Give her “space bales” on the Code of Canon Law to Benedict XVI indicated as a great Latinist who cannot make mistakes

GIVE HER “SPACE BALES” ON THE CODE OF CANON LAW BENEDICT XVI INDICATED AS A GREAT LATINIST WHO CANNOT COMMIT ERRORS

If the theories of certain conspiracy circles were true, we will be faced with a vile liar of such magnitude that after his death the coffin of Benedict XVI would deserve to be thrown into the Tiber instead of buried in the Vatican Grottoes next to most of his Supreme Predecessors.

- Church news -

Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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Benedict XVI announces his act of resignation. Video with Italian translation (click on image to open the video)

I would never use this magazine than at the end of the current year 2022 is about to reach over twenty million visits totaled in 11 months ― and the month of December is still missing ― to give visibility to subjects who rant «… these numbers of ours make us tremble!», all in front of a few thousand people listening to a raving video on YouTube to have a laugh at the nonsense enunciated by some lunatic. If you did, as well as harming the seriousness of the work we have been carrying out since 2014 I would be disrespectful to my fellow theologians and editors, which I consider as precious as the pupils of my eyes.

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As known for i social media subjects who have built their own go crazy “telematic ghetto” stating to groups of debauched - or worse demonstrating irrefutably, to them to say - that the act of renunciation of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI is invalid due to a lack of form and that therefore he would not have made a formal and valid act of renunciation, not having complied with the dictation of the Code of Canon Law which it reads:

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«In the event that the Roman Pontiff renounces his office, it is required for validity that the renunciation be made freely and duly manifested, instead it is not required that someone accept it " [cf.. canon 332 §2].

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The exotic characters in question they always avoid reading the entire text of this canon which fits integrally and inseparably into the canons 330-367 dedicated to «The Supreme Authority of the Church». Not only, they do worse: they only mention two words: "duly manifested". Then, to hit the army of functional illiterates and digital illiterates who believe in their nonsense like the peasants of the countryside believed in the amazing relics exhibited by the Boccaccio Friar Cipolla [cf.. WHO], they pronounce as a abracadabra the same two words in Latin to produce a mysterious effect: «duly manifested». They follow all their theories comparable to sci-fi comedy film Spaceballs in which they confuse the concepts of with crass ignorance gift e ministry legally and theologically, bringing up codes to be deciphered with which Benedict XVI would cryptically speak through … amphibology (!?). Our Florentine brother Simone Pifizzi would bring up the very Tuscan saga My friends: «The premature supercazzola with right unchapping». Supercazzola to which our Dominican theologian Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci has dedicated several articles to explaining that this term has been taken from the current philosophical language to define a statement totally devoid of rationality and logical sense [cf.. WHO].

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The crass ignorance of the manipulators of ecclesiastical laws has always played on the concept of gift e ministry: «… and why Benedict XVI has renounced the ministry and not at gift?». Therefore, «… this renders his waiver invalid.". And so, an army of fragile functional and digital illiterates, slipping into the role of talking parrots they begin to rant about social media: «Benedict XVI has not renounced the gift», unless you know what they are, mean and behave gift e ministry. After which they turn into sowers of confusion and above all of hatred towards the "false anti-Christ church of the usurper anti-pope Bergoglio emissary of Satan". We try to explain everything as simply as possible: the gift And a “gift received” deriving from Sacramento, the ministry it is instead the exercise of this ministry linked to the gift, i.e. the Sacrament. Example: with the Sacrament of Holy Orders I received the “gift“, or rather i three gifts (three “want”) which consist of: teach, sanctify and lead/govern the People of God. These three gifts are then realized through the ministry, which is the exercise of the sacred priestly ministry. Now pay attention: for various reasons and reasons related to serious health problems or equally serious personal problems, I could ask to waive the exercise of the ministry. I could also ask to be dispensed from all the duties and obligations that the priestly ministry entails and that the Church could grant me up to the canonical dispensation from the obligations of celibacy allowing me to marry and have a family. But I could never ask to give up the gift, because it would be like asking to cancel the sacrament of Holy Orders, impossible, because the Sacrament is indelible and indelible. Not only, the Sacrament has given me a new character that has ontologically transformed me, which would continue to remain even if I were dispensed from all the duties and obligations deriving from the ministry.

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Another thing instead the Papacy, which is neither the eighth sacrament nor the highest degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders divided internally into three degrees: diaconate, presbytery, episcopate. The office of the Successor of Peter is not conferred through a sacramental way but through a purely juridical way. It is no coincidence that the Roman Pontiff does not receive a sacramental consecration, he comes “enthroned”, or as they say today “the Petrine ministry begins”. If at the time of his election the one elected was not vested with the episcopal character, in this case he must be consecrated bishop:

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"The Roman Pontiff obtains full and supreme power over the Church by legitimate election, accepted by him, together with the episcopal consecration" [cf.. Canon 332 – § 1].

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The transmission of the Petrine succession it is therefore solely juridical and therefore confers on the juridical level, not sacramental, the ministry of the fullness of the supreme jurisdiction over the universal Church. The Bishop of Rome is the Successor of Peter and only the Successor of Peter can be Bishop of Rome. Therefore, if the Roman Pontiff makes an act of renunciation, in this case he will renounce the ministry legally received, but it will continue to remain in him gift episcopal received through the sacramental way. The renunciation of the Petrine office, that is to say ministry, entails the loss of pontifical jurisdiction which was conferred by juridical means and which can be renounced by juridical means. Also for this reason it would be very problematic to define a renouncing pope as "Bishop emeritus of Rome", not being able to apply to the Petrine seat, precisely because of its particularity, the principles of the emeritus of diocesan bishops, because as mentioned above: the Bishop of Rome is the Successor of Peter and only the Successor of Peter can be Bishop of Rome. But this would be a further discourse that cannot be dealt with here now.

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Let us further clarify how certain subjects make enormous confusion by asserting in an absurd and obtuse way that Benedict XVI would have renounced the office of Roman Pontiff (ministry) but not to be Roman Pontiff (gift). Among the various documents cited inappropriately to support their absurd theses is Lumen Gentiles. Also in this case it is good to clarify: within this document of the Second Vatican Council [cf.. Chapter III] yes a distinction is made between gift and exercise of power, but referred to the exercise of the episcopal ministry based on the dual transmission of power, which is sacramental with regard to sacred orders and episcopal consecration supported on gift, of a juridical nature as regards instead the canonical mission conferred on the episcopal, namely the ministry understood as power. It is on this distinction between power order e power jurisdiction which was established by the Holy Pontiff Paul VI the figure of bishop emeritus who came to 75 years he renounced the government of the diocese entrusted to him, thus losing the power jurisdiction, but always keeping the gift episcopal ministry transmitted to him sacramentally through the conferral of the fullness of the apostolic priesthood. All as proof of how certain characters manipulate Church documents and extract what is not written in them. The novelty introduced by Benedict XVI consists in the title and in the status of "pope emeritus" created by him in a happy or unhappy way, with results that only history can evaluate, assuming this title in the same way as it is assumed by diocesan bishops who renounce the ministry legally acquired but maintaining the gift acquired sacramentally. As already explained above, if Benedict XVI had assumed the title of "Bishop emeritus of Rome" it would have been not a little problematic on a juridical and theological level.

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Having clarified all, I hope at least some people, among the various functional and digital illiterates who in a superficial and totally uncritical way have followed certain charlatans, can understand how and to what extent these dangerous manipulators and counterfeiters are dragging them into the world of the irrational for purposes that are anything but clean, because we are faced with people who lie knowing they are lying, not before subjects affected by simple unavoidable or invincible ignorance. We are faced with dangerous subjects who have imprisoned themselves in lies that they must support and keep standing in every way, even denying the most logical and obvious reality of the facts.

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Before commenting with scientific rigour certain canons used and abused for what they do not contain within them, it is necessary to clarify that ecclesiastical laws are human laws based on Revelation, obviously it is. But they are and remain human laws created by men to give a juridical and administrative order to the Church understood as company. Canon Law is not a dogma of faith and is not the foundation of the deposit of the Catholic faith. Therefore insisting that Benedict XVI did not make a valid act because his resignation would not have been "duly manifested" (duly manifested), it is objective and blatant idiocy. It would be enough to read the canon well 332 which recites:

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«The Bishop of the Church of Rome, in which the office granted by the Lord individually to Peter remains, first of the Apostles, and which must be passed on to his successors, he is head of the College of Bishops, Vicar of Christ and Shepherd here on earth of the universal Church; he therefore, under his office, has supreme ordinary power, milk, immediate and universal on the Church, power that he can always exercise freely".

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It should be read next the Canon 333 §3 which is the logical-juridical continuation of the previous one and which reads:

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"There is no appeal or recourse against the sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff".

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This canon makes it clear that the Roman Pontiff is not subject to human law because he is above any human law, this for a simple fact: because he is the supreme legislator [cf.. Canon 331]. Logical-juridical prerequisite, this, which precedes the Canon 332 manipulated and then transformed into a workhorse by certain lunatics, which is then followed, with the same logical-legal criterion, the aforementioned canon 333. A legal system in its entirety follows a logical and coherent order based on principles of logic and non-contradiction, only petty minds can extrapolate and manipulate a fragment to make the canonical laws say something that contradicts their own backbone.

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The confused minds that carry out such theories sowing confusion and bewilderment in the simple and the frail, they are mistaking the Roman Pontiff for the President of a democratic republic or for the Sovereign of a constitutional monarchy, who, in addition to being custodians and guarantors of the Law, are the first to be subjected to it. However, this is not exactly the case for the Roman Pontiff, who with the use of an improper political term we could define the greatest absolute monarch in the world, because the authority and power he received through the ministry it comes to him from God and by God alone it can be judged, since there is no human authority superior to him in the world that can do so. The Roman Pontiff cannot even be judged by the canonical laws themselves because he is above them, he being the supreme legislator, nor does the Code of Canon Law provide for and regulate the exercise of that institution which in the juridical systems governed by the Common law is defined as impeachment, while our Italian legal system provides in art. 90 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic, the indictment of the Head of State for high treason or attack on the Constitution. A head of state, who is guarantor and guardian of the laws, and to which he is subjected first before all, he cannot repeal or modify them on his own initiative, because it is up to Parliament to do it, the Roman Pontiff in the exercise of his powers can instead do so:

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«[…] he has the right to determine, according to the needs of the Church, the way, both personal and collegiate, to exercise this office" [cf.. Canon 333 §2].

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Sand the Roman Pontiff wanted tomorrow morning could get up and replace di motu proprio all the royalties he wants with others, without having to account to anyone or being in any way required to provide explanations, least of all justifications. No Head of State could ever tell a court to suspend the trial of an accused and order the immediate closure of the trial, the Roman Pontiff yes, he could do it with any ecclesiastical court, without even having to explain to anyone. Then this doesn't do it, it's another matter, however it could do it in a completely legitimate and above all indisputable and unquestionable way. It would suffice only to add that he could even reject a proposal made by a unanimous ecumenical council, because the council itself, maximum expression of the authority and collegiality of the Bishops of the Church, he has no authority superior to that of the Roman Pontiff. Nevertheless we must see the sowing of confusion by tragic and ridiculous subjects who insist on confusing the simple by questioning its valid act of renunciation, because according to them, Benedict XVI would not have recited a perfect little formula, or because he made some Latin grammar mistakes in his declaration. Well let it be known that in itself it would be enough for the renunciation to be made at least in front of two witnesses, in writing or orally, according to the provisions of the Canon 189, § 1. As regards that of Benedict XVI, the resignation was publicly made in the Consistory of Cardinals convened by him on 11 February 2013. We really want to continue playing and trying to pass off the stratospheric nonsense about the formula as credible, or worse on the fact that "even if he had made a free act of renunciation it would not be valid in any case"? It is truly humiliating and degrading to have to explain such obvious things to those who do not want to understand a priori, but for the salvation of souls, intellectual humiliation is welcome, which in itself entails replying to the nonsense of emeritus idiots who, as such, would not deserve a reply from any educated person with a legal and theological culture.

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Sui social media they go crazy however these subjects who sticking to the little word of "free renunciation" split from their pluri-quoted Canon 332, they state with disturbing lightness that «Benedict XVI was not free» but that «he was forced to give up» (!?) Let's clarify: in order to declare and demonstrate such a thing, the authors of such a demented assertion would need to have the power to read the most intimate and profound conscience of the renouncing Pontiff. And here we pass from canon law to dogmatic theology. Only God can scrutinize and read the deepest and most intimate spheres of human conscience:

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“Conscience is the most secret nucleus and shrine of man, There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths " [cf.. Vatican Council II, Cost. past. The joy and hope, 16: AAS 58 (1966) 1037].

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Also in this case the answer is soon given, because one of these subjects does not hesitate to affirm that it was Our Lady who revealed to him what was contained in Benedict XVI's conscience, who allegedly entrusted him with the mission of fighting against "the false church and the false usurping pope" (!?).

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However, it is known how much idiocy takes pleasure in itself: «… since Benedict XVI cannot declare that he was forced to renounce, then he transmits messages in cryptic code after having self-exiled in an impeded location».

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As mentioned earlier: you don't even imagine how humiliating it is for a presbyter and a theologian having to write on certain topics to respond to such nonsense. But I repeat: before the souls entrusted to us pushed by others into grave error, the good shepherd in the care of souls also accepts intellectual humiliation, which of all could also be one of the worst. So if we go to read the royalties 412-415 in which cases and situations are set out which determine the impeded episcopal see, anyone should understand instantly that they cannot appeal in the case of Benedict XVI, barring total distortion and grotesque manipulations of what is enclosed within these canons. In fact, I remember that the law is interpreted, it is not manipulated. The manipulation and distortion of texts has nothing to do with interpretation, even with the so-called extensive one. We recall incidentally that the Law can be interpreted or applied in a restrictive or extensive way.

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Another point to insist on is that «in declaration of resignation there are formal errors which make it invalid in any case regardless of whether Benedict XVI has also made a free act of resignation". And with this assertion one declares and publicly repeats - as an obscure character has been doing for some time - that the form is superior to the substantial intention. Thus mere form is elevated above will and deliberate consent. A blatant idiocy! Any person who had a single glimmer of reason should instantly understand that we are dealing with expressions that range between madness and magic, where what only matters is not the substantial will, but the correct formal pronunciation of a “magic formula”. Because certain subjects come to this: to the magic of formulas.

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Let's move on to the last point: the Latin errors. These subjects affirm that to render the waiver irrefutably invalid would be «the presence of numerous errors of Latin syntax, why the declaration it must be “duly manifested”» (duly manifested) pursuant to the pluri-cited Canon 332. After affirming this, they continue by saying that «Benedict XVI has always been a fine and great Latinist and that as such and as such he could not make these mistakes, some even crass. If, however, he did so, it was to deliberately render the renunciation invalid and withdraw to an impeded location". We reflect: if Benedict XVI had done such a thing we would be facing the most cowardly and lying Supreme Pontiff in the entire history of the Papacy.

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Latin is an insidious language, in many respects more than ancient Greek. First of all, it is a dead language that hasn't been spoken for centuries. Then we should bear in mind that there are various Latins: the Latin of Marcus Tullius Cicero or Titus Lucretius Carus, that of Seneca or Catullus is not the one in which Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo, wrote and expressed himself between the fourth and fifth centuries, nor the one in which Sant'Anselmo d'Aosta wrote and expressed himself between the 11th and 12th centuries. Still another one in which St. Thomas Aquinas expressed and wrote in the thirteenth century, in turn completely different from that of the sixteenth century, a Latin now relegated to specific circles of educated people, having developed and spread at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, between the School of Frederick II of Swabia in Palermo and Dante Alighieri in Florence the so-called vernacular language, which had not a little bastardized Latin itself for the following centuries, bringing together neologisms that had nothing to do with the ancient classical Latin. The Latin of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was now a lot of Latin “bastardized”. Finally, the one used in science, juridical and ecclesiastical between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, more than a Latin he was a Latin. It is no coincidence that the precise term "ecclesiastical Latin" exists.

