Archbishop Lori Doesn't Give a Damn for His Flock: Cares More About "Human Dignity"

Edit: it's not like he really cares about the Catholics living in the countries being targeted by Islamists, despite his claims to the contrary, which include Rome. Did you see the story about the Muslims who attacked soldiers at St. Mary Major screaming "Allah Akbar"? All of this fits nicely with a story previously put here on the increasingly menacing presence of Muslims in St. Peter's and Rome itself, where Muslims proselytize. Well, if the Pope won't do it, who will?

We wonder if there were any clerics of his stature in the Church who advocated this kind of accommodation when the Crusades were being preached. It's a good thing we had St. Lawrence of Brindisi instead of him.

(Vatican Radio) The Chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ ad hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, has added his voice to a growing chorus of Catholic Church leaders appalled by the suggestion – which came from a candidate for the nomination of the Republican Party in the United States in the 2016 presidential election – of using a religious test to exclude people seeking to immigrate to the United States.

In an exclusive interview with Vatican Radio, Archbishop Lori reiteratedsentiments first expressed while he was attending a conference at thePontifical Urbaniana University in Rome earlier in December - a conference specifically focused on the persecution of Christian religious minorities. “Certainly we have to guard our borders," Archbishop Lori told Vatican Radio, "certainly the government has to see to the security and the safety of its citizens – no one doubts that – but it raises the greatest of alarms when we do so on the basis of a whole religion.”

“To say, ‘You can’t come in because you are a Muslim,’ – that certainly is a denial of human dignity, it’s a denial of religious freedom,” Archbishop Lori continued, adding, “and it is, I think, very unfair in its characterization of Islam.”

Final Report on Synod is Out in English

Edit: NCR says it's "remarkably strong". Incredulous:

[NCR] For the English-speaking world, the Ordinary Synod on the Family just came to a formal end, two months after its actual end, with the release of its final report in our native tongue.  

The world was gleefully told by the enlightened—again and again and again—that it looked as if the Church was finally going to join the modern age by surrendering to the self-evident verities of the sexual revolution. Giddy at the prospects of Pope Francis’ supposed reforming spirit, the gay community’s leading magazine canonized the Holy Father as their “Person of the Year” before the Synod even started. While this chatter of reformation made the heterodox hopeful, it made the orthodox anxious. But all that is over now and there’s a very good reason that you’ve not been blasted with the news of the synod’s conclusions. It not only dashed the hopes of those who hoped the Church would jettison its historic and biblical teaching on sexual ethics, it blew them to hell.

http://m.ncregister.com/blog/gstanton/the-synods-remarkably-strong-final-report/#.VnF8ZzK9LKA

Evil German Bishops and Theologians Demand Synodality

Edit: they are pretending that they ever did anything other than what they wanted to do anyway. 

[Distorter] Pope Francis has "given the bishops' synod back its freedom" so that this freedom not only applies to the synod but "particularly to the participation of the laity at consultations on the future of the faith," German Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz said at a three-day international theological congress entitled "Opening the Council -- Theology and Church under the Guiding Principle of the Second Vatican Council" Dec. 6-8 in Munich.

The church's synodal structure must be strengthened at all levels, Lehmann said, adding that Francis has made repeated appeals for a synodal church. For Lehmann, who was ordained during the Second Vatican Council and became Karl Rahner's assistant, this "synodality" was more important than possibly holding a Third Vatican Council. There are great opportunities for the church in a globalized world as long as it discards its centralist approach, he emphasized.

The council decrees have not always been adequately applied or implemented, Lehmann said. The fact "that we didn't take the societal changes that occurred after Vatican II, most particularly those of 1968, and the deep effect they had on people, seriously enough," was one the church's gravest failures.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/synodality-must-once-again-become-structural-practice-church-german-cardinals-and

Italian Police Confiscate Fake Papal Blessings

ROME (Reuters) - Italian police have confiscated about 3,500 counterfeit parchments bearing blessings by Pope Francis and being sold to pilgrims in Rome, authorities said on Monday.

The bogus parchments, with elaborate lettering and pictures of the pope, were found in the printing shop of a souvenir store near the Vatican, and the proprietor was charged with producing counterfeit goods, a police statement said.

It said the parchments were printed in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and English and had an overall value of about 70,000 euros ($77,168).

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0TX1WG20151214

Father Sommerville Passes Away

[Vox]Father Stephen Somerville passed to his eternal reward last night, (December 12, 2015) around 11:00 P.M. Father was a retired priest of the Archdiocese of Toronto. He recently suffered two serious strokes, he was 86.

Father Somerville was also a musician and composer. He wrote the Good Shepherd Mass for the English liturgy in 1965 which was adapted in 1970 for the bowdlerised Gloria and Sanctus and then corrected back by St. Michael's Choir School in 2011 with his permission. I enjoy every opportunity to sing his Responsorial Psalms in CBWII which are finely crafted based upon his authority in chant at St. Michael's Choir School. Last weekend was the 50th anniversary of his first conducting of the Tenor/Bass Choir of St. Michael's at the annual Massey Hall Christmas Concert. I have great memories of singing Handel's Messiah standing beside him in the Bass section a number of years ago in Etobicoke and singing his corrected Gloria translation (later modified by the Choir School) with him at the piano just a few years ago when visiting him at St. Bernard's Convalescent Home. Father Somerville was also the Chaplain on the set of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

He was well-known as "Canada's liturgist" having participated on the International Committee for English in the Liturgy (ICEL) which translated the Missal of Paul VI into English from the original Latin. It is important to know that the English translation used from 1965 to 1969 of the modified 1962 Roman Missal was a faithful translation. The Novus Ordo Missae was translated by ICEL using a translation method called dynamic equivalence. Father John Zuhlsdorf began his blog from years of writing in The Wanderer highlighting the grievous textual errors in the Missal, now corrected, and which still exist in the Liturgy of the Hours.

http://voxcantor.blogspot.ca/2015/12/father-stephen-somerville-requiescat-in_13.html?m=1

Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Francis and Petition

Edit: we don't place much stock in petitions, but here it is from the Remnant.

