Pope tells woman married to bigamist she can receive Communion? April 23, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in abdication of duty, Basics, disconcerting, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, Papa, scandals, secularism, self-serving, shocking, Society, the return.comments closed
Yikes? I know Fr. Z and others are trying to caution, and rightly so, that this is an unconfirmed story (parts are confirmed, see below), that even if true, this is a private conversation and not a doctrinal statement, and that we don’t know all the details.
All Mostly true, but nonetheless, this story fits a pattern of established behavior and also seems to align with public sentiments expressed by Francis elsewhere, so that discounting it as totally implausible seems a bit rash:
The details:
Pope Francis called an Argentine woman married to a divorced man and reportedly told her that she could receive the sacrament of Communion, according to the woman’s husband, in an apparent contradiction of Catholic law. [It’s not just Catholic Dogma, it’s rather straight from Christ Himself]
Julio Sabetta, from San Lorenzo in the Pope’s home country, said his wife, Jacqueline Sabetta Lisbona, spoke with Francis on Monday.
Jacqueline Sabetta Lisbona wrote to the pontiff in September to ask for clarification on the Communion issue, according to her husband, who said his divorced status had prevented her from receiving the sacrament. [Yes, because since he is still married to his first spouse, she is committing adultery with a married man. Plus, this couple was only ever civilly married]
“She spoke with the Pope, and he said she was absolved of all sins and she could go and get the Holy Communion because she was not doing anything wrong,” Sabetta told Channel 3 Rosario, a CNN affiliate. [Dear Lord, I hope not. What, Confession over the phone now? Was Pope Francis wearing a stole for the call? This part seems unlikely. But keep reading, there is more.]
A Vatican spokesman confirmed the telephone call but would not comment on the conversation’s content.
“It’s between the Pope and the woman,” said the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a consultant for the Vatican press office.
Rosica said that any comments made by the Pope should not be construed as a change in church doctrine. “The magisterium of the church is not defined by personal phone calls.” [This from the same man that lauds a manifest heretic in disgraced, laicized Gregory Baum. We’re making progress? None of this is a denial of the tenor or crux of the call. Rosica may not personally know, or he could, and is simply trying to defuse the matter. But none of the above is even a slight denial, in fact, it leads one to surmise that the conversation did take place and that the general gist of it is not being wildly misconstrued.]
Pope Francis and other top Vatican leaders have said the issue will be discussed at a gathering of bishops from around the world in October. The Pope was not pre-empting that debate, according to Rosica.
“To draw any conclusions about this particular situation, that the Pope may be setting an agenda, is incorrect,” he said. “The Pope is first and foremost an esteemed pastor, and dealing with a human situation is always complex.” [Yes yes, and that’s the selling point of the whole Kasperite movement, isn’t it? That these cases are just too darned complex to be governed by some statement from the Christ or 2000 years of Church practice?]
The most detailed coverage I’ve found is here.
Wow. More than wow………this is enough to make one catatonic and/or apoplectic. Or both at the same time.
A provocative thought from Bones:
Clearly, whatever the truth of the matter, someone is doing this undermining of the Magisterium and the Papacy on purpose. The question remains whether that person is one of the Pope’s enemies, or one of his friends, or the Pope himself.
Maybe. There are some odd bits to this report. The pretended Confession, already noted. And the Argentine divorced and remarried man reported that the Pope insisted on calling himself Father Bergoglio – almost a schizophrenic gesture, if true, as no pope can ever be a private priest again. But the scary part is the pope has plainly shown he has at least some sympathy for Cardinal Kasper’s novel approach on bigamists receiving the Blessed Sacrament, and we know he loves phone calls, so the key claim in this report is not like some bolt out of the blue. There is some possible corroboration in other recent events/statements.
I know some folks are just not going to accept this as remotely valid. Others are going to be certain it is. My advice for both is to pray like mad and gird your loins. If this report is true, which may be a big if, but if, it redounds on us all the more to pray for this pope and the entire Church and world. I have made this upcoming Synod on Marriage and the Family a very big part of my intentions for the Rosary and other prayers, I have been offering a perpetual Novena for the Pope and his sanctification, but I will redouble my efforts in both regards.
I had a funny in here regarding Michael Voris, but I took it out. I was just trying to laugh amidst our trials.
Almost 40% of women who seek abortions are victims of abuse April 23, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, Basics, contraception, Dallas Diocese, disaster, error, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, sadness, scandals, self-serving, sexual depravity, sickness, Society.comments closed
That data according to a post at Jill Stanek’s site. That post also contains data from the UK that says over 1/3 of women there who seek abortions have suffered physical violence from their partner, while Canadian data quoted shows that women who seek abortions are 3 to 4 times more likely to be the victims of domestic abuse than those who do not.