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Some remember that the language used to hold lectures in ecclesiastical universities until the early 1970s was Latin. Let me smile and narrate that former student, who then became renowned theologians of the Roman School and full professors in those same ecclesiastical universities, last in order of series Brunero Gherardini and Antonio Livi, they told me in an amused way many tasty anecdotes, explaining what it was, more than Latin, of macaronic Latin. Or as Antonio Livi told me, that he was a lover of Latin: «I might as well have used Italian, or any other modern national languages, stopping with the antics of that pseudo-Latin that made grammatical nonsense come out of the mouths of the teachers and causing the students to understand even less than what they could have understood». I remember that Antonio Livi was dean of philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University, after having previously contributed to the establishment of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

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It's one thing to read, understand and translate this dead language, one thing to write it or worse to speak it. Stating that the young Joseph Ratzinger who perished at the council «spoke in Latin, him like the other participants» is a colossal hoax, a pure urban legend put into circulation by whom, not knowing the history of the Church, it finds nothing better to do than invent stories and facts after the fact than in the recent past, ancient and remote have never existed. I was a pupil of two masters who were both perished at the council, one of whom died on the threshold of the 100 years a few weeks ago. During the various phases of the council, one of his tasks was also to summarize in English, Spanish and French ― the three languages ​​he knew best in addition to his native German ― the various reports written in the official language of the Church: Latin. Because in the early 1960s many bishops were unable to understand and translate Latin, especially those coming from the so-called Third World countries and from the various mission lands of the Latin American continent.

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Benedict XVI has never been and is not a "refined Latin scholar" but only as good a connoisseur of Latin as many of us are, and it is for this reason more than understandable that he made mistakes in drafting his declaration of renunciation. Any good connoisseur of Latin would have made them. I will try to clarify better with a personal example: I once translated a one-page letter of mine from Italian into Latin. After that I sent it to not one or even two, but to five Latinist experts, two of whom are involved in the translation of the official Latin texts at the Holy See. All five told me that the text was almost right, making me various grammar corrections. Well, each made me different corrections, all strictly correct, but one unlike the other. Because this is Latin: a dead language where, in addition to grammar, both interpretation and the construction of the structure of the text play a lot, which may be correct for one Latinist but incorrect for another, although both are right.

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The declaration of resignation of Benedict XVI it is a very intimate and personal text that the person concerned has written by himself after long reflection and prayer, dealing with one's conscience, with his own soul and also with the future history of the Church to which he would have handed it over for the centuries to come as an entirely extraordinary event. He did not submit the text of his declaration to those good and expert Latin scholars available to the Holy See precisely because of the delicate and intimate nature of that very personal act which is such and which remains and must remain so. Act in which Benedict XVI made several grammatical errors, erring in the lexical form as any good connoisseur would have done that Latin is able to read it, translate it and use it privately, but composing in Latin is something that only the most expert Latinists can do, sometimes making some mistakes too. Benedict XVI is by no means "a fine and great Latinist", as can those scholars who have dedicated their entire lives to the study of this difficult dead language. And it is precisely the best Latin scholars who affirm that making mistakes in a Latin editorial office is easy for all those who know Latin well, without detracting from their knowledge of Latin. Therefore, with all due respect to the follies and urban legends spread by certain plotters, I repeat that writing and composing in Latin is difficult even for expert Latinists, while speaking it correctly borders on the impossible. Unless you want to confuse Latin with the Latin of the clerics of the early twentieth century or with the Latin juridical brocardi, that we remember are brief maxims derived from the laws and for this reason also indicated as general principles.

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I leave it to all reasonable people to evaluate if errors in Latin grammar could invalidate - in the name of the «duly manifested» extrapolated from a canon 332 and quoted in an obsessive-compulsive way - a free and very personal act of renunciation like the one expressed by Benedict XVI before the College of Cardinals, who subsequently reiterated in all the speeches given publicly before the convening of the new conclave how thoughtful and free his decision was.

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If the theories of certain conspiracy circles were true, we would be faced with a vile liar of such magnitude that after his death the coffin of Benedict XVI would deserve to be thrown into the Tiber instead of buried in the Vatican Grottoes next to most of his Supreme Predecessors.

 

From the island of Patmos, 30 November 2022

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Ms. Capalbio, black is not synonymous with good and without spot or sin, but simply synonymous with human being

MRS CAPALBIO, NEGRO IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH GOOD AND A VICTIM WITHOUT SPOT AND SIN, BUT SIMPLY SYNONYMOUS WITH HUMAN BEING

The victory of the Honorable Aboubakar Soumahoro, who today finds himself involved in events related to cooperatives in which his wife and mother-in-law are involved, it is not related to the negro, but to something closely connected to thehomo, regardless of niger or fromalbus.

- Church news -

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The Honorable Aboubakar Soumahoro, elected deputy on the Democratic Party list

In estate the spring, When stay in the Ortigia of Syracuse, where before becoming a priest I bought a house in the heart of the ancient Greek city, I go shopping at the market and take the opportunity to dispense mine show, obviously free, imbued with immodest jokes over which the locals laugh in amusement, because teasing Sicilians is a civic duty. Then there are mine “scientific theories” on the possessive and protective mothers of boys, in which regard I argue that if a Sicilian mother gives birth to a girl, no problem. But, if she gives birth to a boy, in that case it should be suppressed as soon as breastfeeding is finished, thus avoiding that he spoils his son for life by continuing to treat him as a tender creature even as a fifty-year-old. And when I return to the site after a few months or weeks, they even tell me that they have missed my teasing.

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Once such a he had a basket full of snails on the stall, which I began to look at with ostentatious attention, until the question I had been waiting for came: "Dad, she likes them?». I replied: “Never eat in my life. But I am sure that these snails will be of great consolation for the Sicilians, because you have finally found someone who has more horns on his head than you". I was later told that he had gone around the whole market laughing and telling all the sellers of the other stalls about the priest's tirade. Another time I was walking in the middle of the market with the midday sun shining on my face, even dark glasses are of little use in that case. I didn't see a fruit crate and tripped over it and fell to the ground, among other things, I was wearing a white cassock, which thank God I didn't damage. Two meters away from me a fishmonger jumped forward making the kind gesture of helping me up by saying: "Dad, pull yourself up and lying on the ground you feel bad». But I'd argue: “He's right, lying on his wife would be much better". And as soon as he got home the first person to whom he told the story was his wife.

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Finally my trusted negro where do i buy vegetables: "Dad, returned from Rome?». I greet him: "I'm so glad to see my gorgeous nigger again". And it really is beautiful, He has such a high-pitched funny laugh that if I were a psychiatrist I would prescribe it as therapy instead of anti-depressants. Unfortunately, the classic was at the stall pussy ― as we now say in our spoken Italian jargon ― Signora Capalbio style with left license plate radical chic, with short white hair in great vogue in the penthouses of Parioli and in the villas of Olgiata. He winces and blurts out: «I am amazed at her that she should be an educated person, they say … black man». I totally ignore her and turn to my little negro: "Senti un po ', Ousman, tell me one thing: you are black or colored? Because your compatriots called me "white" in African countries, not "man without color"». And he, with a deafening laugh with his treble answers: "I'm very black!».

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Going through the politically correct thus we come to the negro, such as black and certainly not because "black man". At least for me who am a lover of my mother tongue of Latin derivation: homo niger it means black man. While homo albus it means white man, i.e. the undersigned. The term "negro" comes from the Latin black, which means black. We priests, with the exception of white used at high temperatures, we usually dress in nigris, of black, we don't dress … “of color”. Always to the African confreres with whom I have lived in Rome since my formation for the priesthood, then as a presbyter, I always pointed to and called them niggers. Example: "We are late, give a voice to our black brothers to hurry up, otherwise we arrive late at San Paolo Fuori le Mura». I would have felt at least ridiculous to begin: « … our black brothers». They call us white, they don't call us "bleached men" or "colorless". And still today in many countries of that continent they recall with gratitude the meritorious work of evangelization carried out by the so-called White Fathers, certainly not from the Fathers without color.

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The politically correct it's not just linguistic, but it is social and by now ideological. So much so that many have not only feelings of guilt towards the Negro, but worse: they have formed the belief that black equals good, a candid victim, to persecuted. At least until they find themselves dealing with some band of Nigerians, the violence of which would make the executors in the pay of the 'Ndrangheta pale, which among the mafias present in our country is the most violent. Nevertheless, faced with the cruelty of a Nigerian, i killers of the 'Ndrangheta they would make the figure of the compassionate lady of charity of the San Vincenzo de' Paoli. Likewise the Cameroonians, Country where crime is widespread at uncontrollable levels and where for a foreigner being kidnapped by one of their gangs is not like being kidnapped by those who were the kidnappers of Anonima Sarda Sequestri, why these seconds, unless they are cherubs, compared to them they can appear as soft hearts.

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So let's start with a basic principle that escapes the "candid beautiful souls": whether it is a homo niger or of a homo albus, what characterizes one and the other, regardless of color, it is being homo. Is this homo it is not good or bad, victim or perpetrator on the basis of its particularity of niger O albus, but as a man.

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The case of Honorable Aboubakar Soumahoro, who is involved today in events linked to cooperatives in which his wife and mother-in-law are involved, it is not related to the negro, but to something closely connected to thehomo, regardless of niger or fromalbus. Case on the merits of which I will not enter. That's not just because I don't want to, but just because I can't. The competence lies with the Italian judiciary which is responsible for investigating, judge and, if necessary, finally condemn, while it is up to politics to evaluate and decide on the merits of the question, being a parliamentarian of the Italian Republic.

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To the "candid beautiful souls" I would like to reiterate that negro is far from being synonymous with good as a negro and only because it is negro, the reality is quite different: the corruption that exists in the various countries of the African continent is many and such, but above all at such serious and gangrenous levels, that in comparison those European countries usually indicated as particularly corrupt are inhabited by a group of San Luigi Gonzaga and Santa Maria Goretti. Among the countries indicated as particularly corrupt is Italy, that is, we Italians, also called “scam masters”. Which can be expressed and supported without any problems whatsoever, especially from the chaste and candid mouths of the French and Germans, capable, however, of self-censoring their critical sense and of lowering their pants with their asshole in the wind only when they find themselves in front of the black, the French in a very special way, having regard to the services they have rendered over the last two centuries to various countries of the Black Continent. Italians are white instead, therefore they can be accused as such of being corrupt and notorious scammers on the front pages of their newspapers.

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Smell, at the end of his priestly formation and to follow for a while as a priest, I lived in an international house for priests located on the Aventine Hill. A short distance on Viale Aventino, at the corner with Viale delle Terme di Caracalla is the large FAO headquarters, we remember is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. For me yes, passing through those areas, I happened to see black men and women from various countries of the African continent, if anything, by the poorest and most devastated of all, get on Mercedes that provide rental service with driver to be taken to do shopping in Via Condotti and in Via Vittorio Veneto. It is also known and well known, as well as confirmable by the owners of extra luxury shops, than to spend more, without measure and restraint, they were the black men and women, known for searching for the most expensive superfluous goods ever and for their bivouac in the most luxurious hotels in the capital. FAO African officials.

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So I leave Mrs. Capalbio horrified by the word "nigger" and with it all the other "candid beautiful souls" who gloat in surreal fantasies about the poor good nigger and victim of the variously dirty white and unscrupulous colonizer. For me there is instead the man born with the corruption of original sin, which spared neither whites nor blacks. And contrary to beautiful souls I know, as politicians know, historians, sociologists and also clergymen who, one of the worst endemic evils of Africa is corruption unmatched in the world, not to mention the unscrupulous and limitless delinquency that rages in some of their cities. Also for this reason our Congregation of Propaganda Fide is careful not to send money blindly, even to our own Negro-run local church institutions. They prefer to carefully manage certain flows of money so that they really end up in religious works, charitable and sanitary. Thus avoiding, as happened several times in the past, that the money left for the construction of a hospital ended up being confiscated by corrupt politicians and invested in the arms market for the worst tribal wars, where people are able to ruthlessly butcher women and children with Chinese-made machetes.

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But, for Mrs. Capalbio, black equals good and victim. Above all, one must not say black, but black man. Well let Mrs. Capalbio know that my enlightened vegetable seller, black Ghanaian as a coal, he doesn't think like her, he knows perfectly well that he is black, he is happy about it and, if necessary, boasts about it, even taking away the depression with a laugh to all the depressed Capalbio ladies of the left radical chic, today more than ever depressed after having favored in every way, with all their upper-class snobbery, a female Prime Minister of the right, who is the daughter of the people and who comes from the ultra-popular neighborhoods of Rome. Those where once, the old and also glorious Italian Communist Party, it achieved electoral majorities that rivaled Bulgaria's elections. Maybe that's why, meeting in restaurants gourmet of Capalbio, the gotha of the left radical chic tries to drown political depression in expensive glasses of vintage Sassicaia and Brunello di Montalcino.

 

From the island of Patmos, 27 November 2022

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The case of “Sister Cristina”. Remember dear Christina, when you sing, put Christ in the notes otherwise your renunciation will have taught you nothing

THE CASE OF "SISTER CRISTINA". REMEMBER DEAR CRISTINA, WHEN YOU SING, PUT CHRIST IN THE NOTES OTHERWISE YOUR RENUNCIATION WILL NOT HAVE TEACHED YOU ANYTHING

Now her former sisters, the dear Ursulines of the Holy Family, they still have a chance to help Cristina, show closeness to her and also provide for her dutiful material help. Without skimping on a few healthy slaps, are next to her, just as Christ did with that rich young man who did not want to follow him.

- Church news -

Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp..

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PDF print format article

 

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The audio reading will be available on the morning of 26 November

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Interview with Sr. Cristina

Sister Cristina Scuccia, the singing nun of the Congregation of the Ursulines of the Holy Family, he left the consecrated life to perhaps follow his own (vera?) vocation in the singing world [see: who, who, who e who]. It's news from a few days ago.

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To this recent news, Father Ariel has already dedicated a short article that I fully agree with as regards realism and balance [see: who]. However, as a religious priest of the Capuchin Order I too would like to make some considerations on the matter, which in some ways will sound like real provocations, perhaps displeasing someone, but which will have the merit of highlighting some of the more common hypocrisies of consecrated life disguised as feelings of piety.

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First of all there is something to inform the many beautiful souls ― those who in these hours in real life o sui social are playing pigeon shooting with the poor ex Ursuline ― that every year the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life manages many requests from religious who ask to leave their order, your institute or congregation to which you belong. Whose fault is it? Why does this happen? I can't always give myself a convincing answer, according to the enlightened opinion of some beautiful souls, the fault lies undoubtedly with the Jesuit Pope or perhaps with those religious who made us cry Madonna with sins against the sixth commandment or perhaps of those who cannot resign themselves to living according to a grotesque religious style typical of the monks in the film The Name of The rose by Jean-Jacques Annaud or the unlikely nuns in the film Sister Act. Because for some beautiful souls and expert cat-bloggers, all tradition and of the Latins, the religious is a grotesque mask between the psychiatric and the farcical, a mixture of mortification and hair shirt, mood disturbances and itchy novel-like desires Bramble birds, in short, a real madman.

