The German Synodal Way was designed from the outset to avoid legal sanctions while simultaneously creating “pressure” on the Church to change Catholic teaching, one of the founders of the process told German media Friday.
Thomas Sternberg, former president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), said the controversial process wanted to achieve changes to the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, the ordination of women, and other topics, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
Speaking to German diocesan broadcaster Domradio on Dec. 2, Sternberg said the Synodal Way was proceeding “much more successfully than I had thought.”
In light of the Vatican’s interventions against the Synodal Way, he said it had become clear “it was right not to use the form of a synod, as that would have been sanctioned by canon law” and “would have given canon law properly then also the possibility to prohibit something like that.”
From the perspective of canon law, the Synodal Way was just “a nonbinding discussion process,” Sternberg said.
Only in this way could the participants “actually operate freely. Then even prefabricated critical objections that have been raised by Rome come to nothing.”
Together with Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Sternberg launched the Synodal Way in 2019. Acknowledging the process is not a synod, Marx at the time said it was instead a “process ‘sui generis.’”
The pope’s letter to the pilgrim people of God in Germany remained “very important,” Sternberg said Dec. 2.
Like many ZdK leaders, Sternberg is a professional politician. He described in detail some of the political tools and tactics the organizers of the German Synodal Way followed in their pursuit of achieving change, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
On the one hand, he said, it was clear the participants could not “decide the question of the ordination of women or the question of the abolition of celibacy in Germany.”
However, he said, “I am a politician to the extent that I know that processes and developments are needed in order to make topics worthy of discussion in the first place.”
“When you get involved in a synodal process, you also have to reckon with the fact that sometimes you don’t win,” Sternberg said about the one text so far not adopted by the process — which led to tumultuous scenes at the Frankfurt event.
“We have to talk about it, and we have to make demands,” the former ZdK president said of the approach chosen by the organizers. “Only through pressure does real change come about.”
Sternberg specifically mentioned the Synodal Way’s texts on ordaining women to the priesthood, clericalism, and homosexuality.
He said these topics were now being discussed “internationally, not only in Germany,” thanks to the German process.
The Vatican last week published the full wording of its latest warnings over another schism coming out of Germany, raising fundamental concerns and objections.
The Synodal Way risked being not about achieving pastoral innovations but attempting a “transformation of the Church,” Cardinal Marc Ouellet warned in his statement, published in German by CNA Deutsch.
The prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops said the Synodal Way’s suggestions “hurt the communion of the Church,” sowing “doubt and confusion among the people of God.”
The Vatican was receiving messages on a daily basis from Catholics scandalized by this process, he added.
Sternberg’s successor as president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Irme Stetter-Karp, accused the Vatican of “snubbing” German Catholics on Nov. 21.
The Synodal Way — “Synodaler Weg” in German, sometimes translated as the Synodal Path — is still expected to continue as planned by organizers. The next (and so far final) synodal assembly will take place in the spring of 2023.
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The trailer of the upcoming Russell Crowe movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” indicates that the film might not do justice to the Italian exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth or the rite of exorcism as practiced in the Catholic Church, according to an exorcist organization Amorth himself helped to found.
The International Association of Exorcists on March 7 voiced concern that the film seems to fall under the category of “splatter cinema,” which it calls a “sub-genre of horror.”
The Vatican, the statement said, is filmed with a high-contrast “chiaroscuro” effect seen in film noir.
This gives the film a “‘Da Vinci Code’ effect to instill in the public the usual doubt: Who is the real enemy? The devil or ecclesiastical ‘power’?” the exorcists’ association said.
While special effects are “inevitable” in every film about demonic possession, “everything is exaggerated, with striking physical and verbal manifestations, typical of horror films,” the group said.
“This way of narrating Don Amorth’s experience as an exorcist, in addition to being contrary to historical reality, distorts and falsifies what is truly lived and experienced during the exorcism of truly possessed people,” said the association, which claims more than 800 exorcist members and more than 120 auxiliary members worldwide.
“In addition, it is offensive with regard to the state of suffering in which those who are victims of an extraordinary action of the devil find themselves,” the group’s statement added. The statement responded to the release of the movie trailer and promised a more in-depth response to the film’s April 14 theatrical release.
Father Gabriele Amorth, chief exorcist of Rome, speaks to CNA on May 22, 2013. Steven Driscoll/CNA
Amorth, who died at age 91 in 2016, said he performed an estimated 100,000 exorcisms during his life. He was perhaps the world’s best-known exorcist and the author of many books, including “An Exorcist Tells His Story,” reportedly an inspiration for the upcoming movie.
Several of Amorth’s books are carried by the U.S. publisher Sophia Institute Press. The publisher’s newly released book “The Pope’s Exorcist: 101 Questions About Fr. Gabriele Amorth” is an interview in which the priest addresses many topics ranging from prayer to pop music.
Michael Lichens, editor and spokesperson at Sophia Institute Press, voiced some agreement with the exorcist group.
“The International Association of Exorcists is right to be concerned and I’m thankful for their words,” Lichens told CNA. “My hope is that audiences will remember that Father Amorth is a real person with a great legacy and perhaps a few moviegoers will look up an interview or pick up his books.”
“This was a man who included St. Padre Pio and Blessed Giacomo Alberione as mentors, as well as Servant of God Candido Amantini, who was his teacher for the ministry of exorcism,” he said. “Father Amorth fought as a partisan as a young man and grew to fight greater evil as an exorcist. His life is an inspiration and I know that his work and words will still reach many.”
Amorth was born in Modena, Italy, on May 1, 1925. In wartime Italy, he was a soldier with the underground anti-fascist partisans. He was ordained a priest in 1951. He did not become an exorcist until 1986, when Cardinal Ugo Poletti, the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, named him the diocesan exorcist.
The priest was frequently in the news for his comments on the subject of demonic forces. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph in 2000, he said: “I speak with the devil every day. I talk to him in Latin. He answers in Italian. I have been wrestling with him, day in, day out, for 14 years.”
The movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” claims to be “inspired by the actual files of the Vatican’s chief exorcist.” The Sony Pictures movie stars the New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe as Amorth. Crowe’s character wears a gray beard and speaks English with a noticeable accent.
