Careerists and Climbers Doing “Great Harm” to the Church

Edit: here’s the Pope asserting himself as Popes have in the past. Perhaps you’ll remember Pope Benedict’s statement about professional Catholics? We’ve known pro-Catholics in the recent past who’ve usurped the Pope’s authority, and even chosen to lay claim to the special minority status of certain protected groups for their own purposes. This lay apostolic magisterium doesn’t get to decide who’s Catholic, they have always struck as as being anti-Semites. Here’s an excerpt, thanks to Rorate Caeli:

CAREERISTS AND CLIMBERS DOING “GREAT HARM” TO THE CHURCH

Vatican City, 8 May 2013 (VIS) – “The men and women of the Church who are careerists and social climbers, who 'use' people, the Church, their brothers and sisters—whom they should be serving—as a springboard for their own personal interests and ambitions … are doing great harm to the Church.” This is what Pope Francis asserted in his address to the participants in the plenary assembly of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) whom he received in audience this morning.

The pontiff spoke to the sisters of obedience, poverty, and chastity: “Obedience as listening to God's will, in the interior motion of the Holy Spirit authenticated by the Church, accepting that obedience also passes through human mediations. … Poverty, which teaches solidarity, sharing, and charity and which is also expressed in a soberness and joy of the essential, to put us on guard against the material idols that obscure the true meaning of life. Poverty, which is learned with the humble, the poor, the sick, and all those who are at the existential margins of life. Theoretical poverty doesn't do anything. Poverty is learned by touching the flesh of the poor Christ in the humble, the poor, the sick, and in children.”

“And then chastity, as a precious charism, that enlarges the freedom of your gift to God and others with Christ's tenderness, mercy, and closeness. Chastity for the Kingdom of Heaven shows how affection has its place in mature freedom and becomes a sign of the future world, to make God's primacy shine forever. But, please, [make it] a 'fertile' chastity, which generates spiritual children in the Church. The consecrated are mothers: they must be mothers and not 'spinsters'! Forgive me if I talk like this but this maternity of consecrated life, this fruitfulness is important! May this joy of spiritual fruitfulness animate your existence. Be mothers, like the images of the Mother Mary and the Mother Church. You cannot understand Mary without her motherhood; you cannot understand the Church without her motherhood, and you are icons of Mary and of the Church.”

Link to VIS...

Shots Disturb Christians in Istanbul, Turkey

(Constantinople) At an Armenian church in Istanbul an unidentified man fired seven shots from his rifle on Sunday. Panic broke out among the believers who were gathered in the church for Easter.

The Turkish press reported that an intimidation campaign took place yesterday against Christian communities of Istanbul which concerns Surp Hovhannes about the Armenian Church. As the Armenian Archbishop Aram Atesyan said, the gunman threatened the Christians in the church, "You are too many!" As the Archbishop said, a young Armenian Christian was beaten on Sunday in front of another church in the nearby district Samatya. Other Christian communities of Istanbul were also victims of assault and intolerance in the past days.

In Atesehir a group of 40 people attacked the New Hope Lutheran Church on 27 April. They pelted the church with stones and smashed the stained glass windows. The next day, a group plundered the Greek Orthodox Church of Burgas Ada. All the incidents took place in Istanbul.

According to Archbishop Atesyan “with these attacks they want to stoke fear among the members of our communities” who in Turkey have been repeatedly victims of violence and discrimination in recent years. In 2006 the Catholic priest Andrea Santoro was murdered in Trabzon, in Malatya three Protestants in 2007 and 2010 in Antioch, the Catholic Bishop Padovese.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi Image: Christians in the East

Link to Katholisches...

Catholics Are Not Welcome at “Liturgy” Celebrating Homoheresy by Bishop Gumbleton

Edit: Gomorrah “Masses” in Detroit at evil IHM Sister college will continue indefinitely at present.

Jesuit Superior General Reduces the Jesuits to an NGO in his Recent Sermon

Edit: While the SSPX and other Traditionalist societies are growing, the Jesuits are not only scaling back their commitment to Catholicism, but they’re all scheduled to retire by 2018 in Spain.

(Madrid) What happened to the glorious order of the Jesuits, from the spiritual forces of God on earth, the Order to its founder, the former Spanish Captain Ignacio de Loyola, organized like an army that fought in close formation, and in which every soldier a lone fighter?

