Denver Newsroom, May 5, 2020 / 02:52 am (CNA).- Pope St. John Paul II, who led the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005, is perhaps one of the most compelling figures of the 20th century.
Born nearly 100 years ago on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland, Karol Woytila— the future pope— endured the loss of most of his family, clandestinely studied for the priesthood while his country was under Nazi rule, and rose through the Church hierarchy while never ceasing to encourage his Polish countrymen to keep the faith while resisting Communist pressure.
He participated in the Second Vatican Council and, upon his election as pope, became the most widely-traveled pontiff ever and likely the most-seen person in the history of the world. He was an academic, and widely regarded as a genius, but also a man of simplicity and humility.
He survived a brutal assassination attempt in 1981, crediting Mary’s intercession for his survival and extending forgiveness to his attacker.
“He’s the exemplar of the fact that a life wholly dedicated to Jesus Christ and the Gospel is the most exciting human life possible,” George Weigel, John Paul II’s biographer, told CNA.
“This man lived a life of such extraordinary drama that no Hollywood scriptwriter would dare come up with such a storyline. It would just be regarded as absurd.”
His compelling life story has been told and retold many times, including on the big screen.
But did you know that John Paul II’s life story was once the subject of a Marvel comic book?
Printed in full color and featuring dramatic, stylish visuals, the 1982 comic chronicles the pope’s life, from his childhood in Poland all the way up to the attempt on his life by a would-be assassin.
Marvel, which Disney purchased in a multi-billion dollar acquisition in 2009, is one of the largest entertainment companies in the world, and the purveyor of such iconic characters as Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Captain America.
So what persuaded the Marvel executives to green-light a comic book about the then newly-elected pope?
‘Marvel’s Man in Japan’
It all started with Gene Pelc— a New Yorker and Marvel representative living in Japan.
Pelc— whose wife is Japanese— had moved to Japan in the 1970s in order to report back to Marvel on how the comic book company could adapt its products for a Japanese audience.
Pelc was tasked with licensing Spider-Man to play on Japanese television, and was largely successful at what he did, earning the moniker “Marvel’s Man in Japan.”
Pelc told CNA that he and his family went— and still go— to Mass at the Franciscan Chapel Center, a community of English-speaking priests in Tokyo.
Japan was then— and remains today— a very non-Christian country, with Catholics comprising less than half of 1% of the population.
One day, a priest named Father Campion Lally approached Pelc at the Franciscan Chapel Center with an unusual proposition. The eight-hundredth anniversary of St. Francis’ birth was coming up in 1982, Fr. Lally said…what if, to commemorate it, Marvel produced a comic book about the life of St. Francis?
Pelc liked the idea, and wondered whether it would prove popular amongst Catholics in the US. Fr. Lally was adamant, however, that the comic be marketed to non-Catholics as well.
“The real reason I want this done is to reach an audience the Church doesn’t normally reach,” Pelc remembers Fr. Lally saying.
“’I want to take St. Francis out of the birdbath’ was his exact comment.”
Pelc called up Stan Lee— a legendary Marvel comic book publisher— who apparently liked the idea. But when Pelc pitched the idea to the higher-ups at Marvel, they weren’t quite so supportive at first.
“They all said: Gene, you’ve been in Japan too long. No one wants to hear about that. They want to hear about superheroes,” Pelc remembers the executives telling him.
Pelc was able to appeal to the financial sensibilities of the executives to help his case, however— the Paulist Press, a U.S.-based Catholic publisher, had expressed interest in purchasing some 250,000 copies of the comic upon its release.
Needless to say, the prospect of a minimum of 250,000 copies sold— when a popular comic at the time could be expected to sell around 150,000 copies— was enough to sway the executives to approve the project.
Father Roy Gasnick, a Franciscan priest and director of communications based in New York, helped Marvel writer Mary Jo Duffy to write the story of St. Francis’ life for the comic. Fr. Gasnik was, by all accounts, a massive comic book fan himself.
Then the artists at Marvel did their magic, and produced the comic entitled “Francis: Brother of the Universe,” which hit stores in 1980.
Helped by the Paulist Press’ large order, “Brother of the Universe” proved to be a hit, both critically and commercially.
A new project
“The next step was pretty obvious to me, being Catholic and being Polish,” Pelc said.
“Pope John Paul II was extremely popular in the world at the time; he was traveling much more than the old popes did previously. And he was actually coming to Japan.”
John Paul II was the first pontiff to visit the country. The pope arrived in Japan in February 1981, to a small but enthusiastic welcome.
