Magister: When the Church of Rome Forgave Second Marriages?

In the early centuries for divorced and remarried was the forgiveness of sins and given the communion, but then in the West, this practice has been abandoned.Today Pope Francis has called into the field, while among the cardinals duels 

 (Sandro Magister) ROME, January 31, 2014 – In mid-February the cardinals and bishops of the council of the secretariat of the synod will meet to evaluate the responses to the questionnaire distributed in October, around the world. The synod’s theme is “the pastoral challenges on the family” and will be held in Rome October 5 to 19. Among the thirty-nine questions in the questionnaire, five are divorced Catholics and passed to a second marriage, and their inability to receive the sacraments of the Eucharist and Reconciliation. On this point the discussion is very lively and the pressure to admit to communion divorced persons remarried are very strong among the public, with the support of prominent bishops and cardinals. Today, in fact, the Catholic Church, the only way to be admitted to Eucharistic communion by divorced and remarried who remain steadfast in their second marriage, is the finding of nullity of the previous marriage celebrated in a church. Nullity can be attributed to many causes and ecclesiastical tribunals are generally inclusive in this way to solve difficult cases, even double. But the ecclesiastical courts are unable to cope with the large number of weddings in suspected disability. According to Pope Francis – who has mentioned about the Archbishop of Buenos Aires its predecessor – the marriage null and void could be even “half” of those celebrated in the church, because it celebrated “without maturity, without realizing that it is for life for social convenience. ” Most of these marriages invalid nor is subjected to the judgment of the ecclesiastical courts. Not only that. The ecclesiastical courts exist and function only in some countries, while there are no large regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America itself. In some areas of recent evangelization monogamous and indissoluble marriage is not even yet been accepted by the Catholic common sense, in a context of persistent unstable marriages or polygamy. Against this background, how to work around the inability to resolve by the large number of judicial steps to remarriage?Joseph Ratzinger, both as a cardinal by Pope that he had repeatedly overlooking the possibility of allowing access to communion for divorced and remarried “come to a reasoned conviction of conscience about the nullity of their first marriage but unable to prove such invalidity for a judicial. ” Benedict XVI warned that “the problem is very difficult and needs to be studied further.” In the meantime, however, the spontaneous access of divorced and remarried to communion has become a widespread practice, tolerated by priests and bishops, indeed here and there encouraged and formalized, as in the German diocese of Freiburg. At the risk of downloading everything on the conscience of the individual and to increase the distance between the high and exacting vision of marriage as it appears in the Gospels and the practical life of the faithful. During this phase of approach to the synod on the family, Pope Francis has given space to a comparison between different positions if not opposing, helping himself to create the expectation of “openness.” On the one hand he wanted to publish in seven languages ​​in “L’Osservatore Romano” on 23 October a note of the prefect of the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Gerhard L. Müller very strict in uphold the “sanctity” of Christian marriage indissoluble, and rejected “an adjustment to the spirit of the times” which would be the granting of communion for divorced and remarried simply on the basis of their choices of conscience. Secondly, the pope has left that bishops and cardinals – including his overt confidence, as Reinhard Marx and Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga – to express themselves publicly against Müller and in favor of a breach of the prohibition of communion. Proponents of the change, when explicit their position, they rely on the most recently individual conscience. But it is the awareness the only way of resolving the problem of the divorced and remarried? According to what was happening in the early centuries of Christianity, no. The solution was then another. * To draw attention recently as the early Church faced the question of divorced and remarried is a priest of Genoa, John Cereti, patristic scholar and ecumenism, as well as more than thirty ‘years assistant to the movement of conjugal spirituality of the Teams of Our Lady. Cereti has reissued a few months ago, his scholarly study first published in 1977 and reissued in 1998 with the title: “Divorce, Remarriage and penance in the early Church.” The keystone of this study – full of references to the Fathers of the Church grappling with the problem of remarriage – 8 is the canon of the council of Nicaea in 325, the first of the great ecumenical councils of the Church, whose authority has been increasingly recognized by all Christians. 8 The canon of the council of Nicaea says: “Speaking of those who define themselves as pure, if they want to enter the Catholic Church, this holy and great council establishes […] before any other thing that they declare openly, in writing, to accept and follow the teachings of the Catholic Church and that they will enter into communion with both those who have gone to a second marriage, both with those who have fallen in the persecution, for which they have established the time and circumstances of penance so that in all things follow the decisions of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. ” “Pure” to which the fee relates is Novatianists, the purists of the time, intransigent until the final break with both adulterers be with those who had remarried apostatized to save his life, even if they had then repented, had been subjected to penance and were absolved from their sin. Claiming the innovations to be readmitted to the Church, to “enter into communion” with these categories of people, Council of Nicea, therefore, reiterated the Church’s power to forgive any sin and to take back in full communion, the “DIGAMI”, ie remarried adulterers, and apostates. since then, with respect to divorced and remarried, in Christianity have coexisted two trends, one more rigorous and more willing to forgive.In the second millennium, the Church of Rome has imposed the first. But above for many centuries in the West has had the practice space of forgiveness. Müller The cardinal, in his note on “L’Osservatore Romano”, writes that “in the patristic separate believers who had remarried civilly were not readmitted the sacraments, even after a period of penance. ” But immediately after recognizing that “sometimes were sought pastoral solutions for rare borderline cases.” Most adherent to the historical reality was Ratzinger, in his 1998 paper republished November 30, 2011 in multiple languages ​​in “L’Osservatore Romano” that summarizes the status of the matter according to the most recent studies: “It is stated that the current Magisterium would rely on only one strand of patristic tradition, but on the whole heritage of the ancient Church. Though the Fathers clearly have stuck to the principle doctrinal indissolubility of marriage, some of them have tolerated the pastoral plan some flexibility with respect to individual situations. Upon this foundation the Eastern Churches separated from Rome would later developed alongside the principle of akribìa, fidelity to the truth revealed, that of oikonomia, benevolent condescension in individual situations. Without renouncing the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage, they allow in certain cases a second and even a third marriage, which on the other hand is different from his first marriage and is marked by the sacramental character of penance. practice this would never have been explicitly condemned by the Catholic Church. synod of bishops in 1980 would have suggested to thoroughly study this tradition, in order to better shine God’s mercy. ” Later in this same book, Ratzinger shows in St. Leo the Great, and other Fathers of the Church those who “sought pastoral solutions for rare borderline cases” and acknowledges that “in the Imperial Church after Constantine sought a greater willingness to compromise in difficult marital situations.” Ecumenical Council of Nicaea was convened In fact, just by Constantine and his canon 8 expressed precisely this orientation. should also be noted that at that time the second marriage in the past that were readmitted to the communion of the Church remained together with the new spouse. In the West, in the following centuries, the period of penance that preceded readmission to the Eucharist, initially short, lengthened gradually to become permanent, while in the East that did not happen. were the ecclesiastical courts in the West in the second millennium, to address and resolve “borderline cases” of remarriage, ensuring the nullity of the previous marriage. But with this by deleting the conversion and penance. Nowadays those who, like John Cereti, draw attention to the practice of the Church of the first centuries, propose a return to a penitential system similar to that adopted at that time, and still preserved in some form in the Churches of the East.Extending the power of the Church to absolve all sins to those who have broken the first marriage and entered into a second marriage, it would pave the way – say – a “greater appreciation of the sacrament of reconciliation” and “a return to the faith of many who now feel excluded from ecclesial communion.” Maybe this thought when Pope Francis, in the interview on the plane back from Rio de Janeiro, July 28, 2013, opened and closed “a parenthesis” – in his words – on Orthodox who “follow the theology of the ‘economy’, as they call it, and give a second chance at marriage.”adding immediately: “I think this problem [of communion to people in second marriages] must be studied in the frame of the pastoral care of marriage. “

