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FROM THE SODOM SPINELLO UP TO RETREAT TO THE ROMAN CURIA, WHILE NO ONE IN THE WORLD IS unreal MAKES STATEMENT THAT LIFE MONASTIC IS DEAD AND THAT THAT REMAINS IS A PARODY: "You call them IF YOU WANT, EMOTIONS "

The preacher Abbot will speak to the Roman Curia about the dreamer Giorgio La Pira and the poet Mario Luzi, as if it was a dream spirituality and theology poetry, as if the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, loudly proclaimed a saint had never written the encyclical Faith and Reason, the base of which there is the thought of a great Benedictine Abbot, then Archbishop of Canterbury, Sant'Anselmo d'Aosta, who did not live the relationship with faith in dreams and poetry, but explaining that faith seeking understanding [faith requires reason] and in need: «I believe in order to understand, I understand that you can trust» [I think to understand, I understand to believe]. Unfortunately the famous Italian singer Lucio Battisti has been dead for years, otherwise, for the next retreat, perhaps Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi would have proposed the thoughtful lyrics of his famous song Emotions …

Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

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Next the Council of Trent who attempted to curb the drifts of the clergy, Many abbeys poured in disastrous moral conditions. Recently he's talked in an essay dedicated to religious life [cf. WHO]. The state of men's abbeys, towards the end of the fifteenth century it was not unlike that of many female monasteries bleak, especially in those with rich heritages.

The Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, 14th century, erected in the Crete Senesi area

One example among many: in the architecture of many historic abbeys we can observe the standing buildings, detached from the monastery at least a hundred meters. If we ask the monks who continue to live in those abbeys and monasteries - because many of these facilities are no longer abbeys and monasteries, others are not inhabited by monks -, the answers that we shall receive will be varied, and equally disparate will not be the real answer, because often the truth burns, especially it can be really unedifying.

the ancient bachelor pad abbots more or less renaissance

Since we will speak of the frescoes of the cloister Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, erected in the fourteenth century in the countryside of the Crete Senesi, as an example we will take one of these stable detached from the monastery and today referred to as entrance door. Nothing to say that architectural styles change in the course of the centuries, but that function had a detached tower of the abbey and not visible from the abbey, which it is spread over four levels and incorporates a structure that, starting from the ground floor is dominated by two upper levels, all on an area of ​​over one thousand square meters? Do we have to believe that this gift of God architecture was really created only as a gateway to the abbey, or perhaps as a fortress? But a fort that would be if there were solid and high walls, that in that property, however, never existed, so?

So the structure was the residence of some revelers abbots, become such good offices of powerful families or for questions related to specific political arrangements, that being accustomed to lead monastic lifestyle at all, in those places they had their own small courts, They were devoted to hunting, at parties and so on. Then sometimes down in the monastery, necessary to fulfill their offices.

the ancient garçonnière of the more or less Renaissance abbots

The era the late fifteenth century He marked a doctrinal crisis, morality and customs preceded about three centuries earlier by an equally unfortunate epoch, when in the thirteenth century, Pope Eugenius III called for the Fourth Lateran Council that enacted strict rules against the immorality of the clergy and religious. It was in this jolly Renaissance that comes from Vercelli at the rich and powerful Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore a gay character: Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom [1477-1549].

About Sodom, subsequent historiography penned by religious pious attempt to clarify how mischievous connect the nickname by which the famous artist went to art history with those who would be his homosexual tastes. He even tried to resort to a pathetic sophistry arguing that the nickname Sodom It had nothing to do with the practice of sodomy but was linked to an expression that the artist in his local dialect used to say 'his, 'nduma», meaning "to go". Unlike what later tried to say critics pious to save the honor of not Bazzi, but that of the monastic structures that this bugger if contending with each other, the famous painter and architect Giorgio Vasari from Arezzo [1511-1574], who was his contemporary and connoisseur of his deeds, states that the source of such a nickname derived from his own homosexuality. The precise than that of Vasari Sodom It was also a hidden homosexuality at all, quite the opposite: He was performed in ostentatious and brazen way.

Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi known as Il Sodoma: Christ bound to the column for the scourging

Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom he married in his youth, but very soon he separated from his wife. Who knows if even in this regard some pious art critic - convinced that no one knows canon law and the discipline of the sacraments -, It can say that this separation was due to pure temperamental incompatibility. As if the end of the fifteenth separation from his wife and cut and run what would be more obvious could happen?

