The last devotion of Christ: the Sacred Heart is not devotionism but a gateway to the mysteries of God

THE LAST DEVOTION OF CHRIST: THE SACRED HEART IS NOT DEVOTIONISM BUT A DOOR OF ACCESS TO THE MYSTERIES OF GOD

For those who know about cinema, the reference to Martin Scorsese's film on Jesus is evident 1988: «The last temptation of Christ». But just to say that, while cinematic fiction can also imagine that Christ was tempted to retreat from his path, the Gospel told us that He went all the way, with a devotion towards his mission that ultimately revealed what was inside his Heart full of love.

- The Theological Pages -

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Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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The devotion that has spread most among Christian people, at least in the last few centuries, it is the one addressed to the Sacred Heart, that, naturally, he also attracted to himself that due to the Heart of His Mother Mary. With this cult the Catholic Church intended to honor the Heart of Jesus Christ, one of the organs symbolizing his humanity, than for the intimate union with the Divinity, has the right to worship.

Already practiced in Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages, the cult spread widely in the 17th century thanks to Saint John Eudes (1601-1680) and above all of Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque (1647-1690), while the feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated for the first time in France, probably in 1685. The first of Santa Margherita's famous visions occurred on 27 December 1673, feast of Saint John the Evangelist. Jesus appeared to her and Margaret felt "entirely invested with the divine presence". He invited her to take the place that Saint John had occupied during the Last Supper and told her:

«My divine Heart is so passionate with love for men, who could no longer contain within himself the flames of his ardent charity, you have to spread them. I have chosen you to fulfill this great plan, so that everything may be done by me".

As with all other devotions, so that they would not simply remain such or empty containers of popular demonstrations, theology and then the magisterium did their utmost to offer contents and motivations that could not only keep devotion to the Heart of Christ alive, but that it was also continuously nourished by the sources of writing and ecclesial tradition. As devotionism often happens, which is instead a degeneration of the authentic act of worship, tends to prevail over content, so they struggle to carry out their task, especially nowadays, in which it is easy to brand a devotion as a legacy of a pre-modern past and no longer current, or as they say only good for the elderly or the simple.

Instead, devotion to the Sacred Heart he would have much to teach modern people too, indeed to the post-moderns that are us, because the symbol of the heart and the themes connected to it are spontaneously combined with those of affection and love, that is, that whole world of feelings and emotions that are of great interest to us in our time. When more and more often, also recently, Crime events happen that affect love relationships, we immediately contact the experts who warn us of concern about how our time, especially the younger generations, needs an education of feelings, of how one should be in contact with one's emotions to be able to express them in an adequate and non-violent way. It is that vocabulary that leads us back to interiority and therefore to the human heart, to whom the heart of Christ still has much to teach.

To return to the sources of this special Christian devotion and to make people perceive how it is theologically founded and connected to the entire mystery of the salvation brought by Jesus, I would like to consider, who, a simple one, so to speak, verse of the Gospel that has perfect adherence to this devotion of the Sacred Heart. Since many images represent Jesus in the act of offering his palpitating heart, therefore to open his inner and most intimate world, let's see how the Gospel describes this moment. The Evangelist John does so in the chapter where he himself reports the crucifixion of Jesus, the dying moment he says: "Everything is done"; and immediately afterwards a soldier wounds his side to verify his death. Let's see how St. John describes the scene, which must have been truly significant. Let's note how many times the term testimony appears, addressed to faith and connected to two important scriptural quotations. We are interested in the second, the verse we would like to examine – «They will look at the one they have pierced» – precisely because devotion invites us to look at the Heart of Jesus, but we cannot fail to take into consideration the immediate context in which the scene takes place and its important theological meanings.

«But they came from Jesus, seeing that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers struck him in the side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. He who has seen bears witness to it and his testimony is true; he knows he is telling the truth, so that you too may believe. This in fact happened so that the Scripture could be fulfilled: Not a single bone will be broken. And another passage of Scripture says again: “They will look at him whom they have pierced”» (GV 19,33-37).

The passage cited by John it belongs to a prophetic oracle that announced the salvation and eschatological restoration of Jerusalem (Zac 12-14). In the pericope, 12,1013,1 – it tells of the mysterious death of a shepherd king who represents the future Messiah, God himself perceives himself wounded by this death, so he takes the lead by promising a good spirit and a bubbling fountain for their sin:

«I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and consolation: they will look at me, the one they pierced. They will mourn him as one mourns an only child, they will mourn him as one mourns the firstborn."(Zac 12,10).

Further on 13, 1:

"On that day there will be a spring for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem to wash away sin and impurity".

To this verse you can add the text on living water from the next chapter: «On that day living waters will flow from Jerusalem and flow partly towards the eastern sea, part towards the western sea: there always will be, summer and winter. The Lord will be king of all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name will be one." (14, 8-9).

The application of these texts to Jesus on the cross it is clear. Jesus had announced that rivers of living water would flow from within him, in GV 7,38, and the Evangelist explained that he was saying this about the Spirit (7,39)[1].

In summary, the open source for the inhabitants of Jerusalem is the open side of Jesus; the living waters that come out of Jerusalem (Zechariah) for John they are the living waters that flow from within him, which is the new temple; these waters bring purification and life to the East and West. Here we have the theme of the universality of salvation, reported, in the story of the Passion, also from the title of the cross that said: «King of the Jews». Yet the writing was in Hebrew, Greek and Latin: therefore a kingship proclaimed to the whole world. Zechariah's last prophecy was also verified in this way where there is no longer any mention of a pierced shepherd, but of the Lord and his universal kingship in eschatological time: «He will be King of all the earth» (Zac 14,9). John therefore gives the scene of the cross a very broad salvific historical meaning, in full agreement with the other great theological times that are linked to this one verse 37 taken into consideration.

We could also cite two other passages of Scripture where we talk about the New Covenant. In the first, (Gives 31,33-34), this will no longer be reported on external stone tablets, but rather inscribed in the heart:

«This will be the alliance that I will conclude with the house of Israel after those days - oracle of the Lord - I will place my law within them, I will write it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they will be my people. They will no longer have to teach each other, saying: “Know the Lord”, because everyone will know me, from the least to the greatest - oracle of the Lord - for I will forgive their iniquity and will no longer remember their sin".

In the second, (This 36,25-27), reference is always made to the alliance, but sanctioned by the gift of a spirit, similar to water that purifies, hence also the gift of a new heart:

«I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be purified; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols, I will give you a new heart, I will put a new spirit within you, I will take away the heart of stone from you and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and will make you live according to my laws and will make you observe and put into practice my rules".

All this scriptural background it makes us understand what John meant when he reported the prophetic phrase: «They will look at the one they have pierced»; which is found only in his Gospel, at the end of a text that, as we have already highlighted, it is the favorite reference when we talk about devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. These words summarize recognition and understanding[2] through the faith of that which dwelt in the depths of the heart of the dying Christ who "Having loved his own... to the end" and having now accomplished everything, expresses the internal desire to give the Spirit. Those who direct their gaze towards Jesus can no longer be the bystanders or soldiers who witnessed the crucifixion, but it is now the believing souls who penetrate and faithfully preserve the mystery of the love of Jesus, in a word his Heart.

Let's try to understand all this better, letting ourselves be guided by the literary structure of the Johannine passage which describes the moments before and after the death of Jesus on the cross. Of course we can only summarize so much. It allows us to highlight the presence of three binomials: «everything is finished» and «I am thirsty» al v. 28; "it is finished" and "he gave up the Spirit" of v. 30; finally «blood and water» of v. 34. Two thematic lines branch off from these three, towards which we need to direct our gaze of faith.

The first line we will call Christological it is drawn by expressions: "everything is done", "it is finished" and "blood". They represent the compendium of the saving work of Jesus. In this case the gaze turns backwards, to what has passed, to grasp in these words the total obedience of Jesus to the Father: he completed his work, until blood flows. But it is also a vision of the fulfillment of that saving love for us, that "until the end" of GV 13,1. So let's see here, in the open side of Christ, be his perfect oblation, that love to excess for us.

The second thematic line it is instead aimed at the future, to the life of the Church which, as we have tried to describe in a previous article, he is present there in the person of the beloved disciple and the Woman, the Mother of Jesus, called to a new spiritual motherhood towards believing disciples. This line, pneumatology, it is outlined by words: «On set», «gave up the Spirit» and «water».

The water that flows from the side of Christ it is a symbol of the gift of the Spirit and comes from Christ himself: it is he who "gave the Spirit"; it is from him that this desire originates: «On set». In fact, we note a significant difference between Zechariah's quote and the way John reports it in the Gospel. For John it is no longer a question of looking towards God, but towards "he", Christ, who was pierced. All the attention, that is, the believing gaze, she is focused on him and on the moment of the blood and water coming out of his underwear. Furthermore, the ancient prophecy spoke of repentance, which is left unsaid by Giovanni who prefers to concentrate on seeing.

There are many studies which confirm the different ways of seeing in the fourth Gospel and how, for John, the most perfect one is the seeing that understands the revealed mystery with faith and preserves it in the memory. We add that this seeing is aimed at the participation of the readers of the Gospel in the same experience, as John himself confesses in the first finale of his work: "These (signs) they were written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and why, believing, have life in his name" (GV 20, 31)[3].

So, Once again, the Evangelist writes to direct the reader from history to mystery. We see a pierced side, of the blood and water that come out and one contemplates the entire interior world of Christ and great themes, great theological depth, ecclesial and spiritual, nothing but magical-esoteric devotionism. The water from Jesus' side is a symbol of the Spirit that flows from his side, He becomes the new eschatological temple (cf.. This 47). At the same time the blood refers to his self-giving gift to the Father, to his finished work and his love for us. The gaze of faith that contemplates is the desire to participate in this entire interior world of Christ who is manifested.

In this passage Johannine there is no explicit mention of the heart, rather than the interiority of Jesus. It will be medieval mysticism that will identify this interior world as the heart of Christ and will make this passage of the pierced side the biblical text par excellence of the theology and spirituality of the Divine Heart of Jesus. Saint Ambrose said:

«Let the Church be introduced into the secret room of Christ...; the secret room of the Church is the Body of Christ; the King introduced it into all (its) mystery» (Sant'Ambrogio, In Ps. 218, 1,16 RUSE 62,16).

And William of Saint-Thierry:

«That through the open door we enter, all in one piece, into your heart, o Jesus... up to your holy soul"; asking the Savior: «To open the side of his body so that those who desire to see the secrets of the Son may enter» (William of Saint-Thierry, Meditative prayers, 6; PL 180, 226A).

Today, thanks to modern accurate exegesis, let's give these beautiful affirmations a solid evangelical basis and appreciate them better.

Having, Once again, summarized themes that would have needed a longer and more in-depth treatment, the intent of this contribution could be to arouse, after tasting, a real taste and interest. The intelligence of faith never ceases to delve into issues that are dear to the Christian people, even a devotion can become a door towards an ever broader and deeper understanding of the mysteries of God and faith. When the month of June approaches, traditionally dedicated to the Heart of Christ, let's give a new meaning to this devotion, to the prayers we will choose or the images we will share on social. For instance, the practice of the «first nine Fridays», after what has been said here, it is no longer simply the prayer and devotion of the individual, but should be thought of in the broader context of ecclesial communion and the Christian mystery, as we discovered when reflecting on the Gospel, thinking back to Jesus' gift of his life and his Spirit for all, not just for the individual soul.

These aspects were grasped by Pope John Paul II who expressed them in a public hearing. Twenty-five years have passed since those words that I now report below:

«The Evangelist speaks only of the spear blow to the side, from which blood and water flowed. The language of the description is almost medical, anatomical. The soldier's spear certainly struck the heart, to check if the Condemned Man was already dead. This heart – this human heart – has stopped working. Jesus ceased to live. At the same time, But, this anatomical opening of Christ's heart after death - despite all the historical "harshness" of the text - pushes us to think also on a metaphorical level. The heart is not just an organ that conditions the biological vitality of man. The heart is a symbol. It speaks of the whole inner man. It speaks of the spiritual interior of man. And tradition immediately reinterpreted this sense of John's description. The rest, in a sense, the Evangelist himself gave the impetus to this, When, referring to the testimony of the eyewitness who was himself, it was reported, at the same time, to this phrase of Holy Scripture: “They will look at him whom they have pierced” (GV 19,37; Zc 12,10). Like this, in reality, look at the Church; This is how he looks at humanity. And here, in Pierced by the Soldier's Lance all generations of Christians have learned and are learning to read the mystery of the Heart of the Crucified Man who was and is the Son of God". (Saint John Paul II, General audience of 20 June 1979).

I titled this contribution: The last devotion of Christ. For those who know about cinema, the reference to Martin Scorsese's film on Jesus is evident 1988: The last temptation of Christ. But just to say that, while cinematic fiction can also imagine that Christ was tempted to retreat from his path, the Gospel told us that He went all the way, with a devotion towards his mission that ultimately revealed what was inside his Heart full of love.

Sanluri 27 February 2024

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The latest book by Ivano Liguori, to access the book shop click on the cover

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The fans of Mary co-redemptrix, a gross contradiction in theological terms

THE FANS OF MARIA CO-REDEMPTOR, A GROSS CONTRADICTION IN THEOLOGICAL TERMS

Is anyone truly willing to believe that the Blessed Virgin, the one who defined herself as a "humble servant", the woman of gifted love, silence and confidentiality, the one who has the purpose of leading to Christ, can truly ask some visionaries or visionaries to be proclaimed co-redeemer and put almost on a par with the Divine Redeemer? One might reasonably ask: of when, the "humble servant" of Magnificat, she would become so pretentious and vain as to ask for and claim the title of co-redeemer?

— Theologica pages —

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Article dedicated to the memory of the Jesuit Peter Gumpel (Hannover 1923 – Rome 2023) who was my trainer and precious teacher in the history of dogma

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By frequenting enough i social media, reading and listening to priests and lay people, on biblical and theological topics, sometimes one gets the impression that no progress has been made on certain issues. It so happens that many inaccuracies are put into circulation on questions concerning matters of faith, or we continue on old registers, devotional and emotional.

Salvador Dali, The Madonna of Port Lligat, 1949, Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI, USA. Detail.

The desire, perhaps a little utopian, it would be for the Readers to realize, with minimal effort, who could benefit from serious and precise insights. At least it is in my hope and that of our Fathers Patmos Island, be of help to those who manage to go beyond the four or five lines read on social media, where today unlikely theologians and Mariologists pontificate, with the consequences that we often know well: deviation from the true faith. And this is very sad, because i Social media they could be an extraordinary tool for us for the diffusion of sound and solid Catholic doctrine.

In the years following the Second Vatican Council Biblical science has made important strides, offering contributions that are now essential for theology in its various branches and for Christian life. This since when, since the time of the Venerable Pontiff Pius XII, in the Catholic Church the study of the Bible has been encouraged by giving the possibility of using all those methods that are normally applied to a written text. To cite just a few examples: rhetorical analysis, the structural one, literary and semantics have produced results that perhaps have sometimes appeared unsatisfactory, but they also allowed us to explore the text of the Holy Scripture in a new way and this led to a whole series of studies that made us know the Word of God better and more deeply. Or to reconsider ancient acquisitions, of tradition, of the Holy Fathers of the Church, which despite being true and profound, as well as works of high theology, however they did not have the support of a modern study of sacred texts, precisely because still, certain tools, at the time of their speculations they were missing.

Before continuing, an aside is necessary: i "teologi" da social media they need the fight, to unleash which it is necessary to choose and create an enemy. For certain groups the most popular enemy is Modernism, rightly defined by the Holy Pontiff Pius (cf.. Feeding of Dominic's Sheep). That doesn't mean that, But, than the actions of this Holy Pontiff, before that and of his Supreme Predecessor Leo XIII, has always produced beneficial effects in the decades to follow. Obviously, to make an objective critical analysis, it is imperative to contextualize the condemnation of Modernism and the severe canonical measures that followed in that precise historical moment, certainly not to express judgments using criteria linked to our present, because only misleading and distorting sentences would emerge. To briefly summarize this complex problem to which I intend to dedicate my next book, suffice it to say that the Church of those years, after the fall of the Papal State which occurred on 20 September 1870, it was subject to violent political and social attacks. The Roman Pontiff withdrew as a "voluntary prisoner" within the Vatican walls from which he emerged only six decades later. The anticlericalism of Masonic origin was raised to the maximum power and the Church had to seriously deal with its own survival and that of the institution of the papacy. It certainly could not afford the development of currents of thought that would have attacked and corroded it directly from within. It is in this delicate context that the fight of the Holy Pontiff Pius. With all the consequences, including negative ones, of the case: theological speculation was effectively frozen amidst a thousand fears and the training of priests was reduced to four formulas of decadent neo-scholasticism, which was not even a distant relative of the classical scholasticism of Saint Anselm of Aosta and Saint Thomas Aquinas. This produced such an unpreparedness and ignorance in the Catholic clergy that for clear proof it would be enough to read the Encyclical Back to the Catholic Priesthood written in 1935 of Pope Pius XI.

