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.

Is Cardinal Kasper Excommunicated?

[Piusbruderschaft.de] The Cardinals were sworn under oath, during the Conclave, and thereafter to keep absolute silence, both in terms of the course of the conclave and the voting.

Cardinal Kasper seems to see it differently: The Swabian newspaper addressed the prelate who talks out of school and  openly declared that he had already chosen Jorge Bergoglio  in the first round of voting.

Does the Swabian Cardinal now merit an ecclesiastical punishment?

SZ: Your Eminence, when you came out of the conclave. How did you feel about the new Pope Francis?

Kasper: Cardinal Bergoglio from the beginning was my candidate, I voted for him from the beginning of the conclave. It represents a new beginning in the church, for a humble and fraternal church that is there for people who return to their source, the Gospel. His name as Pope, Francis, is a program, it is reminiscent of the St. Francis of Assisi, who has heard the call of Christ: "Build my church again!” [Not to tear it down as Cardinal Kasper has done for practically his entire career.]

Source: Schwäbische.de

The grotesque of the situation is the fact that the newspaper he never asks. Sua sponte Schwabe never asked who he has personally voting for. The question: "What do you think of the Pope?" can be answered fully satisfactorily without this indiscretion.

When the cardinal made any such,  he then left off to reconstruct the course of events of the conclave in a striking fashion.

Unlike the Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Kasper Schoenborn stressed for example, at a press conference immediately after the election, that he could only answer questions that relate to things after the election of the new Pope.

In addition, the response of Cardinal Kasper has another - like the Schwabe says - “flavor”.  Does that not sound as having a bit of panache? I, Cardinal Kasper, have made the right choice from the beginning. He has been "my" candidate.

The fact is that Cardinal Kasper has made a statement, which is illegal according to the promise given under oath. One should not think that this oath was unknown to people around the world. Even the Spiegel focuses on the secrecy sworn on the Bible in its own article: swearing on the Bible against secret treachery . It says: "In case of breach of the oath those guilty are threatened with excommunication."

Must  a Prince of the Church call this kind of secrecy into question: If your Eminence treat an oath on the Bible like this, how will your Eminence handle it in confession?

Link to piusbruderschaft.de...

Byproduct of Modernist Abbey Pleads Guilty to Molestation

Mr. Feeney minored in “theology” at St. John’s University.

Edit: as aforementioned, a devious predator has been sentenced with extensive contacts to a Modernist Monastery.  Now it looks like he’s going to be going to prison for a long time.

In a related story, Father Jerome Tupa, a pornographic “artist” has displayed his work at a St. Joseph Parish after the Palm Sunday Vigil.

An alumnus of the St. John's University, Mathew David Feeney, run by the Monastery of St. John's Abbey, according to Pine Curtain, was recently accused of sexually abusing two boys he promised would go to Hollywood in the capacity of his talent agency, Walden Entertainment.

[Fox News] Former Twin Cities talent agent Matthew Feeney pleaded guilty to molesting children in Washington County Court Monday.

Two brothers who were working with Feeney accused the agent of touching them inappropriately. His plea means Feeney's young victims won't have to go through a trial in May, when prosecutors will ask a judge to give Feeney nine years in prison.

He admitted touching the youngest brother who was nine at the time when he slept over at his house, and admitted to molesting the older brother when he was 16.

The youngest victim, now 12, was in court. His mother spoke out in defense of her son.

"He said, ‘I hope he spends every day in prison wondering what is going to happen to him, like I used to wonder what he was going to do to me," the victim's mother said.

There was no plea deal in terms of Feeney's sentence. State guidelines call for up to nine years in prison for someone with a history like Feeney's. He was also convicted 20 years ago of three cases of sexually abusing boys when he was a Catholic church youth director and worked at a catholic youth camp.

Feeney's attorney will argue for a shorter sentence than that, but did not specify the length.

"No sentence is long enough because he'll just get out and do it again," the victim's mother said.

The time Feeney did in court Monday does may not be the end of it. He's also accused of molesting the son of a relative in Massachusetts, and due in court on those charges later this month.

Read more: Feeney pleads guilty to molesting children - KMSP-TV

For retreat and information on Jerome Tupa’s work, contact Father Bob Pierson at the retreat house:

  Reservation information: www.abbeyguesthouse.org or call the Guesthouse at 320-363-2573.

