CLICK ON THE PHOTO BELOW AND ALL OF THEM CAN BE VIEWED, AND THIS IN A CHURCH WITH SEATING ON THREE SIDES LIKE THE NEW ST. ANNE CHURCH HERE IN RICHMOND HILL:
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
LORD HAVE MERCY! KYRIE ELEISON!
Vatican Mysteries. The Mutiny of the Chilean Bishops and the Pope's Self-censorship on Venezuela
The glitches, the silences, the inconsistencies of the Vatican communications media often reveal serious divisions at the highest levels of the hierarchy. This is what has happened in recent days, in at least two pressing cases.
One of these concerns Venezuela. Against the background of the disaster into which the country has plunged and in the run-up to the false elections for reconfirming in power the heir of Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, there erupted last week a revolt - which was harshly repressed - in the El Helicoide prison in Caracas, a place of detention and torture for political prisoners who crime is that of having opposed the regime.
At the news of the revolt the archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, and then the Venezuelan episcopal conference appealed “to the state, to its responsibility for the life and well-being of all persons imprisoned.” And at the Vatican, the secretariat of state judged it opportune for Pope Francis to speak out as well, at the end of the Regina Caeli on May 20, the Sunday of Pentecost.
In fact, here is the text of the appeal as provided for the journalists accredited to the Holy See one hour before the pope spoke, naturally under embargo until the moment when the text was spoken and with the obligation of comparing it with the words actually said:
“I would like to dedicate once again a special consideration to beloved Venezuela. With the help of the Holy Spirit, may all work to find just, effective, and peaceful solutions for the grave humanitarian, political, economic, and social crisis that is exhausting the population, and avoid the temptation of resorting to any kind of violence. I encourage the authorities of the country to guarantee respect for the life and well-being of every person, especially those who, like the imprisoned, are under their responsibility.”
But then, when he addressed the crowd present in Saint Peter’s Square, Francis did not read the text he was holding in his hands. He looked up and improvised these words:
“I would like to dedicate a special consideration to beloved Venezuela. I ask that the Holy Spirit give the whole Venezuelan people - all, leaders, people - the wisdom to find the path of peace and unity. I also pray for the prisoners who died yesterday.”
Very disappointing words for Venezuelans, precisely because they are so indulgent - like other times in the past - toward the regime of Maduro, for which the pope avoided any direct call to responsibility, which instead was explicit in the severe words that the secretariat of state provided and that he set aside.
*
The other case concerns Chile and the convocation in Rome of the 34 bishops of that country to answer before the pope for the sexual abuse committed for years by dozens of consecrated ministers against numerous victims, with the complicity of not a few bishops who in turn were publicly defended by other bishops, cardinals, and, until a few months ago, by Francis himself, before his U-turn, the in-depth investigation he had carried out in Chile, the 2400 pages of the accusatory report that came out of that investigation, his personal meeting in Rome to listen to three of the main victims, and, in short, his aligning himself with the “santo pueblo fiel de Dios” against the sins of the ecclesiastical apparatus.
The hearing in Rome, although it was carried out behind closed doors, was followed with dogged determination by the media all over the world and had its key moments in the 10-page “j’accuse” that Francis delivered to the Chilean bishops on May 15 and in the final decision of almost all of them to place their mandates back in the hands of the pope so that he could decide whether to confirm or remove each one.
There were 34 bishops in all, 3 of them emeritus, and 29 of them submitted a letter of resignation to the pope. Two of them thought they should not write, one because of his special ties to the armed forces of Chile, military ordinary and president of the episcopal conference Santiago Silva, and the other, Luigi Infanti della Mora, to Propaganda Fide, which is in charge of the apostolic vicariate of Aysén of which he is bishop. Among the three emeritus only one of them, Juan Luis Ysern, wrote a letter of resignation, for the sake of solidarity with his confreres, while the other two did not, including Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa.
So then, what is striking is that “L'Osservatore Romano” not only did not publish the text that Francis delivered to the Chilean bishops, nor the statement with which these virtually resigned, but it did not even provide news on the one or the other.
Over the span of seven days from May 12 to 19 the press office of the Holy See published, on the meetings between Francis and the Chilean bishops, only three meager bulletins.
The first and third were also reproduced - in shortened form - by “L'Osservatore Romano.” Not, however, the second, a very brief bulletin dated May 15 and the only one that gave news of “a text with a few issues on which to meditate” that Francis delivered to the bishops, without saying anything about the contents of that text.
As for the final statement with which the Chilean bishops surrendered their mandates to Francis, this was not covered by the press office and much less by “L'Osservatore Romano.”
Almost all of the worldwide media judged the “resignation” of the Chilean bishops as an act of pained but docile submission to the pope.
One exception to this, however, was a very special observer, Luis Badilla, a Chilean journalist who worked for years at Vatican Radio, has an excellent rapport with Fr. Federico Lombardi, and today is the director of a news and commentary website, “Il Sismografo,” which still gravitates in the Vatican orbit, in para-official guise.
After publishing in their entirety, on May 18, the ten pages of the “j’accuse” delivered three days earlier by the pope to the Chilean bishops, Badilla commented in no uncertain terms:
“This document blew apart a sort of nonsensical showdown that part of the Chilean episcopate, under the leadership of Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz and the Opus Dei bishop of San Bernardo, Juan Ignacio González [on the right in the photo by Daniel Ibañez/CNA, after the announcement of the resignations - editor’s note], were hoping for with an arrogant and aggressive attitude, as was seen in the various statements by the two prelates to the international media while they were in Rome.
“The majority of Chilean bishops arrived at the Vatican just as they had been behaving in Chile for a number of years: divided and organized into cliques, arrogant and puffed up with sentiments of superiority, convinced that they were more clever than everybody else, and above all convinced that they would get the better of the pope, whom they treated in public with great deference and respect but in private called an exaggerated and melodramatic person, like someone who is using this situation to blow it out of proportion and cover up other crises of his pontificate.”
The brief letter - made public by official Vatican sources - with which Francis took his leave of the Chilean bishops at the end of the encounter was instead judged by Badilla as resolute on the whole, but also “apparently” too “cautious and meek” and “according to some not up to the gravity of the question,” meaning “all the changes” that the pope himself says would have to be brought to completion “in the short, medium, and long term.”
They are comments and silences, these of Badilla and of “L'Osservatore Romano,” that lead one to think that Pope Francis was deeply dissatisfied with how the Chilean bishops concluded their stay in Rome, foisting onto him the burden of deciding about each one of them, in a sort of “mutiny.”
It is the word that only the vaticanista Franca Giansoldati set down in black and white, in the May 19 issue of the newspaper “Il Messaggero,” explaining it as follows:
“In a surprise move - for the first time in the history of the Church - an entire episcopate has announced its intention to resign en bloc, from the first bishop to the last, placing their mandates in the hands of the pontiff. It was in a certain way a slap in the face for Francis, almost as if it were a response to the unusual methods that he has used […] by convoking all of them in Rome, in a sort of lineup that risks delegitimizing, reflexively, the entire body of bishops, as if all 34 of them were conspirators, whitewashers, and liars. […] In the face of this the Chilean bishops stood up for themselves. Responsibilities are individual, not collective. So all of them gave up their positions ‘so that the pope may decide freely for each one.’ […] Certainly many Chilean bishops do not want to be taken as those who have covered up such grave crimes.”
On the evening of Tuesday, May 22, the Vatican press office gave word that Pope Francis will meet in Rome from June 1 to 3 with a new group of victims of sexual abuse in Chile, without ruling out other “similar initiatives in the future.”
----------
In the ten pages of the “j’accuse” delivered on May 15 by Pope Francis to the bishops of Chile, two of the passages stand out.
