'Lupi rapaces'
10 November 2017
The first antiphon which we say or sing tomorrow at Lauds for S Martin of Tours shows his disciples asking him not to desert them because Rapacious Wolves will invade his flock. (I wonder why that antiphon went missing from the [Novus Ordo] Liturgia Horarum.)
Rapacious Wolves are always around. Look at (via a Concordance) the New Testament. Look at (via its index) what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about Scandal and those who cause it. (A lady wolf was involved in the very Foundation of Rome, and the Romans sometimes referred to Professional Ladies as Wolfesses.)
Wolves were around at the very beginning of the Pontificate of our beloved Holy Father Benedict XVI. In the homily at his inauguration, he asked us to pray for him "that I may not flee for fear of the wolves".
I believe St Thomas talks somewhere about Wolves being demons; or tyrants; or heresiarchs.
Is it true that the Patron of the Diocese of St Gallen is a St Lupus, or did my ungoverned sense of fantasy just make that up?
Englishmen will recollect a diverting frivolity
in rebus lupinis (in matters lupine). We once had a politician called Sir Geoffrey Howe; quiet and very unnasty. So much so that his despisers said that being attacked by him was "like being savaged by a dead sheep". Eventually, even he discovered that he could take no more of Mrs Thatcher, and decided to resign. People ... and not least Mrs T ... assumed that his resignation speech would be characteristically anodyne. Not so. The House of Commons became quiet enough for that proverbially cadent pin as he tore savagely into her personality and her politics ... but still in the same mildest tones.
Not long after, he was ennobled, and went, as one does, to Queen Victoria Street to consult the Heralds about a Coat of Arms. In consultation with them he settled upon his design, which was granted. The Crest (the Crest of a Coat of Arms is the bit on top of the helmet which itself rests above the shield) which he received was ...
a Wolf courant imperfectly concealed within a rather tatty sheepskin. I bet you Americans wish you had a House of Commons, a House of Lords, and a College of Heralds.
Wolves are always around; they're nothing new in the life of the Church. Perhaps some keen young Catholic academic would like to write a doctoral dissertation
De Lupitate. She could bring her narrative right down to the present day.
[Why the female pronoun, Fr H?]
I hope her sleep will not be disturbed by the howls.
Marco Tosatti has two new tales that attest to how in the Church today, the most rapacious wolves are to be found among the shepherds...
Sicilian priest incurs 'double excommunication'
for refusing to make a publid declaration
of fidelity to the reigning pope
November 10, 2017
Today don Alessandro Minutella is being excommunicated. The Sicilian priest announced it himself speaking last night on Radio Domina Nostra, a religious broadcaster in Sicily. (The video may be seen here:
For the past several months, the priest, who has been very explicit in his criticisms of some decisions by the pope and the Vatican, was particularly very critical of the ambiguities contained in Amoris laetitis, for which his bishop removed him from his parish and obliged him to silence. A measure he put up with for nine months, but last night, he decided to speak up again. Here is some of what he said:
Following my recourse to the Congregation of the Clergy [he shortens this to Conclero] after writing my bishop n Sept 21, in which I professed each and everyone of the truths of the Catholic faith, including bowing to the will and intellect of the Roman Pontiff, the Prefect informed me that my recourse would be suspended [??? not acted on?] until December 8, but that meanwhile, I must make a public declaration of fidelity to Pope Francis on all the neteworks. I asked myself what would have prompted this singular request. In any case, having already said in my previous letter that I bow to the intellect and will of the Roman Pontiff, I did not think it necessary to comply with the ‘request’.
Where, I asked myself, could this unusual request have originated? In any case, today, I was called to the diocessan curia by my bishop, who, after long months of hiding from me, handed me a letter which says that if I do not carry out a public act of fidelity to the pope, I would be excommunicated with two solemn anathemas…
I found myself almost smiling, thinking that after all, this ‘church’ has already virtually rescinded Luther’s excommunication, and so, I too can hope, can’t I? I reminded the bishop that in my letter to him, which I copy furnished the Conclero, I had reiterated my obedience to the Roman Pontiff.
This is either a case of schizophrenia or a true and proper blackmail. So I ask myself and all of you – Is the Roman Pontiff not Pope Francis? Or is it that, now, the Roman Pontiff is someone other than Pope Francis? Because if they are one and the same, then I do not understand how the bishop should move into the direction of a double excommunication. [What does a double excommunicationmean exactly?] So there must be something else behind all this.
But pay attention because what is at stake here is the good of the Church herself. Because if the distinction is merely nominal between the Roman Pontiff and Pope Francis, I did make my statement of obeisance in writing. But now they will not listen to me, so what was the purpose for my nine months of obedience? But I will not accommodate them with a hypocritical act, which would not be one of obedience, but of supine subjection and submission because, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, the virtue of obedience is subject to the rule of justice, and that if justice is not the cardinal virtue that determines obedience, then obedience itself is no longer a virtue but would become subjection.
