I am a theologian guardian of tradition in line with the thought of the theologian Andrea Grillo, intellectual honesty dictates it to me

— Liturgical ministry —

I AM A THEOLOGIST GUARDIAN OF TRADITION IN LINE WITH THE THOUGHT OF THEOLOGIST ANDREA GRILLO, INTELLECTUAL HONESTY REQUIRES ME TO

I dream-aesthetic traditionalists they are basically pathological patients for whom a newborn could be taken and its throat slaughtered in the baptismal font during the holy rite of initiation into the Christian life, But, if Holy Baptism is celebrated in Latin with the ancient rite, you can rest assured that they will get over it, or in any case they will always find justifications, however absurd and irrational, always.

 

 

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A year and a half ago the Apostolic Letter created discontent and bewilderment Guardians of tradition date in the form of motu proprio by the Supreme Pontiff Francis the 16 July 2021 about the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970, which in fact creates understandable and appropriate restrictions on the Motu Proprio given the 7 July 2007 by the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI on the use of the Roman Missal of St. Pius V before the reform outlined by Holy Council the 4 December 1963.

On this issue the sacramental theologian Andrea Grillo intervened with one of his articles by 24 February 2022 in which you ask: It is legitimate to create stable anti-council Indian reservations? Article that I accepted and judged balanced and also far-sighted.

 

the sacramental theologian Andrea Grillo

 

On the so-called and improperly called traditionalists I'd rather fly over, however, it is necessary to give an idea of ​​theirs status psychological with some examples aimed at clarifying what we are talking about, but above all how irrational and emotional their approach to the sacred liturgy is. So let's try to formulate precise questions: the members of the Franciscans of the Immaculate had perhaps not generated, within their young and confused religious congregation, some forms of real juridical chaos? Perhaps these are far from sporadic results, but unfortunately many, the recorded cases of young religious who left their austere convents to end up under psychiatric treatment, after being not so badly trained, but really deformed on a human and spiritual level? Empirical evidence shows, have they not proved, with unprecedented arrogance, to be a congregation born yesterday, recognized by the Holy See just in 1990, that despite not having had time to train even a generation of theologians, not to mention a theological school, they set about promoting international conferences against the top exponents of the New Theology, which can be criticized, but by the Dominicans or the Franciscans, who over the course of eight centuries have given birth to important currents of theological thought and donated to the Church theological schools and various great Saints and Doctors of the Church? With their somewhat confused Father Serafino Lanzetta, little more than a kid at the time, perhaps they did not set about hammering the nail of Vatican II, a purely pastoral council, therefore in fact a non-dogmatic council and as such a sort of little council second class? With their very arrogant Mariologist Father Alessandro Apollonio, perhaps they did not begin to give the Marian dogma of Mary the co-redeemer as already declared, calling the Blessed Virgin with this title and even instituting her cult and devotion, unaware of how much the very concept of "co-redemptrix" has always created enormous problems in the field of dogmatics and above all of Christology? Maybe they haven't had, sweet at the bottom, problems related to financial and asset management? Forget it, because we could take these facts one by one and still others to follow, all tested and documented, without being able to move i in the slightest dream-aesthetic traditionalists convinced that the poor Franciscans of the Immaculate were persecuted because they celebrated Mass with the the old order and because they criticized the German theologian Karl Rahner.

I dream-aesthetic traditionalists they are basically pathological patients for whom a newborn could be taken and its throat slaughtered in the baptismal font during the holy rite of initiation into the Christian life, But, if Holy Baptism is celebrated in Latin with the ancient rite, you can rest assured that they will get over it, or in any case they will always find justifications, however absurd and irrational, always.

Andrea Grillo belongs to what some usually define “progressive area” O “very progressive”. These are definitions that I have never liked, because for me there are only theologians who discuss and that as one and only “label” they have that of Catholics. I met Andrea Grillo in past years, he is a man of profound legal culture, theological and sacramental. When asked if I share some of his theses and positions, I would answer no, but that he is a scholar of the highest level, this is indubitable. Add to this that he is also amiable as a person and very talented as a teacher, always helpful and considerate with graduate school students. If certain dream-aesthetic traditionalists whose arrogance has always matched their ignorance, began to discuss the theological and pastoral structure of the Missal of Saint Pius V, not to mention its history and evolution through the ages, with a liturgist like that - whose stature and encyclopaedic culture, I repeat, must first of all be recognized - I think that after scarce three minutes not even a feather would be left of them.

