Papa Francisco: "Creéis que hoy no se hacen sacrificios humanos? ¡Se hacen muchos, muchos! Y hay leyes que protegen esto"

CIUDAD DEL VATICANO, 18 de noviembre de 2013 (Zenit.org) - El papa Francisco ha pedido este lunes que el Señor nos salve del “espíritu mundano que lo negocia todo”, no solo los valores, también la fe. Durante su homilía de esta mañana en la Casa Santa Marta, el pontífice ha advertido también que es necesario estar en guardia ante “una globalización de la uniformidad hegemónica”, fruto de la mundanidad.

El Pueblo de Dios prefiere alejarse del Señor ante una propuesta de mundanidad. El santo padre se ha referido a la Primera Lectura, una cita del Libro de los Macabeos, para detenerse en la “raíz perversa” de la mundanidad. Los guías del pueblo, ha destacado el papa, no quieren que Israel se aísle de las demás naciones, y así abandonan sus propias tradiciones para ir a negociar con el rey. Van a “negociar” y están encantados por ello. Es, ha recalcado, como si dijesen “somos progresistas, vamos con el progreso adonde va toda la gente”. Se trata, ha advertido, del “espíritu del progresismo adolescente”, que “se cree que ir detrás de cualquier elección es mejor que permanecer en las costumbres de la fidelidad”

Esta gente, por tanto, negocia con el rey “la fidelidad al Dios que siempre es fiel”.  “Esto, ha advertido el papa, se llama apostasía”, “adulterio”. No están, de hecho, negociando valores, ha subrayado, “sino que negocian con la esencia de su ser: la fidelidad al Señor”.

“Esta es una contradicción: no negocian con los valores, sino con la fidelidad. Esto es el fruto del demonio, del príncipe de este mundo, que nos lleva adelante con el espíritu de mundanidad. Y después, llegan las consecuencias. Han tomado las costumbres de los paganos, después se va un paso adelante: el rey ordena que, en todo su reino, todos formasen un solo pueblo, abandonando cada uno sus propias costumbres. No es la bella globalización de la unidad de todas las Naciones, cada una con sus propias costumbres pero unidas, sino que es la globalización de la uniformidad hegemónica, es la del pensamiento único. Y este pensamiento único es fruto de la mundanidad”.

A continuación, ha recordado, “todos los pueblos se adecuaron a las órdenes del rey; aceptaron también su culto, sacrificaron a los ídolos y profanaron el sábado”. Paso a paso “se va por este camino”. Y al final, ha relatado el papa, “el rey alzó sobre el altar un abominación de devastación”.

“¿Pero, padre, esto también sucede hoy? Sí. Porque el espíritu de la mundanidad también existe hoy, también hoy nos lleva, con esta voluntad de ser progresistas, hacia el pensamiento único. Si a alguien se le encontraba el Libro de la Alianza y se sabía que obedecía la Ley, la sentencia del rey lo condenaba a muerte: esto lo hemos leído en los periódicos, en estos meses. Esta gente ha negociado con la fidelidad a su Señor; esta gente, movida por el espíritu del mundo, ha negociado con su propia identidad, ha negociado con su pertenencia a un pueblo, un Pueblo muy amado por Dios, que Dios quiere que sea suyo”.

El pontífice se ha referido, después, a la novela de principios del siglo XX “El Señor del mundo” que habla de este “espíritu de mundanidad que nos lleva a la apostasía”. Hoy, ha advertido el santo padre, se piensa que “debemos ser como todos, debemos ser más normales, como hacen todos, con este progresismo adolecente”. Y, ha observado amargamente, “continua la historia”: “Las condenas a muerte, los sacrificios humanos”. “Pero vosotros, es la pregunta del papa ¿creéis que hoy no se hacen sacrificios humanos? ¡Se hacen muchos, muchos! Y hay leyes que protegen esto”.

Lo que nos consuela es que ante este camino que hace el espíritu del mundo, el príncipe de este mundo, el camino de infidelidad, siempre permanece el Señor, que no puede negarse a sí mismo, el Fiel: Él siempre nos espera, Él nos ama tanto y nos perdona cuando nosotros, arrepentidos por haber dado un paso, aunque sea uno pequeño, en este espíritu de mundanidad, volvemos hacia Él, el Dios fiel a su Pueblo que no es fiel. Con el espíritu de hijos de la Iglesia recemos al Señor para que con Su bondad, con Su fidelidad, nos salve de este espíritu mundano que negocia todo: que nos proteja y nos haga seguir adelante, como hizo que anduviera su pueblo por el desierto, llevándolo de la mano, como un papá lleva a su hijo. De la mano del Señor estaremos seguros”.
(RED/IV)

Vescovo Gesuita: «Vogliono distruggere matrimonio e famiglia» - di Josip Horvatiček

In NBQ

Anche a Zagabria c’è un gesuita che fa parlare molto di sé: è monsignor Valentin Pozaić, vescovo ausiliare della capitale croata, personalità combattiva che ama parlare senza mezzi termini. Un suo recente durissimo intervento a una conferenza sull’ideologia di genere aveva provocato una dura reazione da parte delle autorità dello Stato, che sono arrivate quasi sul punto di farlo arrestare.

