The Sack of Rome in 1527 is a Meditation for the Church Today

Edit: the Sack of Rome in 1527 is a terrible event, which offers both meditations if loyalty and bravery from the most noble, like the Swiss Guards:

The oath to swear in the Swiss Guards takes place every year on May 6th, in remembrance of the "Sack of Rome" in 1527.  It was then that 147 Swiss soldiers fell defending Pope Clement VII.  Today they are counted as the "smallest army in the world."  It was their valor and that of their leader, Captain Röist, who fell, even as his wife looked on, which gave the Pope time to escape to down the Borgo, a secret passageway, to the Castel Sant'Angelo and to be safe for a time from the depredations of Charles V's Lutheran and Spanish soldiery. 

They also valiantly defended the Pope on September 20th, 1870, when the Masonic armies of Italian unification breached the walls of Rome.

It also offers a meditation on the current state of the Church, as we see these events from afar this from Ludwig Pastor as cited by Roberto de Mattei:

This unlimited license to steal and kill lasted eight days and the occupation of the city nine months. We read in a Veneto account of May 10, 1527, reported by Ludwig von Pastor “Hell is nothing in comparison with the appearance Rome currently presents” (The History of Popes, Desclée, Rome 1942m, vol. IV, 2, p.261). The religious were the main victims of the Landsknechts’ fury. Cardinals’ palaces were plundered, churches profaned, priests and monks killed or made slaves, nuns raped and sold at markets. Obscene parodies of religious ceremonies were seen, chalices for Mass were used to get drunk amidst blasphemies, Sacred Hosts were roasted in a pan and fed to animals, the tombs of saints were violated, heads of the Apostles, such as St. Andrew, were used for playing football on the streets. A donkey was dressed up in ecclesiastical robes and led to the altar of a church. The priest who refused to give it Communion was hacked to pieces. The City was outraged in its religious symbols and in its most sacred memories”. (see also André Chastel, The Sack of Rome, Einaudi, Turin, 1983; Umberto Roberto, Roma capta. The Sack of the City  from the Gauls to the Landsknechts, Laterza, Bari 2012).

AMDG

Catholics Pray Rosary to Oppose Evils of False Ecumenism Endorsed by Grand Rapids Diocese

Edit: received this letter from a Catholic, Tyler Nethercott, who resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who organized a rosary prayer outside their cathedral to object to the false ecumenism going on, where the local ordinary and many others endorse the evils of the Protestant Revolt. 

Greetings,

I wanted to provide you with a recap of a prayerful protest at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

On Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King, there was an "Ecumenical Prayer Celebration" taking place to commemorate the 500 year anniversary of Martin Luther's schismatic revolt against Holy Mother Church.

This event was sponsored by none other than the local Catholic ordinary, Bishop David Walkowiak.

A video of the abominable event can be found here.

In the spirit of of so many great defenders of the faith before us, we had about 30 parishioners participate in the recitation of all 15 decades of the Most Holy Rosary while holding banners (for Our Lady, St. Joseph, and Christ the King) and posters (with professions of faith, a desire for true unity, and a call to pray the rosary). Our prayers and admonitions were, as St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, "with all humility and mildness, with patience, supporting one another in charity."

We were able to gather near the entrance to the Cathedral on public property and earned the attention of nearly everyone passing by.

A handful of people stopped, one of them expressing his displeasure with us, another for 5 minutes of discussion...even an older priest who we humbly and respectfully reminded of his duty to oppose error (and not to promote it!).

It is certain that Our Lady and Our Lord Jesus Christ, on this special feast day, would find some solace in these prayers of reparation for so many lost souls divided by the errors of one of the most infamous men of the past two millennia.

Of note, please pray for a gentleman named Russell who joined us for all 15 decades. Russell is homeless and became Protestant during his adulthood after having been Catholic as a child. His wife died from cancer, and his mother just died. His family does not want anything to do with him.

There is all but certainly more to his story, but suffice it to say he still remembered all of the prayers. He was given a rosary and some money - neither of which did he ask for.

Let us pray that Our Lady will cover him in her mantle and help guide him back to the faith and to care for his temporal needs.

If you would like to email the Bishop to express your concern with this event (and so many others like it), I believe his email is:

dwalkowiak@dioceseofgrandrapids.org

Pax et Bonum

Tyler Nethercott

Dialog With the Lutheran World Federation at the Cost of Catholic Identity

Pope Francis with Munip Jounan, President of the Lutheran World
Federation on 31 October, 2016 in Lund.

