Presbyterian Church in Saint Augustine, Florida.
Constructed in 1889 by Henry Flagler using the same revolutionary poured concrete method used in his Ponce De Leon and Alcazar Hotels Now Flagler
College and Lightner Museum respectively). Local coquina shells used as aggregate in the concrete gives these structures a unique look and color. Lightner named the church memorial in honor of his daughter Jennie Louise Benedict who died the year it was built. Lightner himself is interred there as well.
Savannah’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade begins first for the reason for the parade, celebrating the great evangelizing saint, Saint Patrick of Ireland. The Mass for the Feast of St. Patrick was televised on Savannah’s local CBS affiliate, WTOC from the Cathedral Basilica of Saint John the Baptist. Then the Grand Marshall and his entourage have breakfast with Bishop Stephen Parkes in the Cathedral Rectory attached to the back of the Cathedral. The parade passes in front of the Cathedral. It is purported to be the second largest parade in the country after New York’s . There are over 500,000 people lining the street all the way to Savannah’s Riverfront. Bright and sunny and close to 80 today!
We need more bishops and those who are cardinals to be prophetic like the prophets of old. As the prophets of the Old Testament knew, there will be a persecution of them by those who think they know better than God—that old Gnostic and Arian heresy.
Kudos and blessings to Cardinal Mueller:
Thus, the meme of constant reform refers to the people of God, the mystical Body of Christ, and our call to holiness and moral perfection.
This won’t happy fully in this life, it is already but not yet. But that is our high calling. It is an arduous calling entailing many sacrifices and an ascetic lifestyle of fasting, prayer and alms giving..
Yet, it appears that the most corrupt understanding of a Church in need of constant reform means redefining the institutional Church and changing her Faith and Moral content as well as the manner in which she worships and prays. It is all about structures and teachings and blessings. It is all about externals and discipline.
And now, Pope Francis who seems hell bent on serving mammon by converting the Church to the LGBTQ+++ ideologies of the world, not of Christ, will allow Germany to “jump start” the pre-planned results of the Universal Synod on Synodality and its talk about walking together with the LGBTQI++++ ideologies.
Astoundingly, the Church in Germany and one day universally will be blessing not just sinners, who need God’s graces and blessings to convert from sinful ways and be saved, but sin itself will be blessed to say it is no longer a sin and sinners need not convert but glory in the sins they love more than God.
Will God be mocked for long? I, the poor miserable, disordered sinner that I am, do not think so. The broad sweep of Church history seems to back up my opinion.
A picture is worth 1,000 words….
You can’t make this stuff up and the NCR doesn’t. It tells it like it is and I mean it is really groovy and day by day we will make a place for the I’m okay; you’re okay” church of kumbaya as we all hold hands and smoke the sacrament of LSD and weed:
TYPICAL SCENE IN VATICAN OFFICES TODAY:
The mood in and around Vatican City before, during, and after the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’s election was more somber than festive. Continue Reading »
What Pope Francis could do is simply do what he did to the Puerto Rican bishop whom he removed and without due process. No one even talks about that anymore.
Or the pope could remove the entire episcopate of the German Church, like he did in Chile. No one even talks about that anymore.
We are on the brink of a true schism unlike the SSPX which wasn’t a true schism. To think that they are in schism when Germany isn’t would be a joke that most sensible clergy and laity would recognize out of common sense.
Will Pope Francis have the courage to remove the bishops of Germany? Pray that he will do something. Usually he has to be pushed into a corner to act. It took a catastrophe in Chile during Pope Francis’ pilgrimage there for him to finally act, but at least he did.
In other words, Jesus was a product of his time, probably quite unaware of His divinity and capable of growth in truth. If the historical Jesus returned to the present, he would embrace the culture, especially the ideology of inclusivity proclaimed by the secular world. This then opens the Church to radical change, because Jesus is just a dead hero and the starting point for the Church today, not the 2,000 years of Scripture and Tradition, the Deposit of Fait all built upon the illusion of a post-Resurrection Jesus which has nothing in common with His historicity.
In additon to that, the emphasis isn’t on the other world and salvation, but rather Marxist utopian eschatology to bring about the perfect world here and now. Thus one did not need to believe in the resurrection, only the historical Jesus and what he accomplished in ushering in the Kingdom now, the Church true priority.
Three esteemed commentators on Francis and the Church: Italian theologian Father Nicola Bux, a former consulter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints; Riccardo Cascioli, editor of the Italian Catholic daily La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana; and Francis biographer Massimo Borghesi, author of Catholic Discordance: Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis. Here below are their responses.