The Exclusion -- The jus exclusivae

Franz Joseph I., Austrian Emperor by God’s Grace, hindered a pro-French Pope in 1903.  The tool for that is a right of veto.

Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro: With the Insignia
of honors and Grand Cross of the Bailli of the Maltese Order 

Tempora mutantur: at the conclave 110 years ago the Austrian Empire still had a weighty word, because a prompt right of veto followed.

Pope Leo XIII closed his eyes at last on the 20th of July on 1903.  Then the choice of a new Pope in the course of a conclave was the order of the day.  This began on the 31st of July.

64 Voting Cardinals

The 64 eligible cardinals were:  39 Italians, seven Frenchmen, five Spaniards, including even five from Austria-Hungary, three from Germany.  There was one each from Portugal, Belgium, England, the USA and Australia.  In Rome there were 62, because Cardinal Patrick Maran from Sydney couldn’t be there at the appointed time.  For Pietro Michelangenlo Celesia, Archbishop of Palermo,  it wasn’t possible to come for reasons of sickness.

The five Princes of the Church from the Double-Monarchy were Kolos Ferenc Vaszary (Gran Esztergom), Leo Freiherr Skrbensky (Prague), Jan Puzyna (Cracow), Johannes Katschathaler, as the Archbishop of Salzburg Primate of the Germans, and last Anton Grscha, Archbishop of Vienna.

Course of the Election

For a valid election a requirement of two thirds majority (of those present) accounting for 42.  On the 1st of Augustin at 10 o’clock in the morning was the first vote.  As expected, Cardinal Rampola reaped the most votes (24), in the second round he pulled 29 votes after that.

Now the opponents of Rampolla --  who were in the first line of Austria-Hungary -- sounded the alarm, because Rampolla was a red cape for the Double-Monarchy.  Under his aegis the Holy See would turn away from the Archcatholic House of Habsburg and to the French Republic, to which the latter was connected to Czarist Russia,  which was at that time oppressing Catholic Poland.

The ius exclusivae

It was time for Vienna to play its trump, the jus exclusivae, namely the right of certain Catholic Princes, to prevent a non-desirable Papal claimant.  The exclusion, by which the ius exclusive shortly became known by,  belonged  to, besides the Emperor of Austria, the King of Spain as well as the French government as the successor of the King of France and Navarre.

It is false to say as it is introduced  hither and yon (see Google) that Franz Joseph asserted his privilege  (which was fundamentally also due to the Magyars for their fight as athletes of Christ against the Turks) in his quality as King of Hungary.  Were this so, then the Monarch would have certainly, as the Prince Primate of Hungary, therefore the Archbishop of Estergom, as the one who delivered the veto.

Cardinal Rampolla can not be chosen

In this consideration Franz Josef I. had assigned Cardinal Puzyna a so-called secretum to carry to Rome , which contained the written veto to be cast against Rampolla. Puzyna cast the veto just before the third session (2nd August), which read:

“Called by the highest commission of this office, I consider it my honor, to convey to the Dean of the Holy College in an official way and let it be conveyed the following:  His Apostolic Majesty the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary intend, to serve his ancient right and privilege, namely to assert a veto against the selection of His Eminence of the Cardinal Lords, Mariano Rampola del Tinder."

Guiseppe Sarto Becomes Pius X

With that Rampolla was out of the running, two days later, Guiseppe Sarto, the Patriarch of Venice, was elected as the new Supreme Head of the Church.  He took the name Pius X., Austro-Hungary had asserted itself.  Once more the old saying was valid: AEIOU -- Alles Erdreich is Oestereich untertan.

Indeed, Pius X. shortly released the Constitution Commissum Nobis on the 20th of January, 1904.  The content was a cold shower for Vienna, because from then on, any worldly power which asserts for consideration the jus exclusivae is threatened with excommunication latae sententiae.  With that the ancient privilege declared by Franz Joseph would be in the past.

This article referenced the following:

Erich Körner Lakatos:
Palais des Beaux Arts? Normannen in der Karibik?
Vierzig historische Nischen
Edition Octopust, 2012, 369 Seiten, 17,80 Euro
Münster: Verl.-Haus Monsenstein und Vannerda
978-3-86991-601-9

Link to kreuz.net….