With "Joint Declaration" of Lund, Pope Francis has signed a protestant document on 31 October 2016. In this way he brought the Protestants an ecumenical gift for the Lutheran Jubilee which he put in place of essential dimensions of  Catholic Church identity.

A guest contribution by Hubert Hecker.

October 31, 2016 is certainly considered the eve of the Protestant Reformation Jubilee. On that date Pope Francis traveled to the Swedish city of Lund. The Lutheran World Federation had been founded in 1947.  There are 145 Lutheran communities with 70 million Protestants are members included in this umbrella organization. In Lund, Pope Francis signed a "Joint Declaration" for the Catholic Church and Munip Jounan for the Lutheran World Federation.

Two texts in contradiction

In the introduction,

• That "we begin with the memorial of 500 years of Reformation."
• Furthermore, "we deplore before Christ that Lutherans and Catholics have wounded the visible unity of the Church . ...
• Many members of our communities yearn to receive the Eucharist in a meal as a concrete expression of full unity . ...
• If we commit ourselves to move from conflict to fellowship, we do this as part of the one body of Christ , into which we have all been incorporated through baptism. ... "

According to the Catholic catechism, believers are introduced into the Church through the sacrament of baptism as members of the body of Christ. According to the dogmatic Council document, Lumen Gentium No. 8 , the "Church" and "Body of Christ" are to be understood as follows: Jesus Christ wrote "His holy Church ... here on earth as a visible structure, and bears it as such unceasingly. ... The only complex reality - the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church ... " is the society equipped with hierarchical organs and the mysterious body of Christ, the visible assembly and  spiritual community. This Church is realized in the Catholic Church, led by the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him. This does not exclude that there are various elements of sanctification and truth outside their structure. "This is particularly true of the separate sister churches of Orthodoxy and the ecclesial" communities" of Protestantism.

The Ecumenism decree also states that only the Catholic Church has the full abundance of the means of salvation which the Lord has entrusted to Peter and the apostleship to constitute the Church as "the one Christian body on earth, to which all are fully incorporated who are already in some way a part of the people of God" (Unitatis redintegratio, No. 3).

The Pope signed a Protestant statement

Already, on the first close reading of the two published document excerpts, the impression appeared that they were contradictory in essential points. More precisely, the Joint Declaration reflects the Protestant church image, which is contrary to the Catholic understanding of the Church in the Council. It is precisely in the understanding of the Church that the "most serious dogmatic contrast" exists between Lutherans and Catholics, according to Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller in his lecture at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. The differences in questions concerning the Church, office, and sacraments should not be reduced to "striking formulas."

This is exactly what the Joint Declaration of 31 October is.  It seems to be the least common denominator in Church doctrine. However, a Lutheran-style church understanding has emerged. This means a weakening, if not a departure from the Catholic ecclesiology. Accordingly, the Pope has signed a Protestant statement. He brings an ecumenical guest gift to the Protestants at the Lutheran Jubilee, by displacing essential dimensions of the Catholic Church identity.

The EKD emphasizes the ecclesiastical identity of the Protestants ...

The EKD [Evangelische Kirche Deutschland] President Heinrich Bedford-Strohm warned at his Vatican visit in early February: "There should be" no homogenization, which eats one's own. We want to restrain Church dividing identity." (FAZ 7. 2. 2017). The Protestants emphasize their ecclesiastical identity - in contrast to Catholic doctrine. In the Lunder Declaration they have introduced their self-understanding of church. This is not to blame them. But the Pope and his advisers are accused of not having anchored the Catholic, "Church dividing identity" in the Joint Declaration. In so far as the pope signs the Lutheran image of the Church as a common denominator, the pope has permitted the "character" of the Catholic Church to be swallowed down in the supposedly "common," but actually Protestant decline.

... the Pope wants ecumenical dialogue at all costs - even his own identity.

This is shown in the individual statements of the Joint Declaration:

What is with the pope as the head of the Catholic Church commemorating the Reformation in the "We" modality? Luther wanted to replace the "devilish" Pope's Church at least in the "German nation" by his new-believing church. The result was the division and separation of his community from the Church.

