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'Sense of regret' in Vatican over Pope Francis' meeting with gay marriage opponent
Reuters ^ | 10/02/2015 | BY PHILIP PULLELLA, Vatican City

Posted on 10/02/2015 11:58:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Pope Francis' meeting last week with an American woman at the center of a row over gay marriage was not something he had sought and should not be seen as an endorsement of her views, the Vatican said on Friday.

One Vatican official said there was "a sense of regret" that the pope had ever seen Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who went to jail in September for refusing to honor a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and issue same-sex marriage licenses.

The encounter in Washington was originally kept secret and has sparked widespread debate since it became public this week, proving something of a misstep for the pontiff.

Looking to smother the fierce controversy, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Davis was one of "several dozen" people who had been invited by the Vatican ambassador to see Francis during his visit to the U.S. capital.

"The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects," Lombardi said in a statement.

"The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature (Vatican embassy) was with one of his former students and his family," the statement said.

The meeting with Davis disappointed many liberal Catholics but delighted conservatives, who saw it as a sign that the pope was clearly condemning a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage.

Davis said on Wednesday that the pope had thanked her for her courage and told her to "stay strong", adding that knowing that he agreed with what she was doing "kind of validates everything".

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; US: Kentucky
KEYWORDS: epa; gaykk; gaymarriage; globalwarminghoax; homosexualagenda; kentucky; kimdavis; libertarians; medicalmarijuana; popefrancis; regret; romancatholicism; vatican
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To: BlackElk

I’m with you, friend.


81 posted on 10/03/2015 5:22:40 PM PDT by Lil Flower (American by birth. Southern by the Grace of God. ROLL TIDE!!)
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To: Theo; Lil Flower; Helen; Jim Noble; Dr. Sivana; Norm Lenhart; Finny; RitaOK
We also need to pray with and for one another, and not shrink from doing so across sectarian lines. We need to engage in corporal works of mercy in Jesus's name, to show his limitless love to those in need. We need to act as though the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, His Passion, His suffering, His resurrection make a difference and the biggest difference in the history of the world. The world needs to see our Christian witness displayed for all the world to see.

When the shooter at the Oregon Community College asked his victims who were Christians to raise their hands, he did not distinguish between Catholic, Orthodox or Reformed Christian. Just being Christian and raising your hand merited a bullet in the head in his twisted mind. Those who would not raise their hands or respond at all to the question were kneecapped and crippled for life.

Either fate seems gruesome but those who were shot in the head are probably now with their Savior and ours as martyrs for their respective faiths. If I had been there, I hope I would have had the courage to get the bullet in the head but I am as cowardly as the next guy and might not have mustered the courage.

We are entering dark times for Christians. I would like to recommend good Christian reading as preparation for those times.

First, of course, the Holy Scriptures in as conservative a translation as you can find: The Catholic Douay-Rheims Challoner edition of the late 16th century or the magnificent King James Bible of James I Stuart, the single greatest work in the English language (Protestant or not it rings with the Voice of God),

Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis (15th century spiritual advice by a monk living in community written for his brother monks and just as wonderful advice to the rest of us to this day) which should be read about three pages a day and then be the subject of meditation and prayer,

Anything by Gilbert K. Chesterton,

Anything by Hillaire Belloc

Anything by J.R.R. Tolkien,

Anything by his Oxford colleague Charles King,

Anything by C. S. Lewis,

For the hard times ahead: Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, reportedly a dangerous book for the unprepared soul, it is claimed that it almost frightened Mother Teresa out of Catholicism (and belief) during her own dark night of the soul,

The works of Reformed Christian Frank Schaeffer,

Feel free, each of you and anyone else reading this to recommend books that you have found valuable.

God bless each of you and yours!

82 posted on 10/03/2015 6:53:48 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline: Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society/Rack 'em Danno!)
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To: BlackElk; windsorknot; Trapped Behind Enemy Lines; Mrs. Don-o; daniel1212; kelly4c

See #82.