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Therefore, when it occurs that some consecrated man hangs up his habit, immediately we start looking for the reasons – real or presumed – and we proceed with the delicacy and tact of a steamroller inside a Swarovski crystal shop. But we here, from the pleasant Patmos Island we don't want to be a steamroller, we know well, in fact, that some abandonments are certainly right because they lack the minimal awareness and freedom necessary to live as consecrated persons and constitute themselves in the world as torches of light, prophetic signs for the Church. More abandonments, instead, they constitute real injustices let slip too lightly and most often arise from desperation, from loneliness, from human misery and insipidness paraculaggine of some superiors who exchange the gift of the government with the privilege of its own impeccability in which personal error never exists and if there is it is normally always and only of the "problematic religious" who decides to leave.

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Honestly, after more than twenty years of religious life ― I entered the Capuchin Friars Minor a 21 years of age during university studies in pharmacy - I am no longer in a position to be scandalized by these defections, as exits or abandonments are called in cold technical language. On the contrary, I tell the truth, in the face of a confrere who not only suspends all judgment but deliberately chooses to spend a few words, knowing that it is urgent to demonstrate the love of a grandmother who, in front of her most reckless and rebellious grandson, still has the concern to ask: "How are you? Have you eaten?». And God only knows how expressive the eyes and gaze of a religious who has made the painful decision to leave can be. Ask how are you, it means sharing much more than a sentimental wave. In my humble opinion it means pouring balm on the last act of mercy towards a man in crisis. And isn't this perhaps the way to interpret the old Luke's parable of the Merciful Father which everyone boasts of appreciating but which very few practice especially if they are religious, priests or Catholics doc?

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Maybe the little one (sweat) Cristina, catapulted into that wretched world of entertainment, devouring and devouring, she just needed to hear her grandmother's question more often: "How are you? Have you eaten?», which then translates into "You're happy? Jesus and the Church are truly filling your life? You are dissipating, you are upset? You are praying? Your heart, your soul, your desire are perhaps bad in some way?». Because these are the questions that help prevent personal crises, spiritual diseases, the bilges of vices that the devil unleashes to divert the religious from his path of perfection as Bishop San Macario said.

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In my religious life I have met several times superiors and directors of students who were more concerned about the presence of their brothers in the choir than their real happiness. Scrupulous in supervising if the friars recited the breviary in its entirety but not equally diligent in noticing if their friars opened up to smile and joy inside the convent. Concern about regular observance, of the use of the money but not at all interested in whether the friar had managed to sleep well or not, perhaps distressed by some ghost of the soul. I have met as many superiors and directors of students who have made religious life a revival of Instagram e Tick Tock. One reality where the religious sings, balla, do it show man, does everything and its opposite, and where the only way to perfection consists in the observance of the 1968 motto "forbidden to forbid" because Jesus is the ace taker who is good above all things, from the Sanremo stage to the Grande Chartreuse.

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But now a 45 years of age I'm starting to go vintage, remembering that a time to leave the convent, one had to knock on the guardian father's door (the local superior) and ask for permission: «Bless father, I can go to…» and after running errands outside the convent, return to the guardian and say again: "Bless father I'm back". These things are no longer used today, young novices and students often have many freedoms right from the novitiate (I got my first cell phone as a deacon at the age of 33 year old) and what twenty years ago could be considered as formalities today I understand that they were ways to experience sonship and spiritual fatherhood, together with that evangelical fraternity which unites and protects all religious.

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The case of (sweat) Cristina it is emblematic of that truth which tells us that even religious are leaving the scene. Together with the couples that explode (see Albano and Romina, Totti and Ilary), i preti che si deftly, the brothers that yes they evict and the nuns who are… well you get the idea. This is the naked truth of our «outgoing Church», certainly not a recent truth, these things have always happened and will happen again, just remember some illustrious precedents such as Sister Smile o From Joseph Cionfoli. Perhaps uncomfortable truths to which it is necessary to find an answer but above all a way to prevent them. Because I'm sure it's Sister Smile, just as Fra Giuseppe Cionfoli and now Sister Cristina had certainly been chosen and loved by God in their choice of religious life, but they didn't have the grace to meet teachers capable of accepting them as they were, accompanying their talents towards a mature purification that limits temptations and nostalgia. Such defections in religious life are never easy and one needs to have a much more compassionate and complex look at all the various conspiracies that people normally follow in these cases.

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The dimension of fragility of the Church it also implies the possibility of an abandonment of the state of consecrated life, but there are few who want to recognize it and very few who want to love and support these brothers in need in a free and selfless way. Because the essence of baptismal life, of which religious life is the full maturity, it is nothing but love to the end. It's there, in love as martyrdom-witness that the credibility and holiness of the Church and of us Christians reside: "The way you love each other they will recognize that you are my disciples" [cf.. GV 13,35]. And instead you only read the comments of vilified virgins who are dismayed that Cristina Scuccia is no longer a nun, crying out to the betrayal of Judas and cowardice. In the face of these utterances I keep silent because otherwise I would end up saying uncharitable things.

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Let's try to understand once and for all that Christian love is what is despised by most, a love that loves what is broken, which creates scandal, a love that walks on crooked and sunken roads of a decadent humanity. The rest, this is not what the Lord Jesus did with each of us? “When we were still weak, in due time Christ died for the wicked" [cf.. RM 5,6]. This still holds true today, Christ continues to die for us every day, huddled people, which binds to itself with the bond of a special consecration, baptismal, religious or priestly, and which necessarily calls for a conversion that makes us move from the abandonment of darkness to the splendor of light.

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Christ loves us, baptized, religious and priests, not because we are perfect but precisely because we are imperfect, indeed impious, not yet entered into that pietas of Easter day which is certainly not obtainable with an effort of will but how grace freely given to ask the Holy Spirit every day with tears. Religious life is a path of perfection that is realized only when the image of Christ, new man, is born in us. And this delivery certainly takes time, of spiritual fatherhood and motherhood, of affectionate and suffered accompaniment, very rare commodity among the religious superiors of an "outgoing Church", increasingly manager as it is for many bishops.

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I consider the case of (sweat) Cristina Scuccia not an exceptionality but the expression of a trend well known by those who live and work in the real world of consecrated life. If we then go to examine the cases of abandonment, we note that it is not religious men and women with human and spiritual limitations who are leaving but exactly the opposite. We often find ourselves in front of really talented personalities, endowed with charisma, lively intelligence and who have a respectable cultural background, enough to make him achieve important academic qualifications. They are like big-engined cars that have been entrusted to people with no driving experience. E (sweat) Cristina has qualities that have undoubtedly been mischanneled. Qualities that could support and help her in her vocation and which instead were used to overlap the religious vocation by creating an alternative that would meet the temporal needs of a young religious congregation, that from the singing work of the sister would perhaps have also benefited from large sums of money? This shouldn't be scandalous because even the nuns have to eat and maintain their structures, but perhaps there is a need for careful reflection that takes into account some priorities to be reconsidered.

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cases of abandonment in the vast majority of times they don't even concern celibacy - just as the many beautiful souls, all Heart of Jesus and Mary, would expect - and this means that one does not go out because one wants to get married or because one is no longer able to respect the vow of chastity. The reason for the failure lies in something else entirely: much deeper, much more complex, much more concrete. Because of this, every abandonment remains mysterious, known only for some aspects but always injudgable by men so ready to judge and pigeonhole everything into reassuring categories. Only God who is Father can deeply know the heart of man, also of the one who decides in his freedom to abandon the vocation that has been offered to him but which cannot escape the common vocation of every baptized person which is the common call to holiness that goes beyond the state of life (it doesn't matter if consecrated, married or single).

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For this reason, let's stop playing pigeon with the ex (sweat) Cristina, with her as well as with the other former religious. This is not a media case to be flaunted in tabloid magazines or Catholic blogs. In this moment of fragility, although the appearance and the makeup say the opposite, this girl needs sincere help to rebuild her life but above all she needs to learn not to indulge the mirages of the ruthless world of entertainment that see the religious or the ex religious as an animal to be exhibited to make audience. Remember the case of Don Alberto Ravagnani first used by Fedez and then bullied and cursed at? Good, these are the real prospects.

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First there was Sister Cristina, now there is Cristina Scuccia maid in Spain, tomorrow maybe it will be an anonymous woman with a failed marriage behind her and dependent children who sings in Spanish clubs to be able to make ends meet. So the glory of the world, the glory of men, as well as stage glory.

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Now her former sisters, the dear Ursulines of the Holy Family, they still have a chance to help Cristina, show closeness to her and also provide for her dutiful material help. Without skimping on a few healthy slaps, are next to her, just as Christ did with that rich young man who did not want to follow him. Let's be sure, the proposal passes, the love of Christ remains, albeit veiled in that sad nostalgia that only the eyes can express, like that rich young man who left because he had many possessions, but among the many goods he had, he needed the only one necessary that would give value to all the rest.

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Cristina, remember when you sing, put Christ in the notes otherwise your renunciation will have taught you nothing.

Laconi, 25 November 2022

 

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The failure of a badly understood apostolic collegiality. Those bishops reduced to officials stripped of all authority who must ratify the whims of others through interdiocesan seminaries

THE FAILURE OF A MISUNDERSTANDING APOSTOLIC COLLEGIALITY. THOSE BISHOPS REDUCED TO OFFICIALS STRIPPED OF ALL POWERS WHO MUST RATIFY OTHER PEOPLE'S WHIMS THROUGH THE SEMINARIES INTERDIOCESANI

More than an "outgoing Church", ours is a Church which, having concluded the pre-bankruptcy controlled administration phase, finds itself with the bailiffs at the gates for the seizure of the buildings, after the fraudulent bankruptcy produced by the imaginative Council egomenico of the interpreters of “spirit of the council” in that inauspicious season of the post-council which made the Holy Pontiff Paul VI say: "With the Second Vatican Council we expected spring and instead came the winter".

- Church news -

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"With the Second Vatican Council we expected spring and instead came the winter" [cf.. John Guitton, Paul VI secret].

It happens more and more often that various Italian bishops of whom I am a friend and confidant turn to me. If sometimes I report the experience or the bitterness of some of them, it is only because those directly involved have asked me to deal with that issue, so that we know what hardships and situations the few good bishops who still remain are facing.

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Faced with very delicate issues, not only does the saying "sin is said but not the sinner" apply, because not even the sin should be mentioned. Being confessor of many priests and not only, I would never say that I am the confessor of this or that other priest. Of necessity, secrecy must extend beyond the content of the confession itself. Otherwise there is a risk of generating problems like that crazy parish priest who said during a sermon: «Today I have been among you for ten years. I always remember my arrival, my first Holy Mass in the parish and also my first confession, where I began the ministry of confessor with a penitent who confessed to his adultery". He said the sin but not the sinner, which the mayor was not happy about, because unbeknownst to the parish priest he had always told the villagers that he was the first to confess to him.

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the bishop in question he was a man of great pastoral experience, even before it was launched spot of «shepherds with the smell of sheep», the result of which was that within a short time we saw priests radical chic with tailored clothes and sweaters by cashmere improvise overnight «poor for the poor», reaching the episcopate in chameleon-like glory amidst pastoral canes made by carpenters and pectoral crosses carved from the piece of wood from a sunken boat off the coast of Lampedusa. And in the final greetings of their letters, instead of the phrase "In Christ your Lord...", we have begun to read about locks of this kind: "In Christ the migrant ... In Christ poor among the poor ...". How to say: the episcopate is not enough for me, I also want the cardinalate. And someone has been given the cardinalate, between wooden pectoral crosses and migrant Christians.

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As I have said several times, complete with a reference to whores ― who, unlike these subjects, are honest and above all coherent ―, if tomorrow there was a change of course, get ready to see them enter their cathedral churches with seven meters of cappa magna and precious eighteenth-century damask mitres and gems on their heads. As if nothing had happened, because this is the style of people without restraint and human dignity, which even whores are gifted with, to the point of going before us into the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus Christ admonishes us [cf.. Mt 21, 28-32].

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The interview was about the problem of the seminar so-called inter-diocesan or regional. Institutions of which - I'll specify it immediately - I have always been a declared enemy, because I believe that every bishop should have the power and the right to train his future priests in his diocese, even if they were only two or three seminarians. the bishop in question, emeritus today, as soon as he was ordained a priest, he was appointed assistant pastor of an elderly and holy brother, of which he then always kept the souvenir photo in his studio, first as pastor, then when he was appointed auxiliary bishop of a nearby diocese, then again when he became metropolitan archbishop. At the time he had completed the necessary studies required for sacred ordination, without ever achieving any specialist and least of all theological doctorates. Having known him personally and deeply, I can testify that I have never known in Italy, at least as far as I'm concerned, a more competent pastoralist, wise and enlightened than him, above all behind the chairs of the various ecclesiastical universities.

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As an auxiliary bishop he actually lived in the diocesan seminary, he knew the seminarians one by one, he looked after them and followed them. These former seminarians, today all priests over fifty, they always speak of him with veneration. Some are my penitents or direct spirituals, because it was he who when asked which confessor or spiritual director to turn to, given the lean times we are living in, he addressed them to me. When there are no giants, it is a virtue of necessity to be satisfied with the dwarfs that the square offers.

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Finally, the metropolitan archiepiscopal see, never desired by him but almost imposed. At the time, two bishops from the region had put themselves in the running as self-candidates, that they found nothing better to do than to wage war against each other to win the favor of the nomination. The then apostolic nuncio excluded a priori the two contentious contenders brought forward by two factions of the bishops of that region and proposed a third, what he had shown as auxiliary bishop before, as diocesan bishop after, the greatest pastoral skills, that he was comfortable in his diocese and that he had no desire to be appointed to that metropolitan archiepiscopal see.

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Promoted to that metropolitan see first of all, like his style, he showed all his availability to the clergy and his particular concern for the regional seminary. Until one day, the young rector, in an almost sibylline way he gave him this strange speech: «You see Your Excellency, ours is a regional seminary that welcomes seminarians of bishops from various dioceses. She is very thoughtful and present, but I fear that this assiduous presence could create some discontent in the other bishops, who, like you, cannot be present in the seminary". Soon said: the appointment of the rector, of the vice-rector, of spiritual fathers, to follow up with the teachers in charge, they were decided by the bishops of the region, each of whom had some of his protégés to place. In short: a priesthood formation snatched from the bishops and totally delegated like a blank signed check to people chosen by them, so to speak … collegial. And here the first question arises: of when, in the name of a badly understood collegiality to say the least, a bishop is prevented from forming his own future priests? Question follows question: future priests, they are presbyters of the bishop or they are "regional presbyters" of an unspecified and understood ... collegiality?

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Before continuing the sad story I would like to clarify that the exchanges and talks that took place between this bishop and me date back to almost ten years ago, at the time when he decided to consult me ​​and choose me as a confidant. Clarification necessary to clarify who is the archbishop, both the diocese and the Italian region linked to these facts cannot be identified. Because if it were, I wouldn't talk about it.

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In those years this bishop complained to me that he not only had to visit the seminary of his diocese which had become a regional seminary with caution, because there was more and worse: several bishops of the region, considering him a so-called “conservative”, they had named, in a spirit of exquisite collegiality, the presbyters of two other dioceses were rector and vice-rector of the seminary. In another diocese he was also the dean of the theological faculty and more than half of the teachers, including teachers, both priests and laymen and women, to whom this bishop would never have entrusted the training of his future priests for the theological baccalaureate courses. While at the time its seminarians were about 15, those of the bishops of the other dioceses of the region varied from one to three or four. And suddenly the Metropolitan Archbishop found himself isolated and a stranger in his own home. All in the supreme name of an unspecified episcopal collegiality, of course.