The first is the one in which the pope states that he has set to work a “special commission” of investigation and analysis on the crisis of the Chilean Church:
“In this area, hearing the opinions of various persons and after noting the persistence of the wound, I have created a special commission so that, with freedom of spirit, in a juridical and technical way, it may offer a diagnosis as independent as possible, as well as a clear view on past events but above all on the state of the current situation.”
The second is in the 25th of the 27 notes that accompany the ten pages of the text.
In it, Francis cites three accusations from the final report of the “Misión especial” - made up of Maltese archbishop Charles Scicluna and Vatican official Jordi Bertomeu - that he sent to Chile in February to interview the victims of sexual abuse committed by consecrated ministers with the complicity and coverups of bishops and cardinals.
Here is the complete text of the note:
“Once again, in this sense, I would like to dwell on three situations that emerge from the report of the ‘Special Mission’:
“1. The investigation demonstrates that there are grave defects in the way of managing the cases of ‘delicta graviora’ that corroborate some disturbing information that began to become known in some Roman dicasteries. Above all in the way of receiving the complaints or ‘notitiae criminis,’ because in many cases they have been superficially classified as implausible, but were instead serious indications of an actual crime. In the course of the visit it was also noted that there were presumed crimes that had been investigated late or not at all, with the resulting scandal for the complainants and for all those who knew the presumed victims - families, friends, parish communities. In other cases, it was noted that there had been very grave negligence in the protection of vulnerable boys and girls, on the part of bishops and religious superiors, who have a special responsibility in the task of protecting the people of God.
“2. Other similar circumstances that caused perplexity and embarrassment for me was reading statements that attest to the pressure exerted on those who were supposed to carry out the evidentiary portion of the criminal proceeding, or the destruction of compromising documents by persons entrusted with the ecclesiastical archives, demonstrating in this way an absolute lack of respect for canonical procedure as well as the existence of reprehensible practices that should be avoided in the future.
“3. In the same direction and as confirmation that the problem does not belong to only one group of persons, in the case of many abusers it has been shown that there were already serious problems in the phase of their formation at the seminary or in the novitiate. In fact, the proceedings of the ‘Special Mission’ record serious accusations against some bishops or superiors who are believed to have entrusted these educational institutions to priests suspected of active homosexuality.”
(English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.)
ISN'T IT TIME FOR POPE FRANCIS TO ELIMINATE THE GOOD, BAD AND THE UGLEY OF THE G-9???????
Watch Honduras burn while the Cardinal plays the sax
For the life of me, I don't know why Pope Francis created another layer of bureaucracy that appears to be more corrupt than the bureaucracy of the long existing Curia. Why not just place good, orthodox and ethically minded cardinals as prefects of the various Roman dicasteries and then meet with them regularly?There appears to be at least three corrupt cardinals on the G-9, two South Americans and one German and they remain unlike Cardinals Mueller and Burke who were given walking papers and no real alternative assignment.
This article by Edward Pentin would seem to indicate that this Cardinal is a candidate for removal not just for this but much more:
Former Honduran Ambassador's Wife Speaks of Cardinal's Alleged Role in Mismanaged Fund
The widow of the former Honduran ambassador to the Holy See says her motive for going public is simply to seek “justice”
The widow of a former dean of the Vatican diplomatic corps has called on Pope Francis to intervene after she lost her life savings with a fund manager recommended to her by one of the Pope’s chief advisers.
Martha Alegria Reichmann, the widow of Alejandro Valladares who was Honduran ambassador to the Holy
See for 22 years, alleges she and her husband were advised in 2012 by Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, to make the investment with London-based investor Youssry Henien.
See for 22 years, alleges she and her husband were advised in 2012 by Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, to make the investment with London-based investor Youssry Henien.
But Henien then disappeared with all their life savings.
In this May 14 email interview with the Register, Reichmann says Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga, who is coordinator of the C9 Group of Cardinals advising the Pope on curial reform, assured them that the investment was safe and that he too had invested archdiocesan money through Henien.
BOMBSHELL! THE TRUTH COMES OUT!
One of my commenters smelled something snakey about the rattlesnake falling from a tree and into a kayak and biting a man three times in the hand:
Snake that attacked SC man in kayak didn't fall from a tree. He picked it up, family says
Snake that attacked SC man in kayak didn't fall from a tree. He picked it up, family says
Yesterday
The family of the South Carolina man who was bitten by a rattlesnake while kayakinghas admitted that their original story was not accurate.
What remains a fact is that Michael Adams was in his kayak on the Edisto River in Colleton County Sunday when he was bitten by a rattlesnake multiple times.
It is also a fact that the Anderson man was rushed from a boat landing to an area hospital, where he was treated before being flown to a Charleston hospital, where he remains a patient.
It is the story of how the 28-year-old Army vet was bitten by the venomous snake that his family has admitted was not true.
Adams' family members originally told Colleton County Fire and Rescue emergency responders that the rattlesnake had fallen out of a tree into the kayak and bit Adams on the hand.
On Tuesday, family members said Adams actually picked up the snake with his bare hands, foxcarolina.com reported.
Adams's cousin, Kyle Colquitt, said Adams paddled over to what he thought was an alligator in the water, but when he discovered it was a snake he yanked it into the air, according to abcnews4.com.
That is when the 18- to 36-inch long rattler bit Adams — three times.
What remains a fact is that Michael Adams was in his kayak on the Edisto River in Colleton County Sunday when he was bitten by a rattlesnake multiple times.
It is also a fact that the Anderson man was rushed from a boat landing to an area hospital, where he was treated before being flown to a Charleston hospital, where he remains a patient.
It is the story of how the 28-year-old Army vet was bitten by the venomous snake that his family has admitted was not true.
Adams' family members originally told Colleton County Fire and Rescue emergency responders that the rattlesnake had fallen out of a tree into the kayak and bit Adams on the hand.
On Tuesday, family members said Adams actually picked up the snake with his bare hands, foxcarolina.com reported.
Adams's cousin, Kyle Colquitt, said Adams paddled over to what he thought was an alligator in the water, but when he discovered it was a snake he yanked it into the air, according to abcnews4.com.
That is when the 18- to 36-inch long rattler bit Adams — three times.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
DESPITE HUMILIATIONS AND BULLYING BY THE PROGRESSIVE WING OF THE CHURCH AND ITS LEADERS, CARDINAL SARAH CARRIES ON IN A MOST DIGNIFIED WAY
The New Liturgical Movement prints a stunning homily by Robert Cardinal Sarah, who doubles down on His Eminence's views about being a Catholic and the proper orientation for worship, which isn't self-referential by the way or just a convivial meal:
(My emphasis in blue)
Dear Chartres pilgrims,
“The light has come into the world,” Jesus tells us today in the Gospel (John 3, 16-21), “and men have preferred darkness.”
And you, dear pilgrims, have you welcomed the only light that does not deceive: that of God? You walked for three days, prayed, sang, suffered under the sun and in the rain: did you welcome the light in your hearts? Have you really given up darkness? Have you chosen to pursue the Way by following Jesus, who is the Light of the world? Dear friends, allow me to ask you this radical question, because if God is not our light, all the rest becomes useless. Without God all is darkness!
God came to us, he became man. He has revealed to us the only truth that saves, he died to redeem us from sin, and at Pentecost he gave us the Holy Spirit, he gave us the light of faith ... but we prefer darkness!
Let’s look around us! Western society has chosen to establish itself without God. Witness how it is now delivered to the flashy and deceptive lights of a consumer society: to profit at all costs, and frenzied individualism.
A world without God is a world of darkness, of lies and of selfishness!
Without the light of God, Western society has become like a drunken boat in the night! She does not have enough love to take in children, to protect them beginning from their mother’s womb, to protect them from the aggression of pornography.