Luther wanted to abolish the Catholic Church "as a visible structure" and replace it with an invisible church of the faithful assembled. Luther's contemporary, the humanist Gerhard Lorich from Hadamar, criticizes the reformer as a demolitionist of the Church. The complaint that "Lutherans and Catholics" had equally "wounded the visible unity of the Church" is wrong on both sides: Luther alone and his followers destroyed the visible church in their sphere of influence by separating themselves with their new ecclesial community. On the other hand, the Pope's self-condemnation is absurd that Catholics have "wounded the visible unity of the Church".

According to the doctrine of the Council, the Church founded by Jesus Christ is realized in the Catholic Church with Its sacramental hierarchical character. Luther and his followers did not want a Church in the classical sense but a non-sacramental, new-believing community. But there can be no second apart from the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. That is why the 145 members of the Lutheran World Federation are called and are merely "ecclesial communities".

The Joint Statement speaks of "members of our communities ...". Grammatically, the Catholic Church is also meant.  As a signatory, the Pope thus demoted the Church into one of the many ecclesiastical communities and thereby denied this. If, however, only the Protestant communities which desire a common eucharistic meal are meant, the sentence is a twofold presumption. In the case of their rejection of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Consecration, and the Transubstantiation, the Lutherans want to receive Communion, and see it as an "expression of full unity."

It is a doctrine particular to the Lutherans that all the baptized members of the Protestant communities belong to the Body of Christ. According to apostolic-Catholic doctrine, the baptized are part of the people of God. But they do not constitute the Church in its visible and invisible-spiritual form of the mystical body of Christ. They are outside the Church, into which they should be incorporated for their salvation - according to the Council Decree Unitatis redintegratio .

The Pope and his advisers have the sacred duty of studying the doctrine of the Catholic Church, to take it to heart, and to explain it. This would prevent them from signing questionable new doctrines of the Protestants.

Text: Hubert Hecker
Photo: MiL
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG

Pope Francis as the New Luther -- The Humor of the German Section of Radio Vatican

(Rome) This photoshop has been in circulation for some time, but we have refrained from publishing it because it could have been dismissed as cheap and disrespectful propaganda. Meanwhile, however, it has been released, entirely above suspicion, namely, on Vatican Radio where it is apparently considered funny and good.

Vatican Radio is one of the official media organs of the Pope. Listeners and readers in Italy were amazed just a month ago just what was happening on the German site of Vatican Radio, but is only now becoming widely available.

On November 6, at 17:49 on the Facebook page of the German section of Vatican Radio a photoshop of Pope Francis in the guise of Martin Luther was published. The text:

"Also a nice variant. We wish you a restful Sunday."

Who is the Pope laughing at? About the "Reformation" or the Catholic Church?

A bad joke? A malicious photoshop?

A joke? A bad joke? A malicious photoshop to discredit Pope Francis? Not at all.

Pope Luther or Protestant Bergoglio? What does Vatican Radio mean?

The weekly,Die Zeit had published the photoshop with the caption published on 4 November: "That Pope Francis considers Luther positively is well known. But is it right?" It was part of the coverage of the Reformation memorandum on 31 October in Lund, Sweden, where Pope Francis had participated.

We of Katholisches.info had seen the photoshop on other sites, but did not post it out of respect for the Pope, because it seemed to us as if it it would be perceived as a critique of Francis and could have been dismissed as cheap polemics. That's what we thought. The editors of the German section of Vatican Radio thinks as quite differently and thinks only too well of it. It is likely that the idea that Francis is the Luther of the 21st century was even considered humorous.

At any rate one knows how some of his German party see the reigning pope.

"Striking"

Some commentators on the Facebook site were enthusiastic: "A brilliant photoshop. Significant and courageous for further Lutheran-Catholic dialogue."

Others expressed their resentment, including those who considered the picture to be "striking," but for the precarious state in which the Church was in the German-speaking world. The German section of Vatican Radio seems to have so arrived in the pleasure society. The concept was already old in the 90s, but it is said that there is a certain "retardation" in Rome.

The original: Martin Luther, the most successful heretic of the German Middle Ages

In the German editorial office of Radio Vatikan, they are also pleased to see that in Austria the former party chairman of the Greens and former KPÖ voters, the atheist who had become a freemason in 1975, abortion, homosexual and immigration advocate, Alexander Van der Bellen, Was elected! Was that too polemical? Oh no. Given the "humor" of the German section of Vatican Radio certainly not.

