Posted on 02/22/2012 10:23:47 AM PST by cleghornboy
We can expect presidential candidate Rick Santorum to continue to come under heavy fire for warning that, "Satan has his sights on the United States of America" and that he is "attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition."
We read here that, "The former senator from Pennsylvania warned in 2008 how politics and government are falling to Satan. 'This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age? He attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions.' Santorum made the provocative comments to students at Ave Maria University in Florida."
We are experiencing various signs of demonic activity throughout our troubled culture and even many of our shepherds have not taken this seriously. Demonic abortion continues to be practiced even while our society rushes to embrace a culture of sodomy and same-sex "marriage." Many individuals, including some Catholic priests, have abandoned themselves to sexual perversions, violence, and drug use.
Our culture has been so secularized that any mention of the supernatural realm is greeted either with complete indifference or with ridicule.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its document entitled "Les formes de la superstition," helped the faithful better understand the Church's teaching regarding demonic spirits. The document said that, "It would be a fatal mistake to act as if history were already finished and redemption had achieved all its effects, so that it were no longer necessary to to engage in the struggle [against the Devil and demons] of which the New Testament and the masters of the spiritual life speak...To maintain today, therefore, that Jesus' words about Satan express only a teaching borrowed from his culture and are unimportant for the faith of other believers is evidently to show little understanding either of the Master's character or of his age. If Jesus used this kind of language and, above all, if he translated it into practice during his ministry, it was because it expressed a doctrine that was to some extent essential to the idea and reality of the salvation that he was bringing....Satan whom Jesus attacked with his exorcisms and confronted in the wilderness and in his passion, cannot simply be a product of the human ability to tell stories and personify ideas nor a stray survival of a primitive culture and its language...Satan's action on man is admittedly interior but it is impossible to regard him as therefore simply a personification of sin and temptation....It was for all these reasons that the Fathers of the Church were convinced from Scripture that Satan and the demons are the enemies of man's redemption, and they did not fail to remind the faithful of their existence and action..."
Pope Paul VI, in a general audience on November 15, 1972, asked, "What are the Church's greatest needs at the present time?" and provided an answer: "Don't be surprised at our answer and don't write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church's greatest needs is to be defended against the evil which we call the Devil...Evil is not merely an absence of something but an active force, a living, spiritual being that is perverted and that perverts others....It is a departure from the picture provided by biblical and Church teaching to refuse to acknowledge the Devil's existence...or to explain the Devil as a pseudoreality, a conceptual, fanciful, personification of the unknown causes of our misfortunes....St. Paul calls him the 'god of this world,' and warns us of the struggle we Christians must carry on in the dark, not only against one Devil, but against a frightening multiplicity of them..."
Back in 2010, Archbishop Charles Chaput gave a keynote address to the Emmanuel Community of Rome's conference on "Priests and Laity in the Mission." During this address, His Excellency elaborated on a major theme of his talk - the reality of Satan and the importance of "spiritual combat," saying that, "I think we live in disappointing times, in times of confusion, and in some ways that is the result of our failure to understand that we have an enemy in the Devil, but also we have enemies in the world around us."
Then His Excellency pointed to a "great talk" from an American Protestant pastor he once heard which was entitled "We preach as though we don't have enemies," and reflected that this sentiment "is true in the United States..." adding, "I think it's important to understand the we are in a battle, we really do live in a time of spiritual combat and I think we've lost that sense of the Church," Archbishop Chaput stated.
Archbishop Chaput continued with a comparison of the temptation we face to be like "everyone else" like the Israelites from the Old Testament wishing for a king like the other nations. They wanted a king ... they got Saul and he was a good man, and then he became a politician and he lost his faith. We're just like that...In America, we don't want to be different than our Protestant brothers and sisters, or the secular forces around us. And, I think that's the great danger of our time, we don't love God enough and we don't enter into combat with the enemy enough and we need to recommit ourselves to doing that," he urged.
Those who criticize Rick Santorum for addressing the reality of Satan and the spiritual combat which we find ourselves in are not just criticizing Mr. Santorum. They are ridiculing the teaching of Jesus and His Apostles (and most notably St. Paul). They are ridiculing the Church Fathers, the Popes and the Saints who taught on the reality of Satan. They are ridiculing more than 2,000 years of Church tradition.
How is that for going "well over the line"?
The liberals are making the mistake of reading their own press clippings. They think everyone agrees with them that talk of Satan is crazy and extreme, when in fact most Americans believe in Heaven and Hell.
Is anyone really surprised to find the Mainstream Media PROTECTING Satan?
We FReepers who would like Rick to SUCCEED, are merely suggesting that this is NOT a productive campaign focus.
