Another Priest Arrested in Nicaragua

Father Enrique Martínez, parish priest of Santa Martha in Managua, was arrested on October 13.

(Managua) Nicaraguan priest-in-exile Uriel Vallejos lamented the arrest of his fellow brother Enrique Martínez Gamboa by the National Police on Friday. The number of priests arrested in 2022 thus increases to a total of nine, including a bishop.

Vallejos tweeted that Martínez Gamboa, parish priest of Santa Martha in Managua, was "kidnapped" at 5:00 p.m. local time (11:00 p.m. CET) on Thursday.

"Priests and the Catholic Church are demanding his release and an end to the persecution of the Church and clergy," he added.

At the same time, he released a video showing the imprisoned priest speaking to students. The rally was attacked by police and armed militiamen, killing eight protesters. The mood was correspondingly high.

In the video, Martínez Gamboa calls on the students demonstrating against President Daniel Ortega to "don't cuddle"; "Long live Nicaragua"; "Long Live the Mothers of the Fallen of April 19, 2018"; "Long live the doctors, the decent journalists". In the video, the priest can be heard calling President Ortega and his wife, the vice president, a “murder couple” and demanding, “Get out of the palace! Out!".

The National Police have neither confirmed nor denied the arrest of the priest. The Nicaragua Nunca Más human rights organization said his whereabouts are still unknown.

In the past six months, Ortega's police have arrested a total of eight priests and Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of Matagalpa and Apostolic Administrator of Estelí.

Two weeks ago, President Ortega, who describes himself as a “ friend ” of Pope Francis, accused the Catholic Church of being a “dictatorship” and a “perfect tyranny” whose bishops tried to stage “a coup” against his government in 2018.

The arrest of Bishop Álvarez and eight priests, including Martínez Gamboa, is the latest chapter in what has been a particularly turbulent year for Nicaragua's Catholic Church with the Ortega regime branding Catholic leaders as "coup plotters" and "terrorists".

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Twitter/Pbro Uriel Vallejos (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Francis Says Cuba is a "Symbol" -- Of What?

 

Pope Francis and his love for Cuba

Pope Francis called Cuba "a symbol" in an interview. A symbol? But for what? This question was asked by John Horvat, the vice-chairman of Tradition, Family, Private Property in the USA.

On July 12, Pope Francis gave an interview to Televisa Univision's streaming service ViX. "The Pope's remarks have caused consternation among the people suffering in this communist island prison."

Francis said:

"I love the Cuban people very much. I also confess that I have a human relationship with Raúl Castro."

Raúl Castro, Fidel Castro's brother, was his successor until 2018 as head of state and government of Cuba and until 2021 as chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).

According to John Horvat, this is like saying that the Pope "loves the inmates of this prison but gets along well with the prison director who is responsible for their suffering."

To add to the confusion, the Pope called Cuba a "symbol" and a country with "a great history." But what is Cuba "a symbol" of or for, and what "great story" does Francis mean? It could not be the brutal communist dictatorship of the past 63 years.

"The remarks come just over a year after the largest anti-government protests the country has seen in decades to demand liberation from communism. The protests were so fierce that many thought the end of the regime might be in sight. However, the communist regime brutally suppressed the peaceful demonstrations. Many protesters were arbitrarily arrested, tortured and sentenced to draconian prison terms. The Vatican and the West let this anniversary pass uncommented."

  

In the meantime, the misery continues, and it shows "how indifferent the West is to the suffering of Cuba."

The recent outbreak of dengue fever revealed shortages, supply shortages, poor organization, and a precarious public health situation, even though Cuba boasts of making entire medical trains available to foreign states. Patients must bring their own bedding if they need to go to the hospital.

"Many hospitals lack running water and basic supplies. There is a shortage of medicines that are readily available in any pharmacy in other countries. The lack of fuel affects the emergency services when transporting patients. The situation is exacerbated by the power outages lasting several hours per day. The authorities blame a 'power generation deficit', which means that several power plants do not work because, like most of the country's other infrastructure, they are not maintained or repaired. Chronic food shortages and civil unrest also contribute to the disaster."

 

Cuba, according to John Horvat, is "clearly a country in distress and in need of help." Although this precarious state of affairs has lasted for decades, Horvat said, "the communist rulers insist that the country does not need help."

"Even worse, liberation theologians and Western leftists call Cuba a model, even a paradise, for the world. They spread the myth that Cuba has one of the best health systems in the world. Meanwhile, the population is dying because of the shortcomings of the health care system."

The supposedly generous awarding of medical trains to foreign countries initially says nothing about their quality, but above all even less about the quality of the Cuban health care system. On the contrary, it rather reveals its precarious condition, because only through the loan to foreign countries do these doctors receive a regular wage. The situation is comparable to absolutist monarchies in the early modern period, which leased troops abroad in order to gain revenue for the state coffers and thus ensure the salary for the soldiers, which they themselves could hardly have paid.

"Cuba is indeed a symbol," Horvat said. "On the one hand, it symbolizes the continuation of communist tyranny, misery and brutality. Moreover, for the West, it is a painful symbol of its own indifference and hypocrisy. And those who are still resisting in Cuba are a symbol of Christian courage and perseverance that anticipates the day when they will be free to write the 'great story' that awaits them."

 

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Vatican.va (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Antonio Gramsci and the Geneology of the Communist Party

Edit: I'm going to start copying entire essays from friendly publications to make sure they don't disappear.  The Communist Party of Italy was founded on today of all days, the day that the King of France was martyred by Illuminist revolutionaries.  Here is a very important essay by the inestimable Roberto de Mattei

 [Rorate] The Italian Communist Party was founded at Livorno on January 21, 1921, as a result of a split in the Socialist Party. Its principal founders were Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), Palmiro Togliatti (1893-1964) and Amedeo Bordiga (1889-1970) subsequently expelled and subjected to damnatio memoriae, according to the typical internal dialectic of every Communist Party.

"Former" East German Government Demands Parents Fill Out "Health Certificate" Form or Risk Losing Custody

Edit: It looks like the German government of Saxony is threatening to take children away from those who don't comply with filling out a "health certificate" form for their children and handing it in to the Commissar. If parents forget or just don't want to do this, the state can take action, including taking the children from their custody. This is a new level of Communist level non-sense. It wouldn't be surprising to see things like this in Saxony, which was part of East Germany. Is the East German State feeling nostalgic for days of yore? 

 Thanks to my reader who sent this to me, and Eyore at Vlad Tepes.  Originally from RAIR Foundation.

AMDG

Polish Archbishop Declares Aberrosexual Activism is the New Communism

Edit: I just had a funny thought that Hillary Huwhyte would say that this Archbishop is only speaking to Polish Catholics who are more traditional in mind... 

Krakow, Poland, Oct 8, 2019 / 10:30 am (CNA).- The Archbishop of Krakow has compared the LGBT rights movement in Poland to communism. Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski made the comparison in a pastoral letter to the archdiocese released on Sept. 28, as he announced a new initiative to encourage people to pray for Poland. 

In the letter, Jędraszewski said that the LGBT rights movement is “the next great threat to our freedom,” and “of a totalitarian nature.” He said that the movement, like that of communism, stems from a “radical rejection of God.”

“As a consequence of this rejection, a new vision of man is being proclaimed in which he becomes a caricature of himself,” said the archbishop. 

AMDG

Australian Bishops’ Conference Endorse More Government Control of Internet to Stem “fake news”

Edit: I guess that means Catholic blogs are going to be shut down.

By Robin Gomes

Australia’s Catholic bishops on Tuesday launched a major statement on digital communications, calling on all levels of society to overcome the hatred, division and exploitation that occurs online.  The statement was released in view of Australia’s Catholic Church’s Social Justice Sunday that will be observed on 29 September. 

Entitled, “Making it Real: Genuine human encounter in our digital world”, the Social Justice Statement was launched in Sydney by Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv, chairman of the Bishops Commission for Social Justice – Mission and Service. 

Defending human dignity online

In the document, the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ACBC) says that governments, businesses and the broader community need to be more proactive in defending the dignity of people. It says everyone must work together to make the digital world a place of genuine human encounter. [Catholic clergy who preach on-line against sexual immorality?]

This promoter of globalism goes on to say:

The Australian bishops point out that it is becoming increasingly clear that digital platforms require wise governance and that international cooperation is required to achieve this. “The common good requires intervention, rather than leaving digital platforms to govern themselves.”

They also promote some kind of Net Neutrality:

As more and more essential services, such as banking, move online, the bishops say, “digital inclusion becomes mandatory for basic participation in society” and “our neighbours are not left by the side of the digital highway.” 

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2019-09/australia-bishops-digital-world-social-justice-statement.html

AMDG

Infiltration: Sex, Conspiracies, Apparitions and Prophecies Sell Ink

Edit: a reader received this article from a friend who thought it would fit in here. It originally appeared at the blog, The American Proposition, on July 30th.  Communism, Judeo-Freemasonry is, as ever, a serious problem which some people try to downplay for various reasons. I found it hard to continue in light of some assertions in the beginning, but the remainder of his observations about Marshall's apparent Americanism and stepping around the Jewish Problem are noteworthy.  Judeo-Freemasonry is and always has been the problem facing the Church since the Jews killed Christ as they killed prophets of old and continue in their rebellion against God.  Since Vatican II, a cease fire has been declared and the Church has remained largely silent against her enemies with predictable results.  There are a few voices in the wilderness, but Taylor Marshall isn't one of them.

Taylor R. Marshall is well rewarded for keeping disaffected Catholics on the American reservation. Gaining bestseller status on Amazon is a great honor. It also takes skill to be able to identify and push all the hot button items of a target audience just the right way. But then conspiracy stories involving secret societies and sex always sell and they sell bigger when you mix in apparitions, conversations with Satan, and predictions. It’s the same genre that Dan Brown used in The Davinci Code and associated works, it worked there, it works here. Unfortunately, stories don’t help people realize the problem and usually don’t help to solve the problem, and in the case of the Catholic Church, a big part of the problem is America (which equates to rule by the wealthy) and Americanism.

There is no doubt that the Catholic Church is really messed up these days. To Marshall’s credit, he attributes this ongoing mess to the leadership which means the priests and the prelates.   He claims that we got there over the course of about 175 years because of Communists, Masons, and homosexuals, and he tries to support that claim in 224 pages, with a lot fewer footnotes. It is too much with too little that leaves out a whole lot, and leaves much unexplained.  As a result, the book resembles an anthology of well-known stories.

For instance, the Communists are long gone. [Neo-cons like William Kristol, James Burnham, disciples of Leo Strauss and so on, not to mention faculties of most western educational institutions.  Cuba? China? Venezuela? South Africa?  I found it hard to continue at this point, but ok.] The Masons are fading away. [It may be so that established Masonic lodges in the US are declining in membership, but everyone's a Mason in America.] All that remains are the homosexuals, or gays. [They're foot soldiers of a much deeper agenda.] Homosexuals have always existed throughout history but Marshall says that they have somehow been weaponized to destroy the Church. [I would suggest that this is amply obvious when you consider the way in which the Church has not only lost tremendous amounts of credibility since the cultural revolution of 1968 and Vatican II, but has lost a great deal of its real-estate and financial resources due to lawsuits against its protection and promotion of many aberrosexual predator clergy, which is still in place with continued dramatic results.]  That should be enough to ask the question, Who benefits now from this state of affairs in the Church? He starts to crack that case open in Chapter 27 when he mentions a wealthy businessman becoming McCarrick’s patron, and that Francis Cardinal Spellman, or “Nellie” as Marshall says he was called, of New York was a powerful leader of the homosexuals in the Church, but that is as far as he goes ignoring Spellman’s connections with the most powerful Americans of the day. Marshall mentions Bella Dodd for the proposition that nearly 1,100 men were put into the priesthood by the Communists. What he doesn’t bother to follow up on his her statements that the Communist Party in New York had to wait for orders from the Kremlin which in turn waited for orders from people who worked in skyscrapers in New York City.[i] He mentions John Courtney Murray, SJ in passing as a priest working for Augustin Cardinal Bea to write the Declaration of Religious Liberty but ignores Murray’s long association with Henry Luce who was associated with Spellman and also ignores how Murray, who was also a world renown theologian thanks to Luce’s backing, throughout his career elevated the American system of social organization, particularly the First Amendment. And along those lines, John Cardinal Gibbons is mentioned in passing as obtaining permission from Pope Leo XIII to build a Cathedral to the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC while Gibbons’ support of the First Amendment against the encyclicals of Leo XIII is well documented in two biographies of the prelate. [Spellman was thought to be a champion of traditionalism in the 70s at least.]

Was McCarrick a Communist Agent?

(Rome) While the Pope Francis' summit on sexual abuse of minors is taking place in the Vatican, new revelations about the ex-homosexual cardinal and ex-priest Theodore McCarrick have become known.

According to Vatican planning, the Abuse Summit wants to avoid the main motive of sexual abuse: homosexuality [Let's not try to be neutral about this scourge, call it aberrosexuality.] At least 80 percent of all abuse victims of clerics are male adolescents 11 and up.

Now, new revelations surrounding homosexual McCarrick, whose case set the abuse summit  rolling, became known. Besidss this, there is a connection between homosexuality and the summit. This is especially true because of the great influence that McCarrick exercised by his offices, his rank, the Papal Foundation initiated by him and not least by the Sodo-Cliques.

Church Militant's American Michael Voris reported "explosive" news late yesterday evening:

"The Communists have been incredibly successful in infiltrating the church. McCarrick was one of her men. "

Voris is convinced that the Abuse Summit is a major diversionary tactic of homosexual clerics in the Church. For decades, the same cliques have covered McCarrick, who - following Frédéric Martel's statement in his new book "Sodoma" - was one of the heads of the homosexual network.

Michael Voris

Church Militant relies on information from former communists who "played a key role" after the Second World War in building a secret network of communist training and education centers in Europe. Their information "implies" a direct involvement by McCarrick, Voris said.

According to him McCarrick was in his early years, "secretly trained in Europe by Soviet Communists" with the aim to implant him as a communist "in the heart of the Church.”

When Stalin took control of the Soviet Union in the 1920s, it was one of his plans, so much is certain, to weaken the influence of the Catholic Church, if not entirely eliminating it. This was "part of the communist world domination plans that Our Lady warned in Fatima in 1917.”

A central point of the plan, according to Voris, was the "infiltration of seminaries with young men who were to work to undermine the Church's moral code".

This strategy was confirmed by Bella Dodd (1904-1969), a senior member of the US Communist Party (CPUSA). She herself, according to her own information, placed 1,100 men in US seminars. The teacher Dodd was a leading communist activist and trade unionist in the 1930s and 1940s. She began to withdraw herself internally  from communism in the course of a purge of exclusion from the party in 1949. Under the leadership of Fulton Sheen, then Auxiliary Bishop of New York, she returned to the Catholic Church and became an opponent of dialectical materialism.

Dodd revealed that according to Stalin's order, "immoral men", especially homosexuals, were to be introduced to the Church.

"Dodd's testimony is important because it not only reveals the infiltration plan, but also the connection between communism and homosexuality in this plan," which was not limited to the US.

When the Iron Curtain fell in 1989 and the Soviet empire collapsed in 1991, information from the KGB became known that the Polish seminaries had been infiltrated with hundreds of Communist agents. "The reality that the Church was besieged from within for decades shook Polish Catholics to the core," Voris said. At the same time, Catholics in Lithuania had to realize that their "hierarchy was interspersed with Soviet agents."

"Liberation theology had been carried to Latin America by KGB agents to undermine the Catholic Church through the Jesuit Order."

To train young men who would not be noticed in their home countries, various training centers were set up. One, according to Church Militant, existed in St. Gallen, Switzerland, where McCarrick was around 1950. He came from a poor family. The father had died young and the mother struggled with simple work to make ends meet.

Bella Dodd

In 2001, McCarrick told the New York Times about his time in Europe right after graduating from college. He had "no plans for his life" back then. "A friend" invited him to Switzerland, where he stayed for a whole year, without saying where he had the money for such a trip and the long stay. Something that at that time only wealthy could afford.

That McCarrick was in St. Gallen is known by James Grein, one of his sexual abuse victims. Church Militant points out that one of the Communist training centers in the West was located in Sankt Gallen, where recruited young men were trained, among other things, to be introduced to the Church.

McCarrick told the New York Times he found his priestly calling during his time in Europe. Voris:

"McCarrick would have been the ideal candidate for Soviet recruitment: a fatherless young man with homosexual inclinations and no particular ambition in life. It was a perfect match for the pattern, especially the homosexual dynamic, which made it easy to control it by blackmail. "

The fact is that McCarrick entered the seminary of the Archdiocese of New York on his return to the United States and was consecrated there in 1958.

"If McCarrick was actually recruited as a Soviet agent to undermine the Church, he fulfilled his clients' wishes perfectly."

"He rose quickly and spread moral, doctrinal and spiritual confusion on every level, inflicting injuries - not just his victims among the seminarians and other young men."

Indeed, if McCarrick had been a communist agent steeped in Marxist thought and a socialist worldview at an early age, that would explain a great deal how his way in the Church in the United States was struck by his rise to power..

The so-called "Social Justice" wing in the Church of the United States became a leader under McCarrick who is one of its central figures. Under US President Bill Clinton, he was even able to extend his influence to the government by sitting for three years in the Foreign Affairs Committee on Religious Freedom from 1996 onwards. From 1999 to 2001 he was also a member of the US Commission for International Freedom. The membership in both committees enabled him numerous foreign trips. During a ceremony, Clinton joked that these constant trips abroad were more for diplomats than archbishops.

While Benedict XVI. Restricts McCarrick's room for maneuver and imposed sanctions on him for the strong suspicion of sexual misconduct, Pope Francis rehabilitated him and made him his special envoy to the Communist People's Republic of China. As such, McCarrick was involved in preparing the secret agreement between the Holy See and Beijing, signed in September 2018, and caused critic s to call him a "seller of the Chinese Church."

The proof of Michael Voris is thin, which he knows himself. But he is right in pointing out that the evidence is too numerous to dismiss the revelations. McCarrick had "routinely bribed" and paid Roman curial officials with "benefits and probably cover-ups".

"He has been instrumental in propagating social justice that has dominated the life of the Church in the United States for decades - a movement that hides behind a language of charity, but regularly reveals its left-wing policies and its links with socialist organizations of which many are offshoots of Saul Alinsky. "

Voris also links Saint Gallen with the secret circle of high and highest progressive Church representatives founded by Cardinal Martini in the 1990s, which played a central role in the election of Pope Francis. The association of Church progressive to political left is obvious. The decidedly political action of Pope Francis confirms this. In fact, his election not only brought with it the immediate lifting of the sanctions imposed on him, but also granted him unprecedented influence in the Vatican.

Voris concludes from his information and agrees that McCarrick's case is not only closer to sexual abuse, but much broader. His entire influence on the Church in the United States and on the Universal Church should be scrutinized - and his year in Switzerland.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: Vatican.va/Justice4Poland/Youtube/Church Militant (Screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@gotmail.com

AMDG

Communist Symbol Projected on the Facade of Bogota's Cathedral -- Few Days Before Pope Visit: FARC Now a Political Party

(Bogota) The Pope's visit to Colombia, which began on Wednesday, caused the entire country to be in a state of unrest. While, for political and religious reasons, some criticism of the Pope's visit was practiced, the symbol of the Marxist guerrilla organization FARC was projected on the facade of the Cathedral of Bogota during the night of the 1st of September. With this emblematic provocation, the FARC presented itself to the public as a political party at the end of its founding party.

At present, almost everything revolves around the communist "Narcoguerillas." Colombia's left-wing president Juan Manuel Santos (Social Party of National Unity, Partido de la U) had signed a peace agreement with the Marxist underground organization FARC in November 2016, although the people had rejected such an agreement only a few weeks earlier in a referendum.

Former flag of the FARC

The FARC rebels, defeated militarily by Santos' predecessor Uribe, have been seeing their future as a political party since then. After the failure of the armed struggle, they want to take part in the country's policy in a new way. Critics accuse Santos of looking at future left alliances in order to cement his own power and prevent the return of the political right to government.

The FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army) had been established as the militant arm of the Colombian Communist Party in 1965 to forcibly seize power in the country, based on the Cuban model and Soviet support. The 50 years of FARC terrorism has cost more than 200,000 lives. Only the hard military attitude of President Alvaro Uribe Velez (2002 - 2010) put an end to the ghost. His successor, Santos, Uribe was not allowed to stand for a third mandate according to the constitution, went the other way and put the FARC into the political system of the country. The motto is, from a guerrilla movement to political party. Many Colombians disagree, as the result of the referendum last year showed.

The Pope as the most important public ally of the left "peace treaty"

Santos found on the international level in Pope Francis the most important ally. The head of the Catholic Church, because of his sympathy for leftist groups, also known as leftist radical groups, supports the integration of the communist narcoguerrillas, so named because it was financed mainly from drug trafficking.

Francis made a visit to the country dependent on the acceptance of the peace agreement. Another aspect, which caused considerable reservations in some parts of the Colombian population against the imminent Pope's visit.

In addition to the political aspects, there are also strong religious reservations in Colombia against Pope Francis. Among Latin Americans, their attitude to various, relevant, topics is seen more critically than in Europe. At the end of July, José Galat Noumer, one of the most famous Catholics of Colombia, former Rector of the University of La Gran Columbia and a successful Catholic television entrepreneur, was excommunicated for "persistent criticism of the pope." Apparently, direct intervention from the Vatican at the Colombian Bishops' Conference was decisive. Before the Pope's visit they wanted to make a clean table.

The criticism has not been silenced, however, as a report from the Radio network RCN Radio showed at the weekend. A priest, who wanted to remain anonymous in order not to endanger his participation in a debate with Pope Francis, exercised severe criticism of the "direction" which Francis is giving to the Church. He knows at least 90 other priests who share the same opinion. He wanted to present his reservations to the Pope during the meeting, which is scheduled for the first day of his visit. He would also tell him that "many believe that he is associated with Freemasonry."

FARC is constituted as a political police: Start with "typically left-radical provocation"

As RCN Radio reports, "many" Colombians are convinced that Francis is "a communist".

This critical climate was further heated up by an incident last weekend. In the late evening of September 1, the new political symbol of the FARC was projected onto the façade of the Bogota Cathedral, the Church of the Primate of Colombia, and the mother church of the whole country.

