Berlin Cardinal Wants More Socialism and Women Cardinals

Since Pope Francis sees himself as the “Pope of the Poor”,  the clergy is lined up “stirred and uncertain in a good sense”.  Cardinal Woelki:  “In Germany we will make it clear, what Church is really about:  That we won’t live any more for money and status, rather more for social justice and more on love, which are those things which are priceless.”

Taxation of Disposession

In a discussion with the Berlin “Tagespiegel” on Easter Sunday 2013,  Cardinal Woelki endorsed a stronger taxation of estates, explicitly the increase of inheritance taxes for a more equitable distribution between rich and poor.

Number of Hartz-IV Receivers Remains Constant

In the same breath the Berlin Cardinal wants to increase the length of unemployment benefits.  The number of unemployed has dropped, yet the number of Hartz-IV receivers has not sunk.

A connection with (unwilling) willingness to work in parts of the Hartz-IV recipients is not something Cardinal Woelki sees.  Cardinal Woelki also doesn’t betray us, since he wishes to reduce the number of Hartz-IV recipients.  Mandatory resocialization courses for Berlin-Kreuzberg dwellers?

Cheap Apartments in Kurfurstendamm?

Even the homelessness is very closely connected.  In Berlin there are 350,000 residences at moderate addresses.  373,000 Hartz-IV households and a further 500,000 low income households compete for these.

Cardinal Woelki sees a great danger that “many in the center will be pushed to the margins of the city, as is also the case with other large European cities”.

In a (system Cardinal Woelki describes as a “good system”)  free market economy, the centrally located real estate is even more highly valued than would be encountered in the (industrial and trade ) peripheral areas.  As if that weren’t enough, the rents and sales prices are higher.

Nazi-Church Tax is a “protected system"

The Church-tax which was directed to the dispossession of the Church is defended by Cardinal Woelki:  “It is a protected system, through which the church members make contributions for the maintenance of ecclesiastical commitment.  Through that they also do something for the common good.”

Cardinal Woelki: Women as Cardinals

As regards the false content of the commentary of the “Tagespiegels” (Claudia Keller and Rainer Woratschka): “In canon law it may even be possible, to name women as Cardinals” to which the Cardinal answered “somewhat” surprisingly: “You are right.”

And also:  “Even at the level of the Universal Church women must be more significantly connected to responsible positions.  The Pope needs good advice and one should be well consider, how the advisory boards in the Vatican should be occupied.  We were very pressed just days before the conclave, to get to know each other for the first time.”

The erroneousness of the Cardinal, who “isn’t one of the narrow minded"

If Cardinal Woelki had now explored the theological and canonical foundations for his positive answer to “Cardinaltrixes”,  we would have been grateful.

Already on Katholikentag in Mannheim the Cardinal dumbfounded with a private theory on homo-depravity: “I consider it as conceivable, that there, where people are acting responsibly for one another, where they live in a stable homosexual relationship, that it can be regarded in a same manner as heterosexual partnerships.”

“kreuz.net”: “Homo-Kardinal"

The Catholic internet site has dubbed Cardinal Woelki for that reason with the honorary title of “Homo-Kardinal”. (previously even borrowed from Cardinal Schonborn)

For the adoption of a “distinction”, the gay homo-lobby decisive but really not courageous enough:  “For such implicitness he can’t distinguish himself."

2012 no Priestly Ordinations in Berlin

Thus he was named as the Archbishop of Berlin and had been created by Benedict XVI. as a Cardinal with a productive mission: the growth of priestly vocations.  In the year 2012 there hasn’t been a single priestly ordination.

Link to kreuz.net….

I was a Freemason -- The Destructive Effects of Masonic Brothers: The Pope is Enemy #1

(Paris), the French physician and author Maurice Caillet, a former Freemason and Worshipful Master, who converted to Christianity, was interviewed on 20 February Internet Radio Culturacattolica.it  about Freemasonry, its subversive work and his conversion.

Caillet, son of atheist parents and an  avowed enemy of the Church from youth was entered into a Lodge of Grande Orient of France in 1969 at the age of 35 years in Rennes.   It is one of the oldest and most powerful Lodges. He remained there until the 18 Degree of the Rosicrucians. He was then given access to the higher degrees of the Scottish Rite, which are unknown to  most Masonic brethren of lower grades.  Caillet was interested in the occult, white magic and divination. He was among the French pioneers of family planning in the 70s, and fought for the distribution of artificial contraceptives and the legalization of the killing of unborn children. As a member of the Socialist party and friend of President Mitterand as chair he experienced as master of his lodge an explosive interest in lodge membership after his election. It was also possible for the aspiring master to experience first hand the influence of the Lodge brothers in politics, media, business and public service.

In 1984 he accompanied his sick wife to Lourdes where his life took a radical turn. When he  first witnessed a Mass in his life,  he heard a "soft voice calling me, and not the voice of my conscience, it was still an outer voice. The voice called me by my name and said to me: It is good that you ask me to cure your wife. But what you have to offer me?” At that moment, he offered himself to himself. "It was everything I had to offer. Not a little to be an atheist, who was for 40 years a Church and priest-hater,“ said Caillet in one of his books was about the event at the beginning of his conversion.  Today, he is an honorary member of the Alliance Vita, which advocates for the protection of unborn life.  Caillet committed today are active against divorce, gay marriage, euthanasia, and the lethal drug injection,  because he “is to defend the perfect order of God, against the destructive plans of Freemasonry."

Caillets books are in French, Italian, appeared Spanish, Portuguese and Polish. In German translation, they are not available. On the subject of Freemasonry, he wrote, among other things: The Secret of the Lodges in the Light of Christ (1998), Hedonism and Christianity (2001), With God Nothing is Impossible. The Gift of Healing (2002), Freemasonry: Sin against the Spirit? (2002), the Occult and Christianity. Distinctive Aids (2005), A Catholic and a Mason: is it possible?(2008)

What is Freemasonry?

Freemasonry is nebulous. The people you come in from a variety of motives, such as the purpose of their membership is diverse. What does it claim to be? Officially to the good will and to improve the human race. Human reason with its projections and their justifications is a kind of deity for the Masons.

How it came about?

The legend holds that speculative Freemasonry in the 18th Century was caused by an evolution of the so-called "operational" Freemasonry. The myth claims (but there are various) that modern Freemasonry is the heir of the medieval builders of cathedrals. Therefore, the Masons claim to have exchanged the construction of buildings for the "edification of the world." And by ideas, not practical knowledge.