“The majority of cases do not require an exorcism,” the Amorth character says in the movie’s first trailer. A cardinal explains that Crowe’s character recommends 98% of people who seek an exorcism to doctors and psychiatrists instead.
“The other 2%… I call it… evil,” Crowe adds.
The plot appears to concern Amorth’s encounter with a particular demon. Crowe’s character suggests the Church “has fought this demon before” but covered it up.
“We need to find out why,” he says.
The trailer shows short dramatic scenes of exorcism, including a confrontation between Amorth and a girl apparently suffering demonic possession.
The International Association of Exorcists said such a representation makes exorcism become “a spectacle aimed at inspiring strong and unhealthy emotions, thanks to a gloomy scenography, with sound effects such as to inspire only anxiety, restlessness, and fear in the viewer.”
“The end result is to instill the conviction that exorcism is an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon, whose only protagonist is the devil, whose violent reactions can be faced with great difficulty,” said the exorcist group. “This is the exact opposite of what occurs in the context of exorcism celebrated in the Catholic Church in obedience to the directives imparted by it.”
CNA sought comment from Sony Pictures and “The Pope’s Exorcist” executive producer Father Edward Siebert, SJ, but did not receive a response by publication.
Amorth co-founded the International Association of Exorcists with Father René Laurentin in 1994. In 2014 the Catholic Church recognized the group as a Private Association of the Faithful.
The association trains exorcists and promotes their incorporation into local communities and normal pastoral care. It also aims to promote “correct knowledge” about exorcism ministry and collaboration with medical and psychiatric experts who have competence in spirituality.
Exorcism is considered a sacramental, not a sacrament, of the Church. It is a liturgical rite that only a priest can perform.
Hollywood made the topic a focus most famously in the 1973 movie “The Exorcist,” based on the novel by William Peter Blatty.
“Most movies about Catholicism and spiritual warfare sensationalize,” Lichens of Sophia Institute Press told CNA. “Sensationalism and terror sell tickets. As a fan of horror movies, I can understand and even appreciate that. As a Catholic who has studied Father Amorth, though, I think such sensationalism distorts the important work of exorcism.”
“On the other hand, ‘The Exorcist’ made the wider public more curious about this overlooked ministry. That is a good thing that came out, despite other reservations and concerns,” he continued. “Still, I would love it if a screenwriter and director spoke to exorcists and tried to show the often-quotidian parts of the ministry.”
An unhealthy curiosity can be a problem, Lichens said.
“When I work as a spokesperson for Amorth’s books, I am always concerned about inspiring curiosity about the demonic,” he told CNA. “As Christians, we know we have nothing to fear from the demonic but curiosity might lead some to want to seek out the supernatural or the demonic. Father Amorth has dozens of stories of people who found themselves afflicted after party game seances.”
Lichens encouraged those who are curious to read more of Amorth’s writings, some of which are excerpted on the Catholic Exchange website. Sophia Institute Press has published “Diary of an American Exorcist” by Monsignor Stephen Rosetti and “The Exorcism Files” by the American lay Catholic Adam Blai.
“First and foremost, Father Amorth was involved in a healing ministry,” Lichens said. “Like other exorcists, his work often involved doctors in physical and mental health because the goal is to bring healing and hope to the potentially afflicted.”
“Those of us who read Amorth might have been excited to read firsthand accounts of spiritual warfare, but readers quickly see a man whose heart was always full of love for those who sought his help,” he added.
The International Association of Exorcists, for its part, praised the 2016 documentary “Deliver Us,” saying this shows “what exorcism really is in the Catholic Church and “the authentic traits of a Catholic exorcist.” It shows exorcism as “a most joyful event,” in their view, because through experiencing “the presence and action of Christ the Lord and of the Communion of the Saints,” those who are “tormented by the extraordinary action of the devil gradually find liberation and peace.”
Bologna, Italy, Aug 8, 2019 / 10:03 am (CNA).- The first image to greet visitors to the basilica containing the tomb of St. Dominic in Bologna, Italy is a mosaic of the saint next to a dog carrying a flaming torch in its mouth.
This is not a depiction of a pyromaniacal game of fetch, but a reference to a dream which foretold the 13th-century preacher’s mission in the world — to be the bearer of Divine fire across Europe, illuminating the darkness of heresy and sin with truth and charity.
“When St. Dominic’s mother, Blessed Jane of Aza, was pregnant, she had a dream of a dog with a torch in its mouth, running around the world and setting everything on fire. She went to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos and asked a monk what it meant. He replied that the child in her womb would be a great preacher, who would set the world ablaze with the fire of his words,” Dominican Fr. Ezra Sullivan, lecturer at the Angelicum University in Rome, told CNA.
“In fact, the word ‘Dominican’ is a play on the Latin, Domini canes, which means ‘dogs of the Lord,” Fr. Thomas Petri, dean of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC, explained.
Throughout history St. Dominic has been depicted in paintings and statues standing beside a canine companion.
“One source recounts that the dog Blessed Jane saw in her vision was a greyhound. That seems right to me,” Petri said. “St. Dominic should be associated with breeds that are fast and useful for herding.”
“Imitating Christ himself, St. Dominic is a hound nipping at your heels to bring you to God,” he added.
“In the early thirteenth century, the Church was experiencing increasing devotion among the lay faithful that was unmatched by the clergy. At a time when bishops, priests, and monks were living extravagantly and rarely preaching, St. Dominic came to see that the Church needed priests who lived in poverty but who were also preachers of grace and truth, especially in the face of heretical cults that were leaching the faithful away from the Church of Jesus Christ,” Petri explained.
St. Dominic Guzman was born in Caleruega, Spain on Aug. 8, 1170. Throughout his life, he is said to have converted some 100,000 people through his preaching missions. He spread the devotion to the rosary, and played a key role in doctrinal debates combating the Albigensian heresy, a revival of Manichaeism, which had taken hold in southern France.
Dominic founded the Order of Preachers – the Dominicans – in France in 1216, adapting the Rule of St. Augustine in obedience to the pope, with an emphasis on study and community life in poverty. He died in Bologna, Italy after several weeks of illness on Aug. 6, 1221.
Benedict XVI said in Feb. 2010 that St. Dominic “reminds us that in the heart of the Church, a missionary fire must always burn.”