New FARC symbol: red rose with red star

The previous, warlike Eastern Bloc iconography with Kalashnikov was abandoned. Instead, the new logo shows a stylized red rose, including the lettering FARC. In the middle of the rose is a five-pointed, red star. Observers speak of a conscious approach to the symbolism of the Socialist International to find international support for the entry into representative parliamentarism. The Red Star stands for the ideological conviction. The name FARC has been retained. According to the founding meeting, which took place from 27 August to 1 September, FARC is no longer for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), but for Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Comun (Alternative Revolutionary Force Colombia," is meant).

After the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the end of the Soviet Union, the never-forbidden Communist Party of Colombia almost disbanded. In 1993 it distanced itself for the first time from its military arm FARC. Last July, the "reconciliation" and the announcement that a "new party" together with the FARC was to be launched and to stand in the 2018 parliamentary elections.

Founding party meeting with an anti-Christian or "pro-Church" provocation

"Total rejection," Msgr. Mercado said, is a challenge for FARC

The new party was presented to the public on 1 September as the beginning of the founding party. A festival was held at Plaza de Bolivar in the center of Bogota. On this occasion, the new symbol of the left-wing party was projected onto the façade of the cathedral. A "typical, left-radical provocation" as it is called in Bogota. A few days before the beginning of the Pope's visit it was, as some say, a provocative but equally emblematic gesture.

It is provocative because Colombian bishops, because of their painful experience with communism and their hostility to the church, rejected the peace agreement a year ago during the referendum. Emblematic, because indirectly, Pope Francis has been called as a kind of godfather of the transformation process from guerrilla organization to a political party. President Santos and government representatives are not tired of establishing a link between the two events. The FARC confirmed this view with the light projection. The Vatican has so far denied such a connection and speaks of a "pastoral visit."

Image of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá

Procession of the Miraculous Image of Chiquinquirá to the Cathedral of Bogota

Just a few hours before the incident, the miraculous image of Our Lady of Chiquinquira, the patroness of Colombia, had been carried in procession in the same place. The image of Our Lady rarely leaves its usual place of storage in the Basilica of Chiquinquira. Because of the imminent Pope's visit, however, it was temporarily transferred to Bogota and displayed in a chapel of the cathedral. There, Pope Francis will visit. There, the faithful can also revere it, after the Pope's visit, it will be brought back to the Chiquinquirá, some 135 kilometers from Bogota.

The Metropolitan of Bogota, Mons. Pedro Mercado, showed his anger on Twitter with a "total rejection" of a photo of the FARC projection on the facade of the cathedral.

The sometimes contemptuous reactions that followed on Twitter reveal the spirit accomplished by the adherents of  FARC who have now become part of the global left, for which Pope Francis shows such astonishing sympathies.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Twitter / Wikicommons (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Laos: New Cardinal Imprisoned by the Communists for Three Years

Cardinal Ling had proclaimed the Gospel without permission from the government. The three years in prison were necessary for his conversion and purification, he says retrospectively - with VIDEO Pakse

(kath.net/CWN/jg) Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, apostolic vicar of Pakse (Laos) and one of the cardinals who were created on 28 June, spent three years in prison during his communist regime.

His "offense" was to proclaim the gospel in villages and prisons without permission from the government. In 1984 the then 40-year-old was arrested and accused of "propaganda for Jesus".

He was in prison three years with chains on my arms and legs, he recalls. The time was essential for his inner formation. It was necessary for the "conversion and purification" of his person and also for others, he says retrospectively.

Rome Reports - Cardinal Ling from Laos spent three years in communist prisons: "For me it was like another novitiate" (English) Photo: Symbolbild

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Cross Procession in Saint Petersburg -- October Revolution and the Return of Religion

(Moscow) Pictures of the cross procession in Saint Petersburg from September 12th. The procession led from the Kazan Cathedral over the famous Nevsky Prospect to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.

Icon of Alexander Nevski

The Rurikid Alexander Newski, Prince of Novgorod (from 1249 Grand Prince of Kiev), brought the advance of the Swedes into Russian territory to a halt at the Battle of the Neva in 1240, and in 1242 in the Battle of Peipus also that of the Teutonic Order. He has been officially honored by the Russian Orthodox Church since 1547 as a saint. The Nevsky Prospekt, a 300-year-old grand boulevard of 4.5 kilometers, connects the Tsar's winter palace to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery at the other end. In the monastery, the bones of the Saint Prince Rurikid are buried.

