FROM THE RIGHT OF CRITICISM TO HUMILITY OF FRANCESCO D’ASSISI: MAYBE WE WILL NOT BE ASKED TO PLANT THE CABBAGE IN THE OPPOSITE BUT AT LEAST LET US FREE TO SAY WHAT WE THINK, NOT SO MUCH FOR US BUT FOR THOSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO DO IT AND CANNOT DO IT

- Church news - Mine previous article on pretini trendy in which I quoted a poem by the presbyter Luigi Maria Epicoco, it can be criticized or mocked with complete freedom. But it is beyond any reasonable doubt that in it we can find only and only a clear criticism of a well-determined priestly style that is gaining ground in the Church today., a way of being a priest that competes with the world and not opposed to it, certainly not an attack on individual people of some “image priests”.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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St. John Mary Vianney, patron of presbyters and parish priests

I don't normally use appendages for clarification regarding the articles I write. And this for a very simple reason, I care a lot about the expository precision and I try to use the words in the right context and with the right sense, avoiding leaving to wild misunderstanding and personal interpretation conclusions that do not represent me and that I have never even thought in the least. The rest, as any editor knows perfectly well, you are only responsible for what you write, not for what others want to understand or misunderstand.

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Clarified this, although I do not consider it necessary to add superfluous clarifications to what I wrote and signed on the columns of The Island of Patmos both today and in the past, I wish to take a cue from my last article on pretini trendy to underline and deepen certain issues that seem to upset some of our fellow readers who feel hurt, or even offended by a healthy criticism that it is right and proper to introduce even and above all within ecclesiastical circles where the strange belief that the Holy Spirit is often present as a magical agent through which it is possible to fix everything and save everything.

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That it is right and proper to operate a healthy criticism we are told first of all by the freedom that we have received as a gift from God together with that capacity of sentient beings who have been given a head not only to divide the ears or rest the hat on them but also to exercise critical reasoning through the which one comes to the knowledge of things, therefore ultimately to the truth also incurring physiological errors. Criticism is therefore a sacrosanct right, even when exercised by a baptized Christian, and it is right to exercise it just to resize, contextualize or de-mythologize certain situations or people who would otherwise risk proceeding at full speed. All of this, in Catholic tradition and in ecclesiology it has a very specific name, is called: freedom of the children of God.

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First a question: exercising the freedom of the children of God and with it the right to criticize means harming one's neighbor? Absolutely not. In the right to criticism, attention is paid that abstains from personal judgment by sticking only to the facts. Indeed, the many beautiful souls who today read our articles de The Island of Patmos, they still confuse the right of criticism that touches ideas, the choices, the writings, the public positions of public individuals with contemptuous judgment on the person. And this is as dangerous as it is wrong, because by doing so, criticism is prevented from generating that gentle - sometimes pungent - touch which is essential for the personal improvement of the individual. Criticism is an indispensable factor for human growth - Sacred Scripture itself criticizes man - it leads to a healthy humility so as to preserve the individual from insidious drifts and transform difficulties into opportunities for growth.

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I would like to remind our readers that there is nothing wrong with expressing one's critical opinion towards any person and that we are all subject to criticism, including the writer. On the contrary, judging someone is always and only evil because a position is expressed that is not critical but which is detrimental to the life of the other, something that Christ has expressly forbidden in the Gospel [cf.. Mt 7,1; LC 6,37] and which was reserved for the Father, who is the only one who has a full and intimate knowledge of everyone's heart.

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If anyone claims: "I don't like Father Ivano's articles because they are banal and not at all in line with the theology of the outgoing Church desired by Pope Francis", as Author I cannot and must not feel offended, because I know that it is in the reader's full right to criticize what I have written and not agree with what I have expressed. The most appropriate thing would be to bring the evidence of the criticisms that have been made so that the Author can confront them and decide if these critical findings are well founded and can help him do better.

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If, on the other hand, one affirms: "I don't like Father Ivano's articles because they express the wickedness of a repressed person who became a friar to escape the fatigue of the world and live behind society", this is a malicious and malevolent judgment on my person who claims to have intimate knowledge of the heart and its intentions.

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In more than twenty years of convent I have personally met religious who certainly did not shine for personal hygiene, convinced that even a lack of personal care was an indication of poverty and adherence to evangelical simplicity. To make such a criticism of those friars: "You neglect your personal hygiene so much that your suit stinks" is not the equivalent of saying "you are a dirty and filthy bum".