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350707

Pope Tells Notre Dame: Defend the Freedom of the Church

  

Pope Francis and Father John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, at the Vatican on Jan. 30, 2014. (AP Photo)

 

(CNSNews.com) – Pope Francis on Thursday told the president and trustees of the University of Notre Dame–which is suing the Obama administration for mandating that its health insurance plans cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs–that Notre Dame should defend the freedom of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are intrinsically immoral.

“The vision which guided Father Edward Sorin and the first religious of the Congregation of Holy Cross in establishing the University of Notre Dame du Lac remains, in the changed circumstances of the twenty-first century, central to the university’s distinctive identity and its service to the Church and American society,” the pope told the delegation from Notre Dame, which visited with him at the Vatican.

“Essential in this regard is the uncompromising witness of Catholic universities to the Church’s moral teaching, and the defense of her freedom, precisely in and through her institutions, to uphold that teaching as authoritatively proclaimed by the magisterium of her pastors,” said the pope, according to a transcript published by the Vatican.

“It is my hope that the University of Notre Dame will continue to offer unambiguous testimony to this aspect of its foundational Catholic identity, especially in the face of efforts, from whatever quarter, to dilute that indispensable witness,” he said. “And this is important: its identity, as it was intended from the beginning. To defend it, to preserve it and to advance it!”

Prof. Carter Snead of Notre Dame Law School saw the pope’s words as encouraging the university in its court battle against the Obama administration’s efforts to restrict the freedom of religion.

“The Holy Father’s words strike me as a timely and profound encouragement to Notre Dame in its continuing efforts to defend its religious liberty in court,” Prof. Snead told CNSNews.com.

They “are a powerful reminder to all of us who love and work for Notre Dame that we have the duty to preserve and expand the university’s witness to the truths affirmed and proclaimed by the Church,” he said.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-boland/pope-tells-notre-dame-defend-freedom-church

 

Unbelievable!! Pro-abortion Heretic Spanish nun criticizes Spain’s new abortion restrictions

Sr. Teresa Forcades

Where’s the bishop?  Why isn’t this Heretic Ex-Communicated! Why is Pope Francis SILENT?(!!)

Pro-abortion Spanish nun criticizes Spain’s new abortion restrictions

Madrid, January 30, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a recent interview with the Spanish feminist magazine Pikara, a Benedictine sister, Teresa Forcades, said her position towards the proposed restrictions on abortion by the Spanish conservative government was that of “criticism and upfront rejection.”

“I’m in favor of allowing abortion when the fetus isn’t viable,” said the Sister.

The proposed law will eliminate a provision passed in 2010 by the previous socialist government allowing abortion on demand until 14 weeks gestation, and will remove fetal malformation as a reason for the mother to abort. 

“There can be a mother,” she continued, “to whom it makes sense to bring into the world and accompany a creature with a severe malformation, even though she knows it will suffer and will die within a short time of being born.”

“But,” she explained, one shouldn’t be able to say to another woman who doesn’t think in the same way that she is “compelled by the State to do this that I think is right.”

“There are groups that, sheltering themselves in the Catholic faith, propose restrictive laws to polarize society,” she said.

“This pulls us away from more important things like at this moment are the social issues and the crisis,” she explained.

According to the nun, “Laws like this one respond to a phenomenon I’ve studied alongside with the witches subject.”

She explained she believes that in times of social crisis, “The maternal figure rises up as the one who will resolve the issue and the one who should be controlled as a sort of collective exorcism, because they are the scapegoats.”

The article was published on January 8 under the title: “When you don’t obey clear interests, you become inconvenient for both sides.”

The picture of Sr. Forcades appeared alongside graphic sexual images that featured other articles.

Forcades, a nun of the Benedictine monastery of Sant Benet de Montserrat, near Barcelona, has a long history of going against Catholic moral teaching.

As LSN reported in 2009, Forcades equated abortion with “the right to self-determination” which she called a “fundamental right that protects human dignity and prohibits absolutely and under any circumstances that a person be used as an object, as a means to achieve good, even when that good is saving the life of another person or even all of humanity.”

Also, in September 2013, BBC’s Matt Wells interviewed Forcades and other nuns in the monastery. Wells called her an “intense” “political leader” who dresses “always in her nun’s headpiece, and says that everything she does is born of deep Christian faith and devotion.” He noted that she has become “a star” of television talk shows throughout Spain, in which she presents a “new liberation theology.”

Wells also reported that the sisters Forcades lives with “are in no doubt that her talents and fame are ‘gifts from God’, and that she’s paving the way for a newer, more feminist future for the Catholic church.”

The monastery’s website features a picture of Forcades on its home page and publishes links to some of her articles, in one of which she declared that the Church in Spain has not understood the Holy Trinity. According to the nun, “The Trinity says that diversity is as sublime as unity, because one thing is unity, and another very different one is uniformity.”

In the Pikara article she confirmed her stance by saying: “I understand that homosexual love is perfectly understandable by the Church,” she explained. “Because it has the essential: not to have children, but an open intimacy towards an interpersonal relationship that includes respect for the other person’s integrity.”

“Two people that love, desire and respect each other are bearing testimony,” she said. “This is the sacrament.”

She ended her interview by declaring herself a “queer theologian” and saying that “the religious analysis that understands the sexual relationship as something that has the objective of procreation is a utilitarian vision of human love.”

“That’s why it’s perfectly compatible that you should be responsible and use contraception when you feel like it.”