The pope’s visit galvanized Pelc, who was still riding high on the success of the St. Francis comic. He began looking into the possibility of producing another religious-themed comic for Marvel.
A friend of Gene’s introduced him to Father Mieczyslaw Malinski, who was a friend of the pope’s back in Poland during the war. Fr. Malinski apparently consulted with the pope himself about what he thought about the idea of turning his story into a comic.
According to Pelc, John Paul II was supportive of the idea, as long as Fr. Malinski himself worked with the comic book team on the project.
So, the Marvel team was off to the races yet again. The first step? Research. And a lot of it.
Most of the information came from Fr. Malinski, but the story still had to be adapted to fit into the panels and speech bubbles.
That task fell to Steven Grant, a young freelance comic book artist who at the time was living in New York and working for Marvel. He had heard that Marvel was producing a second religious-themed comic, but he didn’t think much of it— he assumed that Mary Jo Duffy would be tasked with writing this one, too.
Instead, Marvel’s editor-in-chief called Grant into his office and asked him to take on the task of writing the John Paul II comic book.
“I got involved because I was expendable at the time,” Grant told CNA.
“I wasn’t one of the artists they particularly wanted writing the Fantastic Four that month,” he laughed.
“And they knew I was Catholic— that was my big credential.”
For Grant, working on a comic book about John Paul II— which the team always referred to as “the Pope Book”— was both ordinary, in the sense that the writing process was not markedly different than other comic books; and extraordinary, given that the subject matter was not only a living person, but also the leader of a 1-billion strong worldwide religion.
“No one was worried about offending him, but there was a lot of room to offend a lot of people if we did a bad job with it,” he said.
Bumps in the road
The project experienced two major roadblocks the year before it was released, the first of which was the attempt on John Paul’s life in May 1981, in the midst of the comic’s production.
Instead of dropping the project, the Marvel team wrote the events of the assassination into the book itself.
In addition, communicating with Fr. Malinski would prove more difficult than the team at Marvel had expected.
On Dec. 13, 1981, a general named Wojciech Jaruzelski appeared on television sets throughout Poland. In a video message repeated over and over again, the general declared martial law, and ordered troops to suppress the Solidarity movement, a trade union rooted in Catholic principles that opposed Communism.
Many striking Solidarity workers would die in the next few days, as Polish troops fired into groups of them.
After John Paul’s visit to his native Poland in 1979, it would be another decade before the Solidarity Party in Poland, with the pope’s encouragement, would finally gain a majority in Parliament, and, largely peacefully, the country would shrug off the shackles of Communism.
To make matters worse, the turmoil in Poland was taking place in the middle of the comic book’s production schedule, and the Marvel team needed Fr. Malinski’s insights in order to get the comic book written.
The Communists restricted much of the communications in and out of Poland during that time. Pelc said he remembers receiving smuggled communications from Fr. Malinski, which he brought to his father in New York to have translated from Polish to English.
Apart from Fr. Malinski’s contributions, Grant says he simply put his nose to the grindstone and read up on as much as he could about the pope’s life.
“It was a little pre-internet,” Grant chuckled.
“I figured anything I found three or four references to was probably accurate.”
His total research spanned about two months, he says, but the actual writing process was only a couple of weeks long, spurred on by Marvel’s tight production schedules.
Legacy
Finally, in 1982, the comic book hit the shelves. Thanks in large part to Catholic agencies buying up the edition, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 million copies made their way into the world.
For a young comic book artist, it was quite the windfall. Grant said he was able to pay off his student loans when he received the royalties for the comic the following year.
So, did the pope himself ever get a chance to see himself as a Marvel hero? According to Pelc, he did. A Marvel executive flew to Rome and presented the pope with a leatherbound edition.
The success of the first two religious-themed comic books led to a third, this time about another future saint— and friend of John Paul’s— Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Although Pelc was not able to assist with that project, that comic also proved successful, though it was the last of the major religious-themed comics that Marvel produced. That comic even won a Catholic Press Association award in 1984.
In the four decades since the John Paul II comic book’s release, several members of the team that worked on it, including the artist who created the drawings, have died.
Pelc and Grant have gone their separate ways. Grant is still a freelance comic writer, and does writing work for Marvel “once in a blue moon” when they call him up.
Though the “Pope book” remains just one of the hundreds of projects that Grant has worked on over the years, he said he remembers walking into his local laundromat in New York a few months after the comic’s release, and being surprised to see the comic’s cover framed and hung proudly on the wall.
