Tag Archive for: Vatican

Cardinal Convicted By Vatican Court In Historic First

The first cardinal to be successfully prosecuted by the Vatican criminal court was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to over five years in prison Saturday, according to the Catholic News Agency.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the pope’s former chief of staff, was charged with embezzlement, abuse of office, conspiracy and witness tampering in July 2021 after he purchased a London investment property worth 350 million-euros (almost $382 million), according to the Catholic News Agency.

The 75-year-old cardinal, however, was only found guilty on several counts of embezzlement, with the Vatican court absolving the other charges, CBS News reported.

The trial, which lasted nearly two and a half years, sat for 86 sessions, with the Vatican’s court president Giuseppe Pignatone reading aloud the cardinal’s verdict Saturday, according to the Catholic News Agency. Along with Becciu’s sentencing to five and a half years in prison and a fine equivalent to $8,700, he will be permanently disqualified from holding public office, the outlet reported.

Becciu had reportedly used the London investment property to develop a former Harrods warehouse into luxury apartments, according to CBS News. Prosecutors accused Vatican clergy, including Becciu and brokers of cheating the Holy See out of tens of millions of euros, extorting the Vatican government for 15 million euros to control the building, the outlet reported.

Originally seeking prison terms from three to 13 years as well as damages of over 400 million euros, prosecutors in the case additionally accused the cardinal of sending 125,000 euros from the Vatican government’s fund to a Sardinian charity operated by his brother, CBS reported.

Along with Becciu, five others who were involved with the transactions regarding the investment property were sentenced to jail. Former Vatican employee Fabrizio Tirabassi was convicted of extortion and money-laundering, as well as Vatican financial consultant Enrico Crasso, who was found guilty on several charges, according to the Catholic News Agency.

The Italian businessman who brokered the last stages of the investment property, Gianluigi Torzi, was found guilty of extortion, and received a six-year sentence, the Catholic News Agency reported. The investment manager who had owned the London property, Raffaele Mincione, was also convicted of embezzlement and money laundering, receiving five years and six months of jail time, the outlet reported.

The final sentencing of three years and nine months was to security consultant Cecilia Marogna, who had been hired by the cardinal, according to the Catholic News Agency. Additional Vatican officials suspected of charges that included fraud, corruption and money laundering, were acquitted within the trial, the outlet reported. Overall, the Vatican court ordered the confiscation of the equivalent of more than $180 million, as well as a civil damages payment of more than $200 million from the defendants, the Catholic News Agency reported.

Becciu’s attorney, Fabio Viglione, confirmed they will be appealing the ruling.

AUTHOR

HAILEY GOMEZ

General assignment reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Vortex — Directly Over the Target — Bombs away!

TRANSCRIPT

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary.

The old expression “the enemy only fires back when you are directly over the target” would mean that the Marxists in the Church — especially in the hierarchy — are getting bombed right now. These crooks have decided to give fake-Catholic Biden a pass on his evil and the wickedness of the entire Democratic establishment, and the real Catholics are ticked off and letting them know.

In truth, there’s no doubt some of the bishops are actually scared — terrified — of ticking off the Harris-Biden ticket, and yes, we all know: That is the actual order of the ticket. Even Biden says it. And so did Harris. The bishops are scared because the ground is shifting considerably as Catholics begin to wake up. Within the ranks of bishops, the word is going out that the rebellion against their tyranny must be put down.

This explains the massing of forces of Marxist Catholics to throw down for Biden. The so-called Catholics for Biden initiative is a rogues’ gallery of phony Catholics like Carolyn Woo. Woo used to head up the leftist-posing-as-Catholic “Catholic Relief Services” (CRS).

We caught up with her a few years ago after she gave a brainwashing session at an Ohio parish, duping ignorant laity. For some reason, she didn’t want to answer our questions, and her handlers tried (unsuccessfully) to sneak her out a side door.

CRS, a favorite of the U.S. hierarchy, takes gobs of your tax dollars and spends them on projects around the world, partnering with abortion providers and contraceptive providers in Third World countries, pretending it’s all about poverty.

Well, it sort of is. Their philosophy is to eliminate poverty by eliminating the poor. So it really is altogether fitting that such a woman would sit on the board of Catholics for Biden. But she’s just one of many in the Marxist Catholic establishment throwing their weight around, lying about Biden being acceptable to Catholics. He’s not.

A couple evenings ago, Newark cardinal Joesph Tobin came out swinging for Biden. And just a recap as some of His Eminence’s highlights, he got caught tweeting out the now famous, “Nighty nite baby. I love you” tweet to his general account by accident, later claiming it referred to his sister.

Remember, Tobin owes his appointment to Newark to homosexual molester Theodore McCarrick, as testified to by Abp. Viganò. And then there was the revolting case of a known gay Italian model who was living in his residence — paid for by collection-plate money — who bolted back to Italy as soon as Church Militant and others exposed it.

When questioned about why he was living with Cdl. Tobin, the official response was he was a foreign student studying English at Seton Hall. When questioned about why he couldn’t live with the thousands of other students on campus, no response.

This man came out with his thinly veiled support for Biden — another supporter of sodomy-as-marriage — on a Zoom conference hosted by Boston College. Birds of a feather really do flock together, don’t they?

Trump really is remarkable. In less than four years, he has managed to get every one of these snakes to slither out from under their rocks and completely reveal themselves. It’s very important to know who the enemy is. Thank you, Mr. President.

The forming of all these phony Catholic groups, the actions of Marxist bishops trying to suppress good priests — all of this is attributable directly to Trump. Although mischaracterized, even the student paper at homosexuality loving Jesuit Fordham University in New York admits this in a recent op-ed entitled, “Trump Creates a Schism in the Catholic Church.”

That’s a real knee-slapper. Trump did not create the schism in the Church (which is very real) any more than Church Militant caused the division in the Church that bishops love to accuse us of. Both Trump and Church Militant have only brought to light the existing formerly-in-the-shadows reality. Good working with you, Mr. President. Thanks for the help. Let us know if we can help you.

Still, the media cannot keep their paws out of this story. A headline from just the day before last from a Minnesota outlet reads, “Two Renegade Priests: One Calls COVID Sham, One Says Dems Face Hell.” Notice how they can’t resist labeling them “renegade” for calling out the truth?