Is it true that Freemasonry is connected to Judaism?

It depends. It is not easy to say that. It is true that in the interior of the lodge, a certain "compatibility" exists between the Jewish-Hebrew ideology. An entirely heavenly hope and the Masonic ideology, which represents an entirely earthly hope For Christians, this is different. 

In reality, it is important to emphasize the ideological impulse comes from the naturalism of Freemasonry, of the natural law philosophy, nominalism and also from Protestantism. The truth is that Freemasonry aims to enforce a universal religion, Judaism a universal God. Also in this respect there is a certain compatibility.

How can you recognize a Freemason? Is it true that there is recognition among characters?

Yes, there are signs. But it is also true that there is a duty of confidentiality. Therefore it is very careful to use these labels over unknowns. I learned, for example, more often, someone that is Freemasonry, because he told me, as a recognition by strange gestures.

How did you leave the Freemasons?

1984. I was with my very ill wife, Lourdes. Since I could not be with her in the pool, I accidentally went into a crypt. I experienced Holy Mass there for the first time in my life. And I suddenly heard himself called by Christ. Then - still I can not explain even these little moments - I went to the pastor after Mass and asked for baptism.

How did the Lodge to which you belonged take your conversion?

As I announced at the meeting (such in each Lodge occurs  every 15 days ), ... very bad, really bad. Nobody looked at me any more. They did not know what to say. The “tolerance” I once knew that  freemasonry has written so large on their banners, the parades they constantly going on, for Catholics, it does not apply. But I had been expecting this: The Pope is the number one enemy of the Masons.

Does France Catholics who are Masons?

Yes, there are Catholics who are Masons ...

Even priests and bishops?

Whether there are Masonic bishops, I do not know for sure. But I know that there are bishops who - you may forgive me the expression - are flirting with Freemasonry and are talking to her. I do not understand ... what the intent of what the aim should be...

What are the things that Freemasonry gives the most attention?

To influence public opinion. Especially on the subject, which carries forward the Freemasonry at the political level and it may deem important to their plans. 

Abortion: the time when the law was discussed had exercised enormous pressure on the media to steer the opinion of the masses, but even more pressure was put on the politicians of the rights,  that in 1974 it was then not actually resisted  with determination, so that the law went through without problems. 

Today, the topics: gay marriage, relativism, libertinism, contraception, divorce, hedonism, self-indulgence, the rejection of suffering. 

Man must be free to indulge in the pleasure. This is the betterment of humanity, to the aims of Freemasonry.

What is the role occultism, esotericism, magic?

Freemasonry would not exist without mysticism, it is a form of esotericism. 

And their rituals have to do with all the magic, with the invocation of obscure forces, beginning with the initiation.

The motto of Freemasonry is liberté, égalité, fraternité, it should look familiar. The interpretation of this motto is nothing other than a form of imitation of Christianity. 

Even then I wondered sometimes if the devil is present in Freemasonry. 

Yes, he is.  I myself have at the moment, get out when I wanted to feel this presence.

Can there be reconciliation between Catholics and Masons?

It is difficult. Even more serious, however, is that the Catholics are not aware of exactly why their membership in the Masons is a grave sin. Many simply do not know. Many say that the Church has not taken further action since 1983 and that the excommunication had been lifted. There is no clarity.

Freemasonry accepts the atheists?

It depends on: The Grand Orient of France, in theory yes. The National Grand Lodge of France, in theory no. But even where this Great Architect of the Universe is, or where some form of belief in God is required, in fact, God plays no role. Deism perhaps.

One speaks in Freemasonry of "lower levels" and "high levels", but also by a marked similarity among the Masonic brethren. What about it?

It's very complicated. The majority of those who enter into Freemasonry have not the slightest idea of ​​what it really is.You just do not know in what they throw themselves into it. 

Freemasonry divided humanity into two groups: the initiates, so the learned and the ignorant. In Masonic and non-Masonic. 

Who but the low levels, especially the first three degrees has belonged. Not the slightest idea of ​​what is happening in the high degrees

An apprentice does not know what the fellows, the fellows do not know what the master knows. Therefore, those who belong to the lower degrees, are not much more than instruments for superiors. What happens in the "Ateliers de perfectionnement"? An apprentice does not know. 

What happens in the "Blue Lodge", in the "Johannesloge", in the "Grundloge". Few people know what is happening. The difference is enormous. 

I had it until 18 Degree achieved. Of the high degrees, I know that from the 30th Required degree, that one has to kick the "Tiara of the Popes" with his feet. 

The Pope is the number-one enemy. Everyone knows this in reality, even those who do not say it. The Catholic Church is universal, has a Pope who defends the integrity of the faith.  A faith that "defies the world" itself.  The Catholic Church is the enemy of Freemasonry.

What about the claim that Masonic rites are  scientific?

I was a surgeon, a doctor, and I can say that from a scientific standpoint, the Masonic rites are just absurd.

How close is the connection Freemasonry policy?

Since the Second World War we have had in France at least 50 ministers who were members of the Grand Orient. The current Socialist government, for example, is Masonic, very much. 

We live in a society based on a Masonic, secular basis, one or two enlightened intellectuals is proposing to convert Christmas into a "Festival of Freedom" or a "Celebration of Children". The Freemasonry is also behind such plans? Oh yes.  Just as in  my time it was behind the plans to legalize abortion. I myself have performed abortions in Brittany.  Actually I was the first one there, and helped to spread this model of "progress and tolerance." And today, the themes are those that we see every day.

Is it true that you pray for the conversion of the Freemasons?

Every day. Many Masons are men who have lost their way. 

You got lost looking for answers about life and fate. You know nothing of Jesus. In France today, only a few know about Jesus, as I knew nothing of him, and as I do a lot of land in the boxes. I pray for them.

Translation: Giuseppe Nardi 

Bild: Corrispondenza Romana

Link to Katholisches...

Edit: this is a translation from the German which was a translation from French.

Robert Spaemann: Pope Francis Defends Catholic Tradition and Orthodoxy

Philosopher Robert Spaemann pins great hopes on the new Pope, criticized "modernists" in the church and welcomed people leaving the church, who reject the Catholic doctrine 

Berlin (kath.net) The well-known philosopher Robert Spaemann has warned in a recent interview with the "Junge Freiheit” of  an impending  church revolt and a split from Rome that is reminiscent of the historic anti-Roman affect which recalls the dualism of the Emperor and the Pope. "The secularization trend is worldwide, but where there is such a thing as the Central Committee of German Catholics, which is financed from church taxes? Fact is that in a Curia Bishop or private secretary of Pope hardly has the chance that a German cathedral would accept him as diocesan bishop" says Spaemann.  For him  it is also clear that the de-Catholicisation is a result of de-Christianization and that Protestantism will erode faster.

