Edit: a reader sent this. The persecution of the Franciscans of the Immaculate continues with the usual kinds of attacks that have been going on as long as the press has been around. The kinds of penitential practices being criticized here are common to authentic religious life and the religious who suffer them are members of these religious communities of their own free will.
Why do non-catholic entities always set themselves up as judges of Catholics? What's worse is that evil and worldly hierarchy are inclined to listen to them.
[Daily Mail] In an interview with an Italian newspaper where she makes the damaging allegations, the former nun shows off a post card with her vows, signed by the head of the order.
She claims the vows were written using in her own blood, on the day of her initiation in 1996, when she was 17 years old.
'Father Manelli [head of the order] was satisfied that we did this practice because it made our love for God more authentic, this eternal vow with God…made with blood,' she told Correriere Della Sera.
'All the practices related to expired food are true – expired yogurt or corned beef for example. We were told that if we ate that food with obedience nothing would have happened… but that’s not true because I had many stomach aches and abdomen pains.'
'All the practices related to expired food are true – expired yogurt or corned beef for example. We were told that if we ate that food with obedience nothing would have happened… but that’s not true because I had many stomach aches and abdomen pains.'
Daily Mail...
AMDG
33 comments:
I think it is a "Catholic" Fairy (i.e. Team B) Masonic plant. Doesn't seem likely UK Mail would pick this up otherwise (it's really a non-story). Drudge is also advertising it (more and more I'm suspicious of Drudge) - couldn't believe all the play giving to O'Malley's presidential (non)candidacy [especially the cheese cake pics].
"He was listed on Out Magazine's Power List of the top 50 "list of gay men and women whose power and prestige is instrumental in influencing how we think about, and engage with, the world"[28] in 2011,[29] 2012,"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Drudge
The POOOOOOOOR deeeeears! Here's what St. Francis ate (fat glutton frannie's (supposed) namesake): "He put all the collected food in a bowl, sat down to eat it, but found this hodge—podge utterly sickening. What was this food? Probably a fish head, maybe a bacon rind, no doubt bean soup and turnips or millet gruel, and perhaps a handful of olives or some dried fruit. For dessert he may have had some bits of barley, or a cheese rind."
https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/francis-of-assisi-on-poverty-and-dung/
This is almost certainly raw Judeo-Masonic hit job. I think your right to be very suspicious of drudge, Jewish gay millionaire catapulted to very high level of influence by mysterious forces like his lodge buddies Alex jones and Glenn beck.
I don't flagellate myself (not physically, anyway), but this was a pretty common practice in many orders.
As for out of date food, I eat it all the time. I've got food in my cupboard that's older than I am. Always amuses me when people think things suddenly go bad at the stroke of midnight, like Cinderella's coach.
Granting, for the moment, that the reports are true, these "penitential" practices are sick, and no Catholic should be defending them. Reminds me how the Carmelites would put their fingers in what St. Therese had coughed up from her tubercular lungs and touch it to their tongues, as a sign of their "trust" in God.
Sorry. That's just plain sick. Objectively, it was a mortal sin.
Religious life has often been distorted to the point where sins have been committed in the name of "penance" or "testing virtue."
A sister of my acquaintance, Sister A, during her novitiate in a very old religious order, was called in to answer a charge that Sister X had reported seeing Sister A breaking a rule. Sister A went to talk to Sister X, and Sister X said she had never made such an accusation. Sister A went back to Mother Superior with this fact, and Mother Superior said, "We've always done it this way. I was testing your humility."
Sister A pointed out that Mother Superior had broken the Eighth Commandment, and that no "tradition" of the order could take precedence over the Commandments.
About ten years later, Mother Superior privately told Sister A, "You were right."
Maybe you should be a Unitarian, then, instead of a Catholic?
They use the flagellum at Fontgambault. It's no big deal.
