Do Jews and Muslims Decide the Conditions for the Recognition of the SSPX?

(Rome) The news platform Vatican Insider  has allowed the American Jewish Comittee (AJC) to say, "what is negotiable and what is not" on the way to "the Reconciliation of the Lefebvrians with the Catholic Church". The "conditions" are significantly different from those named by he who is in charge of the talks, Curial Archbishop Guido Pozzo.

The article, signed by Lisa Palmieri-Billig, the "representative of the American Jewish Comittee to the Holy See," was published on 28 July. The American Jewish Comittee and Islam representative, Yahya Pallavicini, explained the conditions under which the Catholic Church could recognize the Society of St. Pius X.

The ecumenical [diabolical?] intervention was provoked by an interview by Curia Archbishop Guido Pozzo included in Christ und Welt (issue 32/2016). Archbishop Pozzo is officially entrusted with the talks with the SSPX as secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

If the Vatican will "sacrifice" Conciliar Documents for SSPX?

The author summarizes what is clear from the interview that the "Society is no longer excommunicated, but has not yet been reintegrated canonically, and despite some initial concessions, continues to reject some important documents of Vatican II."  This raises  "more questions", say Palmieri-Billig. The "obvious", but so far unasked questions are:

"On what specific points is the Vatican willing to compromise?" And "If the Vatican is prepared to sacrifice the authoritative nature of some documents of the Second Vatican Council, which - although not a dogma - have become valuable tools for Interreligious Dialogue"

American Jewish Comittee

Two key areas are in play. The first area concerns the "Pope Francis' very strong desire for pastoral unity within the church and for reconciliation of theological breakthroughs." This precludes the second region, namely "the important impact on the future of basic documents of the Second Vatican Council". Palmieri-Billig explicitly names the document Nostra Aetate , particularly "the relationship of the Catholic Church and the Jewish people", and Dignitatis Humanae on religious freedom.

The authors complained in the statements about  Archbishop Guido Pozzo's "complete absence of any reference" to the historical roots of these documents of Vatican II and "thus the reasons why  John XXIII., Paul VI. and the Council Fathers felt it was important." Specifically,  Palmieri-Billig referred to  "Paragraph 4 of Nostra Aetate on relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people". This "omission" was all the more serious because of the "seemingly entrenched theological anti-Semitism" of the SSPX.

"Distorted indoctrination" and "ingrained theological anti-Semitism"

The representative of the American Jewish Comittee  then insists that Nostra Aetate of John XXIII. was intended finally to "extinguish the distorted indoctrination" of the charges of "deicide", an accusation that "had already been declared false and absurd by  the Council of Trent." The "need for this decision" by John XXIII. was beause he had "become aware through an encounter with Jules Isaac, a survivor of the Holocaust" where Isaac had convinced the pope from the fact that "this rhetoric circulating in Europe had created a suitable environment for the development of wild anti-Semitic stereotypes, which in turn fueled the hatred that made ​​the Shoah possible."

AJC demands conditions for the canonical recognition of the SSPX

Then the American Jewish Commitee comes to the point: If the SSPX can be canonically recognized "before" talks "about the validity" of Nostra Aetate found a "satisfactory solution", it "would create serious questions".

Palmieri-Billig  extensively cites Chief Rabbi David Rosen, the international director of the American Jewish Comittee for interreligious relations with the words:

"I have every confidence in the declaration of Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who explained that the adoption of Nostra Aetate as a binding document by the SSPX, is a necessary step to ensure that the members of the Society may be formally recognized by the Holy See; and I can not believe that Pope Francis could accept less than that. In addition, I hope that the Holy See, regarding Judaism and the Jewish people, insists in the addition to recognition of the teaching of the Magisterium, on the denial of anti-Semitism that was part of the culture of the SSPX. It was not just about Bishop 'Williamson and a couple other people: The website of the organization has been full of anti-Jewish rhetoric in the past. I want to hope that there is a formal recognition of the statement of Pope Francis in line with his predecessors, which states that it is impossible to be a true Christian if you have anti-Semitic opinions." [David Rosen gets to decide who's Christian.]