I have always tried to be an intellectually honest scholar, therefore I have never had any difficulty in affirming that Hans Küng had natural gifts and speculative abilities far superior to those of Joseph Ratzinger, because the historical facts and the originality of his writings prove it. Otherwise, those of Joseph Ratzinger, they are written by a very cultured theologian as well as an excellent teacher able to expound in a masterly way, but the originality of the thought is, however, quite another thing. My confrere and friend Brunero Gherardini (1925-2017), which was the quintessence of the strictest and most rigorous orthodoxy, had no difficulty admitting appreciatively that Leonard Boff was one of the most gifted and talented ecclesiologists of the last 50 year old, or that the most beautiful commentary and exegesis of the Letter to the Romans remains that of the Protestant Karl Barth, currently unsurpassed. But there's more: perhaps, if we possessed the works and writings - which unfortunately we have not received - we could even discover that the heresiarch Pelagius was more gifted, on a theological and speculative level, than was Augustine bishop of Hippo, later Saint and Doctor of the Church. Unfortunately we don't have the works of Pelagius and we know only the answers and refutations of Augustine about him. But if a titan like Augustine moved against Pelagius, this already shows that on the other side, as heretical as we want, there was another titan and a tough nut to crack to fight against. And we want to talk about the heresiarch Arius, who with his theories on the Incarnation of the Word managed to convince almost all Catholics that Christ was a divine creature created by God? His theories, very well structured and compelling, forced the Church Fathers to gather at the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, in the year 325, to dogmatically define that Christ was not a creature but "begotten not created of the same substance as the Father" (born not created like the Father). Far from being eradicated, the Arian heresy continued to spread for the following centuries in entire regions of Europe. The Germanic peoples and beyond, they were evangelized by Arian bishops and presbyters in the early 4th century. Only in the 6th century were the Germanic peoples re-converted by missionaries, after two centuries of Arianism, which nevertheless continued to leave its mark.

This kind of theology and the history of theology some poor people dream-aesthetic traditionalists locked up in four rancid formulas of decadent neo-scholasticism - which is not even a distant relative of classical scholasticism - they don't even know where he lives, because like all mediocre people they have to invent enemies, wallow between millenarianisms and doomsday prophecies, imminent magical triumphs of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, pretending to know better than anyone, but above all by trying to destroy those they decide to elevate to the rank of supreme enemies, because the image of the enemy is a fundamental premise of their very being and existence. Typical characteristic of these people is not to fight ideas but people in an attempt to destroy them in any way and by any means, according to the consolidated style of the worst pseudo-religious fundamentalisms.

On the columns of our magazine Father Ivano Liguori and I were more and more severe with certain priests showman, but not only: always and in practice we have called their bishops to accountability accusing them in no uncertain terms of lack of vigilance. However, we cannot say that the Church has been indifferent and silent from this point of view, because both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have spoken and written against liturgical abuses, In the 2004 instruction was promulgated Sacramentum which is a very clear and precise document which many have screwed over, at the head of all the Neocatechumenal and various Charismatic groups.

Well before Guardians of tradition I pleaded defiantly that it would be good to revoke that motu proprio by Benedict XVI on Mass of old order [see my video conference] given certain outcomes that are anything but minority or isolated. And for years, not for days or months, but for years I have been telling in vain to certain groups and faithful to stop with their amenities like: "Ah, this is the only Mass, the valid Mass, the usual Mass, not that Protestant Mass of Paul VI invented by that Freemason Annibale Bugnini!». And how many times have I repeated to them that they could not and should not use the Missale old order to attack an entire church council, or a necessary liturgical reform already started before the council by the Supreme Pontiff Pius XII and so on to follow. Equally to no avail I repeated for years that if they continued that way, sooner or later that motu proprio would have been revoked. Forget it, this is the answer: "No, It is not possible, because the Mass of all time is irrevocable, untouchable!». It's still, uselessly, for years and years I told them that that motu proprio it was not an irrevocable dogmatic definition and it has always been said in Rome that «a Pope boils and a Pope boils».

