Friday, May 4, 2018

Saint Statues and Crosses Destroyed in Bamburg Churches

The Archdiocese of Bamberg speaks to kath.net about the "rash of violence" and says: "We can currently confirm 6 cases of vandalism in 5 churches"
 
Bamberg (kath.net/pl) Saints statues and crosses have been destroyed in five Bamberg churches. Catholic churches and a Protestant church were affected. The spokesman for the Archdiocese of Bamberg, Harry Luck, told kath.net on request: "We are shocked and saddened by the violence in Bamberger churches. We can currently confirm 6 cases of vandalism in 5 churches. Sculptures and saints statues were overturned, pictures were torn off the walls and a pane hit. In consultation with the police we call the communities, believers, sacristans etc. to special attention. The police are investigating and will continue to inform during the day. Consult the press office of the police inspector Bamberg."

According to Bavarian Radio, the property damage apparently amounts to several thousand euros, the Criminal Police determined and have promised to give more information about it today.

The Association of Sacristans of the Archdiocese of Bamberg wrote on Facebook: "Keep your eyes open! Here in Bamberg yesterday and today. It was yesterday and today in the monastery church. St. Otto today and the Evangelical Church of the Redeemer also got it."

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Cowardly Ryan Caves on Firing Evil Jesuit

Edit: of course he caved. The first decent thing he’s probabaly done in his entire life, and he fails.

[Raw Story] Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has reversed his position on firing a liberal Catholic Chaplain after the priest, Father Patrick Conroy, rescinded his forced resignation Thursday afternoon.

“I have accepted Father Conroy’s letter and decided that he will remain in his position as Chaplain of the House,” Ryan said in a statement Thursday evening.

 “My original decision was made in what I believed to be the best interest of this institution. To be clear, that decision was based on my duty to ensure that the House has the kind of pastoral services that it deserves. It is my job as speaker to do what is best for this body, and I know that this body is not well served by a protracted fight over such an important post. I intend to sit down with Father Conroy early next week so that we can move forward for the good of the whole House.”
Father Conroy is a liberal Jesuit Catholic priest who supports same-sex marriage.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/paul-ryan-reverses-firing-liberal-chaplain/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

AMDG


Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Knights of Malta Elect New Grand Master

Former governor Fra'Giacomo Dalla Torre has received office for life by election of the 54-member State Council - oath of office on Thursday before the Order’s papal delegate Becciu

Rome (kath.net/KAP) The Order of Malta has elected Fra 'Giacomo Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto (73) as its new Grand Master. This was announced by the Order on Wednesday in Rome. Dalla Torre previously served as a governor. In this role, he led the community transition ally after a severe management crisis since 29 April 2017. The current election was carried out by the 54 members of the Grand Council of State. Dalla Torre receives the position of Grandmaster for life.


Prior to the announcement, Pope Francis was informed in writing of the election result. Subsequently, the Grand Priorate and other institutions of the Order became aware, as well as the governments of the 107 States, to which the Order maintains diplomatic relations with the rank subject to international law. On Thursday morning, Dalla Torre takes his oath of office in the Roman church of Santa Maria in Aventino in front of the papal special delegate to the Order, Archbishop Angelo Becciu.

The last Grandmaster, the Briton Matthew Festing (68), came back in early 2017 under pressure from Pope Francis. This had been preceded by turbulence at the head of the Order, which temporarily cost the German Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager (68) his position as Grand Chancellor.

The draft of a new constitution for the Sovereign Order of Malta should also be presented this week. It comes from a reform committee under the supervision of Archbishop Delegate Becciu; However, the document still had to be discussed, it was said at last. So far, the constitution has regulated that a grandmaster must always be "from an old noble family" and belong to the "First Estate" of the Order of Malta. These include men who, as professed knights, have taken the three vows of poverty, honorability and obedience and then become true religious in the sense of canon law. Women can not become grandmasters under the current constitution.

Order and Subject of International Law

The Order of Malta is in the tradition of the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the world's first Christian Nursing Order founded in the 11th century. After the Reformation, the community split into the Catholic Maltese and the Protestant Hospitallers.

As a Catholic Order, the Sovereign Order of Malta is subordinate to the Holy See. At the same time it is politically ita own subject under international law. This status gives it unique access at the political and diplomatic level and is intended to provide special independence in conflicts.

The Maltese have 13,500 male and female members and about 120,000 honorary and full-time employees. They are active worldwide in development and disaster relief as well as in the health sector. In Germany, the German branch of the Order of Malta and the German Caritas Association founded the Malteser Hilfsdienst (MHD) in 1953 as a medical and civil protection organization.