The consequences of the fight against Modernism they were in some ways disastrous, suffice it to say that when on the threshold of the 1940s, at the beginning of the pontificate of Pius XII, Catholic theologians and biblical scholars began to get their hands on certain materials and to carry out exegesis in the context of the Old and New Testaments, they were forced, discreetly and working prudently under the table, to refer to Protestant authors, who had been speculating and carrying out in-depth studies on certain topics for decades, especially in the field of biblical sciences. And so today, if we want to do a study and analysis of the text of the Letter to the Romans we must necessarily refer to the commentary of the Protestant theologian Carl Barth, which remains fundamental and above all unsurpassed. These too were the fruits of the struggle against Modernism, which the "theologians" certainly don't talk about social media that to exist they need an enemy to fight. But as already said, this theme will be the subject of my next book, but this aside was necessary to better introduce our theme.

What is still missing today is that these results obtained through modern exegesis or the study of the Old and New Testament texts become the prerogative of the majority of believers. And here I return to reiterate the extraordinary importance that the social media, to disseminate and make certain materials accessible. Too often they remain confined to specialist texts and do not pass, if not sporadically, in preaching and catechesis, encouraging a new awareness of the terms at stake and therefore a more solid and motivated Christian faith, not based only on acquired data that is often fragile and confusing, on the devotional, on the sentimental, or worse: about revelations, on real or alleged apparitions, or on the itchy trembling “secrets” of talkativeness Madam di Medjugorje (cf.. my video conference, WHO)…and so on to follow.

If certain madonnolatrous fans they had humility, perhaps even the decency to read books and articles by authoritative scholars, perhaps they could understand that not only, they didn't understand, but that they have understood nothing at all about the Mary of the Holy Gospels. It would be enough to take - I mention just one among many - the article written by Father Ignace de la Potterie: «The Mother of Jesus and the mystery of Cana» (La Civiltà Cattolica, 1979, IV, pp. 425-440, full text WHO), to thus understand what abysmal difference there may be between Mariology and Mariolatry.

When even today we still talk about the Virgin Mary, Unfortunately, even among certain priests - and even more so among certain devout believers - we witness the trite repetition of the usual devotional and emotional discourses, until reaching, with the step of elephants inside a glassware shop, the very delicate and discussed theme of Mary co-redemptrix, that as is well known - and as the last Pontiffs have pointed out several times -, it is a term that in itself creates enormous theological problems with Christology and the mystery of redemption itself. In fact, affirm that Maria, perfect creature born without sin, but still a created creature, he cooperated in the redemption of humanity, it is not exactly the same as saying that he co-redeemed humanity. It was Christ who brought about the redemption, who was not a created creature but the Word of God made man, begotten not created of the same substance as God the Father, as we act in the Symbol of Faith, the I believe, where we profess «[…] and by the work of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary". In Symbol of Faith, redemption is entirely centered on Christ. That's why we say that the Blessed Virgin “he cooperated” and say “ha co-redee” it has a substantially and radically different theological value. In fact, only one is the redeemer: Jesus Christ God made man "begotten not created of the same substance as the Father", who as such does not need any created creature to support or sustain him as co-redeemer or co-redeemer, including the Blessed Virgin Mary" (cf.. Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo, in The Island of Patmos, see WHO, WHO, WHO). Request: to the fans of the co-redeemer, how come it is not enough that Mary is the one who in fact cooperated more than any creature so that the mystery of redemption was realized? For what reason, but above all for what obstinacy, not happy with her role as a cooperator, at all costs they want her to be proclaimed co-redemptive with a solemn dogmatic definition?

From a theological point of view and dogmatic, the very concept of Mary co-redemptrix first of all creates big problems for Christology, with the risk of giving life to a sort of "quatrinity" and of raising the Madonna, that is perfect creature born without the stain of original sin, to the role of real gods. Christ redeemed us with his hypostatic precious human and divine blood, with his glorious resurrected body which still bears the signs of passion imprinted on it today. Mary instead, while covering an extraordinary role in the history of the economy of salvation, It cooperated in our redemption. To say co-redemptive is equivalent to saying that we have been redeemed by Christ and Mary. And here it is good to clarify: Christ saves, Mary intercedes for our salvation. It is not a small difference between “saving” and “interceding”, unless otherwise create a different religion from the one founded on the mystery of God's Word (cf.. My previous article WHO).

Mariology is not something in itself, almost as if he lived an autonomous life. Mariology is nothing more than an appendix of Christology and is inserted in a precise theological dimension of Christocentrism. If Mariology is somehow detached from this Christocentric centrality, one can run the serious risk of falling into the worst and most harmful Mariocentrism. Not to mention the obvious arrogance of the exponents of some young and problematic Congregation of Franciscan-Marian imprint, who did not limit themselves to making hypotheses or theological studies to support the peregrine idea of ​​the so-called co-redemptive, but in fact they instituted its cult and veneration.

Who proclaims dogmas that do not exist commits a greater crime than those whose dogmas deny them, because it operates by placing itself above the authority of the same Holy Church Mater et Magistra, holder of an authority that derives from Christ himself. And the latter yes, which is a dogma of the Catholic Faith, which was not reached by logical deduction after centuries of studies and speculation - as in the case of the dogma of the immaculate conception and Mary's assumption into heaven -, but on the basis of clear and precise words pronounced by the Word of God made Man (cf.. Mt 13, 16-20). And when dogmas that don't exist are proclaimed, in that case pride enters the scene in its worst manifestation. I have written and explained it in several of my previous articles but it deserves to be repeated again: in the so-called scale of the deadly sins the Catechism of the Catholic Church indicates pride in the first place, with painful peace of those who persist in concentrating the entire mystery of evil in lust - which we remember does not figure in first place at all, but not even to the second, to the third and fourth [See. Catechism no. 1866] ―, regardless of the fact that the worst sins ranging everyone and rigor from his belt to rise, not instead of his belt to fall, as I wrote in an ironic but theologically very serious tone years ago in my book And Satan became triune, explaining in one of my books 2011 how the sixth commandment has often been exaggerated beyond measure, often forgetting all the worst and most serious sins against charity.

If then all this is filtered through fideistic emotions - as if such a delicate topic centered in the most complex spheres of dogmatics were a sort of opposing fan base made up of Lazio fans and Roma fans -, in that case one can fall into actual Marian idolatry or so-called Mariolatry, which is to say: pure paganism. At that point Mary could easily take the name of any goddess of the Greek Olympus or the Roman Pantheon.

The fans from social media of co-redemption of the Blessed Virgin affirm as a sort of incontrovertible proof that it was Mary herself who asked for the proclamation of this fifth Marian dogma (cf.. among many articles, WHO). Something they say there is no discussion about, the Blessed Virgin herself would have asked it when appearing in Amsterdam to Ida Peerdeman. Given that no Marian apparition, including those recognized as authentic by the Church, Fatima included, it can be the object and binding matter of faith; given also that the locutions of certain seers are even less so, we can only smile at certain pleasantries of amateur theologians which make certain subjects difficult to manage for us priests and above all for us theologians, precisely because their arrogance goes hand in hand with their ignorance which leads them to treat such a topic as if it really were a heated exchange between Lazio fans and Roma fans who shout at each other from the opposite corners of the stadium. Even in this case the answer is simple: is anyone truly willing to believe that the Blessed Virgin, the one who defined herself as a "humble servant", the woman of gifted love, silence and confidentiality, the one who has the purpose of leading to Christ, can truly ask some visionaries or visionaries to be proclaimed co-redeemer and put almost on a par with the Divine Redeemer? One might reasonably ask: of when, the "humble servant" of Magnificat, she would become so pretentious and vain as to ask for and claim the title of co-redeemer?

Finally, here it is “proof of proof”: «several Supreme Pontiffs have made use of the term co-redemptive», Having said this, the list of their various speeches follows, although everything demonstrates the exact opposite of what the co-redemption fans would like to experience. It is true that the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, in a speech of his on 8 September 1982, stated:

«Maria, even conceived and born without stain of sin, he participated in a wonderful way in the sufferings of his divine Son, to be co-redemptor of humanity".

However, this expression demonstrates the exact opposite on the theological and Mariological level. Let's clarify why: from then on, following John Paul II - who was undoubtedly a Pontiff of profound Marian devotion -, he had others before him 23 years of pontificate. Come May, in this long period of time, as well as not proclaiming the fifth Marian dogma of Mary's co-redemption, he flatly rejected the request, when it was presented to him twice? He rejected her because between the 1962 and the 1965, the then young Bishop Karol Woytila ​​was a participating and active figure in the Second Vatican Council who in one of its dogmatic constitutions clarified how Mary had «cooperated in a unique way in the work of the Savior» (The light, 61). Statement introduced by the previous article where it is specified that the only mediation of the Redeemer «does not exclude, but it arouses in creatures a varied cooperation participated by the single source" (The light 60; CCC 970). And the highest and most extraordinary cooperation was that of the Virgin Mary. This should be enough to understand that the Supreme Pontiffs, when they sometimes resorted to the term co-redemptive in their speeches, never in encyclicals or solemn acts of the supreme magisterium, they intended to express with it the concept of Mary's cooperation in the mystery of salvation and redemption.

The very term co-redemptive it is in and of itself a theological absurdity that creates enormous conflicts with Christology and the mystery of redemption brought about solely by God the Incarnate Word, which does not need co-redeemers and co-redeemers, he repeated it three times, In the 2019, 2020 e 2021 also the Supreme Pontiff Francis:

«[…] Faithful to his Master, who is his Son, the only Redeemer, he never wanted to take something of his Son for himself. She never presented herself as a co-redeemer. No, discepola. And there is a Holy Father who says around that discipleship is more worthy than motherhood. Questions of theologians, but a disciple. He never stole anything from his Son for himself, she served him because she is a mother, gives life in the fullness of time to this Son born of a woman (cf.. Homily of 12 December 2019, full text WHO) […] Our Lady did not want to take any title away from Jesus; she received the gift of being His Mother and the duty to accompany us as a Mother, to be our Mother. She did not ask for herself to be a quasi-redeemer or a co-redeemer: no. The Redeemer is only one and this title is not doubled. Only disciple and Mother (cf.. Homily of 3 April 2020, full text WHO) […] the Madonna who, as the Mother to whom Jesus has entrusted us, envelops us all; but as a mother, not as a goddess, not as a co-redemptrix: as Mother. It is true that Christian piety always gives it beautiful titles, like a son to his mother: how many beautiful things a son says to the mother he loves! But let's be careful: the beautiful things that the Church and the Saints say about Mary take nothing away from the redemptive uniqueness of Christ. He is the only Redeemer. They are expressions of love like a son to his mother, sometimes exaggerated. But love, we know, always makes us do exaggerated things, but with love" (cf.. Hearing of 24 March 2021, full text WHO).

The mystery of redemption it is one with the mystery of the cross, on which God made man died as a sacrificial lamb. On the cross the Blessed Virgin Mary was not nailed to death like a sacrificial lamb, that at the end of her life she fell asleep and was assumed into heaven, she did not die and rose again on the third day, defeating death. The Blessed Virgin, first creature of the whole creation above all the saints for its immaculate purity, he does not forgive our sins and does not redeem us, he intercedes for the remission of our sins and for our redemption. So if he doesn't redeem us, because we insist on dogmatizing a title aimed at solemnly defining which co-redeems us?

Many fans of co-redemption are likely have never paid attention to the invocations of the Loreto Litany, which were certainly not the work of some recent pontiff smacking of modernism, as some would say, they were added to the recitation of the Holy Rosary by the Holy Pontiff Pius V after the victory of the Holy League in Lepanto in 1571, although already in use for several decades in the Sanctuary of the House of Loreto, from which they take their name. Yet it would be enough to ask this question: How come, when at the beginning of these litanies God the Father is invoked, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, let's say "Miserere nobis» (have mercy on us)? While just starting, with the invocation Holy Mary, to enunciate all the titles of the Blessed Virgin, from that moment on we say «Pray for us» (pray for us)? Simple: because God the Father who created us and who gave himself to humanity through the incarnation of the Word of God made man, Jesus Christ, who then brought the Holy Spirit who "proceeds from the Father and the Son", with compassionate mercy they give the grace of forgiveness from sins through a Trinitarian action of the triune God, the Virgin Mary does not, he does not forgive us our sins and does not forgive us, because in the economy of salvation his role is that of intercession. This is why, when we turn to her through prayer, both in the Ave Maria than in Hi Regina, of always, throughout the history and tradition of the Church we invoke her saying "pray for us sinners", we do not ask her to forgive our sins or to save us (cf.. My previous article, WHO). This alone should be sufficient and advance to understand that the term co-redemptive itself is a gross contradiction on a theological level, unfortunately enough to make those theologians who insist on calling for the proclamation of this fifth Marian dogma to be rude, charging and using as fans fringes of faithful, most of whom have deep and serious gaps in the foundations of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The person of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus, it is looked at and indicated with a theological depth that places it in close relationship with the mission of his Son and united with us disciples, because this is his role that the Gospels wanted to communicate and remind us of, all with all due respect to those who claim, sometimes even arrogantly, to relegate the Woman of Magnificat in a microcosm of emotional devotions that often even reveal the fumus of neo-paganism. The Supreme Pontiff Francis is therefore right, than with his very simple and direct style, at times even deliberately provocative and for some even irritating, but precisely for this reason capable of making himself understood by everyone, he specified that Maria «[…] he never wanted to take something of his Son for himself. She never presented herself as co-redeemer". And she did not present herself as such because Mary is the Woman of Magnificat: «He looked at the humility of his servant, from now on all generations will call me blessed"; blessed because I became a servant, certainly not why I asked, to some demented seer, to be proclaimed co-redemptrix.

 

the Island of Patmos, 3 February 2024

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The Mother of Jesus, the treasure hidden in the Gospels

THE MOTHER OF JESUS, THE TREASURE HIDDEN IN THE GOSPELS

«The holy Council fervently and insistently exhorts all the faithful, especially the religious ones, to learn “the sublime science of Jesus Christ” (Fil 3,8) with frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. “Ignorance of the Scriptures, indeed, it is ignorance of Christ”. Let them willingly approach the sacred text, both through the sacred liturgy, which is imbued with divine words, both through pious reading, both through initiatives suitable for this purpose and other subsidies, that with the approval and care of the pastors of the Church, commendably today they spread everywhere".

- The Theological Pages -

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Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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In the years following the Second Vatican Council Biblical science has made important strides, offering contributions that are now essential for Theology in its various branches and for Christian life. This has been the case at least since, since the time of Pius XII, in the Catholic Church the study of the Bible has been encouraged by giving the possibility of using all those methods that are normally applied to a written text.

The Announcement – Work by Salvador Dali, 1960, Vatican museums (click on the image to open the page)

How many are aware of the enormous benefits that exegetical studies have brought to the theology that investigates the figure and role of the Virgin Mary, the so-called Mariology. What a richness to be able to say today that the story of the annunciation (LC 1, 26-38) for its literary form, while preserving within it the communication of a miraculous birth, however, it is a story of vocation: Mary's vocation. But who knows? Who noticed that in the CEI version of the Bible of 2008, the one we currently read in our liturgies, the angel's announcement to Mary is made today with: «Rejoice»; when in the previous version of the 1974 it was read: «I greet you»; due to the great influence due to the prayer ofAve Maria? It was the Jesuit Father Stanislas Lyonnet[1] the first that in 1939 he pointed out that the imperative invitation to joy («cheer up», Kayre Of LC 1,28) referred to the prophetic texts addressed to the "daughter of Zion" (Sof 3,14). Change everything, no longer a simple greeting, but Mary is given an invitation that in the past was addressed to Israel, to whom the prophets addressed themselves as to a woman. In the Middle Ages they said that due to her maternal function Mary was "Figure of the synagogue"[2], today, thanks to exegetical acquisitions we give this statement a new and more solid connotation from a scriptural point of view.