Your Holiness:
Pope Celestine V (r. 1294), recognizing his incapacity for the office to which he had so unexpectedly been elected as the hermit Peter of Morrone, and seeing the grave harm his bad governance had caused, resigned the papacy after a reign of only five months. He was canonized in 1313 by Pope Clement V. Pope Boniface VIII, removing any doubt about the validity of such an extraordinary papal act, confirmed in perpetuity (ad perpetuam rei memoriam) that “the Roman Pontiff may freely resign.”

A growing number of Catholics, including cardinals and bishops, are coming to recognize that your pontificate, also the result of an unexpected election, is likewise causing grave harm to the Church. It has become impossible to deny that you lack either the capacity or the will to do what your predecessor rightly observed a pope must do: “constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”

Quite the contrary, as shown in the annexed libellus, you have given many indications of an alarming hostility to the Church’s traditional teaching, discipline and customs, and the faithful who try to defend them, while being preoccupied with social and political questions beyond the competence of the Roman Pontiff. Consequently, the Church’s enemies continually delight in your pontificate, exalting you above all your predecessors. This appalling situation has no parallel in Church history.

Last year, speaking of Pope Benedict’s resignation, Your Holiness declared that if you felt incapable of exercising the papacy “I would do the same.” On the first anniversary of Benedict’s resignation, you called upon the faithful to “join me in prayer for His Holiness Benedict XVI, a man of great courage and humility.”

With no little trepidation, being under the gaze of the One who will judge us all on the Last Day, we your subjects respectfully petition Your Holiness to change course for the good of the Church and the welfare of souls. Failing this, would it not be better for Your Holiness to renounce the Petrine office than to preside over what threatens to be a catastrophic compromise of the Church’s integrity?

http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/2198-the-year-of-mercy-begins

Papal Appointee Enzo Bianchi Calls Fatima a "Swindle"

(Rome) For one of the darlings of  Church light, Fatima is only a "swindle". Enzo Bianchi, the "monk" and "Prior" of "monastic, interconfessional monastery" Bose, who is a layman in fact, holds the Angelic and Marian apparitions in 1917 in Fatima for a "swindle" because, so says Bianchi, a God , "who talks about the persecuted Christians, but forgets the six million Jews annihilated in Germany is not a credible God".  Bianchi's opinions thus  twists and turns, and the bottom line of the self-proclaimed Prior is to consistently follow the Mainstream.

Bianchi, the Papal Consultor

Enzo Bianchi kept at a distance  by Benedict XVI. but under Pope Francis,  Bianchi is feeling an updraft for promoting a "horizontal, anthropocentric Christianity" (Msgr. Antonio Livi). The "false prophet" (Msgr. Antonio Livi)  was recently the subject of an editorial in an edition of Credere, the official weekly newspaper for the Jubilee of Mercy, along with photo on the front page.

Pope Francis appointed Bianchi in July 2014 as Consultor of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Bianchi is the "prophet" of a "demagogic search for peace, according to an illusory, universal amity and a secular solidarity," said Msgr. Livi of the friend of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who was one of Bianchi's patrons.

Bianchi calls for  overcoming of the papacy and its reduction to a symbolic and representative primacy. This does not prevent him from scattering roses before the reigning Pope  and celebrating him as a "new Psalmist" and "new Bernard of Clairvaux."

 Bianchi, however, thinks that the Mother of God is  "not a suitable model for the promotion of women in the Church". According to Bianchi, Christ "said nothing about homosexuality, and thus the Church should remain silent on it." The family was only "a  form that society gives it," which is why it can be changed at any time by the society.

"A God Who Spoke About Christianity in 1917, But Not about Persecution of the Jews is Not Credible"

Marian apparition in Fatima on 13 August 1917

The Bian

chi-utterances, wrote the well-known Catholic journalist Vittorio Messori: "For the Prior of Bose the phenomena of 1917 is a swindle because a God who speaks about persecuted Christians, but forgets the six million annihilated Jews in Germany is  no credible God. However Bianchi should remember that Communism (Lenin seizes power in 1917) has at least 100 million deaths on its conscience, and there would not have  been Hitler, if there had not previously been Lenin."

Vittorio Messori wrote a 1985 interview book with the then CDF Prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: "On the Situation of the Faith."  It's a book that is considered an essential turning point in the perception of the post-conciliar period, because it articulated a diffuse discomfort and lent a voice to it.

Messori has now presented a new edition of a book first published in 2005, "I potesi su Maria" (Hypotheses on Mary). He is to expand it 13 chapters and 150 pages, wherein Messori shall point to Bianchi's criticism of Fatima, to which refers to other critics, including the Dominican Jean Cardonnel.

Criticism of the Dominican Jean Cardonnel on Fatima

In  the year 2000 just as Pope John Paul II published the Third Secret of Fatima, or -. According to some - at least one part of it, the left-leaning daily Le Monde released an article in France by Father Cardonnel, who was at this time of his life, the head of  clerical dissidents and political opposition. Cardonnels idols were  Mao, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and even the destroyer of the Cambodian people, Pol Pot, had place at the summit for the French Dominican.

