Posted on 05/20/2016 6:51:47 AM PDT by marshmallow
The Pope will receive the highest authority in Sunni Islam at the Vatican on Monday
Pope Francis will receive the highest authority in Sunni Islam in an unprecedented meeting at the Vatican on Monday.
The meeting between Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar, Cairo, and Pope Francis was revealed by Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi.
Fr Lombardi said: “This audience is being prepared and has been scheduled for Monday. It will be a first.”
Al-Tayeb suspended dialogue with the Holy See on behalf of Al-Azhar University in 2011. Benedict XVI had called for the protection of Christian minorities following a bomb attack on a church in Alexandria which was perceived as interfering in Egypt’s affairs.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
The Pope will receive the highest authority in Sunni Islam at the Vatican on Monday.
Well that kinda blows out the theory that there’s no authority in Islam, and it can be interpreted any ol’ way you want.
All these texts are intentionally cryptic, and often multivalent in interpretation (e.g. "where the Lord was crucified" could mean Judaea and/or it could mean where the Church is being persecuted. Notice that in Acts He identifies fully with the Church: He asks Saul of Tarsus, "Why are you persecuting Me?")
My fave part of the NT is Luke. I don't spend a lot of time in Revelation. My head's dizzy enough as it is!
Thanks for the response!
Revelation makes very little sense until is read as a parallel to what is taking place during the liturgy of the mass - It describes the liturgical action taking place in heaven in eternal parallel with heavenly time taking place simultaneously with the finite mass here on on earth.
Revelation describes the point in time where the heavenly eucharist and the secular eucharist converge.
It is actually amazing. The physical Church buildings themselves used to automatically reflect the proper theological understanding of this parallel to Revelation: when the new city of Jerusalem comes down and unites with its bride the Church- Catholic Church architecture used to always contain the images from Revelation - the saints, the angels, the high walls, the alpha and omega, and etc. Even the lamb holding the flag that you see is from Revelation (usually on the ceiling). So this used to be well known that Revelation was the heavenly liturgy united to the mass.
A description of Heavenly worship is in Revelations.
Sorry if this was too long! I also love Luke as well.
On topic - this Pope needs a LOT of prayer!
I appreciate that explanation, and the excellent link.
I pray for Papa Francisco every day at Mass.
I’m into Catholic history and used to be kind of a dab hand the subject of Bad Popes. But I’ve never seen anything as weird as this. I do suspect some form of abnormal psychology and/or dementia.
And the Enemy, cruel as he is, will of course exploit any human weakness.
PRAY!!
I appreciate that explanation, and the excellent link.
I pray for Papa Francisco every day at Mass.
I’m into Catholic history and used to be kind of a dab hand the subject of Bad Popes. But I’ve never seen anything as weird as this. I do suspect some form of abnormal psychology and/or dementia.
And the Enemy, cruel as he is, will of course exploit any human weakness.
PRAY!!
A pope must be male, a baptized Catholic, a priest and a bishop before coronation as pope. It seems likely that one who has been formally excommunicated or defrocked (as a priest) would be ineligible as no longer Catholic. It also seems quite unlikely that the College of Cardinals, at its worst, would ever elect anyone not meeting the foregoing qualifications.
That leaves "impeachment" which is a term from American constitutional law and not relevant to Canon Law. Thus, impeachment, as such, is not available.
Is there no way to deal with a pope who needs to be deposed? There is no formal way BUT there are fully effective informal ways. In the Catholic Church's governing structure, the answers are often found in subtleties and nuances that escape casual observers.
Pope Benedict XVI was the first pope in many centuries to resign the papacy (under Canon 332, #2). Pope St. Pontian, sentenced to the salt mines, resigned to allow the election of a successor in 235 AD and was martyred within a year. Pope Celestine V resigned in 1294.
