I saw a little thing that really touched me this morning. Apparently there are protests all over Rome at the moment. Large protests. But anyway I saw one group of Italian simply kneeling in the Piazza Praying with rosary beads in their hands. So sweet. But only little old lady caught my attention. She was kneeling there beads in hands but looking up so attentively to heaven her gaze so rapt as though she expected God to come down from heaven and fix things. Wonderful Faith.. Very moving.
I never felt that JPII and Benedict were attributing legitimacy to paganism, no matter how inappropriate their ecumenical gestures. As an astute poster to Father Z realised, Our Lord has been betrayed in the garden again.
What took place in the garden is not my religion. It’s ridiculous. And very sad. But like I said here before I’m thankful this nonsense is so clear now, thankful for the fact that the Vatican is not even trying to be ambiguous anymore. That Jimmy Martin gets a Private audience and new age pagan worship gets the popes attention, while conservative Catholics are insulted, rigid, and ignored (dubia) is absolutely disgraceful.
I was appalled reading Fr. Longenecker's article. He describes a 'New Evangelisation' that seems to be going very wrong in many parts of the world. He mentions China, India and Central America/Caribbean specifically. I think the Church has failed to take into account the consequences of human stupidity and naivety in its evangelisation efforts. These human weaknesses necessitate, let's face it, rigid rules and methods in the propagation of the Faith. Throw wickedness into the mix with the inevitable aforementioned weakness and you have a perfect storm. It's all rooted in humanistic pride and arrogance.
I think that the feathers have a religious meaning from their animist past (and possibly present). There are lots of different tribes and some have had more outside contact than others. The Yanomami are one of Brazil's biggest tribes. This website gives some information about that tribe's religion and customs: https://www.onlytribal.com/the-yanomami-tribe-of-the-amazon-rainforests.asp "Religion and Traditions The people solemnly observe the religion of animism, the trait of investing plants and animals around them with animal spirits called the xapiripe. Using a hallucinogen known as yopo, one is empowered to make the spirits of animals and plants enter his own body to give him spiritual powers. They also believe in the concept of there being four layers of the cosmos. They choose their shaman or medicine man from within their people, with men being the predominant choice for the job. A shaman has to relieve a person from his illness by pulling the spirit called hekura by using his own demons. Common Yanomami rituals Endocannibalism, a burial ritual, calls for a dead person’s body to be covered in leaves and kept in the forest for about 35 to 40 days. After the insects have consumed the soft tissues, the bones are stored by the men in gourds. After one year, in another ceremony called reahu, they savor the ashes in the form of a soup. This ash eating is done to show respect and ensure that the pure soul reaches hedus, the Yanomami paradise. The yopo hallucinogen is made from the bark of a tree. There's a disgusting video on youtube of a German being "cured" by a shaman and it shows how the yopo is snorted through something similar to a bamboo cane. One person blows the yopo through the cane and into the other person's nostril. I'm not posting a link to the video because it's not for the faint hearted. Demonic doesn't even begin to describe it. The Yanomami do have contact with the outside world and their cause is being championed by a crowd called Survival International which seems to be very well connected, especially in the US. Survival International's website has some info and videos about different tribes. They have a video of one man whom they claim is uncontacted yet the man is holding a machete which clearly wasn't home made in the jungle. Survival reminds me very much of Jesuit social justice warrior types. The indigenous tribes have been very badly treated. Their cause is a perfect fit for the wealthy "we can fix the world" types. Here's a short video of a Yamomami shaman giving an intro to his book "The Falling Sky" about his tribe (published by Harvard University). There are other, longer youtube videos of him at some kind of College-type gathering in the US. Other tribes described on Survival website (with videos) are the Indians of Raposa-Serra do Sol. They're in the Brazil/Venezuela/Guyana part of the Rain Forest but they have had outside contact for over two centuries. They look to be a better fit for the people who were in the Vatican. Here's Survival's info about them: https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/raposa It's hard to say this without coming across as very disrespectful to the people who were at the ceremony in the Vatican, but I would be very wary of ordaining them to the priesthood even as part-time priests (or diaconate if the Synod decides to ordain women deacons).