Though he was a nuisance to his brothers with his eternal 'no' to everything that was sacred to the rest, he was allowed to live in the monastery of Montpellier. Cardonnel, who cared about no dogma and no Church law, forbade under outbursts of anger for anyone call him "Father". The prior of the monastery eventually took advantage of a trip the already 90 year old Cardonnel was on, and had packed his things neatly and quartered him in the nursing home. Cardonnel cried "scandal", portrayed himself as a victim and finding he had squandered time on a frivolous case appealing to the Canon Law, then called on the French government to help. He accused the Prior of trespassing. After a long negotiation, the court agreed with his case and sentenced the Prior. The court asserted an absolute precedent into legal history, a monastic cell was a private room. A provocative and dangerous decision, because it restricted and limited the ecclesiastical of authority over their own areas.

Cardonnel: "The Supposed 'Secret' of Fatima is a Fake"

The deadly power of the Red Star

This Cardonnel wrote in 2000 in Le Monde: "This alleged 'secret' is a fake. It is as fake as the Donation of Constantine, which was designed to justify a diabolical absurdity: a Christian empire. A great Italian theologian - one should not forget his name: Enzo Bianchi, the founder of a new monastic community - has the superstition and seen  immediately immediately through  what the Vatican  is doing with Fatima. In the daily La Repubblica, Brother Bianchi put his finger inexorably into the wound. He wrote: 'A God who thinks in 1917 that there will be a persecution of Christians, but does not speak of the Holocaust and the six million Jews annihilated, is not a credible God '. Yes, you have disclosed this wound: what more  glaring evidence does one need not recognize that the so-called Third Secret of Fatima is a fake and can not come from God? It's a fake, which discredited the Eternal. A credible God, I repeat Bianchi, the God of  Catholic racism who cares only for his family, for his Catholic race, while the kin of Jesus may fall prey to oblivion. "

According to Bianchi, only God who would have predicted and condemned the Shoa is  "Credible"

As far as the Dominican Cardonnel, who died in 2009.   Bianchi never disagreed Cardonnel but rather confirmed him. Messori writes: "In the meantime, there also circulated among certain Christians the conviction that the persecution of Jews by the Nazis during the twelve years 1933 to 1945 does not know any comparison and no comparison was possible. It would involve the absolute evil of the greatest crime of the entire history to the most radical example of human malignancy. It is no coincidence that the guilt of the Nazis as inexpiable why even today at ninety years old, if not even to hunt and condemn centenarians, because they are made responsible for it in any way, that which is referred to with the religious term, 'Holocaust', in any case, for the Holocaust. For this crime, and only for this, no statute  limitations is provided. Following Cardonnel and Bianchi, I repeat, even God must - if he wants to speak to us through Mary -  recognize the Shoah  and especially curse it, otherwise he is not a credible God.'  He is not a true God when he explicitly blames Auschwitz," said Messori. A revelation, message, vision or appearance in the required connection with the Shoah or Auschwitz , has been neither been here nor elsewhere mentioned in connection with  Fatima.

Without Communism, No Nazism without Lenin in 1917 no Hitler in 1933

It should be unnecessary, but for safety's sake, he'll do it yet, and emphasize that it is not about going to trivialize the crimes of National Socialism in any way: "The swastika was a tragic perversion of the Christian cross. One can therefore only connect the condemnation. It is nevertheless paradoxical to reject Fatima on these grounds, because the Mother of God in 1917 had not predicted the German camps and condemned it in the name of the Son and of the whole Trinity. 1917 was the year in which Lenin came to power and the Communist monstrosity was allowed free rein, which devoured at least 100 million people and in implementing the most brutal and bloodiest repression of religion throughout history into action. A repression that took place in the name of the atheist state, because as such the Soviet Union and its satellites had been declared in their Constitutions. 

And as demonstrated by the studies of the German historian Ernst Nolte, that Nazism arose essentially as a direct response to Marxism-Leninism Without Lenin in 1917, there would have been no Hitler in 1933 without the October Revolution of St. Petersburg, the ideology of the Austrian painter would have remained limited to a small fanatical   group in the back room of Munich's restaurants. In as much as Our Lady warned of Communism at Fatima, she also warned of the other deadly ideologies, which go back directly or indirectly to Communism or stand in an interaction with this."

Bianchi's Grotesque from the "God of the Catholic Racism"

Bianchi and Cardonnel are "Grotesque" when they denounce Fatima as an expression of "a God of Catholic racism". "What kind of gossip is this?" asks Messori. Which apart from the fact that the vast majority of the victims of Lenin through Stalin to Gorbachev (who in his youth was also a persecutor) were not Catholics, but Orthodox, forget that the  all religions were present.  The papists were massacred like the priests, rabbis just as  imams or Buddhist masters. The same thing happened wherever communism came to power. And that happened exactly in that fateful year of 1917, when the Blessed Mother warned against this perverse ideology, precisely because then - just as now - presented itself in a noble guise with evangelical sounding words of justice, liberation, equality and fraternity. Words that were understood by the Communist, however, were proven without exception as demons, including the German regime, which even introduced itself by the name of socialism. "

The Austrian Example and the Atonement Crusade

Father Petrus Pavlicek

What is valid for Fatima  is what applies to all ecclesiastically recognized private revelations. One need not believe in them. They can therefore also be criticized."But this should be done in more informed and in more subtle ways," than as  it is done by Bianchi.

