As reported in the Vatican’s La Stampa, Madonna has made an overture to Pope Francis.  Am I the only one who finds this chilling?

“God bless Pope Francis. We’ve got to meet. A plate of pasta, a bottle of good wine. Do I have a chance?” This is what world-famous American pop star Madonna had to say in her interview with journalist Luca Dondoni for Italian radio station RTL 102.5, just as her new album is released.

Answering a question about the relationship the singer has with religion (some of the songs in her new album have strong religious connotations), Madonna said: “They are a bit to do with my relationship with God  and/or sexuality or playing with the idea of God and religion or sexuality; these are all themes that are present in my songs – as you know. It’s also the reason I have been excommunicated by the Catholic Church not once, not twice but three times… I don’t know…do you think the Pope would invite me?”

Sex, religion, religion, sex, a plate of pasta….I have these themes.

Do professional anti-Catholics like Madonna, so accomplished at driving the world into sin and contempt for God, honor Pope Francis because of his personality, or does it have something to do with what he seems to do to/for the Church?  Will Madonna start loving Catholicism now, or is she only reveling in it’s demise?

When the interviewer remarked: “I think that if you and this Pope meet, he’ll give you a hug,” the queen of pop replied: “fantastic, introduce me to him”.

You don’t have to say too much before you get an order.

 

During Holy Week Pope Francis will once again demonstrate to the world’s priests and bishops how not to follow the rules of Catholic Mass.

Catholic Herald Reports:

Pope Francis will visit a prison in Rome to wash the feet of inmates of Maundy Thursday, the Vatican has announced.

The Pope will visit Rebibbia prison on April where he will meet inmates, and follow Jesus in washing their feet.

FOX News adds:

The Vatican said Wednesday that inmates from the Rebibbia prison and a nearby women’s facility will participate in the Holy Thursday service, which is meant to show Francis’ willingness to serve others as Jesus did.

Francis’ decision in 2013 to wash the feet of women and Muslim inmates at a juvenile detention center helped define his rule-breaking papacy just two weeks after his election. It riled traditionalist Catholics, who pointed to the Vatican’s own regulations that the ritual be performed only on men since Jesus’ 12 apostles were men.

Is it a fitting honor to Holy Thursday to compare Jesus and his Apostles on the night before he died to an assortment of male and female prisoners of various religions?  The Pope seems to feel he’s acting like St. Francis, but if St. Francis were Pope he wouldn’t have done such things. Washing the feet of women prisoners is good to do, perhaps for a non-celibate man, but it’s not Mass yet. Can’t Pope Francis do that another time?

At 5.30 PM that evening, the Holy Father will celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at the prison, carrying out the act for which he has become famous.

Infamous.

Last year on Maundy Thursday Francis washed the feet of elderly and infirm people. The year before he washed the feet of 12 young people, including Muslims and young women, at a juvenile prison.

I remember.  They looked as bewildered as one might expect. I wonder if many of these people ever feel like props?

Years ago I had a friend who would steal things from the common area of her school dormitory.  When I asked her about it she just complained about the strict college rules, but I knew she was just acting like a thief.

It’s one thing to use authority to remove strict rules in the name of freedom, respect.  It’s another to openly break good, necessary rules and deprive others of their rights.  In the forward-looking FrancisChurch there are many such ‘rules’ that should be disregarded.

Is this mercy, or is it just thievery?

 

 

Laurence England at “That These Bones You’ve Crushed May Thrill” has a response to the Pope’s frightening denunciation of the Ancient Mass this past weekend.  Pope Francis told the Catholic world we must ‘go forward,’ accept even more advances, and  ‘to go back is wrong.’

Jesus Christ does not simply call us to ‘go forward’, marching on blindly. He ceaselessly calls us back to Him. Repentance means turning around. We can go forward quite happily and unhappily leave Jesus Christ behind. There is no merit in simply going forward, for we could be going forward into the abyss. If I am in mortal sin, simply going ‘forward’ is not going to help me to save my soul. I could be marching merrily into Hell. I have to go back, turn around, preferably to a priest, to confess, to acknowledge my guilt and seek absolution to return to a state of Grace. Simply ‘going forward’ for the sake of going forward is the language of the ideological progressive who refuses to state where we are going forward to, neglecting to tell us for what purpose, for what reason or whether that movement forward has anything at all to do with Salvation.

Numerous statistics have been made available over time, not least by the Latin Mass Society that show a certain trend that does not lend greater credibility to the post-Concilliar Church as a resounding success. Of course, success is not necessarily what the Church is about, but faithfulness to Christ means reflecting on exactly what is going on and whether what we are doing is working for the salvation of souls and sanctification of the people of God. An ideological commitment to going ‘forward’ at any cost, not examining the evidence given by those of goodwill is, frankly, lunacy.

And why, exactly, should Catholics, Popes, Bishops and Cardinals, or priests, have an irrational fear of the past, of the tradition of the Church? Why such fear and loathing of our heritage? Why is commitment to the Novus Ordo so rigid and inflexible that it cannot bring itself to acknowledge any – dare I say it – weaknesses or deficiencies at all in comparison to the glorious Mass of Ages?

Why is it that the spectre of the traditional Latin Mass is one that haunts so many prelates and brings them out in a sweat? What, exactly, is so offensive about the Latin tongue in the liturgy? What is so terrifying about Mass being celebrated Ad Orientem? No reasons are given, just a kind of psychological ‘we mustn’t go there’ response that any psychotherapist could tell you means you have deep-rooted problems with accepting your past, as if the Latin Mass was some kind of horrendous ecclesiastical inflicted trauma visited upon the Church’s children by brutalising, callous parents.

The wholesale rejection of the past is a break with the Faith.