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I also met pretini which perfumed themselves exaggeratedly enough to impregnate the consecrated particles of Hugo Boss and of Giò water while distributing Communion to the faithful that not even a Puerto Rican prostitute of the late nineteenth century could have done better. Well, It is one thing to tell him "friend you suck like a prostitute" equating him with a woman of easy virtue, another is to say "try not to overdo the care of yourself so that it is exaggeratedly vain". In short, the examples are clear and there is nothing to add.

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In my previous article a few days ago [see WHO], I was inspired by a reflection made by the presbyter Luigi Maria Epicoco on the figure of the priest. This writing of mine was not born primarily as an article but as a personal critical opinion given to a dear reader of The Island of Patmos who asked me for light on this reflection on the priesthood that, to say of this same Reader, it was considered valid even if with too many redundant rhetorical phrases of circumstance. For this reason, I felt compelled to exercise my right to criticize and answer the question, going to read the text by Luigi Maria Epicoco and then draw conclusions about it.

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Less than two hours after the publication of my article resentful and sorry comments flocked to the page Facebook of Father Ariel in which the grievances for my article were expressed that, according to some, he targeted his confrere for free, exposing him to public derision in a merciless way. This reminded me of the classical high school years, when as a boy I saw my classmates complain because they had received a failure from the literature teacher on the subject of Italian, justifying themselves by saying: “He did it because he doesn't approve of my person, is mad at me ".

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Mind you well, in my article I answered on the merits of that text on the priesthood of Luigi Maria Epicoco, for its content, for its ecclesiological and social value and for what a text like that can mean today, in a context of the Church and the laity very often burdened by conformism and that omnipresent patina of clerically correct which is none other than that attitude that, in lay sauce, it is reintroduced within the political life of the country, in the social realities we are experiencing and in post-pandemic interpersonal relationships. No hint, so, of personal attack on the person of the brother or initiative aimed at discrediting his good reputation.

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After having had the opportunity to respond to our Reader who had asked me for clarification regarding those scattered thoughts on the priesthood, I also had the opportunity to think about a new ecclesial category which is that of pretino trendy - an adjective that does not constitute a criminal or canonical offense and is therefore exempt from any sanction - within which today many priest confreres, right or wrong, they have centered their ministerial style to relaunch the Gospel message with some success.

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Nowadays, in the media era of Big Brother, everything can be traced back to the trendy, to feel fashionable: any pretino image with a clean face who wears his handsome flawlessly clergyman sartorial as well as the former disco throne player who from the cube and the ball glitter passes to the rectory. We are often tickled by bewitching stories in which a former TV host enters the seminary, or fascinated by the events of a former drug addict converted to monasticism who, from the peace of the cloister, become a viral evangelizer of cry through YouTube O TikTok. In short, wanted characters, fashionable, in a word trendy.

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They will tell me, Luckily there is someone like that, we need these examples of hope. Yes and no. I wouldn't be so thrilled, in fact, it has been seen that over time many of these subjects remain trapped within their previous lives, in what has been their past and which becomes the pedometer to mark and evaluate the present condition even when this coincides with the priest or consecrated choice.

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But that is not all, you can be trendy even within the Catholic Church. This is the case, for example, of those priests who immediately after sacred ordination begin the climb that will lead them to a doctorate in a prestigious pontifical academy., then towards a dazzling career that could begin as rector in seminaries or institutes of religious sciences, as an animator of important university chaplaincies such as the Gemelli in Rome or the Cattolica in Milan and then continued as a writer, lecturer and finally speaker of spiritual exercises with some hosted in broadcasts cult - the episcopal TV2000 - and all this as soon as you cross the canonical threshold of forty years. I don't know about you, but for me all this borders on exaggeration.

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This priestly style today it is more present than ever in many dioceses where we see the bishop asking for everything and more from these priests child prodigy deemed the not any more of the presbyteral order. And precisely in the name of this intellectual value, the poor priest sees himself burdened by ever more intense diocesan offices, from the formation of permanent deacons to conferences to the monthly retreat of the clergy. Obviously, also the pretino trendy child prodigy, which remains like everyone else burdened by the wound of original sin and concupiscence, he will soon feel like Romeo er mejo cat of the Colosseum. He will come to justify himself in conscience for what he has become, done and obtained, recognizing their personal merit and self-denial to studies. The esteem he will have of himself will be ascribed above all to his mentor, to that good devil who was able to lead him to certain goals by instilling in him the veiled illusion that within all this there is the permission of God who has placed around the pretino trendy a hedge of protection as we see happening in the life of good old Job before his calamities [cf.. Gb 1,10].