Deprived of the light of God, Western society no longer knows how to respect its elderly, accompany unto death its sick, make room for the poorest and the weakest.
Society is abandoned to the darkness of fear, sadness and isolation. She has nothing to offer but emptiness and nothingness. It allows the proliferation of the maddest ideologies.
A Western society without God can become the cradle of an ethical and moral terrorism more virulent and more destructive than Islamist terrorism. Remember that Jesus told us, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10, 28).
Dear friends, forgive me this portrayal. But one must be clear and realistic.
If I speak to you in this way, it is because, in my priestly, pastoral heart, I feel compassion for so many wayward souls, lost, sad, worried and lonely! Who will lead them to the light? Who will show them the way to the truth, the only true path of freedom which is that of the Cross? Are we going to leave them to be delivered to error, to hopeless nihilism, or to aggressive Islamism?
We must proclaim to the world that our hope has a name: Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world and of humanity! We can no longer be silent!
Dear Pilgrims of France, look upon this cathedral! Your ancestors built it to proclaim their faith! Everything, in its architecture, its sculpture, its windows, proclaims the joy of being saved and loved by God. Your ancestors were not perfect, they were not without sins. But they wanted to let the light of faith illuminate their darkness!
Today, you too, People of France, wake up! Choose the light! Renounce the darkness!
How can this be done? The Gospel tells us: “He who acts according to the truth comes to the light.” Let the light of the Holy Spirit illuminate our lives concretely, simply, and even in the most intimate parts of our deepest being. To act according to the truth is first to put God at the center of our lives, as the Cross is the center of this cathedral.
My brothers, choose to turn to Him every day! At this moment, make the commitment to keep a few minutes of silence every day in order to turn to God, to tell him “Lord reign in me! I give you all my life!”
Dear pilgrims, without silence, there is no light. Darkness feeds on the incessant noise of this world, which prevents us from turning to God.
Take the example of the liturgy of the Mass today. It brings us to adoration, filial fear and love in the presence of God’s greatness. It culminates in the Consecration where together, facing the altar, our gaze directed to the host, to the cross, we commune in silence in recollection and in adoration.
Dear friends, let us love these liturgies that enable us to taste the silent and transcendent presence of God, and turn us towards the Lord.
Dear brother priests, I want to address you specifically. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the place where you will find the light for your ministry. The world we live in is constantly petitioning us. We are constantly in motion, without taking care to stop and take the time to go to a deserted place to rest a little, in solitude and silence, in the company of the Lord. There is the danger that we regard ourselves as “social workers”. Then, we would not bring the Light of God to the world, but our own light, which is not that which men expect from us. What the world expects of the priest is God and the Light of his Word proclaimed without ambiguity or falsification.
Let us know how to turn to God in a liturgical celebration, full of respect, silence and sacredness. Do not invent anything in the liturgy. Let us receive everything from God and from the Church. Do not look for show or success. The liturgy teaches us: To be a priest is not above all to do many things. It is to be with the Lord, on the Cross! The liturgy is the place where man meets God face to face. The liturgy is the most sublime moment when God teaches us to “ to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren” (Rom. 8, 29). Liturgy is not and should not be an occasion for grief, struggle or strife. In the ordinary form, just as in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, the essential thing is to turn to the Cross, to Christ, our East, our Everything and our only Horizon! Whether in the ordinary form or the extraordinary form, let us always celebrate, as on this day, according to what the Second Vatican Council teaches: with a noble simplicity, without useless additions, without factitious and theatrical aesthetic, but with the sense of the sacred, with the primary concern for the Glory of God, and with a true spirit of a son of the Church of today and of always!
Dear fellow priests, always keep this certainty: to be with Christ on the Cross is what priestly celibacy proclaims to the world! The plan, again advanced by some, to detach celibacy from the priesthood by conferring the sacrament of the Order on married men (“viri probati”) for, they say, “pastoral reasons or necessities”, would have serious consequences, in fact, to definitively break with the Apostolic Tradition. We would to manufacture a priesthood according to our human dimension, but without perpetuating, without extending the priesthood of Christ, obedient, poor and chaste. Indeed, the priest is not only an “alter Christus”, but he is truly “ipse Christus”, he is Christ himself! And that is why, following Christ and the Church, the priest will always be a sign of contradiction! ~ To you, dear Christians, lay people engaged in the life of the City, I want to say with force: “do not be afraid! Do not be afraid to bring the light of Christ to this world!
Your first witness must be your own example: act according to the Truth! In your family, in your profession, in your social, economic, political relations, may Christ be your Light! Do not be afraid to testify that your joy comes from Christ!
Please, do not hide the source of your hope! On the contrary, proclaim it! Testify to it! Evangelize! The Church needs you! Remind all that only “the crucified Christ reveals the true meaning of freedom! “ (Veritatis Splendor 85) with Christ, set free liberty that is today chained by false human rights, all oriented towards the self-destruction of man.
To you, dear parents, I want to send a special message. Being a father and mother in today’s world is an adventure full of suffering, obstacles and worries. The Church says to you: “Thank you”! Yes, thank you for the generous gift of yourselves! Have the courage to raise your children in the light of Christ. You will sometimes have to fight against the prevailing wind and endure the mockery and contempt of the world. But we are not here to please the world! “We proclaim a crucified Christ, scandal for the Jews and folly for the Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1, 23-24) Do not be afraid! Do not give up! The Church, through the voice of the Popes - especially since the encyclical Humanae Vitae - entrusts to you a prophetic mission: to testify before all of our joyful trust in God, who has made us intelligent guardians of the natural order. You announce what Jesus has revealed to us through his very life: “Freedom is accomplished in love, that is to say, the gift of oneself.” (Veritatis Splendor 87)
Dear Fathers and Mothers, the Church loves you! Love the Church! She is your Mother. Do not join those who laugh at her, because they only see the wrinkles of her face aged by centuries of suffering and hardship. Even today, she is beautiful and radiates holiness.
Finally, I want to address you, you the younger people who are numerous here!
However, I beg you first to listen to an “elder” who has more authority than me. This is the Evangelist St. John. Beyond the example of his life, St. John also left a written message to young people. In his First Letter, we read these moving words of an elder to the young people of the churches he had founded. Listen to his voice full of vigor, wisdom and warmth: “ I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Do not love the world or the things in the world”(1 John 2, 14-15).
The world we must not love, as Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa commented in his homily on Good Friday 2018, to which we do not have to comply, is not, as we all know, the world created and loved by God, it is not the people of the world to whom, on the contrary, we must always go to, especially the poor and the poor of the poor, to love them and serve them humbly ... No! The world not to love is another world; it is the world as it became under the rule of Satan and sin. The world of ideologies that deny human nature and destroy the family ... structures from the UN, which impose a new global ethic, play a decisive role and have today become an overwhelming power, spreading through the airwaves through the unlimited possibilities of technology. In many Western countries, it is a crime today to refuse to submit to these horrible ideologies. This is what we call adaptation to the spirit of the times, conformism. A great British believer and poet of the last century, Thomas Stearns Eliot wrote a few verses that say more than whole books: “In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away”.
Dear young Christians, if it is permissible for an “elder,” as St. John, to speak directly to you, I also exhort you, and I say to you, you have overcome the Evil One! Fight any law against nature that would be imposed upon on you, oppose any law against life, against the family. Be of those who take the opposite direction! Dare to go against the grain! For us, Christians, the opposite direction is not a place, it is a Person, it is Jesus Christ, our Friend and our Redeemer. A task is especially entrusted to you: to save human love from the tragic drift into which it has fallen: love, which is no longer the gift of oneself, but only the possession of the other - a possession often violently tyrannical. On the Cross, God revealed himself as “agape”, that is to say as a love that is given to death. To really love is to die for the other. Like the young gendarme, Colonel Arnaud Beltrame!