To contact the monastery of Sant Benet de Montserrat, write to: stbenet@benedictinescat.com or call: +34 (93) 835 0078 

To contact the diocese of St. Feliu. Bishop Agustin Cortes, email: secretarigeneral@bisbatsantfeliu.cat

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pro-abortion-spanish-nun-criticizes-spains-new-

 

‘We almost lost our lives’: Woman possessed by demons in ‘portal to hell’ house that terrified even the police chief reveals new details of her family’s terrifying ordeal

        New Details: ‘We almost lost our lives’

• Latoya Ammons’ home in Gary, Indiana is at the hear of one of the most baffling police cases in state history
• She was ‘possessed’ along with her three children after moving into home in 2011
• MailOnline has obtained exclusive audio and video footage from the exorcisms of Ammons
  
• She claims children were ‘satanic chanting’ and saw ‘big, black monster’
• Police audio also features a ‘demon’ rasping ‘hey’ in the basement 
  
• Sons were taken to hospital after one was inexplicably thrown in the house – while there a nurse and a CPS worker saw him ‘glide’ backwards up a wall
• Town’s veteran police chief, Charles Austin, says basement is ‘portal to hell’ and he saw objects moving and shadowy people
  
• MailOnline also has obtained picture of ‘frozen’ finger of DCS worker who touched mystery ooze that was dripping in house. She never returned
  
• Catholic priest Father Michael Maginot carried out exorcisms on Ammons in English and Latin and talks of his personal battles with named demons

A woman whose horrific experience living in an Indiana home that she and even city police are convinced was a haunted ‘portal to hell’ has spoken out on her paranormal trauma and what it was like to be a family possessed.

Latoya Ammons says she has seen her own daughter levitate off a bed, her son walk up a wall so effortlessly that even a psychiatrist was at a loss and was herself the victim of demonic possession in what appears to be an average home in the Gary community near where Michael Jackson grew up.

‘Me and my mother and my children, we almost lost our lives,’ said Ammons, whose undeniably terrifying experience left her chilled to her core and now has an entire nation captivated by her spectral tale.

Terrifying ordeal: 32-year-old Latoya Ammons is speaking out about the demons that held her family hostage in their Indiana home and whose story has now captivated the nation 

 

 

 Ghastly figure: Ammons’ ordeal is made all the more believable by her own earnest recounting, the Gary police chief’s chilling account of the haunting and an undeniably photo from the police themselves that shows what could well be a ghost in the home’s window

 Ammons sat with Inside Edition for a deeply earnest interview in which she makes abundantly clear that her ordeal was no Casper the ghost made real.

‘This was obviously demons,’ she said. ‘Not just random spirits. There is a difference.’

Ammons’ unwavering eyes speak volumes about how truly real the haunting became for the family.

‘I know it was infested with demons. I know that for a fact,’ she said. ‘I spoke to a good friend of mine, he was clairvoyant. He’s in New York. He explained to me what was going on in the house.’

And what was going on was like something out of Polturegeist or The Exorcist. Only those terrible things were truly happening to Ammons and her family.

And Ammons’ clairvoyant friend correctly foretold that things would only get worse.

‘He told me the house was infested with demons and to get my children out of the house,’ she said. ‘And if I knew what I was up against, I would run and drop everything.’

A particularly scary bout with the demons had the family rushing to the emergency room as Ammons 9-year-old son was in the grips of possession and Ammons has revealed that even physicians were terrified.

When the family got to the hospital, her son ‘walked up the wall and did a backwards flip and threw her into the wall and started headbutting her and they had to grab him and hold him

‘The doctor from the psych ward said, “that’s not real, that’s not human. No human can do what that little boy just did.”‘ 

Portal to Hell: Rosa Campbell, Latoya’s mother, gives police a tour of the basement that was said to be the base of the demons that possessed the family

Be gone! The family, under instruction of a priest and clairvoyants, set up an altar in the basement and surrounded it in salt in a bid to banish the evil spirits

  

Evil: Rosa Simmons claimed ‘something down there was choking me to death, I don’t know what it is’ because she went into the basement praying

 MailOnline’s exclusive footage taken inside the home is shaky as the camera pans to and fro moving from room to room – each in a state of disarray, left in haste – before descending into the basement.

The cellar is lit by naked bulbs. With bare walls and concrete floor it looks cold even on film and is all but abandoned, except for a small table covered in a cloth. 

An open Bible and burned out vestige candle sit on it. Salt is scattered on the concrete floor – a desperate ritualistic attempt to rid this place of evil.

Seen here for the first time, this is video footage from the Gary, Indiana police investigation into a case that is, without question, the most bizarre and disturbing in their history: the possession and exorcism of Latoya Ammons.

Throughout the hour-long film officers hear testimony of children picked up and flung against walls and furniture; of adults being ‘choked to death’ by some supernatural force; of a demonic form appearing in different shapes – the shadow of a man, a black looming monster; an apparition of a withered old lady with red eyes and hood; of a house that bled clear, odorless oil and of the household’s three children convulsing and chanting Satanic verses.

In a chilling aside, in a separate audio recording made by one of the officers as he took pictures while his colleague filmed – audible here exclusively at MailOnline – the two officers’ speech is cut across by a whispered, but clear, ‘Hey.’ Neither said or heard it at the time.

 

 

 Fears: Ammons, pictured, said she saw her daughter levitating in a bedroom. A nurse and a CPS worker later reported seeing her nine-year-old son run backwards up a wall before flipping over to the ground

 

 Both are now convinced it is a demonic rasp, issuing a welcome or a challenge as they stood unwittingly on the lip of a ‘portal to hell.’

At one point, Latoya Ammons’s mother, Rosa Campbell, who acted as ‘paranormal tour guide’ to the officers drawn from Gary, Lake County and Hammond Police Departments, admitted saying to her daughter: ‘Nobody’s going to believe this, Toya.’

Certainly few involved in the case wanted to when it began in early spring 2012. But today, the veteran police officers, experienced physicians, paramedics, nurses, social workers and clergy linked to the case speak of being ‘attacked’ by demons, profoundly shaken and left with little choice but to believe that ‘something’ possessed the 32-year-old mother-of-three and the rented home in which she, her children and her mother, lived from November 2011 until May 2012.

As she showed the investigating officers, accompanied by social worker Valerie Washington, around the home in May 2012, Rose repeatedly stopped to recall the events which had, by that time, driven the family from the residence.

Standing in the kitchen she claimed: ‘I heard dogs barking, it sounded like there were dogs barking in here.’ The family had no pets. And when she investigated she saw, ‘A shadow of somebody moving.’

Downstairs in the basement, a focus for much of the disturbances, Rosa recalled an occasion on which she was down there alone doing some cleaning: ‘I started coughing and joking so bad…I was praying the whole time and they don’t like for us to pray. They don’t like that at all.

‘Something down there was choking me to death, I don’t know what it is.’

 ‘I was praying the whole time and they don’t like for us to pray. They don’t like that at all. Something down there was choking me to death, I don’t know what it is’
                                         – Rosa Campbell

On another occasion she said that her daughter, Latoya and godson were in the basement when, according to Rosa: ‘He felt like something was stabbing him in the stomach. The more he was was reading the Bible, the more it was stabbing, punching… they saw something flying across the room and land “blam” like that.’

Rosa reached for the object she claimed had been flung by some demonic force – a small Holy Family ornament.

She also said that her daughter had told her that, as the force had grown in power she had seen it’s full manifestation in her bedroom one night. ‘She said it was like a scary, ugly, black monster… she couldn’t say anything else.’