Pope Gregory XII and antipopes John XXIII and Benedict XIII were forced by the Council of Constance to resign in 1415. In more modern times councils of the Roman Catholic Church are called only by popes. Human nature being what it is, we need not expect a pope to call a council whose purpose is to depose him even if a council had such power. Such conciliar actions often resulted from monarchical interference in Church affairs which would not today be tolerated.
Pope St. Silverus was forcibly deposed in 536 AD.
A festival of deposing of popes also occurred in the time of Pope Benedict IX (resigned once, deposed twice) and simultaneously deposed were Pope Silvester III and Pope Gregory VI, all in 1405.
It is easy to list the popes who have been deposed (or resiged) but not as easy to explain the actual mechanism and, note that it has been more than 700 years since last a pope was deposed.
One explanation which might cover the resignations as well as deposing of popes is that no pope, despite of all of his ecclesiastical power, can govern on his own. Some Church bureaucrats and, particularly, bishops and cardinals, are very hard to remove even when they quietly oppose papal policy. When they dig their heels in, they can effectively thwart a pope and, if they choose they can embarrass him in many ways.
Some writers have portrayed Paul VI as effectively a prisoner of the Vatican, doing physical penance (wearing a hair shirt with nails embedded in it and living in despair as though doubting the nature of the Church and his role in it and lamenting that "The smoke of Satan surrounds our altars."
Pope St. John Paul II was in dangerously bad health in his final years, afflicted by Hodgkins disease and other serious disabling maladies. He would not resign but he could have gone into coma for the duration at any time and left the Church leaderless until his death.
This post unfortunately explains more of papal history than of the procedure, if any, for removing popes, if such a procedure exists.
Of course, there is always the old-fashioned method for God to remove popes when the time comes. Death comes for us all, including popes and that is how God fires them.
Franciscus.
Maybe the Pope can get muzzeins for the Vatican bell towers/s.
Leaning Right - wouldn’t it be lovely to have Pope Benedict back? He was a taste of heaven.
please take me off your ping list...thank you
A genuine pope can never be judged or deposed since he has no superior on earth.
HOWEVER, if a genuine pope were as a private individual to embrace, heresy, apostasy or schism from the Church, then BY HIS OWN ACT, he would cease to be a Catholic and therefore he would fall from the Office of the Papacy without any declaration being necessary.
With the post 1958 crop, ALL were heretics before their election and as non-Catholics were thus inelegible for the office, and the elections completely null and void.
So Bergoglio is merely a non-pope.
Confer Sections 6 & 7:
"6. ...or even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy:
(i) the promotion or elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless;"
A friend advised me to first spend a year reading The Wanderer for a year and then decide. I did as he said and by the the time the year was up, Albino Cardinal Luciani had been elected and murdered and Karol Cardinal Wojtlya had been elected. Those historical facts, beyond my control, seemed to have ratified in my life my decision to stay. Our long international nightmare was over.
I have not regretted my decision to stay. I am not a sedevacantist and never was. Nor shall I ever be. I am quite aware of the theories of fellow disappointed Catholics that Guisseppe Cardinal Siri had REALLY been elected to succeed Pope Pius XII and/or elected again to succeed Pope John XXIII but somehow cheated out of his election by dark forces bent on the destruction of the Church. Siri would have made a fine pope but I simply don't believe these elaborate conspiracy theories necessary to such beliefs.
Not that conspiracies do not occur even in the Church as evidenced by the apparent murder of Luciani. If you imagine that Luciani was a heretic you badly misjudge the man. He was a lifelong disciple of Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani who had a falling out with him over submission to papal authority.
On the occasion of the election of Cardinal Luciani as John Paul I, I drove to Westbury, Long Island with a carful of Catholic Yalies to attend an afternoon weekday Tridentine Mass at the chapel of the Traditional priest, Fr. Gomar DePauw. In his homily, he told us that he had spoken to Cardinal Ottaviani about the election of Cardinal Luciani and that Cardinal Ottaviani was delighted. Surely you are aware that Cardinal Ottaviani was the prefect of the Holy Office under Pius XII for many years. Was even Pius XII (generally conceded even by sede vacantists to be a valid pope (see your reference to "post-1958 popes" that being the year of his death). Was Pope Pius XII a fool or a heretic to retain Cardinal Ottaviani as prefect of the Holy Office for many years? If either, then this becomes a conspiracy soooooo vast as to.....