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Faced with this situation, because he did not raise the necessary objections? He did, but we were already at the beginning of 2014, in the full honeymoon of the current pontificate based on «Poor church for the poor», «shepherds wearing the smell of sheep», "field hospital church", «Church outgoing» and so on. To silence any bishop or parish priest, it was enough to say: "It is not in line with the pastoral directives of Pope Francis", to end up sentenced more or less to civil death. Phrase that reminded so much of another, one that many of us have heard mockingly from emeritus and blatantly ignorant: "Ah, but you don't know that there was a Council in the Church?». How many times, I replied to those who confused the Council with the post-council of the extravagant "interpreters of the spirit of the council" that what they were trying to get across was not found written or sanctioned in any of the documents of Vatican II. How many more, I chastised pretini trendy and clericalized laity, making them look like the ignoramus they were, citing documents and fundamental passages of Vatican II of which they ignored the existence in the name of their vulgar teasing: "Ah, you do not know that there was a Council?».

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I know very well that there was a Council, on which anyone could question me, finding me far from unprepared for his documents, because I think I know and can prove another thing, daring anyone to deny it: with the Council of Trent seminaries were opened and adequate training was given to the clergy whose mass even bordered on illiteracy. In that season there was a flourishing of new religious congregations, of great Saint educators and pedagogues, of great saints of charity. Furthermore, a great missionary and evangelization activity took life which led the Church to be, from the almost exclusively European phenomenon that it was, truly universal and spread throughout the world. These were the historical fruits of the Council of Trent that no one can deny, except to deny incontrovertible historical data. Even though today, the Council of Trent and the term “of the Trent” it is used as a synonym for obtuse and backward wit, even within ecclesiastical universities, as proof of how much ignorance has come to power in the Church through the worst ideological mystifications and the most dangerous alterations of historical facts.

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We come now to the Second Vatican Council, considered by some to be the council of councils, stuff before which the first Nicene Council and the first Constantinopolitan who dogmatically established the foundations of deposit of credit compared to him - which even of new dogmas he didn't even define half - they were almost the stuff of quarrelsome amateurs, which it is no coincidence that they even fought each other in the Sala del Trullo when they discussed the nature of Christ who was finally defined as «begotten not created of the same substance as the Father», not instead a created creature as the Arian bishops understood it.

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objective historical results of Vatican II were these: first of all the secularization of the clergy and the clericalization of the Catholic laity formed today by an army of cumbersome and harassing pious women and priests who were half-service, the purpose of which is to only create confusion in the pastoral structures and make the life of parish priests sometimes almost unlivable. Then the progressive depopulation of diocesan seminaries and religious novitiates, the buildings of many of which have been sold to private companies, or converted into shelters or hotels for the right purpose of making buildings profitable in some way, the maintenance costs of which would in themselves be exorbitant both in terms of maintenance and taxes [cf.. My previous article WHO]. From many small and medium-sized dioceses the nuns have now disappeared and the buildings of their former religious institutes closed and converted to other uses. The majority of Italian bishops cannot afford to have a diocesan seminary because it is all God's grace if they manage to have two or three seminarians at most. In those same dioceses, in “cup” Tridentine era, there were at least twenty or thirty seminarians, but maybe they weren't authentic vocations enlightened by that “Spring Spirit” which, by admission of the Holy Pontiff Paul VI himself, caused winter to fall on the Church: "With the Second Vatican Council we expected spring and instead came the winter" [cf.. John Guitton, Paul VI secret].

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Let me be clear: here we do not intend at all to discuss either the validity of Vatican II, which was not even necessary but indispensable, nor even less on the validity of his pastoral documents. What should be seriously discussed with a long litany of MEA culpa this is what was done with the Council in the inauspicious post-council season, when in the name of a misunderstood "spirit of the Council" each one ended up creating his own personal council, in the head of all those who do not know the full-bodied and long documents of Vatican II and have never studied them. It was for this reason that in my book of 2011 I coined the term of Council egomenico of the interpreters of the spirit of the council in the post-council season [cf.. And Satan became triune].

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Simple question, of those unfortunately destined to remain unanswered, as happens when you go to touch the totem intangible of blind ideology: it is true or not that after the Council of Trent seminaries were opened and flourished over the next three centuries, raising both the pastoral and cultural level of that clergy which in the previous season was in a pitiful state, few exceptions? Is it true or not that after the Second Vatican Council, over the next fifty years, the seminaries emptied and were gradually closed? It is a historical question which should be answered with objective historical rigour, not with blind ideology. It would be enough to take the statistical data of the Italian clergy of 1950 and compare them with those of the 2022, instantly discovering that more than data they are war bulletins. Example: diocese that in 1950 they had a presbytery consisting of 1.000 presbyters between secular clergy and regular clergy for a number of 350.000 baptized, today, with a number of baptized equal to 700.000 they have a presbytery composed of 350 presbyters. Then, if we look at the statistics on the age of the presbyters, there is serious crying there. I take an Italian diocese at random. Year 2021: average age of priests 70 year old, new priests ordained 2, deceased presbyters 18. Request: of this and other Italian dioceses, what will happen within 10 O 15 year old? Or does someone really think of solving the now irreversible problem that beats inexorably on the doorstep with the establishment of “acolyte” who will soon end up being used as surrogate-priests? [cf.. WHO]. Because some particularly enlightened bishops have found nothing better to do than to entrust one of these to them “acolyte” of provincial parishes for years now without a parish priest. Because that's how our enlightened bishops work things out.

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Faced with these questions which concern in part the consequences of the "spirit of the Council" generated by the great "interpreters of the Council", partly on data that, I repeat, more than such they are war bulletins, the response of the bishops and certain priests, which, as we know, have no faults, they are so busy looking for the faults of others, it is soon given: “It's all the fault of the de-Christianization of societies!». Good, but at this point the question is added to the question: and the de-Christianization of who is to blame? Perhaps of the League of Libertarian Anticlerical Anarchists? Because people have always tried to de-Christianize, since the dawn of Christianity itself, my he sense of faith prevailed over Decius, Diocletian, Nero ... to follow on Attila, then on the Mohammedans that if in the 1571 had won at Lepanto the following week they would have hoisted the banner of the crescent on the chair of the Bishop of Rome in San Giovanni in Laterano. And still to follow: on the landsknechts who put Rome to fire and sword in the 16th century, on the Jacobins of the French Revolution, about Napoleon taking Pius VII as a package and transporting him prisoner to France, water Hitler, about Stalin … no one made it. And if the sense of faith he managed to prevail and survive in the face of certain historical characters and seasons, someone explains to me why instead it collapsed precisely in the season of a post-council while the great spirit of the council of councils was blowing astern and astern?

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Let us now return to the good bishop who one day almost ten years ago had that painful conversation with me, which continued with the problem of the sacred ordinations of deacons and priests. He began by telling me that the situation of the inter-diocesan seminary wanted that way by the bishops of the region, with that imprint, those trainers and that kind of teaching, he had created the extraneousness between the bishop and the seminarians, between whom there was only a superficial and courteous acquaintance. He was due to ordain two deacons shortly, aware of how they had been raised throughout the training cycle, not only in antithesis to the pastoral imprint of their bishop judged too conservative, because those candidates had repeatedly expressed that what heartened them was the fact that their bishop had already turned seventy and that "five years go by quickly, thank God!». And it was there that the bishop asked me for an opinion, which I did not hesitate to give him in front of his very explicit question: “What would you do in my place?». I replied that I would do the dutifully worst thing, without showing discomfort, but basing everything on both sacramental and coherent principles. I became bishop for a moment in his place - that is, I fell into his role - and I said that I would take the two explaining that both with them and with any other candidate for sacred orders it was not my habit to declare the authenticity of the vocation, because I never have and I never will. On the contrary, I always smiled whenever I heard triumphal overtones: «Authentic and solid vocation!». Vocation remains for the most part a mystery and no bishop or formator can issue certificates of absolute authenticity. Also because it would not explain why there have been cases of priests who have left the priesthood even after twenty years, declaring and explaining that he "lived two decades of illusions" or "made a wrong choice" because "the priesthood was not my way". They certainly didn't have a calling, because an authentic and solid vocation is never lost and never dies, it can at some point be rejected or even destroyed by the free will of the presbyter, but not even difficulties and sufferings that can even cross the capacity of human endurance can cancel it. A priest truly suited to the priesthood can also irreparably compromise his health and meet premature death for the pains inflicted and suffered, but he will never leave the priesthood, because the character it received transformed it ontologically, it is indelible and eternal and has given it a dignity superior to that of the Angels of God themselves.

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What a bishop and trainers can certify is the candidate's suitability for sacred orders. Then, if some bishop or formator manages to read the most impenetrable spheres of consciences, moreover in the complex intimate and profound relationship between God and man, blessed be they for such a rare and special gift.

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Playing the role of bishop who speaks to candidates for holy orders, I go on to say that in his place I would have said: … you are eligible to receive sacred orders because nothing prevents them from being granted to you. But I cannot be the one to ordain you deacons and then presbyters for the Church that I currently govern. I do not think it right and coherent for you to receive sacred orders from a bishop you do not esteem and whose pastoral guidelines you do not share. Let's clarify: to the bishop you will have to promise filial respect and devoted obedience, you must not promise him esteem or appreciation for his pastoral work, this is not required and expected, nor could it ever be, because if that were the case it would be truly aberrant. But one fact remains: for the priest the figure of the consecrating bishop is destined to remain indelible for life. During the sacred rite the question is asked «Promise filial respect and devoted obedience to me and to all my successors?». With the mention of the "successors" it is implicitly specified that tomorrow the bishop may be another and then yet another. There are elderly presbyters who after their consecrating bishop have had four or five others. Although the memory of the one who generated you in the sacred priestly order remains for life and walking towards old age, the more time moves away from that happy event the more alive and dear it becomes. Little is worth my experience: the bishop who welcomed me, who provided for my education and finally consecrated me a priest, I revered him, respected and obeyed. He had a difficult character and temperament and in the following years I was also hard with him in addressing him deserved criticism and severe judgments, highlighting some of its serious flaws, but I have never failed for a single moment in my affection and gratitude towards him. And among the different presbyters he ordained, maybe I'm the only one who always celebrates Holy Masses of suffrage for his soul. He was called Luigi Negri [1941-2021].

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It can happen, and it happened, that a presbyter finds himself with an unpleasant bishop, incapable and even harmful, to whom to pay filial respect and devoted obedience in any case, while not appreciating him or having any trust and esteem for him, or having lost it later. However, the discourse of the consecrating bishop is different, why in that case, a relationship of mutual esteem and trust must have been established between him and the ordering candidate. Or as the brother told me recently Simone Pifizzi, one of the new Fathers of ours Patmos Island: «Before ordaining me a deacon, the Cardinal Silvano Sandpipers, Archbishop of Florence, mi said: “when during the sacred rite I ask you to promise filial respect and devoted obedience, we will have to look each other very well in the eye, because that promise and that bond will be indelible with me and with all my successors”». We miss great men and shepherds like Silvano Piovanelli terribly today, figures of a season appear to us that becomes more and more distant as the first white hairs appear on our heads, but their memory alone is a comfort and hope for us to live our ministerial priesthood to the fullest.

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Appreciate and esteem a bishop it is neither mandatory nor due, But, if you are consistent, from a bishop who is not appreciated and does not esteem himself, it would be good not to be ordained, because in this case the ordinand would transform the bishop into a sort of public official who ratifies a bureaucratic act, while for his part the bishop would transform sacred ordination into a simple bureaucratic act to be ratified. And I concluded by saying to the bishop: you could tell them that with your approval and the guarantee of suitability of the formators they can go to any bishop in the region who will be willing to welcome them. In fact, I believe that on the embarrassments and inconveniences, which then become reciprocal, one should not pass over it with diplomatic hairiness clerical, confront each other and find solutions.

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He listened to me and with pastoral wisdom he acted in this sense. Shortly thereafter, a quarrel was triggered by the rector of the seminary who dared to address the bishop in these peremptory tones: “You have to ordain them for your diocese, and that's, otherwise it nullifies all our formative work». retorted the bishop: “I thought the deacons, then to follow the presbyters, were deacons and presbyters of the bishop, not of team inter-diocesan seminary». They were taken, ordained and incardinated by another bishop in his diocese, then revealing themselves as unmanageable priests from the first year of priestly ministry, while in Rome the complaints against this bishop multiplied by some bishops of the region and of the so-called team training of the regional seminar. Incidentally: a couple of years later the rector of the seminary could only be named bishop, after having marked the new training of future priests with visits to refugee camps and Roma camps. It doesn't matter that these future priests didn't know the works, but not even the name of the greatest Holy Fathers and doctors of the Church, because a trip to a Roma camp makes up for everything and confers special gifts of grace from the Holy Spirit.

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If in fact it is taken from a bishop the faculty of being able to train his own deacons and priests as he deems right and appropriate for his diocese, in the name of a very badly understood episcopal collegiality, perhaps it would be appropriate to definitively close the few seminaries that remain, the majority of them disastrous and disastrous. In this way avoiding transforming the dioceses into something between free collectives and social cooperatives, with bishops reduced and forced to ratify the whims and errors of priests and laymen. More than an "outgoing Church", ours is a Church which, having concluded the phase of pre-bankruptcy controlled administration, now finds itself with the bailiffs at the gates for the seizure of the buildings, after the fraudulent bankruptcy produced by the imaginative Council egomenico of the interpreters of “spirit of the council” in that inauspicious season of the post-council which made the Holy Pontiff Paul VI say: "With the Second Vatican Council we expected spring and instead came the winter".

the Island of Patmos, 22 November 2022

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Faith and science, a relationship that has always been fruitful but not easy, especially in the digital age, in the direct of 24 November at 21

FAITH AND SCIENCE, A RELATIONSHIP THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN FRUIT BUT NOT EASY, SPECIFICALLY IN THE WORLD OF THE DIGITAL AGE, IN THE LIVE OF 24 NOVEMBER AT 21

In the world smart, in the digital age where everything is at your fingertips and a click, faith and science still have a fruitful relationship with each other? There is a harmony between them to be rediscovered?

— The live video of The Island of Patmos —

Author: Jorge Facio Lince President of Editions The Island of Patmos

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the Dominican theologian Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, father editor de The Island of Patmos

In one of his television appearances Father Ariel S.. Levi di Gualdo displaced the guests present, steeped in surreal “medieval black legends” and conflicts between “Church and science”, saying: «The Church was and still is the mother of science». And with a short joke – as of necessity it must be done in the spaces of a talk show he said all the essentials.

The Church "enemy" of reason? We are serious and we are not joking: the greatest logical and rational speculations arise and develop in the Catholic sphere up to their climax with the encyclical Faith and Reason (Faith and reason) of the Holy Pontiff John Paul II.

In the smart world, in the digital age where everything is at your fingertips and a click, faith and science still have a fruitful relationship with each other? There is a harmony between them to be rediscovered? This topic will be discussed with Andrea Mameli, physicist and science communicator, live on Wednesday 24 November at 21:00.

Subscribe to our channel and participate in large numbers. The live broadcasts can then be found in the archive of the Jordan Canal the Theological club.

All updates and notices on subsequent live broadcasts you can find them in the right-hand column of the home-page de The island of Patmos under the heading "The direct of Father Gabriele".