Lost time, wasted words, narrow-minded heads who have always refused to understand, going on for years, stubbornly and stubbornly, to make use of a missal to create two parties within the Church, using as an element of division what constitutes the heart of the unit: l'Eucharist.

In my humble opinion, with all the displeasure for those who have not had these attitudes, I believe that the Supreme Pontiff was right to promulgate that motu proprio restrictive which in fact it is Keeper of traditions, about which we can say in a legitimate critical tone, but above all in the light of the principles of prudence, balance and above all aequitas, that his action was undoubtedly right, but equally undoubtedly partial. As far as I'm concerned, it may be fine for me to tighten my belt on the use of the Missal of St. Pius V, seen the way some do not, but many have used it, having seen certain unhappy and full-blown outcomes, But, being intellectually honest, I cannot fail to wonder and to ask: and the Neocatechumenal groups that have invaded and are in control of almost half of the parishes of the Diocese of Rome, that impudently, insolent and arrogant they rent halls in the hotels of the capital or in the religious houses of the city, to make of the sacred liturgy what they want and how they want directly under the windows of the Holy Father, maybe someone said something to him, or, if anything, intends to tell him something shortly? By chance, a document was issued in which it is forbidden to celebrate Masses without the authorization of the Ecclesiastical Authority outside consecrated spaces, which neither in Rome nor in the rest of Italy is lacking, allowing them to continue to gather in the halls of hotels or obliging religious houses, with the priest “rented” who carries out the orders of laymen kneeling at the worst bizarre directives of Kiko Argüello? The Supreme Pontiff, who recently put his hand to his own Diocese with a radical reform, has he ever noticed that the Vicariate has been in the hands of the Neocatechumens for some decades, thanks to the unfortunate protection granted to them first by Cardinal Camillo Ruini and then by Cardinal Agostino Vallini? The Supreme Pontiff, he is aware of what the Neocatechumenals have done in ostracism and wickedness, to those priests they consider hostile to their doctrinal and liturgical eccentricities, using the armed wing of their loyal associates such as the immovable chancellor of the Vicariate of Rome Giuseppe Tonello, able to do good and bad weather, or to decide how and how to cut off the heads of certain priests hostile to the "Church" of Mr. Kiko Argüello? Since none of this has been done so far, that makes me read Guardians of tradition as a measure made necessary by the situation that has arisen, but which at the same time once again manifests the partiality and imbalances of this Augustus Pontificate, in which we rightly care for those who have had the open indecency to use the Missale old order to attack an entire Church Council and liturgical reform, without, however, caring in the slightest for those who in a no less insolent and arrogant way make the liturgy what they want and how they want directly in the Diocese of Rome under the windows of the Supreme Pontiff.

I repeat: the analyzes of Prof. Andrea Grillo, badge, cultured and qualified sacramental theologian, on the level of doctrine, of the liturgy, ecclesiology and pastoral care are absolutely flawless. Thesis that as far as I'm concerned I approve and share, moved by that intellectual honesty which animates and sustains faith, unlike those who seek to change their faith, you want with the Missal of St. Pius V you want with the liturgical extravaganzas of the Neocatechumenals and certain fringes of the Charismatics, in the world of subjective emotions. And a Supreme Pontiff, to be truly right when doing right things, it must above all be above emotions and warring parties. And if the case imposes the need to beat him, in that case it would be good to club both right and left equally.