Imagine how life would be under that Harris-Biden administration for actual Catholics. We were all sitting around talking here in the studios a short while ago, and I was saying, “I’ve been doing this kind of work all my life, and I have never seen this level of engagement by the Catholic apostate, heretic, Marxist, dissident crowd.”

They are losing control of the narrative. And what’s more, they know it. However, their narrative has always been built on lies. And truth — that pesky little thing — it always finds a way of coming out. And, moreover, once it gets out, look out. It changes everything.

The Tobins, Martins and Woos of the world, along with all their other evil allies, have brought about the almost-complete destruction of the Church through a series of lies and lies built on lies. And now, truth is coming out, and they have become desperate. And it is looking more and more like the truth is busting out everywhere and being reflected all over the political world.

Trump rallies are, once again, the hottest ticket in town with thousands showing up. The Marxist media continues to lie, almost to the point of hysterical. In a Twitter side-by-side posting, you see on the right a picture from Latino voters at a Trump event. The other side shows that CBS grabbed the picture and captioned it as Biden appealing to Latino voters while campaigning in Florida.

The actual picture — before CBS cropped it — showed loads of Trump people in the crowd. Who knew so many MAGA people showed up at Biden rallies? If it weren’t so evil, you’d be rolling in the aisles. But when evil is pushing back this hard — and the Marxists in the Church are linked arm in arm with them — you just know that you are right over the target.

A month ago, the Marxist polls were showing a virtual blowout for Harris-Biden. Then, right after the conventions, their lies had to start being rolled back because Judgment Day, Nov. 3, will expose all. So after being told for months that Biden was going to crush Trump — after racism, COVID, injustice, climate, impeachment, economy, you name it — all of a sudden, the Marxist media had to start saying the polls were tightening (especially in battleground states).

Amazing how Trump came storming back out of nowhere to draw to a tie all over the map. That, of course, is if he really was ever that far behind. And then came the bombshell (and what has created ulcers at Marxist headquarters at the Democratic People’s Party).

A new poll came out from the outfit that has proved the most reliable (and the one that really can’t be ignored), Rasmussen. For the first time ever, Trump pulled into the lead over Biden after trailing Biden by five two weeks earlier.

Yes, this is a gigantic clash of the ages. Every last weapon is being pulled out by both sides, but the biggest weapon, truth, is only held by one side.

You just have to pick it up and actually use it.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Abuse Summit: It’s Only the Beginning

Robert Royal: People are happy that McCarrick has finally been defrocked, but now we need to deal with other abusers and enablers. 

February is not high tourist season in Rome. Skies are gray and temperatures low. St. Peter’s Square is relatively empty. But journalists filled the nearby Press Office earlier this week – more, according to one veteran, than since the death of St. John Paul II –because of the summit on the sex abuse crisis, which begins this evening with meetings between abuse survivors and participants, and continues Thursday through Saturday with formal sessions, parts of which will be streamed on the Vatican website. A video of the opening press briefing with remarks by Cardinal Cupich, Archbishop Scicluna, and other key figures is available by clicking here.

To be frank, it’s hard to say why so many journalists are here since no one, including Church spokesmen, expects that anything very dramatic will happen over the next few days – at least not in the formal sessions. What happens outside and around them, however, may be a different matter.

When the summit was announced last September, partly because of papal missteps in handling abuse cases in Chile, it seemed that the Church was going to take some large steps forward. There have been many smaller steps for years in many places around the world, everything from easier reporting mechanisms to better human formation in seminaries to the unprecedented laicization last weekend of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

Expectations ran high, not least because the Holy Father asked the American bishops, during their annual November meeting, not to vote on ways to hold bishops accountable – whether they are abusers themselves, like McCarrick, or covered up abuse by people under their authority. They were told to wait until a uniform approach could be developed in February when many of the presidents of bishops’ conferences and heads of religious orders would gather together in Rome.

But Vatican spokesmen have more recently been encouraging people to lower expectations; and the focus this week is quite different: “The Protection of Minors in the Church.” That, of course, is a worthy goal. In many parts of the Catholic world, rules are in place, but there hasn’t been serious follow through. If the next few days bring proven practices to new places, that will be all to the good.

But it’s also much less than we were hoping for. And in America, we’ve already come a long way towards responding to the part of the abuse crisis that involves priests. We have been expecting – and had been told – that the next phase would be figuring out how to hold bishops accountable. That’s been a continuing problem, not only in America, but in Chile, Honduras, Australia, Europe, the pope’s own Argentina, and the Vatican itself.

People are happy that McCarrick has been expelled from the priesthood, for example, but they want to know how it was possible for a man widely rumored to be an abuser to have moved up in the hierarchy and eventually become cardinal-archbishop of the capital of the most powerful nation on earth. Three popes and dozens of Vatican officials are now part of the story. Pope Francis has promised an investigation into the files. It’s almost a year later and we’ve heard nothing of that, not even whether there’s an active inquiry underway.


Pope Francis by Will Oliver/EPA-EFE

Meanwhile, a new book, which will be officially released Thursday, the first day of the summit here in Rome, claims that 80 percent of the upper echelons of the Vatican are gay. Some remain celibate, others act out in various ways, but they form what, in local parlance, is called “the Parish,” a network of people who either cover for one another or, given their own inclinations, look the other way.

Or at least that’s what Frederic Martel, the author, says. Martel is a gay activist in France and his motives in publishing this book at this particular moment are suspect – as are some of his wilder claims. But he seems to have conducted thousands of interviews with various figures from high-placed Cardinals to Swiss Guards, and quotes some by name.

The excerpts that have appeared so far raise as many questions as they answer. But the whole matter of the gay presence in the Church and its role as an enabler – which the summit organizers are avoiding, indeed are denying is a factor – will not go away.

Martel says (and there’s no reason to doubt it since there have been no denials forthcoming) that his access to the Vatican was facilitated by Msgr. Battista Ricca, who is Director of the Papal Residence (i.e., Casa Santa Marta) and an official with the Vatican Bank. Ricca was widely known to have had a boyfriend or two when he was a Vatican diplomat in Uruguay. And he was caught in an elevator with a boy prostitute.

