This is what spurs me to speak out, even when what I say is likely to be not well received. Charity can not be about covering up the truth or making excuses for those who distort the truth. Christian charity should be about leading others to heaven, and thwarting those who are leading others to hell. This is a very good article summarising Cardinal Sarah's concerns about the crisis in our Church and this 'papacy'. I am personally convinced that Francis is not a true pope. I know that I do not have any conferred authority to declare this, but this is the only reasonable conclusion, based on: i) what the scheming St Gallen 'mafia' did, according to the open boast by Cardinal Godfried Daneels (https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/c...g-part-of-clerical-mafia-that-plotted-francis) and also by the admission of former Cardinal McCarrick about being persuaded/ influenced before that fateful conclave ii) the fact that Francis lacks divine help in his many scandalous pronouncements iii)Pope Benedict XVI still being called pope, addressed as your holiness, wearing papal white, living on Vatican grounds, affirmed by his personal secretary Abp Ganswein as being 'part of an expanded petrine ministry' 'Mental reservation' about the 'papacy' of Francis doesn't make any sense to me; Jesus entrusted his Church to Peter, and Peter cannot be promulgating error. Francis cannot possibly be Peter. Archbishop Fulton Sheen: “[Satan] will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the [Catholic] Church … It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content.” We are living in the days of the Apocalypse, the last days of our era. The two great forces – the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of the anti-Christ – are beginning to draw battle lines for the catastrophic contest. The False prophet will have a religion without a cross. A religion without a world to come. A religion to destroy religions. There will be a counterfeit Church. Christ’s Church the Catholic Church will be one; and the false Prophet will create the other. The False Church will be worldly, ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions, forming some type of global association. A world parliament of Churches. It will be emptied of all Divine content, it will be the mystical body of the anti-christ. The Mystical Body on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot, and he will be the false prophet. Satan will recruit him from our Bishops."
Thank you. I need to stress that I would never recommend leaving the Catholic Church because (a) the Pope is not the Church and (b) there's simply nowhere else to go. I just think it pointless to use the Biblical quote "He who hears you hears Me" when today's "you" tends to contradict by word or example what was said by yesterday's "you". I see it as equally pointless to warn someone that schism from the current Pope endangers their immortal soul despite the current Pope honouring people condemned by previous Popes and Church Councils for far worse than schism. It's best to do as faithful Catholics have always done whenever the Church had a dodgy Pope: stay with the Church and hold true to the Faith passed down to us. Don't run away, leaving the Church to the wolves because that's a win for Satan.
Sg, the conclusion I have come to at this point, is that Francis is an "Enemy of the Faith". I can understand why you think as you do.
Dr. Taylor Marshall and Timothy Gordon assert in a very recent youtube video that Cardinal Mueller's Manifest of Faith Statement is a direct indictment of Pope Francis' actions although the pope is not named. They said the timing, within a day or two of Pope Francis statement that God willed all religions, is no accident. In addition, he had his statement published in 7 languages which meant he wanted wide readership. Cardinal Mueller responds to Pope Francis' statement that all religions are willed by God as a deception of Antichrist. In fact he mentions antichrist twice in this regard. Dr Marshall says these are fightin words from Cardinal Mueller and no pope has ever been even indirectly referred to in this way. Here are the Mueller quotes: " The Word made flesh, the Son of God, is the only Savior of the world (CCC 679) and the only Mediator between God and men (CCC 846). Therefore, the first letter of John refers to one who denies His divinity as an antichrist (1 John 2:22), since Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is from eternity one in being with God, His Father (CCC 663). We are to resist the relapse into ancient heresies with clear resolve, which saw in Jesus Christ only a good person, brother and friend, prophet and moralist. Later he states, “God created us without us, but He did not want to save us without us” (CCC 1847). The eternity of the punishment of hell is a terrible reality, which - according to the testimony of Holy Scripture - attracts all who “die in the state of mortal sin” (CCC 1035). The Christian goes through the narrow gate, for “the gate is wide, and the way that leads to ruin is wide, and many are upon it” (Mt 7:13). To keep silent about these and the other truths of the Faith and to teach people accordingly is the greatest deception against which the Catechism vigorously warns. It represents the last trial of the Church and leads man to a religious delusion, “the price of their apostasy” (CCC 675); it is the fraud of Antichrist. “He will deceive those who are lost by all means of injustice; for they have closed themselves to the love of the truth by which they should be saved” (2 Thess 2:10). I believe we all spoke to Mark in charity because, as the times become so serious, being on the wrong side or, worse, leading others to the wrong side will have dire consequences.