Being a Catholic does not require unsanitary, insane practices. Life is full of possibilities of penance without doing bizarre things. I do not recall a single instance in either Testament of similar penitential practices. Religious nuts---like the 17th century French Jansenists---take such liberties with Catholic notions of both obedience and self-denial, and then expect the rest of the world to accept them as normal. They are not---not socially, not physically, and not spiritually. This is the sort of thing that gives our beautiful, and very sane, Faith a bad name among her enemies. Nothing in Catholicism is opposed to reason; that is found in sects and cults. I tend to believe the reports are false, part of the Black Legend of Masons and Protestants, and that the members of the Immaculata practice moderate, sane penitential practices according to reasonableness and respect for the human dignity God our Father has given us. God is not a sadist. RC
Gasp! Outdated food, the flagellum, how horrendous!!!!
Meanwhile we (our tax dollars) are funding planned parenthood to teach 15 year old girls:
"To put it bluntly, undercover video evidence shows that Planned Parenthood is willing to advise girls as young as fifteen years old on how to be whipped, beaten, and even defecated on during sex. ... Planned Parenthood endorses "resources" that present protocol for "safely" engaging in allegedly sexual activities such as playing with feces, drinking urine, and beating one's partner. And the Planned Parenthood video series "A Naked Notion" serves as a how-to guide on any number of dangerous sexual practices, including BDSM."
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/214865-planned-parenthood-gives-sm-advice
But eating outdated food & flagellating yourself is internat'l news about the sickness of Father Manelli.
Meanwhile Francis and his synod bishop freaks are normalizing sodomy -- vide Lori/Baltimore Catholic participation in "gay" pride parades. See the leather, see the whips, see the chains:
http://www.newsweek.com/videos-intersection-catholic-and-lgbt-377169
https://www.google.com/search?q=leather+at+gay+pride&biw=1280&bih=622&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj13Z2Y0JPKAhUH2D4KHWBmDpYQ_AUIBigB
See the "priest" paying $1000 a week to drink urine & eat feces
http://nypost.com/2015/12/10/priest-paid-his-male-sex-master-from-collection-plate-lawsuit/
The parishioners have to sue to get action from Dolly the whale! But let a Catholic order engage in Catholic penitential mortifications (i.e. not for PLEASURE!) and watch Franny the Whale bounce them to prison!
SO SICK of the double standard!
Even if this is so, no one forced anyone and it was 20 years ago. Really digging to find something aren't they? Ever read what friary life was like for St. Padre Pio? Oh, horrors! Oh, penances!
Yeah, it is okay to tear unborn children limb from limb, promote perversions and not feed the hungry who will not accept contraception....but penitential practices must be done away with.
The saints did all those things that this 'former nun' is talking about. Whether the FI did or not we don't know and it is not the business of secular media anyway.
Being forced to write her vows in her own blood? I didn't realize that my wife was moonlighting as a Mother Superior for the FI!!!
Really? This is something you would do or you would support? This is something Jesus wants us to do? Why don't you become a Unitarian?
Using the flagellum, within reason, fasting, abstaining from certain foods, observing a rigorous Lent abstinence, accepting lowly tasks, keeping a grand silence in a monastery, bearing with patience the innumerable annoyances from fellow religious or co-workers or family members, denying yourself of a legitimate food or pleasure, and many others are indeed possibilities for edifying penance and possibly sanctification. But signing in one's blood, eating rotten food, and lightly partaking of someone's spit are, indeed, horrendous !!!!---and a discredit to our Mother the Church. Melinda
Yep, 100%.
And where Padre did you hear this about the Carmelites and sputum? Was it the 1980s film about the Saint that was directed by a French atheist director who said of religion "I was raised in religion and still bear the traces. It’s idiotic, but I’m struck by things like bell towers, I can’t help it. I notice them.”
Scandalized by an expiration date? Knock me over with a feather.
Well, good for the Masonic press for revealing these practices. I smell a cult.