The Crux: SSPX or Dominus Iesus ?

Palmieri-Billig shows themselves further concerned about the differing levels of dogmatic binding, which is applied to the various conciliar documents, as Archbishop Curia Pozzo explained in his interview. Pozzo appealed to the will of the Council Fathers on this issue. On November 18, 1964, the secretary for Christian Unity on Nostra Aetate explained that his secretariat had no intention of adopting dogmatic declarations about non-Christian religions but only practical and pastoral norms, which is why Nostra Aetate has no dogmatic commitment. It is therefore, says Archbishop Curia Pozzo, not possible to ask someone, to recognize this document as "binding."

Imam Yahya Pallavicini

The American Jewish Comittee representatives were also offended at the finding of Archbishop Pozzo, that any interpretation of Nostra Aetate, must include the Declaration Dominus Iesus , on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church 2000, which is "without foundation and should therefore be rejected." The Secretary of Ecclesia Dei warned explicitly in this context against a false  interpretation of the "Spirit of Assisi".

Palmieri-Billig represented the statements of Imam Yahya Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community (COREIS) to the contrary, who is considered to be the "internationally recognized representative of a temperate 'traditional Islam'." Pallavicini had in turn warned the Vatican:

"The international Islamic community follows closely the development of this convergence process of the SSPX for reintegration into the Catholic Church. It is about the sensitivity to find a coherence regarding the pastoral implications of the outcome of the Council and of the document Nostra Aetate. While Pope Francis and the Catholic Church, together with the spiritual authorities of many other religious denominations, celebrate the prophetic value of this Council that initiated the historical cycle of 50 intense years of inter-religious and ecumenical dialogue on providential way, the SSPX appears to downplay at least the  this path and this orientation  to maintain a traditionalist interpretation that actually denies the spiritual need of respect and fellowship with believers and other confessions believing in a God. In a moment of dramatic international crisis in which the manipulation of religion becomes a hostage of some fundamentalist groups, there seems to arise a claim of 'legitimate violence' against Muslims, Christians and Jews, concerns us and the anachronism and the lack of sensitivity of movements that the Society even wants to force the Church  or  to teach a different hierarchy of values, than   the Council and obedience to the saints and the popes."

"Vilification and delegitimization of the 'Aggiornamento'- John XXIII's Will."

Although the AJC representative noted that Society, representing 70 countrieswith 750Mass locations  in the "enormous Catholic world" has only a "relatively small influence" ... "but nothing that happens in this world without effect". Concessions to the SSPX "could easily" lead to a "return of the old prejudices" against other confessions and to "transform to the militant conviction of possessing the only true way to God".

Pallavicini has already been received several times by Pope Francis in the past three years

That would be a further step towards the "insulting and delegitimization of the burning desire of John XXIII. according to the 'aggiornamento' of the Catholic Church and to return to the pseudo-religious, anti-Semitic stereotypes that  provoked immense suffering of many centuries and ultimately led to the diabolical persecutions and genocides of the 20th century. "

After the authors  thundered against SSPX , using the Antisemitism club, they praised "the deeply meaningful silence" of Pope Francis in Auschwitz as "deafening".

Director of Vatican Insider, the papal house vaticanist  Andrea Tornielli,  explains why his articles and products published by his platform are of particular attention. This also applies to this article by the AJC representatives to the Holy See, where Tornielli allows Jews and Muslims to designate the conditions about which the Holy See should conduct a canonical recognition of the SSPX. Vice versa this means: Should these conditions not be met, it would open up "serious questions". It's a statement in the article of the American Jewish Comittee that someone could read as a threat. Anyway,  Tornielli offered the American Jewish Comittee and the Islamic Religious Council the opportunity to be the warning sign for the Vatican.  It's an "unusual procedure", because they revolve "around internal Church matters" which are also to be clarified within the Church. It's an "interference" from the outside which must be "considerations rejected in principle" ipso facto, so Messa in Latino .

It is also dubious indeed that the American Jewish Comittee and the Islamic Religious Council  are pulling  together, to warn the Catholic Church of a "return" to their traditional claim that it was entrusted by Jesus Christ as the "only way to salvation."