The Gay search for beauty which in this artist transcends nell'omoerotico, It is a feature of the painting Sodom, suffice to analyze the really striking figure of Christ tied to the column located in a corner of the central cloister Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore before the internal entrance door to the Abbey cathedral. Picture this sufficient to assess whether Christ bound to the column can look so sexy boy by winking. But for divine charity, you look carefully air and shameless position of the Christ at the Column portrait Sodom: there may remember certain images of the famous film Midnight Cowboy, with the then young Jon Voight in the provincial role Texan who arrived in New York full of dreams he ends up leaning against a street pole to hustle?

the historic poster of the famous film The Man on the Sidewalk, with the young Jon Voight leaning against the pole in the role of the hustler

Sodom, in that place of apparent quiet, as well as even more apparent religiosity, Perhaps the sign left him not only in the frescoes, but also in the air, and through the centuries! Indeed, the beautiful nature that surrounds equally stunning that abbey with all the architectural and artistic works of art, including homoerotic paintings, suppliscono for centuries the poor lack of religiosity; this thing that I do not say, because to prove it is the story. It would be enough just ask yourself this question: from the 1313 to date, how many monks of the Benedictine Congregation Olivetan that in the following seven hundred years of life we ​​have been beatified and canonized? Note that this Congregation, albeit reached between the end of the fifteenth and the end of the seventeenth century to count up to 1200 Monks distributed in several tens of Italian monasteries, seven centuries of existence has given the Church a unique blessed, its founder Maria Bernardo Tolomei [Siena 1272 — †Siena 1348], beatified three centuries after his death. Then, elapsed 661 year old, Blessed Bernardo Tolomei Maria was eventually canonized 20 August 2009.

Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: self-portrait by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said

Concerning the canonization of Maria Bernardo Tolomei would be interesting to see how the distinguished biographer Belgian Benedictine Dom Réginald Grégoire [1935 — †2013], postulator of the cause, has finally retrieved documents to carry on this historical cause at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, if it considers that for centuries has been complained precisely the impossibility of proceeding with a process of canonization for the lack of necessary historical documentation, which it seems to have finally compensated for the hagiography (!?). However, since this congregation with a rich heritage and being counted among the great Tuscan companies that possess the largest land plots, it may be that he had the means to finally find the historiography which for centuries did not exist?

particularly large fresco

Di Maria Bernardo Tolomei There were perhaps handed memorable sermons and wonderful spiritual lessons to its monks or as many of his lyrics lofty theological stature? To be honest, the collection of his letters [cf. WHO] more than the spiritual have the flavor of the writings of an administrator who organizes, directs, issuing directives and requires a papal legates and bishops concessions and privileges to their monasteries. As for the texts on his life, from one of the oldest [cf. WHO], they are an obvious jumble of ordinary gold legends with whom they were infiorettate the middle of the seventeenth century the lives of Saints or the candidates for canonization, all through precise and repetitive styles, thanks to writers who often gathered together episodes, visions and tests virtue that emerged as such in the lives of dozens of other saints or candidates for canonization. And even working in hagiography hagiography but apografia in apografia, the distinguished Belgian Benedictine biographer has finally changed over the centuries in a stratified apografie Position on life, virtues and reputation of holiness. So today, narrate the holy deeds of Bernardo Maria Tolomei, of which there are no written and original works but only posthumous biographies, It is like telling the struggle of St George and the dragon, canonizing finally biographers and hagiographers. That said it is good to clarify, to those to whom it was not clear if necessary, that the speeches have just made they do not rely on more or less stringent opinions or even ungenerous, but strictly on scientific data and not easy to disprove.

Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: self-portrait by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi known as Il Sodoma

By way of historical inquiry, we want to check how many blesseds and saints were instead donated, including also some Doctors of the Church, from other religious congregations, in a life span far below the Congregation of Benedictine monks Olivetani? Can a monastic congregation not donate to the Church and Blessed Saints in seven hundred years? Yup, it's possible, As a gay character like Giovanni Antonio Bazzi said Sodom He does not just leave their mark only of ancient frescoes, but also in the air that permeates the walls, from the entrance building that was the bachelor pad connoisseurs of Renaissance abbots until the stable monastic populated by several other monks no less revelers. If the saying is true that "the barrel the wine that ', shortages blessed, santi, mystical and spiritual fathers, however, it was compensated with other talents, from that of Dom Francis Ringhieri [1721-1787], devoted to theatrical works in the Baroque era and defined by critics as "More heretical than any other tragedy friar in that century" [can be consulted WHO, WHO, WHO].

