The following comes from a March 17 story by Thomas Reese, S.J. (former editor of America magazine) in the National Catholic Reporter.
Rumors and questions are circulating about Pope Francis’ time as the Jesuit provincial of Argentina and his relationship to two imprisoned Jesuits and the Argentine military dictatorship.
The Society of Jesus is filled with intelligent men who are passionate about their ideas and work, so of course there are arguments and disagreements just as there are in any family. I have had debates with other Jesuits over dinner where voices were raised, but that does not mean I don’t love them and would not be willing to die for them. We are a family.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, like Pope John Paul II, had serious reservations about liberation theology, which was embraced by many other Latin American Jesuits. As a North American, I have trouble understanding these disputes, since John Paul and Bergoglio obviously wanted justice for the poor while the liberation theologians were not in favor of violent revolution as their detractors claimed. But clearly this was an issue that divided the church in Latin America.
Part of the problem was the use of the term “Marxist analysis” by some liberation theologians, when they sought to show how the wealthy used their economic and political power to keep the masses down. The word “Marxist,” of course, drove John Paul crazy. Meanwhile, the Latin American establishment labeled as Communist anyone who wanted economic justice and political power for workers. Even many decent but cautious people feared that strikes and demonstrations would lead to violence. What is “prudent” can divide people of good will.
There were also disagreements about how to respond to the military junta in Argentina. As provincial, Father Bergoglio was responsible for the safety of his men. He feared that Jesuit Fr. Orlando Yorio and Jesuit Fr. Franz Jalics were at risk and wanted to pull them out of their ministry. They, naturally, did not want to leave their work with the poor.
Yorio and Jalics were arrested when a former lay colleague, who had joined the rebels and then been arrested, gave up their names under torture as people he had worked with in the past. This was normal practice for the military. The junta did not get information from Bergoglio. Contrary to rumor, he did not throw them out of the society and therefore remove them from the protection of the Society of Jesus. They were Jesuits when they were arrested. Yorio later left the society, but Jalics is still a Jesuit today, living in a Jesuit retreat house in Germany.
The Jesuit historian Fr. Jeff Klaiber interviewed Jesuit Fr. Juan Luis Moyano, who had also been imprisoned and deported by the military. Moyano told Klaiber that Bergoglio did go to bat for imprisoned Jesuits. There are disagreements over whether he did as much as he should have for them, but such debates always occur in these circumstances.
Adolfo Esquivel, the Argentine who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, says Bergoglio was not involved with the military and did try to help the two Jesuits. He himself was imprisoned by the military and his son is married to Mercedes Moyano, the sister of Juan Luis Moyano.
Other rumors circulating say that as archbishop, Bergoglio allowed the military to hide prisoners in an archdiocesan retreat house so that they would not be seen by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights visiting the ESMA prison. Fact: Bergoglio was not archbishop when this took place. Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine investigative journalist, says Bergoglio helped him investigate the case.
It is also said there is written evidence in the Argentine foreign ministry files that Bergoglio gave information on the Jesuits to the military. The alleged conversation took place when Bergoglio was trying to get the passport of one of the Jesuits extended. Not only did this take place after they were arrested and after they were released, it was after they were safely out of the country. Nothing he could say would endanger them, nor was he telling the government anything it did not already know. He was simply trying to convince a bureaucrat that it was a good idea to extend the passport of this man so he could stay in Germany and not have to return to Argentina.
More recently, Cardinal Bergoglio was involved in getting the Argentine bishops to ask forgiveness for not having done enough during the dirty war, as it was called in Argentina.
In the face of tyranny, there are those who take a prophetic stance and die martyrs. There are those who collaborate with the regime. And there are others who do what they can while keeping their heads low. When admirers tried to claim that John Paul worked in the underground against Nazism, he set them straight and said he was no hero.
Those who have not lived under a dictatorship should not be quick to judge those who have, whether the dictatorship was in ancient Rome, Latin America, Africa, Nazi Germany, Communist Eastern Europe, or today’s China. We should revere martyrs, but not demand every Christian be one.