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Archbishop Sample Praises Notes Youthful Fascination With Immemorial Mass on EWTN


[Catholic Herald] Young people are drawn to the Traditional Latin Mass by its “beauty”, “sense of mystery” and “transcendence”, Archbishop Alexander K Sample has said.
Speaking during a Pontifical High Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC, Archbishop Sample praised Pope Benedict XVI for the “great gift” of Summorum Pontificum – the document that allowed the traditional Mass to be more widely celebrated – and said the “reverence and sacredness” of the old Mass would enrich the Novus Ordo.
The Archbishop of Portland, Oregon also noted how many young people were in the congregation, saying: “You are a sign—a great sign—of encouragement and hope for the Church tossed about these days on the troubled waters of secularism and relativism. As they say: you ‘get it.’”




AMDG

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

School Board Suspends Catholicism at Ontario Catholic Schools

Edit: meanwhile, Salt and Light, CCCB, Crux will have nothing meaningful to say.

[The Globe and Mail] An Ontario Catholic school board has suspended a controversial policy that forbids students from raising money for charities that support abortion, euthanasia and other activities opposed by the church.

After months of outcry from many parents and students and criticism from the province’s Education Minister about a lack of consultation, trustees at the Halton Catholic District School Board voted on Tuesday night to pause the implementation of the board’s “Sanctity of Life” policy until after it had received and considered feedback from the wider school community.

Trustees first passed a motion in February stating it would no longer provide or facilitate financial donations to non-profits or charities that publicly support, “either directly or indirectly, abortion, contraception, sterilization, euthanasia, or embryonic stem cell research.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/canada/article-ontario-catholic-school-board-suspends-controversial-charity-policy/?__twitter_impression=true

AMDG

Bishop of Innsbruck Wears Groovy Plastic Chasuble



Please, help me escape this avant garde pose. I’m about to dance now....

Edit: episcopal twiggy as reported by Damian Thompson on his Twitter. Is Damien still going to the New Mass?  

I thought I’d seen everything, but then I underestimated the sheer degeneracy of the Austrian Bishops.

[Choosing — Him] The museum of the Benedictine Monastery of Admont, Austria, has presently displayed exhibits belonging to the new bishop of Innsbruck, Hermann Glettler who was consecrated in December 2017.

Among the exhibits is a 2004 photo of Glettler wearing a transparent "chasuble" made from plastic. The photo is also on the cover of this years's catalogue of the museum.

Glettler believes in female priests. His appointment was enthusiastically praised by the commercial media.




en.news

AMDG

Deputy Head of CSU: Three Years Ago Marx Wanted Crosses in Public Buildings

Dorothee Bär, the deputy leader of CSU, has rejected the criticism of the President of the Catholic German Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Marx, on the cross-decree of Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder.

Munich (kath.net) Dorothee Bär, the deputy leader of CSU, has rejected the criticism of the chairman of the Catholic German Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Marx, on Prime Minister Markus Söder’s cross decree. "The statements of Cardinal Marx are very puzzling: Three years ago he pleaded publicly for the crosses in schools and courtrooms," said the State Minister for Digitization in the Federal Chancellery to the "Handelsblatt." Nobody could deny, according to Bear, "that our homeland is Christian-Jewish. "Marx had previously claimed that Söder's initiative created, "division and unrest."

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Crossgate: Austrian Nuncio Castigates Cardinal Marx

Austrian nuncio Peter Stephan Zurbriggen sharply criticizes Cardinal Marx and German bishops for criticizing the use of crosses in public buildings

Vienna (kath.net)
On Tuesday, the Austrian nuncio Peter Stephan Zurbriggen sharply criticized the fact that bishops in neighboring Germany are attacking Bavarian prime minister Markus Söder because he is hanging crosses. He said: "You know, as a nuncio and representative of the Holy Father, I am already discouraged and ashamed that when crosses are put up in a neighboring country, it is precisely the bishops and priests who come forth to criticize this, that is a shame!”

Pretty annoyed about the behavior of some confreres from Germany, Zurbriggen then said: "This religious correctness is getting on my nerves." And again critical of the address of Cardinal Marx: "If they make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and are ashamed to carry the cross, for whatever reason, then it shames me too."

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Monday, April 30, 2018

Cardinal Marx Attacks Bavarian Cross Proposal -- Calls Söder "Divisive"

The head of the German Bishops' Conference attacked the Bavarian Prime Minister. "If the cross is only seen as a cultural symbol, it has not been understood," says Reinhard Marx.




