On June 8, I posted a Rorate caeli blog item (See Page 578 of this thread) citing Marco Tosatti to the effect that the Brazilian-born
traditional lay movement called Heralds of the Gospel were to be the next target of Bergoglian 'mercy' a la Franciscan Friars of the
Immaculate. At that time, we were not told why they were being targeted other than perhaps the fact that Benedict XVI had praised
the movement in his LIGHT OF THE WORLD interview-book.
The other day, I started translating two items about the Heralds, but before I got around to posting them, today there are bizarre stories
purporting that the Heralds and their founders have been doing the work of the devil and even plotting Bergoglio's death... Before I get
around to those stories, let me post the earlier ones first, written before these hair-raising accusations were made public.
A guest commentary
on the 'Heralds'
Translated from
MARCO TOSATTI
June 15, 2017
Today, we offer this space for a guest commentary on a specific topic: The Heralds of the Gospel, a movement that began in Brazil which is about to be investigated in an apostolic visitation from the Congregation supervising religious orders and associations.
This was first reported in
La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, later confirmed by a plausible Vatican source. Our guest writer, who is very familiar with the affairs of the Heralds, uses the pseudonym 'Abate Faria'
[after the Abbe Faria in Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, a learned Italian priest imprisoned in solitary in the Chateau d’If and who encounters the protagonist Edmond Dantes in his cell when the priest attempts to escape through a tunnel that he dug. Faria not only teaches Dantes Latin and Greek and his considerable scientific knowledge but also reveals to him the existence and location of a secret treasure on the island of Monte Cristo not far from Elba.]
We are following with great interest recent developments concerning the Heralds of the Gospel, a religious institution classified as an International Association of Pontifical Right which was founded in 2001 - the first such in the third millennium - which was inspired by the teachings of the Brazilian traditionalist Plinio Corre de Oliveira (1908-1995).
[Consisting mainly of young people, this Association is established in 78 countries. Its members practice celibacy, and are entirely dedicated to apostolate, living in separate houses designated for young men and young women. Their life of recollection, study and prayer alternates with evangelizing activities in dioceses and parishes, with special emphasis placed on the formation of youth.]
This has given rise to the following thoughts:
1. If the videos are true [I had no idea at the time what these supposed videos are] – and we have no reason to doubt their authenticity – there certainly appear to have been doctrinal deviations and unacceptable exaggerations. And we are happy at the interest of the Vatican to safeguard the integrity of Catholic doctrine.
We hope the same strictness will be applied to other religious congregations and their leaders, seeing that recently, some [he obviously means the new Jesuit Superior General] have recently questioned the reliability of the Gospels “because we do not really know what Jesus said”. What about that then?
2. The same strictness should be applied to the investigation of how the various religious orders manage their financial and material assets, especially since many orders have turned into hotel chains rather than institutes of religious life. When the pope calls on ‘everyone’ to shelter refugees and homeless, why does he not set an example by demanding that all religious edifices that have been converted to hotels turn out their paying guests in order to provide free board and lodging to the homeless? And what about the dozens of financial scandals that have bedeviled many religious orders including those, like the Franciscans, who have such a long history?
3. The history of the Heralds of the Gospel is complicated by its ties to the TFP, the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) founded in 1960 by Correa de Oliveira to combat Liberation Theology which had been welcomed by successive conferences of the Latin American and Caribbean bishops.
Now, if the Heralds have committed deviations from the faith, then they must be sanctioned – one hopes with true justice, rather than justice dictated by other interests. But Correa de Oliveira must not be blamed, because he did have important intuitions about the unhealthy evolution of the Catholic world starting in the 1950s, and he always rejected all the doctrinal deviations and personality cult that have been cited as part of the forthcoming investigation.
4. Persons who have observed the Heralds over the past 16 years tell us that many Catholics have turned back to the Catholic Church and to healthy Catholic teaching thanks to the work and example of the Heralds. Will the Heralds and their followers now have to witness their systematic dismemberment the same way that the
Vatican did with a previously flourishing institution like the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate?
Ultimately, who profits? The future will tell us.