"And when speaking of Fatima and Communism, then Bianchi would do well to remember also Austria in the period between 1945 and 1955.   Because throughout the war,  the Soviet Union had shifted their influence far to the west and brought huge parts of Europe under its control, with permission first of Hitler, then with the permission of the western powers. At the end,,  the Red Army had occupied Berlin and Vienna. The Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, who had signed the Hitler-Stalin Pact in the summer of 1939, allowed Hitler the war against Poland, explained and repeated that the Soviet Union would not give up territory they occupied. It was therefore expected that in Austria the Communists would use military force to stay in power just as they had done  in Prague and Budapest, would usurp power by military force. Even in the western chancelleries this seemed to be assumed. No one wanted to start a new war on the other hand. But a Franciscan had not given up: Father Petrus Pavlicek. He first heard of Fatima in captivity. For his safe return from the war he undertook a pilgrimage of thanksgiving in 1946 and heard within  the voice that told him, 'Do what I tell you, and there will be peace.'" Pavlicek saw it as a connection with the apparitions of Fatima and founded the Expiatory Rosary Crusade for peace in the world and for the freedom of Austria.

Hundreds of thousands of Austrians joined him and prayed day and night for these intentions. Years went by, but the petitioners did not abate in their zeal. In 1955,  suddenly Austrian Chancellor was summoned by the Kremlin, where he was informed of the withdrawal of the Red Army from Austria. The western chancelleries were surprised by the decision which was so unexpected and above all was unprecedented and would not be repeated afterwards until the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989 in any other country. The signing of the State Treaty on 15 May 1955 brought the re-establishment of an independent and sovereign Austria. Politicians, diplomats and military around the world marveled. Those who had led the Expiatory Rosary Crusade praying for years, however, were not amazed. The date on which the Austrian Chancellor announced the withdrawal of the Red Army, was the 13th of May the anniversary of the first apparition of Fatima. The withdrawal of Soviet troops,  which most reluctantly granted such a beautiful and strategically important country, was completed in October of the same year, that same month which Catholic tradition dedicates to the Holy Rosary, since the Battle of Lepanto. "

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Wikicommons / RSK / CR

Pope Francis Wears the Fisherman's Ring at the Opening of the Holy Year

Pope Francis on December 8th 2015 With the Fisherman's
Ring. Generally He Wears a Silver Bishop's Ring from the
Time Before His Election as Pope 

(Rome) Pope Francis celebrated Holy Mass  yesterday for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. At the same time the opening of the Holy Year of Mercy took place with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica. Pope Benedict XVI took part at his request.. During the celebrations Pope Francis  exceptionally contributed the Fisherman's ring, as can be seen in the pictures.

The annulus piscatoris is the official ring, an insignia of the Pope and one of the pontifical regalia. The gold ring on the ring plate shows the name of the reigning pope and a representation of the apostle Peter, as the boat casts a fishing net on the sea. It refers to the passage of the "Fishers of men," in the Gospel of Mark. Then Jesus says to Peter and his brother Andrew, "Come, follow me! I will make you fishers of men." (Mk 1:17).

Until 1843 the Fisherman's Ring was used as a signet ring to seal papal documents of lesser importance sub anulo piscatoris. Today, a lead seal has taken over this function.

Upon the Death of a Pope of the Fisherman's Ring is Broken

Pope Francis with Benedict XVI. before opening of the Holy Door

The ring is since John Paul II. Presented at the enthronement of the new Pope with the pallium and  is placed by the Cardinal Dean on the ring finger of the right hand. Thus  the wordly authority originally witnessed in the ring receives a new symbolic meaning as the insignia of the spiritual authority of the pope.

Upon the death of a head of the Catholic Church the ring is broken, because the authority of the Successor of Peter is over and so in time the see is vacant,and no one pretends to reach for the papal authority. This should also prevent the abuse of backdating documents.

The Cardinal Chamberlain leads the breaking of the ring in the presence of other Cardinals. Using a scalpel, a cross is carved into the ring and this then is smashed with a silver hammer. The relics are kept in the Vatican, shown partly in the Vatican Museums.

The Ring of Benedict XVI. Was Only Made Useless - Francis Rejected a Golden Fisherman's 

The Fisherman's ring on the hand of Pope Francis

The unexpected resignation of Benedict XVI. and the election of Pope Francis brought some changes. The Official Ring of Benedict XVI. was not broken. The ring plate was only cut and thus rendered unusable. On a smashing, so an interpretation has been omitted because the pope had indeed waived his office, but is still alive.

Pope John Paul II had established in the context of other changes that the Fisherman's Ring and the lead seal were  "annullare." But it was not clear in  what this "nullification", and "elimination" would consist.

Pope Francis wanted no precious insignia. After some back and forth, he agreed, instead of a golden fisherman's ring to obtain a gold gilted silver ring. A compromise, which emphasizes the continuity externally, but internally  comes to meet the wishes of the reigning Pope.

However, the Fisherman's Ring of Pope Francis is hardly worn. In general, the Argentine Pope wears his silver bishop's ring from the period before his election.

The kiss of the fisherman's ring by ministers and the faithful of the Church is a homage to the Successor of Peter.  As a rule it is done kneeling. .

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

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMDG

Heretical Cardinal Says Pope is Heretical Too

PARIS, December 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – In an interview this morning, Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said that Pope Francis “has called for a certain amount of control of birth,” while specifying that this would not include methods like the birth control pill.

Speaking to the BBC outside of the climate change talks in Paris, the cardinal suggested that limiting births can “offer a solution” to difficulties such as water and food shortages that are said to come from overpopulation and climate change.

"The amount of population that is critical for the realisation of this is still something we need to discover, yet the Holy Father has also called for a certain amount of control of birth."

Cardinal Turkson, described by the BBC as the Vatican expert on climate change, said while the critical level of population remains to be determined, the pope has nevertheless called for control of births.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vatican-cardinal-claims-pope-called-for-birth-control-suggests-it-as-soluti

Armed With Pistol on Saint Peter's Square -- Security Gaps on the Opening of the Jubilee Year

Journalist Shows Her Weapon

(Rome) Shortly before the beginning of the Year of Mercy, Italian security agencies are working hard to close security gaps. Current critics says it may be easy to smuggle weapons say  Vatican security experts criticizing the current situation. A journalist recently made a  test and easily smuggled a pistol at St. Peter's Square this past Saturday.

The Prefect of Rome adopted a series of measures for the Jubilee of Mercy, which will be opened tomorrow. The transport of weapons, fuel and other flammable liquids has been limited.

Security Seasures to Prevent Attacks by Jihadist Militias

The prefect relies on anti-terror laws. In concrete terms, they should prevent assassinations by Islamic State be prevented (IS) and other jihadi militias. The threat of such attacks is classified as "realistic" by the Italian Ministry of the Interior.

Prefect Franco Gabrielli has adopted for the period starting on Sunday, December 6th to Wednesday, December 9 a ban on any transportation of weapons, ammunition, explosives and toxic gases on the entire territory of the Rome Prefecture. Also prohibited is the setting off of fireworks of any kind.

For the entirety of the 8th of December when  the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, any transport of fuels, LPG, methane and other flammable substances is prohibited. Citizens were advised to not to use during those days, cars, gun cases, envelopes or packages, which are commonly used by the army or the police, or could serve for the transport of weapons, to rule out any likelihood of confusion or suspicion.

Experienced Counterterrorism Specialist Concerned about Vulnerabilities

With an assumed disability card and a handgun at the

St. Peter's Square

Prefect Gabrielli is one of the most experienced counterterrorism specialists in Italy. Since 1987, he has worked in senior positions of state security (DIGOS).From 2000, he headed the DIGOS of Rome. He was  involved at the breaking up of the newest generation of left-wing extremist terrorist organizations the Red Brigades (BR). In 2004 he took over the construction of the newly established Counter-Terrorism Committee (CASA) and in 2005 was head of the Centre to Combat Terrorism at the Interior Ministry. During that time Islamic perpetrators of the London subway bombings were arrested in Italy. In 2006 Gabrielli became head of the Italian domestic intelligence SISDE. Last April he was appointed overlooking the Holy Year of Mercy as Prefect of Rome. According to media reports, he shows  prefect optimism, but was worried actually about existing vulnerabilities.

For this there is also no reason: Tomorrow, Pope Francis will be present at  the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica, the Jubilee of Mercy. Only last Saturday the journalist Mary Tagliazucchi reported the daily newspaperIl Giornale about how she could easily reach St. Peter's with a pistol in her pocket in the late morning."  Smiling, Handbag and Gun: So I Came to the Vatican", is the title of the article. "A few days before the beginning of the year of jubilee I showed up with a pistol on St. Peter's Square without any problems.  A (false) disability card sufficed ... This was "recognizable as a fake." The journalist smuggled a pistol, brand Tokarev TT, Model 57 Jugo, 7.62 mm into the Vatican. "This weapon is especially common in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It was also used earlier in the year during the attack on the Jewish supermarket in Paris," as a weapons expert confirmed for the journalist.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Il Giornale (screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMDG

Criticizing Pope Francis an Excommunicable Offense?

Edit: Insane. Mercy for everyone, as long as you're not Catholic.

[Vatican] They will also receive from the Holy Father the authority to pardon “even those sins reserved to the Holy See” (Bull of Indiction, n. 18). These sins include: Violation or profanation of the Holy Eucharist (CIC 1367), which the archbishop says occurs “much more frequently that one might think”; Absolution of an accomplice in a sin against the sixth commandment (CIC 1378); Unauthorized ordination of a bishop, which penalty is incurred by both the ordaining bishop and by the bishop who is ordained (CIC 1382); Direct violation by a confessor of the seal of confession (CIC 1388), which Archbishop Fisichella called “one of the most precious elements that the Church possesses”; and physical violence on the Roman Pontiff (CIC 1370).

Regarding what constitutes “physical violence” against the Pope, Archbishop Fisichella told journalists at Friday’s briefing: “I would say that we need to understand well ‘physical violence,’ because sometimes words, too, are rocks and stones, and therefore I believe some of these sins, too, are far more widespread than we might think.”

Citing the letter Pope Francis addressed to him in early September, outlining several points he wished to focus on in Year of Mercy, the archbishop reiterated that the Pope will extend to all priests, for the Jubilee Year, “the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness for it.”

Finally, he underscored that the Missionaries of Mercy “are appointed exclusively by the Holy Father, and that the faculty of forgiving reserved sins will be given to each one of them personally.”

http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/12/04/mercy_jubilee_press_conference_details_events,_initiatives/1191920

Manfred Scheuer, Custodian of Decline, Is the New Bishop of Linz

Manfred Scheuer is New Bishop of Linz

Martha Weinzl

(Vienna) In the Austrian diocese of Linz there is an ambivalent mood that reflects the overall condition of the Catholic Church in Austria. Some are happy, others are depressed. On November 16th it was reported by state radio ORF, that Innsbruck Bishop Manfred Scheuer (60), will be the new diocesan bishop of Linz. The daily newspaper, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten reported today triumphantly: "Linz gets the Bishop it desires'".

