Thank you for finding this - it is clearly incongruous and a grave contradiction to be against gay marriage and in favor of gay civil unions. Civil unions counter the reality of marriage and conjugal life as much as gay marriage. Indeed, considered even just for heterosexual people, they are a lethal attack on the man-woman Church marriage. Phillipe Ariño has written extensively on this but mostly in French or Spanish. I am gonna try to translate a relevant part.
Yes, Brian, every one of us irrespective of status has a duty to defend the faith. Remaining silent belies our profession of faith. It's speaking the truth with charity that's my main stumbling block. What brought me here was my instinct that something was wrong in our Church but I couldn't put my finger on it. The rake of scandals culminating in the child abuse scandals forced me to confront what faith I was professing. It took me a long time, a lot of research and prayer (my own prayers and others praying for me) to get back to trusting that the Catholic Church is the one, true Church founded by Jesus. Just when I was back on track, some Bishop in Britain announced that it was perfectly understandable for a Catholic minor member of the UK royal family to baptize their child in the Anglican Church rather than have the child lose very remote succession rights to the British throne. Then Pope Francis was elected and we started seeing heresy being promoted as good. My Catholic instincts were screaming "something's seriously wrong here". I calmed my fears by reassuring myself and others who dared express the same fears with the firm belief that finally we had a Pope who was flushing the heretics out into the open so he could clean up the Church. It didn't take long before I had to face up to the fact that the Pope was doing no such thing. Then I started wondering whether we were in the throes of the Great Apostasy and the end of the world so I searched the internet mainly to research Catholic end times prophecy because the Church has so little official teaching on the end times. That's how I stumbled across this forum. Right at the very beginning, Joe called me a heretic for daring to ask questions and express concerns. I knew nothing then about the St. Gallen group. I knew nothing about the track record of some European and American clergy who are now effectively running the Church. I didn't need to know about them to recognise that something is seriously amiss. In the short time I have been a member here, I have seen faithful Catholics declare all sorts to be ok and even sources of God's grace. They will declare just about anything to be in line with Church teaching because Pope Francis either promotes it or doesn't speak against it. These heresies embraced by Catholic members of this forum who would have denounced them prior to this Papacy include: Communion from a woman Protestant minister is an adequate substitute for the Blessed Eucharist in dire emergency if there's no Eucharist available; adultery is not really adultery if there are children in the second union (add a whole spectrum of excuses to that); maybe homosexual practices aren't really sinful (they don't say it outright but use every excuse under the sun to portray evil as good); co-habition isn't really such a bad thing provide it is long term and only between two people; cohabiting couples receive the grace of marriage; open Communion in Catholic Churches (they don't say it in such stark terms but that's effectively what they mean) is a step in the right direction. There are other heresies but those are the examples I can think of off the top of my head. In fact, the single Church teaching they adhere to without question is Papal infallibility except that they apply it only to the current Pope and to almost everything he says or refuses to denounce. I'm grateful to Mac, you and others for helping me get things in context. I'm grateful to Padraig for providing a forum where those of us who believe in the faith handed down to us can freely air our troubles. I'm especially grateful to Praetorian for helping me keep a Catholic perspective on this crisis in the Church and reassuring me that the Church is more than one flake of a pope and his ego massaging entourage of blatant heretics who have all the hallmarks of men who have replaced Our Lord Jesus Christ with the Zeitgeist. I struggle still with four questions: If synods can be manipulated, and there's no doubt that there was manipulation of the most recent synod, can a conclave be manipulated? If the answer is "yes", and I believe it is, can the most recent conclave have been manipulated by the same people who manipulated the synod? If the answer is "yes", should there be an investigation into the conclave and matters leading up to it? If the answer is "yes", who, if anyone can or will conduct that investigation? I'm editing this post to add one more question: If a Pope can be anathemised forty years after his death, why can't a Pope be anathemised during his lifetime for doing exactly what a deceased anathemised Pope has done?