When even today we still talk about the Virgin Mary, unfortunately also among priests and even more so among the faithful, we witness the trite repetition of the usual devotional and emotional speeches; at most we go so far as to follow the delicate and discussed theme of Mary co-redemptrix. How many homilies wanting to explain the Cana episode still speak of it as a simple miracle? This word is not present in the Gospel passage. Instead we speak of a "sign" - "Jesus did this as the beginning of the signs" (GV 2,11) - which in the Fourth Gospel has a completely different theological depth and significance. And Maria was present there, who isn't even called by name, but only identified as: «Donna». Yet all we hear is about the Madonna: The Madonna who forced the miracle. Who knows how many know that Jesus' sentence to his Mother is most likely a question - «My time has not yet come?» - as a talented exegete proved decades ago[3]. The new CEI Bible does not yet report it, but at least, from the previous version, the term miracle has been changed and now we can finally read the word "sign" (GV 2,11).

Another interesting change of perspective which slowly happened, while carefully scrutinizing the figure of Mary in the Gospels, was to set aside the traditional link between Her and the figure of Eve, protagonista del protovangelo di Genesi. Because it was instead more in line with the texts and rich in theological and ecclesiological perspectives to see Mary as an image of that biblical daughter of Zion (Shall 86 [87],5, 5 LXX), the new Jerusalem which becomes the protagonist of the new Covenant with Jesus.

This emerges clearly in the Gospel stories, especially in two Johannine texts that see Mary, never called by its proper name, but identified rather as «The mother of Jesus» or more curiously as «Woman». The episode of the wedding at Cana (GV 2, 1-11) and that of the "Mother" under the cross (GV 19,25-27) together with the beloved disciple, are directly connected precisely because of the presence in both moments of this "Woman".

In the first case, a Cana, we are at the beginning of the manifestation of Jesus, in the second episode we are instead at the end of this revelation, there: «Everything was accomplished» (GV 19,28). Revelation that represents the leitmotif of the Johannine Gospel: "It gave, no one has seen him: the only Son, who is God and is at the Father, it is he who has made him known " (GV 1,18). Cana is the culmination of a week in which Jesus begins to reveal himself to his first disciples, after the first big timeless day of the prologue; the cross is the final moment, before the resurrection of course, which sees Jesus reveal himself to the Mother and the disciple, the one who never stopped following Jesus from the beginning, the great mystery of the Church which looks with faith at what has happened and bears witness to it: «He who saw it bears witness» (GV 19,35).

A Cana, Maria, the Mother of Jesus, she is that Woman who represents humanity in poverty and Judaism that lived on messianic hope. The words so apodictic - «They have no wine» (GV 2,3) - they would signify Israel's desire to see the spread of the messianic wine or the definitive revelation of the New Covenant, according to the rich symbolism of wine in biblical and Jewish tradition. She invites, therefore, the disciples to renew that purpose already expressed in the ancient alliance of Sinai: «All that Yahweh said, we will do it"; «Whatever he tells you, do it" (Is 19,8; see also 24,3.7; GV 2,5).

Saint John the Evangelist, as he often does throughout his work, for example in the story of the Samaritan woman at the well (GV 4,13-14), it asks us to elevate ourselves from the human and historical level to the more spiritual and theological one. Where spiritual does not mean less faithful to the truth, rather it designates and indicates the most hidden and profound meaning hidden within a story, in line with what modern hermeneutics is also discovering. Martin Heidegger in his writings says that language is found in the "unpronounceable" and meaning in the "unsaid" of the text, while the philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas talks about going "beyond the verse", Gregory the Great, a medieval one, he even said that: «The text grows with the one who reads it».

Regarding Mary, the Gospel therefore takes us through the immediate and more evident meaning of her as the mother of Jesus because she carried him in her womb and gave birth to him, to that of a representative of an entire community that wishes to unite with Jesus who, given the context, she wants to bind herself to Him like a Bride to her Groom, for He is the One who brings salvation, the new wine symbol of the new messianic alliance. The whole passage and the use of the term "Woman" is an invitation to elevate ourselves from the historical and literal level to the most hidden and profound sense which is spiritual., theological and highly significant for believers. This is why the Cana episode takes place at the end of the first week of Jesus' manifestation to his disciples, curious to know who he is, what brings new respect to John who indicated it (GV 1,36) and where is his secret: «Where are you staying? » (GV 1,38). It is no coincidence that the evangelist comments at the end that Jesus did not perform a simple miracle at Cana, but "he manifested his glory and his disciples began to believe in him" (GV 2,11).

If the maternal role of the Woman towards the disciples, a Cana, it was sketchy or rather initial, under the cross this appears clearly. Right there Mary receives a new spiritual motherhood which is expressed in the mutual relationship between her and a disciple: «They were near the cross of Jesus his mother, his mother's sister, Mary mother of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene. Jesus then, seeing his mother and next to her the disciple he loved, He told his mother: «Donna, here is your son!». Then he said to the disciple: «Here is your mother!». And from that hour the disciple took her into his " (GV 19,25-27).

It is said that when someone is at the point of death usually pronounces important words, definitive. And these are Jesus' last words before dying, before uttering that definitive one: «On set». But once again St. John warns us that an important revelation is hidden here. He does this by using a scheme used many times in his work, or using the two verbs: see, to say; and then the adverb "here", in sequence. Scholars call this process: revelation scheme; because it indicates that the author is telling us something new is being illustrated.

In telling the passion, the crucifixion and death of Jesus, John does not contradict himself and brings together themes of great theological importance. The kingship of Jesus is universal, as the languages ​​of the title of the cross indicate: «It was written in Hebrew, in latino e in greco» (GV 19,20); all the scattered children of God are gathered together: "And I, when I am lifted up from the ground, I will attract everyone to me " (GV 12,32); his unusable tunic represents the unity of the Church, at least in patristic exegesis because of the verb sketch ("sliver") used here, hence schism: «Therefore they said among themselves: «Let's not tear it up, but let's draw lots whose turn it will be". He is the intact Passover lamb: «This in fact happened so that the Scripture might be fulfilled: Not a single bone will be broken." (GV 19,36; cf.. Is 12,46). And at the culmination of this revelation there is Jesus' handing over of "his mother" to the disciple.

In fact, we note in the verses that the Mother of Jesus which is "his" (term repeated four times), it becomes through the words of Jesus to the disciple: "Your mother"; and vice versa he for her: "Your son". This disciple is loved because he is the one who has never stopped following Jesus from the beginning, from that initial week which flows into the sign of Cana which we mentioned above; what that, instead, it was not successful for Pietro who will have to resume his following later. In this sense he represents the disciple par excellence towards whom we should all conform, it is a symbol of every true disciple of Jesus, to be able, leaning over his chest, to grasp the most intimate aspects of Him. Mother, as we saw at Cana, represents the daughter of Zion, but now in her fully revealed maternal function. She is the one who sees her children previously lost, now gather (Is 60, 4-5 LXX). Be to Cana, in the initial phase, this relationship was mentioned, here it reaches all its evidence. The "Woman" now becomes the mother of the Church, represented by the disciple.

What does this new motherhood consist of? which we call spiritual, due to the fact that the true and only Son she had was Jesus? Precisely because of his indissoluble bond with Jesus, From now on she can only be for the new child, the church, the one who leads to Jesus, which invites us to enter into an alliance that is no longer initial as in Cana, but definitive, sanctioned by the saving death of Christ on the cross. She will be the one who renews towards the disciples what she was for Jesus in the incarnation: it will be the Mother. If already in Cana the disciples were not called slaves, but serve, i «diakonoi" Of GV 2,5, even more so here they are considered as children. And this motherhood, given under the cross, it expresses itself in helping the disciple, all of us, to understand the profound meaning of what happened from the beginning and what is happening at that moment on the ordeal. This is why the disciple, says the gospel, he immediately understands the words of Jesus and takes what is now His Mother into his heart. It doesn't take possession, as if a woman passed ownership from one to another, but he welcomes it for all that it now means, thanks to the revealing word just spoken by Jesus. For this reason the evangelist comments: «And from that hour the disciple welcomed her with him» (GV 19,27).

The disciple, participant in the messianic hour of the Lord and thanks to the maternal presence of Mary he can turn the gaze of the one who has understood towards Jesus on the cross, in the broadest sense of the term, that of carrying with him and within himself the great mystery of which he is a witness. And in fact these are his words: «He who has seen bears witness to it and his testimony is true; he knows he is telling the truth, so that you too may believe" (GV 19,35).

What does the disciple testify, just after receiving this new Mother? Who heard the last words of Jesus on his finished work and the others that expressed his desire to give the Spirit: «On set» (Gv 19,28b). It will be after the death of Jesus, which John will describe precisely as a delivery of the Spirit - «He gave up his spirit» (GV 19,30 Vulgate) – with the opening of the side from which blood drains, that is, the life of Jesus given so far, and water, symbol of the gift of the Spirit as had been announced several times in the Gospel (GV 7, 37-38), that his will finally and definitively be a gaze of faith directed perennially at Jesus: «They will look at the one they have pierced». (GV 19,37). A Father of the Church writes:

«No one can reach the meaning (of the Gospel of John) if he did not recline his head on the chest of Jesus and received Mary as his mother from Jesus, E, to be another John, so that he feels designated by Jesus as if he were Jesus himself. Because… Mary has no other children than Jesus; when Jesus says to his Mother: “Here is your son” and not: “Here this man is also your son”, it's as if he were telling her: “Here is Jesus whom you gave birth to”. In fact, everyone has achieved perfection “he no longer lives but Christ lives in him” and because Christ lives in him, Christ tells Mary about him: “Here is your son, the Christ”»[4].

If today I reread these bold words of Origen we realize how much theological truth and spiritual beauty they contain, we also owe it to the fact that the study of Mary in Scripture, which has flourished again in recent decades, it allows us to reap the fruits of a work of rigorous and loving analysis of the biblical texts and to enjoy ancient affirmations with renewed awareness. And the Church recommends not only that the text be studied by specialists, but that everyone can drink from the fountain of Sacred Scripture:

«The holy Council fervently and insistently exhorts all the faithful, especially the religious ones, to learn “the sublime science of Jesus Christ” (Fil 3,8) with frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. “Ignorance of the Scriptures, indeed, it is ignorance of Christ”. Let them willingly approach the sacred text, both through the sacred liturgy, which is imbued with divine words, both through pious reading, both through initiatives suitable for this purpose and other subsidies, that with the approval and care of the pastors of the Church, commendably today they spread everywhere. However, they should remember that the reading of sacred Scripture must be accompanied by prayer, so that dialogue is established between God and man; so long as “when we pray, let's talk to him; we listen to him, when we read the divine oracles”». (God's word, 25).

Here we are now at the purpose of this small contribution. Instill in readers a desire to love and learn about Scripture in a serious way, but also passionate. We have summarized a lot here, so much, because every single aspect would have required a more widespread treatment. Let's hope it serves at least as a stimulus or as a... input as they say in jargon, especially because the topic covered referred to the Virgin Mary. This little writing can help those who read to return to that source of revelation which is the Bible which can tell us so much about Mary, more than the circulating narratives, also on social, often not of excellent quality. Because as an ancient author said and I leave it in Latin it is so easy to understand: «All the Bible is one book, and that one book is Christ»[5].

Sanluri, 6 February 2023

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NOTE

[1] LYONNET S., Kaire, Kejaritomene, Biblical 20 (1939)

[2] An interlinear gloss by Gv 2,1: «The mother figure of the synagogue», in the sacred care of the Bible Glossary ordinary…, V, Antwerp, 1617, 1044; SAN TOMMASO D’AQUINO, Super evang. S. of John (ed. Cai.), n. 346: «[…] bearing in this the shape of a synagogue, who is the mother of Christ".

[3] VANHOYE A., Johannine questioning and exegesis of Cana (GV 2,4), in Biblica 55 (1974).

[4] Origene, Commentary on Saint John, I,4,23; SC 120,70,72.

[5] Hugh of St. Victor, De Arca Noe, 2, 8: PL 176, 642; cf Ibid. 2, 9: PL 176, 642-643; Catechism of the Catholic Church, no 134).

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The latest book by Ivano Liguori, to access the book shop click on the cover

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From the doctrinal disorientation of the Church to the sin of priests and the recycling of lay people. Prospect of an intransigent culture which while condemning sanctifies and condemns by sanctifying

FROM DOCTRINAL DISORIENTATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE SIN OF PRIESTS AND THE RECYCLING OF THE LAITY. PROSPECT OF AN UNTRANSIGENT CULTURE WHILE SENTENCING SANCTIFIES AND SANCTIFYING SENTENCES

The “tolerant” modern, instead, he does not sacrifice himself for his ideas as the idealist would, on the contrary, one does not scruple to sacrifice those who have ideas contrary to his, just as a dictator would do towards his opponents. How many martyrs of tolerance and rights exist today? But perhaps the most numerous martyrs are those who are held up as unwitting sowers of hatred precisely because they diverge, carriers of a hatred that cannot be seen because it is present only in the gaze of the tolerant on duty who has an interest in using hatred as an ideological tool to control the masses.

- The Theological Pages -

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Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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I. A QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE

I guess I don't reveal secrets untrustworthy if I say that keeping Christian Christians, nowadays, it is not a simple undertaking at all. It is not so much a question of preserving only an apparent traditional identity - at least as far as the European continent is concerned - but of showing that God still has a certain right of citizenship in the life of men and that Christ is recognized as the founding and definitive event of revelation divina.

the collapse of the vault of the basilica of San Francesco in Assisi in 1997 [click on image to open the video]

According to a survey the Pew Research Center [cf. WHO] conducted in 2017 on a sample of 1.804 respondents, 80% of Italians declare themselves Christian, the worrying fact concerns the frequency, in fact the 23% participates in religious services at least once a week, the 20% once a month and on 34% has a much less assiduous practice. According to other data relating to an Ipsos research of 2017, always in Italy, his 60.000 respondents, Catholics are decreasing. It goes from 85.4% of 2007 al 74,4% the 2017. A more recent study from the 2018 dell 'European Values Study 84.4% of Italians generally say they believe in God without further useful specifications.

Data in hand we are undergoing a drastic decrease in the Christian faith but what a survey can never say concerns the theological motivation which represents the real reason for this decrease. The theological motivation that becomes a scandalous stone on which the pitiless statistics are broken lies in the fact that one is no longer in possession of the specificity of Christianity, so that we are often lost, at the mercy of a form of Alzheimer's that makes us unable to recognize the faith and to recognize ourselves as believers ready to give reason, as St. Peter expresses in his first epistle [cf.. 1PT 3,15-16].

I give an example to be clearer. No Jew, of yesterday as of today, one would never dream of disavowing the covenant between God and Abraham and above all the founding event that unified the chosen people during the liberation Easter in Egypt. No Jew, sane, would doubt that God is the Goel liberator and redeemer of the people and who in Moses made possible salvation against the dominion of the pharaoh of Egypt. Although this faith has been severely tested in the face of the terrible events of Auschwitz, the faith of our brothers in Abraham has remained substantially unchanged for centuries and becomes a reason for ethnic and religious identity to be celebrated with pride in every family.

For us Christians, instead, having a certain faith is not a matter of pride but of embarrassment, we are often the first to consider ourselves uncompromising and fanatic when we try to rise above mediocrity. Then, to be more digestible in the eyes of the beholder, rather we prefer to turn pink and show off a universal love that we can beautifully justify through Matthew's eschatological discourse 24,31-46 which - incidentally - according to correct exegesis, it should never be divorced from the subsequent passages — narrated by the Holy Evangelist Matthew, first the parable of the Ten Virgins [cf.. Mt 25,1-13] and then that of Talents [cf.. Mt 25,14-29] — with the risk of making the sacred text say what it really doesn't intend to say.

As evidence of this, I bring an example in support of my words. How many times have we heard of preaching about love from the pulpits? How many times has love been used as a slogan and master key to justify everything even the unjustifiable and the unreasonable? How many times in the name of love have been made completely wicked choices, expression of the most emotional sentimentality and the most seductive passion? The Christian term of charity refers to God, according to the teaching of the apostle John: "Dear, let's love each other, because love is from God: anyone who loves was born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love has not known God, because God is love " [cf.. 1GV 4,7-8]. Sad is the awareness in verifying that this "love" so strongly publicized today is deprived of the presence of God Trinity and used as an alibi through which sin is normalized until it runs out in an exclusively philanthropic and utilitarian attitude. This attitude of impoverishing charity in fact, it is not a modern vice from the person of God, strong of that wisdom saying Nothing new under the sun [nothing new under the sun] the history of Christianity has already known this degeneration of the concept of love since its first centuries.