Surprising the process was not. The philosopher remembered this referring to the letter to Timothy, in which the "great apostasy" was the speech and of times when the people will not endure sound doctrine. "The people want a 'Wellness' religion." But, as CS Lewis says, if the question is, which religion is the most pleasant, he would not recommend Christianity. And he adds, that can be accomplished 'also a by bottle of port,’" says Spaemann.

Secession from Rome is still nothing better than an evaporation of Christianity. He himself, however, considers that "gradual erosion” is more likely, as a schism will probably be prevented by the church tax system. “The “modernists" in the Church who have already left are specifically continuing in the way of the Evangelical Church (Protestant Church in Germany). Because there you can find almost all of their demands fulfilled already. But they do not want to leave," said Spaemann. The reason is that we would not even now like to leave the fleshpots of Egypt. "More precisely, these groups represent in the Catholic Church which is something that they could no longer represent if they were Protestant and they benefit from the church tax, since they are funded by the official Church. '." He personally welcome the release of people who reject the Catholic doctrine and can have nothing to do with the Catholic Church.

The Catholic philosopher criticized then the usual “Liberal reform agenda”.  In this, the issue of the Christian faith, doesn’t even enter into it. Instead, it is about sexuality, "gender", ecumenism, democratization etc. "It may not be a trivial question, but it certainly is not the last question." Who talks about these, must be bored by most of the demands for reform. So it is with the questions of the relationship with God, to intellect, salvation, hope, salvation, eternal life, eternal death." A Catholic liberalism doesn’t attract the intellect, though he find pertinent applause. "Martin Mosebach writes that in his youth, in the society of his parents, a reform of the Liturgy of the Mass - the abolition of the Latin, etc. -. seemed absolutely imperative.  But then there was no longer a reason to go to Mass," said the philosopher. Reform of the Church had to be spiritual in nature. It must lead you to be more needful of it.

Robert Spaemann declared at the end of the interview that he also had high hopes for the new Pope Francis.  Spaemann writes to the "Junge Freiheit” in his own words: "On the one hand is a pope in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi, who cares so particularly about nature and the poor and at the same time defends the Catholic tradition and orthodoxy, it is not as easy to disparage as "reactionary", as was the case with the thinker Benedict XVI.  unfortunately.

Incidentally, the "Cardinal of the poor", as he was called in Buenos Aires, was no friend at all the so-called Liberation Theology. And: It is perhaps little known that St. Francis in his Testament, the priests of the Church  are ranged higher than the angels, which requires unconditional respect for them, as well as the greatest treasure being the place where the Eucharist is kept. From the shift to the poor a revival of spiritual perspective can be made, the perspective that is directed towards eternal life. “ 

Link to kath.net...

Pope Investigated and Possibly Confirmed a Eucharistic Miracle

Edit: a friend sent a link to this Liturgical design blog  which reports the possibility of a Eucharistic miracle in Argentina, which Pope Francis, then Cardinal Bergoglio, investigated to reveal that the Host which did not disintegrate, was possibly human heart tissue.  A similar occurrence took place in St. Paul Minnesota in June of 2011.  It’s interesting to note the contrast in the way the way the investigation was handled in the two respective locations.  In the case of Cardinal Bergoglio’s instigation, he seems to have been more directly involved and kept the possible miracle secret while he immediately investigated it, while in the case in St. Paul, the event received immediate publication.  When the St. Paul Archdiocese eventually engaged lab tests, they determined that it wasn’t even Serratia Macescens, but a “fungus”.  The Diocese did not comment on what the “fungus” was, and it was unclear whether the sample is still extant, for more testing.

In any case, this is much more encouraging and miraculous.  It’s even more interesting because of the current Pope’s involvement with it.  This is from a website by a Fr. M. Piotrowski, SChr.


A consecrated Host becomes flesh and blood

At seven o’clock in the evening on August 18, 1996, Fr. Alejandro Pezet was saying Holy Mass at a Catholic church in the commercial center of Buenos Aires. As he was finishing distributing Holy Communion, a woman came up to tell him that she had found a discarded host on a candleholder at the back of the church. On going to the spot indicated, Fr. Alejandro saw the defiled Host. Since he was unable to consume it, he placed it in a container of water and put it away in the tabernacle of the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.

On Monday, August 26, upon opening the tabernacle, he saw to his amazement that the Host had turned into a bloody substance. He informed Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who gave instructions that the Host be professionally photographed. The photos were taken on September 6. They clearly show that the Host, which had become a fragment of bloodied flesh, had grown significantly in size. For several years the Host remained in the tabernacle, the whole affair being kept a strict secret. Since the Host suffered no visible decomposition, Cardinal Bergoglio decided to have it scientifically analyzed.

On October 5, 1999, in the presence of the Cardinal’s representatives, Dr. Ricardo Castañón Gomez ("Castanon", sic throughout) took a sample of the bloody fragment and sent it to New York for analysis. Since he did not wish to prejudice the study, he purposely did not inform the team of scientists of its provenance. One of these scientists was Dr. Frederick Zugibe, ("Zugiba", sic throughout) the well-known cardiologist and forensic pathologist. He determined that the analyzed substance was real flesh and blood containing human DNA. Zugiba testified that, “the analyzed material is a fragment of the heart muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves. This muscle is responsible for the contraction of the heart. It should be borne in mind that the left cardiac ventricle pumps blood to all parts of the body. The heart muscle is in an inflammatory condition and contains a large number of white blood cells. This indicates that the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken. It is my contention that the heart was alive, since white blood cells die outside a living organism. They require a living organism to sustain them. Thus, their presence indicates that the heart was alive when the sample was taken. What is more, these white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten severely about the chest.”

Two Australians, journalist Mike Willesee and lawyer Ron Tesoriero, witnessed these tests. Knowing where sample had come from, they were dumbfounded by Dr. Zugiba’s testimony. Mike Willesee asked the scientist how long the white blood cells would have remained alive if they had come from a piece of human tissue, which had been kept in water. They would have ceased to exist in a matter of minutes, Dr. Zugiba replied. The journalist then told the doctor that the source of the sample had first been kept in ordinary water for a month and then for another three years in a container of distilled water; only then had the sample been taken for analysis. Dr. Zugiba’s was at a loss to account for this fact. There was no way of explaining it scientifically, he stated. Only then did Mike Willesee inform Dr. Zugiba that the analyzed sample came from a consecrated Host (white, unleavened bread) that had mysteriously turned into bloody human flesh. Amazed by this information, Dr. Zugiba replied, “How and why a consecrated Host would change its character and become living human flesh and blood will remain an inexplicable mystery to science—a mystery totally beyond her competence.”

