Saturday, October 24, 2015

Pope, ending synod, excoriates bishops with 'closed hearts'

By Philip Pullella

(Reuters) Pope Francis, ending a contentious bishops' meeting on family issues, on Saturday excoriated immovable Church leaders who "bury their heads in the sand" and hide behind rigid doctrine while families suffer...

In his final address, the pope appeared to criticize ultra-conservatives, saying Church leaders should confront difficult issues "fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand."

He said the synod had "laid bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church's teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families"...

The synod document did offer some hope for the full re-integration into the Church of some Catholics who divorce and remarry in civil ceremonies.

Under current Church doctrine they cannot receive communion unless they abstain from sex with their new partner, because their first marriage is still valid in the eyes of the Church and they are seen to be living in an adulterous state of sin.

They only way such Catholics can remarry is if they receive an annulment, a ruling that their first marriage never existed in the first place because of the lack of certain pre-requisites such as psychological maturity or free will.

The document spoke of a so-called "internal forum" in which a priest or a bishop may work with a Catholic who has divorced and remarried to decide jointly, privately and on a case-by-case basis if he or she can be fully re-integrated.

"In order for this happen, the necessary conditions of humility, discretion, love for the Church and her teachings must be guaranteed in a sincere search for God's will," the document said.
Tally sheets showed that the three articles on the divorced and re-married were the most fought-over, reaching the two-thirds majority needed to remain in the document by only a few votes each. One passed by only one vote... (continued)

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich on the Synod Against the Family

By Ann Barnhardt

Across the transom…
From Blessed Catherine Emmerich, AA II. 488.
“I saw within a city, a meeting of clergy, laymen and women, who were sitting together, eating and making frivolous jokes, and above them a dark cloud which descended in a plain submerged in darkness. Amid this fog, I saw Satan sitting and around him, many companions as people were in the meeting which was going on underneath. All these evil spirits were continually moving and busy trying to push the people at this meeting to do evil. They whispered to them to their ears and acted on them in all possible ways. These people were in a very dangerous state of sensual excitement and in provocative conversations. Churchmen were those whose principle were: “You have to live and let live. In our time we should not be apart or be a misanthrope (a person who hates or distrusts humankind): we must rejoice with those who rejoice.”

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Saturday, October 17, 2015

Journey Home - Priesthood With Fr. Shane Tharp


Journey Home - 2015/5/4 - Priesthood - w/ guest Fr Shane Tharp 

"Fr. Shane Ian Tharp suffered a massive heart attack and died Friday evening, Oct. 16, 2015,  while on retreat with other priests of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City."  - The Coming Home Network

Pope Francis wants a transformation of the papacy and a synodal Church

By Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Since the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Francis – or could we coin a new phrase? The “periphery of Pope Francis”? – I have been saying that his aim is to weaken the Roman Curia. HERE and HERE and HERE are examples.

Today Francis addressed members of the Synod, et al., on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Synod of Bishops.

I think this speech (HERE) may be a turning point of some kind.  I don’t know what kind, yet.
Clearly, the Pope wants a more “Synodal Church”.  He says that this has been his intention from the beginning of his
pontificate… periphery. He said (my translations):
Fin dall’inizio del mio ministero come Vescovo di Roma ho inteso valorizzare il Sinodo, che costituisce una delle eredità più preziose dell’ultima assise conciliare.

From the beginning of my ministry as Bishop of Rome I intended to enhance the Synod, which constitutes one of the most precious legacies of the last conciliar assembly (i.e. Vatican II).
He goes on with comments about sensus fidei that I am going to have to parse with patience.   Including:...  (continued)


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Friday, October 16, 2015

Archbishop Cupich lays out pathway for gay couples to receive Communion at Vatican press scrum

By John-Henry Westen and Pete Baklinski

ROME, October 16, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago — who is participating in the Synod of the Family at Pope Francis’ personal invitation — said at a press scrum in the Vatican press office this afternoon that the conscience is "inviolable" and that he believes divorced and remarried couples could be permitted to receive the sacraments, if they have "come to a decision" to do so "in good conscience" - theological reasoning that he indicated in response to a follow-up question would also apply to gay couples.