Hard criticism of Söder: Cardinal Reinhard Marx Photo: dpa / Sven Hoppe

[Tagesspiegel] The head of the Catholic German Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, has criticized the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder for his cross-decree. It was encouraging "division, unrest, against each other," said Marx in an interview with the "Süddeutsche Zeitung".
 
"If the cross is only seen as a cultural symbol, it has not been understood," said the Archbishop of Munich and Freising. "Then the cross would be expropriated in the name of the state."
 




It was not up to the state to explain what the cross meant, said Marx. It was "a sign of opposition to violence, injustice, sin and death, but no sign against other people." Marx considers the social debate about the cross to be important, but everyone should be involved: Christians, Muslims, Jews and those who are not really religious.
 
The state must ensure that religious beliefs can be articulated. But it can not determine what the content of this religious belief is. It could do something to make those values ​​live.  "And this is what the state does with us." The Gospel can not be translated one-to-one into practical politics, Marx said. "From a Christian point of view, however, it should be a guiding principle for politicians to respect the dignity of every human being, especially the weak. He who hangs a cross must be judged by these standards."

more on the subject





New Prime Minister Crusader Söder and self-confident Bavaria

Here I am: Markus Söder, Bavarian Prime Minister (CSU)
Patrick Guyton
 
The Bavarian state cabinet had decided that from June a cross must hang in every office of  state. In the view of the state government, this should express the "historical and cultural character" of Bavaria and be "a visible commitment to the basic values ​​of the legal and social order". The decision was controversial throughout Germany. (AP)

Trans: Tancred verkon99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Sunday, April 29, 2018

84 Year Old Priest Abducted and Murdered in Mexico

Exclusive interview with a Mexican priest tracking the persecution of the Church in Mexico: "The message is clear: If I can kill a priest, I can kill anyone." 

The Catholic Church in Mexico is experiencing another tragedy during this “black April” marked by the death of priests. On April 25, Fr. Moisés Fabila, the 84-year-old chaplain of the Choir of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe was found dead in Cuernavaca, the capital of the state of Morelos, south of Mexico City.

 The information available to date is that Fr. Moisés had been kidnapped last April 3; the ransom demanded by his captors had been paid, but due to the priest’s delicate health (he was in Cuernavaca to rest, due to illness) he was unable to survive his captivity.

He is the fourth priest to be found dead (three murdered and one the victim of a supposed accident) in less than a week. This chain of homicides makes Mexico the most dangerous place in the world to be a priest, with 24 (or 25) priests having been murdered in the five and a half years during which the current administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto has been in power.

https://aleteia.org/2018/04/28/an-84-year-old-catholic-priest-has-been-murdered-in-mexico/?utm_campaign=english_page&utm_medium=aleteia_en&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1524932684

AMDG

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Celibacy and Its Opponents

Bishop Bode, pictured with new "liturgical" headgear, is preparing the German public for the introduction of married priests. A plan with far-reaching consequences ...

 
(Berlin) If there were any doubts that the Amazon synod would be programmed, they should be dispelled. The Amazon synod is will not just be somehow programmed, but in the background from the German-speaking countries. The German Church is said to be recovering from the German spirit, not just since the 1960s. Like with Hegel the tourist in his rucksack, they seem to have a fixed view of the Protestantism that emerged from German lands as a role model. The demand is already old, but now it should really lunge for the neck of celibacy.

On German nature ...

The Amazon Synod is being prepared on behalf of Pope Francis by  the emeritus Austrian missionary Bishop Erwin Kräutler and German-born Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes. Hummes (born 1934) is a personal friend of Pope Francis. Kräutler (born 1939) is the bishop who "does not agree" when it comes to praying priestly vocations.


Amazon Basin
Both have spoken repeatedly in favor of celibacy's demotion to a voluntary basis, which amounts to its de facto abolition, as practice in the Orthodox churches shows. In Protestantism, it never came up again. Both already spoke out for the ordination of women. The Amazon synod with the aim of a married clergy is therefore only a first stage in the attack on the sacrament of Holy Orders.
 
Kräutler is head of Repam Brazil and Hummes is head of the entire Repam network. Repam, in turn, was founded in late 2014 through episcopal conferences in all Amazonian states to prepare the Amazon synod on behalf of the Vatican. Thus, Kräutler and Hummes have a central influence on the direction of the synod.
 
The main concern of the Synod, which has since been barely hidden, is, unlike allegedly, not a "cry" of the indigenous Amazon people, because they have no priests. Hummes himself immediately smashed an unwanted proposal to remedy the alleged shortage of priests for the maximum of 300,000 Amazonian Indians. Why? Because the primary goal is not the pastoral care of the Indians, but the abolition of celibacy.

