Posted on 05/01/2002 6:24:00 AM PDT by history_matters
CARDINALS AND BISHOPS, PLEASE LEAVE THE CHANCERIES AND COME AMONG US TO HEAL
Dear Cardinals:
We wrote the American bishops a month ago. At that time we suggested (hopefully with adequate humility) that the current crisis in the Church could be resolved in large part by a return to tradition -- by a return to basic Christian holiness.
If you would so allow, we'd like to extend that argument. We write you again with what we hope is obedience. But we write with urgency. There is revolution in the air. Lay groups are forming. Radical nuns are expressing rage. The average Catholic wants an entire overhaul of some basic Church teachings, and the majority polled by secular media now even want women priests.
The only way to avert this -- the only way to prevent a deepening crisis, and perhaps even a split (at least ideologically) with Rome -- is to get back to the example of the apostles.
What we mean is that instead of a bureaucratic approach -- instead of the current aloofness -- our leaders should be evangelical. They should be mystical.
This is not a criticism; it is a plea. Please, bishops and cardinals, come out of the chanceries. Pray with us. Recite the Rosary. Adore the Blessed Sacrament in public. Heal. This will solve more than a dozen national meetings or trips to Rome or press conferences.
Dear cardinals, deliver us. You have the authority. You have the power -- as did the apostles -- to cast out demons and there are demons all around your flock. They engulf us. They engulf you. Cast them out. Send them away as Peter sent them away in the Acts of the Apostles -- a part of the Bible we all need to revisit. Cast evil spirits out of the priests and seminarians and theologians who have caused atrocities -- who have harmed our young.
Exorcise, dear cardinals. You do not have much time left. Deliver us. We are under assault and need the hand of your high anointing and this is what Christ left: the legacy of His Holy Spirit. As in Acts, show us the wonders, the miracles, the force of God. We know you can tap into that because you were chosen and have unusual gifts. Use them, dear prelates. Move with those gifts. This and only this will bring us above the crisis. Only with prayer and the special charisms you have can we heal the Church and prevent what may otherwise be a yet greater disaster. The Church will survive -- we have no doubt about that -- but it is going through a purification and during a purification there is the need, the urgency, of the Spirit. The media and the lawyers and the enemies of the Church -- so encouraged at this moment -- will never know what hit them!
It is what the apostles and disciples did: When they were in trouble they asked God to stretch "forth Your hand in cures and signs and wonders" (Acts 4:30).
Are we any different today? Has God changed? The apostles prayed so hard they sent demons out shrieking (Acts 8:7). They shook the place (Acts 4:31)! They went to the streets of Tyre and Derbe and Phoenicia as we need you now to come to the streets -- the homes -- of Boston, Los Angeles, Phoenix.
We look at Scripture and what we see is that the apostles were not bureaucrats or academics or politicians. They established the Church through signs and wonders and now we must re-establish it in the same way. We will come out of this not with intellectual dissertations, not legislative remarks -- but faith expressed with the love of Jesus.
We realize that in the modern structure of the world there may be the need for diplomacy and certain trappings of power but worry that in this regard modern chanceries (limos, palatial rectories) have become too worldly. It is in simplicity that we best convey the truth and in poverty that we find true power -- which will bring us out of situations that seem to have no exit.
Call on Jesus. Call on Mary. Call on Joseph!
This is the Church. This is what the earliest bishops -- the apostles -- did. This was the work of the disciples. Come out of the chanceries, dear cardinals, and pray with us into the night. Lay your hands on us. We need you! This month of May, pray the Rosary.
Dear cardinals, you have been at too much a distance. We need you as apostles. We need you to come among us. Heal us, Your Excellencies, Your Eminences. Pray with us. Lay your hands on us. Speak to us of the wonders of Jesus. If you do that, a new and vital Church will grow. If you do that, nothing can come against you. If you do that you will beats all odds and the Church will be saved (as it says in Acts 2:40) "from this perverse generation."
Myself - I'm an Our Lady of Fatima guy.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!
Askel5, have you ever posted anything here (on FR) regarding Medjugorje? Every now and again I think about it (spoke to my mother yesterday and she was talking about it and she is scandalized that I don't think the apparitions are real) - and I wonder what others think - there used to be a lot of talk about it years ago (like before 1990) but I hear very little now. Do you know if it attracts as many visitors as it used to?
I know it is not sanctioned by the Vatican, but my mother told me that JPII believes it - which I think is wishful thinking on her part since she hasn't ever met JPII, much less talked to him; and, if he believed it then the Vatican would approve it.
Has anyone heard from Father Elijah lately?
In a post-Christian age, Catholics build Mahony's Cathedral. Architecture is just our Faith expressed in stone.
What you said.
(boy, it is great to hang around with people that are smarter than me! especially Catholics! Although my sense is what many here express, I could not put it in words as well as most of you guys do - thanks all!)
I knew that because of your posts. It comes through.
Funny, I always loved the name Bernadette (because of St. Bernadette) and I wanted to give the name to my daughter. Now maybe it is because she was born in 1989, in the time of "Tiffany" "Crystal" "Amber", etc., but my family made such fun of me, I didn't do it. I did give her a very Irish name not found in the USA, but I still wish I named her Bernadette. Her middle name was promised for my dear departed grandmother, so that was taken.
LOL! Thanks for the laugh and the Divine Mercy link.
That's "performance art" that I'm willing to pay for ;o)
Thank you. What kind words. I would encourage you to repeat them to me as frequently as possible so I can print them out and show them to my wife as an example of how she might speak to me in the future :)
That being said, don't hate me because I'm about to go disagree with you on another thread:)
Now it's my turn to ask a few questions:
Do you know how many priests have been taken in by this hoax?
Do you know how many millions of souls have been deceived?
Do you have any idea how much money has changed hands as a result of all the travel bookings, lodging, contributions, books, tapes, videos promoting this false apparition?
Do you know what Rome has done about it?
Do you know what happened in Russia when the head of the Russian church, the Czar and his wife, believed in a false visionary who claimed to see the Mother of God?
I say this with no prejudice whatsoever. ;^)
I don't know where you came up with this solution. It certainly isn't a Catholic one. You posted sometime back that you supported the magisterium. The magisterium is the bishops united with the Holy Father.
Fine, Satan
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