Haste in Announcing

The Vatican did not immediately confirm the appointment rumors, but they were reported by the Catholic News Agency  and on the website of the Archdiocese of Vienna as a reliable fact. According Oberösterreichische Nachrichten the appointment is to take place "in the coming days" [It was actually 18 November] the appointment. Despite this reservation, there can be no doubt about it: Manfred Scheuer is next bishop of Linz. The Austrian government, which must agree to every episcopal designation under concordat, today issued  their consent for Scheuer.

Someone there was in any case in a hurry with the announcement of the change from Innsbruck to Linz. Within the Church secrecy applies  until the official appointment by the Pope. It's an indication of how happy are certain high Church circles over the appointment. An appointment that they have benevolently promoted. The Diocese of Linz is a prime example of the ecclesiastical decline. There is therefore a lot of interested eyes on a bishop's appointment.

Criteria for an Austrian Bishop Anno 2015

The criteria for a bishop candidate are laid down in church, but paper is patient. The actual criteria are in Austria something like this:

A bishop should be as  inconspicuous as possible and an unknown quantity, even more so, he should not offend anywhere, at least not in public opinion in  relevant  circles in politics, media and business, he should therefore be situated as much as possible in the middle of prevailing general climate in the country   and not be an open rebel, but especially not "hurt" anyone  by which is meant the divorced and remarried, those living in wild "marriages" or elites living in homosexual relationships in society and the church, including the female proportion of them who have had an abortion. In sum, this means that he should not develop too many initiatives, fit well into the post-Conciliar councils modes, in other words be a team player and recently also demonstrate  "synodality", and above all avoid being a committed  and determined preacher of the Catholic faith.

The most important thing for a bishop is that  he should keep Church exit numbers as low as possible so that the church-tax continues to flow.

So bottom line, he  should largely pass himself off as Mainstream  or provide sufficient guarantees to accommodate this. So he will report primarily to speak on subjects  in which he may make his agreement with the government and the public, at least in the published opinion. And, he will be silent on those parts of Catholic doctrine as much as possible that are not part of the mainstream.

It is in this frame that  the appointments have  moved so far for Austria under Pope Francis. The displacement of Scheuer from Innsbruck to Linz, including  Feldkirch, Salzburg, Graz-Seckau and the Military Ordinary is the fifth appointment of the Argentine Pope,  is a look at the message of the press agency of the Austrian Bishops' Conference KAP which reveals included  keywords:. "The man of the middle," "Counciliar"," ecumenical "," Caritas" (organization). A few days ago Scheuer presented his latest book, whose title is reminiscent of Pope Francis: "Against the Church's narcissism," whose subtitle is a "spiritual-political plea."

Diocese in "Progressive" Managed Decline

This raises the question, for whom is Msgr. Scheuer is  the "desired Bishop" and just who are the "many" are who  want him at the head of the Diocese of Linz?

The highest diocesan bodies have engaged in profiling for two years for the future bishop. Given that the diocesan apparatus is interwoven with the left green and liberal, one can imagine the requirements. Bishop Scheuer, a native of Upper Austria, was named instead of  the "ideal candidate". This has its reasons.

The subversive, largely non-Catholic milieu feared for its sinecures and conveniences. The zeal for "the cause" of "another church" did its work. For better understanding, Linz is hard fought ground between "Church reformers" and "conservatives," the latter are certainly at a disadvantage. They may toil in the lower floors, while others have made themselves comfortable on the upper floors.

Zauner's"Rhenish Alliance," & Aichern's "Priestess"

After decades of "liberal" bishops a change could hardly be reckoned. Yet in 1956, Bishop Franz Zauner was appointed by Pope Pius XII.   (since 1949 coadjutor), the Diocese  under John XXIII. expressed swung with flying colors into the camp of the "optimists," in historical terminology, into the camp of the "Rhenish Alliance". Linz was one of the dioceses of the German-speaking world, where the "spirit of the Council" raged especially virulently. With Alois Wagner,  Zauner received an even more liberal Auxiliary Bishop for the "implementation of the Council".

He was followed after 24 years by the jolly Benedictine Maximilian Aichern. He was a compromise candidate to prevent Alois Wagner as a candidate of the "liberals" and Kurt Krenn as a candidate of the "conservatives". This presented Aichern as the prototype of an "ideal" Austrian bishop. Neither "left", nor "right", but in the center and in case of doubt rather "left" in order to clarify it in an inappropriate reference to political categories. Aichern finally became so colorful that he was retired prematurely in the cause of the "female priesthood" of  Mayr-Lumetzberger. That was, however, again after 24 years.

For the "priestess" Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger,  Aichern may have perhaps felt some weakness because she came as a Benedictine nun from the same Order. Aichern could never really clear it up, that he had sponsored the "priestesses training" for Mayr-Lumetzberger from the diocesan funds. In any case, the ex-nun was not satisfied with the state of consecrated life, but felt called to something higher. She jumped out of the convent and married. But the marriage could not quench the voracity of her thirst. So she left in 2002 to be dubiously consecrated as an invalid "priestess". Shortly thereafter, she grabbed, considering the motto, going whole hog, yet no less  invalid a consecration to "Bishop".

Then came the bishop exchange. Aichern was in good Austrian,  elegantly made an emeritus. Although Benedictine, he no longer wanted to return to the monastery. This included a statement. On Mayr-Lumetzberger there was silence. She would simulate obscure ceremonies, sometimes in Catholic churches. Whether it is always with knowledge of the pastors or clandestinely, is to be seen.