I don't think I have to justify myself for anything, in any case it should be noted that I am a great admirer of the Venerable Missal of St. Pius V, of which I think I know in depth that theological structure and that pastoral system completely unknown to them exotic priests thirty-year-olds who got up one morning and improvised so-called “Tridentine”, unaware first of all that a “Tridentine rite” it just never existed, it's just a totally inappropriate way of saying. Above all unaware that in that Missal even gestures and silences have a profound mystagogical and spiritual meaning, completely ignored by them to leave room for forms of exotic aestheticism that are almost always tragically ends in themselves. I dream-aesthetic traditionalists who mention the bubble inappropriately At the first time with which the Holy Pontiff Pius V promulgated in 1570 that Missal defining it unreformable with a lot of let him be, they demonstrate that they do not know the style in which certain pontifical documents were usually composed, which had their own precise rhetorical style, but above all they ignore that that Missal was revised and reformed a total of eighteen times starting from 1614, when the Supreme Pontiff Urban VIII published a first edition updated and improved to just 44 years after its promulgation, with substantial and radical corrections. The last important reforms were made in the twentieth century by the Holy Pontiff Pius X, by the Venerable Pope Pius XII and by the Holy Pontiff John XXIII in the space of less than fifty years. I abhor liturgical abuses, but for that very reason, in my humble capacity as a poor dogmatic theologian and historian of dogma, I am perfectly aware that much worse liturgical abuses took place with that Venerable Missal than those we are witnessing today with the Missal promulgated in 1969 and entered into force in 1970. I am a lover of the Latin language and when I can I always use the typical edition Latin of the Missal of Paul VI, the one in Italian always and de rigueur when I celebrate for the assemblies of the faithful. I resent certain blind and obtuse anachronisms typical of people who actually call for the exhumation of a corpse, however holy, namely the Missal of Saint Pius V, no longer feasible today both at the pastoral level and at the level of evangelization. The basic problem of these people is that by taking a Missal as an object of dispute and struggle, they tend to vent the discomforts of an immature or badly lived Christianity, rejecting the theological and eschatological element that the Church begins its unceasing journey with the disciples along the Emmaus Road together with the Lord [cf.. LC 24, 13-35], while some would have liked to paralyze it, like Peter, statically on Mount Tabor, before the transfiguration of Christ [cf.. MC 9, 2-10]. The Church is by its very nature constitutive The development of the people, anyone who tries to change it to The regression of the people claims unusual right, but above all unacceptable, to betray the mission that Christ entrusted to her, in an endless journey, always leaning forward, until his return at the end of time.

the Island of Patmos, 27 February 2023

 

The problem of the aequitas and the ancient game of the punishable and the unpunishable, of the stickable and the caressable …

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A Knight Sister of the Italian Republic on the merits of education writes to the Dean of the Leonardo da Vinci Scientific High School in Florence

School, society, policy

UNA SUORA CAVALIERE DELLA REPUBBLICA ITALIANA AL MERITO DELL’ISTRUZIONE SCRIVE ALLA PRESIDE DEL LICEO SCIENTIFICO LEONARDO DA VINCI DI FIRENZE

Quando lei ha deciso di scrivere ai suoi studenti, immagino e spero che intendesse rivolgersi loro senza muovere alcun attacco allo Stato Italiano, al Governo legittimamente eletto, alle persone dei Ministri. Probabilmente il suo scritto è stato frainteso sia da chi si è sentito dare del fascista sia da chi si è sentito assolto in quanto comunista.

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Author
Anna Monia Alfieri, I.M.
Knight of the Italian Republic

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Il riassunto della vicenda potete trovarlo in questo servizio offerto da La Nazione di Firenze

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Carissima Preside,

innanzitutto un saluto cordiale, sperando che questa mia la trovi bene. Mi permetto di scriverle, perché sono preoccupata da quanto sta accadendo ultimamente in Italia. Sono una religiosa, appartengo ad una Congregazione il cui Fondatore, circa a metà Ottocento, ha pensato di rinnovare la società attraverso l’educazione della donna. Intuizione straordinaria che si concretizza ancora oggi, attraverso scuole e altre realtà educative presenti su tutto il territorio nazionale e non solo. La mia scelta di vita consacrata mi ha portato, Consequently, a dedicarmi ai giovani, agli studenti, ai loro genitori, to teachers, alla scuola. Ecco perché ho deciso di scriverle, con umiltà e con garbo, proprio come avrei scritto ad uno dei Presidi delle scuole gestite dall’Ente di cui sono la Legale Rappresentante.

