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.
It is a basic Catholic tenet. Not necessarily one of mine. Though if one is true in her or his faith....
The Gates of Hell shall not prevail!
Well said!
Awesome. There will likely be Missals up front you can borrow as well.
Yeah, they are usually in a crummy part of town. They love us! LOL But the good thing is it’s Sunday morning and the no-goodniks are usually not awake yet. :)
On the chapel veils, depends where you go. At our parish, most women wear them but not all. But other places might be more strict about it. I’d think it’d be prudent to bring a hat or something just in case. Or in a pinch, many places have extra veils up front.
This is the typical style of SSPX argumentation. Lies and deceptions.
Hmmm...actually, the biggest lie going on here is that the SSPX is in actual schism...but that’s another topic for another day...
I noted they practice the same worship as the Church up until 1964; you asserted they are schismatic and deceptive in their worship...so for you to be logically consistent, you cannot maintain that identical worship is okay for one entity (the pre-conciliar Church) but not for another (SSPX)...
but, then again, I suspect you believe disobedience to the postconcilar Church to be the problem...so be it...
Fellay is not crazy. Williamson is crazy.
Look, I’m not an apologist for the SSPX but let’s not throw accusations around. The Vatican has been backing down from calling them schismatics, and Fellay has been very clear about his desire for regularization.
Typical SSPX stype of lie/deception. I said their writings were full of lies and deceptions. Such as your writings for example.
Cool! Good to be prepared. :)
I'm reading a Fellay article right now. Yes, he's crazy. It's just that Williamson is more crazy.
Oh, thank you for clarifying that. Hugs.
No, we’re not doing this here. Start a new thread in the Religion forum, and I’ll tackle all that baloney there.
Hugs back! :) I just don’t see me ever leaving the Church. There might be crap going on now that I don’t like. We all know there has been crap in the past that I didn’t like, but it’s where I will stay.
He is not upset with the gift, he merely found the visuals embarrassing and inconvenient.
Please explain what you mean by “this clown’, “that clown”, “the big clown”.
>>Maybe the organized church is not the future of “the church” - as in the body of Christ.
Without the organized church, we all tend to do what is right in our own eyes. The Holy Spirit tells us all the same thing, and we each hear the parts we like.
I’m a PCA Presbyterian and I have some friends who are in the apostate PCUSA. They do not follow the bible, or the Confession, or even the basics of Reformed theology. They just follow culture. Whatever culture wants, their church does in a foolish attempt to be “relevant”.
The problem isn’t with organized church. The problem is with making sure you select the right organized church and being able to walk away when they go off the rails.
Not that it matters.
But this guy is really beginning to disturb me.
He is all over the place and I'm not talking about his travels, either.
It *was never abrogated*, and it is the right of EVERY priest of the Latin Church to say it, as per Summorum Pontificum
come now...that which hasn’t been abrogated yet, is easily abrogated tomorrow, should the powers that be wish it...and SP confers a right not a duty...no one has to ‘take it away’; one has only to ignore it...
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
OK, fair enough; my question was poorly structured. But you seem to think strong leadership will come from a continent which has a long,long history of dysfunctional governance at all levels...good luck with that...
Kerosene. Stake. Simplicio has to go.
bfl
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