We are waiting for you.

From the island of Patmos, 23 September 2022

 

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Sister Cristina and those poor Ursulines who don't know Socrates: "Better to die with the body healthy to avoid canceling"

SISTER CRISTINA AND THOSE POOR URSULINES WHO DON'T KNOW SOCRATES: «BETTER TO DIE WITH A HEALTHY BODY TO AVOID DECADENCE»

The imprudent nuns and their imprudent Superior General cannot think of catapulting a young nun into the world of entertainment and then being able to manage it. This world will manage them and devour them without even spitting the bone.

- Church news -

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Cristina Scuccia, former Sister Cristina of the Congregation of the Ursuline Sisters of the Holy Family (to open the video click on the image)

I'll tell you the story of Sister Cristina with all the severity that only a priest can have towards the congregations of certain nuns. Cristina Scuccia is a gracious and sunny Sicilian, thirty-three years old today, endowed with an extraordinary voice. She becomes a nun in the Ursulines of the Holy Family, newly born congregation founded in 1908 a Monterosso Almo by Arcangela Salerno for the education of youth. From Monterosso they moved the house to Syracuse where they were recognized by the Metropolitan Archbishop Luigi Bignami In the 1915. In the immediate post-war period, In the 1946 were recognized by the Holy See as a Congregation of Pontifical Right.

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As often happens to the numerous female congregations that do not have a charisma like that of the great historical male and female orders - because they are nothing but the duplicate of that of the great founders adapted to the often self-centered and narcissistic personalities of certain new creators of new religious realities - their survival never exceeds i 100 years of life. Of these congregations, those in the least bad shape come to celebrate their century of life in a state of semi-agony, reduced to a few dozen old nuns more or less pissed off to whom middle-aged nuns ― called young ― who often don't even know what religious life is, they put their feet on their heads, making them repent of their sins with that kind of female cruelty that only nuns are able to have and exercise. Or as I once told one of these nun-types by putting her in line: "Sister, she is so mean and sour that if she put the tip of her finger in a glass of milk it would make it yogurt instantly».

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Back in October 2014, when the case exploded Sister Cristina I wrote an article to which I refer you and where I "prophet" the obvious: that he would inevitably leave the religious life.

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When a priest leaves the priesthood, a religious his order, a nun of solemn vows her congregation, the question to ask shouldn't be where the leavers went wrong, but where certain bishops and major religious superiors went wrong. But as is known in the Church, especially in the face of certain failures, those who have given birth to certain monsters always wonder where the others have gone wrong, explaining how and why it's all other people's fault.

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… and that none, within the Congregation of the Ursuline Sisters of the Holy Family, dare to say that it is Sister Cristina's fault …

The improvident nuns and their imprudent Superior General cannot think of catapulting a young nun into the world of entertainment and then being able to manage it. This world will manage them and devour them without even spitting the bone.

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Cristina Scuccia she is a very good girl who, taken on an emotional impulse, entered religious life without realizing the arc of 15 years what religious life really was. I am proof of that 26 minutes of interview given to Very true program your channel5.

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Knowing malice of certain nuns it is evident that the poor evaded we thought of launching one of their sister endowed with extraordinary singing skills into the world of entertainment to promote their dying Congregation reduced to little more than 50 religious mostly in old age and thus return to having, on the advertising trail by Sister Christina, some new postulant in their novitiate which has been empty for years and years. Or said in more colorful but effective terms: some nuns really think they fuck the other guy, except to end up fucked by a much more savvy neighbor and above all much more diabolical than them.

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A priest and a nun they can be welcome and even valuable presences in the various journalistic in-depth programs, I myself have participated in numerous Mediaset programs, like my dear and esteemed Sister Anna Monia Alfieri. But these are programs in which topical issues or social problems are discussed and explored, historians and politicians, where Sister Anna Monia and I represented, she as a religious I as a priest the Catholic Church and her thought, its doctrine and morals, accurately and dignifiedly, we didn't put on a show. A priest and a nun don't throw themselves into show business, because it is not suitable for us consecrated that we can be destroyed in the worst way, as in the painful and dramatic case of Sister Smile, who started from a hit song in the sixties and ended in tragedy, first becoming an alcoholic and finally dying by suicide together with her friend.

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In the last few years the wonderful works created by this Congregation of Ursuline Sisters of the Holy Family were mainly two: have changed the buildings of two of their institutes located in the Ortigia of Syracuse into five-star spas. Hotel structures managed by nuns and from which in the summer you can see a couple of two northern European men coming out peacefully, flaunting their toy baby bought from a rented uterus, or two escort luxury on the go, or a septuagenarian on vacation with his granddaughter from 25 year old. However, it is up to us priests to say that all this is bad and a grave sin, not like the nuns who make one available to certain sinners beauty farm? By the way, I was wondering if in Syracuse, ancient and noble Church of apostolic foundation there is always an Archbishop who controls the activity and life of the institutes of the religious that are found on its canonical territory, or perhaps the ancient motto applies Pecunia non olet?

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… and that none, within the Congregation of the Ursuline Sisters of the Holy Family, dare to say that it is Sister Cristina's fault …

After the hotels the Ursulines score the success of Sister Cristina who is not guilty of having approached religious life lightly, her trainers must have noticed, if they weren't taken on running five-star health clubs.

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I reiterate that the fault is not Sister Cristina but the nuns, because if you scroll through the following video you will be able to see with your own eyes the nuns present at the show The Voice Italia jumping and screaming like hell. These pictures are plastic evidence of who is really to blame. Of her improvident sisters who are cheering live by squirming publicly in a way that is nothing short of unworthy of consecrated virgins.

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We are faced with ordinary history of a collapsed Congregation awaiting death in an intensive care unit, thanks to nuns who have never treasured the wisdom of Socrates: "Better to die with the body healthy to avoid canceling". Otherwise they turn their own institutions into beauty farm and an attempt is made to pick up some vocation by throwing a young nun into the world of entertainment in a villainous way. Because as you know, after the tragedy always comes the ridicule of the grotesque farce.

the Island of Patmos, 22 November 2022

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The Christological great monarchy of the King of the Universe

Homiletics of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

THE CHRISTOLOGICAL GREAT MONARCHY OF THE KING OF THE UNIVERSE

The subjects of this King are all the believers of his faith, who wait in his hope. And especially they are those who experience the kingdom as a community of believers who love and operate this love starting from this faith and this hope.

 

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

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Dear Letters of The Island of Patmos,

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that of Christ's kingship and lordship over the world is one liturgical solemnity which perhaps escapes us men of the 2022. We are men of our time, born and raised in the shadow of the short century, or even better than the age of totalitarianisms, century that ended twenty-three years ago. For us, democracy and its mediated expression in socio-political systems in which we are represented is a system that we culturally accept. Now I'm in beautiful Florence and, as known to all, the Lords of Florence for many years were the Medici. Lorenzo de' Medici, called the Magnificent, left the signs of the work of its magnificence still visible in the city of Florence.

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Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria it evokes in me the glories and royalties of the Medici. But there is another Signoria that today it is necessary to remember. Jesus reminds the Church and the whole world of his Lordship and Monarchy over the world. Jesus reminds us that beyond all political institutions they are a gift for the citizen and for everyone, he is the Lord and king of Our life.

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It's good for us celebrate and meditate on the King: for there to be the Return of the King, Jesus Christ, in our lives too often distracted and lost in the maze of fashions and worldly thoughts. However, this is not an attempt to destroy our being in the world. Today's reflection is precisely to found our presence in ours smart city, knowing that we are sent by the Eternal King, whose throne is the cross. It is there that it expresses its splendor and royalty.

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The cross expresses the profound meaning and absolute diversity of Jesus compared to all other earthly kings. Because he is raised like all other kings, but in a different way. In fact, it expresses the kingdom in a completely opposite way compared to the rest of the world. His Kingdom is charity. Jesus is the king who exercises his dominion in service and total donation to us: the only power, the only scepter of the Lord is the love of those who give themselves to the end. Therefore from that cross radiates the Kingdom announced by Christ himself from the beginning of his preaching [cf.. LC 6,28 – 30].

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The subjects of this King ― and subjects is the right word to use ― are all the believers of faith in him who wait in his hope. And especially they are those who experience the kingdom as a community of believers who love and operate this love starting from this faith and this hope. We faithful are continuously connected and tied to Our King, which accompanies and guides our freedom and responsibility towards personal sanctity. In doing so he makes us all kings.

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Jesus acknowledges with great joy the repentance of the repentant thief who asks if he can be admitted into his kingdom and to which he answers: "Verily I say unto thee: today you will be with me in paradise". The great acknowledgment of one's guilt by the thief whose name we do not know, it is his entrance into the faith, hope and love of Jesus. Which are the conditions of whoever becomes a servant of the King. Jesus welcomes all of this and makes him king in turn, earlier at that time, then definitively in Heaven.

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This is why this solemnity involves all of us. Because from baptism we are all kings, prophets and priests. We are kings because we try to imitate Jesus in the implementation of the Kingdom of Love of the Father and of the Holy Spirit.

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We ask the Lord to enter His Kingdom of Service by exercising the humility of one who recognizes himself as a sinner and is thus exalted in the glory of forgiveness.

Happy journey of royalty to all.

Santa Maria Novella in Florence, 19 November 2022

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That liturgy in which one often participates without knowing the meaning and significance of what is being recited and celebrated. Let's start with a brief journey through the Prefaces of the Advent season …

THAT LITURGY IN WHICH WE OFTEN PARTICIPATE WITHOUT KNOWING THE MEANING AND SIGNIFICANCE OF WHAT WE RECITE AND CELEBRATE. LET'S BEGIN WITH A BRIEF JOURNEY THROUGH THE PREFACE OF THE SEASON OF ADVENT ...

Advent, try to live it and celebrate it in churches, not on social media. And if you have any doubts, or things to clarify, turn to us Priests, that however inadequate, sinners, inept and disappointing - as many write in their vents on the Internet - something more than the improvised theologians on Facebook e Twitter, rest assured that we know it and are able to offer it to you, always free the amor Dei.

— Pastoral Liturgical —

Author
Simone Pifizzi

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Editor's note: you have Padri de The Island of Patmos a new editor has joined, the Florentine priest Simone Pifizzi, pastor and liturgist [see WHO]

There are many Catholics, even those devoted and animated by sincere faith, unaware of the meaning of the words spoken and the gestures made by the Priest during the Holy Mass. The sacred rite which through the Holy Mass renews the bloodless sacrifice of Christ is full of signs and symbols, each of which is loaded with a profound theological and mystagogical meaning. Since it is always necessary to explain every word, remember that “mystagogy”, word of Greek origin, whose meaning is "initiation into the mysteries", in the Christian lexicon it indicates the discovery of the new life of grace that we have received through the sacraments. The Catechism teaches:

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“The liturgy is the culmination towards which the action of the Church tends e, together, the source from which all its virtue flows. Catechesis is intrinsically linked to all liturgical and sacramental action, because it is in the Sacraments, and above all in the Eucharist, that Jesus Christ acts fully for the transformation of men" [cf.. n. 1074]. Liturgical catechesis aims to introduce into the mystery of Christ (it is in fact “Mystagogy”) as it proceeds from the visible to the invisible, from the signifier to what is signified, from the "sacraments" to the "mysteries" [cf.. n. 1075].

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I was saying that the sacred liturgy is rich in signs and symbols, each of which has a profound meaning. Even the silences or nods of reverence of the Priest have their theological and mystagogical meaning. To understand it, it would be enough to listen to the masters, instead of chasing improbable theologians and liturgists who rant about social media. Let's try to clarify everything with an example taken from the First Eucharistic Prayer, also said Roman Canon. In the above where reference is made to Communion of Saints the Priest recites:

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«[…] In communion with the whole Church we remember and venerate above all the glorious and ever virgin Mary Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ".

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Mentioning the Blessed Virgin Mary the Priest hints at a slight bow with his head, when a little later he mentions Jesus Christ, hints at a deeper bow. Because? The reason is contained in the words themselves: the "Virgin Mary Mother" is a creature, that is, a created creature, which is venerated as such (hence the slight bow), while Christ is "our God and Lord", which is not a creature, but "begotten not created of the same substance as the Father", that is, it is God, so you love it. These are very important steps, even if not always known to sorcerer's apprentice who from one day to the next began to "play" with the ancient Missal of St. Pius V and who never miss an opportunity, in their exasperations you often border on mariolatry, to demonstrate the inability to distinguish the incarnate God, Second Person of the Holy Trinity, from the purest of creatures, that however immaculate it still remains a created creature, with the serene peace of those who claim her co-redemptrix, despite the clear refusal of the Supreme Pontiffs, last in order of series Benedict XVI and Francis. This substantial distinction between "creature" and "God", in the sacred liturgy it is not expressed with words and least of all with lessons of dogmatic theology, of Christology or Mariology, but with two simple bows: a light one to Mary created creature, a deep one, to Christ God begotten not created, which does not need co-redeemers and co-redeemers, as delicately expressed by Benedict XVI, in a slightly more “rough” way, but equally incisive and clear, by Pope Francis [cf.. Catechesis on prayer – Pray in communion with Mary].

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Said amiably: Fathers de The Island of Patmos, when they celebrate and thus exercise the the task of sanctifying, they know what they are doing. When they thus teach and exercise the the task of teaching, they know well what they teach. Without making a fool of themselves in front of the listeners like those circus phenomena who fill their serious theological gaps by listing the theological doctorates obtained. Of course, every reference is completely involuntary, not to mention casual…

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In the liturgy it is called the Preface the solemn praise which introduces the Eucharistic Prayer and which constitutes its introductory first part. A prayer in both the old missal of St. Pius V and in the missal of St. Paul VI begins in both with a dialogue between the celebrant and the faithful:

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The Celebrant: "The Lord be with you". The people respond: "And with your spirit". The Celebrant resumes: "Lift Up Our Hearts". The people: "They are addressed to the Lord". The Celebrant (nodding his head) "We give thanks to the Lord our God". And the People concludes: "It's good and right".

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The part recited by the Celebrant alone follows, whose central section varies according to the celebration, because the prefaces are numerous and for this reason they vary from Ordinary Time to that of Lent, from Advent to Christmas, from Easter to Pentecost, to follow with other "proper prefaces" used in celebrations in memory of the Blessed Virgin, of the saints, of the martyrs, of the dead. For this reason the second part is always variable, because its purpose is to explain, like a short catechesis, the reason why glory and thanksgiving from the whole universal Church is due to God. Let us take the III Preface of the Blessed Virgin Mary as an example to understand this catechetical element contained in the sacred liturgy. Recite the text:

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At the announcement of the Angel, welcomed your Word in the immaculate heart and deserved to conceive him in the virginal womb; becoming the mother of her Creator, marked the beginnings of the Church.

At the foot of the cross, for the testament of love of your Son, extended her motherhood to all men, generated by the death of Christ for a life that will never end.

Image and model of the praying Church, joined in the prayer of the Apostles waiting for the Holy Spirit.

Assumed to the glory of heaven, accompany the Church with maternal love and protects it on its way to the homeland, until the glorious day of the Lord.

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In the end the final part, structurally always the same, except for the difference of a few words from one Preface to another, whose purpose is to introduce the singing and acclamation of the Holy of all the People of God gathered in assembly:

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And we, together with the Angels and the Saints,

we sing endlessly

the hymn of your praise: Santo …

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The time of Advent we are about to enter it has a double feature, as the liturgical norms explain:

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«[…] It's time to prepare for the solemnity of Christmas, commemorating the first coming of the Son of God among men and, at the same time, is the time when, through this memory, the spirit is led to expectation of the second coming of Christ at the end of time» [cf.. General norms for the organization of the liturgical year and the calendar, n. 39].