Sect Expert Discusses Pedophilia and Violence in Satanic Cults

Cult expert Brigitte Hahn: "We need a much greater awareness of the issue." By Andreas Otto (KNA) 

Münster (kath.net / KNA) The Münster sect expert Brigitte Hahn warns of the danger by Satanists. In their ceremonies they would expose children to extreme sexual and other violence, says the head of the "Working Group Ritual Violence” of the dioceses Essen, Münster and Osnabrück on Monday in an interview with the Catholic News Agency (KNA) in Munster. She called for a much greater awareness of the issue.

KNA: Ms. Hahn, you have a few days before a major conference on organized satanic cults.  Because of strong demand many experts could not attend. How widespread is the problem? 
Hahn: There are no solid figures, but substantial evidence. In 2005 there were less than 1,000 psychotherapists covered by health insurance in Münster and Dortmund were questioned. 120 have reported  clients who have had experiences with Satanic rituals. Polls in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland gave similar responses. My findings are based on numerous exit questionaires.

KNA: What happens when the rituals? 
Hahn: The sect regards itself as a chosen race and an elite society that worships Satan. All the rituals are done in his honor. The focus is on  violence, the more suffering and violence someone endures, the closer you are to Satan. According to this ideology, there are ceremonies in which children suffer extremes of sexual and other violence.

KNA: That sounds more like pedophilia and sexual excesses that are ideologically exaggerated ... 
Hahn: First and foremost it is about the ideology around Satan. Their business involves the sect but with illegal actions. They offer their children for sexual use and participate in drug and human trafficking. In addition to the enormous sums earned there, the sect offers the opportunity to blackmail the customers and bring them into their hand.

KNA: When and where are satanic rituals? 
Hahn: Preferably at night in private homes, castles and forests. And unfortunately, they are trying to use as churches.

KNA: How can you tell Satanists? 
Hahn: They tend not to openly reveal themselves and  hide behind a totally bourgeois existence.

KNA: Are the children found out in day care and schools? 
Hahn: Even the children will be coached to not talk about the sect. But symptoms may indicate a Satanic background: High absenteeism, fatigue, confused impression, forgotten things, bruising or a sexualized behavior. The crux: With such distinctive peculiarities, the parents, who may be members of the sect must intervene, according to the law. The sect retains absolute control over the children. The effect is that the children are punished horribly - and if they still continue to remain conspicuous, from kindergarten they are withdrawn or simply enrolled into another school.

CBA: Are there any missionary efforts? 
Hahn: Most people seeking advice were born into the sect. Moreover, there are children, adolescents and adults who have been recruited. An example from my consulting work: A teenager was approached on the football team, moving first to small offenses and later to serious crimes up to the killing of a person.

KNA: What can one do against such sects? 
Hahn: Above all, we need a much greater awareness of the issue. Many in the field of social worker come into contact with people who report on ritual violence. Satanic sects in the destruction of our democratic-Christian value system is the target. Therefore, all social entities are required to take  action. Even the Church. We need the political will to investigate these reports. For dropouts from these sects, we need expert therapists and doctors, qualified accommodation and trained police officers.

KNA: Why is the Catholic Church in great demand? 
Hahn: The Catholic Church has  extensive outreach for the help for runaways and dropouts. Chaplains, volunteers, social workers, doctors, psychologists and counselors already support dropouts in many ways. Moreover, the Catholic Church is a particular target of Satanic sects. Our values ​​like charity, compassion, human dignity and the protection of human rights are to be destroyed. The satanic sects steal communion wafers, chalices and other sacred items. They are desecrated by being used in heinous acts. 

CBA: How do Satanists spread their ideology? 
Hahn: There are books available in bookstores and lots of information on the Internet. And in the sects themselves, members learn what they have to have to do. They learn that being the "Highest" the deputy of Satan, they have to obey absolutely.

CBA: Is there a way out of the cult? 
Hahn: Yes, there is a way out. Dropouts just need a good social environment and many professional people to accompany this difficult path and not to get confused by relapses. 

Link to kath.net...