The trouble is how and to whom we should speak. When I go to Mass, there are leaflets in the porch inviting us to something or other that's headed "Amoris". While I know that "Amoris" means love, I know that the leaflet most likely has something to do with Pope Francis and his heresy enabling Exhortation. The very look of a little leaflet fill me with revulsion. A nearby Church where I attend Mass has an enormous picture of Pope Francis propped up beside the altar. As Catholics, we believe that all men are sinners. Only saints whom the Church has declared to be already in Heaven are venerated. It is wrong and un-Catholic, therefore, to elevate to the level of saints a living sinner no matter how much authority he wields on earth. How and to whom do I raise the question of how a priest in his homily can reduce these readings to "do good works"? Granted, the priest is from Africa and likely studying in Maynooth which would explain a lot. Nevertheless, there's something not right when these readings can be interpreted to mean "do good works": Epistle: First Thessalonians 4: 1-8 For you know what precepts I have given to you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that you should abstain from fornication; That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour: Not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that know not God: And that no man overreach, nor circumvent his brother in business: because the Lord is the avenger of all these things, as we have told you before, and have testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification. Therefore, he that despiseth these things, despiseth not man, but God, who also hath given his holy Spirit in us. Psalm 97: For the same David, when his land was restored again to him. The Lord hath reigned, let the earth rejoice: let many islands be glad. Clouds and darkness are round about him: justice and judgment are the establishment of his throne. The mountains melted like wax, at the presence of the Lord: at the presence of the Lord of all the earth. The heavens declared his justice: and all people saw his glory. You that love the Lord, hate evil: the Lord preserveth the souls of his saints, he will deliver them out of the hand of the sinner. Light is risen to the just, and joy to the right of heart. Rejoice, ye just, in the Lord: and give praise to the remembrance of his holiness. Gospel: Matthew 25: 1-13 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were foolish, and five wise. But the five foolish, having taken their lamps, did not take oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made: Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise: Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. The wise answered, saying: Lest perhaps there be not enough for us and for you, go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. Now whilst they went to buy, the bridegroom came: and they that were ready, went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. But at last come also the other virgins, saying: Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answering said: Amen I say to you, I know you not. Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour. Pope Francis had his friends at L'Osservatore Romano launch a vicious attack on Evangelicals because the Catholic Church has been haemorrhaging members to Evangelical churches in Latin America, especially in his native Argentina. Perhaps Latin Americans are hearing what Catholicism always taught before Pope Francis and his friends decided to steer a different course. Perhaps the truth attracts people seriously searching for it and they aren't hearing God's truth in Catholic churches. For an example of how yesterday's homily could have expressed what Catholicism has always held to be true while being relevant to the Mass readings of the day, sadly I have to quote an Evangelical theologian. The statement deserves a post of its own, so I will quote it in the next post, but my question stands: How and to whom do we speak the truth in charity when our shepherds are sidestepping or in some cases contradicting God's truth? I don't know the answer. I hope you or others do. I decided yesterday to take a break from the forum because I can't think of anything good currently happening in our Church other than the Blessed Eucharist which is being demeaned and endangered by those in power. I'll give it some more thought over the weekend.
Here, thanks to the Catholic World Report, is a summary of the statement from the Evangelical theologian which I linked to in a previous post. Why aren't we hearing this from the successors of the Apostles? http://www.catholicworldreport.com/...l-theologian-responds-to-fr-james-martin-s-j/ An Evangelical theologian responds to Fr. James Martin, S.J. A consideration of Fr. Martin’s “seven ways” of responding to the Nashville Statement underscore the truncated gospel (or even anti-gospel) with which Martin operates. August 31, 2017 Robert A. J. Gagnon Features, Opinion 22 Print It is not surprising that Pope Francis’s communication adviser, Jesuit priest James Martin, has decided to attack the Nashville Statement, an evangelical declaration that affirms “that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness” (Article 10). It is even less surprising that the hard-left Washington Post, a zealous propaganda outlet for the promotion of homosexualism and transgenderism, has published his tweets about it (“Seven simple ways to respond to the Nashville Statement on sexuality,” Aug. 30, 2017). What is surprising is that Fr. Martin still has his job as a Vatican communications consultant. Martin’s tweets confirm the by-now widely held perception, reinforced repeatedly by Martin himself, that his raison d’etre involves undermining the Catholic Church’s upholding of Jesus’ teaching on a male-female foundation for sexual