Pope's Ghost Writer, Fernandez is Out as University Rector

 (Buenos Aires) The Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina will receive a new rector tomorrow. This ends the term of Monsignor Victor Manuel Fernandez, one of Pope Francis' closest and most controversial confidants. In Rome, many people wonder: What will be his new task?
Victor Manuel Fernandez is widely regarded as the Ghostwriter of Pope Francis and as an alter ego of  his Argentine compatriot on the Pope's throne. The Vaticanist Sandro Magister counts him next to the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro and the Presbyterian Pastor Marcelo Figueroa as the dubious "three musketeers of the Pope"

Bergoglio's Protegé


Cardinal Bergoglio with Victor Manuel Fernandez
On Monday, the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina (UCA) published a press statement announcing a "new rector of the UCA". According to the statement, there was is a "shared time in office agreed between Rector Msgr. Victor Manuel Fernandez and the Grand Chancellor, Cardinal Mario Aurelio Poli." Cardinal Poli is the successor appointed as Archbishop of Buenos Aires by Pope Francis in April 2013. The respective Archbishop of Buenos Aires is automatically also the Grand Chancellor of the University.
 
Victor Manuel Fernandez became Rector of the UCA in 2009. His appointment was a power struggle between the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, and the Vatican. At the Roman Congregation for Catholic Education there were strong concerns about Fernandez, whose publications did not convince, but raised some doubts. Fernandez's first work from 1995 is entitled  "Heal me through your mouth. The art of kissing." Magister wrote in the summer of 2017:
"It comes as no surprise that Rome, following this book and other equally controversial book productions, vetoed the appointment of Fernandez as Rector of the Catholic University of Argentina."
In 2004 and 2005 he published essays defending situational ethics. The influence of the Papal "eyeball" on Bergoglio would deserve its own investigation.
 
However, Cardinal Bergoglio stubbornly persisted in appointing his confidant as the university rector, thereby defeating Rome, which bowed to the will of the Jesuit "on the periphery".
 
But that was not all: When Bergoglio was elected pope four years later, he took revenge on the Roman opponents in this power struggle. Demonstratively, he appointed Fernandez as one of his first personnel decisions, to Titular Archbishop. At the same time he showed his Roman opponents to the door. A few months after his election, he dismissed nine members of the Education Congregation .
And even more: the Fernandez's personal file from 2009 was the concern of  French Dominican, Curia Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès. Msgr. Brugués was secretary of the Congregation for Education at that time, expressing doubts and reservations about the appointment of Fernandez as Rector. Pope Benedict XVI, who valued the Dominican, made him Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church  in 2012. This office, the "memory" of the Church, is traditionally associated with the cardinalatial dignity. But Brugués has since been denied by a vindictive Franciscan.

The papal ghostwriter

Since Cardinal Bergoglio moved to Rome as Pope Francis, Fernandez also commutes between Buenos Aires and the Vatican. He is considered the real speechwriter of the pope. In fact, in recent years he has spent more time in Rome than in Buenos Aires.
 
As adviser to Pope Francis, Msgr. Fernandez has attracted attention mainly through questionable contributions.
 
Fernandez was part of the editorial team for Amoris laetitia. Complete paragraphs of the particularly controversial eighth chapter, "with which Pope Francis has shaken the Church the most", said Magister in the previous year, are from older writings by Fernandez. Similar text contributions can be found in other papal documents.

Victor Manuel Fernandez, alter ego of Francis
In summer 2017, an essay by the Pope's protégé was published in the journal, Medellín. There, Fernandez let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, spreading what was hitherto vehemently disputed by the papal court: Almost a year and a half after the publication of the post-Synodal letter Amoris laetitia, Fernandez admitted that Pope Francis wanted to and has changed the "discipline" of the Church. So far, from the papal inner-circle, it has been claimed against the critics with emphasis, it changes "nothing."
 

In December 2016, Fernandez dismissed concerns of Catholic theologians, intellectuals, bishops and priests about Amoris laetitia, as that of four cardinals, which he described  as " ultra-Catholic " interjections . After all, the Church is "not a cannon firing safe teachings."
 
On 12 August 2017, in an interview with the Argentine newspaper La Voz del Interior, he spoke of a "new type of organization in the parishes". He called celibacy the mere "norm" of the Church. Criticizing celibacy is linked to the exercise of the responsibilities of a pastor as "power". Therefore, new organizational structures for parishes should be created by transferring "power" to lay people, "men and women". Then it will be less "disturbing"  of the life of the parish that "the priest is celibate", which is then also is "less questioned".

The new rector - and new tasks of the old kind?