Only faith in the extraordinary action of a God provides the reasonable answer—faith in a God, who wants to make us aware that He is truly present in the mystery of the Eucharist.

The Eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires is an extraordinary sign attested to by science. Through it Jesus desires to arouse in us a lively faith in His real presence in the Eucharist. He reminds us that His presence is real, and not symbolic. Only with the eyes of faith do we see Him under appearance of the consecrated bread and wine. We do not see Him with our bodily eyes, since He is present in His glorified humanity. In the Eucharist Jesus sees and loves us and desires to save us.

In collaboration with Ron Tesoriero, Mike Willesee, one of Australia’s best-known journalists (he converted to Catholicism after working on the documents of another Eucharistic miracle) wrote a book entitled Reason to Believe. In it they present documented facts of Eucharistic miracles and other signs calling people to faith in Christ who abides and teaches in the Catholic Church. They have also made a documentary film on the Eucharist—based largely on the scientific discoveries associated with the miraculous Host in Buenos Aires. Their aim was to give a clear presentation of the Catholic Church’s teaching on the subject of the Eucharist. They screened the film in numerous Australian cities. The showing at Adelaide drew a crowd of two thousand viewers. During the commentary and question period that followed a visibly moved man stood up announcing that he was blind. Having learned that this was an exceptional film, he had very much wanted to see it. Just before the screening, he prayed fervently to Jesus for the grace to see the film. At once his sight was restored to him, but only for the thirty-minute duration of the film. Upon its conclusion, he again lost the ability to see. He confirmed this by describing in minute detail certain scenes of the film. It was an incredible event that moved those present to the core of their being.

Through such wondrous signs God calls souls to conversion. If Jesus causes the Host to become visible flesh and blood, a muscle that is responsible for the contraction of a human heart—a heart that suffers like that of someone who has been beaten severely about the chest, if He does such things, it is in order to arouse and quicken our faith in His real presence in the Eucharist. He thus enables us to see that Holy Mass is a re-presentation (i.e. a making present) of the entire drama of our salvation: Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. Jesus says to his disciples, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (Jn 4: 48). There is no need to actively seek out wondrous signs. But if Jesus chooses to give them to us, then it behooves us to accept them with meekness and seek to understand what He desires to tell us by them. Thanks to these signs, many people have discovered faith in God—the One God in the Holy Trinity, who reveals His Son to us: Jesus Christ, who abides in the sacraments and teaches us through Holy Scripture and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

A mystery that surpasses our understanding

The Eucharist—the actual presence of the risen person of Jesus under the appearances of bread and wine—is one of the most important and most difficult truths revealed to us by Christ. Eucharistic miracles are merely visible confirmations of what He tells us about Himself; namely, that He really does give us His glorified body and blood as spiritual food and drink. Jesus established the Eucharist on the eve of His passion, death, and resurrection. During the Last Supper, He “took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, gave thanks,and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Mat 26: 26-28). When Jesus took and gave the apostles the bread and wine, He said, “this is my body….this is my blood” by which He clearly meant that the bread and wine which He gave them to eat and drink really was His body and blood, and not some sort of symbol.

Earlier, in the famous Eucharistic sermon recorded by St. John the Evangelist, Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (Jn 6: 53-56). Shocked by Jesus’ words, the Jews said, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (Jn 6: 52). Many of Jesus’ disciples were also scandalized. “This saying is hard,” they objected, “who can accept it?” Knowing that the truth of the Eucharist was a shock and a scandal to many of His listeners, Jesus responded not by retracting His words, but by raising the stakes: “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life”” (Jn 6: 62-63). Here Jesus goes to the heart of the mystery by anticipating the glorification of His humanity through His death, resurrection, and ascension. He will give His flesh and blood as food and drink after the Ascension; that is, when His flesh and blood have been glorified and divinized, for, unglorified, “flesh” is indeed “of no avail.”

Not all Jesus’ listeners accepted His teaching of the Eucharist. Thus He turned to them, saying, “‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him” (Jn 6: 65). Judas’ betrayal began with his rejection of Jesus’ teaching about His real presence in the Eucharist. In confirmation of this fact, Jesus said, “‘Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?’ He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he who would betray him, one of the Twelve” (Jn 6: 70-71). The Eucharist is the Risen Jesus Himself in His glorified, and thus invisible, humanity. This is the essence of His teaching of the Eucharist (Jn 6: 62-63). By its death and resurrection, the humanity of Jesus takes on a divine nature; it assumes a new order of existence: “For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity, bodily” (Col 2: 9). In His glorified humanity, the Risen Jesus, becoming omnipresent, gives of Himself in the gift of the Eucharist. He shares with us His resurrected life and love that we may even here on earth experience the reality of heaven and partake of the life of the Holy Trinity.

Confronting the mystery of the Eucharist, human reason feels its impotence and limitations. In his encyclical devoted this sacrament, John Paul II writes: “‘The consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the whole substance of the bead into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. And the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called this change transubstantiation.’ Truly the Eucharist is a mysterium fidei, a mystery which surpasses our understanding and can only be received in faith, as is often brought out in the catechesis of the Church Fathers regarding this divine sacrament: ‘Do not see—Saint Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts—in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are his body and his blood: faith assures you of this, though your senses suggest otherwise’” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 15).

The Eucharist is Christ’s supreme gift and miracle, for in it He gives us Himself and engages us in His work of salvation. He enables us to participate in His victory over death, sin, and Satan, share in the divine nature, and partake of the life of the Holy Trinity. In the Eucharist we receive “the medicine of immortality, the antidote to death” (EE, 18). For this reason, Mother Church holds that every deliberate and freely willed absence from Holy Mass on Sunday is an irretrievable spiritual loss, a sign of loss of faith, and hence a serious sin. Let us also remember that if “a Christian’s conscience is burdened by serious sin, then the path of penance through the sacrament of Reconciliation becomes necessary for full participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice” (EE, 37).

Fr. M. Piotrowski SChr

There will be further report on the validity of this.