ethics, upon which Jesus’ teaching about the binary character of marriage (twoness) is based. A consideration of Martin’s “seven ways” of responding to the Nashville Statement underscore the truncated gospel (or even anti-gospel) with which Martin operates. We’ll skip over the fact that the “seven ways” are repetitious, as (for instance) the overlap of one and seven (God the Father loves all LGBT people) and three and six (Jesus doesn’t want us to judge LGBT people). Contrary to Martin’s repeated claims, the Nashville Statement does not deny God’s love for persons who gratify sinful same-sex desires or sinful denials of one’s birth sex. Rather, consistent with the witness of Jesus and Scripture generally, it manifests love by calling such persons away from intrinsically self-dishonoring and God-abhorring desires to an authentic self in keeping with their creation in God’s image. Again contrary to Martin’s claims, Jesus’ statement about not judging (Matt 7:1) was never intended by Jesus to be a denial of all judgment, particularly since a third to a half of all of Jesus’ sayings are accompanied by some motif of warning about a coming judgment. Matthew 7 itself (the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount) closes with a triplicate of warnings about cataclysmic judgment for those who merely hear, but don’t do, what Jesus says (7:13-27). It also contains a warning not to “cast your pearls before swine” (7:6), surely a judgment of some as “swine.” Martin himself makes judgments about those who signed off on the Nashville Statement, though he appears to be unaware of the inconsistency. Presumably even Martin holds the line on some moral standards (Incest? Polyamory? Abortion? Racism?), which means that he himself doesn’t construe Jesus’ “don’t judge” statement absolutely. Indeed, in the context of Jesus’ ministry the injunction “don’t judge” has to do with not majoring in minors, with not being introspective about one’s own sins, and not reaching out in love to reclaim the lost by leading them gently out of sin (Matt 7:2-5; Luke 15). According to both Luke 17:3-4 and Matt 18:15-20 Jesus urged rebuke of those engaged in egregious sin, with communal discipline of those who fail to repent. Matthew situates the warning about cutting off offending members that could get one thrown into hell (5:29-30) in the midst of warnings about the importance of sexual purity. Jesus clearly based his view of marital monogamy and longevity on God’s creation of two and only two complementary sexes, “male and female,” as established in Gen 1:27; reiterated in Gen 2:24 as the foundation for marital joining of two halves into a single sexual whole (Mark 10:5-9; Matt 19:4-6). This is a “judgment” made by our own Lord: an inviolate standard that the Church must hold at all costs. Our Lord’s words on divorce and remarriage are predicated on the even more essential two-sexes foundation for all sexual ethics, where the creation of two (and only two) complementary sexes implies a limitation of two persons to a sexual union. Like many who seek to promote homosexual unions and gender identity confusion, Martin wants to make the “don’t judge” statement a canon within the canon, falsely treating it as an absolute injunction while applying it selectively. Contrary to Martin’s contention, Jesus did graciously challenge and warn persons who were engaged in egregious sin, not just in his group teachings but also in individual encounters. When Jesus encountered the woman caught in adultery he did tell her to “no longer be sinning” with the inference that otherwise something worse would happen to her, not merely a capital sentence in this life but loss of eternal life (compare John 8:11 with 5:14). Yes, “all of us are in need of conversion” but Martin doesn’t want to convert people out of a homosexual or transgender life. He wants the Church to affirm the sin or at least to cease to take a stand against it. Martin complains about the Nashville Statement singling out “LGBT people.” Yet the issue here is the attempt in the broader culture and in sectors of the church from people like Martin to single out homosexual and transgender behavior for exemption from the commands of God. Martin is not truly welcoming the sinner but rather affirming the sin. He wants the lost son to remain lost in the deepest sense, for one is “found” only when one returns in repentance (Luke 15:24). Moreover, Scripture does treat homosexual practice as a particularly grave sexual offense precisely because of its intrinsically unnatural character and violation of God’s starting point for marriage as a union between “male and female” or “man” being “joined” to a “woman.” It is not the “chief” of sins but it is a grave sexual offense nonetheless (see “Is Homosexual Practice No Worse Than Any Other Sin?”). Infant baptism does not inoculate an individual against the judgment of God for failing to lead a transformed life. There is no sin transfer to Christ without self-transfer; no living without dying to self and denying oneself (Mark 8:34-37). Paul’s warning regarding the Corinthian community’s tolerance of an adult-consensual union between a man and his stepmother is a case in point. “Is it not those inside the church that you are to judge?” (1 Cor 5:12), Paul asked rhetorically. The answer to that question is not “no” (as Martin seems to think) but “yes.” The Nashville Statement does not claim that persons who engage in homosexual practice can never act in a holy manner. We all compartmentalize our lives. But the areas we are good in do not validate the areas we are bad in. From the standpoint of Jesus and the writers of Scripture, engaging in behavior abhorrent to God contests any claim to holiness. The bottom line is this: Fr. Martin is using—or even abusing—his office to undermine what for Jesus was a foundational standard for sexual ethics.
