I like Michael Matt et al, and I'm quite Traditionalist myself, but agree with this. We mustn't lose faith and hope, courage and confidence, in the ultimate Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, and of the Sacred Heart through Her. The future belongs to us Catholic Christians. The time is coming when God's Will shall be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. This is all a necessary - but only temporary - period or process of purification, or a kind of painful purgatory, we could say, that we have to go through first, in order to reach the blessed destiny promised to us once it is over. If we are faithful, every day growing in Grace, we will see that beautiful future.
You know the priest did this for the good of his soul, to save him from eternal damnation, but his heart remains hardened and he remains obstinate. I laughed when I read your post and said yes and take all the demwits with him, but that wouldn't be fair to Italy.
He would be quite at ease with the folks running things in Rome and elsewhere, like the ones described by Voris below: Excerpts: The onslaught of damning news surrounding Vatican corruption, sexual and financial, all has one thing in common: It's always exposed by outside interests. Take, for example, the case of former cardinal, now Mr. Theodore McCarrick. Where exactly does the investigation on him stand right now? It was, after all, more than 13 months ago that Pope Francis himself said,"We we will follow the path of truth wherever it may lead" as we scour through "the entire documentation." Have they called any witnesses, investigated claims of gross sums of money passing through McCarrick's hands over the decades? Is there truth to the charges that McCarrick had access to a gigantic bank account in Turks-Caicos that was routinely deposited into by the Soviets, and that a Soviet agent is the one who quietly withdrew the money and spirited it to McCarrick, who used it to buy influence and "ignorance" in Rome? If that charge is true, or even remotely true, then the implications are devastating for the Church. It would mean, at the minimum, the Soviets had a plant in the Church who used their money for influence-peddling, while he insulated his own homopredation by payola. Exactly how is that for the man who self-admittedly never drew a paycheck after he became a bishop? Last February at the Sex Summit in Rome, McCarrick's name never officially came up, not once. A handful of questions or references were asked or made by reporters but quickly deflected from by Blase Cupich. Rome has no transparency, no accountability to anyone — anyone but God. But since a good number of these men don't really believe in God, or don't believe Jesus is divine, then they think they've gotten away with it. Hello? Have you looked around at what your silence has wrought? You supposedly good bishops and cardinals who have kept your mouths shut will have a lot to answer for when you stand before Our Lord. You chose the easy route. You encouraged a culture of silence wrapped up in "love for the Church." Baloney.
Wouldn't it be terrible to wake up in hell and wonder how you got there? Then to think to yourself, 'Well the Pope said it was just fine~....'
You know it didn't surprise me that it was a priest from South Carolina. We have visited churches in SC while vacationing, and our family has always been impressed with the reverence of the Masses we have attended. God bless this courageous priest.
Dante used to say that the Bad Popes in Hell were place upside down in boiling mud with only their red shoes kicking up. Every time another bad Pope went to Hell they went in on top of the bad Pope who went before so that all the other bad Popes that went before went deeper and deeper. I reckon they were getting off very lightly. Italians have the most wonderful , cynical/ realistic view of Popes; it comes from living right up close to them and seeing their various goings on first hand down the centuries.
Ousted auditor says he got too close to secret Vatican accounts Libero Milone believes his probe into huge sums held ‘off the books’ led to his removal Miles Johnson and Donato Paolo Mancini in Rome | November 2 2019 https://www.ft.com/content/da969ed2-fbef-11e9-a354-36acbbb0d9b6
And what could possibly go wrong with this??!! Once the deluge begins who will take responsibility for any victims of those who take advantage of this naivety? Pope Francis Thanks Town for Letting Church Register Migrants ROME — Pope Francis expressed vocal gratitude Sunday to a town in southern Italy that has allowed the Catholic Church to register migrants as parish residents so they can obtain legal documents. “I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the municipality and the diocese of San Severo in Puglia for the signing of the memorandum of understanding that took place on Monday 28 October,” the pope said after his Angelus message in Saint Peter’s Square, “which will allow the day laborers of the so-called ‘Capinata Ghettos’ in Foggia, to obtain a residence in parishes and registration in the municipal registry.” “The possibility of having identity and residency documents will give them new dignity and will allow them to escape a condition of irregularity and exploitation,” the pontiff added. “Thank you so much to the city council and to all those who worked on this plan.” As Breitbart News reported, the mayor of San Severo signed an agreement with local Bishop Giovanni Checchinato granting every Catholic parish the power to let migrants use its street address as their residence to help them get identity papers. The scheme was orchestrated by Vatican Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, acting on behalf of Pope Francis, who reportedly told the cardinal “he cares about that deal dearly.” Krajewski said that the pope had intervened to persuade Mayor Francesco Miglio to establish this deal. “What we achieved today is a milestone for migrants and refugees,” said Krajewski, who is the Papal Almoner, responsible for the pope’s charitable works. San Severo is located in the region of Puglia, where there are thousands of migrants and refugees seeking permission to remain in Europe. “Technically the bishop, through the parish pastors, is giving them the address [necessary to register] —which is the street of Guardian Angel, that’s what we agreed on — and with that confirmation they go to the city hall, get the paperwork and are free to live a normal life,” the cardinal said. “We restored the human dignity of those people. This is what they were refused,” the cardinal said. “I told the mayor of the city this is what the courage of the Gospel is about,” said Krajewski. “We usually want to help the poor in the way we think is good for them. But they don’t need musical concerts. They need to take a shower. They need to have a bank account.” Immigration into Italy has experienced a new resurgence under the nation’s unelected leftist government, which has opened its ports, reversing efforts by former interior minister Matteo Salvini to curb illegal immigration. https://www.breitbart.com/immigrati...ks-town-for-letting-church-register-migrants/
Again I am struck with a great sense, we are graced to be living in this time. You bet it feels super unnerving at times! But God is calling us here and others in our lives aware of these things to be unique disciples/participants of His Church Militant. That may be through a variety of means, based on each of our unique gifts or weaknesses. Prayer, very select conversations, etc. My dear Associate Pastor today preached on God using our perceived weaknesses for great tasks for His purposes, tying in the Gospel about Zaachius who needed to climb a sycamore tree to see Christ. Boy did that resonate! I told him as much after. Christ's peace, love, always support & encouragement to you ALL. Keep it up. Our Mother has already ground the head into the ground ! Christ won our victory!
