Cardinal Barbarin Will Retire to Brittany

Cardinal Barbarin, pictured with Pope Francis, will retire to Brittany.

(Paris) Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, who retired as Archbishop of Lyon and Primate of Gaul despite his acquittal, announced his future role.

In March 2019, he was sentenced to six months in prison in the first instance because he allegedly did not report a sexual abuse offender, the priest Bernard Preynat, to the state law enforcement agency in good time. The cardinal had suffered media prejudice that seriously damaged his reputation. The appeals court then received the sentence in early 2020 and acquitted the cardinal. However, there was no real rehabilitation because Pope Francis considered it "more opportune", as it was said in Rome, that the cardinal resigned as archbishop of Lyon. Following this "wish", Cardinal Barbarin submitted his resignation request, which Pope Francis accepted in March 2020.

It was only on May 29, months after the acquittal and retirement, that Pope Francis received the cardinal for an in- person interview . In the meantime, the purple bearer had retired to the Holy Land for a long spiritual retreat.

In interviews with CFR and Aleteia Cardinal Barbarin said the first time about his future. To Aleteia he said:

“When I came back from the Holy Land in late May, I went to the Holy Father. We talked a lot about the Middle East. He said he would like me to be available for missions in countries that I know well, like Iraq, Lebanon, or Israel. Otherwise, he gave me the opportunity to do what I want. I had already contacted the Archbishop of Rennes and the Superior of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Saint-Pern in Brittany, where Monsignor Marcus, the emeritus Archbishop of Toulouse, lives. From the beginning of July I will be by his side, but I will also be chaplain to the sisters. In addition, Monsignor D'Ornellas [Archbishop of Rennes] asked me to teach at the Rennes seminary. ”

Cardinal Barbarin had after the publication of the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum aligned birituell training at his seminary in Lyon. The seminarians experience their preparation in both forms of the Roman Rite.

The second cardinal, recently innocent in court, initially convicted but then acquitted, Cardinal George Pell, was also stripped by Pope Francis of all his office. Unlike Cardinal Barbarin, Cardinal Pell has not been received by Pope Francis since his acquittal in April. Sources close to the Pope in Rome speak of a possible ("maybe") appointment in autumn. Francis wanted to let some time pass since the acquittal.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Vatican.va (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

The Purge of Catholic Bishops in Argentina Continues

Cornice and towers of San Luis Cathedral in Argentina. City (1594), province (1820) and diocese (1934) are named after the holy King Louis IX. named by France.

(Rome / Buenos Aires) On June 9, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Monsignor Pedro Daniel Martínez Perea as Bishop of San Luis in Argentina. The Vatican propaganda speaks of “resignation”. Since Bishop Martínez Perea is only 64 years old, it is more accurate to say that he was resigned by Francis.

Msgr. Martínez Perea, born in the city of Mendoza in 1956, was ordained a priest in 1981 for his home diocese. In 1986 he moved to the neighboring diocese of San Rafael, where he was incardinated. San Rafael was created in 1961 by dividing the diocese of Mendoza. Since 1973, the Bishop of San Rafael was the Ukrainian-born Monsignor Leon Kruk, who founded the diocesan seminary and saw national identity and the Christian faith as an inseparable unit. In the troubled years of the transition from military dictatorship to democracy, Bishop Kruk was a contact point for priests who were faithful to the Church and who opposed the subversive activities of the followers of Marxist theology of liberation. Bishop Kruk was killed in a traffic accident in 1991.

The special case of San Luis

In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI appointed Don Pedro Martínez Perea as Bishop Co-Adjutor with succession rights for Bishop Jorge Luis Lona of San Luis. The predecessor of Bishop Lona was the Capuchin Juan Rodolfo Laise (1971-2001), who died very old in July 2019 in San Giovanni Rotondo in southern Italy. The special concern of Bishop Laise, a canon lawyer, was to promote the awe-inspiring understanding of the Holy Eucharist, which is why he did not follow certain post-conciliar paradigm shifts. When he gave Communion, he openly opposed this. Throughout his life as a bishop, as well as in his pastoral and journalistic work, he advocated Communion kneeling on the tongue. At his own request, he spent the evening of his life as a confessor at the site of the long-standing work of his holy confrere, Padre Pio von Pietrelcina. The bishop, who only celebrated in the traditional rite, could only do so in private in San Giovanni Rotondo, since the religious superiors prohibited him from celebrating publicly. Until shortly before his death, he spoke up in defense of the Immemorial Rite and against efforts toward intercommunion .

