Posted on 06/01/2005 6:29:39 AM PDT by murphE
Editor's Note: Statements by Pope Benedict XVI and the appointment of San Francisco Archbishop William Levada signal a Holy See ready to counteract the expansion of evangelical groups worldwide.
SAN FRANCISCO--On the day before the conclave to choose a new pope began, future pontiff Joseph Ratzinger led a liturgy that reassured the church's believers that the Holy See was not giving up on them and was prepared to fight for the salvation of their souls. He surely meant to allude to the fight against moral relativism, but he also had his sights set on evangelicalism.
Indeed, during the first mass held by Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, he strongly implied that the Catholic church is the rightful House of Christ, and said that his first commitment was toward "the full and visible unity of Christ's followers."
Today, to regain ground in the first world and continue to expand in the Third World, the Roman Catholic Church, more than fighting secularism, must counteract the expansion of evangelical groups. It is a silent clash that could be compared to the protracted, mostly slow-burning feud between capitalism and communism during the Cold War.
According to some researchers, evangelical Christianity is expanding three times faster than the world population and is the only existing religious group showing a significant growth through conversion. By contrast, the Roman Catholic Church is expanding at a slower pace than the population, which will mean an overall decrease in the number of Catholics worldwide.
In addition, the dissolution of the Berlin Wall not only reinvigorated the Orthodox church, but also saw huge numbers of believers from the former Socialist bloc -- where the church had been persecuted -- move into evangelical groups.
There are currently more evangelicals in Asia than in North America. Singapore's churches are among the most active in the world, sending one missionary abroad per every 1,000 members. Seven of the world's 10 largest evangelical churches can be found in Seoul alone, a city in which 110 years ago there was none.
In Latin America, a mostly Catholic region for the past 500 years, the number of evangelicals has grown from under 250,000 in 1900 to over 60 million in 2000. Critics of the Vatican say the vacuum left by Pope John Paul II's disavowal of the "basic Christian communities" movement has been filled by the evangelicals.
In 1960, the number of evangelicals living in the developing countries were one-half of those in the West; in the year 2000 they were four times more and in 2010 they will be seven times as numerous.
In America, where even Protestant groups have lost 5.4 million members over the last decade, evangelicals have enjoyed a growth rate of 40 percent. They have become the largest religious force in the United States, with 26 percent of all believers -- and they wield undeniable political clout.
"The current pope is a renovator. But there cannot be renovation without tradition," says Father Joseph Fazio, founder of St. Ignatius Press and Chancellor of Ave Maria University in Florida. "I don't have any doubt that he'll realize the full spirit of Vatican II, of unifying all of Christ's believers under the benevolent care of the Holy See.
"He has already laid the doctrinal ground for the renaissance of the church -- he did it when he was at the helm of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. Under Benedict XVI the world will know that the Roman Catholic Church has Christ's message at its core and follows his teachings closely," adds Fr. Fazio.
The battle for the soul of believers in developed countries, particularly the United States, is also critical -- most of the funds used by alternative evangelical churches to send missionaries and proselytize in the poorer countries come from there.
The appointment of San Francisco Archbishop William Levada to the previous position held by Pope Benedict XVI himself can be better appreciated in this light.
Levada's appointment sends the message that the church entrusts its doctrines to a prelate who had led a diocese in America's most secular humanist and morally relativistic city. Levada has dealt firsthand with the legacies of free love, feminism, the gay movement and the evangelical juggernaut.
"Benedict XVI has chosen Levada specifically because he knows how to face these challenges," says Father Labib Kobti, pastor at St. Thomas More in San Francisco and U.S. Representative for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
"When Levada expressed his surprise at his appointment, the Pope responded that he was in fact the right man for the task because he came from a world where evangelical groups were a challenge, where the message of Christ was being distorted, and that he had provided a compassionate but firm rebuttal to the many assaults that the church of San Francisco had faced during his years as head of the diocese."
Under Levada's almost decade-long tenure, San Francisco's Catholic church regained a religious presence that had been faltered under the more politically adaptable administration of Archbishop John Quinn.
Father Kobti, however, dismisses suggestions that the Vatican is more than alarmed at the growing influence of evangelicalism. "In the past the church has been given for dead more than once," he says. "Take for example the rise of the Baptists and of the Lutherans."
