The Zan Bill and the importance of the presence in the media of competent priests and religious who are also able to give a voice to the Church and Catholics in a country that wants to be truly secular and ready for dialogue

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Author
Editors of The Island of Patmos

No introductions would be needed, that we do just for the recordSister Anna Monia Alfieri, nun of the Congregation of the Marcelline Sisters, jurist and economist, is a face known to the general public for her participation as a columnist and expert on school and training problems in the Mediaset program Fourth Republic, conducted by Nicola Porro. With our Father Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo, columnist from the end of 2019 all program Straight and Reverse and subsequently to White area, both have dealt with it multiple times, in the various television programs, the problem of the Zan Bill, that if launched as it was drafted it could undermine the freedom of opinion guaranteed by the Constitutional Charter and put a gag on teaching in Catholic schools. Sister Monia spoke on 3 June 2021 at the IInd Commission of the Senate of the Republic on behalf of USMI (Conferences of the Italian Major Superiors of Religious Orders and Congregations) and of CISM (Italian Conference of Major Superiors of Religious Orders and Congregations). The 24 June, Sister Monia and Father Ariel also replied to the rapper Fedez that to defend this bill has made a false and inappropriate attack on the Vatican for non-payment of taxes on properties owned on Italian territory (!?). The President of theAPSA (Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See) S. AND. Mons. Nunzio Galantine, that further denied unfounded reports made to reach millions of his own by this "well-known intellectual" followers. This should already be enough to make some doubters understand the delicacy of certain themes and the vital importance of the presence of doctrinally and juridically trained priests and religious., able to communicate through television media. Otherwise, there is a risk of being locked in the ghetto of our sacristies and our Catholic peer schools, pretending not to see - if anything even with a dangerous spirit of careless superiority - that a large slice of the hostile world around us does not tolerate our very existence. Sister Monia and Father Ariel have never shown opposition to this Bill, how it has never been shown by the Italian Episcopal Conference and the Holy See, of which they became spokespersons in the media, clarifying that it is necessary to revise this text so that the crime of opinion does not end up being prosecuted [see last post of 24 June, by the minute 01.38]. Below is the text of the videoconference hearings with the intervention of Sister Monia in the context of the examination of the bills of law no.. 2005 e 2205 on combating discrimination or violence based on sex, gender or disability.

 

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- Church news -

THE DRAWING OF THE ZAN LAW AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRESENCE ON THE MEDIA OF COMPETENT PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS RELIGIOUS ABLE TO GIVE A VOICE ALSO TO THE CHURCH AND CATHOLICS IN A COUNTRY THAT WANTS TO BE TRULY LAY AND READY TO DIALOGUE

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The risks of resorting to "mass culture" and "punishment" to create a single thought are the two main limits that require us at least one revision of the Zan Bill, so that it is truly aimed at combating discrimination and not at exacerbating it with new figures. However, if the Bill recovers a harmonious development, then it can, perhaps, be a positive law, aimed at building bridges of integration; otherwise there remains the reasonable doubt that the interests that move the legislator are other

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Anna Monia Alfieri, I.M.

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Anna Monia Alfieri in Mediaset studies on the program Fourth Republic conducted by Nicola Porro

Subject of great discussions and debates these days is the Zan Bill, whose content, in all honesty, walking to the bottom, does not seem convincing. Certainly it is a duty to combat any form of discrimination, respecting human dignity and the principle of equality, to oversee which there is certainly no lack of adequate legal protections in our legal system, also criminal. I believe, however, that this Design goes in the opposite direction. Are, in the understanding of the legislator, there was only the protection of the person, it would be enough (I add dutiful) apply the existing legislation established by the Constitution of the Italian Republic in art. 3, therefore in art. 604 to e 61 of the Criminal Code.

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Does not exist, therefore, a regulatory gap to fill, as our legal system already protects life, the honor, the safety of people, without distinction of sex, religion, language, race and so on. Not the least, the aggravating circumstance is foreseen for having acted for abject and futile reasons. There is therefore the feeling that, since it is complicated to intervene with the certainty of the sentence and impunity, as on the training of young people in non-discrimination, there is a tendency to multiply the legislation and the consequent confusion. The legislation, not having to fill any void, necessarily creates confusion, given by a useless proliferation of the types of crime to be prosecuted, which will be clarified by the judiciary. This situation increases in an abnormal way the range of action of the judiciary and investigating power. We are all aware of the need to review the justice reform precisely in the light of the latest news events.

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Anna Monia Alfieri in Mediaset studies on the program Fourth Republic conducted by Nicola Porro

Evidently it is in the folds of detail discrimination creeps in. Indeed, when the law specifies with excess protection, it actually discriminates, introducing categories. I myself feel a certain discomfort in the face of a law that protects me because of the dress I'm wearing: anyone who discriminates against a religious, as such, is punished with an aggravating circumstance. I wonder: because of my choice of life, I must be included in a sort of "protected category"? Those who are proud of their diversity live it in the ordinary, in normality. No law can ever take the place of respect, integration, to the capacity of proximity. To impose respect means the failure of civilization. Here in summary described the first two reasons that see me against.

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I come to the third reason which reveals the true understanding of the law. The bill, creating a "protected category", opens the way to a new anthropological vision of a person raised to an anonymous system. Confusion is covered up with the law and the dominant thought is spread throughout the schools: any regurgitation of common sense is transformed into a crime.

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Anna Monia Alfieri in Mediaset studies on the program Fourth Republic conducted by Nicola Porro

Gender identity - let's be clear - it is far from being connected with the shared condemnation of homophobia, it is quite another chapter that does not rhyme with guarantee, protection, but with indoctrination, single thought, probably to ensure certain and widespread gains for some circuits. And this is where the three major rights opposed and mortified by the Zan Bill come in, which as it is written actually limits the freedom of thought and expression. Why protect a freedom (cf.. art. 4 Zan draft law) putting it in conflict with the "freedom of thought" recognized in art 21 the Constitution, evidently it is not just a legislative error, but a very dangerous step for the constitutional order of the secular and legal state. In fact, Art. 4 of this Design regarding the "Pluralism of ideas and freedom of choices":

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«For the purposes of this law, the free expression of beliefs or opinions as well as legitimate conduct attributable to the pluralism of ideas or the freedom of choices are reserved, provided that they are not suitable for determining the concrete danger of committing discriminatory or violent acts ".

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And here it is not clear how "legitimate conduct" can lead to "discriminatory acts". Of the two one: or the conduct is not legitimate, or the acts are not discriminatory. It is clear that art 4 goes in the opposite direction to freedom of expression and thus voids art. 21 of the Constitution it states:

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«Everyone has the right to freely express their thoughts with words, writing and any other means of dissemination ".

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Anna Monia Alfieri in Mediaset studies on the program Fourth Republic conducted by Nicola Porro

A second order of problems always on this step is: what and who defines the concrete danger? A modality of expression so vague and contradictory that it evidently creates not only a void but opens a legislative chasm and therefore of orientation for the individual. In crimes involving concrete danger, the danger is a constitutive element of the law and belongs to the investigating magistrate, to the prosecutors to concretely ascertain whether the protected legal property has been endangered. Therefore, the judge's discretion widens in a dangerous way and opens up the disturbing season of reporting as an easy tool to oppose a different thought about man.

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A law is not enough to not discriminate, because there will never be a law that can fill not the regulatory vacuum - which, however, does not exist - but that of thought that sometimes turns out to be a chasm. Gender equality requires the use of the right that exists, of the judiciary that must function and above all of a culture that is quite different from indoctrination and mass training.

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All’art 7 the Zan Bill limits the parents' freedom of educational choice provided for in art. 30 the Constitution. And here we remember that the education of children is the primary responsibility of parents and that no one, the school, the church, the state can take their place. Introduce strongly divisive themes into the school, ideological and moreover related to the sphere of sexual identity and education to affectivity certainly has negative effects. First of all, that of dividing. Then, if we add to this the consideration that the Zan Bill envisages conduct that is not clearly defined (cf.. also use of unclear terms that can be criminally sanctioned), the fear increases.

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Anna Monia Alfieri during the collection of the Ambrogino d'Oro award, Civic Merit Medal, for her civic commitment in favor of the freedom of educational choice and scholastic pluralism conferred on her the 7 December 2020

This art. 7 limits the freedom of teaching of teachers recognized in art. 33 the Constitution. Freedom of teaching would be emptied of its essential contents, that is, the didactic autonomy and the free cultural expression of the teacher. A freedom guaranteed by art 33 the Constitution: "Art and science are free and their teaching is free". Ratio: the freedom of teaching is functional to the development of the critical sense necessary for the achievement of the objectives of integral education of minors.

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Educational freedom of parents and teaching of teachers, as well as freedom of expression, are strongly questioned, even more with an art. 2 (incitement to discrimination) and an art. 4 so vague that it opens up to the crime of opinion without any orientation. Simply said,: what can be said and not said? No if its, then it will be better to keep quiet. The passage to the single thought, to monopoly, it would thus become an obligatory direction for the country.

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It is clear that in the combined provisions of art. 2, art. 4, so vague, and art 7 it is to be found the limit of the text of the Bill Zan che, as it is written, the gap of discrimination increases, feeds it, creates new legal figures of crime, it mortifies freedom of expression, parental education and teaching, it directs society towards a real ideological indoctrination.

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The text needs to be revised precisely in these aspects who tend to create a unique thought through blanket training that is no longer information, it does not provide the tools for children to learn to orient themselves… but it indoctrinates them. Practically discrimination and violence in reverse.

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the smile of a woman who reassures and honors the female Catholic religious world

The risks of resorting to "mass culture" and to the "punishment" to create a single thought are the two main limits that require us at least a review of the Zan Bill, so that it is truly aimed at combating discrimination and not at exacerbating it with new figures. However, if the Bill recovers a harmonious development, then it can, perhaps, be a positive law, aimed at building bridges of integration; otherwise there remains the reasonable doubt that the interests that move the legislator and that they are are other:

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1. divide and rule to spread a unique thought. Il monopolio è sempre pericoloso ed è propedeutico al regime;

2. di natura commerciale e marketing.

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Allora mi rivolgo ai ragazzi: abbiate il coraggio di conoscere, di approfondire, per non essere influenzabili né da me, né da nessun burattinaio. Sappiate orientarvi. So, se davvero al legislatore, come a tutti coloro che si sono riscoperti paladini dell’Art. 3 the Constitution, interessa realmente la difesa di un diritto, lo facciano fugando il campo da ogni ragionevole dubbio di interesse terzo.

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Dal Senato della Repubblica, 3 June 2021

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27 JUNE 2021 FESTA DEGLIOTTANTA MILIONI

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RINGRAZIAMO I NOSTRI LETTORI E VI PREGHIAMO DI NON FARCI MANCARE IL VOSTRO SOSTEGNO, INDISPENSABILE PER POTER PROSEGUIRE NELLA NOSTRA OPERA APOSTOLICA

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About the note from the Holy See on the Zan-Scalfarotto bill: tomorrow evening Father Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo will be a guest at the Dritto e Rovescio program on Rete4 to discuss the topic

ABOUT THE NOTE OF THE HOLY SEE ON THE DRAFT OF THE ZAN-SCALFAROTTO LAW: TOMORROW EVENING FATHER ARIEL S. LEVI di GUALDO WILL BE A GUEST AT THE PROGRAM STRAIGHT AND REVERSE ON NETWORK4 TO DEBATE ON THE TOPIC

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Author
Editors of The Island of Patmos

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The 17 June a "verbal note" was delivered to the Italian Ambassador accredited to the Holy See in which the concern that the Zan-Scalfarotto bill could harm the freedom of opinion guaranteed by the Concordat stipulated in the 1929 and then revised in 1984.

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Thursday 24 June Father Ariel will return as a guest in the Mediaset studios on the program Straight and Reverse conducted by Paolo Del Debbio to take part in the debate on this issue. The block in which it will participate will be broadcast in the late evening at 23.30 circa.

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The Roman Pontiff is against the Church and her Holy Predecessors who according to the mantra of the Neocatechumenals "approved us … they approved us!»

- Church news -

THE ROMAN PONTIFF IS AGAINST THE CHURCH AND ITS HOLY PREDECESSORS WHO ACCORDING TO THE MANTRA OF THE NEOCATECHUMENALS "HAVE APPROVED US ... THEY APPROVED US!».

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To understand the danger of this sect you need to know a bird and his way of acting, the cuckoo, belonging to the birds referred to as “parasites”. This bird species does not feed its young, that do not build their nest and prefer to lay their eggs secretly inside the nests of other birds. If the other birds recognize the foreign egg laid in their nest and eliminate it, may face what humans are known as "severe retaliation".

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On the Neocatechumenal Way, founded by bohemien Kiko Argüello supported by that concentration of arrogance and crass ignorance of the late Carmen Hernandez, assisted by Father Mario Pezzi who with rare shamelessness humiliated the sacredness of the priesthood by reducing himself to servant valet to two lay practitioners of the doctrine do it yourself and with proven gaps in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I have long formed a critical judgment based on facts and deeds, but above all on the dangerous omissions of the Supreme Pontiffs and Ecclesiastical Authorities, that acting over the years with condescension and weakness have allowed the development of metastases of this cancer within the Church of Christ.

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After careful research I gave it to the press in 2019 a critical essay on this para-Catholic movement: The sect Neocatechumenal. Before me, severe criticisms on the doctrinal and ecclesiological level were made by two Roman priests: In the 1983 by the Venerable Servant of God Pier Carlo Lad It is in the 1991 by the Passionist theologian Enrico Zoffoli. This latter was the victim of the anger of that dry velvet-covered bone of Cardinal Camillo Ruini, because thanks to him, then to his successor Agostino Vallini, the Neocatechumenals filled the palace of the Vicariate of Rome with their lay adepts and priests. These are the results: today, of the 332 parishes of the Diocese of Rome, the Neocatechumenals have some in hand 91. The few truly Roman parish priests who survive among what is called Roman clergy - made up mostly of Polish refugees, African, Indians, Latin Americans and so on - suffers the bullying of the Neocatechumenals in silence and a spirit of omission, except to find otherwise with monsignorotto on duty placed in the chancellery, or other similar placed in the various diocesan offices, than with the honeyed voice and the poisonous eye, from behind their beard in perfect condition Kiko Arguello cut they address a two-way sermon on humility. Obviously none of these threatens kiki has never invited that concentration of impudence of Carmen Hernandez to humility, that during an official meeting in the courtyard of San Damaso in the Vatican interrupted and corrected the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II while he was speaking. The prelates present commented that not even Napoleon Bonaparte, who also had the Supreme Pontiff Pius VII captured and translated prisoner, he never dared anything like that. And this applies to the various monsignorotti of the Vicariate who smiling behind them barbetta kika, to anyone who is hostile to the Neocatechumenal sect they preach on ... humility (!?). However, the whole is equivalent to a killer of the Camorra who invites us not to kill or a militant of the LGBT lobby who calls for chastity. Then everything else follows in acts of empire and arbitrary injustices towards anyone who has dared to disagree. For this reason, no one in Rome dares to speak out against the Neocatechumenal sect, especially in this historical moment of heroic priests defenders of the faith and sound Catholic doctrine.

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To understand the danger of this sect you need to know a bird and his way of acting, the cuckoo, belonging to birds referred to as “parasites” [cf.. to my aforementioned work pag. 135 and the following]. This bird species does not feed their young or build their nest, they prefer to lay their eggs secretly inside the nests of other birds. If the other birds recognize the foreign egg laid in their nest and eliminate it, may face what humans are known as "severe retaliation". In fact, the researchers explain: the cuckoo, in addition to being a parasite, he is also what in the human species is referred to as "mafia", a real Camorrista. If he returns to where he left the eggs and does not find them, he takes revenge by devastating the nest of others where he laid them, destroying its entire brood. At that point the other bird, understanding that if it touches the eggs laid by the cuckoo inside its nest it will suffer the devastation of its entire brood, it will begin to accept its eggs. Situation that over time will give birth to a new kind of balance: on the one hand parasites will increase and on the other the birds that unconditionally accept foreign eggs, knowing that otherwise they would face severe punishment. This is how parasitic birds destroy thehabitat natural of other birds, laying as many eggs as possible in their nests. The Neocatechumenals adopt the cuckoo technique, almost always succeeding in the undertaking they aim for, from the invasion of the parishes of Rome to the placement of their laity and faithful monsignorotti serventi in the Vicariate.

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My long discussion ends with these words: "I would like to be called tomorrow to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and to be told that I am wrong on the theological and ecclesiological level. I would be the happiest man and priest in this world. God only knows, in certain analyzes and the resulting judgments, how I wish I was wrong. The extreme apex of my joy would not be being told that I am right, but that I was wrong and that I am wrong ".

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Nobody called me to ask me for anything, nor for my severe criticisms of John Paul II, to whom the responsibility of having allowed lay movements to dominate the Church is historically attributable, or worse, to create real churches within the Church, all this took place after the ground was prepared and prepared in this sense by Paul VI.

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Since its publication, my book The sect Neocatechumenal it has had good feedback and diffusion in Italy and in Spanish-speaking countries. For now, I have only received an avalanche of insults from praetorians of the sect, while several deformed and deforming figures of the Catholic priesthood manufactured in the Seminaries mother of The Redeemer still continue to respond to the sectarians who ask for light on my work built with scientific rigor on evidence and documents: “Don't listen to that priest, It is a hater, it is necessary to pray for his conversion! We have the cards. Yup, we have the papers and we are approved… approved! Whoever is against us and our Initiators is against the Church and the Supreme Pontiffs who approved us… approved!».

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In an introductory note added in the second reissue released in February 2021, I launched another question, perhaps destined to remain unanswered too: what generous rewards have been lavished on Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, at the time private secretary of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, for having introduced Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernández to the Vatican with a frequency and familiarity never granted in twenty-six years of pontificate to all the other founders and foundresses of the various lay movements? Or perhaps it appears to some that Chiara Lubich or Luigi Giussani had free access to John Paul II whenever they wished., or that they dined frequently with him, with Carmen who then boasted in all Neocatechumenal circles that she was the only woman who was allowed to smoke cigarettes in front of the Supreme Pontiff?

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When before the Neocatechumenals and to all their staff the reigning Pontiff Francis I began by affirming:

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«[…] confirm your call, I support your mission and bless your charisma. I do this not because he (Ed. Indicates with the hand Kiko Argüello) He paid me, no! I do it because I want to do ' [6 March 2015, text of the official speech fragment video].

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He was perhaps in the mood for jokes, or rather it sent a precise and severe message, knowing what the Neocatechumenals are capable of and how they bought priests, bishops, cardinals and entire dioceses then ended up totally devastated during their five decades of savage piracy? I am waiting for an answer. In the absence of which I will feel entitled to apply the legal principle of silence assent, typical of those who have nothing to argue in the face of truth and clear evidence of the facts.

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By treating the Neocatechumenal Way with decisive severity and to follow other lay movements, I lacked in the analysis? How long to stop at, because June 11 2021, the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life The associations of the faithful that govern the exercise of government in international associations of the faithful, private and public bodies and in other entities with legal personality subject to the direct supervision of the same Dicastery, it seems to have taken into account, from first to last, of all the problems expressed by me and contained in this book. With a special Decree which I invite you to read, the competent dicastery tries to close the stables - I fear in vain - after the oxen have fled and run today in the wild producing the damage of the wild boar that devastates the vineyard of the Lord. All thanks to the Holy Pontiffs Paul VI and John Paul II, the undoubted holiness of which, however, did not exempt them from committing errors of evaluation and pastoral errors, sometimes serious. With all due respect to the neocatechumenal sectarians, convinced that, with the canonizations of Paul VI and John Paul II who “approved us… approved us!», their confused Path was not simply canonized, because it was absurd for them to think that their confused Way would have been really dogmatized.

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The Pope Francis I, through this Decree, however, he says the opposite, or better: to the test of facts it says exactly what I wrote two years ago. Now, i neocatecumenali, they intend to shout their painful mantra at him: "Whoever is against us is against the Church that approved us through two Supreme Pontiffs who are Saints today"?

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Your Welcome, I urge it, their mantra, to the man Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known for smiling in front of the cameras and on the public square, but at the same time capable of breaking the backs of rebellious opponents with sticks inside the closed rooms. Sit down, take a seat ...

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the Island of Patmos, 15 June 2021

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The Neocatechumenal model is a manipulator so devoid of critical sense and receptive spirit that from a speech like this one pronounced by the Supreme Pontiff Francis, which is all a reproach from start to finish, isolates and captures only six words: «[…] grateful for your good fruits ", all the remarks contained in this speech do not exist, they are in no way perceived and received, by people who, as Giovannino Guareschi said: "They threw the brain in a pile".

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
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Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci
Of the Order of Preachers
Presbyter and Theologian

( Click on the name to read all its articles )
Father Gabriele

The mustard seed: “The heaped grain rots, if instead it is scattered it bears fruit "

- homiletics -

Homiletics of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

THE MUSTARD GRAIN: "THE HUMPED WHEAT ROTS, IF IT IS LOST IT IS FRUITFUL "

The Gospel is therefore that grain that must be sown as much as possible: in these uncertain times of little solidity, precisely this seed of eternity and certainty must be given to the world for a pandemic that is above all isolation and distancing from love for God and neighbor.

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Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

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Today the Lord tells two parables to the crowd to make them understand the kingdom of God. We are that crowd too, today that on this Sunday we listen to His Word. Even when we were children, easily to make us understand some more complicated concepts, our parents, relatives and even the teachers used fairy tales, or simpler narratives. In this way we found ourselves immersed in an example, in a story or even in a tale and we were so closer, more familiar with what we needed to learn. Thus Jesus tells the parables of the sower and the mustard seed to make the great mystery of the kingdom of God closer and more familiar.. This is what the Liturgy of the Word on this XI Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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In the first parable we find the Sower who sows the seed. This seed, beyond the action of the sower, sprouts and grows. Then there is the action of the soil:

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«The soil spontaneously produces the stem first, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear; and when the fruit is ripe, immediately he sends the scythe, because the harvest has arrived "

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The kingdom of God then is like this fermenting seed. With a great sacred ferment, it reaches a maturity and finally it is then given to those who need it.

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Therefore the kingdom of God it is that place where one is prepared, taken care of, left to ferment to become fruitful gifts for the world. The kingdom of God, we will say, it is the Church, the New People of God who, in the union of all believers who in living their vocation become seeds of the Sower, that is, Jesus Christ. This kingdom grows, it expands in the love and charity of God: he welcomes within himself many other men and women eager for love and charity.

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This first parable then it is a call to all of us and to our life of faith and vocation: it is a simile in which we can ask ourselves if we are growing and fermenting, if we are giving our best in the state of life in which we are called, and if the fruits we offer to the world are truly fruitful because they are born from the Trinitarian seed of the Sower.

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The second parable or simile describing the kingdom of God is built on the mustard seed:

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“It's like a mustard seed that, when sown on the ground, it is the smallest of all the seeds that are on the ground; ma, when it is sown, it grows and becomes larger than all the plants in the garden and makes branches so large that the birds of the sky can make their nests in its shadow ".

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The image of the mustard seed it was familiar to the shepherds of ancient Judea, and for all those who lived in those lands. Once again, there is the idea of ​​this grain that grows, in a ferment which then makes it become so large that birds can nest there. Here Jesus almost inserts a visual contrast: the smallness of the seed at the beginning, and at the end of growth, its greatness. This image shows one of the qualities of the kingdom of God: its growth over time and history, waiting for a final fulfillment.

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That is why in this second simile, the kingdom of God in the strict sense is the Gospel that makes everyone who hears it holy. A Gospel that if we decide to make it ours, to live it coherently and authentically, it allows us to welcome a very great holiness and therefore to be creatures in the image and likeness of God. Truly the Gospel is a sacred leaven that gives us satisfaction, completeness and a lot of joy right now and then definitively in Heaven. The Gospel is therefore that grain that must be sown as much as possible: in these uncertain times of little solidity, precisely this seed of eternity and certainty must be given to the world for a pandemic that is above all isolation and distancing from love for God and neighbor. This, it is in fact that spiritual pandemic in some respects much worse than the coronavirus. The coronavirus pandemic virus does damage to the body, while the pandemic of the spiritual virus that has hit us, it deeply and severely damages the soul.

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Saint Dominic of Guzmàn wrote: “The heaped grain rots, if instead it is scattered it bears fruit ". For this clet us ask the Lord for the strength and grace to welcome the kingdom of God in us: to be seeds of living charity in the Church, to pour out rivers and words of eternal life over the whole suffering world, so that the gospel of life becomes the dawn of the civilization of love.

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Rome, 13 June 2021

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Rome, 6 June 2021

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Staff Blog

Father Gabriele

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News from the Dominican Province Roman: visit the official website of the Dominicans, WHO

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
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Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci
Of the Order of Preachers
Presbyter and Theologian

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Father Gabriele

You are the Lord the bread, you are food for us, risen to new life you are alive among us

- homiletics -

Homiletics of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

YOU ARE THE LORD THE BREAD, YOU FOOD ARE FOR US, RISEN TO A NEW LIFE YOU ARE ALIVE AMONG US

I adore you, latent Déitas, Within the forms, vere visitas: To Thee my heart I bow with bended, he said, Because, have you plans, all fails.

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Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

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Dear Readers of The Island of Patmos,

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in these times of global contagion, the decrees asked restaurants to remain closed or to open only at certain times. Perhaps we missed living that moment of serenity, of a break and also of joy that you usually spend with your friends and relatives. These are moments in which physical and interpersonal distancing has also taken away from us the joy of communion and the real presence of those we love.

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But today we are here to celebrate the banquet of Jesus Christ. The banquet of the Eucharist that we receive under the species of bread and wine, in which Jesus is substantially, really and truly present. It is such a great mystery, because it is the mystery of God who is truly and authentically present and living next to us in our life, redeemed by him forever in the Passion.

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The letter to the Hebrews explains precisely this special salvation to us in one passage:

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"He [Jesus] entered the sanctuary once and for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by virtue of his own blood, thus obtaining an eternal redemption " [cf.. EB 9,11-15].

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About the passion and death that we celebrated in the Easter Triduum, the letter to the Hebrews narrates that Jesus gave his Blood for us and obtained an eternal redemption for us. Here the text does not explicitly say the body as well, but it is implied that this is also being spoken of. The sacrifice of Jesus, bloody in the Passion, he freed us from the burden of slavery with sin contracted since the sin of Adam and Eve. So, unlike the Jewish ritual of sacrifice that purified from sins that was repeated every year, the bloody sacrifice of the blood of Jesus happened only once.

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These considerations they are useful for us to try to re-read the events that took place during the Triduum which culminated on Easter day. Maybe in those days we thought little about it, taken by a thousand things to organize for example work, the family, The holy Mass, Easter lunch … but yet, in those hectic days, the Lord has freed us from the great burden of sin. Offering himself innocent for all the guilty. It is true we are in the summer, but we must not forget the first days of April this spring. Let's try to think back to that great Easter sacrifice of love of Jesus for us.

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The fact that there has been a single historic bloody sacrifice does not leave out of this act of love, all of us who were born centuries after the days of the Passion. This is possible because Jesus, to perpetuate his sacrifice over the centuries and involve us in his great Love, he instituted the Eucharist, ii sacrificing a bloodless. The gospel tells us about it:

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"While they ate, he took the bread and said the blessing, he broke it and gave it to them, saying: “Take, this is my body ". Then he took a chalice and gave thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank from it. And he told them: "This is my blood of the covenant, which is paid for many. Truly I tell you, I will never drink of the fruit of the vine again until the day I drink it new, in the kingdom of God "" [cf.. MC 14,12-16.22-26]

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Here we see that Jesus offers the bread and wine, which he "transformed" into His Most Holy Body and Blood, to the apostles. Subsequently, the apostles and their successors will repeat the words of Jesus uttering them on bread and wine, who by transubstantiation will again present to those who participate the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. This is what the whole Church does today, when he celebrates the Eucharist.