Two of them most disturbing physical manifestations were witnessed by several medics and law enforcement officials.

The first, Rosa recalled, was during a visit to family physician Dr Geoffrey Onyekum on 19 April 2012. Both focused on the youngest child, then 7. She recalled: ‘I saw “it” trying to come out [of him]. It was trying to break loose in front of the doctor.

 

Father Michael Maginot explains how he performed three exorcisms – two in English and one in Latin – on Latoya Ammons in his church, St. Stephen Martyr in Merriville, Indiana

 ‘His head was turning, his eyes rolled back, his mouth went crazy, he started talking in tongues then it threw my grandson completely across the room.’

The nurse who witnessed this would not go back into the room while the doctor, realizing this was well beyond his capabilities, called police and paramedics to take the child and his brother, both of whom fell unconscious, to Gary ER.

When there, and in the grips of demonic possession, his grandmother maintained, her youngest grandson – growling and gurning – walked backwards towards a wall then glided up it, walking backwards to above her head height, holding her hands all the way as she tried to coax him down and ‘it’ out, before flipping over her head and landing on the floor.

The child had no recollection of the event that was witnessed by nurses, social workers and paramedics all of whom recorded it in official reports.

Cary Indiana Police Captain Charles Austin, 62, was there the day the footage seen here was recorded. He entered a skeptic and left convinced that he had just witnessed a ‘portal to hell.’

Eerie: Cops and child protection workers were also spooked during visits to the home in Gary, Indiana (pictured). In this image, a figure appears in a window, right, although no one was home

 

What is it? A close-up of the image shows the cloudy white figure in the window of the home

 Speaking to MailOnline he said: ‘Everyone of us who was there that day in the basement and who saw what we saw, went through what we went through after…we all think the same, we all call it the same. That bit of dirt is a portal to hell.

When Capt Austin heard of a bizarre initial report on a Monday afternoon his sergeant told him that Child Protection Services were involved.

Capt Austin, 62, said: ‘The sergeant told me that the children had been missing school and there was talk of satanic goings on. He was very leery of it. I contacted some people, high-ranking officers; we decided to take a look.

‘I walked in there thinking this was nothing but a hoax, a concocted story.’

Instead what he experienced that day in the spring of 2012 shook him to his core, threatened his life and became part of the documented history of one of the most disturbing and baffling cases in Indiana’s police history.

Capt Austin’s assertions were echoed by Roman Catholic priest Father Michael Maginot, also interviewed by MailOnline.

Father Maginot may be a more natural candidate to believe in supernatural phenomenon than a cop of 37 years’ standing who prides himself in being an ‘aggressive and assertive law enforcer.’

But, like Capt Austin, he set out to disprove the story. Instead he would conduct one minor and three major exorcisms on mother-of-three Latoya and told MailOnline that he himself had been the target of demonic attack for his involvement in the case.

  ‘All of a sudden this growling voice came from my AM/FM radio. It said, “YOU OUTTA HERE” Then a lot of garbled other stuff and static’
                                        – Captain Austin

Over a six-month period Latoya claims that she and her children were possessed by demons.

She says that the house in which they lived was ravaged by malevolent spirits, that her daughter, then 12, and sons, 9 and 7 respectively were physically attacked – thrown against furniture, dragged from the sofa, punched and tormented till their gums and noses bled and they struggled to breathe.

As a family she says they fell ill – she to three kidney infections, her children to a variety of ailments and disturbances. 

She says the house ‘dripped oil,’ that shadowy figures walked the rooms at night, that footsteps could be heard coming up from the basement only to be followed by a furious pounding on the door leading from it to the main house when, in increasing terror, she and her mother put a lock on it.

There were swarms of dead horseflies on the porch – swept up one day only to return in equal abundance the next. Lights flickered, phones played up, television signals scrambled and reverted to normal on a whim.

 

Convinced: After three decades on the force, Gary Police Captain was in no doubt: He told MailOnline: ‘Everyone of us who was there that day in the basement and who saw what we saw, went through what we went through after…we all think the same, we all call it the same. That bit of dirt is a portal to hell’

Convulsions: During one of her exorcisms Latoya was seen thrashing around, screaming

 She claims the family was terrorized beyond all endurance. And the impact in school-time lost and medical treatment sought saw the Department of Child Protection Services step in and call in first he police, and finally after one particularly harrowing event, Father Maginot.

Sitting before the fire in the main room of St Stephen the Martyr’s rectory in Merrillville, Indiana, Father Maginot admitted he only became involved by chance. He happened to be covering for the usual chaplain of Gary ER on the weekend when a medic called in some distress to report a bizarre occurrence.

He said: ‘We were having our bible study after mass when I got the call saying “You’re a Catholic priest. You do exorcisms. We need you to do one.” They went onto tell me that a little boy had just walked, glided, backwards up a wall and flipped over to land on his feet.

‘They said he was growling, they described all sorts of things. I went of course.’

Father Maginot speaks rapidly and earnestly. He is affable, open and welcoming but he is no fool. He set out, he insisted, to disprove any notion of the occult. To do an exorcism, permission is needed from the Bishop. Fr Maginot admitted he was reluctant to go down that path having approached Bishop Dale J Melczek, Bishop of Gary some years earlier on another matter involving possible supernatural events only to receive short shrift.

He said: ‘I set out to disprove it because to be honest I didn’t want to get the bishop involved. But I had policemen, social workers, doctors and security guards telling me what they had witnessed.

‘I couldn’t just dismiss them all. That was a Friday. So I met with the mother and grandmother on the Sunday.’

In an involvement with the case spanning five months, Fr Maginot never met or examined any of the children.

But he became convinced, he said, that Latoya was indeed possessed and that the house in which she and her children lived had become cursed as a result of a hex placed on her.

Shaking his head, aware perhaps of how unbelievable the story, he admitted; ‘I think there was a curse placed on the mother, that she was the focus, possibly by an ex-boyfriend or his wife, and that combined with some tragedy and perhaps occult practices that had taken place in that house before and that had opened a portal.’

It is the conclusion Capt Austin has drawn against every logical thought that told him that just could not be true.

Speaking from Gary Police Department Headquarters, he has run every department from narcotics to homicide, gang intelligence to autodetail. He has taught 500 officers and received the department’s highest reward for his service. He doesn’t believe in the sort of ‘garbage’ he thought he was being fed in by the two women at Caroline Street in Gary two springs ago. 

Frozen finger: On one visit to the house a DCS worker Samantha Illic touched a cabinet seeping a clear oil. Her finger turned white (right), like ‘a blister after a burn’, and she vowed never to return

Ooze: The family and officials reported an oil-type substance running down furniture and the blinds, marks can be seen above. Even when they sealed the room and returned, it would continue to run 

Violent: The family claim that on one occasion this Nativity ornament mysteriously flew across the room

 He said: ‘I was skeptical. I was leading the pack through the house. We walked in and the first thing we see is in the living room there’s a candle burning and a bible and a little altar with a crucifix – same in every room in the house. There was a drawing on the refrigerator done by one of the boys that was Jesus on the cross but behind him there looked like demonic figures.’