Here it is, Philippe Ariño on civil unions (original below, with my emphasis): Why does the civil union [law] pose a problem? Because it is the first global law that is based on heterosexuality, that is, based on the sexual orientation of people [hetero, homo, bisex, etc] and no longer on their humanity [man and woman]. We have converted Human Rights into "rights for homosexuals and heterosexuals." With civil union Love has become a contract, a matter of genital practice and feelings (as if we were both animals and angels [instead of human]). The PACS (French law for civil unions) sees the human being only from the point of view of asexual [angelical] feelings of love. It is therefore a great danger [to our humanity and therefore to our catholic faith]. [original: Pourquoi l’Union Civile pose problème ? C’est la première loi mondiale qui s’est basée sur l’hétérosexualité, justement, sur l’orientation sexuelle des personnes et non plus sur leur humanité. On a glissé des Droits de l’Homme aux « droits des homos et des hétéros ». Avec l’Union Civile, l’amour est devenu un contrat, ou une affaire de pratique génitale et de sentiments (comme si nous étions des animaux et des anges). Le PaCS (Pacte Civil de Solidarité) n’a vu l’être humain que sous l’angle des sentiments amoureux asexués. C’est donc une loi très grave.] -- To understand the answer above it is necessary to read more of Philippe Ariño. I would just add that in his writings, you will find the notion that homosexual/heterosexual union laws are the same thing, they erase the marriage man-woman based on Love. The legitimacy claims of both gay marriage and heterosexual marriage (marriage-divorce-marriage-divorce...) are based on an asexual notion of feelings and love, whereby those 'angelical' feelings justify everything you can think off - they are victorious over the Law of Love which establishes a condition or natural law in human relations: that they are based on the complementarity of man and woman, that such conplementsirty is at the heart of conjugal life, which goes way beyond the genital and the sentimental because it is a fundamental pillar of God's creation, as revealed by the Word in both old and new testaments, and it is also what separates us from animals (which do practice disordered sex just as they practice murder even between their own kind). Hope this makes some sense - it's a complicated subject we Catholics are not prepared for it, that is why homosexual persons that have converted are the ones that can best defend the Church and Christ against affirmations like those of Fr Martin and now even the Pope. I will continue to share Philippe Ariño as I encounter more of his pieces - it's a shame he has not translated his books into English yet!
Let me just add that the notion of heterosexuality is really the key here - it is the hidden devil. It erases our humanity by reducing human sexuality, based on the complementarity of man and woman, to a genital and purely sentimental option, therefore opening the doors wide open to all sorts of sexual alterities (homo, bi, etc). The Catholic Cathecism and the Bible are extremely wise in not using that notion, and speak instead of man and woman only! That is why when even committed Catholics and pro life movements speak of "heterosexuality" and the "rights of heterosexuals" they are only doing a Huge damage to the Church! With their oposition language to homo marriage and their pro for hetero marriage they are just affirming and legitimizing the hetero/homo/bi...the whole gender identity apparatus!
There's no doubt it has been a long hard journey for us all. Looking back on it I would say it was one of the hardest spiritual trials of my life. I was so afraid I was wrong about the whole thing. Far worse that I was wrong about it and leading other poor souls astray. Thank God that parts over. The mist has cleared so to speak and the devil has come right out in the open. It is so hard to hear of Evangelicals preaching the Gospel Truth while our own spread lies and heresy. But I was thinking today how I looked down my nose at the Anglicans when they went off the rail. How I thought we were so much better then them. May God forgive me. So very,very humbling. Then again a bit of humble pie does no harm. As for the future who knows? Our Lord brought us thus far no doubt He can lead us a little bit further. Lead kindly Light. I still have moments when I suspect all this is just a nightmare. But like I say at least the confusion part is over for me at least. I know my enemy. Oh Lead Kindly Light!!
Talk about being astounded. I keep thinking it can get no worse. What a total horror picture. I do so hope this is not true. I really, really do. Sometimes I have a wish to die and go on home rather than witness anymore of this, this filth.