There is something very, very wrong with this Pope. Everyone can sense it. Devout Protestants, Orthodox, everyone with some theological sense is creeped out by this Pope. Something is not right. If he means well and is just a terrible theologian, with no theological sense, God help him. If this is intentional, that kind of changes everything.
I agree...if he is ignorant, mislead, etc. we will need to sadly live with his confusing, wrongheaded papacy. However, he could be intentional in his error....a whole other story...with dire consequences. Hopefully, the few good clerics at the top will help discern all of this and have the guts to speak out.
Excerpt: To keep silent about these and the other truths of the Faith and to teach people accordingly is the greatest deception against which the Catechism vigorously warns. It represents the last trial of the Church and leads man to a religious delusion, “the price of their apostasy” (CCC 675) it is the fraud of Antichrist. “He will deceive those who are lost by all means of injustice, for they have closed themselves to the love of the truth by which they should be saved” (2 Thess: 2-10) This is absolutely extraordinary. The cardinal who, until he was sent down by Francis, was the chief doctrinal watchdog for the Roman Catholic Church, is now warning that the confusing teaching coming from St. Peter’s successor is a sign of the End Times. There’s really no other way to read this. The Age Of Antichrist By Rod Dreher • February 10, 2019, 11:25 AM Luca Signorelli, detail from ‘Sermons And Deeds Of The Antichrist’ (1499-1504) The late Rene Girard once pointed out that within Christian thought, the thing that makes the Antichrist the Antichrist is not that he hates Jesus Christ — that’s a given — but that he offers a brilliant fake version of the Christian gospel. You can see this point illustrated in the detail above from the Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli’s apocalyptic fresco in the Orvieto cathedral. The Antichrist looks like Jesus, but he secretly receives direction from the Devil. Christians have always believed that the Antichrist is a real historical figure who will present himself as a man of peace, but will lead the world into a diabolical deception that will immediately precede the Second Coming, and the End of History. Because discourse about the Apocalypse is not frequent within the Roman Catholic Church today, it is extremely curious that not one but two Catholic cardinals have spoken about the Antichrist within the last year, both in reference to confusion within the Roman church — confusion coming from the Pope himself. The first was Cardinal Willem Eijk, primate of the Netherlands, who said last May that the Pope’s lack of clarity regarding intercommunion between Catholics and Protestants was an indicator of a drift to apostasy. Cardinal Eijk’s comment was about the German Catholic bishops’ desire to offer communion to Protestants married to Catholics, and the Pope’s refusal to draw a firm line against it. He wrote: What the Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church say should have been the reaction of the Holy Father, who is, as the Successor of Saint Peter “the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful” (Lumen Gentium no. 23). The Holy Father should have given the delegation of the German episcopal conference clear directives, based on the clear doctrine and practice of the Church. He should have also responded on this basis to the Lutheran woman who asked him on November 15, 2015 if she could receive Communion with her Catholic spouse, saying that this is not acceptable instead of suggesting she could receive Communion on the basis of her being baptized, and in accordance with her conscience. By failing to create clarity, great confusion is created among the faithful and the unity of the Church is endangered. This is also the case with cardinals who publicly propose to bless homosexual relationships, something which is diametrically opposed to the doctrine of the Church, founded on Sacred Scripture, that marriage, according to the order of creation, exists only between a man and a woman. Observing that the bishops and, above all, the Successor of Peter fail to maintain and transmit faithfully and in unity the deposit of faith contained in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, I cannot help but think of Article 675 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The Church’s ultimate trial Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.” The second came on Friday from none other than Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former head of the CDF, the Vatican’s doctrinal office (2012-17) — the position held by Cardinal Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI. Here is a link to the German cardinal’s “Manifesto Of Faith,” which is unambiguously written as a particular rebuke to Pope Francis’s muddying the doctrinal waters on basic Catholic teachings. Here is the key graf: To keep silent about these and the other truths of the Faith and to teach people accordingly is the greatest deception against which the Catechism vigorously warns. It represents the last trial of the Church and leads man to a religious delusion, “the price of their apostasy” (CCC 675) it is the fraud of Antichrist. “He will deceive those who are lost by all means of injustice, for they have closed themselves to the love of the truth by which they should be saved” (2 Thess: 2-10) This is absolutely extraordinary. The cardinal who, until he was sent down by Francis, was the chief doctrinal watchdog for the Roman Catholic Church, is now warning that the confusing teaching coming from St. Peter’s successor is a sign of the End Times. There’s really no other way to read this. These words, and the pope’s actions, occur within a global cultural context. Even if you don’t believe that the Antichrist is anything other than a symbol, you have to conceived that were he an actual figure, we would have now created the conditions within which the Antichrist could plausibly appear. Here is a long passage from a post I once wrote titled “Our Diabolic Age” — focusing on the etymology