The Order was feared for centuries. But his mention in some circles sparked reactions, inferior to none in Catholic circles as Freemason saying goes.

What became of the Order, that won all countries in missions or won back to the Church those lost, and almost accomplished the Christianization of China and Japan?

Its spiritual power and thus its influence was so great that they had the mighty Bourbon rulers in their corner and not just because they met the economic interests of a few grandees, stood in the way with their Indian Reductions and their defense of the dignity of the Indians. The Order survived its ban from 1773 to 1814 in the underground, existing openly only in Orthodox Russia.

The formation of a Jesuit takes much longer than in other orders. And Yet!

The signs of decay and exhaustion leaves the largest Catholic religious organization to shrink more and more. A proverb says: There is nothing, where at least one Jesuit doesn’t have his fingers in the game. So the Jesuits were heralded and outstanding defenders of the Catholic faith, but for some decades there is hardly a bizarre byway, where even the Jesuit would not tread.

The situation in Spain, the heartland of the Order, is dramatic. In 2014, the five historical religious provinces of Spain are to be merged into a single province. Currently in Spain there are still 1,393 Jesuits, a large number, but their average age is 70. Many can not or only exercise their office to a very limited extent. In five years, the Order in Spain reaching the age limit of 75 years and will probably number less than 1000 members. 2018 will force the Order to that magical retirement threshold introduced by Pope Paul VI..

The Order is leaderless. The great absentee, the "Black Pope" Adolfo Nicolas Pachon, who is the 30th General of the Order since 2008 directs the fortunes of the Society of Jesus. He seems no less absent, as God the great absentee in Nicolas' recent sermon last Sunday in Valladolid (full text) is.

According to the General’s recent sermon pdf, the Order of the Jesuits is reduced to a humanitarian NGO, whose purpose is to help others, but not to lead them to God. This is remarkable, because Pope Francis, who joined the Jesuit Order himself, has repeatedly rejected the Church's role as an NGO. In his order, the words of the Pope, have not reached the General and his fellow brothers. For Father Nicolas reduces the spiritual life to an absolute minimum, but rather a life in which everyone actually does what he wants, because everything is inspired by God somehow.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi Image: La cigüeña de la torre Translation: Tancred

Link to source katholisches…

AMGD

Bishop Fellay Consecrates New Church in Berlin

Berlin (Kathnews). As the Society of St. Pius X. reports on its website, Bishop Bernard Fellay (SSPX) will consecate the Church of St. Peter on the 25th May 2013 in Berlin. It's located in the urban district of Berlin-Wilmersdorf.  The church was built in 2002-2005.  In the simple appearance of Saint Peter, it draws on the eclectic-historicist design. In its interior, the four-bay barrel-vaulted nave surprises with its magnificent Renaissance style, embodied in forms of wall and ceiling painting by the church painter Ralf Lürig. A special feature is the 1900's pipe organ by the English organ builder Albert Keates (1862-1950) with 16 sounding registers a complement of two manuals (keyboards), according to  pius.info.

Photo: St. Peter in Berlin-Wilmersdorf -
Image source: Wikipedia / Bodo Kubrak

Kathnews...

Patriarch of Moscow Positive About Ecumenical Course with Rome

Moscow Patriarch Kyrill I on "gay marriage": In a consumer society no one wants to relinquish his vice: "On the contrary, vice is legalized and legitimized."

Moscow (kath.net/KNA) The Moscow Patriarch Kyrill I. is expressed himself hopefully for ecumenical collaboration.  The Russian Orthodox Church is in "open dialog with the Roman Catholic Church" and hopes, that this dialog will continue to develop together with the Pope, said the Patriarch in a television interview on Orthodox Easter.

Patriarch Kyrill stressed the positive development already begun under Benedict XVI. He hopes that this trend will continue and deepen with Francis.  The new Pope is "open to social problems and sensitive to social injustice."

Under Benedict XVI. (2005-2013) relations are to have essentially improved between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, because it was decided, to put aside some "extravagant projects", said the Patriarch with a view to an earlier proposed visit to Moscow.  There is a common challenge for both churches.

