Filial Appeal to Pope Francis Sign the Petition

Half a Million Ask the Pope for Clarity

The Filial Appeal to Pope Francis has been signed by prominent clergy and Catholic leaders

by Christine Niles  •   August 24, 2015  

FILED UNDER: SYNOD ON THE FAMILY, POPE FRANCIS

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DETROIT, August 24, 2015 (ChurchMilitant.com) - More than half a million faithful are asking the Pope for clarity.

The Filial Appeal to Pope Francis has garnered the signatures of leading prelates and lay Catholics, and pleads with the Holy Father to put an end to the worldwide confusion over Church teaching on marriage and the family.

Your Holiness, in light of information published on the last Synod, we note with anguish that, for millions of faithful Catholics, the beacon seems to have dimmed in face of the onslaught of lifestyles spread by anti-Christian lobbies. In fact we see widespread confusion arising from the possibility that a breach has been opened within the Church that would accept adultery — by permitting divorced and then civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion — and would virtually accept even homosexual unions when such practices are categorically condemned as being contrary to Divine and natural law. ...

Truly, in these circumstances, a word from Your Holiness is the only way to clarify the growing confusion amongst the faithful. It would prevent the very teaching of Jesus Christ from being watered down and would dispel the darkness looming over our children's future should that beacon no longer light their way.

Holy Father, we implore You to say this word. 

Nearly 90 bishops and almost 150 priests have signed the petition, including former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura Raymond Cardinal Burke, Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, and Bishop Robert Vasa of Santa Rosa, California. Other signatories include bishops from nearly every continent.

Prominent political leaders and royalty who have signed the document include H.R.H. Prince Dom Duarte, Duke of Braganza, Head of the Royal House of Portugal; H.I.R.H. Prince Dom Luiz of Orleans-Braganza, Head of the Imperial House of Brazil; Kigeli V, exiled King of Rwanda; and various current or former members of parliament in Europe and other countries. Professors, attorneys, authors and Catholic activists have also signed the petition. 

To add your name to the petition, click on this link.

Half a Million Ask the Pope for Clarity

Christine Niles is a staff writer, producer and anchor for ChurchMilitant.com

Follow Christine on Twitter: @ChristineNiles1

THE VORTEX—CUPICH SOUP

by Michael Voris, S.T.B.  •   August 10, 2015  The Vortex 357 COMMENTS

FILED UNDER: POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, ABP. BLASE CUPICH

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TRANSCRIPT

For anyone who is suffering under the delusion that we have moved past the 1970s in the Church, here's proof of how wrong you are. These words offered by Chicago's archbishop Cupich in response to the horrifying videos coming from the sting operation against Planned Parenthood:

While commerce in the remains of defenseless children is particularly repulsive, we should be no less appalled by the indifference toward the thousands of people who die daily for lack of decent medical care; who are denied rights by a broken immigration system and by racism; who suffer in hunger, joblessness and want; who pay the price of violence in gun-saturated neighborhoods; or who are executed by the state in the name of justice.

 Excuse us, Your Excellency, but yes we should be less appalled about medical care, immigration, poverty, unemployment and gun violence.

Why? Because people suffering from those scourges are still alive. They have the opportunity to improve their lot. Those evils can still be addressed. There is still hope, and many do work to improve those situations, as well as others. But for the little 11-week-old pre-born baby who is the butt of jokes as his little corpse is being picked over, there is no hope. 

This approach that all evils are equally appalling and should engender in us equal feelings of revulsion is pure Bernardin. He's the former cardinal-archbishop of Chicago who developed this idea, which of course spread like wildfire among the ranks of liberal prelates and other churchmen in the U.S. in the 1970s. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin also had the Chicago Gay Mens Chorus sing at his wake, indicating for many faithful Catholics the link between the social justice façade and gay clergy.

This ridiculous notion that I should feel equally bad and "no less appalled/; at someone who is unemployed as I do when I see a pyrex plate overflowing with baby pieces is patently stupid, even on it face. Why isn't the whole nation reeling then at video of unemployment lines if we are supposed to feel the same?

Because we don't feel the same, because we shouldn't feel the same. And we shouldn't feel the same because the situations are not the same. This attitude that all evil is essentially the same is meant to reduce the gravity of very evil things, like child murder and sodomy, and create in people's minds a confusion regarding morality.

Bernardin's 1970s so-called seamless garment has now morphed 40 years later into Cupich's Soup, where everything in the pot is more or less the same, just blending into one amorphous stew of blandness. What is at work behind all of this is the desire or effect of flattening morals, which down the road has the impact of ending morals.

Under Cardinal Bernardin’s tenure as the most powerful cleric in America in the 1970s onward, the Church in America simply fell apart. Certainly he was not the instigator. Many men preceded him like Cdl. Cushing in Boston, but when it was his time to step into the spotlight, Bernardin was a master. He rammed through Holy Communion in the hand, oversaw an explosion of homosexual or homosexual-friendly clergy, helped create an environment of dissent from the Magisterium being totally acceptable, and propelled this false narrative of social justice to the forefront of American Catholicism.

In between Bernardin and Cupich was the now deceased Cdl. Francis George, who privately admitted to confidantes the homosexual collective was too powerful for him to fight against. He saw himself as so weak he couldn't even get rid of the influential AGLO gay operation in his own chancery. That homosexual collective in Chicago was also the main propaganda machine for the social justice movement in the United States, reaching its tentacles across the entire country into countless dioceses.

Bernardin established this rot, George could make no substantial headway against it, and now Abp. Cupich has given it all new life with statements like "we should be no less appalled."

Yes, we should be.

The Church in America simply cannot take 10+ years of having to swallow Cupich Soup — the recipe which he got straight from Joseph Bernardin.

http://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/the-vortexcupich-soup

The Life of St. John Chrysostom

Icon of St. John Chrysostom

The Life of St. John Chrysostom

John was born in Antioch in 349 to Greco-Syrian parents. Different scholars describe his mother and his father was a high ranking military officer.  John's father died soon after his birth and he was raised by his mother.

            He was baptised in 368 or 373 and tonsured as a reader (one of the minor orders of the Church). As a result of his mother's influential connections in the city, John began his education under the pagan teacher Libanius. From Libanius, John acquired the skills for a career in rhetoric, as well as a love of the Greek language and literature.

                As he grew older, however, he became more deeply committed to Christianity and went on to study theology under Diodore of Tarsus, founder of the re-constituted School of Antioch. According to the Christian historian Sozomen, Libanius was supposed to have said on his deathbed that John would have been his successor "if the Christians had not taken him from us".

            He lived with extreme asceticism and became a hermit in about 375; he spent the next two years continually standing, scarcely sleeping, and committing the Bible to memory. As a consequence of these practices, his stomach and kidneys were permanently damaged and poor health forced him to return to Antioch.

John was ordained as a deacon in 381 by Saint Meletius of Antioch who was not then in communion with Alexandria and Rome. After the death of Meletius, John separated himself from the followers of Meletius, without joining Paulinus, the rival of Meletius for the bishopric of Antioch, but after the death of Paulinus he was ordained a presbyter (that is, a priest) in 386 by Evagrius, the successor of Paulinus.   He was destined later to bring about reconciliation between Flavian I of Antioch, the successor of Alexandria and Rome, thus bringing those three sees into communion for the first time in nearly seventy years.

            In Antioch, over the course of twelve years, John gained popularity because of the eloquence of his public speaking, especially his insightful expositions of Bible passages and moral teaching. The most valuable of his works from this period are his Homilies on various books of the Bible. He emphasised charitable giving and was concerned with the spiritual and temporal needs of the poor.  He also spoke against abuse of wealth and personal property:

“Do you wish to honour the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk, only then to neglect him outside where he is cold and ill-clad. He who said: "This is my body" is the same who said: "You saw me hungry and you gave me no food", and "Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me"... What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when your brother is dying of hunger? Start by satisfying his hunger and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well.”

          He became the Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic sensibilities.   After his death in 407 (or, according to some sources, during his life) he was given the Greek epithet chrysostomos, meaning "golden mouthed" in English, and Anglicized to Chrysostom.

           The Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches honor him as a saint and count him among the Three Holy Hierarchs, together with Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzus. He is recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church. Churches of the Western tradition, including the Roman Catholic Church, some Anglican provinces, and parts of the Lutheran Church, commemorate him on 13 September. Some Lutheran and many Anglican provinces commemorate him on the traditional Eastern feast day of 27 January. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria also recognizes John Chrysostom as a saint (with feast days on 16 Thout and 17 Hathor).

        John is known in Christianity chiefly as a preacher, theologian and liturgist. Among his homilies, eight directed against Judaizing Christians remain controversial for their impact on the development of Christian antisemitism. ....

Excerpts taken from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom

Check also  Catholic Encyclopedia  

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm

Homily by St. Augustine, Bishop

St. Augustine, bishop

St. Augustine, bishop

Homily for Ordination

Suffer for my sheep

                The Son of Man has come not to be served, but to serve, and to give his own life as a ransom for many.  Consider how the Lord served, and see what kind of servants he bids us to be.  He gave his own life as a ransom for many, he ransomed us.

                But who of us is fit to ransom anyone?  By his blood, by his death we were ransomed from death; and we who lay prostrate were raised up by his humiliation.  And yet we too, have a duty to contribute our meager offerings to his members, for we have become his members.  He is the head; we are the body.

                In his letter, the apostle John holds up the Lord as our model.  Jesus said:  Whoever wishes to be the greater among you will be your servant, just as the Son of Man has come not to be served by to serve and to give his own life as ransom for many.  So in his exhortation to us to act likewise, John says:  Christ laid down his life for us; so we, too, ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

                After his resurrection our Lord asked :  Peter, do you love me?  And Peter replied:  I do love you.  The question and the answer were repeated three times.  And each time the Lord added:  Feed my sheep.  In other words, if you want to show that you love me, then feed my sheep.  What will you give me if you love me, since you look for everything to come from me?  Now you know what you are to do if you love me:  Feed my sheep.  Thus we have the same question and answer once, twice, three times.  Do you love me?  I do love you.  Feed my sheep.  Three times Peter had denied in fear; three times he confessed out of love.  By his replies and his profession of love, Peter condemned and wiped out his former fear.  And so the Lord, after entrusting his sheep to him for the third time, immediately added:  When you were a young man, you would gird yourself and go wherever you wished.  But when you are old, another will gird you and take you where you do not wish to go.  This he spoke signifying by what death he was about to glorify God.  Thus he foretold Peter’s own offerings and crucifixion.  By this the Lord suggested that feed my sheep meant suffer for my sheep.

Taken from the Liturgy of the Hours, According to the Roman Rite, Ordinary Time, Catholic Book Publishing Corp.  New York, 1975