Free Republic

I have attended the indult (I hate that word) Mass for the past three years.

Apparently FR has purged itself of the most prominent traditionalists. In case you haven't noticed, things are little bland here. There are at least half a dozen traditionalists that can no longer post here.

There is a little more to it.

AAABest has been banned, I'm not sure about Robert Drobot.

I forget the readings today, but those don't seem familiar. Maybe my Church didn't get the word about the change???

Most things I've read about Cardinal Pell tell me that he is a good shepherd. It's impossible at this time to seperate the wheat from the chaff. That has to be the job of the Holy Ghost by giving the gift of discernment, especially to those in seminary.

Yes, and I actually threw it in the trash so I would not be responsible for anybody else reading it.

I found it to be very sophmoric and full of lies, inuendos, and half truths about the Catholic Church. The research for it could have been found in one day on the internet reading the teenagers posts at "Above TopSecret", or any other conspiracy website. And I'm sure it was.

If one more person says "It's only a novel", I think I'll puke.

"Or any other book for that matter?"

Oh, a back woodsman is now the resident scholar on FR? Where did you find this book ay, did it come free with case of Black Label?

"That so many members of the Masons hhave risen to positions of prominence makes me want to look at this organization more closely."

And what are you going to look at? While you are at it, check out the Moose and Elk clubs also. I understand some of them have been pretty prominent.

Down here, in the lower 48, we have known of the Masons for a few years now, but we do appreciate the input from someone who has just discovered them and announcing we are asleep if we don't jump up and down over it.

"But you just stay blissful."

You stay away from the Black Label

Isn't it amazing how somebody reads a book and becomes an instant expert, while the rest of us are in the dark and in need of their enlightenment.

I guess it's good we have "Angels and Demons" to tell us what's what.

I wish I could dig it back out of the trash can I threw it in.

We already have little enough to go by regarding God's wishes, so now you would want us to also disregard His proclomation that whatever Peter (Pope) binds on earth is also bound in Heaven. Why would we not revert to that passage in matters to which it pertains?

It may indeed be true that all that is required of us is to love our neighbor. But we don't know that for sure. What we do know for sure is that God made His Church he final arbiter of what He wishes. At the final judgement would we tell Him we knew better than He?

In the old, old, days (exodus) non-Priests who even approached the Altar, or any Holy place was killed on the spot by God Himself. God has a history of having rules that must be obeyed. In the modern day He has become a kindly old Dutch uncle figure that people feel just requires a smile in His direction.

Jesus may have mitigated the severe penalties assesed, but don't you think we owe Him the reverence of a uniform sacrifice of His actions, which is translated to the Heavenly Altar by an Angel, and which we HOPE is acceptable to God the Father?

Should the Church abandon it's formula for the Sacrifice of the Mass and just send the good wishes of the flock, if they should feel incined?

There must be something that I missed. This is from the first para of the article. North Africa is not in Italy.

In an age of widespread religious indifference, Benedict XVI offers as models the martyrs of North Africa who gave their lives for celebrating Mass on a Sunday.

I'm not taking away from the extreme importance of those martyrs. The ones who were actually martyrs should never be forgotten. Maybe they were all Romans.

But maybe what wasn't said by Pope Benedict is even more important in today's world. What he didn't say was that there were many Bishops who weren't martyred, because they gave it all up to the persecutors. Those Bishops were ejected from the Church. Maybe that was the real message.

I wonder why he didn't use more recent examples of martyrdom, such as the English martyrs of the reformation or all those wo have lost their lives even more recently to the muslims and the communists.

Maybe it would't be PC, so he had to go back millenia for an example in order not to offend anybody?

The English martyrs died horrible deaths exactly for the reasons the Church is willing to concede today in ecumenism. And who can overlook the beheadings today in all parts of the world just for offering the Mass or even owning a Bible. But no mention???

Empty words! Say out loud that the Catholic Church is the only Church, not one among many. Then you can invoke the memory of the Holy Martyrs and the Communion of Saints.

Reminds me of the farmer who said "Yes, the fox may sleep in the hen house, but he must promise not to eat the chickens."

"A few days after the election of Pope Benedict XVI, a dozen men friendly to the new pontiff met for dinner in Rome. Judging from the expectations among some of those present, the "reform of the reform" of the liturgy was not simply going to accelerate; to borrow from Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, it was going to hit Warp Factor 9."

I wonder who the dozen men were? They were obviously not just any dozen men as they were having dinner with a Cardinal.

What impresses me is that obvious insiders, or at least not outsiders, are of the impression that major changes are on the way in the liturgy. Not only do they think that, but they desire it.

And having dinner with their friend the Cardinal. Who is he, I wonder? How come we never hear of a Cardinal like that?

I believe you are referring to the statement of John Paul II in which he said that the faithful MAY believe in evolution.

But On the morning of Sunday, April 24, 2005, during his Coronation ceremony homily Pope Benedict XVI made a clear indication that he is distancing himself from the theory of evolution. Translated from the Italian, the pope stated:

"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed , each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."

I gets very confusing to the world at large when Popes send mixed signals. But evolution is not the teaching of the Church, just an opinion of some.

Well I guess that settles it then. Doctors are certainly in a position to know, especially those that have majored in evolution.

The future world was different than the world of creation, so to maybe the cicumstances and needs of even God changed.

For instance, it came to pass that God saw the need to create woman (Eve) so He did. We can only speculate why He didn't do it right off the bat. Obviously, man couldn't procreate or replicate himself, and that need had to be addressed. Up until such time as Eve (woman) arrived man had to keep being created. The Bible does give a clue as to what need God had of men.

Genesis 2: In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground-- 7 then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

God wanted man to work the earth

Gen 1:26 Then God said "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"

WHAT IF God, and whoever He was talking to, (The Word) purposely took an existing creature (which He naturally created) and combined it's DNA with that of those in His domain. Let's say a gorilla with a deity.

IMO that would be creationism,and it might even have happened several times to come up with the finished product. And with the exception of the theory that creation all happened within 24 hrs, it would not even be at odds with the Bible.

This theory would even ALMOST satisfy the evolutionists, since it would bolster their theory that man descended fom Apes. It would also explain the missing link between ape and man, and primitive man and modern man, if it happened in stages.

I don't think it is a cheap shot, as much as it is a target of opportunity.

Unfortunately, the Church has left itself open to any and all criticisms, and has to take it's lumps.

lex orandi: lex credendi (I see the connection between the liturgy, or lack of, and the scandal)

Interesting story, but I wonder why we, at least I, have never heard about it. This kind of story tends to get a lot of play in Catholic circles, or the us versus them crowd. Or has this kind of story happen all too much lately, and is not newsworthy any longer?

I believe that time is of the essence. The longer we wait, the more souls may be lost through relativism, and the gap widened so much that the past may not even be remembered, much less desired.

I think the honeymoon is over and we are getting a clearer vision of where Pope Benedict will be taking the Church. No place new apparently.

All those good feelings and hopes I had are starting to wear thin. Somebody once made the comment here, and that I had long held, that the office of CDF was charged with simply slowing down, not stopping, the creep of modernism in the Church. To allow it (modernism) to play out unchecked would destroy the Church overnight rather than allow it to morph into a modernist tool. That apparently was Ratzinger's job, and now falls on Levada.

I've been reading Dom for a few years, and while like his style, I can't remember off hand any of his rumors to materialize. And he does love his rumors.

I've read that Pope Benedict has never had a drivers license in his life.