During the lengthy press briefing, the archbishop also spoke approvingly of the so-called "Kasper Proposal," which would permit divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion in some cases. Cupich explained that he had distributed Cardinal Walter Kasper's book, The Gospel of the Family, in which the cardinal had laid out this proposal, to all of the priests in his diocese.

“In Chicago I visit regularly with people who feel marginalized: the elderly, the divorced and remarried, gay and lesbian individuals and also couples. I think that we really need to get to know what their life is like if we’re going to accompany them,” he said.

When asked to give a concrete example of how he would accompany the divorced and remarried in their desire to receive the sacraments, Cupich replied: “If people come to a decision in good conscience then our job is to help them move forward and to respect that. The conscience is inviolable and we have to respect that when they make decisions, and I’ve always done that.”

When asked by LifeSiteNews if the notion of accompanying people to "the Sacrament" who had a clear indication of conscience to do so also applied to gay couples in the Church, Cupich indicated an affirmative answer... (continued)


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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Out of the Lobby


By Father Ray Blake

The Holy Father asked for forgiveness for the scandals in the Church, without mentioning which scandals, it could be the latest episode of Vatileaks or more likely the removal two Discalced Carmelites, one of whom accused the other of homosexual acts after a male prostitute spent several months in hospital after being beaten up, and of course the opening scandal of the Synod with that CDF Monsignor 'coming out'. Presumably what he is not asking for forgiveness for is the pro-Gay Fr Rosica fronting the English language section of the media briefings who seems to introduce at every opportunity or Abbot Jeremias Schröder who took part in this mornings briefings wants and the issue of homosexuality to be delegated to local bishops' conferences to decide, who has himself long called for the Church to bless homosexual unions, nor Archbishop Forte who added pro-gay clauses to the Relatio of the extra-ordinary Synod last year and is on committee that will oversea the final document - which may or may not be published.

Some have suggested this should be called the 'Gay Synod', rather than the Synod on the Family, what is more than apparent is that what was once a shadowy lobby is now front and centre out of the lobby and sitting in the drawing room. The Synod presenters, if not the discussions themselves, seem to be obsessed by the homosexual issue... (continued)


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Tuesday, October 13, 2015

This week the Catholic Church is in chaos. And Pope Francis is to blame

By Damian Thompson

(The Spectator) The Catholic Church is this week in the biggest mess it’s been in since the Second Vatican Council, and Pope Francis is to blame.

The Vatican cardinals in charge of doctrine, finance and worship are believed to have written to Francis at the beginning of the Synod on the Family – now in its second chaotic week – privately warning him that it was likely to spin out of control. That’s because most of the world’s bishops don’t support any major change to the church’s rules on allowing divorced and remarried people to receive communion, or to the way it treats gay couples. You may think they’re wrong, but that is the situation. Also, the cardinals were exasperated by changes to the synod’s procedures that seemed designed to give undue prominence to liberal voices.

A version of the letter was leaked yesterday. There’s confusion over its wording and the names of the 13 cardinals who reportedly signed it, but we know roughly what it said and we can be pretty confident that it had the support of Cardinal Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Pell, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy; Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship; Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York; and Cardinal Napier, Archbishop of Durban. So there we have three out of the four most powerful cardinals in the Curia, plus the most important American cardinal. Sarah (who is from Guinea) and Napier are the two most influential African cardinals.

When the letter appeared, liberal Catholic journalists made desperate attempts to play down the story – making them look like idiots when, this morning, Cardinal Müller described it as ‘the new Vatileaks‘, referring to the revelations of Vatican skulduggery that probably triggered the resignation of Benedict XVI.