As for so-called gay marriage, Kyrill I said, in the consumer culture no one wants to give up his vices: "On the contrary, vices will be legalized and legitimized."  All this leads to a "destruction of personality" and to possible economic, financial, political or ecological crises.  The enormous protest in Paris against "gay marriage" had been a "joyous surprise", said the Patriarch.  He had not expected such a powerful, religiously motivated protest.

Link...

The Swiss Guard Swears its Oath on the Fateful 6th of May

The Saddest Memorial for the Fairest
 and Bravest Flower of Swiss  Manhood

Edit: tradition endures through the ages as they stand watch on the ramparts of the Vatican. The Swiss Guards have a long and illustrious battle history, whether it was dying to the man defending the King of France during the French Revolution, fighting to hold Lutheran Landskenechts back long enough for the Pope to escape, or keeping the revolutionary mob from laying hands on Pius IX, they’ve loyally and ever acquitted themselves valiantly in the defense of the Church and the anointed heads of kings. Today, they will swear their oath to a grateful Pope Francis.

 Each year on May 6th, the Swiss Guard commemorates the sacrifice of 147 soldiers who died defending Pope Clement VII during the “Sack of Rome,” in 1527.   Here’s the oath they swear:

"I swear I will faithfully, loyally and honourably serve the Supreme Pontiff Francis and his legitimate successors, and also dedicate myself to them with all my strength, sacrificing if necessary also my life to defend them. I assume this same commitment with regard to the Sacred College of Cardinals whenever the See is vacant.

Furthermore I promise to the Commanding Captain and my other superiors, respect, fidelity and obedience. This I swear! May God and our Holy Patrons assist me!”

Then one by one the new recruits are called by name. Each one advances alone, and with his left hand he grasps the Guarďs standard, holding high his right hand with three fingers open, as a symbol of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he confirms the oath:

"I, . . ., swear I will observe faithfully, loyally and honourably all that has now been read out to me! May God and his saints assist me!”

  Source... at Vatican Radio.

Pictorial Fragment of Indians in Vatican Painting

Edit: Silvia Poggoli never loses n opportunity to attack the Church. The black legends surrounding the pontificate of Alexander VI is a fairly outworn implement in the arsenal of anti-Catholic propagandists. But this Italian journalist gets her information on the Catholic Church mostly from her contempt for it, and popular television programs. In any case, she manages to find in a very interesting fragment of the Church's artistic patrimony, a worthy cause for her blithe hostility.

[NPR] The painting was commissioned by Pope Alexander VI. Anyone who has followed the TV series The Borgias knows he was the infamous Rodrigo Borgia, a Spaniard who fathered several children and became a symbol of church corruption.

Alexander VI became pope in 1492, only a few months before Columbus made landfall.

Art historian Paolucci is convinced the entire Pinturicchio fresco cycle for the Borgia Apartments inside the Vatican had been completed by the end of 1494.


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/05/180860991/long-hidden-vatican-painting-linked-to-native-americans

State Challenges Church's Right to Discipline Immoral Employees

[Columbus Dispatch] The firing of a gay Catholic-school teacher by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus raises competing constitutional questions about religious freedoms and civil liberties, legal experts say.

Carla Hale, who taught physical education at Bishop Watterson High School, has filed complaints with her local teachers union and the city’s Community Relations Commission, saying that her March firing was discriminatory.

Commissioners could decide within a few months whether the diocese violated the city’s ordinance that protects employees from discriminatory treatment for a range
of reasons that include sexual orientation.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/05/05/teachers-firing-raises-questions.html

Bishop of ’s-Hertogenbosch Holland Institutes Latin Mass Parish

S-Hertogenbosch (Kathnews). Pope Benedict XVI. had approved the so-called classical Roman liturgy as the so-called "Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite in July 7, 2007 with his Motu Proprio "Summorum Pontificum”. In the Instruction "Universae Ecclesiae" as the highest law he gave in concrete instructions for the priests and ordinaries.