To read original story, click here.
When I was in Georgetown, I walked up the stairs where the priest tumbled down, during the climax of the film the Exorcist…this steep flight of stairs leads directly to the house Regan and her mom lived in, in the movie…it really gave me the “spooks” man…at the bottom of the stairs is a 76 gas station…the scene in the movie, when Regan’s mom is walking home from the day’s filming on campus…you see two nuns, almost walking in slow motion, with their habits blowing in the wind, on Halloween day…that scene absolutely freaks me out!…The Jesuits were the priests involved in the actual exorcism of the boy, who the film was based on…the exorcism was first attempted in Cottage City, Maryland, but was later reattempted and successfully completed in Saint Louis, by Father Richard Haloran S.J., professor at Saint Louis University… he was a kind and holy man, who was fearless and tireless in his relentless pursuit to drive the invading spirit from Robbie, and to lead him to the sacraments, as Robbie made his first Holy Communion during the course of the exorcism, during periods when he was lucid, and not under the influence of evil spirits. The true story is even more bone- chilling then the ’73 film, which still scares the pants off me!
The devil should scare us all! Think of the results of his successful taking us over; now that is scary.
People love to attack the Catholic Church, digging up whatever they can, e.g., Pope Pius XII didn’t do enough to protect the Jews. Or Pope Bendict XVI was a member of the Hiterjugend. Or Pope Francis did not speak up forcefully enough against the government.
Hindsight is 20/20, and people in charge have to weigh many factors…if Pope Pius XII HAD been more outspoken, perhaps his secret methods of protecting Jews would have been squished, for example, and even MORE Jews would have perished.
Every time the church is questioned, whether it be a reasonable question or not, or attacked by those who hate the church….many a times, it is due to ignorance or bad will……but when it is questioned due to priests who are not faithful or holy, then it is a just thing to do for the sake of avoiding further scandal and to break what keeps misleading souls.
There is nothing worst than to see someone hurting and lost, broken because of something someone did or say to help someone fall deeper into sin. That pains me, especially when we have our youth who needs us and our priests to be a strong witness of our faith. I already know how many who are not in union with our church, hates us or even if they don’t hate us but have low opinion of our faith, how when they meet us, they have already declared us bad….I can not change those ways or views, but I hope to be faithful to God enough to infect one person at a time, and when I fail because of whatever reason…..I can’t stop but feel shame and hurt for letting down my Lord.
Speculation is wonderful, but the proof will be in this Pope’s actions.
That is so true.
I’m not really sure why TAIPAN feels that ” The Exorcist” still scares the pants off of him; I saw the movie when it first came out in the fall of ’73, then saw it again when the unreleased footage was added sometime in the early 2000’s, I believe called the Director’s Cut, and BOTH didn’t scare the pants off me, not even close. Instead, I remember the impression made upon me by the actor portraying the priest who was called in AT FIRST to try and exorcise Regan. His character, as drawn by the screenwriter and the Direcor of the movie, the same person as I recall, Wm. Peter Blatty, that character is nothing more than a RADICAL LIBERAL PRIEST of the early ‘seventies. He’s hedonist, undisciplined, both smoking and drinking with the others of like stripe, and also openly scoffing at the “medieval” church still at work in the ’70’s, and openly disparaged by him. Was that what the creators of this film intended? I was never sure. It was also a very PROFANE movie, replete with OPEN BLASPHEMESIES and OBSCENITIES, likely very titilatting when said by a possessed young woman like the character Regan. Except the creators of the movie changed the sex of the possessed; he became a she. So are we to think that the reason for the change of the sex of the possessed was done WITHOUT an eye cocked to the inherent box-office possibilities of seeing and hearing a possessed young girl say these awful things? GIVE ME A BREAK!