Speaking on asset plan: no Abbot of Monte Oliveto Maggiore has never had problems accommodating between those rich spiritual walls of an aesthetic but often empty Anima Christi, a large army of children of Sodom roughly similar to the poor sensual and winking Christ tied to the column. But when the abbot Dom Maurizio Maria Outlines [1986-1992], previously already economer general of the congregation, nell'avallo he was involved in financial transactions which led to the loss of several billion old lire, the children of Sodom They did not hesitate to remove him, because you can defer the morale of flickering monks tied to the column, but on the money deposited with Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena can not however compromise. Everything although a Abate remain in office until 75 years of age, though re-elected by the general chapter every six years. A document everything is cronotassi of the abbots of the twentieth century, that until 1970 They remained in office for life, only from the successor of Dom Romualdo Maria Zilianti [1928-1946], with his successor Dom Angelo Maria Sabatini [1970-1986] takes over the practice of giving up the chair at the abbey they are 75 years of age.

Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: self-portrait by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi known as Il Sodoma, between the sacred, profane and scenes of Bacchanalian … to the right are depicted the family Abbot era

If today we can call ourselves Christians we owe it to the children of St. Benedict of Norcia through monasticism have first saved, then spread Christianity in the West. The same lemma Europe, of which St. Benedict is the patron, It was born as an idea and concept in the great Benedictine abbeys circuit, because they were the sons of St. Benedict in creating Europe. And if today we can read and study Greek philosophy, Latin classical literature or know the works of the great Fathers of the Church, if we have so many secular works from the contents anything but Christians, Gaius Valerius Catullus, including, we owe it to the Benedictine monks, born children of St. Benedict, and then it is reduced centuries after the children of Sodom.

To those who have always nurtured great veneration historical and theological towards the Benedictine Order, heart-wrenching to see today reduced monasticism in a similar decline. Unfortunately in this world in which even the most scandalous news today are born to die tomorrow and make room for other scandals, I fear that few have realized that to Montecassino, mother of all Western abbeys, gangrenous a homosexual in their unbridled vices has decreed the death of monasticism; and today, what's left, It is an empty shell, fact of historical abbeys - those that today have survived - rich in works of art and beautiful scenery,, but empty of the substance of the faith and of that glorious monasticism from the sixth century faith saved her and then spread. In short: attention to be seduced by the historical frames of the beautiful and the aesthetic that, however, conceals the emptiness of the spirit and of the Christian virtues, because the Devil, in addition to having extraordinary aesthetic sense, wonderfully sung in Gregorian chant and “celebrates pontifical abbey” with great stylish exterior, He is having trained at the monastic life by jumping from a “another particular friendship”. And today, all the “special friends” of yesterday, are abbots in the various abbeys, not to mention the monks that “special friendships” they sealed them with their vow in the monastic chapters and in the general chapter, ie how much it would be enough to pray God's mercy throughout their lives so that it can preserve them from Hellfire.

Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: self-portrait by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi known as Il Sodoma.

The funeral march on monasticism, after so many scandals in the abbeys and monasteries of Europe has finally played Dom Pietro Vittorelli, 191Th successor of St. Benedict of Norcia, who delighted to lead a life of luxury around Europe, to stay in expensive hotels and pay a high price the company of young gay with Abbey money [cf. WHO, WHO, WHO, etc …]. To this is then also added the use of drugs, for which has had consequent health problems cost the Abbey of Montecassino very high amounts when for a period of time the Abbot took refuge in a Swiss clinic to detox and to try to cure his cocaine addiction. The most tragic thing though is that he was not subjected to canonical penalties and has not been dismissed from the clerical state, so as to be still in the cronotassi Arciabati of Monte Cassino and in the yearbooks of the Italian Episcopal Conference as "Abbot Emeritus Professor ' [cf. WHO] rather than as "destitute".

the homoerotic figures for nothing hidden in painting “sacred” by Giovanni Bazzi known as Sodoma