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Over the course of the centuries, the short but intense “strong” liturgical Season of Advent has always preserved these two great aspects of Preparation to the memorial celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ in time and of wait of his glorious final return. These two dimensions are recalled both by the biblical and patristic texts used both in the Eucharistic celebration and in the Liturgy of the Hours. To this period which marks the mystery of the incarnation of the Word of God made man, from which the new revelation and the mystery of salvation will come to life, precisely because of its fundamental importance, great Holy Fathers and doctors of the Church dedicated writings and sermons to it. We could name just a few, by Saint Irenaeus of Lyons [cf.. Inside, 1,88-95.99] to St. Gregory the Great [cf.. Homilies 1, 8], by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux [cf.. Fourth Discourse on Advent 1. 3-4], to follow in more recent times with St. Charles Borromeo who explains how the time of Advent requires to be piously sanctified by men [cf.. Pastoral Letters].

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Among the many texts which enrich the liturgy of this liturgical season, the Prefaces proper to Advent deserve particular attention, which constitute in themselves a real liturgical-spiritual itinerary suitable for enriching the Christian life.

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For the Advent season, the Italian Roman Missal contains four texts: the first two (I e I/A) they are used from the First Sunday of Advent until 16 December, seconds (II by II/A) for the remaining days. Prefaces I and I/A especially emphasize the final coming of Christ at the end of time, in what is called Russia. The other two (II by II/A) they are an invitation to prepare your heart and mind for the celebration of his first coming, while not losing sight of the emphasis made in the first two.

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Now we come to the texts, obviously taking into consideration only the "movable part" or the second part of the Preface, what we have previously indicated and defined as catechetics.

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In the I Preface of Advent the double coming of Christ is announced with these words:

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"At his first advent in the humility of the human condition he fulfilled the ancient promise and opened for us the way to eternal salvation. When he comes again in the splendor of glory, he will call us to possess the promised kingdom that we now dare to hope vigilantly in expectation".

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The title already expresses all the meaning of this liturgical season: memory of Christ's first coming in the flesh and anticipation of his glorious return. Three important passages stand out in the first part: the emphasis on the abasement of the Son of God, which immediately brings to mind the famous Christological hymn:

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"Christ Jesus, while it is of divine nature, He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God; but he stripped himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness; appeared in human form, humbled himself by becoming obedient unto death and death on a cross" [Fil 2,5-8].

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Follows the “fulfilment of the ancient promise”. Jesus, with his Incarnation, it gives ultimate and definitive fulfillment to all the prophecies and promises made to the Fathers throughout the First Testament. Or to quote the solemn opening of the letter to the Hebrews:

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"It gave, who had already spoken in ancient times many times and in different ways to the Fathers through the Prophets, lately, in these days, he spoke to us through his Son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he also made the world" [EB 1, 1-2].

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In the end, in the conclusion, the definitive opening - operated by the One who will present himself as the Way, Truth and Life [cf.. GV 14, 6] - of eternal salvation and life without end. The second part takes us to the end of time, where humility will be replaced by glory. In this glory, eternal and definitive the Word will introduce all who believe in him and that with hope, already in this life, they look at this moment.

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I would like to emphasize the presence of these two verbs that concern us: one in the future ― «he will call us to possess» and one in the present - «we dare» which say the "already and not yet" in which every believer is inserted with Baptism and which is renewed in every Eucharistic celebration and in every sacramental sign.

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In the Preface I/A Christ is celebrated, Lord and judge of history, through these words of praise:

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«You have hidden from us the day and the hour in which Christ your Son, Lord and judge of history, will appear in the clouds of heaven clothed with power and splendor. On that tremendous and glorious day the present world will pass away and new heavens and a new earth will arise. Now he comes to meet us in every man and in every time, because we welcome him in faith and bear witness in love to the blessed hope of his kingdom".

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In this text everything is projected on the final coming of the glorious Christ. The language is solemn and emphatic: "Lord and Judge", "clothed in power and splendor", "on that awful and glorious day". However, this "not yet" is compared with the present, in which every believer is called to recognize the coming of Christ in the face of the brother he meets in everyday life in the experience of the three Theological Virtues explicitly referred to here: Faith, Hope and Charity. The hope, typical Virtue of Advent, it is welcomed with Faith and witnessed with an authentic Charity.

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In Preface II we have the two expectations of Christ pictured and explained in these words:

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«He was announced by all the prophets, the Virgin Mother waited for him and carried him in her womb with ineffable love, John proclaimed his coming and indicated him present in the world. The same Lord, who invites us to joyfully prepare for his Christmas, find us vigilant in prayer, exultant in praise".

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Extraordinary educational text which summarizes all of salvation history in preparation for the coming of the Son of God in the flesh: the prophetic announcement, the Holy gestation of the Virgin, the preaching and testimony of the Baptist and who not only announces the coming of the Lord but who also has the grace to see its realization. The believer is invited to rejoice because Jesus is already present and we can experience this presence both in personal prayer, as "vigilantes in prayer" and in the liturgical one, or: «rejoicing in praise».

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Preface II/A focuses on Maria new Eve, clarifying the role entrusted to her by God in the mystery of salvation, or as they say in the economy [the greek economy] of salvation:

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« We praise you, we bless you, we glorify you for the mystery of the Virgin Mother. From the ancient adversary came ruin, from the virginal womb of the daughter of Zion the one who feeds us with the bread of angels germinated and salvation and peace arose for all mankind. The grace that Eve took from us is given back to us in Mary. In her, Mother of all men, motherhood, redeemed from sin and death, opens to the gift of new life. Where guilt abounded, your mercy abounds in Christ our Savior".

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The text of this Preface of Marian imprint leads us directly to the contemplation of the Virgin Mother of God: Holy Mary, protagonist par excellence of the last days of Advent. Mary is paralleled with Eve, using the category of “motherhood”. From the womb of Eve - tempted by the Ancient Adversary, the serpent - a humanity marked by the experience of sin arose, a real "ruin". Mary is the new Eve, the Mother of a new humanity, not so much and no longer in a biological sense but in a spiritual sense. If on the one hand it is true that we are all men born in a flesh marked by the experience of sin, the Incarnation of the Divine Word - here exquisitely indicated with two images with a strong biblical flavour: "bread of angels" and "sprout" - opens wide before us the gift of Redemption and a new life, divine and spiritual. In the last period the words of the Apostle Paul have reverberated almost literally:

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«The law then came to give full awareness of the fall, but where sin abounded, abounded grace, because like sin he had reigned with death, so let also grace reign with justice for eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord". [RM 5, 20-21].

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This is what we should always remember too, in every moment of our life, especially when we feel the weight of our shortcomings, of our faults, when life seems like a litany of failures and even when faith itself risks faltering for internal and external causes. Why about everything, even about sin, his infinite mercy abounds, his love.

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Let us meditate carefully on these texts that the Mother Church gives us to prepare us for the Birth of the Lord and much more for our personal encounter with Him, when we will see him no longer as in a mirror, but face to face, and we will know him as we are now recognized by him [cf.. 1 Color 13, 12].

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I close with a recommendation: the Advent, try to live it and celebrate it in churches, not on social media. And if you have any doubts, or things to clarify, turn to us Priests, that however inadequate, sinners, inept and disappointing - as many write in their vents on the Internet - something more, compared to improvised theologians on Facebook e Twitter, rest assured that we know it and are able to offer it to you, always free the amor Dei.

Florence, 17 November 2022

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Follow the direct of The island of Patmos on the channel “Jordan” of the Theological Club” conducted by our Dominican theologian Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci

FOLLOW THE LIVE DE THE ISLAND OF PATMOS ON THE CANAL JORDAN THE THEOLOGICAL CLUB CONDUCTED BY OUR DOMINICAN EDITOR GABRIELE GIORDANO M. SCARDOCCI

The Fathers de The Island of Patmos I am happy to provide you with live broadcasts on important and interesting topics of doctrine and faith. Sign up numerous and above all participate, if you're really looking for what social media talks about saying you're looking for.

— The live video of The Island of Patmos —

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

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the Dominican theologian Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, father editor de The Island of Patmos

The main complaint: «… priests do not do catechesis … the priests no longer explain the Holy Scriptures … priests do not preach well … and threatens, and threatens, and threatens …». This is what we read about Social media in a succession of endless lamentations.

To some complainers we can even be partially right, but it must be specified: and when priests are busy offering you spiritual support, catechesis and homilies, the reaction of “complaining” which is? Unfortunately the facts show that instead of seizing certain opportunities on the fly, they stay on social media to complain: «… priests do not do catechesis … the priests no longer explain the Holy Scriptures … priests do not preach well … and threatens, and threatens, and threatens …».

Father Gabriele Giordano Maria Scardocci Our editor and Dominican theologian offers a valuable service to all those who - at least in words - declare themselves “orphans” some good catechesis, of the word of God and sound and profound preaching. Do you intend to subscribe, connect and follow, Or do you prefer to stay on social media to complain: «… priests do not do catechesis … the priests no longer explain the Holy Scriptures … priests do not preach well … and threatens, and threatens, and threatens …».

By the numbers, sometimes satisfying, sometimes merciless, but mostly real, we will be able to understand how much and to what extent certain “orphans” they are in real search or if what they seek is only bread, circus and lots of sensationalist gossip, conspiracy theorist and scandalist. Given that the Word of God is neither sensationalist, nor conspiracy theorist, nor scandalist. But above all it offers the truth of the Mystery of the Cross, does not offer: Pane&Circus.

To follow the live you can click on the image below tomorrow night at 21, where i father of The Island of Patmos are waiting for you to talk to you on the subject: "The Return of the King":

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All updates and notices on subsequent live you can find them on the right of the home page of The island of Patmos under the heading "The direct of Father Gabriele".

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We are waiting for you.

From the island of Patmos, 15 September 2022

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

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

n Agency. 59 From Rome
Iban code:
IT74R0503403259000000301118
For international bank transfers:
Codice SWIFT:
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If you make a bank transfer, send an email to the editorial staff, the bank does not provide your email and we will not be able to send you a thank you message:
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We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

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Jesus Christ was poor? The problem of a misunderstood "poor Church for the poor" and the great problem of ecclesiastical real estate assets

JESUS ​​CHRIST WAS POOR? THE PROBLEM OF A MISUNDERSTANDING «POOR CHURCH FOR THE POOR» AND THE GREAT PROBLEM OF ECCLESIASTICAL REAL ESTATE

Who out of crass ignorance, who for vulgar anti-clericalism, who for ideology or clerical pleasure speaks of a poor Jesus reduced to a penniless flower child, announces a false Christ who never existed and does not correspond to the historical chronicles narrated and transmitted by the Evangelists.

- Church news -

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PDF print format article

 

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The Neapolitan priests Vincenzo Doriano De Luca (right) director of the diocesan magazine Januarius and Franco Cirino (left) Bursar of the Archdiocese of Naples – click on image to open the video

Some Readers have pointed out that I write articles that are «interesting and clear, but too long". Someone clarified: "In the era of the social media most people don't read beyond the tenth line". Well I tell you that The Island of Patmos and a little’ a miracle. From October of 2014 to date, visitors have always increased without ever decreasing. In 2016 we had to buy one dedicated-server able to handle over twenty million visits a year. As ours explains webmaster success is not due to the number of visits but to the average time spent on the site, which is very high. Therefore, those who do not go beyond ten lines, I am not the audience to which the Fathers de The Island of Patmos they intend to contact.

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Now I will offer a long article for those who do not intend to explain and resolve complex and articulated themes on a historical level, ecclesial, pastoral, economic and financial with three “shot” lines up Twitter while walking down the street or in line at the checkout supermarket waiting to pay.

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In the episode of Report the 7 an interview with two Neapolitan presbyters was broadcast on Rai2 in November: Frank Cirino, Bursar of the Archdiocese of Naples e Vincenzo Doriano DeLuca director of the diocesan magazine January. The treasurer has demonstrated an extraordinary preparation on the ecclesial-pastoral and economic-financial level. We invite you to listen this interview, it is very interesting and clarifying for understanding how the difficult management of ecclesiastical assets really works.

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TI will address this theme on two different sides illustrating first, the current difficulties of managing the ecclesiastical patrimony, then the true and authentic meaning of "poverty" and of "poor Church" according to the Holy Gospels. The poverty of the Church is a concept dear to all hippies the Left radical chic with super-penthouses in Parioli and villas in Capalbio, pleasant resort of extra luxury in the lower Tuscan Maremma where, when he feared hosting a few migrants to be distributed to the various municipalities of Italy, the first to rise up were the Piddini with six-figure accounts who bivouac in that pleasant exclusive location, except to claim it right alone and the ports open to the disembarkation of anyone who arrives on our coasts, provided, however, that it does not arrive in front of the doors of their villas [cf.. WHO, WHO, WHO …].

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To understand we really need to take a step back, always addressing those who wish to know, then read, not to those who jump over on the tenth line. Let's start from 1850, year in which the Siccardi Laws were passed which sanctioned the separation between State and Church in the Kingdom of Sardinia, the number 1013 the 9 April and the number 1037 the 5 June, which suppressed the privileges previously granted to the Church, as already happened in other European countries in the period immediately following the French Revolution. Laws then extended to other Italian territories conquered by the Piedmontese between 1848 and the 1861. They followed the Rattazzi law n. 878 the 29 May 1855 and the subversive laws n. 3036 the 7 July 1866 e n. 3848 the 15 August 1867. After 20 September 1870 which marked the capture of Rome and the definitive unity of the Kingdom of Italy, were finally extended to the whole national territory.

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Needless to say: the person walking down the street or in line at the cash desk waiting to pay, send twett to pontificate in three lines on the most complex historical or historical-ecclesial questions, of the type "the Church is rich and owns half of Italian real estate" (!?), or "the Vatican has the largest deposits of gold in the world" (!?), he certainly cannot follow our discourse, because over time he would lose reading only one page, he will have already tweeted at least ten similar sage messages to spread his pearls of wisdom. And upon exiting the supermarket, always busy between a Tweet and the other, walking down the street you won't realize or wonder why certain historic buildings that were once abbeys, certose, monasteries and religious institutes, today they are barracks, schools, public offices. Simple to explain: those structures, between 1848 and the 1870 were confiscated from the Church, kicked out monks, nuns and priests, then transformed into barracks, hospitals, public offices. Many small churches owned by religious institutes or brotherhoods, once requisitioned they became warehouses, garage, workshops, pieces of private homes. And here an aside is in order, one of many among those you will never find in the history books, because the Italian Risorgimento is still today a myth built at the table by ideological propaganda. The confiscation work for the destination of those buildings for other use, throughout the Italian nineteenth century it constituted the greatest and most appalling destruction of the national artistic heritage. Soon said: transform a charterhouse or a 12th or 13th century monastery, enriched over time with works of art, sculptures, frescoes, fine worked marbles, to use it as a barracks, necessarily entails the irreparable destruction of a heritage of art. You have never found it written in history books for school use in which only the undisputed glories of the Italian Risorgimento are explained? Anyhow, even if it is not written in the books, the work of these immense havoc is still visible before our eyes, starting from Rome to follow with all the other big and small Italian cities, it would be enough to avert one's eyes from the social media and look around when walking the streets of Italian cities. Above all, as citizens, you should be aware, just out of pure civic sense, than most of the historic churches and religious institutes we see today, they are not owned by the Italian dioceses, but of the state. For their management there is also a special office managed by the Ministry of the Interior which is call FEC (Cult buildings fund). And here a parenthesis should be opened on another topic which, however, we cannot deal with here, to explain to certain secularists who thunder against the Otto per Mille to the Catholic Church that with this contribution, who really benefits, it is not the Church but the State. Try to think that the State should manage, conserve and protect certain large historic churches and basilicas that it owns, returned after confiscation to the Church on loan for use so that someone could provide for their protection and conservation. Stables today guarded by religious congregations or by the secular clergy of the various dioceses, who enlist the help of devoted Catholic faithful who provide free service as volunteers. Request: how much it would cost the State to have to conserve and guard certain great ones, precious and important historic buildings of high artistic value? How much salaried staff would it need, how many cleaners, how many guardians? So, the reckoning, on the much recriminated Otto per Mille, who is really making money?