Though Grant never told the owners of the laundromat— clearly devout Catholics— that he was the author of the comic, he said it brought him pride that they valued it so highly.
Pelc, who still lives in Tokyo, owns a company that sells merchandise for musical artists. He said he still gets asked to this day— mostly by parishioners at the Franciscan Chapel Center— about Marvel’s religious comics, he says.
On the side, Pelc still has a passion for telling compelling Catholic stories. He is currently working on a book about the late 16th-century 26 Christian martyrs of Japan, and hopes eventually to adapt the story into a screenplay.
For his part, Pelc says he thinks it unlikely that a company like Marvel would produce something like this again. But he’s glad that by means of the “Pope book,” he and Grant and the entire team were able to tell a good story, in a world inundated by bad stories.
“That man deserved to be known by more than just people who go to church. He was an everyman pope, and I, being Polish, loved him,” he reflected.
Note: This story was adapted from an episode of Catholic News Agency’s podcast, CNA Newsroom. Click here to listen to the full story.
[…]
From the “father” who wants women priests, communion for all, lgbtmnop+… Who knew that he’d go to the fringes to push traditional Catholics aside…
This is NO surprise. Cupich has proven through his actions and inactions that He is The power that runs the archdiocese and will do everything he can to eliminate traditional Catholocism in favor of “whatever you want” catholicism.
Thank God the Sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was not subject to approval by priest and elder! Else where would the world-church be??
Meiron,
Actually, the Jewish leadership of Jesus’s day condemned him and did not give their approval of his ministry. God, of course, merely bypassed them.
Does Cupich actually think that he can outfox God?
Steve,
It seems your genius may have actually understood an incoherent post! I attempted irony and failed. Maybe I can explain.
The Father willed Jesus’s sacrifice. God’s will is not subject to approval. Yes, elders and priests played out the parts or roles the Father’s foreknowledge knew they would, and so yes, they did condemn Jesus.
Just so, Cupich’s words are meaningless. He may believe and pride himself on his leadership, but he is nothing more than a pawn to the principalities and powers who he has allowed to use him. The Sacrifice of Jesus and its re-presentation (at Mass) continues to effect, as does God’s will, whether Cupich knows or likes it or not.
God writes straight with crooked lines. And everybody plays a part on God’s chessboard, even those destined (having chosen themselves to be) losers.
NO! Absolutely Cupich cannot outfox God. But he is kept busy and occupied, helping to show to some of us, perhaps, what is clean and what is dirty in the house of the Lord.
Best wishes for a merry Christmas season.
The Austrian adage is that “everything has an end, except for sausage which has two.”
But with the Cupich clique we find there is no end to single-minded duplicity… While the Church in the United States is now committed to restoring “Eucharistic coherence,” the Chicago cardinal appeals to only a “Eucharistic revival”, as if the link between faith and morality is still off the table.
Austrian sausage is one thing, a hot dog is another.
One pope gives, another taketh away. Amazing that a church closing parishes due to diminishing attendance chooses to deliver a smackdown to some of its more faithful members. I guess no more amazing than forcing the faithful to use the NAB. Things continue apace. Continuity.
I guess diversity doesn’t include faithful Catholics who wish to worship God in the same form that has been used by the universal Church for hundreds and hundreds of years.
One can’t help suspecting that Cupich has traded his birthright for a mess of leftist political pottage.
Which is obviously the least savory, most disgusting kind.
Cupich, Roche. Who else?
Spare me.
Faithful Catholics have Christ whom we worship as God and Savior. Churchmen like Cupich come and go; Christ remains.
This is the essence of the ideology (I dare say it’s not theology) that permeates the Catholic Church leadership. Sure, there are a few voices that resist, with little effect, the modernist (liberal, progressive) strongholds. However, it is clear that under this Pope’s leadership, the voices that promote syncretism (“we’re all on our own paths to God regardless of the Gospel of Christ”) and humanism apart from complete surrender to the laws of God and the only King, Jesus (“let’s accept LGBTQx lifestyles, celebrate gay weddings, be led by the UN, bow to Pachamama, etc.) will be endorsed, while all dissent will be censored and silenced.
Jesus OUR LORD AND GOD = The Man-God, is for ever in all perfection = “Heaven will pass away, the earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away!” Mark 13:31. Jesus the Man-God was, is and forever will be the same in the universe! He is now here with us as He was in Person in our HISTORY! We grow up with the LATIN MASS! The change from LATIN TO the current has reduced the SERINITY OF OUR HOLY MASS! Change is not always for the Better! To return to LATIN MASS, we must, first, teach LATIN! The early CHURCH communicataed in Latin accross the globe ~ it was the unifing laungage within our Holy FAITh!