The further into the house he investigated the less comfortable he felt. Things just seemed ‘odd’.

He said: ‘Underneath the stairs was dirt and a candle. I was trying to figure out what was going on there because the rest of the basement was cement.

‘I took pictures of the candles and crucifix under the stairs on the dirt.’

Those pictures, taken on his iPhone, subsequently disappeared he said, and the phone which he used that day never behaved the same again.

 ‘But when I went back to my car the drivers seat was just moving backwards and forwards by itself. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards’
                                           – Captain Austin

But before those images disappeared, he said, he saw that they contained figures he had not seen before; figures he said were not there before, standing around him and beneath the stairs.

According to Capt. Austin: ‘The officer behind me took pictures of me standing in front of him and in his pictures he saw lots of figures too.’

With the practiced narration of an experienced witness, he continued: ‘I said, “Enough of this garbage.” On leaving the property I went to a gas station and made a phone call.

‘I had my police radio, my squad car dash AM/FM radio, my police cell and my iPhone. I was looking at the pictures I had taken on my iPhone when I made this call and all of a sudden this growling voice came from my AM/FM radio.

‘It said, “YOU OUTTA HERE” Then a lot of garbled other stuff and static.’

After that, according to Capt. Austin, every other officer present that day had problems with their radios, phones and house alarms.

Most alarming for Capt. Austin was an incident he had two weeks later when he was, he said bluntly, ‘attacked.’

 

Disbelief: Father Maginot says he set out to disprove the claims but instead became utterly convinced of them

Exorcism: The priest carried out several exorcisms using these crosses on the family and the house has had no reported issues since

Returning home in his Infiniti SUV he said, ‘the electric door to my garage would not open. It had been fine before. I pressed the keypad it must have been 10 times then gave up.

‘I exited the vehicle and went to flip the main power in the garage but that didn’t work, then the house and finally that worked.

‘But when I went back to my car the driver’s seat was just moving backwards and forwards by itself. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

‘When I took the car to the shop to get it looked into they said if I hadn’t brought it in it could have caused an accident and I could have been killed because for some reason the seat was about to collapse.’

The next time Capt. Austin was in the house it was with Father Maginot several weeks later.

They brought a dog, thinking perhaps they would find a crime scene, perhaps human remains, that might account for the disturbances but the dogs found nothing.

The men dug, five foot down into the dirt in the basement and unearthed a bizarre collection of objects: boys’ socks with the ankle portion cut out, a fake fingernail, women’s panties, a heavy, corroded iron weight, a broken plastic shoe horn and a red oval kettle lid.

‘‘After almost four hours when she was going through one of these moments I took my crucifix and put it to her forehead and she began convulsing’
                                                 – Fr Maginot

Household trash? Or objects ritualistically buried in an attempt to summon something up or keep something at bay?

By then even the most level-headed present were open to the latter explanation and several of the people who had visited the house on the first inspection, including the original CPS case worker, had become so shaken by the day and its aftermath that they refused to go back.

Department of Child Services, family case manager Samantha Illic was part of the group that visited the house on 10 May 2012 when officers recorded the scene and Campbell’s accounts of many strange and disturbing events.

During that visit Illic reached to touch a cabinet that appeared to be dripping clear oil. Both Capt. Austin and Father Maginot tell a similar tale.

According to the Capt: ‘She touched it with her pinky and her finger just went flush free of blood, it was white like it was dead. She was holding up her hand saying, her finger was numb and the side of her hand.’

Father Maginot described the seemingly spontaneous ‘wound’ or affect as like ‘a blister after a burn.’

He said: ‘Her whole finger had this grey, white colour – a death colour. She wondered after if maybe there had been a bug that had bitten her but she didn’t see anything or feel anything.’

Father Maginot’s experience of the exorcisms of Latoya is similarly unnerving.

He met with Latoya and her mother at the house and, he said, for two hours they conducted an interview without any incident.

The women told him what they claimed was going on. He said: ‘Only the children saw definite figures but the grandmother saw a shadow of a man and they would find dirty footsteps in the front from in the morning just paced to and fro and going nowhere.

 Activity: Most of the problems at the home were around the basement stairs, pictured. Police dug a four foot hole under the stairs to look for graves 

Lurking: Rosa said one of her granddaughters saw a full manifestation one night. ‘She said it was like a scary, ugly, black monster…she couldn’t say anything else’ 

History: Both the police officer and priest believe the demons may have something to do with the home’s past. During a dig they found, five foot down into the dirt, a bizarre collection of objects: boys’ socks with the ankle portion cut out, a fake fingernail and women’s panties

 ‘Ghostly things are easier to deal with,’ said Father Maginot, explaining: ‘A lot of the time as Catholics you can have a mass, pray for them, tell them to go into the light, not to be afraid. But demons are different. You’re inviting in guests from other realms and they don’t necessarily want to leave.’’

During his visit to the Carolina Street house Father Maginot said that among the many strange phenomenon he witnessed were walls dripping with oil, Venetian blind rods tilting from side to side in unison and apparently for no reasons, seemingly set footprints appearing on the floor.

Lights repeatedly flickered then stopped when approached in such a way that the priest became convinced this was ‘an intelligence’ not simply an electric fault.

The final straw, the family told him, was when they were sitting as a family watching television and a bottle of Febreeze floated up, moved in the air before being hurled into Latoya’s room, smashing a lamp. In the aftermath they saw the shadow of a man.

They left the house for a hotel that night and never returned to live there again.

A clairvoyant who had visited the house and told Latoya she saw ‘hundreds of demons’ in the basement had told her to anoint the house with oil and put salt down to seal the gateways to demons.

Father Maginot did the same during his visit, uttering blessings and trying, at every turn, to find a logical explanation for the things he was seeing and the things these women were telling him. But increasingly he struggled.

He said: ‘I was trying to find a focus for it, to understand where it was coming from because that can help solve these things.’

Father Maginot became convinced that Latoya’s former lover was a ‘trigger’ or possible ‘source’.

Every time he asked her about this man – who is not the father of any of the children – Latoya complained of more symptoms of the possession, fever, cold, headaches, nausea and convulsions.

He said: ‘After almost four hours when she was going through one of these moments I took my crucifix and put it to her forehead and she began convulsing.

‘I had thought the demons were with the kids but now I could see they were with her. She was the source. They jumped from her and they jumped from child to child – they would pick up each other’s chants, or convulse in turn, act crazy, or growl in turn. But they were with her.

‘I said, that’s enough. We’re not prepared to do an exorcism here but I’ve got enough there’s no need to torture anyone.’

Fear: Capt Austin even claims he has been ‘attacked’ outside the house by spirits, including one occasion when his car moved by itself

 Instead on June 1, 8th and 29th Latoya came to St Stephen the Martyr, Church in Merrillville and submitted to three major exorcisms.