New Rector of the UCA, founded in 1958, will be Miguel Angel Schiavone, who has already been confirmed by the Holy See. Tomorrow, March, the doctor and first layman at the head of the university will take office as the sixth rector in the history of the UCA. The official inauguration with an academic celebration will take place on May 9th.
 
Fernandez has said goodbye to the University with the celebration of a Mass.
 
The question is: what new tasks will Fernandez take on?

The "felt" influence of "Tucho", as friends call him, is so great that, after the dismissal of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, he was even rumored to be in consideration as the new Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith.
 
Since he has spent more time in Rome than in Argentina in the past few years to advise Pope Francis and to write for him, more Fernandez must be expected in the Vatican.
 
Officially, it only means that the outgoing rector will support the new rector.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Rorate Coeli / Fratres in Unum / Cope (Screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG 

If Words Could Kill: Catholic Apologetics Mafia Attacks Faithful Catholics

De Agostini Picture Library via Getty Images

And I say to you, my friends: Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will shew you whom you shall fear: fear ye him, who after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell. Yea, I say to you, fear him. 

 

Edit: in the past few days there have been a lot of professed experts among the Apologetics Inc. people (it's more of a cult), the old EWTN crew and even a motorcycle hooligan of a Canon Lawyer (apparently an ex-Satanist), on Judaism and the Catholic Church.  They are now venting their collectivist fury upon anyone they perceive as deviating from the acceptable, progressive orthodoxy on the topic of  Judaism.  The blood lust is palpable.  Could this be the end of Catholic Apologetics?

While those addressing the question of Judaism critically, and fearlessly, are in short supply, there are no shortage of individuals who, not having studied the question very deeply, wish to assume the worst of people who merely believe and know what the Church has taught and lived for centuries.

The current mob within the Church, who are now attacking faithful Catholics, including faithful priests like Father Peter West, do not draw their inspiration from the scriptures, so much as novelties which have been put upon the Church in the last half-century, like the post-Conciliar interpretations of Vatican II. These interpreters, like Cardinal Kasper, Hans Kung, Cardinal Bernardin, were eager to show their zeal for the Jewish nation, even to the point of disparaging Scripture itself. These were the visible agents of a powerful force which imposed a Church-wide institutional disposition, declaring a unilateral peace with the Jewish people. Maybe Catholic hostility was in the past, but Jewish hostility towards Catholics? Certainly, the aforementioned Apologetics Inc. is more than eager to attack!

The Church had opened its door, and ever since it has ever been perilous to express any opinion which might coincide with actual Catholic teaching of the ages, especially not touching on Judaism, which might offend the imposed consensus, no matter how far that consensus and fanaticism on its behalf, falls from the sensus catholicus, love of neighbor, or indeed, the Catholic Faith itself. Nowhere is the auto-lesionistic disease afflicting the Church more evident. Thus it has come to pass that expressing an opinion on Judaism, even the most innocuous and apparently harmless, can lead to heights of rage that will land a man in a lot of hot water with those powers and principalities, like the aforementioned apologetics mafia who are the handmaids of this oppressive arrangement.  In many "civilized" Western countries, it can even mean prison.

In view of this situation, it seems worthwhile to revisit an instructive story.  One lone voice was raised years ago.  The man who raised it was nearly thrown out on the street.  Yet teaching Catholicism on a question touching on the Jews cost him his job as an instructor of Sacred Scripture. It must have been painful for him to make this stand, for teaching was something he loved doing, but we're grateful he did.  He still maintains this notion about the Jews and their Covenant which can
 only be fulfilled in Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

Here is Father Echert's account as it appeared last year, which addressed the same problem which as raised its head again now that Cardinal Kasper and the Sankt Gallen Mafia rule at Santa Marta.  This was taken from AKA Catholic:

The Archdiocese won't allow us to use his official photo.


Less than two years into the new millennium, Moslem terrorists attacked the United States on 9/11, murdering thousands of Americans and sending hundreds of thousands of military troops to wars that would last for years. Among those deployed was a Catholic military chaplain from Minnesota, who was called to active duty from the classroom; this priest was also the Scripture Expert for the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) website.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Critical Observations on Joseph Ratzinger’s Classic Text



Joseph Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity

 Father Matthias Gaudron FSSPX

The text was initially submitted as a letter to the editor for Deutsche Tagespost, but unfortunately not published there.