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At this point we return to the discourse on the right to criticize and let's associate it with the image of pretino trendy that I have just described. If I say that perhaps this confrere is burning his steps a little too quickly and that perhaps he needs a reshaping, also through serene criticisms of what it looks like, on the image he transmits of himself to others and on the things he says and thinks, this - in my view - can only help the pretino trendy because it will force him to keep an eye on the style of his priestly life and to take into due consideration the criticisms leveled at him. In other words, this is the style of humility of the saints that we usually magnify, only to then imitate and understand why such an example of humility is also reached through criticism, something that we poor sinners almost always struggle to accept, mistaking criticism for judgment.

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In the Fioretti the episode in which St. Francis of Assisi is narrated he asks Brother Leo to say the divine office in a singular way. Because they did not have the breviary, Francis orders Brother Leo to repeat prayers which are nothing more than the recognition of his own poverty and misery presented to God as hymns of humility and a request for help:

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«O Brother Francis, you did so many evils and sins in the century, that you are worthy of hell; and you, Brother Lyons, you will answer: It is true that you deserve the deepest hell " [cf.. FF 1837].

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This episode precedes the question of Friar Masseo who asks the Seraphic Father for the secret of his success:

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«[…] because the whole world is addressed to you, and each person seems to want to see you and hear you and obey you? You are not a handsome man of the body, you are not of great science, you are not noble; Where, so, to you that the whole world comes after you?» [cf.. FF 1838].

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Francesco does not disdain to answer Friar Masseo that God has seen no more cowardly among sinners, more insufficient and greater sinner than him. He has no problem confessing his human inadequacy, neither to affirm his own intellectual poverty nor to flee at the same time what could be a source of pride for him, because he lived the paschal experience of the risen Christ who transformed him by removing him from the condition of a son trendy of Pietro di Bernardone and making him a small and humble disciple of the Crucifix.

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I who am not San Francesco I can be touched with pride by a criticism, also offended by a judgment but this will have in me the only good merit of making me aware that I am still far from being humble as Christ commands me.

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In the history of the Capuchin Order I have heard from the elderly friars of the cabbage test. Some novices were subjected by the novice master to the test of cabbages planted upside down to test their humility and obedience. This evidence recalls what Saint Francis did at the Montecasale hermitage located in Sansepolcro in the province of Arezzo. Friar Bartolomeo da Pisa narrates:

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"Once, two young men came to Blessed Francis, begging him to be received into the Order. Blessed Francis, wanting to prove whether they were truly obedient and prepared to deny their will, led them to the garden saying: “Come on, let's plant cabbages and as you see me doing, so in that way you plant too ". While the blessed Francis, planting, it put its roots upwards towards the sky, and the leaves under the ground, one of them did everything like Blessed Francis, the other did not imitate him, but he said: "Not like that, Dad, cabbages are planted, but on the contrary ". And blessed Francis answered him: "Son, I want you to do like me ". But he does not want to do it, because it seemed wrong to him, Blessed Francis told him: "Brother, I see you are a great teacher, go your way, because you are not suitable for my Order "".

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The proof is certainly singular but it has its own profound and meritorious meaning. S. Francis has no intention of making fun of the young man's intelligence by commanding him something nonsense, it wants to contradict the reasonableness of the agricultural reality that foresees planting a vegetable according to the right direction. The Seraphic Father just wants to accustom that young man to deny his fashion mentality - trendy ―, which is the legacy of that worldly way of acting that one must necessarily leave behind to follow the crucified Christ as priests or consecrated persons.

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I conclude by saying that my article on pretini trendy it can be criticized or mocked with complete freedom. But it is beyond any reasonable doubt that in it we can find only and only a clear criticism of a well-determined priestly style that is gaining ground in the Church today., a way of being a priest that competes with the world and not opposed to it.

