THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

The Church is beautiful because it is diverse?
Consider some newsbits from what is supposed to be ‘the Catholic Church’ –
where it is now considered right for anyone to do
as his ‘conscience’ tells him in matters great and small

October 12, 2017


Salesians hold conference on sado-masochism
A Salesian institute in Italy is organizing a conference on ‘sado-maso’ (you heard it right, ‘sado-maso’, not San Tomasso). They explain that“scientific interest in the subject [sado-masochism] responds to the formative needs of professionals and to the need for serious and profound anthropological reflection on it”.

Mass less important than catechesis
The archbishop of an important Italian diocese, making a pastoral visit to one of his parishes, left them some instructions, among which the following stands out: “[You must] promote decisively a return to personaland community knowledge of the Word of God as a form of evangelization. Where necessary, you can even do away with the Holy Mass in order to make way for catechesis and listening to the Word”.

Hindu rite at ‘ordination’
In France, a bishop ordained an Indian priest performing Hindu rites, and did so with the traditional Hindu red spot on his forehead.

Mixed[-up] commission
A mixed Catholic-Lutheran commission at the Vatican is seeking to arrive at a common sacramental interpretation of the Eucharist”, and in a document has stated this: “Martin Luther’s most profound concerns continues to challenge whoever wants to follow the Lord more closely and more consistently, because Luther sought nothing but to take the Gospel in hand and live it with the highest possible intensity and authenticity.” [DIM=8pt][So now, Luther is being likened to St. Francis!] And the cardinal in charge of the Vatican dicastery on promoting Christian unity (i.e., ecumenism) has said: “In commemorating the Reformation, we have highlighted above all what we [Catholics and Lutherans] have in common. I myself have proposed that after the Joint Declaration on Justification [in 1992], we must reach a new joint declaration on the Church, the Eucharist and the priesthood”. [Stunningly, Cardinal Koch in this pontificate has turned into the most passionate advocate of Bergoglian ecumenism, which aims to protestantize the Church as far as it can by seeking the lowest common denominator with protestants!]

Wreckovation
For over three decades, the glorious John Paul II Institute for studies on Matrimony and the Family, established at the Lateran University at the wish of the sainted pope after his Synod on the Family in 1980, has contributed greatly to knowledge and dissemination of the Catholic teachings on these subjects. The first president of the institute was moral theologian Mons. Carlo Caffarra who served from 1980 to 1995 when he was named Archbishop of Ferrara. Now, that institute has been abolished and replaced by Pope Francis’s Pontifical Theological Institute for the Sciences of Matrimony and the Family.

What passes for church music these days/1
We have been told about the priest who while performing a marriage rite sang songs and danced. Now we learn that in the church of San Corrado in Piacenza, the parish priest during a homily sang pop hits from the group Nomadi, with titles like “Dio e morto’ (God is dead) and “Io vagabond”.

What passes for church music these days/2
In the Universidad Iberoamericana of Puebla in Mexico, Mass was celebrated with the music of the British rock band ‘Cold Play’ that was considered to have ‘religious content’. Perhaps thoe responsible for this outrage were not aware that the band’s lead singer, Christ Martin, said about God in an interview: “I am still trying to find out if ‘that’ is a he a or a she. Is he Allah or Jesus or Mohammed or Zeus? Probably Zeus!” [That’s supposed to be the height of ‘cool’!]

Church on the (ramp)way
In the church of San Nicolo in Jesi, a fashion show was held with a rampway, rock music, male and female models. Once upon a time, there were processions…

Strange bedfellows
In Trent [Yes, where the Counter-Reformation Council was held back in the 16th century), a bishop had said that Jesus was a ‘partygoer’ [festaiolo] and ‘often partied with people who today would be thrown out by by bouncers. Well, now they have a parish priest who celebrates ‘ecumenical Masses’ and invites a Protestant pastoress to concelebrate with him, even as now and then, he goes to her church to baptize and concelebrate in services.

Decorum in church? Don't worry about it!
In Lucera, Foggia province the parish priest of Santa Maria delle Grazie has distributed a pamphlet with the following invitations: “Enter all those whose hearts are troubled - even if you are in shorts”; “Enter all who feel the need to come in - even if your shoulders are; and “It is true that a ringing cellphone disturbs and distracts in church,

In gratitude for the ‘gifts’ of the Reformation
On the handout La Domenica, found in all Italian churches on Sundays, there was an article on Oct. 1 entitled “On the road to reconciliation” with a picture of Martin Luther. The article explains that “the two churches [Catholic and Lutheran] express their thanks for the spiritual and theological gifts of the Protestant Reformation”. [This madness has truly gone out of control!]

Just so you are clear about it…
A course of pastoral orientation was held dedicated to the theme «Ripartire dalle periferie. Diluire i colori ec abbattere i muri» (Starting out from the peripheries: Dilute the colors and tear down walls).

For whom the bell tolls
A parish council northern Italy has decided not to toll the bells during funerals. The reason? It is too lugubrious.

An ‘outgoing’ church
In Bologna, after the pope’s lunch with ‘the needy and the detained’ in the Basilica of San Petronio [yes, Virginia, the basilica was turned into a mess hall for the occasion!], two of the invitees walked away afterwards and never returned to their workhouse-residence in Castelfranco Emilia, a sort of alternative to jail.

[Valli had an earlier post about that San Petronio lunch, in which he imagines Don Camillo coming to the church and, at a side altar, engages Jesus in his familiar conversations with the Lord, to express his amazement that a church could be used as a mess hall (as if Bologna did not have a wealth of alternative and more appropriate places to hold that lunch! So much for church decorum!) Don Camillo goes away unhappy and perplexed because he seems to have been conversing with a 'JESUS II' who says the opposite of what he expects the real
Jesus to say.]