It was in response to a reporter’s question about his past on the plane returning from World Youth Day in 2013 that Pope Francis famously remarked, ““If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

But it’s partly the pope’s judgment in such matters that has raised further questions. Not only the bishop he wrongly defended in Chile, but even recent appointments like that of Gustavo Zanchetta – a bishop accused of abusing seminarians in Argentina and a friend of the pope’s – to a specially created post at one of the Vatican financial institutions. He had to be removed while investigations are going on.

And then there’s the recent naming of Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Farrell to the position of camerlengo, the official who declares the pope officially dead and then runs the Vatican, with limited powers, during the interregnum, the period between the death of one pope and the election of another.

Farrell lived for six years in the same residence with then-Cardinal McCarrick and claimed – to widespread skepticism – that he had no knowledge of, had never even heard rumors about, McCarrick’s outrages. It’s curious that the pope would pick a potentially questionable figure for such a sensitive post.

All of this suggests that what goes on in the synod hall this week is the merest beginning to what will continue to be a large and troubling process. More on all that in coming days.

COLUMN BY

Robert Royal

Robert Royal

Dr. Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century, published by Ignatius Press. The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West, is now available in paperback from Encounter Books.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column with images is republished with permission. © 2019 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own. The featured image is by Pixabay.

Rome Failed on McCarrick – and Needs to Change

Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek: If the Vatican previously investigated abuse, those results must be shared; if Rome didn’t investigate, we need to know why not.


Representatives of the American bishops have now met with Pope Francis to discuss the much-needed investigation of the McCarrick Affair. This is understandable since any process involving the ex-cardinal and other prelates requires papal permission. It’s one thing to ask the pope’s support for an investigation, however, and quite another to trust Vatican officials to run it, given what we now know.

Because we now know – from former Metuchen Bishop P.G. Bootkoski and from Cardinal Leonardo Sandri – that the Vatican Secretariat of State received credible allegations against McCarrick over a decade ago. Yet the Vatican did not deprive him of access to seminarians and priests. Therefore, an investigation focused on McCarrick and the American bishops risks ignoring the pivotal role of higher-ranking officials in Rome.

Bootkoski recently acknowledged that in December 2005 he informed then U.S. nuncio, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, of three complaints against McCarrick. The accusations involved inappropriate physical contact with a priest as well as sexually touching seminarians. Two of these allegations resulted in financial settlements.

An October 2006 letter has come to light in which Sandri, who worked directly under the Cardinal Secretary of State, referred to “serious matters” involving seminarians at Seton Hall, which had been reported to Montalvo by Fr. Boniface Ramsey in 2000. Ramsey has repeatedly claimed he informed the nuncio of allegations that McCarrick harassed seminarians and shared a bed with them at his beach house.

The Secretariat of State, therefore, received credible allegations in 2000 and 2005 that McCarrick harassed and “groomed” priests and seminarians, sexually exploiting the latter. If Rome investigated, they should now share the results and save us the trouble of repeating their work. If they didn’t investigate, they need to account for their failure to protect seminarians and priests.

Even if Rome did investigate, another crucial question arises: were dioceses notified of the allegations and the possibility their seminarians and priests had been exploited? That would include any diocese that used seminaries frequented by McCarrick, especially the seminaries where he resided after 2005. Minors might have been at risk since incoming college seminarians can be under 18.

The Penitent Saint Jerome by Lorenzo Lotto, c. 1514 [National Museum of Art, Bucharest]

Cardinal Wuerl insists that neither he nor the Archdiocese of Washington knew of the allegations. This would mean Rome said nothing. To confirm Rome’s silence, Catholics and journalists should ask Cardinal Dolan whether he or the Archdiocese of New York were notified.

Note that Bootkoski’s statement and Sandri’s letter were not written to support the recent testimony of Archbishop Viganò. In fact, he accused both of cover-ups. Unlike Viganò, their testimonies to Rome’s knowledge of the allegations were not meant to suggest Vatican complicity in the McCarrick Affair.

Whatever the original intention, however, Sandri’s letter now constitutes documentary evidence that Ramsey spoke to Montalvo in 2000. The letter also implies that the Secretariat of State deemed those concerns credible no later than 2006.

Furthermore, Bootkoski’s statement proves that allegations were judged credible since payments were made based on them. Unfortunately, his statement provides only a summary of the memo he sent to the nuncio in 2005, which was presumably forwarded to the Secretariat of State.

The reason offered for presenting a summary is that “the claimants have not given the diocese permission” to publish the detailed allegations. Perhaps the diocese or journalists could ask the claimants to allow the memo to be published, redacting any portions the claimants wished to keep confidential. That way, the public could see documentary evidence of Bootkoski’s report to the Vatican.

Unless Sandri had been protecting McCarrick, he would have promptly notified the Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, of the allegations forwarded by the nuncio from Ramsey and Bootkoski. By the time Sandri wrote the 2006 letter, he would have informed the new Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

We don’t have evidence that the allegations in 2000 or 2005 reached St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, or – prior to recent revelations – Francis. Yet if the popes were not informed, Vatican officials obviously cannot be now relied on to oversee the upcoming investigation.

The Secretariat’s failure to investigate the matter or to report the allegations to affected dioceses as part of an investigation would demonstrate a reckless disregard for the safety and well-being of priests and seminarians, including minors.

A bishop exploiting seminarians and priests for his own gratification is an outrage that cries to heaven. How could the Secretariat of State have turned away? And did no other Vatican offices receive reports? Were there legitimate reasons an investigation was not initiated or proved inconclusive?  After decades of abuse scandals, how could officials not have recognized the gravity of the accusations? Or were some officials willing to tolerate these monstrous evils?

Answers and accountability are vital for Catholics everywhere, not only in America. In Chile, cries of Catholics were repeatedly ignored or denounced by Rome. Eventually, Chile’s bishops offered to resign, but no Vatican officials followed their example. That scenario must not be repeated.

