I was wondering if or when any of this would be talked about on this forum.
Anyone else praying the novena? Today is day 4. If day 3 brought all of this out of the woodwork, who knows what strength and constancy in these prayers will bring.
Kyrie Eleison.

September 15, Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.

NATIONAL "picket the chancery" day, 10AM sharp. Bring your rosary and a copy of the Stabat Mater (the Sequence for the Feast.)

I am doing the novena and I am Byzantine. We don't even say the rosary, so I threw in a chotki to go with it. What that means is I don't say the rosary well, but I am saying it for the duration of the novena.

Aside from the fact that I think Cardinal Burke would have made a better pope, I have considered Francis to be a South American socialist who doesn't particularly like the U.S. Many in S. America like to blame the U.S. for their problems, when the problems lie with their cultures and corrupt governments. I guess it is easier to blame someone else than fix them.

Yes, all this is really giving the church a black eye and in reality, it is a self-inflicted wound. Some of it may be pointless when some of those cases go back 70 years. Are we going to follow earlier practice and exhume the culprits and drag their bodies through the streets? Hardly effective, and doesn't contribute to a solution. I told our associate pastor this morning that if they throw all the sinners out of the church, no one will be left, including us.

Appointing better bishops is a necessity. However, some recent appointments don't reassure me. The last thing we need is a USCCB committee proposing solutions. As Cardinal Burke noted, conferences of bishops don't have that authority in the first place.

And Charles, what IS it with the Houston Grand Opera? First James Levine, now "the" countertenor and his wife?husband? conductor.

But one expects that with these guys, not with a fleet of Vatican functionaries.

As I have tried to warn on many occasions, but no one seemed to believe me, its far far worse than what the vast majority know, want to realize or dare to imagine.

Jesus led by example and instructed his own to have not purse, staff or coin. To sell ALL, to give away ALL, to give UP everything and everyone and then come and follow Him. To me, the poorer the cleric (especially the leadership, the shepherds), the more they are an example to me, the more I tend to trust them and want to believe in them.

By their fruits ye shall know them.

Unbelievably, I've seen ghastly levels of (including sexual) misbehavior by the ELDERLY CHURCH LADIES at a small parish. Really. Including promoting or committing mortal sin. When the parish priest left under mysterious circumstances the new priest began uncovering the layers of mess. When he removed a few key Problems the ladies complained to the bishop. The bishop sent in an oversight team. The ladies threw the parish priest under the bus. Their lies were so shameless I walked out of the meeting for fear of punching someone in the nose. It was the same kind of basic human nastiness that these scandalous stories in the news today are highlighting. Or that the Mean Girls in high school carry out.

I'd like to see every bishop and cardinal, guilty or not, wearing sack cloth and sandals and scrubbing bathroom floors for a while.

I am currently appallingly scandalized, and I think it's going to get worse before it gets better, but I love Jesus and I love the Church and I hope to stick this out no matter how ugly it gets. I've got lots of great music to study meanwhile, and I'm being zealous about chanting the Office or Hours at least once a day, to get more proficient at that. Beauty is a great tonic.

This problem is as old as the human race, and it will not go away anytime soon; that is, not for as long as there are people. Priests are not the only predators, only the most disgusting ones. Nor is this limited to men, gay or otherwise. Straight men, and women, too, carry out these predations. Nor are boys the only victims. Girls, too, live in terror of this. This is not a srtictly gay problem, or a male problem, It is a human problem which will not be eradicated by a witch hunt for gays, or not allowiing them in seminaries. I have known numerous homoerotic priests (and other men) who were as sterling as anyone could wish to be influenced by or look up to. In fact, there is something special about them. The relatively few culprits could be just anyone you might know or meet, sit next to in church, uncles and aunts, and other close family members included.

Everyone should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but, any priest or prelate found guilty should be summarily and publicly defrocked - and excommunicated at least for a certain period of time. (And that goes as well for those who cover for them and move them around as in a shell game to wreak more havoc on more lives.)

Throughout this scandal the Church has by and large shown itself to be more upset by the scandal than by the stygian stench of the sin. Perhaps we are beginning to expect something real to be done about it. We will see. I hope that the heat is turned up and applied until real, genuine justice is done and the Church is cleansed from top to bottom of this evil cancer. This entire affair is certainly on a par with mediaeval and renaissance corruption, and the wickedness of Medici popes.