Pentin: Do you think these revelations were Providential, could they have been intentionally revealed?
FATHER BUX: Above everything there is a divine intention which causes that which is hidden to be manifested. Not praxis, but faith is the victory that overcomes the world (1 John 5:4). If Pope Francis follows the “agenda” of Cardinal Martini, who stated that the Church had fallen behind by 200 years, it means he is not interested in the Church as the Mystical Body (this year marks the 80th anniversary of Pius XII’s famous encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi) that is, connected to its head, Jesus Christ. In fact, Francis never talks about the crisis of faith. He does not consider it worthy of attention. Thus his reform has feet of clay, that is, it is based on ideological and worldly assumptions such as those of equality and universal fraternity, slogans of the French Revolution — originally Christian, but detached from the root that is faith and therefore incapable of implementation and generating action. He believes that preaching fraternity will stop wars. As soon as he published Fratelli Tutti, the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out. Instead, the Pope must preach God and His Sonship, perfectly implemented in Jesus Christ. That is, one must proclaim the Son, so that men may be converted and become sons, in the Son, of the One Father. This is the condition of peace, for the peacemakers will be called sons of God, Jesus said. Then they will realize that they are brothers.
CASCIOLI: Frankly, it is difficult to know. What seems certain to me is that he clearly had in mind an agenda of his own with reforms, starting with the pontificate itself, which has become highly secularized in these 10 years. The determination and systematicity with which he destroyed the legacy of St. John Paul II and even Benedict XVI is revealing. On the other hand, when one starts processes — which is his stated will — they can easily get out of hand. Such is the case with the German Church, which has been offered an inch and is taking a mile. It seems to me that the German Synod’s charge forward risks ruining Francis’ plan to bring the German Church’s demands into the Synod on Synodality to act as a driving force for the whole Church.
BORGHESI: There is perfect continuity between Francis and Benedict XVI when it comes to the intention to bring clarity within the Church, bringing to light the grave sins that have been hidden over the past 50 years. The “filth within the Church,” which Cardinal Ratzinger spoke of before his election as Pope, is an intolerable stain. The fact that the misdeeds of priests and religious have been hidden for so long reveals a “clerical” conception of the Church, that of a closed world that considers itself perfect, immune from all sin.
But those who translated Cardinal Parolin’s Italian remarks into English made a mistake, Certainly the superior race of German Synodal Catholic can and have made a decisions to change the faith, morals and discipline of the Universal Synodal Church.
But, the good Cardinal Parolin, I deduce, meant to say and probably said it in Italian, that the Superior German Synodal Church may not do such a thing even though they can.
Finally on the German bishops' vote, at the end of the synod process, to approve blessings for homosexual couples, the Holy See has already expressed itself clearly on the issue, Parolin said, noting that a local church "cannot make such a decision that involves the discipline of the Universal Church."
This is my former parish where I removed the altar railing in 2004 and restored it in 2014. Communion is distributed at the altar railing’s full length at all Masses. Communicants may stand if they so desire and they may, as is liturgical law, receive in the hand or on the tongue.
And I have a question about the Sacrament of Penance. In all my parishes since 1980, some people when they make their confession recite the “Act of Contrition” to begin their Confession. They are in the minority but that is what they do.
I recall in the transitional era with the changes in the Sacrament of Penance’s format, we were told that you should say the Act of Contrition before Confession. As a teenager, I took that to mean that you prayed the Act of Contrition prior to entering the confessional, I mean, and forgive me, the room of reconciliation.
Perhaps I misunderstood and I was suppose to pray it after I entered whatever you want to call it?
At any rate, this novelty was short-lived as in short order we were told, once again, to pray the Act of Contrition in its traditional place, after the priest gave you your penance.
But some must not have gotten the update around 1970 or so.
Crux interviewed Father Justine John Dyikuk who is the former Director of Communications of the Nigerian Diocese of Bauchi Diocese and a Lecturer of Mass Communication at the University of Jos. He also serves as a Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom Policy at the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) in Washington, D.C.
Crux: A large number of German bishops and a German synodal path advocates for the blessing of same-sex unions, reshaping the priesthood and diaconate, including the ordination of women, allowing open Communion with Protestants and those in irregular marriages, and other doctrinal changes. What is your reaction to these proposals, and do you think Africa should buy into such proposals?