I don’t know how all this will play out. The conflicts and the boundaries between liberals and conservatives are too difficult to map. But it’s time to recognise that – however endearing you find him – Pope Francis is responsible for this crisis. Not only has he made bad decisions, but he has sometimes made the same bad decision twice. In order, then:

First, he decided to kick off a debate about admitting divorced and remarried Catholics to communion by handing the microphone to Cardinal Walter Kasper, a retired German theologian who takes the – by Catholic standards – extreme view that people should be allowed to decide for themselves whether to receive the sacrament. Kasper is an old adversary of Benedict XVI, with whom he clashed on the fundamental subject of the authority of bishops vis-à-vis popes. This offended Benedict loyalists and confused everyone, since it seemed to imply that Francis, like Kasper, favours devolution of spiritual authority to local churches.

Second, Francis called a preparatory synod on the family a year ago during which the two officials running it, Cardinal Baldisseri and Archbishop Forte, were allowed to stage a mid-synod briefing suggesting that the synod fathers favoured lifting the communion ban for people in second marriages and granting a limited degree of recognition to same-sex couples. Since this wasn’t true, all hell broke loose. Baldisseri and Forte should have been banished to dioceses in Antarctica. Instead…
Third, Francis reappointed these two prelates to run the full-scale synod that’s falling apart as I write. Why, I have no idea. It was hardly in his interests to tell the world that he couldn’t learn from his mistakes.

Fourth, the Pope made the aforementioned changes to synod procedures that enabled conservatives to go around saying that the whole thing was rigged. I’m not saying it was, but yesterday Cardinal Napier, no less, said it was ‘hard to tell’ whether the result of the synod had been decided in advance (i.e., rigged). What I do know is that more than one of the alleged signatories to the leaked letter have been very angry about the changes for some time and felt the Pope wasn’t taking their objections seriously.

Fifth, Francis personally invited to a synod on the family the ultra-liberal Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who five years ago tried to conceal the fact that a bishop had molested his nephew. The invitation was a disgrace and it reflects badly on all the Synod Fathers that none of them has interrupted the proceedings to demand Danneels’s expulsion.

These serious errors have been seized on by conservatives, as you’d expect. But if I were a liberal (and, for what it’s worth, I do favour some of the changes espoused by the radicals) I’d be furious that the stubbornness and questionable judgment of a good and holy man, Pope Francis, has turned sensitive debates into ideological warfare.

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Related:

Monday, October 12, 2015

Crisis for Pope Francis as top-level cardinals tell him: your synod could lead to the collapse of the church


By

Update, 3.20pm Monday: As I write this, various cardinals have said they didn’t sign the letter, some of them waiting several hours before distancing themselves from it. Now Erdö says he didn’t sign it. It’s extremely hard to get at the truth. ‘Not signing’ can mean a number of things, ranging from an outright false claim that a cardinal supported the letter to panicky backtracking by cardinals who did assent to it but are grasping at the technicality that they didn’t personally append their signature. But the damage to the synod is done.

(The Spectator) A group of cardinals – including some of the most powerful figures in the Catholic Church – have written to Pope Francis telling him that his Synod on the Family, now meeting in Rome, has gone badly off the rails and could cause the church to collapse.

Their leaked letter, written as the synod started, presumably explains why a few days ago the Pope suddenly warned against ‘conspiracy’ and reminded the cardinals that he, and only he, will decide the outcome of the synod.

This is the gravest crisis he has faced, worse than anything that happened to Benedict XVI, and he knows it.

And, talking of the Pope Emeritus, I suspect that, had he been free to sign the letter, he would have done so.

The cardinals warn the Pope, in diplomatic language, that (a) the synod is being hijacked by liberals obsessed with the narrow issue of giving Communion to divorced and remarried people; (b) going down the route of ‘pastoral flexibility’ could lead to the Catholic Church falling apart in the same way as liberal Protestant denominations; and (c) the synod working papers prepared by the Pope’s allies Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri and Archbishop Bruno Forte are a mess and going down badly with the Synod Fathers.