“Saint Dominic was given the grace not only to have a fervent zeal and love for Jesus Christ, especially Christ crucified, but also the wisdom to preach the Gospel with force and conviction,” Petri said.
Fr. Sullivan noted: “It was also said that ‘he always spoke either about God or to God,’ and therefore his words were like fiery darts that always hit their targets.”
St. Catherine of Siena, a third order Dominican, is frequently quoted as saying, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”
However, Fr. Petri explained that a more accurate translation of what St. Catherine wrote in a letter in her dying days is, “If you are what you ought to be, you will set fire to all Italy, and not only there.”
She wrote this to her follower Stefano Maconi because she was “concerned that he was tepid in his devotion and pleaded with him to go to Rome to light the fire of Divine charity there amid the turmoil of schism and infidelity the city was experiencing,” Petri said.
St. Catherine of Siena spoke of cultivating the ‘Divine fire’ as “cultivating the charity of God in one’s soul,” he explained.
“The way we cultivate charity is by committing ourselves to be with Christ in prayer, in study, at work, in the home, and at every other moment in our day,” he said.
“Most especially, however, such communion with Christ is nourished and strengthened by receiving the Sacrament of Charity—the Holy Eucharist—in which the One who is Charity itself comes into us and lights our souls aflame in love for him and for our neighbor.”
Grace and Daniel have been stuck in Cyprus’ buffer zone for more than six months after they fled Cameroon. / Alexey Gotovskiy/EWTN
Rome Newsroom, Dec 3, 2021 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
As a sign of Pope Francis’ concern for migrants, the Vatican announced Friday that it is helping to arrange the transfer of about 12 refugees from Cyprus to Italy.
Among the migrants that Pope Francis is helping to bring to Italy are Grace, 24, and Daniel, 20, Christians who fled Cameroon after schools were shut down due to the Anglophone Crisis, provoked by tensions between the English-speaking minority and French-speaking majority.
The two migrants met after paying the same smuggler to help them cross from Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus to the Greek-speaking south, where they hoped to find asylum in the European Union.
“We were misled,” Grace said. The smuggler told them where to cross over the 16-foot-high wall that divides the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, but they were promptly taken into custody by the United Nations forces stationed in the demilitarized buffer zone.
“The most scary moment in my life so far,” said Grace, who injured her leg after jumping from the wall.
Since crossing over the wall last May, Grace and Daniel have been stuck in the buffer zone that divides Cyprus, which is also called “no man’s land,” living in a tent for more than six months.
Alexey Gotovskiy/EWTN
In an interview with EWTN News ahead of Pope Francis’ arrival in Cyprus, Grace said that faith in God helped to give her strength in the difficult times in Cyprus. She hopes for a better future in which she can find work.
Daniel, a Catholic, said that he would like to be able to continue his studies once he receives asylum in Europe.
“That’s what is keeping us strong because, like our faith, we believe that in any circumstances that you find yourself, never give up in life, so that saying has been keeping us strong and I believe God can do something,” Grace said.
Alexey Gotovskiy/EWTN
Elizabeth Kassinis, the executive manager of Caritas Cyprus, told EWTN that the numbers of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers arriving in Cyprus “have been really dramatic.”
“Cyprus right now receives more asylum seekers per capita than anywhere in Europe,” Kassinis said.
“It is a frontline state … all of the local systems are overwhelmed,” she added.
Recently, Kassinis has noted the arrival of people from Lebanon, which is in the midst of an economic crisis, in addition to the flow of migrants from Syria and African countries.
The Caritas Cyprus migrant services center in Nicosia receives about 300 people requesting assistance each day.
“Most of the numbers that we’re getting now are people who’ve just arrived,” she said.
Pope Francis is currently in Cyprus, where he met on Dec. 3 with a group of migrants, who shared their stories with the pope in an ecumenical prayer service in Nicosia.
“It is he, the Lord Jesus, whom we encounter in the faces of our marginalized and discarded brothers and sisters. In the face of the migrant who is despised, rejected, put in a cage … but at the same time … in the face of the migrant journeying to a goal, to hope, to greater human companionship,” Pope Francis said.
Thomas Sternberg Card Reinhard Marx preen together happily. For former ZdK pres Sternberg the current pontificate removed his doubts that the Synodaler Weg [Synodal Way] would be able to achieve its mischievous end of altering Apostolic doctrine.
Finally, Sternberg, a notable witness to the Kabuki theatre of papal warnings, German bishops’ protests – that the Synod on Synodality benefits from the charade. Appointment by His Holiness Card Hollerich SJ as Synod on Synodality relator should have awakened us. Some got the message. Sex dominates the fallen intellect of Man the Germans [the fallen not the few remaining faithful] no different. Women priests, homosexuality top of the Synodaler Weg agenda. Where does it originate, if not at least encouraged if not with former Archbishop Milan Card Mario Maria Martini SJ who invented the perennial open forum synod idea to update Christianity to the world? His devotee then Card Jorge Bergoglio Buenos Aires assumed the task Martini overjoyed when Jorge became Francis I.
Why sexuality topping the agenda? Why the obsession? Because it’s about the transmission of life created in God’s image. Family, one man, one woman and children are central to love of that image. Corruption of the intellect occurs when we deem our thoughts superior to those laid down [in the soul by God] in natural law and revelation. Assume, then, history reveals this as scientific truth when behavior deviates from its natural predilection. Ironically, the greater the perverse deviation in sexual behavior the greater to the corrupt mind the scientific evidence that ‘God made you that way’.
Why then do we judge? Who are we to judge anyone who tries in best of his ability to do the will of God? Just add to the travesty someone who does their best to do the will of God and the rest falls into place. Acceptance of the unnatural as nature’s way, God’s benevolent appraisal. That is to consign Christ’s revelation to an outdated historical event. That is to become an apostate.
Making demands, applying pressure using political tools and tactics… I don’t believe that the Holy Spirit is guiding these synodal processes. Invoking Him is just rhetorical cover for progressive power politics. I call that scandalous.
As a postscript to my Dec 2 comment there really is no hard evidence of collusion between the Vatican sponsored Synod on Synodality and the German Synodaler Weg. There is however alluded to in my comment what appears to be a consistency in direction of both the German and the universal Vatican Synod.
