On Corpus Christi Pope Francis Disturbs

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Not repentance, Confession, and Jesus all rolled into one

Repentance, Confession, and Jesus all rolled into one?

In honor of Corpus Christi, Pope Francis spoke about the Holy Eucharist.  As usual he said some uplifting things but, true to form, some of the things he said were unsettling, some were disturbing, and some were jarring.

We are accustomed to being wary now.  We can’t just assume Pope Francis is presenting us with Catholicism when he speaks, can we?

The Eucharist is the seal of God’s covenant, uniting Christians and giving them the strength to bring God’s love to others, even when faith carries a high price, Pope Francis has said.

The Eucharist does give us strength to love others, even when faith carries a high price, but is it really a ‘seal of God’s covenant?’  I thought it was God Himself.

Does Communion unite Christians with each other, or does receiving Him unite us all with Christ?

Celebrating the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ with an evening Mass outside Rome’s Basilica of St John Lateran, Pope Francis said the church and its members will never cease being in awe of the Eucharist.

Is this not something we can take as a given, since God is awesome?

Pope Francis asked the faithful as they walked through the city with the Eucharist to remember “our many brothers and sisters who do not have the freedom to express their faith in the Lord Jesus”.

This is true.  The freedom to process through the streets is a great and necessary thing.  I wish more of us felt free and willing to do so.

“Let us be united with them; let us sing with them, praise with them, adore with them,” he said. “And, in our hearts, let us venerate those brothers and sisters who were asked to sacrifice their lives out of fidelity to Christ. May their blood, united to the Lord’s, be a pledge of peace and reconciliation for the whole world.”

The Pope has made it clear before that by ‘martyrs’ he means anyone killed for professing Christ, not just Catholics.  The vast majority of those murdered for Christianity lately are not Roman Catholics.  Is their blood united to the Lord’s?  How much heresy and sin would a murdered ‘christian’ have to embrace before there was some disunity?

How can the deaths of Christians at the hands of Muslims be “pledges of peace and reconciliation for the whole world?”  A death is not a pledge.  Are peace and reconciliation God’s goals in a world full of sin and evil?  Perhaps first He wants faith and obedience.

I would imagine those killed might hope someone would pledge to defeat ISIS through military campaigns, because they know first-hand that it would bring peace and safety for others like themselves.  Most people brave and faithful enough to die for the name of Christ also know what peace really entails.

The Eucharist, he said, “sanctifies us, purifies us and unites us in a marvellous communion with God. In that way we learn that the Eucharist is not a prize for the good, but strength for the weak; for sinners it is pardon; it is the viaticum that helps us move forward, to walk.”

Does the Eucharist purify us?  What if we aren’t repentant?  What if we haven’t made a good Confession?  What good Catholic would consider the Eucharist his ‘prize’ anyway?  Why does the Pope employ strawmen?

Is the Eucharist pardon for the sinner?  Are the Last Rites administered without Confession?  Holy Communion is certainly a manifestation of God’s Mercy since He comes to us and heals us, giving us strength.  But it’s dangerous, particularly now, to give the impression that Communion is a time for forgiveness of sins.  That is what happens for the repentant sinner during Confession. Then, purified through the mercy of God and his Church, the good person can be strengthened and healed by union with Our Lord Himself.

Union with God entails a certain effort on our part, because God is holy.

 

 

 

 

Leftist Euro Bishops Hold Their Own Synod. First Agenda Item: Love

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cantina

State-Funded Catholics

At the Register Edward Pentin has the somewhat frightening report of a progressive ‘shadow synod’ being driven from Germany.

A one-day study meeting — open only to a select group of individuals — took place at the Pontifical Gregorian University on Monday with the aim of urging “pastoral innovations” at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family in October.

Around 50 participants, including bishops, theologians and media representatives, took part in the gathering, at the invitation of the presidents of the bishops’ conferences of Germany, Switzerland and France — Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Markus Büchel and Archbishop Georges Pontier.

One of the key topics discussed at the closed-door meeting was how the Church could better welcome those in stable same-sex unions, and reportedly “no one” opposed such unions being recognized as valid by the Church.

Participants also spoke of the need to “develop” the Church’s teaching on human sexuality and called not for a theology of the body, as famously taught by St. John Paul II, but the development of a “theology of love.”

It’s amazing how little these types of clerics actually know about love, isn’t it?  Is love sex? Is love gay sex?

I guess when you spend most of your adult life pleasing false superiors, then later on simply shuttling from one catered event to another, handled by servants and office help; your judgment can get skewed.  In Germany if you rise to cardinal, in effect you become a permanent bureaucrat at the top of a state-funded empire with few hard  demands upon your leadership or expenses.  You also have tremendous leverage.

One Swiss priest discussed the “importance of the human sex drive,” while another participant, talking about holy Communion for remarried divorcees, asked: “How can we deny it, as though it were a punishment for the people who have failed and found a new partner with whom to start a new life?”

Marco Ansaldo, a reporter for the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, who was present at the meeting, said the words seemed “revolutionary, uttered by clergymen.”

French Biblicist and Ratzinger Prize-winner Anne-Marie Pelletier praised the dialogue that took place between theologians and bishops as a “real sign of the times.” According to La Stampa, another Italian daily newspaper, Pelletier said the Church needs to enter into “a dynamic of mutual listening,” in which the magisterium continues to guide consciences, but she believes it can only effectively do so if it “echoes the words of the baptized.”

The meeting took the “risk of the new, in fidelity with Christ,” she claimed. The article also quoted a participant as saying the synod would be a “failure” if it simply continued to affirm what the Church has always taught.

Pentin’s revealing piece full of greasy slogans and Leftist organs continues, but it’s safe to say this isn’t the kind of thing Mass-going faithful Catholics subsidize.  Dirty churchmen such as these can only be funded with dirty money.  Why must we all now be plagued with their abuse?