Il coraggio apostolico di mons. Pozaić si è nuovamente manifestato lo scorso primo novembre, in occasione della messa di Ognissanti, presso il più grande cimitero di Zagabria, il Mirogoj, trasmessa in diretta dal primo canale della televisione pubblica. Questa messa, e la successiva preghiera e benedizione per i defunti, viene celebrata ogni anno dall’arcivescovo cardinale Josip Bozanić; è interessante notare come, in assenza del cardinale, in viaggio pastorale negli Stati Uniti, sia stato scelto a rappresentarlo proprio monsignor. Pozaić, e non, ad esempio, uno degli altri due vescovi ausiliari, l’intellettuale Mons. Ivan Šaško o il più compassato monsignor Mijo Gorski. Alla luce di ciò che è poi avvenuto, questa è stata quindi una vera e propria investitura del vescovo gesuita da parte del vertice della Chiesa zagabrese affinché, in diretta televisiva, pronunciasse un messaggio ben preciso.

Commentando il Vangelo delle Beatitudini, mons. Pozaić afferma che Gesù «parla delle beatitudini per gli innocenti, per le “pecore in mezzo ai lupi”, per il mondo del bene in lotta contro il male, per la luce in lotta contro le tenebre, per la pace nel mondo nel quale regna il disordine». Lucifero, il primo motore della rivoluzione del male nei cuori degli uomini e nel mondo, «rifiuta le beatitudini e la loro benedizione, offre Babilonia, Sodoma e Gomorra, guerre e persecuzioni, famiglie e case distrutte».

Se Dio è respinto, prosegue il vescovo ausiliare di Zagabria, cessano di valere la legge naturale e quella di Dio; l’uomo, la famiglia e la nazione si perdono, e di conseguenza «la menzogna prende il posto della verità, il male diventa qualcosa di bello, il peccato è attraente e il sacro viene deriso». L’uomo delle Beatitudini è invitato a ricordare che «la verità diventa oggetto di commercio quando l’”alzata di mano” in nome della democrazia diventa un rito in favore dell’ideologia criminale del regime del momento. Al contrario, dalle Beatitudini nasce la trasformazione della mente e del cuore, e non il rivolgimento». Da questo rivolgimento e dalla rivoluzione culturale in atto si hanno, come conseguenza, «rotture familiari e sociali, disprezzo della vita umana al suo inizio e alla sua fine, il rifiuto di quella prima benedizione biblica: “Andate e moltiplicatevi”, e invece della cultura della vita, domina la piaga della morte».

Mons. Pozaić denuncia la sistematica distruzione legalizzata del matrimonio e della famiglia, colonne portanti di una società sana: «Al posto di un’educazione sana, viene imposta l’ideologia del lavaggio del cervello, l’ottundimento della coscienza, il disprezzo dei genitori e dei loro diritti. Chi vive le Beatitudini va incontro alla persecuzione; la cristianofobia assume dimensioni dolorose in tutto il mondo e anche nella nostra bella Patria, e si manifesta attraverso una rivoluzione culturale»; essa provoca «il sovvertimento della scala dei valori, lo scombussolamento dei mezzi e degli scopi, dei valori morali e materiali, di ciò che si può comperare e vendere, e di ciò per cui non esiste prezzo: la persona, la coscienza e la libertà, l’onore e la dignità».

Celebrando la festa di Tutti i Santi, afferma Pozaić, i cristiani confermano «la bellezza e la sublimità di quella visione primordiale e integrale dell’uomo creato maschio e femmina a immagine di Dio, e questi due saranno una sola carne, e saranno portatori di nuova vita, formando, attraverso il matrimonio, una famiglia secondo il piano di Dio per il loro bene personale, per il bene della nazione e dell’umanità, della città dell’uomo sulla terra e della città di Dio in Cielo».

Il vescovo ausiliare di Zagabria ha poi concluso la sua omelia ricordando che, percorrendo il cammino che porta al traguardo delle Beatitudini, noi non siamo soli, bensì camminiamo come comunità dei figli di Dio, come Chiesa raccolta attorno alla nostra Madre Maria, Regina di tutti i santi, dei beati, dei martiri, dei testimoni della fede: «La barca di Pietro, la comunità dei santi e dei redenti, è vincitrice nelle tentazioni terrene, e anche se è segnata dalla debolezza dei passeggeri all’interno ed è colpita da persecuzioni e tribolazioni dall’esterno, essa naviga in sicurezza verso il porto sicuro della salvezza, poiché al suo timone è Cristo il vincitore».

Ovviamente l’omelia ha provocato reazioni indignate da parte dei nemici di Dio, della Chiesa e dell’uomo. Ma la novità è che monsignor Pozaić viene attaccato prendendo a pretesto le parole di papa Francesco. Ad esempio, il ministro dell’Istruzione Jovanović, il cui programma di perversione dei bambini e dei giovani nelle scuole croate può essere trovato qui, scrive sul proprio profilo Facebook: «Mons. Pozaić ha letto almeno un libro di papa Francesco!? Dopo avere ascoltato un’altra delle sue “omelie” sono sicuro che non l’abbia fatto», e giù una lunga citazione per dimostrare che papa Francesco è contrario “agli eticisti senza bontà”.

In un commento per lo Jutarnji List, anche la giornalista Jelena Lovrić contrappone il vescovo Pozaić, apostrofato come “politicamente estremista” e “demonio”, a Papa Francesco, il quale, in occasione del recente incontro con il presidente croato Josipović avrebbe «trasmesso messaggi completamente diversi, messaggi di pacificazione, comprensione e collaborazione».

Pope Enlists St. Michael in Reform of Curia - by Dr. William Oddie

In Crisis 

I am wondering if a little noticed—certainly little commented upon—event, which took place Friday, July 5, in the gardens of Vatican City, establishes a connection between two apparently quite different subjects about which I have written recently: the first is the frequency with which Pope Francis refers to the devil; the second is the question of what is necessary for him to achieve the long desperately needed reform of the the Roman curia.