Lisa Palmieri-Billig and Yahya Pallavicini

Lisa Palmieri-Billig was born in Vienna. With her ​​Jewish family, she emigrated in 1938 as a small child to New York. During the Second Vatican Council, she worked in the Roman branch of the World Jewish Congress (WJC). She was 25 years, Deputy Chairman of the European section of the World Conference of Religions for Peace, based in New York, founded in 1961 and is today Chairman of the Italian section of this organization. Since 2005, she is the Jewish Vatican expert AJC representative  in Italy and the Holy See.

Yahya Pallavicini, born in 1965, is the Imam al-Wahid Mosque of Milan. His mother is Japanese, his father, Felice Pallavicini is from Milan, descendant of a branch of a famous Italian noble family [With strong Masonic connections, fighting against the Church in the 1860s], converted in 1951 at the age of 25 years in Lausanne to Islam. He prefers to speak of a "convergence" and "realignment". Since then, he calls himself Abd al-Wahid and has traveled 30 years in the Islamic world, where he was in Istanbul, Jerusalem and finally introduced in Singapore to Islamic Sufism. In 1980, he himself became a Sheikh (Master) and as such, head of the Sufi brotherhood, Ahamadiyyah Idrissiyyah Shadhiliyyah in Europe. Abd al-Wahid Pallavicini represents a syncretic religious view that all religions lead to "a god". In a chronological sequence have revealed this, the Hinduism, according to Pallavicini, the first link in this  chain of revelation that leads to  the three monotheistic "Abrahamic" religions, whose perfection is Islam.
In 1986 he took part in the  very controversial Assisi Meeting for Peace as the Islam representative, which was organized by the Community Sant'Egidi  with the participation of Pope John Paul II.. His son was counted among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world of 2009. In 1998 father and son negotiated as Islamic representatives for the recognition of the Islamic religious community by the Republic of Italy. In 2000 he created the organization called the Islamic Religious Community (COREIS). He is a member of the State Islamic Council of the Italian Ministry of Interior.

Both are part of the elite interreligious establishment.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: SSPX / ajc / coreis (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches....
AMDG

Communion for All, Even for Protestants

Edit: For the record.

In addition to the divorced and remarried, for Luther’s followers as well there are those who are giving the go-ahead for the Eucharist. Here is how “La Civiltà Cattolica” interprets the pope’s enigmatic words on intercommunion.

by Sandro Magister

ROME, July 1, 2016 – In his way, after encouraging communion for the divorced and remarried, in that it “is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” Pope Francis is now also encouraging Protestants and Catholics to receive communion together at their respective Masses.

He is doing so, as always, in a discursive, allusive way, not definitional, leaving the ultimate decision to the individual conscience.

Still emblematic is the answer he gave on November 15, 2015, on a visit to the Christuskirche, the church of the Lutherans in Rome (see photo), to a Protestant who asked him if she could receive communion together with her Catholic husband.

The answer from Francis was a stupefying pinwheel of yes, no, I don’t know, you figure it out. Which it is indispensable to reread in its entirety, in the official transcription:

“Thank you, Ma’am. Regarding the question on sharing the Lord’s Supper, it is not easy for me to answer you, especially in front of a theologian like Cardinal Kasper! I’m afraid! I think the Lord gave us [the answer] when he gave us this command: 'Do this in memory of me'. And when we share in, remember and emulate the Lord’s Supper, we do the same thing that the Lord Jesus did. And the Lord’s Supper will be, the final banquet will there be in the New Jerusalem, but this will be the last. Instead on the journey, I wonder – and I don’t know how to answer, but I am making your question my own – I ask myself: “Is sharing the Lord’s Supper the end of a journey or is it the viaticum for walking together? I leave the question to the theologians, to those who understand. It is true that in a certain sense sharing is saying that there are no differences between us, that we have the same doctrine – I underline the word, a difficult word to understand – but I ask myself: don’t we have the same Baptism? And if we have the same Baptism, we have to walk together. You are a witness to an even profound journey because it is a conjugal journey, truly a family journey, of human love and of shared faith. We have the same Baptism. When you feel you are a sinner – I too feel I am quite a sinner – when your husband feels he is a sinner, you go before the Lord and ask forgiveness; your husband does the same and goes to the priest and requests absolution. They are ways of keeping Baptism alive. When you pray together, that Baptism grows, it becomes strong; when you teach your children who Jesus is, why Jesus came, what Jesus did, you do the same, whether in Lutheran or Catholic terms, but it is the same. The question: and the Supper? There are questions to which only if one is honest with oneself and with the few theological lights that I have, one must respond the same, you see. 'This is my Body, this is my Blood', said the Lord, 'do this in memory of me', and this is a viaticum which helps us to journey. I had a great friendship with an Episcopalian bishop, 48 years old, married with two children, and he had this concern: a Catholic wife, Catholic children, and he a bishop. He accompanied his wife and children to Mass on Sundays and then went to worship with his community. It was a step of participating in the Lord’s Supper. Then he passed on, the Lord called him, a just man. I respond to your question only with a question: how can I participate with my husband, so that the Lord’s Supper may accompany me on my path? It is a problem to which each person must respond. A pastor friend of mine said to me: 'We believe that the Lord is present there. He is present. You believe that the Lord is present. So what is the difference?' – 'Well, there are explanations, interpretations…'. Life is greater than explanations and interpretations. Always refer to Baptism: “One faith, one baptism, one Lord”, as Paul tells us, and take the outcome from there. I would never dare give permission to do this because I do not have the authority. One Baptism, one Lord, one faith. Speak with the Lord and go forward. I do not dare say more.”

Link to Chiesa... AMDG

"Cardinal Schönborn Like You've Never Seen Him Before" -- Visits Sikh Temple

"Cardinal Schönborn like you've never seen him before"--
The Cardinal sitting cross legged with orange head scarf in a
Sikh Temple in Vienna 

(Vienna) "Cardinal Christoph Schönborn live you've never seen him before: cross-legged with an orange stole as a headscarf. Occasion: Schönborn attended the Sikh temple in Meidling (12th district) on Sunday, in which he paid tribute to the freedom of religion. It was the first official visit to this religious community" reported the Austrian complimentary newspaper Heute.

The Sikh religion was founded just over 500 years ago by their first Guru (master) Nanak in the Punjab. Nanak was born into a Hindu family and belonged to the caste of traders. The Punjab had been subjected in the early 13th century by Muslim sultans.  Nanak attempted to overcome this opposition and the Hindu caste system  through a combination of Hinduism and Islam in a new syncretic religion. So he gathered the Sikhs around himself, which means "student."  Nanak's birthplace is now in Pakistani Punjab, the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the center of Sikhism, in contrast to the Indian Punjab.

Worldwide, the number of Sikhs is estimated at around 25 million. 80 percent of them live in India, and three quarters of them in the state of Punjab. The Punjab is the historic and current center of Sikhism. Only two percent of Indians are Sikhs, but almost 60 percent of the inhabitants of the Punjab. In the partition of British India,  which evenly divided the Punjab between India and Pakistan, there was an exchange of populations by expulsion, deportation and resettlement. Since then, there are hardly any Sikhs living in the Pakistani Punjab.

Around 10,000 Sikhs in Austria

Cardinal Schönborn in Vienna's Sikh temple

The number of Sikh people living in Austria is estimated at 10,000, just over half of whom live in Vienna. The number of almost 3,000 in the last state religious survey of 2001 is long outdated. In the past 15 years, their share has more than tripled.

Because what was written in 2001 about the religion is no longer applicable, there is no certain information about the rapid growth of these and other foreign religions. The lack of surveys, which is based on the fact that religion is a "private matter,"  makes the quick shifts caused by mass immigration invisible. 

Murder of a guru in Vienna

On 24 May 2009 the Austrian Sikh community was put in the spotlight as a guru of  the Ravidas sect was murdered in their temple in Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus (15 district of Vienna).  Sant Rama Nand was revered by his followers as a "saint." Six Sikhs attacked the worshipers present in the temple with daggers and firearms. The guru was murdered while 15 worshipers and an attacker were injured, some seriously.