Well the (eminently predictable) lesson from mainstream Protestant denominations, and by the German Catholic church, as cited, is pretty clear – you remove standards, you remove tradition, and the people can’t find a single reason to remain in the pews, nor to believe you have anything useful to teach them. It is not “unifying,” it is not “Eucharistic revival.” It is: ita Missa est, in saecula saeculorum.
Great! This is truly the road to the long overdue complete implementation of the reform of the liturgy set by Vatican II (especially Sacrosanctum Concilium 21, among many others), that in having only one form of the Roman liturgy eventually the liturgy of Trent be gradually extinguished while correcting the great mistake of the theological gymnastics introduced by Benedict XVI in having two forms of the liturgy in Summorum Pontificum.
Where exactly did Vatican II mandate a single form of the Roman Liturgy? Don’t come here to lie. It did no such thing.
“We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants.” Annibale Bugnini March 1965
In this article, the question is raised about whether what we call “traditional” is really traditional or only goes back to the 17th century: https://wherepeteris.com/walking-on-the-water-traditional-or-truly-traditional/
The liturgy of the “traditional Latin Mass” may go back to St. Damasus, who changed the liturgy from Greek to Latin for the western church, but apparently there are questions about the theology of what is known as the “traditional” Church.
ICYMI – Succinct twitter analysis from Hans Fiene re “elderly ecclesiastical supervisors” . . .
A simple question: Has there ever been any formal condemnation issued by any ecclesial authority against the sort of clown Masses that Pope Francis participated in as both a priest and a prelate in his years in Argentina?
Another simple question: Has there ever been any formal condemnation issued by any ecclesial authority against the sort of Hindu pagan rituals that Cardinal Cupich has welcomed and incorporated into his Masses in Chicago?
For some context and insight about the Archbishop Arthur Roche, author of “the Vatican’s explanatory document” on Traditiones custodes, one can listen to the podcast of Damian Thompson of England, who begins by candidly stating that the Pontiff Francis’ attack against the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is a “Cromwellian campaign,” and describes the Moto Proprio Traditiones custodes, signed by the Pontiff Francis, as a document “badly drafted and venomous,” and “so dripping with malice” that most Bishops (unlike the sycophant Blaze Cupich) are intent on ignoring it. A link to Thompson’s podcast is here:
https://spectatorworld.com/radio/why-the-catholic-church-is-facing-chaos-this-christmas/
The Extraordinary Form of the Mass has been explicitly and increasingly permitted by the only three Pontiffs who participated in the Second Vatican Council (Paul VI, participating as the Pope, John Paul II participating as a Bishop, and Benedict XVI participating as a “peritus”).
Vatican II ran for 4 years in four autumn sessions, from October 1962 to December 1965. Pope Paul VI was 68 years old when V2 ended; then-Bishop Wojtyla (the future Pope JP2) was 45 years old when it ended; V2 “peritus” Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope B16) was 38 years of age when it ended. The man who wrote the newly issued “explanatory document” (which claims to assert the intentions of the Second Vatican Council, and its participants above), His Excellency Archbishop Arthur Roche, was 15.
CNA staff relay that the newly issued “explanatory document,” written by Roche, states that the intent of custodes “to re-establish in the whole Church of the Roman Rite a single and identical prayer expressing its unity, according to the liturgical books promulgated by the Popes Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council and in line with the tradition of the Church.”
His Excellency Roche’s statement is incoherent, since everyone knows that the “Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite” does not offer “a single and identical prayer;” instead of a single prayer, it offers four different ones.
His Excellency Roche apparently isn’t sure what happened with the Ordinary Form. Perhaps he should catch up on what has been happening since 1965.
Every time I see a picture of Cardinal Cupich, he radiates “ I am a tough guy, I play hardball, so don’t even think of crossing me”. I am thankful that I do not live in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Cardinal Cupich is my bishop. In my experience, Cupich is very approachable, warm, and friendly on an individual level. He seems to be well liked as an administrator by most priests and deacons because he communicates with them consistently and is responsive to their inquiries even if he doesn’t deliver solutions always to their liking. That said, conservative Catholics like me tend to feel seriously alienated by Cupich for reasons that are obvious. I offer these observations in a spirit of obedience and charity.