All in all, one GEM of a thoroughly phony flick, with a powerful theme being THROWN AWAY for the PROFITS to be made through exploitation of a very real problem, and sacrificed on the altar of Hollywood commercialism, like so many movies are. GOD BLESS ALL, MARKRITE
Couldn’t disagree more…great film, awesome music “tubular bells”, by Mike Oldfield…I met the author many years ago, here in sunny California…we talked for over an hour over suds, about this awwesome groundbreaking piece of celluloid, as well as Brother Orchid, among other cinema oriented things… Mr. Blatty is a genius and an academy award winning screen-writer…this is a film, that stands the test of time…and shows the triumph of Supreme Good over broken/defective evil…Praise be Jesus Christ
I notice that TAIPAN didn’t answer ONE POINT that I brought up re this fraudulent “great film” that he grandiosely insists upon fabulating over, not ONE POINT. So it’s OK with you and your ilk that a movie contain UNBELIEVABLE amounts of gratutitous offensive language as long as it wins an academy award? Well, I guess that makes “Scarface” with Al Pacino a great work of art as well; it apparenly holds the record for the amount of F words in one movie. Oh, sorry, I forgot “the Exorcist” was a “religious” movie; that makes it all better.
I’ve seen Blatty interviewed by Ramond Arroyo on”WORLD OVER;” HE CAME OFF TO ME AS A SELF-SERVING FAST-TALKING HOLLYWOOD TYPE WHO PLAYS HIS SUCKERS WELL. No-one denies that Blatty’s extremely talented; that’s not the point. But he’s OF the H’WOOD CULTURE. My son labors away trying to get a foothold in that culture and industry as a screenwriter. He knows it well, and is not gullible. ’nuff said. GOD BLESS ALL, MARKRITE
Maybe your son should seek out a different vocation…not everybody who writes a screenplay, get’s to be a “big-wig” screenwriter in Hollyweird!
I refused to see that movie as a young person. I found it to be a movie that encouraged superstition and since I don’t use or like bad language I would have found it offensive. I feel sorry for Linda Blair that had to play the character of Regan. In a way it was almost exploitation to have a child play a character in that situation. Hearing about the bad language in the movie makes me glad that I passed it up.
PA so you are admitting that Catholic Rite of Exorcism is in fact superstition, yes or no?????
I’ve only seen brief parts of that movie, and the only thing not boring was the spinning head. I’ve never seen anyone levitate, but I’ve seen enough to know something about the demonic dimensions in society. And, yes, I recommend a supply of Holy Water. St Paul tells us, “Do not be anxious”. Jesus says, as I recall, “Love casts out all fear” … or maybe that was St John who said that. But whoever said it was giving us the voice of God. Blessed PJII said often, “Be not afraid”. To Hell with the damned demons and full speed ahead with the Gospel.
“But before all things have a constant mutual (love)charity among yourselves: for (love) charity covereth a multitude of sins. ”
Douay-Rheims Bible 1 Peter 4:8
Encourages superstition?…in what way?…the film clearly shows the spiritually injurious effects of playing with a ouija board…
“The word ‘Marxist,’ of course, drove John Paul crazy.” Gee, what a respectful thing (not) to say. Apparently nothing about it drives Thomas Reese crazy. He’s the “former” editor of America magazine because he was removed for the good of the faith. It’s unfortunate that his spews are given a forum anywhere at this point. He’s been the point person for the mainstream (read: state controlled) media for comments on all things Catholic for what seems like a couple decades. Perhaps that is changing. The Wall Street Journal this past week went to faithful Jesuit Joesph Fessio for remarks on Pope Francis. The heretical Jesuits are somehow going to have to reconcile themselves publicly with the new pope or face the loss of whatever little credibility they have left. It appears that one tactic they’re testing out is to reverse-spin the record of Pope Francis in their direction. A good response by Pope Francis would be to “pull a Pope Clement XIV” and shut ’em down completely!
A friend who is a religion/cultural writer for one of the majors observes that Fr. Reese sends out endless emails and faxes to his media rollidex. “He says he’s always available for tight deadlines and doesn’t mind at all if you can’t find space to quote him — ‘feel free to use me as your Catholic resource,’ he says.”
That’s evidently Father Reese’s version of the New Evangelization. Promoting himself. No wonder he was removed.