In 361 D.C.. the emperor Julian the Apostate, he strenuously opposes Christianity by implementing a policy of paganization of the people and a return to Neoplatonic thought. Christianity will retain only the charitable activity and the attention to the neighbor that tries to graft within the pagan anti-Church he designed. History tells us that the attempt was unworkable, decadent paganism, as well as modern atheism assumed by elite religiosity, he could not compete with the authentic love of God which in Christ consists of the characteristic of heroism until the sacrifice of life and in the Holy Spirit of the characteristic of missionaryness which is the primary cause of every virtuous action. The love, to be authentically Christian, it doesn't just have to do good, but it must lead to total self-giving, even with those people and in those unloving situations, by virtue of the fact that if the justice of the disciple does not exceed that of the world, there is no more that is an indication of perfection and a guarantee of the presence of the Spirit of the Father, as the Holy Evangelist Matthew indicates [cf.. Mt 5,20]. Christian love is that theological virtue which recognizes itself in God and leads to him, announces salvation to the soul, it converts from sin and opens the doors of paradise.

After this necessary digression on the relationship between God and love, let us return to the search for the questions of meaning that challenge our faith. Who is Jesus? What did he come to do in the world? These are the basic questions yet, in most cases, questions remain unanswered for many young people attending the catechism and for many young Christians. The situation does not change much if we were to submit this question to adults, to the parents of these kids, or to their grandparents who, tragic to say, they are moving towards a return to religious illiteracy which leads to a real practical atheism.

By now to know who Jesus Christ is we resign ourselves to questioning the various trendy secularists who are on social and on television with a subdued air they dictate the new Christology on page with the aggravating circumstance that the Church, the official one, the one assigned to the control of right doctrine, which should confirm the brothers in faith, is silent. And even when he speaks, trying to put together a botched and pale denial, he does so with little conviction so as to make one suspect that certain heretical affirmations have gained a certain sympathy even within the sacred palaces.

We can say, at this point, that dogma has gone into crisis? Absolutely not. Who has gone into crisis is a certain It'sestablishment ecclesiastical made up of pastors and theologians who have lost - yes - the compass of faith and who increasingly resort to the category of "mystery" trying to hide behind a screen, since they can no longer give reason for the faith and hope that is in them, everything is contained in the first and second epistles of St. Peter and in the Gospel of St. John [cf.. 1PT 3,15; 2PT 1,16-19; 1 Gv1, 1-4]. In this way, he lost the two theological virtues of faith and hope, what remains, the love, takes on the connotations of modernity and the search for consent at any cost. Have you ever noticed that the modernization of the person of Christ, of the church, of the Magisterium, of morality, of the formation of the clergy and its identity has always been carried out by the champions of love and in the name of love? We have arrived at the paradoxical, in which the doctrinal corruption of the Church is under the banner of love! That Love that, it is necessary to reiterate, he became flesh and gave his life for the sinful man, in short, insult to injury. At the height of this doctrinal confusion there is also the sacrilegious act of wanting to confuse or associate God with sin. But if we intend to remain faithful to Christ and the Catholic Church, as did St. Thomas Becket with his martyrdom, we have to resist and the Christian resistance is not realized in the singing of "Bella Ciao", but of 'let Pasquale ' which reminds us that Christ is God, Lord and Sovereign, conqueror of sin.

Are, ultimately, to be Christian it means entering into the intimate life of Jesus Christ, and let him reign as the undisputed ruler of my existence - truth reiterated every year on the solemnity of Christ the King at the end of the liturgical year - perhaps it is good to recognize that something has gone wrong or we are faced with a great misunderstanding. Faith is above all an adherence of man to God and at the same time and in an inseparable way, it is the free assent to all the truth that God has revealed and which finds fullness in Jesus Christ, definitive and complete revelation of the saving mystery of God [cf.. Lord Jesus].

Therefore, we candidly recognize that it is us priests, as well as the so-called committed Christians - those who, for example, militate in ecclesial movements, they recognize themselves as activists within the country's social and political life, who help in the parish, who practice a certain charity — at best we are pursuing a secondary Christianity, border or periphery which in the eyes of the most mischievous is revealed as a facade Christianity.

With this term we identify a certain extremely varied and complex Christian culture that neglects the ultimate and supernatural end of the faith which consists of the salvation of the soul, ignores the spiritual struggle against sin and openness to divine grace together with the need to remain within a divine Catholic faith observed within a community of faith that recognizes itself within the Church of Rome.

Tale secondary Christianity largely dissipates the figure of the priest by reinventing him as manager, a diligent museum curator and regularly paid social worker with variable working hours. The same dissipation is found among the laity, in those who no longer identify themselves in the category of the faithful (then faithful to who and what? mAh!) and for this reason they choose to hybridize into Christianity models that transform all of them into mythological figures that are difficult to reconcile within a journey of faith and a life that in baptism was handed over to God.

There is no doubt that there is an urgent need to reiterate a question of principle: the essence of Christianity lies within that little word that Jesus pronounces several times in the Gospel of John [cf.. GV 8,24; 8,28; 8,58; 13,19; 18,5] to designate himself: is that’I am — in greco ἐγὼ εἰμι, I took it, which is a guarantee of divine identity [cf.. Is 3,14-15] and of salvation for every creature.

It is the totalizing choice of that divine self that puts in crisis and that, as can be seen from the reading of Jacob Neusner in his book "A rabbi speaks with Jesus", constitutes the great difference between Eternal Israel and New Israel made up of the people of the baptized redeemed by the Passion of Christ and his Resurrection.

Mine I identity he must be able to recognize the mystery of God, quell’I am who has the first place [cf.. LC 14,25-33] and that throws me to the ground [cf.. At 22,8] and it terrifies whenever I presume to own it and manage it as I please [cf.. GV 18,6], the whole, it is found enclosed in the Gospels of San Luca and San Giovanni.

Who is Jesus? Jesus is God, as various passages of the holy scriptures indicate to us, in particular the Holy Evangelist Luke, to follow with the Gospel of St. John and the Pauline correspondence [cf.. LC 22,70; GV 1,1.14; GV 5,18; GV 8, 58; Fil 2,6; With the 2, 9; With the 1,15; EB 1,3], is the Lord [cf.. RM 10,9; GV 20, 28; LC 23,39-43; Fil 2,11], he is the authentic revealer of the Father [cf.. GV 10, 30; GV 5,22-23; GV 14,8-11], and for these reasons no one can ignore these revealed truths without consuming a betrayal, make a denial, without feeling scandalized or starting a holy war; all always with reference to the Gospel of St. John. This Man-God came to save the world from sins [cf.. Mt 1,21], so that man has a beautiful life and not one good life [cf.. GV 10,10] and in living seriously be definitively deprived of the cancer of sin [cf.. EB 2,14-15] and made righteous in His blood [cf.. RM 5,9; 8,33]. There are no alternatives, the divine jealousy of the Old Testament [cf.. Dt 5,6-10] is combined with the totalizing choice of Christ and his person is the only possible communion choice that produces fruits of new life [cf.. Mt 12,30; LC 5,38].

Jesus Christ is so bulky that it is not possible to silence him, for two thousand years his name has resonated on earth and his faithfulness has proved to be as stable as heaven [cf.. Shall 89,3]. Everything still speaks of him: from the calendar to the holidays, from civil traditions to ethics, from art to music; the story, geography, the way of computing time and even the vast cosmos and nature testify that He is God and that he is Lord. Even before those who intend to perniciously deny it, refuse it, Until it disappears completely, involuntary merit must be admitted - just as it was for demons [cf.. MC 5,6; LC 4,34; At 19,15] - of an acknowledgment kerygmatic, in which his majesty and power are not in the least questioned.

And while Christ proclaims and affirms himself, his majesty is reiterated, his key role that he plays in human history, although the latter most often hides from his presence as Adam did [cf.. GN 3,9-10] or desire like Nietzsche to carry out a parricide that breaks the anguished dependence on the divine partner, promising greater freedoms.

.(II). FAITH CRISIS, DOCTRINAL CRISIS, MORAL CRISIS

.The question of principle that I wanted to address in the first paragraph of this article helps us to better understand the condition of chronic crisis that for fifty years now has affected how solid the Church is. It is a crisis on several fronts that affects the aspects of believing in the current historical contingency. From doctrine to pastoral care, from morality to spirituality, from daily witness to the way of interpreting martyrdom, everything rests on a shaky faith, where Christ is no longer God and his role is no longer that of Savior. Attention well, to affirm the existence of an unsteady faith is not the same as saying that there is no longer any faith in general or that those who believe do it in a malicious or interested way. Statistics show us that still about 80% of people declare themselves Christian, but the fact of declaring oneself is not yet sufficient reason that leads to believing. The blessed apostles Peter, Andrew and John have seen themselves reproached several times by Our Lord for their faith in him not yet sufficiently mature and open to grace. And all the others, although identified as the disciples of the Nazarene, they did not hesitate to abandon him at the moment of the Passion, disavowing with works what they openly proclaimed. In other words we can say that the registration of the name in the parish baptismal register does not make us believers and credible Christians. These considerations lead us to understand how a faith of this nature and a belief of this kind add nothing and do not detract from the existence of man. With the words of the Gospel of John we can say that faith essentially leads to a dwell there where Jesus is present [cf.. GV 1,38; 15,4-ss]. In dwelling in Him there is more that leads to a Christification of life than, although work of grace, however, it needs human assistance and the exercise of free will.

How not to recognize Karl Rahner and in the invention of the "anonymous Christians" the masterly cunning of an apparent modern religiosity which, in the face of an open proposal of faith, it has led many to believe that it is much better to keep as far as possible from all that is Christian (and maybe even Catholic) preferring to spend time more fruitfully instead of resorting to a God who no longer knows himself by name and who has preserved himself only as a formal presence. These people are more than "anonymous Christians" - anonymous to those considering that God always calls everyone by name [cf.. Is 43,1; 45,4] — they should be called “dogmatic atheists”, since not feeling the need to believe in the God of Jesus Christ, they already live within an atheist faith that feeds and feeds on its own dogmatists. Pay attention to it, nobody is more dogmatic and uncompromising than a convinced atheist, who strenuously affirms what for him shouldn't exist, and fight what he no longer believes in. Just as no one is more attached to the Christian traditions of the one who has abandoned religious practice for years and lives on distant memories and nostalgia. dogmatism, rigidity, nostalgia and sclerotic styles of faith are the waste foods of which the secondary Christianity voraciously feeds, but since they are indigestible, they are regurgitated as soon as any evangelical novelty approaches.

We must reiterate that the Christian faith short it is a pious illusion, if it does not consist of a well-established theology of salvation. Christ is not only the God to believe in but he is the Savior and Redeemer of man, the one for whom salvation enters the world and man frees himself from the slavery of sin [cf.. Mt 1,21; MC 2,7]. Faith without salvation is mutilated and in order to survive it is directed and identified towards other disciplines of human knowledge, like philosophy, psychology, the sociology, anthropology, Medicine, towards a new humanism with an atheistic imprint that manifests its own hybris presuming to save the individual's physicality - fight against poverty, to hunger, to diseases, to wars - and to preserve creation - parallelism, environmentalism, pseudo communist Franciscanism - reconstituting a primordial virginity now lost, all at the expense of an immortal divine soul that was created by God and who will return to God after death. Indeed if we want to say it all, this fake hybris who fought original sin in the past and still fights it today, it takes away from man the sense of sin by introducing external control places in which to search for the good scapegoat to justify any adversity and opposition. Unfortunately, man is created for God and without him his heart cannot find peace [cf. Augustine, The Confessions, 1,1.5], with no sense of sin and no need for redemption, what is left is the guilt that crushes and depresses the poor modern humanity. Many deresponsabilizzati, they are incapable of carrying out a true and sincere examination of conscience - even in view of a sacramental confession - which leads to the recognition of guilt and the search for redemption from the only one who is able to provide it.

Some prefer to download to the Devil the fault of all personal reversals, naively dismissing the question on the shoulders of the spirit of evil - which is here assumed as a place of external control - without remembering that the tempter [cf.. GN 3, ss] to consume the fall of man he needed his consent. In short, attenuating on attenuating, easy and unlikely for a humanity beyond the limit of disarray.

To divert attention from this sad truth which leads to a pessimism that defining Leopardi would sound like an understatement, oppositions are invented, mass distractions fighting each other. And as in the time of the ancient Romans, people competed in the Colosseum to keep the hungry people good, so today you compete between opposing factions to digress your minds: traditionalists versus progressives, the papists against the sedevacantists, the Lefebvrians against the modernists, the Guelphs against Ghibellines, right-wing Christians against left-wing Christians, secular priests against regular priests, in short, the list could still lengthen and continue indefinitely with the inclusion of ecclesial movements that compete to win the palm of the best if the question was not in itself sufficiently tragic.

In front of this panorama the hierarchical Church, that of shepherds with the smell of sheep, the priestly poor, lobbies speculating on migrants, integration and welcome what it does? The exercise of leadership more validated today by the clergy, it no longer rests on the authoritativeness of reasonable faith, which brings motivations based on the need to believe and why it is necessary to believe. The leadership of many of us priests - it is enough to listen to some homily or catechesis to realize this - is filled with democratic do-goodism and a style that I would define as "parliamentary" in which things are decided by election through the authority of the majority and if something endangers the dominant thought, a motion or interpellation is immediately ready to reverse the situation in one's favor.

Parliamentary political style is also that of our bishops who are ready to dissociate themselves from their priests, seen as inquisitive hitters, when they try to educate the faithful to the principles of doctrine and morals, even simply by citing the catechism. Next to the acts of dissociation pushed there are easy excuses towards all those categories of people who do not coincide with the thought of the Gospel. The technique of turning the enemy into a friend through a love bombing [bombing of love] that takes on the assumption of easy and non-existent faults is the new paradigm for being inclusive in charity. It matters little if the apostle reminds us that charity must flee fictions [cf.. RM 12,9] and practice the Truth even when it is uncomfortable and inappropriate for most.

We priests 3.0 in the new updated version, absorbed by the managerial role of museum curators with a fixed salary, without fatherhood from our shepherds and without a solid faith that distinguishes us as prophets before the world, we are easy prey to the fomite of sensuality. The senses clouded by a life more in tune with the world than with Christ the Savior of the world, they expose us to critical issues that are identified through the exercise of disordered sexuality, of a possessiveness that expresses the worst of itself in money management, and in the inability to carry out meaningful relationships with people not to mention the despotic maintenance of power that comes very close to the preservation of the privileges of the worst caste.

Speaking of sexuality, a distinction must be made. I talked about sexuality just to diversify it from genitality, in fact the two terms in Christian morality are ascribed to two different aspects. Although the adjectives sexual e genital they are used today as synonyms, they are not. We identify the person in his male or female being with the sexual term, in his male or female behavior, in her way of expressing masculinity or femininity and in the different and original style of communicating love. With the term genital, instead, we mean what refers more properly to the genital systems, to their anatomy and physiology, to the unitive and procreative task which Catholic doctrine resolutely continues to consider united.

Genital reality, so hailed by modernity, it is included in the sexual one which is wider, complete and typically human. We are too concerned to catch the priests at fault for an abuse regarding genitality that we do not realize that there is a great disconnect in the practice of that sexuality which is an integral and essential part of the figure of the presbyter. So much so that the term "father", with which we commonly call the priests of the regular clergy, it is an indication of the exercise of healthy male sexuality as a demonstration of a spiritual fatherhood which is aimed at the accompaniment and sanctification of the people of God. This is why priests are required first of all for a proven and proven masculinity that allows them to better express the exercise of their sexuality in being loving and authoritative fathers.

The way of loving that he knows in sexuality and masculinity your own language, it can express itself in two different and antithetical ways: through an asphyxiating possessiveness that wants to consume the other and operate it or through a dialoguing freedom that does not fear the other and proposes to love him as he is, enough to mature and grow as we see it happen in the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman [cf.. GV 4,1-26]. In relating to the female sex, Jesus is different from the majority of the men of his time who use, they abuse and objectify the woman to get something from her in return. In Christ, that free and liberating love of the Father which testifies to true love for every created reality is concretized. The priest, come old christ, it cannot mortify this liberating and free love which is constitutional to one's sexuality and nature. Compromises that alternate between compensatory sublimations must be avoided, pathological disorders and deviations. The freedom of the priest in love, which is an explanation of a celibate life, caste, poor and obedient in the image of the Redeemer, it is a theological and prophetic condition that cannot be understood except in function of the Kingdom and of that full eschatological life in which all relationships will be assumed and transfigured in God [cf.. Mt 19,12; MC 12,25].