 

As I said, scrivo perché mossa da una preoccupazione: le polemiche, la violenza fisica, i tafferugli suscitano in me echi tristi e drammatici di un passato nel quale tanti giovani hanno perso la vita in nome dell’ideologia, anarchica, comunista o fascista.

Quando lei ha deciso di scrivere ai suoi studenti, immagino e spero che intendesse rivolgersi loro senza muovere alcun attacco allo Stato Italiano, al Governo legittimamente eletto, alle persone dei Ministri. Probabilmente il suo scritto è stato frainteso sia da chi si è sentito dare del fascista sia da chi si è sentito assolto in quanto comunista.

Non ho intravisto nel suo scritto una lettura ideologica né tanto meno un invito ai ragazzi che hanno picchiato i loro compagni dei collettivi di destra a fare peggio per scongiurare il pericolo fascista che nessuno di noi intravede. She, da Preside esperta, credo intendesse sedare gli animi degli studenti, everyone, insegnando che le idee non si affermano con la violenza, quite the opposite. Ogni forma di ideologia ha procurato morte, distruzione materiale e spirituale. Superfluo ricordare che tutti i nostri politici di destra hanno preso le distanze dal fascismo, come i nostri politici di sinistra hanno preso le distanze dal comunismo. Stesse colpe, stessi torti che occorre riconoscere, deprecare, denunciare. Sono certa che l’intenzione del suo scritto fosse proprio questa, anche se devo riconoscere che non è stato facile comprenderla pienamente e non leggere la lettera come un’accusa al Governo di essere fascista. Non sarebbe un comportamento degno di un Dirigente Scolastico, peraltro un Pubblico ufficiale.

Carissima Preside, davanti a certe immagini di violenza, si radica sempre più in me il sogno di una scuola che sia davvero libera e liberata dalla politica partitica, dall’imposizione di un’ideologia, dai docenti che presentano visioni parziali ai loro allievi. La politica, diceva San Paolo VI, figlio di un deputato antifascista, è la più alta forma della carità: quanto sarebbe bello se i nostri giovani fossero portati a conoscere quei fulgidi esempi di uomini e di donne che si sono dati alla politica per voler dare libertà ai loro concittadini: Aldo Moro, Enrico Berlinguer, Giuseppe Dossetti, Tina Anselmi, Nilde Iotti. Often, Preside carissima, converrà con me che a scuola si parla di politica come contrapposizione, destra e sinistra allo scontro, si compiono azioni di proselitismo, indottrinamento e, maybe, forse si discriminano gli studenti che la pensano in modo diverso. Viene, as, svilita la figura del docente che si fa forza del proprio ruolo.

Invito lei e tutti i suoi colleghi Presidi a verificare che la libertà di espressione dei docenti non si tramuti in indirizzi di pensiero imposti agli studenti bensì sia strumento dato loro per aiutarli ad orientarsi. Non so se nella scuola italiana tutto ciò avviene. Mi auguro di sì. Forse i tempi sono cambiati rispetto a quando ero una studentessa. Ricordo le lezioni meravigliose del docente di Lettere, tanto che portai Italiano alla Maturità (allora si chiamava così) ma ricordo anche le sue considerazioni politiche personali di sinistra. And unfortunately, se nei temi, esprimevo considerazioni personali lontane dalla sua visione, Alas, il voto era gravemente insufficiente. Decisi allora di scegliere tracce meno pericolose: una bella analisi del testo poetico era certamente la via più sicura. Sull’onda di tutto questo, si è radicata in me la convinzione che la scuola italiana deve essere libera, che non può esserci solo la scuola pubblica statale ma anche la scuola pubblica paritaria. Non a caso la Law 62/2000 che ha istituito il sistema pubblico dell’Istruzione, fatto dalla scuola pubblica statale e dalla scuola pubblica paritaria, porta la firma di Berlinguer, Luigi, non Enrico, Certain, ma sempre un comunista, un comunista vero, add. Il rischio è, indeed, il monopolio educativo anticamera sempre del regime. Mi sono sempre chiesta come possa un docente imporre la propria idea su giovani studenti, ricorrendo ad un vero abuso del proprio potere. Sicuramente Lei, Preside, non avrà mai compiuto simili atti e li avrà prevenuti nel suo corpo docenti. Allo stesso modo curerà che nelle programmazioni di Letteratura italiana autori come Dante, Tasso e Manzoni godano del posto che meritano e non siano considerati dei reietti per far posto a visioni più moderne, to move with the times.