To be scandalized by some of the mentioned absurd practices (not necessarily in connection to this maligned and persecuted order) of a false mysticism (really a kind of sado-masochism) is not to be overly sensitive or whimpy---it is to be sane and Catholic. It is clear the references are not to expiration dates on food (which many of us, myself included, have experienced from time to time) but on the intentional serving up of food not fit for consumption, and other such ridiculous practices that we do not find even a trace of in the great ascetic and monastic tradition of St. Benedict or other great founders of the Catholic orders. Not even St. Francis, I think, would promote unsanitary and masochistic practices for others even if he practiced rigorous asceticism himself. Glib sarcasm is the sign of someone who may indeed be overly sensitive (afflicted with a fragile ego and a sturdy hubris) and lacking a lucid, solid argument. The Church of Christ is not, nor has it ever been, a weird and cruel cult---despite some nuts who have inhabited it. Melinda
Expired food isn't necessarily rotten, and these claims aren't necessarily true, but I reckon that people will be more moved to outrage by them than by the evils of Collegeville, which the Remnant has largely ignored for more than 50 years.
Your criticism is remarkably familiar. Evangelical Protestants have been publishing exaggerations and outright lies about monastic life for a long time. I think you should become more familiar yourself with Church history, particularly that of monasticism before you go on about what the Church approves.
Fr. VF, Thank you for pointing out that such practices are fraught with both physical and moral dangers.
Thanks for bringing in the Masonic perspective there, Bill.
Do you smell a cult at planned parenthood? Why are US Highschoolers being taught to drink urine at eat shit and get beaten as part of sexual practices?
Why don't you smell a cult here?
http://www.folsomstreetfair.com/
Or here: Planned Parenthood is willing to advise girls as young as fifteen years old on how to be whipped, beaten, and even defecated on during sex...safely" engaging in allegedly sexual activities such as playing with feces, drinking urine, and beating one's partner.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/214865-planned-parenthood-gives-sm-advice
Seems as long as it's the devil's cult you (and none of the other Frannie transvestite "cat (oninetales) licks" have any objections.
The well-known misdeeds of that nest of vipers which is Collegeville and your claims (which do not interest me in the least) that "The Remnant" ignores them have nothing to do with the general topic of bizarre ascetic practices; it is a great non-sequitur. The lies and exaggerations of Protestants---like the Maria Monk fabrications---are also well known and also have nothing to do with the fact that the Church has many times indeed condemned overly harsh, cruel penitential practices, as in the case of the Jansenists who were condemned partly because of their weird penances. I certainly have not suggested that the members of the Friars of the Immaculata have engaged in these practices for I know very little about them and sympathize with their plight after the abuses of Bergoglio and company. I also suspect that the alleged excesses are distortions by the anti-clerical press. I consider the press, not the friars in question, the enemy. But the issue of morbid and excessive penances which have at times indeed been prohibited by the Church (it is you who needs a few lessons in Church history regarding this issue as well as some other lessons in logic and deductive reasoning). The fact that Collegeville rightly scandalizes many Catholics and that Protestants have lied in their 500-year old history about the church and conventual life has nothing to do with the absurdity of some of the penitential practices brought up by people who respond in this blog---practices mentioned specifically and which have nothing to do with sound Catholic spirituality but more perhaps with the medical condition known as religious melancholia---a sickly and bizarre mysticism. One need not be an Evangelical Protestant to know that such is against both reason and sound Faith. The Church is a good Mother---one that offers us sound ways to do penance but also admonishes us or even punishes when we fall into a sort of Manichean suspicion or even hatred of the body and the physical world. Genesis tells us that the Lord created all the physical world and saw that "it was good." Melinda
The misdeeds of the vipers of Collegeville are anything but well-known, no thanks to the Remnant.
What a relief to hear that the Franciscans of the Immaculate at least have a temporary pass from Miss Hygeine of the Department of Public Safety.
By your lights you'd condemn Cure de Ars for his diet, his severe manner of life, to say nothing of a host of saints, who have nothing to do with Jansenism or any movement condemned by the Church.
If anything is sick, it's condemning something an organization one embraces as sick, and attempting to disassociate the organization from any involvement in it.
