Who He is to Judge

I have chronicled in these pages evidence of Pope Francis' traditional views on marriage and family, which give the lie to heterodox claims that he is their man. The latest: Pope Francis warned the bishops of Puerto Rico on Monday,

Dear brothers in the Episcopate:

I rejoice in being able to greet you on the occasion of the Ad Limina Apostolorum pilgrimage visit.

It is my desire that (this visit) be a fruitful experience of communion for each one of you and for Church on its pilgrim journey in Puerto Rico.

I thank His Excellency Roberto Octavio González Nieves, Archbishop of San Juan and President of the Bishops Conference for the words he addressed to me in the name of all of you.

In that beautiful Caribbean archipelago was founded one of the first three dioceses that were established on the American continent. Since then, the Church’s history has been interwoven with the faithfulness and tenacity of its pastors, religious, missionaries and lay people that, responding to the times and places, knew how to communicate the joy of announcing Christ the Savior, in whose name so many initiatives for the common good were created in the liturgical, social and educational fields, that have profoundly marked the public and private life of the Puerto Rican people.

You, as heralds of the Gospel and guardians of the hope of your people, are called to continue writing that work of God in his local Churches, enlivened by a spirit of ecclesial communion, endeavoring to make the faith grow and the light of truth also shine in our days.

Mutual confidence and sincere communication among yourselves will permit the clergy and the faithful to see the authentic unity desired by Christ. Moreover, faced with the magnitude and disproportion of problems, the bishop needs to have recourse not only to prayer but also the friendship and brotherly assistance of their brothers in the episcopate. Do not waste energy in divisions and confrontations, but instead building and collaborating. You already know that “the more intense communion is, the more mission is fostered.” (Pastores gregis, 22)

Know how to keep your distance from all political or ideological trends that would make you lose time and the true ardor for the Kingdom of God. The Church, by reason of her mission, is not tied to any political system in order to always be able to be “a sign and a safeguard of the transcendent character of the human person.” (Gaudium et spec 76)

The bishop is a model for his priests and he encourages them to always seek spiritual renewal and to rediscover the joy of pastoring his flock within the great family of the Church. I ask (you to have) a welcoming attitude towards them, that they feel listened to and guided so they can grow in communion, holiness, wisdom, and bring to everyone the mysteries of salvation.

Looking toward the upcoming Jubilee of Mercy, recall first of all to yourselves and then to (your) priests, the service of being faithful servants of God’s forgiveness, above all in the sacrament of Reconciliation, that allows (the penitent) to experience in the flesh the love of God and to offer the penitent the source of true interior peace. (cf. Misericordiae vultus, 17)

To have good pastors it is necessary to do the work of fostering vocations, so as to have an adequate number of vocations and especially in the seminaries, you should offer a proper formation to the candidates. The seminary is the plot of land that calls for the most careful attention of Bishop Shepherd.

Providing the faithful with the sacramental life and offering them an appropriate continual formation makes it possible for them too to fulfill their own mission. The Puerto Rican faithful, and in particular the associations, the movements and the educational institutions are called to generously collaborate so that the Good News may be announced in all environments, including those most hostile and distanced from the Church.

It is my heartfelt desire that, inspired by the example of distinguished laymen like Blessed Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Santiago, model of dedication and apostolic service, or the venerable teacher Rafael Cordero y Molina, you continue advancing on the path of a joyful observance of the Gospel, going deeper into the Church’s Social Teaching, and participating lucidly and serenely in the public debates that concern the society that you live in.

Among the initiatives necessary to strengthen more and more is family pastoral ministry, in the face of the serious social problems that afflict it: the difficult economic situation, emigration, domestic violence, unemployment, drug trafficking, corruption. These are realities that are cause for concern.

Allow me to draw your attention to the value and beauty of marriage. The complementarity of man and woman, the vertex of the divine creation, is being questioned by gender ideology, in the name of a freer and more just society. The difference between man and woman is not meant to stand in opposition, or to subordinate, but is for the sake of communion and generation, always “in the image and likeness of God.”

Without mutual self-giving, the two cannot even understand the depth of what it means to be man and woman. (General Audience April 15, 2015) The sacrament of marriage is a sign of the love of God for humanity and Christ’s self-giving to his Spouse, the Church. Take care of this treasure, one of the “most important of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples.” (Aparecida, 433)

Finally, among the greatest challenges for the apostolic work, is the implementation of the Joint Pastoral Plan in the dioceses, by means of programs drawn up to proclaim Christ and to respond to the concerns of society and of the People of God today, in which the missionary dimension must always be present even to the farthest existential peripheries.

I assure you of my prayers for you as well as for the priests, consecrated religious and for all the lay faithful of that beloved land of Puerto Rico. Please give everyone the pope’s greetings. Watch over with zeal and patience that portion of the Lord’s vineyard that has been entrusted you, and go forward together. I entrust the work of evangelization in Puerto Rico to the Most Holy Virgin Mary, asking you to not forget to pray for me, I impart with affection the Apostolic Blessing.