In the German daily post from 23 March 2018, Michael Karger raised the issue of the first publication of Joseph Ratzinger's "Introduction to Christianity". Undoubtedly, this book contains interesting food for thought and is an attempt to re-examine the Catholic faith of a time when the truths of faith were being thrown off as oppressive baggage. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the young Ratzinger was only partially successful with this attempt and there are statements in this book, which must be contradicted. Therefore, it is incomprehensible that Ratzinger has continued to publish this book unaltered as a Prefect of Doctrine and of the Faith and Pope. I pick out four points:




Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger

1. The supernaturalism of faith is little expressed in this work. On the contrary, faith and unbelief are put on a level that does not correspond to Catholic doctrine. The believer and the unbeliever share both "in doubt and in faith". No one can "completely dispel doubt, none whatsoever escape faith" (dtv edition, p. 19). It is true that the believer can know temptations against faith and hours of doubt. But his situation is still very different from that of the unbeliever. Thus, for the first time, the existence of God is fundamentally certainly already comprehensible by way of natural reason, as St. Paul teaches in Romans 1 and Vatican I has declared to be dogma. The Catholic faith in divine revelation is then something done by God Himself in man and gives the believer a supernatural certainty. It is the so-called "light of faith", the lumen fidei, which always gives the believer a final certainty through any doubts that may arise, that the faith is true and that one must cling to it. Therefore, there can never be any real reason for the believer to give up the faith, as I Vatican I taught again. Of all this not a word can be found in Ratzinger.

2. An extremely questionable attempt is then made to explain the deity of Christ. For Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus is "the man of the future", the human being who is the least closed in himself and "most relaxed" and thus becomes one with the infinite. It is even said: "If Jesus is the exemplary man in whom the true form of man, the idea of ​​God with him, fully enters the light, then he can not be destined to be but an absolute exception, a curiosity." P. 169). It is one of the modernist methods to caricature traditional doctrine in order to reject this caricature. Of course, Jesus is not a curiosity, but he is an absolute exception, because there is no second person who can claim to be true God and true man. For this reason, the following statement, made in the name of Teilhard de Chardin, is untenable: "Faith sees in Jesus the man in whom, speaking of the biological scheme, the next evolutionary leap is done; the man in whom the breakthrough came from the limited nature of our humanity, from its monadic closure " (p. 194).

3. The descent of Christ into the underworld is thoroughly demythologized. From the catechism of the Catholic Church, this article of faith is explained as follows: "The dead Christ descended to the abode of the dead in his soul, which remained united with his divine person. He opened to the righteous who lived before him, the gates of heaven" (n. 637). There is nothing more in this for Joseph Ratzinger. Rather, for him the phrase means that "Christ has passed through the gate of our last solitude, that he has entered with his passion into this abyss of our abandonment. ... With that, hell is overcome, or more precisely: death, which used to be hell, is no longer " (p. 220).

4. After all, the "resurrection of the flesh" is "no resurrection of the body". There seems to be only some "ultimate connection between matter and spirit" in which the fate of man and the world is completed “ (p. 266). A resurrected body, as the Church has always taught him, does not seem to exist.

These few examples show that the "Introduction to Christianity" is not a work that one can unreservedly recommend to someone who wants to get to know the Catholic faith.

Text: Matthias Gaudron
Image: ZVAB (screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Saturday, April 21, 2018

The Stick for Faithful Catholics, Carrots for Dissidents

Ex-Priest and Chief Director of the site Religion Digital Josè Manuel Vidal gives Pope Francis three bars of Turrón



(Rome) While the Vatican harasses the Spanish news portal InfoVaticana, Pope Francis has found words of praise for another, Spanish news site, for Religion Digital.

The difference?
 



Religion Digital
Religion Digital is an anti-church site founded by ex-priest José Manuel Vidal, whose "line is incompatible with the faith of the Catholic Church and the minimum of ties that a Catholic should unite with his shepherds," says Fr Josè Antonio Fortea described the website on September 2016. Vidal has been engaged in constant attacks against the Church and her doctrine for more than 20 years. The range of anti-church propaganda ranges from a platform for Church opponents to the publication of blasphemous cartoons.
 
InfoVaticana was founded in 2013 by Gabriel Ariza and Fernando Beltrán as a Church-loyal counterweight, so as not to leave Religion Digital the field of information.

The difference?
 
Religion Digital has been reporting since 2013 with enthusiasm about Pope Francis while maintaining the anti-church line.
 
InfoVaticana reports, increasingly critical of certain statements and gestures of Pope Francis, as it continues the course of the defense of Church and doctrine.

 The difference?
 



InfoVaticana
The positions of the two news sites are diametrically opposed. This is evident not only in Spain, but - albeit attenuated - outside the Iberian peninsula. For example, in Rome: The papal house Vaticanista Andrea Tornielli cooperates with Religion Digital, the secret Doyen of the Vatican, Sandro Magister, with InfoVaticana .
 