Dutch Model

Since the liturgical development after the Second Vatican Council, a course points to an act of legislation in the Netherlands, is the classic form as is prescribed in the Liturgical books of 1962, celebrated in various churches of the country. The Bishop of Haarlem-Amsterdam, Msgr Punt, has built his own personal parish for the classical Roman liturgy according to the Motu Proprio earlier this year. The Archbishop of Utrecht, Cardinal Eijck, and the Bishop of Roermond, Msgr Wietz, a church rector assigned for the so-called extraordinary form. There are also different priests in each diocese (especially the younger generation) that implement the Motu Proprio in their parishes.

Sunday Masses in the cathedral town of 's-Hertogenbosch

The Motu Proprio is also implemented in the diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch in the Dutch province of Brabant. So for some time Holy Mass is said according to the Gregorian Tridentine form in the cathedral. Since a Mass has on Sunday in the traditional form in the cathedral has proven difficult to carry out because of other Masses and liturgical celebrations, the bishop of the diocese, Monsignor A. Hurkmans, has now assigned now a facility located in the center of historic and architecturally special church as main church for the classical liturgy in his diocese. It is the Church of St. Catherine (St. Catharienkerk), an octagonal central building, which also has the liturgy was celebrated in the Byzantine Rite. The bishop has decided that as of Sunday, May the 5th, 2013, to hold a weekly Mass in this church in the “Extraordinary Rite". The sung Mass (Missa cantata) is to be celebrated at !:15pm. Two priests and the ex officio of the diocese were appointed by the bishop as celebrant to do so. The diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch is territorially the largest diocese in the Netherlands. Among other things it includes the renowned cities of Nijmegen and Tilburg University.

Photo: Cathedral of 's-Hertogenbosch - Source: nl.wikipedia.org, user Karrow

Bishop Aillet Calls for New “Resistance” Against the Perversion of Marriage

(Paris) The traditional Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne called on the French to continue resolutely in their opposition to the law on the introduction of gay "marriage” .  The bishop stressed the peaceful nature of the "new Resistance" and warned them not to let themselves be “provoked infiltrated extremists and plainclothes police" . "No Parliament has the power to define marriage, which is a divine institution.” said Bishop Aillet. "It is the spiritual weapons which I propose to use in this very month of May" and "God will give the victory.”

Link to katholisches..

Curia: Msgr. Guido Pozzo Appointed to CDF

(Vatican) Pope Francis has named Curial Bishop Guido Pozzo as new Consultor to the Congregation for Doctrine and the Faith. Pozzo was the Secretary of the Papal Commission Ecclesia Dei from 2009-2012 which is responsible for the traditional orders, communities and groups and is subject to the CDF. In November 2012 Pope Benedict XVI. named him to Papal Almoner and titular Bishop, an office he will also manage. Msgr. Pozzo came in 1987 as an assistant to the CDF in the Roman Curia.

http://www.katholisches.info/2013/05/03/kurienerzbischof-guido-pozzo-neuer-konsultor-der-glaubenskongregation/

Queen Christina of Savoy to be Beatified

Rom, 3.5.13 (Kipa) For the first time after many years the beatification of a queen is imminent. The Vatican Congregation for the causes of saints will recognize the testimony of a miracle worked by Maria Christina of Savoy (1812-1836) on Friday.

Thus the first hurdle for beatification is passed. The last monarch to be beatified was in 2004, the last Emperor of Austria Karl I. (1887-1922). A Queen had not been raised to the altars during the John Paul II. and Benedict XVI..

Maria Christina was born on 14.November 1812 as the youngest daughter of King Victor Emanuel I. of Sardinia-Piedmont and his Queen Maria Theresia of Austria of Austria-Este in Cagliari in Sardinia.

In 1832 she was married to King Ferdinand II. of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and moved to the palace in Naples. She was honored by her subjects for her humility and piety. 15 days after the birth of her first son the Queen died on 31. January 1836.

The cause for the "Queen of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" was opened more than 150 years ago on 9. July 1859. Pius XII. (1939-1958) had recognized the Queen for the heroic virtue of her life in 1937. In the following decades the process made no further progress. The blessed, however, became honored as a saint in the region of her kingdom.

The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints will additionally recognize the Italian mystic Maria Bolognesi's miracle. The Polish religious foundress Maria Teresa of St. Joseph (1885-1946) and of the Italian religious founder Gioacchino Rossello i Ferra will be affirmed in his heroic virtue for a life worthy of veneration.