Yes, a long hard journey with no end in sight. It's hard to be charitable, especially when you see people grabbing heresy with both hands because it makes life easier, suggests their lukewarm friends and relatives are really devout and the Pope either said it's ok or didn't condemn it, therefore, to not embrace the heresy is Pharisaical. It's a drip, drip of poison to the stage where even God's omnipotence is debatable with the Gospel supposedly telling us that it's God who needs us. We need to keep on reminding ourselves that the Church has survived bad popes in the past and survived a majority of bishops embracing the Arian heresy. What we're currently enduring is arguably worse than anything that went before but we must remember that never before have Catholics had such easy access to authentic Church teaching. God never closes a door without opening a window. Jarg's posts are very interesting. I hope that nobody is banking on the Catechism remaining unchanged. The Catechism doesn't have the stamp of infallibility and the same Cardinal Schonborn who had a hand in drafting it under the watchful eyes of our two previous popes could be given a free hand to revise it under the current Pope. Jesus told us that some demons can only be exorcised by prayer + sacrifice. We need to sacrifice. Incidentally, although I found the forum interesting as a lurker, I joined because of the thread about Lough Derg. Thanks again, Padraig, for the forum. I had everyone's intentions enrolled in a year of Masses yesterday as well as enrolling a few special intentions to fulfil some promises I had made. The Masses will be said by Carmelites because they're the only order I trust nowadays. I hope my trust isn't misplaced due to my own ignorance about them but from what little I have seen of them I trust that Our Lady is protecting them from the worst of the diseases infecting her Son's Church.
"The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead Thou me on" text from Cardinal Newman, next lines of Lead Kindly Light
Dolours, what a deeply thoughtful thing to do to enroll us in a year of Masses. Thank you so very much.
I gave Pope Francis the benefit of the many doubts I had of him for his first few years. I miss many of our friends who left the forum when it got heated. I do not regret my decision back then to not criticise PF, but I sometimes wonder how those who left the forum feel now about our pope? If any are still riding the fence on his papacy at this point, they do not realize what apostasy is. I wish several of them would come back and contribute to the forum once again. Jesus used to look at the crowds around him and pittied them. I pity many around me who seem content in their cluelessness. I too am glad the confusion of where the pope and many cardinals, bishops and priests stand on doctrinal issues is clear for anyone who has faith to see. For those who still refuse to see, I don't know what it will take. It is clear to me that we must now take this fight to our own priests, bishops and laity in the pews who are buying into this apostasy. I am finding most are so clueless to this apostasy that you can't even speak to without the deer in the headlight look. For my part, it is a matter of heightened prayer trying to draw as close to our Lord as possible and entering deeper into the ark of our Blessed Mother, until it becomes more clear what God wants of me.
Dolours you are truly expressing the anguish in my heart and others too. I don't have the answer at all. I am making my way one step at a time and very very hesitant and trying to be careful not to put a foot wrong. Please please please don't take a hiatus from the forum. Your posts are always a blessing to me--and to many many of us here. All these things you mention are just so horrifying and discouraging but---and this I know as surely as I know anything--discouragement is of the devil. This terrible sifting that we are suffering through is so often a temptation to doubt and to get discouraged and to pull back. I feel it myself all all the time but I try not to give in to it. I keep telling myself that we are in our own Gethsemane with Jesus and if this wounds and outrages us what must it do to Him? I have no answers. I wish I did. I only know that everything is being shaken loose and the Rock is the only sure anchor we have. I mean the Lord as the psalmist says my Rock my Fortress my Deliverer. I am going to put you right on my beads tonight that Jesus pours deep consolation over your soul. God bless and God keep you.
I really love the Carmelites. I would always trrust Contemplatives, prayer keeps them safe if they are living their vocations. The problem is with the active orders. Thanks so much for the Masses. September 23rd looks more and more interesting...
I don't mean to be uncharitable but I would be a little careful at this stage of anyone who is not asking questions about what is going on in Rome now. We are pretty far down the road at this stage. Either they are willfully ignorant or they are fellow travellers.
I agree. The Church is in eclipse. Somewhere in some ancient prophecy I have read that the Church will be eclipsed. The Church is still alive but behind a darkness. All is not lost. But we are truly in Gethesemane with what is going on in Rome right now. I agree we have to pray a lot for others, for the perseverance of the just, and for the hierarchy. Looking prophecy up online. I just looked, and it is Our Lady of La Salette. " The Church will be in eclipse" and "Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of Antichrist."
I loved this article. I have read about La Salette for a long time. There were two children involved, and Our Lady gave Melanie some secrets. If I recall correctly, the secrets were suppressed. Not sure. But similar to OL of Fatima. La Salette is approved. Tied in with Knock.