of the word “diabolic,” which stems from the Greek word meaning “to scatter”. Here’s the passage: I will leave you with this passage from the Russian Orthodox philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev’s prophetic 1923 book The End of Our Time. It is an analysis of the religious, philosophical, and cultural meaning of contemporary history, written in the aftermath of World War I and the Bolshevik revolution in his homeland. In the nearly 100 years since it was first published, some of the book’s predictions have failed to materialize, but what shocks about the thing is how much of it has come to pass, and indeed is coming to pass. In this passage, the “new middle age” of which the philosopher speaks is the current era. He believes that the old middle age ended with the Renaissance, but now the Renaissance era — the modern era — ended with the war and the revolution. We are in a new, transitional era, he says: The approach to the new middle age, like the approach to the old one, is marked by a visible rotting of old societies and an invisible formation of new ones. Was the failing but tenacious modern order really “cosmic”? The nineteenth century was very proud of its law, its constitutions, the unity of its method and its scientific paraphernalia. But it is an interior unity that is conclusive, and this it did not realize: it was infected by individualism, by “atomism.” Throughout modern history society has been eaten away by a series of internal maladies, man turning against man and class against class: all societies have been characterized by the warfare of opposing interests, by competition, by the isolation and dereliction of each individual man. An ever growing anarchy may be justly pointed out in the spiritual and intellectual life of these societies, a radical lesion due to the loss of a true centre or of the vision of a one supreme end. Such loss conditioned the autonomy of all intellectual and social spheres as well as the secularization of society at large. More here: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-age-of-antichrist/
Sunnyveil, I have not watched this video that you have referenced yet but I would say that Cardinal Mueller is doing his job and fighting for the Truth. The quotes that you provided from his manifesto are proof of this. With that said, he should still be greatly commended for speaking up when few clergy appear to be doing so. In addition, Cardinal Mueller has remained very, very respectful to Pope Francis. In multiple interviews, he has stated that the pope appears to be taking advice from very questionable sources. We simply do not know what is really going on in the Vatican or in Pope Francis' head as some other members just pointed out on this thread. Hopefully, Pope Francis will realize that those like Cardinal Walter Kasper, Dr. Massimo Faggioli, and author Austen Ivereigh who have all responded negatively to Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s “Manifesto of Faith.”* are a few of those whom the pope should be weary about. I agree with your following statement, "I believe we all spoke to Mark in charity because, as the times become so serious, being on the wrong side or, worse, leading others to the wrong side will have dire consequences." *** I want to add that I am a little taken back by the suggestion on this thread from some other members that this community is not supportive of each other, in so many words. I realize that we don't always agree on everything and some of us have much different methods and styles of debate than others but it is my opinion that overall MOG is a very loving and supportive Catholic community. I think that we all saw and continue to see a beautiful example of this when we continue to lift Luke's(Mac's) family up in prayer** and for the matter, anyone else who asks for prayers. We can all use more prayer including Pope Francis and I know that there are members here who not only pray for each other daily, they continue to pray for the pope daily for the past almost 6 years now. In addition, I know that Mark Mallett prays for the pope and for the members of this Catholic community also, he has stated as much on this thread. I also want to mention that when some members informed the forum that Mark Mallett was going through a rough time many of us contributed to a fund for him and his family to recover from the damage that his home and property had sustained in a storm. I know that I did this and I am not even a regular reader of his blog, I know that others who had the means to do so did the same and the forum as a whole came together to lift him and his family up in prayer like we do for so many others. Well, now I said my piece and hopefully, it helps brings some additional peace to the forum. Happy Saint Valentine's Day to everyone! ref. *https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/modernist-cardinal-liberal-theologian-and-author-attack-cardinal-muellers-m **http://motheofgod.com/threads/forum-member-mac-family-fund.13000/ **http://motheofgod.com/threads/forum-member-mac-luke-passed-away-today-february-2.12473/page-41
Are we at a certain time period in Christianity of great change? YES Is it the final battle between good and evil? Maybe Many anti-Christ's have come and gone. Is this the time of the final one? I don't know But everything is sure falling in place. But I always say lets be prepared... but it might be this year or 1000 years from now. No one knows. I will say is the world is trying to Unite Under one Umbrella. President Trump stopped that for now. Nationalism is on the rise. But no one can stop what has been predicted. At least in the West abortion is going to bring about a great evil. In the United States, one Governor even stated in public that a living baby out of the womb could be made comfortable. Then the mother and doctors could decide what to do with it. Infanticide! A few were outraged but it was forgotten in a few days. Pope Francis is not stupid. You don't become the Head of the Catholic Church being a idiot. The question is...what is he trying to do. Save as many souls by lowering the bar. Or trying to destroy the basic concept of