The following day, the daily Italian online newspaper Il Faro di Roma (Lighthouse of Rome), published this article, almost a puff piece, about the Heralds:
Introducing the Heralds of the Gospel
Translated from
FARO DI ROMA
June 16, 2017
In a letter published on June 12, Monsignor João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, 77, founder and superior general of the society for apostolic life called Virgo Flos Carmeli (Virgin Flower of Carmel) and president of the lay association Arautos do Evangelho (Heralds of the Gospel), announced he was giving up his positions so that someone else among his spiritual sons “may lead our work to the perfection desired by Our Lady”.
According to Vaticanista Adnrea Tornielli, the resignation had to do with the investigation of the Heralds, ordered by the Vatican Congregation supervising religious orders, an investigation described as ‘deep-reaching and serious’, although no decision has yet been taken as to whether it will require an apostolic visitation.
Found today in 78 countries, the lay Heralds ceremonially wear a short cassock with a huge red and white cross across the breast, and knee-high boots. Similar garments are worn by their female members.
The Heralds were founded in 2001 under John Paul II, at which time they were championed by the Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rodè, who was then the head of the Congregation for the religious. Rodè is also remembered for having celebrated the funeral Mass for the notorious Fr. Marcial Maciel who had maintained two families, one in Spain and the other in Mexico, and having praised Maciel publicly even after Benedict XVI announced the disciplinary measures taken by the CDF against Maciel for his known offenses.
[I really do not know if this is relevant at all to the Heralds of the Gospel, unless it is to imply – gratuitously and unfairly - that if Rodè could so publicly endorse Maciel, then it would not be surprising if the Heralds whom he championed would also turn out to be rotten!]
“Among the reasons for the investigation”, Tornielli writes in Vatican Insider, “there is said to be a kind of secret and extravagant cult to a trinity composed of Plinio Correa de Oliveria, his mother Donna Lucilia, and Mons. Clá Días himself».
Correa de Oliveira was a traditionalist Catholic thinker, considered ‘rightwing and counter-revolutionary’, who founded the TFP (Tradition, Family, Property) association which devolved after his death in 1995 into a number of associations, one of which was the Heralds of the Gospel. Many persons who left the Heralds subsequently wrote about this supposed secret cult which “goes well beyond that of a simple personality cult”.
[Wikipedia says that “The spirituality of the Heralds is based on three essential points: The Eucharist, the Virgin Mary and the Pope. Their charism leads them to strive for perfection, while always searching for the element of beauty in all their daily actions.”]
In reviewing the story of the Heralds, one also comes across the figure of Mons. Emilio Pignoli, an Italian priest who was sent as a
fidei donum priest from the Diocese of Cremona to Brazil, where he became Bishop of Campo Limpo, a position he held till 2008. I
“I had expressed the desire to know them, and so they invited me to spend a day at their mother house – where I saw so many good things, everything with great dignity and very proper. I had a dialog with them, at which they discussed with me the statutes of the association. I read through them and I made notes on things I thought ought to be changed. They then sent me a revised version with I sent to Mons Geraldo Macella who was in Rome at the time. He responded promptly to me, saying that the Heralds deserved to be supported.
And so, I observed the Heralds for a ‘trial period’ of five years, on the grounds that the tree will be recognized by its fruits. And it did – in abundance, which surprised me. I had signed the decree approving them as an Association of the Faithful, to which other bishops subscribed, and when all this was presented to the Holy See, then the Heralds became an Association of Pontifical Right in 2001. That was quite fast. But it has been a very beautiful path…”
The Heralds practice celibacy and are totally dedicated to their apostolate, living in separate housing for males and females. They alternate periods of meditation, study and prayer with evangelizing work in dioceses and parishes, especially working with young people. Although they do not take religious vows and remain as laypeople, they strive to practice what the Gospel teaches in all its purity. They live in male or female communities, in an atmosphere of fraternal love and discipline and an intense life of prayer and study.
They count with ‘cooperators’, defined in their statutes as “those who identify with the spirit of the Heralds, but cannot commit themselves fulltime to the Association because of their pre-existing commitments of membership in an institute of consecrated life or a society of apostolic life, or because of their family and professional duties.” The cooperators can be laymen, married or celibate, priests, deacons, religious and religious, and besides observing the precepts and duties inherent in their main calling, also strive to live in accordance with the charism and spirituality of the Heralds, devoting free time to the Association and committing to carry out certain duties.