Islamics Attack Marian Procession on Good Friday

(Melilla) in the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the North African coast, the traditional liturgical celebrations on the night of Good Friday were overshadowed by a clash between Christians and Muslims.  Drunken Muslims insulted the procession from the terrace of a restaurant.  The procession carried through the streets a statue of the Virgin Mary, who is particularly revered in Melilla in the miraculous image of the Virgin of Solitude.

Shortly after the statue of the Virgen de la Soledad was carried  out of the Sacred Heart Church in procession, there were  obscene insults on the Mother of God by drunken Muslims from the roadside. When they were asked by the Christians to stop, the Muslims reacted violently, throwing bottles, plates, chairs and tables on the Catholic procession participants and with palpable results. It broke panic among the faithful.  As a result, there was a fierce fight until the police arrived. Four Muslims were arrested and four injured who had to be patched up.

The procession was to be continued after the interruption. The incident was captured on video.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Commission of Melilla distanced itself from the provocateurs.

63 New Blesseds -- Rolando Rivi Murdered by Communists at the Age of 14

Edit: Vere Surrexit Dominus, Alleluia!  New Beatifics!

(Vatican / Reggio Emilia) On Maundy Thursday Pope Francis approved the beatification of 63 Catholics, among them are also martyrs of the Spanish Civil War.  Along with those who will soon be beatified are included Rolando Rivi, a young Italian seminarian of Castellarano in the Emilia region,  on whom Giovannino Guareschi has also based his Don Camillo. Rivi was shot on 13 April 1945  because of the anti-religious hatred of Communist partisan in the province of Modena.

The young Catholic who had come from grade school to the small diocesan seminary, died at the age of only 14.  His killers had kidnapped him during the end of the civil war raging in northern Italy  in the mountains of Emilia during the Second World War. What now in the history books is usually glorified uncritically as the "Resistance," is presented as a resistance against the "Nazi-fascism", that the fight against the German occupation forces and against Italian fascism was in fact in some areas of northern Italy, a civil war in which it came to who would hold the power in the postwar period. The Communist partisans took up arms, not only against German troops and Italian Blackshirts, but for the establishment of a Soviet Republic with the dictatorship of the proletariat and thus against all non-communists, including especially the Catholics.

Left  historical misrepresentations are addressed and overcome

The "Resistance,” was  understood by many Communist brigades as the spark for a communist revolution, also in Emilia. Therefore Rolando Rivi  only  a 14 year old boy, had to die, and with him, dozens of priests and religious, who were brutally murdered in the "death triangle" of Emilia.  Not because they were suspected to have been fascists or had fascist friends, as Leftist historiography and "partisan tradition” would like to tell it, but because they defended the Catholic faith, which the Communist revolutionaries wanted to eliminate.

Rolando Rivi was a young lad of Catholic parents, whose greatest desire was to become a priest. He would rather die than take off his cassock as his killers had asked of him. [How many Communists in modern seminaries today want their young men to remove their cassocks and wear street clothes!]

The beatification process had entered eight years ago into the decisive phase after two dioceses, those of Modena, where the martyrdom took place, and that of Reggio Emilia, the home diocese of Rivi, completed the preliminary investigations.  In 2005  the two dioceses promoted the cause from a joint committee, in order to promote the causa.

His greatest desire was to become a priest - grown reverence among believers in the Pacific

The admiration for the young seminarian was in the religious people has grown over the years after the war during the peace. Publicly it was by grace, miracles and healings, whose testimonies were collected from the two dioceses.  From different countries today, the faithful flock to the hills of the Apennines to the Romanesque church,  in which  Rolando Rivi lies buried.

Pope Francis recognized with his signature on Holy Thursday, that the young seminarian was not murdered by the Communist partisans for political reasons, but in odium fidei, out of hatred for the faith.

A decision that is to challenge in those events and help to ensure greater attention  in the post-war period "canonized” by Leftist historical misrepresentation. It is therefore an important signal that the first choices of the new Pope's beatification of Servants of God were killed by  two different totalitarian ideologies which were yet opposed to God, which rocked the 20th and persecuted the Church.

Martyrs of totalitarians, Godless ideologues, raised to the altars

Among the 63 Catholics whose beatification Pope Francis signed, there is also the Dominican, Father Giuseppe Girotti, who was killed in 1945  in the concentration camp at Dachau.

Archbishop Luigi Negri of Ferrara said after learning of the beatification: "The meeting with Rolando Rivi meant in my life, the encounter with the experience of a radical adherence to Christ and to the Church, which dominates the boy's age and state wide. A faith in granite, a simple but robust faith that allowed him to stand faithfully and firmly even before the outbreak of the wildest anti-Christian hatred, with humility and realism.  Evidence which is also aimed at the youth of today and certainly not unheard of today”  says Monsignor Negri for the Nuova Bussola Quotidian.

Archbishop Luigi Negri: "Rolando Rivi is the St. Aloysius Gonzaga of the third millennium"

Archbishop of Ferrara compared the soon to be blessed Rolando Rivi with another great young saint. "I believe that Rolando can be the Saint Aloysius Gonzaga of the third millennium, because in him the same faith freshness and the same size of the witness of faith which shines forth"

Rolando Rivi is in fact already beatified with the papal signature. In the coming months, however, a solemn Rite of Beatification will take place in Modena, where the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints will read the decree of the Pope.

Rolando Rivi is the first Italian Blessed, who was in a junior seminary and the first among the 130 priests and seminarians who were killed during the Civil War with Italian Communists.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Modena diocese

Link to Katholisches….

Gomorrah Dance at Jesuit School

Edit: it's difficult to come up for new things to say about this, it happens so regularly that Jesuit termites are allowed to gnaw at the Church and cause scandal, without the slightest consequence on the part of the community, the students, the parents or the Jesuit leadership. Perhaps Pope Francis will make a quiet and humble intervention?

Anyway, here's another Jesuit priest who feels emboldened to promote terrible sins under the pretense of false charity. He encourages people not to be outraged by his endorsement and even cites the offensive USCCB statement "Always Our Children". Here is the story:


McQuaid Jesuit High School, an all boy Catholic high school in Brighton, NY is extending a welcoming hand to two gay teens and allowing them to attend the Junior Ball as a couple. When the boys asked permission to attend the dance as a couple, a petition supporting the two was promptly placed online, and school president Father Edward Salmon sent a letter to parents regarding the teens' request. The Advocate details the letter below:

March 27, 2013

Dear Sisters and Brothers of our McQuaid Jesuit Community:
Our new Holy Father, Pope Francis, in the homily for his Inaugural Mass, had encouraging and inviting words: "Today amid so much darkness we need to see the light of hope and to be men and women who bring hope to others. To protect creation and to protect every man and every woman, to look upon them with tenderness and love, is to open up a horizon of hope, it is to let a ray of light break through heavy clouds."