(kipa/cic/gs)

Father Stefano Maria Manelli is 80 -- Successful History of the Franciscans of the Immaculata: Traditional and Missionary

Edit: you mean you can be Franciscan and still have magnificent and beautiful Liturgy?

Father Stefano Maria Manelli 80 - History of the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception: altrituell and missionary

(Rome) On the 1st of May Father Stefano Maria Manelli, the Superior General and founder of the Franciscans of the Immaculate (FFI) turned 80.

As the year gathered together yesterday,  members of the Order founded by Father Manelli and organizations associated with the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Frigento Campania gathered in southern Italy, where the mother house of  the male religious branch is located. The brothers and sisters thanked and asked the Lord in prayer through the intercession of Mary Immaculate for their religious father.

The religious family founded by Father Stefano Maria is one of the success stories traditionally associated in the Catholic Church and represents a most remarkable success story. The Franciscans of the Immaculate have adopted the traditional rite five years ago after a long journey of preparation. International orders will be maintained the entire liturgy in the Tridentine rite. They keep the Franciscan-Marian spirit with their evangelical radicalism including poverty, which Pope Francis supports, but - and this is something special - in the Old Rite. Unlike other traditional communities  the Franciscans of the Immaculate are engaged in traditional missionary work. The Great Commission is a constitutive element of their charism; they go out of their cloisters, seek direct contact with the people who are on the front line in the defense of non-negotiable values and use their apostolate in the modern media and means of communication.

Father Stefano Maria marked by Padre Pio of Pietrelcina and Father Maximilian Kolbe

Its founder, Father Stefano Maria Manelli, was born on 1 May 1933, in what was then Fiume, Italy, and today is the Croatian town of Rijeka on the upper Adriatic. He was the sixth of 21 children. His parents, the servants of God Settimio Manelli and Licia Gualandris, have had their beatification process begun on 20 December 2010. The spiritual leader of the family was the holy Capuchin, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. From him, the young Stefano received his first Holy Communion in 1938.

The family had moved into the southern Italian province of Apulia, where Padre Pio lived.  Stefano was visited from the 8th December 1945 at the age of 12 years, the minor seminary of Cupertino. He entered the Friars Minor, and took simple vows on 4 October 1949, which on 27 May 1954 was followed by solemn perpetual vows.

On 30 October 1955 he was consecrated at Christ the King, a particularly precious feast to him as a priest.

Dissertation on the Immaculate Conception - Back to the Franciscan Sources

1960 PhD Father Stefano received his doctorate at the Seraphicum, the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Rome, with a thesis on the Immaculate Conception. The work explains the choice of his community's name.  He then followed by teaching Patristics and Mariology at the convent's seminaries at the Archdiocesan Seminary of Benevento and the Institute of Religious Sciences of Avellino. From 1982-1988 Father Stefano Maria was twice provincial of the Order of Friars Minor of the Province of Naples.

Around 1965 began a gradual rediscovery and long observation of the Franciscan sources and the writings of the Holy Father Maximilian Kolbe for him.

The call of the Second Vatican Council, to return to the sources of religious renewal and adjust the proclamation of faith to the changed circumstances of the time, knew Father Stefano Maria as reputation in the footsteps of the Founder Francis of Assisi completely Franciscan life after the example of Saint Maximilian Kolbe to lead the John Paul II as "St. Francis of the 20th Century "called.

In 1970 the new Franciscan-Marian Journey - 1990 Order of founding

On 24 December 1969  Father Stefano Maria and his brother, Father Gabriele Maria Pellettieri asked the Superior General of the Friars Minor for the permission to lead a renewed, more rigorous Franciscan life, which was tied into the foundation . A Franciscan-Marian manner of life they called the "Marian traces of Franciscan life." The result was in the first Marian House in August 1970 at the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Avellino Frigento.

Over the years, the two brothers grew more and more  inspired by the ideal of evangelical radicalism. This increase, the special charism, the consolidation of a particular manner of life, and others opposing trends in parts of the Mother house led the Order, after 20 years on 22 June 1990, to the establishment of a separate order. The Church's recognition of diocesan right was professed in a corresponding decision by Pope John Paul II, through the Archbishop of Benevento, Monsignor Carlo Minchiatti. On 1 January 1998 the recognition of the Order was established by papal law. A special feature has been added to the three traditional religious vows poverty, chastity and obedience, a fourth vow, the unconditional consecration to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God.

