside could have been applied equally to previous very orthodox papacies. My fear is that the Holy Eucharist will be treated like confetti at a wedding, throw it up and let it land where it may. There's already an element of that in our Church and it didn't happen under Pope Francis. We need to be careful what we wish for. Before his election, I wished for a pope that knew something about real life. Well, as I watched the Vicar of Christ in America, I was close to asking God to never grant me another wish. I agree with Malachi that it doesn't take a Heavenly apparition to tell us that Catholics are facing tribulation or that Rome is the ultimate goal of bloodthirsty islamists.
Perhaps this has been mentioned before but I wonder why doesn't the Lutheran lady become a Catholic? She obviously knows she is missing out on something her husband has?
Padraig, I am glad membership is going up. I think the impression is that because some members left very publicly that the forum is falling apart. I am glad to see this is not true. Personally I hate having to discuss these issues. I wish there was nothing to discuss, but there are big problems in the Church right now and we can't put blinders on. I cannot say I agree with everything you have said lately, but I can say that what you have said is my worst fear. I have to say this forum is quite unique. When I came back to the Church I was hungry for info and I wandered around the web trying to find anything I could. I visited several of the popular forums. This one is special for many reasons but especially because it has members from across the Catholic spectrum. Most other forums are "niche" forums where everyone is either a "traditionalist", "charismatic" etc. In other words everyone has the same viewpoint. Here I have learned so much more by being exposed to all sorts of people. It creates for a more full and dynamic view of the faith. It also has much more of a "family" feel. There are disagreements, sometimes strong ones but I think people feel much closer to each other here than on other forums. So anyway, I guess what I am saying is thanks.
Sometimes Dolores, balloons need bursted and it takes a needle to do this. The Fathers of the Church did this all the time. So did the saints and we find this throughout Scripture, this calling of a spade a spade. If it was done only to offend I would agree it would be a lack of charity. But if it is done to illumine a higher truth, to awaken those who slumber with a bang as the balloon bursts it has good uses, as Jesus Himself found when He was very,very nasty indeed to the poor old Pharisees or John the Baptist who was as nasty as could be to poor old Herod.
I don't want to get back in to this discussion...it seems all has been said. Mercy The Holy Fathers decree of a Holy Year of Mercy seems very appropriate for the times. If it is the end of times... like many of us believe (not everyone) then what would be the final gift from God before judgement? (Mercy?). The Holy Father can cry from the mountain tops mercy but in the end it is between God and each individual soul. If you are a practicing homosexual or adulterer (more adulterers then homosexuals) there is no diference...God will Judge. And I'm saddened to say the rules are cut and dry. But if Our Holy Father yells from the mountain tops Mercy, Mercy, Mercy...He is calling His people home before things get worse. For Mercy to work it takes an individual soul to accept he/she has SINNED and that he/she will try to their up-most ability not to do it again. It has never been stated or discussed that this is a free ticket to heaven (everyone goes to heaven). MERCY is the final gift before judgement comes. We have no clue what the Holy Father knows...and i am glad He keeps the secrets to himself. The Holy Father has all the weapons of war...true knowledge of mystics on earth, the vatican library of prophecy throughout the ages and personal battles with the "created one" up close and personal. As of this point, Our Holy Father Is trying to combat evil to the best of his ability. Some of you guys think this is all cut and dry...millions of saints before us haven't figured out the full picture. What makes us so sure. Evil is growing...these arguments mean very little in the big picture. May Gods Will be Done
I had six brothers, I don't think there was a day going by we didn't knock each other senseless. Yet a very Holy old Dominican priest who visited us one time said he found us the closest family he had ever met. Don't ask me why but I recall those fights with my brothers with great affection. There was a certain loving honesty to them.
Surety, I am afraid is for the grave, the best the rest of us can do is walk the misty old bog road as best we can and point the way to others as best as we feel the Spirit gives us Light. I admit too much surety makes me uneasy. Nothing I have to worry about at the moment I admit, it is twilight and a heavy mist falls along the mountains. But I shall do as best I can, praying to Mary , Our Mother and shuffling towards night time along that old bog Road.
