Edit: very different rites were held this Easter at the Basilica of Saint Vincent in Metz, France. The ancient Gothic edifice dating back to the 14th century has been hijacked by a nightclub promoter for the purpose of turning it into a dance hall with the approval of Metz's current secular rulers. Like goblins and imps, the youth and some not-so-youth of the city have misused these halls which were once the earthly home of God almighty, as a nightclub from 8am to 10pm. The event's promoter, Irenaeus Sutter, pretends innocence and insists that he does not understand the negative reactions, which include about 20% of those hundreds who've contacted him so far via e-mai.
Some suggest that since this building has been deconsecrated that it may be used for profane and immoral purposes. Naturally, we disagree. It is unfortunate that there aren't apparently enough Catholics in Metz remaining to stop such sacrilegious acts.
Riposte Catholique is one of the first Catholic blogs to post on this that we know.
The French State controls and supports church properties, an unfortunate state of affairs in effect since 1905. It's often been far from clear that French secularism appreciates the hallowed nature of these places and that even when effectively removed from regular use, still have the symbology of the Christian faith, which opportunists love to mock in the spirit of the age.
The EF’s contacts in Germany are
reporting that his eminence, Walter Cardinal Kasper (b. 5 March 1933) passed
away in his sleep early this morning due to a heart attack at the age of
eighty-three.
Certain circumstances of his death, however, seem to be confusing
the news media and interfering with objective reporting. Sources close to the
Cardinal tell us that after reading Michel de Certeau’s L’invention
du quotidien, Kasper was inspired to go to confession during Holy Week
for the first time since the early 1990s. Apparently, Pope Francis’s love of
Jesuitical pop-psychology masquerading as culture criticism and the offer of an
easy plenary indulgence during the Year of Mercy have brought about the conversion
of at least one, stiff-necked, hardhearted, notorious, and public sinner.
Details
regarding funeral arrangements have yet to be released to the public.
We at
the EF are committed to keeping the reading public informed about the life of the
Church and the world with the most up-to-date and accurate information
possible. Stay tuned as the details of the Cardinal’s death and funeral arrangements continue to be
revealed. We encourage all to pray for those who mourn.
(Rome) The publication of the post-synodal letter is imminent. All the bishops of the world will be prompted via e-mail by the Pontifical Council for the Family to prepare the faithful and the public for the adoption of post-synodal letter of Pope Francis on Marriage and Family.
As reported by La Croix , the daily newspaper of the French Bishops' Conference the electronic notification comes from Curial Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family . He urged all bishops to convene a press conference - if possible everywhere at the same time, namely, simultaneously, with the press conference in Rome - to present the post-synodal letter of Pope Francis about the family.
The letter is the result of double Synod on marriage and family, which took place in 2014 and, 2015. It is to replace the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (1981) by Pope John Paul II. During the double synod at the Vatican, there had been violent conflicts between the members of the synod who defended the sacrament of marriage and the Christian moral teachings, and a beneficiary of Pope Francis' minority, Cardinal Walter Kasper, who wants to enforce a change in the Church's teaching by way of a change in practice.
The "Kasperians" have called de facto, for a recognition of divorce and homosexuality. Curial Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, a member of the Community of Sant'Egidio , stood on the side of the Kasperians.
Paglia's invitation to the bishops stated that the idea of the post-synodal letter recommended that the press conference should have "an expert on family ministry" done primarily by "a theologian or a pair" who are capable of speaking "to a large audience."
According to leaks, the post-synodal includes a good 200 pages. The probability that it will be read by a wide audience is therefore extremely low. What overall impression it will give, therefore, is highly dependent on the presentation, the keywords which will be stressed and their playback from the media.
The Three Commissars who succeeded the late Father Fidenzio Volpi. (r. P. Sabino Ardito)
(Rome) Apostolic Commissioner, assigned by the Congregation of Religious, and his two assistants have published "strange" Easter greeting on the website of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, says Messa in Latino.