The first articles in the Heralds’ statutes define their calling:
“This Association… was born with the purpose of being an instrument of holiness in the Church, helping its members to respond generously to an invitation to live the fullness of Christian life in the perfection of charity, striving for a more intimate unity between practical life and faith… Moreover, the Association aims at the active, knowledgeable and responsible participation of its members in the salvific mission of the Church through the apostolate to which the Lord has destined them by virtue of Baptism and Confirmation. In this way, they must work for evangelization, sanctification and instilling the Christian spirit in temporal reality”.
They are called on to strive for perfection in seeking beauty in all the acts of daily lif, even the most common. For a Herald, their site says, this invitation to perfection must not be limited only to interior acts but must be manifested in their external activity so as “to better reflect God”.
It means that the Herald must seek to invest a sacredness in his daily actions, whether alone or in public, in his evangelizing work, in his relations with others, in his participation in liturgy, in musical and artistic presentations, and in any other circumstance. This search for perfection means not just embracing the truth and practicing virtue but to do this with beauty which can be an important element in sanctification.
[The classic trinity of virtue even among the Greeks has always been ‘the true, the good, and the beautiful’, each quality inherent in each other. What is true must be good and beautiful, what is good must be true and beautiful, what is beautiful must be true and good.]
The Diocese of Rome assigned the church of San Benedetto in Piscinula to the Herald of the Gospel, the first concession in the pope’s own diocese of a church and base for pastoral activity to a private lay association.
[But wasn’t the Sant’Egidio Community also assigned something similar? The church of San Bartolomeo on the Isola Tiberina in Rome.] The Heralds have taken charge of animating the liturgies celebrated in their church, as well as taking care of Church decorations and priestly garments and accessories, and in welcoming pilgrims.
The site of the Heralds has since responded to Tornielli's article - a rough translation from the Portuguese is available here:
http://heralds.ca/what-is-the-intention-of-mr-andrea-tornielli-in-attacking-the-heralds-of-the-gospel-to-create-a-schism-in-the-church/
Comes now THE DAILY BEAST, living up indeed to its name, with this scare story about the Heralds that sounds like SCHLOCK form beginning to end. If one had not read about the Heralds otherwise, here they are introduced in the most dreadful terms:
This secret Catholic exorcist cult in Brazil
is making a deal with the devil
The Vatican is looking into this group which apparently
made a pact with Satan on climate change and the pope's death
by Barbie Latza Nadeau
THE DAILY BEAST
June 18, 2017
ROME — Plinio Correa de Oliveira is almost as peculiar in death as he was in life. Dr. Plinio, as he is still known by his devout followers, was a right-wing Catholic figure who founded the ultra-conservative Tradition, Family and Property Association, known in Catholic circles as the TFP.
In the early 1960s, he famously came to Rome to protest the opening of the Second Vatican Council, which sought to modernize the Catholic Church in a changing era. He called such attempts at renewal “a point in history as sad as the death of our Lord” and handed out propaganda with similar sentiments.
In death, Dr. Plinio is said to be in close contact with Satan, who supposedly can be channeled by Brazilian exorcists. He also apparently rules the so-called afterlife to such an extent that his followers are convinced he controls climate change and is working toward the death of Pope Francis, according to Andrea Tornielli, who writes the Vatican Insider blog, and has published a series of articles outlining this saga worthy of a Dan Brown bestseller.
By getting rid of Pope Francis, some of the doctor’s followers believe, the way would be open for the Catholic Church to elect a more conservative leader in line with their more traditional practices.
After Dr. Plinio died in 1995, the TFP broke into two groups. One retains the TFP name and supports the recent claims of dubia or doubts launched against Pope Francis, which are supported by American Cardinal Raymond Burke. The other group, known as the Heralds of the Gospel, was founded by Monsignor João Scognamiglio Clá Dias and
allegedly takes part in cult worship.
The extent of Plinio’s supernatural influence as proclaimed by Dias (or at least the extent to which his followers exalt him for that perceived power) is the subject of a new inquiry by the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life, according to Tornielli.