They just love kicking us when we're down. I never made fun of them when Jimmy Bakker built a theme park with their collection money.
Just a slight correction.
It wasn't 'our' collection money. Jim Baker got his funds from the select group of patrons that watched his PTL show.
Vote with your feet, or if that isn't palatable, withhold money from the collection plate, just give penny's. The wholesale changes is that any one in authority who presided over dioceses where this took place is to be demoted back to grunt priest. Elevate younger new people in charge who are not homosexual them selves or homosexual sympathizers and purge the stain of homosexuality out of the ranks. The same basic cast of characters is still in charge, so the predators are still on the payroll, but lying low for now...
Matthew 5:17-18 "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfill. For verily I say to you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."
I see he's still at it, this aspiring.hillbilly ("ripped from the end of the roll") who voices so much genuine [spit] concern for the Roman Catholic Church.
Your ulterior motive finally floats to the top of the bowl: "Leave the Church, for this (or ANY other) reason. Leave the Church."
"Hello? Shift supervisor? Yeah, I think I got one. I think I got one to leave!"
FGS! Take a break. Where in the hell do you get your stats?
At least he's easy to spot.
I wonder if he works on commission. Perhaps we should ask him if he buys Jack Chick comics in bulk.
ask.com dogpile.com
There are a lot of Churches that use the term "Evangelical" Some have female pastors.
from: http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0215/p02s01-ussc.html
"Diocese throughout the country are feeling the enormous cost of settling cases. Estimates on the total amount paid by the Church to abuse victims ranges from $500 million to $1 billion, says New Jersey attorney Stephen Rubino, who has represented hundreds of victims. In Boston, settlements paid out are so large, the Boston Herald reported, that the archdiocese's insurance coverage for the 1970s and 1980s is almost wiped out."
from http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0031020.cfm
March 2, 2004
Report Documents Homosexual Priest Abuse
by Stuart Shepard, correspondent
The abuse problem plaguing the Catholic Church involves mainly homosexual priests.
You heard the news last week about the large number of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse. What you probably did not hear is that more than 80 percent of those abuse cases involved homosexual priests. The news comes from a comprehensive study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York.
The study documents broken faith and a failure by leadership to act, according to Bishop Wilton Gregory, who heads the group that commissioned the study, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"The picture that emerges, sadly, is one of those who broke faith with their people, their priesthood, and their religious vows, to use their sacred position to prey on the young and the vulnerable," Gregory said.
Bob Bennett, who served on a board that analyzed the data, called it "a problem of faith and morality." He did not cloud the issue by referencing the abusers as pedophiles.
"Any evaluation of the causes and context of the current crisis must be cognizant of the fact that more than 80 percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual nature," Bennett said.
Phil Burress, who heads Citizens for Community Values, said the report is a warning for every church and organization where young people — especially boys — are gathered.
"The Catholic Church has been infiltrated with homosexuals, and we need to call them what they are," Burress said. "This is a warning that just because a person wears a collar or they just seem like a nice fellow who wants to be around the boys and coach soccer and baseball, does not mean that you should let (your children) be alone with these men."
He said the best time to act is always before abuse can occur.
The study revealed that the scandal has already cost the Catholic Church more than $500 million. It also found allegations of abuse against well over 4,000 priests filed by more than 10,000 individuals over the last half century. Most of the victims were boys from 11- to 14-years-old.
The Catholic Bishops made two big mistakes in their handling of the sex scandal hitting the church. One, they didn’t get rid of priests who sexually abused children. A new policy of no tolerance may fix that. But the other, more basic, problem, is that too many homosexuals became priests in the liberal climate of the 1960s and ‘70s. The Vatican may fix thatproblem, and this is what has some in the media worried. On the CBS Evening News, reporter Byron Pitts said, "While the church tries to close the door on one sex scandal, another is brewing. The Vatican is now drafting a document that could ban homosexuals from the priesthood."
From http://www.woodrecords.com/jesusisalive/homosexual_priests
That’s another sex scandal? Since the homosexual lifestyle is frowned upon by church teaching, why would that be controversial? It’s only controversial if you’re a homosexual or if you try to maintain the fiction that there is no link between homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children. This is what Byron Pitts tried to say in his one-sided treatment of this very serious matter.