These circumstances make it impossible for the Vatican to act as a credible guarantor of the forthcoming review of the McCarrick Affair. The pope’s approval and cooperation are necessary, but since American bishops and Vatican officials are under scrutiny now, the investigative process must be independent of both. For the investigation to be effective the pope will need to cooperate by freeing Church officials from the Pontifical Secret and directing them to answer legitimate questions from investigators.

The review should be transparent and overseen by a board comprised of laity, religious, deacons, priests, and bishops. That way the entire Church would be represented in assessing and remedying the problemsThat should involve exonerating the innocent, punishing the guilty, repairing the harm, and changing administrative structures and policies. A board like this could become a model for dealing with other failures by bishops and the Vatican.

Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek

Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek

Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek, STD has been a priest of the Diocese of Austin since 1985 and is currently the administrator of St. Mary’s in the city of West. His studies were in Dogmatics with a focus on Ecclesiology, Apostolic Ministry, Newman, and Ecumenism.

EDITORS NOTE: © 2018 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own. The featured image is by Unsplash?Nacho Arteaga@nachoarteaga.

Christian Syrians: Pope Francis Left Us Behind in Lesbos

You knew the minute you heard it—that the Pope choosing 12 Muslims to take to Rome with him on his plane—was one of the more troublesome actions (of a long list) of this Socialist Pope.  See our post on the Pope’s Syrian Muslim refugees by clicking here.

Christian Syrian

Christian Syrian refugee woman Pope Francis left behind on Lesbos. Photo: Daily Mail

Now from the Daily Mail yesterday.  It answers our primary question—weren’t there any Christians and other religious minorities to choose from?

And, this bureaucratic (red tape!) excuse for passing up this brother and sister is ridiculous.

A Christian brother and sister from Syria say they have been ‘let down’ by the Pope after he left them behind in a Lesbos refugee camp despite promises they would be given a new life in Italy.

Roula and Malek Abo say they were two of the lucky ‘chosen 12’ refugees selected by the Vatican to be taken from the desperate camp and housed in Rome.

But what seemed like the chance of a lifetime was cruelly snatched away when they were told the following day they couldn’t go. Instead three Muslim families were taken.

Neither Community Sant’Egidio, the charity which organised the trip, or the Vatican would explain the selection process over which migrants were picked.

Spokesman Massimiliano Signifredi called the incident ‘regrettable’ – adding: ‘The problem here is the three Syrians arrived after the March 20 deadline. They arrived just after the agreement between the European Union and Turkey.

Mr Signifredi said: ‘Our staff went to Lesbos and spoke with the people who were selected. But everything was decided by the Vatican.

‘The question why the Pope took only Muslims is difficult to understand and he was suffering, I think, because he wanted to do something also for Christians as the chief of the Catholic Church. But he couldn’t because there is this international agreement [with the EU].’

There is much more here.

See our ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive here.

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Why Pope Francis should not have washed then kissed the feet of Muslim migrants

“When the Pope kneels before a Muslim, these are the thoughts that will come into the minds of many followers of Islam. For them, the Pope’s gesture will serve as confirmation of the age-old Islamic conception of Christianity as a second-rate religion. Although some Muslims may be moved by the Pope’s gesture and some may even be converted, it’s likely that a majority of Muslims will interpret it as a sign of weakness.”

Indeed. And submission. But as the entire Catholic hierarchy and even the rank-and-file clergy appear to be in full submission mode, and determined to stigmatize those who call evil what it is, the Pope’s act was in line with the way the wind is blowing.

“The Problem with Multicultural Foot Washing,” by William Kilpatrick, Crisis, March 31, 2016:

During Holy Thursday Mass, Pope Francis washed the feet of migrants, three of whom were Muslims. Most Catholics understood this as a gesture of humility and brotherhood. That is how the Catholic press reported it—and that, undoubtedly, was the Pope’s intention.

Many Muslims, however, may see it differently—not as a gesture of brotherhood, but as one of submission and surrender. The word “Islam” means “submission,” and submission is what Islam expects of other faiths. Muslims consider Islam to be the supreme religion. To the extent that it tolerates the “People of the Book” (Christians and Jews), Islam tolerates them on the condition that they acknowledge its supremacy.

Historically, the People of the Book were expected to assume the status of dhimmis—second-class citizens with limited rights. The origin of this attitude can be found in several verses in the Koran, particularly 9:29, which says that the “People of the Book” are to be fought “until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”

The conditions that govern the lives of dhimmis were further elaborated in the Pact of Omar (named after the second caliph, Omar bin al-Khattab). The two dozen or so stipulations include a prohibition on building new churches or repairing old ones, a prohibition on displaying crosses, and a demand that dhimmis give up their seats “to honor the Muslims.”

With the passage of time, the dhimmi requirements were expanded, but the general idea was to keep Christians in their place, and even humiliate them. Sometimes, when dhimmis paid the jizya, they were required to approach the tax official on all fours.

Unfortunately, the dhimmi laws are not a thing of the past. Churches are prohibited in Saudi Arabia, and Christian visitors to the Kingdom are not allowed to bring Bibles with them. In Pakistan and other Muslim countries, Christians are looked upon by many as inferior beings, fit only for menial jobs. In Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has re-imposed the jizya tax, and Islamic State scholars cite the Koran and the Pact of Omar as justification for doing so.

When the Pope kneels before a Muslim, these are the thoughts that will come into the minds of many followers of Islam. For them, the Pope’s gesture will serve as confirmation of the age-old Islamic conception of Christianity as a second-rate religion. Although some Muslims may be moved by the Pope’s gesture and some may even be converted, it’s likely that a majority of Muslims will interpret it as a sign of weakness.

In assessing the impact of the novel foot-washing ceremony, the timing also needs to be taken into account. The Holy Thursday Mass came two days after the Brussels bombings, and at a time when Muslim persecution of Christians is escalating. If Christianity was anything other than a humiliated faith, Muslims would expect to see some kind of strong response or some gesture of resolve.

Islam claims to be the natural religion of mankind, and the natural response to aggression is resistance. As Osama bin Laden reminded us, “if a man sees a strong horse and a weak horse, he will by nature favor the strong horse.” Yet, in the face of worldwide attacks on Christians, Church leaders meekly call for more dialogue and indulge in “reaching-out” gestures.