The letter continues below:

http://www.goddiscussion.com/108488/catholic-high-school-allows-same-sex-couple-to-attend-school-dance/

Cantalamessa Combines Iconoclasm and Fideism in One Homily

'When we enter ornate and clean Basilicas, adorned with crosses, sacred images, altars and burning lamps, we most easily conceive devotion. But on the other hand, when we enter the temples of the heretics, where there is nothing except a chair for preaching and a table for making a meal, we feel ourselves to be entering a profane hall and not the House of God.’   -St. Robert Bellarmine


Edit: it’s been a while since anyone has paid him much mind.  He’s had some terrible and mostly incoherent sermons in the past with many errors that have a lot in common with the error of religious indifferentism. Coming from the point of view of the laity anyway, it’s difficult to see how the views of Father Cantalamessa square with the views constant in the Church.  It would be nice to have some clarification.

Here, later on in his Good Friday sermon, it’s difficult to see how Father Cantalamessa could be talking about anything else but the destruction of the Catholic Faith and the things of the religion Itself, of course he means also the destruction or the dismissal of its sacramentality.  He wouldn’t be the first wayward religious to have entertained heretical ideas.

Heresy is ugly.

[Zenit] We must do everything possible so that the Church may never look like that complicated and cluttered castle described by Kafka, and the message may come out of it as free and joyous as when the messenger began his run. We know what the impediments are that can restrain the messenger: dividing walls, starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris. 

In Revelation, Jesus says that He stands at the door and knocks (Rev 3:20). Sometimes, as noted by our Pope Francis, he does not knock to enter, but knocks from within to go out. To reach out to the "existential suburbs of sin, suffering, injustice, religious ignorance and indifference, and of all forms of misery." 

As happens with certain old buildings. Over the centuries, to adapt to the needs of the moment, they become filled with partitions, staircases, rooms and closets. The time comes when we realize that all these adjustments no longer meet the current needs, but rather are an obstacle, so we must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. This was the mission that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church".

Link to Fiore’s Circles... 

Five New Sisters Vested -- Traditional Order of Adoration Sisters Grows

(Florence) on the 19th of March, the feast of St. Joseph, the investiture of five sisters of the traditional Order of the Adoration Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ took place in Florence.  The Order was founded in 2001 in Tyrol and is the female branch of the Institute of Christ the King and High Priest.   In 2004 they moved to Italy, where the Archbishop of Florence, Cardinal Ennio Antonelli  solemnly vested the first three sisters. Today,  the order has 25 religious sisters and is considering its first daughter foundation in the United States.

In 2008 it was commissioned by Pope Benedict XVI., recognized canonically as a society of apostolic life of pontifical right. The monastery of the contemplative order is located near the General House and  Theological Seminary of the Institute of Christ the King and High Priest in Gricigliano in Tuscany.

The Women’s Order like the Priestly Institute are founded in the tradition of St. Francis de Sales and celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. The Order of the Adoration Sisters of the Royal Heart of Jesus Christ, whose motto is In Corde Regni's (In the heart of the king), is consecrated to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God.

The ceremony in the Ancient Rite was celebrated by retired Auxiliary Bishop of Fiesole, Bishop Luciano Giovannetti.

The contact address of the Order is:

Maison du Coeur Royal
Via di Gricigliano, 45
I-50065 Sieci (FI)
Italy

Email: Adoratrices [at] icrsp.org
Tel: 0039-55-0131266

The Pope Lives in a Hotel? -- The Pope and the Papal Home

Layout of Pope’s Apartment: Hardly sumptuous.

by Claudia Jakober

(Vatican) People like Pope Francis. That is a grace for the Church. Yet the visibly staged shows of humility and meekness by the new Pope have not met with complete approval. They construct an unfair contrast, as if the Popes had not been humble. Just read the wills of deceased Popes gradually and note again the humility and frugality of Benedict XVI., who took advantage of the existing garments, as shown by the fact papal coat of arms can easily be seen.

More decisive than approval for some quick and easy modesty, is that the pope receives more obedience and opens the minds and hearts of the people for the comprehensive Christian message. In that case, if then only his recent decision were also to earn applause, not to collect on the Apostolic Palace, or papal apartment rather. The question of the usefulness of such demonstrative acts remain in the air.

Is it true that the new pope lives in the hotel?

I was recently asked this. The question was so surprising that I was on the verge of immediately responding with an indignant no. But I kept silent and it was better that way. It is really true that he lives in the hotel.

The Pope’s Office

But is it "better" when a pope lives in a hotel instead of his own house? The Pope still occupies the suite at Domus Sanctae Martæ that he had taken as a cardinal at the beginning of the conclave. These are the guest houses built by John Paul II in the Vatican and to a certain extent it is the hotel of the tiny enclave. I only really became aware of this, as has been reported after the papal election to an astonished public, that the new pope had initially paid the outstanding account in the guest house. The Cardinals have to pay for their accommodation during the conclave in the Vatican?

Apostolic Palace accessible mostly for public

The Apostolic Palace dates back to late antiquity. The oldest visible parts today originated in the Middle Ages. In its form known the world over was designed from 1508 to 1519 by Antonio da Sangallo. The extensive grounds include 1,400 rooms and halls that have been designed over the centuries by the greatest artists the world over by Raphael Michelangelo and Bramante to countless others.

Today in many parts of the palace are where the Vatican Museums housed and open to the public, so the general public, the Raphael Rooms, the home of Pope Alexander VI. Borgia and the famous Sistine Chapel. In the sprawling palace are also where a number of Vatican authorities and parts of the Roman Curia are housed, the Prefecture of the Apostolic Household soon to be occupied by recently appointed Curia Archbishop Georg Gänswein, director of the Office of the liturgical Celebrations of the Pope, Bishop Guido Marini, then the great Apostolic Library and especially the legendary Papal Secret Archives, with its nuclear bomb proof vaults.

The Apostolic Palace of the Vatican has been the official residence of the Pope in his capacity as head of the Church since the High Middle Ages. In contrast, the Papal Quirinal Palace was the residence of the Pope as head of state of the Papal States. After Italian troops had forcibly torn the Papal States from the pope, Italian Kings have have resided there since 1870. Since 1946, the Italian President's palace is in the Quirinal.

