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.
Always found this passage interesting
St. Paul is referring to sects which ban marriage and certain foods outright. The Catholic Church does neither - no Catholic is compelled to be celibate and no Catholic is compelled to avoid any foods.
St. Paul himself was a celibate and recommended it to others, so celibacy is not wrong or unScriptural - only compulsive celibacy is.
Likewise abstaining from certain meats - which St. Paul admits to be permissible and which St. Peter and St. James recommended - is likewise an acceptable disciplinary measure.
No Catholic is forbidden marriage or food of any kind, so as interesting as this Scriptural passage is, it simply does not apply to the Catholic Church. It applies to the groups (most likely Gnostics and Ebionites) whom St. Paul is warning his fellow Catholics against.
Do you admit that you were wrong? Or do you prefer to just ignore the facts? I notice your bluster goes away when someone who actually knows history and theology confronts your distortions and lies.
This is a bald-faced lie. I attended catholic school from 1-12th grades. Meat on Friday WAS FORBIDDEN. We were TAUGHT by the nuns and priests that it was a MORTAL SIN to eat meat on Friday. Any child with meat in their sandwich on Friday was sent to the Msgr.'s office.
The fact that Roman Catholic freepers continually try to claim this never happened destroys your credibility and infuriates those of us who went to catholic school and LIVED through that era.
It's akin to those who say the moon landing was faked or the Soviets re-writing the "history" books to show Russia in a better light, as though they were "FOOLING" the people who lived through the era .
If you use "meats" in the context it is used in Genesis, which my Bible says is translated the same in the Old and New Testament, it gets very interesting.
You seem to be one of those people who must hate, people, things- anything different from what you believe. It is obvious that you will believe what you want to regardless of facts so I won't waste my time. Bye. God bless you and keep you.
Just one last reply. God gave us the gift of the Bible and I and other Catholics accept that gift with reverence and awe. It is the inspired Word of God. But God gave us so much more than just the Bible. He gave us the Holy Spirit to lead the Church of His Son until His Son returns again.
I'm not going to mention you in particular but all those ex-Catholic/anti-Catholics. When will you at least accept that you weren't listening, you were misinformed by someone and never bothered to do your own homework or you found some teaching contrary to the way you wanted to live your life and abandoned your Church. Why do think spreading lies or if not deliberate lies, then ignorance of the Catholic Church? Why must you attack the Church and Catholics? Why not be pro-whatever you are rather than anti-Catholic? I read these threads and sometimes all I can see of your religion is that it hinges on hating Catholics and trying to prove Catholics wrong without even acknowledging what it is that Catholics believe! Is anti-Catholicism your religion?
Back to Israel and the pope, you seem to think that if the pope has any compassion for Palestinians he is necessarily pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli. I can only speak for myself but I'm VERY pro-Israel but I'm not anti-Palestinian, I'm anti-bad stuff. I cringe when an innocent child is killed or maimed I don't care what nationality they are. I detest the hatred and anger that is being bred within this dispute and know that hearts are being rotted with hatred and anger and that this is as bad as physical death because people filled with anger and hatred can never find contentment and will never search for peace and understanding.
It says that the Pope urges against the establishment of the Israeli State - a question which was hotly debated among Jews themselves at that time, I might add - but there is no "urging" in the letter. He is expressing an opinion. No course of action is recommended, let alone "urged".
And I ask again: the Pope said that he feared it would cause political instability in the Middle East? Was he incorrect?
Who was Israele Zolli?
Your assertion is patently ridiculous. It's akin to saying that General Zinni is "just over in Israel, hanging out, giving his personal opinions, not urging anybody to do anything, and not representing the Bush Administrations Official Policy".
This was Pius XIIth's Official Representative to the US Government. He was representing Pius XII's position -- namely: that Israel should not be given their Homeland back which God promised to Israel forever. Whether it made trouble for the world or not is irrelevant. It is God's promise to Israel that it would be their land forever.
It's interesting to note that the Vatican suggested Israel be given a DIFFERENT piece of ground to settle on, NOT the one God promised to Abraham and his seed forever. Fascinating!!
I appreciate your scholarship re: Mr. Dupuis, but I was refering to the Offical Dogma of the Catholic Church, by pope Paul VI in "Lumen Gentium" (1964) which states:
...the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.
The Council goes on to say: Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel.
"Preparation for" - specifically the Islamic belief in One God and the need to obey Him is a big step up rom atheism or polytheism toward appreciating the Gospel of salvation.
The Council speaks of the inclusion of Muslims in the "plan of salvation" not as "saved by Islam". The Council elaborates on this plan: For the Church is compelled by the Holy Spirit to do her part that God's plan may be fully realized, whereby He has constituted Christ as the source of salvation for the whole world.
The full realization of God's plan of salvation is that Muslims, building upon their belief in One only God who judges man, may one day be shown the truth of Christ - the source of salvation for the whole world.
If the argument of Lumen Gentium was that Muslims are saved by being Muslims then (a) there would be no point in having a Church Council or even a Church in the first place and (b) Dupuis wouldn't have signed a document admitting that he misrepresented, among other things, the very words of this document.
(man, does Campion kick butt or what?)
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