sin. Times are very strange...by Our Holy Father giving into the world, persecution is very close. It is already a hate crime in some countries to tell the truth about Muslims, Crimes and Abortion. OUR Catholic faith goes AGAINST the world. Trying to explain to my son, that we don't hate anyone, but HATE the sin. Makes us anti-homosexual, anti-abortion and anti-muslim. By having a religion of humility we are anti-woman. The world is changing...its not that there is no God. It has become...we don't need God. And now we come to our shepherds, SAD SAD SAD. They have lost their way. Social justice has taken over...the days of saving souls in the West is gone. If shepherds are not saving souls...what good are they. Persecution is coming. True Catholicism goes against everything the world believes. Mass possession of people is happen more often then one see's. The evil groups pushing infanticide, seem to be one in spirit. The world is turning dark. But having said that...DO NOT FEAR. God is with us. What a great time to have faith. We are Gods spiritual warriors. People hate us because in mist of all this darkness...we are happy. Nothing can take God away from our souls. Some of us will start seeing the world for what it is. Many of us will have dreams, many of us will be spiritually sensitive and many of us will start being a light in the darkness. Those that are searching light will be attracted to you, those that are dark will flee from you. What a exciting time to be a Catholic. The Holy Father is what he is...for those that like screaming from the roof tops, great. But God has a plan and it starts with each of us individually. Time to be saints...even if we are fallen saints.
His mentor and hero, the man he most emulates, was Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2...nal-martini-as-a-father-for-the-whole-church/ Cardinal Martini's Jesus Would Never Have Written "Humanae Vitae"chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/209045bdc4.html?eng=y Cardinal Martini's book gives scandal to the faithful, archbishop sayshttps://www.catholicnewsagency.com/.../cardinal_martinis_book_gives_scandal_to_th... https://www.crisismagazine.com/2018/man-ante-pope And most troubling: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350623bdc4.html?eng=y Martini Pope. The Dream Come True Jesuit, archbishop of Milan and cardinal, he was the most authoritative and highly praised antagonist of the pontificates of Wojtyla and Ratzinger. His supporters see today in Francis the one who has inherited his legacy. And is putting it into practice by Sandro Magister ROME, October 15, 2013 – Seven months after the election as pope of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the interpretations of the beginning of this pontificate are contrasting. Within the Church the judgments most positive, if not enthusiastic, on the first acts of Pope Francis are coming from the supporters of the cardinal who for years represented, with great authoritativeness and widespread consensus, the most clear alternative approach to the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. That cardinal was Carlo Maria Martini, a former director of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, archbishop of Milan from 1979 to 2002, who died on August 31, 2012 after having left his instructions in an interview that was also very critical, published immediately after his death as his “spiritual testament”: > After Martini, the Fight Over His Spiritual Testament (6.9.2012) This last interview was conducted by the Austrian Jesuit Georg Sporschill, the same who in 2008 oversaw the publication of the book most representative of Martini, also in the form of an interview, “Nighttime conversations in Jerusalem”: > God Is Not Catholic, Cardinal's Word of Honor (12.11.2008) During the last years of his life, Cardinal Martini had accentuated his criticisms in interviews and books written together with “borderline” Catholics like Fr. Luigi Verzé and the bioethicist Ignazio Marino, in which he expressed his hope for a bringing up-to date-of the Church also on questions like the beginning and end of life, marriage, sexuality: > Carlo Maria Martini’s “Day After” (28.4.2006) In the conclave of 2005, Martini was the cardinal symbol of the failed opposition to the election of Joseph Ratzinger. And the votes of his supporters, together with others, converged at the time precisely on Bergoglio. Eight years later, in March of 2013, it was again the "martiniani" who backed the election of Bergoglio as pope. This time with success. And today they are seeing come true, in the first acts of Pope Francis, what for Martini was only a “dream.” The dream of a Church “synodal, poor among the poor, inspired by the gospel of the beatitudes, leaven and mustard seed." This is what is written and explained, in the commentary presented below, by the one whom Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi has rightly called the “leading Martinian expert": Marco Garzonio, a prominent figure of the Milanese Catholic laity, psychologist and psychotherapist, editorialist for “Corriere della Sera," author in 2012 of the most important biography of Martini, as well as being his longtime chronicler and confidant. His latest work is in the form of a theatrical dialogue, between “Cardinal Martini and his soul,” performed at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto in July of 2013, and now on the playbill in Milan and in other Italian theaters. The commentary by Garzonio is the most explicit and detailed interpretation written so far that links the pontificate of pope Bergoglio to the heritage of Cardinal Martini. It was published in "Corriere della Sera" of October 11. _________ We have valid and prudent reasons to strongly suspect exactly what is in this pope's head. Regarding previous discussion in this thread, those assertions, are, again, Pollyannish. (NOT by you, Carol! Please see the prior discussions in this thread, and my use of the term!) And I do NOT apologize for that prior characterization. (This article is from October 2013! The intervening years have provided more than enough material for anyone to get up to speed!)