She had, by then, moved out of the Carolina Street house in Gary and was living in a new apartment in Illinois.  At the time the children were in state care but they have since been returned to their mother and grandmother.

Father Maginot recalled: ‘I carried out the first exorcism in English and there was no incident. It was like it had already gone but they do say they play possum.’

Father Maginot gave Latoya a crucifix and a rosary made of Benedictine medals. As she left the church the rosary ripped into five pieces.

Father Maginot said: ‘I said, “I don’t think we’re done here.”’

Later Latoya reported to the priest that the corpus, the figure of Christ on the crucifix he had given her, had similarly been torn off.

‘I had to figure out how to provoke the demons and drive them out,’ Father Maginot said, rocking to and fro in his easy chair.

Latoya had researched names and felt two belonged to her demons. Father Maginot will not repeat either – one is a biblical name, other is not – because he does not want to risk calling them.

He explained: ‘It’s a very personal thing. Once you have their name, it’s as though you have them caught. They like to work in mystery and darkness. Once you shine a light you show their limitations and they don’t like that.’

As if to prove that point Father Maginot recalled how he was ‘attacked by demons’ the day before the second exorcism. 

Ritual: Ammons went through 3 exorcisms, as famously depicted by the 1973 movie, The Exorcist, pictured

 Out riding his bike a series of near accidents and unsettling moments climaxed with him being seemingly spontaneously thrown from the saddle of his bike into the grass at the side of the bicycle path he was following.

He said: ‘I looked and saw that the seat of my bike was completely twisted but it made no sense because it was absolutely tight and I had to really pound it to straighten it out. I was in no doubt I had been attacked. I was being warned.’

The second exorcism saw a more violent response. The exorcism is, Father Maginot explained, a ritual repeated over and over, with the priest narrowing in on the demon and its triggers.

He said: ‘You try to protect yourself as much as you can. You go to confession because if there are any unconfessed sins it will use that.

‘It will use anything possible to deflect, or distract or scare you.

‘I had to figure out how to provoke the demons and drive them out. It’s a very personal thing. Once you have their name, it’s as though you have them caught’
                                                – Fr Maginot
 ‘You will think you’re torturing the person but you’re not. You’re torturing the demon.’

The final exorcism was in Latin – praising God and condemning the demon.

‘The parts that were praising God there was no reaction from Latoya,’ Father Maginot recalled. ‘The parts condemning the demon she convulsed which was interesting to me as she doesn’t know Latin.’

Latoya said she felt herself being pulled up as if to levitate, but Father Maginot saw no sign of that.

After a third exorcism Latoya fell asleep he recalled. He gave her the now mended rosary and she took it home with her.

‘I never heard from her again,’ he said. ‘I was anticipating more. I was anticipating another at least but it turned out the game was over.’

After the final exorcism Father Maginot visited the house and blessed it with what he referred to as a ‘more serious blessing.’ He said: ‘This involved incense and salt and Holy Water.’

There were already new tenants in place and they had reported no problems since the priest had ‘sealed’ the portal with salt and blessings following an earlier investigation. 

But, he said, he told landlord Charles Reed, ‘If we don’t deal with this now, properly, this will not go away. This will close the portal and seal it.’

Creepy: Now that the Ammons family have moved out the new tenants claim they have had no problems, certainly not any of demonic possession

 Father Maginot is in no doubt that the possession was real and that everything that happened to Latoya and her children and everything that others witnessed was the work of demons – fallen angels, God’s creatures turned against God and against man.

And for all his reluctance the same seems to be true of Capt. Austin. He said: ‘It shook me, everything to do with this. It shook me. This was a situation that was so out of my normal habitat. Did it shake me? Yes to a certain degree it did.

‘You tell me. What do you think happened?’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2549165/We-lost-lives-Woman-possessed-demons-portal-hell-house-terrified-police-chief-details-

 

 

 

Vatican bank admits widows victims of crackdown and all in the name of Pope Francis’ reform efforts

 Ernst von Freyberg, president of the Vatican Bank I.O.R. (Istituto per le Opere Religiose), talks with the Associated Press during an interview at his office in Vatican City. The Vatican bank’s much-publicized financial reform has hit a small glitch: The bank told dozens and perhaps hundreds of widows and Vatican pensioners that they had to close their accounts or risk losing access to their money as part of Pope Francis’ reform efforts. Only the bank now says these account-holders were targeted as a result of a “technical error” and are being kept on as clients after all, an embarrassing rollback that comes as the Vatican seeks to mend ties with Italian authorities who have long suspected Italians were using the Vatican as an off-shore tax haven, The Associated Press has learned. Bank President Ernst Von Freyberg penned a letter to these clients Sept. 19, telling them to come to the bank before Nov. 30 to transfer their money out because they no longer fit the criteria of account-holders set by the board. He warned that if they didn’t meet the deadline, their money would become subject to the “internal dispositions” of the bank, according to a copy of the letter obtained by AP. 

Vatican bank admits widows victims of crackdown

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Dozens and perhaps hundreds of widows and Vatican pensioners recently came in for a rude surprise: The Vatican bank told them they had to close their accounts or risk losing access to their money — all in the name of Pope Francis’ reform efforts, The Associated Press has learned.

The bank now says it was all a ‘‘technical error’’ and that the widows and pensioners are being kept on as clients. That reversal came despite the bank’s highly-publicized plan to close so-called ‘‘lay accounts’’ as it tries to mend relations with Italian authorities who have suspected that Italians were using the bank as a tax haven.

It’s all come as a big embarrassment for an institution that is trying to fend off accusations of mismanagement and corruption.

‘‘In some cases old ladies got nasty letters,’’ Max Hohenberg, spokesman for the Institute for Religious Works — or IOR — told The AP. ‘‘The fact that a few dozen people were categorized in the wrong way and hence got a letter which was incorrect is a mistake which we have apologized for.’’

Bank President Ernst Von Freyberg penned a terse letter to these clients Sept. 19, telling them to come to the bank before Nov. 30 to transfer their money out because they no longer fit the criteria of account-holders set by the board. He warned somewhat ominously that if they didn’t meet the deadline, their money would become subject to the ‘‘internal dispositions’’ of the bank, according to a copy of the letter obtained by AP. He didn’t say what those ‘‘internal dispositions’’ were.

But somehow some former Vatican employees and their widows got caught up in the sweep, apparently because of the way their accounts were classified by the bank internally. Their accounts have now been reclassified after they pleaded their cases to the bank.

The bank’s board issued new guidelines for who could have an account in July as part of efforts to end decades of scandal that had tarnished the Holy See’s reputation — and were in part responsible for bringing the reform-minded Francis into the papacy.

The new criteria for determining account holders was also aimed at responding to recommendations by European experts who have been evaluating the Holy See’s anti-money laundering efforts. In its 2012 inaugural evaluation, the Council of Europe’s Moneyval committee urged the Vatican bank to put into law regulations about who can and cannot hold an account since the existing norms were vague.

