Eleison Comments by Mgr. Williamson – Number CDXXXI (431), CDXXX (430)

Father’s Distress

A family father knows not where to turn?
Dear Dad, Our Lord will never crash or burn!

Your Excellency,

I am sorry to bother you, but I am a father responsible for getting many little souls that God has entrusted me with to Heaven and I’ve never been so lost or confused about how to do it as I am now. I am trying not to feel hopeless as I see both my Catholic world and the rest of the world in a tail-spin, about ready to crash and burn. A clerk in today’s United States gets sent to jail if they refuse to issue a license for a same-sex marriage. What next? But I do go on hoping because God has given us many children, and another is on its way. Why is God allowing us to bring more children into this world when it seems as if it’s about to end? Should my wife and I be preparing ourselves to see them martyred? I have not up till now found devotion to Our Lady too easy, but now even I find myself turning to her.

The immediate problem is what we have found to be happening with our local Traditional Catholic parish. We moved here to guarantee for the children especially, but also for ourselves, the true Mass and a Catholic formation. Alas, many things have come to light that have left us shocked, confused and feeling defeated. There seem to be demonic influences at work, and we have had to wonder if even the priests are not under their evil grip, because they are not the same priests we knew a year ago. For the past year we have done our best to help, but to no avail. We have continued to attend Mass there, all the while praying, fasting and doing Novenas in the hope that things would change. We have “watched and prayed,” and like the spouse of an alcoholic we have made excuses for them for as long as we could. But finally things have occurred which are driving us to look elsewhere if we do not want our children to be confused about their faith.

So where do we go from here? Obviously I want the children to have the Sacraments and to continue to grow in the faith by attending a valid Mass, so long as it is there. To raise these children’s souls for Christ my wife and I also have an essential need of the graces of the Mass. We want to stay away from major cities. My work situation is such that I could seek work anywhere in the United States. Where do we go?

Dear Father of a large family,

First and foremost, as I read everything you write, let me advise you to count your blessings. Almighty God is not making things easy for you, but nor did he do so for his own Son on earth. This is a “valley of tears,” but amid the tears, God is giving to you and to your family many graces. You are keeping the faith, you have been given to see the need for true Tradition, and your making it your first priority to get your family to Heaven is another huge grace. The Devil may have thrown quite an obstacle in your way, but you have seen it was him. Count on it, there will be many more such obstacles before this crisis is over, and the worst of them a re liable to come from the priests (“We carry our treasure in vessels of clay,” says St Paul). Never be surprised by evil today, the Devil is running wild. Therefore above all, keep well in mind how much God is doing for you, as he did for the Holy Family, despite all the apparent hardships. That will put them in the right perspective. And do not be surprised if as the man of the family, God wants you to take some manly decisions for its future. He is not going to take these decisions for you.

Alright, you say, but the question remains, where do we go? Answer, wherever you are sure of finding firstly, work for yourself and secondly, the true Mass, in that order, because the family cannot survive without a breadwinner. As for the Mass, 20 years ago one might not have hesitated to say, it must be a Society of St Pius X Mass. Today, that is no longer so sure. I would say, go rather by the priest than by his Congregation, or label. Expect failures and betrayals. We are all adrift in a sea of apostasy. But have a boundless, a boundless confidence in Our Lord and his Mother. They will never let you go unless you want to be let go. Have compassion on your fellow human beings. And God bless you.

Kyrie eleison.

Eleison Comments” by Mgr. Williamson – Number CDXXX (430)

Positive Advice

We are not left with nothing we can do.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way to see this through.

Americans have an expression, “To think outside the box.” It means to think outside of one’s usual way of thinking. If ever there was a time for “thinking outside the box,” that time is now. For six or seven hundred years mankind has been turning away from God, in a process which it has freely chosen and which God does not intervene to stop, as he could easily do, because he does not give us men our free-will to take it away again. Also, if he is now allowing this process to be reaching in our own time its logical conclusion, he must be hoping that as the crisis deepens and the pressures increase, so there will be more and more souls driven to think outside the box of their materialism, and by so doing get back on the road to Heaven.

Now how the next few years unfold remains God’s secret, especially the calendar. However, it seems highly probable that the suburban and urban areas where most of us live will be seriously destabilized, firstly because these areas are largely immersed in materialism and “happily” living without God, which must call down his wrath, and secondly because these areas are as intrinsically unstable as they are cut off from nature and artificial, depending more and more on the fragile system of supermarkets for sustenance and survival, on the under-manned police forces for any peace and order, on the Internet’s vulnerable satellites for their information and communications, on the villainous banks for the roof over their heads.

In fact only when the crisis really hits will we truly realise how fragile was our environment that seemed as natural as nature. Therefore for subsistence and survival it surely makes sense to lay in a stock of food and water; for information and guidance to lay in a battery-operated radio (with batteries); for law and order to lay in some physical means of self-defence, and to make contact with one’s immediate neighbours, however little one may have chosen them, because friends in need will be friends indeed; and for the roof over one’s head, to get as far as one can, as soon as one can, out of debt and out of the clutches of the bankers, although we are late in the day for that.

A Catholic reader goes further by suggesting that Catholics in a given area band together to set up Catholic refuges, even material as well as spiritual, invisible as such from the outside, but where the joy of the Faith will reign on the inside. That seems a strange thought. It is certainly “outside the box.” It depends upon a number of Catholics living close to one another who share the same sense of urgency as to imminent events, but it is an idea whose time may come. Also some ‘student’ should make good use of his time at ‘university’ by doing a thesis on how Catholics kept the Faith under brutal Communist repression. Globalism is not yet physically brutal, but that can make it all the more dangerous for souls.

And finally a priest makes a few classic suggestions for spiritual means to meet the present spiritual needs, which are urgent enough, even without grave events being imminent.