Continuation of article above: THE POPE'S DEBT TO MARTINI by Marco Garzonio There is without a doubt a great dose of novelty in the papacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. But one who sees only that aspect does wrong to him and to the Church. And he applies only categories of a political or in any case a convenient nature, daughters of a culture accustomed to distinguishing between “good” Catholics, open to modernity, and Catholics attached to tradition, rites, power. The statements of Francis reported by Eugenio Scalfari must be interpreted in the light of a man of God who has presented a task for himself knowing how bold it is: to transform into crackling flames the coals concealed beneath a heavy blanket of ashes, which threatened, even in recent times, to suffocate all vital inspirations before they could become reforming impulses. Living coals, however. Some examples have been offered by the pope himself. He has twice cited Carlo Maria Martini. This is already a good endorsement, for the cardinal who passed away a little more than a year ago, to find himself in a gallery that goes from Francis of Assisi to St. Augustine, from St. Paul to St. Ignatius. To the one who was archbishop of Milan for more than two very difficult decades, Francis is publicly expressing a debt of extraordinary acknowledgment: his having pointed out for years to the pontiffs then reigning, Karol Wojtyla and Joseph Ratzinger, the model of a "synodal" Church, an institution in which the pope governs not as an absolute monarch, but through “service,” helped by the bishops and cardinals. In listening to these and being able to count on their support, the pope effectively becomes head of the whole Church, because he takes into account the voices of other continents, other needs, other requests, with respect to that Vatican which is folded in upon itself and its management. And as bishop of Rome, and therefore without claims of hegemony and proselytism ("a solemn foolishness," Bergoglio says), he is clearing the way for the ecumenism and interreligious dialogue on which Martini centered his episcopate, garnering more than one official reproach for his lack of attention to proselytism. When Martini, in 1981, as an assessment of the first year of his episcopate and therefore of his contacts with the Italian episcopal conference and the Holy See, began to speak of a “synodal Church," he had to put his personal intuition and the path of development of the Church under the category of “dream.” As a man of faith and a realistic person, as well as a prudent Jesuit, he had understood that his arguments did not constitute material welcome to the leadership. He presented his ideas as a goal that was perhaps a long way away, but he was not silent. And he paid the price himself. He still had to speak of a “dream” almost twenty years later, with bitterness and disappointment at the coming of the new millennium, when Wojtyla's strength was declining and the power of the "court," as Bergoglio now calls those who surround the pontiff, was rising. And still he was not understood by some and opposed by most of his own brother bishops and cardinals who gathered at that synod of 1999. Martini believed in and never gave up on the "dream," which Bergoglio is now trying to get onto its feet so that it can be turned into reality. In the interview of August 8, 2012, published in “Corriere della Sera" on September 1, the day after his death, Martini, with the grave tone of the testamentary bequest and the prophetic admonition, also indicated the practical means: the pope should surround himself with twelve bishops and cardinals if he wants the barque of Peter not to be submerged by internal waves and by a society that no longer believes in it, two hundred years behind as it is on issues like the family, the young, the role of women (this being a topic on which Pope Francis has promised to speak more). Martini held the tiller firm until the end. and to give even more incisiveness and loftiness to his speech, he clarified that he was no longer dreaming “about” the Church, but praying “for” the Church. The prayers must have knocked very high if the conclave, six months ago, selected Bergoglio and he accepted after an almost mystical crisis. But it is certain that if Francis is revisiting those issues and expressing public acknowledgment of the one who inspired him, it is because Martini was not so alone and isolated after all, as much Catholic publicity has sought to make it believed for years. In refutation of official public opinion, filtered by the leadership of the Holy See and by the Italian episcopal conference, and of a certain secular Manichaeism that has always liked to indicate a Martini "against" the