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Just twenty years later, from 1890, the governments of the Kingdom of Italy, however fiercely anticlerical, they sent their officials holding the keys of many historic institutes and churches to beg the diocesan bishops, the monks and nuns, the men and women religious from whom they had been confiscated a few decades earlier, so that they could take them back on… free loan (!?). Indeed, the good liberal-Risorgimento-anticlerical State, he soon found himself having to deal with an enormous heritage of historical-artistic buildings that could not all be transformed into barracks, schools, hospitals, public offices, university locations … Many of these historic churches and former religious establishments were located in outlying areas, some abbeys, certose, monasteries and convents were in isolated areas and difficult to control. Once requisitioned and closed, first these were looted, then they began to pour into disrepair. Everywhere, in particular in Southern Italy, there had been great looting of works of art. The trade of thieves and art dealers with the United States of America was very dense, who in those years acquired most of the works still kept in their museums today. All this always as proof of the great unspoken historical glories of the Italian Risorgimento which must remain a myth, legend and ideology.

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The Italian nineteenth century it was also the century of the great saints of charity, educators and pedagogues, of which are emblem San Giovanni Bosco with the Congregation of the Salesians and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. Also in Piedmont, Maria Enrichetta Dominici gave life to the Sisters of Providence under the patronage of the Marquis of Barolo, which will then take the name of Sisters of Sant'Anna, engaged in the assistance and education of orphan girls. The Roman St. Vincent Pallotti founded the Catholic Apostolate, before which all Roman nobles opened their wallets, just to get him out of the way, so insistent was he when he sought funds for charitable works for the benefit of orphans and the elderly. St. Joseph Benedict Cottolengo, founder of the work of Divine Mercy, she cared for children and the elderly with severe physical disabilities. The foundation of these institutes and works also continued during the twentieth century with San Giovanni Calabria who founded the Poor Servants and Servants of Divine Providence, to whom we owe the foundation of the Sacred Heart Hospital of Verona, today a center of excellence at European level. And many other founding saints and foundresses.

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All these facilities dedicated to assisting orphans, children from poor families, sick elderly deprived of support and disabled, to follow along with the entire network of kindergartens and schools run by numerous religious congregations, above all they constituted a not indifferent service to the State, who mostly requisitioned only institutes of contemplative life after having declared them "parasitic". Obviously no one could explain to the legislator of the time - perhaps even more so to today's legislator - that certain apostolic works of active life were supported by the contemplative life of the monks and nuns who consumed their lives in prayer and penance in the cloisters and who constituted the fuel to run the engines of the great saints of charity.

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Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in an Italy in which the birth rate was much different and much higher, thanks to the donations of many wealthy benefactors huge institutes were built, some were real citadels. Between the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, marine and mountain colonies were built capable of hosting up to 3.000 children. Pharaonic structures erected in years in which not so much construction, but the maintenance and conservation of certain buildings had completely different costs. There are also numerous institutions for abandoned children, the so-called orphanages. Equally numerous were those in which disabled children were welcomed and assisted. All this was happening in years when we weren't yet civilized. When in fact in the 1978 there was the "great social conquest" of the law on legalized abortion which gave birth to this "great and intangible civil right" [cf.. Ivano Liguori, WHO], mothers could go directly to hospitals to legally impose the death penalty on their children. And so, to gradually, the orphanages were permanently closed, partly due to the drop in birth rates and partly due to legalized abortion. While children with Down syndrome or other forms of disability are increasingly rare to see, because they can be killed before being born, in this country of ours that repudiates war and the death penalty to the sound of rainbows, except, however, making war on life and inflicting the death penalty on their children, to unwanted ones and those deemed not physically perfect.

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Thanks to the impetus given by the Council of Trent (1545-1563) the Church had already experienced a similar happy season between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries with the birth of numerous institutes of so-called apostolic life. The birth of all those male and female religious congregations dates back to that period ― which then became numerous in the following three centuries ―, engaged in education, in childcare, in the care of the elderly, of the sick and disabled. New forms of religious life ranging from the Order of the Society of Jesus of Saint Ignatius of Loyola to the Hospitaller Order of the Fatebenefratelli of Saint John of God, from the Congregation of the Company of the Oratory of San Filippo Neri to the hospital ladies of San Vicenzo de' Paoli, the Daughters of Charity.

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To the decline in births joins that of vocations to the priestly and religious life. Many congregations of nuns, thriving until half a century ago, today they are increasingly reduced in number and made up of religious of an ever older age. The nuns are now disappearing from many medium and small Italian dioceses, with significant reductions in numbers even in the large ones and the consequent progressive closure of kindergartens, schools and institutes. Soon said: how to use certain prestigious historic buildings in city centres, or in singular or strategic places, for example facing the sea or in mountain tourist areas, or in hilly and countryside areas which have become particularly exclusive nowadays? Definitely selling them, or leasing them to hotel companies. To monetize or somehow make these structures profitable, no longer usable for the purposes for which they were built, it means obtaining the money necessary to support other kinds of charitable or welfare works of completely different dimensions, necessary and appropriate to the needs of contemporary society, which certainly is no longer that of the 1920s or 1930s.

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It takes a lot to understand this, instead of shouting at the "shameful real estate speculation of the Church", or instead of launching a feature in the weekly Espresso the totally false news about the Church, according to certain pseudo-investigative journalists would not pay taxes on real estate? Fake. The Church has always paid taxes on real estate from which only buildings of worship and those of welfare and charitable institutions are exempt [cf.. see in Future, WHO]. Or maybe they ignore, the signatories of these periodical published inquiries only one his Espresso, that even the Arcigay circles do not pay taxes because they are recognized as associations of public social utility as they are responsible for spreading the gender and instances of lobby LGBT? If certain congregations of nuns hadn't transformed some of their institutions that are no longer usable into more or less luxurious hotels, where would they get the money from to support other kinds of charitable and welfare activities in Italy or in various poor countries around the world? To the editors of Espresso, who over the years have bombarded us with articles bordering on anti-clerical ferocity, in addition to the gratuitous lie, understand this, it's just that hard?

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The topic covered in the episode of Report, made excellent by our Neapolitan brothers Franco Cirino and Vincenzo Doriano De Luca, as well as a wonderful Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe who, pressed insistently by a prurient journalist, sent him to fuck off [cf.. WHO] ― and he did very well to do it ― , it was partly about the number of historic churches in the historic center of Naples, about a thousand, of which only the 15% owned by the Archdiocese of Naples, partly on the case of the Apostolic Citadel founded after the war by the presbyter Gaetano Cascella with the donations of various benefactors and bequeathed to the Archdiocese of Naples in 1979. A huge charitable structure erected in Pozzuoli facing the gulf and changed into hotel facility. Soon said: enough to make the usual suspects scream together with the chorus of totally uninformed people against the dirty speculative Church: «The Church must be poor because Jesus was poor!».

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And now we move on to the second part: we are sure that "Jesus was poor", how those who do not set foot in church even for Easter and Christmas thunder and who when out of social duty have to participate in some wedding or funeral, during the liturgies they do not know what to answer, nor when to sit or stand up? And to the words "Our Father who art in Heaven...", total silent scene of almost all of certain assemblies convened out of duty towards the dear departed and his family, while the priest celebrant answers himself, or if an altar server or sacristan is present, at that point theirs will be the only voices to recite with him «… hallowed be your name, Come your kingdom …". but yet, it is precisely these people who cannot distinguish the book of the Holy Gospels from a manual of recipes for the kitchen, to raise the finger ― obviously above all on social media - to thunder and remind in a threatening tone: «Jesus was poor!».

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Sorry to disabuse these thirsting for poverty on the skin of others and of the Church in particular, except to seek and demand for oneself all the most expensive and even useless luxuries. Jesus was not poor at all. Both the Divine Master and his Apostles had enough to eat and live, despite having left work and homes. Simone known as Pietro was what today we could define as a wealthy fishing entrepreneur. As were James and John sons of Zebedee, certainly much more wealthy than the same Simon known as Peter, it would be enough to leave the club of the ignorant gods social media and read the chronicles of the Holy Gospels:

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«Passing along the sea of ​​Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew, brother of Simone, as they cast their nets into the sea; they were in fact fishermen. Jesus said to them,: "Follow me, I will make you fishers of men ". And immediately, leave the nets, they followed. Going a little further, he also saw Giacomo di Zebedèo and Giovanni his brother on the boat while they were rearranging the nets. He called them. And they, left their father Zebedee in the boat with the boys, they followed him" [MC 1, 16-20].

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I understand that today we are illiteracy is functional that digital, to the point of not even understanding what is imprinted in the Holy Scriptures. So let us try to understand this passage. First of all, the characters in this story about the calling of the Apostles, they owned not only “a boat”, but "of the boats", which at the time was no small thing, especially in that area considered one of the poorest provinces of the Roman Empire. Just like today it is completely different to be a lorry driver who owns a lorry for large transports whose cost can reach up to one million euros, and be a truck driver who drives a bulk truck owned by others as a salaried employee. The same thing still applies in fishing today, to both fishermen and fishing vessels, which are not always owned by those who are dedicated to fishing. The apostles were entrepreneurs who owned their own boats.

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The Holy Gospel referred to here, he specifies in the story that the father of Giacomo and Giovanni also employed hired workers: «And they, left their father Zebedee in the boat with the boys, they followed him" [MC 1, 16-20].

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Young John and his brother James they therefore came from a family of wealthy entrepreneurs, so much so that the mother, in a fit of naivety born of his lack of understanding of the mission of the Word of God, he asked Christ the Lord: "Tell these sons of mine to sit one at your right and one at your left in your kingdom" [Mt 20, 21]. We wonder who, if not the mother of two children belonging to what today we would call the mercantile bourgeoisie, he would have dared to make such a request to a Master of such prestige? Only a woman belonging to a specific social class who wanted a due place of respect for her offspring could do it.

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The Twelve Apostles they received help from benefactors and when guests arrived in the houses, provision was made by offering them the best that could be offered, they had devoted women to attend to their care and needs.

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Blessed Patriarch Joseph he was not a salaried worker but an entrepreneur who carried out a noble trade, that of cabinetmaker; respectable and very lucrative profession. Therefore, anyone who says "Saint Joseph the worker", or anyone who claims that "St. Joseph was a worker", mystifies the figure of the blessed husband of the Virgin Mary, because Joseph was not a worker as we understand him today, because it was certainly he who employed hired workers at his company.

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The Blessed Virgin Mary he came from an even more affluent family than Joseph's, it is always evident from the Holy Gospels, for example in the story of his visit to his cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist and wife of Zechariah, who was a member of the ancient priestly caste and a very cultured and wealthy person. Not only was Zacharias a priest, because as such it belonged to a very high level: he was a member of Abiah's class, which represented the VIII of the XXIV classes into which the priests serving in the Temple of Jerusalem were divided.

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All'era the culture was closely linked to economic well-being. Also in this case the Holy Gospels detail what was the cultural level of Zacharias by narrating how, not having at that moment the use of the word, removed from it by the Archangel Gabriel for not having believed the announcement that his wife would give birth to a son at an advanced age [cf.. LC 1, 5-25], he asked for a tablet to confirm his assent to the name Elizabeth intended to give to the unborn child, writing: "John is his name". [LC 1, 63]. In front of these stories, historians and anthropologists, but above all the theologians, they should explain how many people in ancient Judea at the time could read and even write. Not for nothing, when young Jewish males celebrated coming of age through the mtzva bar and they had to read and publicly comment on a passage from the Torah, as Jesus did at the age of twelve during the episode narrated by the Holy Gospels as his dispute with the Doctors of the Temple [cf.. LC 2, 41-50], most of it was pain, because the majority of Jewish teenagers could not read or write. So they memorized a verse and then, with the Sefer Torah open [the scroll of the Holy Law], they recited it. A bit like what happens today to the majority of more or less observant Jews, many of whom do not know Hebrew, several manage to read it, but they don't understand its meaning. And so the rabbi proceeds to write a verse transliterated from the Hebrew, puts it on Sefer Torah and the teenager reads it, sometimes without even knowing what it means.

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But here is the prompt reply of those who want a Jesus who is poor and strictly speaking the son of poor people at all costs: "Jesus was born in a poor stable". In this case too, however, things are different, in fact narrates the Blessed Evangelist Luke:

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«[…] at the time when a decree of Caesar Augustus ordered the census of all the land. This first census was made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone went to be enrolled, each in their own city. Joseph also, from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, went up to Judea to the city of David called Bethlehem: in fact, he belonged to the house and family of David. He had to be registered together with Maria, his bride, that she was pregnant" [LC 2, 1-20].

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historical reality is that the power then in force had commanded a census for administrative reasons, thus forcing Joseph and Mary, then close to childbirth, to go to the city of David, Bethlehem. And here it is interesting to note that Bethlehem, in Hebrew, means "House of Bread". And right in that city, certainly not by chance, he was born who will later become the Living Bread descended from heaven [cf.. GV 6, 35-59], which is not "like what your fathers ate and died" because "whoever eats this bread will live forever" [GV. 6, 58].

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Forgetting all the tender readings with which popular piety has colored the text of Luke's Gospel, it narrates that the birth of Jesus takes place in a space that could be found in the houses of the time, those dug inside, presumably a room carved into the rock. Like the kind of houses that are still visible today in certain archaeological sites, those located in Sicily at the Necropolis of Pantalica in the Syracuse area [cf.. WHO], or in Basilicata at the so-called Sassi of Matera [cf.. WHO], or in the lower Tuscan Maremma in the city of Pitigliano dug into the tuff on the border between Tuscany and Lazio [cf.. WHO].

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In the Gospels there is no reference to the ox, the donkey and the presence of various animals around the Blessed Virgin Mary. Above all, this birth in an unexpected place, it didn't happen because Giuseppe was a penniless underclass, but because - as the Gospels narrate - both for the census, and for the large influx of pilgrims to Jerusalem, there was just not a single hole free.

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I use an example that always made me smile: the mother of my pupil and collaborator, today president of our Editions, Jorge Facio Lynx, she was about to give birth while she was inside a taxi. The taxi driver promptly diverted the ride to the hospital. But no one would ever argue, in case this other Maria ― Maria Ines, Jorge's mom ―, had given birth in a taxi, that the poor thing was so poor and penniless that she could not even afford to give birth to her child in an obstetrics-gynecology clinic.

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Jesus Christ was poor the same way he was born with very white skin, blond hair and blue eyes, in a city in Sweden - as we obviously read in the Holy Gospels - called Bethlehem, a few tens of kilometers from the capital of Stockholm. Among the various episodes that give the correct and real perception of how Blessed Joseph and the Virgin Mary were not poor penniless underclassmen, the story of the massacre of the innocents is certainly exhaustive. The fearsome Herod, having learned that astronomer magicians had traveled to Judea where a king was to be born, after trying to mislead them, he subsequently ordered to kill all newborn boys aged two and under. Blessed Joseph, warned in a dream by an Angel, takes the child and the mother and flees to Egypt, where the family remained until the death of Herod [cf.. Mt 2, 1-16]. Regarding this story it must be specified that in the wake of the Protestant Rudolph Bultmann, master of the demythologization of the Holy Gospels - to which many of our theologians and exegetes impudently refer, transmitting theories and teachings directly into our current ecclesiastical universities ―, many scholars question the historicity of the Flight into Egypt. Some of our biblical scholars intervened to give them a hand, arguing that the flight into Egypt of the story of the Blessed Evangelist Matthew would have been constructed to give a theological foundation to this Gospel directed mainly to the Jews, to whom it was thus exposed that Jesus Christ was the new Moses and that through him the prophecy of the Prophet Hosea was therefore fulfilled: "From Egypt I called my son" [Os 11,1]. According to others, the story of the Blessed Evangelist Matthew would be nothing more than a plagiarism of the Aggadah Hebrew that narrates how the Patriarch Moses was saved from death, after the pharaoh had decreed the suppression of children. In truth, the similarities between the Patriarch Moses and Christ God, they do not represent at all a solid element to deny the historicity of what is narrated by the Blessed Evangelist Matthew.

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After this dutiful digression let's get back to the problem, which is as follows: how two poor souls could afford to move to Egypt indefinitely? The lovers of today Jesus' poverty, have they ever wondered how much it cost, at the time, stay in Egypt? there, making both a parallel and a socio-financial conversion, we can argue that at the time, stay in Egypt, it cost what it would cost to stay in Dubai today, well-known destination of the greatest starving deaths of this world.

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Many times Jesus was honored with precious gifts, like the expensive nard oil with which Mary anointed his feet in Bethany [cf.. MC 14, 3-9]. Among the spectators present at the event was Judas Iscariot, who harshly criticized that gesture of loving devotion, lamenting such a waste. That oil was in fact very precious and expensive, it was worth three hundred denarii, as the Gospel account itself details. It's here, to explain what such an amount amounted to in Judea at the time, suffice it to say that a denarius was the daily wages of a Roman soldier and that oil, more expensive than gold, it corresponded to almost a year's pay. Before the episode of Judas who affirms that that money could have been given to the poor, John the Evangelist tells us that the Iscariot had no concern for the poor, but that he was a thief. In fact, the community of apostles had a chest from which he stole money [cf.. GV 12, 1-8]. A harsh judgement, the one enclosed in this story with which John condemns Judas, it does not condemn concern for the poor, but that hypocrisy that yesterday as today makes use of the poor when necessary and before which the Lord responds to Judas dispelling all doubts for the present and for the future: «You will always have the poor among you, but you won't always have me" [GV. 12, 1-11].

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Jesus also dressed elegantly, today we would say haute couture. In fact, he was wearing a precious tunic, fully woven and seamless, so much so that under the cross the soldiers didn't tear it to pieces as they used to do with the rags of the poor people, with which they then cleaned their spears and swords and polished their armor, but they played it with dice. The Synoptic Gospels limit themselves to narrating that the soldiers cast lots for his garment [cf.. Mt 27,35; MC 15,24; LC 23,34], while the Blessed Evangelist John hesitates to explain the value and value of that item of clothing: “Now that tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to each other: “Let's not tear it up, but we cast lots for whose turn it is"» [GV 19, 23-24]. All because a piece of such quality and value, it certainly couldn't be ruined.

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Among the twelve apostles — as we said earlier — there was also a cashier, a kind of forerunner of the president of APSA (Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See). However, this primitive administrator was no gentleman, his name was Judas Iscariot and he was a subject to be wary of, not so much when he spoke of the poor, pretending they cared so much; you had to beware of him especially when he gave kisses [cf.. Mt 26,47-56; MC 14,43-52; LC 22,47-53].

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The body of the dead Lord was wrapped in precious linen and placed in a fine new tomb provided by a rich man who had become a follower of Christ: Joseph of Arimathea [cf.. Mt. 27, 57-60]. So Jesus, to make the idea, he was not buried in a mass grave or in a modest niche at the expense of the Jerusalem municipality, but in what today would be in all respects the elegant sepulchral chapel of a very high-ranking family.

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A separate explanation deserves the same penalty as crucifixion and the methods adopted. Indeed, it happened frequently, not to mention practice, that the executioners, to alleviate the suffering of the condemned and to hasten his death, their legs and arms should be broken to hasten their death which in this way occurred by suffocation. Once the corpses were placed on the crosses, the bodies followed this fate: or they were caught and thrown into a large mass grave, or they were hacked to pieces with axes.

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Come May, the Holy Body of Christ the Lord this fate did not follow, or rather this practice, after his crucifixion on Golgotha? The same name as that gloomy hill, it encompasses both its history and its meaning. A word of Aramaic origin, the place is called in Greek ολγοϑᾶ and in Latin Golgotha, literally means "place of the skull", or the "skull", due to the presence of ossified skulls and bones scattered on the ground. The corpses were in fact thrown, whole or in pieces, in pits that are not always deep, with the consequence that the various animals present in the area often unearthed and then scattered the remains of human bodies around. But this fate, which was the usual practice, instead it was not the turn of Christ the Lord, whose body was taken down from the cross, harvest, washed, anointed with precious oils and essences, finally wrapped in an equally precious shroud. Evidently Jesus of Nazareth, however condemned to that horrendous punishment, he wasn't exactly one of several condemned ordinaries, therefore his body and the care of the same followed a completely different fate. And these different fates denote that he wasn't exactly a poor man, nor an ordinary convict surrounded by just as many poor people, like the numerous convicts for whom the same family members did not even dare to go and ask for the bodies for a proper burial, also because they should have given a generous tip to the Roman soldiers. Some poor relatives of the crucified dead attempted to steal their bodies at night, with the risk of ending up subjected to harsh penalties if discovered. That said, I don't want to make hypotheses that could even cause scandal in some. But, posed these premises, I have a simple doubtful question: it is none other than Joseph of Arimathea, indicated by the Holy Gospels themselves as «rich» [cf.. Mt 27, 57-61] going in broad daylight to request the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, from the Roman soldiers he didn't exactly show up empty-handed to take the body and offering them many thanks for their sensitivity and understanding?

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A few days later, before the overturned stone of the sepulcher of the Risen Christ, the Capos del Popolo invited the Roman soldiers guarding the tomb to lie. To induce them to do so they gave them a good sum of money [cf.. Mt 28, 12-14]. This theme to which I have dedicated a video lesson to which I refer [see video WHO]. Come May, the Heads of the People, they did not simply tell the Romans: “Dear Soldiers, be kind and do us this favour, say that…”? They did none of this for the simple fact that in ancient Judea where everything was sold, was bought and traded, the Romans who had perfectly settled in and integrated into the culture and ways of doing of the place, for free they did nothing, not even killing quickly, because even a "merciful" spear to relieve the suffering of a condemned man had a price to pay.

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The Holy Gospel of the Nativity and that of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ they do not at all narrate the birth of a poor man nor the death and burial of an equally poor man. And all of us, be faithful devotees, both people who are also non-faithful and non-believers, on the basis of what is called intellectual honesty we must stick to the historical accounts of the Holy Gospels, which have nothing to do with the more or less daring ideological exegeses.

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If we don't get into this style of thinking we cannot understand certain passages of the Holy Gospels, but we can only twist them, consequently dirty and distort them. When in fact in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ the Lord announces the Beatitudes [cf.. Mt 5, 1-16], his reference to the poor is not a dry and lapidary "Blessed are the poor", as Cardinal Claudio Hummes murmured during the last conclave, or as for nine years now we have unfortunately heard enunciated from the increasingly faith-poor pulpits of our churches, with homiletic rants obsessively focused on immigrants and refugees. The Word of God has never uttered this lapidary sentence, but he enunciated a much more articulated expression: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". He makes no reference to material poverty, much less indicating it as a virtue, rather than poverty, the misery, they are not cardinal virtues, they are misfortunes to get out of and help others get out of. We are invited to be poor "in spirit", that is, to enter into a precise inner disposition. In fact, being inwardly poor means first and foremost being aware of our limitations and our miseries as men born with the corruption of original sin. Being poor in spirit means recognizing our free and vital need to depend on the grace of God the Father. And the model par excellence of that poverty synonymous with humility and unconditional giving of love is Christ God who, as the Blessed Apostle Paul instructs us, despite being rich he became poor for us:

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«Cristo, while it is of divine nature, He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. He appeared in human form, humbled himself by becoming obedient unto death and death on a cross" [Fil 2, 6-11].

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In the Holy Gospels the Lord does not tell us “You must be poor”, quite the opposite: he exhorts us by saying clearly «Be careful and keep away from all greed because, even if one is in abundance, his life does not depend on what he possesses" [cf.. LC 12, 13-21]. The intimate meaning of the Lord's words is: don't worry about anything, because it's worth worrying about, but it is good to worry about that all understood as cosmic Christocentrism, for being present projected towards an eternal future becoming, certainly not for nothing.

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Material goods are necessary and they can be very useful for transforming them into a collective good in various ways. Invest in studies, for instance, or in certain studies in a particular way, it is very costly, but thanks to the use of large sums of money some talented men became surgeons who then invented new operating techniques, others of the scientists who have discovered new molecules or created new vaccines. And all this was possible through that instrument called money, through which - some say - the world moves. Let's also assume that money moves the world, the important thing is that its movement does not make the man a slave trapped and unable to see beyond matter, something unacceptable for us Christians who in the profession of faith proclaim our Trinitarian belief in eternity: "Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi".

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In the pages of the Holy Gospels, more than an invitation to a surreal poverty, or worse to an ideological poverty, the Lord invites us to make a healthy and generous use of riches, using them for the better development of ourselves and for the good of others, for example through those money flow mechanisms that create jobs and collective welfare. All this with all due respect to the great sharks of the worst wild liberal capitalism, who affirm that «the Church must be poor», while the poor non-EU African needs a free Cuba on the edge of their swimming pool in memory of Fidel Castro, in the sweet memory of Ernesto Guevara said Che, also known as The pig, i.e. the Pig, it was notoriously dirty both inside and out. If not, to those animated by selfishness who think only of filling their barns and then say to themselves: "Relax, it eats, drink and have fun and give yourself joy» [LC 12, 19]. The Lord remembers: "Careful, you who accumulate treasures only for yourself and do not worry about getting rich in the presence of God" [LC 12, 21].

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Wealth and well-being are not bad, quite the opposite, they can be sources of great good and as such serve to create wealth and superior well-being. The material means, starting with money, they have always been useful tools, indeed indispensable for the very proclamation of the Word of God and for evangelization. The Twelve themselves, who left family, home and work to devote himself to the apostolate, they had means of support. Their apostolic mission was supported by faithful benefactors and very wealthy widows. Let us therefore ensure that wealth can truly produce true wealth, for ourselves and for the good of others, so that everything is not only "vanity of vanities", as Qohelet admonishes by opening his speech with an invective against vanity [cf.. q 1,3].

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We should not wish or pray to create a "poor Church for the poor" [cf.. WHO]. The Church belongs to everyone, of the poor and the rich and all are called to salvation. Also because it is not written in any page of the Holy Gospels that poor equals good and that rich equals bad. There are poor people endowed with wickedness and appalling wickedness, as there are rich people who live with great respect for their neighbor, especially for the less well-off. And often only after the death of several of them did it become known how much charity they did and how many families they helped in total hiding. Just as there are poor people capable of depriving themselves of what is necessary to give glory to God, think of the evangelical account of the poor widow who throws the only two coins she possessed into the treasury of the temple [cf.. Mt 12, 41-44]. This is why I have always prayed and will continue to pray, not for an ideological «poor Church for the poor», but for a Church of men and women rich in faith, leaving the supreme to others ideology of the poor, which has never constituted a truth, much less a dogma of the holy Catholic faith. Assuming, however, that the first not to have been born of two poor people, not to have lived poorly, not to have eaten poorly, not to have dressed like a poor man, finally not even being buried as a pauper, it was really Our Lord Jesus Christ. And whoever tells you the opposite speaks to you of a completely different Christ from the one described in the Holy Gospels, therefore he announces to you a false historical Christ, a Christ who never existed and could not even exist. Therefore, who out of ignorance due to the total lack of knowledge of the Holy Gospels, (c)hi out of crass ignorance, who for vulgar anti-clericalism, who for ideology or clerical pleasure speaks of a poor Jesus reduced to a penniless flower child, announces a false Christ who never existed and does not correspond to the historical chronicles narrated and transmitted by the Evangelists.

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Christ is away, Truth and the Life [See. GV 14, 6], it is in its absoluteness and totality. Christ cannot be reduced to a pretext to legitimize our way and our questionable truths, finally leading the flock entrusted to us to shepherd by the Divine Shepherd towards a different path from the one given and offered by the Supreme Giver of life. For in that case the outcry will hang over us:

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"Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the flock of my pasture". Therefore says the Lord, God of Israel, against the shepherds who are to shepherd my people: "You have scattered my flock, and you are driven them away and have not you worried; behold, I will deal with you and with the wickedness of your doings. Oracle of the Lord. I myself will gather the rest of my sheep from all the regions where I let them drive and bring them back to their pastures; they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will appoint shepherds over them who will graze them, so they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed; of them did not even miss a » [Gives 23, 1-4].

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And upon us that the sheep we have scattered them, because they are committed to imposing the ideologies of our "I" rather than the truths of God, condemnation will hang over the "slacker servant"., then we will be “thrown out into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" [Mt 25, 30].

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Both to evangelize and to help the poor the Church needs the rich, many of whom have often been generous to the same extent that they have traveled far and wide through all the worst deadly sins. Without the money of the rich the Church could never have helped the poor. This is why the Church has accumulated goods, trying over time to increase them and put them to good use by making them pay. With all due respect to what we could define as the so-called "property benefactors" who thunder: "The Church must sell its goods and give them to the poor". That would be a nice idea. But, traveling one day to southeastern Sicily and talking to a wise farmer who raised cows - and who incidentally earned in a week what a high-ranking bank official earned in a month -, I understood from his sharp words that doing such a thing would be quite harmful, especially for the poor. In fact, if we take a cow and slaughter it - said the wise farmer -, giving roasted meat to the poor to eat for a week, when then the poor come to ask for milk, we will have to answer that there is no milk because they ate the cow. But, butchering it and offering it as food, we would have made a gesture of extraordinary "generosity" and "absolute donation". One of those gestures that people like so much hippies of the lefts radical chic. So we could send the poor to knock on the doors of their super penthouses in Parioli, or those of their villas in Capalbio, where you can even find them if you want 24.000 euros inside the dog's kennel, as happened to Senator Monica Cirinnà. Promptly defended by La Repubblica-L'Espresso Publishing Group [cf.. WHO] which complete with a filing decree from the competent court of Grosseto explains how much the interested party was a stranger. The same weekly Espresso who over the years has treated the Catholic Church in several reports as something between a mafia and a criminal association [cf.. WHO, WHO, WHO, etc…]. And when their investigations turned out to be bogus and the data false or distorted, no one has ever explained how unrelated we were to certain allegations, because we are not members of the left radical chic and why aren't we called Monica Cirinnà. That's why the doghouses of the Church for Espresso they always stink a priori, even when they smell of lavender and orange blossom and don't contain money of mysterious origin left in the dog's custody.

the Island of Patmos, 15 November

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