Pope Francis Can't Explain the Vocations Crisis -- Bergoglio is Obsessed with Condemning the Gospel

Pope Francis granted an interview to the magazine Mundo Negro of the Comboni Missionaries. Also present was Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso (right).

(Rome) The magazine Mundo Negro of the Comboni Missionaries, based in Madrid, published an interview with Pope Francis on 13th January. It is not the first he granted to this magazine. In it, Francis again denounces proselytism as a "grave sin". So much is widely known. It is more remarkable that Francis also says that he "cannot explain" the vocations crisis. He also regrets that the "liturgical ferments" that existed after the Second Vatican Council have disappeared.

The interview, which was conducted on December 15 but only now published, lasted 35 minutes. It was led by the editor of Mundo Negro, Fr. Jaume Calvera. Also present was Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot. Francis had appointed Cardinal Ayuso titular bishop in 2016 and president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (now Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue) in 2019. In the same year he also created him cardinal.

According to Francis, the mission of the Church has changed "thank God" through the Second Vatican Council. He refers to "two interesting signs":

"The first careless ferments of the Council have already disappeared. I am thinking of the liturgical ferments, which are almost non-existent. And an anti-conciliar resistance is forming, a resistance to the Council, which did not exist before and which is typical of every process of maturation. But many things have changed... On the missionary side, respect for cultures, the inculturation of the Gospel, is one of the values born as an indirect consequence of the Council. Faith is inculturated and the Gospel takes on the culture of the people, there is an evangelization of culture. Inculturation of faith and evangelization of culture are these two movements, and when I speak of the evangelization of culture, I do not mean the reductionism of culture or the ideologization of cultures or all that is a serious temptation today, but I speak of evangelization, of proclamation and nothing else, with great respect. Therefore, the gravest sin a missionary can commit is proselytism. Catholicism is not proselytism."

 

InfoVaticana describes Francis' frequent criticism of "proselytism" as an "obsession" of the Pope, deliberately keeping the term vague, as well as "clericalism" or "rigidity," to name two other buzzwords of papal vocabulary. They are not precisely defined but are used for harsh accusations: "The gravest sin a missionary can commit is proselytism."

"I don't see any explanation"

When asked whether the West is a "mission territory" today, Francis is surprised, almost perplexed. A few sentences earlier, the Pope called the Second Vatican Council a great achievement that had changed so much. For almost 60 years, the official ecclesiastical line has been that the Council has brought a "new spring". However, nothing of this can be seen and felt. Faced with reality that contradicts this narrative, Francis declares that he has no explanation for it.

"Five countries—Belgium, Holland, Spain, Ireland and Quebec—have filled the world with missionaries. Today, there are no vocations in these five areas. It's a mystery. And that in less than 100 years. How can we explain this? I don't see any explanation for that."

  

The inexplicable does not seem to give Francis sleepless nights, because when asked immediately afterwards whether this development worries him, he said:

"No, it does not worry me, in the sense that we are melting away, this is a sign of the times that signals worldliness, that signals a level of development that sets values elsewhere. It signals a crisis. There are crises, and crises must be lived through and overcome."

Text/Translation: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: InfoVaticana

Trans:: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Islamists Hunt for Proselytes on St. Peter's Square

Islamic State at St. Peter's Square

Edit: nature abhors a vacuum.  If Catholics scorn proselytism, the Muslims don't.

(Rome) Two women covered from head to toe, and three young bearded men.

They defy the hot midday heat and the sultry air. For a good quarter of an hour they posed for pictures against the backdrop of magnificent facade of St. Peter's Basilica and the mighty dome of St. Peter.

An Islamic family, who, like thousands of tourists every day  mad a commemorative photo, on vacation.

It's an increasingly frequent image that one gets to see in Rome at St. Peter's Square. An image that was completely uncommon a few years ago.

More and more Muslims to St. Peter's in Rome

There is a long way between these innocuous images and when a bearded man was photographed on St. Peter's Square with the black banner of the Islamic State (IS). Or the photo montages with the black flag waving on the dome of St. Peter, published on the internet for the  propaganda purposes of the Islamic State (IS). The Islamists are in the center of Christianity. Images that went around the world and triggered some shudder.

If you stroll through the most visited streets around St. Peter's Square, the Borgo Pio about Borgo Vittorio to Borgo Sant'Angelo, you may find that the many Muslims there, including the particularly strict Salafists and Wahhabis, has become customary, allowed to behold St. Peter's.

The waiters of the restaurants and trattorias that have the safest view of the  bustling throng, confirm it. They come not only as tourists. Some seem like spies, and harbingers of things to come. In the neighborhoods around the Vatican, more and more Muslims are settled. Here and there, are businesses opened that are run by Bengalis, Pakistanis, Tunisians or else a Muslim, next to a kebab shop are bags, towels ...

Victory sign in front of St. Peter's Basilica - "You Want Allah?"

In the weekly supplement Venerdì of the daily newspaper La Repubblica,  Vaticanist Filippo Di Giacomo has written an article: "There is an Increasingly Stronger Presence of Islamic Prayer around St. Peter", about which he reported on the increase of Muslims in Rome and in the streets around the Vatican.

Di Giacomo also reported that it is increasingly frequented by groups of men in oriental sack clothes and beards that take selfies before St. Peter's Basilica. With one hand they hold their smartphone, with the other hand they make a victory sign. The gesture is in need of interpretation, the first thought in any case is not necessarily reassuring.

Di Giacomo especially described the bearded men who ask tourists and locals alike in the streets and squares around   St Peter's: "Do you want Allah? Do you like Allah? "

While the Vatican discusses,  the Vatican neighborhood has the largest Islamic density

From 9 clock in the morning Muslims recruit for Islam in the shadow of the dome of St. Peter every day. They hold the Quran in the air and carry hanging poster boards for Allah and Islam. This appearance is now  frequently seen in many European cities. From Hamburg to Cologne, Stuttgart and Zurich, from Vienna to Berlin they "decorate" the cityscape  in German-speaking countries.

Also in Rome bearded men invite the Moslems to pray to Allah. There is no shortage of larger and smaller to the smallest prayer rooms, sometimes even the backyard of a business  run by Islamic immigrants. Also in the Borghi around the Vatican, they are in existence  and there will always be more.

While their Islamist peers in the Middle East and Africa are hunting down Christians, raping them, driving them into exile, murdering, the  Islamists engage unmolested in prosylitism in St. Peter's Square.

"While the Vatican is  discussing, the Vatican neighborhood already has the largest concentration of Islamic prayer rooms of Rome," said Di Giacomo.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Messa in Latino

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
link to Katholisches...

AMDG