Nothing new under the sun.
You have to learn how to discern evil. Reese hands you a bundle. How do you “see” its corruption? Find out. Explore what he is saying. If you succeed, then you will become able to recognize it in his disciples whenever you read or hear them.
“The most open [homosexualist] revolt against the Pope and the Church is headed by some Jesuits in the United States, who openly oppose them and announce that despite the above decisions, they will keep admitting homosexually-oriented seminarians, who are, indeed, especially welcome. They have a long tradition in that vein, for years being the mainstay of homoideology and homoheresy. They take many views of the heretical moral theologian, ex-priest Charles Curran, for their own. They are also under the overwhelming influence of their former fellow friar, F. John McNeill SJ, who founded the pro-homosexual movement called “Dignity”, and published a book entitled “The Church and the Homosexual”, where he explicitly rejects the teaching of the Church and adopts homoideology. The book was given an imprimatur by his provincial from New York, and has been republished several times despite being banned by the Vatican. This way, it has become a homosexual bible for many American Jesuits.
“McNeill seems to mean more for them than Jesus or Saint Paul, much less the Pope. “TheTheological Studies” and “America” papers [magazines] they publish still uphold and promote pro-homosexual ideas. Consequently, it is estimated they have achieved the highest saturation with homosexuals, way above 30 percent. Gays feel more comfortable with them than ever, while other priests find the specific atmosphere less and less bearable.
“It appears as though the Jesuits have replaced their traditional, fourth vow of obedience to the Pope with a fourth vow of arch-disobedience. We should not be particularly surprised or shocked, though, knowing that the clergy is submitted to all influences of their times, including the worst ones. If they are intellectually or morally weak, they are not only subject, but succumb to them. That is one of the basic sources of heresy in the Church, which has already seen so many of them that needed to be exposed and overcome so many times. In the age of fascist ideologies and Marxism, we also had fascist priests and Marxist priests in the Church. Now that the extreme leftists promote homoideology in turn, we naturally have homoideologist, and sometimes even homoheretic priests in the Church.”
— With the Pope Against Homoheresy, By F. Dariusz Oko, Ph.D., LifeSiteNews, Tue Feb 26, 2013
Excellent. Thank you for your faithful witness, Fr. Oko. Stolat!
Rod McKuen, I read some of Dariusz Oko’s work that you mentioned. I found it extremely offensive. It is sobering to me to read that this man is from Oswiecim. One would think that he would realize what a harmful thing it is to lessen someone’s humanity. His message is one that fans the flames of hatred in contrast to Christ’s message of love. Father Reese is a gentleman and I thank CCD for sharing his views here.
Just for the record, the same National Catholic Reporter that has run this article by Father Reese, ran another one back in 2005 titled: “Editor of Jesuits’ America magazine forced to resign under Vatican pressure.” The editor in question was the same Father Reese. Apparently, his viewpoints on priestly celibacy and the ordination of women got him into trouble with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. With a track record like that, I’d be suspicious of anything that Father Reese might proclaim.
The Jesuits have always had priests who were arch-conservatives… and extreme liberals, many tottered on the brink of heresy, some even embraced it, much to their displeasure …e.g. Pierre Chardin and the most infamous George Tyrell… one of the founding father’s of modernism!… I have known a number of very holy, pious and traditional Jesuits… one comes to mind in San Diego, who was very saintly… it’s like the Church being seen metaphorically, as a basket of “wheat and chaff”…good members and bad members… traditionalists and modernists… as long as I stay grounded, I can’t worry about those who promote modernism… I reject it for the poison it is.
What I don’t get is “WHY” are there liberal Jesuits?”
As I recall the goal of the church is to be like minded with Christ,. In Christ….why are they permitting Jesuits that are considered liberal, which their views are not at all faithful to the faith. This is a question that keeps barking at me, I’m sure it does for many too…”why” are bad priests that are involved with “gay” agenda’s, abortion or what have you, that are have been caught advancing such movements, why are they still active in our church? I don’t think anyone has the answer. there are many answers I’m sure but not the right one that will get us to truly take action and stop the error, the pain, the stabbing in our church. Maybe those in charge, refused to take action…yip that has to be! Not enforcing church law.