The issue has been of particular interest in Italy, where regulators have long suspected that the IOR was being used by well-connected Italian civilians to avoid paying taxes. The institute, which has just one office inside a tower in the sovereign Vatican City State, is considered a foreign bank by Italian standards and as such not subject to Italian regulatory control.

In truth, many lay Italian citizens held legitimate accounts there because they worked for the Vatican: art historians from the famous Vatican Museums, gendarmes who protect the pope, as well as administrators, legal and financial experts working in the Holy See bureaucracy.

Vatican retirees who live in Italy must declare the existence of a foreign bank account on their Italian tax returns, even if the Vatican pension itself is exempt, noted Benedetto Santacroce, a tax lawyer and expert in international taxation. He said any interest earned on that pension is taxable income as far as the Italian taxman is concerned.

Failure to declare the account or pay taxes on any income generated by it could result in significant back taxes and sanctions, though the Italian government recently reduced the penalty in a bid to encourage ‘‘voluntary’’ disclosures to curb tax evasion, he said.

Italian news reports have said that as many as 900 accounts were slated for closure and that some 300 million euros were expected to exit the IOR’s coffers as the bank transferred the money to clients’ accounts elsewhere.

In a statement, Hohenberg stressed that the IOR had never confirmed or denied the number of accounts slated for closure, saying only that ‘‘a significant amount of customers’’ had been notified that their accounts were to be closed. Hohenberg said the termination process is now proceeding on a case-by-case basis and stressed that the account closure problem was a minor glitch in the bank’s mammoth reform undertaking.

 Read more:http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/2014/01/30/vatican-bank-admits-widows-fell-victim-

Thieves commit host desecration in Freiburg Church

 

HORROR: In the church in Freiburg’s St. Georgen the tabernacle was broken up violently

Freiburg (Kath.net) as the parish secretary last Tuesday morning, the church of St. George (photo) in Freiburg’s St. Georgen unlocked, she could not believe her eyes: “It looked bad, and that in a house of God,” she said. Kathrin Hauser was before not only destroyed doors, overturned chairs, three torn victims sticks and a devastated sacristy. But above all, the tabernacle had been broken up by force, which is located stolen chalice and, worst: The hl. Eucharist had been carelessly scattered on the floor. It reported the “Badische Zeitung” (BZ).

It is now based on a damage of around 12,000 euros.Police are investigating. Local pastor Francis Wehrle spoke of “pure violence”, the thieves had come “with a crowbar and sledgehammer,” the “Badische Zeitung”.The pastor wondered now whether the church was desecrated. The BZ further reported that they had scattered the hl. Eucharist collected, apparently planned to burn them in the Easter fire. Especially in 2011 had been in the region around Freiburg theft series. In the church of St. Stephen in Weingarten footprints would then have a dance on the altar suspect, reported on the regional newspaper.photograph of the church of St. George in Freiburg: © http://www.katholische-church-freiburg.de

http://www.kath.net/news/44715

Sandy Hook Killer Had ‘Movie Depicting a Man/Boy Relationship’ on His PC

Adam Lanza photo provided by police to AP. (AP photo)

(CNSNews.com) — The state’s attorney report on the horrific murders at  the Sandy Hook Elementary School by shooter Adam Lanza found no “conclusive motive” for his actions but did document unsettling facts about the 20-year-old killer, including computer files he kept on the rights of pedophiles, a movie about man/boy love, instant messages concerning “homosexual fantasies,” numerous mass murder documents, and a computer game entitled “School Shooting.”

 

In “School Shooting,” an amateur computer game, “the player controls a character who enters a school and shoots at students,” reads an Investigation Report (DPS-302-E) that is among the 1,000-plus pages comprising the state’s attorney report on the shootings.

Lanza, after shooting his mother Nancy Lanza at home on the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, drove to the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and shot and killed 20 children and six adults, and then shot himself.  (Full report, text and images here.  Summary report here.)

In his summary report, State’s Attorney for the Judicial District of Danbury Stephen Sedensky says the “shooter had significant mental health issues” but “the shooter’s mental status is no defense to his conduct as the evidence shows he knew his conduct to be against the law. He had the ability to control his behavior to obtain the results he wanted, including his own death.”

The summary report states that in the electronic evidence gathered at Lanza’s house from his computer, “investigators found many things that are on a typical hard drive or memory card” but, “That being said, the following selected topics or items were found within the digital evidence seized.”

Some of the items listed include:

” Commercial movies depicting mass shootings.”
” The computer game titled ‘School Shooting’ where the player controls a character who enters a school and shoots students.”
” Five-second video (dramatization) depicting children being shot.”
” Materials regarding the topic of pedophilia and advocating for rights of pedophiles (not child pornography).”

 Outside Sandy Hook Elementary School, Dec. 14, 2012. (AP)

 Along with the summary report is a “Review of Electronic Evidence” Investigation Report based upon an analysis of a USB hard drive that belonged to Adam Lanza. Among the numerous folders and sub-folders, investigators found a Text document entitled “pbear,” a document “written advocating pedophiles’ rights and the liberation of children.” (See Investigation Report.pdf)

There also was a “writing” document entitled “Lovebound,” which is described as a “screenplay or script describing a relationship between a 10-year-old boy and a 30-year-old man.” This manuscript was apparently written by Lanza, according to the report.

The review also lists the following:

” 457.full Profile of a pedophile.”
” 226972 (AVI) Voor Een Verloren Soldatt — movie depicting a man/boy relationship.”
” colgam01  Spreadsheet ranking mass murders by name, number killed, number injured, types of weapons used, and disposition.”
” ‘me’   8-page Word document detailing relationships, ideal companion, culture, voting, personal beliefs, describes doctors touching children as rape.”
” ‘umm’  Word document detailing how marriage is abusive and negative to people in a relationship.”  (See Investigation Report.pdf)

The movie Voor Een Veroloren Soldatt (For a Lost Soldier) is a 1993 Dutch film that tells the story of a sexual relationship between a 12-year-old boy and a Canadian soldier in the Netherlands near the end of World War II.

Parents and children leave a staging area near Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

The movie, as described in 1993 by the New York Times, is a gay “coming of age” film without “any implied accusation of child abuse. … [T]he film assigns no blame and assesses no damages.”

 In a folder entitled “Smigglesnsuch,” there is an “Instant Message history with SixteenBitElder ‘The Stranger’ and ‘Smiggles’ (presumably the shooter) from December 2010 – February 2011. Discussion that focuses on gaming, homosexual fantasies, and day to day activities.”

There also is a text file called “Selfish,” a “Word document explaining why females are selfish.”

There also is a video of a dancing “pedobear.”

A pedobear is an illustrated teddy bear image that programmers originally designed several years ago to flag child pornography or material deemed sexually inappropriate for children, but which has sometimes been used by child pornographers to draw attention.

The game on Lanza’s hard drive, “School Shooting,” apparently was not a commercial product; the state’s attorney has not provided any further information on the game.