Schönborn's "Most Conservative" Auxiliary,  Bishop of Linz

Vienna's Archbishop, Cardinal Schönborn, the strongman in Austria church, then sent his "most conservative" auxiliary bishop to Linz. That was in the year of 2005.

The ambassador was called Ludwig Maria Schwarz *) and came from the Salesian Order. In the faithful Church circles the sigh of relief was unmistakable. They had been systematically pushed out of the Church leadership. Yet the  full-time church apparatus, which was powerfully over bloated, worked assiduously to grow ever larger. The diocese now has more full-time diocesan apparatus employees than priests. The former feel patronized by the apparatus, cowed, annoyed and imposed upon, often in favor of further lay-Apparatchiks.

The situation in the parishes is the desolate part. The good priests form islands of faith and resistance. They have to deal with rebellious, especially amateurish,  and supposedly theologically  (un)formed individuals. These priests can expect no help from the Diocese.  They know that. The numerous submissions to numerous offices, desks, positions and agencies of the Ordinariate  often find themselves thrown unopened into the trash. That was the only form of "direct protection" and "mental hygiene".

On the other hand, the more "progressive" clerics get more  backing. One third of the Upper Austrian clergy signed the  "Call to Disobedience"  launched in 2006 by  the so-called Pfarrer-Initiative. This reinsurance  also involves the subject of the appointment of bishops.

Bishop Schwarz is considered a trustworthy, but irresolute man. [Really?] "Too good," is how he is generally acknowledged. An award for the bishop is not yet praise. His "goodness" has a downside. He came up the Danube with the mission to eliminate the proverbial "Linz situation". That's what he tried: he forbade the laity preaching and the baptisms by pastoral assistants. But the Appartschiks  cut him off quickly. The result was an inner emigration of the bishop. Sometimes you would hear nothing more from him for months in the public. After a period of such he was shown in 2013 in his own church newspaper while feeding the ducks. Was it a form of withdrawal from communication to the outside,  or an expression of utter resignation?

Remained an Onlooker

The reference to his "own" church newspaper is to be understood as a euphemism. There, the Appartschiks have the final say, anyway, not the bishop. The Linz Church Newspaper has always been renowned as a platform for a "church, faith and an attitude critical of Rome," says the Upper Austrian Catholic newsletter "The Truth" in 2009. The church newspaper had ten years previously wanted to offeer the price of its  with the Homosexuals Initiative Linz, that was only prevented by the protests of the people.

At least one personnel decision by Bishop Schwarz had positive results: in 2006 a CD on sexuality was sent to 15,000 Upper Austrian teenagers,  it was concerned with the advertising of contraceptives, abortion and homosexuality. The  Aichern appointed  "communications chief" of the diocese who was responsible for the action had to resign in 2009. He fell softly and now heads the Media Office of the Austrian religious communities. Its president,  Abbot Christian Haidinger, trumpeted that the Catholic moral teaching is "inhuman" and that he is in favor of  Communion for divorced and remarried, women priests and the lifting of the priestly celibacy. Things.are likely better among like-minded people.

Bishop Schwarz twice consecrated FSSP deacons to priests in his tenure, most recently this past July 4th. It reveals what achievements this bishop would have been able, had he would had a suitable staff and a suitable environment around. This is certainly not an excuse.

Bishop Schwarz leaves his office after ten years  as the head of the diocese and can claim to have remained an onlooker in a certain way.

The Case of Wagner

After the "liberal" desert in the country,  a decade would hardly have sufficed anyway   to give the diocese its orientation again. That was also seen in Rome under Pope Benedict XVI. Therefore, in 2009,  Bishop Schwarz should have been provided with the intellectually brilliant, theologically and pastorally experienced priest of Windischgarsten, the dogmatist Gerhard Maria Wagner as an auxiliary bishop.

What Benedict XVI.  had  estimated of Wagner, was that he was despised by "liberal" circles near him.  Wagner is known for his faithfulness. Feared especially is his intellect and his pugnacity. The parallels were to the St. Pölten Bishop,  Kurt Krenn, also from Upper Austria, were quickly drawn. His bishop's chair had been sawed beneath him in laborious work of 2004. The "progressive" and even the "moderate" trendsetting church circles of Austria therefore wanting nothing less than a second Krenn.

So the horn of the hunt was blown. In no time the appointed auxiliary bishop had become fair game. The Bishop of Linz in spe,Manfred Scheuer, hastened to distance hiself from his former classmate Wagner. To position oneself correctly at the right time, is part of the small multiplication table of the elites. Their art is to survive, - and to rise even higher if possible.

To make it short: Pooling efforts of anti-Church circles, "church critical" media, progressive hardliners and not least, the internal Church mainstream around Cardinal Schönborn, Wagner was prevented. Every day some new dirt was hurled at him. Which he would have withstood, but the plea finally came out of the Rome for "the sake of peace" to renounce the office. Wagner obeyed and stepped back, even before he had received episcopal ordination. How could the Bishop to be also be against the will of the Pope who had appointed him?

The Case of Wagner illustrates the influence of the Viennese Cardinal, who succeeded in altering Benedict XVI's decision. A persistent rumor goes that this was only managed by the "devil painted on the wall," that is, a schism was predicted, should Wagner become an auxiliary bishop.

Minimize Risks With Scheuer

A Bishop Wagner would have been hard for the Linz apparatchiks to  bear. But this assumed that Wagner would succeed Bishop Schwarz. A Bishop Wagner would set  alarm bells ringing in liberal circles.

