Posted on 04/01/2002 7:06:12 AM PST by marshmallow
DEFYING the painfully obvious symptoms of his decline, the Pope rallied his failing strength yesterday to denounce the “horror and despair” into which the Holy Land had plunged and call for an end to “this spiral of hatred, revenge and abuse of power”.
The 81-year-old pontiff, who may shortly have to enter hospital for a knee operation, has told close advisers that he is aware of pressure on him to step down because of his collapsing health, but said that he was refusing to do so “because Christ did not descend from the Cross”.
Summoning his formidable will power to lead Easter Mass and make his traditional Urbi et Orbi (To the City and the World) address the Pope, his face contorted in pain, pleaded for peace in the Middle East. “This is truly a great tragedy,” he said, his voice at times clear, but otherwise quavering and often slurred. “No political or religious leader can remain silent or inactive.”
An emergency medical team stood by discreetly as the Pope spoke, with an ambulance at the Vatican gates.
The Pope has had to take a back seat for most of the Holy Week celebrations, handing the celebration of Masses to senior cardinals in the race to succeed him, including Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State, and Camillo Ruini, the Vicar of Rome.
The Pope is receiving heavy medication to counteract the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease, and suffers from persistent knee pain caused by arthritis. Vatican officials said that he had refused to use a special electric wheelchair delivered to the Vatican at the end of February.
Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, 87, said that he saw no shame in a “wheelchair-bound Pope”, since in earlier times Popes had often used a sedan chair when they became old and frail. Yesterday the Pope used a temporary altar in St Peter’s because he was unable to negotiate the steps leading to the main altar.
Alfredo Carfagni, a leading Rome surgeon, said that he had been contacted by the Vatican about performing knee surgery on the Pope.
The pontiff, hailed as “God’s athlete” for his sporting prowess when he was elected at the age of 58 in 1978, had emergency surgery when he was shot in the abdomen in 1981 by a Turkish gunman, and has since undergone operations for a dislocated shoulder, a broken femur and the removal of a benign tumour. Professor Carfagni, of the San Carlo di Nancy hospital near the Vatican, said that knee surgery might prove unnecessary “if there is a miracle, for which we all hope”.
Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estévez of Chile yesterday revealed that when the Pope had been asked why he “continued his mission despite the condition of his health” he had said that he had to carry on just as Christ had refused to “come down from the Cross”.
Cardinal Medina, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Divine Cult and the Sacraments, said that although no Pope had stepped down voluntarily since Celestine V at the end of the 13th century, Church canon law did provide for papal abdication “if the Pope is no longer able to carry out his functions”.
Cardinal Medina said, however, that Pope John Paul II had a “select team” to help him and they had enabled him to “preside” at Palm Sunday and Good Friday ceremonies by sitting nearby on the papal throne, On Good Friday the Pope failed for the first time in his papacy to carry the Cross even part of the way around the Stations of the Cross during the candelit Via Crucis ceremony inside the Colosseum, although he did hold the cross at the last station. He appeared exhausted yesterday after holding a three-hour Mass on Saturday night.
The Pope, who turns 82 next month, is still insisting on a full programme of foreign travel this year, with trips to Bulgaria in May and Canada and Mexico in the summer.
At the weekend he passed a new milestone as his papacy became the sixth longest. “When he spoke on Good Friday of the shadows of the evening, everyone knew he was referring to himself,” La Repubblica said.
In his message yesterday, delivered under a sunny sky to tens of thousands packed into a flower-filled St Peter’s Square, the Pope referred to the “tragic sequence of atrocities and killings which steep the Holy Land in blood . . . it is as if war has been declared on peace. Nothing is resolved through reprisals and retaliation”. He read Easter greetings in 62 languages, including Hebrew and Arabic.
What does post 120 have to do with that?
Post #114: First of all, I was born and raised Catholic -- went to catholic schools all my life, was an altar boy, etc. I watched as all my family and friends and classmates melted away from the RCC. Then I read the Bible and found out who God really was. Then I began to research the RCC and saw why it has no hold over people, and is now today, a hotbed of pedophilia and homosexuality. It's because they don't teach the Bible, and instead substitute their pharisee-like man-made rules that cause people to drift away. God's word enlivens, and excites people.