While Tornielli goes to and fro under Francis in Santa Marta, advises the Pope on media issues, is part of the papal communication strategy, and receives first-hand information from Francis, Magister was stripped of accreditation by the Vatican Press Office due to his critical coverage in 2015 - after more than 30 years years of service. After a few months, he was accredited again. However, the shot in front of the bow was clear.
 
The same applies to InfoVaticana and Religion Digital. Under the governing Pope, it is clearly signaled who is well-liked and who is not.
 

The stick for InfoVaticana, carrots for Religion Digital


The Vatican Secretariat of State has appointed one of the top 10 lavender law firms in the world to initiate litigation against InfoVaticana. The Holy See accuses the news site of wanting to mislead, using the name of the Vatican in order to obtain donations. An absurd name dispute. It would be as if the city of Frankfurt would start a lawsuit against the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, or as if the cities of Zurich and New York were taking action against the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the New York Times. InfoVaticana utilizes the Vatican in its name because most of the coverage is focused on the Holy See and the Universal Church. There are various media with a comparable name references, which the Vatican Secretariat of State has not up to now.
 
In this detour, the Vatican tells the news site its disapproval, which goes so far as to put pressure on InfoVaticana and harm it. Although the Vatican has denied such an intention, the lawyers have not called back.

Digital Religion in Santa Marta

On Thursday, April 19, José Manuel Vidal, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Religion Digital, accompanied the theologian and former Jesuit Josè Maria Castillo to the Vatican. Castillo turned his back on the Jesuit order in 2007 for reasons of "mental hygiene," having for decades provoked conflicts with the ecclesiastical hierarchy with his heterodox views and his propagation of Marxist liberation theology. Castillo is a permanent columnist at Religion Digital and runs his blog on the news site with the provocative name "theology without censorship."



Josè Manuel Vidal with Pope Francis
Castillo had been invited by Francis to the Pope's morning Mass in Santa Marta. Following this there was an encounter between the ex-Jesuit and the Jesuit on the Pope's throne (see Pope Francis "rehabilitates" Liberation Theologians ). In this context, there was also the encounter between Francis and Vidal, in which the head of the church found remarkably benevolent words for the news portal, as Vidal himself reported on his side:
"I told him what it was about and showed him a color print of Religion Digital and another printout of the front page of Pro Francisco that we've been hosting on our site for three years. Francis put both hands on mine and told me, 'Continue to renew a Church that goes out'.
Then I gave him three bars of Spanish turrón 1) . "
The encounter between Castillo and Vidal with Pope Francis proves what Cardinal Gerhard Muller, the Prefect of the Roman Congregation of the Doctrine of the Congregation, dismissed by Francis, that there is an "inner connection between the papists of today and the rebels of yesterday," between the great adversaries John Paul II and Benedict XVI," who yesterday "undermined the foundations of theology" and those who today present themselves as great Bergoglio followers.
 
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Religion Digital (Screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG 

Pope Francis Does the Holy Liturgy

Pope Francis is to ordain 16 deacons to the priesthood on April 22
The Words of Consecration and the Pope

(Rome) The Holy See yesterday published the texts and chants for the Pope's Mass on the 4th Sunday after Easter, which Pope Francis will celebrate on April 22 in St. Peter's Basilica. On this occasion, the head of the Church will consecrate several candidates to the priesthood.

 

The priestly ordinations


Pope Francis will ordain sixteen deacons preparing for the priesthood as priests, sincethe 55th World Day of Prayer is celebrated  at the same time for priestly vocations.
 
Five of them come from the diocesan seminary of the Diocese of Rome. The number reflects the situation of priestly vocations in the Pope's own diocese.
 
The other eleven candidates come from other countries and continents. Six come from the Roman missionary college Redemptoris Mater of the Neocatechumenal Way; four from the Famiglia dei Discepoli (Family of the Disciples) and one from the Opera Don Orione. They come from Croatia, Madagascar, Vietnam, Myanmar, Colombia, San Salvador, Romania, India and Peru. Eleven of them, the five candidates of the diocese and the candidates of the seminary Redemptoris Mater,  are consecrated and incardinated for the diocese of Rome.

 

The words of consecration


According to the announcement, the III. Canon has been chosen. His predecessor Benedict XVI. preferred the Roman canon. [What else is there?] In contrast, Francis varies and also benefits from the new prayers, which were created ex novo only by the liturgical reform of the 60s. Since then, the Anaphora can be said in the vernacular, as will be the case on April 22nd. Benedict XVI. preferred Latin, the language of the Church, and not only at celebrations in the Patriarchal basilicas and in Rome, but also abroad. Conversely, Francis, who also uses the vernacular in St. Peter's Basilica in a solemn Papal Mass and not the Roman Canon.