At some point, in the face of the available evidence, we must give due regard to questioning our own respective judgments when they conflict with the evidence.
The first and most relevant evidence is that Jesus Christ founded the Church as we know it and promised to be with it all days even unto the end of the Earth. He is coming back, maybe in our lifetimes, maybe not in our lifetimes, at a time known only to God the Father. If I cannot trust the promises of Jesus Christ and of God the Father (he who hears Jesus Christ hears the Father as well) and trust the Paraclete, just whom should I trust (as Peter himself once asked)? Schismatics? Sedevacantists? Skeptics? The professionally disgruntled and unsatisfiable? I am going with God in all three of His Persons on this one. Your experience may vary but only at your own eternal peril.
I clearly distinguished in my post those who are regarded as anti-popes from the legitimate ones. I simply disagree with the remarkable notion that Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis were all (or any of them) disqualified by heresy from the papacy.
Some of the times of up to three "popes" at a time having to be resolved by councils or, far worse, by monarchs, were disgraceful episodes. Even valid popes have been disgraces such as Alexander VI and Benedict IX and they are not alone. OTOH, it is a proof of Jesus Christ being with the Church that it has survived even such miscreants as these in the papacy. No mere human institution could possibly have survived all that Catholicism has survived over nearly two thousand years of shovelling dirt on the coffins of His enemies.
Secondly, there is the matter of Apostolic Succession, distinguishing our priests from mere ministers or pastors, and guaranteeing the validity of our sacraments, particularly the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist and the forgiveness of sins via the Sacrament of Penance (or Reconciliation as known to more modern Catholics than I). We and the Orthodox enjoy Apostolic Succession as other churches do not. Pope Pius XII died in 1958. That was 58 long years ago. If the Church lasts another 50 years, certainly all of his bishops and priests will be dead. If Jesus Christ has not returned by then, what will you make of His promise to be with the Church all days, etc.?
Will the Church that Jesus Christ founded then be confined to some small priestless remnant, unable to consecrate the Holy Eucharist or to be able to hear confessions and be unable to transmit the forgiveness of God because the power of the Keys will have lapsed without any earthly way of re-establishing it? Are mere humans THAT capable of thwarting the will of Almighty God? Humans are quite capable of sin and we prove that every day of our lives, even the most saintly of humans. God is still in charge and is far more capable of thwarting the fallen will of mere men.
Just as medieval monarchs or even councils had no authority (power coupled with morality) to depose popes, neither do sedevacantists who merely issue erroneous opinions enticing their fellow men to their own sedevacantist errors (grounded in the spiritual quicksand of their own wounded feelings if they are as I was in the mid-1970s). The modern sedevacantist does not risk even a forceful "inquiry" by the Holy Office much less rack and ruin, being drawn and quartered or burning at the stake. Those who went before us, wrong or right, were made of sterner stuff.
Bergoglio is a foolish man of all too many air-headed opinions, few of them useful for the task of shepherding the flock. He is about 78 years old already and will be gone soon enough and is quite unlikely to do damage on the level of John XXIII or Paul VI. The mistake of his election is unlikely to be repeated by the next conclave.
Pope Paul IV, back there in 1559, apparently failed to express an opinion as to just who was authorized to determine just which pope(s) election(s) were null and void and worthless because the elected one(s) had fallen into some heresy. If he had specified, you would have told us. Surely the long dead Pope Paul IV did not specify thee or me.
It seems impossible for any human to commit any sin that does not involve the sin of pride in that sins are instances of us placing our own individual priorities over those of our Creator. He gave us free will but it is breathtaking how many are, out of pride, willing to abuse free will and, as one prominent non-Catholic American, even older than I, has said that he has never seen fit to ask forgiveness for a single sin. I have sinned. Have you? On many occasions, I have been forgiven. Have you?