Obama is vulnerable on a HOST of other issues, of more concern TO A BROADER RANGE OF VOTERS, WHO ARE NECESSARY TO RICK’S SUCCESS!!!!
GET IT?
You are talking about them, right? Because they're the ones trying to set the focus. Santorum has been saying he will not allow the media to distract him from Obama's record.
LOL
You shoulda seen the hate mail I received here on FR, for suggesting this is not an effective campaign focus.
this is AFTER I was very clear that Rick is right.....
However, its not them or Rick dictating the focus here. Its the state run bottom feeding mainstream media.
Yes there is of course Good and evil and with that God gives or not men discernment to determine the difference....and we know this by the scripture teachings....not by traditions or doctrines any church denomination who velieves they set the standards for everyone else to live by.
Santorum cannot dictate his religious beliefs on others just because he thinks he's the new "Prophet" of our times. We are voting for a President....and I frankly don't want a President who thinks his job is to tell me what chrcu is better over others.....not his job.
Had Santorum framed his beliefs within the framework of our coutry's consititution and or how our founding fathers believed in God...that would have been acceptable...but he's preaching and that's just wrong for a candidate to do in the manner Santorum is doing...he's all about "judging" and that's another reason he was booted out of office here in Pa. People grew tired of his bellowing and self rightous battering.
Excellent point! He should be directing and re-directing the focus to Obama, period. Instead, he seems content to just passively goes with the flow and allow the MSM to dictate the message. Too bad we couldn't transplant Newt's brain into Santorum's head.
You need to listen more carefully. He’s well aware of what the media is attempting to do & has said he will not be drawn off topic.
He’s says that while defending things he’s said. OK.
A. This speech happened 4 years ago.
B. He was speaking at a Catholic University.
Santorum isn’t the one who is bringing this stuff up. His enemies are.
To suggest that Santorum has made Satan his campaign focus is asinine. But he is entitled to his religious views. Robert Gibbs didn’t like it when Santorum merely questioned Obama’s religious views, alleging that this questioning went “well over the line.” How then is it acceptable to ridicule Santorum’s beliefs regarding the reality of Satan?
Anyone who is critical of Rick Santorum for believing in the reality of Satan and the spiritual combat is thereby criticizing Christian doctrine on Satan and all who adhere to it.
I disagree that Satan is the problem as much as the perfidy of man, perhaps inspired by Satan, granted.
As a rather chilling tale, I remember back when Obama was just a candidate running against Hillary. There was the typical huffing and puffing at the time that Obama might be the antichrist.
However, there was some unusual chatter by those supporting Obama, to the effect that they *hoped* Obama was the antichrist, because “Then he would be powerful and give us stuff, and hurt the people we hate!”
At the time, appalled, the light dawned that this seems to be the shortsighted ambition of the Democrat party in general, that the purpose of power is to “reward your friends and punish your enemies.”
And they really don’t think beyond that point.
I don’t think this is the work of Satan, in particular because such blindness, greed and utter amorality seems to be more an absence of wisdom, a repulsion of virtue, a meanness of spirit that is a case of omission, not commission.
Such people are amoral as a rejection of virtue, stupid as a rejection of wisdom, and hateful, not out of envy, but out of utter despair.
They do not need to follow Satan, because by one definition they are already in Hell. They live in the absence of God, by choice. In their quest to forget their knowledge of good and evil, they have not returned to Eden, but stagger around aimlessly looking for a new god.
Just who the hell are YOU to adjudicate who is attacking the church? A Cardinal? The Pope?
Somebody with absolutely no standing, but an opinion?
Said the guy who is accusing a complete stranger, whom he knows nothing about, of having ‘no standing’.
Dear Mr. Asinine,
For suggesting I’ve been critical of Rick’s beliefs.
If you had read what I posted here or recently, you would know that I support his Christian/Catholic beliefs and statements, here and regarding Contraception.
My admonition has been to shift the focus of his campaign.
While we can’t prove that Obama is the Antichrist, we certainly know by now that he’s one of the Acolytes of the Antichrist ~ ever see that guy catch flies ~ a regular old Belzebub Fur Shur.
From the author's biography at the blog.
Born in Bitburg, Germany, Paul Melanson is a Catholic lay-philosopher and apologist whose work has appeared in many publications and websites including The Union Leader, The Wanderer, Seattle Catholic, Newsblaze, Helium, and Amazines. He has been interviewed by The National Catholic Register, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the television newsmagazine Chronicle.Does one have to be the Pope in order to recognize an attack on the church? I'm not even a Catholic and I feel it's an attack against all believers.
Look, we all know you hate Santorum and are frustrated because his numbers haven't plummeted the way you'd hoped "once the Romney slime machine is turned on him." But you can't deny when they ridicule Rick Santorum, their real target is the church (body of believers).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.