I'm not sure if the following was posted yet. Fri Nov 1, 2019 - 5:38 pm EST Cardinal Burke: Church is ‘experiencing one of the greatest crises … she has ever known’ https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/c...one-of-the-greatest-crises-she-has-ever-known DETROIT, November 1, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Raymond Burke told a sold-out Catholic conference in Detroit last weekend that “there is no question that the Church is currently experiencing one of the greatest crises which she has ever known.” “Today perhaps as at no time in the past there is an ever more diffuse phenomenon of general confusion and error regarding doctrine and morals within the Body of Christ,” he told the crowd of 800 at the Oct. 26 Call to Holiness conference in a talk on “Keeping the faith in a time of confusion.” And a “frightening manifestation of the gravity of the situation” is the Amazon synod’s working document, which “constitutes an apostasy from the apostolic faith by its denial of the unicity and universality of the redemptive Incarnation of God the Son,” added the cardinal. The month-long Amazon synod ended Sunday amid heated controversy over the preeminence given to statutes of Pachamama, the Incan fertility goddess, at the event. Signaling more turbulence ahead, LifeSiteNews reported Saturday that the synod’s final document calls for allowing women’s ministries at Mass. One of two surviving “dubia” cardinals, Burke obliquely referred to the Pachamama controversy when detailing the 40-point “Declaration of truths” he and Bishop Athanasius Schneider — who condemned the use of the pagan statues at the synod in an open letter — and several other bishops published May 31. “Frighteningly evident” in the synod’s working document is the widespread error that “considers all forms of non-Christian spirituality and religion to be seeds or fruits of the divine Word,” said Burke. “But as the Declaration makes clear, such cannot be the case with spiritualities and religions that promote any kind of idolatry or pantheism.” The Declaration also refutes the widespread error “that Judaism and Islam have their own integrity, and that therefore it is wrong to work for the conversion of Jews or Muslims to Christ” by affirming “that salvation comes through faith in Christ alone,” Burke said to thunderous applause. While the Church faced a “more serious doctrinal crisis” in the Arian heresy of the fourth century, which denied the divinity of Christ, there is today “confusion about many truths of the faith and a growing sense that the Church is no longer certain regarding the truths that she has always taught,” he said. “The see of Peter not only does not clarify the confusion and correct the error, but appears to favor the confusion, which daily increases.” An example of this is the Catholic Church in Germany embarking on the “synodal way,” which some German bishops say is a process to rewrite the Church’s moral teaching, particularly on marriage, family, and human sexuality, added the cardinal. As for development of doctrine, that never meant changing the doctrine, Burke stressed. “There are some today who say that the Church's teaching on the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts has developed so that now, in contradiction to the constant teaching of the Church, homosexual acts in certain circumstances are considered to be good and loving,” he said. Indeed, so great is the confusion that some claim obeying the commandments can actually be a sin, Burke noted. “This may seem absurd to you, and in fact, it is. But this is how the reasoning goes.” The Declaration of Truths provides “an effective help in giving an account of our faith in an ever growing secular and ecclesial culture of confusion, error and division,” Burke told the conference. “But let me make clear that confusion is never a good. Confusion is the work of the devil. It always has been and it always will be,” he said to a burst of applause. Responsibility to redress this confusion “weighs particularly” on bishops, whom Pope Gregory the Great described as “the watchdog who guards the flock against the wolves, warning the flock and driving the wolves away from the flock,” he said. St. Boniface added, “The watchdog that does not bark when there is a threat to the flock is useless and harmful,” Burke said to more thunderous applause. In the following Q&A, Burke assured the crowd that “I can’t imagine” the extraordinary form of the Mass being forbidden, as some people fear, given that Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio Summorum pontificum has given the traditional Mass “a real foothold” across the globe. ‘There are enemies of the extraordinary form, you know that well, but I don’t think that they’re going to prevail,” he said. Moreover, when he celebrates the traditional Mass, older people are far outnumbered by “young people, young, single people,” Burke said to sustained applause. Regarding the Society of St. Pius X, Pope Francis seems intent on reconciliation, but “a reconciliation has to be real,” the cardinal said. There are still questions regarding the Society’s position on two Vatican declarations, which are not dogmatic: Nostra aetate, on other religions, and Dignitatis humanae, on religious freedom, that must be resolved. Burke ended by exhorting people against discouragement, the “principal temptation” of Satan. “Some people are getting very discouraged with what's going on in general in the Church,” he said. “I always say to them, look, look around how many wonderful young families are practicing their Catholic faith. Look at the number of the seminarians. Look at the pro-life movement, the strength that it has … So we can’t give way to discouragement.” Burke is a “shepherd after the heart of the people” and a “priest who loves the people,” Call to Holiness Detroit organizer Deborah Bloomfield told LifeSiteNews, adding that for the conference’s closing pontifical Mass in the extraordinary form there was “standing room only.”
Bless Cardinal Burke. This must be a huge strain on him. He should be in a rocking chair relaxing , instead of which he has to go into battle. Prayers.