Why are we arguing over the claims of sedevacantism? Do as you will but I ask you to reflect on the foregoing and respond as you see fit but not merely for the sake of responding.
May God bless you and yours!
Wasn’t there some prophecy about him being the last pope?
Examples: Pope Paul VI was called The Mountain. His family name was Montini which is an Italian equivalent for mountain. Although John XXIII (the one elected to succeed Pius XII in 1959) was one of about 20 children of a peasant family, the family had a coat of arms with a rose as its most prominent feature. He is referenced by St. Malachy as The Rose.
John Paul I was De Mediatate Lunae (of the Half Moon), a apparent reference to is very short papacy. St. John Paul I is Labor Solis (the Work of the Sun). Benedict XVI is The Glory of the Olive, a reference which I do not understand. St. Malachy's very long list of popes then has an ellipsis (......) suggesting that there are others unnamed who would extend the list before ending with Peter the Omega (reputedly the servant of the antiChrist) who will presumably be deposed by Jesus Christ Himself in the end times. Note, however, that Saint Malachy has acquired that first name of Saint and is unlikely to be predicting a specific immediate successor of Benedict XVI as Peter the Omega since that would contradict Jesus Christ Who said we would not know the date or hour of his second coming. Culd be Francis.
Peter the Omega could be Francis or could be some pope one hundred years from now and not yet born.
Stonehouse01 and Mrs. Don-o:
I should have also pinged you to #93.
I think the “prophecy” of St. Malachy is almost certainly a forgery.
I don’t have time to document that right now, as I;m on my way out the door to sing at a funeral.
Thanks for your reply and also post #52; I totally agree with your position that the Chair of Peter is not vacant.
Having it occupied by a place holder anti-Pope is not the same as it being vacant. I also had a time around 1999 where I began to more fully grasp that there was indeed a deep disconnect between the current liturgy and the true doctrines of the Church.
Upon further study, I realized with a certain dread that after having undergone a 1960’s style “anti-catechesis” non formation, the truth of the matter was that the Church I was enduring (Sunday mass was actually painful) seemed an almost anti Church in some areas, especially liturgy, catechesis and the teaching of true doctrine in the homilies. Even the calendar was off. I had to discover on my own the deep treasures of the teachings of the true Church via the saints, etc. They had been kept hidden. Almost like the liberals in the media manage to edit out the truth.
This was most interesting since I was born in 1960 and totally brought up in the novus ordo mass. The fact that I understood that something was horribly wrong just by intuition that caused me to study further is something that I will always find peculiar. I could remember the Latin mass from the time I was under the age of five. It just always seemed strange to me that I had an intuitive awareness of a deep disconnect with what we were taught and what the Church HAD stood for, but I had to study what the Church had stood for and THEN it made sense, Prior to that I was just aware that something was very wrong. I then also started reading the Wanderer and felt relief as this confirmed that others thought as I did - prior to that I just felt isolated because no one else around me seemed to be bothered by the horrendous liturgies we were enduring at the time. My family growing up and the one I married into fully embraced the novus ordo and its philosophies so my questioning did not come from my family influences, either.
In other words, the Wanderer did not cause me to question, it was somehow already an organic knowledge within me which I find interesting.
Anyway, I can totally relate to your story. I also very briefly considered sede vacantism but realized that the true Church is earlier than the Popes themselves in that Jesus taught that we would always have a Church and He supersedes the Pope himself, although He clearly appointed one and made it clear that one was needed; similar to the point that you made.
At any rate, I realized that declaring the Chair to be vacant does not really work; I even have a Pius V Chapel 5 minutes up the road and could easily attend.
I do attend our Diocese’s Latin mass, however, often.
Thanks for your edifying posts - I always appreciate reading your take on these issues.
Sorry for the length!
Pat Robertson has the best news. And, he has often spoken favorable of Catholics through the years.
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