Sono convinta che i fatti accaduti nella sua città possono essere un’occasione d’oro per liberare le nostre Scuole, le nostre Università da letture distorte, ideologiche e del tutto personali. I ask her: possiamo noi educatori avvallare l’ideologia, avvallare la visione parziale e non veritiera? Possiamo avallare la violenza e giustificarla? Possiamo fomentarla? The answer is “no”: non debemus, We can not, non volumus. Sogno un Paese libero, cittadini capaci di rispettare le Istituzioni, di non servirsi del proprio ruolo, della realtà che dovrebbero servire per alimentare le guerriglie a suono di like o di firme raccolte.

Carissima Preside, abbiamo bisogno di educatori, abbiamo bisogno di docenti in possesso di cultura, the real one, quella che presenta un periodo storico, il pensiero di un filosofo, un argomento di etica in modo obiettivo, avendo il coraggio di dire la propria opinione senza imporla, senza discriminare, senza dileggiare. Questa è la scuola di cui l’Italia ha bisogno. Diversamente continuerà l’imposizione che genera desiderio di rivalsa, hate, sopraffazione.

Collaboriamo perché la scuola torni ad essere laboratorio e fucina di idee, nel rispetto delle visioni di ciascuno. Questo è il compito della scuola, of always. Chi l’ha fatta diventare mezzo di diffusione dell’idea dominante l’ha corrotta e resa meschinamente supina. Evitiamo di ricadere negli stessi errori del passato.

 

Milan, 26 February 2023

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Culture is enough to save disoriented priests? maybe not, if the sense of paternity of the bishops is missing and a rediscovery of one's own priestly identity

CULTURE IS ENOUGH TO SAVE DISTRESSED PRIESTS? MAYBE NOT, IF THE SENSE OF PATERNITY OF BISHOPS IS LACK AND A REDISCOVERY OF ONE'S PRIESTLY IDENTITY

Most of the time I find myself meeting priests, the most common sufferings they feel they share are given by the abandonment and loneliness they experience on the part of their shepherds, not to mention some who experience outright ridicule. This non-affective mode of relationship between bishop and priest should make us reflect a lot, because in front of a priest incapable of pastoral love towards the faithful, sometimes, hides a bishop incapable of love towards his own priest.

- Church news -

Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp..

 

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When I was a young cleric of the two-year philosophy course, I had the grace of knowing and being a pupil of a holy Jesuit the Father Joseph Pirola, one of the few Jesuits I have known in my life and of whom it can be said with evangelical frankness that there is no falsehood, as well as Christ said about the Blessed Apostle Nathanael [cf.. GV 1, 47-51].

 

 

The good father he held the course of phenomenology of religion and metaphysics every Thursday at our student residence. Already on Wednesday evening he settled at our convent in Cremona and normally presided over the celebration of the evening mass and then lent himself to listen to the confessions of us young student friars.

I remember, during one of those celebrations, perhaps in the liturgical memory of Saint Albert the Great or some other Doctor of the Church, that his homily deeply touched the hearts and minds of us young clerics with these words:

«You guys know why Sant'Alberto, St. Thomas and the others whom we recognize today as Doctors of the Church are saints? Do not think that they are saints only for their academic culture, because they have studied so much. These people are holy because above all with their faith they sought Jesus and desired to be with him. From this desire then arose the theological study enlightened by the Holy Spirit which made them what they are"

and then concluded:

“You are not studying for culture alone, you are studying to continue a journey of faith that will lead you to be with Jesus and to know him intimately".

