Today in Kiev, the papal nuncio celebrates a solemn mass at St. Nicholas Cathedral to officially mark the return of this temple to the Roman Catholic Church, previously confiscated by the Soviet communist regime. Source: https://vechirniy.kyiv.ua/news/97609/
The Americans have been more sly than the Russians. They have financed a revolution that has over-turned the legitimate government of the Ukraine and financed and encouraged a civil war against the Russians living in the East of that country. Meanwhile they have managed to usurp a huge proportion of the wealth in that country for themselves, with many prominent politicians and their families feeding at the trough. That, to me, is a surreptitious invasion. At least we can see what the Russians are doing and they have the guts to risk their own lives. The Americans keep their invasion of the Ukraine plausibly deniable and risk only Ukrainian lives and treasure. Now they generously award the Ukraine another $60 billion or more so that they can buy weapons off of them to go and die with. And, if the whole thing turns sour, they'll just bail out and abandon the chaos they've created, like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya...
If it is true that the Ukrainian Catholic Church officially sided with the illegitimate, revolutionary Maidan regime, they effectively sacrificed their own autonomy. One can't have it both ways.
As far as I know, historically, the Irish Catholic Church has never been very accepting of the idea of a "Mother England" nor of the imposition of its official religion. With a little charity, the Anglican Church could even be seen as a third lung of the Catholic Church... But I confess that I don't know the history of Ireland that well.
They probably feared that the church would become subservient to the Russian state, which defines for itself and others what Christianity is, since of the 4 official and regularized state religions, the only Christian denomination is Russian Orthodoxy, and considering the historical for Putin's opponents, any misinterpreted or very well interpreted homily (such as criticism of historical communism) could represent a danger to any priest.
EXACTLY! This is the WAY. Heaven and Earth are inside of us. Once we put our faith in the world we lose our direction. But as we keep our peace and stop blaming the world we bring peace into the world. We become mothers, brothers and sisters of Christ. I personally believe it is the collective confusion in our hearts that brings on wars, and they lose their generating force as we keep our hearts clean. There are many people who, when they sin or are injured, frequently blame the enemy or their neighbor. But it is not so, because each one has the enemy in his power, that is his body through which he sins. Blessed is the servant (Mt 24:46), then, who always holds captive the enemy delivered into his power, and wisely safeguards himself from him; because, as long as he does this, no other enemy visible or invisible will be able to harm him. - The Counsels of the Holy Father St. Francis, Admonition 10.
I watched the video on St. Catherine of Siena yesterday. In it bishop Barron quotes the bridge metaphor she uses. She states that at the third level the heart becomes overjoyed in Christ with sanctifying grace, and the mystic has to come back into the world and love on her neighbor. Blessed Gilles mentions something similar, that at one stage of contemplation there is Rest. This Rest builds up in the heart to the point where one has urgent promptings of Love coming out where one has to glorify God. Brother Lawrence spoke about this in his letters. It is all in the Good News! It is all about our disposition. St. Catherine of Siena who could not read or write managed to convince the Pope to go back to Rome from Avignon by this sanctifying Grace. The solution to EVERYTHING is God, and it is all in the Good News! God is so close to us just waiting to come into our hearts! It's so exciting!
One has to make a distinction between recognising one's enemy and deciding how one might deal with it. The Irish Catholic Church never opted for confrontation with perfidious Albion as its policy. Although the Irish suffered terribly from English Protestant persecution, they still held onto the faith. The Church survived. I wouldn't be overly charitable to the Anglican Church. The good ones converted to Catholicism and the remainder only became friendly when they became atheists.
I think the death spiral that Anglicans and many Protestant denominations have fallen into has to do with the permissive will of the Lord highlighting the power of apostolic succession that they do not have.
Perhaps God is sending what is happening as a warning to us? We seem to be following in their footsteps into hell.
Yes. Home»News»ANGLICAN CONVERTS WARN OF SYNODAL PERILS ANGLICAN CONVERTS WARN OF SYNODAL PERILS ANGLICAN CONVERTS WARN OF SYNODAL PERILS Revisionists smear Anglicans for converting to protest women priests by Jules Gomes ChurchMilitant.com November 10, 2022 OXFORD, England (ChurchMilitant.com) - Drawing on their experience of the Church of England's synodal process, high-profile Anglican converts to Catholicism are warning of the perils of Pope Francis' Synod on Synodality. Two former Anglican bishops, Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali and Dr. Gavin Ashenden, who recently came home to Rome, are cautioning against the synod being hijacked by "pressure groups" and the listening process "mistaking the spirit of the age for the Holy Spirit." Supported by several ex-Anglican clergy who are now priests in the Catholic Ordinariate, the orthodox converts have been savagely attacked by revisionist Catholics for "fueling fear" because of an "anti-synodal mindset" tainted by an association with Anglicanism. Synodal Skullduggery On Wednesday, Ashenden, former chaplain to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, noted that "ex-Anglicans believe they can offer some help" because they have witnessed the "ploy" of synodality used in the Church of England "to such divisive and destructive effect." "The fact is that the ex-Anglicans have seen this trick played on the Church before. It is part of the spirituality of the progressives. Very simply put, they wrap up quasi-Marxist content in a spiritual comfort blanket and then talk a lot about the Holy Spirit," Ashenden warned. This is more Marx than Jesus, more zeitgeist than Holy Spirit.GabTweet The outcome of the synodal process within Anglicanism was "division, demoralization, spiritual impoverishment, theological incoherence, diminishment of faith, apostasy and a fatal impairment of the church," the host of the Merely Catholic podcast explained. Ashenden slammed the synodal process for rigging the conversation in advance by imposing categories of "excluded" and "included" and