I read elsewhere that she wasn't actually asking why she, paricularly, couldn't receive Communion. Rather, it was a more general question about Communion between Catholics and Lutherans. There are talks going on between the two Churches. To be honest, I'm not sure which two churches because there are a few Lutheran churches. At least one Lutheran Church in Europe performs homosexual marriage. It's one of the Scandinavian countries where Lutheranism is the State Church. Any priest unwilling to officiate at a same sex marriage in his parish is obliged to find another priest to perform the ceremony. I don't know whether the German Lutherans perform same sex marriages, but if they do I can't see the point of being in communion with them. Sorry I have edited this to say that she wasn't asking about communion for herself. I should read my posts before submitting them.
I find all this very difficult. I am not unaware of the contradictions coming from Rome and especially the damage done by such comments as 'who am I to judge'. I believe that this comment helped to confuse the catholics who voted on the SSM referendum, but really I have observed very little respect for the Eucharist in our churches in recent years. Everybody feels entitled to go to communion no matter what their circumstances and confession is forgotten by them. Its hard to see how anything can be done to change this. The only answer is prayer for the church. Things are very difficult and getting worse. We had our first SSM marriage in Ireland yesterday and we were treated to the homosexual couple slobbering all over each other in the 6 o clock news. How can children be protected. Its horrendous. I feel very disillusioned. I think these are the times that Our Lady of Good Success warned us about when good priests will suffer much have neither a pastor or father to guide them.
Make no mistake about it , the present Ponticate is taking us along the same dark road in the name of , 'Mercy'.
I think Mary it is a bit like walking when you are lost up the mountains. We need to get up to a good height to look down to see and discern patterns , to see where we have come from and where we are going too. I think we are far enough into this Pontificate now to see the pattern of things to see where we are being taken. Now it is just a matter of digging the old heels in and waiting this one out. He'll not be around forever.
But Padraig, it doesn't have to be a knitting needle. A little sewing needle will do the same job. Ease up on the language. I know where you're coming from because I've had very similar thoughts. I, too, come from a large family where whatever you feel today can be said without fear that tomorrow nobody will talk to you because the underlying love and loyalty are ever present. Not everybody sees things that way. Political correctness has even infiltrated families. Just ease up on the language which others might interpret as hate whereas you are expressing frustration out of love.
The bigger the Balloon, the bigger the needle , Dolours, this one needs a Tomahawk Missile. If it makes you feel any better, its nothing personal, I don't even know the guy. I know his works and it's that I am aiming at. Though, mind you, he is not one bit slow at lauching a few missiles himself. Must be a bit of Irish in him somewhere.
I think you are right on track here FS, personally I think the Year of Mercy comes not from Pope Francis but from heaven. I think it is a fulfillment of St. Faustina's visions in which the doors of mercy will be flung wide, but they will be closed at some point. Then God's justice arrives and woe to him who did not take advantage of the mercy. I think it is no mistake that there will be actual "doors of mercy" in every diocese that people are encouraged to walk through. I also don't think it was a mistake that St. Faustina was the first St. canonized in the new millenia. Jesus' words to Saint Faustina: In the Old Covenant I sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to My people. Today I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart. (1588) It's a sign for the end times; after it will come the day of justice. While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fount of My mercy; let them profit from the Blood and Water which gushed forth for them. (848) Before I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the doors of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the doors of My mercy must pass through the doors of My justice... (1146)
Let the Bishops be the missile. That's their job if they see a balloon. (I think a few Irish made their way to Argentine in Famine times, but Pope Francis is pure Italian stock). Our job is to pray and support whoever is upholding the Gospel as preached by Christ and the Apostles. Thus far, the Pope hasn't crossed the line. As others have said, we don't know how the Holy Spirit is inspiring the Pope. The Vatican has ambassadors throughout the world. We don't know what they see coming down the line. It doesn't take supernatural apparitions to see the future. We have it straight from the bible. Looking at the news reports from Paris, I had a sinking feeling watching French police kicking in the door of a church, and then listening to their President lauding the "enlightenment". Had that been any other house of worship, there would have been demonstrations across Europe and widespread condemnations from the "enlightened". It isn't the first time the "enlightened" French have kicked in the doors of Catholic churches and won't be the last. Shades of things to come for all of us. We need unity. The Father of Lies is the architect of division.
http://rccommentary2.blogspot.co.uk/ The anti-Francis attitude: it isn't Catholic .... The persistence of some in taking every opportunity their imagination suggests to broadcast across the ether their projections (or to re-broadcast uncritically the projections of others) of what Pope Francis has said and what they think he should have said instead ..... it has quite honestly become tiresome beyond belief. Do give over, and get a life ... It isn't Catholic to operate with a category of "faithful Catholics" and the presumably unfaithful others .... as if one can allocate oneself uncritically to the wheat without recognising that you might actually be among the tares .... both of which the Lord allows to grow side by side in his field and which, for most of us, grow alongside each other in our hearts and souls. And to then characterise Pope Francis as if he were running a campaign against you ..... Neither is it Catholic to work with categories of "Traditionalist", "Liberal" and "Conservative" - the last of which is all too readily used by the adherents of the first to pigeon hole those they think lack the intelligence of faith to see what they think is the obvious heresy before their eyes (but which, in reality, is largely the recycled gossip of the imagination of a few who, for some reason I cannot fathom, gain a credibility that unfortunately doesn't justify the bits and bytes strewn across the electronic media). And the real underlying point: almost without exception, what is projected on to Pope Francis words, what he is interpreted as saying, is not justified from what he actually said. Put simply, the anti-Francis rant isn't true .... but it is put about with a persistence and a lack of critical faculty that makes the saying of it enough for it to believed. All that "confusion" caused by Pope Francis ... isn't most of it the result, not of Pope Francis' words, but of the commentary that the great and the good of a sector of the Catholic electronic world propagate? If you have difficulty understanding him .... aren't you the one who is the source of confusion if you broadcast your own non-understanding to the world at large? Let's take Pope Francis' observation, some time ago now, about the risk of living the Christian life as a kind of ideology, rather than as a living encounter with Jesus Christ, and so with the life of the Trinity. All that anxiety about a comment aimed at criticising the "faithful" or "Traditional" Catholic .... when, if you read Luigi Giussani's The Religious Sense you find a discussion of ideology in a context of the possibility of religious faith. It wasn't a targeted arrow at all, but a reflection of a conversation in an ecclesial movement with which Pope Francis is very familiar. And more recently I have been able to readily find on my bookshelves texts that place Pope Francis remarks about the risks of gnosticism and a certain pelagianism in similar contexts. And so on. If you think he is just nagging and criticising you .... take the trouble to read around a bit and place his remarks in the context of the ecclesial conversation ... And the most recent occasion of shock - horror ..... is a complete non-story. Read properly what Pope Francis said in reply to the question from the wife of a Lutheran, recalling that he speaks of discernment of conscience in the sense intended by the Spiritual Exercises and not in a liberal sense .... and the confusion is being sown by the all too ready commentary. It simply isn't true to give the impression that Pope Francis said to the lady that she should make her own decision on the matter. And the Year of Mercy .... in which, in case you missed it, the Sacrament of Penance (confession) is clearly going to have a central role. And which is absolutely in line with the teaching of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI on divine mercy. There is no justification in trying to rubbish the Year itself, or Pope Francis' understanding of mercy. The anti-Francis attitude is not Catholic in two further ways. Read the blogs .... and doesn't it form a kind of alternative Magisterium? .... A Magisterium that, if you challenge it, you find yourself being told that you are ignorant of the Catholic faith?.... with its authorities who are above reproach and who are lauded to the high heavens as "defenders of the faith"? And doesn't it involve a "pick-n-mix" approach to Pope Francis himself? Take the bits you don't like and slate them across the networks .... ignore the bits that you should like. Cafeteria Catholicism .... but taking and leaving different parts of the menu than those normally associated with this phrase .... "hermeneutic of continuity" when it suits, but not when it doesn't .... big up Pope Benedict, do down Pope Francis (I am personally convinced that those who play off Benedict against Francis didn't really get Benedict either ...). It is tiresome.....it's not Catholic ....it's not true ....... and we can all do without it.
David, that's all grand and much of it hits home. Trouble is that Pope Francis, as head of the Church, is charged with making sure we understand Christ's teaching. Are we going to need a sub-division of the Magisterium to make sure we understand the Pope's interpretation of Christ's teaching? Why can't he use clear language that isn't open to different interpretations? He must know by now that his message is being distorted.