83 posted on 10/03/2015 6:59:31 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline: Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society/Rack 'em Danno!)
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To: BeadCounter

See #82.


84 posted on 10/03/2015 7:01:12 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline: Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society/Rack 'em Danno!)
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To: BlackElk
Anything by Etienne Gilson, especially

Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages

The Unity of Philosophical Experience

And Frederick Wilhelmsen:

Christianity and Political Philosophy

Hilaire Belloc: No Alienated Man

85 posted on 10/03/2015 7:01:47 PM PDT by cornelis
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To: kelly4c; BlackElk
Who knows if one even has the “right” religion?

We experience nothing that the disciples and later the apostles did not experience.

In Mark 9:38-41 disciples run up to Jesus, like dogs wagging their tails, thinking that they have done a good deed by "sending away" men doing good works in Jesus' name "because they don't follow us".

Read Jesus' correction, and take it to heart.

86 posted on 10/03/2015 7:24:58 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Diseases desperate grown Are by desperate appliance relieved Or not at al)
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To: Jim Noble
In Mark 9:38-41 disciples run up to Jesus, like dogs wagging their tails, thinking that they have done a good deed by "sending away" men doing good works in Jesus' name "because they don't follow us". Read Jesus' correction, and take it to heart.

The audacity of confirming the validity of this man doing ministry in the name of the Lord when not part of the company what RCs consider to be their church. For the traditional (not this pope's) Catholic position is that no one has the commission and the right to preach the gospel if not sent by her, and that "he that hears/reject you, hears/rejects Me," does not apply to Prots.

87 posted on 10/04/2015 4:40:19 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned and destitute sinner+ trust Him to save you, then follow Him!)
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To: BlackElk

***When the shooter at the Oregon Community College asked his victims who were Christians to raise their hands, he did not distinguish between Catholic, Orthodox or Reformed Christian. Just being Christian and raising your hand merited a bullet in the head in his twisted mind.***

Amen and Amen! We all know who they are, no need to name any names, of people who hang out on the religious threads ,that are so full of hate for their fellow Christians, if we’re even considered Chrisitians at all. Our enemies don’t care where we worship, only that we’re Christians . Now is the time to come together.


88 posted on 10/04/2015 3:15:20 PM PDT by Lil Flower (American by birth. Southern by the Grace of God. ROLL TIDE!!)
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To: daniel1212

Is that what you were taught in Catechism?


89 posted on 10/04/2015 3:28:33 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach, said one woman.)
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To: BlackElk

Amen.


90 posted on 10/04/2015 3:30:55 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach, said one woman.)
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To: FlingWingFlyer
There is a battle within the Vatican itself on the gay issue.

They have infiltrated the Vatican and those who support them in the media have no problem pushing their agenda.

B16 got caught up in that battle and look what happen to him.

91 posted on 10/04/2015 3:36:20 PM PDT by mware
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

As a KofC member I can not in good faith remain a member. I mean I just can’t.


92 posted on 10/04/2015 3:38:36 PM PDT by jwalsh07 (.)
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To: BlackElk

To stand against a cause, or a government crack down against known Christians are reasons to die a martyr. Your faith is known by all. Your works are evident by many. There is no way out. Unless you recant.

Recanting your faith in the face of such duress makes martyrs. Why? Because such a witness, over time, has changed nations, ended brutal regimes and great conflicts, even restored or brought peace.

But this Oregon killer was neither a cause nor a government force. He was an insane, brutal murderer, to whom no one owed allegiance. To announce your faith, or to intelligently deny your faith to a weakling individual on a killing high is not much of a dilemma or a question for me.

Line me up in front of this @$$hat who is killing those who confess their faith, and electing to only knee cap the ones who go dumb, I choose to go dumb.

I pray for the Holy Spirit and my conscience to correct me if I am mistaken, but there is something about bowing to death before some, one, sick-o, I just can’t get there. It reminds me of abortion. All those aborted, who could be saints.