The seniority of the signatories shows how close the church is to civil war. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith – the Church’s doctrinal watchdog – is on the list. So is Cardinal George Pell, head of the Vatican’s finances, and Cardinal Robert Sarah, in charge of the Church’s worship.

Sarah is the most prominent African cardinal in the church, along with Cardinal Wilfred Napier of Durban, who has also signed. Add to that the name of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, and it becomes clear that the loss of confidence in Pope Francis extends far beyond the Vatican... (continued)


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Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Synod Showdown Report - October 6, 2015


By Michael Voris, S.T.B.

(Church Militant) There were a few fireworks at the very end of today's press briefing that took place after the morning sessions. It's clear what's going on here is that there are an awful lot of bishops sitting in the Synod who are not really expressing theological thoughts about some of these issues. Obviously some of them are, but some of them are getting their theology mixed up.

And in one particular episode right at the very end of the press conference, one last question came up from the press gallery, and on stage was the archbishop of Gatineau, Quebec, Paul-André Durocher, who was asked, "What about this question of the discipline versus the doctrine of administering Holy Communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics? Is it safe to say that this issue is still under debate? And if so, what does that say about the question of the dogma and the discipline?"

And he gave an answer that stunned a number of us inside the press room. He said, 'If you want dogma, go read Denzinger. The Synod will be deciding and talking about whether this is a discipline or it's a dogma."

That caused one priest who was sitting very, very close to us to sort of go into a rage. He actually confronted the archbishop on the way out of the door and said, "All you bishops, everything you're doing here, is this conciliarism, which is destroying the Church! You are confusing the faithful. You don't know the Faith."

There was a very, very strong reaction; you could see the division between faithful Catholic journalists and the more liberal crowd reporting — for America Magazine and National Catholic Distorter (I mean Reporter) and all this. There is quite the division here. It's really funny because every day they stand up and tell us there's no division. And then they stand up and say something divisive, and the whole thing falls apart again. This is very interesting, the way this is all playing out.
But hold on! This is only day two. Day two of 21! And I am shocked. I cannot believe a bishop said, "Oh well, you want dogma, go to Denzinger. We'll decide whether doing the discipline differently affects dogma."

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Monday, October 5, 2015

Pray for Fr. Peter Carota

Fr. Peter Carota wrote:
"Just a personal note as to what I am going through.  I was eating a little better yesterday, but back to the same today, (only able to eat and drink a small amount).  I am trying to offer it up with Jesus’ suffering, but it is hard.  My bottom hurts to sit or lie down on because I have lost so much weight.  I have done everything that the Doctors have said and my brother Dr. Carota.  But not working..."

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Ham Sandwiches And Sausage Rolls May Be Banned From Office Kitchens For Being ‘Offensive’


(Yahoo) Kitchens that are shared between office workers may soon be banned from storing pork products like sausage rolls over fears that they are “offensive”.

New guidelines proposed by interfaith group CoExist House say that employers should consider worker’s religions before allowing ham sandwiches placed in the fridge alongside other products.

The group also suggests that alcohol should not be served at corporate events in case it upsets members of certain faiths.

Andy Dinham, professor of faith and public policy at Goldsmiths, University of London, is writing up the guidelines that will be put forward to employers this week.

Defending the controversial report, he told The Sunday Times: “It would be good etiquette to avoid heating up foods that might be prohibited for people of other faiths.

"The microwaves example is a good one.

“We also say, ‘Don’t put kosher or halal and other… special foods next to another [food] or, God forbid, on the same plate.”

He also said that religious people should be entitled to wear religious clothing and symbols as required.

He added: "We have lost the ability to talk about religious belief because of a century of secular assumptions, and most religious belief is either highly visible and we don’t recognise it, or it’s invisible and we miss it entirely.”

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Saturday, October 3, 2015

Tennessee Lt. Gov. to Christians: Buy Guns

Photo: The Associated Press

By William Bigelow

(Breitbart) On Friday, in response to the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon in which Christians were targeted and murdered, Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey minced no words in his concise message to Christians and those who believe in the values of Western Civilization: buy guns.