The Pope’s Bedroom

The part inhabited by the Popes in the Vatican Palace has varied over time. Parts can be viewed in the Vatican Museums. In more recent modern times, the popes lived in a part of the second floor in which Leo XIII as the last pope lived and died there. The rooms have not changed, but are not accessible. Pope St. Pius X. moved in 1903 to just above it rooms of the third floor. Here is where all of the Popes have lived and died since then till 28 February 2013, the resignation of Benedict XVI.

Only ten of 1400 spaces form private residence of the Pope - The chapel is half

What are the papal apartments, the new Pope rejects so ostentatiously? The apartment of the Pope consists of ten rooms: a hall /corridor, a small office for the papal secretaries, library/meeting room, a study for the Pope, a private chapel, which occupies most of the space, a bathroom, a doctor's office for emergencies a dining room, a small living room and kitchen (the illustration above shows the approximate condition of the apartment at the end of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II). In 2006 after decades of all of the electrical wiring and the kitchen had been renewed. In the 1930s, rooms connected to the Papal chambers included some small apartments which were created for members of the papal household. During the Pontifcates of Benedict XVI. there was an apartment at the disposal of his brother Georg.

The rooms are according to the standards of the 16th Century, quite spacious, but very modest, not to say the old-fashioned furnishings, because popes are not in fashion. Who would really like any of Benedict XVI.’s furniture? He took them in humility.

Papal apartment now reduced - the hotel has all improvised and provisional

After breaking the seal, which is mounted on the death of a pope (in the specific case, after inconceivable resignation of Benedict XVI.) to the papal apartment, upon being brought to the new aparemtns the new pope then explained that the chambers were too big. He remained in the guest house and the papal apartment was probably rebuilt to his specifications. The efficiency of Vatican artisans is well known. The renovation work has been completed since last week. The new landlord has now but changed his mind. He also doesn’t he want to move in the smaller apartment, but to stay in the hotel, where he receives his staff and guests as well as the state government of Argentina President Kirchner or the Jesuit Father General.

Is it cheaper to live in a hotel room than in their own homes? And the cost of renovations? For personal secretary, the papal secretary, other staff, including the security forces had rooms had to get settled in rooms at the Domus. Everything looks improvised, provisional, and so unsettled, as were the new pope only to be the temporary representative of Christ, or at least temporarily in Rome.

The Papacy needs continuity not activism 

Then there is the inevitable question of whether it is really appropriate that the Pope has his household in a hotel, where elsewhere in the Vatican all the appropriate facilities are available, which is now empty. He receives individuals and small groups in the guest house. Some guests of the Vatican live in quasi Suite to Suite with the head of the Catholic Church, who they visit. The Pope used the same general dining room every morning like the others in the house accommodated guests. This is almost has the closeness of a bosom friend but is it appropriate? What good do these things do, but convey the impression of an exalted activism?

What the Church needs is always a new form of preaching. John Paul II was a philosophical thinker. Benedict XVI. a theological thinker. Francis could rely primarily on new pastoral accents. Much would be gained if he would make sure that the documents of Vatican authorities would be implemented in generally accessible language. The Pope has to preserve and secure a haven of stability and continuity, and to be more so in a troubled, short-lived time as catechesis always needs a new translation into the language of the time.

Pope Benedict XVI. exuded dignity in his person. The poses of the people is different, just like people are different. You could see that even with the unusual, even strange encounter of two recent popes at Castel Gandolfo, which should offer no comparison.

Pope John Paul II was an extremely popular and accessible Pope, the Pope looked like no one before, in the proximity to the people. A closeness that Benedict XVI. because of his age, was never able to accompany. John Paul II always radiated near always a great inner dignity at a maximum, which is of particular importance to the office of the pope. Not the personality due to the incumbent, but the ex officio, as Vicar of Christ. Pope Francis still conveys the impression of a friendly village priest.

The Pope is a father, he is Christ's representation of the father of all believers, of all the baptized and the whole of humanity. He is the high priest, he manages the grace of mediating sacraments, he stands on the place of the only Savior and Redeemer, for which humanity thirsts longingly at all times. To him all people should and want to look up to him, because they sense something of the truth rising, accompanied by Christ and so many people, as the Scriptures reveal, perceived, even the blind when he came near them.

Domus Sanctae Martæ new Apostolic Palace?

That a head of state and the head of the Church of the largest religious group in the world is housed in a hotel, is indeed something new. The Apostolic Palace is now in a sense, the guest house of the Vatican. Because as Apostolic Palace is actually the building where the Pope lives.

Whether it is good or even better than the current system, should at least be questioned. And who is enthusiastic, ultimately, if I can tell someone that my Pope, the head of the church, whom Christ entrusted with the keys to heaven, for my and your dramatic life with all the ups and downs of our lives, now lives "out of humility" in a hotel.

Yes, that's something new. An ah-hah moment it is not. Is this not rather short-lived activism in an even more brief life, which gets quick applause and just as quickly forgotten? The Papacy, however, is timeless, eternal, until the end of time.

Translation: Tancred

Link to Katholisches...

Bishop Vasa Caves to Consensus on “Catholic” Education

Aren’t you the supposed to be the King of the Forest?

"Vasa said that in the future, it will continue to be his goal to make all the Catholic schools under the Santa Rosa Diocese “strong educational and faith-based institutions. It is important to remember that they are both educational and faith-based institutions,” he added emphatically. “ -Janelle Wetzstein petuluma 360

Edit: once again another Neoconservative Prelate caves in to the Marxist consensus. Here we are, continuing to face the persistent decay of Catholic education as well as the cowardice of its Bishops. Ex Corde Ecclesia is a nice document, but it does seem to be ignored and when it’s imposed, Catholic Bishops often cave in when they are challenged.

Allegedly Catholic students and faculty lament that the Bishop’s policies are discriminatory, well yes, sweethearts, it’s meant to be discriminatory. One wonders if the Bishop has thought to ask these people if they might go to other institutions that are more suitable to their lack of moral and religious foundation?  Nothing’s stopping you lot from going to a secular school, where you can be as inclusive of everything, except for Christianity, as you like.

Someone should explain to Catholic Bishops that one of the reasons why people go to Catholic Schools is because they ARE exclusive.

Here’s an article from petaluma 360. It says the Bishop’s decision was “lauded”. It’s hard to imagine how that could be the case that the decision could be lauded even by the people who were opposed to it, but we’re pretty sure that the Bishop’s cowardice will be met by sleepy resignation and indifference, possibly even with some tricky prestidigitation, on the part of most professional Catholics.