Dear young people, you often, without doubt, suffer in your soul the struggle of darkness and light. You are sometimes seduced by the easy pleasures of the world. With all my heart of a priest, I say to you: do not hesitate! Jesus will give you everything! By following him to be Saints, you will not lose anything! You will win the only joy that never disappoints!
Dear young people, if today Christ calls you to follow him as a priest, as a religious, do not hesitate! Say to him: “fiat”, an enthusiastic and unconditional yes!
God wants you to have need of you, what grace! What a joy! The West has been evangelized by the Saints and the Martyrs. You, young people of today, will be the saints and the martyrs that the nations are waiting for in a New Evangelization! Your homelands are thirsty for Christ! Do not disappoint them! The Church trusts you!
I pray that many of you will answer today, during this Mass, the call of God to follow him, to leave everything for him, for his light. Dear young people, do not be afraid. God is the only friend who will never disappoint you! When God calls, he is radical. It means He goes all the way to the root. Dear friends, we are not called to be mediocre Christians! No, God calls us all to the total gift, to the martyrdom of the body or the heart!
Dear people of France, it is the monasteries that made the civilization of your country! It is men and women who have accepted to follow Jesus to the end, radically, who have built Christian Europe. Because they have sought God alone, they have built a beautiful and peaceful civilization, like this cathedral.
People of France, peoples of the West, you will find peace and joy only by seeking God alone! Return to the Source! Return to the monasteries! Yes, all of you, dare to spend a few days in a monastery! In this world of tumult, ugliness and sadness, monasteries are oases of beauty and joy. You will experience that it is possible to put concretely God in the center of his whole life. You will experience the only joy that will not pass.
Dear pilgrims, let us give up the darkness. Let’s choose the light! Let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to know how to say “fiat”, that is, yes, fully, like her, to know how to welcome the light of the Holy Spirit like she did. On this day when, thanks to the solicitude of the Holy Father Pope Francis, we celebrate Mary, Mother of the Church, let us ask this Most Holy Mother to have a heart like hers, a heart that refuses nothing to God, a heart burning with love for the glory of God, a heart ardent to announce to men the Good News, a generous heart, a heart as profuse as the heart of Mary, as abundant as that of the Church, and as rich as that of the Heart of Jesus ! So be it!
(My emphasis in blue)
Dear Chartres pilgrims,
“The light has come into the world,” Jesus tells us today in the Gospel (John 3, 16-21), “and men have preferred darkness.”
And you, dear pilgrims, have you welcomed the only light that does not deceive: that of God? You walked for three days, prayed, sang, suffered under the sun and in the rain: did you welcome the light in your hearts? Have you really given up darkness? Have you chosen to pursue the Way by following Jesus, who is the Light of the world? Dear friends, allow me to ask you this radical question, because if God is not our light, all the rest becomes useless. Without God all is darkness!
God came to us, he became man. He has revealed to us the only truth that saves, he died to redeem us from sin, and at Pentecost he gave us the Holy Spirit, he gave us the light of faith ... but we prefer darkness!
Let’s look around us! Western society has chosen to establish itself without God. Witness how it is now delivered to the flashy and deceptive lights of a consumer society: to profit at all costs, and frenzied individualism.
A world without God is a world of darkness, of lies and of selfishness!
Without the light of God, Western society has become like a drunken boat in the night! She does not have enough love to take in children, to protect them beginning from their mother’s womb, to protect them from the aggression of pornography.
Deprived of the light of God, Western society no longer knows how to respect its elderly, accompany unto death its sick, make room for the poorest and the weakest.
Society is abandoned to the darkness of fear, sadness and isolation. She has nothing to offer but emptiness and nothingness. It allows the proliferation of the maddest ideologies.
A Western society without God can become the cradle of an ethical and moral terrorism more virulent and more destructive than Islamist terrorism. Remember that Jesus told us, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10, 28).
Dear friends, forgive me this portrayal. But one must be clear and realistic.
If I speak to you in this way, it is because, in my priestly, pastoral heart, I feel compassion for so many wayward souls, lost, sad, worried and lonely! Who will lead them to the light? Who will show them the way to the truth, the only true path of freedom which is that of the Cross? Are we going to leave them to be delivered to error, to hopeless nihilism, or to aggressive Islamism?
We must proclaim to the world that our hope has a name: Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world and of humanity! We can no longer be silent!
Dear Pilgrims of France, look upon this cathedral! Your ancestors built it to proclaim their faith! Everything, in its architecture, its sculpture, its windows, proclaims the joy of being saved and loved by God. Your ancestors were not perfect, they were not without sins. But they wanted to let the light of faith illuminate their darkness!
Today, you too, People of France, wake up! Choose the light! Renounce the darkness!
How can this be done? The Gospel tells us: “He who acts according to the truth comes to the light.” Let the light of the Holy Spirit illuminate our lives concretely, simply, and even in the most intimate parts of our deepest being. To act according to the truth is first to put God at the center of our lives, as the Cross is the center of this cathedral.
My brothers, choose to turn to Him every day! At this moment, make the commitment to keep a few minutes of silence every day in order to turn to God, to tell him “Lord reign in me! I give you all my life!”
Dear pilgrims, without silence, there is no light. Darkness feeds on the incessant noise of this world, which prevents us from turning to God.
Take the example of the liturgy of the Mass today. It brings us to adoration, filial fear and love in the presence of God’s greatness. It culminates in the Consecration where together, facing the altar, our gaze directed to the host, to the cross, we commune in silence in recollection and in adoration.
Dear friends, let us love these liturgies that enable us to taste the silent and transcendent presence of God, and turn us towards the Lord.
Dear brother priests, I want to address you specifically. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the place where you will find the light for your ministry. The world we live in is constantly petitioning us. We are constantly in motion, without taking care to stop and take the time to go to a deserted place to rest a little, in solitude and silence, in the company of the Lord. There is the danger that we regard ourselves as “social workers”. Then, we would not bring the Light of God to the world, but our own light, which is not that which men expect from us. What the world expects of the priest is God and the Light of his Word proclaimed without ambiguity or falsification.
Let us know how to turn to God in a liturgical celebration, full of respect, silence and sacredness. Do not invent anything in the liturgy. Let us receive everything from God and from the Church. Do not look for show or success. The liturgy teaches us: To be a priest is not above all to do many things. It is to be with the Lord, on the Cross! The liturgy is the place where man meets God face to face. The liturgy is the most sublime moment when God teaches us to “ to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren” (Rom. 8, 29). Liturgy is not and should not be an occasion for grief, struggle or strife. In the ordinary form, just as in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, the essential thing is to turn to the Cross, to Christ, our East, our Everything and our only Horizon! Whether in the ordinary form or the extraordinary form, let us always celebrate, as on this day, according to what the Second Vatican Council teaches: with a noble simplicity, without useless additions, without factitious and theatrical aesthetic, but with the sense of the sacred, with the primary concern for the Glory of God, and with a true spirit of a son of the Church of today and of always!
Dear fellow priests, always keep this certainty: to be with Christ on the Cross is what priestly celibacy proclaims to the world! The plan, again advanced by some, to detach celibacy from the priesthood by conferring the sacrament of the Order on married men (“viri probati”) for, they say, “pastoral reasons or necessities”, would have serious consequences, in fact, to definitively break with the Apostolic Tradition. We would to manufacture a priesthood according to our human dimension, but without perpetuating, without extending the priesthood of Christ, obedient, poor and chaste. Indeed, the priest is not only an “alter Christus”, but he is truly “ipse Christus”, he is Christ himself! And that is why, following Christ and the Church, the priest will always be a sign of contradiction! ~ To you, dear Christians, lay people engaged in the life of the City, I want to say with force: “do not be afraid! Do not be afraid to bring the light of Christ to this world!