stooping down to "identity politics where the group you belong to takes precedence over your personal virtue (or lack of it)." "This rather gives the game away. These are sociological categories, not ecclesial or spiritual ones. How does someone who has deliberately turned their back on the Church, or refuses to practice their faith, constitute the Church?" Ashenden asked. "This is more Marx than Jesus, more zeitgeist than Holy Spirit." Church Militant asked Ashenden how he would respond to synodal "expert" Austen Ivereigh, who accused Anglican converts of failing to "grasp the nature of Catholic synodality," which was consultative and not deliberative as in the case of the Church of England. The fact is that the ex-Anglicans have seen this trick played on the Church before.GabTweet "Deliberately or inadvertently," people like Ivereigh "are confusing process without outcome," Ashenden said. "Of course, the Church of England's General Synod has the capacity to be deliberative, but it would be very hard to pretend that it is not also consultative. It consults before it deliberates." "People with experience of Anglicanism are warning Catholics that the process of consulting an uncatechized, secularized, poorly read, badly informed and media-shaped laity is going to produce an outcome that will be antithetic to the gospels and the Magisterium," Ashenden noted. Fool's Paradise Ashenden's alert echoes that of Msgr. Nazir-Ali, who earlier addressed the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences in Bangkok and stressed that if the Church is "consulting uncatechized laity," then we will "simply get a reflection of the culture around them." The former bishop of Rochester and distinguished Islamic scholar insisted on the synodal process taking into consideration "discipline in the Church" and discerning on the basis of Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition "what can be acceptable and what is not acceptable." In the end, the synodal process must mean that "the bishops will have to say that certain things are excluded," Nazir-Ali emphasized, clarifying how the Church has always excluded people from the Eucharist or from ministry "for the sake of restoration, for the sake of inclusion." "I think to pretend that this does not happen is to live in a fool's paradise," the Pakistani-born prelate remarked, urging the Asian bishops to learn from the "confusion and chaos" resulting from "what has happened to the Anglican Communion and also some liberal Protestant churches." "Some decisions will have to be made. It can't just be prolonged consultation," Nazir-Ali added. "Some things will have to be said about the nature of the priesthood," about "marriage and family" and about "the sacredness of the human person." Writing in The Tablet, revisionist Catholic reporter Christopher Lamb claimed that the "animosity" of Anglican converts towards synodality "is rooted in their experience of the Church of England's synod, which brought in reforms they deeply opposed, including the ordination of women priests and bishops." Mike Lewis, founder and editor of the pro-Francis blog Where Peter Is, attacked Anglican converts for converting to Catholicism not out of "fidelity to the pope" but because they rejected the Anglican ordination of women as priests and deacons. "I hate to burst your prejudice and assumptions. But actually, it was reading Newman and exploring the Catholic faith that made me fall in love with it," Fr. Ed Tomlinson, an Anglican convert to Catholicism, tweeted back. The Church of England describes its structure as "episcopally led and synodically governed," with its general synod meeting thrice a year to approve legislation, new liturgies, debate national and international issues and approve the church's annual budget. Pope Francis has indicated that he wants to move the Catholic Church's governance along the lines of Anglicanism by turning the Synod on Synodality from a onetime event into a continuing process. In October, Francis decided that the 2023 assembly of bishops would now be convened in two phases: The first session in October 2023 and a second in October 2024, to allow for "a more relaxed period of discernment," Church Militant reported. The Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published a column titled "Vatican Council III: An Open Question," asking whether Vatican II was "enough for us," or "has the time come to wish for a Vatican Council III?" "Under Francis, we are all Protestants now." Fr. Tomlinson tweeted. https://virtueonline.org/anglican-converts-warn-synodal-perils
It's very,very easy for a determined group of individuals working in a common agenda to manipulate things. A good example was the Sanhedrin which met illegally , without a proper quorum, in order to have Christ killed.
The Eastern Christian churches have for long had a tendency to be manipulated into becoming national churches. This is completely unCatholic and a fundamental source of error, inevitably leading to persecution of a Catholic Church which is universal and rightly, as the one True Church, claims jurisdiction over all. As the Universal Church, and the Body of Christ, it is most inappropriate for the Catholic Church to involve Herself in one-sided, worldly political conflicts. To do the latter is akin to declaring some kind of jihad upon the other side. This is not to justify the attacks on Catholics and their property that are currently happening, but to concede that they are more comprehensible in worldly terms. One has to allow for a certain degree of ignorance amongst the opposite side (by no means all of them), but senior members of the Catholic Church in the Ukraine ought to have been far more circumspect.
The converts to Catholicism are the ones who still believe. There are few believers left in the Anglican Church. It only continues to exist because of its official role and force of habit.
One of the great recent Anglican converts, Father John Hunwicke, died yesterday, the second of May. He often warned of the dangers of following the Church of England on the road to perdition. May he Rest In Peace.
This statement from the UK today is quite a dangerous move infact I feel a gamechanger ... UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has said it is up to Ukraine to decide how to use British weapons and insisted it has the right to strike targets on Russian territory. During a visit to Kyiv, he said the UK would provide £3bn ($3.75bn) per year for as long as necessary. "Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it's defending itself," Lord Cameron said. Russia condemned what it called "another very dangerous statement". "This is a direct escalation of tension around the Ukrainian conflict, which would potentially pose a threat to European security," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