The full 15-Mystery Rosary every day has Heaven’s guarantee for its efficacy. A 24-hour fast on bread and water can obtain miracles. A corporal work of mercy, e.g. real alms to a real beggar (more difficult than writing a cheque) pulls down grace. So does a spiritual work of mercy, like giving a Catholic leaflet or a Miraculous Medal to non-Catholics. Total abstinence from the Internet for one or several days can put a brake on habits of wasting time, and it can make half an hour available to meditate instead on the Passion of Our Lord, who is only waiting and longing for us to make use of all that He suffered.

Kyrie eleison.

St. Luke the Evangelist – Mass Propers

           October 18

St. Luke the Evangelist

St. Luke, a physician at Antioch, and a painter, became a convert of St. Paul, and afterwards his fellow laborer. He is best known to us as the historian of the New Testament. Though not an eye-witness of Our Lord‘s life, the Evangelist diligently gathered information from the lips of the apostles, and wrote, as he tells us, all things in order. The Acts of the Apostles were written by this Evangelist as a sequel to his Gospel, bringing the history of the Church down to the first imprisonment of St. Paul at Rome. The humble historian never names himself, but by his occasional use of “we” for “they” we are able to detect his presence in the scenes which he describes. We thus find that he sailed with St. Paul and Silas from Troas to Macedonia; stayed behind apparently for seven years at Philippi, and, lastly, shared the shipwreck and perils of the memorable voyage to Rome. Here his own narrative ends, but from St. Paul’s Epistles we learn that St. Luke was his faithful companion to the end. He died a martyr’s death some time afterwards in Achaia.

The Roman Breviary – Matins

Luke was a physician of Antioch, who, as appeareth from his writings, knew the Greek language. He was a follower of the Apostle Paul, and his fellow traveller in all his wanderings. He wrote a Gospel, whereof the same Paul saith We have sent with him the brother, whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the Churches 2 Cor. viii. 18.Of him, he writeth unto the Colossians, iv. 14: Luke, the beloved physician, greeteth you. And again, unto Timothy, II. iv. 11: Only Luke is with me. He also published another excellent book entitled The Acts of the Apostles, wherein the history is brought down to Paul’s two years sojourn at Rome, that is to say, until the fourth year of Nero, from which we gather that it was at Rome that the said book was composed.

The silence of Luke is one of the reasons why we reckon among Apocryphal books The Acts of Paul and Thecla, and the whole story about the baptism of Leo. For why should the fellow traveller of the Apostle, who knew other things, be ignorant only of this? At the same time there is against these documents the statement of Tertullian, almost a contemporary writer, that the Apostle John convicted a certain Priest in Asia, who was a great admirer of the Apostle Paul, of having written them, and that the said Priest owned that he had been induced to compose them through his admiration for Paul, and that he was deposed in consequence. There are some persons who suspect that when Paul in his Epistles useth the phrase: “According to my Gospel” Rom. ii. 16, Tim. ii. 8,he meaneth the Gospel written by Luke.

However, Luke learned his Gospel not from the Apostle Paul only, who had not companied with the Lord in the flesh, but also from other Apostles, as himself declareth at the beginning of his work, where he saith: “They delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.” i. 2. According to what he had heard, therefore, did he write his Gospel. As to the Acts of the Apostles, he composed them from his own personal knowledge. He was never married. He lived eighty-four years. He is buried at Constantinople, whither his bones were brought from Achaia in the twentieth year of Constantine, together with the relics of the Apostle Andrew.

Feast of St. Luke – Evangelist and Martyr

Double of the Second Class

Red Vestments

Missa – ‘Mihi autem nimis’

INTROIT – Psalm 138: 17

Mihi autem nimis honoráti sunt amíci tui, Deus: nimis confortátus est principátus eórum. Ps. Dómine, probásti me, et cognovísti me: tu cognovísti sessiónem meam, et resurrectiónem meam. Gloria Patri.

Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable: their principality is exceedingly strengthened. Ps. Lord, Thou hast proved me, and known me: Thou hast known my sitting down, and my rising up. Glory be to the Father.

COLLECT

May Luke, Thy holy Evangelist, O Lord, we beseech Thee, intercede in our behalf, who for the honour of Thy name bore continually in his body the mortification of the cross. Through our Lord.

EPISTLE  – II  Corinthians 8: 16-24

Brethren, I give thanks to God, Who hath given the same carefulness for you in the heart of Titus, for indeed he accepted the exhortation; but being more careful, of his own will he went unto you. We have sent also with him the brother, whose praise is in the gospel through all the churches; and not that only, but he was also ordained by the churches companion of our travels for this grace, which is administered by us to the glory of the Lord and our determined will: avoiding this, lest any man should blame us in this abundance which is administered by us; for we forecast what may be good, not only before God, but also before men. And we have sent with them our brother also, whom we have proved diligent in many things; but now much more diligent, with much confidence in you, either for Titus, who is my companion and fellow-labourer toward you, or our brethren the apostles of the churches, the glory of Christ. Wherefore show ye to them, in the sight of the churches, the evidence of your charity, and of our boasting on your behalf.

GRADUAL – Psalm 18: 5, 2

Their sound went forth into all the earth; and their words to the ends of the world. The heavens show forth the glory of God; and the firmament declareth the work of His hands.

ALLELUIA -John 15: 16

Alleluia, alleluia. I have chosen you out of the world, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain. Alleluia.

GOSPEL – Luke 10: 1-9

At that time, the Lord appointed also other seventy-two; and He sent them two and two before His face into every city and place whither He Himself was to come. And He said to them: The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send labourers into His harvest. Go, behold I send you as lambs among wolves. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes; and salute no man by the way. Into whatsoever house you enter, first say: Peace be to this house: and if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon him: but if not, it shall return to you. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they have: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Remove not from house to house. And into what city soever you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you; and heal the sick that are therein; and say to them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.

Homily by Pope St Gregory the Great

Dearly beloved brethren, our Lord and Saviour doth sometimes admonish us by words, and sometimes by works. Yea, His very works do themselves teach us for that which He doth silently His example still moveth us to copy. Behold how He sendeth forth His disciples to preach by two and two since there are two commandments to love, that is, a commandment to love God, and a commandment to love our neighbour and where there are not two, the one, being alone, hath not whereon to do the Lord’s commandment. And no man can properly be said to love himself: for love tendeth outward toward our neighbour, if it be the love whereto the Gospel doth oblige us.