Whether or not ZdK Chairman Sternberg is correct regarding the Synodaler Weg’s immunity to canon law is irrelevant to the Pontiff’s supreme authority and ability to intervene with dramatic consequences for apostate bishops. There’s a difference between alleged discussion and actually proposing heresy as have the German prelates Card Reinhard Marx and Bishop Georg Bätzing.
At point of issue is the hesitancy of Pope Francis not to effectively intervene. A rationale may be found in Prof Eduardo Echeverria’s recent commentary Signs of Contradiction in TCT, in which Echeverria muses over Francis’ interview with America Mag that “A Catholic cannot think either or and reduce everything to polarization. It’s about both and or, and combining differences.”
We may study both sides of interpretation as does Echeverria, on the positive for example faith and reason, although on the negative what is doctrinal and absolute and what is increasingly accepted by His Holiness as pastoral and not in sync with doctrine. This is apparent in the similarity of themes in both synods the German and the Vatican.
Harmony has difference in application. If we refer to accord between Blacks and Whites then it’s racial harmony. If we reference doctrine, it’s not simply theoretical, rather as manifest in practice, since ethics refer to what we do not simply ideas. Now if as Card Hollerich suggests the Church must reconsider homosexual relations, that is actions in context of harmony, the normalizing of those behaviors reduces harmony to difference in behaviors rather than doctrine. As similar to racial harmony. As such, we can no longer speak of doctrinal harmony between different sexual behaviors.
Normalization between two diverse behaviors becomes equivalence. Doctrinal harmony is effectively made irrelevant. We are either a religious body adhering to moral principles or we are not.
Of harmonious blending, such splitting the difference is an expedient mind game of self-deception…
The smiley-button lunatic who jumps from the tenth floor, as he passes the fifth floor, hollers (as in Hollerich): “so far, so good!” And, farther down, he can always divide in half the remaining distance to solid ground, such that there is always a minuscule margin of never actually touching the pavement. No “polarization!”
But, the fact is that he makes a very pastoral and absolute mess on the sidewalk. The sidewalk, that real place where the unreal synodal lemmings are “walking together” and who, likewise, never arrive at any weighty conclusions about the gravity of their situation.
Said another prophet of false “harmony” as opposed to “either/or”, with one hand in ice water and the other on the stove: “on average I feel pretty good.”
I’m sorry George, but I just don’t buy your assertion. The smoke of Satan entered into the Church through a crack. The crack was the wdespread Episcopal rejection of Humanae Vitae — not Vatican II. The “shananigans” are the consequence of that smoke, but not the crack through which it entered. Here is my support for these statements: https://www.stossbooks.com/open-letter-to-german-episcopate.html#Smoke_of_Satan
How the Descendants of Ephraim, “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.”, hijack the Catholic Church.
The evil German Bishops are a huge part of The Book of Revelation’s ‘Harlot of Babylon’. Here is why Babylon, which fell 60 years after the exile of the House of Judah, is actually destroyed upon the Second Coming of Jesus. God labels the Descendants of Israel as ‘The Harlot of Babylon’, upon their exile from the Promised Land. The ‘beast’ the Harlot of Babylon rides represents world dominant power.
Revelation 17:3
Then he carried me away in spirit to a deserted place where I saw a woman seated on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names, with seven heads and ten horns. The woman was wearing purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She held in her hand a gold cup that was filled with the abominable and sordid deeds of her harlotry. On her forehead was written a name, which is a mystery, “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.” I saw that the woman was drunk on the blood of the holy ones and on the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. When I saw her I was greatly amazed.
When Pope Benedict XVI abdicated the papacy, the Cardinals ‘wanted’ to find our next Pope from the Continent of Africa. I was elated! After having the Descendants of Ephraim dominate the Chair of St. Peter for 1300 years, as well as dominate the college of Pope voting Cardinals, it was at last time for a non-Descendant of Ephraim to lead our Church! I thought! Turned out that the Descendants of Ephraim, pope voting Cardinals, could not find anyone on the continent of Africa, ‘with the right qualifications’. The next thing I heard was that the Descendants of Ephraim pope voting Cardinals had found our next pope in South America. Well that works! When I first saw Pope Francis, I exclaimed, ‘He sure looks like a Descendant of Ephraim to me!’ Pope Francis is a Descendant of Ephraim, of Italian descent.
Because Abraham was faithful to God, God Blessed Abraham’s descendants above other descendants. The ‘Blessing of Abraham’ (Genesis 22:16-18) is: Will have Myriads of descendants (Joshua 17:14); Will have great wealth (Deuteronomy 33:13); Will have world dominant Power (Genesis 17:15); Will grow to become a multitude of nations (Genesis 48:17).
Jacob/Israel bypassed his twelve sons, and placed the Blessing of Abraham on his beloved wife Racheal’s grandson Ephraim. In this way Jacob bypassed his other three wives, Leah (Judah’s mother), Bilhah, and Zilpah’s, descendants of Israel. It is through Jacob’s beloved wife Racheal, through whom all the myriads of descendants from the Blessing of Abraham flow. Jacob Israel’s true love Racheal led a life of painful childlessness, due to the attempted murder of her son Joseph, by Joseph’s brothers from other mothers. Posthumously, Jacob romantically made his true love Racheal to be the mother of all the, Blessing of Abraham myriads of children, who grow to become a multitude of nations.
Europe originally had indigenous black people. It is the Descendants of Ephraim, exiled from the Promised Land due to their massive sinfulness, who immigrate into Europe to become a multitude of nations, which makes Europe a multitude of white nations, bearing world dominant power.
BBC: Cheddar Man: DNA shows early Briton had dark skin.
A University College London team analyzed the genome, and the results were used for a facial reconstruction. It underlines the fact that the lighter skin characteristic of modern Europeans is a relatively recent phenomenon. No prehistoric Briton of this age had previously had their genome analyzed.
quoted from: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42939192
Due to their massive unrepentant sinfulness, Ephraim’s descendants, presently ruling the world, due to their possession of the Blessing of Abraham, are set to be decimated, by God, in the near future Apocalypse. Jesus’ locutions to St. Faustina in the 1930s, indicate this event will be upon us very soon! Please receive Jesus’ Gifts of Divine Mercy, this coming Divine Mercy Sunday.
Penance! Penance! Penance! Fellow Descendants of Ephraim.