These unfortunate interpretations of the foot-washing ceremony could have been avoided if Pope Francis had not sought to give it a multi-religious flavor. Apparently, he was hoping to make a statement about the Church’s inclusivity. But the statement may have backfired. That’s one of the dangers in politicizing the liturgy. Muslims who see the Pope’s gesture as one of submission before Islam are not going to be convinced of the wisdom of Christian charity, they are going to be convinced of the prudence of sticking with the strong-horse religion. They will be more, not less likely to throw in their lot with the militants. If the Catholic Church appears to be submitting to Islam, they will reason that the only safe course of action is to do the same….

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Urban Infidel.

Obama and liberal bishops need to keep their hands off Africa

TRANSCRIPT

Africa could be termed the last battleground of the Church. It is the only significant place the Church is seeing any growth. Close to 200 million Catholics inhabit the so-called Dark Continent, a term given in derision by colonial powers. The term was a reference to a claim that Africans were backward savages in great need of westernizing.

It’s why the insult hurled at the African bishops by German Cardinal Walter Kasper at the 2014 Synod in Rome touched such a nerve. He said, “The Africans — they should not tell us too much what we have to do.” As you might imagine, that comment didn’t go over too well — which is why Kasper lied about having said it at first, until an audio recording of him saying it was produced by crack journalist Ed Pentin.

Africa is a target, politically, culturally, and most important, spiritually. Africa is still viewed by many Western elites as a “colonial” seedbed. Because of its poorer economic status, various elites see an opportunity to advance their agendas of evil: contraception, sterilization, abortion, population control, homosexuality, climate change and so forth. This is being done largely through the United Nations, financed by Western governments, especially the United States.

The trick is to establish relations with individual African nations, give them some aid, let them enjoy the increased prosperity —even if it is being enjoyed only by leaders — and then promise a lot more aid in exchange for signing onto the agenda. This is part and parcel of U.S. foreign policy these days. It all started with the Mexico City Policy established by Ronald Reagan that refused U.S. government funding to any NGO involved in abortion.

When Clinton was elected in ’92, he rescinded the policy and helped fund overseas groups that work for abortion. This was the first major effort to influence foreign policy according to moral/political calculus with an eye to controlling agencies and governments. Hillary Clinton has testified publicly as Secretary of State that when she speaks of human rights, she includes that to mean abortion and contraception, including government financing.

Oddly enough, for a man with such deep ties to Africa, Obama has worked tirelessly to undermine the family in African nations by tying hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars for economic aid to their acceptance of his immoral agenda. When you drill down to the on-the-ground effect, this translates directly to attacking the Church.

U.S. money is used to essentially try and buy off leaders of various African nations. They begin promoting the Obama agenda, and then the Church runs into conflict with those leaders.

WATCH NOW

The other method that the U.S. government uses to get into African nations is the huge sum of money — hundreds of millions each year — that it awards Catholic Relief Services (CRS). CRS does work to alleviate poverty, but it also allies itself with other groups pushing the population control agenda through sterilization and contraception.

Those U.S. government dollars, like all government dollars, come with strings attached. Washington, D.C., under Obama, has been relentless in pushing its agenda, and it uses a compliant CRS as another means to introduce its agenda into African nations. Bishop Borwah told us he was greatly concerned that CRS does nothing for the soul when they are doing their so-called poverty fighting.

Between the indirect approach of using CRS to gain a foothold and establish trust with the people, and courting government leaders with promises of money in exchange for acceptance of immoral policies, Africa appears to be target number one for Western leaders. The ramifications of this for the universal Church are extremely troubling. The materialism that the diabolical used to corrupt the West looks to be the same weapon by which he will introduce evil into African nations. Catholic leaders who keep supporting Obama, his policies, his party, his power structure and playing along with it in the name of social justice and fighting poverty are setting the table for the destruction of the Faith down the road in Africa.

And consider this: The Catholic population in Africa has more than tripled since 1980, and if current trends hold, in the next generation, just 20 years from now, 24 percent of Africans will be Catholic. This would result in a Catholic population of nearly half a billion in Africa — just over 20 years.

The future belongs to Africa, which begs the question: Haven’t Catholic leaders done enough damage by ruining the faith of hundreds of millions in the West? Can’t they leave their hands off Africa?

His Excellency Bp. Borwah was our guest on this past Friday’s “Download” and this past weekend’s “Mic’d Up.” He is one of those extremely good bishops who loves the Faith, his people and the truth — well worth paying attention to. He was even in the contingent of African bishops who kept the Faith from being mowed down by liberal Western bishops at the Synod this past October — something he gets into in those programs. They are well worth the listen.

Keep tuned to Church Militant to hear the whole truth.

EDITORS NOTE: Originally published at ChurchMilitant.com. Watch “The Download” Every Week, Monday-Friday. Click here for Church Militant Premium—Start your 15-day Free Trial.

Open Letter to Pope Francis

Dear Pope Francis,

Fanciscus, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of Apostles, Pontifex Maximus of the Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop of the Dioceses of Rome, Sovereign of the Vatican State, Servant of the Servants of God.

You called out Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for his views on U.S. immigration policy as “not Christian.”

Are you really wanting to take on this political battle?

Would you be referring to all the Muslim men between the age of 18 and 45 trying to get into our nation, as they have in Europe, to rape and slaughter Christians and Jews? Do you think we, the U.S. tax payers of the United States, should be a dumping ground for Muslim migrants who have no intention of assimilating into our Judeo/Christian culture?

Muslims who want to take our Churches land to build mosques. Muslims who think its permissible, according to the Qur’an, to marry 9-year old children and stone women to death? Are these the people you speak of while bashing Mr. Trump?

Hmm, perhaps maybe you are referring to the Mexican criminal gangs, like MS 13, and other miscreants that sneak across our borders to rape our women, sell drugs and kill and maim Americans. We pick up the tab for that too.

The sovereignty of the United States has been pillaged since Jimmy Carter opened up the flood gates with his Refugee Act of 1980. We have had enough.

The question to ask is how many Muslim refugees has the Vatican taken in? Lets hazard a guess at ZERO.

You also stated on your flight home from your visit to Mexico:

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

The Vatican is a walled in city. Its the most protected city in Italy. You are inside a fortress, a compound. No bridges. No Muslim or South American refugees. I have been there. I met with Pope John Paul II in Saint Peters Basilica in 1990 right before Desert Storm started.

So before you start criticizing others, first take the plank out of your own eye so you can see clearly to remove the speck of dust from ours. Matthew 7:3-5 (NIV):

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

vatican wall

Aerial view of the wall surrounding the Vatican (white line).

Bryan Fischer in his article “Trump, the Pope, and the wall” notes:

The Pope created a firestorm of controversy by going to our southern border and making the building of a border wall the litmus test of Christian faith. “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel.”

Setting aside the plain truth that the litmus test of Christian faith is what a man does with Christ, not what he thinks about a wall, the Pope has hoisted himself on his own petard here. The Vatican is surrounded by the mother of all walls, and has the stingiest citizenship and immigration policy of any sovereign state in the world.

The low-information media and the Vatican itself have scrambled to the Pope’s defense. The Vatican reminds us that the Pope did not build the Vatican wall. True. But he’s making no effort to take it down either.

Read more…

Mr. Trump does not take any false criticism lying down. Not from you Holy Father, not from the Democrats, not from the “establishment” Republicans, the Chinese, the Russians or the North Koreans. NO ONE!

So, if you wish to debate on the issue of building walls perhaps you should first check the Holy Bible. Do  you recall Zechariah 2:5 which says:

And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will be its glory within’

We don’t need any distractions during this critical election year.

Now Mr. Trump was prompted by your little outburst to respond in kind. He said you sir are “disgraceful” for questioning his faith. I and many others agree.

You want to stick your nose into the sovereignty of the United States be careful. We will challenge you. We are done with the political correctness. It is time to confront the real evils in the world, those who slaughter Christians and Jews. This is our nation and Mr. Trump is going to protect our borders, our culture, our Judeo/Christian heritage and our language to paraphrase radio talk show host Mr. Michael Savage.

Remove your blindfold and understand that you should spend more time protecting your flock against Islam, Communists and atheists.

I beseech you, Pope Francis take down your walls.

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VIDEO: INFILTRATION — Thousands of young Communists have infiltrated Catholic seminaries

TRANSCRIPT:

During the early years of Communism in the 1920s and 30s, the evil was being spread worldwide as the Blessed Mother had predicted at Fatima in 1917. Communist parties were being formed in various European countries and in American cities as well. They were already attempting to upset the political and cultural order.

alice_von_hildebrand-255x362

Alice von Hildebrand

But what only a very small number of people knew was that the top dogs of Communism had already released the hounds on the Church. The carefully organized plan was to recruit young men who were loyal Communists and get them placed in seminaries. This was carried out by various agents during the 1920s and 30s.

Fast forward 30 years to the 1960s, and the fruits were beginning to be seen. Learned, dedicated, faithful men and women in the Church were looking around and fretting, not sure from what framework they should understand the demolition of the Faith they were witnessing. At one point, Pope Paul VI even said that it appeared the Church was in auto-demolition.

One of those deeply distressed was a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, the brilliant theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand. He and his wife Alice were sitting down one day with a friend, a woman by the name of Bella Dodd. Bella Dodd had been received back into the Catholic Church by Abp. Fulton Sheen in April of 1952.

This particular day, von Hildebrand was lamenting the state of affairs in the Church and said “It seems like the Church has been infiltrated.” To the shock of both Dietrich and Alice, Bella Dodd, former Communist agent, confessed that it had been infiltrated — and she had been one of the Communists ordered to organize it.

Read more.

Please watch this excerpt of the interview with Dr. Alice von Hildebrand:

RELATED ARTICLE: Politics and Pope Francis: What is the role of the Catholic Church and the State?

EDITORS NOTE: The Vortex has more of their interview with Dr. von Hildebrand available for Premium viewers. They are offering a 15-day free trial. Please consider signing, up at no cost, and watch the whole von Hildebrand interview. You may also explore all the other programs — hundreds of hours.

Pope’s envoy warns of ‘silent genocide’ and ‘biggest terrorism in the world’

“A silent genocide” and “the biggest terrorism in the world.” Did Charles Maung Bo mean the Muslim persecution of Christians that has eradicated ancient Christian communities in Iraq, while Catholic bishops in the West stand by silently afraid to harm their precious and utterly useless “dialogue” with Muslim leaders? Did he mean the terrorism that has claimed committed over 27,000 jihad terror attacks worldwide since 9/11, and more every day, and boasts about its imminent conquest of Rome and the entire West?

No, of course he doesn’t mean that silent genocide or that terrorism. He means poverty and injustice — in other words, he means that the West needs to give more money to Third World nations. That the West might collapse utterly from jihad activity, Muslim migration, Sharia supremacism, etc., well, Catholic prelates don’t speak of such things. To do so would be to “provoke” Muslims and “poke them in the eye,” when they know that “respect” (i.e., cringing, shivering fear combined with appeasement) is the order of the day.

Catholic bishops today are failing their people, failing the Church, failing the world, and helping pave the way for a catastrophe of proportions they will find unimaginable when it engulfs them, but at that point it will be far too late.

Charles Maung Bo and Francis

“Pope’s envoy warns of ‘silent genocide’ and ‘biggest terrorism,’” by Nestor Corrales, Inquirer.net, January 24, 2016:

CEBU CITY – “A silent genocide” and “the biggest terrorism in the world.”

The Pope’s envoy at the 51st International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) made that analogy to describe starvation, poverty and injustice in the world.

Citing a data from the United Children’s Nation’s Fund (Unicef), Charles Maung Cardinal Bo of Myanmar said 20, 000 die of starvation and malnutrition everyday, totaling to more than seven million a year.

In a powerful homily on Sunday, Cardinal Bo urged Catholics to declare a “third world war” against poverty and break the “chains of injustice.”

“In a world that continues to have millions of poor, the Eucharist is a major challenge to humanity,” he said.

“What is the greatest mortal sin? Seeing a child dying of starvation,” the cardinal added.

In a press conference on Monday, Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara said the papal legate’s homily was a challenge to the Catholic faithful to make fighting poverty and injustice “a priority.”

“To make it as urgent, to become a priority in us,” Vergara told reporters.

He said social justice is a responsibility of everyone.

“We want to make social justice realized, to live it out. And it is a responsibility for all of us.” he said.

Vergara said Cardinal Bo’s statement was an urgent call “just to make us realized that we really have to fight for poverty, graft and corruption.”…

Maybe it would be better to fight against them, but whatever you say, Mylo — who am I to question a bishop?

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Vatican: Islam teaches ‘non-violence in the name of God’ — Really?

How could an organization that claims to speak for God and to be led by the Holy Spirit be so indefatigably committed to a lie? For it isn’t only Bruno Forte: the Pope has said the same thing, and it’s the official policy of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which winks at dissent on any number of actual Church teachings, but moves ruthlessly to suppress voices that dare to suggest that maybe Islam is not a Religion of Peace. It appears as if protecting the image of Islam is more important to Church leaders today than teaching the contents of their own faith.

Here are some salient quotations from the Qur’an:

2:191-193: “And slay them wherever you come upon them, and expel them from where they expelled you; persecution is more grievous than slaying. But fight them not by the Holy Mosque until they should fight you there; then, if they fight you, slay them — such is the recompense of unbelievers, but if they give over, surely Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. Fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s; then if they give over, there shall be no enmity save for evildoers.”

4:89: “They wish that you should disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of them, until they emigrate in the way of Allah; then, if they turn their backs, take them, and slay them wherever you find them; take not to yourselves any one of them as friend or helper.”

5:33: “This is the recompense of those who fight against Allah and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement.”

8:12: “When thy Lord was revealing to the angels, ‘I am with you; so confirm the believers. I shall cast into the unbelievers’ hearts terror; so smite above the necks, and smite every finger of them!’”

8:39: “Fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s entirely; then if they give over, surely Allah sees the things they do.”

8:60: “Make ready for them whatever force and strings of horses you can, to terrify thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides them that you know not; Allah knows them. And whatsoever you expend in the way of Allah shall be repaid you in full; you will not be wronged.”

9:5: “Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way; Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.”

9:29: “Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden — such men as practise not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book — until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled.”

9:111: “Allah has bought from the believers their selves and their possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the way of Allah; they kill, and are killed; that is a promise binding upon Allah in the Torah, and the Gospel, and the Koran; and who fulfils his covenant truer than Allah? So rejoice in the bargain you have made with Him; that is the mighty triumph.”

9:123: “O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you; and let them find in you a harshness; and know that Allah is with the godfearing.”

47:4: “When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds; then set them free, either by grace or ransom, till the war lays down its loads. So it shall be; and if Allah had willed, He would have avenged Himself upon them; but that He may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will not send their works astray.”

Think these are just a bunch of verses taken “out of context” and that they’re interpreted in a benign manner by Islamic authorities? Think again. The authoritative sources in Sunni Islam, the schools of Sunni jurisprudence (madhahib), all teach warfare against unbelievers:

Shafi’i school: A Shafi’i manual of Islamic law that was certified in 1991 by the clerics at Al-Azhar University, one of the leading authorities in the Islamic world, as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy, stipulates about jihad that “the caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians … until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax.” It adds a comment by Sheikh Nuh Ali Salman, a Jordanian expert on Islamic jurisprudence: the caliph wages this war only “provided that he has first invited [Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians] to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya) … while remaining in their ancestral religions.” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).

Hanafi school: A Hanafi manual of Islamic law repeats the same injunctions. It insists that people must be called to embrace Islam before being fought, “because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith.” It emphasizes that jihad must not be waged for economic gain, but solely for religious reasons: from the call to Islam “the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war.”

However, “if the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax [jizya], it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.” (Al-Hidayah, II.140)

Maliki school: Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a Maliki legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”

Hanbali school: The great medieval theorist of what is commonly known today as radical or fundamentalist Islam, Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328), was a Hanbali jurist. He directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.”

This is also taught by modern-day scholars of Islam.

Majid Khadduri was an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject, Khadduri says this about jihad:

The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world. … The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)

Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd:

Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book … is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.

Nyazee concludes:

This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation [of non-Muslims].

Bruno Forte

Mgr. Bruno Forte

“L’Osservatore Romano accuses Charlie Hebdo of ‘distorting faith,’” by Domenico Agasso, Jr., La Stampa, January 5, 2016 (thanks to David):

…Speaking to news agency AdnKronos, the theologian and secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, Mgr. Bruno Forte, described the French weekly’s choice as “distressing, as well as unfounded” . “The potential for violence can, if anything, become detached from an authentic religious experience, certainly not encouraged or incited by it. As Pope Francis has said, killing in the name of God is to act against God’s will.”

“It offends the sensitivity of all people, not only Christians, Jews or Muslims. It also offends those who despite not being believers sense how important it is to respect the religious conscience and dimension in life. Hence this act is strongly condemned,” he added.

Forte added that the French newspaper’s insinuations “are far from the truth, because all religions, not just Christianity, but also the Jewish and Muslim faiths, preach non violence in the name of God. If anything, one shows violence by adopting an ideological stance, claiming to possess the truth, judging and excluding others. Religions are faced with the mystery of God and therefore have a strong antidote against such attempts: the supremacy of the Lord whose will we must all obey”.

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Vatican Rocked by Gay Sex Scandals

When asked by the media about homosexuality Pope Francis responded, “If a person is gay — who am I to  judge?” Here is the video of his comment:

Well it appears now that Pope Francis has a problem and perhaps his comment has contributed to it? Perhaps Pope Francis should reconsider his position and begin judging behaviors that are inconsistent with social and biblical norms?

Philip Pullella from Reuters reports:

Pope Francis asked for forgiveness on Wednesday for scandals at the Vatican and in Rome, an apparent reference to two cases of priests and gay sex revealed this month during a major meeting of bishops.

“Today … in the name of the Church, I ask you for forgiveness for the scandals that have occurred recently either in Rome or in the Vatican,” Francis said in unprepared remarks during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“I ask you for forgiveness,” he said before tens of thousands of people, who broke into applause. The pope then read his prepared address and did not elaborate.

Click here to read the full story.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Pope Francis speaking as he leads the weekly audience in Saint Peter’s square at the Vatican, October 14, 2015. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini.

“What disturbs people is not the Pope’s authority but his seeming unawareness of opposing evidence”

Will the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops call Fr. Schall on the carpet and demand that he not speak this way? After all, the USCCB works actively and without any apparent sense of shame to silence and discredit those who tell the truth about the jihad threat and the root causes of Muslim persecution of Christians, and who know that the Pope is wrong about the Qur’an opposing violence. The U.S. Catholic bishops are the worthy sons and heirs of those who convicted Galileo of heresy.

“On Pope Francis and Church Integrity,” by Rev. James V. Schall, S.J., Crisis, September 10, 2015 (thanks to Ming):

…The oft-discussed issues of earth warming and whether the Qur’an advocates violence are open to diverse interpretations. Pope Francis maintains that earth warming is a dangerous fact, but insists the Qur’an does not advocate violence and war. Experts can be found who panic about earth warming; we can find Muslim scholars who cannot find violence in the Qur’an. So, we might say that the Pope’s positions are backed by scholarly opinions. The only trouble with this approach is that other scholars in both areas find evidence that the opposite views are more persuasive and valid. What disturbs people is not the Pope’s authority for his views but his seeming unawareness of opposing evidence.

In this light, several writers point to what they call the “Galileo” problem as the potential danger the Church can find itself in by backing what are in effect opinions about some facts. This “Galileo problem” was the result of the Church committing to a theory that proved to be dubious. At the time—400 years ago—the arguments against Galileo could and did make sense to many. To be in error on a matter of scientific opinion is, of course, not exactly heresy. It happens every day. Indeed, it is the nature of scientific method of testing and retesting. Likewise, to be wrong (or right) about earth warming is not a matter of faith.

But if the Church takes a position in the matters of, say, evolution, science, or economics that turns out, on further investigation, to be wrong or doubtful, it will seem untrustworthy also in areas over which it does claim competence. However tempting or popular to comment on, there are some things on which the Church should just avoid taking a stand. Let it be discussed freely until there really is an issue of faith involved and reasons to think so….

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Whoop-de-doo! Pope Francis is going to take 2 refugee families to live at the Vatican

vaticanThe Vatican is 109 acres and he himself invited the migrants to Europe in 2013 when he took his pope mobile (it must have been transported at great expense!) to the sandy beach of the Italian island of Lampedusa and admonished the Italian people to be more welcoming while saying mass for the migrants arriving illegally from Libya and other parts of the Muslim world.  He helped bring about this crisis!

So now, he is ‘welcoming’ two whole families to set an example for the peons of Europe!  I am speechless!

Let’s at least hope he shelters persecuted Christians!  Will he choose by lottery?  Will they be screened for security? (Do you remember back in April a terror plot was foiled when 18 terrorists posed as ‘refugees’ and planned to attack the Vatican.)

Hey, maybe we can spread a rumor and direct some of the masses of marching migrants to his gates in Rome.  It would be a kind of reenactment.

And, will the Pope call on US Bishops to set an example?  

See some of the homes of U.S. Bishops, here.  How many families will they each invite to live in their mansions?

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Papacy Using Pastors to Push Protestant Reunification

We are seeing the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Early Americans saw the first beast in Revelation 13 as the papacy that they fled for freedom in the New World. Then the second beast (U.S.) makes an image or look-alike to the Old World Order. New World Order under the UN is a focus now.

“Protestants, as a people, have a long history of heresy. The time for reconciliation is now in order to ensure a full and dogmatic transition into the folds of the Church,” said Rick Warren, Pastor of the Saddleback Church in California as he visited the Vatican.

“It’s important that we participate in these sacred rituals before asking our congregation to do the same,”  Pastor Joel Osteen said, adding his time in confession was immensely moving.

We are seeing the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Early Americans saw the first beast in Revelation 13 as the papacy that they fled for freedom in the New World. That beast is seen as an amalgamation of the four beasts from Daniel 7 that it survived, but then had a “deadly wound” by the sword which was the Protestant Reformation—the sword being God’Sword–Scripture.

But the “deadly wound was healed and all the world wondered after the beast.” In this context, the US (second, lamb-like beast) causes the world to make an image—a look alike to the Old World Order. New World Order under the United Nations will be like the papacy because it will have the pope in control as suggested by the imagery of a harlot riding the beast of global government in Revelation 17 that says she commits fornication with kings (governments)–and other clues that can only fit the papacy..

I visited Venezuela and Colombia as a college student, he saw Communist demonstrations and was told that the poverty and illiteracy of these Catholic-dominated countries were fertile soil for what we now see with a Marxist pope. Sitting on tons of gold (Google) from centuries of oppression. Why should the pope want the US to share its wealth when our prosperity came more legitimately.

The pope’s Laudato Si’ appeals to mankind to save earth as God’s “creation,” a word used 66 times in his letter, but the pope is ignoring the Sabbath as the biblical memorial to creation in the 4th Commandment as he puffs up Sunday that has pagan sun worship as its basis, and he claims Sunday as a memorial to Christ’s resurrection, but the Bible gives baptism as the memorial to his death, burial and resurrection, Romans 6.

In spite of all that’s not good for America, the pontiff will probably get a ready reception from a catholic congress—not Roman Catholic, but little “c,” universal—going along to get along. However as this administration pushes us toward global government, we may see civil war, though war is never civil.

The pope’s visit in September could be like Rome’s visit to Jerusalem in 66 AD. It  was a signal the early Christians took to flee the city. Many now may wonder if martial law is impending. That would be a reason to flee because of Christ warning of military “standing where it ought not” in Mark 13.

Most Americans are not ready to accept the pope’s UN New World Order. It’s wakeup time. Christians should build on the foundation of Scripture because a storm is coming that will sweep away all else.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Perfect Storm, is an 80-page, nicely illustrated condensation of the classic, The Great Controversy that’s been translated into 39 languages, addressing some of these issues. For a copy, readers may send $1.99 by PayPal to Ruhling7@juno.com (includes postage)