Even in the use of money and in the exercise of power it is possible to trace an expression of human sexuality that can prove to be balanced, mature and informed by grace or despotic, narcissistic and subjected to the selfish desires of the world. The way of managing and safeguarding the goods entrusted to us - from the care of creation to the way of working within creation - communicates or not the all-encompassing encounter with God who loves and serves starting from everything that exists. was entrusted for the common good. Flaunt success and power, through an inhuman and instrumental use of wealth, it is a constant that we find quite widespread in human history, sometimes it is an immediate gratification, other times of a real idolatrous cult towards things and towards one's self. Among the disciples of Jesus Christ, But, the logic of the human kingdom does not apply, but the imperative is undisputed: "It's not like that among you" [cf.. MC 10,43]. We must not be so naive as to think that wealth and power objectively constitute evils in themselves - as happened in some pauperistic movements or in certain ideologies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -, it is necessary to carefully evaluate the use made of it. The Gospel never accuses the rich man as such, if not in reference to a non-sharing and a solipsistic use that forgets the groans of the poor [cf.. LC 16,19-31], and the hardships of the widow [cf.. MC 12,41-44]. Like this, while human wealth becomes functional to honest sustenance and maintenance, the wealth of the Kingdom opens the doors of paradise and ensures the possession of God [cf.. LC 12,16-21].

All power and authority derives from God and is his gift [cf.. Sir 33,23; Gives 1,10; GV 19,10-11; RM 13,1-2; AP 2,28]. This concept was quite well known in ancient times, so much so as to support the thesis - which some authors have supported [cf.. S. Paul, S. Augustine, Of the State of God, Jacques-Benigne Bossuet] — according to which it was possible to build a real legal principle that legitimized rulers to govern over men by taking the place of God. In both civil and religious government, obedience to the one who held power was interpreted as direct obedience to God. This thesis thus formulated consists of two inaccuracies. The first consists in not considering the fact that any earthly power and authority is not immune from that wound of original sin which corrupts all power and authority in despotism and dictatorship. The second inaccuracy consists in neglecting the Trinitarian aspect of the question considering only the person of the Father as the exclusive holder of authority and power excluding the participation of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Only by becoming obedient to the Father, just as Christ was, it is possible to find the safe way to avoid corruption of power and deviations of authority [cf. Mt 4,1-11]. The priest, participating in the authority of Christ deriving from sacred ordination, it is also admitted to the government and to the exercise of a power that expresses an authority. As well as, after baptism, Christ is led into the desert by the Holy Spirit to become a messiah of salvation according to the Spirit of the Father and not according to the spirit of the world, thus the priest in the exercise of power and authority is called to imitate the Master who in serving the other made himself a servant, culminating his diaconate with the sacrifice of his life in favor of men [cf.. MC 10,42-45] and placing all power in the hands of the Father in the garden of olives [cf.. Mt 26,39; 26,42; MC 14,36; LC 22,42] giving fulfillment to that kenosis which started with the incarnation. Priestly authority traces the diakonia of the Son, feeds on the will of the Father and possesses the anointing of the Holy Spirit for the sanctification of the brothers and for the confirmation of the faith received with baptism.

III. A LIQUID COMPANY, WEAK AND IMPERFECT

The western society in which we live, where the Christian is called to make his earthly pilgrimage and where he manifests his courageous witness of faith, increasingly resembles a terrible Moloch who demands the fulfillment of continuous sacrifices and who self-attributes the right to be worshiped as a deity. It does not matter if these sacrifices are paid for through the price of inconclusive human lives and souls now fragmented and lost, lost in the non-sense of existence. A strange society, our, who is pleased to be narcissistically contemplated to resemble a terrible stepmother who demands far more from her children than she actually manages to give.

An anaffective stepmother, because of sterile womb, which is adorned with words as it would with jewels that sparkle with high-sounding meanings as in the case of love, of tolerance, of benevolence, understanding and rights. This bankruptcy view of the world had already been foretold by Christ to his disciples in the Gospel: "If the world hates you, know that it hated me before. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; because you are not of the world, but I chose you from the world, that's why the world hates you " [cf.. GV 15,18-19]. Christ and his disciples are not of the world, while experiencing the temporal dimension of the world but not its essence. The effective sign consists in the fact that the Word of God became flesh [cf.. GV 1,14], the divine Word became human, contrary to what happens today in which many of human words are divinized and absolutized. However, this apparently invincible and deified corporate Moloch already has an established term, just for the simple fact that the "prince and god of this world" [cf.. GV 12,31; 2Color 4,4] has been definitively defeated.

At this point in the discussion it is useful to introduce the theme of idolatry, this will help us understand some important company issues that we experience on a daily basis. Talk about idolatry, in the social fabric, it is by no means secondary, indeed we can say that this attitude recurs cyclically and systematically just when the sense of the "Sacred" diminishes which includes much broader and more diversified horizons than the simple reference to the divine. In this regard, it would be interesting to study the decline of peoples precisely in relation to the crisis and the disappearance of the "Sacred" from human life. For the moment it is sufficient to mention it pending a more punctual and competent future study.

Let's clear up a fact immediately: idolatry, in reality, it is one of the many masks with which atheism conceals itself before society and the world. Talking about idolatry and atheism seems a contradiction but it is not. In the Bible, for instance, the sin of idolatry is well known but not that of atheism, How come? The answer is simple: the ancient man as well as the biblical one is absolutely not an atheist. It is necessary to start from the self-evident finding that no man is naturally born an atheist, the spark of its divine origin prods man from his birth, until his death and pushes him to search for the meaning of his own existence and for a truth that transcends him.

Visible atheism, the one practiced these days, it is the degeneration of idolatry that gives up the vestments of the sacred. Atheism is the deceptive fruit that was formed within some historical periods and that through the French Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment, Positivist thought has increasingly materialized through the philosophies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries together with well-defined Gnostic movements that have declared war on Christianity and specifically on Catholic Christianity.

Atheism, paradoxically, it feeds on that dissociated way of lifeO which is clearly visible in our day and which increasingly takes on pathological features, deluding himself that he is leading everyone towards unlimited progress. Modern Western man finds himself reeling in this corporate model - often and willingly deluding himself that he has achieved excellent achievements of civilization and humanization - a face of a human community that is increasingly defined as the face of a The imperfect society and that has already started to present a very high account.

This imperfect society who defines himself and makes himself known precisely from his dogmatists so intransigent and from his markedly fideistic awareness that they often turn out to be rash. The customs clearance of gnoseological and ethical relativism with which to read and interpret the reality that surrounds us, the widespread optimism of a certain type of science that claims to respond to the most intimate moans of meaning in the heart of man, revolutions in the field of technology and communication, together with the presumption to constitute a new world order that can unify every creed, lead inexorably to failure since in fact it traces in a modern key that ancient sin that the builders of the Tower of Babel committed [cf.. GN 11,1-9]. Atheism is thus the distillate of an idolatrous will deprived of the sense of the sacred that claims to make a name regardless of its Creator [cf.. GN 11,4].

This social overview, so painfully concrete but nevertheless real, it can be explained through a phrase by the Dominican theologian Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange [1877-1964] that says: «The Church is uncompromising on principles, because he believes, it is tolerant in practice, because he loves. The enemies of the Church are tolerant of principles, because they don't believe, but uncompromising in practice, because they don't love. The Church absolves sinners, the enemies of the Church absolve sins " [cf. Dieu, its existence and its nature, Paris 1923, p. 725]. What meaning should we give to these words of the good Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange in relation to a liquid and destabilized society like ours?? Which common thread unites the features of weakness, imperfection, dell 'atheist idolatry enough to produce an apparently liberal but secretly intransigent and at times ruthless and contradictory reality?

The reasoning of the Dominican theologian helps to understand how this society, before being an enemy of God and the Church, is first and foremost an enemy of itself. In fact, it is more inclined to undertake more easily the search for a tolerance that uniforms and flattens its fellow men than a search for truth that leads to different alterities, until reaching the transcendental otherness that represents the authentic core of faith and of the relationship with God. Today, if you have noticed how to conduct some debates and discussions, the safest way to put your opponent on the ropes and then silence him, it essentially consists in accusing him of intolerance. The charge of non-tolerance is that indictment that does not admit objective truth, that does not take personal experience into account, of the history and tradition of peoples. The charge of intolerance is declined through censorship, the ban on realities that cannot be said, known or simply testified. Today, it is possible to be considered intolerant in many ways and be provoked on different areas such as faith and religion, race and ethnicity, sexuality and genitality, customs and traditions, politics and the civilized world and much more.

In the game of contrasts, ploy which I have already analyzed in this article, professing faith makes me, for example, an intolerant and violent person. Affirming the natural moral law on marriage gives me visibility as a medieval fundamentalist fanatic, cultivating and enhancing the traditional and cultural roots of a people makes me a dangerous enemy of globalization and inculturation. Those who we call today with the appellation of intolerants are actually divergent, heroes who do not align with the single thought and therefore need to be seen as enemies to neutralize. If you notice the best exponents of liberal thought, tolerant and guarantor they sin countless times of illiberal attitudes, violent and uncompromising worthy of the best dictatorial despotic regime.

The “tolerant” modern, instead, he does not sacrifice himself for his ideas as the idealist would, on the contrary, one does not scruple to sacrifice those who have ideas contrary to his, just as a dictator would do towards his opponents. How many martyrs of tolerance and rights exist today? But perhaps the most numerous martyrs are those who are held up as unwitting sowers of hatred precisely because they diverge, carriers of a hatred that cannot be seen because it is present only in the gaze of the tolerant on duty who has an interest in using hatred as an ideological tool to control the masses. Modern tolerance therefore not only claims rights but also the dispersion of hatred. For less than a decade, tolerance contracted a happy marriage with the Greek term phobia. Through this term the best workhorses of the tolerant are generated The imperfect society such as homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia and others. I mention these three examples just because they are the ones most practiced by the social media, television, radio and newspapers … We realize that all this scaffolding does not make the slightest sense and that it is not possible to pursue a discourse of tolerance that is exclusively linked to a right deprived of duties and a fear that is an antidote to hatred? Invoking tolerance by leveraging rights and excluding duties constitutes a worldview based on self-centeredness, in which everything becomes lawful it is sufficient that it indulges true or presumed personal rights.

On the other hand, call into question the tolerance ahead to hate relying on the feeling of fear of the other is foolish, as this would mean that it is enough to generate an alarm to ward off evil. In this imposing zibaldone it is difficult to find the edge of the skein so as to bring everything back to a certain and safe origin. The prospect of an uncompromising social culture that while condemning sanctifies and sanctifying condemnation appears more like a paradox that reminds the Roman god Janus who, having a "double face", it is the perfect image of compromise, of transformism, of the union of opposites.

Today the mask of Janus triumphs over the faces of the world who travel the streets of our cities and towns, of our squares and shopping centers, of the buildings of power and churches. An ageless Janus who dresses in male and female clothes or, if necessary, neutral, wearing the veil, the cassock, the habit, the skirt threaded in purple or red but that is always him, the ancient snake that never tires of waging war with the impious pretense of proving that God was wrong in trusting man.

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Sanluri, 27 November 2023

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From the friendship of Jesus with Abraham to Jesus who welcomes us calling us friends

FROM GOD'S FRIENDSHIP WITH ABRAHAM TO JESUS ​​WHO WELCOMES US CALLING US FRIENDS

This famous biblical story tells us that being friends is definitely not a diminution or a subtraction from the relationship of faith, because it calls for condescension, complicity and waiting when, for instance, a friend is in trouble. It is not by chance, long after the story of Abraham in Genesis, one of the most beautiful expressions we find in Scripture regarding the relationship between God's messenger, Jesus, and who followed him was: "I called you friends".

— Biblical pages—

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It seems that the term friend cannot exist without its specific qualification. We have different types declined, in the various arts, which from time to time offer the image of a fragile friend, rediscovered or ingenious. We could talk about it endlessly. A friend can be true or false, always be there or disappear, you can trust him or her unconditionally or in the worst case scenario be betrayed by them.

The Bible which is literature formed over a very long period, as well as talking about the main protagonist, who is God, presents a diverse set of human situations. Not by chance the poet Byron he called it "the great code of art", expression later taken up by the critic N. Frye who made a book of it[1]. In this roundup of disparate humanity, the interest in friends could not be missing. This is how the code of the Bible was able to arouse symbols that have remained in everyone's imagination (Frye called them imagery), even of non-students of the biblical book.

The character of Judas is famous (c)he embodies the betrayed friendship: «Amico, that's why you're here" (Mt 26,50), these are the words that Jesus addresses to the traitor after receiving his kiss. Remaining with the Gospels, one cannot forget Jesus' friendship for the family of Bethany: March, Maria and Lazzaro. When he dies Jesus will say: «Lazarus, our friend, he fell asleep; but I'm going to wake him up" (GV 11,11). As well as the reputation of a friend of tax collectors and sinners which led Jesus to be disliked by the authorities.

There are many biblical expressions referring to friendship, especially in the wisdom books. Here are two mentions among many:

“A faithful friend is medicine that gives life:
those who fear the Lord will find him." (Sir 6, 16).

“A faithful friend is a safe haven:
who finds it, find a treasure" (Sir 6,14).

A saying that has become famous the one that reads «whoever finds a friend finds a treasure». But the first biblical character to be referred to as a friend, none other than God, it was Abraham. The prophet Isaiah called him that: "But you, Israel, my servant, you Jacob, I have chosen, descendant of Abraham, my friend" (Is 41,8). The book of Daniel echoes this: «Do not withdraw your mercy from us, for Abraham's sake, your friend, of Isaac, your servant, of Israel, your saint" (3,35) and the second book of Chronicles: “You didn't drive away, our God, the inhabitants of this land in front of your people Israel and you have not given it forever to the descendants of your friend Abraham?» (20,7). Until the second testament where we find in the letter of James: «And the Scripture was fulfilled which says: Abramo believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God" (2,23).

And if the Author of the letter of James he insisted on Abraham's actions as qualifying his faith, on the other Paul of Tarsus reversed the medal, in Romans, putting Abraham's faith before his works and by this and by this alone was he justified.

Here we do not want to address the arduous and complex subject of justification and grace pertaining to theology. But we simply want to decline how the biblical story speaks to us of the relationship between God and Abraham. What kind of friendship it was? Abraham deserved this particular relationship? He always corresponded to you? It seems an interesting topic given that it has become the vestment of the gift of divine life to the man of faith and of the grace that saves. Without neglecting the fact that Abraham is considered the father of the three great monotheistic religions, even if some find it difficult to define Christianity as a monotheism.

Because the Bible prefers to narrate than to set forth theories, we will try to trace the stories of Abraham's events to understand this friendship relationship and to understand in the end that Abraham was not so distant from us, from our expectations and emotions, from our points of view which appear unshakeable and which are put to the test by divine requests and promises which are not immediately revealed.

There is an episode in the story of Abraham narrated in the book of Genesis (18, 25-32) which seems to highlight more than others, more than the same call, the special friendship relationship between him and God, and it is the story of the negotiation about the destruction of the city of Sodom. To God who had already decided the fate of the city, Abraham points out the possible presence of righteous people in it. And from ten to ten to go down he manages to snatch a piece of God's benevolence. This episode highlights a characteristic of the patriarch that recurs several times in the stories, or his indisputable ability to negotiate. It's a well, of territorial division, of earth for the grave of his wife Sara, of how to find a wife for Isaac his son or of God himself, as in the above case, Abraham is unbeatable.

A little less, a lot less, when it comes to having faith in the divine words and this seems incredible for all that is normally thought of him. But God doesn't seem to care. Just like true friends do.

Even rabbinic exegesis he looked favorably upon the Abrahamic ability to deal, when it comes to saving people. The teachers of the Torah, indeed, they have not accorded equal benevolence to another famous patriarch, Noah, who received the command to build an ark because of the impending flood. These, unlike Abraham, he did nothing to thwart the destructive purpose.[2] Noah was an obedient man who asked no questions, "walked with God" (Gen 6,9) but he did not establish any relationship with him, perhaps because of the end of everything that was to come. With Abraham who "walked ahead of God" (Gen 17, 1) it was required, instead an active relationship, patient and friendly.

And patience with Abraham must have a lot. A modern reader of the biblical text would be surprised to find some embarrassing features in the life of the patriarch. These act as a counterbalance to the obvious mediation skills already mentioned, to his being an expert in weapons and guerrilla warfare (Gen 14, 14-16), of men and alliances (Gen 17, 17-24) and capable entrepreneur of the ancient world (Gen 24, 34-35).