Behold, the Lord sendeth forth His disciples to preach by two and two and thus doing, He doth silently teach us that whosoever loveth not his neighbour, such an one it behoveth not to take upon him the office of a preacher. Well also is it said that He sent them before His face into every city and place whither He Himself would come. The Lord followeth His preachers first cometh preaching, and then the Lord Himself cometh to the house of our mind, whither the word of exhortation hath come before and so cometh the truth into our mind.

OFFERTORY – Psalm 138: 17

To me Thy friends, O God, are exceedingly honourable; their principality is exceedingly strengthened.

SECRET

By Thy celestial gifts grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, to serve Thee with willing hearts, that the offerings we bring may, through the intercession of blessed Luke, Thine Evangelist, procure for us both our healing and our glory. Through our Lord.

PREFACE OF THE APOSTLES

It is truly meet and just, right and for our salvation, to entreat Thee humbly, O Lord, that Thou wouldst not desert Thy flock. O everlasting Shepherd; but through Thy blessed Apostles, wouldst keep it under Thy constant protection; that it may be governed by those same rulers, whom as vicars of Thy work, Thou didst set over it to be its pastors. And therefore with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominations, and with all the hosts of the heavenly army, we sing the hymn of The glory, evermore saying…

SANCTUS

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dóminus Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra glória tua. Hosánna in excélsis. Benedíctus qui venit in nómine Dómini. Hosánna in excélsis.

COMMUNION – Matthew 19: 28

You that have followed me shall sit upon seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

St. Luke Drawing a Portrait of the Virgin by Rogier van der Weyden – 1435–1440

POSTCOMMUNION

Grant, we beseech Thee, O almighty God, that what we have received from Thy holy altar may, by the prayers of Thy blessed Evangelist, Luke, sanctify our souls, whereby we may be made secure. Through our Lord.

Playing God: Faith-healing couple who prayed and rubbed oil on their dying baby instead of calling 911 WILL go to prison for killing their newborn!!

Of physicians and medicines: what is to be done in sickness…

Honour the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the most High hath created him.  For all healing is from God, and he shall receive gifts of the king.  The skill of the physician shall lift up his head, and in the sight of great men he shall be praised.  The most High hath created medicines out of the earth., and a wise man will not abhor them.

Give place to the physician. For the Lord created him: and let him not depart from thee, for his works are necessary. For there is a time when thou must fall into their hands: And they shall beseech the Lord, that he would prosper what they give for ease and remedy.                               Ecclesiasticus 38: 1- 4, 12 -14 (DRB)

Faith-healing couple who prayed and rubbed oil on their dying baby instead of calling 911 WILL go to prison for killing the newborn.

Dale and Shannon Hickman were found guilty of manslaughter in 2011

They were members of a controversial faith-healing church in Oregon

Their son David was born two months premature in 2009

He died hours after a home birth when couple refused to go to hospital

Their conviction was upheld last week by the state’s Supreme Court

They will serve six years each in prison

An Oregon couple who prayed and rubbed olive on their dying son following a home birth rather than call 911 and seek help will continue to serve six years in prison each after a judge upheld their manslaughter conviction.

Dale and Shannon Hickman, both 30, were both convicted in 2011 of second-degree manslaughter for the death of their son, David, who died nine hours after his home birth in 2009.

David was born two months early at his grandmother’s home with undeveloped lungs, and died after having trouble breathing and turning blue.

The Hickman’s – members of a controversial faith-healing church in Oregon – had appealed their conviction, on the grounds that the prosecution had the burden to prove the couple knew their religious beliefs would cause the death of their child, The New York Daily News reported.

But the plea was rejected by the Oregon Supreme Court last week.

Last week a judge rejected an appeal made by the couple and reiterated that they could have done more to try and save their son.

                              

To prison: Shannon(left) and Dale Hickman (right), both 30, were both convicted of second-degree manslaughter for the death of their son, David, in 2009, and last week a judge rejected their appeal and upheld that conviction. The two are pictured here during their trial in 2011

Guilty: During their trial in 2011, the Hickmans that ‘they would not have done anything differently’

Avoidable: David’s official cause of death was staphylococcus pneumonia, which could have been treated. Doctors said there was a ’99 percent chance’ he would have survived if the parents had called 911

During the 2011 trial, a doctor had testified that David would have had a ’99 percent chance’ of surviving had the couple called 911.

The baby officially died of staphylococcus pneumonia, which could have been treated. 

‘As the evidence unfolded and the witnesses testified, it became evident to me and certainly to the jury … that this death just simply did not need to occur,’ Judge Robert Herndon said.

Prosecutors explained during the trial that David was born with a bacterial infection and underdeveloped lungs. Mr Hickman said he didn’t call 911 because he was praying. The couple never considered taking the baby to the hospital, prosecutors said.

Shannon Hickman said that she must defer to her husband because of church rules.

‘I think it’s God’s will whatever happens,’ she testified. (!!)

The baby boy died quickly and there was no evidence that medical care would have saved him, Mark Cogan, defending, told the court.

Shannon (left) and dale Hickman (right) were convicted of second-degree manslaughter in 2011 and were sentenced to six years in prison

 

The Hickmans – members of the Followers of Christ Church – believe that the power of prayer and the laying of hands – where ministers lay their hands on believers while praying – can cure illnesses

The Followers of Christ Church has a history of rejecting medical care for children and relying on as prayer and anointing the sick with oils. Five other church members have been convicted in Clackamas County for crimes related to the rejection of medical care for their children.

The Hickmans’ conviction on second-degree manslaughter charges typically requires a mandatory minimum sentence of six years in prison. But many feared that, because of a religious exemption in state law at time of the crime, they might have received just 18 months in prison and a $250,000 fine.

In response to deaths among Followers of Christ members, state lawmakers removed the religious defences from criminal laws this year. Those exemptions had made it tougher to convict parents shunning a child’s medical care for religious reasons instead of neglect. The change will allow prosecutors to seek stiffer manslaughter or murder charges in faith-healing cases.