In this case, it is the same feeling in me. Those who denied the faith, in Oregon, are alive to love their Lord, to become saints, to do His will in a fallen world as they pilgrim on, carrying whatever is there Cross in life. They chose to live, *to respect life*.

(I realize possibly the odds that some of the deniers of the faith may not have been Christian, or even may have been only marginally Christian, but who knows, among them a great Christian can emerge, because they chose LIFE.)


93 posted on 10/04/2015 3:44:13 PM PDT by RitaOK ( VIVA CRISTO REY / Public education is the farm team for more Marxists coming)
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To: BlackElk

Born Catholic, will die Catholic but it will be with eyes wide open to a hierarchy that sweeps homosexual pedophilia under the rug, celebrates the sacraments with politicians that celebrate abortion and is moving ever closer to embracing sodomy. Very trying.


94 posted on 10/04/2015 3:46:32 PM PDT by jwalsh07 (.)
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To: jwalsh07
IIRC, you live in Milford. Consider attending St. Stanislaus Church at State and Eld Streets in New Haven for the Tridentine Mass (I believe it is at 2 PM on Sunday/I moved to Illinois 15 years ago).

Whether you accept that suggestion or not, popes are sinful men like the rest of us only with greater responsibilities and a much greater price to be paid for failing their flocks as so many do. Likewise, the likes of Bernard Cardinal Law, Roger Cardinal Mahoney, the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the late Leo Cardinal Suenens, Godfried Cardinal Daneels, Walter Cardinal Kaspar, Reinhard Cardinal Marx, Sean Cardinal O'Malley, Oscar Cardinal Madariaga and Archbishop Blaise Cupich of Sickago who will no doubt get a red hat at the next consistory.

Do not let these sorry excuses for Catholic leadership dampen your own Faith. Jesus Christ founded this Church on Peter and promised to be with it all days until the end of this world. His promises are the gold standard. May our Savior find us as faithful members of His Church when He returns, if we live that long.

In our lifetimes, we suffered through John XXIII, Paul VI and now Francis. The Church will survive because God wills it!

May God bless you and yours!

95 posted on 10/04/2015 5:04:30 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline: Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society/Rack 'em Danno!)
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To: Trailerpark Badass
the traditional (not this pope's) Catholic position is that no one has the commission and the right to preach the gospel if not sent by her, and that "he that hears/reject you, hears/rejects Me," does not apply to Prots.

Is that what you were taught in Catechism?

Actually among others, it comes from one of the formal RC apologists promoted here, who deny the great commission was given to Prots. Where you taught otherwise in Catechism? Where you even taught that it provides all that is there is of Catholic teaching? Where you even taught that it cannot be wrong?

96 posted on 10/04/2015 6:00:24 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned and destitute sinner+ trust Him to save you, then follow Him!)
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To: RitaOK
This life on Earth is all that most of us know. There is a natural fear of the unknown even if we intellectually grasp what heaven is all about to some extent. It takes great courage, perhaps more than I possess, to raise my hand under the circumstances in Oregon and identify myself as a Christian.

It is not a question so much of how many folks come to know of the Christian witness of the martyr or whether the martyrdom is at the hands of the demented Oregon punk or at the hands of government gone terribly wrong. The vitally important audience is God and God alone. I find it hard to believe that he wants us to join Peter in denying Him. In that respect, Peter was the first pope but he was a frail and cowardly man on the night before Jesus Christ died for our sins. We need not expect any pope to be perfect. All have sinned and fallen far short of the glory of God.

Choosing to go dumb is choosing to be knee-capped apparently rather than being shot in the head and killed. But, worst case scenario: You go dumb, effectively denying Jesus Christ and the Trinity, and the killer kills you anyway. You arrive for your judgment with your last act being a denial of God.

Years ago, you may remember, there were a series of killings at Columbine High School in Colorado in which the Goth killers also demanded that the Christians identify themselves. One courageous fifteen year old Reformed Christian young lady was shot to death immediately upon identifying herself as a Christian. Who cares what the world thinks? What matters is what God knows and I would bet that young lady enjoyed an immediate and spectacular reception in heaven.