Image: Vatican Radio / Facebook (Screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
  Link to Katholisches...
AMDG

Blasphemous Display Modified in Estonia After Protests

A controversial exhibit altered after protests. It shows a picture of the Virgin on a screen that breaks and is replaced by the lettering 'Reformation'. The change is triggered by a foot pedal.

Tartu (kath.net/LSN/jg) The Estonian National Museum in Tartu has modified a controversial exhibit, which deals with the Reformation. Even Urmas Viilma, the Evangelical-Lutheran Archbishop of Estonia, had previously criticized the work.

In the recently opened museum, a holographic image of the Virgin Mary was displayed on a screen. The base on which the screen was mounted contained a plate. When the visitors put their foot on this plate, the hologram would "break", the screen turned white and the word "Reformation" appeared. After a while the hologram appeared again. On its Facebook presentation, the museum explained that the exhibit was an "artistic representation of the Bildersturm (breaking of images).

The work makes religion ridiculous and offends the religious feelings of believers, criticized Archbishop Viilma, also on Facebook. For many believers, the Virgin Mary is far more than a historical figure. She is still revered and begged for help. She deserves respect.

After protests the plate was removed at the base. The hologram of the Virgin Mary "breaks" and disappears at regular intervals, and the word "Reformation" appears on the screen.

Most Estonians are non-confessional, less than 30 per cent belong to a religious community. The largest community is the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which accounts for 13.6 per cent of the population, followed by the Orthodox Church with 12.8 percent.

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail

AMDG.

Evangelical Church in Germany Suffering Dramatic Clergy Shortage

Edit: if only the Lutheran Church would turn back the clock and have a celibate clergy, perhaps they might not be having a vocations crisis?

The number of evangelical theology students fell in less than 25 years from 26,000 to 2,400

Travemünde (kath.net) the shortage of clergy in Germany is apparently not a purely intra-Catholic problem. Even the Protestant churches are threatened with a dramatic shortage of clergy, as the evangelical news agency "idea" reports. The number of evangelical theology students has been alarmingly low, said the President of the Federation of Protestant pastors in Germany, Andreas Kahnt (Westerstede / Oldenburg) in the context of the German Pastor Day in Travemuende. According Kahnt there were 26,000 students of Protestant theology in 1986; currently there are about 2,400, reported "idea." Compared to the impending retirement of baby boomer pastors, this number is not sufficient, says Kahnt.

Kath.net...
Photo: Fine Art America
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

"Pope Francis is a Reformer Like Martin Luther" -- Margo Käßmann in "Osservatore Romano"

Edit: Käßmann is the first female Lutheran Bishop who was arrested for drunk driving in 2010, yet never the less, appears frequently to promote gender ideology, contraception and heresy at events staged in the fabulously wealthy German Catholic Tax-Church.   

(Rome) German Catholic media started ​​it, the Osservatore Romano now follows, and is "celebrating" the commemoration of the Protestant Reformation with pleasantries. On May 7, the daily newspaper of the Pope published the article "A Year to Celebrate the Reformation". From October 31 2016 to the October 31, 2017 "the German Evangelical Church has" a calendar full of events.

"The 500-year celebration of the Protestant Reformation will last exactly one year, which is traditionally associated with the publication of the Disputatio per declaratione virtutis Indulgentiarum which was in conjunction with the 95 theses, which Martin Luther nailed at the door of the episcopal church of Wittenberg in Saxony-Anhalt on 31 October 1517," said Osservatore Romano .

The kickoff  on October 31, 2016 will be a "great ceremony in the Marienkirche of Berlin". In May 2017 the "World Exhibition" in Wittenberg will take place, where "the products derived from the Reformation in the various countries and churches,  but also the fruits of culture and civil society," will be showcased.

The Kirchentag will be held from May 24-28.  A Kirchentag "in motion", which will be held in eight German cities, and then all will merge in Wittenberg for its completion.

"The German Evangelical Church has been preparing for this anniversary beginning in 2008 with a way of contemplating and to set up a network between 69 cities of the Reformation in Germany and in Europe, important places for the history and the presence of Protestantism. The conclusion of the festivities will take place at the national and international level on 31 October 2017 with a number of public events. The calendar of the ecumenical events is rich," said the Vatican daily.

Ecumenism is "in a very good state, thanks to Pope Francis"

"We can 2017 make a critical revision daring to see the reformation on an international and ecumenical horizon as a complex factor," said the "theologian and Lutheran Bishop Margot Käßmann, Ambassador of  Luther Year" recently held at a Catholic-Lutheran Reformation Conference at Pontifical Athenaeum Sant'Anselmo in Rome.