Last Friday, in what was surely a very striking and dramatic papal act, Pope Francis blessed a dramatic sculpture depicting St Michael the Archangel battling with the devil; but he did a lot more than that: he placed the Vatican City state and all who live and work there under the archangel’s protection. This is what he said:

In the Vatican Gardens there are several works of art. But this, which has now been added, takes on particular importance, in its location as well as the meaning it expresses. In fact it is not just a celebratory work but an invitation to reflection and prayer, that fits well into the Year of Faith. Michael—which means ‘Who is like God’—is the champion of the primacy of God, of His transcendence and power. Michael struggles to restore divine justice and defends the People of God from his enemies, above all from the enemy par excellence, the devil.

And St. Michael wins because in him, it is God who acts. This sculpture reminds us, then, that evil is overcome, the enemy is unmasked, his head crushed, because salvation was accomplished once and for all in the blood of Christ. Though the devil always tries to disfigure the face of the Archangel and that of humanity, God is stronger, it is His victory and His salvation that is offered to all men. We are not alone on the journey or in the trials of life, we are accompanied and supported by the Angels of God, who offer…. their wings to help us overcome so many dangers, in order to fly high compared to those realities that can weigh down our lives or drag us down. In consecrating Vatican City State to St. Michael the Archangel, I ask him to defend us from the evil one and banish him.

Pope Francis’s focus on the devil has aroused comment in the secular press, of course, and not without reason. The secular mind thinks it shows either that he is some kind of religious maniac, or at the very least that he is quaintly old-fashioned in his language. What it actually shows is his knowledge that we are all, in our lives, in a continual battle against evil. This is a constant focus of the Holy Father’s thinking and teaching. As Sandro Magister wrote recently, Francis “refers to [the devil] continually. He combats him without respite. He does not believe him to be a myth, but a real person, the most insidious enemy of the Church.” And now he has invoked the protection of the Holy Archangel over Vatican City itself, and has prayed that he will banish the evil one from its purlieus. He sees that there is, unfolding in that place, a struggle between good and evil. I recently quoted those telling words of his: “… it is difficult. In the Curia, there are also holy people, really, there are holy people. But there also is a stream of corruption, there is that as well, it is true… The ‘gay lobby’ is mentioned, and it is true, it is there… We need to see what we can do….”

“We need to see what we can do.” The Holy Father clearly does see the banishment of the evil one from his little kingdom as a major priority. That reminds us that one of the eight Cardinals the Pope has chosen to help him in the reformation of the Roman Curia, the only one actually resident in Rome, is Cardinal Guiseppe Bertello, governor of the Vatican City State; and it should remind us, too, that the reform of the Roman curia isn’t just a matter of cleaning up its functional disorganization: it’s a matter of driving out actual evil, the “stream of corruption” which in the end overwhelmed the pontificate of Pope Benedict. Pope Francis also prayed on Friday that St Michael would intercede to help “make us victorious over the temptations of power, riches and sensuality” and keep Vatican employees strong in “the good fight of the faith.”

In my blogpost on the subject I suggested that one thing the Pope needed was what I termed a godly hit man, to identify the corrupt and drive them out. For if one thing is certain, it is that the devil is always most active where he is most threatened: and the demonic undermining of those who lead the Church at all levels has been through the ages an obvious Satanic tactic, often—and certainly today—appallingly successful within the Roman Curia itself. I am quite sure that this pope sees the corruption that has overtaken his administration as inspired by the evil one: and now, in consecrating the Vatican to the Archangel’s protection and in asking him “to defend us from the evil one and banish him,” he has invoked, on the entire process of curial reform, the archangel’s active and by no means necessarily peaceable help. I asked for a “Godly hit man”; when appointed, he will have a powerful supernatural patronage over his work.

“We need to see what we can do”: It is clear that one of the most powerful actions the Pope has already taken to turn back the “stream of corruption” within the Roman Curia is to place the Vatican and all those who work there under the protection and influence of the Holy Archangel Michael. All Catholics need to pray that in that battle he will prevail.

Holy Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do you, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Encíclica do Papa Francisco sobre a Fé

A Luz da Fé

A Beatiful and profound meditation by Msgr. Charles Pope: A Prophetic Interpretation of Reality for Our Times

In AW  

Scripture is a prophetic interpretation of reality. That is, it tells us what is really going on from the perspective of the Lord of History. As an inspired text it traces out not only the current of the times, but also the trajectory, the end to which things tend. It is of course important for us to read Scripture with the Church and exercise the care the Church would have us show and, at the end of the day, to submit our understanding to the rule of faith and the context of Sacred Tradition.
 

With those parameters in mind, I would like to consider Romans 1, wherein St. Paul describes the grave condition of the Greco-Roman culture of his day. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he prophetically interpreted those times of the First Century AD. And, though the text speaks specifically to those times, it is easily evident that our current times are becoming almost identical to what St. Paul and the Holy Spirit described.

St. Paul saw a once noble culture that was in grave crisis and was in the process of being plowed under by God for its willful suppression of the truth.

Let’s take a look at the details of this prophetic interpretation of those days and apply it to our own. The text opens without any niceties, and words reach us almost like lead pellets.

I. The Root of the Ruin - The text says, The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

As the curtain draws back, we not eased into the scene at all. We are confronted at once with the glaring lights of judgment and the woeful word: “wrath.” And note that the wrath of God is called here a revelation. That is to say it is a word of truth that revels, and prophetically interprets reality for us. The wrath is the revelation!

Quite astonishing really and directly contrary to our modern tendency to see God only as the “affirmer in chief;” whose love for us in understood only in sentimental terms, never in terms of a strong love that insists for us what is right and true, and what is ultimately what we need, not just what we want.

