Pope Francis speaks during his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA. See CNA article for full slideshow.
Vatican City, Feb 22, 2023 / 03:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said Wednesday that the traditions of the Church should not be based on opinion or ideological leanings, but on whether they favor the proclamation of the Gospel.
“Everything in the Church must be conformed to the requirements of the proclamation of the Gospel; not to the opinions of the conservatives or the progressives, but to the fact that Jesus reaches people’s lives,” he said Feb. 22.
Francis asked: When there are ideological divisions in the Church, such as an identification as conservative or progressive, “where is the Holy Spirit?”
“Be careful,” he warned. “The Gospel is not an idea; the Gospel is not an ideology. The Gospel is a proclamation that touches the heart and makes the heart change. You are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club…”
Pope Francis arrives at the Paul VI Hall for his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
The pope’s weekly general audience took place in a full Paul VI Hall on Ash Wednesday, the first day of the penitential Lenten season.
Speaking to pilgrims from around the world, he said, “Every choice, every use, every structure, and tradition [of the Church] is be evaluated on the basis of whether they favor the proclamation of Christ.”
“In this way the Spirit sheds light on the path of the Church, always. In fact, he is not only the light of hearts; he is the light that orients the Church: he brings clarity, helps to distinguish, helps to discern,” he said. “This is why it is necessary to invoke him often; let us also do so today, at the beginning of Lent.”
To illustrate his point, Pope Francis recalled “a pivotal moment” from the early Church, recounted in the Acts of the Apostles.
The apostles were worried about what to do with pagans who became Christian, but were not part of the Jewish people: “Were they or were they not bound to observe the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law?”
Pope Francis listens to a scripture reading during his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
To resolve this problem, the apostles gathered in what was called the Council of Jerusalem, the first Church council in history, he explained.
The apostles “might have sought a good compromise between tradition and innovation: some rules are observed, others are left out,” he said, but what they did instead was “adapt to the work of the Spirit.”
“And so,” he continued, “removing almost every obligation related to the Law, they communicate the final decisions, made — and they write this — by ‘the Holy Spirit and by us’ (cf. Acts 15:28).”
“This is how the apostles always act,” he underlined. “Together, without being divided, despite having different sensitivities and opinions, they listen to the Spirit.”
Pope Francis asked everyone to think about whether they pray often to the Holy Spirit, or if they only speak to Jesus and the Father, or invoke the Virgin Mary and the saints, in their prayers.
“Because, as Church, we can have well-defined times and spaces, well-organized communities, institutes and movements, but without the Spirit, everything remains soulless,” he said. “The organization … is not enough. It is the Spirit who gives life to the Church.”
“The Church, if it does not pray to him and invoke him, closes in on itself, in sterile and exhausting debates, in wearisome polarizations, while the flame of the mission is extinguished,” he added.
The pope called it sad to see the Church operate as if it is just a parliament, when it is really a community of men and women who believe in and proclaim Jesus Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit, not their own reason.
“The Spirit makes us go out, urges us to proclaim the faith in order to confirm ourselves in the faith, to go on mission to discover who we are,” he said. “That is why the Apostle Paul recommends: ‘Do not quench the Spirit’ (1 Thessalonians 5:19).”
“Let us pray to the Spirit often, let us invoke him, let us ask him every day to kindle his light in us,” he urged. “Let us do this before each encounter, to become apostles of Jesus with the people we find.”
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Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jul 6, 2021 / 05:00 am (CNA).
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI is praying for Pope Francis after he underwent intestinal surgery on Sunday.Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Benedict’s… […]
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appoints judges to Miami’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court, March 27, 2019. / Hunter Crenian/Shutterstock.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 8, 2022 / 04:00 am (CNA).
An ad released by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign is being mocked for its religious content, which some have criticized as “blasphemous.”
The black-and-white ad, tweeted out by DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis, shows a series of images from the governor’s public and private life narrated by a man who invokes God 10 times in the minute-and-a-half-long video.
“On the eighth day,” the narrator opens, “God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a protector.’ So God made a fighter.”
Critics mocked the ad for being the “gospel of the Ron DeSantis re-election campaign.”
A day before the election, DeSantis is enjoying a comfortable lead over his opponent, Democrat Charlie Crist. RealClearPolitics shows him with a12% lead, based on the average of recent polls.
The new ad, some speculate, may be intended for a possible run for the White House in 2024.
Former President Donald Trump, too, seemed to see DeSantis as a potential rival. At a rally in Pennsylvania Saturday, Trump named him as a possible candidate for president.
Declaring himself the front-runner, Trump said: “There it is, Trump at 71 [percent], Ron DeSanctimonious at 10 percent.”
Former RNC chairman Michael Steele issued a scathing condemnation of the ad on MSNBC’s Morning Show, calling it “ass-backwards blasphemy.”
“I don’t need Ron DeSantis to be Christ. I just need him to be governor, and that’s the problem,” Steele said.
Steele, who in 2020 joined the The Lincoln Project PAC, a group of Republicans who sought to defeat Trump, also endorsed Joe Biden for president the same year.
An MSNBC op-ed slamming the ad said: “Even if it is just a tease, like many far-right and authoritarian ‘jokes,’ DeSantis is not kidding around. The ad is dangerous and anti-democratic, and was meant that way.”
A spinoff ‘So God Made a Farmer’
As Axios first reported, the ad is a spinoff from the popular and beloved “So God Made a Farmer” speech delivered in 1978 by radio broadcaster Paul Harvey to Future Farmers of America in Kansas City, Missouri.
Harvey’s ad began: “God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board. So God made a farmer.’”
By contrast, DeSantis’ ad says: “God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, kiss his family goodbye, travel thousands of miles for no other reason than to serve the people. To save their jobs, their livelihoods, their liberty, their happiness. So God made a fighter.”
In addition to mentioning God 10 times, the ad describes DeSantis as someone who will “advocate truth in the midst of hysteria” and “isn’t afraid to defend what he knows to be right and just.”
“God said: I need somebody who will take the arrows, stand firm in the face of unrelenting attacks, look a mother in the eyes and tell her that her child will be in school,” the ad continues — referring to the governor’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic when most state lockdown restrictions sent children home from school for the long term.
The ad continues to focus on the anonymous mother living during the pandemic.
“She can keep her job, go to church, eat dinner with friends, and hold the hand of an aging parent taking their breath for the last time,” the narrator says, referring to hospital rules that prevented families from being near their loved ones’ sides while they died.
Seminarians at Good Shepherd Major Seminary in Nigeria’s Kaduna state where four students were kidnapped and one, Michael Nnadi, was killed in 2020. / Credit: Good Shepherd Major Seminary Kaduna/ Facebook
ACI Africa, Jan 26, 2024 / 11:40 am (CNA).
Last year, 2023, was a difficult year for Brother Peter Olarewaju, a postulant at the Benedictine monastery in Nigeria’s Ilorin Diocese who was kidnapped alongside two others at the monastery. Olarewaju underwent different kinds of torture and witnessed the murder of his companion, Brother Godwin Eze.
After his release, Olarewaju said his kidnapping was a blessing, as it had strengthened his faith. He even said that he is now prepared to die for his faith.
“I am prepared to die a martyr in this dangerous country. I am ready any moment to die for Jesus. I feel this very strongly,” Olarewaju said in an interview with ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, on Nov. 26, 2023, days after he was set free by suspected Fulani kidnappers.
The late Brother Godwin Eze who was kidnapped from the Benedictine monastery in Nigeria’s Ilorin Diocese and murdered by his kidnappers in October 2023. Credit: Benedictine monastery, Eruku
The monk’s testimony is not an isolated case in Nigeria, where kidnapping from seminaries, monasteries, and other places of religious formation has been on the rise. While some victims of the kidnappings have been killed, those who survived the ordeal have shared that they have come back stronger — and ready to die for their faith.
Seminarian Melchior Maharini, a Tanzanian who was kidnapped alongside a priest from the Missionaries of Africa community in the Diocese of Minna in August 2023, said the suffering he endured during the three weeks he was held captive strengthened his faith. “I felt my faith grow stronger. I accepted my situation and surrendered everything to God,” he told ACI Africa on Sept. 1, 2023.
Father Paul Sanogo (left) and Seminarian Melchior Maharini (right) were kidnapped from their community of Missionaries of Africa in Nigeria’s Diocese of Minna. Credit: Vatican Media
Many other seminarians in Nigeria have been kidnapped by Boko Haram militants, Fulani herdsmen, and other bandit groups operating in Africa’s most populous nation.
In August 2023, seminarian David Igba told ACI Africa that he stared death in the face when a car in which he was traveling on his way to the market in Makurdi was sprayed with bullets by Fulani herdsmen.
Seminarian Na’aman Danlami died when the Fulanis attacked St. Raphael Fadan Kamantan Parish on the night of Sept. 7, 2023. Credit: Photo courtesy of Aid to the Church in Need
In September 2023, seminarian Na’aman Danlami was burned alive in a botched kidnapping incident in the Diocese of Kafanchan. A few days earlier, another seminarian, Ezekiel Nuhu, from the Archdiocese of Abuja, who had gone to spend his holidays in Southern Kaduna, was kidnapped.
Two years prior, in October 2021, Christ the King Major Seminary of Kafanchan Diocese was attacked and three seminarians were kidnapped.
Seminarian David Igba during a pastoral visit at Scared Heart Udei of the Catholic Diocese of Makurdi. Credit: David Igba
In one attack that attracted global condemnation in 2020, seminarian Michael Nnadi was brutally murdered after he was kidnapped alongside three others from Good Shepherd Major Seminary in the Diocese of Kaduna. Those behind the kidnapping confessed that they killed Nnadi because he would not stop preaching to them, fearlessly calling them to conversion.
After Nnadi’s murder, his companions who survived the kidnapping proceeded to St. Augustine Major Seminary in Jos in Nigeria’s Plateau state, where they courageously continued with their formation.
The tomb of seminarian Michael Nnadi, who was brutally murdered after he was kidnapped alongside three others from the Good Shepherd Major Seminary in the Catholic Diocese of Kaduna in 2020. Credit: Father Samuel Kanta Sakaba, rector of a Good Shepherd Major Seminary in Kaduna
As Christian persecution rages in Nigeria, seminary instructors in the country have shared with ACI Africa that there is an emerging spirituality in Nigerian seminaries that many may find difficult to grasp: the spirituality of martyrdom.
They say that in Nigeria, those who embark on priestly formation are continuously being made to understand that their calling now entails being ready to defend the faith to the point of death. More than ever before, the seminarians are being reminded that they should be ready to face persecution, including the possibility of being kidnapped and even killed.
Father Peter Hassan, rector of St. Augustine Major Seminary in the Archdiocese of Jos, Plateau state, said that seminaries, just like the wider Nigerian society, have come to terms with “the imminence of death” for being Christian.
Father Peter Hassan, rector of St. Augustine Major Seminary in Jos, Nigeria, walks with an unnamed companion. Credit: Father Peter Hassan
“Nigerian Christians have been victims of violence of apocalyptic proportions for nearly half a century. I can say that we have learned to accept the reality of imminent death,” Hassan said in a Jan. 12 interview with ACI Africa.
He added: “Nevertheless, it is quite inspiring and comforting to see the many young men who are still ready to embrace a life that will certainly turn them into critically endangered species. Yet these same young men are willing to preach the gospel of peace and embrace the culture of dialogue for peaceful coexistence.”
Shortly after Nnadi’s kidnapping and killing, St. Augustine Major Seminary opened its doors to the three seminarians who survived the kidnapping.
Hassan told ACI Africa that the presence of the three former students of Good Shepherd Major Seminary was “a blessing” to the community of St. Augustine Major Seminary.
“Their presence in our seminary was a blessing to our seminarians, a wake-up call to the grim reality that not even the very young are spared by those mindless murderers,” Hassan said.
Back at Good Shepherd, seminarians have remained resilient, enrolling in large numbers even after the 2020 kidnapping and Nnadi’s murder.