Archbishop Müller Expects a Response from SSPX on Preamble

(Vatikan) The Vatican expects from the Society of St. Pius X, according to Gerhard Ludwig Müller, an unequivocal recognition of Church teaching. Every Pope pope has to confirm that all of the councils belong up to and including The Vatican Council. (1962-1965), said the Prefect of the CDF this Monday for KNA. The German District of the Society has again published for this reason A short overview, which describes what post conciliar positions they can't accept.

http://www.katholisches.info/2013/03/26/erzbischof-muller-erwartet-von-der-piusbruderschaft-antwort-auf-dogmatischer-praambel/

Moscow Patriarchate Warns Anglican Church Against Deviations From Christian Values

Edit he’s not asking, he’s telling him.  These radicals will talk all day about ecumenism, until it actually does something to unify Christians.  They’d much rather divide Christians and keep them in Schism.  There are a few characters in the Bible who were like that.

If anything, it looks like the Orthodox are growing closer to the Catholic Church, as the Patriarch of Constantinople suggested the plausibility that the Great Schism could be drawing to a close.

Russian Church hopes new head of Anglican Church will not allow female bishops, same-sex marriage

Moscow, March 25, Interfax - The Moscow Patriarchate expects Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, to adhere to the norms of Christian morals and the church system. He didn’t strike a conciliatory tone, no.

"We know that the Anglican Church is now going through a difficult time and various views, positions, and parties co-exist in it. However, we really hope that the traditional understanding of Christian morals and the church system will prevail in this polemic," Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, said during a meeting between Welby and representatives of the Orthodox Churches who attended his enthronement.

The introduction of the institution of female bishops will lead to the elimination of even a theoretical possibility of the Moscow Patriarchate recognizing the church hierarchy of the Anglican Church, the communications service of the Department for External Church Relations reported on Saturday. [I should think women’s ordination had already done that long ago.]

"I would like you to know about that and take our opinion into account when this issue arises again," Metropolitan Hilarion said.

Metropolitan Hilarion also said he is hoping Justin Welby will firmly defend the traditional biblical understanding of marriage as a union between a man and a woman "to prevent secular society from forcing on the Church of England the recognition of some forms of cohabitation which were never considered marriage by Christian churches."

Welby responded by saying he appreciates the comment, adding that the position of the Church of England on the issue of marriage is absolutely clear and it has recently confirmed that marriage is a life-long union between a man and a woman.

Link to Interfax-Religion...

There Was Also a Protest For Marriage in England

Edit: but the gaystapo was out in force.   These brave souls were showing solidarity with the protest on behalf of marriage which rocked Paris on Palm Sunday and drew close to 2 million protesters.



Link to Anglican Mainstream...

Cardinal Dolan Gives Sacrilegious Communion to Biden?

Eternal damnation can be funny...

 Edit: so much for all that talk about the evils of abortion.

Vice President Joe Biden attended mass and received communion on Sunday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York where the mass was celebrated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan. 

At a time when the administration is being sued by Dolan and the Catholic Bishop’s Conference over the Obama health care provision on birth control, the meeting was seen as an attempt to create a new dialogue. 

An Irish American Catholic, Biden receiving communion was also seen as significant. Dolan’s predecessor Cardinal Edward Egan refused to give communion to those who differed with the church on the abortion issue.

H/t: Pewsitter

Link to source…Irish Central...

Cardinal Piacenza in Intensive Care -- Iron Defender of True Priesthood

(Vatican) Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy tipped yesterday during the Palm Sunday liturgy in St. Peter's Square from his chair and was immediately taken to the intensive care unit of the Gemelli Hospital. According to initial information, his health was "stable." His whereabouts remain under medical supervision in the Department was merely a "precautionary measure, in order to perform further checks.”

It was not bad luck that the Cardinal yesterday along with his chair tipped over. His health is obviously serious if it was a heart attack has not been confirmed. A papal master of ceremonies helped him yesterday immediately. But the same ambulance was called immediately and ordered the transport.

Cardinal Piacenza downed during papal Mass on chair

Cardinal Piacenza, 69 years old, comes from Liguria and is a student of Giuseppe Cardinal Siri. The head of the Congregation for Clergy is one of the most esteemed and influential Dicasteries of the Roman Curia.

Born on 15 September 1944 in Genoa, he joined the Archbishop's Seminary of the Ligurian capital in 1964. On the 21st of December 1969 he was ordained by the then Archbishop of Genoa, Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, as a priest. Till 1975 he worked in the parish ministry, he was until 1978 the archdiocesan seminary as chaplain. In 1976 he received his doctorate summa cum laude from the Pontifical Lateran University in canon law.