Six years have passed since then. This past June 4th Bishop Schwarz finished his 75th birthday. But Pastor Wagner played no role in the appointment of the new Bishop.

The case explains in large part why Scheuer is considered in certain circles  a "preferred candidate". Each appointment entails unknowns and risks. The appointment of Scheuer minimizes these to a manageable size. As the reigning bishop, there is also a far better chance to get through the personnel decision in Rome, than a new "liberal" candidate.

The good forces in the Diocese of Linz, which make themselves known  in a whole series of initiatives, are forced to come to this decision reluctantly. The deficits are known that await a remedy but for which there is but no remedy in sight.  Finally, the following applies: The apparatus works primarily -  for the apparatus. With Bishop Scheuer,  the apparatus has a good chance, that everything remains as it is. And that is saying something in Linz.

The Negative Side of the Diocese

It is said that the essence and the mission of the diocese distorting apparatus retains its sinecures and continues to represent a Christianity Light.
It is said that cathedral minister Strasser may proceed with the destruction of the sanctuary.
It is said that the pastor of a Linzer parish can continue  in an apartment instead of the rectory with his wife and children.
It means  that as a whole, the priests with concubines (some of whom are male)  in the diocese, who are apparent  to such an extent as they were just after the Reformation. For the next 15 years they may be reassured that  their way of life will not change.
It is also stated that in some parishes on Sunday, as in Linz and Wels, instead of the pastor, a pastoral assistant with alb and pseudo stole, celebrating "worship", singing, preaching, pottering at the altar anything indefinable.
It is said that in the oldest church in Linz, "worship" is still celebrated every Sunday, but only on one Sunday is it a Holy Mass, while on the other Sundays  a "Liturgical Team" celebrates, where  the church visitors are actively prevented from fulfilling their Sunday obligation.
It is said that the church newspaper still ekes out a wallflower, located in politically correct tired platitudes.
It is said that with church funds  dodgy leftist clubs are sponsored and so that these anti-clerical circles in Catholic education worldwide can gather in the diocese.
It is said that faithful initiatives continue to receive no real support and a serious evangelization of the country is out of the question.
It is said that  everything that is "believed" in the official Catholic associations, no episcopal examination is subjected.  Also in Linz, as in most dioceses, it would rather not know the bishops
Listing is disillusioning, which is why it should be left off with.

The 14th Bishop of Linz

Manfred Scheuer is the 14th Bishop of Linz, a still relatively young diocese, which emerged only on a 1783/1785 imperial initiative. Until then, Upper Austria belonged ecclesiastically to the diocese of Passau.

Scheuer, born in 1955, taught dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of Linz. How much this is good, you can consider, when you know that Bishop Schwarz,  although he was rendered the luxury of a private university, never the less preferred to send his few seminarians to study in Innsbruck. He could have sent them also to Heiligenkreuz, but that would already have been too much of a good thing and in the Diocesan bodies without opposition unenforceable. But opposition was to Bishop Schwarz an abomination. As I said, a "good man".

His academic career led Scheuer then to Trier. He was also the postulator for the conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter. The attitude Jägerstätter is not without controversy. Scheuer in any event gathered  politically correct points with him.

He never appeared as an open rebel, but was, however, more inclined  for "liberal" concerns than for "conservative" ones. The "disobedient" cleric found in him a benevolent interlocutor. The demands of the "rebels", he never rejected, but explained only in perfect modern Church talk, some were "unworkable"  at the diocesan level.

In Scheuer's previous diocese Innsbruck Martha Heizer, the chairman of "We Are Church",  simulated Mass before peers at home. Scheuer took no action, however,  as it was his duty, but appointed a commission of inquiry in 2011. Only when the CDF imposed excommunication in spring 2014, Scheuer brought the Roman decree.

Scheuer's track in the sand

So what does not leave any traces after twelve years as bishop of North Tyrol? Striking it was only through his inaction in the case of Heizer; prompt distancing of Bishop Wagner; the hasty confession as a Kasperian who advocated for "more rights" for divorced and remarried; by the removal of a chaplain, who had dared to speak of hell and purgatory; as an extra in multireligious events of the governing state; of the "stimulated" to allow  lay preaching as "pastorallly necessary".

Scheuer has proved himself especially as an administrator of the creeping decline. It seems that more  can not be expected in the Austrian Schönborn-Church of a diocesan bishop.

And as such, Scheuer is the "desired Bishop" of like-minded in Linz. Impulses for spiritual renewal of the Church of Upper Austria beyond a watered-green-savvy Christianity are not to be expected from him. The tragedy continues.

Finally, but by no means least to be regretted, as the very "progressive" agenda, categories foreign to the Church, like "conservative," "liberal," "moderate" has prevailed, the Protestant Synodal thinking has been borrowed as a mimicry of parliamentary structures. It suggests a false equivalence and equality of different positions next to each other.  Whoever finds more followers and has occupied important positions, can just enforce it. The only distinction in the Church  should be between an orthodox and a heretical position. Under the influence of relativism on the other hand,   all  positions are tolerated indifferently as valid (almost). Moreover, what was rejected yesterday, can already be tolerated tomorrow. The   confusion and disorientation caused among priests and laity lies in front of everyone and calls out for help.

*)[Kreuz always called Schwarz an Old Liberal, and he was a scourge of Wagner and a very successful and pious Polish priest who upset a few non-participating members of his parish and the local media.] 

Text: Martha Weinzl
Image: Archdiocese of Vienna (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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