Ramsey issued his statement on Facebook, linking it to a New York Post article headlined, “Oregon gunman singled out Christians during rampage.” Ramsey pointed out other recent mass shootings as he posited that the targets were the same: Christians and defenders of the West. His post read:
As I scroll through the news this morning I am saddened to read the details of the horrible tragedy in Oregon. My heart goes out to the citizens of Roseburg — especially the families and loved ones of those murdered.
The recent spike in mass shootings across the nation is truly troubling. Whether the perpetrators are motivated by aggressive secularism, jihadist extremism or racial supremacy, their targets remain the same: Christians and defenders of the West.
While this is not the time for widespread panic, it is a time to prepare. I would encourage my fellow Christians who are serious about their faith to think about getting a handgun carry permit. I have always believed that it is better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it. Our enemies are armed. We must do likewise...

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Someone is Lying About the Pope’s Meeting with Kim Davis

By Austin Ruse

Papal spokesman Father Thomas Rosica flatly denies Kim Davis met privately with Pope Francis when he visited Washington, D.C. which stands in flat contradiction to Davis’s claims.

(Breitbart) In Roscia’s telling Davis was part of a large number of people as part of “the farewell greeting as the Pope was leaving the Nunciature in Washington” prior to his departure for New York City.

Rosica said the Vatican ambassador to the United States, “…invited a number of guests, his own choice, to greet the Pope, very brief greetings, and in the Pope’s characteristic kindness and hospitality he shook people’s hands and gave them Rosaries. In terms of why this person was invited, you’d have to ask the Nuncio.”

This stands diametrically opposed to the claims of Kim Davis that she met privately with the Pope and that no one else, besides a handful of Vatican personnel, was present. As proof of her version of events, Davis’s lawyer Mathew Staver points to the fact that the Vatican sent a security detail to pick her up at her hotel and deliver her to the Vatican Embassy.

Anyone remotely familiar with what Rosica describes as no more than a Papal meet and greet knows the Vatican does not send a car and driver, let alone a security detail.

Staver was with Davis when Vatican security picked them up. He said the detail were not Americans, that “they spoke Italian and when they spoke English it was heavily accented.”

Staver also told Breitbart News that he did not see a large group of people at the Nunciature that day, though the building is large and the larger group could have been somewhere else.

With such a stark contrast between Father Rosica’s telling and Kim Davis’s, it is clear someone is lying about her meeting with the Pope.

Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter @austinruse

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h/t to ChurchMilitant.com

While Doctors Kill Babies Inside the Abortion Clinic, These Pro-Life Doctors Help Women Outside


By Shawn Carney 

(LifeNews.com) Planned Parenthood is in the news again this week … as the federal investigation into harvesting and trafficking aborted baby body parts heats up.

A recent poll showed that 50% of Americans do not know that Planned Parenthood does abortions. That’s a frustrating statistic, since they are the largest abortion business in the United States. They do more than 325,000 every year!

However, you can do something about that!

Here’s how three 40 Days for Life teams that hold their peaceful vigils outside Planned Parenthood facilities are drawing their communities into the campaign.

“We are off to a great start!” said Monica in Bloomington, Indiana. “We have no reports of babies saved … because we’re not even sure if they did abortions last week!” The business was closed several days.

The Bloomington team did stage a major event outside Planned Parenthood – a Doctors for Life rally. About 200 people attended, Monica said, including “28 local physicians who put their names out there as being pro-life and committed to the protection of the unborn child. What an inspiration these doctors were to all of us!”

Some of the doctors were photographed near a mobile help center that offers free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds.

“As fruit from our 40 Days for Life campaigns, we announced that we are getting our own unit, paid for by a generous donor,” Monica said. “We can’t wait to have it there regularly to help the women going in!”

LifeNews.com Note: Shawn Carney is the campaign director for the 40 Days for Life pro-life prayer campaign against abortion.

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