The conflict had to do with the caste system. The victims were members of the lower caste Dalits, the untouchables. The attackers, also Sikhs, belonged to a higher class. For them, the Ravidasis are a despicable sect because they adore living gurus as "saints" and not just the ten classical gurus who lived from 1500 to 1800. The Ravidasis are branched mainly from the caste of Dalits, which makes the religious conflicts a caste conflict, although the Sikhs officially reject the Hindu caste system,  the Indian legal system also really doesn't recognize it either, daily life in Indian society, which includes the Sikhs, however, continue to be determined by the caste system.

The violence sparked a discussion that   cultural, historical and political conflicts are also imported by mass immigration.

No recognized religious community

 Sikhs have arrived especially since the 80's, as the newspaper publisher Mediaprint procured exemptions from the Residence Act so it could procure cheap labor for its newspaper distribution. Most remained, brought their families and received Austrian citizenship.

In Vienna there are two Sikh Temples, which  Cardinal Schönborn visited, one in Meidling (12th district) and another in Donaustadt (22nd district). Plus, there's the aforementioned Ravidas Temple in the 15th district. The Ravidasis split off after the assassination of the Sikhs and see themselves since then as an independent religious community.

Neither the Sikhs nor Ravidasis enjoy neither the status of a recognized, nor even of a registered religious community in Austria. Both are organized as "religious associations."

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Picture: Today (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholishes...
AMDG

Sufi Rituals in Salzburg's Kollegiekirche

(Salzburg) on Sunday, 20 July, in the context of the Salzburg Festival, there is a  profanation of the famous Collegiate Church scheduled on the program.

One focus of the festival, the "Spiritual Ouverture" is in 2014 under the slogan "Christianity and Islam."  On Sunday, the appearance of the Sufi is to start at 9 O'clock of the Islamic Order of al-Gazoulia (al-Dschazuliya al-Husayniya al-Schadhiliya) from Cairo provided, who will perform  for the "his rites and ceremonies for the first time in a public space with us in the Collegiate Church,"  as the outgoing Festival Director Alexander Pereira thrilled to the Kleine Zeitung. "We are all incredibly excited" about the Sufi appearance. A Catholic church and the public space are obviously all the same for the Austrians Pereira. The "Ouverture Spiritual" is one of the inventions of director Pereira and is the prelude to the festival. After the 2012 Christianity and Buddhism in 2013, the focus in 2014 is on Islam.

Four Sufi Events WIth the  Slogan "Christianity and Islam"

Sufis from Egypt, result in Salzburg Kollegienkirche "rituals and ceremonies" 

In all the  four points of the  program will be focused upon the slogan "Christianity and Islam."  in the Collegiate Church.  July 24, will begin with Sufi chants 1 after which the Sufi chants 2 will follow.  On the 22nd and 26th of July, a Sufi choir sings lyrics from Sufi mystic Mansur al-Hallag (858-922), by a commission by the Festival of Hossam Mahmoud  and set to music by Samir Odeh-Tamim.

"Religion is like a river that flows through many countries. Each country gives this river a different name and claims this possibly also for itself. Here, the flow is independent of the countries and springs also from one source,"  it reads according to the performances on the website of the Salzburg Festival . Even the obligatory reference is not missing, that  the offer of "dialogue"  [Inevitably as it always does] follows.

Sufi Rituals "About Mohammed Connected to the Divine Source of Knowledge"

"At the heart of their teaching, love stands as the only way to God, whose name Allah is composed of four Arabic letters", insist the organizers of the festival in their announcement. And further: "Each of their rituals, as it rises in  silence, with the invocation of his name, rising in singing and with the gradually interjecting oriental musical instruments to a music that serves to connect with the Divine. These rituals are led by the Master (Sheikh) of the respective order (tariqa), where the Sheikh is connected by a chain of narration from the Prophet Muhammad with the divine source of knowledge. The rituals, of which not one is like the other, mostly take place at memorials of a late Sufi master. "

Church Confused with "Public Space" 

Salzburg's Creepy New Altar

The Sufi Order has  "spontaneously declared themselves immediately prepared," the rituals for the "first time" in order to  carry them out in a "public space". For the festival management a Catholic Church is obviously indistinct from a "public space" like a concert hall or the Grosses Festspielhaus.