Saint Padraig, when he brought the Faith was a very good example. He rolled up his sleeves and burnt, attacked, destroyed the Pagan idols . He was in agreement with Saint Paul that in worshipping false Gods people were worshiping devils unawares. St Benedict at Nursia is another good example. He attacked and destroyed an idol to the Goddess Diana. Again and again when these idols were destroyed the demons that inhabited these spots kicked back. Catholic saints and missionaries in Europe and throughout the world have vehemently attacked idols and idol pagan worship every time it showed its face down the ages. But how can you spread the Catholic Faith; taught to us by the Fathers if you don't even believe in ti yourself? The verdict on Saint Padraig by today's Vatican would be that he had problems. The verdict on St Benedict would be that he is rigid and intolerant and we need to be kind to him. The verdict on St Paul of Tarsus would be that he should have been accompanying the pagans instead of prosleytising them. Instead of driving the snakes out of Ireland he should have accompanied and learnt from them.
Fr. Corapi used to say, “There is no such thing as conservative and liberal, there is only truth and untruth.”
The psalm comes to mind "if the Lord does not build the house then in vain do the builders labor and in vain does the watchman stand his watch if the Lord is not his strength..." For 50 plus years "we" have been building a house that will not stand. The traditional so called orders of the Church are overflowing with sound vocations and yet Rome is trying now to put the brakes on them. Yet clearly the Lord is "building the house" of these wonderful orders--nuns and priests. I scratch my head. Hello! Knock knock! Anybody home? Rome in it's current iteration seems blind and deaf.
This is of course how the world sees this whole thing's purpose......chastity be hanged. Pope Opens Debate on Celibacy Requirement for Catholic Priests Ordination of married men is the most controversial proposal at a three-week meeting on the church’s challenges in South America’s Amazon region VATICAN CITY— Pope Francis formally opened a meeting of bishops that will debate whether the Catholic Church should loosen its 1,000-year-old requirement of celibacy for priests. The potentially momentous debate pits those who say ordaining married men could relieve the church’s clergy shortage against those who warn that doing so would undermine the distinctive character of the priesthood. In his homily on Sunday, at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope didn’t refer specifically to the celibacy debate, but called generally for innovation in the church’s ministry: “If everything continues as it was, if we spend our days content that ‘this is the way things have always been done,’ then the gift vanishes, smothered by the ashes of fear and concern for defending the status quo.” This month’s Vatican meeting, called a synod, is dedicated to “new paths for the church” in South America’s Amazon region. Organizers have stressed the ecological topics on the agenda, including deforestation and other threats to indigenous communities. The most controversial “new path” scheduled for discussion over the next three weeks is the possibility of ordaining married men to serve as priests in the sparsely populated region, where Catholic parishes sometimes go for months without a visit from a priest. The synod’s official working document calls for considering the ordination of “elders, preferably indigenous, respected and accepted by their community, even if they have an existing and stable family, in order to ensure availability of the sacraments that accompany and sustain the Christian life.” Such candidates for the priesthood are known as viri probati, Latin for “proven men.” The pope has said that the “door is always open” to married priests in remote places such as the Amazon or the Pacific islands. He has also said he needs to pray and reflect further on the question. The ratio of Catholics to priests in South America is 7,200 to one, almost four times the ratio in North America, according to Vatican statistics for 2017. In parts of the Amazon, the ratio is more than 8,000 to one. The world-wide ratio has risen sharply in recent decades, to about 3,200 to 1 from 1,900 to 1 in 1980. On Thursday, at a press conference to introduce the synod, Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, a former archbishop of São Paulo, lamented that Catholics in the Amazon frequently lack access to the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, on account of the priest shortage. “The church draws her life from the Eucharist,” the cardinal said, quoting St. John Paul II. The Catholic Church routinely ordains married men as deacons, clergy who can officiate at baptisms, marriages and funerals. But deacons cannot celebrate Mass or hear confessions, essential elements of Catholic life. Married men do serve as priests in the two dozen Eastern Catholic Churches that follow the pope in Ukraine, Lebanon and elsewhere. In recent decades, some married Protestant ministers, mostly Anglicans, have been ordained as priests after becoming Catholics. But in the Roman Catholic Church—to which to which the vast majority of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics belong—celibacy has been the norm since the 11th century. Not all members of this month’s synod think expanding the pool of potential priests by ordaining married men is the solution to the Amazon’s priest shortage. Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican office for bishops and an expert on Latin America, said the move could be counterproductive. In a book on the subject published last week, the cardinal wrote that clergy working in the Amazon are “welcomed and integrated into local communities precisely because of their celibacy,” a status that lends a priest’s “preaching a weight or fire…from a life completely given to his Lord in ministry.” The Rev. Martín Lasarte, an Uruguayan priest who is one of the 21 non-bishops among the synod’s 184 voting members, has said ordaining married men is an “illusory, almost magical proposal that does not touch the true fundamental problem” of the church in the Amazon. Father Lasarte said the Amazon region has the potential to produce abundant vocations to the celibate priesthood but suffers from decades of inadequate evangelization. Catholic missionaries there have provided charity and fought for social justice but often neglected to teach the Catholic faith out of an exaggerated fear of showing disrespect for local cultures, he said. Any decision to ordain married priests would finally be up to the pope, who would likely extend that permission only to bishops in the Amazon region, at least at first. But such a move would promptly stoke demand for the practice in other regions with similar challenges, said Adam DeVille, a professor of theology at Indiana’s University of Saint Francis and editor of a forthcoming study of married Catholic priests. “People will quickly pick that up and say, ‘well, if it can happen in the Amazon, then why can’t it happen in, say, the Yukon or the Northwest Territories or Greenland?’” Mr. DeVille said. The Catholic bishops of Germany are already planning to debate priestly celibacy, along with other sensitive issues including homosexuality and women’s ordination, at a national synod starting in December. Father Lasarte said that priestly celibacy wasn’t an appropriate topic to address at a meeting dedicated to only one region, such as the Amazon, because the unity of the church requires international consensus on the question. “Any decision that touches fundamental elements of Christian life and pastoral care has repercussions throughout the global village,” Father Lasarte said, pointing to regional fissures in the Anglican Communion over disagreements about teaching on sexual morality. “Sometimes it’s necessary for everyone to walk at the same speed.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-o...-requirement-for-catholic-priests-11570352167
Someone posted a comment beneath the video of the conference in Rome organised by Lifesite News. I think it was a woman lay missionary in Latin America. She asked why the videos aren't in Spanish because very few people down there are aware of what's going on. She said that the Catholic Church has stopped evangelising in remote regions and whenever she visits those areas she sees Evangelicals but no Catholics yet most of those countries were or are predominantly Catholic. As someone else said, the Church in Latin America stopped preaching Jesus Christ and became political, only promoting liberation theology. No wonder the Evangelicals are cleaning up in the region because they preach Jesus Christ. Pope Francis didn't look too happy at the end of that pagan ceremony in the Vatican. I know that he was all smiles to the visitors but back on his chair he looked out of sorts and at one stage I though he had nodded off to sleep. If you look at the very end of the full video, you'll see that he made straight for his car and seemed to be quite curt with the person who held the door for him. Also, towards the end of the speeches there was a young man from Assisi who actually spoke about Jesus and read a psalm. Someone came up to him and seemed to slip him a note in the middle of his speech. He wrapped up his speech right after that. I wondered whether the Pope had told someone in charge that he wanted to leave.
Perhaps one is permitted to wonder if this Pope made some pact with the left earlier than the last election. And one wonders as well as to what type of questioning of one's self, as a priest at the time, would move that person to seek understanding or explanation or rationale from a female Jewish psychiatrist....who "helped". Is there an inner confusion that is misleading one to be used, not all that enthusiastically, by those with much stronger determination to end the Church's "past"?
I put it down to age. He's 83 years old and this Synod could be his last chance to change the priesthood. Also, he has to keep the Germans happy to keep their money flowing in but the US also gives a lot of money to the Church. How much do you reckon illegal immigrants and Cafeteria Catholics put in the collection baskets at Sunday Mass?
Nobody’s home. Rome is too busy building a house of their liking, not God’s. This imposter church that they are creating will fold like a house of cards.
I hope they listen to Father Lasarte. What kind of faith in their message have these missionaries that they chicken out for fear of showing disrespect to paganism? God help us, previous generations weren't afraid to die for the Gospel. Relativism is just a fancy word for atheism. There are either Truths or there's nothing. Two contradictory things can't both be true. One can't claim to accept the First Commandment and simultaneously reject it.