Help me out here berned... Which is it? Post #103 where you claim not to know the mindset of Catholics, or Post #114 where you describe your intimate involvement with the Church?
I'm afraid I can't respond to you further until you properly explain yourself. I'm not the brightest guy on the block... but I know a con-job when I see one.
I think post 120 points out that Revelation, using figurative and symbolic language, is actually greatly understating the cataclysm that befell Jerusalem in AD 70.
When I was catholic, amongst my family freinds and classmates, the Bible was never mentioned much. It wasn't taught in RCC school. Just the catechism. In fact the nuns strongly implied to us that only the preists could understand the Bible, and when I was a teenager, I just assumed The Bible was written in Latin!!
When I talk about "catholic mindset", I mean vis-a-vis The Bible. And what I find is that catholics have no reverence for the exacting specificty of God's Holy Word. Look at campions response to very specific questions. I asked him when the killer quake hit Jerusalem as God spoke of in revelation, and he goes off on some bizarre convoluted tangent about "general Titus".
It's funny how people believe that Steven King has the power to demand his each and every word, comma, and period be exactly the way he wants them in his books, but they feel that God's Word is just clay for us humans to make pretty allegories out of. Hmmmm...
The historical context in which Revelation was written -- and whether it was written in AD 66 or AD 95 is irrelevant, the historical context is there nevertheless -- is just a "bizarre convoluted tangent" to you. You think this expresses "reverence" for "God's Holy Word".
'nuff said.
You believe God in His Holy Word allegorized the military action Titus took against Jerusalem with the word "EARTHQUAKE used in Revelation 11:13
...Rev 11:13 And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
Is that right? And the "seven thousand people" mentioned in Rev 11:13 really means 1.5 Million? Is that what you are saying?
However, all of this meant nothing to John: he was fixated on a vision of 21st century talking statues, "Roman One-World Churches," Zionist socialist states founded by UN decrees, and the "Rapture". Can we work implanted microchips into this somehow?
I now see the deep reverence toward God's Holy Word implied by the stunning clarity of your insights.
(Thank you, God, for the Catholic Church.)
Notice this passage in The Gospel of Mark... Jesus is speaking.
Mar 13:7 "When you hear of WARS and rumors of WARS, do not be frightened; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end. Mar 13:8 "For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be EARTHQUAKES in various places; there will also be famines. These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.
Notice how God is able to use two completely different words to mean "WAR"... and ... "EARTHQUAKE". When God wants to talk about military action, see how He uses the word "WAR"?
Now skip down a few words in the verse... see how when God wants to talk about the ground shaking, (as opposed to, say, a military action) He uses the word "EARTHQUAKE"?
This is what causes many students of the Bible to conclude that the word in Revelation 11:13 that goes "EARTHQUAKE" actually means a real-life "EARTHQUAKE"... and since no such EARTHQUAKE occured in Jerusalem in the First century, and since ALL of Jerusalem was utterly wiped out in 70AD... This leads us to believe that Revelation is prophesying about a FUTURE earthquake that will destroy a tenth of the FUTURE city of Jerusalem and kill seven thousand, just as God says in His book "revelation".
We are emboldened in this thinking by the fact that by a lucky co-incidence, Jerusalem NOW EXISTS!! So an earthquake really could occur just as prophesied in the book of Revelation. That's all I'm saying.
When I was catholic, amongst my family freinds and classmates, the Bible was never mentioned much. It wasn't taught in RCC school. Just the catechism. In fact the nuns strongly implied to us that only the preists could understand the Bible, and when I was a teenager, I just assumed The Bible was written in Latin!!
And you never bothered to ask? Didn't take any initiative to read the English language Catholic Bible in your own home, or ask to borrow one? But yet expect us to take your word that the KJV (or whichever you use) is the final authority as 'interpreted' by you?
When I talk about "catholic mindset", I mean vis-a-vis The Bible. And what I find is that catholics have no reverence for the exacting specificty of God's Holy Word.
And it is your interpretation of specificty that keeps so many away from truly participating in Christs teachings. Tell me do you honestly believe that the words of Joshua or Ezekial, or even John (Divinely inspired as they were) hold equal weight to the very real teachings of God Jesus?