I am bringing this up, not just because it is pertinent information for all pro-lifers and especially sidewalk counselors to keep in their back pocket, but because of a woman my wife and others attempted to counsel outside the abortion mill this past Holy Thursday.
She was a young girl, kind of plain. She was the kind of girl you could tell she didn’t think much of herself. In fact, it was difficult to discern what this girl thought of anything, save for what her boyfriend told her to do.
She did not want to be there. She did not want an abortion. She was very embarrassed. When my wife would try to talk to her, she would repeat, like a mantra……”my boyfriend, my boyfriend, my boyfriend…..” He wanted the abortion. He put her up to this, with promises that everything would be “normal” and good again after she got this abortion. There were some very gentle efforts made to make this girl understand that abortion almost always ends a relationship like this, but she wasn’t hearing that, or anything else. So she’ll be emotionally scarred, her relationship (such as it is) will end, and she’ll have a dead baby to show for it. And her self-esteem will take another huge hit.
How many girls this guy has on a string like this, who knows? We didn’t really get to interact with him, though we saw him, briefly.
Whether he beats her, or ever has, who knows? I don’t think there were any visible signs. A woman doesn’t have to be a punching bag to be utterly dominated by a man. It seems like such should be rare today, but it isn’t. Sometimes those guys are obviously belligerent, even in public. Sometimes they’re not. It’s really hard to tell.
I think that was part of the reason I felt such powerful demonic oppression outside the mill this last week. For some reason, there were more boyfriends/significant others escorting their women to the mills this time, and they were all, to a man (save for one) just as hostile as all get out. I got the strong impression a couple of times the guys were there to make sure the job got done. I overheard one man complain something about the girl “flaking out” to his buddy (abortion as the new male bonding experience), and that he was there to make sure she went through with it this time.
Regardless of whether there is actual physical violence, that a lot of these women are coerced is a known fact. Since Routh St. is now so busy, women are having to park a couple blocks away to walk in, so you as a counselor get to see them up close and personal for way more time than usual. Such strange faces, brazen mixed with sullen with great sadness and a shade of panic thrown in.
Baaah, it’s all so sordid and evil. I’m glad my mom got to see it all, that was her first time at a mill. She said she’s going to try to move the pro-life ball forward at her Anglican church as a result of her experience. I hope so. That’s going to be a delicate task, there are almost certainly some pretty strong pro-aborts at her church.
Corpus Christi Watershed keeps churning out the gold April 23, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Christendom, fun, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Latin Mass, Liturgy, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
The good folks at Corpus Christi Watershed have turned out a number of remarkable products of late. Their Sunday Missal for the TLM is beautiful, if a bit heavy. Rorate noted that shortly before Easter, Corpus Christi Watershed scanned in the entirety of two children’s books for the Mass, one by Msgr. Ronald Knox and one by Fr.Demetrius Manousos.
Since then, Corpus Christi Watershed has also released a full .pdf scan of the Fulton J. Sheen 1961 Missal. This contains a number of interesting features, including a descriptions of the priest’s dressing, numerous prayers for before and after Mass, and the complete text of prayers and responses for certain feasts all in line with each other, so you don’t have to flip back and forth in the book. The format of this Missal is not exactly to my taste, but it is very usable and it is wonderful to resurrect, so to speak, these liturgical treasures from the pre-conciliar period.
Finally – and this one may not be to the interest of many readers, but it is significant nonetheless – Corpus Christi Watershed has produced a companion book for their TLM Sunday Missal for the Ordinary Form. This book is also in Latin and English side by side, and incorporates many more traditional hymns and Gregorian Chant settings for the Novus Ordo Mass. It also contains similar beautiful artwork as is found in their TLM Missal.
I think this last effort is a noble one, but I do wonder how much demand there will be for such a reverent, traditional Missal in the Novus Ordo setting. There are actually far fewer Novus Ordo Latin Masses in this country and around the world than there are TLMs. But there are quite a few people who attend regular Novus Ordo’s who might appreciate a Latin-English Missal as well as the impressive artwork. So maybe it will catch on, though I tend to agree with Rorate, Dom Mark Kirby, and many others that the Reform of the Reform will only be realized through mass, ahem, re-adoption of the TLM.
It will be interesting to see if this Novus Ordo Missal gets much traction. That could be revealing, one way or another, since the liturgical winds over the past year seem to be blowing in a very different direction from the period 2005-2013.
Here is a video about this new Missal:
Why are the Orthodox so hard to convert? April 23, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, Christendom, disaster, Ecumenism, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, Latin Mass, Liturgy, sadness, scandals, secularism.comments closed
Alright, I’m just ripping stuff off from the CSsR’s like crazy (this from their Youtube channel), but here’s a video that’s been around for a while, but I think it still makes an excellent point:
Uff da……..pseudo women deacons! My stomach turned when I saw that.