On Monday, Prosecutor Mike Regan said a message needed to be sent to the church that child abuse for any motive is still child abuse.

Under-fire: The Followers of Christ Church has a history of rejecting medical care for children and relying on as prayer and anointing the sick with oils

He said: ‘These generally are good, decent, law-abiding folks, except in this one narrow area of their lives. One (area) where they have told us stubbornly – and arrogantly, if I may – that ‘We are not going to change.’‘The law of civil society demands that they change. It demands that we sent a message to all of them that whether you believe this or not in Oregon, you cannot act upon that belief.’

Two other parents from the church were convicted earlier this year for failing to seek medical care for their infant daughter. She had a growth that could have left her blind in one eye – and they were sentenced to three months in jail. 

 Daily Mail

Read more:

• www.nydailynews….
• KATU.com – Portland News, Sports, Traffic Weather and Breaking News – Portland, Oregon

Three things you need to know about Pope Francis and the cardinal disgraced in a sex abuse scandal!

This picture of Pope Francis apparently talking to retired Belgian cardinal Godfried Danneels at the Synod on the Family, which began this week, is circulating on Twitter and disturbing many Catholics. This is what you need to know:

1. Five years ago, Cardinal Danneels tried to cover up a revolting case of family sex abuse.

As the National Catholic Reporter revealed on August 30, 2010:

Audio recordings leaked to the Belgian media this weekend reveal Belgium’s Cardinal Godfried Danneels urging a sex abuse victim not to make public that his abuser was his uncle Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges, Belgium. The recordings show Danneels pressuring the young man not to force Vangheluwe to resign.

The transcript quoted by the newspaper is chilling:

Cardinal Danneels asks if the nephew wants Vangheluwe to resign and adds: ‘But that is his decision. I can mention it but that’s all. You expect me to do something that I cannot do. I don’t know what more to do. Or perhaps I have to find some other way to bring this to a satisfactory conclusion.’

When the nephew stresses that the cardinal must speak to pope and that Vangeluwe must be sanctioned by the church, Cardinal Danneels responds ‘Yes but… You can also ask forgiveness and, well, you can also acknowledge your own guilt.’

Nephew: ‘Whose forgiveness do I have to seek? I am not the one to ask for forgiveness.’

Danneels: ‘He can do that. That’s correct.’

Later, Cardinal Danneels asks that the conversation not be made public and suggests to the nephew: ‘You can figure that he will resign next year and that he agrees to make no more appearances on television, that sort of thing, and before you know it a year has gone by.’

Nephew: ‘No! I am putting this in your hands and the two of you have to make a decision.’

[Danneels replies] ‘So you can grab us and try to blackmail us, huh, and say: ‘you have to do something!’

Confronted by the tape-recording, Danneels – who had recently stepped down as archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels – waffled unconvincingly about wanting to resolve a dispute in the bishop’s family. He had been ‘improvising’, he said. Vangheluwe, inevitably, had to resign immediately in disgrace. But Danneels was also disgraced by the revelations, first carried by the Belgian newspaper De Standaard. Not only did he try to arrange a temporary cover-up of the bishop’s molestation of his nephew, but he also suggested that the victim should seek forgiveness – and accused the man of attempted blackmail when he demanded that Danneels should tell Pope Benedict XVI about the abuse.

2. Knowing about the sex abuse scandal, Pope Francis has given Danneels a place of honour at the Synod on the Family

The 279 ‘Synod Fathers’ debating the most sensitive issues of family and sexuality include 45 personally chosen by Francis. They are dominated by senior clergy whose voices he wanted heard at the synod but who did not automatically qualify for membership. Here is a screenshot of the top of the list on the Vatican website:

The placing of Danneels’ name second on the list suggests the strong approval of the Pope, despite the Belgian’s ultra-radical views, which include support for a church-recognised ‘sort of marriage’ for gay couples. This dismays senior cardinals – but they are far more worried by the sex-abuse matter. Francis knew before he made the appointment that Danneels had tried to engage in a cover-up. Yet he went ahead.

3. Cardinal Danneels has been boasting that he helped elect Francis as pope

At the launch of his authorised biography in Brussels last month, Danneels claimed to have been part of a ‘mafia club’ of senior cardinals opposed to Benedict XVI who wanted to ensure that a liberal pope succeeded Benedict XVI. Jorge Bergoglio was their favourite candidate. Perhaps we shouldn’t read too much in to this – the papacy was hardly in the club’s gift. But when I asked a senior Vatican source this week why Francis had invited Danneels to the synod – on the face of it, a grotesquely inappropriate move – he replied: ‘As a thank-you for the votes he helped deliver.’ That is guesswork, and assumes a degree of cynical calculation that we don’t associate with Francis. I mention it because this explanation is taken seriously at such a high level within conservative circles in the Vatican.

I’ve touched on the Danneels scandal briefly in my article on the synod for this week’s magazine. Now the matter needs to be properly investigated. Pope Francis must explain why a man who tried to conceal sex abuse within a family is a leading participant in a synod discussing the pastoral care of families.

So far, the media have shown no interest in this story. That wouldn’t be the case if Benedict XVI were still pope.

Source

Synod, Day 2 – It’s becoming Vatican III/SHOCKING IMAGE FINALLY APPEARS: When the Pope met the “transexual” woman and her “fiancée!!!”

Archbishop Lefebvre ora pro nobis!

Rome has lost the faith! Rome is in Apostasy!

Via: Rorate

Synod, Day 2 – It’s becoming Vatican III!

Whatever one might say of the sacrilegious “Kasper proposal” (the very embodiment of what Saint Thomas Aquinas warns us not to do in the Lauda Sion – not throw the Blessed Sacrament away…), at least it has a very tenuous link to some structure one might identify as a “couple”.

The Tennis Court Oath was made by the Progressive Bishops in Rome a few months ago, and the Revolution is in full swing, in the Jacobin phase — they will not let go of their chance to strike deep, fast, strongly, and in all directions, and nothing is a coincidence.