These words still today for me they represent the compass of my priestly ministry, so that I remember that theological culture can easily become vanity or empty erudition if it is not accompanied by the service rendered to the truth and the charity of Christ. But after all, what did we become priests for??

The Blessed Evangelist Mark he is clear in this regard when he mentions the institution of the Twelve, he says: “He chose them to be with him» [See. MC 3,13-19]. Jesus calls us to be with him, he asks his priests for an exclusive bond of life, not a patronage or merely intellectual relationship between teacher and student, between rabbi and disciple.

We are knowing times when a doctorate at the Pontifical Gregorian University or the Lateran is no longer denied to anyone. Indeed, these goals are aimed at the sole purpose of curriculum in view of the career ladder. It is not so rare those who already from the seminar are identified as episcopal and that during their academic training in Rome they usually frequent the right environments such as the Almo Collegio Capranica and other magical circles where they can get to know some good devil to bring them so as to promote the fall of a few mitres that they receive unworthily and with suffering on their heads with all the humility of the case.

We are faced with that phenomenon of pretini trendy which I wrote about some time ago [you see who] whose well-known climbing skills reach out to infinity and beyond, only to fall disastrously at any moment and conclude their success with a disorientation that is the antechamber of the crisis. With all honesty, while recognizing in some minds undoubted qualities, often one experiences a certain fragility of faith combined with that difficulty in being with the Lord which is the only essential prerogative for every disciple but above all for every theologian.

And all this is said without judgment but relying solely on a priestly style widely documented and exhibited away social by those who increasingly stand out as real professionals of the sacred. If we then focus on their publications, which delight a certain Catholic publishing house, we can see that the troubled editorial gestation serves no purpose other than to make a fine display on the shelves of the most renowned Roman bookshops in Via della Conciliazione and Borgo Pio, positioning themselves as certain avant-garde works of Catholic progressive thought. But how much of these works is an expression of intimate knowledge of the Risen Lord and of that effort to remain with the Master? We must say it frankly that even religious and theological culture "must be preceded by an intense life of prayer, of contemplation, of seeking and listening to the will of God" [See. R. Sarah, The power of silence. Against the dictatorship of noise, Siena, 2017, ed. Cantagalli, p. 35].

It is no exaggeration to consider certain intellectual works the work of formal and substantial heretics if not outright avowed atheists. Often reading these books we notice a similarity of thought and intent already present in some exponents of sociology, of anthropology and secular psychology that speak of the religious world from their privileged observatory and claim to suggest to the Church the path to pursue for a religious renewal from a faith considered obsolete and which must be rejuvenated by compromising with the world and its logics.

Among the many scholars of today the need is felt to have in the Church and in the ranks of the clergy men who have a strong faith, who converse with God and who desire to learn that the wisdom of the cross which cannot be learned from books alone.

This reading of the situation of the clergy is not mine, Cardinal Robert Sarah already expresses this concept in his latest book when he says that: “We already have far too many eminent religious specialists and doctors. What the Church lacks today are men of God, men of faith and priests who are worshipers in spirit and in truth" [See. R. Sarah, Catechism of the spiritual life, Siena, 2022, ed. Cantagalli, p. 12]. Affirming this certainly does not mean being against culture but placing it in the right perspective.

Today it status of worshiper of God is a rare commodity among priests, since the early years of the seminary. It implies that spiritual need to let oneself be read within by the Lord as we see done in the relationship with the Samaritan woman [See. GV 4,1-30], whose relationship with the various husbands is not ascribable to a condition of marital or sexual disorder but to a relationship of fidelity with God which has failed in favor of convenience and which unfortunately also constitutes the cause of that thirst which cannot be satisfied if not returning to the true God. there, dear readers, when we priests satisfy our thirst at other fountains that do not derive from God and lead to him, we often fall into the risk of being lost and being easy prey to a crisis of meaning and identity.