Bishop Martínez Perea

When Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 was looking for a successor who would continue the legacy of Bishop Laise and the ailing Bishop Lona in the diocese of San Luis, he found him in Don Martínez Perea. When Bishop Lona retired in 2011 at the age of 75, Martínez Perea succeeded him.

The 2019 decree

On October 29, 2019, the bishop issued a decree that observers in Argentina and Rome are convinced that it would trigger for the retirement that has now taken place.

With the decree, Bishop Martínez Perea prohibited the use of female altar servers. He stated:

"(...) in the diocese of San Luis  the liturgical custom of only accepting male altar servers for ministry will continue."

At the same time, the bishop determined that any contrary practice had to be stopped and given up again where it had already started.

Decree of October 29, 2019

The bishop referred to his liturgy-based jurisdiction and the corresponding interpretation by the Pontifical Commission for the interpretation of legal texts, to the relevant circulars and instructions of the Roman Congregation of Worship from 1994 and 2004 and to the decisions of his predecessors Laise and Lona, who had "explicitly" asked for male servers only. In 1994 the Roman congregation of worship gave local bishops the opportunity to use female altar servers if necessary. There is no general approval, but an emergency regulation. In the post-Council era, however, such special regulations were made the "rule" in some countries because the drive is not a "plight" but a different theology.

In connection with his decree, Bishop Martínez Perea expressly stated that there was no need for this exception in his diocese.

The situation in the diocese of San Luis in autumn 2019 was as follows:

• Only the traditional form of receiving communion, oral communion, is permitted in the diocese.

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• Only male altar servers are permitted to perform the altar service.

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• In contrast to the recommendations of the Argentine Bishops' Conference on the controversial post-synodal letter Amoris laetitia from 2017, remarried divorced women are not admitted to the Sacraments.
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• Conservative and traditional communities and orders were also welcomed into the diocese and could develop their apostolate undisturbed.
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There are few dioceses of this kind worldwide. And that seems to have disturbed some in the Argentine Bishops' Conference and in the Vatican.

The backlash

The backlash was not long in coming. 37 days after the decree, on December 5, 2019, Bishop Martínez Perea had to inform the priests, religious and believers of his diocese that Pope Francis had ordered " an apostolic visitation of the diocese of San Luis."

Francis appointed Msgr. Milton Luis Troccolli Cebedio as Apostolic Visitator, whom he had appointed Bishop of Maldonado-Punta del Este in Uruguay five months earlier. He visited the Argentine diocese from 10th to 13th December.

Katholisches.info wrote on December 9, 2019:

“Bishop Martínez's letter gives no reasons for the visitation. Such were not communicated to him. A similar procedure under Pope Francis in some other dioceses meant that the Commissioner followed the Visitor. The chronological sequence of events leaves little scope for other interpretations. Although Bishop Martínez only affirmed what the Church teaches, the visitor was sent to him a few days later. It was a clear signal that his actions are obviously not wanted by Rome.”

Bishop Martínez Perea was retired by Pope Francis three days ago. According to the official Vatican announcement, the Pope had only complied with the bishop's wish to be released from office. But it is just a phrase, as Msgr. Martínez himself said. In a statement on Facebook, he wrote that a bishop signs a blank check with his appointment, in which the head of the Church can enter the date of how long the appointment is valid. In a very reserved manner he said that Francis had withdrawn his mandate.

Francis will be succeeded by the Bergoglian Msgr. Gabriel Bernardo Barba, who is close to the papal confidante and ghostwriter Victor Manuel Fernández, Archbishop of La Plata. Msgr. Fernández is the archbishop who, a few months after taking office, eliminated the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum in his Archdiocese. Bishop Barba, ordained priest for his home diocese in Morón in 1989, was vice-director of Caritas there and was responsible for the formation of permanent deacons. In December 2013 Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Gregorio de Laferrére and now Bishop of San Luis. At the Feast of Corpus Christi 2017, Msgr. Barba made a plea against Communion on the tongue and for hand Communion in his sermon. He said:

"The gesture of hand Communion seems to me to be a much more meaningful and mature gesture than Communion on the tongue."

Bishop Martínez nevertheless gave his successor advice in his statement on Facebook: to respect the traditions of the diocese of San Luis. He dressed his request in the language of the Church hierarchy, which is why it was certainly understood by Monsignor Barba. Whether he will heed this is another question. Bishop Martínez Perea wrote verbatim: "He will respect the traditions, although he is shaped differently than I am".

The purge of the Argentine episcopate, where there are fewer non-Bergoglians left, continues. You can see how many of the bishops who ordained Mgr Martinez Perea are still in office. And the purge does not only affect Argentina.