Käßmann said this about Ecumenism in an interview with Vatican Insider:

"We are in a very good stage because ecumenism on the one hand is a discussion about what the Church, the Eucharist, baptism, officials, means, but then also acting as Christians in the world, and since we are currently [the Catholic Church] very close, thanks to Pope Francis, a reformer in his Church, as Martin Luther a reformer was in his."

For Käßmann, said Osservatore Romano, it was "a good opportunity" to ask, "what we can find in his other church, which we did not." As a specific example she cited: "What I really admire about the Roman Catholic Church is that it preserves the global unity of the Church, despite the many internal differences."

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Photo: Osservatore Romano (Screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMDG

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Pope Francis to Visit Fatima in May of 2017

(Rome) Portugal President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was received by Pope Francis on his first foreign trip, which took him to Spain and Italy.   Rebelo de Sousa won the direct elections for the Portuguese Head of State last January 24.  He was inaugurated on March 9.

Prime Minister Rebelo is a founding member of  the Social Democratic Party of Portugal (PSD), created in 1974, which is - is a Christian Democratic party - despite the name.

Invitation to Portugal's new president

The encounter with the Catholic Church leader lasted half an hour. Following this, President Rebelo told the press that he had invited Pope Francis for the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Fatima in Portugal.

The President said:

"I have am issuing an official invitation to visit Portugal in May to mark the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Fatima. It is an invitation to visit Portugal. It is not for me to decide what position the Holy Father favors, who receives many referrals."

At the same time Rebelo confirmed that  Cardinal Secretary Parolin will be present on the 100th anniversary of the last apparition on the 12th/13th of October 1917. Pope Francis will not travel with him in October to Fatima

Fatima visit May 13, 2017?

On May 13th, in the month named by President Rebelo, the first apparition took place in 1917.
An official confirmation by the Vatican is not yet forthcoming, but it is certain that Pope Francis will visit next year Portugal and Fatima.  In April and September 2015, Francis had expressed a wish to visit the Portuguese Marian shrine.

Francis has already announced his participation on October 31st, 2016, his preference for the Catholic-Lutheran commemoration of  500 years of Protestant "Reformation" in Stockholm. It's a decision that has caused some grumbling in certain Catholic circles.

In this context, it is noted from the Catholic side that Protestants may indeed celebrate in 2017, although the 500 years of "Reformation" for Catholics is another commemoration, namely the 100 years Fatima is of real significance.

100 years Fatima - 500 Years of "Reformation"

The Pope's visit to Portugal and Fatima in May 2017 would be intended, say observers, as "compensation" for the participation of Francis at Luther commemoration that gives the impression of a Catholic recognition of Luther.  Martin Luther is synonymous with the most serious cleavage of Latin Christendom.  "It is no cause to celebrate," said the Catholic News page Secretum meum mihi.
On the question, what is important for Catholics in 2017, 500 years of Reformation  or 100 years of Fatima,  the Catholic news website: "We are pleased with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of all Christians, the true ecumenist, for she is truly Catholic."

Text: Giiuseppe Nardi
Image: SMM (Screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG

Pope Francis: 2017 Catholics Will "Commemorate 500 Years of the Reformation"

German Lutherans with Pope Francis

(Rome) Pope Francis received a delegation on Thursday of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany at the Vatican. In his address to the Lutherans, the Catholic Church leader said some astonishing  things. Catholics and Lutherans should "remember together" the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.  Celebrate the schism as a common event? An idiosyncratic form of "historicization" of the Reformation?

What the Pope said: "Ecumenical dialogue can not now be separated from reality and the life of our churches. In 2017, Lutheran and Catholic Christians commemorate together the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation. On this occasion, Lutherans and Catholics will, for the first time, have the opportunity to keep one and the same global ecumenical commemoration, not in the form of a triumphalist celebration, but rather to  confess our common faith in the Triune God. "

This is a shared "Reformation Memorial" reported Miguel Angel Yáñez, as the chief editor of Adelante la fe  considers: "I really wonder: Are we seriously commemorating as Catholics of the unfortunate schism that  enticed by the millions of souls to the fall away from the Catholic faith"

Lutherans and Lefebvrians?