On 1 November 1982 Father Stefano Maria and Father Gabriele Maria, founded the first community of Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate in Novaliches, Philippines. The female branch, which was passed in its inception phase was led by Father Gabriele Maria Pellettieri, lives according to the same Franciscan-Marian ideal of the brothers. Today there are more than 50 branches of the Franciscan Sisters on all continents. The Order has more than 350 sisters.

In 2006  the youngest of the family followed with the Order of Poor Clares, a contemplative branch of the Immaculate Conception, which includes today four cloistered convents with more than 40 sisters.

Franciscans and Franciscan The Lay Association of the Immaculate Conception

8 September 1990 there followed alongside the male and female religious branch, the establishment of a lay association, the Mission of the Immaculate Mediatrix (MIM). The laity living the religious ideals in their respective state and various stages of Consecration to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God (Missionaries of the Immaculate Conception with consecration, Missionaries of the Immaculate Conception with a private vow as Franciscan Tertiaries of the Immaculate Conception).

2008, the General Chapter undertooktook the decision to return as a community to the traditional form of the Roman Rite rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI.  in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum as an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite and returned to the Church.

Monastery in Kitzbühel - In the German areas living life connected to  a religious tradition is no easier

In the German-speaking world, a monastery of the Franciscans of the Immactulate, was founded in 2002 in Kitzbühel in Tyrol. The then Archbishop of Salzburg, Georg Eder, gave the Order the abandoned Capuchin convent.

Not all of the young religious received the same favorable reception. Being connected to a religious tradition is not so easy for the Franciscans in the areas where German is spoken. Two other monasteries  founded were thwarted by the resistance of the local churches.

The Franciscans of the Immaculate showed interest in 2007 in taking over  the Franciscan monastery of San Candido, South Tyrol, which was rejected by the then Bishop of Bolzano-Bressanone, the Capuchin Wilhelm Egger.  Since 2012, the monastery has remained empty.

In 2010 the Capuchin monastery on the Ried im Innkreis dissolved their last monastery in Upper Austria. Again, the Franciscans of the Immaculate were interested in the takeover of the monastery. "These and other rumors are their concern," the newspaper of the Diocese of Linz immediately wrote. Because of internal resistance in the Church, the order was denied even this branch. In contrast to San Candido, the monastery in Ried is at least not yet empty. In 2012 it was purchased by an Indian Carmelites. Other members of the order were established in Kerala in 1831 by the Congregation of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, are also Indian

The Franciscans of the Immaculate are now represented on all five continents. The order counts all together, some 650 members of religious orders have stirred an increase in vocations. They promote the Tridentine Rite and go to the street and around the world as missionaries.

Since 23 June 1990  Father Stefano Maria Manelli has been Minister General of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, whose Generalate is in Rome.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Franciscans of the Immaculate / Vocazione religiosa

Trans: Tancred

Link to kath.net...

Religious Leaders Demand the Release of Syrian Bishops

Edit: earlier it was reported from many different sources that two Bishops who were kidnapped in Syria were to be released.  It turns out that they are still in captivity, and increasingly, the reports of this tragedy have aroused even the major news media.

[charismanews] Religious leaders from around the world have stepped up their pleas for the safe return of two Syrian bishops who were kidnapped April 22 by armed men as they were driving near the war-torn city of Aleppo.

The kidnappers, who have not been identified, abducted Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Boulos Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan Youhanna Ibrahim, both of Aleppo, while they were undertaking a “humanitarian mission” to help Syria’s Christian minority, according to Syrian Christian expatriates in the U.S.

The bishops’ Syrian Orthodox driver was killed in the attack.

Since 2011, more than 70,000 Syrians have died in fighting in the bloody civil war between forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad and rebels seeking to oust Assad’s strong-arm regime.

Link to charismanews.com...