It is even to the greater shame of the Church that nothing at all would have been done about this situation, it would never have been so much as heard of by anyone, but for the secular press. That it takes an outraged press to bring to light something that the Church should have eradicated long ago simply multiplies the Church's culpability. Here, as with every scandal in history, the Reformation being the biggest one (though this current one certainly rivals it!), if the Church's house had been in order there would have been no food for scandal.

Pardon my crummy Italian (Latin?), but . . . Dimitto subito! Dimitto subito! Dimitto subito!

Catherine,

The last place the Pope should respond is off the cuff on a plane

I completely agree with you, but this opinion has (to the best of my knowledge) never stopped the Holy Father from acting in this way previously.....

the sex thing has little to do with money

Wrong. The large-dollar frauds against the Church have usually been perpetrated by homosexual priests who were spending heavily on rent-boys OR to impress their....ahhh......friends.

You don't find many straight priests with fraud problems, although they do exist.

Jackson,

Prescind from the question of whether one is a homosexual (or isn't). Persons aren't condemned by the Church or the catechism or Christ for being, but for doing or failing to do. Hence, whether homosexual men are more prone to misbehavior is utterly beside the point: God can't act against His nature, but you and I can.

@pfreese: The Pope did not "sit on" the issue. He acted--ACTED--precisely against the actions of Benedict XVI, rehabilitating McCarrick, using him as his emissary to Red China (which has produced a VERY unfortunate outcome), and relying on McCarrick for promoting various other members of the magic circle to nice slots in Chicago and Newark.

There is no question about "what he knew, and when he knew it." The man is flat-out guilty as charged, and showed it beyond the shadow of a doubt in his interchange with CBS News on the plane yesterday.

By the way, it is also reported that McCarrick & Co. lobbied--successfully--to have Cdl. Burke removed from the Congregation for Bishops.

Do you seriously think that was just co-incidence?

Chris -
You say that 'Persons aren't condemned by the Church... for being, but for doing...'

Well, seminaries' blanket refusal to admit homosexuals (which many if not all do) isn't exactly 'condemnation', is it... - it's just... condemnation... of a sort.... that presumes wickedness where it most likely is not resident. The truth is that for many it matters not a whit what a gay person can do, it only matters what he be.

I just read this.

Contacted by the Catholic News Agency (CNA), Monsignor Jean-François Lantheaume, the former first counselor at the apostolic nunciature in Washington D.C., declined to give an interview, but affirmed the veracity of the report by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

“Viganò said the truth. That’s all,” he wrote to CNA.

This problem is as old as the human race, and it will not go away anytime soon...

not true:

Here is what I sent out to all of my children AND friends who may join me this coming Saturday:

++++++++++++++

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Time is short.

If you have been following the latest news about the scandal that has been perpetrated by the lost shepherds of the Catholic Church, then you will understand why I am once again initiating the following dire effort.

Simply, severe judgement is about to be levied on the church and the world for its sins, especially for the sin of Sodomy which has been practiced by our bishops and priests and also for so many other sins which cries out to heaven for justice. You may think there is nothing you can do, but there is.

You are invited to participate in the First Five Saturday’s of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the offenses that have been committed against her most Immaculate heart and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In the past Our Lady had me promote the First Saturday Devotions for about ten years in reparation and to console the heart of God which hosted at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Baltimore mainly to account for the sin of abortion. I was moved to compose a Mass entitled "The National Outpouring of Grief" which was celebrated and filmed at the Basilica of Mother Ann Seton and was then broadcast on EWTN for a number of years. With my wife we performed the music of that same Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City with Dan Lynch and 117 pilgrims from the US and Canada all in reparation.

Here are the details for this coming Saturday, September 4.

+++++++++++++++++++

WHEN: Saturday, September 4, 2018 - 8am Mass
WHERE: Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church (or another Catholic Church local to you if you are out of town)
WHAT: Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
BENEFITS: You will receive these items at no cost:
1. a brochure explaining this devotion
2. a hand made rosary

+++++++++++++++++++


The First Five Saturdays Devotion: A Short Explanation
The Five First Saturdays devotion is one of the principal points of the Fatima message. It centers on the urgent need for mankind to offer reparation and expiate for the many injuries that the Immaculate Heart of Mary suffers from the hands of both impious and indifferent men.

On the First Saturday during 5 Consecutive Months, the Devotion consists of:
1. Going to Confession,
2. Receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion,
3. Saying five decades of the Rosary,
4. Meditating for 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary.
All this offered in REPARATION for the sins of blasphemy and ingratitude committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.