Matthew 8:11
Mark what I say! Many will come from the east and the west and will find a place at the banquet in the kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while the natural heirs of the kingdom will be driven out into the dark, Wailing will be heard there, and the grinding of teeth.
Hosea 5:9
Ephraim shall become a waste on the day of chastisement: Against the tribes of Israel I announce what is sure to be.
Isaiah 10:20
The Light of Israel will become a fire, the Holy One, a flame, That burns and consumes its briers and its thorns in a single day. And the glory of its forests and orchards will be consumed, soul and body, and it will be like a sick man who wastes away. And the remnant of the trees in his forest will be so few, that any child can record them.
On that day The remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no more lean upon the one who struck them; But they will lean upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. Though your people, O Israel, were like the sand of the sea, Only a remnant of them will return; their destruction is decreed, as overflowing justice demands. For the Lord, the GOD of hosts, is about to carry out the destruction decreed in the midst of the whole land.
Isaiah 17:14
The fortress shall vanish from Ephraim and dominion from Damascus; The remnant of Aram shall become like the glory of the Israelites- oracle of the LORD of hosts. On that day The glory of Jacob shall fade, and his full body shall grow thin. Like the reaper’s mere armful of stalks, when he gathers the standing grain; Or as when one gleans the ears in the Valley of Rephaim. Only gleanings shall be left in it, as when an olive tree has been beaten-Two or three olives at the very top, four or five on its most fruitful branches-oracle of the LORD, the God of Israel. On that day people shall turn to their maker, their eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.
Hosea 6:10
In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing:
there harlotry is found in Ephraim,
Israel is defiled. For you also, O Judah,
a harvest has been appointed.
Revelation 18:21
A mighty angel picked up a stone like a huge millstone and threw it into the sea and said: “With such force will Babylon the great city be thrown down, and will never be found again.
I love the mystic side of the Church, the daily work of the Church and the times the Church has fought actively and decisively against the enemies of God and humanity. Every enemy of God will directly be a dangerous enemy of humanity. Even admitting the errors and sins that human Catholics will undoubtedly committ, I am never ashamed of the Crusades or Lepanto because they did what they had to do against an anti-Real-God enemy and many lost their one and only life doing so.
We must do, as Jesus commanded, lose our lives to keep our lives, walking away from the cowardice of so many Clergy today and into the battle against PRESSURE, as they admitted, of the German sinful mob, Francis the pretend Pope, and all their associates in parishes everywhere.
We grow holier and stronger in facing against this diabolical pressure and must transform our fear into humble invincible courage through prayer. We must defeat at the same time our internal enemies: naivete, hyper-feminization (lethal to both men and women), false respect, false charity, false forgiveness, false heart-centeredness and false hybrid New Age Catholicism. Trying to be “nice” is Satan’s gospel to make us voluntarily consent to evil and therefore give it the Catholic spiritual power that God is giving us. Time to stop trying to make the Devil Catholic and feeding and empowering him with the grace that we are being given from God. The Devil’s triumphs are being fed by us. Starve him!
To accomplish his 100-120 plan to destroy the Church, Satan follows a plan of attack revealed in Revelation 2:12-17. He plans to de-moral-ize, and thus weaken, the Church. His plan specifically points to virtues and vices — specifically vices tied to the lusts of the flesh. It is Satan’s desire to weaken the members of Church Militant by destroying their moral underpinnings; the very thing that makes us strong. This approach is actually explained in Revelation.
St. Hildegard of Bingen (a Doctor of the Church) is informed by God thus:
“And falling thus from disobedience into death, when they [Adam and Eve] knew they could sin [thanks to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—SML], they discovered sin’s sweetness. And in this way, turning My rightful institution into sinful lust, although they should have known that the commotion in their veins [i.e., hormones] was not for the sweetness of sin but for the love of children, by the Devil’s suggestion they changed it to lechery; and, losing the innocence of the act of begetting, they yielded it to sin. This was not accomplished without the Devil’s persuasion; for that purpose he sent forth his darts, and it did not come to pass without his suggestion; as he said, **‘My [Devil’s] strength is in human conception, and therefore humanity is mine’!** [St. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990), 80-81]”
In Rev. 2:12-17, we read about the church at Pergamum. The people of this church are told, “To him who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it.” So, what was it that the Spirit wanted this particular church to conquer? The sin of the church at Pergamum was fornication and/or adultery, both of the flesh and of the spirit (idolatry); both are rampant in the twentieth century. Interestingly, none of the other churches were promised a white stone should they succeed in conquering their particular brand of sinfulness.
We know this because of the reference to the “teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak” (Rev 2:14). What was it Balaam taught Balak? Balaam knew that the Churches strength came from God. Balaam knew that without God, they would become weak and vulnerable. In order to make God angry at the Israelites, Balaam taught Balak to place stumbling blocks before them. To put that teaching into action, Balak employed some of the most beautiful women in his kingdom to lure the men into unclean fleshly and spiritual acts, i.e., sexual intercourse and idolatry [Ken Ham, “Millions of Years and the ‘Doctrine of Balaam,’” Answers in Genesis, : June 1, 1997].
The stumbling blocks were the DNA/salt/dust/stone bodies of beautiful and desirous women. Accomplishing his goal to destroy the domestic Church required getting rid of the openness to life in the sex act, thus destroying the likeness of the Trinity in the family. The German’s, with their Synodal Way, have joined forces with Satan. They have fully breathed in the smoke of Satan; The smoke which entered the Church when it failed to support and teach the doctrines contained in Humanae Vitae.
The sexual stuff they are pushing is disgusting and flies in the face of 2000 years of Church lore. If the Germans continue down this path, they will find themselves in schism. It will result in their having only a handful of believers, whose probable monetary resources will not be enough to keep these Bishops in the style to which they have become accustomed. I assume things like physical churches and rectories are the property of the OFFICIAL Roman Catholic Church , of which they will no longer be a part.I believe things will go sideways financially for these schismatic Germans rather rapidly, unless they have a George Soros deep pockets type hidden among their supporters. If Francis lacks the gumption to stop these people, the reality is that at some point he will pass the baton to another Pope. Hopefully that one will choose to remain true to the church of Christ.Excommunication for this bunch and their supporters should be the penalty.