After the first Apostolic Commissioner, the Capuchin, Father Fidenzio Volpi, who died in June 2015, the Congregation of Religious assigned a new Commissioner, the Salesian, Sabino Ardito. Unlike Volpi he was assigned two assistants. They are the Capuchin, Carlo Calloni and the Jesuit, Gianfranco Ghirlanda.
Ardito, Calloni and Ghirlanda have together signed the Easter congratulations and their words have triggered some astonishment:
So that faith can exist, it needs the evidence of the empty tomb. It is necessary, like Peter and John, to lose one's own artificial certainties: then you will have the courage to enter into the void. It is necessary that we find the courage to enter into the "grave of God," which we built as the alleged possession of the truth. The faith in the resurrection in and with Christ is the basis for the emptiness of ourselves.
The Gospels not about "emptiness"
Cryptic Easter message from commissioners to all convents and institutions of the Order
"The link established with the entrance of the Apostles Peter and John to Christ's grave can not convince them," says Messa in Latino . There is never any mention in gospels of "emptiness", not even an "empty grave". Going to the grave, they found there an "angel of the Lord" who descended from heaven, approached the grave and moved the stone. "His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment was white as snow" (Mt 28.2 to 3); "Two angels in white" (Jn 20:12). Whoever enters the grave, "looked to the right to see a young man sitting, who was dressed in a white robe" (Mk 16.5); "Two men in dazzling garments" (Lk 24,4).
The women had gone to the grave early in the morning, "but the body of the Lord Jesus, they found it not" (Lk 24:3). They reported to the apostles that "angels appeared who said that he was alive" (Lk 24:23).The apostles thought it was "nonsense and did not believe them" (Luke 24:11). Peter hurried himself to the grave and "saw only the linen cloths" laying there (Lk 24:12). John reported that he was with Peter there, "leaned forward and saw the linen cloths lying," but initially did not go into the grave, while Peter went in and "saw the linen cloths lying and the cloth that had been around Jesus' head but it was not with the linen cloths but wrapped up in a place by itself "(Jn 20: 5 to 7). Then John entered the grave and "saw and believed" (Jn 20:8).
The evangelists all testify that Christ was no longer among the dead, but is risen. But why we can not speak of "emptiness", because the resurrection means well, materially speaking, an empty grave, but no "void," because of the Evangelists "mentioned a scene full of light, angels and divine presence," said Messa in Latino .
The disciples and the women had to lose any "certainties"
The talk of "certainties" may not convince what according to the Commissioners how "Peter and John" must "lose."
From the Gospels it shows that neither the disciples nor the women had any certainty, neither a natural nor an "artificial" one. As Saint Mary Magdalene first went to the grave was "it was still dark" (Jn 20:1). Nobody thought of the resurrection. The Gospels speak of no certainty, but of darkness, doubt, fear, which are reconciled only by going to the grave. You will not find there the body of the Lord, but they do not find there a "void," but a light, an angel, a divine presence and as a sign, the folded linen cloths. You will find the exact opposite of "emptiness" for they saw, and believed even if they did not quite understand. Mary Magdalene even met Jesus at the grave.
As women and disciples went for the grave, they were full of doubt, emptiness and anxiety, but no longer, as they came to the grave. At the grave the doubts were transformed into certainty. Before they came to the grave, they had no certainty, not even a "human", which they could give up.
"This is the question in the room, what induced the honorable fathers commissioners to formulate this strange Easter congratulation," said Messa in Latino . Their message is also hardly comprehensible as the "emptiness" as "nothing" in the sense of St. John of the Cross.
Did the commissioners want to convey to the brothers and sisters of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, a message which purports to be a swipe at their charism, the Founder, fidelity to the Franciscan rule and against their consecration to the Immaculata? Is that all "artificial certainty" meant that you must "lose?"