Many in the St. Vincent school community expressed relief recently when Bishop Robert Vasa relented in his requirement that all Catholic school teachers in the Santa Rosa Diocese sign a controversial ‘morals’ addendum in order to keep their jobs.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity this week due to the ongoing controversial nature of the issue, one St. Vincent’s teacher said that staff was pleased with the tone of Vasa’s letter. “It highlighted his dedication to a more collaborative approach, especially with the pastors and principals who are closest to the mission of the school and its Catholic identity,” said the teacher. “I and everyone else I talked to was very moved by his letter.”

The addendum required all teachers — including non-Catholic teachers — to say they believe that issues such as contraception, abortion, gay marriage and euthanasia are “modern errors” that “gravely offend human dignity.”

] Link to article...

Pope Francis Kneels to Abuse the Liturgy, But Not to Venerate the Bread of Life

Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you; Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world. They said therefore unto him: Lord, give us always this bread. And Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in me shall never thirst. 

Edit:  Question: If the Pope can commit liturgical abuses and kneel to wash and kiss the feet of 12 children, is it not also possible that he can kneel and venerate the Host and Blood of God made present on the altar? I hope no one will try and equate the two, but people often do equate themselves with God.

There’s very frank reporting of this event at Catholic Family News, no frills, just sober reporting what was said and done. That this is a liturgical abuse which has been repeatedly condemned by the Vatican is indisputable. Unfortunately, this ritual, which dates from a 50s revision of the liturgy, is in itself a kind of novelty as FatherZ has said. It is meant to elucidate the commemoration Christ’s establishment of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the priesthood, which does not include women.

Rorate is declaring the death of the Reform of the Reform. Actually, it seems that it was being killed off months before Benedict had resigned shortly after Vatileaks broke.

So, to the strumming of maudlin guitars playing a folk song, Pope Francis went to 12 trouble makers, two of them female, kneeling to wash their feet. He knelt with great difficulty on the floor and seemed to find the work very taxing as he was assisted by two acolytes. One wonders then, why he can not also kneel (a question asked by Roman Catholic Imperialist last week) before the Blessed Sacrament as well, since he’s willing to go to the trouble of washing the feet of two girls, in violation of Vatican ruling during a feast which celebrates Christ’s establishment of the priesthood.

Rome Reports has a very good description of what happened and you can see the Holy Father being helped up by two acolytes toward the end of the video:

Traditionalist Lawrence Auster Has Ended His Life as a Catholic

Edit: sometimes death can reveal friends we never knew, and throw light on a life of bright and perspicacious industry, lived out on a crystal page of light. Life can also show God’s providence for those who are paying attention. But it’s almost as if the conservative writer and God had planned things this way. Lawrence Auster was a Jewish convert to Christianity by way of the Anglican Church on Holy Thursday 15 years ago.

He received Extreme Unction and the Sacraments as he was received into the Catholic Church on Monday.

His blog will remain on line for those who did not get to know him while he was alive.

Lawrence Auster died today at 3:56 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, at a hospice in West Chester, Pennsylvania. His death came after more than a week of rapidly worsening distress and physical collapse caused by the pancreatic cancer he endured for almost three years.

On Monday evening, after arriving at the hospice in the late afternoon, Mr. Auster read and responded to a few emails. He then closed his battered and medicine-stained Lenovo laptop for the last time. “That’s enough for now,” he said, holding his hands over the computer as if sated by an unfinished meal.

He did not expect that to be the last.

But the blogging career that stands out on the Internet and in the history of American letters as a tour de force of philosophical and cultural insight was over. Mr. Auster entered a state of sedated and sometimes pained sleep the next day, after a night of agony. He spoke no more than a few words during the next two days and died peacefully this morning after about ten hours of unusually quiet and mostly undisturbed rest.

Link to Thinking Housewife…

Link to Orthosphere with articles on Lawrence Auster.

H/T: Professor Arndt.

Fr.Malloy of a Shepherd’s Voice Blog Is Dead

Edit:  let us not forsake him in death who was so zealous for souls and pray for him.

Our dear Fr. Malloy has fought his last fight. He went home to the Lord early on Wednesday morning. Readers of this blog know that he had been suffering from congestive heart failure as well as a number of other ailments natural to a man of 91.

Father's bearing of his condition was a marvelous thing to see. He was perfectly lucid right to the last, and more than once he said he was ready to go. He never complained and was amazingly cheerful. After a conversation with his Doctor he agreed to go on a respirator for a few days to see if that would help his condition, after which they would take him off, and let his body take its course. He was taken off the respirator Tuesday morning, and almost immediatly began to grow weaker.
I saw him on Tuesday night, and he was quite weak physically, but not spiritually. 

The nurse had something nice to him about how easy he was to work with, and I said "Boy, Father, see what a great patient you are!" He smiled and replied with good natured sarcasm, which was his standard reponse to when anyone gave him a compliment: "Yeah, sure!" He passed away about 12 hours later.

Link to A Shepherd’s Voice...

Pope Francis Has Not Been Enthroned in His Basilica

Edit: While Pope Francis seems to be on the brink of committing a liturgical abuse in his Holy Thursday Liturgy at a juvenile detention center, and has congratulated the Archbishop of Canterbury  on his own enthronement, the Argentine pope has some unfinished business in addition to that, and perhaps it will be left that way too. Pope Francis has not yet taken possession of his Cathedral, St. John Lateran.  Usually, the seat is occupied in a solemn enthronement Mass not too many days after the inauguration.

Could this be part of Francis attempt to unthrone the Papacy and present himself only as a primus inter pares to the world than Christ’s Vicar on Earth?  Certainly it is the case that his election has been met with almost delirious approval on the part of many undesirable personalities in the modern Church.

A faithful commenter reports:

The Ordo Rituum pro Ministerii Petrini Initio Romae Episcopi thus approved in 2005 contains not only the rite of the Mass of the Inauguration, but also that of the Mass of the Enthronement of the new Pope on the Cathedra Romana, the chair of the Bishop of Rome, in the Lateran Basilica, Rome's cathedral and the Roman Catholic Church's primary Basilica, outranking even the Vatican Basilica. Popes usually take possession of the Lateran Basilica within a few days of the inauguration of the pontificate. Pope Benedict XVI did so on 7 May 2005. This rite, known in Latin as the incathedratio, is the last ceremony marking the accession of a new Supreme Pontiff.