Pornography is also the incipient corrupting of society, it’s the very direction in which it is going. In both faith and reason the idea it is not pornographic is already poison.
I am not surprised. But this rot isn’t confined to Germany. The fact that it is tolerated shows that the issues are much higher up, and likely much more widespread.
Ungodly men in positions of power show themselves to be limbs of Satan in due course. They have been rebuked and warned repeatedly and now they need to be replaced and put out of the church.
1 Corinthians 5:11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
Matthew 18:15-20 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. …
Titus 3:9-11 But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
Pope Francis: ““A Catholic cannot think either or and reduce everything [?] to polarization. It’s about both and or, and combining differences.” What, still, about those special and irreducible cases like, say, Genesis 2: to not eat from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”? A binary “polarization”? (And, we can also take note of another endangered binary of man and woman.)
Yours truly is fascinated by the eclipsing of binaries/contradictions under what sometimes is too much a flaccid ideology of “combining differences.” The universal solvent! The same suspension of elementary logic was noted by T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) in his encounter with the early 20th-century Bedouin tribes. Here’s Lawrence: “…Sometimes inconsistencies seemed to possess them at once in joint sway; but they never compromised: they pursued the logic of several incompatible opinions [!] to absurd ends, without perceiving the incongruity [!]” (“Seven Pillars of Wisdom”).
What is the difference, then, between the principle of “incongruity” and abrogation embedded in Islam and the ecclesial “paradigm shift” now being graffitied onto the Church?
It’s almost as if the 7th-century Bedouin tribes discovered the “paradigm shift” long before our postmodern, 21st-century tribe of clericalist, cut-and-paste mimics of Thomas Kuhn (“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” 1962). Strange bedfellows, too, with the natural religion of Islam (and Pachamama)—the combining of differences?
Thomas Sternberg Card Reinhard Marx preen together happily. For former ZdK pres Sternberg the current pontificate removed his doubts that the Synodaler Weg [Synodal Way] would be able to achieve its mischievous end of altering Apostolic doctrine.
Finally, Sternberg, a notable witness to the Kabuki theatre of papal warnings, German bishops’ protests – that the Synod on Synodality benefits from the charade. Appointment by His Holiness Card Hollerich SJ as Synod on Synodality relator should have awakened us. Some got the message. Sex dominates the fallen intellect of Man the Germans [the fallen not the few remaining faithful] no different. Women priests, homosexuality top of the Synodaler Weg agenda. Where does it originate, if not at least encouraged if not with former Archbishop Milan Card Mario Maria Martini SJ who invented the perennial open forum synod idea to update Christianity to the world? His devotee then Card Jorge Bergoglio Buenos Aires assumed the task Martini overjoyed when Jorge became Francis I.
Why sexuality topping the agenda? Why the obsession? Because it’s about the transmission of life created in God’s image. Family, one man, one woman and children are central to love of that image. Corruption of the intellect occurs when we deem our thoughts superior to those laid down [in the soul by God] in natural law and revelation. Assume, then, history reveals this as scientific truth when behavior deviates from its natural predilection. Ironically, the greater the perverse deviation in sexual behavior the greater to the corrupt mind the scientific evidence that ‘God made you that way’.
Why then do we judge? Who are we to judge anyone who tries in best of his ability to do the will of God? Just add to the travesty someone who does their best to do the will of God and the rest falls into place. Acceptance of the unnatural as nature’s way, God’s benevolent appraisal. That is to consign Christ’s revelation to an outdated historical event. That is to become an apostate.
Germania’s “synodal path” is “designed?”
A camel is a horse designed by a committee. And, like the trendy German thingy, today’s trendy and high-priced designer-jeans are also full of holes.
Making demands, applying pressure using political tools and tactics… I don’t believe that the Holy Spirit is guiding these synodal processes. Invoking Him is just rhetorical cover for progressive power politics. I call that scandalous.
As a postscript to my Dec 2 comment there really is no hard evidence of collusion between the Vatican sponsored Synod on Synodality and the German Synodaler Weg. There is however alluded to in my comment what appears to be a consistency in direction of both the German and the universal Vatican Synod.
Whether or not ZdK Chairman Sternberg is correct regarding the Synodaler Weg’s immunity to canon law is irrelevant to the Pontiff’s supreme authority and ability to intervene with dramatic consequences for apostate bishops. There’s a difference between alleged discussion and actually proposing heresy as have the German prelates Card Reinhard Marx and Bishop Georg Bätzing.
At point of issue is the hesitancy of Pope Francis not to effectively intervene. A rationale may be found in Prof Eduardo Echeverria’s recent commentary Signs of Contradiction in TCT, in which Echeverria muses over Francis’ interview with America Mag that “A Catholic cannot think either or and reduce everything to polarization. It’s about both and or, and combining differences.”
We may study both sides of interpretation as does Echeverria, on the positive for example faith and reason, although on the negative what is doctrinal and absolute and what is increasingly accepted by His Holiness as pastoral and not in sync with doctrine. This is apparent in the similarity of themes in both synods the German and the Vatican.
Harmony has difference in application. If we refer to accord between Blacks and Whites then it’s racial harmony. If we reference doctrine, it’s not simply theoretical, rather as manifest in practice, since ethics refer to what we do not simply ideas. Now if as Card Hollerich suggests the Church must reconsider homosexual relations, that is actions in context of harmony, the normalizing of those behaviors reduces harmony to difference in behaviors rather than doctrine. As similar to racial harmony. As such, we can no longer speak of doctrinal harmony between different sexual behaviors.
Normalization between two diverse behaviors becomes equivalence. Doctrinal harmony is effectively made irrelevant. We are either a religious body adhering to moral principles or we are not.
Of harmonious blending, such splitting the difference is an expedient mind game of self-deception…
The smiley-button lunatic who jumps from the tenth floor, as he passes the fifth floor, hollers (as in Hollerich): “so far, so good!” And, farther down, he can always divide in half the remaining distance to solid ground, such that there is always a minuscule margin of never actually touching the pavement. No “polarization!”
But, the fact is that he makes a very pastoral and absolute mess on the sidewalk. The sidewalk, that real place where the unreal synodal lemmings are “walking together” and who, likewise, never arrive at any weighty conclusions about the gravity of their situation.
