Little Caterina Offered Her Illness For the Franciscans of the Immaculata

Caterina Maria Sudorio (2006-2014)

(Rome) Caterina Maria Sudrio, the youngest of ten children, was born on 1 June 2006 in Benevento, that southern Italian city, which is famous for the Battle of Benevento, which battle as known in German speaking lands that finally brought the dream of the Staufers to an end in 1266. The city was appropriated by the Pope in 1053 from Emperor Henry III., where the Pope renounced his rights in Bamberg. The city remained papal  until the time of Napoleon.

At the age of only four years, the small Caterina asked with a serious tone to confess to Father Pietro Maria Luongo of the Order of Franciscans of the Immaculate. The girl had been Christened by Father Stefano Maria Manelli, founder of this Order. From him she received on Christmas 2011, at the tender age of only five and a half years her First Communion at  High Mass in the traditional, Tridentine Rite. The decree Quam Singularities of St. Pius X from 1910 states: "What is valid for confession as a distinguishing age is when one can distinguish between good and evil, that is, has reached a certain use of reason, we must  open Communion for the same distinctive age  if the Eucharistic bread can be distinguished from an ordinary bread."

Every Evening at the Eucharistic Blessing

Every evening Caterina emphatically wanted to receive the Eucharistic blessing in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Good Counsel at 7:20 in Frigento, which is the mother house of the young Franciscan Order. The serious illness that  affected her young body, she sacrificed in full awareness for Father Stefano Maria Manelli and the Order of the Brothers and the Sisters of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.

Caterina's favorite movie was "The Secret of Marcellino ", a Spanish production from the year 1955.  Marcellino the orphan is placed in the 18th century as an infant on the doorstep of a Franciscan monastery. The brothers take on the child. One day, the boy discovered a large crucifix in the attic of the monastery. He is overcome with great pity on the emaciated Jesus hanging on the cross. He secretly steals some bread and wine in the monastery and brings them to the crucified.  The crucifix comes to life before Marcellino, takes the bread and wine, at which point the Eucharist, and instructs the boy in the Christian faith. Again and again, the boy returns to the attic, because the man on the cross attracts him and he regularly brings to the Lord some bread and wine from the monastery inventories. The brothers notice the theft and are looking for the cause. Marcellino wishes, meanwhile, to see his mother (of whose death he obviously knows) and also the Mother of God, Mary. The Crucified takes the boy in his arms and tells him to sleep. In the arms of Jesus, the boy falls asleep happy and dies. The Franciscans, who had advanced in their search for the missing food up to the attic,  then see a radiant light shinning through the slatted, which gives a heavenly luster to the lifeless body of the boy.

Favorite Movie and Favorite Song

The film follows the nove l "Marcelino Pan Y Vino" by Spanish author José María Sánchez Silva. In 1955 he won two special awards at the International Film Festival of Cannes and the Silver Bear in Berlin. 

In the film, a Franciscan told in a flashback, the story of young Marcellino to a dying girl. Caterina, who knew herself to be mortally ill, thus  may have been touched by this movie.

Her favorite song was "Preferisco il Paradiso " (I prefer the paradise), which she had heard in a two-part TV movie produced in 2010 on the life of St. Philip Neri. In the television broadcast of the film, which reached viewing figures of 23.9 percent (first part) and 27.4 percent (second part). The pious joy of the Saint,  his cheerful nature and his deep piety impressed and thrilled the small Caterina.

The Deadly Disease and Its victims

Caterina with Pope Francis

Parents and doctors should remember when they talk about Caterina, with admiring astonishment that she never complained about her illness, a malignant epipheochromocytoma.  When she was asked how she was, she always replied "good" and smiled. As soon as she could talk, she repeated again and again that Jesus came to bring joy, because without love, it is difficult to grow.

In summer 2012, her fatal illness was diagnosed. She knew that she would die. On Saturday, July 26, the Feast of St. Anne and Joachim, the parents of the Virgin Mary, God willed to take  Caterina at 9 O'clock in the morning at the age of eight years. Consummatum est !

The parents of small Caterina Maria Sudrio, Francesco and Rosaria of small  are Tertiaries of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, while three older sisters are the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception . So, the little Caterina was familiar with the Order from an early age.  So it was she who one day said she wanted to sacrifice her illness and her death for this order.

Her situation had touched many hearts. On January 23, 2014, she was even received by Pope Francis (see picture)

On June 1,  small Caterina celebrated her eighth  birthday with her family and many of friends and with her brothers and sisters from the Order. On 9 March, she had received at her express request, and with special permission, Holy Confirmation.

"She will intercede for us all" it says in the brief statement by the Franciscans of the Immaculate on Caterina's death, which ends with the words: "The flowers grow from the earth and they return to the earth, but their fragrance rises up to heaven."

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Chiesa e Postconcilio / Osservatore Romano

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMGD

Would This Were the End of the Lay Apostolic Magisterium: Pennies from Heaven

Update:  For those who are wondering if there will be a recording of this.  Michael Matt TV-3 was on the jorb and his guys were assiduously recording the event for posterity.