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This great mystery is a sacrifice of love which for us still today means being in communion with the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharistic species. In fact, when we will soon receive the consecrated host, Jesus will take up residence in us, he will unite his Heart to our heart, our body will become the Temple of His Body and His Blood, and also of the Holy Spirit. According to some calculations, the Eucharistic species and therefore Jesus after being assumed remains united with us for fifteen minutes. In the time of distancing and isolation, the Lord makes himself bread to be intimate. And her intimacy with him, it calls each of us to love God and neighbor even more. The Eucharist is the sacrament of friendship and intimacy with God.

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The Roman historian Sallust wrote: “Wanting and not wanting the same things, this is true friendship ". So let's ask the Lord, especially today, to open our soul and our spirit to him and to his great Eucharistic love, to unite our will with Him now, to prepare ourselves for the definitive encounter in eternal bliss.

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Rome, 6 June 2021

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Latin hymn of the 1264
Author
San Tommaso Aquino

I adore you, latent Déitas,
Within the forms, vere visitas:
To Thee my heart I bow with bended, he said,
Because, have you plans, all fails.

All, touch, taste;, in too fallitur,
The hearing safely:
I believe all that the Son;
Nothing for truth.[2]

In cruce latébat sola Déitas,
But here lies hid at once the manhood too:
Ambo támen credens átque cónfitens,
Make the same thief.

Pests, like Thomas, not intúeor,
You, my God.
Make me believe more and more,
In the hope you, you diligent.

Memorial of,
living bread, giving life to man,
Grant my soul to live,
And always sweet taste.

Pie pellicáne, Jesus Lord,
I clean with your blood,
One drop of doing,
All the world from all kinds of crimes.

They are, whom now veiled,
Let it be done, so thirst:
Out, thy face,
Visually, I may see. Amen.

Translation of Roman Missal
Author
San Tommaso Aquino

O Jesus I adore you in the hidden host,
that, under these species, stay hidden:
Only in You does my heart abandon itself
Because contemplating You, everything is in vain.

The view, the sense of touch, the taste does not reach You,
but your word remains firm in me:
I believe in all of this / that the Son of God said:
nothing is truer than your word of truth.

You hid Divinity on the cross,
but your humanity is also hidden on the altar:
man-God faith reveals you to me,
I'm looking for what the repentant thief wanted.

I don't see wounds like Thomas,
however I confess that you are my God.
Make me believe in You more and more,
that he has hope in you and that he loves you.

O memorial of the Lord's death,
living bread that you offer life to man,
let my mind live on You,
and that you always taste sweetly.

O pious pelican Lord Jesus,
purify me, sinner, with your blood,
that, with a single drop, can save
the whole world from all sin.

O Jesus, which I now see,
I pray that what I so desire will happen:
that, seeing you with your face unveiled,
be blessed with the vision of your glory. Amen.

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News from the Dominican Province Roman: visit the official website of the Dominicans, WHO

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Two weeks of silence and an eye saved by Grazia Pertile at the Sacred Heart of Negrar, while as theologian I meditated: what a lack of humility can cause in men of science?

- pastoral care of health -

TWO WEEKS OF SILENCE AND AN EYE SAVED BY PERTILE GRACE TO THE SACRED HEART OF NEGRAR, WHILE I MEDITATED AS THEOLOGIST: WHAT CAN CAUSE THE LACK OF HUMILITY IN THE MEN OF SCIENCE?

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For this I thank God as a man of faith, priest and theologian: making me experience directly on my skin how high the virtue of Christian humility truly is. I understood this while I was memorizing the Roman Missal in Italian and Latin, scared that, even if a similar pathology had arisen in the healthy eye, the two beloved cats of Jorge Facio Lince and mine, Hypatia and Bruno, who live in the house with us, they should have learned to live with a German shepherd, who would wear a headband with a red cross, carrying me around the street with a white cane.

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PDF print format article

 

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Father Ariel S.. Levi di Gualdo at the entrance to the Sacred Heart Hospital of Negrar in front of the mosaic depicting San Giovanni Calabria, founder of the work

This article I could have owned it: Reflections on my skin. Basically the best, because it is one thing to contemplate with surreal fideism a beautiful ivory crucifix that makes art and useless emotional tenderness, an account to end up participating, even to a small extent, to the crucifixion of Christ, the only way to live the true faith, which is not emotional sentimentality, it would be enough to understand the words of the Divine Master who teaches: "If anyone wants to come after me, disown yourself, take up his cross every day and follow me " (LC 9, 23).

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In the last two years I was active on all fronts: I have written many articles on The Island of Patmos, published new books (cf.. WHO), video-conferencing product, teacher's lessons (cf.. WHO), participated in television programs on the Mediaset networks. Last in series order White area the 19 May led by Giuseppe Brindisi (see WHO by the minute 01:35 following), where I will be a guest again on 9 June. but yet, behind all this hyper activity, there was something serious, to the point of inducing me to think that I had to produce as much as possible, because maybe one day I would no longer be able to do certain jobs. I even memorized the entire Roman Missal in two languages, Italian and Latin, in case one day I wasn't able to read anymore ...

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What happened? This: in July of 2019 an injury to the retina of my right eye appears. It would have been necessary to intervene with an immediate "cerclage", but believing they were doing me good they practiced a mending with laser. After a month there is a total detachment of the retina and the eye remains completely blind. The retina is then surgically reattached, after the recommended and chosen surgeon informed me: «On a risk scale from zero to ten, she is at risk eleven ".

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the surgeon and retinal researcher Grazia Pertile, director of the ophthalmology department of the Sacred Heart Hospital in Negrar, San Giovanni Calabria Foundation

The intervention is successful, even if performed - which I will discover a year later - with an outdated technique, but not for this ineffective. Even today I am grateful to the surgeon who glued my retina back on. Of course, despite having done it privately using my health insurance policy, I was operated on a kind of "chair" with local anesthesia practiced through a puncture in the eye that I do not wish even for a smuggler who transports human beings from Africa to the Italian coasts with serious risk to the lives of women and children. So I thought it worked, to the point that I didn't bother to ask: … But in this splendid five-star hotel-style private clinic, you don't even have a shred of anesthetist? Money, you spend them all in the interior furnishings to throw smoke in the eyes of the Ladies and Gentlemen of the beautiful society who come to get the cosmetic surgery touch-ups?

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The fact is illustrated in broad lines, it is useless to detail the clinical procedure, because I intend to talk about something else. I only specify that everything was aggravated by a haemorrhage in the eye that occurred due to natural causes during the operating session, which caused the damage to the photoreceptors, ie the cells of the retina that allow focusing. With the right eye, with which I saw only crooked shadows, I couldn't read and write. All made worse by an "extensive membrane" that formed a few months later on the retina.

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The surgeon who operated on me and reattached the retina, undoubtedly saving my eye from total blindness, he took care not to expose my state, which for nearly two years I ignored, after being liquidated with a verdict on which I had made a good reason: "More than this the eye will not be able to recover".

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the surgeon and retinal researcher Grazia Pertile, director of the ophthalmology department of the Sacred Heart Hospital in Negrar, San Giovanni Calabria Foundation

A very dear friend, one of several Roman clinicians with whom they are in close friendship, man of great science and experience, he himself accompanied me to an authentic international authority in the field of retinal surgery. After a series of in-depth examinations, the eminent clinician examined my eye with the manual lens for about half an hour and calmly and mercilessly gave me the whole story: from the mending laser to be avoided until the intervention is carried out well, the haemorrhage that had been silenced and so on. Concluded the great expert in retinal surgery: "Personally, in this already very treated eye, I would not put my hand to it, because the less you touch the better, But …".

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Needless to say: an eminent scholar of the retina and a great leader, he could tell me in front of a couple of his student surgeons that someone else might be able to do what they would not have dared to do out of understandable prudence? That simple "but ..." was enough to let me indirectly understand what cannot always be said directly. However, I am also a student of a long-time diplomat in the service of the Holy See, who in the field of diplomacy has educated me properly in long years of filial relationship.

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Time ago my dentist's husband had spoken to me in tones of wonder about Doctor Grazia Pertile, director of the ophthalmology department of the Sacred Heart Hospital in Negrar, San Giovanni Calabria Foundation, in the province of Verona (cf.. WHO). This distinguished specialist and well-known researcher of European fame, had saved his eye later 7 surgery performed in a disastrous way by renowned surgeons, or at least of fame on the cards… political. And the damage that was caused to him was such that from evening to morning he operated on it urgently, while the eye was now about to go into necrosis. My decision, jump in the car and in June of 2020 I go to Negrar where I pay a visit with Doctor Mauro Sartore, who reveals himself to me as an angel of God and who after all the necessary tests tells me that the damage to the photoreceptors is currently irreversible, but by removing the extensive retinal membrane and correcting the previous surgery, vision can significantly improve. In October, I am visited by Doctor Grazia Pertile who reaffirms the diagnosis of her collaborator and offers me the intervention, also because otherwise, the eye, it would have been doomed to total blindness within a few years or more.

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Mauro Sartore, retinal surgeon of the staff of Grazia Pertile, ophthalmology department of the Sacred Heart Hospital of Negrar, San Giovanni Calabria Foundation

The 24 May I made the pre-admission, the 25 I was operated on and the 26 resigned. I then went to Lake Maggiore with my friends de The Island of Patmos Enrico and Liliana, who gave me days of splendid convalescence in their villa. I write this article today, in my hotel room in Valpolicella, after having carried out the post-operative check-up this morning with Doctor Mauro Sartore.

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When I walked into the operating room to Negrar, before my eyes one appeared team fully composed of several people, with all due respect to the no-roast smoke of a private clinic that in the outer frame looked like a five-star hotel, where, however, they shot me a puncture in the eye to give me a local anesthesia. A completely different story at the Sacred Heart of Negrar, where lying on the cot, not on some kind of armchair, no one approached me wild pointer, but the anesthetist who gave me total anesthesia, during which I was also intubated. I remember falling asleep while acting: I thank God Almighty and you, brothers, because I have sinned exceedingly in thought, verb, works, and omissions (I confess to almighty God and to you brothers, that I have sinned much in thoughts, words, works and omissions ...) and that I woke up saying "Jesus Christ be praised» (Praised be Jesus Christ). And a few days later I fully understood how much I had to praise Jesus Christ.

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A few days after surgery, with the eye still clouded, I already see all the perfectly straight lines and outlines. I distinguish and read the characters of the large letters, those of the billboards, signs and book covers, that before I did not see or read.

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The Doctor Grazia Pertile she is a very reserved woman, pronounces a few words. His is a job that is not done with words, useful and indispensable for other kinds of scientific practices. It's a job, his, of pure action, an authentic operating room monster with a more unique than rare dexterity. It is I who have always been in close contact with the most delicate spheres of the human being, I immediately understood the kind of blue-eyed angel I was in front of. So I just played on his name, pulling out of theAve Maria only two but incisive words: «Full of Grace» (full of grace). Yup, I greet you Woman full of grace, able to truly put to good use the extraordinary grace that God has placed in your hands.