Some of the “faith and family” issues debated on this third day?

The “ordination” of women to the Diaconate…
Polygamy – a matter to be better decided locally. (“There must be an end to exclusionary language and a strong emphasis on embracing reality as it is,” said the Vatican English-language spokesman – which is the absolute opposite of the entire Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ.)

After the high hopes of the Erdo report yesterday, it has gone downhill fast – into freak-show territory.

SHOCKING IMAGE FINALLY APPEARS: When the Pope met the “transexual” woman and her “fiancée”

We were the first to break the news in English at the time: the Pope granted a hidden audience to a same-sex couple (that is, two homosexual women) constituted of a transexual woman (who, after much transformation and hormones, uses the alias “Diego”, and who complained of not being welcomed in her parish) and her “fiancée”…

The meeting took place on January 24th, and coincidentally (!!!) it is being released just in time for the “Family” Synod by Spanish daily El Mundo.

Rorate Caeli

!!!! Synod should reflect on possibility of allowing female deacons, says Canadian archbishop

Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher of Gatineau said, where possible, women should be given higher positions in the Church.

Canadian Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher of Gatineau, Quebec, said the synod should reflect on the possibility of allowing for female deacons as it seeks ways to open up more opportunities for women in Church life.

Where possible, qualified women should be given higher positions and decision-making authority within Church structures and new opportunities in ministry, he told Catholic News Service on Tuesday.

Discussing a number of proposals he offered the synod fathers to think about, he said, “I think we should really start looking seriously at the possibility of ordaining women deacons because the diaconate in the Church’s tradition has been defined as not being ordered toward priesthood but toward ministry.”

Currently, the Catholic Church permits only men to be ordained as deacons. Deacons can preach and preside at baptisms, funerals and weddings, but may not celebrate Mass or hear confessions.

Speaking to participants at the Synod of Bishops on the family on October 6, Archbishop Durocher said he dedicated his three-minute intervention to the role of women in the Church — one of the many themes highlighted in the synod’s working document.

The working document, which is guiding the first three weeks of the synod’s discussions, proposed giving women greater responsibility in the Church, particularly through involving them in “the decision-making process, their participation — not simply in a formal way — in the governing of some institutions; and their involvement in the formation of ordained ministers.”

Archbishop Durocher, who recently ended his term as president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, told CNS that much of his brief talk was focused on the lingering problem of violence against women, including domestic violence.

He said the World Health Organization estimates that 30 percent of women worldwide experience violence by their partner.

He reminded the synod fathers that in the apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, in 1981, St John Paul II essentially told the Church that “we have to make a concerted and clear effort to make sure that there is no more degradation of women in our world, particularly in marriage. And I said, ‘Well, here we are 30 years later and we’re still facing these kinds of numbers.’”

He said he recommended one thing they could do to address this problem was, “as a synod, clearly state that you cannot justify the domination of men over women — certainly not violence — through biblical interpretation,” particularly incorrect interpretations of St Paul’s call for women to be submissive to their husbands.

In his presentation the archbishop also noted that Benedict XVI had talked about the question of new ministries for women in the Church. “It’s a just question to ask. Shouldn’t we be opening up new venues for ministry of women in the Church?” he said.

In addition to the possibility of allowing for women deacons, he said he also proposed that women be hired for “decision-making jobs” that could be opened to women in the Roman Curia, diocesan chanceries and large-scale Church initiatives and events.

Another thing, he said, “would be to look at the possibility of allowing married couples — men and women, who have been properly trained and accompanied — to speak during Sunday homilies so that they can testify, give witness to the relationship between God’s word and their own marriage life and their own life as families.”

Catholic Herald

Gay priests are being sent by the Vatican to an Italian monastery to be ‘cured’ of their ‘inappropriate sexual tendencies!’

Gay priests are being sent by the Vatican to an Italian monastery to be ‘cured’ of their ‘inappropriate sexual tendencies’

• Vatican has been sending gay priests to be ‘cured’, Italian press claims 
• Priests who ‘show inappropriate sexual tendencies’ sent to monastery
• One gay former priest claims he was dismissed after refusing to go 

The Vatican has been sending homosexual priests to be ‘cured’ at a monastery in the Italian Alps, it has emerged. Priests who come out as gay are removed to the monastery in Trento, northern Italy, by the Vatican to be ‘treated’ alongside drug addicts and paedophiles, Italian press claims. One former Catholic priest who came out to the Vatican has revealed that he was dismissed from the church after he refused to go to the monastery to ‘rediscover the right path’.

Accusations: Pope Francis leads the synod on the family in the Synod hall at the Vatican, as it is revealed that gay Catholic priests have been sent to a monastery be ‘cured’ from their sexualty

Priests who ‘show inappropriate sexual tendencies’ are sent to the Venturini monastery in Trento for ‘a period of training, personal reflection and enlightenment’, according to Italian press reports quoted in The Independent.

The head of the monastery, Friar Gianluigi Pasto was quoted by the Independent as telling Italian newspapers that the institute was not ‘specifically for gay and paedophile priests’ but did not deny that such ‘treatments’ had taken place in the past. This comes just days after the Vatican fired a high-ranking Polish priest on the same day he revealed that he was gay. Father Krzystof Charamsa, 43, came out as homosexual and also revealed that he is in a relationship with a man. He was fired shortly after his revelation, but the Vatican denies that his dismissal has anything to do with his sexuality.

Fired: Father Krzystof Charamsa (pictured left with his partner), who held a post in the Vatican’s branch for protecting Catholic dogma, was dismissed after coming out as gay this weekend

Speaking after his dismissal, Father Krzystof, who held a post in the Vatican’s branch for protecting Catholic dogma, urged the Catholic church to change its ‘backwards’ attitude to homosexuality.

‘It’s time for the Church to open its eyes about gay Catholics and to understand that the solution it proposes to them – total abstinence from a life of love – is inhuman,’ he told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, saying he wanted to challenge the Church’s ‘paranoia’.

‘I know that I will have to give up my ministry which is my whole life.