As Catholics, we believe in the Church Militant (on Earth), the Church Suffering (in Purgatory) and the Church Triumphant (in Heaven). Above all else, our goal is to reach membership in the Church Triumphant whether or not we spend time in the Church Suffering.

On April 9, 1945, Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in a Nazi concentration camp, just two weeks before the camp was liberated by allied troops. He was accused of being part of the Oster Conspiracy against Hitler's life. I suspect that at the moment of his murder, he heard the voice of God saying: Well done, good and faithful servant.

As to the aborted, my late client and pro-life hero Fr. Norman Weslin often preached that he believed that the souls of all the aborted are at the throne of God urging the salvation of each and every sincere pro-life activist. The late Congressman Henry Hyde, though a flawed sinner, was certainly a pro-life hero in Congress. I heard him at a conference in Boston express his identical belief. Both of them believed that each and every aborted infant IS a saint.

In spite of all of the foregoing, there is much to be said for your post and your side of the underlying issue has much to recommend it. I am not rejecting it but rather expressing the other opinion as one who suffers human cowardice and might well fail my own test.

Also, we have eternal life. Mere death does not extinguish us. If we make it to heaven, we will be in the Presence of the Beatific vision, praising and loving God above all else, no longer subject to the distractions of this world or to the temptations offered by Lucifer.

Meanwhile we, as Catholics, have a Church which has Apostolic Succession, a proper love and respect for God's Mom, the Truth, the validly consecrated Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament of Penance for the forgiveness of our sins, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There are people who, in the future, will act to persecute and martyr us over those things. Some may be governments, and some will be Satanic evil individuals with no governmental power whatsoever. And it won't just be Catholics who are martyred either. The victims at the Africa Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, were murdered for attending a Bible study at their Church.

A dark night is falling and it is time to quell the intramural squabbling among various flavors of Christians before it is too late to serve our Savior in this world. You and I belong to the same Roman Catholic Faith. Let us pray for all Catholics and all of our separated brethren and for all others that they may see the way to conform themselves to the will of God.

May God bless you and yours, Rita, as always!

97 posted on 10/04/2015 6:33:54 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline: Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society/Rack 'em Danno!)
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To: cornelis

Sounds good. Will try to find them! God bless you and yours!


98 posted on 10/04/2015 6:39:00 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline: Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society/Rack 'em Danno!)
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To: BlackElk

Oh, jimmeny, the example you presented of Peter is quite apt!

I was thinking too broadly of historical example, as against Nazism, and thinking too narrowly by forgetting the Biblical examples. Therein is my very scenario— of a Biblical, individual example, of Peter and the woman who recognized him as a follower of Jesus, to whom Peter denied being a follower of Jesus.

In line 3, I really goofed up. I hope you were able to unravel it. I meant, “ *NOT* recanting your faith makes martyrs....” beginning the second paragraph.

Now you have made me miserable. You are, of course, exactly correct— that would be the last act— a denial of God. How WILL I ever rest. I am pretty sure in that particular scenario in Oregon, I would be like Peter and crumble.

If even considering lust is a mortal sin, then would even contemplating and suspecting one’s own cowardice, in such a circumstantial scenario like Oregon, also be a mortal sin? (I suppose so.)

Maybe since you have a wonderful priest, you would ask him for me, or perhaps you know the answer already is, “yes”.

Thank you for straightening me out, with the reference to Peter. There was the single case, just like Oregon Christians were in. I totally missed it, because the killer was not a broader cause, or national threat to Christians.


99 posted on 10/04/2015 7:34:54 PM PDT by RitaOK ( VIVA CRISTO REY / Public education is the farm team for more Marxists coming)
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To: daniel1212
You want to know what I was taught?

Or maybe what it was that I learned?

I want no part of the "God" that motivates you to do what you do here on this forum.

100 posted on 10/04/2015 9:27:31 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach, said one woman.)
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