Said another prophet of false “harmony” as opposed to “either/or”, with one hand in ice water and the other on the stove: “on average I feel pretty good.”
Vatican II paved the way for all this kind of shenanigans. “By their fruit, you shall know them.”
I’m sorry George, but I just don’t buy your assertion. The smoke of Satan entered into the Church through a crack. The crack was the wdespread Episcopal rejection of Humanae Vitae — not Vatican II. The “shananigans” are the consequence of that smoke, but not the crack through which it entered. Here is my support for these statements: https://www.stossbooks.com/open-letter-to-german-episcopate.html#Smoke_of_Satan
How the Descendants of Ephraim, “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.”, hijack the Catholic Church.
The evil German Bishops are a huge part of The Book of Revelation’s ‘Harlot of Babylon’. Here is why Babylon, which fell 60 years after the exile of the House of Judah, is actually destroyed upon the Second Coming of Jesus. God labels the Descendants of Israel as ‘The Harlot of Babylon’, upon their exile from the Promised Land. The ‘beast’ the Harlot of Babylon rides represents world dominant power.
Revelation 17:3
Then he carried me away in spirit to a deserted place where I saw a woman seated on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names, with seven heads and ten horns. The woman was wearing purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She held in her hand a gold cup that was filled with the abominable and sordid deeds of her harlotry. On her forehead was written a name, which is a mystery, “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.” I saw that the woman was drunk on the blood of the holy ones and on the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. When I saw her I was greatly amazed.
When Pope Benedict XVI abdicated the papacy, the Cardinals ‘wanted’ to find our next Pope from the Continent of Africa. I was elated! After having the Descendants of Ephraim dominate the Chair of St. Peter for 1300 years, as well as dominate the college of Pope voting Cardinals, it was at last time for a non-Descendant of Ephraim to lead our Church! I thought! Turned out that the Descendants of Ephraim, pope voting Cardinals, could not find anyone on the continent of Africa, ‘with the right qualifications’. The next thing I heard was that the Descendants of Ephraim pope voting Cardinals had found our next pope in South America. Well that works! When I first saw Pope Francis, I exclaimed, ‘He sure looks like a Descendant of Ephraim to me!’ Pope Francis is a Descendant of Ephraim, of Italian descent.
Because Abraham was faithful to God, God Blessed Abraham’s descendants above other descendants. The ‘Blessing of Abraham’ (Genesis 22:16-18) is: Will have Myriads of descendants (Joshua 17:14); Will have great wealth (Deuteronomy 33:13); Will have world dominant Power (Genesis 17:15); Will grow to become a multitude of nations (Genesis 48:17).
Jacob/Israel bypassed his twelve sons, and placed the Blessing of Abraham on his beloved wife Racheal’s grandson Ephraim. In this way Jacob bypassed his other three wives, Leah (Judah’s mother), Bilhah, and Zilpah’s, descendants of Israel. It is through Jacob’s beloved wife Racheal, through whom all the myriads of descendants from the Blessing of Abraham flow. Jacob Israel’s true love Racheal led a life of painful childlessness, due to the attempted murder of her son Joseph, by Joseph’s brothers from other mothers. Posthumously, Jacob romantically made his true love Racheal to be the mother of all the, Blessing of Abraham myriads of children, who grow to become a multitude of nations.
Europe originally had indigenous black people. It is the Descendants of Ephraim, exiled from the Promised Land due to their massive sinfulness, who immigrate into Europe to become a multitude of nations, which makes Europe a multitude of white nations, bearing world dominant power.
BBC: Cheddar Man: DNA shows early Briton had dark skin.
A University College London team analyzed the genome, and the results were used for a facial reconstruction. It underlines the fact that the lighter skin characteristic of modern Europeans is a relatively recent phenomenon. No prehistoric Briton of this age had previously had their genome analyzed.
quoted from: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42939192
Due to their massive unrepentant sinfulness, Ephraim’s descendants, presently ruling the world, due to their possession of the Blessing of Abraham, are set to be decimated, by God, in the near future Apocalypse. Jesus’ locutions to St. Faustina in the 1930s, indicate this event will be upon us very soon! Please receive Jesus’ Gifts of Divine Mercy, this coming Divine Mercy Sunday.
Penance! Penance! Penance! Fellow Descendants of Ephraim.
Matthew 8:11
Mark what I say! Many will come from the east and the west and will find a place at the banquet in the kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while the natural heirs of the kingdom will be driven out into the dark, Wailing will be heard there, and the grinding of teeth.
Hosea 5:9
Ephraim shall become a waste on the day of chastisement: Against the tribes of Israel I announce what is sure to be.
Isaiah 10:20
The Light of Israel will become a fire, the Holy One, a flame, That burns and consumes its briers and its thorns in a single day. And the glory of its forests and orchards will be consumed, soul and body, and it will be like a sick man who wastes away. And the remnant of the trees in his forest will be so few, that any child can record them.
On that day The remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no more lean upon the one who struck them; But they will lean upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. Though your people, O Israel, were like the sand of the sea, Only a remnant of them will return; their destruction is decreed, as overflowing justice demands. For the Lord, the GOD of hosts, is about to carry out the destruction decreed in the midst of the whole land.
Isaiah 17:14
The fortress shall vanish from Ephraim and dominion from Damascus; The remnant of Aram shall become like the glory of the Israelites- oracle of the LORD of hosts. On that day The glory of Jacob shall fade, and his full body shall grow thin. Like the reaper’s mere armful of stalks, when he gathers the standing grain; Or as when one gleans the ears in the Valley of Rephaim. Only gleanings shall be left in it, as when an olive tree has been beaten-Two or three olives at the very top, four or five on its most fruitful branches-oracle of the LORD, the God of Israel. On that day people shall turn to their maker, their eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.
Hosea 6:10
In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing:
there harlotry is found in Ephraim,
Israel is defiled. For you also, O Judah,
a harvest has been appointed.
Revelation 18:21
A mighty angel picked up a stone like a huge millstone and threw it into the sea and said: “With such force will Babylon the great city be thrown down, and will never be found again.
http://www.apocalypseangel.com/married.html
I love the mystic side of the Church, the daily work of the Church and the times the Church has fought actively and decisively against the enemies of God and humanity. Every enemy of God will directly be a dangerous enemy of humanity. Even admitting the errors and sins that human Catholics will undoubtedly committ, I am never ashamed of the Crusades or Lepanto because they did what they had to do against an anti-Real-God enemy and many lost their one and only life doing so.