Yet Abraham's first ever words in the Bible, immediately after God's call, they speak a lie, letting Sarah pass, in the eyes of the Egyptian pharaoh, like a sister instead of a wife[3]. An episode that will be repeated later with another king (cap. 20). Despite the repeated divine promise that he will surely have offspring, will agree, further on, about Sarah's intention to have a child with the slave Hagar; but when the two women come into conflict he will drive her out into the desert, reluctantly, with only a loaf of bread and a skin of water. When with his son Isaac will go up to Mount Moriah, place of his sacrifice, he will load the wood on his son's shoulders. Which father would have done this knowing what fate he was going to meet?

But Abraham, rightly, he is remembered above all for his faith: “He believed the Lord, who credited it to him as justice" (Gen 15, 6). But this faith evidently had to grow and mature, passing through important evidence, in addition to the fact that it was a word and a divine promise that aroused it, remembered over and over again.

In the Book of Genesis (cf.. 12) God first spoke to Abraham. The expression used in Hebrew, psychoanalysts liked it a lot: Go (play play) “Go for you” or “Go towards you”[4]. A new word, personal, addressed to Abraham son of Terak, invited him to leave his father and go to a land to become a blessed nation. Set off, but as often happens, the enthusiasm was lost along the way. The journey was tiring, in stages, hostile people e, above all, what progeny could he have had if a son did not come? That is how, you want for the difficulties, you want for the advancing age, he satisfied. After all, the slave's son, Ishmael, it was already something. So at one point Abraham blurted out before God: «If at least Ishmael could live in front of you!» (Gen 17, 18). Until the umpteenth promise of a child of theirs, Abraham and Sarah burst out laughing. Abraham even doubled over with laughter (Gen 17, 17).

But here's the twist. Sarah did indeed bear a son to Abraham: Isaac, the promised. But which friend gives you such a gift: Isaac, from Hebrew Isaac literally “the laughing son, which elicits laughter, that you can make fun of and ridicule[5]? Which for this very reason became the cause of the removal of the other son, Ishmael, which had no flaws?

Abraham was speechless at the birth of his son, since the text contains only the words of Sarah, who spoke of laughter and laughter. Who is this son that his friend God has sent?? We must accept this gift? Because Isaac, among all the biblical patriarchs and Sui generis. He never had the role of the protagonist and immediately appeared devoid of his own personality. He couldn't even find his wife by himself and this one, Rebecca, when she finally saw him up close, fell off the camel. Not surprisingly, several commentators, both Jews and Christians, they pointed out that Isaac may not have been a perfect son, disabled, autistic son of an aging father[6]. Let's imagine Abraham's feelings if this was to be the fulfillment of the promise. How to accept all this?

It is at this point that the biblical narrative presents us with one of the most fascinating and dramatic episodes of all his literature. The story of the sacrifice or rather of the Akda (aqedàh, about the connection) of Isaac in chapter 22. An episode that has inspired artists and commentators from antiquity to the present day. It is not possible to account for it here, but we can propose an interpretation that is well linked with what has been said so far about the relationship between God and Abraham.

First of all it was a new beginning. Let's go back to the verse 2 the same "play play” (goes for you, towards you) the chapter 12. Again a going towards oneself. But this time the promise came true, unexpectedly. Where should Abraham go? The ascent to Mount Morìa, with only dialogue about a ram to find, it's heartbreaking. Despite the outcome in the end happy, the episode will retain its tragedy: in the silence that falls during the return home of the two, in the lack of exultation or joy, in the subsequent physical separation between the father and the son and in the death of Sara that a Midrash (midrash)[7] it follows from the fact that she came to know what was about to happen on the mountain.

So what had happened? That Abraham was called to accept God's promise, in the person of Isaac, imperfect son. Because of this, her faith was tested and she was strengthened. The friend had finally understood what had been asked of him from the beginning, even if unexpected and far from its prerogatives and psychological characteristics. But Abraham went towards him, to open up to a new self and to the you of the son finally dissolved and left free to go.

Someone, many centuries later he would say: "God chooses what is weak in the world" (1Color 1,27). This is probably what Abraham's faith had to dramatically understand: welcome the promise in the fragile person of Isaac. Only when he understands will he choose for Isaac a woman with whom to console himself for the death of his mother, he will bestow on him all his good, he will protect him from possible competitors and die "satiated with days" buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael finally reunited (Gen 25,9).

The story of Abraham and God can be read in many ways. The Bible beyond the implications that refer to faith and that passing through St. Paul and James mentioned above have arrived up to today, the Law as a story of friendship. With all its tones and variations, since Abraham remains a man with his personality made up of limits and greatness. This famous biblical story tells us that being friends is definitely not a diminution or a subtraction from the relationship of faith, because it calls for condescension, complicity and waiting when, for instance, a friend is in trouble. It is not by chance, long after the story of Abraham in Genesis, one of the most beautiful expressions we find in Scripture regarding the relationship between God's messenger, Jesus, and who followed him was: "I called you friends" (GV 15, 15).

from the Hermitage, 17 June 2023

 

Notes

[1] N. Frye, Great code, Bible and literature, 1981 (Trad.. it.: Einaudi, 1986)

[2] The parallel between the flood and the destruction of Sodom has been grasped by many. This is total destruction. Only one family is saved in both cases. The presence of incestuous relationships in the two stories, from which non-Jewish tribes arose (Canaanites from Cam, son of Noah and Moabites and Ammonites from the daughters of Lot).

[3] Even if it's true, for they were sons of the same father, but from different mothers.

[4] Likewise Noah is commanded to make an ark of cypress “for you” (Gen 6, 14)

[5] the root of the name (zade/chet/qof) with these senses, compare 179 times in the Bible mentioned 112 times referred to Isaac in Genesis

[6] Marmorini G., Isaac, the imperfect son, claudian 2018; Baharier H., Genesis explained by my daughter, Milan 2015

[7] Nd.R. Midrash, from Hebrew Midrash, term that indicates a method of biblical exegesis of the Jewish tradition

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The priest's bad words, the Latinisms of the new cat-kaifans suffering from doctrinal illiteracy and the laughter of the disenchanted old Cardinal

THE PRIEST'S WORDS, THE LATINISMS OF THE NOVELS CATTO-KAIFANI AFFECTED BY DOCTRINAL ANALPHABETISM AND THE LAUGHTERS OF THE DISENCHANTED OLD CARDINAL

 

“A good priest with a truly priestly heart can be recognized even by bad words. Only a genuine man of God can swear words with genuine purity of heart without ever being vulgar. Thanks for the laughs you gave me, these days we desperately need it ".

- Church news -

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The technician who takes care of the assembly is outside Italy, the audio reading of the articles will be inserted by the end of September

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After some time a Cardinal with decades of life spent in the Roman Curia confided to me that years ago a letter signed by several "integral Catholics" reached the Vatican and made the rounds of all the offices of that section of the Secretariat of State, causing the monsignors to laugh with laughter as they turned between them from desk to desk. The object of the protest was me, presented as a highly unworthy priest because he was guilty of scandalizing the immaculate faithful by sometimes using colorful words not suited to a minister in sacred. For this they invoked severe canonical sanctions against me. Bearers of the petition were those characters that have always been known to us priests, those endowed with such a vocation in the rag of their robes that Kaifa appears angry before the Sanhedrin like a novice beginner.

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These characters they feel first of all noble soldiers placed as halberdiers in defense of the true Catholic tradition and of the most rigid sexual morality always applied and rigorously to others, never to themselves and least of all to their children, daughters and grandchildren, only to the children and grandchildren of others. For them the Church was born suddenly in 1570 with the Roman Missal promulgated by the Holy Pontiff Pius V, from which they jump directly to the beginning of the twentieth century, to the pontificate of the Holy Pontiff Pius X, the one who condemned that trembling Modernism that the Halberdiers know in the same way as the Latin of the Tridentine missal.

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Halberdiers have three sets: Latin, St. Thomas Aquinas and the fight against Modernism. As for the Latin I will just mention that years ago, copiously taking the piss out of the members of a circle of so-called and improperly called "traditionalists", I sang to him on the meter of the Gregorian preface the Poetry of the Sparrow by Valerio Gaius Catullus, finally saying: «This is indeed a sacred liturgy, little that messalaccio by Annibale Bugnini approved by the improvised Holy Pontiff Paul VI!» [cf.. see WHO]. And everyone agreed with me enjoying from the seventh heaven. Well, however unusual it may seem, you should know that even I am endowed with a common sense of modesty, for this I avoided adding the singing of some collection, taking from the Catullian carmina some delicacies of the type:

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«I will bite you and break in, Aurelius pathically and Cinaede Furi, who thought I was from my verses, because they are soft, a little modest»¹.

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But if I did the Halberdiers would have further confirmed that yes, which was the language of the angels that from the benches beyond the altar balustrade takes you directly to Heaven, not thanks to the sacred mysteries, but thanks to the magic of the Latins an end in itself. For this reason I limited myself to the Poetry of the Sparrow passed off as a preface, avoiding turning certain lustful carminas into collections., which of course I know by heart since the days of classical high school.

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Segue San Tommaso d'Aquino, which these halberdiers know in the same way as the Latin of the Tridentine Missal, unable to understand that the Angelic Doctor e Doctor Common speaks of the mysteries of faith and provides an effective and still unsurpassed speculative method, but neither his method nor his extraordinary production in themselves constitute immutable truths of the faith. Let's take one example among many: today Catholic doctrine teaches that the soul is blown into the living being from the moment of conception. L’Aquinate, which followed Aristotle's speculative method, argues that in the course of the growth of the fetus they develop in succession: first a vegetative soul, then a sensitive soul, at last, when development is adequate to receive the intellectual soul, this is infused directly by God in the third month of pregnancy [cf.. QUESTION Iª q. 118 a. 2 ad 2].

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Aquinas had a different idea also regarding the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, believing that she was not born without original sin but that soon after her conception she received an extraordinary sanctification in her soul that canceled original sin [cf.. QUESTION IIIa, q. 27, a. 3 ad 3]. You understand well that between conception without original sin e cancellation of original sin, the difference is not merely semantic, but precisely substantially theological.

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Equally unique the way in which the Halberdiers justify the fact that the genius and science of the very pagan Aristotle are at the basis of Aquinas's speculative method. Soon packaged and answered: Aristotle was in fact a Christian, having perceived centuries before, even without realizing it, the mystery of the incarnation of the Word of God. This is a statement as stupid as it is illogical that began to circulate in the areas of the decadent neo-scholasticism of the late nineteenth century.. The parrots of the unspecified tradition that today repeat it and propagate it as a truth of faith, they do not even realize that in this way they are defining Aristotle as an "anonymous Christian", according to the controversial and dangerous theory of Karl Rahner, another sworn enemy of theirs, although they do not even know the title of his main works. It matters little, because the Catholic and theological culture of the Halberdier of true and pure tradition is based on a castle of "it is said that ...".

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Finally, the evil specter of Modernism, of which the Halberdiers speak starting from a total lack of knowledge, as well as a critical spirit. Then, if they are supported by a deranged priest, excommunicated and discharged from the clerical state, irreparable damage is soon done. Not all the measures that followed the Encyclical Feeding of Dominic's Sheep of the Holy Pontiff Pius X were by no means far-sighted, on the contrary, they partly favored the development of a dangerous reactive Modernism, on the other, they crystallized theological speculation in four stagnant and rancid formulas of decadent neo-scholasticism, effectively preventing theologians from speculating outside those four sclerotic and intangible formulas. This while on the other side, the Protestants, they carried out very thorough studies on the biblical sciences and exegesis, which decades later we were forced to make up for, after being paralyzed for decades in those four sclerotic and intangible formulas that made up the unsuccessful struggle of the Holy Pontiff Pius X - or rather who for him - against Modernism, that in retrospect we can affirm that it was indeed condemned and opposed, but in a completely different way, not in the narrow-minded way that was often adopted.

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Among the many Protestant scholars I quote as an example the great commentary on the Letter to the Romans by the theologian Karl Barth, which still remains unsurpassed in the context of exegesis novo testamentaria and to which all of us must necessarily refer.

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We cannot speak of Modernism if you do not know and are not moved by the conscious honesty that it was born and developed as a reactive thought within a Church that throughout the nineteenth century was wrapped up in purely political questions - undoubtedly justified by history and from the events of those years following the French Revolution -, while Catholic theology languished and stagnated in forms of true ignorance. So it is not possible to talk about Modernism if not starting from a fact: the French Alfred Firmin Loisy and Italian Ernesto Buonaiuti they are two figures to be counted among the most brilliant thinkers of the twentieth century. Only illiterate bigots or some deranged priest can treat them with heretical sufficiency from the top of their total lack of knowledge. And I conclude by specifying, to be fair, that by Holy Mother Church Ernesto Buonaiuti was treated with such a ferocious lack of Christian charity that he really cries to heaven, like it or not the Halberdiers fighting against the specter of that Modernism that they do not know and of which the Holy Pontiff Pius X, who rightly and prudently condemned him, at the same time it favored its development and dissemination thanks to repressive measures and actions that were anything but far-sighted. But I am preparing a book on this very complex and articulated theme, if I don't crack first.

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Perhaps my interlocutor Cardinal he wanted to laugh further, for this I have heard it starting by saying: It's true, Eminence, I say bad words, Alas! Sometimes I also say many and some Catholic or Catholic from the gloomy sacristy reproaches me about the moderns social media, on the contrary, I acknowledge that they have protested by writing to you too, what he tells me. Some of these have even told me that I am too explicit, for example in the references - in my opinion completely natural and scientific - to human sexuality, because they say I should use euphemisms, for example some Latin terminologies, not too explicit terms. E, as known, Latin is terribly appealing to all those who do not know it, because it does a lot chic.

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Eminence, the problem is not Latin, that I know. The problem is who does not know Latin. Let me explain: as far as I'm concerned, I can also blur out saying "You've broken your brain!». But if I don't translate that this literally means "you broke your dick", who understands this noble Ciceronian expression in splendid Latin?

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The Cardinal starts laughing as he did not dare to do even at the time, young monsignor of the curia that he was, in the eighties he saw the film The Marchese del Grillo together with John Paul II and other prelates. Which John Paul II, to what the Cardinal himself refers in camera of love, apparently he commented on the film saying that the director and screenwriter had understood everything about papal Rome.

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I let the Cardinal finish his laughter and I carry on: sometimes we priests are like certain caring doctors of the health insurance, that prescribed the recipe they say to the poor uneducated ignoramus: «These suppositories must be taken pro rectal via». Very serious mistake! Because at that point of two o'clock: or that patient is clearly told that the suppository must be pushed into the asshole, or he will end up being taken to the emergency room after having swallowed suppositories for a month by swallowing them with a glass of water.

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Why certain demure delicate ears they yearn so much for those Latinisms that they don't understand? Perhaps because they want the Church to use magic formulas that the more incomprehensible they are the more effective they would be? I'll explain it to you because they yearn for Latinisms: because they have never been confessors, to begin. Or do you think that Saints confessors such as San Leopoldo Mandic and San Pio da Pietrelcina presented themselves, repent and repent, libertines and women of easy virtue to speak of fellatio, cunnilingus, ani trade, fornication against nature, intrusion, scenterasty …

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Try to imagine a man who confesses to having had sexual intercourse with another man, today it is so fashionable, indeed it is a trend, to the point that it is no longer sin but a high expression of love (!?). Above all, try to imagine me, confessor, than to fulfill what certain Catholics and Catholics with delicate ears and therefore yearning Latinisms demand, I start talking to the penitent like this:

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«… you would take into your hand another man's grave, and your other into his own, and so alternately shake the rods with your hands, so that by means of that pleasure you would cast the seed from yourself? If you did, thirty days of penitence in bread and water!»².

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The elderly Cardinal at this point he almost fell from the chair lying under the table, as I went on: … in conclusion, Eminence, I can also make happy those who yearn to hear Latinisms, I can also tell him via rectal, only to swallow the suppositories for a whole month instead of putting them in the asshole. I can also respond to some self-styled Catholics who are highly arrogant and irreverent towards us priests by blurting out «Tace. Maxiom crazy brain!». After that, who explains to him that I just told him "shut up, you big dickhead"? Or maybe they think they can translate the terminologies of an ancient dead language with the search engine Google?

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The Cardinal smiles from the top of its eighty years that have long since passed, during which he saw everything and more in the Church, including armies of Pharisees, Pelagians and Puritans full of private vices and propagators of the most rigid public virtues always claimed and rigorously on the skin of others. Finally telling me in a tender and paternal tone:

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“A good priest with a truly priestly heart can be recognized even by bad words. Only a genuine man of God can swear words with genuine purity of heart without ever being vulgar. Thanks for the laughs you gave me, these days we desperately need it ".