Specifically, Dr. Plinio’s followers led by Dias are said to be using rogue exorcism practices in which they actually communicate with the devil possessing people rather than chasing him out, as the standard accepted practice in Catholic exorcisms dictates.
According to Catholic sociologist Massimo Introvigne, who has studied Dr. Plinio’s life work, the Heralds of the Gospel form “a sort of secret and extravagant cult,” with its trinity composed of “Plinio Correa de Oliveira, his mother Donna Lucilia, and Monsignor Clá Días himself.”
And that sort of devil worship is understandably a problem for the Catholic Church. On June 12, Clá Dias resigned as head and founder of the Herald of Gospels, although Tornielli says he will stay on in what appears to be a consultant-like role.
Particularly damning for the cult-like group is a series of videos on the internet that show exorcisms using practices not authorized by the Catholic Church. They include purported conversations between the exorcists and the devil, which is a no-no in standard exorcism procedures. (Yes, exorcism as such remains a staple of the faith and authorized practitioners are not only recognized but recommended by Pope Francis.)
“Woe to the exorcist if he loses himself behind curious questions, which the ritual expressly forbids, or if he lets himself be led into a discussion with the devil as he is the master of lies,” Tornielli says, quoting the words of the Church’s most famous exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth.
In one passage from a video seen by The Daily Beast, Dias asks one of his minions to read from a transcript that was purportedly jotted down by an observer at one of the rogue exorcisms encompassing what appears to be dialogue between the exorcist and Satan.
The conversation was stilted, as one might expect with the struggle for the possessed person’s soul, but the gist was that Plinio was randomly “breaking people's computers so that they can’t go on the internet” and that he is changing the climate and was “therefore the author of the climate change, and the increase of heat. It is Plinio who does everything,” according to the devil as channeled through the exorcist.
Then, the devil predicts that a meteorite will crash into the Atlantic ocean. “North America will disappear,” he warns.
The devil then turns to the fate of Pope Francis, which Tornielli was able to transcribe and translate from the somewhat distorted video. “The Vatican? It's mine, mine!” the devil says to the exorcist, according to Tornielli’s transcript. “The pope does whatever I want, he's stupid! He obeys me in everything. He is my glory, he is willing to do everything for me. He serves me.”
Then the devil, again as channeled by the exorcist for the Heralds of the Gospel, predicts that the pope will perish, not during a voyage, but at the Vatican. “The pope will die falling,” the exorcist’s transcript says quite clearly.
While much of the Heralds of the Gospel work seems, well, fanciful at best, the Vatican’s investigation is very serious. The Vatican could censure the group or strip it of the blessings of the Catholic Church, which would likely not actually stop them, but instead just push them farther underground. Or it could try to corral them back into the fold and hope they stop having sympathy for the devil.
I think I shall wait for someone like Tosatti or Sandro Magister to watch those videos and tell us what they really are about. The reply on the Heralds site says this about the video - apparently, there is only one???
It is true, however, that Mr. Tornielli came upon a great and unusual novelty: a private video, divulged out of context, and also out of date, for it is a year and a half old. Despite its belonging to the restricted use of the institution, it was obtained by illegal means, by a man with an impassioned loathing for the TFP and the Heralds – he himself being an ex-member of the TFP -, married to a woman who is an ex-member of Opus Dei, both of whom occupy a considerable amount of their time in attacking the entities to which they belonged. This was the source that the influential Mr. Tornielli turned to for his impartial information…
The video is a record of a reserved meeting of clerics, which did not imply any change in the ways of the Heralds, either in its relationship with the Sacred Hierarchy and civil society, or in the work with the very high number of adherents to the movement.
The objective of the registered encounter was, quite simply, to exchange impressions with regard to certain preternatural phenomena, in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Criminal hands, yet undiscovered, resolved to divulge its contents in a malevolent and inappropriate way for a public that does not have, in its great majority, sufficient theological knowledge to make an in-depth judgement concerning its content. It was not difficult, therefore, to create confusion in their minds. On the other hand, these same hands took no interest, of course, in spreading the conclusions of these analyses
.