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No personal attacks then towards his brother Luigi Maria Epicoco who remains lovable as a popular national singer whom everyone loves, a sort of Gianni Morandi in short. But if for someone the reference to the priests with a clean face and Instagrammable or to the poems from Perugina chocolate kisses it could constitute an infamous offense to be prosecuted, well they can only be disappointed because all this is just a way to convey a message, a style, which I hope will produce some good in the future. For you see, perhaps to us Fathers de The Island of Patmos we will not be asked to plant cabbages with the roots in the air and the leaves buried but surely we will be required to continue to criticize, to use reasoning and to pursue the truth to give voice to those who think the same things we think and who for a thousand reasons or for reasons of high ecclesial and ecclesiastical office, unfortunately they cannot tell you.

the Island of Patmos, 22 February 2022

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Father Ivano's latest book is on sale in the online shop of The Island of Patmos

to go to the shop click on the image

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THE EXCOMMUNICATED PRIEST ALESSANDRO MINUTELLA AROUND THE WORLD HUNTING FOR SOULS AS A FISHERMAN DEMON AND THE LETTER OF FATHER ARIEL TO THE APOSTOLIC NUNZES IN LATIN AMERICA

On the Minutella there is little to giggle with amused clerical spirit, much to cry instead, because behind this Luciferian barker who seems to be born of an unnatural relationship between Wanna Marchi and the Magician Otelma there is the ruin of souls and the pain of many desperate families.

VERSION IN SPANISH LANGUAGE HERE

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

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the presbyter of the Archdiocese of Palermo Alessandro Minutella, incurred excommunication automatic and then reached by the dismissal decree in punishment by the clerical state

The excommunicated priest Alessandro Minutella, reached on 18 November 2021 by the extreme and rare decree of dismissal from the clerical state issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he is currently on a business trip to various Latin American countries. The 16 February landed in Brazil, from where it will reach Uruguay and Argentina, as announced by him.

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To use an idiom which is part of the historical lexicon of Sicily, glorious land to which he belongs and in which he became presbyter of the primatial archdiocese of Palermo, the Minutella is a forge of minchiate produced on an industrial scale and spread through the canals social Of Facebook e YouTube. Unfortunately, the mistake that some of our Bishops and we priests sometimes make, is to laugh with fun at the absurdities beyond any logical criterion, philosophical, theological, ecclesiological and juridical that he vomits in a violent and hateful way in a continuous jet. Unforgivable mistake on our part, because behind its absurdities there is the drama of ruined souls and entire families suffering from one or more of their members who have followed this villain.

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Among his various statements of unprecedented gravity, in addition to his battle horse about the illegitimate and invalid election of the reigning Pontiff, there is the terrifying assertion that the Holy Masses celebrated by priests "in communion with the false usurper pope Bergoglio emissary of the Antichrist are invalid". In the same way, all the Sacraments administered by us are invalid. In his numerous neuro-video-delusions, Minutella has come to argue that we priests do not celebrate Holy Masses but "Satanic Masses during which the faithful are nourished not with the Body of Christ but with the body of the Antichrist".

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The people he drags along I'm, mostly, fragile subjects lacking in logic and critical sense. Yet it would be enough for the followers to ask themselves this simple question: currently the priests working in the world are about 450.000. It is possible that the only Holy Masses and the only valid Sacraments are those celebrated by Minutella and that other priest “ran away from home” who followed him? A mind endowed with elementary sense, can really believe that right now, all over the world, the only valid Holy Masses and Sacraments are those administered by two excommunicated and schismatic priests, while the others 449.998 priests around the world celebrate Masses and administer fake sacraments?

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His followers another question should also be asked: al Minutella, who has been traveling the world for three years, regardless of living expenses and more, who is the one who provides the money to move with them and camp out from one five-star hotel to another? Three years ago the Minutella traveled all over Europe by car, then he began to make intercontinental trips to various countries of Latin America. We all know how much it costs to travel for a group of people and how much the living expenses cost. Someone really thinks it is funded by the simple and modest people who at the end of his rants live on Facebook they call him to ask questions or to praise him, struggling to express a sentence in correct Italian? Who finances it, perhaps the poor widow over seventy that she sends every month 10 euro bid, convinced that this priest is a true prophet "sent by Our Lady" and an authentic martyr persecuted "by the false Church of the false pope"? Behind the Minutella phenomenon there are lenders who move very different amounts of money, it is clear. So the question is a must: who is comfortable with this crazy priest, excommunicated and discharged from the clerical state, that like a loose cannon sows daily hatred and contempt towards "the false Church" of the "Accursed Bergoglio heretic and apostate"? Who is comfortable with Minutella outside the Church, but above all within the Church? His followers ask, if he has only two neurons left in his head capable of giving birth to a logical and critical reasoning.