Your first witness must be your own example: act according to the Truth! In your family, in your profession, in your social, economic, political relations, may Christ be your Light! Do not be afraid to testify that your joy comes from Christ!
Please, do not hide the source of your hope! On the contrary, proclaim it! Testify to it! Evangelize! The Church needs you! Remind all that only “the crucified Christ reveals the true meaning of freedom! “ (Veritatis Splendor 85) with Christ, set free liberty that is today chained by false human rights, all oriented towards the self-destruction of man.
To you, dear parents, I want to send a special message. Being a father and mother in today’s world is an adventure full of suffering, obstacles and worries. The Church says to you: “Thank you”! Yes, thank you for the generous gift of yourselves! Have the courage to raise your children in the light of Christ. You will sometimes have to fight against the prevailing wind and endure the mockery and contempt of the world. But we are not here to please the world! “We proclaim a crucified Christ, scandal for the Jews and folly for the Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1, 23-24) Do not be afraid! Do not give up! The Church, through the voice of the Popes - especially since the encyclical Humanae Vitae - entrusts to you a prophetic mission: to testify before all of our joyful trust in God, who has made us intelligent guardians of the natural order. You announce what Jesus has revealed to us through his very life: “Freedom is accomplished in love, that is to say, the gift of oneself.” (Veritatis Splendor 87)
Dear Fathers and Mothers, the Church loves you! Love the Church! She is your Mother. Do not join those who laugh at her, because they only see the wrinkles of her face aged by centuries of suffering and hardship. Even today, she is beautiful and radiates holiness.
Finally, I want to address you, you the younger people who are numerous here!
However, I beg you first to listen to an “elder” who has more authority than me. This is the Evangelist St. John. Beyond the example of his life, St. John also left a written message to young people. In his First Letter, we read these moving words of an elder to the young people of the churches he had founded. Listen to his voice full of vigor, wisdom and warmth: “ I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Do not love the world or the things in the world”(1 John 2, 14-15).
The world we must not love, as Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa commented in his homily on Good Friday 2018, to which we do not have to comply, is not, as we all know, the world created and loved by God, it is not the people of the world to whom, on the contrary, we must always go to, especially the poor and the poor of the poor, to love them and serve them humbly ... No! The world not to love is another world; it is the world as it became under the rule of Satan and sin. The world of ideologies that deny human nature and destroy the family ... structures from the UN, which impose a new global ethic, play a decisive role and have today become an overwhelming power, spreading through the airwaves through the unlimited possibilities of technology. In many Western countries, it is a crime today to refuse to submit to these horrible ideologies. This is what we call adaptation to the spirit of the times, conformism. A great British believer and poet of the last century, Thomas Stearns Eliot wrote a few verses that say more than whole books: “In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away”.
Dear young Christians, if it is permissible for an “elder,” as St. John, to speak directly to you, I also exhort you, and I say to you, you have overcome the Evil One! Fight any law against nature that would be imposed upon on you, oppose any law against life, against the family. Be of those who take the opposite direction! Dare to go against the grain! For us, Christians, the opposite direction is not a place, it is a Person, it is Jesus Christ, our Friend and our Redeemer. A task is especially entrusted to you: to save human love from the tragic drift into which it has fallen: love, which is no longer the gift of oneself, but only the possession of the other - a possession often violently tyrannical. On the Cross, God revealed himself as “agape”, that is to say as a love that is given to death. To really love is to die for the other. Like the young gendarme, Colonel Arnaud Beltrame!
Dear young people, you often, without doubt, suffer in your soul the struggle of darkness and light. You are sometimes seduced by the easy pleasures of the world. With all my heart of a priest, I say to you: do not hesitate! Jesus will give you everything! By following him to be Saints, you will not lose anything! You will win the only joy that never disappoints!
Dear young people, if today Christ calls you to follow him as a priest, as a religious, do not hesitate! Say to him: “fiat”, an enthusiastic and unconditional yes!
God wants you to have need of you, what grace! What a joy! The West has been evangelized by the Saints and the Martyrs. You, young people of today, will be the saints and the martyrs that the nations are waiting for in a New Evangelization! Your homelands are thirsty for Christ! Do not disappoint them! The Church trusts you!
I pray that many of you will answer today, during this Mass, the call of God to follow him, to leave everything for him, for his light. Dear young people, do not be afraid. God is the only friend who will never disappoint you! When God calls, he is radical. It means He goes all the way to the root. Dear friends, we are not called to be mediocre Christians! No, God calls us all to the total gift, to the martyrdom of the body or the heart!
Dear people of France, it is the monasteries that made the civilization of your country! It is men and women who have accepted to follow Jesus to the end, radically, who have built Christian Europe. Because they have sought God alone, they have built a beautiful and peaceful civilization, like this cathedral.
People of France, peoples of the West, you will find peace and joy only by seeking God alone! Return to the Source! Return to the monasteries! Yes, all of you, dare to spend a few days in a monastery! In this world of tumult, ugliness and sadness, monasteries are oases of beauty and joy. You will experience that it is possible to put concretely God in the center of his whole life. You will experience the only joy that will not pass.
Dear pilgrims, let us give up the darkness. Let’s choose the light! Let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to know how to say “fiat”, that is, yes, fully, like her, to know how to welcome the light of the Holy Spirit like she did. On this day when, thanks to the solicitude of the Holy Father Pope Francis, we celebrate Mary, Mother of the Church, let us ask this Most Holy Mother to have a heart like hers, a heart that refuses nothing to God, a heart burning with love for the glory of God, a heart ardent to announce to men the Good News, a generous heart, a heart as profuse as the heart of Mary, as abundant as that of the Church, and as rich as that of the Heart of Jesus ! So be it!
POPE FRANCIS SPEAKS......
It appears also that the pope has heard word from cardinals and bishops that His Holiness is hyper critical himself, judgemental and arrogant in pointing out others faults: Francis told the bishops he wasn’t sharing these concerns to “beat you
up,” but rather as points for further “dialogue and reflection.” He also
said he wanted to hear their questions, even their criticisms, because
“it’s not bad to criticize the pope, it’s useful.”
Unfortunately the Holy Father doesn't see the plank in his own eye in not living up to his lofty desire above when it comes to the Dubia cardinals and their questions, concerns and criticism!
The Pope revealed three “worries” during his speech: the decline in vocations, financial scandals, and the reduction and merging of dioceses.
He encouraged the bishops to “speak openly”, urging them to tell him “all the words, your concerns, criticisms – it is not a sin to criticise the Pope here, yes, not a sin – and inspirations that you carry in your hearts.”
Unfortunately the Holy Father doesn't see the plank in his own eye in not living up to his lofty desire above when it comes to the Dubia cardinals and their questions, concerns and criticism!
Pope Francis: it is not a sin to criticize the Pope
Pope Francis attends the general assembly of the Italian Bishops Conference (Getty Images)
The Pope told Italy's bishops to speak openly about their concerns
Pope Francis has told the Italian bishops that it is “not a sin to criticise the Pope here” as he opened their General Assembly.The Pope revealed three “worries” during his speech: the decline in vocations, financial scandals, and the reduction and merging of dioceses.
He encouraged the bishops to “speak openly”, urging them to tell him “all the words, your concerns, criticisms – it is not a sin to criticise the Pope here, yes, not a sin – and inspirations that you carry in your hearts.”