We must do, as Jesus commanded, lose our lives to keep our lives, walking away from the cowardice of so many Clergy today and into the battle against PRESSURE, as they admitted, of the German sinful mob, Francis the pretend Pope, and all their associates in parishes everywhere.
We grow holier and stronger in facing against this diabolical pressure and must transform our fear into humble invincible courage through prayer. We must defeat at the same time our internal enemies: naivete, hyper-feminization (lethal to both men and women), false respect, false charity, false forgiveness, false heart-centeredness and false hybrid New Age Catholicism. Trying to be “nice” is Satan’s gospel to make us voluntarily consent to evil and therefore give it the Catholic spiritual power that God is giving us. Time to stop trying to make the Devil Catholic and feeding and empowering him with the grace that we are being given from God. The Devil’s triumphs are being fed by us. Starve him!
Below is a quote from an article I wrote:
To accomplish his 100-120 plan to destroy the Church, Satan follows a plan of attack revealed in Revelation 2:12-17. He plans to de-moral-ize, and thus weaken, the Church. His plan specifically points to virtues and vices — specifically vices tied to the lusts of the flesh. It is Satan’s desire to weaken the members of Church Militant by destroying their moral underpinnings; the very thing that makes us strong. This approach is actually explained in Revelation.
St. Hildegard of Bingen (a Doctor of the Church) is informed by God thus:
“And falling thus from disobedience into death, when they [Adam and Eve] knew they could sin [thanks to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—SML], they discovered sin’s sweetness. And in this way, turning My rightful institution into sinful lust, although they should have known that the commotion in their veins [i.e., hormones] was not for the sweetness of sin but for the love of children, by the Devil’s suggestion they changed it to lechery; and, losing the innocence of the act of begetting, they yielded it to sin. This was not accomplished without the Devil’s persuasion; for that purpose he sent forth his darts, and it did not come to pass without his suggestion; as he said, **‘My [Devil’s] strength is in human conception, and therefore humanity is mine’!** [St. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990), 80-81]”
In Rev. 2:12-17, we read about the church at Pergamum. The people of this church are told, “To him who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it.” So, what was it that the Spirit wanted this particular church to conquer? The sin of the church at Pergamum was fornication and/or adultery, both of the flesh and of the spirit (idolatry); both are rampant in the twentieth century. Interestingly, none of the other churches were promised a white stone should they succeed in conquering their particular brand of sinfulness.
We know this because of the reference to the “teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak” (Rev 2:14). What was it Balaam taught Balak? Balaam knew that the Churches strength came from God. Balaam knew that without God, they would become weak and vulnerable. In order to make God angry at the Israelites, Balaam taught Balak to place stumbling blocks before them. To put that teaching into action, Balak employed some of the most beautiful women in his kingdom to lure the men into unclean fleshly and spiritual acts, i.e., sexual intercourse and idolatry [Ken Ham, “Millions of Years and the ‘Doctrine of Balaam,’” Answers in Genesis, : June 1, 1997].
The stumbling blocks were the DNA/salt/dust/stone bodies of beautiful and desirous women. Accomplishing his goal to destroy the domestic Church required getting rid of the openness to life in the sex act, thus destroying the likeness of the Trinity in the family. The German’s, with their Synodal Way, have joined forces with Satan. They have fully breathed in the smoke of Satan; The smoke which entered the Church when it failed to support and teach the doctrines contained in Humanae Vitae.
The sexual stuff they are pushing is disgusting and flies in the face of 2000 years of Church lore. If the Germans continue down this path, they will find themselves in schism. It will result in their having only a handful of believers, whose probable monetary resources will not be enough to keep these Bishops in the style to which they have become accustomed. I assume things like physical churches and rectories are the property of the OFFICIAL Roman Catholic Church , of which they will no longer be a part.I believe things will go sideways financially for these schismatic Germans rather rapidly, unless they have a George Soros deep pockets type hidden among their supporters. If Francis lacks the gumption to stop these people, the reality is that at some point he will pass the baton to another Pope. Hopefully that one will choose to remain true to the church of Christ.Excommunication for this bunch and their supporters should be the penalty.
Pornography is also the incipient corrupting of society, it’s the very direction in which it is going. In both faith and reason the idea it is not pornographic is already poison.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/12/01/exorcist-says-porn-addiction-an-opening-to-the-demonic-despite-german-priests-controversial-denials/
I am not surprised. But this rot isn’t confined to Germany. The fact that it is tolerated shows that the issues are much higher up, and likely much more widespread.
Ungodly men in positions of power show themselves to be limbs of Satan in due course. They have been rebuked and warned repeatedly and now they need to be replaced and put out of the church.
1 Corinthians 5:11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
Matthew 18:15-20 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. …
Titus 3:9-11 But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
Action must come from Papa. Pray for him!
Pope Francis: ““A Catholic cannot think either or and reduce everything [?] to polarization. It’s about both and or, and combining differences.” What, still, about those special and irreducible cases like, say, Genesis 2: to not eat from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”? A binary “polarization”? (And, we can also take note of another endangered binary of man and woman.)
Yours truly is fascinated by the eclipsing of binaries/contradictions under what sometimes is too much a flaccid ideology of “combining differences.” The universal solvent! The same suspension of elementary logic was noted by T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) in his encounter with the early 20th-century Bedouin tribes. Here’s Lawrence: “…Sometimes inconsistencies seemed to possess them at once in joint sway; but they never compromised: they pursued the logic of several incompatible opinions [!] to absurd ends, without perceiving the incongruity [!]” (“Seven Pillars of Wisdom”).
What is the difference, then, between the principle of “incongruity” and abrogation embedded in Islam and the ecclesial “paradigm shift” now being graffitied onto the Church?
It’s almost as if the 7th-century Bedouin tribes discovered the “paradigm shift” long before our postmodern, 21st-century tribe of clericalist, cut-and-paste mimics of Thomas Kuhn (“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” 1962). Strange bedfellows, too, with the natural religion of Islam (and Pachamama)—the combining of differences?
Insightful. Thank you.