Hitter was also very approachable, warm, and friendly. In a spirit of obedience, charity, and truth, I offer this photos:
https://c.ndtvimg.com/2018-11/sd3kri08_adolf-hitler-jewish-girl-wp_625x300_15_November_18.jpg?im=Resize=(1230,900)
Philip;
Your 12/29 @9:25 – Thanks for that. I too am a conservative Catholic and I would feel, like you “seriously alienated”, if I lived there.
“Obedience and charity” – a combination that is indeed difficult, but not impossible.
Interesting. Back in 2015, when I reported on then-Bishop Cupich’s curious (and nearly disastrous) time in Spokane, WA, I talked to at least two dozen people who have known or worked with Cupich. The picture that emerged was consistent: he was rarely accessible, was usually distant, and was often difficult. But, perhaps Chicago suits him; after all, it’s fairly clear he never wanted to be in Spokane.
Father Paul Kalchik and Father Frank Phillips would likely disagree with your assessment of the diminutive Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago.
Dear Mr Seitz,
Thank you for offering a comment on your Bishop. Living in California, I have no idea how it is to be in Chicago. You provided a very helpful corrective to my untutored perception, colored by his draconian approach to the Latin Mass. No, I do not attend the pre-Vatican II liturgy, so that is not an axe I have to grind.
But apparently no problems with LBGTQ Masses.
Someone on Twitter posted a terrible example of one of the worst Masses I have ever seen in his diocese of Chicago. Is on YouTube
We don’t want our Bishops to act like clowns.
At seminary in the late 80s itcwas taught that V2 was superceded by the post-conciliar documents. It is important that those responsible for the post-conciliar documents be held accountable. A collective Protestantism was in put into place by Martini. Canonisations of Roncali and Martini without requisit miracles nor explanation for the public domain photos of Roncali in French luciferian Lodge nor the public domain scandal of the ginger actor friend of Martini – has been committed to further damage and destabilise the City in ruins.
I am a Priest of the Eastern Church, and I am not quite sure why Western Church faithful just ignore these renegade prelates who simply have gone against St Pius V’s Quo Primum, placing the Latin liturgy as that which is in perpetuity the rite of the Western Church, the Roman Catholic Church. I am not sure why these renegades (and I include Jorge Bergoglio in that group) are doing what they are doing. If their expectorations were just ignored (for surely they violate even Paul’s sciptural admonition”tenete traditiones”) their power would be lost. No one in the Eastern Church would tolerate an individual like Jorge Bergoglio. Now it emerges with ever greater clarity, I am hoping, why the East and West separatd in 1094, the actions of communion and reunification that Paul VI and JP II undertook and sanctioned. Again, I repeat, Pius V’s Quo Primum as an Apostolic Constitution cannot canonicaly be abrogated by any successor precisely because Pius issued it as an Apostotlic Constitution.
I reject all that you write here. First, of all, we are not a “Western Church”. We are the very Church established by our Lord having “Peter” in a special place. Our Lord even changed the Apostle’s name from Simon to Peter to emphasize the importance of his choice. Do you have Latin in your Churches? If you do not accept our Pope – whoever he may be – then do not get involved in our affairs with your bigoted view.
Regarding Pius V’s Quo Primum you have it wrong. Writing for EWTN, Jeffrey Mirus said: “liturgical directives are matters of policy that affect the Faith, but not matters of Faith themselves. There is no guarantee of infallibility for Church policy. This in no way implies that liturgical directives are “unimportant”. They just aren’t matters of faith in and of themselves; they can, in fact, be good, bad or indifferent.” https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/pope-st-pius-v-and-quo-primum-did-the-pope-intend-to-bind-his-successors-from-changing-the-tridentine-mass-1132
Sadly I must disagree with you in toto. Paul VI and JP II formally in writing recognized the Eastern Church (you probaly did not know that). You have a leader, Jorge Bergoglio, who claims Christ did not say “the Lord’s prayer” as it should have been prayed. That simply boggles the mind. No wonder his Jesuit superior told JP II “do not make Bergoglio a Bishop.” Bergoglio has sua sponte closed down the Latin ritual of the holy Mass which a predecessor, St Pius V, said must hold in perpetuity. If this is what you want as a “vicar,” fine with me. Bergoglio’s recent accquesence to the Chines Communists is in stark contrast to how Russian Orthodoxy fought off Stain– and won. The Eastern Church has a glorious history, and nowhere near the scandals the Roman Church has had– and continues to have as I type this reply. You probably also do not know that some in the Eastern Church hold if JP II had lived only a few more years the Eastern and Western Churches would have re-entered the communion that was severed in 1094. It would have been a boon to the Latin Church as the Eastern Church, recognized by all, is far closer in its rituals of prayer and Eucharist to the days of the proto-communities than Rome is today. I recommend you take a look at the Eastern Church’s Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom for verification. Let me add here also: as for the claim that Chirst made Peter head of his Church [You are Peter and upon this rock…”}, it is no secret that Christ did not speak Greek– nor did his Apostles. So taking the Greek word “petras,” that the West took to prove Peter was the rock has no basis in Scripture at all. I am sanguine, however, that you already knew this.