INCULTURATION--WHERE DOES IT BELONG IN CATHOLIC SPIRITUALITY AND DEVOTIONS? HINT: IT DOESN'T BELONG IN THE SACRAMENTS, ESEPCIALLY THE MASS
I would not be adverse to the exclusive return of the EF Mass with some vernacular allowed for the changing parts of the Mass and I am not hateful of the revised three-year lectionary as some are. I don't hate, either, the one year cycle for Sundays of the EF Mass, but its daily cycle is miserable, absolutely miserable compared to the OF.
And I am not adverse to mandating that the Mass and other Sacraments be celebrated uniformly around the world as it was in pre-Vatican II times--to hell with inculturation in the Official Prayers of the Church: Sacraments and Liturgy of the Hours.
HOWEVER:
Inculturation with popular devotions is wonderful and the vernacular for these is great. It would be wonderful in multi-cultural parishes and you don't need a priest or deacon to lead a popular devotion--you can have at it as long as Catholic sensibilities are not offended. For example in the Philippines, on Good Friday, laity actually get nailed to crosses--that should always be forbidden, that kind of inculturation, even in devotions.
A BRIT AGREES WITH ME ABOUT THE AMERICAN-STYLE CELEBRITY "ROYAL" WEDDING
I am not as harsh in my critique of the Episcopal Black bishop's sermon. His style of preaching is the "black Protestant" style that many white preachers, even Catholic priests, in the USA at least, try to imitate. It is a cultural thing and I wouldn't slam it in the Black Community, although I know for a fact that African American converts to Catholicism from the strong black Catholic schools we had back then and with their experience almost daily of the Latin Mass of the pre-Vatican II Church usually converted to Catholicism to get away from the acting, screaming and hollering associated with black pentecostals or the black protestant Church. They saw that flamboyance for what it is.I also thought the content of the sermon was very good.
Acting is the problem with this style of preaching, though, and can lead to celebrity preachers especially when they have 13 minutes of fame and celebrity at an internationally televised event.
But this is Fr. Hunwicke's take on that Royal Wedding:
The Royal Wedding ...
I can only say that I find aspects of it puzzling and alienating.
Some things I just don't even begin to understand: such as why Ms M keeps describing herself daily as a Feminist while apparently happy to be called a Duchess simply because she has married a Duke.
Alienating? The host of 'celebrities' invited to the party alienates me. I suppose in a different age the 'invitees' might have been from other Royal Families, from the Bitish Aristocracy, and from people in our public or political life. Like most ordinary Englishmen, I could discover members of aristocratic families among relations by marriage, or Oxford acquaintances, or former pupils. Foreign Royalty? I met on comfortable terms the late King of Romania; and a Duke of the House of Bourbon. I have mingled socially and bibulously with Members of Parliament. Being quite a small nation, we are comfortably integrated and surprisingly egalitarian.
But all these International Celebrities ... I think they are known technically as "A-list" ... Sir Elton John ... Clooneys ... Serena Williams ... Ophra Winfrey ... Batman, probably ... etc. etc. ... there is not a snowball's chance in Infernis that I have or ever could run into any of them, such is their inaccessible greatness. They are of a mighty altitudo far, far above my humiliated reach. I imagine they are the sort of people whose doings are related in the glossy Celebrity magazines one sees adolescent girls devouring in omnibuses. Looking at the TV clips of those confident lordlings striding into Windsor Castle, I knew how the French must have felt when Herr Hitler visited Paris in 1940 and was photographed in front of the Eiffel Tower.
* * * * * *
Incidentally, according to the Times, the music played included Greensleeves ... and the wedding took place on the anniversary of the day Anne Boleyn lost her head. And there was a Henry with Welsh connections involved in all that, too ... perhaps I should take more interest in the blacker implications of last Saturday's events ...
What a cheap fool that American 'bishop' is ... it would be fun to see him taking part in a 'historical reenactment' in the road outside the front door of the Master of Balliol.
HOLY FATHER YOUR DIAGNOSIS ABOUT THE LACK OF VOCATIONS IS CORRECT BUT YOU DO NOT TOUCH ON THE FOUNDATIONAL REASONS, THE 1960'S AND '70'S MENTALITY ABOUT THE CHURCH, THE PRIESTHOOD AND THE SACRAMENTS
Press for complete Crux article on: Pope laments vocations ‘hemorrhage’
Pope Francis arrives at the annual Italian Bishops' Conference in the Synod hall at the Vatican, Monday, May 21, 2018. (Credit: AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia.)
Pope Francis said this about the lack of vocations in Italy (and everywhere else):On vocations, the pontiff didn’t mince words.
“How many churches and convents have been closed in recent years for a lack of vocations, only God knows,” he said.
Francis blamed the crisis in vocations on many factors, including “a culture of the provisional,” a “culture of relativism,” the “dictatorship of money”, a “demographic inversion” in which families are having fewer children, the impact of Church scandals, and the “tepid witness” given by some priests and bishops.
In any event, the pontiff said frankly, “we’re not succeeding” at generating a sufficient number of new vocations.
“What we need is a fidei donum [system] from one diocese to the other,” he said.
The term fidei donum comes from a 1957 encyclical of Pope Pius XII, which encouraged dioceses with substantial numbers of priests to release some of them for service in mission countries which didn’t have enough priests. Today, it’s most often employed in a reverse sense, as countries in the developing world are sending some of their priests to the West to compensate for priest shortages.
“I think of some dioceses in the Piedmont, with its grand tradition [which today lacks
priests],” Francis said, referring to a region of northern Italy. “Yet in Puglia there’s an over-abundance,” he said, referring to a region of the comparatively under-developed Italian south.
My Comments:
I don't disagree with the Holy Father on what His Holiness includes as part of the problem of a lack of vocations but it blames society too much and the post Vatican II Church too little, especially the confusion that it caused in the 1960's and 70's and the renewed confusion of that period that Pope Francis has recovered or relishes.
Yes, Church scandals are part of the problem but these have been placed on steroids in the post-Vatican II loss of Catholic identity, especially priestly identity and the majesty of God's higher calling to a priestly vocation.
Confusion about the Church's ecclesiology, the priesthood of all believers to the watering down of priestly and religious identity, the removal of beauty from religious life (i.e. distinct habit and communal lifestyle and discipline); the removal of beauty, mystery, majesty and reverence from the banal post-Vatican II sacraments, Mass in particular, with its fragmentation into many languages and cultural expressions difficult for most priests to like or desire to celebrate.
The pedestrian approach to religious life and priesthood with emphasis on being a social worker.
The self-referential ecclesiology of the post Vatican II Church symbolized in dramatic fashion by the priest-celebrity facing the congregation for Mass, the heresy of univeralism which has resulted from ecumenical, interfaith and worldly dialouge that see all things as equal if we could just all get along and a strong desire to protestantize the Catholic Church and her liturgies to get along better with protestants and maybe have the same kind of unity they have under the protestant umbrella.
A removal of the monarchical trapping of the hierarchy which pointed to Christ the Risen King and the Kingdom of God.
priests],” Francis said, referring to a region of northern Italy. “Yet in Puglia there’s an over-abundance,” he said, referring to a region of the comparatively under-developed Italian south.
My Comments:
I don't disagree with the Holy Father on what His Holiness includes as part of the problem of a lack of vocations but it blames society too much and the post Vatican II Church too little, especially the confusion that it caused in the 1960's and 70's and the renewed confusion of that period that Pope Francis has recovered or relishes.
Yes, Church scandals are part of the problem but these have been placed on steroids in the post-Vatican II loss of Catholic identity, especially priestly identity and the majesty of God's higher calling to a priestly vocation.
Confusion about the Church's ecclesiology, the priesthood of all believers to the watering down of priestly and religious identity, the removal of beauty from religious life (i.e. distinct habit and communal lifestyle and discipline); the removal of beauty, mystery, majesty and reverence from the banal post-Vatican II sacraments, Mass in particular, with its fragmentation into many languages and cultural expressions difficult for most priests to like or desire to celebrate.
The pedestrian approach to religious life and priesthood with emphasis on being a social worker.
The self-referential ecclesiology of the post Vatican II Church symbolized in dramatic fashion by the priest-celebrity facing the congregation for Mass, the heresy of univeralism which has resulted from ecumenical, interfaith and worldly dialouge that see all things as equal if we could just all get along and a strong desire to protestantize the Catholic Church and her liturgies to get along better with protestants and maybe have the same kind of unity they have under the protestant umbrella.
A removal of the monarchical trapping of the hierarchy which pointed to Christ the Risen King and the Kingdom of God.
SOUTHERN LIVING: ALLIGATORS AND RATTLESNAKES
UNTAMED LOWCOUNTRY
10-foot alligator hanging out in parking lot surprises Lowcountry motel guest
Yesterday
A nearly 10-foot alligator showed up at the Knights Inn Point South motel in Yemassee this week, but it didn’t get a room.
A motel guest discovered the alligator next to his vehicle early Tuesday morning, according to comments and photos posted on Facebook by Jasper County Sheriff’s Office deputy John Mitaly, a K9 handler.
“When your K9 handler skills come in handy and you adopt a new partner. ... Ima need a bigger cage,” Mitaly’s caption reads.
Prakash Patel, the motel’s manager, said his guest was trying to get to his vehicle to go to work when he came back to the front desk. “There’s an alligator near my car!” Patel said the guest told him.
Patel said the animal was just under 10 feet long.
He suspects it came from one of the many ponds where he knows gators live in the area. The motel is located at 420 Campground Road and is a neighbor of the Point South KOA campground.
The men watched the alligator for a while, but it didn’t leave, so they called the Sheriff’s Office, Patel said.
David Lucas, regional public information coordinator for S.C. Department of Natural Resources, confirmed that DNR was contacted by the Sheriff's Office and dispatched Matt McDaniel to deal with the alligator.
Lucas said DNR’s initial report indicated only that the alligator was removed from the scene.
“It doesn’t say it was euthanized, but I would be surprised if it wasn’t,” Lucas said.
In the Lowcountry, roughly 100 alligators are ruled as "nuisance alligators" every year, Lucas previously told The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette. "Of all those calls, only about five alligators are relocated."
When asked via Facebook to talk about the alligator, McDaniel said he could not comment.
During mating season, which alligator experts say was kicked into high gear by the sudden onset of warm weather in late spring, males move around in order to find females.
Lowcountry residents have reported a flood of alligator sightings within the last few weeks.
One of those alligators ended up on the school grounds at May River High School.
Another ended up trapped on the front porchof a family's home in the middle of the night.
In a tragic case, a family's vehicle hit an alligator crossing I-95, and a mother and two children were killed.
A motel guest discovered the alligator next to his vehicle early Tuesday morning, according to comments and photos posted on Facebook by Jasper County Sheriff’s Office deputy John Mitaly, a K9 handler.
'Did that just happen?' Hilton Head man records himself 'rescuing' massive alligator
(Logan Cambron | Ashley Jean Reese)
Prakash Patel, the motel’s manager, said his guest was trying to get to his vehicle to go to work when he came back to the front desk. “There’s an alligator near my car!” Patel said the guest told him.
Patel said the animal was just under 10 feet long.
He suspects it came from one of the many ponds where he knows gators live in the area. The motel is located at 420 Campground Road and is a neighbor of the Point South KOA campground.
Jasper County Sheriff's Office deputy John Mitaly takes a photo with an alligator in the parking lot of the Knights Inn Point South motel in Yemassee on May 15, 2018. (John Mitaly | Submitted)
The men watched the alligator for a while, but it didn’t leave, so they called the Sheriff’s Office, Patel said.
David Lucas, regional public information coordinator for S.C. Department of Natural Resources, confirmed that DNR was contacted by the Sheriff's Office and dispatched Matt McDaniel to deal with the alligator.
Lucas said DNR’s initial report indicated only that the alligator was removed from the scene.
“It doesn’t say it was euthanized, but I would be surprised if it wasn’t,” Lucas said.
In the Lowcountry, roughly 100 alligators are ruled as "nuisance alligators" every year, Lucas previously told The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette. "Of all those calls, only about five alligators are relocated."
When asked via Facebook to talk about the alligator, McDaniel said he could not comment.
During mating season, which alligator experts say was kicked into high gear by the sudden onset of warm weather in late spring, males move around in order to find females.
Lowcountry residents have reported a flood of alligator sightings within the last few weeks.
One of those alligators ended up on the school grounds at May River High School.
Another ended up trapped on the front porchof a family's home in the middle of the night.
In a tragic case, a family's vehicle hit an alligator crossing I-95, and a mother and two children were killed.
Rattlesnake plunges from tree into kayak, then starts attacking the kayaker, SC fire chief says
Yesterday
A South Carolina man thought he was going to enjoy a day outdoors with friends Sunday, but things took a frightening turn.
The man, who was kayaking, was bitten multiple times by a rattlesnake and had to be rushed to an area hospital, according to Colleton County Fire Chief Barry McRoy.
The incident occurred when the 28-year-old Anderson man and friends were kayaking on the Edisto River.
The rattlesnake fell out of a tree and bit the man on his hand, twice, McRoy said.
McRoy said he did not know how long it took the kayakers to reach a boat landing at the intersection of SC-61 and US-15, but he said Colleton County Fire and Rescue received a call about the bite at 5:20, and it took them approximately 12 minutes to pick up the Anderson man.
The man was rushed to Colleton Medical Center, which had anti-venom waiting in the emergency room, according to McRoy.
During the ambulance ride, the man "was in bad shape, and greatly deteriorated," McCroy said, adding that the man's ailments included lots of swelling and airway problems.
The man was listed in critical condition, abcnews4.com reported.
While McRoy praised the work done in the ER, he said the man was flown by helicopter to MUSC Monday morning, saying typically that is not a good sign.
The rattlesnake was captured by friends of the man on the kayaking trip, live5news.comreported.
McRoy said the rattlesnake wasn't very big, estimating it was between 18 inches and 2-feet long.
This was the first reported rattlesnake bite in the county this year, McRoy said. He said there have been a number of copperhead snake bites reported, but typically in those cases the patients have been treated and released from hospitals.
In 2016, Wayne Grooms, a West Columbia naturalist, died after a snake bit him at Santee National Wildlife Refuge. Grooms’ death stunned many people in South Carolina because fatal snakebites are so rare. No more than a half dozen people die nationally each year from snakebites.
The man, who was kayaking, was bitten multiple times by a rattlesnake and had to be rushed to an area hospital, according to Colleton County Fire Chief Barry McRoy.
The incident occurred when the 28-year-old Anderson man and friends were kayaking on the Edisto River.
The rattlesnake fell out of a tree and bit the man on his hand, twice, McRoy said.
McRoy said he did not know how long it took the kayakers to reach a boat landing at the intersection of SC-61 and US-15, but he said Colleton County Fire and Rescue received a call about the bite at 5:20, and it took them approximately 12 minutes to pick up the Anderson man.
The man was rushed to Colleton Medical Center, which had anti-venom waiting in the emergency room, according to McRoy.
During the ambulance ride, the man "was in bad shape, and greatly deteriorated," McCroy said, adding that the man's ailments included lots of swelling and airway problems.
The man was listed in critical condition, abcnews4.com reported.
While McRoy praised the work done in the ER, he said the man was flown by helicopter to MUSC Monday morning, saying typically that is not a good sign.
The rattlesnake was captured by friends of the man on the kayaking trip, live5news.comreported.
McRoy said the rattlesnake wasn't very big, estimating it was between 18 inches and 2-feet long.
This was the first reported rattlesnake bite in the county this year, McRoy said. He said there have been a number of copperhead snake bites reported, but typically in those cases the patients have been treated and released from hospitals.
In 2016, Wayne Grooms, a West Columbia naturalist, died after a snake bit him at Santee National Wildlife Refuge. Grooms’ death stunned many people in South Carolina because fatal snakebites are so rare. No more than a half dozen people die nationally each year from snakebites.
Monday, May 21, 2018
MY TWO CENTS ON THE CAUSE OF MALES SHOOTING AND KILLING THEIR CLASSMATES
1. They have access to guns
2. They are angry at the world and if their raging hormones tell them to go for it they have no impulse control
3. The breakdown of family and community life leaves no checks and balances and a failure to have family supper at a properly set table with no media use!
4. Parents medicate their kids with brain altering substances to sedate and placate them rather then discipline them, spare the rod and instead of beating them change their brain with narcotics
5. Media violence prevalent in all medias brain washes them and they are cooked in a crockpot of indifference to people's suffering and death and combine this with our abortion mentality, euthanasia mentality and our war culture and addiction to media devices and what they do altars the proper functioning of their brains
6. The lack of an overtly religious home with religious morals
7. Forbidding daily prayer and Scripture reading in public school, monthly prayer meeting, the teaching of the 10 Commandments and the Golden rule. Kids who pray with each other are less likely to kill each other
ULTIMATELY OUR CULTURE IS STEEPED IN GODLESS VIOLENCE AND RHETORIC AND THE NEW MEDIA CLINCHES IT. MEDIA MOGULS WHO PROFIT OFF OF VIOLENT CONTENT SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE TOO!
ON BEING GAY OR BI OR STRAIGHT OR WHATEVER ELSE, DID GOD MAKE YOU THAT WAY?
Original Sin and its disordered consequences
Pope Francis teaches or changes teachings through gestures, ambiguities and confusion and also relying on what others say he said. He values Jesuitical discernment which can also be viewed in some cases as enablement. I don't particularly like this method but it is what it is.
Thus one of the Chilean victims of a priest's homosexual abuse of him has said that he himself is gay and that Pope Francis told him God made him that way. I'm not so sure the pope said this as the pope is silent on this subject, but many gay people I know are quite good people, sinners though we all are. Goodness is of God and God given as we are made in the image and likeness of God though corrupted by Adam's sin but redeemed in the new Adam!
I do know that Pope Francis has explicitly written that the clergy sexual abuse of minors in the Church is a result of homosexual predation. If girls had been involved His Holiness would have said that it was a result of heterosexual predation.
Original sin which every human being inherits (except the Mother of the Church, the Blessed Mother Most Holy) means that each and everyone of us is defective in some way or another and programmed by this defect to die and decay and return to the dust of the earth. We can't change that try as some may. Some resort to Botox and plastic surgery which makes everyone look like others with the same procedures look alike and perversions of their previous beauty.
Some people have defects that they have no control over, such as Down's syndrome, other mental and physical retardations and mental and physical disfigurement.
Disordered (by way of Original sin which is inherited) sexuality is programmed towards concupisence. Fidelity doesn't come naturally nor does chasity be one married or single. God's abundant grace is required. Sexual continence requires God's grace and our willingness to cooperate with that grace and when we fail, try as we may with God's grace to succeed, God has given us the Sacrament of Penance to place us back on the narrow path to salvation.
Thus a person who is straight but desires to be as promiscuous as possible needs God's grace to lead him or her to chasity. God made us to be chaste not promiscuous. Promiscuity is a disorder.
Thus a person who is "bi" must, by God's grace, choose chastity or seek a heterosexual spouse and natural marriage.
Thus a person who is gay must by God's grace seek to live life long chastity.
It isn't the Church's role to determine what makes someone gay as there are a number of possibilities all of which include Original sin in one way or another and not to exclude a genetic reason caused by the disorders of Original Sin.
God brings goodness out of disorders though . Thus we love those who have Down's syndrome, are autistic, mentally or physically handicapped and we assist them to live "normal" lives.
The same is true of those with sexual disorders, we love them and help them to live "normal" lives and to make use of the God-given gifts of grace that God gives us in abundance.
But let's not single out any particular sexual orientation for vilification. We only vilify actual crimes not a tendency toward them. If a person has a tendency towards being a thief, we applaud them when they live a life of honesty and show others with an inclination to steal how not to do so.
Did Pope Franics say being gay is God-given? I don't know, I hope not. It is second hand information. Does Pope Francis love gay people? I hope so and I hope we all do.
Does being gay have good qualities apart from disordered sexual activities that one can with God's grace overcome which includes frequent Confession for any habitual sins? Yes and this goodness is God-given! We are made by God to be good!
But when gay people seek pastoral counseling and the Sacrament of Penance, sometimes chasity can only be sought incrementally and stable, chaste friendships should always be the goal even if there is a partnership with a lifelong partner that should lead anyone, straight or gay, away from destructive promiscuity and using others simply for one's own gratification. Love that leads to chastity is the goal of spiritual counseling. God made us for chaste love.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
NO NEGATIVE BOMBSHELLS IN THESE NEW CARDINALS, THE ONES I KNOW OF NO MAJOR RED FLAGS AND THE OTHERS FROM SOME PLACES I HAVE NEVER HEARD WHO KNOWS AND NOTHING FOR THE MOST UNHEARD OF PLACE RICHMOND HILL!
To be honest with you I really like His Excellency Konrad Krajewski – Almoner of the Office of Papal Charities, who was a major MC with Msgr. Guido Marini and of his liturgical ilk. He cried standing next to Pope Benedict when The pope beatified Pope John Paul II. In fact I would like to see Konrad as the next Polish pope!
The men who will receive their red hats from the Pope include bishops from Iraq, Pakistan, Portugal, Peru, Madagascar, Italy and Japan.
The list also includes Polish archbishop Konrad Krajewski, who serves as the papal almoner here in Rome, and three Italian archbishops, Angelo De Donatis, the vicar general of the Rome diocese, Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Giovanni Becciu, the Substitute of the Secretary of State and Special Delegate for the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Pope Francis said their nominations “manifests the unbreakable bond between the See of Peter and the local Churches throughout the world”.
Alongside them, Pope Francis also nominated to the College of Cardinals a retired archbishop of Mexico, a retired bishop of Bolivia and a priest from the Claretian order, all of whom, he said, “have distinguised themselves for their service to the Church”.
The names of the new Cardinals are:
His Beatitude Louis Raphaël I Sako – Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon
His Excellency Luis Ladaria –Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
His Excellency Angelo De Donatis – Vicar General of Rome
His Excellency Giovanni Angelo Becciu – Substitute of the Secretary of State and Special Delegate for the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
His Excellency Konrad Krajewski – Almoner of the Office of Papal Charities
His Excellency Joseph Coutts – Archbishop of Karachi
His Excellency António dos Santos Marto – Bishop of Leiria-Fátima
His Excellency Pedro Barreto – Archbishop of Huancayo
His Excellency Desiré Tsarahazana – Archbishop of Toamasina
His Excellency Giuseppe Petrocchi – Archbishop of L’Aquila
His Excellency Thomas Aquinas Manyo – Archbishop of Osaka
His Excellency Sergio Obeso Rivera – Emeritus Archbishop of Xalapa.
His Excellency Toribio Ticona Porco – Emeritus Bishop of Corocoro.
Reverend Father Aquilino Bocos Merino – member of the Claretian order.
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