He presented a retired priest and psychotherapist named Richard Sipe, who estimated that
30 percent of Catholic priests are gay. That’s a high number. But Sipe didn’t want them kicked out. In fact, he told Pitts that a ban on homosexuals in the priesthood would be "like a gay bar refusing to serve homosexual patrons. It doesn’t make any sense." This has got to be one of the strangest analogies ever offered in defense of homosexuals as priests. His rationale is that since gay bars serve gays, the church should keep its homosexual priests. But the church is not supposed to be an arm of the homosexual movement.
Pitts presented the Reverend Jim Morris of a homosexual Catholic group called "Dignity," who assured the audience that homosexual priests are not prone to abuse kids. As Pitts reported, "Homosexuality and pedophilia, he says, are not related." A homosexual activist was supposed to be an objective source of information.
The expert who was missing from the CBS News report was Dr. Timothy Daily of the Family Research Council, who has written about a definite link between homosexuality and child abuse. He says, "Despite efforts by homosexual activists to distance the gay lifestyle from pedophilia, there remains a disturbing connection between the two. This is because, by definition, male homosexuals are sexually attracted to other males. While many homosexuals may not seek young sexual partners, the evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men """"seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners.""""
Daily notes that the homosexual movement accepts pedophilia. The North American Man-Boy Love Association, NAMBLA, has been a proud member of the so-called "gay rights" movement, and pedophile themes abound in gay literature. Dailey notes that the late "beat" poet Allen Ginsberg was a pedophile, whose poetry contained explicit references to man-boy sex. Ginsberg was a member of NAMBLA. When Ginsberg died in 1997, journalists praised him as a cultural icon. Some mentioned he was a homosexual, but they concealed his perverted sexual preference for boys.
Reed Irvine
And now for this GEM,,,, WARNING IT WILL DISGUST YOU TO READ IT!!!!! http://www.rcf.org/docs/gera1.htm
Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc.
P.O. Box 109, Petersburg, Illinois 62675-0109
Phone: (217) 632-5920 / Fax: (217) 632-7054 / web address: www.rcf.org
February 19, 2003
Most Rev. Andrew Pataki, J.C.L., D.D.
Eparch of Passaic
Eparchial Offices
445 Lackawanna Avenue
West Paterson, New Jersey 07424
Fax: 973-890-7175 / Phone: 973-890-7777
Your Excellency,
I am contacting you regarding a priest under your authority, Rev. Francis T. Gera, Pastor, Holy Dormition Byzantine Catholic Parish, 17 Buckskin Lane, Ormond Brach, FL 32125. Phone: (904) 677-8704, Fax: (904) 677-8704
Some concerned Catholics who attend Fr. Gera’s parish recently contacted Roman Catholic Faithful (RCF) regarding Father’s activities and possible beliefs. We have also been told that you were informed regarding this matter but have not taken any corrective action. It is for this reason that we will be posting this information on our web site at www.rcf.org .
Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc. (RCF) is a lay organization, with many religious members, dedicated to promoting orthodox Catholic teaching and fighting heterodoxy and corruption within the Catholic hierarchy.
RCF has confirmed through two sources that Father Francis T. Gera’s email address is FTG113@aol.com .
An internet search of FTG113@aol.com produced several results including a gay personals web site (copies enclosed) which included what appears to be a nude picture of Father (attached), his email address for contact information, along with the following ad/statement:
“poppa bear likes younger, TOP, slim-muscular men, 18-40. he lives in daytona beach, florida and can be reached at ftg113@aol.com.”
A Search Engine Displays the Following Matching Sites:
• the silverfox pictures archive -- personals - ... poppa bear, poppa bear, poppa bear likes younger, TOP, slim-muscular men, 18-40. he lives in daytona beach, florida and can be reached at ftg113@aol.com. ... http://sfpix.net/personals/
• the silverfox pictures archive -- poppa bear - poppa bear. poppa bear likes younger, TOP, slim-muscular men, 18-40. he lives in daytona beach, florida and can be reached at ftg113@aol.com. ... http://www.sfpix.net/personals/poppabear/.body.html
• PERSONALS - ... You can email him at:ftg113@aol.com http://gayvill.porncity.net/151/personals.html
According to information we have gathered, Father has appeared on ETWN regarding the video “A Byzantine Catholic Christmas.”
Your Excellency, it is our expectation that you will take immediate action. We will await your response.
Stephen G. Brady, President Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc
Enclosure: Photograph (1)
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