‘I know that the Church will see me as someone who did not know how to fulfil his duty [to remain chaste], who is lost and who is not even with a woman but with a man!’

Pope Francis is currently leading a three-week gathering of bishops from around the world, known as a synod, on the theme of the family in the modern world, and touched on the subject of homosexuality in his opening on Sunday.

Francis dedicated one third of his homily to the topic of love between man and woman and its role in procreation.

Pope Francis is currently leading a three-week synod, on the theme of the family in the modern world, and touched on the subject of homosexuality and gay marriage in his opening on Sunday

‘This is God’s dream for his beloved creation: to see it fulfilled in the loving union between a man and a woman, rejoicing in their shared journey, fruitful in their mutual gift of self,’ he said.

He also spoke of the ‘true meaning of the couple and of human sexuality in God’s plan,’ a clear reference to heterosexual marriage.

But Francis also stressed that the Church must be more welcoming, charitable, compassionate and merciful to all people, particularly those whose lives have been wounded and who those find it difficult to adhere to all of the Church’s regulations.

The leader of the 1.2 billion member Church said the person ‘who falls or errs must be understood and loved.’

‘The Church must search out these persons, welcome and accompany them, for a Church with closed doors betrays herself and her mission, and, instead of being a bridge, becomes a roadblock,’ he said.

In its explanation of the firing of Father Krzystof Charamsa on Saturday, the Vatican said his very public coming out was intended to put undue media pressure on the synod on gay issues, which are expected to be only a small part of the bishops’ discussions.

The story made the front page of nearly all Italian newspapers, with one headline calling it ‘An Earthquake in the Vatican’.

At a preliminary synod last year, bishops watered down a initial statement that was seen as a major change of tone toward homosexuals. That statement spoke of ‘gifts and qualities’ of homosexuals but was changed after a backlash by conservatives.

 Source: Daily Mail

Read more:

• Vatican uses Venturini monastery to ‘cure gay priests’, former clergy claim | Europe | News | The Independent

Gay former student of the pope who met with him in the nation’s capitol said he is ‘500 per cent sure’ the pope did not initiate meeting with anti-gay clerk Kim Davis

Gay former student of the pope who met with him in the nation’s capitol said he is ‘500 per cent sure’ the pope did not initiate meeting with anti-gay clerk Kim Davis

• An openly gay former student of Pope Francis’, Yayo Grassi, 67, visited with the pope during his recent trip to Washington

• ‘I thought, “This is really strange. This is not like him,”‘ said Grassi of the pope’s meeting with anti-gay clerk Kim Davis 

• Grassi said his former teacher wrote him in 2010: ‘I want you to know this: that in my pastoral work there is no place for homophobia’

An openly gay former student of Pope Francis’ who visited with the pope during his recent trip to Washington said on Saturday he was surprised Francis had met with the Kentucky county clerk who gained attention for refusing to issue same-sex couples marriage licenses.

The pope’s meeting with Washington resident Yayo Grassi, his boyfriend and a few others came to light on Friday as the Vatican was distancing itself from claims the pope’s meeting with the clerk, Kim Davis, was an endorsement of her stance on same-sex marriage.

Grassi, 67, met Francis more than 50 years ago when the future pope taught at his all boys school in Argentina. They reconnected in 2008, and since becoming pope Francis has since met him and his boyfriend of 17 years twice, once in Rome and most recently in Washington, Grassi said.

Gay former student: Yayo Grassi,  an openly gay former student of Pope Francis’ who visited with the pope during his recent trip to Washington said on Saturday he was surprised Francis had met with the Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis

Meeting: The pope’s meeting with Washington resident Yayo Grassi (left), his boyfriend (center) and a few others came to light Friday as the Vatican was distancing itself from claims the pope’s meeting with the clerk, Kim Davis, was an endorsement of her stance on same-sex marriage

Longtime friends: Grassi, 67, met Francis more than 50 years ago when the future pope taught at his all boys school in Argentina. They reconnected in 2008, and since becoming pope Francis has since met him and his boyfriend of 17 years twice

Grassi, who came to the United States in 1978 and runs a catering business, spoke with The Associated Press at his home Saturday.

On what he thought of the pope’s meeting with Davis:

‘I thought, “This is really strange. This is not like him,”‘ he said.

He said he told friends who were quick to criticize that they should not rush to judgment and that he didn’t think they had all the facts.

The Vatican spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, declined to say who invited Davis or what the pope knew of her case but such encounters are arranged by the Vatican ambassador and his staff, not the pope’s delegation or the U.S. bishops’ conference.

Grassi said after the Davis story came out and he was contacted by the media he thought: ‘Perhaps this is the time to defend him. I owe him that as a friend, not because he is a friend but because I know part of the truth.’

Defending the pope: ‘Here is this guy that is so much into integrating everybody, communicating with everybody,’ Grassi, pictured on Saturday, said, adding he was ‘500 percent sure’ the pope did initiate the meeting with Davis

Controversial: Just one day after meeting with Grassi, Francis met with Kim Davis pictured), the Kentucky clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses

Grassi said ‘encouraging somebody who is so divisive’ like Davis would be out of character for Francis.

‘Here is this guy that is so much into integrating everybody, communicating with everybody,’ Grassi said, adding he was ‘500 percent sure’ the pope did initiate the meeting with Davis.

On exchanging e-mail with Pope Francis, then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, when the country was debating legalizing same-sex marriage, which it did in 2010:

‘I remember reading excerpts from the press saying that Cardinal Bergoglio had said … things that were extremely negative. I immediately thought “This is not like the Bergoglio that I know, not the person that I loved so much when I was growing up,”‘ he said.

Heartwarming letter: Grassi said that the pope once wrote him: ‘I want you to know this: that in my pastoral work there is no place for homophobia’

An anonymous Vatican source told CNN there was a ‘sense of regret’ within the Holy See over the Pope’s meeting with Davis

Grassi said he e-mailed the then cardinal that he was ‘disappointed’ and ‘hurt.’ A week later, he was surprised to get a reply, he said.