Along the boulevard you will also find the Kazan Cathedral, erected more than 200 years ago. It was built with St. Peter's in Rome as a model. The cathedral was built over an older predecessor, the Church of the Virgin Mary. It is named after an icon of the Mother of Kazan who is venerated in the cathedral.

Kazan Cathedral

The church is considered a memorial church for the victorious defense against Napoleon's campaign of 1812. In it, Field Marshal Michail Kutusov is buried, who as the Russian commander-in-chief, directed the defense. The Field Marshal had prayed before the fighting in the just finished church and asked the Mother of God for help.

After the Communist October Revolution, the cathedral was plundered and devastated. In 1918 the Archpriest of the Church, the philosopher Ornatsky, suffered martyrdom together with his two sons. Ornatsky had celebrated a requiem for the victims of the Communists. Shortly after, he and his two sons were then arrested. He was allowed to say a prayer for those condemned to death on a cliff above the Finnish Gulf, then he, his sons and 30 other men were shot and their bodies thrown over the cliffs into the sea.

Cross-process through the Nevsky Prospect 2016

In 1922 all the valuables, liturgical implements, and icons were confiscated by the Soviet government, and the cathedral was transformed into a museum of atheism in 1932.

In November 1990, the Sacred Liturgy was celebrated for the first time in consultation with the Museum Directorate - the museum has renamed the Museum of Religious History after the end of the Soviets. In 1999 the evacuation of the museum and the return of the cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church was agreed. The transfer was completed in 2001. In 2002 the icon of the Mother of Kazan was returned to the church. Since 2017, the cathedral has once again been the seat of the metropolitan of Novgorod and Saint Petersburg.

After more than 90 years, the first cross-procession took place in 2013, which commemorates the transfer of the relics of the Rurikid Prince Nevsky to the monastery named after him at the end of the Nevsky Prospect. The video shows recordings of the fourth cross procession since its revival (September 2016).

Underground Bishop Casimir Wang Dies --- 10 Years in Prison

Bishop Casimir Wang of Tianshui

(Beijing) In the early morning hours of the day, the Catholic underground bishop Casimir Wang Milu of Tianshui in Gansu Province died in the People's Republic of China. Msgr. Wang was 74 years old. He was not recognized by the Communist government as a bishop. His burial will take place on 18 February. There is currently no corresponding acknowledgment from the regime.

Bishop's chair of Tianshui vacant since 1955

Officially, the bishop's chair in Central China's Tianshui has only been vacant since 1972, but in fact it has been unoccupied since 1955. Tianshui was a mission area of ​​the German Capuchins. In 1946, Pope Pius XII. made the area into a diocese. The first diocesan bishop was the German Capuchin Peter Gratian Grimm. With the Communist takeover of power, the suffering period began for the Christians of the country. In 1955 all foreign bishops and priests of the country were expelled. Bishop Grimm also had to leave China and went to Indonesia in the mission area of ​​the Capuchins. With his death in 1972, the last official bishop of the Chinese diocese died.

In 1981, Mr. Casimir Wang was consecrated to be the underground bishop of Tianshui. The secret bishop gave him Bishop Peter Joseph Fan Xueyan of Baoding in Hebei, one of the charismatic leading figures of the underground Church. Bishop Fan spent 17 years in prisons and labor camps as well as the last five years of his life under house arrest and constant interrogation. China's underground Catholics are convinced that he did not die of "lung failure" in 1992, as it was officially called, but the consequences of torture. His beatification proceedings were initiated.

Ten years for Christ in prison

In 1983, Bishop Wang was also tracked and arrested by the regime. In Beijing he was sentenced to ten years in prison. Having been released after serving the punishment in the 1990s, he made use of the special powers the Pope had given to the Chinese underground bishops to consecrate other bishops without the direct consent of the Holy See. He had made use of it " excessively," which for him,  as Asianews says, he had been suspended by Rome, despite his ardent zeal for evangelization and his inviolable fidelity to the pope. He stayed in the province of Gansu and continued to work as a pastor.

In 2007 the special authority for the consecration of bishops was given by Pope Benedict XVI. in his letter to the Chinese Catholics in general.

Bishop Wang was born in 1942 as the son of a Catholic family. In 1979, he was ordained a priest. His younger brother, John Wang, also a priest, was consecrated to the underground bishop of Tianshui in 2011.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Photo: Asianews

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

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Communist Government of Venezuela Rocked by Massive Protests -- Possible Coup

All the Pope's horses and all the Pope's men, couldn't put poor Maduro together again!

 Edit: Maduro has been globetrotting lately, attempting to gather support for his oppressive regime in various quarters, including fellow traveller, Pope Bergoglio. He may have to go into exile. See the mass demonstrations live, here.

Caracas (AFP) - Opponents of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro rallied in the streets Wednesday and he convened a crisis security meeting as the leftist leader resisted their efforts to drive him from power.

Thousands of opposition supporters began to gather at seven points around Caracas in the morning and said they planned to march and join up in the east of the capital.

It is a key test of strength in a mounting political and economic crisis that is destabilizing the South American oil producer.

The socialist president and center-right-dominated opposition accuse each other of mounting a "coup" in a volatile country rich in oil but short of food.

Continue... AMDG

Pope Francis and the Left Option for Brazil -- "Political" Blessing of a Marian Statue of Aparecida in Vatican

Pope Francis: Blessing of a representation of Our Lady of
Aparecida with a hint of political engagement

(Rome) Last Saturday the daily bulletin of the Vatican announced that Pope Francis in the Vatican Gardens has blessed a bronze statue of Our Lady of Aparecida. It's a religious act mingled in a "strange" way with a policy that is related to the dismissal of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

The previous day, the Cuban press agency Prensa Latina reported that Rousseff's predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president from 2003-2011, wrote the Pope a letter about the "serious" political situation "in Brazil and in the world". Rousseff and Lula belong to the same party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), the left "Workers' Party".

Cuba published Lula's letter upon the impeachment of Brazil's President

Prensa Latina is a press agency controlled by the communist regime in Cuba. The fact that they published the Lula-letter in full, recognizes the regular connections between the PT and the island state of the Castro brothers.

Lula letter to Pope Francis

Lula informed Pope Francis in the letter that "conservative" political forces at work are on the "edge of legality" - wanting  to "prevent" a "continuity and progressive projects  and social development and free inclusion" by the Workers Party (PT).

In another letter Lula praised the "achievements" of the Workers' Party and sharply condemns the attacks against Dilma Rousseff. In order to take steps to  "criminalize" Rousseff and the "social movements", especially the PT.

Lula demands that can the people must be able choose its President "freely" by which he implied that free elections by the "conservative" forces are under threat. , The Lula wrote:  the "conservative" forces "fear that the people will choose me in 2018," and would therefore make him president again. The Brazilian constitution allows only two consecutive terms of a head of state. Meanwhile, Lula could run again.

Same letter from Venezuelan President Maduro

On Saturday it was announced that Pope Francis had received the exact same letter from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. In addition to the Cuban contacts, the common action of Lula and the "Bolivarian" President Maduro, reveals a political landscape that is situated with varying shades of social-democratic and communist, clearly left.

Observers doubt that it was an "accident". The letters and the cooperation of the Brazilian-Venezuelan-Cuban Left and the blessing of the statue of the Virgin of Aparecida, a Brazilian Marian shrine, "may be a coincidence, but it does not look like one," said Secretum meum mihi .

Pope Francis used the blessing to take a position on the situation in Brazil and did this by mixing religious and political aspects. The  pontiff said that Brazil is experiencing "sad moments."  That gesture and words as partisanship for Dilma Rousseff and the Workers' Party are to be understood,  which the "Pope-Girlfriend" and Pope's biographer, Elisabetta Piqué assures with an article in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion.

"May the Blessed Mother sustain left governments and keep 'conservative' forces back?"

With the blessing of the statue of Mary, Francis announced differently than initially indicated, that he would not travel to Brazil in 2017  to take part in 300-year celebrations of the Marian shrine of Aparecida.

Piqué's articles in "La Nacion" on Pope Francis and his "Brazil-option" crisis

Francis asked Our Lady of Aparecida on Saturday,  "to protect the Brazilian people in this sad moment and the poor, the marginalized, the abandoned elderly, to protect the street children; to save her people with social justice in the love of Jesus."

Piqué's article leaves no doubt that a certain political option is meant to be protected by the Mother of God. To say it in the sense of Lula and Maduro: "May the Mother of God sustain the left-wing government in power and keep the 'conservative' forces them away," said Francisco Fernandez de la Cigoña.

Already in the course of the presidential campaign in Argentina, Pope Francis had chosen the left option and preferred the Peronist candidate, but the people elected the "conservative" opposition candidate, which has since led to a series of tensions in relations.

The same signaling by the Catholic Church leader took place on his Latin American visit in 2015. During the meetings with the leftist president of Ecuador and Bolivia were demonstratively friendly, Francis showed the "conservative" president of Paraguay the cold shoulder, to put it cautiously. In fact, he attacked him openly and completely without foundation.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Photo: Prensa Latina / La Nacion / Vatican.va / Wikicommons (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG