News and commentary on church affairs the past few days have been quite dispiriting - my primary excuse other than workload in my day job for my recent inactivity - to the point that heading my list of must-post's rare two excerpts from previously unpublished homilies delivered by Cardinal Ratzinger which have now been collected into a book entitled Per Amore (For love) just published in Italy, a letter from St. Augustine to a widow answering her question on how we must pray, and a lengthy piece by Hilary White on how we contemporary Catholics today can aspire to the holiness of a Padre Pio, for example.
The Ratzinger homilies I have to translate (along with recent goodies from Socci, Tosatti and Valli], and the two other items need some work in presentation 'enhancement' (how I try to make my posts look 'uniform' in terms of underscoring what I find personally significant and distinguishing my remarks from the text I am commenting on). But this morning, I came upon this post by Donald McClarey which touches on two topical items about the Church - while bringing up yet another one of those on-the-mark prophecies made by Venerable Fulton Sheen in his lifetime. The post tangentially on the ongoing debate surrounding the 'Appeal to Bishops' to investigate Pope Francis's heretical statements and actions, but concretely on the most alarming statements made in recent days by the putatively heretical pope (and one I did mean to post about but which I did not get around to doing because it required too much fisking) in his pertinacious pursuit of his political agenda for the world (his spiritual duties as pope have long been secondary and strictly pro forma):
PopeWatch: End Times?
May 6, 2019
The Pope may or may not be technically a heretic, that is a subject for debate, but he is certainly giving plenty of fodder for those who view him as an anti-Christ:
Pope Francis made a strong new push for globalism on Thursday, calling for a supranational, legally constituted body to enforce United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and implement “climate change” policies.
Speaking to members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the Pope said: “When a supranational common good is clearly identified, there is need for a special legally constituted authority capable of facilitating its implementation.”
“Think of the great contemporary challenges of climate change, new slavery and peace,” he told members of the Pontifical Academy, who are meeting this week at the Vatican for a plenary session themed: “Nation, State, Nation-State.”
Featured speakers at the May 1-3 plenary include
- German Cardinal Walter Kasper, who spoke on: “Peace Stemming from Justice. Theological Reflections Between Men, Communities and Nations”;
- Archbishop Roland Minnerath of Dijon, France, who delivered the opening talk on day two, themed: “Nation, State, Nation-State and the Doctrine of the Catholic Church”; and
- German climatologist and founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who addressed the Pontifical Academy on “The State of the World.”
In his address to the academy, the Pope said that while “the principle of subsidiarity” requires that “individual nations must be given the power to operate as far as they can reach,” nonetheless “groups of neighboring nations — as is already the case — can strengthen their cooperation by attributing the exercise of certain functions and services to intergovernmental institutions that manage their common interests.”
The thrust of the Pope’s remarks, however, focused on growing trends toward nationalism which he said threatens migrants, the “universal common good” and the power of the United Nations and other transnational bodies to implement the Sustainable Development Goal agenda.
The Church “has always exhorted men to love their own people and homeland,” he said. “At the same time,” he added, “the Church has warned persons, peoples and governments about deviations from this attachment when it is about excluding and hating others, when it becomes conflictual nationalism that builds walls, indeed even racism or anti-Semitism.”
“The Church observes with concern the re-emergence, almost everywhere in the world, of aggressive currents towards foreigners, especially immigrants, as well as that growing nationalism which neglects the common good,” Pope Francis continued...
[I am not adding my fisks for now to what the Pope as de facto UN Secretary-General said.]
Go here to read the rest.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-calls-for-new-supranational-authorities-to-enforce-UN-goals
Fulton Sheen is being considered for sainthood. Perhaps what he wrote on January 26, 1947 should be tossed into the mix:
But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that He will be so much like Himself, that he would deceive even the elect-and certainly no devil we have ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?
He will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves He will write books on the new idea of God to suit the way people live; induce faith in astrology so as to make not the will but the stars responsible for sins; he will explain Guilt away psychologically as inhibited eroticism, make men shrink in shame if their fellowmen say they are not broadminded and liberal; he will be so broadminded as to identify tolerance with indifference to right and wrong, truth and error; he will spread the lie that men will never be better until they make society better and thus have selfishness to provide fuel for the next revolution; he will foster science but only to have armament makers use one marvel of science to destroy another; he will foster more divorces under the disguise that another partner is “vital”; he will increase love for love and decrease love for person; he will invoke religion to destroy religion; he will even speak of Christ and say that he was the greatest man who ever lived; his mission he will say will be to liberate men from the servitudes of superstition and Fascism: which he will never define; he will organize children’s games, tell people who they should and should not marry and unmarry, who should bear children and who should not; he will benevolently draw chocolate bars from his pockets for the little ones and bottles of milk for the Hottentots.
He will tempt Christians with the same three temptations which he tempted Christ: The temptation to turn stones into bread as an earthly Messias will become the temptation to sell freedom for security, as bread became a political weapon, and only those who think his way may eat; The temptation to work a miracle by recklessly throwing Himself from a steeple will become a plea to desert the lofty pinnacles of truth where faith and reason reign, for those lower depths where the masses live on slogans and propaganda. He wants no proclamation of immutable principles from the lofty heights of a Church, but mass organization through propaganda where only a common man directs the idiosyncracies of common men. Opinions not truths, commentators not teachers, Gallup polls not principles, nature not grace-and to these golden calves will men toss themselves from their Christ.
PopeWatch does not consider Pope Francis an anti-Christ, merely a very bad Pope. But if Pope Francis were the anti-Christ, in what ways would he have acted differently in this kidney stone of a Pontificate?