The allusion about the "alleged possession of the truth" remains completely cryptic. "Naturally," the Easter message only makes sense when when it is read as an Easter admonition, which is directed against the monks and nuns who wanted to maintain fidelity to the founding charism of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, to a monastic rule, which is linked to the original rule of St. Francis of Assisi, to the rediscovery of the two thousand year old tradition of the Church, and therefore, also the traditional form of the Rite. It's a message that is directed against the efforts of the Order, to resist those forces and that spirit in the Church, who do homage to some concept of hermeneutics of rupture, because they want this break and approve of it.
"The only emptiness', which can therefore be seen in conjunction with the Franciscans of the Immaculate, is a deflated Order, drained of its charism, the brothers and sisters deprived of their founder, of the founder robbed of his spiritual sons and daughters, an Order, which was made defenseless. The only emptiness, "is therefore, the one that is produced by the commissioners on behalf of the religious congregation and with the approval of Pope Francis," said Messa in Latino .
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: verità sul commissariamento OFFI / Messa in Latino (Screenshot)
Edit: thanks to Infocatolica and Chiesa, we located this excellent piece by Cardinal Müller who is reading Catholicism through Francis. Of course, Cardinal Müller would probably never use such polemical language as "Protestant Revolt", but this is a start. In addition to taking on those who would use a statement by Francis out of context to justify a massive relativization of Catholic moral teaching, he has this to say about the Protestantization of the Church:
PROTESTANTIZATION OF THE CHURCH
Strictly speaking, we Catholics have no reason to celebrate October 31, 1517, the date that is considered the beginning of the Reformation that would lead to the rupture of Western Christianity.
If we are convinced that divine revelation is preserved whole and unchanged through Scripture and Tradition, in the doctrine of the faith, in the sacraments, in the hierarchical constitution of the Church by divine right, founded on the sacrament of holy orders, we cannot accept that there exist sufficient reasons to separate from the Church.
The members of the Protestant ecclesial communities look at this event from a different perspective, because they think that it is the opportune moment to celebrate the rediscovery of the “pure Word of God," which they presume to have been disfigured throughout history by merely human traditions. The Protestant reformers arrived at the conclusion, five hundred years ago, that some Church hierarchs were not only morally corrupt, but had also distorted the Gospel and, as a result, had blocked the path of salvation for believers toward Jesus Christ. To justify the separation they accused the pope, the presumed head of this system, of being the Antichrist.
How can the ecumenical dialogue with the evangelical communities be carried forward today in a realistic way? The theologian Karl-Heinz Menke is speaking the truth when he asserts that the relativization of the truth and the acritical adoption of modern ideologies are the principal obstacle toward union in the truth.
In this sense, a Protestantization of the Catholic Church on the basis of a secular vision without reference to transcendence not only cannot reconcile us with the Protestants, but also cannot allow an encounter with the mystery of Christ, because in Him we are repositories of a supernatural revelation to which all of us owe total obedience of intellect and will (cf. “Dei Verbum,” 5).
I think that the Catholic principles of ecumenism, as they were proposed and developed by the decree of Vatican Council II, are still entirely valid (cf. “Unitatis Redintegratio,” 2-4). On the other hand, I am convinced that the document of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith “Dominus Iesus,” of the holy year of 2000, not understood by many and unjustly rejected by others, is without a doubt the magna carta against the Christological and ecclesiological relativism of this time of such confusion.
Edit: the faculty advisors of an allegedly Catholic University have voted unanimously to suspend the last Catholic faculty member on their staff without pay starting on April 1st and subsequently expect him to admit he was doing wrong in defending the Catholic Faith at a Catholic University as one of several humiliating conditions for reinstatement.
The announcement was sent to him on Holy Thursday. Very fitting and a great way to compassionate his Savior, but this injustice, this evil is surely enough to fool even the elect.
We live in terrible times and it seems they will get worse. What a wonderful thing it is to be persecuted for His sake but we pray for this courageous man's relief and the good of his family as these Bolscheviks divide his garments among them...