Bishop Gabriel Bernando Barba with Pope Francis

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Wikicommons / Diocesis San Luis / Vatican.va (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Francis Has Done Nothing to Have Improved the Lot of Chinese Catholics

[Breitbart] The Vatican’s secret deal with the Chinese government signed on September 22, 2018, has done nothing to improve the religious freedom climate of Chinese Catholics.

Based on the findings of the just-released 2020 Annual Report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the situation in China continues to deteriorate for followers of the Roman Catholic faith.

USCIRF is making several “recommendations to enhance the U.S. government’s promotion of freedom of religion or belief abroad in 2020.” In its report, USCIRF recommends 14 countries to the State Department for designation as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) because their governments engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations.”

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/05/04/yore-chinas-pact-to-persecute-catholics/

AMDG

Is Bergoglio Going After Poland's Radio Maryja Next?

Radio Maryja, the idiosyncratic Catholic radio station in Poland, is a thorn in the side of some.

(Rome) Since in Poland the Catholic national conservative party Law and Justice (PiS) is in power, the country is "under observation" by the EU. In Brussels, political forces set the tone, which are much further to the left and can hardly stand it when the sovereign electorate chooses other political forces. In turn, the EU Commission, the EU Parliament or the EU jurisdiction and, of course, the Western media, both Poland's and Hungary's government are disparaged as a "dirty children" of the "community."  The aim of the permanent pressure is either to induce the government to give in or to urge the electorate to choose a government to the left. Does the Vatican also participate in this under Pope Francis?

Specifically, it's about the radio station Radio Maryja. In 1991, soon after the end of Communist rule, a launched station was started that was modeled upon Radio Maria Italy . The founder and program director is the Redemptorist, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk. With the so-called “world family” of the Radio Maria stations, however, there was a split in the mid-1990s. In the Federal Republic of Germany in particular, efforts were made to keep a distance because of a different approach to one's own history. Radio Maryja is one of the five most listened to channels in Poland. In contrast to the other Radio Maria stations,  Fr. Rydzyk  pursued - since Poland had just over 40 years of an anti-church Communist dictatorship -   a political line and cultivated clearer language.

This was mainly due to the fact that the dictatorship had been overcome, but that the former Communist rulers outside the government and parliament were still at many levers, not least in the judiciary. Under the changed name, they even briefly returned to power in the 1990s. The way to overcome the dictatorship personally and above all, spiritually proved to be long and rocky.

The radio station, to which the TV station TV Trwam now belongs, supports the PiS without, however, becoming dependent. From left media, especially the left-liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, has repeatedly campaigned against the channel. A look at the German Wikipedia page provides an insight into this.

But the Church hierarchy was not always happy with the broadcaster, which has more to do with its independent willfulness. Pope Benedict XVI congratulated Radio Maryja on its 20th anniversary.

The leftist opposition in Poland, but also outside, is a thorn in the side because of its Catholic and conservative positions and even more because of its influence on public opinion. The most recent attempt to silence the transmitter has just started.

According to Wirtualna Polska, a mainstream medium owned by France Telecom, a request to the Vatican Secretariat of State was sent in December 2019 on "limiting" the political positioning of Radio Maryja. The transmitter should have a purely "religious character."

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The initiators of the claim, an Adam N. and a Witek M., remain anonymous. They sent their petition to the Vatican in several languages through Canadian middlemen. Wirtualna Polska is one of the mass media, of which Radio Maryja has been attacked in the past. In 2018, a Warsaw court sentenced the online portal to apologize to P. Rydzyk for spreading false allegations.

According to La Fede Quotidiana the request to the Vatican to proceed against Radio Maryja  was treated on March 26 by Pope Francis. He asked Msgr. Roberto Cona of the Secretary of State to review the matter and prepare a response.

A central role in the new attack on the conservative radio station is played by the Polish-Canadian politician Thomas Lukaszuk who actively supported the petition against Radio Maryja. The internet portal onet.pl , with good connections to Lukaszuk, promoted the petition to the Vatican for a long time last year. Onet.pl is largely owned by Ringier Axel Springer Media AG and is comparable to Web.de and Gmx.at in the left- justification of news reporting .

Lukaszuk's father had fled to Canada from Communist Poland. In 1982 his family was also able to follow him. Thomas Lukaszuk was a member of Parliament in Alberta from 2001 to 2015. From 2010 to 2014, he was Minister of the Government of the Canadian state, including 2012/2013 as Deputy Prime Minister.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Radio Maryja (screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG