"Communion on the Tongue is In the Gospels -- No Bishop Can Deny That"

 The three churches at the Capuchin Monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo. In the middle church, the Archbishop of Manfredonia expressed his "dangerous considerations".

Repeatedly, bishops try to ban Communion on the tongue under the pretext of combating corona and only allow communion in hand. However, there are clear legal, liturgical and theological hurdles that doom any attempt of this kind to failure.

Legally, the situation is clear: Communion on the tongue is the only fully valid form of receiving communion, and that in the entire world Church. After the Second Vatican Couoncil, at the urging of the bishops of the German-speaking zone, the bishops' conferences were given the opportunity, if they considered it "opportune", to allow an extraordinary form of Communion in addition to the ordinary form of receiving Communion, namely Communion in hand. Both forms are, where permitted, equally permitted, but not equivalent. Oral communion is and remains the proper and legitimate form of receiving Communion. The fact that in some countries and dioceses this fact is systematically concealed and the impression is created that Communion in hand is the current form of receiving Communion, whereas Communion on the tongue is an outdated form that no longer really applies today does nothing to change this. But especially, according to the overall impression created, one no longer has to take this “old” form into account. But this is not the case. 

A ban on Communion on the tongue is unthinkable under canon law, but communion in hand at any time, which clearly defines the hierarchy of these two forms.

In Corona times, reference is made to the protection of health in order to prohibit Communion on the tongue. That smells like an excuse and it is. It lacks any hygienic or medical logic. Doctors have pointed out that the oral Communion is no doubt safer than Communion in the hand (see also "Oral Communion Guarantees Best Health and Hygiene"). If the priest disinfects his hands before giving Communion, any contamination is excluded, since the consecrated Host only passes through his hand. In the case of hand communion, however, there are many hands.

In addition, in the 14 months of the alleged corona pandemic, there has been no known case of transmission of infection through receiving Communion. In Austria, although recently Kronen Zeitung tried to concoct a connection between attending Mass and infection, but proved both cases, on closer inspection to be of dubious journalism. Indeed, it is grotesque to think that the saving body of Christ could be the vector of disease. The bishops in the German-speaking areas are not setting a good example with their Corona measures when it comes to real presence.

The Manfredonia case

The Archbishop of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo, Msgr. Franco Moscone, Chaplain of the Somascans, is entertaining "dangerous thoughts," so says the Vatican expert Marco Tosatti. The archdiocese comprises two historical dioceses and has been part of the ecclesiastical province of Foggia since 1979. However, it retained the rank and dignity of an archdiocese. It includes the famous Archangel Michael Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo and the city of San Giovanni Rotondo, in which the stigmatized Saint Pio of Pietrelcina spent 50 years of his life and is also buried. The saint has been one of the patrons of the archdiocese since 2002. 

Msgr. Moscone was appointed to the archdiocese by Pope Francis in 2018. He was born in 1957 and comes from the city of Alba in Piedmont. Last January 3rd, during a Mass celebration, he expressed a fundamental rejection of Communion on the tongue, which he dressed in the drastic and many to believers disturbing words:

"Communion on the tongue is an abuse."

Since then, the discussion about it in the diocese has not come to a standstill. The statement is too clear to be misunderstood or to falsely attribute intentions to the Archbishop that are far removed from him. According to Msgr. Moscone, Communion on the tongue is fundamentally wrong, which is why his contradiction, as he himself emphasized to the press, is not only due to the Corona virus.

For his irritating statement, the archbishop chose, which is no less irritating, the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni Rotondo. This is the "middle church" of the large Capuchin complex, which was added to the small monastery church of the Capuchin Convent in the late 1950s and consecrated in 1959. The many pilgrims who come to the grave of St. Padre Pio are expected to do a lot. In the new church, which was consecrated in 2004 and in whose lower church the grave is located, the kneeling of the faithful has been forbidden. If the archbishop has his way, Communion should now also be taken from them. It is astonishing how a bishop can come to a view that a practice always practiced by the Church and never given up could be fundamentally wrong.

Don Bux: “Communion in the mouth is documented in the Gospel. No bishop can counter this"

Don Nicola Bux, internationally renowned liturgist, friend of Benedict XVI. and himself a native of Apulia, commented on the archbishop's statement. His answer is also addressed to the other bishops who want to restrict communion in the mouth with or without Corona. The liturgical scholar is no less clear in his reaction than Monsignor Moscone:

“The bishop made a mistake. From the examination of the Greek Gospel text it cannot be inferred at all that the body of Christ was placed in the hand. "

The use of a paten would make no sense if Communion in hand had been practiced. "At most," said Don Bux,  it could be claimed they were using the Purple Code of Rossa from the fifth century, as believers of antiquity would have the Host taken by mouth from their palms, "but never with the fingers of the other hand." It is more likely that the Codex Purpureus Rossanensis only a few decades earlier, was based on a  judgment earlier introduced by St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (348-386).

 

He called for “the hands to be formed into a throne, not in order to receive communion in hand, as is falsely claimed today, but in order to hold the hand formed in this way directly under the mouth and thus when receiving the Eucharistic ' to bite 'to prevent the smallest particle from being lost."

St. Cyril's invitation was an anticipation of the godfather, but not Communion in hand.

Archbishop Moscone, however, referred to “take and eat” in his sermon, which he interpreted as evidence of Communion in hand. Don Bux said:

"The Gospel of John clearly states that Jesus gave Judas a 'bite' at the Lord's Supper, and a bite is something that you put in your mouth." 

As early as May 2020, when other dioceses took action against Communion on the tongue with reference to the coronavirus, Don Bux said that the Gospel of John speaks of an immersed morsel (cf. Jn 13, 26-27). In the Douay standard translation says:

“Jesus replied: It is to whom I will give the morsels of bread that I will dip. Then he dipped the bread, took it and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot."

 

 

Don Bux on this:

“This form is still Common today among the Orientals and in the Eastern Church when giving communion. A bite of dipped bread cannot be put in the hand, only in the mouth. "

Today in the vernacular translations of the Missale Romanum used for converting words "take" are in Greek and in Latin the word λάβετε / accipite again, the not reflexive meaning "take" but "receive" means in terms of "to absorb” and “to take”.

“The bishop is making a clear mistake in believing that 'to take' means to take with your hands. No, the Host is 'received', in this specific case with the mouth. I think of the reaction of St. Padre Pio if he had heard a bishop speak like that!"

 

Text: Giuseppe di Nar-
image: Wiki-com-mons

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

---

Recommended reading on the topic:

Fr. Martin Lugmayr FSSP: Hand Communion: A historical-dogmatic investigation, with a foreword by Prof. Robert Spaemann, 2nd edition, Dominus-Verlag, Augsburg 2020 .

Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider OCR: Corpus Christi. Thoughts on Holy Communion and the renewal of the Church, with a foreword by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, 2nd edition, Dominus-Verlag, Augsburg 2014.

AMDG

Bishop Laise, Defender of the Reverent Reception of Holy Communion Dies

Bishop Juan Rodolfo Laise with Cardinal Robert Sarah.

"We think we can say that the introduction of hand communion and its spread all over the world is the gravest disobedience to papal authority of recent times."

Msgr. Juan Rodolfo Laise wrote these words in the concluding remarks of his book

"Communion in the Hand. Documents and History "(Comunión En la Mano, Documento e Historia, 4th ed.).

 On Facebook, the Press Office of the Diocese of San Luis in Argentina announced that old Bishop Laise died at the age of 93 years at the sanctuary of San Giovanni Rotondo in Italy. There lived the retired bishop for 17 years. Yesterday afternoon he died in the infirmary of the Capuchin Friary.

Msgr. Laise was born on February 22, 1926 in Buenos Aires. As a young man he entered the Capuchin Order. In March 1949 he took the solemn religious vows and received priestly ordination in September of the same year. He then studied both civil and canon law. From 1954 he was a professor of canon law and morality at the Theological Faculty of Villa Elisa in Argentina. After becoming Provincial of the Capuchin Order, Pope Paul VI appointed him Bishop Coadjutor of the diocese of San Luis in 1971. In the same year he became diocesan bishop there. In 2001, Pope John Paul II accepted his resignation for reasons of age.

Msgr. Laise then retired to Italy in the Capuchin Monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo, where saintly Father Pio, also a Capuchin, spent most of his life, died in 1968 and is also buried.

As a great worshiper of the saint, the bishop moved near him. Since then he has worked there as a beloved confessor for pilgrims in Italian and Spanish. At the place of action for Father Pio was where he also wanted to die.

St. Padre Pio (1887-1968)

Bishop Laise is the author of numerous catechetical books and the social doctrine of the Church. He is considered one of the outstanding proponents of the Communion on the tongue, from which he also moved back to the traditional Roman Rite.

In 1997, he dedicated the book mentioned above to the rejected practice of hand-communion, which was translated into several languages ​​and made him known internationally. In his diocese, he was the first diocesan bishop to refuse the hand communion and took back the corresponding dispensation. The prohibition of the hand communion has been keep since then also its two successors upright.
 Every morning at 6 o'clock Bishop Laise celebrated Mass in the traditional Rrite in San Giovanni Rotondo. His confreres resisted a public celebration at the convent. In an interview in 2016 he said:

“Unfortunately, there is no openness to the traditional liturgy among the Capuchins of the Convention, who are generally at a certain age. In contrast, among the young priests who come to visit, there are some who are well-disposed. It would be good if there was a public celebration for the many pilgrims of the place of pilgrimage, and I am sure that the faithful would respond very positively. Time, however, does not seem to be ripe, as far as the superiors are concerned. As for me, pro bono pacis, I celebrate by trying to avoid any tension. "

"The example of the hand communion has made me think"

On the current situation among the priests, he said:

"It is necessary to distinguish between the generations. We experience a positive attitude among the young priests, an attitude that often arises when they get in touch with a priest, thanks to whom they are allowed to discover the traditional Mass. In this way they get access to a spiritual and theological treasure, which until then was unknown to them and which only needs to be explored and shared. The content of the traditional Mass is much richer, much more precise than the modern Mass. The Blessed Virgin, the Holy Archangel Michael, and the holy apostles Peter and Paul are present in all the formations of the extraordinary form, while in the ordinary form they have disappeared completely or almost completely. As long as I celebrated with the new Missal, I always chose the First Eucharistic Prayer, the Roman Canon.” 

He endeavored to assist young priests and seminarians in their quest for holiness. Accordingly, he also kept in touch with the International Seminary of the Society of Saint Peter in Wigratzbad, which he visited personally in 2004.

In 1949 he was still ordained a priest in the traditional form:

"I celebrated itfor 20 years, including my time in Rome, when I studied at the Gregoriana. I also celebrated it during the Bugnini reform, when it betrayed the intention of the Council Fathers - and perhaps Paul VI's. Anyway, the example of the "Handkommunion" makes me pensive, the Paul VI. not wanted, as instructed by the Memoriale Domini, but which was forced by the German and French bishops. " 

Like a legacy he said then:

“I wish that all bishops become aware of the importance of oral communion as a reference to the Holy of Holies, then they will take the same position as the Bishop of Oruro! This is the only way to truly testify to the Lord's Eucharistic Presence through words and deeds. We regret that today it is not the same throughout the Church as Paul VI. in Memoriale Domini has defined that communion should always be received by mouth. Therefore, I am glad that the Bishop of Oruro, the words of Pope Paul VI. reaffirmed. "

In the fall of 2016, Bishop Laise was one of the first signatories to the Lenten Declaration on Church Doctrine on Marriage and the Family, which called on Pope Francis to reaffirm the truths of sacramental marriage.

"How should holy communion be received? Kneeling and in the mouth "

One year ago, exactly one year ago, the bishop and capuchin spoke publicly for the last time. In an interview, he criticized the actions of some German bishops who want to create facts in terms of inter-communion.

"I am strongly against it. How can we share this sacrament with someone who does not share the foundations of the doctrine? We are heading for a confusion. The entry of Luther's statue into the Vatican also surprised me negatively. The Protestants are heretics in every respect, which is why intercommunion is not possible. It is only when the Protestant shares the Catholic faith in an appropriate and accurate way. "

On Holy Communion he said on this occasion:

"When you go to Holy Communion, you have to be aware of what you receive. Instead, in many cases, superficiality prevails. This does not depend on modernity itself, but on the careless climate, which has little inclination for the sacred, and which is a consequence of modernity. This climate, it is regrettable to have to say this, is present not only in everyday life, but unfortunately also in the church. We churchmen are partly responsible. I do not want to bring charges, but from this point of view, the Pope would have to insist more, but it does not. "

When asked how Communion should be received, he admonished:

"Kneeling and in the mouth. The body of Christ whom we receive in the Sacrament is worthy of respect and honor. I repeat: We have also lost the value of sanctity in the forms, and that is a very grave misuse for which Paul VI. bears the guilt that opened the door to these behaviors. After the Second Vatican, the Church began to waver as far as the sacred is concerned."

He also affirmed that so-called remarried divorced people are "absolutely not" allowed to communion.

"Anyone who divorces and enters into a civil union is in a state of grave sin, beyond the grace of God, and can not receive the Sacrament unless he does penance and has a concrete and real resolution to change his life , In this question the Gospel, the Magisterium of the Church and the sacramental order are valid. Nobody has the authority to change it. We are only the administrators of the sacrament, but not the owners. It is therefore true that the concrete danger of relativism exists for the concrete implementation of Amoris laetitia. It would therefore be opportune to clarify how it was demanded with the Dubia.”

Bishop Juan Rodolfo Laise was buried on Tuesday afternoon. The Requiem was celebrated by Msgr. Franco Moscone, the new Archbishop of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo. It took place in the 1959 consecrated pilgrimage church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Our Lady, Help of Christians). Directly adjacent to it is the old 16th-century monastery church with the image of the Blessed Virgin, before which Fr. Pio celebrated Holy Mass offering in the traditional form of the Roman Rite until old age, and  it was also the favorite church of Bishop Laise.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Paix Liturgique
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Capuchin Administrator In Chile Isn’t Walking in the Steps of Padre Pio

The Capuchin Celestino Aos Braco, who has not served as Administrator of Santiago de Chile for four weeks, is denying Communion kneeling on the tongue to the faithful.

(Santiago de Chile) On March 23, Pope Francis appointed the Spanish Capuchin, Fr. Celestino Aos Braco, Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Santiago de Chile. At the Chrism Mass celebrated on April 18th with the priests of the diocese in the Cathedral Church of Santiago de Chile on April 18th, he refused the faithful, who knelt down to receive Communion, the very body of Christ.

According to Church law, priests, and more so the bishops, have a duty to exclude public sinners from Communion. If one follows the video of the Chrism Mass in Santiago de Chile, which was published by the archdiocese, then one would have to assume, that the Apostolic Administrator from the Capuchin Order had gifts like his brother, Saint Father Pio. But nothing is known yet.

But if Monsignor Aos Braco doesn’t have the ability to read souls, are the faithful who knelt down to receive Communion, publicly known sinners? And of all the publicly known sinners of Santiago de Chile, who are unlawfully going to Communion, are they kneeling for Communion? This detail is significant because the administrator only denied kneeling believers who presented themselves for Communion.

But still, such a knowledge of public sinners is unknown. Rather, they were pious believers who abide by the ecclesiastical rules, because they see in this act, they offer the necessary homage to the Blessed Sacrament of the altar.

The Apostolic Administrator of Santiago de Chile sees it very differently. Receiving Communion while kneeling on the tongue is obviously such a nuisance that he refused the believers - completely unlawfully - to receive communion. 

The Capuchin Aos Braco was appointed by Pope Francis in 2014 as Bishop of the Chilean diocese of Copiapó. The Diocese has 220,000  Catholics and 25 priests, but 35 permanent deacons.

Last March, Pope Francis retired the former Primate of Chile, Ricardo Cardinal Ezzati, in connection with the sexual abuse scandal in the Latin American country surrounding the Karadima case.

Since the inauguration of Msgr. Aos Braco, the Archbishopric of Santiago de Chile has published only his Chrism Mass as a video, so that a comparison with the behavior of the administrator during Communion is not possible.

Obviously, what Alain Pronkin said in Le Journal de Montréal on April 18, 2016, confirms that Pope Francis chooses the "most progressive candidates" in his occupation of dioceses.

They are a nuisance to the doctrine and discipline of the Church, while they face various annoyances "mercifully".

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: Arzobispado de Santiago (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

39 Pilgrims Leaving Shrine of St. Padre Pio Die in Tragic Bus Accident

Rome (kath.net / CBA) A severe bus accident near Naples has claimed at least 39 lives on Sunday night. The coach was on the way back from the Sanctuary of San Pietrelcina according to Italian media.

Giovanni Rotondo in Puglia. There, the group had visited the grave of the popular saint Padre Pio. The authorities are currently trying to identify the victims. There was total of 48 travelers, including many children, who had spent several holidays in Telese in the Benevento region and were on their way back to Naples.

On the highway from Bari to Naples, the driver lost control in front of a traffic jam on the bus. The vehicle broke through the guardrail on a bridge and plunged about 30 meters below. The exact cause is still unclear.

Meanwhile, the Bishop of Pozzuoli, Gennaro Pascarella, arrived on Monday morning at the disaster site. During the day, he wants to visit the injured in hospital, according to the newspaper "Il Mattino" (Monday). The group numbered at least 20 people from the Diocese of Pascarella near Naples.

(C) 2013 Catholic News Agency KNA Inc. All rights reserved.

AMGD

Father Stefano Maria Manelli is 80 -- Successful History of the Franciscans of the Immaculata: Traditional and Missionary

Edit: you mean you can be Franciscan and still have magnificent and beautiful Liturgy?

Father Stefano Maria Manelli 80 - History of the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception: altrituell and missionary

(Rome) On the 1st of May Father Stefano Maria Manelli, the Superior General and founder of the Franciscans of the Immaculate (FFI) turned 80.

As the year gathered together yesterday,  members of the Order founded by Father Manelli and organizations associated with the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Frigento Campania gathered in southern Italy, where the mother house of  the male religious branch is located. The brothers and sisters thanked and asked the Lord in prayer through the intercession of Mary Immaculate for their religious father.

The religious family founded by Father Stefano Maria is one of the success stories traditionally associated in the Catholic Church and represents a most remarkable success story. The Franciscans of the Immaculate have adopted the traditional rite five years ago after a long journey of preparation. International orders will be maintained the entire liturgy in the Tridentine rite. They keep the Franciscan-Marian spirit with their evangelical radicalism including poverty, which Pope Francis supports, but - and this is something special - in the Old Rite. Unlike other traditional communities  the Franciscans of the Immaculate are engaged in traditional missionary work. The Great Commission is a constitutive element of their charism; they go out of their cloisters, seek direct contact with the people who are on the front line in the defense of non-negotiable values and use their apostolate in the modern media and means of communication.

Father Stefano Maria marked by Padre Pio of Pietrelcina and Father Maximilian Kolbe

Its founder, Father Stefano Maria Manelli, was born on 1 May 1933, in what was then Fiume, Italy, and today is the Croatian town of Rijeka on the upper Adriatic. He was the sixth of 21 children. His parents, the servants of God Settimio Manelli and Licia Gualandris, have had their beatification process begun on 20 December 2010. The spiritual leader of the family was the holy Capuchin, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. From him, the young Stefano received his first Holy Communion in 1938.

The family had moved into the southern Italian province of Apulia, where Padre Pio lived.  Stefano was visited from the 8th December 1945 at the age of 12 years, the minor seminary of Cupertino. He entered the Friars Minor, and took simple vows on 4 October 1949, which on 27 May 1954 was followed by solemn perpetual vows.

On 30 October 1955 he was consecrated at Christ the King, a particularly precious feast to him as a priest.

Dissertation on the Immaculate Conception - Back to the Franciscan Sources

1960 PhD Father Stefano received his doctorate at the Seraphicum, the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Rome, with a thesis on the Immaculate Conception. The work explains the choice of his community's name.  He then followed by teaching Patristics and Mariology at the convent's seminaries at the Archdiocesan Seminary of Benevento and the Institute of Religious Sciences of Avellino. From 1982-1988 Father Stefano Maria was twice provincial of the Order of Friars Minor of the Province of Naples.

Around 1965 began a gradual rediscovery and long observation of the Franciscan sources and the writings of the Holy Father Maximilian Kolbe for him.

The call of the Second Vatican Council, to return to the sources of religious renewal and adjust the proclamation of faith to the changed circumstances of the time, knew Father Stefano Maria as reputation in the footsteps of the Founder Francis of Assisi completely Franciscan life after the example of Saint Maximilian Kolbe to lead the John Paul II as "St. Francis of the 20th Century "called.

In 1970 the new Franciscan-Marian Journey - 1990 Order of founding

On 24 December 1969  Father Stefano Maria and his brother, Father Gabriele Maria Pellettieri asked the Superior General of the Friars Minor for the permission to lead a renewed, more rigorous Franciscan life, which was tied into the foundation . A Franciscan-Marian manner of life they called the "Marian traces of Franciscan life." The result was in the first Marian House in August 1970 at the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Avellino Frigento.

Over the years, the two brothers grew more and more  inspired by the ideal of evangelical radicalism. This increase, the special charism, the consolidation of a particular manner of life, and others opposing trends in parts of the Mother house led the Order, after 20 years on 22 June 1990, to the establishment of a separate order. The Church's recognition of diocesan right was professed in a corresponding decision by Pope John Paul II, through the Archbishop of Benevento, Monsignor Carlo Minchiatti. On 1 January 1998 the recognition of the Order was established by papal law. A special feature has been added to the three traditional religious vows poverty, chastity and obedience, a fourth vow, the unconditional consecration to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God.