[Marquette Warrior] It was announced Thursday, which was (doubtless intentionally) the eve of the Good Friday holiday, and in the middle of March Madness. Marquette has decided how to punish this blogger for a post that revealed how an instructor in the Philosophy Department bullied a student who wanted to express his opposition to gay marriage in class. He was told “you don’t have a right in this class to make homophobic comments,” and further that it would be “offensive” to any gay students in the class if any such opinion was expressed.
Pope Bergoglio Looks on as Cantalamessa insults God
(Rome) The Good Friday sermon in St. Peter's Basilica, was also given in the presence of Pope Francis in 2016 by the Pontifical House Preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap. The famous Capuchin declared some things that are very surprising to Catholic Christians. That Martin Luther's "merit " is "to have brought to light" again the "truth" about the "righteousness of God".
Luther's "merit" and the Church policy ecumenical agenda in Rome
The Catholic Church had "for centuries" "lost" a truth before Luther?
Cantalamessa said:
But all of this means nothing if one does not first understand what the term "righteousness of God" actually means. When you hear talk of the righteousness of God and misunderstand this, then there is a risk to be put off by it, rather than feel encouraged. Augustine had already pointed out: "The righteousness of God," he wrote, "is that we are justified by grace, just like the salvation of the Lord '(salus Domini) (Psalm 3.9) that is, God saves us "1) In other words, the righteousness of God is the act by which those people who believe in his son, are justified and made pleading to him. It is not a matter of making "justification" but "to making the righteous."
To Luther comes the merit of having brought this truth to light again after the Christian message had lost the sense of it for centuries. That is essentially what Christianity owes the Reformation whose fifth centenary will soon take place. About this discovery, the Reformer later wrote: "I felt even reborn entirely and as I had entered through open gates Of paradise itself." 2
2013 Cantalamessa attempts to set aside the "partition" between "various Christian churches" and eliminate the "relic of rituals"
Already in his first Good Friday sermon on 29 March 2013 Cantalamessa had made controversial remarks on ecumenism and the unity of the Christian Communities. It was then the Pontifical House preacher said:
"[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."
The full text of the Good Friday sermon in 2016 was published by Zenit. The original sermon was posted on the video channel of Vatican Radio. Preaching Cantalamessas in length of 25 minutes starting at minute 51:30 and ends at 1:17:30.
The traditional procession of Christ of the Good Death becomes an act of religious freedom that attracts hundreds of people this year
A crowd has participated in the procession of Holy Thursday in Hospitalet in Barcelona, which has turned this year into an act of religious freedom, due to the prohibition issued by the mayor Nuria Martin, the PSC.
Members of the brotherhood of Old Knights Legionaries have borne the image of Christ of the Good Death, following the custom to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, accompanied by a band of bugles and drums, in a delegation presided, as in previous years, by the pastor, Father Custodio Ballester.
The mayor had banned the procession because of the presence of legionaries in the procession. Their protests to the Archdiocese and the use of municipal plenary to proclaim that the procession is not welcome in the city have failed to deter many faithful who wanted to participate this year in the entourage of the procession.
The event also had a civic dimension, as an act in favor of religious freedom and expression. A banner of the platform for religious freedom MasLibres.org joined the tour with the "Free to show our faith" slogan.
There is an active HazteOir.org petition that has attracted more than 21,000 signatures to the mayor of Hospitalet, Nuria Martin, and Mayor of Palafolls, Valenti Agusti who has also taken prohibitionist measures acts to stop Holy Week and harass religious freedom. The petition is still active, and can be signed here (puede firmarse aquí).
Custodio Ballester the priest had announced that the procession would be held, despite the municipal ban. In this interview by Actuall, the priest of Hospitalet denounces the Mayor's attempt to silence the popular demonstration of faith. [esta entrevista]
In the Good Friday at the beginning of the veneration of the Cross, the liturgy intones the Improperia, the laments of the Saviour. It refers to the Old Testament Micah 6.3 to 4: "My people, what have I done to thee, Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me! I took thee out of the land of Egypt, rescued thee from the house of bondage. As a leader I sent you Moses, Aaron and Miriam ... "
The whole is a legal dispute and as such, it returns to the Good Friday Liturgy: a dispute between the Messiah and his ungrateful people.
This includes the hymn Trisagion, which is sung not only in Latin but also Greek and in the Latin Church as among the Christians of the East.
In addition to the Kyrie Eleison it is the only remaining Greek-speaking part in the Liturgy of the Roman Church, whose liturgical language is Latin since the 4th century.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
Because I brought thee out of the land of Egypt: Thou hast prepared a cross for thy Savior
Hagios o Theos - Sanctus deus
Hagios Ischyros - Sanctus fortis
Hagios Athanatos eleison hemas - Sanctus immortalis, miserere nobis
Because I led thee through the desert 40 years: and fed thee with manna, and brought thee into a land exceedingly good, thou hast prepared a cross for thy Savior.
O Holy God. O Holy Strong One. O Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us.
What more ought I to do for thee, that I have not done? I planted thee, indeed, my most beautiful vineyard: and thou hast become exceedingly bitter to Me: for in My thirst thou gavest me vinegar to drink: and with a spear thou has pierced the side of thy Savior.
O Holy God. O Holy Strong One. O Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us.
For thy sake I scourged Egypt with its firstborn: and thou hast scourged Me and delivered Me up.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
I brought thee out of Egypt having drowned Pharaoh in the Red Sea: and thou hast delivered Me to the chief priests.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
I open the sea before thee: and thou with a spear hast opened My side.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
I went before thee in a pillar of a cloud: and thou hast brought Me to the judgment hall of Pilate.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
I fed thee with manna in the desert: and thou hast beaten Me with blows and scourges.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
I gave you the water of salvation and from the rock to drink: and thou hast given me gall and vinegar.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
For thee I struck the kings of the Canaanites: and thou hast struck My head with a reed.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
I gave thee a royal scepter: and thou hast given to My head a crown of thorns.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
I have exalted thee with great power: and thou hast hanged me on the gibbet of the Cross.
My people, what have I done to thee? Or in what have I grieved thee? Answer me.
Text: GN
Illustration: Rogier van der Weyden, Kreuzigungstriptychon (um1440), Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien/Wikicommons
(Rome) Pope Francis will celebrate the Holy Thursday liturgy today in a refugee center "with young refugees". The majority of the inmates are Muslims. The Pope will wash the feet of some of them. The Pope's rumored "syncretistic tendency" (Secretum meum mihi) is extended to a new chapter.
Pope is now washing the Feet of Muslims in 2016
In January Francis did change the rite of foot washing and allowed the admission of women. He washed women's feet as archbishop of Buenos Aires for years. As the Roman newspaper Il Messaggero reported, it's Muslims this year who are also to be among the twelve elect, who will have their feet washed by the Argentine Pope.
Friday prayers of Muslims before the Milan Cathedral
In the Decree In Missa in Cena Domini the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on 6 January, 2016 with the Pope Francis, officially allowed women to the foot washing, which is referenced on the headings of the Roman Missal. It says: "The acolyte accompanies those who have been selected from the people of God to ..."
The change in the rite is justified by the decree, "so that the full significance of this rite is made accessible to the celebrants". What the "full meaning of this rite" is, is not explained.
The extension to introduce women is that "the shepherds can select a small group of faithful who represent the diversity and unity of each part of God's people."
Since already on Holy Thursday in 2013 the Pope also washed the feet of members of other religions, specifically, those of Islam, since there is a question in the air: Does Pope Francis also include Muslims among the "people of God", of which we speak in the decree?
"Obviously," for Francis Muslims also belong to the "people of God"
"Apparently yes, although it's not explicitly stated, as today's washing of the feet of women and Muslims is suggesting" said Secretum meum mihi .
Revolt in the reception center Castelnuovo di Porto in 2014
On Tuesday, Curial Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, told Osservatore Romano the previously secret location where Pope Francis is to celebrate, outside of his Diocese, the Holy Thursday liturgy. The place of celebration is the refugee center of Castelnuovo di Porto, just outside Rome. The refugee center is operated by the Christian cooperative Auxilium.
It was in the past that in 2014 and 2015 that this reception center was inflamed to revolts, in which the migrants violently demanded their recognition as refugees. The Mass, according to Il Messaggero, "would include participation by the employees of Auxilium, the pastor and the refugees (mostly Muslims)."
"According to the reports of the Osservatore Romano and the Messaggero , it is clear that the Pope actually counts the Muslims as the 'people of God,'" said Secretum meum mihi .
This redefinition of "People of God" is in open contradiction of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraphs 781-786 ).
"Is it time to rewrite the Catechism?" Asks Secretum meum mihi .
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Picture: Youtube (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com Link to Katholisches...
AMDG
(Rome) "The doctrine of the Church does not change." The debut of a new book has been announced with this sentence. While the world waits for the post-synodal letter of Pope Francis on the Double Family Synod, the interview book "Report on the Hope" by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation, is ready for publication. Mercy never means that the commandments of God would no longer be valid. Therefore, the rules can not be "overcome by life", in contrast to what the new Archbishop of Berlin, Heiner Koch, said just before the Synod of Bishops in October 2015 to the press.
The Spanish priest, Carlos Granados had a long conversation with Cardinal Muller that is appearing in book form.The Spanish title is "Informe sobre la esperanza." Granados is Director General of the Library of Christian Authors .On March 19, the third anniversary of his inauguration, Pope Francis signed the post-synodal letter about marriage and the family, to be published in April.
Founded in 1944 Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (BAC) publishes the works of classical Catholic authors. The location of the collection is the Pontifical University of Salamanca. During the reign of General Franco, the library was declared a national interest and facilitates the publication of the works by government grants.
The first volume of the library was the Spanish Bible translation of Nacar and Colunga, published in 1944, considered the most common Bible translation in the Spanish-speaking world today.
Communion for divorced and remarried contradicts the divine law of the indissolubility of marriage
Carlos Granados passes Benedict XVI. a volume of the Spanish edition of his collected works
Some excerpts were published in advance in the Spanish right to life magazine, Actuall. A major concern is the question of the admission of divorcees who were ecclesiastically married, but civilly remarried. Cardinal Müller affirms in the book that there can be no Communion. It is "impossible" to grant those Communion who live outside their valid marriage in another relationship. "The nature of the divine right of the indissolubility of marriage" made it impossible, says the Cardinal.
The Prefect has now also put in writing, which the majority of these at the Family Synod insisted upon, that the Communion of these persons is not possible.
"Mercy is never a dispensation from the Commandments of God or a justification for them to be overriden or set aside: 'Go and sin no more,' says Jesus to the adulterous woman, after he had treated her with great compassion."
Upon this example of Jesus implored shepherds, priests and bishops to align and "to make an effort to include the divorced and remarried with tact and warmth, to accompany them and to involve them in the normal life the Church."
The biggest scandal of the Church would be, "not to mention the difference between good and evil by name"
Whoever pleads contrary, that the position of the Church on sexual morality is not realistic, Cardinal Müller answers:
"The biggest scandal that the Church can cause is not that she has sinners, but ceasing in calling the difference between good and evil by name, and to relativize it; ceasing to explain what is sin or trying to justify what is supposedly a greater closeness and mercy towards the sinner."
On the sacrament of marriage the Prefect says a marriage "may fail by no longer living together, or in human expectations, but not the action of God, which is why the Sacrament does not fail as such."
The marriage is "not an ideal, not a reflection of my desires, like a child who would like to be an astronaut ... ideals are often not realizable". The marriage is, however, "a God-given reality: the sanctification of the spouses and of life."
Gender ideology is man's attempt to put himself in the place of God
Cardinal Müller also takes a position on gender theory and repeats an effective statement of Pope Francis, with which he effectively summed it up when he spoke of "ideological colonization":
"Can we build a society without respecting the difference between man and woman?" asks the Cardinal. God wanted man as Adam and Eve, said Cardinal Müller, in gender ideology, man raises himself to God and determines for himself what and what is evil good.
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image. Youtube / Religionenlibertad (screenshots)
Pope Francis and Ban Ki-moon on 28 April, 2015 in the Vatican
(Rome) On the evening of March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph and the third anniversary of the election of Pope Francis, St. Peter's Basilica was eclipsed in Rome for one hour. The reason for this was to participate in a global campaign of the World Wildlife Fund against fossil fuels. For the campaign, the illumination of monuments and other buildings has been turned off.
"Uncritical homage to the dominant culture"
"On this last December 8th, the opposite was the case. The facade of St. Peter's and its dome were not darkened, rather they were illuminated by an ambitious spectacle, "Son et lumiere" , which celebrated nature and was organized and financed by the eco-organization Okeanos and Vulcan," said Vaticanist Sandro Magister.
Neither the one nor the other spectacle had any realizable connection with God the Creator.A connection with the Christian religion and the Catholic Church was only from St. Peter's Basilica.Since the spectacle relates to equally profane places, they signal more the conscription of the Catholic Church in secular campaigns, as the introduction of the world to Christianity.
"Both spectacles contained a general reference to the Encyclical Laudato si of Pope Francis," said Magister. "The impact of Laudato si on the so-called 'Pastoral' of the Church would yet to be investigated yet."
On the Laudato si related initiatives Magister writes:
"It often seems an uncritical homage to the dominant culture by, and quite independently of, whether the fashionable eco-theories have a scientific basis or not, while almost nothing about it is explicitly Christian in spirit."
Jesuit Centre Veritas, "secular and religious prayer"
Jesuit Veritas Centre Trieste
A "curious" piece of evidence for the "modernization of the pastoral" is found in Trieste, says Magister. There, the cultural Centre Veritas run by the Jesuits. It is headed by Father Gaetano Piccolo, an Epistemologist who is also deputy editor of the journal Rassegna di Teologia, and responsible for the cultural apostolate of the Italian Jesuit Province.
Veritas Centre is, according to its own definition, "a workshop of cultural research, open to the encounter and interreligious and ecumenical dialogue." The chapel has been converted into a "welcome and exhibition hall", which is open for "secular and religious prayer, independent of religious affiliation."
The Veritas Centre is currently characterized mainly by spreading the encyclical Laudato si. On May 7th, a day "to raise awareness of the contents" of Laudato si is planned. May 8th ends with marathon games and sports weekof the Bavisela Running Festival .
The Laudato si Day, which the Jesuits the call "MENS SANA", is an acronym for marathon education, nature, sports, spirituality, art, networks and associations .
"Mediating" the "Relationships" between "Laudato si" and UN Agenda 2030
Pope Francis on 25 September 2015 Before the United Nations: Vote on SDGs
According to the program of the day, it is desired to convey the relationships between the "encyclical Laudato si of Pope Francis and the 17 sustainable development objectives of Agenda 2030, the United Nations (Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs). This refers to the policy objectives of the United Nations, which is also referred to as the Post-2015 agenda.
The introduction will be an evening lecture on the relationship between the Encyclical and the UN Agenda. The speaker is the Jesuit Luciano Larivera, employee of the Roman Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica .
According to the program "a marathon ends in the Sacred Heart Church of Trieste, where at 7 o'clock, a Vigil Mass will be celebrated for the Ascension, the great mystery of the Christian faith and religious character of the planetary eco-alliance."
"This is where the Ascension of Jesus Christ will be ordered according to the rules of modern ecology," said Magister.
Text: Giuseppe Nardi Image: RV / Asianews / FQ (screenshots)