Paul was a Great Evangelist for God...but for all his letters and instructions, none can compare to Jesus own "Go...And Sin No More." Because in that one simple phrase, He summed up the true Revelation. Notice He did not spend a great deal of time explaining to the woman what constituted sin and what did not..."Go, and Sin No More." She did not have to refer to a bible; She did not become a desciple, in fact we know nothing of her after her encounter with Christ. Yet according to your beliefs, we are to assume she did not enter into the Kingdom because she wasn't "born again." Oh, but then there's "Saved by Grace." That's the ticket...she was saved by grace... But was she? There's no reference to her "turning" her life over to Jesus. So we can only assume God wrote His Laws on her heart. But, by gum! How could she know what God wanted without a Bible?
One other thing: How do you justify eating pork? That's a serious question. The O.T. bible, specifically denounces the eating of pork. We must reason that Christ fulfilled all the Scriptures within Himself and He relieved of of alligence to the "Old Temple." So why the reliance on the exactitude of the O.T.? God Himself made the changes and the O.T. became OBE (overshaddowed by events).
Do you see what I'm driving at? The Bible is a useful tool... but, the revealed word of God is written on our hearts and we are empowered through the Holy Spirit... not on an interpretation of something recorded thousands of years ago. (Or even on writings recorded after Christ...) The focus must always be on Christ and even the exactitude of the Bible cannot compare to the very real "Holy Spirit" God sent to dwell within us.
Recapping: FOCUS ON CHRIST...Everything else is just semantics.
Here's a hint, and then I have to go home. Revelation is written in a literary genre called the "apocalyptic". (It was a common Jewish literary form of the time.) It uses symbolism. The passage in Mk you mention is not apocalyptic, it's simply a narrative. Pointing out that God calls earthquakes "earthquakes" in narrative text doesn't mean much when you turn to the question of what "earthquake" means in an apocalyptic.
It makes no sense. All conservatives should be thankful for the Catholic Church no matter what doctrinal disputes they have with it. From Pope Leo XXIII to the current Pope, the Holy See has been solid in its fight against communism. Reading Pope XIII is chilling. He predicated a Lenin would arise over 30 years before the Russian Revolution.
I'm an antitrinitarian. If I can put aside disputes about dogma, anyone should be able to.
Btw...good screen name. I only ran across the Oxford Movement this week while reading about Unitarians. TS Eliot, who became an Anglo-Catholic, mother was a progressive Unitarian active in the Temperance movement. His father was a Unitarian minister. Talk about not following in the faith...
I have stood all alone in this angry hornets nest of Roman Catholics, just an average joe, with no one on my side in these discussions. But armed with God's Word and the Holy Spirit as He moves me to speak, I cited Bible verses and explained my scriptural positions, because I am moved by the Spirit to preach to catholics so that they hear the Gospel that is not taught by the Roman Church.
I can tell you that I am very comfortable in the knowlege that God has observed our entire discussion here. I'm sorry that you can't discuss the Bible without resorting to negatively characterizing the individuals who souoght discussion with you.
If it's any comfort to you... I was once like you. Fallen away from the Church, spending hours going over the meaning of every phrase in the bible and trying to personally interpret how I could apply it to my own life. In need of a "Personal Savior" to take away the doubts. Luckily He led me back to His Church and thereby back to Him. I truly hope you can find your way back... if my "rebuke" was over-the-top, I apologize for not being clear in my intentions.
If it seems like I have little patience with Protestants, rest assured I don't. I think they are wrong in some of their interpretations, but have no antagonism towards those that are truly seeking Grace and Gods promises. But I do have little sympathy for fallen-away Catholics who come back to tell me I'm going to hell because I have not embraced their viewpoint, or wish to try to argue against or attack the Church that introduced them to the wonders of Christ.
You are right about one thing. God is watching this conversation... and He knows what is in my heart... and I'm grateful for it!
You are right about one thing. God is watching this conversation... and He knows what is in my heart... and I'm grateful for it!
Judging by the self-pride and personal arrogance that drips from your post # 134, I'd advise you to be careful of what you wish for, my friend.
As the months/years go by, keep your eyes open and notice how time after time, the Vatican will side AGAINST Israel. Then prayerfully ask God to enlighten you as to WHY that is.
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