Several things:
- No, this is not a fair comparison. It’s comparing the highest of high Masses in the Orthodox Rite to one of the lowest of low Novus Ordos you can find. A better comparison would be to what goes on at St. Peter’s, where the differences would not be so enormous.
- Not all Orthodox Masses are so glorious. Modernism and habits similar to low-church trends in the Church have crept into many Orthodox Masses.
- Even though the Orthodox Rite is often glorious and very moving, attendance rates in most countries – including the US – are as low as the worst Catholic countries like France and The Netherlands
- Still, having such glorious Masses anywhere, at anytime, can cover a multitude of sins. Perhaps the vast liturgical divide between top-end or even average Orthodox practice and average Catholic practice plays a role in the difficulty in converting Orthodox
- a Solemn High Mass according to the 1962 Missal is more than an equivalent to its Orthodox counterpart, if more austere in certain respects:
A chilling report on persecution in Pakistan April 23, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, Christendom, disaster, Ecumenism, General Catholic, Holy suffering, horror, persecution, sadness, shocking, sickness, Society.comments closed
Do I even have to say who is being persecuted, and who is doing the persecuting? I thought not.
A highly disconcerting report on the plight of Christians in Pakistan, where a drunken charge of “blasphemy” against the false prophet Mohammad can lead to a mass pogrom against Christians with burning, looting, and other associated acts of violence. Told by a Pakistani Catholic who is from nearby and saw the after-effects of this violence:
Growing up as a member of the Christian minority in Pakistan, I have often observed how the laws provide 
inadequate protection for our community, and those inadequacies have dramatically increased. Another incident of vandalism and madness against Christians over allegations of blasphemy has resulted in the burning of houses and more injured innocents. The list of persecutions against minorities in Pakistan is endless and horrible, as I have often witnessed first hand.
One such ruthless incident happened in Joseph Colony, a Christian enclave southwest of Lahore, where a mob set fire to hundreds of homes and two churches on March 9 last year after rumors spread that a young Christian had insulted the Prophet Mohammed. Police officer Multan Khan said the incident started on a Friday when a young Muslim man accused Sawan Masih of committing blasphemy.
Sawan was booked under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, though it appeared that he had been falsely accused. Police were forced to register a case to placate the mob, a local police official said at the time.
Shortly after his arrest and detention in an undisclosed location, a mob of almost 3,000 people quickly descended on Joseph Colony – led by a barber named Shafiq Ahmed (a close friend of Sawan affectionately known as Bubby) – in search of the alleged blasphemer.
The mob pelted Sawan’s home with rocks before setting it on fire, and then they attacked other homes. Residents, including numerous women and children, abandoned their homes and possessions and fled for their lives. By the time the mob finished its ruthless work, two churches and nearly 200 homes were reduced to ashes.
After hearing about the attack, I made my way with several friends to Joseph Colony near my home. When we entered the day after the attack, I was shocked to see the level of devastation. The sorrow and deprivation was so prominent in that atmosphere that anyone’s heart would have broken to pieces. My eyes filled with tears as I walked through the destruction.
Ashes clung to my clothing. Women, young girls and children sat in the streets mourning their loss – they lost everything from their life savings and homes to all of their everyday utensils, vehicles, everything.
Also among the ruins lay the dreams of parents for their young daughters as looters made off with dowries of jewelry and money saved over many years.
Consumed with rage over alleged disrespect for the Prophet Muhammad, the mob desecrated the sanctity of two Christian churches, burned Bibles and tore up religious books.
————End quote————
There is much more at the link. The Pakistani author of the report continues to hold out hope that the government there will finally start to protect the interests and lives of its Christian minority, but I would not hold my breath over that. Pakistan is 95% muslim and only 1.6% Christian, so the government has typically turned a blind eye to the brutal persecution of such a small minority. Hindus tend to fare better in Pakistan, because they have a powerful advocate just to the east that has twice handily defeated Pakistan in armed conflict and is even better equipped to do so today. The Indian military is a large, well trained, fairly well equipped, and exceedingly disciplined force. Our guys have a lot of respect for them. The Pakistanis, not so much.
As hard as it must be to take – and I have no idea, I can only imagine – this is truly a situation where blessed are the persecuted. If Pakistani Catholics remain faithful and do not resort to violence themselves, enormous fruit will, I pray, result from this persecution. I pray for the hardiness in faith of these poor suffering Christians. May God have mercy on them and support them in all their trials.
The last 100 or so years have seen more blood shed of Christians, for their faith, than any time in modern history, certainly, and possibly any time ever. The past few years have been as bad as any time since WWII for Christians (the Nazis killed far more Christians than they did Jews, both in targeted campaigns, and incidentally). There are persecutions going on all over the world, from pagan sexularist governments in places like Canada to the eternal foe of Christians in islam. May God be merciful and respond to this great flood of martyr’s blood to restore His Church and convert millions of souls around the world!
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