I can only think of the souls who is trusting and then mislead, to watch them go on down the wrong road because of what someone in the church did or say in the name of the faith….always troubles my heart and angers me. Mostly because our Lord hurts and mostly because this is His church, the lies that are spread to hurt our Lord and His church…is sometimes hard for me to take, but as Jesus has taught us…He showed us his perfect ways, He lead by His Love and humility. I can only pray that we strive to imitate His ways, since we are not perfect, our good Lord, only see's our zeal to seek to please Him. It's a rare virtue. It first begins with(humility) fearing the Lord……
I pray we take to heart the reason we are here and to live life as God's intended us. Forget the false compassion approach that many priests commit, as I recall, being for the faith, takes conviction and backbone! NOT LUKEWARM! Praise BE Jesus Christ
The Jesuits focus on intellectual things but when they prefer that over faith in Jesus, then they go to Hell in a handbasket, although a lavish one with great articulations pasted all over it.
rotflol!
Thomas Reese, S.J. has no credibility at all. He has been a leftist all his life and has written article and article against the Church and Popes. I wonder why you publish his article. He a good example of why the Church is in so much trouble today.
There will always be debate about what Chruch could or could not do to deal with dictatorships. Pius XII will always have doubt around his name of getting too cozy to Nazis and Italian Fascists, both of whom signerd concordnats with the Vatican to keep the churchs open in their respective countries. But the Church should stand for something and at a minimum making a firm public stand against dictatorships should be the operative strategy . The Church has been accused, and with some justification, of snuggling up a little too close to authoritian regimes like Hitler, Mussolini, Gen Franco in Spain, the junta in Argentina, etc., due in large part to a poor job of presesnting a firm public stance that dictatorships are at odds with basic God given human rights. It’s the Church’s “silence” on this subject from Church leaders that is getting the most criticism. On the other hand, we saw plainly what the Soviet KGB did to Pope John Paul in 1981, who made opposiltion to communism a central part of his human rights strategy….so we know what the downside of speaking up is.
There’s also debate about what anybody, the church aside, should do with any type of repressive government. Repulse at the atrocities of dictatorships will always be politically correct because the proffered solution is inevitably some strain of Marxism – politically correct as a vehicle for progress towards socialist world government. World War II was the introductory course for this principle as resolution came by handing to Stalin all the countries invaded by Hitler to start it all. Nazism was national socialism opposing Stalin’s international socialism as two demons competing for control of the same body. At the end of the day, the combined Leninist/Stalinist regimes exterminated many times the numbers killed by Hitler. But society continues to repulse at national dictatorships while playing right into the hands of an encroaching international system which may end up looking like nothing more than a globalized communist China. There’s no real difference here folks, bottom line, both models just kill people. Ah, the allure of Marxism! We’re told to trust Karl Marx, not Jesus Christ. How few there are than have not drunk the Kool Aid!
Did you say Kool Aid or petroleum?
You are a family? My foot! The Jesuits are deeply divided and the liberals do not brook any dissent from their dissent. WE ALL want justice for the poor but NOT class warfare. You and your fellow socialist travelers have distorted Matthew 25, Fr. Reese. The Jesuits today are mostly a disgraceful, dissenting bunch, a far cry from the Jesuits who were my teachers and mentors in the 50s and 60s. Look at your universities and colleges across America. Which have conformed to Ex Corde Ecclesiae? Will you answer that question, Fr. Reese?
They persecuted me, they will persecute you.
The Jesuits? Are you saying the Jesuits persecuted you? Some of them may indeed be radical, outrageous, shocking, divisive, and lots of things that don’t seem very Catholic or very priestly, but I am loathe to believe that the Jesuits persecuted you, Mwangi! Do tell, and do tell the truth. I was gravely harmed by a priest myself, but it was not his intention to persecute me, I’m certain of that. I should therefore be among the first to believe you. But so far I am having trouble with the concept that they persecuted you, and do not fear that they will persecute me or anyone else of my fellow Catholics. Don’t make statements like this unless you are prepared to explain your meaning, Mwangi. I realize that Jesuit priests get a lot of bad press, often for good reason, but really, this is going a bit far. Please explain yourself more fully if you will.
