Posted on 01/01/2011 1:02:39 AM PST by mlizzy
Is Anyone Listening To Peter?
A new Dark Age on the horizon?
Catholics, Protestants, Agnostics… the vast majority of conservatives of every stripe would agree with this almost non-reported speech made by Pope Benedict XVI on 20 December, 2010.
In a speech to Papal representatives from all over the world, the Pope spoke in the context of a the near total collapse in the Western world of any moral consensus rooted in Christian ethics and heritage.
In comments aimed directly at the secularization and abandonment of God by the West, Benedict stunned those in a attendance when he stated;
“Alexis de Tocqueville, in his day, observed that democracy in America had become possible and had worked because there existed a fundamental moral consensus which, transcending individual denominations, united everyone.
Only if there is such a consensus on the essentials can constitutions and law function. This fundamental consensus derived from the Christian heritage is at risk wherever its place, the place of moral reasoning, is taken by the purely instrumental rationality of which I spoke earlier.
In reality, this makes reason blind to what is essential. To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.”
“No pleasure is ever enough, and the excess of deceiving intoxication becomes a violence that tears whole regions apart – and all this in the name of a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually undermines man’s freedom and ultimately destroys it.”
Benedict even forcefully spoke of the destruction from within that has polluted the Catholic Church since the implementation of the “spirit of Vatican II” and the abandonment of moral absolutes by many, many Catholic priests, bishops and cardinals;
“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children.
This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos. It was maintained – even within the realm of Catholic theology – that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a “better than” and a “worse than”. Nothing is good or bad in itself.
Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end in view. Anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circumstances. Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist.
The effects of such theories are evident today.”
"The very future of the world is at stake."http://rosaryforpeace.com
...”No pleasure is ever enough...”...
God bless Pope Benedict.
“God bless Pope Benedict.”
This is an Eternal Truth.
In the town where my Grandfather lived in Minnesota, there was a road running through the center of town.
On one side of the Road was the Catholic cemetery on the other side was the Lutheran cemetery.
Grandfather was a Lutheran. I think he would be OK with this.
Grandfather was a Lutheran. I think he would be OK with this.What a nice comment, SwedeBoy2. I'm about 80% Swede (my grandparents came over from Sweden with the last name of Anderson -- and some of my relatives still live in Motley, Minnesota -- but when "ma and pa" saw so many Andersons in the phone book in America, they changed their last name). Anyway, I was an MS-Synod Lutheran for 33 years before converting to Catholicism. Happy to hear your grandfather would be OK with this. I think mine would be too. :)
His exhortions are becoming more and more apocalyptic.
He’s warning the world, but unfortunately, when has the world listened?
We can only pray. America has certainly fallen from the promise it had and now this is a world I do not recognize. Our rate of abortion, murder, chaos, and homosexual pride, lies and greed, and spreading these tentacles into the world via television and movies from the US entertainment industry is going to be paid.
“Penance, penance, penance...” The angel at Fatima.
Mine would. My dad’s dad, and his dad’s dad were Presbyterian ministers. My dad’s mom was a second generation Swedish American in Spicer, MN, so I think I understand. Both my parents converted in the fifties. Yet when my grandfather learned of my dad’s incipient conversion, he took it in stride, knowing my father heard a call as strong as the one he felt he’d heard. I think that my grandfather would agree with His Holiness about the edge of the precipice we’re on, and at least some of the reasons. The emptiness within the secular world and it’s constant search for newer, bigger, bolder, faster will never be filled at the well of depravity.
We are blessed by having Pope Benedict. Those who aren’t Catholic, too. The West, in it’s truest sense, needs men like him, who speak only the truth, and wish to show the world way back to sanity. As Father Z says, he is, truly, the Pope of Christian Unity.
**“Penance, penance, penance...” The angel at Fatima.**
Say the Daily Rosary from Fatima too!
From this thread:
"It is the United States that is to lead the world to peace, the peace of Christ, the peace that He brought with Him from heaven," Sister Mary Ephrem quoted The Virgin as saying. "Dear children, unless the United States accepts and carries out faithfully the mandate given to it by heaven to lead the world to peace, there will come upon it and all nations a great havoc of war and incredible suffering. If, however, the United States is faithful to this mandate from heaven and yet fails in the pursuit of peace because the rest of the world will not accept or cooperate, then the United States will not be burdened with the punishment about to fall."
"Weep, then, dear children, weep with your mother over the sins of men," said Mary. "Intercede with me before the throne of mercy, for sin is overwhelming the world and punishment is not far away."
ping
This Pope doesn’t pull any punches. And why should he? As he says, the future of the world is at stake.
My grandfather used to say that the family had been Presbyterians since John Knox, so I’d guess 1600’s at least. He (my grandfather) was one of a kind. Very good egg, and lived a holy life. My mom converted in 1958, a year after my dad. They met through Catholic Youth group of sorts. I was raised Catholic from birth. I’ve always loved the faith, but about the time the twins were born, I had a sort of awakening, in some ways, a wake up call.
My dad’s parents took his crossing the Tiber very well. Like I said, I think they were unique, and we were certainly blessed with them. My mom’s mother was not at all pleased when she converted, but when my parents became engaged, she was very happy, and she was ever afterward.
I believe you’re right about your mom. I still pray for my grandparents as well. I’m sure they feel the same.
“Happy to hear your grandfather would be OK with this.”
The Pope quoted De Tocqueville’s observation about the sharing of a common value system bringing the blessings of Freedom and Prosperity to America.
America’s Freedom and Prosperity is a Blessing and as long as there are so many issues that divide us, those blessings will continue to whither and may ultimately die.
I was making an observation about the separate burial facilities of the two groups ( Lutherans and Catholics )
If the two groups were more integrated they might have had a town Cemetery. I found the arrangement strange and evidence of Bigotry on both sides.
Grandfather left that place and some of his family members to find better work opportunities elsewhere.
Pope John Paul II, before his death, cautioned us that “the confusion between good and evil” is the “most dangerous crisis which can afflict man.”
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