Swedish “Priest” Arrested for Smuggling Invader in Suitcase

Camilla Ulén, a priest in Gävle, Sweden, has been accused of smuggling an Afghan migrant out of a detention facility in a suitcase.

The 20-year-old migrant, who was being held pending deportation, disappeared on February 23, according to a report in Nyheter Idag. He was visited by two women shortly before his disappearance, one of whom was a priest from the Church of Sweden. The priest was carrying a large suitcase which she told authorities was to be used for a baptism.

Sweden’s Migration Board has since accused the priest of helping the migrant to escape. Its Director General, Mikael Ribbenvik, said in a statement that the incident had damaged the Board’s trust in the Church of Sweden. “We were tricked,” he said.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2020/03/sweden-priest-accused-of-smuggling-migrant-in-suitcase/

AMDG

Promoting Homosexual Marriage Hasn't Improved the Protestant Church's Lot

Edit: here's a graph from Stella Borealis about membership rates of ELCA (Evangelical Luthern Church of America), which shows how well they've done for themselves by resonating with the Zeigeist, ordaining women, open homosexuals and promoting Sodom.  The results for parts of the Catholic Church which similarly collaborate with evil in this way are also declining rapidly as wealthy, albeit elderly Liberal parishioners die out.  The end is near.   Stats to decadent Lutheran source, here:

Year	Members	Change	%	Congregations	Change	%
1987	5,288,048			11,133
1988	5,251,534	-36,514	-0.69%	11,120	-13	-0.12%
1989	5,238,798	-12,736	-0.24%	11,067	-53	-0.48%
1990	5,240,739	+1,941	0.04%	11,087	+20	0.18%
1991	5,245,177	+4,438	0.08%	11,074	-13	-0.12%
1992	5,234,568	-10,609	-0.20%	11,055	-19	-0.17%
1993	5,212,785	-21,783	-0.42%	11,023	-32	-0.29%
1994	5,199,048	-13,737	-0.26%	10,973	-50	-0.45%
1995	5,190,489	-8,559	-0.16%	10,955	-18	-0.16%
1996	5,187,363	-3,126	-0.06%	10,936	-19	-0.17%
1997	5,185,055	-2,308	-0.04%	10,889	-47	-0.43%
1998	5,178,225	-6,830	-0.13%	10,862	-27	-0.25%
1999	5,149,668	-28,557	-0.55%	10,851	-11	-0.10%
2000	5,125,919	-23,749	-0.46%	10,816	-35	-0.32%
2001	5,099,877	-26,042	-0.51%	10,766	-50	-0.46%
2002*	5,038,006	-61,871	-1.21%	10,721	-45	-0.42%
2003	4,984,925	-53,081	-1.05%	10,657	-64	-0.60%
2004	4,930,429	-54,496	-1.09%	10,585	-72	-0.68%
2005	4,850,776	-79,653	-1.62%	10,549	-36	-0.34%
2006	4,774,203	-76,573	-1.58%	10,470	-79	-0.75%
2007	4,709,956	-64,247	-1.34%	10,448	-22	-0.21%
2008	4,633,887	-76,069	-1.61%	10,396	-52	-0.49%
2009	4,543,037	-90,850	-1.99%	10,348	-48	-0.46%
2010	4,272,688	-270,349	-5.95%	10,008	-340	-3.29%

* Only congregations existing on December 31 are included in the overall membership statistics. Prior to 2002, all congregations that existed during the course of the previous year were included.

++Schönborn Triumphant at Pope Benedict's Schülerkreis

‘Ratzinger Schülerkreis’ Is Now in Session

Edit: Vienna's Pornography Cardinal practically gloats as he describes Cardinal Ratzinger's programme for the American Neoconservative Catholic Register. In his interview with Vatican Radio on 30 August, he dissembled:

“The fact that the Holy Father has chosen this theme for the meeting this year is a sign that the ecumenical question is of primary importance for him” 

After years of frustrating the Pope's initiatives in Austria and undermining his authority by giving in to dissidents, promoting Medjugorje, and slyly promoting homosexuality by overturning a pastor's decision when he tried to reject a parish council member who was an active homosexual earlier this year.

All of that is forgotten, as the Cardinal waxes sensitively about the very close relationship between himself and the Holy Father, and yet there is not one word of criticism from NCR.

“It is an academic circle, and this means that what counts are the arguments,” said Cardinal Schönborn. “Of course there is the question of friendships that have been built up after so many years, we have met for over 30 years, every year, and now we are almost at the point of retirement!”

A key component of the annual get together is, of course, the involvement of Pope Benedict himself. Cardinal Schönborn said the Pope’s disposition throughout is not merely academic but also “paternal” and “fraternal” towards his former students. “What strikes us is how the Holy Father always knows his pupils, he always asks about their family, children, and when there is suffering in a family he knows about it, he cares deeply,” the Austrian cardinal said.

The basis for much of the group’s studies this week will be Cardinal Walter Kasper’s 2009 book Harvesting the Fruits, which explores Catholic relations with Anglicanism and Lutheranism.

The discussion on Lutheranism will be led by the German Lutheran Bishop-Emeritus Ulrich Wilckens, while the Swiss Catholic Bishop Charles Morerod of Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg will lead the discussion on Anglicanism.

“With the Holy Father, we expect a dialogue in truth and charity: in the truth that does not conceal the drama of division among Christians in Europe and, as a consequence, all over the world, but also the great issue of what is the reform of the Church, a theme of utmost importance to the Holy Father,” Cardinal Schönborn remarked.

Pope Benedict’s 26-year academic career involved him teaching at universities in Bonn, Munster, Tubingen and Regensburg. He was appointed archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977.
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/ratzinger-schuelerkreis-is-now-in-session/#ixzz25AqztrNj

News: Protestants Shrinking Three Times Faster in Germany

The Crib Has a Cross

Vatican. At yesterday's General Audience, the Pope warned against a secularization of Christmas and urged a move away from externals in favor of a return to religion

Interpret the humiliation of Christ in the manger to his suffering and death on the cross as well.

"Progressive" Protestant Church is Getting Progressively More Insignificant

The results of a survey of the Heidelberg 'Sinus Institute' with 2000 people over 14 show that among the Protestants, 3.2 percent want to discontinue their church membership, while there are only 1.6 percent among Catholics
.
The study does not explain why the "progressive" Protestant church has more reported more departures.[Perhaps it's because of the rampant sex abuse in the Lutheran church?]

Protestants act hypocritically

"Obviously, that the German Evangelical Christianity in many cases was more dogmatic and ethical at first, left shared Roman Catholic Church beliefs behind them, and since then have made adjustments to the spirit of the times, and has not resisted secularization.

Who but simultaneously rejected what was in common and demanded more community, is contradictory, not to say hypocritical. Compared to today, our churches in the sixteenth (and to the nineteenth) century, despite fierce controversy in their dogmatic and ethical foundations, were much closer together ecumenically.

From an article of the evangelical theologian and former lay military Bishop, Hartmut Lion, with the title "A misconception. A review of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. in Erfurt," in the monthly journal 'Political Opinion' in December.

Link to source...

Bishop Disparages "Protestant" Wreaths

Edit: Father Z asks his readership if they are going to use Advent wreaths. Actually, the advent wreath was invented in Hamburg Germany in 1820 by a Lutheran minister named Johann Hinrich Wichern.

MANILA, Philippines – Instead of Advent wreaths, Filipino Catholics should hang “parols” (star lanterns) in their homes and churches this Christmas, a Catholic bishop said Saturday.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said the practice of hanging Advent wreaths comes from Protestant traditions in Europe while the parol is “the most popular symbol of our Filipino Christmas tradition.”

“In consultation with liturgists who advocate for Filipino expressions of our Catholic faith, we want to offer the ‘parol ng halina’ [Advent parols] as an alternative to the European advent wreath,” Villagas said in a statement.

Link to Philippine Daily Inquirer...

Image stolen from, here...

Churches celebrate 10th anniversary of 'justification' agreement

Churches celebrate 10th anniversary of 'justification' agreement

Swedish Lutheran Synod Allows Gay Weddings

Despite warnings by the Archbishop of Helsinki last week, the Swedish Synod of the Lutheran Church have ignored centuries of continuity and in a majority vote, decided to declare in favor of the spirit of the age.

Religious Intelligence quotes a discouraged and disheartening Pastor Kalin in what must be for him the end of a world,

In the Church of Sweden, “theology has been transformed into an ideology and the church’s own institutions happily provide theological post-constructions to the latest opinions and whims of the world,” he said.

Pastor Kalin said that “for the church, this is devastating” as the “faith, confession and teaching of the Church of Sweden” rested “on political majorities or on the currently fancy views of the world.”

The proposed changes will likely take the form of the modification of the marriage liturgy, replacing “man and wife” with “lawfully wedded spouses” for same-sex couples and follows upon the 2005 vote to amend the title of Chapter 23 of its prayer book, from “Marriage” to “Marriage and Blessings” to permit blessing of same-sex civil unions. Pastors will be permitted the option of refusing to perform same-sex marriages; however, traditionalists worry that this conscious clause will be abrogated in future sessions of the synod as past guarantees respecting the conscious of those opposed to women clergy were rescinded.

Read more...