And what is the “wrath of God?” The wrath of God is our experience of the total incompatibility of unrepented sin before the holiness of God. The unrepentant sinner cannot endure the presence, and the holiness of God, There is for such a one wailing and grinding of teeth, anger and even rage when confronted by the existence of God and the demands of His justice and holiness. God’s wrath does not mean in some simplistic sense that God is “mad” as if being emotionally worked up to fury. God is not moody and unstable. God is not subject to temper tantrums like we are. Rather this, God is holy, and the unrepentant sinner cannot endure his holiness, but experiences it as wrath.

To the degree that God’s wrath is in Him, it is his passion to set things right. God is patient and will wait and work to draw us to repentance. But his justice and truth cannot forever tarry, and when judgment sets in on a person or culture, a civilization or epoch, his holiness and justice are reveled as wrath to the unrepentant, be it an individual or a culture.

And what was the central sin of St. Paul’s day, and our own too? Simply stated in the verse, THE sin of Romans 1 is this, (and it is the sin that leads to every other problem): they suppress the truth by their wickedness.

Note this well, those who seek to remain in their wickedness suppress the truth. It was the problem in St. Paul’s day and also in ours. On account of wickedness, and a desire to persist in sin, many suppress the truth. The catechism of the Catholic Church warns,

by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin….it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful. (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 37)

 

Yes, and St Paul also told St. Timothy

 

For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. (2 Tim 4:3)

 

And as Isaiah had described:

 

They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions! (Isaiah 30:10)

 

Yes, on account of a desire to cling to their sin and to justify themselves, people in Paul’s day and now as well suppress the truth. And while this human tendency has always existed, it has taken on a widespread and collective tendency in our own times, as it did in St. Paul’s age.  There is an increasing and widespread tendency for people of our own time in the decadent West to go on calling good, or no big deal what God calls sinful.

As such we suppress the truth and now, as then, the wrath of God is being revealed. We shall see just how his wrath is revealed in a moment. But the text makes it clear, on account of the sin of the repeated, collective and obstinate suppression of the truth, God’s wrath is being revealed on the culture of the decadent West.

II. Revelation that is Refused - The text goes on to say,  and since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. – (Romans 1:19-20)

Note well that God the Holy Spirit and St. Paul attest that the suppression of the truth is willful. We are not dealing with simple ignorance here. And while it is true that the Pagan people of St. Paul’s day did not have the Scriptures, nevertheless, they are “without excuse.” Why? Because they had the revelation of creation. Creation reveals God, and speaks not only to His existence, but also to his attributes, to his justice and to his  his power, his will and the good order He instills in what he has made and thus expects of us.

All of this makes even those raised outside the context of faith, whether in the First Century or own day, to be “without excuse.”

The Catechism also couches our responsibility to discover and live the truth as rooted in the existence of something called the conscience:

Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths….It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments….[Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #s 1776-1778).

Again, and therefore, because of the witness and revelation of the Created order, and on account of the conscience present and operative in all who have attained the use of reason, those who suppress the truth are without excuse for this suppression. They are suppressing what, deep down, they know.

It has been my experience for 25 years as a pastor working with sinners (and not being without sin myself) that those I must confront about their sin, know, deep down, what they are doing. They may have suppressed the still small voice of God, and they may have sought to keep His voice at bay by layers of stinking thinking. They have also collect false teachers to confirm them in their sin and permitted  many deceivers to tickle their ears. But, deep down they know what they do is wrong and, at the end of the day, they are without excuse.

Some degree of the lack of due discretion may ameliorate the severity of their culpability, but ultimately they are without excuse for the suppressing of the truth. There is a revelation of creation (and for many today, also the Word of God which has been preached and heard by most).

But many today, as in Paul’s time refuse revelation, doing so willfully and to justify wickedness, they are without excuse.

III. The Result in the Ranks - The Text says, For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but became vain in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:21-23)

This should seem very familiar. As in St. Paul’s Day, but even more so in ours, a prideful culture has set aside God, whether through explicit atheism and militant secularism, or through neglect and willful tepidity. God has been escorted to the margins of our proud anthropocentric culture. His wisdom has been forcibly removed from our schools, and the public square.  His image and any reminders of him are increasing removed by force of law. And many too mock His holy Name and mention His truth only to ridicule and scorn it as a remnant from the “dark ages.”

Faith and the magnificent deposit of knowledge and culture that has come with it, has been scoffed at as a relic from times less enlightened and scientific than our our own “brilliant” and enlightened times.

Our disdainful culture has become a sort of iconoclastic anti-culture which has systematically put into the shredder every vestige of Godly wisdom it can. The traditional family, human sexuality, chastity, self control, moderation and almost every other virtue have been scorned and willfully smashed by the iconoclasts of this time. To them everything of this sort must go.

And as a prophetic interpretation of reality, the Scripture from Romans describes the result of suppressing the truth and refusing to acknowledge and glorify God. The text says, they became vain in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.

Yes there is a powerful darkening effect that comes from suppressing the truth and refusing the wisdom and revelation of God. While claiming to be so wise, so smart and advanced, we have instead become foolish, and vain, as our intellects grow dimer and darker by the day. Our concern for vain, foolish, passing and silly things knows little bounds today. And yet the things that really do matter, death, judgment, heaven and hell,  are almost never attended to. We run after foolish things but cannot even exercise moderate self control. Our debt knows no bounds but we cannot stop spending. We cannot make or keep commitments, addictions are off the hook, and all most basic indicators indicate grave problems: graduation rates, SAT scores, teenage pregnancy,  STDs, abortion rates, AIDs, Divorces rates, cohabition rates. All the numbers that should be up are down, and the number that should be down are up.

Claiming to be so wise and smart, we have become collectively foolish and even our capacity to think clearly of solutions and have intelligent and meaningful conversations becomes increasingly impossible, since we cannot agree on even basic points. We simply talk past each other and live in separate little stovepipes, in smaller and increasingly self defined worlds.

And if your think the line about idolatry doesn’t apply today, don’t kid yourself. People are into stones and rocks, and all sorts of strange syncretistic combinations of religions, to include the occult. This is the age of the “designer God” wherein people no longer tolerate the revealed God of the Scriptures, but recast, reinvent, and remake a God of their own understanding, who just so happens to agree with everything they think.

And if some troublesome and intolerant priest happens to quote Scripture, well, there are any number of ways that darkened minds can suppress that truth real fast. Yes, idolatry is alive and well in age of a designer God, a personal sort of hand carved idol that can be invoked over an against the true God of the Scriptures.

And for all this people today congratulate themselves for being tolerant, open-minded, non-judgemental and so forth. Our senseless minds have become very dark, our thoughts vain and our behavior foolish.

Our culture is in the very grave condition that this Scripture, this prophetic interpretation of reality describes. There is much for which we are rightfully concerned.

But wait, the darkness, foolishness, idolatry and vanity get even worse. We must read on.

IV. The Revelation of the Wrath – The text says,  Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Rom 1: 24-27)

And here the “wrath” is revealed. The text simply says, “God gave them over to their sinful desires.” This is the wrath, this is the revelation of the total incompatibility of unrepented sin before the holiness of God and the holiness to which we are summoned.

In effect, God says, “OK, if you want sin and rebellion, you can have it. It is all yours. I will now allow you to experience the full consequences of your sinful rebellion. You will now feel the full fury of your own sinful choices.” Yes, God gave them over to their sinful desires….

And as a prophetic interpretation of reality, it seems conclusive that God has also given us over in a similar way to our sinful desires.

And note the first and most prominent effect of this being given over to sinful desires: sexual confusion of a colossal degree. The text describes sexual impurity, the degradation of their bodies, shameful lusts and the shameful acts of homosexual perversion that is condoned and celebrated. The text also speaks of bodily penalties for such action, probably disease and other deleterious effects that come from doing what is unnatural and using the body for purposes for which it is not designed.

Welcome to the 21st Century decaying West.

Many misunderstand what Romans 1 is saying and point to this text to warn us that God will punish us for our condoning and celebrating of homosexual acts. But Romans 1 does not say  God will punish for this. Romans 1 says that the widespread condoning and celebrating of homosexual acts IS God’s punishment, it is the revelation of wrath. It is the first and chief indication that God has given us over to our stubborn sinfulness and to our lust.

Now, let us be careful to distinguish here. The text does not say that homosexuals are per se being punished. For some may mysteriously have this orientation but live chastely. But rather the text is saying we are all being punished.

Why? For over 60 years now the decadent West has celebrated promiscuity, pornography, fornication, cohabitation, contraception, and even to some extent adultery. The resulting carnage of abortion, STDs, AIDs, single motherhood, absent fathers, poverty, and all sorts of hideous and heinous effects on our children has not been enough to bring us to our senses. Our lusts have become wilder and more and more debased.

In contraception we severed the connections between sex, procreation, and marriage. Our senseless minds have become darkened. Sex was reduced to two adults doing what they pleased in order to have fun or “share love (lust).” This opened the door to increasingly debased sexual expression and irresponsibility.

Enter the homosexual community and its demands for acceptance. And the wider culture, now debased, darkened, and deeply confused, cannot comprehend what is frankly obvious, that homosexual acts are wholly contrary to nature. The very design of the body, of the actual body parts shouts against it. But the wider culture, already deeply immersed in its own unnatural confusions about sex via contraception, and an increasing and steady diet by many of highly debased pornography that celebrates both oral and anal sex among heterosexuals, had no answer to the challenge.

We have gone out of our collective mind, our senseless minds are darkened, confused, foolish, and debased. This is wrath, this is what it means to be given over to our sinful desires. This is what happens when God finally has to say to a culture, “If you want sin, you have it, until it comes out of your ears.”

How many tens of millions of aborted babies have been sacrificed to our wild lusts, how high have the other body counts of pain effects gone: children in poverty, without fathers, in confused and broken homes, divorce, STDs, deaths by AIDs. In none of this have we repented.

But in all of it the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Notice again, homosexuals are not being singled out, the wrath is against ALL godlessness and wickedness of all who suppress the truth. And when even our lustful carnage has not been enough to bring us to our senses, God finally says, enough, and gives us over to our own sinful desires to feel their full effect. We have become so collectively foolish and vain in our thinking and darkened in our intellect that we now as a culture “celebrate” homosexual acts which Scripture rightly calls disordered (paraphysin = “contrary to nature” and is the word St. Paul uses in this passage to assess homosexual acts). Scripture also speaks of these sorts of acts as acts of grave depravity that cry to heaven for vengeance.

But, as the text says, Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them (verse 32). This is darkness, this is wrath.

This is what it means to be given over to our sins, a deeply darkened mind. The celebration of homosexual acts IS God’s punishment and demonstrates, according to the text that God has given us over.

V. The  Revolution that Results – The text says, Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  (Romans 1:28-31)

The text states clearly and in very familiar terms the truth that when sex, and marriage and family go into the cultural shredder, and enormous number of social ills are set loose.

This is because children are no longer properly formed. The term “bastard” in its figurative term refers to an incorrigible person, and its more literal meaning is some one who has no father. Both senses are related. And this text says in effect that every starts to act like bastards.

Children raised in large numbers, outside the best setting of a father and a mother in a stable traditional family, is a recipe for the social disaster described in these verses. I will not comment on them any further. They speak well for themselves and well describe our current struggle. Here too is the wrath revealed and the giving over to our sin that God seems to have permitted .

 VI.  The Refusal to Repent - Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:32)

Here too is the mystery of our iniquity, of our stubborn refusal to repent, no matter how high the body count, how clear the evidence. Let us pray we will still come to our senses. But if not, God has a record of allowing civilizations to come and go, nations to rise and fall. If we do not love life we do not have to have it. If we want lies rather than truth, we can have them and feel their full effects.

But somewhere God is saying,

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. (2 Chron 7:14-15)

Oremus!

P. Fernando Paiva sobre a Misericórdia como cura de quem padeceu a dor do aborto provocado

A psicóloga M. José Vilaça fala sobre Teologia do Corpo, ideologia do género e trauma pós-aborto

Preso en el campo nazi de Dachau, Dios le envió «un ángel» y fue feliz en medio del infierno - por Javier Lozano

In RL  

La historia de Bernard Py es la de una conversión, la de un encuentro con Jesucristo en el lugar más insospechado, en un sitio en el que muchos creían que Dios no había aparecido.

Sin embargo, es en la oscuridad donde se manifiesta con mayor fuerza la luz. Y así lo atestigua el ahora médico jubilado francés de 87 años, cuya vida da para un libro, y de hecho lo ha dado.

 

Durante la II Guerra Mundial fue internado junto con su hermano, su padre y su padrino en el campo de concentración nazi de Dachau. Allí vio la maldad y la muerte en primera persona, tanto que ni su padre ni su padrino salieron vivos de aquel fatídico lugar. Pero en medio de este sufrimiento inmenso y de las condiciones infrahumanas este francés “encontró la felicidad”.

 

Detenido por los nazis junto a su familia

¿Cómo ser feliz en medio de tanta muerte? Allí encontró a Dios y asegura que recibió un segundo bautismo. De la muerte pasó a la vida. De la desesperación, de no sentirse persona, de vivir sin esperanza se transformó para poder vivir el día a día bajo la providencia y como un don de Dios. Y todo ello en uno de los sitios más oscuros creados por el hombre en los últimos tiempos, el campo de Dachau.

 

Esta historia de Bernard Py comienza en verano de 1944. Tenía 19 años y era estudiante de Medicina. En sus vacaciones se trasladó junto con su hermano mayor a la residencia familiar.

Allí colaboraron con la resistencia pero la Gestapo localizó  de dónde provenía la ayuda.  Los nazis arrestaron a cientos de personas del pueblo de Py y de los que estaban alrededor, todos los que tuvieran entre 16 y 60 años.

 

Enviado a un campo de concentración

Junto con sus familiares y vecinos fue interrogado brutalmente para que delatara a los líderes de la resistencia. Fue sometido a la tortura de la bañera durante sus interrogatorios e incluso fue víctima de latigazos. De su Francia natal fue trasladado con parte de su familia al campo de Dachau, del que muchos ya no volvieron.

 

Allí les encomendaron tareas sobrehumanas en condiciones lamentables. La esperanza de vida en el campo era de seis meses. Trabajaba la tierra en un horario que iba de las cinco de la madrugada a las ocho de la tarde.

Apenas iban vestidos pese al frío del invierno alemán. Además, estaba aquejado de desnutrición. El deterioro de Py era permanente: perdía peso de manera alarmante y comenzaba a ver afectado su sistema nervioso y cerebral. Y todo ello sin higiene alguna.

Su deterioro físico y espiritual

Sin embargo, el ámbito físico no era su único problema. Había otro de igual o mayor importancia: el personal y espiritual. Su autoestima estaba por los suelos. Se odiaba y se sentía inferior. Comenzaba también en él una muerte óntica, del interior de su ser. Ya no temía la muerte pues era parte de la rutina del día a día mientras las burlas, el maltrato y las palizas hacían en él más mella psicológica que física.

 

El ángel enviado del cielo

Pero justo en el momento más oscuro de su vida, justo cuando tocaba fondo apareció un ángel, un enviado de Dios que le cambió la vida, incluso interno en un campo de concentración nazi.

 

Este ángel no era otro que un joven y valiente fraile dominico, el padre Álex Morelli. Arriesgando su propia vida hizo de manera clandestina de capellán en el campo de concentración. 

El había seguido el llamamiento del arzobispo de París, el cardenal Suhard, para ser capellán clandestino de todos los franceses. Este apostolado le llevó a Dachau y allí siguió desarrollándolo a rajatabla.

 

Y así llegó el encuentro entre este fraile y un joven Bernard sin esperanza, sin vida. Durante semanas y en encuentros breves comienza a hablarle de Dios. “Tardé muchas horas días en absorber lo que me decía durante estos encuentros furtivos puesto que mi alma estaba reseca y sedienta”.

 

“Dios es amor”

Su interior, sin embargo, iba experimentando un cambio. Comenzaba en él a fluir la esperanza aunque en el campo todo externamente fuera a peor.  Y empieza a interiorizar el gran cambio en su vida.  “El padre me hacía entender que Dios es amor” y que se preocupaba por él, sufría por él. Llega a la certeza de que no está sólo.

 

“Este dominico me enseña que tengo dos ayudas esenciales, siempre que las quiera y las pida: la Providencia y la Gracia”, recuerda ahora Bernard casi 60 años después. Confirma que la providencia va apareciendo “misteriosamente y en silencio” en pequeños detalles así como la Gracia, pues a pesar de todo siente la “dignidad de ser hijo de Dios”.

 

El joven Bernard va recuperando su persona. Ni las duras horas de trabajo ni el tifus que asolaba el campo, ni la muerte ni la privación de libertad. Había algo en él que superaba todo esto. Lo que le producía la muerte ahora ya no podía con él.

 

El gran encuentro con Cristo

Pero el encuentro más grande con el Señor estaba aún por llegar. El broche a un encuentro profundo. Un tarde helada de invierno, Bernard recibió del padre Morelli la comunión a escondidas. La sagrada forma estaba envuelta en un trozo de papel que dejó en su bolsillo de la camisa.

 

Mientras trabaja, completamente helado, sintió un calentamiento enorme. Era una explosión de auténtica felicidad en todos los planos: “físico, psicológico y espiritual”. La fuente de calor estaba situada en el pecho y era “Jesús en la Eucaristía”. “Fue un signo personal y único, que permanece en mí inolvidable: la felicidad gustada infinitamente. Posteriormente lo relacioné con una consagración al Sagrado Corazón que habíamos hecho al principio de nuestro internamiento”.

 

Ya no temía a nada. Ni a la muerte, pues estaba convencido de que Dios le daría la gracia de morir cristianamente, ni al trabajo. Era feliz. Feliz en medio de la muerte. “Había recibido una perla inigualable en el infierno”.

 

Su lucha contra el holocausto del siglo XXI

Finalmente, él y su hermano fueron liberados mientras su padre y padrino fallecieron en aquel lugar. Bernard siguió con sus estudios de medicina. Ejerció como tal y tuvo una familia numerosa.

 

Al final de sus años dedicó su vida a ayudar a mujeres embarazadas en dificultades A través de un teléfono las escucha, asesora y anima. Pues es consciente y ha vivido en primera persona otro holocausto similar al del aborto. “Toda vida es frágil y sagrada”, reconoce ahora a sus 87 años, edad que no le impide seguir acompañando a estas mujeres.

Además, ha convertido su casa en un hogar para peregrinos que están de paso. La gratuidad de la vida y del amor le ha hecho dar lo mismo que él mismo recibió hace casi 60 años. 

 

O Sagrado Coração de Jesus - improvisos, por Frei Nuno Allen

Is the Pope Obsessed with the Devil? - by Dr. William Oddie

In Crisis 

Bethany Blankley writes in the Christian Post Opinion website that “The mainstream media is at it again”: “‘The Pope And The Devil: Is Francis an Exorcist?’ an Associated Press (AP) headline reads. The AP reporter writes that ‘Francis’ obsession with Satan’ is because he has mentioned the devil ‘on a handful of occasions’ within a two month period.” Ms. Blankley’s own headline expresses well the obvious rebuttal: “No, Pope Francis is not ‘Obsessed with Satan,’ He’s Just a Christian who Believes in the Devil.”

And indeed, belief in Satan, for Catholics certainly, is not an optional extra. Here’s the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

(391) Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil”. The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.”

(392) Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This “fall” consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter’s words to our first parents: “You will be like God.” The devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and the father of lies.”

David Mills, in First Things, quotes C.S.Lewis, not from Screwtape but from a sermon he preached during the war: “nearly all the references to this subject in the New Testament come from a single source. But then that source is Our Lord Himself. People will tell you it is St Paul, but that is untrue. These overwhelming doctrines are dominical. They are not really removable from the teaching of Christ or of His Church. If we do not believe them, our presence in this church is great tomfoolery. If we do, we must sometime overcome our spiritual prudery and mention them.”

So why don’t we? In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis has a senior devil called Screwtape impress on the mind of an apprentice tempter the vital importance of maintaining disbelief in the existence of Satan, his devils, and their activity in the world, by convincing the object of his attentions of the absurdity of any such idea.

If we disbelieve in the devil’s existence, says Lewis, then that is because Satan himself has successfully convinced us of his non-existence. It’s quite a thought. Here’s Screwtape: “I do not think you will have much difficulty in keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that ‘devils’ are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arrive in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that he therefore cannot believe in you.”

People who write at all regularly about the Church keep one eye on the website of Sandro Magister, who is not only well-informed about events in Vatican City, but is also a regular source of perceptive comment on what’s going on.

Quite a few writers have spotted and quoted from his recent piece “Francis and the Devil,” in which he begins with the stand first “He refers to him continually. He combats him without respite. He does not believe him to be a myth, but a real person, the most insidious enemy of the Church,” and he goes on to point out how rarely we hear of the subject, despite its centrality to the biblical witness: “In the preaching of Pope Francis,” begins Magister, “there is one subject that returns with surprising frequency: the devil. It is a frequency on a par with that with which the same subject recurs in the New Testament (my emphasis). But in spite of this, the surprise remains. If for no other reason than that with his continual references to the devil, Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio parts ways with the current preaching in the Church, which is silent about the devil or reduces him to a metaphor.”

But why, why, why? The existence of Satan and all his angels, ever since I became a Christian, has seemed to me self-evident; that prayer we all say after Mass in the Usus Antiquior (in other words that practicing Catholics without exception once said regularly) for me has a particular and vivid credibility: “Holy Michael Archangel, defend us in the day of battle; be our safeguard against the wickedness of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray: and do thou, Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God thrust down to hell Satan and all wicked spirits, who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls.”

This is no Catholic invention: it is fundamental to the New Testament vision of the world and therefore to the Christian faith: In the words of that unforgettable injunction of St Peter himself:  “Be sober, be vigilant: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring Lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8);  “Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world” (I Peter 5:9). 

It is excellent practical advice; and if you want to know more about its biblical origins, Sandro Magister reproduces an article by Inos Biffi, originally published in Osservatore Romano, called “How the Scriptures speak of the devil,” which Biffi ends by expressing his astonishment at “the absence in preaching and catechesis of the truth concerning the devil. Not to speak of those theologians who, on the one hand, applaud the fact that Vatican II declared Scripture to be the ‘soul of sacred theology’ (Dei Verbum, 24), and, on the other, do not hesitate, if not to decide on [the devil’s] nonexistence, to overlook as marginal a fact that is so clear and widely attested to in Scripture itself as is that concerning the devil, maintaining him to be the personification of an obscure and primordial idea of evil, now demystified and unacceptable.

“Such a conception is a masterpiece of ideology, and above all is equivalent to trivializing the very work of Christ and his redemption.

“This is why,” concludes Biffi, “those references to the devil which we find in the discourses of Pope Francis seem to us anything but secondary.” Precisely so.

The Family Fell First then Faith Followed - by Austin Ruse

In Crisis

The clearest example of the thesis on how family nurtures faith is in vocations. In the olden days larger intact families produced priests. That’s one reason the seminaries bulged back in the baby boom, also why there was something of a religious revival after the Second World War.

But today’s two-child, one-child, no-child, broken-up, broken-down, single-mother, absent-father disasters pretending to be families simply do not produce priests. Today’s disaster families don’t even produce many Church-goers to speak of let alone vocations to religious life.

In her new book How the West Really Lost God, Mary Eberstadt advances the novel idea that the rise of secularism and the decline of religion started with a disruption in the family, that it is the larger intact family that creates religious folk and not the other way around. I gave her central argument short shrift a few weeks ago, so I am back with a closer look.

Traditional secular theory explains that among other things industrialization and urbanization killed religious faith. Eberstadt explains there is an intermediate step between them and the decline of faith.

A fellow moving from the village green to the big city finds many things upon his arrival. Unlike the village, the big city is really expensive and there is not as much room for a large family. But he also discovers the enticements of city life that do not exist in the village, enticements that are inimical to family life—drinking, gambling, prostitution, and the prospect of living a double life. It was not industrialization and urbanization that directly killed the faith. They were the intermediate steps away from the family that killed the faith.

Eberstadt does not offer an ironclad rule about faith only coming within the traditional family. She suggests it is more like a double-helix, that the destiny of faith and family are intimately intertwined. Eberstadt takes us through history to prove her point.

Most people believe the decline in birthrates is a fairly modern phenomenon and they would be wrong. The first country to reach what demographers call the “demographic transition” to dramatically lower fertility was France and this occurred in the 18th century. At the same time in France illegitimacy rose dramatically “from just over 1 percent in the early 18th century to between 10 and 20 percent by the 1780s—and 30% in Paris.”

The French revolution turbocharged family-decline by liberalizing marriage laws and also saw the increased use of contraceptives. Eberstadt writes that religious practice declined precipitously. “Confraternities … saw their membership drop dramatically across the century. Religious bequests in wills declined sharply. Religious symbols became markedly less important in public life; by 1777, the city of Paris could decide that voters would no longer have to swear on the crucifix in electing city councilmen.”

First the French family fell then the faith followed. And France was not alone.

The decline in British fertility began a century later than the French, at “the very height of Victorian England.” What also followed was “fewer births, more divorces, more out-of-wedlock births” such that “by our own time, over half of all children born in Britain are born to unmarried people, and the fertility rate stands at 1.91 children per woman.” And what of the faith in Britain? “Only 15% of the population in the United Kingdom now shows up for church monthly (not weekly).”

Take a look at Ireland. Their demographic transition did not happen until much later. In the 1970s the Irish fertility rate stood at more than 4.0 children per woman. And then it fell off a cliff. Thirty years later Irish fertility had fallen to 1.89. And what about the faith? Mass attendance fell from 91 percent in 1973 to 34% in 2005. In the year 2005 Dublin did not ordain a single priest. Linger over that fact for just a moment.

Eberstadt looks at her thesis from the other direction, too. Are there places and times where a religious revival has followed a baby-boom? She points to an “outbreak of postwar religiosity” in Great Britain (1945-1958), Australia (1955-1963) and West Germany (1952-1962), all of which coincide “almost perfectly” with the postwar baby boom.

The same thing happened in the United States. Gallup polls from the interwar years showed a slight dip in American religiosity but then after the Second World War came the baby-boom and a matching revival of religious faith that only abated with the emergence of the contraceptive pill.

What about America and this thing called American exceptionalism? How is it that this largely secular country has nonetheless kept religious fervor on the boil while the faith in Europe is dying? Though numbers are dropping in the U.S., still figures for Church attendance, orthodox practice, and religious vocations are much higher than in Europe.

Eberstadt points out that as far back as Tocqueville, social scientists and historians have pointed out that American attitudes toward marriage have been different that in Europe. For instance, we never had a tradition of arranged marriages like they did in Europe. And even today, Americans are more marriage minded than Europeans.

Could this change? Eberstadt thinks so. While the U.S. performs better than Europeans in family formation, we are quickly following their lead. A year ago, it was reported that more Americans now live alone than within a family.

Still, there are signs of hope. While the poor and less educated are following the disaster-family model, moderately educated and more affluent Americans are seeing their divorce rates drop, their marriage rates increase and even now it is kind of hip in Hollywood to have more than two children.

Eberstadt’s thesis should make perfect sense to Catholics. Catholics understand that our faith grew from a family, the Holy Family. We revere the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph because it was from their home that Our Savior and therefore our faith came. Christ could have sprung fully formed without mother or father, but he didn’t and neither does our faith grow that way either. We likely learned our faith from our mother. Moreover, as Eberstadt makes clear in this book, our very presence as children likely made our mother’s and our father’s faith grow, too.

Family and faith is the double helix that saves souls and civilizations.