R
ringil
Guest
Well, the Church is both human and divine. I hate to read this stuff as well but I trust the Holy Father implicitly. I pray this political intrigue, if true, passes away very soon.
- Status
R
Rommegrot
Guest
When these things come up, I think it’s important to remember that the Church has always had leaders who haven’t lived up to their roles. After all, even among the Apostles, chosen by Christ, there were scandals. All but one abandoned Him at the cross. The first pope denied Him 3 times. One apostle, Judas, betrayed Him.
Point being, because the church is made up of sinners, we have had and will always have scandals. But in the end, we can trust that Christ stands behind His church and it is guided by the Holy Spirit.
This too shall pass.
Point being, because the church is made up of sinners, we have had and will always have scandals. But in the end, we can trust that Christ stands behind His church and it is guided by the Holy Spirit.
This too shall pass.
J
Jim_Dandy
Guest
Your affiliation says Baptist. Baptists are not Catholic. No one is a Catholic apart from Christ’s Church. The Church is impeccable (incapable of sinning) and infallible (prevented by Christ and the Spirit from teaching error). Christ loves His Church; He “handed himself over for her, to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” Ephesians 5:25-33. A Catholic, by definition, believes everything the Church teaches, since it was revealed by God who does not deceive. However, the Church’s members are human beings, and they are sinners, every one, most notably me. Lord, have mercy!
Jim Dandy
Ex-Baptist, ex-agnostic, ex-atheist, ecstatic to be Catholic!
J
jrogoffmetro
Guest
Sorry should change my profile to Catholic.
I am glad you can stand by all the Church has ever done and taught. Perhaps one day I will too but as for today I put my trust in Jesus. If that makes me not Catholic in your eyes or even the eyes of the church so be it. I have come to peace with that.
But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
Psalm 13:4-6
I am glad you can stand by all the Church has ever done and taught. Perhaps one day I will too but as for today I put my trust in Jesus. If that makes me not Catholic in your eyes or even the eyes of the church so be it. I have come to peace with that.
But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
Psalm 13:4-6
R
Rich_Olszewski
Guest
The title “Catholic” is not an exclusive copyrighted possession of the Catholic Church headquartered in Vatican City. “Catholic” is ordinarily used and generally understood to refer to Christians loyal to Rome, but the word itself is used by some other churches in their name, and is used, hyphenated, in such terms as Anglo-Catholic, Anglican Catholic and Catholic Anglican to describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism which affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches.
But we are, to be sure, the original Catholics!
R
ricks1948
Guest
I read that article this morning, the only thing I got out of it was a lot MSM drama about nothing. It sounded to me like it jumped around, sure the Pope is old, they usally are, contracts, banks, power struggle all drama. I don’t know mabe I’m just dense.
N
NewEnglandPriest
Guest
There’s nothing new in this article that anyone who follows the Vatican wouldn’t already know. Cardinals and Archbishops have reputations and rumors attached to them all. Everything should be taken with a grain of salt. Power struggles seem bad, but they’re done by individuals/groups that think what they’re doing is best for the Church. Think about it, when a managerial position opens up at where anyone works there are always people who jockey for it and they each have supporters and detractors.
I read nothing in this article that was suddenly unique or terrible. I even LOL’d for a few minutes at the phrase “a leaked poison pen memo.” “Poison pen memo/letter” are such clerical expressions…
I read nothing in this article that was suddenly unique or terrible. I even LOL’d for a few minutes at the phrase “a leaked poison pen memo.” “Poison pen memo/letter” are such clerical expressions…
J
jilly4ski
Guest
This is the worst piece of dribble I have ever seen passed off as news. If you look closely, they didn’t actually report any facts. Some “allegations” by unnamed sources, some unrelated facts (8 Italians are being raised to Cardinal and 7 of those worked under Bertone) and mashed that together with speculation that this is some sort of coordinated plot (regardless of the fact as Italians have always had the majority in the cardinalate, and the curial offices) . They certainly didn’t report the facts of the supposed leaked documents. No quotes, nothing, except something about how some people knew that a diplomat had reported corruption before he was transferred (to Washington non the less). I don’t know much about Vatican governance, but going from a deputy governor where you are #2 in care of grounds and infrastructure to becoming a Washington diplomat doesn’t really sound like a demotion.
The language used is also unprofessional of a journalist. I particularly “love” this paragraph.
The language used is also unprofessional of a journalist. I particularly “love” this paragraph.
Oh really, “senior church officials” and who might they be? Daily embarrassments? Force the Pope? This isn’t news this is editorial spin on a minor story that nobody has any facts about, so they just decide to make them up, to get their readers interested. This is how the entire article unfolds, the very next paragraph uses the phrase “power struggle” and continue to cite a bishop with “direct knowledge of the Vatican’s affairs.”
B
bellasbane
Guest
I would agree with you, except that my cousin who was born, raised and lives in Italy, has a very negative view of the Church hierarchy because of stuff like this. He says what filters into the American media is just the tip of the iceberg. He thinks American Catholics are woefully naive.This is the worst piece of dribble I have ever seen passed off as news. If you look closely, they didn’t actually report any facts. Some “allegations” by unnamed sources, some unrelated facts (8 Italians are being raised to Cardinal and 7 of those worked under Bertone) and mashed that together with speculation that this is some sort of coordinated plot (regardless of the fact as Italians have always had the majority in the cardinalate, and the curial offices) . They certainly didn’t report the facts of the supposed leaked documents. No quotes, nothing, except something about how some people knew that a diplomat had reported corruption before he was transferred (to Washington non the less). I don’t know much about Vatican governance, but going from a deputy governor where you are #2 in care of grounds and infrastructure to becoming a Washington diplomat doesn’t really sound like a demotion.
The language used is also unprofessional of a journalist. I particularly “love” this paragraph.
Oh really, “senior church officials” and who might they be? Daily embarrassments? Force the Pope? This isn’t news this is editorial spin on a minor story that nobody has any facts about, so they just decide to make them up, to get their readers interested. This is how the entire article unfolds, the very next paragraph uses the phrase “power struggle” and continue to cite a bishop with “direct knowledge of the Vatican’s affairs.”
So when I read stuff like this and evaluate it against history - I tend to believe it even if I wish it weren’t true. There is never any real way to tell. It’s not like the Church hierarchy is famous for their transparency. All we can do is pray God will send us good priests. At least that’s what my Italian mother always taught me.
U
unafraid
Guest
This is Dan Brown-style factless sensationalism packaged to appear as legitimate journalism, and the implications of it are alarming. Unconfirmed anonymous inuendo being promulgated as factual reportage and cynically being fed to deliberately wound the Roman Catholic Church. Why? It is malicious, and it is premeditated.
Just another spear thrust into the side of the Church. They smell blood, and they are bloodthirsty. Step back, and gather your wits when you read these things, because they are designed to confuse and demoralize us. Please beware of the cunning of our enemies. They have malice in their hearts. In their incivility is shown their vile natures.
Always remember that we obtain our Baptism from the priests of our Holy Church; they do not. We receive our Eucharist from the priests of our Church; they do not. We confess our sins, we get married…we receive Last Rights from priests of our Roman Catholic Church; they do not. It is OUR faith, OUR religion, and the beauty and majesty found therein is OURS, not theirs. Who are they to attack, with impunity, OUR religion, more than any other institution, with lies and unsubstantiated slanders?
We all know that our Roman Catholic Church is the one true religion in which the full deposit of the Christian faith is held, venerated, and expressed fully and sacramentally. Evil does not seek to destroy another evil; evil seeks to destroy only what is good. The Roman Catholic Church is the target of attacks because it is the last standing impediment to the moral relativism, nihilism and atheism espoused by this world’s elites. It is simply Good vs. Evil. Please don’t let them fool you.
Go into church, and go up to the altar, and kneel, then look around and take in the breadth of your religion, and what it means to you. What they would destroy is something which they can’t even fathom. But we can. We are the Church. Don’t allow them to infuence what your heart knows to be true, good, and holy. Stand your ground.
Just another spear thrust into the side of the Church. They smell blood, and they are bloodthirsty. Step back, and gather your wits when you read these things, because they are designed to confuse and demoralize us. Please beware of the cunning of our enemies. They have malice in their hearts. In their incivility is shown their vile natures.
Always remember that we obtain our Baptism from the priests of our Holy Church; they do not. We receive our Eucharist from the priests of our Church; they do not. We confess our sins, we get married…we receive Last Rights from priests of our Roman Catholic Church; they do not. It is OUR faith, OUR religion, and the beauty and majesty found therein is OURS, not theirs. Who are they to attack, with impunity, OUR religion, more than any other institution, with lies and unsubstantiated slanders?
We all know that our Roman Catholic Church is the one true religion in which the full deposit of the Christian faith is held, venerated, and expressed fully and sacramentally. Evil does not seek to destroy another evil; evil seeks to destroy only what is good. The Roman Catholic Church is the target of attacks because it is the last standing impediment to the moral relativism, nihilism and atheism espoused by this world’s elites. It is simply Good vs. Evil. Please don’t let them fool you.
Go into church, and go up to the altar, and kneel, then look around and take in the breadth of your religion, and what it means to you. What they would destroy is something which they can’t even fathom. But we can. We are the Church. Don’t allow them to infuence what your heart knows to be true, good, and holy. Stand your ground.
C
cathgal
Guest
Is there any truth to this?
After the HHS Mandate and Obama admin got beaten down by religious groups, especially the Catholics, I found this to be really fishy, more like a comeback at the Catholic Church.
After the HHS Mandate and Obama admin got beaten down by religious groups, especially the Catholics, I found this to be really fishy, more like a comeback at the Catholic Church.
T
TevereNauta
Guest
Call me a cynical child of my age, but I think there is a fairly simple explanation for these anti-Catholic—baseless—stories today. Quite simply, they are a result of the USCCB’s efforts to oppose this hard left administrations agenda to enforce an equally hard left ‘health system’ on Americans. Having dared to stand up to the secular tide (at long last) they, the bishops, are now going to be mauled more viciously than anyone but socialist apparatchiks can imagine. The administration will also not hesitate to slander the Holy Father and Curia as well. Yahoo (which I despise, DESPISE, as the tool of hell’s denizens which it is—prove me wrong, check their headlines often, e.g. “Analysis: Vatican is Evil, Pope Benedict looks like Star Wars Emperor after our Yahoo Contributors’ Graphic Enhancements”) and its involvement in this only makes me believe my hypothesis all the more.
As for Rush et al. jumping in…don’t get me wrong, I love Rush, a lot, but he is not the sharpest tool in the barn vis-à-vis geopolitical subtleties and I think has dived into this story from his typical, limited perspective of ‘right good, left bad’. And from what I heard he was not being anti-Catholic at all really, just quoting the commentary story listed above and putting his ‘right good, left bad’ spin on it. I am a bit disappointed that Rush got involved in this snowball from hell manufactured by Yahoo (no doubt on orders from the Glorious Leader), but as he said, he had a bit of a cold today and he is not at his best.
EDIT: Cathgal, my thoughts exactly!
As for Rush et al. jumping in…don’t get me wrong, I love Rush, a lot, but he is not the sharpest tool in the barn vis-à-vis geopolitical subtleties and I think has dived into this story from his typical, limited perspective of ‘right good, left bad’. And from what I heard he was not being anti-Catholic at all really, just quoting the commentary story listed above and putting his ‘right good, left bad’ spin on it. I am a bit disappointed that Rush got involved in this snowball from hell manufactured by Yahoo (no doubt on orders from the Glorious Leader), but as he said, he had a bit of a cold today and he is not at his best.
EDIT: Cathgal, my thoughts exactly!
P
poker10
Guest
Yeah, sorry. That’s not a simple explanation. That’s a conspiracy theory with a lot less reporting and facts to back it up than that article had in it.
J
Jim_Dandy
Guest
I read the article. I have learned not to trust the secular media’s reporting of Church matters. “A bishop close to the . . .” - “a leaked memo . . .” - and all such “reporting” should be filed in the round file. There is not one verifiable fact in the entire piece. The media hates the Church because it stands in the way of their left wing agenda and does not report Church news accurately or fairly.
The current HHS controversy is an example. The media twists the story as a furor over contraception. One hears very little of it as a violation of the First Amendment. They quote the Gutmacher Institute’s false statistics that 95% of Catholic women have used artificial contraception sometime in their lives. The Obama mandate that forces the Church to pay for sterilization services and abortion-inducing drugs is ignored. That would make the story more sympathetic toward the Church, but the media will never tolerate that. Their story is incomplete, but they control what’s reported. They win by deception, and the Church loses.
The story in the OP is more of the same bull-oney. It paints a word picture of a weak Pope, isolated from the reality around him, but no verifiable facts. I’ll wait for the various Catholic news outlets to cover this story before I’ll believe it.
The current HHS controversy is an example. The media twists the story as a furor over contraception. One hears very little of it as a violation of the First Amendment. They quote the Gutmacher Institute’s false statistics that 95% of Catholic women have used artificial contraception sometime in their lives. The Obama mandate that forces the Church to pay for sterilization services and abortion-inducing drugs is ignored. That would make the story more sympathetic toward the Church, but the media will never tolerate that. Their story is incomplete, but they control what’s reported. They win by deception, and the Church loses.
The story in the OP is more of the same bull-oney. It paints a word picture of a weak Pope, isolated from the reality around him, but no verifiable facts. I’ll wait for the various Catholic news outlets to cover this story before I’ll believe it.
T
TevereNauta
Guest
Ha! I love the tried and true ad hominem, sir.
EDIT: Jim Dandy, exactly so. It is propaganda, and if one is wondering why the propaganda is being ratcheted up, one only needs to realize it is because the USCCB dared defy this new HHS-paradigm.
Allow me to simplify it for you:
- USCCB opposes new HHS regulations…
- The left, incensed, commences to attack the USCCB and its parent organization (the Vatican) much as they have done with, among others, private American Corporations…
- Hence the various popular news outlets, which are channels for this administration (and if you disagree sir that the MSM-majority is pro-left and secular left at that, I really cannot speak with you rationally further) attack the USCCB.
EDIT: Jim Dandy, exactly so. It is propaganda, and if one is wondering why the propaganda is being ratcheted up, one only needs to realize it is because the USCCB dared defy this new HHS-paradigm.
T
texasag7599
Guest
Dang, this wound me up.
I need to print this out and read it often. No joke, it makes me want to go out and fight for the faith. Thank you!
J
jilly4ski
Guest
That doesn’t change the fact that the article gave no facts, no quotes, no details what so ever. I was completely waiting for them to drop the “bombshell” of the leaked letters. But from my reading of the article there either was nothing in the letters that needed to be reported, or they didn’t actually say what this “journalist” wanted them to say. They didn’t tell me what was even leaked, I wanted to know!!!
What is the saying?
If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, but if you read the newspaper you are misinformed.
I
incense
Guest
My non-practicing siblings are very quick to list failings of the Church for their lack of personal holiness. So immediately, my antennas went up with your cousin’s excuses. But you know him?
Next, a friend, disgusted with the morality of America, decided to move her family to Italy. She moved back. Italy was worse than America. She was amazed at how ignorant the average Italian was about the faith, how many didn’t even pray before they ate. So it might not be a good idea to believe that just because someone is Italian, that they have a better grasp of the Church.
That there’s infighting and power struggles going on at the Vatican is no surprise to me. Have you ever seen the power struggles going on just in the choir? And I’m not joking. Even good people can have opposite viewpoints, and fight for them.
J
Jim_Dandy
Guest
Perhaps – at least at this time – you are unable to distinguish between members of the Church and the Church Herself. Was Judas a member or was he the Church?
The Church has never taught error. The Church has always been infallible when teaching faith and morals – as it was in the beginning in A.D. 33, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.
Jesus IS His Church. He said so Himself. Quote: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting ME?” He [Saul] said, “Who are you, sir?” The reply came: “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” End quote. Saul (St. Paul), as we know, was persecuting the Church, killing Catholics.
I stand by the Church because she is the Bride of Christ (Eph 5:25-33; 2 Cor 11:2; Rev 21:9-14, 22:17), His Very Body (Col 1:15-18, 1:24, 2:19; Eph 1:22-23, 4:4-7, 4:11-16; Romans 12:4-5; 1 Cor 6:l, 12:27. The Church, “which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” tells me so, and the New Testament confirms it (1 Tim 3:15).
You are not Catholic in my eyes because you say yourself that you are Baptist. I used to be a Baptist (Southern). I doubt there is a more anti-Catholic organization than the one in which I grew up.
Please don’t change your profile to Catholic unless you have been received into the Catholic Church. It’s against forum rules, as I recall.
Thank you.
O
OriginalJS
Guest
There has always been intrigue at the Vatican, just like there has always been intrigue around every capital city in the world. Nothing new here; just a little muckraking.
- Status