(C)On the abbot of Montecassino the funeral march of monasticism has only come to an end, because the execution was carried out previously with moral scandals scattered abbeys spread across Europe. Of course, other cases it was able to treat them with confidentiality, from the Abbey of St. Paul Outside the Walls, Finally, the private status territorial prelature, to follow with the Abbey of Grottaferrata, where he was deposed Abbot Dom Emiliano maker, even in that case this happened especially for the nocturnal comings and goings of the inevitable paid young men who went to amuse some vicious monks, so much so that the Holy See - a rare thing indeed - proceeded to declare invalid certain priestly ordinations of young monks. We could follow with the St. Anselm Pontifical Athenaeum, academic structure of the Benedictine Confederation, to which Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski several times, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education [1999-2015], between 2007 and the 2008 intimated that if not cleaned up their internal college from various pleasantries and numerous fact coppiette, the Holy See would have shut him. To limit ourselves only ever scope Roman: what happened to the Cistercian Abbey of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, where he was elected abbot a former Milanese designer, also very gay, He rose from the fashion world to monasticism and become in a few years monaco, a priest and then abbot aesthetic? but yet, near the Aventine Hill, It is the General Curia of the Cistercian Monks, where a decade ago, at the time of certain facts, He lays the Abbot General Dom Mauro Esteva i Alsina [1933 — †2014], the concern of which was to impart obsessive etiquette lessons to young monks and verify that the dining hall was set with forks and knives positioned at the right distance to the right and left of the plate, or that the bows were made according to the proper angle, as if they had depended survival and the historic honor of the Cistercian Order. May today this man rest in peace in the crypt of the Abbey of Poblet Catalan and may the mercy of God forgive him with a mild purgatory all serious and irreparable damage to him went the entire Cistercian Order during its general mandate carried out between 1995 and the 2010.

particular: efebo winking

To retreat at the Roman Curia this year a member of the Congregation of Olivetan Benedictine Monks was chosen by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi and presented to the Pope, Dom Bernardo Gianni, Abbot of the Abbey of San Miniato al Monte in Florence. If nell'Archicenobio of Monte Oliveto Maggiore stands Sodom, San Miniato the most valuable frescoes are those of Spinello Aretino. The substance, however, remains the same, while ranging from the art of Sodom to that of the Spinel. And this - the Joint -, It would be particularly appreciated dall'Arciabate Montecassino Dom Pietro Vittorelli, that the drug was a great expert and consumer.

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The abbot of the Abbey of San Miniato in Florence He is one who can speak to this world. He speaks to the world language that appeals to the world. Indeed, the spiritual exercises, They will be marked on dreams and poetry: the dream of political Giorgio La Pira and the poetry of Mario Luzi, whose poetry, Christian speaking, it is certainly not that of the writer and

the homoerotic figures for nothing hidden in painting “sacred” by Giovanni Bazzi known as Sodoma

The abbot preacher, son of the noble Order of St. Benedict which we owe the survival of Christianity and the preservation of historical heritage, philosophical and literary, He will speak to the Roman Curia of a dreamer and a poet, as if it was a dream spirituality and theology poetry, as if the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, loudly proclaimed saint, had never written the Encyclical Faith and Reason, the base of which there is the thought of a great Benedictine Abbot, then Archbishop of Canterbury, Sant'Anselmo d'Aosta, who did not live the relationship with faith in dreams and poetry, but explaining that faith seeking understanding [faith requires reason] and in need: «I believe in order to understand, I understand that you can trust» [I think to understand, I understand to believe]. Unfortunately the famous Italian singer Lucio Battisti has been dead for years, otherwise, for the next retreat, perhaps Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi would have proposed the thoughtful lyrics of his famous song Emotions :

particular: ephebus winking that shows the rear

“And close your eyes to stop
something that's inside me
but in your mind it is not
You cannot understand
you call them if you want
emotions " [Mogol-Battisti, 1970]

We know that after the tragedy comes the increasingly grotesque farce precisely that ranges between Sodom and Spinello. All the more reason to pray and to cleanse us during this Holy Lent, in the course of which, the largest of the mortifications, It remains the awareness of not being credible in the world, but instead of being laughed at by the world, especially when the world to please try to speak the language of the world, after having emptied of Christ and of the mystery of the Cross, to fill us with dreams and poems … "you call them if you want emotions".

Cloister of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore: Sodom's insistent obsession with depicting the male posterior which “if offer” and in which we read the prophecy about the posthumous decadent monasticism …

One thing is certain: art leaves no sign simply on the walls, especially if certain pictorial images are the most realistic representation of who certain walls inhabits. Obviously, the question as to why seven hundred years of life the monks of the Benedictine Congregation Olivetan have given the Church blessed, santi, mystics, theology, doctors and spirituality fathers, It is a purely rhetorical question, the answer is in fact all contained in homoerotic images that stand in the frescoes realized by Sodom in the cloister; and the cloister is reached after entering the abbey territory passing through the building once used as bachelor pad abbots Renaissance revelers. In Paradise, instead, it comes only after converting, repented and cleansed of sins, no one comes or with Giorgio La Pira dreams, nor with poems by Mario Luzi. Lent begins with the imposition of ashes followed by the admonition "converted and believe in the Gospel", it does not begin with an invitation to believe in dreams and live poems …

the Island of Patmos, 08 March 2019

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Dom Bernardo Maria Gianni, OSB.Oliv. Abbot of San Miniato al Monte in Florence

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