On 1 November 1982 Father Stefano Maria and Father Gabriele Maria, founded the first community of Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate in Novaliches, Philippines. The female branch, which was passed in its inception phase was led by Father Gabriele Maria Pellettieri, lives according to the same Franciscan-Marian ideal of the brothers. Today there are more than 50 branches of the Franciscan Sisters on all continents. The Order has more than 350 sisters.

In 2006  the youngest of the family followed with the Order of Poor Clares, a contemplative branch of the Immaculate Conception, which includes today four cloistered convents with more than 40 sisters.

Franciscans and Franciscan The Lay Association of the Immaculate Conception

8 September 1990 there followed alongside the male and female religious branch, the establishment of a lay association, the Mission of the Immaculate Mediatrix (MIM). The laity living the religious ideals in their respective state and various stages of Consecration to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God (Missionaries of the Immaculate Conception with consecration, Missionaries of the Immaculate Conception with a private vow as Franciscan Tertiaries of the Immaculate Conception).

2008, the General Chapter undertooktook the decision to return as a community to the traditional form of the Roman Rite rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI.  in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum as an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite and returned to the Church.

Monastery in Kitzbühel - In the German areas living life connected to  a religious tradition is no easier

In the German-speaking world, a monastery of the Franciscans of the Immactulate, was founded in 2002 in Kitzbühel in Tyrol. The then Archbishop of Salzburg, Georg Eder, gave the Order the abandoned Capuchin convent.

Not all of the young religious received the same favorable reception. Being connected to a religious tradition is not so easy for the Franciscans in the areas where German is spoken. Two other monasteries  founded were thwarted by the resistance of the local churches.

The Franciscans of the Immaculate showed interest in 2007 in taking over  the Franciscan monastery of San Candido, South Tyrol, which was rejected by the then Bishop of Bolzano-Bressanone, the Capuchin Wilhelm Egger.  Since 2012, the monastery has remained empty.

In 2010 the Capuchin monastery on the Ried im Innkreis dissolved their last monastery in Upper Austria. Again, the Franciscans of the Immaculate were interested in the takeover of the monastery. "These and other rumors are their concern," the newspaper of the Diocese of Linz immediately wrote. Because of internal resistance in the Church, the order was denied even this branch. In contrast to San Candido, the monastery in Ried is at least not yet empty. In 2012 it was purchased by an Indian Carmelites. Other members of the order were established in Kerala in 1831 by the Congregation of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, are also Indian

The Franciscans of the Immaculate are now represented on all five continents. The order counts all together, some 650 members of religious orders have stirred an increase in vocations. They promote the Tridentine Rite and go to the street and around the world as missionaries.

Since 23 June 1990  Father Stefano Maria Manelli has been Minister General of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, whose Generalate is in Rome.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Franciscans of the Immaculate / Vocazione religiosa

Trans: Tancred

Link to kath.net...

The Real Meeting Between Saint Padre Pio and Archbishop Lefebvre

What the archbishop wrote about his meeting with Padre Pio

From the Society website:


On August 8, 1990, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote a personal letter to a Society priest in France who had written to ask him about the meeting with Padre Pio. Here are extracts from the letter:

For several years now this slander, a fabrication from start to finish, has been circulating in Italy. I have already refuted it, but lies die hard; there is not one word of truth in the page of that magazine you photocopied for me.

The meeting which took place after Easter in 1967 lasted two minutes. I was accompanied by Fr. Barbara and a Holy Ghost Brother, Brother Felin. I met Padre Pio in a corridor, on his way to the confessional, being helped by two Capuchins.

I told him in a few words the purpose of my visit: for him to bless the Congregation of the Holy Ghost which was due to hold an extraordinary General my Chapter meeting, like all religious societies, under the heading of aggiornamento (up-dating), meeting which I was afraid would lead to trouble...

Padre Pio kissing Archbishop Lefebvre's ring.

Then Padre Pio cried out. 'Me, bless an archbishop, no, no, it is you who should be blessing me!' And he bowed, to receive the blessing. I blessed him, he kissed my ring and continued on his way to the confessional...

That was the whole of the meeting, no more, no less. To invent such an account as you sent me the copy of calls for a satanic imagination and mendacity. The author is a son of the Father of Lies

Thank you for giving me the chance to tell once more the plain truth.

Most cordially yours in Christo et Maria,

+Marcel Lefebvre

Link to kreuz.net...

New Book on Accusations Against St. Padre Pio

Editor: This new book explores the accusations against and extraordinary Priest. His persecution resonates today when we think of other priests who are falsely accused and unjustly maligned by lesser men.

The hidden story of St. Padre Pio.