Bergoglio asked for forgiveness if he had hurt Grassi and said a newspaper had taken his words out of context.

Grassi said the last sentence his former teacher wrote was: ‘I want you to know this: that in my pastoral work there is no place for homophobia.’

Speaking about what the pope was like when he was a teacher at an all-boys school more than five decades ago, Grassi said that the Holy Father was calm and collected.

‘He came to the class and immediately commanded authority but in such a nice and gentle way, and we knew that we were in front of a great teacher,’ said Grassi, who had Francis as a teacher for two years in high school, from 1964 to 1965, at Inmaculada Concepcion in Santa Fe, Argentina.

At the time, they called him Father Bergoglio, but he had not yet become a Jesuit priest.

Mixed messages: The Vatican said the Pope’s meeting with Kim Davis was not ‘a form of support for her position’

The future pope taught psychology and literature, encouraging his students to read, and at one point convinced writer Jose Luis Borges to visit his students and give a lecture.

Borges was so impressed with the teenagers’ work, including Grassi’s, that he promised that if Bergoglio raised the funds to publish it and found a printer, he would write an introduction. Bergoglio did and Borges kept his word. The book was called ‘Cuentos Originales,’ original stories.

Asked whether the man who taught him has changed, Grassi said that he still saw the same man.

‘Sometimes when I listen to him talking on TV I just close my eyes and it’s the same tone, the same voice, the same way of persuading people that he had when we were his students. I mean, the man has not changed. He’s exactly the same person which is quite remarkable given the world we live in.’

Read more:

• Pope Meeting

Daily Mail

Eleison Comments – Issue CDXXIX (429)

 

Argentinian Corroboration

By tellers of troubles we may not be charmed,

But, “A man forewarned is a man forearmed.”

A reader from South America corroborates what a reader from North America wrote here a few weeks ago. Readers, take heart – next week will see here several positive suggestions.

“How this North-American, brother in the Faith of all time, sees present and future, is excellent. I agree with him entirely. For more than 30 years a few friends and I have been warning how this situation, humanly speaking seemingly irreversible, will end. We are few for sure, because in the light of all the present madness we may be concerned for the future, we may see what is to come and is now at the door, but when we argue that people must prepare for it, how can they not be scandalized by our concerns? How can anybody not take us for jokesters, nihilists or madmen?

“Like the mass of people today, they are up to their necks in making that paycheck, in earning enough money to pay their bills, in working out whether they can afford to go back into debt. For such people it is obvious madness, a psychotic distraction, to talk to them about the possibility of a banking crisis, all the more of an apocalyptic catastrophe. They cannot accept that the wobbly house of cards which they have sacrificed so much to set up, amidst labyrinths of financial propaganda and captivating loans offered them by the bank, may all fall down. In desperate pursuit of lower lending fees or financing free of interest, they strive constantly to maintain the perverse consumerism which is their way of life, with their heads buried in the modern quagmire.

“Who but a ‘madman’ can be thinking of sources of water, canned foods and homegrown products, sources of information independent of the Internet, non-traditional sources of energy, printers running on heavy-duty rechargeable batteries, reams of A4 paper, materials for binding, basic medicines, disinfectants and anesthetics, surgical instruments, solid fuels, especially wood, coal and li quids, etc, etc, everything necessary to face the worst of contingencies? Because I am absolutely convinced that that is what lies ahead, because nobody gets out of a crisis like we are in without a worldwide purification such as has never been seen before.

“However, it is being spiritually prepared which is the most important, being able to leave aside our own needs in the terrible moments to come, and help those closest to us by giving a word of encouragement, a piece of bread, a little water, some explanation of why the total disaster will have struck. That way, instead of accusing God, they may, once extricated from the overwhelming distractions of the world, rediscover the true path to save their souls. A wife and mother from Syria told a Sister from this country that the war of aggression they are now undergoing in Syria has enabled them to realize that the comfort in which they were living before had made them lose sight of the simple life-style so necessary for true Christians, and that amidst such a crisis they were now happier than before, because they were now focused on essentials: the day-to-day life of the Christian, raising his eyes to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“That is why despite the evil all around, I myself see good news on all sides, inspiring in me joy and the hope of limitless heavenly possibilities, unimaginable at present, once this perverse world is defeated and wiped out. People making sacrifices to look after their neighbours, the honourable life of many soldiers, the examples of martyrs, family fathers striving to give a Christian education to their children, thousands of people thinking along the lines of the North American referred to above, Traditionalists reacting, and many other examples – it is all good news, and should refresh our souls with the cool breeze of trust in God. He never fails us. It is enough to imitate the life of his Son. But there being no Redemption without suffering, then it is absolutely certain that this infamous and perverted diabolical world of lies will not fall down by itself without an exemplary Chastisement.”

Kyrie eleison.

TWO-FACED BERGOGLIO AND THE AMERICAN JOURNEY / POPE PREACHED EVERYTHING BUT CHRIST!

The Two Faces of the American Journey

In Cuba, homage to the Castro brothers, silence over the victims of the regime, the refusal to meet with dissidents. In the United States, the exaltation of freedom against the “forms of modern tyranny.” The anguished cry of a Cuban exile. 

by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 1, 2015 – Days later and with the emotional residue swept away, the journey of Pope Francis to Cuba and the United States is unveiling its real connotations. Which are political and ecclesial at once.

As a politician, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has shown himself to be capable, pragmatic, implacable at times. He presents himself to the world as the advocate of the poor, of the oppressed, of the “discarded,” and says it with actions even more than with words. He goes to the Caritas soup kitchen, meets with the homeless, visits a school for the disadvantaged, mingles with immigrants and illegals, enters a prison.

Eight of these direct contacts were on the official program of the journey, and he added even more on his own.

But mind, all of them strictly in the United States. Not even one in Cuba.

Not a word there for the thousands of Cubans swallowed up by the sea while fleeing from tyranny. No call for the release of political prisoners. No caress for their mothers, wives, sisters, arrested by the dozens so that they couldn’t even go to the pope’s Mass.

Pressed by journalists on the plane heading for Washington, Francis said no, no meeting with dissidents was planned, and he kept to the program.

And yet this was not something unthinkable from the start. A few weeks earlier, the Cuban regime had allowed American secretary of state John Kerry, visiting Cuba to reopen the embassy, to meet with roughly thirty dissidents.

One of these, the most authoritative, a Catholic, nevertheless had to hide behind the cloak of anonymity in order to write his aggrieved commentary on the pope’s visit, for the missionary agency “Asia News.” In 1998, when John Paul II went to Cuba, he had even been able to take the offerings up to the altar during the Mass in the Plaza de la Revolución, while the square resounded with rhythmic chants of “Libertad!,” a word the pope used 13 times in his homily.

This time, nothing of the kind. The Castrist police catalogued and screened everyone coming to Mass with Francis, in Havana and the other cities, and peppered the crowds with informants.

In the nine discourses he gave in Cuba, Bergoglio used the word “freedom” only once, requesting it for the Church on the island together with “all the means necessary.” He paid repeated public homage to the Castro brothers and gave a friendly and admiring account of his private conversation with Fidel.

To general astonishment, he dedicated his clearest and most direct political comments not to Cuba but to Colombia: to the secret negotiations between the Bogotà government and the leaders of the Colombian guerrillas that were underway during those same days in Havana, with Raúl Castro as host and mediator.

And the good news, that of the agreement reached after seventy years of massacres and half a million victims, came when the pope was in the United States, on the eve of his speech to the United Nations. An agreement that was immediately credited by all to him, to Francis, and to the “decisive” move of that unexpected appeal raised from Havana.

The calculated silence on freedom in Cuba was counterbalanced by the expansive praise that Bergoglio dedicated to this in the United States.

The true key political discourse of this journey to the Americas, in fact, was not the one he gave to Congress, nor the one from the tribunal of the UN, both of these tailor-made to be welcomed by all and not antagonize anyone, but the one in Philadelphia, in the place, he said, where “the Declaration of Independence stated that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that governments exist to protect and defend those rights.”

Which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and therefore, he added, “our irreducible freedom in the face of every claim to absolute power” and of all those “forms of modern tyranny [that] seek to suppress religious freedom, or try to reduce it to a subculture without right to a voice in the public square.”

What a shame that in Cuba these words of his were kept in the dark.

____________

TWO SIDE NOTES

FRANCIS’S SECRET MEETING WITH KIM DAVIS…

This became known only the day after the pope’s return to Rome. Thanks to Robert Moynihan, director of the authoritative American magazine “Inside the Vatican”

The Secret Meeting of the Papal Trip

http://insidethevatican.com/news/letter-38-2015-kim-and-francis
The revelation is that on Thursday, September 24, at the nunciature in Washington, the pope met in secret with Kim Davis, the Pentecostalist county clerk in Kentucky who one month ago defied the order to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples and went to jail for her conscientious objection.

The case has profoundly divided opinion and politics in the United States, with the Catholic Church siding with Davis.

The meeting with Francis lasted for 15 minutes. “The pope spoke in English,” Davis recounted afterward. “There was no interpreter. ‘Thank you for your courage,’ Pope Francis said to me. I said, ‘Thank you, Holy Father.’… It was an extraordinary moment. ‘Stay strong,’ he said to me… I broke into tears. I was deeply moved.”

For the whole duration of his visit to the United States, Francis kept the meeting secret. But on the return flight to Rome, questioned by Terry Moran of ABC News, he clearly stated his thoughts on the issue:

Q: Holy Father, do you also support those individuals, including government officials, who say they cannot in good conscience, their own personal conscience, abide by some laws or discharge their duties as government officials, for example in issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples? Do you support those kinds of claims of religious liberty?

A: I can’t have in mind all cases that can exist about conscientious objection. But, yes, I can say conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right. It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right. Conscientious objection must enter into every juridical structure because it is a right, a human right. Otherwise we would end up in a situation where we select what is a right, saying ‘this right that has merit, this one does not.’ It (conscientious objection) is a human right. It always moved me when I read, and I read it many times, when I read the Chanson de Roland, when the people were all in line and before them was the baptismal font – the baptismal font or the sword. And, they had to choose. They weren’t permitted conscientious objection. It is a right and if we want to make peace we have to respect all rights.

Q: Would that include government officials as well?

A: It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right.

… AND A CUBAN EXILE’S COMMENTARY ON THE POPE’S VISIT

The commentary, acrid and impassioned, appeared on September 24 in “First Things,” the Catholic magazine in the United States that presents itself as “America’s most influential journal of religion and public life”:

> When Francis Came to Cuba

The author, Carlos Eire, is the T.L. Riggs Professor of Catholic Studies at Yale University.

The latest three articles from www.chiesa

Pope Preached Everything But Christ!

Pope Promotes Freemason Secular Salvation

Where did he say, “You have set aside the teachings

of Jesus Christ and he is now treated as a disgraced

relative while hedonism and lasciviousness is championed?

I cannot praise you as a moral nation. I cannot say God Bless America.

I rebuke you as a wayward child. Repent.”

by Kieran Dunn

(henrymakow.co,) 

I’m Disappointed.

Pope Francis had the world’s attention as he addressed a joint session of Congress.

He focused upon the most pressing secular issues of the day: climate change, immigration, poverty, the death penalty, the refugee crisis in Europe, and global arms trade.

He made veiled and brief remarks about abortion and the family, but as the Vicar of Christ, he did not present Christ as the antidote for sin, which is what ails mankind.

He mentioned Moses and Abraham Lincoln, but no mention of Jesus.

That is why I am disappointed.

Millions of evangelicals and traditional Catholics were disappointed.

The mainstream media hails him as the People’s Pope, which by extension means he speaks for Christianity. Pope Francis does not speak for the Protestants, nor the Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Churches which are as old as Catholicism.

The Apostle Peter, considered the first Pope of Catholicism, wrote: But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. [I Peter 3:15].

Pope Francis did speak of the brotherhood of man-but where was Christ presented?

Read entire article at Henry Makow.com