******************
History
During the third apparition on July 13, 1917, Our Lady revealed that she would come to ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart and for the Communion of Reparation of the Five First Saturdays. Consequently, she asked for the devotion in 1925 and the consecration in 1929.

While staying at the House of the Dorothean Sister in Pontevedra, Portugal, Sister Lucia received a vision on December 10, 1925 where the Blessed Mother appeared alongside a Boy who stood over a luminous cloud. Our Lady rested one hand on the Boy’s shoulder while she held on the other hand a heart pierced with thorns around it.

Sister Lucia heard the Boy say, "Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother which is covered with thorns with which ingrate men pierce it at every moment with no one to make an act of reparation to pull them out."

Our Lady expressed her request in the following words, "See, my daughter, My Heart surrounded with thorns with which ingrates pierce me at every moment with blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, make sure to console me and announce that all those who for five months, on the first Saturdays, go to confession, receive Communion, say five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to Me, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls."

A few days afterward, Sister Lucia detailed this vision in a letter addressed to Monsignor Manuel Pereira Lopes, her confessor when she resided in the Asylum of Vilar in the city of Oporto, Portugal.

Why Five Saturdays?

Sister Lucia’s confessor questioned her about the reason for the five Saturdays asking why not seven or nine. She answered him in a letter dated June 12, 1930. In it she related about a vision she had of Our Lord while staying in the convent chapel part of the night of the twenty-ninth to the thirtieth of the month of May, 1930. The reasons Our Lord gave were as follows:

The five first Saturdays correspond to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They are:

a. Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception
b. Blasphemies against her virginity
c. Blasphemies against her divine maternity, at the same time the refusal to accept her as the Mother of all men
d. Instilling , indifference, scorn and even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother in the hearts of children
e. Direct insults against Her sacred images
Let us keep the above reasons firmly in our minds. Devotions have intentions attached to them and knowing them adds merit and weight to the practice.

+++++++++++++++++

If you wish to know the full extent of the ominous times of our day more in depth, listen to this video series:

https://sensusfidelium.us/our-lady-of-revelation-series/

Once you listen to these videos, you will more fully understand our dire predicament, and what we must do to possibly avert judgement, although it is very very late.

In the Hearts of JMJ and the Silver Wings of the Dove,

Francis Koerber
443.286.0274
fk@myopus.com

(cont'd in next post)

@pfreese: McCarrick certainly "remembers" that he was sanctioned; he simply disobeyed Benedict. Francis ALSO "remembers" McCarrick's sanctions, as testified by Vigano and his aide-de-camp Lantheaume (see above.)

And of course there is a record of it, but gee, golly-whillikers, Francis won't send a copy to the Associated Press.

This is not "conspiracy theory." This is conspiracy fact. You will note that I have not been a "Pope Francis Denouncer", although I have made note of his very slippery habits regarding sacraments for divorce/remarried, and the slippery language on the death penalty. That term, "slippery", has become a hallmark of Francis' communication style, so no, it's not a conspiracy "theory."

Perhaps since you are from Canada, you've never had to parse. every. word. as we had to do here in the States while Bill Clinton was President. Sad to say that that experience is very helpful in reading Francis.

This is typical of him. Remember the 4, I think, cardinals who asked for clarifications. Silence. Same here. His history is to do or say something outrageous then clam up. Is it sheer arrogance? You decide.

.

@francis
You have a few words or phrases awkwardly placed.
FIVE First Saturdays (ie the devotion is not scheduled only for Jan thru May).
.. had me promote at SPCC in B (ie church was site of prayer not abortions).

https://onepeterfive.com/the-amazing-story-of-how-archbishop-viganos-report-came-to-be/

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vigano-issues-new-statement-documents-to-clear-his-name-of-false-charges

...

“I got his point that bishops are political creatures and are often not reliable in terms of upholding the faith.”

To be fair, that could apply to Vigano too. There’s still a lot we don’t know.

Trust, hope and faith in GOD alone!

"It is better that scandals arise then that truth be suppressed.

Amen and amen!

That it takes a scandal to rid us of an evil is itself scandalous.

In talking with my associate pastor last Sunday, the subject of the priest in Indiana who was beaten came up. My associate mentioned being apprehensive about going in public dressed as a priest. Can you blame him? He's a good guy and may St. Michael protect him.

I haven't had much faith in some of these leaders for a long time.