The Jesuits persecute Catholics when they oppose the papacy, endorse feminism and its twin homosexuality, assist Marxist revolution regardless of their Machiavellian excuses for doing so, deny Ex cordiae Ecclesia thoughout their American network of 28 colleges and universities and 47 high schools, when they express their deep rooted homosexual proclivities to such an extent that they are required to pay some quarter billion dollars in liability settlements within the past decade, when they continue to advertise their schools as Catholic and simultaneously sponsor gay clubs, sexually vulgar plays and drag shows on campus, when they self-appoint themselves as national media spokesmen for the faith and simultaneously distort and obfuscate the fact that they oppose orthodoxy and the magisterium, when all of these things and many more lead little ones astray and damage the church, etc. etc. What’s there not to understand about MK’s comment? The Jesuits persecute us every day, the latest being this article by Thomas Reese SJ.
yup…liberation theology is an outgrowth of modernism…and it has been diffused by modernist Jesuits….especially in Latin America, where it is a known scourge…a poison to the masses…condemned as “HERESY”!
MK What is that suppose to mean? who are you referring that too? Don’t you agree that there are Jesuits who have done and continue to mislead?
Pope Pius the XII did a masterful political job of keeping the nazi’s at bay, until the allies could cut them off, and finish them for good!…if he had been more vociferous and more demonstrative in the protection of the jews in Italy, it would have been far worse for them, he adroitly played his neutrality card much like Franco in Spain, to minimize the gestapo’s presence in Rome, as terrifying as that reality was…by calming the more savage instincts of the gestapo, he was able to allow resistance personnel, to safely hide ans spirit away many jews safely, who would have been gassed in one of the camps…PPXII was cunning as a fox and innocent and pure as a white dove…praise be Jesus Christ …forever
Yes, indeed. Before castigating Pope Pius XII should read some of the recent research that shows this pope saved Catholicism itself in Europe from the direct threats of Hitler and Mussolini, as well as saving untold numbers of Jews and other innocent, potential victims of these crazed evil-doers who tried to take over all of the Western world.
Pope Pius was put into an impossible position yet still did a lot of good for human beings and for Catholicism, and his heroism is only coming to light in recent years.
Those who would criticize him are not very well read.
absolutely MaryAnne…not even the most anti-catholic revisionist historian’s have a leg to stand on, in light of the “facts” that have come to light…everyone should watch the movies “the scarlet and the black”, with Greg Peck as a wonderful Irish monsignor, stationed at the Vatican during WWII, who was unyielding and placed himself in great personal danger, exercising his ability to spirit away many Jews, who undoubtedly would have been sent to a camp for execution, if not for his valiant and holy efforts…it’s a beautiful true story, again, showing good triumphing over evil…Christopher Plummer masterfully portrays the scheming, diabolical gestapo chief assigned to Rome, who attempt’s to undo the efforts of the monsignor and capture him for certain execution…his efforts of course were in vain!… later, while imprisoned for war crimes, after the allied victory, the now repentant gestapo leader is visited by the monsignor he sought to execute, and was instructed in the mysteries of “Holy Mother Church”, he made a good sacramental confession and converted…saving his soul, in spite of the evil he perpetrated for so long…
Thomas Reese, S.J. was and is a huge LEFTIST, America magazine is just a version of Pravda, it cannot stand anything Traditional and hated Pope Benedict the XVI and hates the Traditional Latin Mass.
My major concern about the Jesuits is their predilection toward homosexuality.
