Posted on 04/18/2020 5:58:03 PM PDT by marshmallow
WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- Although Catholics in most East European countries have backed measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic, for some it has also revived painful memories of communist rule.
Sensitivities over church closures have also surfaced in Western Europe, where some Catholics have questioned the right of civil authorities to prohibit religious worship.
"The terrifying vision of empty churches shows how it might have been if past anti-Catholic hostilities had prevailed," said Polish Radio presenter Malgorzata Glabisz-Pniewska.
"There hasn't been any great resistance, since these measures have been ordered by a government seen as sympathetic to the faith, with acceptance by church leaders. But we've never been barred from churches before, even in periods of persecution, and it's doubtful the curbs would have been accepted so easily if a more anti-clerical government had been in power."
Glabisz-Pniewska spoke as Easter season Masses and liturgies were livestreamed, and the Polish bishops' conference president, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, urged Catholics in an April 12 TV message to see the pandemic as a chance for "social changes that really serve the human person."
Glabisz-Pniewska told Catholic News Service April 13 that many Polish Catholics had been "surprised and shocked" by current restrictions, but had readily participated in "virtual services" via the internet.
However, Polish media said police had dispersed parishioners from several churches and fined priests for not enforcing rules limiting Mass attendance to five, fueling sensitivities in the traditionally Catholic country.
Meanwhile, Romanian Catholic Bishop Virgil Bercea, whose church was persecuted under communist rule, said church closures had also been questioned there, but he predicted most critics would "react differently" if their families were touched by the coronavirus.
"Our church was forbidden and forced to live clandestinely under communism -- we had no priests and had to worship in our homes," he.......
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnews.com ...
There are some who have made it painfully clear what they would do with unchecked power.
de blasio and that one crazy governor come to mind. I think Michigan.
de blasio makes cuomo look reasonable and that’s when you know you’ve found a dictator wanna be.
But he always said he was in favor of “the heavy hand of government”
putz
Bookmark
What I find more terrifying is that the Bishops of Ohio, even though Ohio’s shutdown order exempted religious services, ordered their Priest to not perform any sacraments during the shutdown.
This means during the Easter Season, the most holy weeks of the year, there will be no masses.
This order includes Confession Baptism and Last Rights. This means that those who die during this shutdown could be condemned to eternity in hell thanks to the acts of our Bishops.
Once again the “The road to Hell is paved with the skulls of Priest with the skulls of Bishops as their sign post” - St. John Chrysostom.
I share your grief and outrage --- fully --- but I have to jump in here with my catechist hat on, and say, this is not "what this means."
Nobody can be cast into hell for the acts or omissions of somebody else.
We are being deprived of vrey great and precious, Christ-given treasures if we are deprived of he Sacraments. But that does not put the deprived one into hell.
Those who go to hell are described by their acts and omissions in several places in the NT (it's going on 11 pm and I don't have time to look these up right now) but basically, God will be faithful to cleanse you of every evil, and break any ties that attach you to sin and sorrow, if you turn to Him with all your heart. Ask Him for the gift of the Holy Spirit. He will give you His Spirit because He loves those who approach him with honesty and faith.
Confess your sins to God with the intention of then receiving Sacramental Confession as soon as you can. Make an Act of Spiritual Communion with the intent of receiving Sacramental Communion as soon as you can. When sick or in danger of death, go to he merciful Heavenly Father in prayer and ask for Him for the anointing of your soul with grace and strength, with the intent of receiving the Anointing of the Sick Sacramentally, as soon as you can.
And then trust Him with all your heart, and don't worry.
Men judge by externals, but God looks into the heart.
O Lord have mercy on us, and on the whole world.
But there is no salvation without baptism.
What of newborns that die without baptism during this shutdown? The Church teaches that they do not go to Hell but they can not enter heaven because they were not baptized.
In the eyes of the Catholic Church, any Baptism that uses water and the invocation of the Holy Trinity, as in “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” is a valid sacrament.
Many Catholics today don’t know this.
Just think: during this pandemic a mother can abort her child; but the Catholic Church won't formally baptize that same precious child if the mother carried him/her to term.
However, my biggest complaint is locked churches and no confessions. Only lazy bums do that.
The Easter service I attended (online) featured this in the homily: a priest and his crew visited a hardware store, procured a TuffShed, cut a hole in the side to make a window, and made a drive-up confessional.
I haven’t had good experiences with Sacramental Confession. For instance, I had a traditionalist priest argue with me, tell me he didn’t believe me and I was lying, yet I was telling the absolute truth. That was just the latest episode. Directly to God I confess now.
Confession to God continues to be available 24/365/7. He never closes.
If one can confess their sins to God directly in these circumstances....then one can confess their sins to God in any circumstances. No earthly priest needed.
That does not take away from the importance of Sacramental Confession. And there are three great things about Sacramental Confession:
First is that it was instituted by Christ --- given to the Church by Christ ---- when He said to His Apostles, "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." In a logically necessary way, you can't know what a person's sins are, whether to be forgiven or to be retained, unless they confess them.
Second, He instituted it because the priest here represents both Christ and the Church (as the Mystical Body of Christ.) It is necessary for us to acknowledge that by our sin, we have offended not only the person proximately wronged (e.g. the person I cuttingly insulted) but also Christ whom we have grieved by sin, and the rest of the Mystical Body of Christ who are adversely affected even by our bad inner dispositions.
The priest represents, then both our offended but forgiving Sovereign Lord, and our injured community with whom we are spiritually joined (the Communion of Saints.)
Third, we have (at least most of us have) a tendency to de-objectivize our sins, to think of them in increasingly nonspecific and self-deceiving terms, and eventually, get ourselves off the hook. The remedy for that is to objectively name your sins to somebody else. Name them, despise them, and nail them to the Cross.
Gaining both this objective sense of sin, and healing, is why James told us, "confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed." (James 5:16) We do the confessing, the mutual praying, and the healing, right then and there.
Thank You, Lord. Such a mercy.
The priest represents, then both our offended but forgiving Sovereign Lord, and our injured community with whom we are spiritually joined (the Communion of Saints.)
A human represents Christ??
Wow. Roman Catholicism is so far off the Truth.
"I live ---yet, not 'I', but Christ lives in me." Have a Christly day.
There is a fundamental difference in what we are saying.
As far as confessing to a priest goes, that's straight out of the Gospel for today, John 20:19-31. We go to the priest because Jesus tells us to.
20Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 1 Corinthians 5:20
Big difference in what Rome claims and what this says.
As far as confessing to a priest goes, that's straight out of the Gospel for today, John 20:19-31. We go to the priest because Jesus tells us to.
And again a big difference in how Rome sees this and how it was witnessed in the early church.
In Acts 2:37-38 we see the disciples doing what Christ told them to do.
37Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” 38Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The intent of the passage in John, as evidenced throughout the NT, is the preaching of the Gospel for the forgiveness of sins.
If you want to appeal to James 5:16 you will note that is a corporate confession of sins...not going to a priest in a confessional which in itself is a relatively modern concept.
"As the Father hath sent Me, I slso send you. When He had said this, He breathed on them, and He said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them;and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained."
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