[Oh Mr McClarey, surely you could have found a stronger, more graphic and more appropriate metaphor than 'kidney stone' - which hurts and is truly troubling - for this pontificate.]
Speaking of the Venerable Sheen, one prays his stalled beatification cause can move forward again, now that a New York appeals court has ruled that his remains should be moved to his hometown of Peoria, Illinois, as requested by his only living relative, from the crypt in St. Patrick's Cathedral where he was buried since he served the last 28 years of his life in New York City and New York state. The Archdiocese of New York has now lost its legal bid three times in a row to keep Sheen's remains in New York. I personally do not see the point in the archdiocese's obstinacy. It is not as if St. Patrick's would lose any tourist traffic if the future saint's remains were no longer in the Church (how many of those who visit now are even aware he is buried there or have any knowledge at all, even, of Fulton Sheen, who was a media superstar decades before there was any Internet?). Maybe because St. Patrick's does not now harbor the remains of any saint, though Archbishop Terence Cooke has been declared a Servant of God, the first step towards canonization.
www.ncregister.com/blog/astagnaro/17-saints-and-possible-future-saints-of-new-y...
Civil appeals court in New York dismisses
legal challenge from NY Archdiocese, and
says Bishop Sheen’s body can go to Peoria
Albany, N.Y., May 6, 2019 (CNA) - The New York Court of Appeals has dismissed an appeal of an earlier judgement allowing Venerable Fulton Sheen’s remains to be moved to the Cathedral of St. Mary in Peoria, in accordance with his family’s wishes.
The May 2 dismissal of the Archdiocese of New York’s appeal could pave the way for the Illinois-born archbishop’s beatification.
“After almost three years of litigation, the New York Archdiocese’ legal arguments have now been rejected at all three levels of the New York state court system,” the Diocese of Peoria said May 6.
“Although the New York Archdiocese may technically have legal options remaining, they are contrary to the wishes of Archbishop Sheen and his family, and would serve no genuine purpose except to delay the eventual transfer of Archbishop Sheen’s remains,” it added.
Archbishop Sheen served as host of the “Catholic Hour” radio show and the television show “Life is Worth Living.” He authored many books, with proceeds supporting foreign missions. He headed the Society for the Propagation of the Faith at one point in his life, and continued to be a leading figure among Catholics in the U.S. until his death.
The Peoria diocese opened the cause for Sheen’s canonization in 2002 after Archdiocese of New York said it would not explore the case. In 2012, Benedict XVI recognized the heroic virtues of the archbishop.
However, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria suspended the beatification cause in September 2014 on the grounds that the Holy See expected Sheen’s remains to be in the Peoria diocese.
The New York archdiocese, however, has said that Vatican officials have said the Peoria diocese can pursue Sheen’s canonization regardless of whether his body is at rest there.
In March 2019, the New York appeals court unanimously ruled that Sheen’s remains be transferred to Peoria.
Sheen was born in Illinois in 1895, and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria at the age of 24. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of New York in 1951, and he remained there until his appointment as Bishop of Rochester in 1966. He retired in 1969 and moved back to New York City until his death in 1979.
Sheen’s will had declared his wish to be buried in the Archdiocese of New York Calvary Cemetery. Soon after Sheen died, Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York asked Joan Sheen Cunningham, Sheen’s niece and closest living relative, if his remains could be placed in the crypt of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, and she consented.
However, Cunningham has since said that Sheen would have wanted to have been interred in Peoria if he knew that he would be considered for sainthood. In 2016, she filed a legal complaint seeking to have her uncle’s remains moved to the Cathedral of St. Mary in Peoria.
An initial court ruling had sided with Cunningham, but a state appeals court overturned that ruling, saying it had failed to give sufficient attention to a sworn statement from a colleague of Archbishop Sheen, Monsignor Hilary C. Franco, a witness for the New York archdiocese.
Msgr. Franco had said that Sheen told him he wanted to be buried in New York and that Cardinal Cooke had offered him a space in the crypt of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
The appeals court ordered “a full exploration” of the archbishop’s desires.
In June 2018, the Superior Court of New York ruled in favor of Cunningham’s request that Sheen’s body be moved to Peoria. The Archdiocese of New York then announced that the Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral were appealing the decision.
Now, a New York appellate court has again sided with Cunningham, ruling 5-0 that Peoria may have the body. The court found that Sheen lived his life, with heaven and sainthood as his ultimate goals, which should be considered in the present dispute.
The Diocese of Peoria voiced hope that the beatification efforts for Sheen may now move forward, with Sheen’s body in Peoria. In a March statement, the diocese said that the courts have had ample opportunity to consider the arguments raised by New York, but have ultimately found them unavailing.
Both the Diocese of Peoria and the Archdiocese of New York have repeatedly voiced prayers that the beatification cause may move forward in a timely manner.
Archbishop Sheen’s intercession is credited with the miraculous recovery of a pronounced stillborn American baby from the Peoria area. In June 2014, a panel of theologians that advises the Congregation for the Causes of Saints ruled that the baby’s recovery was miraculous – a key step necessary before someone is beatified.
The baby, later named James Fulton Engstrom, was born in September 2010 showing no signs of life. As medical professionals tried to revive him, his parents prayed for his recovery through the intercession of Fulton Sheen.
Although the baby showed no pulse for an hour after his birth, his heart started beating again and he has not had any serious medical problem afterwards.
A Dec. 2016 article about the saints and possible saints of New York is informative, if somewhat outdated, because Solanus Casey for instance, has since been beatified.
www.ncregister.com/blog/astagnaro/17-saints-and-possible-future-saints-of-new-y...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/05/2019 18:58]