Father Justine: I am optimistic that Africa will not buy into such cheap proposals. The reason is simple – Recent data obtained by the Vatican shows that Africa and Nigeria where I come from have the largest number of faithful who attend Sunday Mass. This clearly indicates that the faith in Africa is vibrant and robust unlike what is happening in Germany or Continental Europe. By way of analysis, while the Church in Europe is rich financially, technologically and infrastructurally (in term terms of gothic Churches), it lacks population, clerical personnel (priests) and mass attendance by the young. By contrast, Africa is rich in population, priests and religious and a deep youth population who attend Holy Mass. However, the Church in that continent is financially poor and lacks technology and infrastructure.
Going forward, I think that instead of going the way of doctrinal changes as proposed by the German synodal path which is advocating for the blessing of same-sex unions, reshaping the priesthood and diaconate, including the ordination of women, allowing open Communion with Protestants and those in irregular marriages, the Church in Europe and America should form a stronger synergy of exchange of clergy, transfer of ecclesiastical knowledge, training of clergy/religious and sharing of the temporal goods of the Church with Africa, Asia and Latin America. This would make the Universal Church fare better.
Perhaps some questions that the German Church should answer include – Did the October 31, 1517, schism of Martin Luther make the Church better? Are there lessons from the Church of England which opened its doors to some of these doctrinal changes, yet numbers of the faithful have not swelled up since then? So, Africa has challenges such as war, hunger, infrastructure, ethnicity to mention a few that it is contending which the synod tried to address. Simply put, going the way of the German synod is going against the tenets of sacred scripture, sacred tradition and magisterial teachings.
Throughout this process, many confusing proclamations are being made
about the authentic way in which a Catholic follows Jesus. The
Holy Father has at times stepped in and warned others not to follow
the German way and chided that Germany “already has a great
Protestant Church, but I don’t want another one.” How does an ordinary
Catholic know what to do?
Every Catholic, clergy or lay know that they are living in the Truth and following the Way Jesus commanded if they hold to the tenets of sacred scripture, sacred tradition and magisterial teachings as I underscored earlier. The teachings of Jesus do not change. The Church under the guidance of the Pope Francis, the successor of Peter, is the referee. It is heart-warming that the Holy Father had to step in to warn others including Africa not to follow the German example. Our bishops and priests, their collaborators pass on the authentic faith in the one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Every Catholic should look to an institution that has the aforementioned four marks of the true Church established by Christ that started on Pentecost Sunday 33AD. I do not share the view that there were confusing proclamations in the synod about the authentic way in which a Catholic should follow Jesus. The communique is out there – it is commendable that the Church in Africa is committed to co-responsibility, caring for the afflicted, walking together joyfully and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead it “forward to continue to sow new seeds and harvest abundant fruits of synodality.”
The progressive agenda has always been based upon the Church being merely a human, sociological organization where certain lobbies and power groups can manipulate the organization to fit their ideological meme.
Basically, what I am is describing is a “church” without Divinity, without God and what is mentioned of “god” is a kind of Gnosticism that manipulates people into thinking what was unthinkable and alien to God and the Church His Son founded, is now acceptable and of “god” and of that “god’s” spirit.
It is a religious atheism for ideological purposes.
In other words, the Arian heresy basically said Jesus was not divine. Simplified, Jesus was just a good human being.
The truth, though, is that Jesus Christ is One Divine Being, with two natures, Human and Divine.
The same can be said of the Church. It is one Divine Reality, the Mystical Body of Christ comprised of the baptized with Christ as her Head and thus like Christ, the Church, she/her, has two natures, human and divine.
The neo-Arian heresy as it concerns the Church is that it is just a human institution.
Read this John Allen commentary on the mess that Pope Francis has exacerbated of the Church. I think the Gorbachev is a good analogy. But read it and try to find God in Allen’s commentary. He isn’t there. Nor is Divine Truth, the Deposit of Faith, the faith and morals of Christ the risen Lord. And the Church, as Allen’s commentary implies, but is not explicit, is a church without divinity, a mere human construct similar to the Soviet Union, except the church is older. And a leader, be it Gorbachev for the Soviet Union, or Pope Francis for the Church can cause an implosion resulting it demise.
But can Pope Francis do that to a Divine Institution? Is the Church just like the Soviet Union where a leader, even if well-intentioned, sets into motion the “Union’s” demise?
That is the sad reality with synodality and the method of Pope Francis’ governance, It makes a mockery of the Divinity of the Church. But because the Church’s Soul, melded to Her Body in an inextricable way is Divine, Christ, in the long run, will not be mocked.
However, he states that he ordered this vanity to plate from the state of Maine in good faith to promote his vegan lifestyle and his love for tofu.
He says that other stickers on his car indicate he is vegan and you should see this license plate as a vanity plate touting his love for tofu and nothing else.
My question to all my readers, do you have a dirty mind? If so, go to confession!
_______________
December 2022, the Wall Street Journal ran a story under the headline “U.S. Catholic Priests Are Increasingly Conservative as Faithful Grow More Liberal: Almost half of young clergy in a survey disapprove of the liberalizing Pope Francis.” Citing ongoing research by the Austin Institute via the Survey of American Catholic Priests, the Journal reports:
younger Catholic priests and priests ordained in more recent years tend to be noticeably more conservative than older priests on a host of issues, including politics, theology and moral teaching.
In contrast to this, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University found in 2021 that, among other figures,
thirty-five percent of millennial Catholics have considered leaving the church because of its teaching on LGBT issues.
_______________________
I happen to believe that the laity are more liberal than celibate young clergy who were inspired by the clarity of the two previous popes.
For the most part, I don’t think the laity, in general, are opposed to same sex marriage or all the combinations that lobbies are pushing that are in agreement with the LGBTQ++++ agenda.
I don’t think the majority of the laity are opposed to married clergy of whatever sexual persuasion as the LGBTQ++++ articulates it.
They aren’t opposed to what ever gender, in the LGBTQ++++ anthropology or its many aspects, being ordained to the priesthood and diaconate.
And thus we see where most parishes and an aging clergy, not inspired by the last two popes or even by Humanae Vitae and Vatican II, have not embraced one iota of Vatican II or Humanae Vitae.
They don’t want a Catholic Church that is Vatican II and formed by Pope Paul VI and his Humane Vitae and rational against women’s ordination and the magisterial teachings of Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
The German synodal way is up these ill-formed Catholics craw. They like it and want it.
But the pope has not been as forceful with a humongous schismatic country, Germany and its so-called Catholics, who now want to completely erase Vatican II, Pope St. Paul VI as well as the next three popes, John Paul I, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
What Germany is doing and Pope Francis is neglecting to use an iron fist upon like he has done with traditionalists is to created a new non Catholic Church based upon the experience of Catholicism and its ethos between 1965 up until Humanae Vitae.
With Germany approving a non Catholic and non Christian approach to human sexuality and marriage, Germany has essentially codified the Church of 1965 to 1968, a less than three year tradition and trumped everything that came before 1965 and after 1968.
Germany has not only renounced Vatican II, they have renounced Humanae Vitae in its entirety. Germany has renounced the Catholic Church and Germany has renounced God, the ultimate blasphemy and sacrilege.
And Pope Francis and his weak-knee response to Germany and the world? Who am I to judge? And after all we are all sinners. And thus Germany is given a pass because what Germany has done is exactly what Pope Francis wants and Catholics who are traditional and accept Vatican II, Pope Paul’s Humanae Vitae and Pope Benedict’s interpretation of Vatican II are the ones judged and condemned.
Welcome to Pope Francis’ upside down church.
Yet, he is seen in Rome publicly con celebrating a Mass. But if he wanted to celebrate a private TLM at an obscure altar in the undercroft of Saint Peter’s, he would have been stopped!
But traditionalists who prefer the TLM are crushed, segregated, harassed and bishops have their authority over the oversight of this and every form of the Mass curtailed and removed.
It appears that the Church of synodality and conversion to it is replacing the Church Jesus founded and conversion to Christ.
Who would have thought?
I went to Hilton Head’s other parish, Saint Francis By the Sea, for their Lenten Penance Service.
It was the first time I was there and they recently did a refurbishment of the inside of the church. The entire complex is very nicely done and landscaped and on a beautiful piece of Hilton Head property.
There are only two changes to the formula for absolution, “poured out” and “grant” as you see in the formula below. I realized that I have been saying “grant you pardon and peace” my entire 43 years as a priest, instead of “give you pardon and peace.” I always have been ahead of my time!
I am, though, having a hard time remembering to say “poured out the Holy Spirit” as I still say “sent the Holy Spirit”. Sent is stuck in my aging mind!
Here are the words for the new Absolution formula, which is really a small change and for the better:
Backwardism has become a new cliche, but perhaps not in the way Pope Francis meant it, but he certainly has engendered nostalgia in the longing for the 1970’s crowd. This pope has been their Time Machine back to a better place for them prior to the last two popes.
Laugh and weep at this story. You can’t make it up unless you are in a Time Machine!
Thus this sad commentary on the hypocrisy of the Vatican, and quite sadly, Pope Francis, who is responsible for it, must be told.
What Pope Francis has done in this regard, has nothing to do with Vatican II, it is the ultramontanism of Vatican I:
Press title:
I am a Novus Ordo man, but I reject, indeed I deplore, the blunderbuss anti-Vatican II polemic of a marginal minority of liturgical traditionalists, who foolishly point a loaded gun to their Roman enemies.
Even his magic circle of advisors acknowledge that he has been a very divisive figure and His Holiness has to own that and not blame it on the polarizing factions His Holiness has enabled or at least exacerbated.
Because Pope Francis is so much a part of the period of Church history of his youth, the 1970’s, I know, because I was schooled in it, that pastoral theology was at its zenith in the 1970’s.
In my very progressive seminary, we had all kinds of pastoral theology classes, courses and pastoral experiences as a part of our academic preparation for ordination.
This emphasis on pastoral theology and care was in reaction to a more doctrinaire approach that priests took with their parishioners, more black and white, more condemning and quick to anger and quick to judge of the pre-Vatican II period. I think many Catholics of the pre-Vatican II era of the Church know that there was an authoritarianism in the clergy and many of the religious orders of men and women. They weren’t always very kind and a bit rigid and inflexible with the foibles of their flock.
I think in the post Vatican II era, and even within communities of traditionalists with the TLM, pastoral theology and care abounds in a way that it may not have abounded prior to the Second Vatican Council.
Pope Francis’ papacy has emphasized pastoral care, flexility in pastoral care and an embrace of sinners in a loving way. But he does preach conversion and calls for turning away from sin. And he names the worst kind of Catholic as one who is not just a sinner but also thoroughly corrupt. The corrupt risk the fires of hell.
Pastoral theology is just that, theology. It is an art. It is not a science and it certainly isn’t a dogma. Thus the manner in which pastoral theology is applied to particular situations varies from clergy to clergy.
Thus this commentary from the the triple super ultramontane blog, “Where Peter is” which gives us some hope in a Church where it appears the pope and his magic circle want to imitate liberal Protestantism that has led to its demise:
BY PAUL FAHEY
Press title:
I have written many times before about the difference between grave matter and mortal sin. The Catechism identifies grave matter as a breaking one of the Ten Commandments, whereas mortal sin is grave matter and “knowledge of the sinful character of the act” and “consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice”
But what he said at sentencing to Murdaugh here was fantastic:
“Within your own soul, you have to deal with that. And I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the night time when you’re attempting to go to sleep and I’m sure they come and visit you.”
“All day, and every night,” said Murdaugh, who maintained his innocence during the sentencing hearing.
“And they will continue to do so and reflect on the last time they looked you in the eyes,” the judge then replied.
Okay, I know I am opening myself up to criticism here, because priests should not watch or hear certain things and words and crass conversation.
As I write this commentary, I am actually watching the show. I am laughing out loud. I love this guy! I am rolling in the aisles of my tiny condo.
But, if you are an adult, don’t mind crass, explicative laced comedy, then watch Chris Rock, Selected Outrage.
It is social commentary at its best and genius. He is an evangelist for common sense.
He names the disease of our culture today and the Church herself, although he does not lampoon the Church. He lampoons the grotesque culture we live within.
His abortion segment, might make you uncomfortable, but he basically says what Pope Francis has said, but in hilarious way—yet he names it for what it is! I think those who cheered when he said that a woman has a right to choose—and yes, he said, I support your right to abort yourself! Genius. That made them think. He went on to say, I support your right to kill children. That’s what they are!
He danced around the LGBTQ+++ crap which tells you this is the one area that you had better thread lightly. But he made his points, but he knew that this area was dangerous for him, yet he accomplished it a rather genius way!
You will be offended by the language, and yes some of it pornographic language. But don’t miss the social commentary. Our woke culture of selected outrage needs to hear this and hear this they will because of who he is and how he says it.
I would love to hear Chris Rock, if he were a Catholic, and I don’t think he is, thus, it wouldn’t work for him to do it, but a Catholic like him, to do a comedy routine on certain aspects of the Church today and the culture of listening and inclusivity that the woke Magisterium “f***s us with!
Watch Chris Rock, Selected Outrage if you dare! It’s the new evangelization in a worldly way!