Is it really a good thing to celebrate the sodomite lifestyle in their colleges and universities? I believe their penchant for sexual perversion is the root cause of their fall from grace. In my younger years I was mentored by Jesuits and I once admired them greatly. When I attended Georgetown U in the fifties I saw none of the moral rot we see today. A woman like Sandra Fluke parading her dissolute lifestyle in from of God and the US Congress would have resulted in her immediate dismissal from the university. A scandal of such proportions would have been unthinkable. Now, a person of her moral caliber enjoys the support of the university as well as the adulation of the liberal feminist establishment. Where,
oh where, are the Jesuits of yesteryear, pray tell?
PPXII was one of the very few world leaders of his time that condemned both Naziism AND Communism,while the shamestream press was praising Communism. The shamestream press goes back the 20’s and 30’s.
They did not tell the truth about Communism in Mexico(“For Greater Glory”)in the 20’s or Franco’s fight against Kremlin backed communism in Spain in the 30’s.
The “National Catholic REPORTER” should be shunned by all, and not mentioned. It is heretical and schismatic. Per Code of Canon Law, they have been forbidden to call themselves “Catholic”.
In 1968 the Diocese Bishop Helmsing officially condemned the National Catholic Reporter, and stated: “ ….an official condemnation of the National Catholic Reporter. Furthermore, I send this communication to my brother bishops, and make known to the priests, religious and laity of the nation my views on the poisonous character of this publication. ” ” IN AS MUCH as the National Catholic Reporter does not reflect the teaching of the Church, but on the contrary, has openly and deliberately opposed this teaching. I ask the editors in all honesty to drop the term “Catholic” from their masthead. By retaining it they deceive their Catholic readers and do a great disservice to ecumenism by being responsible for the false irenicism of watering down Catholic teachings. ”
( To the best of my knowledge this condemnation has never been lifted by any Bishop of that Diocese or by any Pope. And this condemnation is referred to by the current Diocese Bishop Finn.)
In 2013 Diocese Bishop Finn in an article that can be found on the internet entitled: “BISHOPS ROLE in FOSTERING the Mission of the CATHOLIC MEDIA” reconfirms the condemnation of the REPORTER using the name “Catholic”. Bishop Finn quotes current Code of Canon Law.
I read “the Wanderer” exclusively now…I haven’t read “pravda west”, a.k.a the NCR for yeeeears!…it was bad then and inevitably is even more revolting now
What difference does it matter what you read, as long as you know the truth? Are you afraid you will be deceived if you do not bury your head in the sand? How are you going to fight the spiritual warfare if you close your senses to the enemy? Do you know where you dropped your cross, or have you never picked it up and carried it?
Many people like to remain informed, concerning the Church and faith… don’t you read?…or do you just give pious opinions, while judging…
Taipan, some people find themselves facing spiritually hostile people directly, and have to learn how to engage them with the Gospel. Explain to me how you would do this by reading the chef’s special instead of peeling the onions yourself.
Well, Taipan, I’ve never really glommed onto the word, “pious”, but, yes, I opine while judging. I take it you have something against judging. Maybe you find yourself in the category of those who cannot read even a little bit of someone’s heart. After all, the lore continues to cycle around that claims no man can read another’s heart. But the solution, Taipan, is that Jesus can read all hearts, and those united with Him thus can take part to varying extents in doing this. The upshot is that many there are who can read hearts and judge in the light of Christ. To what extent is an interesting question; St Pio provides us with perhaps an “extreme” example. The blogger, Anonymous, provides us with an example of “zero”. Where are you, somewhere between these two extremes?
We must always support our Bishops when they are doing the right thing.
As long as the “National Catholic REPORTER” continues to commit FRAUD and LIE about being “Catholic” (in its title) – we should have nothing to do with them.
Let them die out.
PETE, if we support our bishops only when they are right, then what need do we have of them? Answer: none. The bishops have one purpose which is to be holy and shepherd us. Their defining moment is not “being right”. It is keeping the devil from devouring souls. Presently many of them do not do this. These have replaced holiness with glad handing.
Skai, do you read porn too? Of couse it matters what you fill you head with; and it matters which media you support for the consumption of others (Catholics as well as non-Catholics).
Garbage in, garbage out.