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Yup, we need it, because having to choose whether to cry or laugh, all in all it is always better to laugh with the holy irony of faith. And to conclude with a laugh. It happened that mocking and irreverent Tuscan boys in the mood for jokes call the Convent of the Capuchin Friars Minor in Florence, making their debut:

«… pronto? Listen to Father and we have du’ whores and a yes you know what to do, we can send them to you?».

The Capuchin answers seriously at the other end of the phone:

"...’ o Son, we are sixteen here, with du 'sole whores' that you what we do, a little bit not even shit smooth!».

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And we are talking about the Capuchin myths and seraphic, imagine what they would have answered if they had called the Convent of those pitt bull of the Dominicans.

From the island of Patmos, 4 September 2022

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NOTE

¹ See. Catullo (Carmen 16) translation from classical Latin: “I'm going to shove it up your ass and then into your mouth, Aurelio cocksucker and Furio fennel smashed, than for my verses (poetic) tender and kind, you thought that I am a wreck ".

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² From an ancient collection of Tariffed Penitences, translation from medieval Latin: “You took another man's cock and he took yours, after that, in this way, you played with your respective cocks through your hands, until he ejaculates with pleasure? If you did, I impose you thirty days on bread and water as penance ".

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THE LATEST BOOK BY ARIEL S. LEVI of GUALDO – TO ACCESS THE BOOKSHOP CLICK ON THE COVER

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It is being distributed “Sadness of Love”, latest editorial work by Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo dedicated to the memory of Cardinal Carlo Caffarra

IT IS IN DISTRIBUTION THE SADNESS OF LOVE, LATEST EDITORIAL WORK BY ARIEL S. LEVI di GUALDO DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF CARDINAL CARLO CAFFARRA

 

«Those of us who were trained in theological field on the pages of the recent supreme magisterium of the Pontiffs Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II, treasuring the great homiletics of Benedict XVI, worthy of the sermons of the Holy Pontiff Gregory the Great, reading certain recent documents or hearing certain daily sermons from a vanished country priest, can reasonably come to say that from golden eagles we have moved on to intensive battery farmed chickens ".

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Author:
Jorge Facio Lynx
President of Editions The island of Patmos

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to access the book shop click on the cover of the book

The 6 September it is the fifth anniversary of the death of Cardinal Carlo Caffarra who in 1981 he was commissioned by the Holy Pontiff John Paul II to found the Institute for studies on marriage and the family. The work of Father Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo is a critical examination of love joy in relation to the Human life. About the love joy the Author writes:

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"After the close of the Synod on the family, the womb of the elephant gave birth to 19 March 2016 the country mouse of the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation love joy, a device of ambiguity built on the said and the unspoken, on ambiguous two-way sentences, emotional sentimentality and many sociologisms that in fact decree the death of what for centuries has been the precise language, decisive and unambiguous of the Magisterium of the Church supported on the most solid and clear principles of classical metaphysics, long placed in the attic to make room for decadent German romanticism and the little heart that beats and that looks to the immediate of its own subjective "I" rather than to the future and to God. Those of us who were trained in theological field on the pages of the recent supreme magisterium of the Pontiffs Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II, treasuring the great homiletics of Benedict XVI, worthy of the sermons of the Holy Pontiff Gregory the Great, reading certain recent documents or hearing certain daily sermons from a vanished country priest, it can reasonably be said that from golden eagles to intensive battery farmed chickens, as has sometimes happened at cyclical intervals in the history of the Church, even if never at the bleak levels of our times […] Some superficial might misunderstand, in good or even bad faith, objecting that in these pages I have addressed severe criticisms of an Apostolic Exhortation given by the Roman Pontiff. Anyone who accuses me of this would be in grave error, because I do not criticize a given norm at all, before which I would be silent and would carry out the provisions of the supreme magisterium. What is critical is an undisclosed norm and questions that have never been answered, leaving everything wrapped in ambiguity. This is the object of my criticism: the lack of a norm together with the lack of clarity and response. The faithful servant of the Church reasons, debates and criticizes as long as it is allowed. After the Church has spoken, her job is to carry out and transmit the teachings and to keep the standards given, unless otherwise creating scandal in the People of God and fractures of ecclesial communion. No One, Catholic priest or lay person who whatever, he can disagree and substitute his own personal opinions for the authority of the Church, German theologians take care of this, it has always been their prerogative e pontifical privilege».

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It is well known and known how much Father Ariel is a thinker, an analyst and a theologian who leaves his mark when he scratches. And who gets the scratch, it generally has two possibilities: or keep it and treat the wound, or find themselves in serious difficulty in denying what he wrote true and indisputable. This is why it has happened over time several times, various people who felt hurt by his words or his reproaches, not being able to deny it nor wanting to debate the merits of the precise issues raised, they attached themselves to the expressive form, which in the case of this writer is often ironic, sometimes even colorful. But on the other hand it is known: in this way the Pharisees already acted in time.

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Discussing the delicate issue of Human life the Author is placed in the middle in a point of balance between those who would like to relativize it and those who would rather "dogmatize a condom by enclosing within it Catholic morality and the entire mystery of evil". In this regard he specifies:

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"I would like to clarify from the beginning of my exposition that I have never been to certain kinds of perverse thoughts and games, nor do I intend to be there as a man and as a Catholic, as a priest and as a theologian. This book intends to be a clear and objective proof of this in open criticism addressed both to those who would like to apply to the Church the lacking moral sense of the world and its disordered and unruly sexuality., both to those who are animated by those forms of dark moralism that have nothing to do with healthy and authentic Catholic morality, right on the most important of the theological virtues: the charity (cf.. The Cor 13), certainly not on the principle of The highest law is the highest wrong (supreme justice often equates to supreme injustice). And the truth is based on charity, while charity is such if it is governed by truth (cf.. Charity in truth). Because it is on charity that we will be judged by God ".

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From the island of Patmos, 30 August 2022

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TO ACCESS THE BOOKSHOP CLICK WHO

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Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia is not simply the “idiot brother” of Don Abbondio but the whore of Babylon kneeling before the Prince of this world

ARCHBISHOP VINCENZO PAGLIA IS NOT SIMPLY THE IDIOT BROTHER OF DON ABBONDIO BUT THE MERETRICE OF GENUFUL BABYLON BEFORE THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD

 

"The first condition for the end of the eclipse of traditional values ​​and for Catholicism to emerge from its crisis is that the Church resume its function, which is not conforming to the world, but counter it " (Augusto Del Noce, 1971)

- Actuality -

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the textual words of H.E. Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, click on image to open the video

Of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia I have already dealt with epithetizing it Don Abbondio's idiot brother, today she deserves the title of whore of Babylon kneeling at Prince of this world [cf.. GV 14, 30]

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“He had written a mysterious name on his forehead: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and abominations of the earth "" [AP 17, 5].

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The statements made by this idiot in the etymological sense of the term - from the Greek ἰδιώτης (idiots) which means "private man" and indicates the incompetent person, inexperienced and inept - they are of unprecedented gravity, all the more by covering the very delicate role of President of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Recently participating in the program The hot roof on the sinister and politically correct Rai Tre magnified the law 194 the 1978 on legalized abortion by stating: «I think now the Law 194 is a pillar of our social life ". After climbing for 40 seconds on the mirrors, to the dry question of the interviewer who pressed him: «You say the Law is not in question 194?». The Idiot replied: «In no, absolutely… absolutely!».

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Words in themselves not even commentable in front of which comes to mind a phrase of the philosopher Augusto Del Noce who painted our current situation by writing these prophetic words four decades ago:

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"The first condition for the end of the eclipse of traditional values ​​and for Catholicism to emerge from its crisis is that the Church resume its function, which is not conforming to the world, but counter it " [Sunset or eclipse of traditional values? Rusconi Editore, Iª ed. 1971]

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Can a bishop please the world with similar flattery, instead of opposing those who proclaim abortion "sacrosanct right" and "great social achievement"? Respect must be paid to a bishop who is the legitimate successor of the Apostles and a member of the Sacred Apostolic College, always, regardless of his weaknesses, fragility and lack of objective merits that can make him a character even below mediocrity. As confessor and spiritual director of numerous priests, I have often heard the complaints of various confreres who explained to me how their bishop was an idiot emeritus. And they were right, because such it was in the disastrous concrete facts. And to all of them I have always answered:

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«… And to this emeritus idiot you owe filial respect and devout obedience, always and regardless. Therefore try to live your bishop's objective idiocy as a test of faith. You can not estimate it, because the esteem is not due to him, if he wants it he has to earn it. But respect and obedience yes, it is always due to him and cannot in any way be canceled from his demerits of which at the opportune moment he will have to answer to God as it is written: “Everyone was given much, much will be asked for; to whom men have committed much, much more will be required”» [LC 12, 48].

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On the one hand, I collect the complaints of the priests towards their bishops, on the other hand, those of various bishops who can no longer cope with certain priests. And both are right. For years now, to priests who complained about their not particularly lovable bishops, paternal or doctrinally brilliant I reply: "In a short time you and your brothers will regret your bishop with tears in your eyes". Sentence repeated to dozens of priests starting from 2017, when the highest leaders of the Catholic Church crossed the threshold of no-return by celebrating the 500 years of Martin Luther's pseudo-reformation, who was by no means a "reformer", how he painted it La Civiltà Cattolica, nor a subject about which we can say: “I believe that Martin Luther's intentions were not wrong. He was a reformer ". Why so the Supreme Pontiff Francis defined in an off-the-cuff rant on a high-altitude plane this diabolical heresiarch who gave birth to a dramatic schism, certainly not a reform. That was done by the Council of Trent, not Luther. Today, the same priests, they write to me, they call me or face to face they tell me: "You were right, if I could have the previous bishop I have complained about so much, I would not kiss his hand but his feet!».

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I spread a merciful veil on the criteria for selecting our new bishops under this august pontificate, all with the poor and the migrant on their lips, so much so that after hearing one, all the episcopal homilies delivered from north to south were heard, from east to west by the Italian bishops.

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That ours are not times of “golden eagles” it is clear to anyone who has even the slightest light of reason. For this reason it is worth delineating the difference between an idiot bishop to whom filial respect and devoted obedience are always due., from a bishop reduced to a whore of Babylon kneeling at the knees of the Prince of this world. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia must be publicly paid all that holy contempt that any believer is required to pour out on what is evil and which as such constitutes a grave sin, in the specific case the crime of abortion, regulated in our country by a law that is by no means a "pillar of our social life" but the worst of the legalized crimes perpetrated against life. This is why we must not pay filial respect and devout obedience to Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, because, abusing the episcopate in the worst way, he expressed concepts that contradict the structure of our morality and our ethics, which both rest on the pillars of the deposit of the Catholic faith. He remains a legitimate bishop with an important and delicate ecclesiastical office, this is out of the question. But, if its power which involves first of all the supreme custody of the doctrine of the faith, it exercises it in order to sacrilegiously deny the foundations of Catholic morals and ethics, in that case it must not be nor heard, neither obeyed nor followed and least of all respected, but rather made the object of holy Christian contempt.

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Vincenzo Paglia is a shame of the episcopate belonging to that nefarious category of people towards whom the Holy Scriptures thunder:

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"I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot! But because you are lukewarm, that is, you are neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth " [AP 3, 15-16].

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Together with Vincenzo Paglia all the ambiguities and duplicities of this pontificate are also likely to be vomited from the mouth of the Almighty, to which the serious and objective demerit of having included immoral and clearly heterodox subjects in all the most delicate key positions goes, thus running the risk of "[…] go down in history as an eccentric pursuit of the new and the sensational as a substitute for the search for meaning, which has ended up producing a doctrinal and pastoral confusion that has never occurred previously in the history of the Church ".

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The latter words with which I open my book dedicated to the memory of Cardinal Carlo Caffarra which will be distributed in early September and which I invite you to read, only to lift you up a bit, to gain confidence in the fact that all is not lost and to be able to touch firsthand that in the midst of so many fearful career rabbits who are de-building the very foundations of Catholic doctrine, there are always also lions who aspire to conquer the prize of eternal life as their only career ambition. Leoni that it is good not to go to annoy with the word of angry clerical reproach, because they bite and tear, as it should and as befits the Lions of God placed in custody of the doctrine of the faith and the health of the souls of believers of Christ entrusted to us by the Redeemer.

 

From the island of Patmos, 28 August 2022

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Dear Readers,

please read this article [WHO vedere] and to be as sensitive and thoughtful as you can

Thank you

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The Catholic Church does not take orders from anyone, much less from the Ukrainians who have lost contact with reality in a triumph of arrogance that will cause serious damage to all the people of Europe

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOES NOT TAKE ORDERS FROM ANYONE LESS FROM THE UKRAINIANS WHO HAVE LOST CONTACT WITH THE REAL IN A TRIUMPH OF ARROGANCE THAT WILL PRODUCE SERIOUS DAMAGE TO ALL POPULATIONS OF EUROPE

 

No one can prevent the Catholic Church from praying for the redemption and health of Hitler's soul as well as for the redemption and health of Stalin's soul, because it has a duty to do so. Which he did at the right moment just as certain characters were perpetrating their worst crimes against humanity. The Church does not follow the emotional-destructive directives of a former comedian elected President of Ukraine but the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

- Actuality -

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to access the bookshop click on the image

In my book published a couple of months ago: War and ideological propaganda, I anticipated facts and problems that are coming to light now in their dramatic political and economic gravity.

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Remember last television season, where of talk show in talk show they praised Slavic Ukrainians (glory to Ukraine)? Remember the unspoken critical voices? Remember how a historical expert like Franco Cardini - author of Ukraine, war and history - not being able to be silenced or declared non-authoritative, it was silenced with the mandatory publicity to be broadcast, then making it disappear from the screen after the advertising break? But most of all: remember the Ukrainians invited to the television studios who, with memorable arrogance, pointed the finger at Italy and the Italians affirming from evening to evening: “You don't have to buy gas from Russia, you have to make sacrifices for us, because we also fight for your freedom "?

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Under the eyes of the silent conductors, beset by the need to broadcast the mandatory advertising only when Franco Cardini or other scholars and qualified experts in history and geopolitics spoke, we had to put up with without the possibility of replication of the emotional subjects drugged by the propaganda of Vlodimir Zelenski - who seems to have been no stranger to drugs - who without the possibility of replication claimed in prime time that we Italians were obliged to sacrifice our children for the children of others who had decided to fight like fawns against a lioness, convinced to win. That the lioness - in this case Russia - attacked them, it is undoubted. Equally there is no doubt that on the one hand there is an aggressor and an attacked, in a very complex geopolitical context, old and delicate in which the problem cannot be solved by judging in a superficial and unappealable way who is the good and who the bad, because in wars when one kills all are victims and perpetrators.

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The Ukrainian rulers and a good part of the population, including the Catholic one and unfortunately also some bishops of that country, have already attacked the Holy See and the Supreme Pontiff in the past, declaring themselves indignant at the idea of ​​having a Russian woman and a Ukrainian woman carry the cross during the Way of the cross during the rites of Holy Week, to the point of obscuring it on the television networks of free Ukraine, that unlike bad Russia it would be a democracy, not a dictatorial regime (!?). A similar harsh protest followed these days because the Supreme Pontiff dared to address a thought and a prayer to Darya Dygin, daughter of Alexander, famous and questionable Russian ideologue, killed in an attack:

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“I think of a poor girl who was blown up by a bomb that was under the seat of the car in Moscow. The innocent pay for the war " [cf.. WHO]

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The Ukrainian Government reacted with a diplomatic protest through its ambassador and convening the Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See in Kiev.

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We are in a delusion of omnipotence to which are added blind ignorance and arrogance. No one can prevent the Catholic Church from praying for the redemption and health of Hitler's soul as well as for the redemption and health of Stalin's soul, because it has a duty to do so. Which he did at the right moment just as certain characters were perpetrating their worst crimes against humanity. The Church does not follow the emotional-destructive directives of a former comedian elected President of Ukraine but the Gospel of Jesus Christ on which it is written:

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«It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick […] in fact I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners " [Mt 9, 12-13].

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What I had to analyze and express I wrote about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in a book to which I refer you.

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After the summer break the various are recovering talk show at the gates of an autumn that is taking shape very critical. These various programs have reopened, airing the complaints of entrepreneurs, traders and individuals who are receiving skyrocketing electricity bills and are unable to pay, while no one seems to have the manly political attributes to say that the war was a failure and worse still the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, where an army is not armed but a civilian population. Except then broadcast on our newscasts news about brutal Russian soldiers killing unarmed civilians. Again the question remained unanswered: a so-called unarmed civilian holding a Kalashnikov and that opens fire on the enemy, we're really sure it's a unarmed civilian?