As a priest and as a baptized person profoundly enamoured with Christ and his Church which is now experiencing a Calvary, I say this: It is I who now humbly ask that the Roman Pontiff clarify what he really thinks about communion for remarried divorcees. Because he has created a climate of confusion for which he is principally responsible.
And what about the salvation of souls? Now is the time for true Catholics who do not wish to hide behind a windbreak, to come out. Now is the time. And I strongly address an appeal to our cardinals, excellencies, and brother priests, at a time of immense confusion for the Church: If we do not speak out, then we shall be leading an immense number of souls to hell, and we too shall merit eternal damnation.
I kept silent for nine months, yet starting tomorrow, I shall be twice excommunicated. And all I can say is – we must obey God first before men. And the condemnation I have received is not valid – but I consider them medals of honor…
This false church is going full stem ahead with its abuse of power, putting fear into others, of which I would be an example, so that any priest who may wish to speak out shall be careful not to do so, or be ‘reduced’ as they have done to don Minutella. Because I refuse to make public obeisance specifically to Pope Francis – not just to the Roman Pontiff – I have been doubly excommunicated. This has not happened before. It is an action that one expects of totalitarian regimes, not of the Catholic Church!”
There is no doubt that the action taken by the Vatican, especially by the Prefect of Conclero, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, and shared by Mons. Corrado Lorefice, is extremely severe. Don Minutella has not been the first priest to criticize decisions made in the Church. Even in Italy. But for other dissenters, the Church had always practiced patience and tolerance.
For all its hyperbole, I like the way this reader, reacting to don Minutella's video, describes what he thinks Bergoglio is. Except for the anti-pope part (because he was elected, after all, and no claims disputing the legitimacy of his election will make any difference), his description does approach the 'truth' about this pope, insofar as his increasingly anti-Catholic actions and statements have so far revealed.
Timotheos Petros
5 hours ago
Dear Mr Minutella,
Jorge Bergoglio is not a misguided Catholic, he is a freemason, an antipope, a sworn enemy of Jesus Christ and His Church. He is the high-priest of the judeo-masonic Vatican II sect, the counterfeit Catholic Church prophesied in the Scriptures. By the merciful grace of Almighty God, you are already beginning to see through this wicked deception. Keep going...
A Catholic association appeals to the cardinals:
It is time for a canonical correction of Pope Francis
November 9, 2017
Veri Catholici, an international association born in 2015 with the goal of preserving the eternal faith taught by our Lord Jesus Christ and transmitted by the Catholic Church through the centuries, and which has been very active in the social networks with a platform that publishes in 10 languages, is the protagonist today of a major initiative.
The association has bought advertising space in one of the Italian national newspapes in order to launch an appeal addressed to the cardinals and bishops of the Church as well as directly to the people of Rome.
After a lengthy introduction, the appeal comes to its central point: “Based on this, we appeal to the faithful of the Church of Rome to formally ask the cardinals and bishops of the Catholic Church
to canonically reprove Jorge Mario Bergoglio, to judge whether his election was valid – namely, was he even Catholic at the time he was elected pope – or whether he is in schism with the Catholic Church, out of odium for Christ, for his teaching, for the Eucharist, etc., and whether he is no longer in communion with the Church because he has been plotting to subvert her and/or pertinaciously, publicly, manifestly and habitually denies or attacks a truth revealed by God, especially about the indissolubility of marriage and the impossibility of giving communion to public sinners”.
[As critical as I am of Bergoglio's persona and his acts as pope, I find this bill of charges particularly rash and harsh for a public manifesto. But obviously, this is how extreme the association believes their initiative has to be.]
Once more therefore, the crux of the protest is Amoris Laetitia with all the polemics it has generated since it was published last year and which shows no sign of dying out – indeed, it seems to generate ever new polemical debates, despite all the efforts by those closest to the actual governance of the Church to “soothe and cut off… cut off and soothe”. [“Sopire, troncare (…) troncare, sopire” is a famous quote from Alessandro Manzoni’s great masterpiece
I Promessi Sposi]
As in ancient times, the manifesto is addressed to the Roman people:
“In the wicked times we live in, when the clergy has replaced the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ with the documents of Vatican-II, and now seek to prostitute his teaching on matrimony, family, and sacramental discipline for public sinners, with the perverse godless morality of adulterers, fornicators asnd sodomites, it is necessary for the salvation of the Church and the liberation of ecclesial authority that the faithful of the Church of Rome should act and no longer remain silent.”
The historical reference to the dark times the Church has gone through in the past is evident in this statement:
“As Romans of old have done many times and on different occasions, when they expelled anti-popes and false preteners to the apostolic throne, so too do the fiathul of the icity of Rome today have the solemn duty and right to act” by signing this appeal online and displaying on their windows a papal banner turned upside down."
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/11/2017 18:10]