And Yáñez continued, "If this ecumenical discourse is coherent, then we would soon get to hear the following statement from Rome:

, Ecumenical dialogue can not be separated from the reality and the life of our church today. In 2018 we commemorate together with Catholics associated to Archbishop Lefebvre   the 30th anniversary of the consecration of bishops who have separated from us. On this occasion, the two sides will, for the first time, have the opportunity to keep the world one and the same ecumenical commemoration, not in the form of a triumphalist celebration, but to confess our common faith in the Triune God,'" says Miguel Angel Yáñez.

Pope Francis continued to the German Lutherans. "Let us invite all, with God's help and with the support of his spirit to make further steps towards unity and not just to limit ourselves to what we have already achieved with this Reformation Memorial"

The German Bishops' Conference is actively pursuing the "common" Memory of the Church's schism by Martin Luther. For this purpose, a separate "project office of the Reformation Memorial" was set up.

2017: 100th Anniversary of Fatima

The 2017 does not mean 500 years of Church division but really, 100 years since the apparitions of Fatima. For the latter, Pope Francis has  not taken to commemorate it so far. In Portugal they have been trying to descure a Pope visit since 2013 for the Pope's visit on the occasion of the 100th anniversary celebrations in Fatima. Last April,  the retired Portuguese Cardinal José Saraiva Martins said there is no secure commitment, but it was "normal and natural" that the Pope would come to a "so momentous occasion" to Fatima.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: InfoVaticana

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

LInk to Katholisches..

AMDG

An Excommunicated Saint: James of the Mark -- Exemplare Against the Worldliness of the Church

(Rome) In their recent article, the Catholic historian Cristina Siccardi sketches the life of a saint largely unknown today, however, he was a well known and pervasive  significance during his lifetime. His personal life was that of a penitent, it consisted of radical poverty, humility and mortification. Outwardly he was an eloquent preacher, the people were roused, and led to conversion by God. As he put on the robe of Saint Francis of Assisi at the age of 22, his life was one of the salvation of souls and the fight against the heresies of his time. From then on, he  took off his shoes and sandals and  went barefoot in summer and in winter for life. An example of radical detachment from the world.  He appears for the first time in Corrispondenza Romana.

.

An excommunicated saint: Giacomo della Marca

by Cristina Siccardi

The time that preceded the Protestant Reformation [Revolt] was marked by the solid and magnificent work of some preachers, among whom was one who was truly great and was even excommunicated. His name was James of the Mark (Giacomo della Marca, 1393-1476). His liturgical memorial falls on the 28th of November. Between the 14th and 15th Century the church was corrupted from the inside out, while defrauded many heretics faith and doctrine. While the ground was prepared, on which the heresiarch Luther could act, this intrepid preacher at least brought a little order.

The life of a penitent

James of the Mark was born in Monteprandone in Ascoli Piceno as Domenico Gangala, had an area that Emperor Charles the Great 774 transferred the supremacy of the Pope. At the age of 22 years, James moved to Santa Maria degli Angeli in Assisi, the coarse habit of the Franciscans, which he received from the hand of St. Bernardine of Siena. His life was marked by extreme penance. He underwent in his life as a penitent seven forty days of fasting times of the year, while his meals consisted on the other days of a bowl of beans that have been boiled in water.

Because of his life of penance, he had poor health and was prone to illness - he received  last rites six times  - he still held on to his deprivation of life as an itinerant preacher. The only thing he feared in his life was  that physical pain distracted him and kept him from prayer.

Disciple of Saint Bernhardins of Siena

Due to the catechesis of Saint Bernardino he was formed to be  a more efficient preacher, like St John Capistrano, Blessed Albert of Sarteano or the Blessed Matthew of Girgenti,  James altered vocal technique and gestures, but also the content and structure of his sermon. The treatment of ethical and political issues was preferred and used for material from the texts of moral theology and canon law. He made ample use of Exempla, examples which were often presented in a dramatic way. Mostly he used the vernacular. He campaigned for the spread of the devotion to the Sacred Name of Jesus and insisted on some commonly recurring themes in his sermons, therefore: superstitious practices, abundance and luxury, games of chance, cursing and usury (He coined the idea of ​​the Monti di Pietà, to free the victims of usurers (out of this fight against the usurer, European banking originally arose from the Franciscan Monti di Pietà,))

The Life of a Wandering Preacher of Repentance

James' sermons are like thunder, the wake up call even for the most stubborn minds. They feed from the Scriptures, which he often quoted, but the Saint also fetched suggestions  from Dante's Divine Comedy. No one takes a nap or can be distracted by his own thoughts when he attends his sermons of extraordinary penetrating power, which also had a theatrical touch, but very often reach their true and ultimately single goal: to convert.

