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.
So by WHOSE WORDS do you cling to your misbelief that Revelation was written BEFORE the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple? Whose scholarship do you accept in order to believe that? By whose words do you believe that the following...
Rev 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number [is] Six hundred threescore [and] six.
...all these mind-blowing events happened between the years 32 AD and 70 AD??????
In any event, as I said, it's been a fascinating insight into the Roman Catholic mind. I know Campion, that it is terribly important for you to "win" this argument. So, as Bill O'Reilly always says...
I'll give you the last word...
As far as those earth-shattering events:
Rev 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
You've heard of emperor worship, right? Most of the early Christian martyrs were killed specifically because they wouldn't engage in it.
Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
I believe you'll find something very much like that was enforced by the Romans, however, that may be merely metaphor for emperor-worship.
Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number [is] Six hundred threescore [and] six.
"Caesar Nero" in Hebrew letters gives exactly the required number.
You know, don't you, that after Titus' legions conquered the Temple precincts in AD 70, their first act was to set up their regimental standards in the court of the Gentiles and sacrifice to them? But I want you to have the last word, so perhaps you can explain this verse:
Rev 17:9 "Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. 10There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time.
What or who are the seven kings upon which the woman sits, five of whom had fallen before John wrote this verse, one of whom was reigning as he wrote the verse, and one who would be yet to come?
The revived ROMAN empire led by the antichrist is the one to come. (With a False Prophet leading a bogus One-World Religion, also of ROMAN origin)
Now you answer ME a question...
When -- in the 1st century -- did the Romans cause an IMAGE to speak? By what technology?
When did the 1st century Romans (or whoever) "cause fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men"??? (Rev 13: 13)
When did Nero (from your example) cause all humans on the earth to have a mark on their hand or forehead without which NO ONE could buy or sell?
Reading what you two so eloquently state, not only on this thread but many others I've "lurked" on, lets me know it was the right decision to come back to the Catholic Church.
Recently come back? I never would have known! Your eloquence on Catholic facts belies that.
My "leave of absence" spanned 25 years. I'm trying to get back up to speed on dogma.
Take care.
Blessings to you!
Okay, you answered one-seventh of the question. Who are the other six?
Now you answer ME a question...
Well, you didn't answer mine. It seems hardly fair.
When -- in the 1st century -- did the Romans cause an IMAGE to speak? By what technology?
They had magicians in the ancient world, too. You'll recall Moses met some in Pharaoh's court.
Actually, this undermines your interpretation a good deal more than it does mine. Has it not occurred to you that making an image speak is not much of an accomplishment these days, and most people would react to it, not with awe, but with amusement? I mean, if you want an "image that speaks," you can buy various kinds down at Toys 'R' Us for very reasonable prices, but I wouldn't expect anyone to fall down in idolatrous worship before them.
By WHOSE SCHOLARSHIP do you believe Revelation was written before 70 AD?
Chilton, for one. But there are many sources that argue that. I gave you the link above, why don't you check it for yourself. The obvious question in any case is that, since Rev 1:1 says it concerns "things that must shortly take place," if it doesn't concern the events of AD 70, what else can it possibly be referring to?
I think it's odd that you take verses about images speaking to be absolutely literal to the extent that you are asking what "technology was used," but you take Rev 1:1 to be so non-literal that you make it absolutely meaningless. "These events must shortly take place, sometime with in the next 2500 years or so." Uh-huh.
Be Blessed!
I gave you a link to a CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA that freely admits Revelation was written in 95 AD.
The number of reverts and converts, just here mong Freepers, can be extrapolated out into the culture at large, to point out a number so staggering that it must have the anti-Catholic folks in a tizzy.
They just cannot comprehend why all their ranting, insults, and proof texts do not win them converts, but drive folks home to Rome. But it does. Repeatedly.
It would be alike wearisome and useless to enumerate even the more prominent applications made of the Apocalypse. Racial hatred and religious rancour have at all times found in its vision much suitable and gratifying matter. Such persons as Mohammed, the Pope, Napoleon, etc., have in turn been identified with the beast and the harlot. To the "reformers" particularly the Apocalypse was an inexhaustible quarry where to dig for invectives that they might hurl then against the Roman hierarchy. The seven hills of Rome, the scarlet robes of the cardinals, and the unfortunate abuses of the papal court made the application easy and tempting. Owing to the patient and strenuous research of scholars, the interpretation of the Apocalypse has been transferred to a field free from the odium theologicum. But then the meaning of the Seer is determined by the rules of common exegesis. Apart from the resurrection, the millennium, and the plagues preceding the final consummation, they see in his visions references to the leading events of his time. Their method of interpretation may be called historic as compared with the theological and political application of former ages. The key to the mysteries of the book they find in 17:8-14. For thus says the Seer: "Let here the mind that hath understanding give heed".
I (for one) will concede Revelations could have been written about 95 A.D. Thank God the Catholic Church saved the references for us!
Wonderful!! Then you will no doubt conceed, that when Revelation talks about Israel and the Temple etc. it is prophesying the future, (Since Israel and the Temple were destroyed in 70 AD 25 years before Revelation was written.)
Therefor, I hope you will agree that it was GOD, not puny mortal men at the UN, that brought Israel back to the land in 1948, so that the prophesies in Revelationcould be fulfilled (which is the will of God).
How curious then, that Pius XII did NOT want this to happen! (See my note #18, with link to the story). Since the Catholic Encyclopedia admits Revelation was written after the destruction of Jerusalem, and Revelation prophesies about a literal, physical Israel, restored to their ancient homeland, WHICH GOD GAVE TO THEM FOREVER AND EVER
Gen 13:14 And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
Gen 13:15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
Then my question is, if the pope is of God, why did Pius XII not want God to keep His word to His chosen people, Israel?
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