Cardinal: Christians Have a Tragic Lack of Knowledge About Islam

(Kah.net) Milan Cardinal Angelo Scola: "In Europe and the USA there is a very significant indifference about Islam. We are, in the truest sense of the word, ignorant. If we ask the average Christian about Islam, we get tragic answers." This is what Milan's Angelo Cardinal Scola said according to Radio Vatican. In a society becoming increasingly more international and in the growing religious diversity, Christians need a fundamental understanding of Islam. Scola sees the metropolitan See of Milan also as "a bridge, it is an opportunity, to meet the East and to understand, upon entering in an inter religious dialog.

Bishop Huonder: Pope "More Conservative than Many Think"

In an interview with the Swiss Sunday Times of 21 April, 2013, Chur Bishop Vitus Huonder: "The new Pope brings  a fundamental faith, which indisputably brings some reforms, which some here expect.  We ought not assign to him the problems we have in Europe.  I believe he is more conservative than many think."

Link to katholisches...

Pentagon: Christians Are Enemies of the People

Edit: Christians who prosylitize are enemies of the proletariat. Of course this is a slight exaggeration. Breitbart reports:

The Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: "Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense...Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis...”.

The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith.
(From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians--including chaplains--sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of “treason,” and of committing an act of “spiritual rape” as serious a crime as “sexual assault.”

He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are “enemies of the Constitution.”)

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/01/Breaking-Pentagon-Confirms-Will-Court-Martial-Soldiers-Who-Share-Christian-Faith

Vatican Asks Archbishop of San Juan to Step Down. He Refuses.

Edit: along with the more high-profile case of a priest being excommunicated in Brazil for apparently supporting aberrosexuality, there is another, the Archbishop of San Juan in Puerto Rico, who has been asked to step down by the Vatican.  He refuses to do so.  It’s interesting there’s been on attention put on this yet.  There have been accusations against the Dominican Archbishop since 2011. Here’s the portion as it was reported by the Latin Times.

San Juan de Puerto Rico's archbishop has been asked twice by the Vatican to step down from the head of the diocese in at least two occasions, local newspaper Vocero reports. 

Roberto González Nieves answered in February to allegations made against him in the Vatican, especially the remarks signed by cardinal Marc Ouellet and his secretary, Lorenzo Baldisseri, in a meeting in Rome in December of last year. 

"In such meeting, I was told I had to leave the diocese in San Juan and take another position within the Catholic church. The unfairness, prosecution, difamation can never be sources for the renounce of a bishop, or its fair cause. I want to make it clear that I would never leave the diocese of San Juan when there is no legitimate reason," he worte in a letter dated of Febrary 20.

Link to Latin Times…

Photo..

Dissident Priest is on Sabbatical to Anglican Monastery for Year: Discipline?

Edit: since attacking the Church during the campaign on behalf of marriage which was promoted heavily by the Diocese, involving the prayer, expense and personal time by many in the Diocese, Father Bob Pierson O.S.B. had taken it upon himself to challenge traditional Church teaching and attack that campaign.


Father Pierson is a monk at the decaying Monastery of St. John's in Collegeville Minnesota who has done a lot of things he will one day have to answer for.


He has also been known for other offenses in the past, for example,  he resigned from his job as Campus Minister at Saint John's University when Pope Benedict announced new norms (which are generally ignored in most places) about formation for priests in the seminary, that they may not have deep seated problems with respect to homosexuality.

In the last year, he also hosted a naked retreat which would involve "touching". At the time, we felt that  it was the surfacing of one of the previous Abbot's methods of instruction for his novices, whom he insisted on interviewing in the nude.

Then, Pierson seems to have gotten himself banned from speaking in the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where the Archbishop told him not to speak any longer in his jurisdiction, as a result of attacking the Archbishop's defense of marriage initiative.  That didn't stop Father Pierson from continuing to speak in other parts of the United Stats, and to use his Facebook page to promote his anti-Catholic agenda.

Now, Father Bob Pierson's Facebook page is down and he's on sabbatical for a year at an Anglican Monastery called Holy Cross in West Park, New York.  We hope that he decides not to return after his "sabbatical" and hope that his stay in Holy Cross becomes permanent, barring a dramatic road to Damascus of some kind for this persecutor of Christians.  It would be nice if it were more obvious that this was some part of a disciplinary action on the part of someone.  There's no indication it is, but hopefully, Pierson will follow through with his occasional threat and find the more doctrinally suitable, if unsound, Anglican communion his permanent home from now on.

Link to photo...