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Soon, when the cold arrives, there will be the problem of gas for heating systems. Our heroics will succeed men-company that lead the various talk show to bring Ukrainians back to the television studios to point the finger at the Italians and tell them that they have to sacrifice their children, their families and their businesses to support Ukraine in its arrogant suicide policy? It will be interesting to hear what the various presenters who praised last season television will say at the beginning of next winter Slavic Ukrainians (glory to Ukraine), in front of the Italians who in a very inglorious way risk finding themselves really at the gas barrel, while already from now, the managers of nursing homes for the elderly and nursery schools are saying in alarmed tones that they will not be able to pay the now tripled electricity bills and the gas bills that will soon arrive, but at the same time they certainly cannot triple the monthly fees of their guests.

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Everything else is written in my book, with all due respect to those who have praised for months of talk show in talk show: glory Ucraini! Let's see if the same cry to him men-company they will have the courage to repeat it again this winter with the Ukrainians in the studio pointing the finger and repeating every evening to the Italians reduced to gas: "You must make sacrifices for us".

 

From the island of Patmos, 26 August 2022

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___________________

Dear Readers,

please read this article [WHO vedere] and to be as sensitive and thoughtful as you can

Thank you

.

.

.

______________________

Dear Readers,
this magazine requires management costs that we have always faced only with your free offers. Those who wish to support our apostolic work can send us their contribution through the convenient and safe way PayPal by clicking below:

Or if you prefer you can use our
Bank account in the name of:
Editions The island of Patmos

n Agency. 59 From Rome
Iban code:
IT74R0503403259000000301118
For international bank transfers:
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BAPPIT21D21

If you make a bank transfer, send an email to the editorial staff, the bank does not provide your email and we will not be able to send you a thank you message:
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We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

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"The game of the lotto is the tax of fools". We are legalizing everything: abortion, euthanasia, road, prostitution, gamble … why not also legalize femicide?

"THE GAME OF LOT IS THE TAX OF FESSI". WE ARE LEGALIZING EVERYTHING: ABORTION, EUTHANASIA, DRUG, PROSTITUTION, GAME OF CHANCE ... WHY NOT LEGALIZE FEMINICIDE ALSO?

 

It seems right that a freak who kills a woman should end up in jail as once there ended up women and gynecologists who killed children with illegal abortion? If a mother who kills her child and a gynecologist do not end up in jail like a killer carries out the murder, because a man has to end up killing a woman? At most, let's entrust him to a charity and let him do some socially useful work.

- Actuality -

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Emma Bonino promoter of various campaigns against conscientious objectors

In his cabaret yiddish the teacher Moni Ovadia jokes about the speck of a stingy old Jew who insistently begged the Lord to make him win the lottery. After nagging prayers it resounds on the sky of that one shtetl an annoyed voice: «Shlomo, I also make you win, but you spend two bucks and at least buy a ticket!».

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Many years ago, when I was a university student, the prize money of the old New Year lottery had reached five billion of the old lire. All my companions had bought at least one ticket, except me. A friend asked me why I hadn't bought one for a few lire, less than a pack of cigarettes cost. I replied: "The chances of winning are so remote that if I really win I will be lucky enough to find the winning ticket on the ground as I walk down the street".

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Gambling it has always been a big business for the underworld, in particular for the mafia associations present in our country: the Camorra, the 'ndragheta and Cosa Nostra. The 27 June 1998 the law that makes gambling legal in our country comes into force, regulated and managed by the State Monopolies. In the following years, the Legislator intervened with other laws: In the 2005 promulgates the law n. 266 which defines the role of the Autonomous Company of State Monopolies which deals with games involving cash winnings and the contrast of the jungle of illegal sites without state authorization to operate in Italy, in particular those of video-poker online, with domicile in a tax haven and the server provider in some remote Asian country free from all the rules of the various national states. Between 2009 and the 2011 the Legislator deals with the protection of minors of 18 year old, who are prohibited from gambling under the laws 88/2009 e 98/2011. These laws have increased the penalties for those who do not comply with the necessary measures on the prohibitions imposed on minors, in particular for internet sites and gaming and betting centers. In 2012 a law decree named after Renato Balduzzi, at the time minister of health, dealt with gambling addiction, known as ludopathy, a disorder that falls within the delicate sphere of psychiatric expertise.

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There are two currents of thought: people in favor of legal gambling argue that banning it would favor the spread of unauthorized sites and clandestine gambling halls managed mostly by organized crime. The opposites argue that the plague of addiction, gambling addiction, it can lead to the ruin of entire families, to all must be added the considerable expenses borne by the National Health Service for the treatment of compulsive gamblers.

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It is now widespread thought that to avoid evil one must resort to evil by saying that evil is good. Let's clarify: the "great Italian" Senator Emma Bonino, according to the unfortunate papal definition in addition to calling abortion a "great social achievement" and complaining to the European Parliament and the International Court of Justice excessive presence of conscientious objecting doctors in our country - which is what makes it, precisely, a "great Italian" worthy of papal commendation as such -, still maintains that legalized abortion has eradicated clandestine abortion, ending the plague of the poor dying only one of septicemia under the knife of the mothers, while the rich went to Swiss clinics to have an abortion in complete safety. Why not apply the exact same logic and state that femicide should be legalized, or at least decriminalize it? It seems right that a freak who kills a woman should end up in jail as once there ended up women and gynecologists who killed children with illegal abortion? If a mother who kills her child and a gynecologist do not end up in jail like a killer carries out the murder on request, because a man has to end up killing a woman? At most, let's entrust him to a charity and let him do some socially useful work.

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The hyperbole is evident, only the emotional blind and digital illiterate can fail to grasp the completely provocative sense, paradoxical and not least grotesque as well, misunderstanding the clear meaning and finally accusing me of having instigated femicide. And I can guarantee you that there will be no shortage of this kind of webeti who only read the title and perhaps the subtitle. Not just because i webeti they never die, but why if he had also been shot in the forehead, you can be sure that the bullet would ricochet to go and kill a poor innocent who passed by on the street.

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But this is the logic with which for decades, starting with the law on the legalization of abortion, the Italians were drugged by that Mephistophelian party known as the Radical Party, whose emotional logic is known: why force a poor woman to risk her life under the knife of a mummy, while the rich ladies go to have an abortion in Switzerland? Yup, but the members of the Mephistophelian party, at the head of all Marco Pannella and Emma Bonino great pontifical Italian, they never answered a fundamental question: and who would it be that forces both the poor girl and the rich lady to kill an innocent human being? It is perhaps morally permissible, as well as mandatory, kill innocent and defenseless creatures?

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Put this thought through others will follow accordingly. For example, it is known that one of the oldest professions in the world is prostitution. Whereas it cannot be eradicated, in that case let's legalize it. The same is true for the consumption of soft or hard drugs. Once prostitution and drugs are legalized, perhaps we would not have deprived the various mafias and criminal associations of a large turnover, always according to the principle of legal abortion that would have defeated the clandestine one? Basically it is simple to do, it is enough that the State - which has already become infanticide with law no. 194 the 1978 - you also become an exterminator of the terminally ill, pimp of prostitutes, drug dealer and so on to follow. Otherwise what kind of marital status, what kind of rule of law would ours be, if he denied the "right" to commit suicide, prostitution, get high? In this way the evil will cease to be evil and will be legalized becoming lawful. On the contrary, we will impose on the whores the obligation to have a regular commercial license, we will give them a VAT number with a rate of 22%, the obligation to issue customer tax receipts after customer and finally submit the annual tax return. I can already imagine the receipts of the whores with the details of the performances and relative prices varying from anal intercourse up to sadomasochistic ones. If you want I can also imagine the face of the accountant, both the whore and the customer, to which these receipts will be presented for the annual tax return and to be inserted under who knows what deductibility item for the customer.

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It will therefore be good to get a move on, in this Italic cathophobic semi-slave society of the Vatican and therefore far from reaching the levels of great civilization of the Scandinavian countries, that for some decades the happy world record of suicides and the highest rate of suffering from acute depressive syndromes have been disputed with Japan.

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While there are plans to remedy certain problems with legalizations, few think of replacing cash with electronic money, which could be beneficial by acting as a great deterrent in a country where the Istat data of 2018 talk about 110 billions of tax evasion per year, of an underground economy equal to 192 billions and illegal activities amounting to 19 billions. Obviously, that on illegal activities is a very approximate figure, because the turnover of crime is much higher. With e-money that involves traceability, how would a whorehouse pay a whore? Soon said: or the lady has an unlikely mechanism to swipe credit and debit cards between the breasts or buttocks, or the payment would be difficult to say the least. Equally difficult for a criminal entrepreneur to pay illegally to workers without contributions and insurance coverage, in a country like ours where media are recorded 3 deaths per day at work, according to the statistical data of 2019. The same would be true for the high number of craftsmen who in the South of Italy in particular carry out bricklaying activities, plumbers, electricians, aerialist, IT technicians ... without being anywhere as individual firms or self-employed workers. And there are not a few who are currently also benefiting from grillino income of citizenship, while pocketing a few thousand euros per month in total black without paying even the shadow of a tax or contribution. With traceable electronic money, how the citizen could pay them? This is true for the plumber as well as for the freelancer with salty fees, who smilingly asks the customer: “With or without an invoice?».

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Once the law was made, the deception was found, recites one of the best known idioms of our Italian soil. Which is undoubtedly true, in which we Italians have always been masters. However, there are limits to even the most ingenious and imaginative craftsmanship: it is in fact true that the fraudulent flair of the Neapolitan speck personified by Totò, can also manage to even sell the Trevi Fountain to an Italian-American tourist, however, not even the most whimsical of cheaters can succeed in circumventing certain anti-fraud laws, because it would be like pretending to be able to challenge the natural laws of physics. Proof of this - to give an example - are the current tests for driving licenses or those for admission to the faculty of medicine and surgery, impossible to manipulate, because they are centralized and armored by an impenetrable electronic system that makes it impossible to identify the person to be favored by the godfather on duty.

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With traceable electronic money, how a drug dealer or a fence of stolen goods could get involved in the criminal trade? Someone thinks they could turn to their friend butcher or to the compliant tobacconist to be swiped with non-existent transactions with ATMs or credit cards? And even if it did, how, the butcher or his friend tobacconist could then give him cash in exchange, style scams on citizenship income, if there is no paper money and everything proceeds only by traceable electronic circuits?

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We have been able to legalize abortion, we are in the process of legalizing euthanasia, we have made gambling a state monopoly and we are unable to crush tax evasion, prostitution, drug dealing and criminal circles of various kinds because according to some, electronic money would be a violation of individual freedoms and a control exercised on citizens much worse than that of George Orwell's Big Brother? But we are truly a society of schizophrenics borderline!

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A subject opposed to electronic money he said in a stupidly provocative tone: «And you priests, how would you take offerings for churches, for charitable activities, for the celebration of Holy Masses and so on?». I replied: "Simple, with electronic money. On the contrary, it would be more convenient and practical than the small change that those large lice of many faithful put in the offering basket, forcing us to change a few kilos of coins into a few pieces of paper 5, 10, 20 cents". And I went on to explain that for us priests, members of a religious group recognized by the State as an institution of public law, electronic money, for offers and more, it wouldn't be a problem at all, rather a great and practical convenience. If anything, it would be a problem for the Casamonica family who also manage the begging tour in the capital of Italy. Or can someone imagine a petulant gypsy - or if we prefer the politically correct language a Roma - annoying passersby by asking for money with the pos at your fingertips for ATM and credit card transactions? In our churches we could easily install an electronic mechanism for the payment and collection of offerings, such as those found in all centers and places where payments can be made self-service. But we are a body of public law, not the begging circuit run by the Casamonica clan, we are neither fences nor drug traffickers.

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Yet our glorious Republic the system for charging taxes has found it. All in all it is an older system than one might imagine: the game of the lotto, that at the dawn of the Unification of Italy a great statesman, Count Camillo Benso of Cavour, called "the tax of fools". In fact, according to the data reported in a book very interesting published in 2017 and written by Giulia Migneco and Claudio Forleo, which followed a second written by the same authors during the lockdown of Covid-19, with legalized gambling the state has cashed in 2018 the amount of 105 billion euros. An amount that ironically corresponds to what Istat indicates as the volume of tax evasion in our country, equal to 110 billion euros. The great nineteenth-century statesman was therefore right when he referred to the lot as "the tax of fools". In retrospect I add: the Italian feels so smart and entitled to evade taxes, up to not paying those taxes useful to keep the system of our welfare state in place. But at the same time she is so stupid as to run to the lottery office to pay the "tax of fools", placing himself in front of everyone on the bar table with a coin in hand to scrape one ticket after another by scratch&Vinci.

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To gambling addiction in relation to Catholic morality years ago I dedicated a lecture at the request and invitation of the friends of the Lions Club. I don't have much to add to what I said at the time, I therefore refer to the registration of this my lecture which you can find on the Youtube channel from The Island of Patmos.

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In our parishes and Caritas centers there are many people who come to ask for help for basic necessities, or because about to see the light or gas cut off, after squandering salaries and pensions in legalized gambling. To many of my brothers with a tender heart who have repeatedly told me “how can you not help them?», I replied that giving any kind of help to someone with gambling addiction is like buying drugs for a drug addict in withdrawal, how to pay a prostitute's services to a sex addict. It is not charity, but pure unconsciousness. Above all it is evil that is added to the much evil that these subjects bring to themselves and their families. Affected by gambling addiction, after having bled to death for having paid "the tax of fools", it must be said in a severe tone and almost always with an ugly face: that you also turn off the light or the gas, that you also have difficulty shopping and eating, I do not care and must not care, least of all take pity. The only help I can give you and which in conscience I am required to give you, is to refer you to a good psychiatrist who can cure you of this dangerous addiction.

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It is a huge sadness see elderly retirees come out of tobacconists with scratch lines&win and then go shortly after to the Caritas center to ask for some shopping. Equally sad to see lines of people, young and old, including many fathers and mothers of families, burning sums of money for unlikely number systems, while the mega billboard shows the stratospheric sum of the prize pool written in large letters, which as of today is equal to 259.600.000 Euro. Figure in front of which tax evaders suffering from gambling addiction who justify their frauds to the state by taking shelter behind the finger of "I don't pay politicians' wages with my taxes", they don't even realize that taxes are paying them the worst way, like perfect fools, coupon behind coupon, scratch cards&win by scratch&Vinci. In addition to the fact that the much recriminated salary of politicians, in the pockets of the general state budget is equivalent to a few euros in our pockets, although it has always been the excuse and the ridiculous finger behind which small and large tax evaders shelter.

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If the prize pool has reached that figure, some have wondered how much is the far greater sum raised with the bets by the State Monopolies? It is not easy to live in a country where abortion is considered "an acquired right" and a "great social achievement", where it is believed that euthanasia is "an act of humanity towards a poor terminally ill person", where the state makes money on gambling, to which on the one hand it instigates, on the other hand, it invites us to be cautious because "gambling can be addictive". But, a traceable electronic money that would deal a fatal blow to organized crime, to drug dealing, to prostitution, to illegal work, tax evasion and so on to follow, that no, because it would be a serious injury to personal freedoms.

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The Italian People has a very strange concept of "right" and "freedom", instigated as he is to scratch in the hope of winning, with a state that puts its conscience at peace by warning that "gambling can be addictive" and that it will soon give us euthanasia, same-sex marriage, the possibility of adopting children for gay and lesbian couples, free drugs and many other wonderful rights linked to genuine aberrations transformed into good according to the law.

 

From the island of Patmos, 25 August 2022

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Emiliano Mandrone, Electronic money for the fight against tax evasion? in online magazine Economics and Politics, edition of 4 November 2019

Ardizzi and P. Play, The social cost of payment instruments in Italy, Institutional issues, Bank of Italy, 2012.

Grazzini, Towards public digital currency: the audacity of Christine Lagarde and the prudence of Mario Draghi, Economics and Politics, 2019.

Mandrone, The honest gang that wants electronic money, lavoce.info, 2015.

Mandrone, The social role of economic education, INAPP, 2017.

Realfonzo, 100 billions of public under-investment and competitiveness deficit. Italy needs industrial policies, Economics and Politics, 2019.

K.S. Rogoff, The end of the money. A proposal to limit the damage of cash, The assayer, 2017.

Velvets, G. Casamatta, L. Bousquet, G. Poniatowski, Estimating International Tax Evasion by Individuals, WP No 76, European Commission, 2019.

Years 2013-2016 the economy not observed in the national accounts, Report Statistics, STATE, 2018

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