What you fail to comprehend is the fact that thee Jesuit superiors did not like the future Pope because he did not go along with some of the views including liberation theology. But, importantly, he was liked by the common people – jus as he is today.
I see that you cannot even get yourself to even call our Pope by his title. So, no wonder your views are just as skewed.
Nazareth, I believe, was just a
Pope Francis did not surrender to nthe Chinese. He signed a deal that was many years in the making, and involved three Popes. But what you seem ignorant of is that that deal was just one part of our great Pope’s strategy. Along with the deal, he asked the global Church to pray for our brothers and sisters in China, and then placed China under the protection of our Lady. One does not always have to fight or resist to win a battle.
Nazareth, I believe, Nazareth, was a short walk from Sepphoris – a town of Greek speaking people. So, he and Joseph, being tradespeople, would have done some business with these people and so would have known Greek. In any case, the people would have mingled. Anyway, I will go with what scripture tells me and not what your narrow, bigoted view suggwests.
Dear Rev. Chryostomos,
Reading beyond prior replies to you, one observes that the views of one protesting CWR poster do not represent the vast majority of others. Contentious, error-filled, prejudicial thoughts are not non-charitable and do dishonor to the name of ‘Christian.’ More postings at CWR represent less modernist, more thoughtful, decidedly non-pope-idolatrous Catholics of the Western Church.
Thank God the Liturgy of the Eastern Church shows reverence to the Lord; the NOM of the Western Church has much to learn by its example.
Best regards.
No doubt that there are some like you who will say stuff like that. There are less Pope-haters in the Catholic Church than those who accept the position and dignity of that position.
Thanks to Rev. Chrysostomos.
Good question. Why don’t we just ignore the lunacy coming from the Vatican? I don’t know enough (anything really) about the cause of the split between the East and West. Or about Pius V. More, please.
Perhaps the schism of the Eastern Church was God’s permissive plan to rescue His Church post-Politicoglio? It is noteworthy that the Eastern Church now possesses part of the relics of St Peter… Should St Peter’s succumb to “Twin Tower Ground Zero Syndrome”, the future is secured. For the widely silenced Archbishop Lenga, the realisation of the Fatima prophesy for Rome is within the next 2 years. Tourists wanting a final view of St Peter’s Basilica should get the hell out of there before October 13?
While you are dreaming, Mike, our Lord’s Church moves on – as it always has. There is no salvation outside this Church.
The present renewal is with the TLM. They are well-attended and display heart-felt communion. It is about holiness, not duty. CC might be a Kantian scholar.
Cupich follows his master like an obedient dog and he always will.
The Popes attacks on the Latin Mass are incomprehensible to any rational person.
In western society Christianity is in steep decline and the Latin Mass communities are one group that buck that trend. Are they perfect? No. But why go into bat against them so malevolently. As I say it’s incomprehensible.
Is the Pope a Pathological Narcissist? That is someone who is mentally ill and who is energised by the total destruction of small and vulnerable groups and individuals around him. Who know but the signs seem to be there.
So much of the commentary about his attacks on the Latin Mass skirt round the seemingly unanswerable question. Why on earth would the Pope of all people act in this way?
Is it that the answers to that question are too frightening for faithful Catholics to face?
The late Fr amorth stated that the pre conciliar sacramentals and rites liberated souls sooner and quicker because ecclesiastical Latin had more power behind. So why do these prelates hate it? Eastern Rite: your next!!!
Is that so? Wow! I was always believed that it was the powerful name of Jesus – in whatever language – that made the demons flee.
Cardinal Robert Sarah once stated that opposition and hostility to the Mass of Ages comes from the Evil One, who seeks our downfall. Considering the type of prelates who despise the TLM and seek to punish and restrict it, I would say his Eminence was spot on.