The Kollegienkirche of Salzburg, consecrated in 1707, is not only a historical monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but is primarily and exclusively a Catholic church. As such, it was built by Prince Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun-Hohenstein for the University  in 1622 and consecrated to the Holy Trinity. During the war the church was desecrated by Napoleonic troops and served the French occupation  as a stable and magazine. After the university was abolished in 1810 by Bavaria and re-consecrated under Austria, it found a new job as a garrison church. Since 1922,  it has been used as the venue for the Salzburg Festival. 

With the re-establishment of the University in 1962, the Collegiate Church was again a University Church and in 2008 made a parish a personal parish established for the University. The baroque church, built by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach is considered, next to the cathedral, as one of the most important churches of Salzburg.

The Collegiate Church is the seat of the University Church Catholic Student Community. Recent renovation work completed after the orphaning of the high altar, being displaced,  and the establishment of a "people's altar"" in the nave underlined  the final loss of the importance of the presbytery. The new "community" gathers in a circle around the altar, while the presbytery, was reduced to a meaningless relic of past times in the church building. 

The Catholic Church categorically rejects the   use of a church for the rites of other religions. Their enactment leads to the desecration of the church and requires its own rite of purification in order to be used  again for the Catholic liturgy.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Muslim in Egypt

Trans: Tancred vekon99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMGD

Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela Desecrated by Shinto and Buddhist Rites

(Madrid) The famous cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was desecrated by Buddhist and Shinto rites  The Catholic Church prohibits in their churches every act of worship of another religion. Through the implementation of a strange rite a Catholic church is profaned, and requires a special rite to fix this desecration.

Nevertheless, it came as part of an event organized by the local tourist association  "Japanese Week in Santiago", the  desecration of the world famous place of pilgrimage cathedral by Buddhist monks and Shinto priests, who presented ritual songs and dances.

Tourism Association Organized "Japanese Week" and  Allowed Buddhist and Shinto Dance in Cathedral

From the 9th to the 13th of  May, Japan was presented in Santiago with a variety of events all year.  It featured  Japanese art, music and cuisine. On May 13th, the last day of the theme week, the event took place in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela called "The Spirit of Japan".  The program announced the event as "Songs and Dances of Buddhist monks and Shinto priests of the prefecture of Wakayama."

But how is it possible that the cathedral of  the Archbishop  could permit the  Tourist Office to make it available, ​​moreover even for ritual acts of foreign religions? This is what Catholics are currently asking. For the tourist office  Santiago de Compostela all religions are equal,  so for that reason  religious programs can take place in a religious context, specifically Buddhist and Shinto rites in a Catholic church.

Holy Mass in a Side Chapel - Idolatry Before the High Altar

While Holy Mass was celebrated in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of the Cathedral,  the main nave of the church in front of the main altar  was opened to Buddhist monks and Shinto priests for their rites.

The even was not mentioned on the website of the cathedral church, but without the consent of those responsible,   the event could not have taken place. There is also no indication that the procedure  required by the Church after a profanation, that is a  purification rite, will be  performed with a new consecration.

Are really all religions equal and a church  is only a syncretic container dedicated  to fit  in   all religions? What does Archbishop Julián Barrio   of Santiago de Compostela mean by this?

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Messa in Latino

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

AMGD

Facts About the Intervention in Buenos Aires

Edit: because most of the other reportage is so woefully inaccurate and frankly spiteful, and that if you google this story, this is nowhere in sight, it seemed appropriate to post this link and a brief excerpt. Unless we demonstrate our love for the truth with a public witness and fight for it, it can't be worth much.  Our unwillingness to do things like this, in our opinion, is why we've lost so much in the past, and there's a long tradition of this sort of thing in Argentina where the Church was once much more healthy than it is today.

In reaction to some inaccurate reporting by the Associated Press on a demonstration during an ecumenical inter-religious event in the Catholic cathedral of Buenos Aires in Argentina, SSPX.ORG interviewed Fr. Christian Bouchacourt, District Superior of South America, to offer some clarifications on the matter, which we make available here.