Edit: in the bowels of the parish church of St. Augustine's, built in the depths of the 1929 Correction, above the slaughter houses, to the rails along the flowing river, along the charming boardwalks and neatly kept lawns and gables of the old working class neighborhood, a "debate" just took place in the presence of about 500 men, some from as far away as Spain, Ohio, points north and south.   Present were Michael Voris, President of Church Militant, Michael Matt, editor of the Remnant, Dave Deavel, a Fellow at St. Thomas University and Mark Shea, a catechist who is an apologist for the rotting and decaying ecclesiastical structures in the United States.

What was supposed to have been a debate was really more of an intervention, maybe a divine intervention, where the people ranged against each other, however poorly they presented themselves, or how well, was overwhelmed by the persistence of Christ's words and the holy dogmas of the Catholic Church.

Indeed, the stated reason for the debate wasn't important.  It wasn't a debate, really.  The questions offered, or the way they were presented were disgracefully emotional and practically incoherent.  Yet Voris is not only a professional television presenter, he is also a trained theologian.  Thus, he spoke clearly, persuasively and had facts at his disposal that gradually withered his opponent's position to ridicule.

You might say it was a slaughter, and being the home of a slaughter house, South Saint Paul is also, coincidentally, the home of the  murderous elected representative Betty McCollum and the apostate from Catholicism and former governor, Tim Pawlenty.  Both of them are sadly products of Catholic education.

In South Saint Paul,  on warm spring days, the stench of the yards would waft over the bluffs, with an assault to the mind of death and decay. In mind of such poetic circumstances it is difficult to maintain that the Church is in a "New Springtime", or that dogmas can be changed after 1,900 years as certain luminaries were trying to maintain.  And yet there are other causes for alarm not restricted merely to Catholics leaving the Church, or politicians who vote for abortion. Catholics who believe what the Church teaches are not only ridiculed by those who don't, but worse things, perhaps.

Plates of partially cooked, overwhelmingly spicy brats were mostly eaten by the captivated men. Some surely would have given their birthrights for a half-cooked brat. There was even an Archdiocesan spokesman there to offer a woeful and inadequate apology, if not an explanation, for why they're not subordinate enough to the spirit of the age.

The audience was also visibly divided and the mood of merriment and humor occasionally became hostile, even hateful as beer flowed into plastic cups.

At one point, the Parish Pastor, Father John Echert speculated if Mark Shea might think he were in Hell, and well he might be. It was in this mood that the "debate" continued as both Michael Voris and Michael Matt attempted to explain the significance of the Catholic Faith, but this wasn't acceptable to some in the room, who groaned, tittered and sneered.

Some, especially among the apologetics mafia, perhaps fearing a downturn in the economic fortunes of their families, manning money changing tables in the back, were visibly angry, occasionally interrupting Voris or Michael Matt, who were attempting to make clear the terrible state of the Church by discussing statistics, appealing to anecdotal stories and history.  But as much as they disliked what was being said, there were times when the concentration of 500 men built to a feverish pitch in the discomfort of the basement where the infernal temperatures caused tempers to flare.  Perhaps too, in its grotesquery, coupled with a relentless stupidity and pity, like Christ's Passion, as guards and the vulgar mob jeered and spat at Him. As He struggled under the weight of the cross to redeem those who despise Him.  There was a spiritual dimension present, in spite of the charnal setting, the horrendous food, the growing heat, the gross forms at the podium and in the audience, there was still a kind of angelic presence in the din, both good and evil.


It was a scene worthy of the brutal treatment of Flannery O'Connor whom bad Catholics like to quote, or worse still, by Evelyn Waugh who would have mercilessly portrayed the posturing of the debaters, the foggy lack of clarity, the tired digression and the words, the endless words.

But not all was lost. During question and answer, one brave voice, a Spaniard from the sound of him, asked what we as men should do to address what all agreed was the decay of the Church throughout the world. What was needed?

As Michael Voris attacked the Mundelein Seminary Rector, the publicly acclaimed but heterodox Father Barron, for supporting a novel opinion regarding the fewness of the saved, what must have been some  goblin in the crowd let out a cry.  Voris' opponent, quickly receding the background replied with a derisive wave of his hand, "If there's a problem in the Church, it's NOT Father Barron."

So shall it be at the end of the world. The angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the just.

It was then that Michael Matt talked about the importance of doctrine, of the oft argued against, hidden, denied dogma of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, that is, no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. He was impassioned about it and the room grew increasingly silent, like the darkness and silence that must have covered the world when He died.

Despite a last second interruption by Father Grebner, who attempted to talk about how Lumen Gentium says Protestants CAN be saved, even he seemed overcome by the moment, and attempted to describe how Lumen Gentium actually says only few are saved.

Everything else seemed to shrink in the room and was dominated by the thrice defined dogma, and the dark spirits in the air seemed to shrink away, while all-too-fallible laymen pondered the mystery of salvation and the constancy of the Church's teaching, and its true mission.  It's not enough to say we fast, pray and keep watch.  Without the Catholic Faith it is impossible to please God.  What must we do?

And he said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover. And the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God. But they going forth preached everywhere: the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed.

Note: a detente of sorts was achieved at the end, but who knows how long it will last or if it will even be improved upon.  Certain apologists go back to their vomit.