Good Shepherd Major Seminary in Kaduna, Nigeria. Credit: Father Samuel Kanta Sakaba, rector of a Good Shepherd Major Seminary in Kaduna
In an interview with ACI Africa, Father Samuel Kanta Sakaba, the rector of Good Shepherd Major Seminary, said that instructors at the Catholic institution, which has a current enrollment of 265 seminarians, make it clear that being a priest in Nigeria presents the seminarians with the danger of being kidnapped or killed.
ACI Africa asked Sakaba whether or not the instructors discuss with the seminarians the risks they face, including that of being kidnapped, or even killed, to which the priest responded: “Yes, as formators, we have the duty to take our seminarians through practical experiences — both academic, spiritual, and physical experiences. We share this reality of persecution with them, but for them to understand, we connect the reality of Christian persecution in Nigeria to the experiences of Jesus. This way, we feel that it would be easier for them to not only have the strength to face what they are facing but to also see meaning in their suffering.”
“Suffering is only meaningful if it is linked with the pain of Jesus,” the priest said. “The prophet Isaiah reminds us that ‘by his wounds, we are healed.’ Jesus also teaches us that unless the grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it will remain a single grain, but that it is only when it falls and dies that it yields a rich harvest. Teachings such as these are the ones that deepen our resilience in the face of persecution.”
Seminarians and their instructors at St. Augustine Major Seminary in Jos, Nigeria. Credit: Father Peter Hassan
Sakaba spoke of the joy of those who look forward to “going back to God in a holy way.”
“Whatever happens, we will all go back to God. How joyful it is to go back to God in a holy way, in a way of sacrifice.” he said. “This holiness is accepting this cross, this pain. Jesus accepted the pain of Calvary, and that led him to his resurrection. Persecution purifies the individual for them to become the finished product for God. I believe that these attacks are God’s project, and no human being can stop God’s work.”
However, the rector clarified that those who enroll at the seminary do not go out seeking danger.
“People here don’t go out putting themselves in situations of risk,” he said. “But when situations such as these happen, the teachings of Jesus and his persecution give us courage to face whatever may come our way.”
Sakaba said that although priestly formation in Nigeria is embracing the “spirituality of martyrdom,” persecution in the West African country presents “a difficult reality.”
“It is difficult to get used to pain. It is difficult to get used to the issues of death … to get familiar with death,” he said. “No one chooses to go into danger just because other people are suffering; it is not part of our nature. But in a situation where you seem not to have an alternative, the grace of God kicks in to strengthen you to face the particular situation.”
Sakaba said that since the 2020 attack at Good Shepherd Major Seminary, the institution has had an air of uncertainty. He said that some of the kidnappers who were arrested in the incident have been released, a situation he said has plunged the major seminary into “fear of the unknown.”
“It hasn’t been easy for us since the release,” Sabaka told ACI Africa. “The community was thrown into confusion because of the unknown. We don’t know what will happen next. We don’t know when they will come next or what they will do to us. We don’t know who will be taken next.”
Seminarians at St. Augustine Major Seminary in Jos, Plateau state, Nigeria, during a Marian procession. Credit: Father Peter Hassan
In the face of that, however, Sabaka said the resilience of the seminary community has been admirable. “God has been supporting, encouraging, and leading us. His grace assisted us to continue to practice our faith,” he said.
The jihadist attacks, which continue unabated in communities surrounding the seminary, do not make the situation easier.
Church at the Good Shepherd Major Seminary in Kaduna, Nigeria. Credit: Father Samuel Kanta Sakaba, rector of Good Shepherd Major Seminary in Kaduna
“Every attack that happens outside our community reminds us of our own 2020 experience. We are shocked, and although we remain deeply wounded, we believe that God has been leading us,” he said.
This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.
To me this exaggerates the circumcision question. They were doing this in my former parish in the late 1990’s so it’s not new; what seems to be happening is there is a purpose to make it theologically definitive.
I raised objections back then and it is not as if I wasn’t heard.
An interesting detail is that today’s exaggeration now involves a Pope just as the original stumbling block – circumcision – held up Peter the first Pope.
The Council of Jerusalem laid out 4 prohibitions and from the account in Acts the matter of circumcision was ultimately sidelined as not bearing on forward with any continuing importance.
The 4 prohibitions apply to everyone not merely to the unconverted. Peter put the stress on grace and hence the Council was a witness to the integrity and efficacy of baptism. The sense is very much that the conclusions reached are permanently enduring and unchangeable.
By this time Peter would have felt the further edification in his own baptism of Cornelius; however, to get to it he had to endure the imposition from Paul and yield to Paul.
In the CNA account above, the idea is given that at the time of the first Apostles, some “tradition” extends from the past. Is that really so? Surely it is our faith that what they were initiating in the Council of Jerusalem is Tradition as it comes forth from the Redemption.
Another insight from my former parish is that there could be a lot of mentalist engagement on all sorts of headings but “going forth” kind of stayed the same, which was generally immobile and well positioned in the comfort zone. What the mentalism achieved was raising mental connectivity and helping the group always behave in concert, quite artificial.
Theory and practice …… diverge? – converge? – both?
“You are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club…”
Francis gave an ambulance to Ukraine, but he continually gives no truck to faithful Catholics.
“And so,” he continued, “removing almost every obligation related to the Law, they communicate the final decisions, made — and they write this — by ‘the Holy Spirit and by us’ (cf. Acts 15:28).”
“This is how the apostles always act,” he underlined. “Together, without being divided, despite having different sensitivities and opinions, they listen to the Spirit.”
Listening to the Spirit of God leads one to follow His Law. His Law includes the Ten Commandments. Love of God is where the Spirit of God dwells. One does not love God if one does not follow all the words of command which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit speak.
Where the ‘spirit’ speaks differently from the eternal words of the Father and the Son, that ‘spirit’ is UNholy and is not from God. Logic and Reason vs. Francis.
Our God gave us Himself in the Incarnation and in His Spirit. Where the Spirit is, the Son is also. When the Son of God incarnates (appears in the flesh) to confirm Francis’ understanding of the ‘spirit,’ I’ll believe Francis.
Tongues, anyone? When the Holy Spirit anointed and empowered the Church at Pentecost, He proved His Presence with works and words and signs. Francis travels alone with none of the signs (fruits and gifts) of the Holy Spirit. Ergo.
“Everything in the Church must be conformed to the requirements of the proclamation of the Gospel; not to the opinions of the conservatives or the progressives, but to the fact that Jesus reaches people’s lives,” (Pope Francis Feb 22).
Yes. However, Jesus said to Peter and the other Apostles, ‘Teach them all that I have commanded you. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. Christ Our Lord never said, ‘Forgive whether or not they repent of their sins’, as you did to Spanish seminarians regarding confession of sins, the sacrament of penance. Christ Jesus never said adultery wasn’t adultery as you did because of mitigating circumstances in Amoris Laetitia. You omitted grace in that section! The whole purpose of the crucifixion and resurrection, of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the faithful. Our Lord never said about homosexuality, ‘God made you as you are, he loves you.
Today is the feast day of the Chair of Peter, on which you sit, instituted by Christ to defend the truth in the Apostolic witness of the Church. All the Apostles condemned homosexual acts, although you appoint homosexual advocates to key positions in the governance of the Church, continue to promote men to high office who believe Church teaching on homosexual behavior, in effect the scriptures themselves need to be revised.
As such it is you who excludes us, those who cannot surrender and repudiate the faith handed down to us from the Apostles. You call us dangerous, ‘backwardists’, persons closed to compassion. You expect us to leave the Catholic Church and join the equivalent of an enlightened men’s social club. That we resist. We remain true to the Chair of Peter, its long history of loyalty to Christ evident in its ample formal doctrinal documentation, not to the opinions of its occupant.
To me this exaggerates the circumcision question. They were doing this in my former parish in the late 1990’s so it’s not new; what seems to be happening is there is a purpose to make it theologically definitive.
I raised objections back then and it is not as if I wasn’t heard.
An interesting detail is that today’s exaggeration now involves a Pope just as the original stumbling block – circumcision – held up Peter the first Pope.
The Council of Jerusalem laid out 4 prohibitions and from the account in Acts the matter of circumcision was ultimately sidelined as not bearing on forward with any continuing importance.