Saint Francis did eat food no comfortable and timorous bourgeois would dare eat, but he didn't expect the rest of us to follow in that, any more than he expected us to live without possessions, walking unshod in the snow or ruining his health by severe fasts.
I don't condemn saints and their austerities, but the practices of heretics like the Albigensians and the Cathars and their heirs. These were condemned by the Church you claim to know so well for their erroneous doctrine and cruel ascetical practices. You seem obsessed with "The Remnant" (you must know why---but that would not be my business). Did they bruise your very antiseptic and effeminate ego by failing to publish one of your irrational rants? And, by the way, it's "Mrs." Hygiene (brush up on your spelling!) of the Department of Public Safety (not that it would matter to you as you are no gentleman). Have your last word, as every petulant child of whatever age must, as I will not read it---or this strange blog ever again. Melinda
Bye bye.
You said St. Francis didn't eat rotten food, etc... He did, saints have done.
You must have a pretty high and mighty opinion of yourself.
It's amazing how everyone believes the press reports (or the irate 'nun'), but no-one gives Fr. Manelli or the 100+ other nuns the benefit of the doubt.
Read about the abuses of this order - taking all the money of those who join; letting the priests eat better; ordaining illegal aliens to the priesthood etc.
http://www.iveinfo.org/p/founder-and-history-at-institute-of.html
But priest rapist and harasser Team B friend of Bergoglio is affiliated w/this group - so they get to steal and abuse all they want
Just like McCarrick gets to pose w/52 year old men (and give them Catholic parish jobs) who now dress up like 6 year old girls - and no one calls on the sodomy or masochistic abuse. This link has pic w/nun, but watch the video and at 29 seconds see Pederast McCarrick.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3356084/I-ve-gone-child-Husband-father-seven-52-leaves-wife-kids-live-transgender-SIX-YEAR-OLD-girl-named-Stefonknee.html
McCarrick should be in jail; but he is free roam about destroying souls while Fr. Manelli is under house arrest. McCarrick & Bergog, and you, Melinda, are always calling other people 'crazy'-- but it's a double standard that only deceives those who want to be deceived.
"The first to sign was Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, who said on Monday that many Americans are scared and are starting to say things they don’t really mean. “I’m scared of the crazy fringe. I’m troubled by it,” he said. “It’s not the world I want to live in.”"
To be fair Malinda doesn't believe the accusations.
Watch the movie "Blackrobe".It shows the Jesuit priest in frontier Canada whipping himself for immoral behavior.Personally seems like a good personal habit and I understand why it was practiced.
First of all, this one claim from an admittedly aggrieved party. Normally, such claims should be treated with great skepticism. There is an obvious ax being ground here.
Secondly, I am amazed that so many purported Catholics have such disgust with practices which were embraced by numerous Saints and which have always been seen as testament to their heroic sanctity. Saint Catherine of Siena drank the puss from a horrifically stinking ulcerous wound. Many other female Saints did similarly. They did so to give testimony to their love for that person - almost always an outcast and someone reviled by others - as an image of God, even in their sickened and sickening state. Saint Josemaria Escriva took the discipline regularly, as have scores of other Saints.
This is so typical. Those attached to the world gasp and express disdain for practices of those always held in the highest esteem for their piety and devotion to God and Church. They judge entire orders on the thinnest of pretexts, giving vent to what I imagine is an already extant bias. It can be difficult for those not possessed of great virtue and faith to understand these acts, they seem repulsive to many, but they are - rightly done - a testimony to the power of Grace and the ability for souls to cooperate with it.
Having said that, it is possible for abuses to develop, though I tend to doubt they were present in the FIs based on my experience with them. At this point, I tend to agree that this is a politically motivated attempt to further discredit a great and growing order that is going through a terrible agony.
Incidentally, the late Father Volpi was present in a hotel restaurant where the Spanish art historian, Francicso de la Cigona, was having dinner with his wife. When Volpi discovered they were there to see the Franciscans of the Immaculate, he told them with a malevolent sneer something about how they whipped themselves and that they should stay away.
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