Demonstration in Buenos Aires Catholic cathedral — the facts

The Jewish community has played an important part in Buenos Aires since the city’s foundation. In 2012, Cardinal Bergoglio (now Pope Francis), hosted in the Cathedral of Buenos Aires an inter-religious prayer ceremony that includes representatives of the Jewish community as well as Methodist, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches to commemorate the 1938 Kristallnacht and the deportment of Jews into concentration camps. During the first ceremony held in the Catholic cathedral and organized by the Jewish group, B’nai, B’rith, Rabbi Alejandro Avruj joined the ceremonies, lighting the menorah with Bergoglio and presenting him with a siddur.

The Argentina cathedral once again hosted the inter-religious ceremony on Tuesday, November 12th, during which a small group of around 50 Catholics prayed the Rosary before the evening’s ecumenical event began. One of the men also took the opportunity to use an open microphone to denounce the inter-religious act in a Catholic cathedral.

Link to Society Site...

St. Sabina's Erects Shrine to St. Treyvon of the Purple Drank

Edit: today, we are told by a correspondent that St. Sabina's parish, run by the controversial and heterodox Father Michael Pflugger, has created a shrine to the non-Catholic Treyvon Martin,  who was shot and killed by a man defending himself on February 26th of this year.

How will Trey get his Drank on in the Afterlife Without Tussin?

Apart from the obvious objection that Treyvon wasn't Catholic and couldn't be canonized, there seems to be something missing from the altar which attempts to portray the assailant's innocence and goodness with the trademark skittles and watermelon tea.

What is omitted in the usual descriptions of these items is the fact that Treyvon also had Robitussin, an over the counter medicine used for common ailments, but also to make an intoxicating gangster cocktail    known as "lean" or "drank" which makes use of skittles and watermelon tea.

You forgot the tussin!

From the comments on AmericanThinker:

Trayvon, with his hoodie up, grabs two items from the shelves of 7-11.  One is the Skittles.  The other is Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail.  The media avoid the name of the real drink -- possibly because of the racial implications of the word "watermelon," but possibly to avoid probing the real reason for Trayon's trip. 

Trayvon, in fact, had become a devotee of the druggy concoction known as "Lean," also known in southern hip-hop culture as "Sizzurp" and "Purple Drank."  Lean consists of three basic ingredients -- codeine, a soft drink, and candy.  If his Facebook postings are to be believed, Trayvon had been using Lean since at least June 2011.   

On June 27, 2011, Trayvon asks a friend online, "unow a connect for codien?"  He tells the friend that "robitussin nd soda" could make "some fire ass lean."  He says, "I had it before" and that he wants "to make some more."  On the night of February 26, if Brandy had some Robitussin at home, Trayvon had just bought the mixings for one "fire ass lean" cocktail.

Thank goodness that Father Pfleger is in good standing with the Chicago Archdiocese.

Cantalamessa Combines Iconoclasm and Fideism in One Homily

'When we enter ornate and clean Basilicas, adorned with crosses, sacred images, altars and burning lamps, we most easily conceive devotion. But on the other hand, when we enter the temples of the heretics, where there is nothing except a chair for preaching and a table for making a meal, we feel ourselves to be entering a profane hall and not the House of God.’   -St. Robert Bellarmine


Edit: it’s been a while since anyone has paid him much mind.  He’s had some terrible and mostly incoherent sermons in the past with many errors that have a lot in common with the error of religious indifferentism. Coming from the point of view of the laity anyway, it’s difficult to see how the views of Father Cantalamessa square with the views constant in the Church.  It would be nice to have some clarification.

Here, later on in his Good Friday sermon, it’s difficult to see how Father Cantalamessa could be talking about anything else but the destruction of the Catholic Faith and the things of the religion Itself, of course he means also the destruction or the dismissal of its sacramentality.  He wouldn’t be the first wayward religious to have entertained heretical ideas.

Heresy is ugly.

[Zenit] We must do everything possible so that the Church may never look like that complicated and cluttered castle described by Kafka, and the message may come out of it as free and joyous as when the messenger began his run. We know what the impediments are that can restrain the messenger: dividing walls, starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris. 