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Yet there are those who believe and follow this false prophet, so much so that for some years we have been committed to assisting suffering families who come to us because children and family members have left the elderly and the sick to die without the comfort of the Sacraments and without funeral services, or cases of desperate husbands or wives, because the other spouse refused to baptize the child except at the structure erected in the province of Palermo where Minutella operates.

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(C)therefore open that there is little to giggle with amused clerical spirit, much to cry instead, because behind this Luciferian barker who seems to have been born from an unnatural relationship between Wanna Brands and the Magician Otelma there is the ruin of souls and the pain of many desperate families.

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As soon as the Minutella made a video public in which he greeted his “faithful people” from Brasil, announcing that he would soon go to Paraguay and Argentina, I proceeded to send a letter to the Apostolic Nuncios of the countries in question, auntil the Pastors of the Dioceses concerned are informed and can inform their priests, preventing the Minutella from sneaking into Marian shrines and religious institutions, to shoot videos inside them and then launch his hate-possessed challenges who create hatred and instigate hatred.

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the Island of Patmos, 20 February 2022

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THE INSOLENT CHALLENGES OF MINUTELLA TO THE "FALSE CHURCH" OF THE "FALSE POPE": THROW PUTRID MUD DIRECTLY FROM INSIDE THE SANCTUARY OF OUR LADY OF APARECIDA AND THEN SPREAD IT IN PUBLIC VIDEOS

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- Church news -

THE SENSE OF THE FAITHFUL AND THOSE CATHOLIC ALABARDIERS GUARDIANS OF THE TRUE FAITH WHO ARE IN FACT LUTHERANS AND MODERNISTS WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING THAT THEY ARE

The outlandish theories of the Catholic halberdiers reach terrible practical and pastoral conclusions, but above all they end up being, in concrete facts and in their approach to faith, of the perfect Lutherans, without realizing it is, unaware that many of their critical reasons are the same as Martin Luther's. Certain subjects fall into Lutheranism in one way, in modernism on the other hand, except to feel and believe the only ones, alone and authentic guardians of the true faith and the authentic Catholic tradition.

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

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keyboard lion with a hobby of theology and Church history

Lately I've been reading several theological proclamations around the net. A little’ it's my fault, because I'm a cyber preacher friar, so cyber teologo who surfs the net and often comes across rather strange theological theories. I tend to let it go, because they are funny theories and I read them with the aim of laughing a little’ after a day of preaching or academic research.

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Recently some bizarre theories of the “legions of misunderstood only bearers of the true Catholic faith, apostolic, romana ”have raised doubts even in the most devoted and balanced lay faithful. Therefore I thank these halberdiers who are the only holders of the Catholic faith, because they provided me with a assist to make a brief review of ecclesiology and to provide genuine reflections on a theme that perhaps has escaped a bit’ out of hand; precisely for this reason it can be proposed to those who perhaps want to deepen it for the first time. The theme in question is the sense of the faithful.

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With this Latin meaning, translatable into "the sense of the faithful", it means the feeling of all the faithful, that is, their subjective faith and therefore their reaction on the arguments of the faith proposed by the bishops or by the pope or by a council that are expressed in the Magisterium. Now, according to the halberdiers of the authentic faith, I would be a liar and an ignoramus on this issue. But it gets worse: I would lie not knowing that I lie. So it was necessary that these super masters, a great day, the sleeves had to be rolled up, get on the chair of their personal blog, take their virtual chalk and write on the smart-saccenza blackboard to explain to me that the sense of the faithful has an almost genuine role in the interpretation of the Magisterium and its development. This consideration is the foundation for one of the halberdiers to be able to claim that, in all this genuineness, his sense of the faithful it almost played a fundamental decisive role also in the evaluation of the acts of the ordinary magisterium of Pope Francis, such that rejecting them all together would be - listen, hear! - a prudential act, because all those who obey the Pope would do nothing but align themselves with anti-Catholic positions.