This then decided him upon his academic career. Until 1990, he taught dogmatic theology at Didascaleion, the Theological Institute for laity of the Archdiocese of Genoa. In the last five years, he was its rector, while he also taught at the Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in Liguria. From 1978 to 1990 he was also a professor of canon law at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy.

A man a man whose reputation became speedily that of one who worked efficiently

Piacenza has the reputation of working extremely efficiently. In the archdiocese of Genoa he was soon responsible for a range of tasks, from media representatives to a judge of the ecclesiastical court. In 1986, he also taught religion at a Humanistic Gymnasium in the city and was chaplain of its convent.

For the Archbishop, he took care of the formation of the spiritual life and led several times led visitations of religious congregations, held all kinds of spiritual recollections and retreats for priests, seminarians, and religious congregations and wrote also several books on the necessity of a permanent spiritual formation of the clergy, or to issues of relations between Church and state.

In 1990 he was appointed to the Roman Curia, and was on duty at the Congregation for Clergy. In 1997 he became Head of Department and in 2000 its Undersecretary. On the 13th of October 2003, Pope John Paul II appointed him President of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, and raised him to the rank of bishop. On the 15th of November he was received by the then Archbishop of Genoa and now Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, and consecrate bishop in the cathedral.

On the 28th of August 2004, he was appointed President of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology. During the three-year term at the helm of the two commissions he proposed a number of new initiatives. For public attention, especially the performance of an opera composed by him, in two acts on the Beatitudes, which was ran mainly in eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe.

John Paul II summoned him to Rome, he was above all a man of Benedict XVI.

He was called by John Paul II to Rome, but it was to Pope Benedict XVI. to whom Piacenza was particularly connected. The formed in the school of priests Cardinal Siri was never modernist tendencies. He clung to the traditional vision of the priesthood and defended Catholic orthodoxy. He was therefore the right man for Pope Benedict XVI. He had previously appointed the Archbishop of Sao Paulo, Claudio Cardinal Hummes, to the new Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy. One of those appointments that are in Rome considered to belong to the category of “promotions out of the way”.

The domesticated Liberation Theologian Hummes came from a diocese with a strong pastoral, but less than dogmatic zeal. Before Hummes boarded the plane, to take up his appointment as chief of the Dicastery for the Clergy, he told the press that celibacy was "not a dogma." Even before his plane landed in Rome, he had him sign a prescribed denial. He has screwed up his debut, so that there was almost no room for own his initiatives remaining. So that would also was safe, so in return on Pope Benedict XVI.’s sideCuria Bishop Piacenza rose to the Archbishop.

The Priest is a "witness of the Absolute”, and attacks against celibacy come from thinking alien to the Faith

In the year of the priest, which took place from 19 June 2009 to 11th in June 2010, was organized by the Congregation for the International event "Faithfulness of Christ, Faithfulness of Priests" who then bore the signature of the Secretary and not the Prefect. On 19 June 2009, the then Archbishop Piacenza Curia said in an interview with L'Osservatore Romano, the priest is a "witness of the Absolute." The attacks on priestly celibacy were for Monsignor Piacenza the product "of contexts and mentalities that are completely alien to the Faith, which often in time and form come from most hidden forces lead to a progressive weakening" and seeks one of the most central effective witnesses of Christian discipleship.

Cardinal Hummes was strong enough with the help of some curial positions and some Bishops' Conferences and papal initiatives to slow it or even prevent it. This includes the conclusion of the Year for Priests planned appointment of the Curé of Ars, St. John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of priests. The idea was to get a pre-Vatican II priest as a model, which went too far for a number of bishops, who  tolerated in some dioceses the almost endemic phenomenon of priests engaged in liturgical abuse, living in concubinage and preaching heresies.

Cardinal Hummes replaced by Piacenza, when trying to prevent Cure of Ars patron of priests

Less than two months after midway point before the completion of the Year for Priests, Pope Benedict XVI intimated quite unequivocally that Cardinal Hummes 75 that he expects his resignation on time because he had reached the age limit.

On the 7th of October 2010 Curia Archbishop Piacenza succeeded Hummes as Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy. Benedict XVI. created him in summary proceedings on 20 November 2010 a Cardinal. His titular church in Rome is San Paolo of the Three Fountains.

Last year, Cardinal Piacenza was suggested as a possible new Secretary of State, should replace Cardinal Bertone.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
 Image: Vatican Insider

From Katholisches...