On April 22, Pope Francis will use the words "for all" to reflect the Latin "pro multis". This contradicts the order of Benedict XVI, who had already prescribed in 2006 binding for the whole world Church as the more appropriate, because closer to the original translation "for many".
The majority of Italian bishops had in prounced for the retention of "for all" in 2010. Benedict XVI. patiently conducted persuasion seemed to bear fruit in early 2013. One of the most persistent opponents, Archbishop Bruno Forte, had assailed Benedict's camp with waving flags defending the "pro multis / for many."

 

The rebels


Shortly thereafter, Benedict XVI. made his  surprising resignation known. Since then, there has been a standstill in the rebellious states. Although at that time the Vatican Recognition of the new version of the Italian translation of the Missale was almost complete, it has not been published until today.



Pro multis
Pro multis
The opponents of Benedict XVI.s mandated translation immediately raised their voices after the election of Pope Francis,  especially in the linguistic areas, including the German one, which had already delayed, denied, and boycotted the order under the German Pope, and therefore the new translations had not yet been printed.
 
Cardinal Karl Lehrmann (Mainz) and Archbishop Alois Kothgasser (Salzburg) complained of Vatican "interference". In April 2013, one month after the election of Pope Francis, the Austrian bishops published a "clarification" that the only admissible translation was "for all" because the only approved German translation of the Missal was that of 1975. The admonition was addressed to the liturgically most sensitive part of the clergy, who began to complain that seven years after Benedict's change, nothing had yet happened.
 
Pope Francis sent out contradictory signals. From them one could read a supposed support of every position and also the opposite. Most appropriately, his attitude is likely to be reflected in a both-and-also, as he showed it in 2015 within a few days at the Mass celebrations in Cuba and in the US. In both countries he celebrated in Spanish. In Cuba, because it is the national language, in the US once for the large number of Spanish-speaking immigrants. In Cuba he used the words of change "for all" (por todos), in the US the words of change "for many" (por muchos).

The same pope, the same Spanish language, and yet such a difference?

The reason is that the English translation of the Missal was already published at that time, and for pro multis that of Benedict XVI. wanted "for many", while the new Spanish translation was not available at that time and in the old formula the pro-multis was still presented as " for all".

 

Everyone after his Façon ...?


In other words, every country and its episcopal conference should decide for themselves. A similar instruction was issued by Francis in September 2017. Shortly before he declared the Liturgy reform of 1969 as "irreversible."
 
His words can be seen at the memorial mass for the deceased cardinals on 3 November 2017 as a confirmation of the position of Benedict XVI. In his sermon , Francis said:
"The 'many who awaken to eternal life are to be understood as the 'many' for whom the blood of Christ was shed. It is the great number of those who, thanks to God's merciful goodness, may experience the reality of eternal life, the perfect victory over death achieved through the resurrection."
But even the Pope does not abide by the law, because in his celebration of April 22, Francis is opposed to the order of Benedict XVI. will say not "many", but "all." An anachronism. The Pope, by virtue of his authority, declares that the words of change are to be pronounced "for many" - that was 2006 -, and 2018, twelve years later, even the Pope does not abide by it, because the responsible Episcopal Conference has not yet re-translated and published the Missal? Absurd.
 
Francis, however, behaves this way and signals that the question is rather unimportant to him. There would be another way. Those whom Benedict XVI, by deferring to Church Latin, which is unique and includes both "for many" and "for all". But for that, Francis, according to Roman insiders, obviously lacks the necessary liturgical sensitivity. In addition, severe prejudices prevent him from consistently considering such a step.

 

Genuflecting


Regardless of this, the Office of the Liturgical Celebrations of the Pope is adamant that the pamphlets for the consecration should state that the pope "shows the consecrated host to the people and kneels adoringly" and "shows and adores the chalice to the people performing a genuflection."
 
It is well known that the adoring genuflections have not occurred since the election of Pope Francis. As is well known, it should be known that this is due to knee problems. The fact is that neither Pope Francis nor the Vatican Press Office has made a statement in more than five years of this pontificate. And that despite the importance of the question. The assumptions, allegations or even well-intentioned explanations of individual Vaticanists can not replace an official opinion. However, such is not forthcoming, which is why the Pope standing before the Blessed Sacrament will remain an ambivalent picture of this pontificate.
 
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Vatican.va
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG