Posted on 07/14/2015 5:15:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week the Marxist quasi-dictator of Bolivia, Evo Morales, presented Pope Francis with a gift — a carved wooden hammer-and-sickle cross on which the figure of Christ is crucified.
The Vatican announced that the pope had not been informed in advance about the gift. And some commentators said that photos of the pope and Morales show that the pope was actually offended. That was a false — probably wishful — interpretation. The pope himself later announced that he was keeping the hammer-and-sickle crucifix and taking it home, saying, “I understand this work. For me it wasn’t an offense.”
And “Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi . . . said he personally wasn’t offended by Morales’ gift” (the Guardian).
The pope’s acceptance of Morales’s gift — along with his attacks on capitalism during his Latin American tour — further confirms one of the most troubling moral developments of our time: The Roman Catholic Church is currently led by a man whose social, political, and economic views have been shaped by leftism more than by any other religious or moral system.
It also reconfirms what is probably the single most important development one needs to understand in order to make sense of the contemporary world: The most dynamic religion of the past hundred years has been leftism, not Christianity, not Islam, not any other traditional religion. Indeed, regarding traditional religions, leftism has influenced them — particularly Christianity and Judaism — far more than they have influenced the Left. Mainstream Protestant Christianity, much of Catholicism (especially in Latin America, where Pope Francis lived his whole life before becoming pope), and most of non-Orthodox Judaism have become essentially liberal/Left movements with religious (and in the case of Judaism, ethnic) identity.
In terms of evil committed, what is the difference between the hammer and sickle and the swastika? Would the pope receive, let alone keep, a Fascist, racist, or Nazi sculpture with a crucified Christ on it? Of course not. Yet the hammer and sickle represents more human suffering than all of them combined. The number of people enslaved and murdered under the hammer and sickle dwarfs the number of people enslaved and murdered by any other doctrine in history.
To make things worse, Pope Francis received this gift from a man (Morales) wearing a picture of Che Guevara on his jacket. Is that, too, not worthy of condemnation by the Vatican? Che Guevara devoted his life to undermining human liberty, and to killing innocents in the name of Communism.
The only institutions that can resist the left-wing takeover of contemporary life are religious ones. When they fail, upon which institutions can we depend? What if, in a visit to an American museum, American artist Andres Serrano had presented Pope Francis with a gift — his work of art, Piss Christ — that features a crucifix in a jar of Serrano’s urine?
Would the pope have accepted it? Would he have brought it home?
There could not have been a gift that more accurately represents this pope’s value system than Christ crucified on a hammer and sickle. First, in a literal sense, that is exactly what Communists have done wherever they have assumed power — crucified Christ by working to violently destroy Christianity and murder Christians. Second, in a figurative sense, the gift represents the mélange of Christianity and Marxism, precisely what much of the Church — again, especially in Latin America, and especially in the person of this pope — stands for.
My heart breaks for the millions of Catholics who feel that their beloved Church is being led over a moral and religious cliff by a leftist pope and innumerable other leftists among cardinals, bishops, and parish priests.
Though I am not a Catholic, my heart breaks too. The only institutions that can resist the left-wing takeover of contemporary life are religious ones. When they fail, upon which institutions can we depend?
Tragically, we cannot turn to the contemporary Catholic Church. When the pope keeps a hammer-and-sickle crucifix; when the pope declares free-market capitalism, the one economic system that has lifted masses of people out of poverty, to be largely evil (“the dung of the devil”); when Cuba’s Cardinal Jaime Ortega declares that there are no political prisoners in Cuba; and when the pope issues an encyclical on global warming while the oldest Christian communities in the world are exterminated, it is clear that while one can still turn to individual Catholic priests and lay leaders for moral guidance, one cannot turn to the Church and its pope for moral guidance. On the contrary. One must fight back.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His book, The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code, was published by Regnery. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
Since he only pinged two of us, go ahead and have the backbone to make the accusation right to our face.
Provide the link.
I think Fellay is crazy. SSPX websites and literature are full of lies and deceptions. Do you know Juan Fernandez Krohn? He was a member of SSPX. He tried to assassinate John Paul II.
The bottom line is that Catholics put pro-abort Obama into office, and the Catholic hierarchy put this Marxist pope into "office". Both are leading some of God's people to partake of these plagues that we're continuing to see come to be.
Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
If all the bigger churches are too liberal then gather in groups of two or more if you have to, the gates of hell cannot prevail against that, but 1900+ years of plagues has been enough.
This is the typical style of SSPX argumentation. Lies and deceptions.
Whoever made it probably took the Christ figure off of a crucifix.
Catholics don’t take Jesus off the cross.
Except the church presents itself as a bastion of faith and MORALS.
In light of Scripture, there is NO excuse at all for the current situation to exist.
It's not a matter of there happening to be those who will infiltrate and molest. It's the lack of response by the church in acting in accord with Scripture but rather allowing the situation to persist and in effect, watch the door while the acts were being committed, and then going on to protect the offenders.
Absolutely, totally, completely inexcusable for someone who takes the moral high ground.
Question, are the women wearing chapel veils generally?
The bottom line is that Catholics put pro-abort Obama into office
slight correction...females put Obama into office...females of all Christian denominations...I know it doesn’t advance your agenda, but who cares...
ph
Prepared by "bad men"? Wouldn't that undermine their sanctity? Their transubstantiation?
Come on, mm. Think.
And your solution is?...
Good grief.
The one true Church is not of men. Poor shepherds come and go, but the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Roman Catholic Church.
True, I almost left out “maybe” - was being circumspect for those who might not be as attuned to this as you are....lot of conventional thinkers around FR.
I was being charitable....
uh oh!
You said, “Transubstantiation”
The ride begins...in
3,
2,
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Can't go to the Baptist or the Episcopalian, that's for sure.
My answer at #93:
The one true Church is not of men. Poor shepherds come and go, but the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Roman Catholic Church.
I was imprecise. I meant the *flagrantly* liberal ones, not the dopey liberal go-along-to-get-along types. Yes, you are right that the average suburban parish is teeming with the latter. But those folks are not going to survive the coming persecution. They will either grow in their faith or apostasize.
Do you not believe that the TLM is the first thing in the crosshairs of Francis’ brood...the bulk of current prelates-and parishioners-absolutely hate it, and all it stands for...which is why I love it...
Of course! But I don't give a flip. They are prying that Mass out of my cold dead fingers. It *was never abrogated*, and it is the right of EVERY priest of the Latin Church to say it, as per Summorum Pontificum. Anyone tries to take it away, we send them out on their ear. If the POPE himself tries to take it away, we tell him to go pound sand. Period. Only a complete ultramontanist dope thinks that our allegiance to the See of Peter includes the willful abandonment of the traditional Roman liturgy.
Um, please note the last time something originating from the continent of Africa produced anything other than violence and bloodshed
What a ridiculous statement. St. Josephine Bakhita. The Ugandan martyrs. The Catholics in Nigeria and elsewhere whose lives are threatened by jihadist freaks everytime they walk to Church. The African bishops who are telling the West to stuff their stupid ideas on marriage into a sack.
+1
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