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These sentences thus written they can mean everything and the opposite of everything. Also the reference to the magisterium of the Second Vatican Council, cited several times both in this case and in various telematic exchanges, it is so labile that it seems non-existent. In short, the basic ambiguity of the cybernetic theologians halberdiers of the true faith consists precisely in avoiding defining precisely what the sense of the faithful. Subsequently, this non-concept is filled with subjective interpretations e, at least for what I read on the net, charged with a certain feeling of defiance and distrust towards the ecclesiastical authorities when they exercise the authentic or ordinary magisterium. Therefore the cat-space halberdiers venture into theological and liturgical interpretations vitiated by fallacies and basic prejudices, gives real anti-dogmas. The basic theory, in conclusion, it seems to be the one for which a group of faithful is enough, also conspicuous, that strong in their being fully faithful to the Church and exercising a correct one sense of the faithful, only for this reason should they be able to correctly offer the correct analysis of the Magisterium documents, even to establish in a definitive and no longer questionable form, which document of the Roman Pontiff is of the ordinary Magisterium, extraordinary and authentic and which is not.

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Theologians still debate these issues today, trying to understand the value of a certain papal and conciliar document, ma, net of a few exasperations, they would hardly proclaim their personal views as absolutely true and authentic, and starting from these to proclaim oneself i Catholics, apostolic, Romans than their opponents who would be incompetent, of heretics who understand nothing. In short, without the halberdiers even noticing: we are in the liberal democratic system of the parliamentary republic, complete with majority elections and proactive and abrogative referendums. Only the solemn formula is missing: "In the Church, sovereignty belongs to the People who delegate it to the Supreme Pastor and to the bishops".

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I also add that clearly, in today's world where freedom comes before any other right, everyone thinks and says what they want, nonsense and falsehoods included. The right to say and think nonsense about the Catholic faith is one of those inalienable rights approved and even encouraged by the secularist and atheist culture. Halberdiers too, on this liquid and secular line, they say and think what they want. I take the liberty of asking him: for case, on your sites, you are organizing the fair and the supercazzole contest and you are competing for the first place? This is just to clarify, because I would gladly leave it there without any doubt.

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The introductory irony phase is over (which I took from reading the splendid Adverse Heresies of Sant’Ireneo, neo-doctor of the Church), I pass a bit’ to clarify to the faithful Catholic faithful what is meant by sense of the faithful which they too have and offer to the Church as a service and path in truth.

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Già San John Henry Newman he had dedicated a theological essay on this subject entitled «On the consultation of the faithful in matters of doctrine». The English saint and theologian, careful student of the fathers and of the history of the ancient Church, shows some heroic examples of faithful groups who in their sense of faith transmitted and preached the correct faith; this especially in the very first centuries, these faithful, resisting Arianism, until martyrdom, they rebelled against bishops and priests opposed to the Nicene doctrine. And here is already that the aforementioned halberdiers will be there to rub their hands, grinning in front of the screen and saying “Ah! You see I was right?”.

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Obviously the meaning of Newman's study - converted to Catholicism in 1843 - was that of a Catholic theologian who wanted to provide dignity to the conscience and coherent profession of the entire body of the faithful, and therefore also of the laity. Why in fact write an essay of controversy towards the Roman Church, see Newman yes 16 years he was an attentive apologist and scholar of the sources of the faith, in an Anglican environment always ready to criticize him and hopeful to see him return Anglican again to prove the absurdity of Roman Catholicism?[1] And above all, why never offer arguments contrary to priestly authority and its teaching within the Roman see, even if Newman himself after his conversion had been validly consecrated a Catholic priest 12 years before that essay? The answer must obviously be sought in the words of the author himself, when it states: "There is no doubt that in this case they were not asked for advice, opinions and judgments, but we only wanted to ascertain a factual situation, that is, their beliefs were used as a testimony of that apostolic tradition on which alone any doctrinal definition can be based "[2]. What Newman then points out is that:

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«By saying this, so, I am certainly not denying that most bishops were Orthodox in their internal beliefs; nor that there was a certain number of clergy who stood alongside the laity and acted as their centers and guides; nor that the laity actually received their faith, in the first instance, by bishops and clergy; nor that some portions of the laity were ignorant and other portions eventually corrupted by the Aryan masters, who took possession of the seats and ordained a heretical clergy; but I still want to say that in that time of immense confusion the divine dogma of our Lord's divinity was proclaimed, applied, maintained and (humanly speaking) preserved, much more from the Church of the learned that from church docent; that the body of the episcopate was unfaithful to his office, while the body of the laity was faithful to his baptism; that the Pope, sometimes, the patriarch, the metropolitan and other large offices, sometimes the general councils, they said what they shouldn't have said, or they did what obscured and compromised the revealed truth; while, other parte, it was the Christian people who, under Providence, it was the ecclesiastical strength of Athanasius, Ilario, Eusebio di Vercelli and other great solitary confessors, that without them they would have failed "[3].