Emily Alice Parker, one of the 20 children killed by Adam Lanza at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012.

In the report, some witnesses told investigators that Lanza, in ninth and tenth grade, was reclusive, “shutting himself in the bedroom and playing video games all day.”

“Reportedly, the shooter did not drink alcohol, take drugs, prescription or otherwise, and hated the thought of doing any of those things,” reads the report. In addition, the “shooter disliked birthdays, Christmas and holidays. He would not allow his mother to put up a Christmas tree.”

According to the FBI interview reports, one witness “recalled ADAM [Lanza] was very concerned about the environment and ADAM would walk around the island [redacted] picking up trash.”

The same witness said Lanza “was very particular about what he would eat. ADAM was initially a vegetarian and then became a vegan.”

– See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/sandy-hook-killer-had-movie-depicting-manboy-relationship-his-

 

Pope Francis woos 87.1% of Italians, that is Catholic In Name Only (CINO)!!

 

(ANSA) – Rome, January 30 – Pope Francis has managed to ‘conquer’ the vast majority of Italians since his election last March, the private think-tank organisation Eurispes said Thursday.

Some 87.1% of Italians thought the Argentinian pope had breathed new life into the Roman Catholic church since replacing Benedict XVI following his shock abdication in February, according to Eurispes’ annual Italy report. Just 4.5% had a negative opinion of the new pontiff, while 8.4% were undecided.

Meanwhile, just over 75% of Italians said they were Catholic but only a third admitted to actually practicing their faith.
The majority of Catholics supported stem-cell research (88.4%), quick divorce (81.8%), civil unions (74.9%), assisted fertility (74.4%) and the possibility of making a living will (68.1%). Instead opposition remained high to assisted suicide (76.1%), adoption by same-sex couples (71.8%) and same-sex marriage (56.8%).

http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2014/01/30/Pope-Francis-woos-87-1-Italians_9989942.html

Gay ‘Wedding’ Couple pull stunt with Cardboard Cutout of Pope Francis at ceremony

Gay Couple Weirded Out By Pope Francis Standing In Back Of Wedding Ceremony..

BELLEVUE, WA—While emphasizing that they appreciated the pontiff’s support, local newlyweds John Greene and Adam Liu admitted today that they were nevertheless a little weirded out by Pope Francis standing in the back of their wedding ceremony on Saturday.

John Greene told reporters that shortly after he and his new husband heeded the ordained minister’s request to join hands and face each other, the pair took one last glance at the audience and noticed the Bishop of Rome standing quietly near a back wall and smiling.

“I guess I’m flattered that he decided to come to our wedding for some reason, but at the same time, I have to say, it was a little off-putting,” Greene said of the ecclesiastical leader’s presence at the non-denominational ceremony, which he attended alone. “Every once in a while he would give a little nod, then go back to just standing there with this smile on his face.”

“It was definitely a nice gesture; it was just kind of weird and distracting, considering we don’t know him and whatnot,” Greene added, noting that the Pope was otherwise polite and gracious during the roughly 20-minute ceremony. “I could see him clapping at the end of our vows. Like, really enthusiastically.”

Greene and Liu reported that as they walked back down the aisle following the ceremony, the Sovereign of Vatican City leaned in and whispered “congratulations” with a tear in his eye—a gesture they said was “sweet and all, but frankly a little startling.”

The newlyweds said they were equally surprised to see the Supreme Pontiff shortly thereafter at the reception party at a nearby harbor club, where he quietly listened with visible emotion as friends and family toasted the longtime couple.

“I mean, it seemed like he really enjoyed all the toasts, because I saw him laughing at the funny story of how John and I first met and he definitely teared up when [Greene’s sister] Kristin was talking about about how John proposed to me at the restaurant where we had our first date,” Liu told reporters. “I just wish we would have known he was coming, because then we could have at least asked for his dinner order and put him with some other people who came alone. It was nice he had a good time, though.”

Numerous wedding guests confirmed that although the Pope appeared somewhat reserved during the first hour of the reception, the Primate of Italy eventually loosened up on the dance floor, moving to the music for three or four songs before reclaiming his seat at the table.

Pope Francis then reportedly concluded his night by dropping off a gift box at the back of the room and slipping inconspicuously out the back door.

“He got us about $300 worth of stuff in total, which was, despite being super weird, really thoughtful of him,” Greene said while unpacking a new single-cup coffee machine and K-cup refills. “It’s just a little, I don’t know—odd, I suppose. This means he found our wedding website and looked pretty closely at our registry.”

At press time, the couple was reportedly considering where and how to send a thank-you note.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/gay-couple-weirded-out-by-pope-francis-standing-in,35109/

Indiana Catholic priest describes exorcism and famous St. Louis case from 1949

“The Devil Hates Latin!”

A gripping account of demonic possession in Gary, Indiana has been making headlines all of the world this week. A mother and three young children claim they were terrorized by unclean spirits and describe horrific accounts of paranormal events in their home and at a nearby hospital. Many of the most terrifying details have been verified by other witnesses, according to an account

first reported by theIndianapolis Star and USA Today.

Family members say a 12-year-old girl levitated above her bed and other witnesses say her 9-year-old brother walked backwards up a hospital wall in the presence of a social worker and a psychologist.

The ordeal finally ended after a Catholic priest performed the ancient ritual of exorcism on the children’s mother.

Fr. Michael Maginot described the three day process and explained how the famous 1949 exorcism in St. Louis served as a roadmap.

“Every priest is aware of the St. Louis case,” Fr. Maginot told NewsChannel 5.

The St. Louis exorcism inspired the book, “The Exorcist”, by William Peter Blatty and, later, the iconic horror movie starring Linda Blair.

Jesuits recorded that ordeal in a chilling 29-page diary kept by Fr. Raymond Bishop.

Unlike the 1949 St. Louis exorcism which went on for months, the events in Gary, Indiana ended after three exorcisms performed on consecutive Fridays in June of 2012.

After receiving permission from the Bishop in the Diocese of Gary, Indiana, Fr. Maginot performed the rites at his church.
“The first two exorcisms were done in English,” Fr. Maginot explained.

“The final ritual was done in Latin,” he continued. “You try everything you know, you see which things get a rise out of it, the entity, and you find the things that get a reaction and then you do that over and over.”

Maginot says the woman experienced violent convulsions when he would condemn the devil in Latin. The woman did not know Latin, which led Fr. Maginot to believe this was an authentic case of diabolical possession.

Fr. Maginot, who studied theology at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, spoke freely and matter-of-factly about the experience.

He says the woman and her children have since moved from the home and have not had any unexplained re-occurences since.
Fr. Maginot insists the evil spirits are real, but not anything we should be in constant fear of.

“If you have faith, you are stronger than the demons,” he told NewsChannel 5. “It’s not even a fair fight.”

http://www.ksdk.com/story/homepage/2014/01/31/indiana-exorcism-has-stl-ties/5076685/