In Revelation, Jesus says that He stands at the door and knocks (Rev 3:20). Sometimes, as noted by our Pope Francis, he does not knock to enter, but knocks from within to go out. To reach out to the "existential suburbs of sin, suffering, injustice, religious ignorance and indifference, and of all forms of misery." 

As happens with certain old buildings. Over the centuries, to adapt to the needs of the moment, they become filled with partitions, staircases, rooms and closets. The time comes when we realize that all these adjustments no longer meet the current needs, but rather are an obstacle, so we must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. This was the mission that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church".

Link to Fiore’s Circles... 

"Nostra Aetate" Masks the Evil of False Religions

Edit: the Holy Father seems to be doing exactly what many thought the SSPX would have been unable to do. Surely, these criticisms are timely and apt.

The Pope Criticizes the Conciliar Texts

The Pastoral Council talks about false religions "only positively and leaves out the sick and distorted forms of religions, which are historically and theologically of significant consequence."

Konzilsväter des Zweiten
 Vatikanums.
© Lothar Wolleh (1930-1979), Wikipedia, CC-SA-BY

(kreuz.net) Today, the in the Vatican, the seventh volume of the "Collected Writings" of Joseph Ratzinger was published.

Within are contained the publications of Fr. Joseph Ratzinger during the Pastoral Council (1962-1965).

The forward of the volume was written by Pope Benedict XVI on the 2nd of August in Castel Gandolfo.

Born of Clerical Euphoria

He enthused about the opening of the Council on October 11, 1962.   That had been -- with a solemn procession of over 2,000 Conciliar Fathers -- a dazzling day:

"This was a moment of an extraordinary expectation.  Something great had to happen."

The Pope mentioned that John XXIII. (+1963) summoned the meeting, "without asserting its concrete problems or programs."

What is Modernity?

The Pope wrote about the progression of the work of the so-called XIIIth Schema, from the Pastoral Constitution "Gaudium et Spes" -- about the Church in the World of Today.

The Conciliar Fathers wanted to revise the "ambiguous" concept of "World of Today".  The goal of that had been to ascertain the relation of the Church to so-called modernity.

The Pope objected: "In order to clarify, it would have been necessary, to more precisely define the essential and constitutional elements."  Actually that was not successful in Schema XIII.

Benedict XVI. wrote that "Gaudium et Spes" allegedly accomplished more important expressions for the understanding of "world" and "important contributions to the question of the Christian ethic".  Actually this clarification in the nature of modernity has not been presented.

Benedict XVI. believed therefore that the encounter with the "great themes of modernity" had taken place in the highly controversial "declaration on religious freedom" and in "Nostra Aetate" --  to the documents on non-Christian religions.

Religion Was Left to the Area of the Subjective

For the "Declaration on Religious Freedom" the Holy Father wrote that the Conciliar Fathers  thought that the "teaching of tolerance, as it was initially developed by Pius XII., in view of the development of philosophical thought and the self-determination of modern states" was no longer sufficient.

It has become a freedom to choose a religion, to change and practice.

The Pope saw a difficulty in this, that "it could appear as if the modern statement on religious freedom presupposes the unapproachability of reality for people and restricts  the basis of religion in the area of the subjective."

The Problem Masked

The document on non-Christian religions, "Nostra Aetate",  is denoted by the Pope in all seriousness as "precise and extraordinarily compact".

At the same time he saw in the "in itself excellent text" a "weakness":

"The document speaks of religion only positively and ignores then the sick and distorted forms of religion, which historically and theologically are of great significance: the Christian faith was for that reason from beginning to the end and inside out also critical of religion."

Pius XII would not Recognize the Church

Finally, the Pope asserted that the Conciliar Fathers would not have wanted to create any other Church and -- supposedly --- also could not have created: "For that we have neither the power nor the mandate."

Because it can't be, what may not be, the Pope views "the hermeneutic of break" as absurd.  It is "against the Spirit and against the wills of the Conciliar Fathers."

All the same, it is a fact that Pius XII.  would not recognize, what remains of it, his Church.

Link to kreuz.net...