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I still imagine halberdiers rubbing hands again, squeak louder than before “Ah! I am still right so now I will make the act of faith to fill in the social and all my speeches of insults and rude responses against those post-council pretexts!" What to say: a person who can be said to be sufficiently familiar with the basis of the history of the Church knows very well that over the centuries there have also been popes, bishops and cardinals who have not always behaved in the odor of sanctity, rather, not a few have had reprehensible moral conduct. Sometimes even at the level of exercising their role as pastors they have not been perfect, or to be honest: they were real disasters as far as making concrete decisions e, in some cases, also in the ways of communicating some important dogmas of our faith, what this of which the Supreme Pontiff Honorius I and the Monothelite question of 634 it was a classic example.

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All these examples in no way can they be adduced as evidence of a certain superiority of the sense of the faithful with respect to the ordinary Magisterium. Indeed, those that Newman quotes and that I take back, they are pastoral choices and ways of life that are absolutely deplorable; but the English theologian acknowledges that, beyond these reprehensible actions, the faithful are formed in the faith by the overwhelming majority of priests, bishops and popes who are wholly orthodox to the correct doctrine of dual nature. Because in their consecration the bishops received the character of the fullness of the apostolic priesthood, hence the state grace that allows him to express himself, under certain conditions, places and times, as authentic and certain teachers of the faith. The imposition of hands that the sacred order confers does not confer an aura of holiness and preservation from future very serious sins, it was not even a sort of sacramental space shield that parried any kind of moral and spiritual imperfection. Therefore these teachers of the faith need at the same time to consult the faithful, because clergy and faithful together contribute to the development and knowledge of Catholic dogma and doctrine. Newman himself - in spite of the exploitation that the indomitable halberdier can still make of him - explicitly writes:

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“I certainly think the Church teaching he is happier when he has such enthusiastic partisans around him as those represented here, that when he cuts the faithful out of the study of his divine doctrines and the sympathy of his divine contemplations, and demands from them one fides implied in his word, that in the educated classes will end up in indifference, and in the poorest in superstition ".

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Here then is cooperation and collaboration in consulting the faithful it is the focal point of Newman's entire essay. There is no Church docent without a church docta: the development of correct faith therefore always takes place as a path of ecclesial unity, without creating schisms, false dilemmas and who knows what other devilry, in order to babble nonsense about the primacy of common sense against the "heretical" magisterium of the Supreme Pontiff Francis, of which some brain-disconnected subjects come to maintain that his own election to the sacred throne is invalid. Yes, because the halberdiers continually write against the magisterium, establishing with factual and concrete arguments that the sense of the faithful it is superior even to the details offered by it. That is, in their odd theory it seems to me that I can clearly infer that the sense of the faithful it is a kind of epistemological force that, linked to baptismal grace, it can also come to affirm authentically and indisputably which document can be called authentic magisterium and must therefore be obeyed, and at the same time which document is instead the pure opinion of the pope or the bishops and which can be disregarded if not indeed attacked on social.

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In tal modo, perhaps not realizing it, they fall into the Protestant error of free examination: only while Protestants apply this theory to Holy Scripture, these free defenders of Catholicism and of the one faith with a spatial halberd, they apply it to Tradition and to the Magisterium texts. If these are all hoaxes in what way, At that time, the faithful walk with the teaching Church (who teaches the truths of faith) without falling into the extremisms seen so far? Let's see in synthesis precisely how the Second Vatican Council defines the meaning of the faithful. In particular he talks about it in the The light in the part dedicated to The sense of faith and the charisms in the people of God:

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"The holy people of God also participate in Christ's prophetic office by spreading his living testimony everywhere, above all through a life of faith and charity, and by offering God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips acclaiming to his name (cf.. EB 13,15). The totality of the faithful, having the anointing that comes from the Saint, (cf.. 1 GV 2,20 e 27), cannot be mistaken in believing, and he manifests this property of his through the supernatural sense of the faith of all the people, when "from the bishops to the last lay faithful" shows his universal consent in matters of faith and morals. And indeed, for that sense of faith, which is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, and under the guidance of the sacred magisterium, which allows, if he is faithfully obeyed, to no longer receive a human word, but truly the word of God (cf.. 1 Ts 2,13), God's people unfailingly adhere to the faith transmitted to the saints once and for all (cf.. Gdc 3), with right judgment penetrates it deeper and more fully applying it to life " (LG. N. 12).

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Starting from this text, let's try to clarify the gross errors mentioned above. The first mistake made in the aforementioned "ecclesiological theory" was that of distinguishing the bishops, the cardinals, dad, in short, all the clergy from the simple lay faithful. An error that was not even committed by Newman as we have seen. In short, the lay faithful do not have a different sense of faith than that of the clergy, which would be more genuine or more true, even if the clergy, in its totality, continually complied with actions contrary to Catholic morality. And here is how I anticipated, the beauty of Catholic doctrine which, in terms of receiving the Truth from the Holy Spirit, places the entire ecclesial body on the same level.

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The second mistake it consists of contrasting the Magisterium and the Sense of the Faithful: this is outside Catholic logic and theology precisely because of the sole origin of the revealed data: the Trinitarian God in his ad extra missions. God does not offer the truth in pieces, crumbling it according to the people, of times and needs, from which it would follow that God offers, to the Holy Father Francis, the whole Catholic truth about the dual nature of Christ, while to Mr. Rossi of the parish of Tor Lupara he teaches that Jesus is only God or that he is only man, so Mr. Rossi can oppose his personal sense of faith against the Pope's Magisterium. The council teaches precisely that the sense of the faithful comes from listening to the sacred magisterium, which offers guidance on Sacred Scripture and Tradition. Hence Catholic doctrine as regards the authentic teaching of the faith and the interpretation of biblical texts, precisely for the task entrusted by Jesus himself to the apostles and for the power of the keys offered to Peter and his successors, it places the bishops as the first teachers of the faith, and not on the same level as the lay faithful. Which obviously will be able to rightly be formed, study books on exegesis and theology, but they will never be able to assume definitive and authentic interpreters of these texts: it is not the task assigned to them by God.

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Finally, here is a practical consideration and daily to propose. The penetration of the whole Church to the divine mysteries, as the council writes, clergy and lay faithful who are guided by the Magisterium, it has no military or, on the contrary, only organizational value: in fact, following the Magisterium is what is needed to transform the Word of God into a lived word. To pass from professed faith to lived faith and therefore to active Charity.

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Follow the Magisterium therefore it does not consist in the act of mimicking the words of others, like puppets or Sicilian puppets, but listen with devout reverence and a critical filial spirit to the word of Jesus to be incarnated today to give the face of Christ to the suffering and those who are far away. For this that once again a sense of the faithful who stood as the definitive interpreter of everything, it would create a fragmentation and fragmentation of the same data of faith, generating as much confusion and chaotic vision of charity. Indeed, again Mr. Rossi might believe that since Jesus has only divine nature and is not really risen because God cannot die, then it would do well to act accordingly and then stop believing in the resurrection of bodies. As a result, also to stop taking care of his body and hurting himself, because if he believes that the body does not rise again, Mr. Rossi can also mutilate himself.

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This chaotic vision which at the same time would not help to actualize and concretize even the spiritual works of mercy, including that of advising the doubters. In fact, if the Magisterium is no longer an authoritative source of Truth, Mr. Bianchi in his staff sense of the faithful he could also consider it a duty to invite his best friend to carry out a schism and a distancing of the Church and to distance himself from Jesus, when faced with a doubt, for example, about the Trinitarian nature or even about a single and daily moral action.

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The bizarre theories of the Catholic halberdiers - for which I pray a lot that they convert and soon return to full personal compliance with the doctrine - they reach terrible practical and pastoral conclusions, but above all they end up being, in concrete facts and in their approach to faith, of the perfect Lutherans, without realizing it is, unaware that many of their critical reasons are the same as Martin Luther's. This is why I wanted to dedicate an article to him, to try to avoid a form of the "dictatorship of relativism" disguised as a more genuine expression of the Catholic faith, to prevent certain subjects from falling into Lutheranism on one side, in modernism on the other hand, except to feel and believe the only ones, alone and authentic guardians of the true faith and the authentic Catholic tradition.

Rome, 17 February 2022

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[1] I write it in a note as if it were said in a whisper. Now a doubt arises after these considerations: indeed the praetorians of the faith know the figure and the historical context of Newman? Or they confuse him with the best known actor and performer of The Spaccone? To me honestly the doubt remains.

[2] John Henry Newman, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine., [Rambler, July 1859.], EEook Edition, paragraph 1.

[3] Paragraph 3.

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