The 4 prohibitions apply to everyone not merely to the unconverted. Peter put the stress on grace and hence the Council was a witness to the integrity and efficacy of baptism. The sense is very much that the conclusions reached are permanently enduring and unchangeable.
By this time Peter would have felt the further edification in his own baptism of Cornelius; however, to get to it he had to endure the imposition from Paul and yield to Paul.
In the CNA account above, the idea is given that at the time of the first Apostles, some “tradition” extends from the past. Is that really so? Surely it is our faith that what they were initiating in the Council of Jerusalem is Tradition as it comes forth from the Redemption.
Another insight from my former parish is that there could be a lot of mentalist engagement on all sorts of headings but “going forth” kind of stayed the same, which was generally immobile and well positioned in the comfort zone. What the mentalism achieved was raising mental connectivity and helping the group always behave in concert, quite artificial.
Theory and practice …… diverge? – converge? – both?
“You are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club…”
Francis gave an ambulance to Ukraine, but he continually gives no truck to faithful Catholics.
Where’s the Holy Spirit in that?
“The Spirit makes us go out,…. to go on mission to discover who we are,” Francis said.
No, the spirit makes us go INto God. We go on mission [out to the periphery] to share with others the God in whom we are and in whom others may be.
Will someone mail him a catechism?
“And so,” he continued, “removing almost every obligation related to the Law, they communicate the final decisions, made — and they write this — by ‘the Holy Spirit and by us’ (cf. Acts 15:28).”
“This is how the apostles always act,” he underlined. “Together, without being divided, despite having different sensitivities and opinions, they listen to the Spirit.”
Listening to the Spirit of God leads one to follow His Law. His Law includes the Ten Commandments. Love of God is where the Spirit of God dwells. One does not love God if one does not follow all the words of command which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit speak.
Where the ‘spirit’ speaks differently from the eternal words of the Father and the Son, that ‘spirit’ is UNholy and is not from God. Logic and Reason vs. Francis.
Our God gave us Himself in the Incarnation and in His Spirit. Where the Spirit is, the Son is also. When the Son of God incarnates (appears in the flesh) to confirm Francis’ understanding of the ‘spirit,’ I’ll believe Francis.
Tongues, anyone? When the Holy Spirit anointed and empowered the Church at Pentecost, He proved His Presence with works and words and signs. Francis travels alone with none of the signs (fruits and gifts) of the Holy Spirit. Ergo.
Could he be urged to step aside?
We read: “In fact, he [the Spirit] is not only the light of hearts; he is the light that orients the Church: he brings clarity…”
Clarity. Indeed.
“Everything in the Church must be conformed to the requirements of the proclamation of the Gospel; not to the opinions of the conservatives or the progressives, but to the fact that Jesus reaches people’s lives,” (Pope Francis Feb 22).
Yes. However, Jesus said to Peter and the other Apostles, ‘Teach them all that I have commanded you. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. Christ Our Lord never said, ‘Forgive whether or not they repent of their sins’, as you did to Spanish seminarians regarding confession of sins, the sacrament of penance. Christ Jesus never said adultery wasn’t adultery as you did because of mitigating circumstances in Amoris Laetitia. You omitted grace in that section! The whole purpose of the crucifixion and resurrection, of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the faithful. Our Lord never said about homosexuality, ‘God made you as you are, he loves you.
Today is the feast day of the Chair of Peter, on which you sit, instituted by Christ to defend the truth in the Apostolic witness of the Church. All the Apostles condemned homosexual acts, although you appoint homosexual advocates to key positions in the governance of the Church, continue to promote men to high office who believe Church teaching on homosexual behavior, in effect the scriptures themselves need to be revised.
As such it is you who excludes us, those who cannot surrender and repudiate the faith handed down to us from the Apostles. You call us dangerous, ‘backwardists’, persons closed to compassion. You expect us to leave the Catholic Church and join the equivalent of an enlightened men’s social club. That we resist. We remain true to the Chair of Peter, its long history of loyalty to Christ evident in its ample formal doctrinal documentation, not to the opinions of its occupant.
Truth and courage to say and do what is right. We bless those who lead by godly example. Thanks be to God for Christ inspired leadership.
Gospel – Good News of healing and empowerment.