Comments

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

Novus Motus Liturgicus

From The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God: In 1959, Pope John XXIII saw a true need for liturgical renewal within the Roman Rite in accordance with the metaphorical principle of organic development, the aim of the Liturgical Movement endorsed by Pope St. Pius X. In authentic organic development, the Church listens to what liturgical scholars deem necessary for the gradual improvement of liturgical tradition, and evaluate the need for such development, always with a careful eye on the preservation of the received liturgical tradition handed down from century to century. In this way, continuity of belief and liturgical practice is ensured. As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote at the time, the principle of organic development ensures that in the Mass, “only respect for the Liturgy’s fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture , but receive as a gift. Organic de...

Libido Redux: Gabriele Kuby

Gabriele Kuby’s The Global Sexual Revolution has been translated into English and published by Angelico Press. In it, Kuby persuasively argues that the freedom offered by the sexual revolutionaries is another and highly effective means of enslavement. Here are some highlights: · The Marquis de Sade, who lived and wrote violent pornography from his cell in the Bastille as the Ancien Régime fell and the French Revolution began. · Thomas Malthus, Margaret Sanger, Marx & Engels, Wilhelm Reich , Freud & Jung, behaviorist John Watson, Edward Bernays, Bernard Berelson, child abuser Alfred Kinsey, sex-change giant John Money ,--a gallery of evil men whose own immorality drove them to emasculate man’s morality. · The Yogyakarta Principles, a manifesto produced by a cabal of leftist homosexuals and “human rights” activists that purp...

Et Lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt

What Is the Source of This Darkness of Our Times? |Blogs | NCRegister.com : What prompted me to write a book about the current spiritual war ongoing in the world in which we live? Stumbling upon this quote by the Pope of the council, Pope Paul VI : We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the devil. We thought that after the Council a day of sunshine would have dawned for the history of the Church. What dawned instead was a day of clouds and storms, of darkness, of searching and uncertainties . I am an avid reader of Msgr. Charles Pope, who has written recently on this our adversary in ...

A Child's Right

O ver the years since the accession of Jose Bergoglio to the Chair of Peter, in perusing the Huffington Post blog, the National Catholic Reporter website and other “progressive” social media, one gets the impression that these folks believe Francis (“Who Am I to Judge?”) will revolutionize Catholic teaching on marriage. On these pages I have frequently noted many of Francis’ statements affirming traditional-Biblical-natural marriage, as well as his extremely strong remarks back in Argentina, where he declared same-sex “marriage” a diabolical effort of “the Father of Lies” to “destroy God’s plan … and deceive the children of God.” He said then—only four years ago—that gay “marriage” discriminates against children “in advance,” depriving them of “their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God.” At stake, said Cardinal Bergoglio, was “the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts” and the very survival of the human family, with Satan at work. I co...

Dancin' With Mr. D: Non-Binary?

A n LGBT activist has admitted that the battle over men accessing women’s bathrooms and vice versa has little do with transgenderism, and everything to do with re-working society and getting rid of the heterobinary structure—eliminating distinctions between “male” and “female” altogether. Male and female He made them. Riki Wilchins, who has undergone “sex change” surgery and is a far-left social change activist, has written that p eople should be able to enter whatever bathroom “fits their gender identity,” but the fact that we even have “male” and “female” bathrooms reflects something about society that needs to change. He added that there are many “genderqueer” or “non-binary” people, pointing to a student who recently “came out” to President Obama as “non-binary” at a London townhall as an example. “Non-binary” people don’t identify as male or female and they often want to be referred to as “they” or “hir” or “zer.” So the fact that there...

Why did God Make You?

Often we get caught up in the things of this world to the extent that, as Catholics, we forget why God made us, and what our existence means, really. So, find 45 minutes, and enjoy!

Read My First Chapter for Free!

St. Michael the Archangel Kindle allows one to share quotes from books on Facebook. Here is an entire chapter...

Mic’d Up—Dancing with the Devil

Oh- seems someone picked up on my blog theme (taken from a Stones' song) Dancin' With Mr. D! Mic’d Up—Dancing with the Devil A comment on this: TomH Peter • 34 minutes ago According to your logic ( "Satan's great weapon is that he doesn't exis t") he would avoid all corporeal "contact"with the human race, i.e., possession, demonic influences, etc. It's true that he does not want us to know he exists, And not all haunted houses are demonically caused, but just because Satan has a superior intelligence does not mean that he is not also stupid. He is ruled by the passion of "pure" hatred and can't resist getting "involved" with God's, after the angels, highest creation, mankind. His superior spiritual intelligence, like his spiritual power, have been curtailed by Almighty God. You could say he can't resist the temptation. However, his intelligence is still vastly superior to ours except for the s...

Who is Behind the Church That Never was?

At the close of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI remarked that Christianity, the religion of God-Incarnate, had encountered the religion of man-made God. He was of the opinion that much of the Council was given over to demonstrating the compatibility of Enlightenment belief with Catholicism. 4 Several years hence, on June 29, 1972, Paul delivered another assessment of the state of the Roman Catholic Church since the close of Vatican II. As Cardinal Silvio Oddi recalled it (in an article first published on March 17, 1990, in Il Sabato magazine in Rome) the Holy Father told a congregation: We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his n...

Search This Blog