James of the Mark is  an unusual Franciscan. He stands out because of his gentility. A confident and determined, he knew to unite love and fire of divine judgment. He was a stern but compassionate theologian and inquisitor. His sermons unleashed not only rousing approval and enthusiasm among the faithful, but also lead to concrete reforms of the then so important to people's lives, statutes of several cities and establishing numerous brotherhoods, which he laid the first foundations of the Catholic Association. From 1423 to 1425 he preached a series of sermons in the area of ​​Jesi, where the heresy of the Fraticelli sparead that had emerged from the heretical Spiritual Franciscans. In 1426 he was  commissioned by Pope Martin V to preach in the whole of Italy  against this sect and gave him the brother of John Capistrano to help.

Salvation of Souls and Fight the Heresies

In 1432 he was sent to Central Europe and the successes were not long in coming. At the end of 1435, the Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg, who was also King of Hungary, called him to  his residence in Tata (German Totis), located on the road between Vienna and Budapest today, barely 70 kilometers away from the capital of Hungary. James of the Mark  became a consultant to the Emperor  at the meeting with the delegation of the Council of Basel and the representatives of the Kingdom of Bohemia, where the Hussite heresy was still virulent. From then on, his fight against heresy stretched over the whole territory of today's Bosnia to Slovakia, where he preached against the Hussites, who came  there on their flight  from Bohemia there.

Imperial Consultants, Papal Nuncio, Conciliar Legate

In August 1436 the Pope appointed him Inquisitor of Austria and Hungary and gave him broad powers. This included the right to build new monasteries in these countries. The support of the Emperor and the Pope, and the title of a legate at the Council of Basel, however, are not enough to secure him  inviolability. He experienced severe persecution by the local clergy who felt disturbed by his sometimes vicious life.  There were attempts to kill him several times, and the Archdeacon of Bacs (now on the border with Serbia) even excommunicated him. James of the Mark also took on the task to preach in favor of the crusade against the Turks. To this end, he was appointed in 1443 by Pope Eugene IV  as the Apostolic Nuncio.

Beatified in 1664 and Canonized in 1723

Finally, they wanted to make him even as Archbishop of Milan, but he refused. Among the activities at the end of his life, is the construction of the library in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Monteprandone, which he had founded in 1449 in his birthplace. The Saint succeeded there to collect 200 codices, which became the workshop of the preacher, in which he prepared his sermons. Even today there are his drafts and notes, his Exempla, his references to the Scriptures and to the theological and canonical texts. In 1476 he died in Naples, where he was buried. In 1664 Pope Urban VIII beatified him and in 1723 Pope Benedict XIII.  canonized him. In 2001  his remains were removed from Naples to "his" monastery in Monteprandone.

He dedicated his whole life to interior personal repentance and to  the control of external errors and thereby the salvation of souls. Today, under the tyranny of relativism, Giacomo della Marca, the Holy would not be seen as a fighter for the faith, but probably as fanatical troublemaker, to be excommunicated as a "nuisance", as someone already tried in his time.

Introduction / Translation: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Corrispondenza Romana / Wikicommons

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link Katholisches...

AMGD

Cardinal Kasper Advocates More Apologies and Pretended Unity for 500th Anniversary of Protestant Revolt

500 years schism: Cardinal Kasper hopes 2017 "common worship and confession of guilt"

(Mainz) In 2017 the Lutherans are to celebrate  Reformation 500 years of schism initiated in 1517.  [If any are left.] The former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity , Cardinal Walter Kasper, is encouraging  that the Lutheran churches and the Catholic Church "should celebrate common worship" in 2017.  In this "worship" both sides should put aside their doctrinal commitments. Cardinal Kasper said on Friday in Münster: "In this we should take a confession of guilt that we have not met the requirement of unity." The "two churches" should "thank the  ecumenical movement and promise" to decide to continue along those  lines.  A proposal has already been submitted by the Cardinal in the summer of 2012 as part of Ratzinger Student Circle at Castel Gandolfo. The two sides are put at the same level and suggested to share in the same "fault", without any discussion of substantive differences and questions.

Link to Katholisches...

Reformation Day: Luther's Pact With the Devil

Luther's Pact With the Devil

Martin Bucer laments: The greater part of the people seem only to have embraced the gospel in order to shake off the yoke of discipline and the obligation of fasting and penance, which rested upon them in popery, and that they may live according to their own pleasure, enjoying their lusts and lawless appetites without control. That was the reason they lent a willing ear to the teaching of justification by faith alone and not by good works, for the latter of which they had no relish." [(Bucer, De Regn. I, c. I, 4) Cf The Facts About Luther, Msgr Patrick F. O'Hare, LL.D., Tan Books Reprint, 1987,  P. 91.]

Such violence  done to good doctrine, politics and sound morals by Luther's Revolt, was also leveled against art, and continues to be accomplished today as this article about a Tate Museum exhibit reveals appropriately in the Guardian for today, being Reformation Day in some circles:

Two images haunt me from Tate Britain's survey of attacks on art in Britain since the Reformation. One is a painfully realistic, lifesize stone figure of the dead Christ, eyes closed, chest emaciated, body taut. This terrifying portrait of death is a radical and dangerous work of art. It was carved by an unknown sculptor in the early 16th century then apparently buried, as an idolatrous object, just a few years later when Henry VIII rejected the Pope and dissolved Britain's monasteries.

1. Art Under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm
2. Tate Britain,
 
3. London
4. SW1P

1. Starts 2 October 2013
2. Until 5 January 2014
3. Venue website

The other is a portrait that was bought by the artists Jake and Dinos Chapman just so they could deface it. They've added bloody marks, made the mouth ugly and the eyes mad. We're supposed to think this is hilarious.

Art Under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm wants to make us think, but I found myself asking the wrong questions and drawing the wrong conclusions. The exhibition fumbles with ideas about "iconoclasm", or the deliberate destruction of art: can art vandalism be art? Is there a perverse humour or truth or beauty in a suffragette slashing Velázquez's Venus or the IRA blowing up Nelson's Pillar in Dublin?

Link to article...

Vatican Downplays Expectation of a Papal Visit on Reformation 2017

Cardinal: Francis has been no response to the invitation EKD

Rome (kath.net / idea ) The expectation that Pope Francis is to come to the 500-year anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 in Germany has been downplayed by the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch. The Pope had given no reply to the invitation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany Council Chairman, President i.R. Nikolaus Schneider (Berlin), said the Swiss Cardinal in an interview with Vatican Radio. In a private audience on 8 April Schneider had invited the head of the Roman Catholic Church, to participate in Wittenberg in the events commemorating the theses of the reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) 31 October 1517. The Vatican sees, among other things, no reason to “celebrate" the Reformation, its following schism and the religious wars of the 16th and 17th Centuries, but wishes only “recollect” it.

Schneider: It's about a Feast for Christ

The ELCG Council stressed that it was not the anniversary of the Reformation to go about celebrating "the birth of the Protestant church." Luther did not want to found a new church, but to reform the Catholic. It would also not hide the dark side of the Reformation and the Reformer. Rather, the anniversary should be designed as a Christian festival that every Christian can celebrate.

Koch: the Vatican is not a contact person for the ELCG

Koch also pointed out to Vatican Radio different responsibilities. The Vatican is not the actual contact person for the ELCG, but the German Bishops' Conference. Lutheranism, by contrast, has a “worldwide presence," said Koch. The Vatican engages in theological conversations especially with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). They had agreed together in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in1999. Koch himself took part last November while participating in the General Synod of the United Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD) Timmendorfer Strand in Luebeck, but not at the subsequent ELCG Synod. The Lutheran Evangelical Church doesn’t understand itself as an autonomous church, but as a community of 20, United and Reformed churches.

Paper completed on Reformation Commemoration

As Koch said in the current interview further in view of discussions between the Catholic and the Lutheran church, the competent International Commission has prepared a document to commemorate 2017th year of the Reformation. It is expressed in the English title "From Conflict to Communion" (From Conflict to Community). The paper is finished, but is to be released only after the German translation is complete. Worldwide, the Roman Catholic Church has about 1.2 billion members. The number of Lutherans is [merely] about 74 million, which includes nearly 71 million to the LWF member churches.

Pope Francis receives EKD Church President Nikolaus Schneider - Pope meets with Francis first Protestant leader (Rome Reports)