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Entrance to the Sacred Heart Hospital of Negrar with the statue of San Giovanni Calabria

Lours Patmos Island hasn't published any articles in the last few weeks because it coincides with me, our Capuchin editor Father Ivano Liguori also had health problems that led to fifteen days of hospitalization. A month and a half ago he suffered from right migraine pain with ipsilateral tingling paresthesias and ptosis in the right eye, who required hospitalization in neurology for thorough investigations, having been a patient with two autoimmune diseases for about four years, one to the kidneys (an interstitial nephritis) and one to the liver (a primary biliary cholangitis). Like this, Father Ivano and me, from one end of Italy to the other we have been absorbed by health events. Meanwhile, Father Ivano continued neurological tests for days to keep ptosis in his right eye under control, improved but not fully resolved yet, I was about to carry out surgery on the retina of my right eye, occurred through a hospitalization of only two and a half days, which, however, involved preparation and convalescence. This has been our situation for the past few weeks, we make it public today to clarify our silence, adding to the whole a very positive fact: in the month of May dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, eighty million visits to our magazine were exceeded during the last four years of publishing and publishing activity. Even more so, do not think that the Devil had to somehow put a hand in it?

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Telling this story of mine it almost involved a violence exerted on myself. Each of us has the right to their own privacy. However, this story of mine is the paradigm of a very ancient human drama that we all have to deal with ever since Adam and Eve committed original sin., which I remember was a sin of pride, so serious as to alter the perfect balance of the world created by God, but above all of man himself, made in the image and likeness of the Divine Creator, who previously did not know about physical decay, the illness, pain, old age and death, all consequences of that great sin of rebellion, of that pride of which the lack of humility has always been the favorite daughter.

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research on the artificial retina conducted by Grazia Pertile

From bricklayer to designer, from the plumber to the carpenter, from the manager at the chef and go on to follow, when man is faced with something he is unable to do, often begins by saying: "It is not possible, It can not be done". I do not say almost always or of practice, but often those who respond in this way know very well that certain things are possible to do. But for no reason would he admit that others are capable of doing what he is unable to do. Of course, however serious they may be, the damages or incapacities of certain craftsmen and technicians are almost always limited. However, when attitudes of similar pride generating blind lack of humility are put in place by an oncologist or a surgeon, what can happen? Our Capuchin editor Father Ivano Liguori, specialist in health pastoral care, who for years served as a chaplain in a large hospital, our young Dominican editor Father Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, great scholar on the theological and ecclesiological level of the problem of disabilities, how many cases that resulted in the disaster have they known? I'll take it too, who as a priest have always been close to and dedicated to assisting the terminally ill and disabled, reiterating at every turn that we priests who have tried their hand at research studies and high theological speculations must have more to do with human material than ever, except to otherwise generate monsters of inhumanity that live in the hyperuranium of ecclesiastical universities, drowned in the world of the unreal and in the spasmodic search for career successes and self-affirmation.

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When we talk about the virtue of Christian humility, we priests and theologians certainly do not mean the beguine or the wrong-necked dream Catholic who pretends not to feel worthy or up to par. Humility is quite another: it is the virtue of the great. Only adults can confront their human limitations every day, thus fleeing the most harmful forms of inhumanity, those who carry their egocentrism or their hypertrophic narcissism above the very value of human life. Here then is the heart surgeon who, despite knowing perfectly the existence of a particularly good colleague who has specialized for years in that specific heart malformation, prefers to say "you can't do anything else ... you can't do more than this ... get over it ...", not to say that the patient could be saved by other hands. The same is true for certain oncologists, or for certain retinal surgery specialists and so on.

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the ophthalmology staff of Grazia Pertile, Sacred Heart Hospital of Negrar

And we want to talk of clinical barons which usually surround themselves with half notches, having to shine with its own light? Or forget as many half notches placed as assistants to distinguished clinicians at the suggestion of companies and banks that finance foundations and research institutes? What happens next, to the sick attracted by the mirage of the great luminary, when they go to his ward where they end up being operated on by some of his mediocre assistants? The world of the clinic is quite different, of the surgery and research of Doctor Grazia Pertile, who does not fear shadows on the star that she is but who has formed a staff of surgeons who are all very good. Another world, in the midst of so many clinical things from the other world that often take you away from the life of this earthly world decades in advance.

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For this I thank God as a man of faith, priest and theologian: making me experience directly on my skin how high the virtue of Christian humility truly is. I understood this while I was memorizing the Roman Missal in Italian and Latin, scared that, even if a similar pathology had arisen in the healthy eye, the two beloved cats of Jorge Facio Lince and mine, Hypatia and Bruno, who live in the house with us, they should have learned to live with a German shepherd, who would wear a headband with a red cross, carrying me around the street with a white cane.

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On my path, between so much scientific and omissive arrogance and pride, but I have known mine Ave Maria, the Woman full of grace, the Doctor and researcher on retinal surgery Grazia Pertile. And I fully understood the theological and salvific value of Christian humility, the one that makes you great and that saves your soul from eternal damnation.

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from Negrar in Valpolicella, 3 June 2021

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THANKS PERTILE EXPLAINS THE AVANT-GARDE TREATMENTS FOR RETINA PATHOLOGIES

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Visit the pages of our book shop WHO and support our editions by purchasing and distributing our books.

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
risks but also the costs. Help us supporting this Island
with your offers through the secure Paypal system:









or you can use the bank account:

payable to Editions The island of Patmos

IBAN IT 74R0503403259000000301118
in this case, send us an email warning, because the bank
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