pope, doctrine, the magisterium, there comes a great karstic river flowing beneath the churchyards, the altars, the sacred buildings. They were those bishops and priests, those laymen and directors or volunteers of movements for whom there was nothing at all to be feared from the Church losing temporal power. Beginning with the ecclesial conference in Loreto in 1985, headed by Martini (and even before with the one in Rome in 1976, with Martini, Giuseppe Lazzati, and Jesuits like Fr. Bartolomeo Sorge), there were many who recognized themselves in the image of a Church that, in addition to being synodal, would be poor among the poor, inspired by the gospel of the beatitudes, leaven and mustard seed. Part of the hierarchy sought to oppose that course, and even to recover the direct management (Bergoglio now calls it "clerical") of power and of relations with politics, at the moment of the end of the Democrazia Cristiana party and the political diaspora of Catholics, in open disagreement with Martini, who instead thought the removal of Catholics from power would serve as "purification." Francis is starting over from there, certainly with his statements to the newspapers, but also with acts of governance internal (secretariat of state, IOR, the group of eight cardinals) and directed to the CEI. Approaching, in fact, is the election of the head of the Italian bishops on the part of the bishops themselves, with majorities and minorities, with legitimation of debate and of different positions, no longer with official designations and autocratic management. Let's give an example. Bergoglio said to Scalfari: "I believe in God. Not in a Catholic God, there does not exist a Catholic God, there exists God." In 2007 Martini said in the book-interview "Nighttime conversations in Jerusalem": "You cannot make God Catholic. God is beyond the limits and definitions that we establish." Many there were who tore their garments. In the Catholic world this seemed to some almost a blasphemy. But even among the secularists many were startled. Martini was attacked for that book even within the editorial group of l'Espresso, Scalfari's group. And it was not the first or the last time. So there is a great deal of work to be done if one is truly aiming at a society and a politics in which each one can make his own contribution, the best he can and knows how. With honesty and consistency, willing to enter into discussion. Then wonder and admiration for the pope will be authentic and will help him in reforms, in that he is bishop of Rome, as he takes care to reiterate, the pastor of a whole people that walks with him. Exalting him too much risks distancing him from that people which to a large extent was already close to his ideas and was waiting for him. And damaging his work.
Luke 10:16 16 He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.” I am not theologian but I think this scripture has a precise theological meaning. In other words when the Holy Father speaks ex cathedra, from the Chair of Peter. If the Pope were to ask us to jump into the River Tiber we would be under no obligation to do so. A good example of this might be when Pope Paul iv on the 14th July 1555 with the Bull Cum Nimis Absurdum. Throwing the Jews into a ghetto was a bad idea and any right minded Catholic would have been right not to go along with it. Popes can do and say wicked, stupid and offensive things just like the rest of us poor mortals. Put someone too high on any pedestal and they're bound to fall off. Check out your Church history. Popes can be saints, Popes can be pure evil, Popes can be geniuses, Popes can be fools. Just like the rest of us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Ghetto
I know I have to keep the tone of my posts in check. I'm sorry. Happy St. Valentine's Day and God bless you.
WHAT is being said here???? C. Martini was a hero and PF is carrying his banner into the future? Is that the writer's point. That all these heresies are heroically being implemented at last? I am beyond words. Have I read this right?
Carol, I bet these brave bishops and cardinals, like Mueller, never thought they'd find themselves in such a position. Taylor Marshall and Tim Gordon said they'd shed their blood to follow Cardinal Mueller in his efforts. It seems like we're racing to that point all too quickly. I respect Mark's work, however, I think all this talk of the pope being nuanced, misinterpreted, and colloquial is not good. It's inferring that regular people cannot really judge what the pope does and says. You have to have some special theological rocket science knowledge to really know what's going on. Mark is an excellent writer and a most committed Catholic, but he's misjudging Pope Francis.