Why do I say this? Because I came across an interesting article by Ida Bozzi in the Sunday insert Reading from The Corriere della Sera entitled "A magazine explores the world in the time of lost priests". In this article we read the point of view of the director of the "Rivista del Clero Italiano" the theologian Giuliano Zanchi who addresses the issue of the condition of confusion and disorientation of priests in the current ecclesial situation.

I am particularly sensitive to this topic because more than once in my ministry as confessor I have experienced the unease of fellow priests and the intimate disorientation that is debated within them. The discomfort today is tangible and is accompanied by the inevitable human frailties that lead to the secularization and hybridization of the Catholic priesthood in what has increasingly become a free profession, where the priest becomes the neighborhood social worker or the president of an NGO [see an example who e who].

If we pay attention to the cases of priests in crisis or who abandon the priesthood, we often find ourselves faced with subjects of proven culture who should in some way be preserved from this type of drift. but yet, this does not always happen and we realize that culture alone is often not enough, if this culture is not subordinated and directed to familiarity with Christ. If the book does not lead me to the tabernacle and the tabernacle to the book, I will have wasted my time.

Giuliano Zanchi, presbyter and theologian, in his analysis, reports that today the clergy suffer a certain social disregard of their own status and a demolition of one's authority. I am perplexed when one speaks only of authority and not of authority why present the model of priestly authority of Jesus to the clergy on the basis of the pericope of MC 1,21-28 it might seem a bit too right-wing today, then we need to be cautious and, like good academics, differentiate between authoritativeness and authority.

Like this, the article continues, in the face of a common sense of the sacred which has certainly not disappeared but which has certainly degraded, we witness a transition of the boat of the Church to other shores, towards different theological and ecclesial directions with respect to those traditional and institutional forms that we are used to knowing.

The solution proposed by the director of the Journal of the Italian Clergy – which I feel like sharing up to a certain point – consists in investing in culture, privileged tool with which the clergy can respond to the theological challenges that new times require and an antidote to the rampant confusion among priests. This cultural proposal is also presented by bringing illustrious models such as the theologians Tomáš Halík and Pierangelo Sequeri.

I will be frank, talking about culture in a general sense is of little use if then the boundaries and the spheres of intervention and the aims are not clearly delimited. What culture do we need? That culture suggested by human wisdom or that taught by the Holy Spirit? [See. Color 2, 1-16] There is no doubt that the clergy today need a good formation, to realize it, it is enough to see the liturgical and canonical havoc that is carried out almost daily to the detriment of the sacraments of the Church [you see who, who, qui, who, who, who, who, who]. That's why I ask, good culture always and automatically corresponds to good training? I would have some doubts. Theological training courses for future priests have multiplied with the integration of infinite academic exams but never as in these times does the quality of the training of the clergy appear embarrassing.

As a somewhat naive priest and vintage I am convinced that culture alone is not enough to give formation and knowledge of God, on the contrary, we often run the risk of falling into personal complacency and convincing ourselves that we are the sole holder of the truth and of a correct vision of the world (your own!).

The priest is formed not only with mere academic culture but remaining in the constant company of the Master who teaches from the chair of the cross, it is strenuous mystical learning, which consists of hours in front of the tabernacle, of skinned knees and martyrdom. So it was for the Apostles and so it will be for the future.

The article then goes on to give a pun to a certain kind of rigid priestly style, towards that bigoted devotion combined with that intransigent and obscurantist apologetic tendency which according to Giuliano Zanchi is "very strong today". In short, just to understand, if the priest teaches the faithful to recite the rosary and to meditate on its mysteries with the same purity of intention of Saint Bernadette in Lourdes or the little shepherds in Fatima, he must perhaps be considered a bigot? Or when he wants to keep the bar straight with a certain paternal firmness on apologetic positions in defense of the faith, of doctrine or morality in the face of the opening-touring challenges of modernity to which some fringes of the Church wink, he must be considered a strict obscurantist? I'd like to know the answer, but above all I would like to know the reference models that are not the usual Maggi, Bianchi, Mancuso and Melloni or those who, although pastors in the care of souls, are practically unobtainable because they are too busy holding conferences and consuming the predellas of the theological faculty.

Culture is therefore the one and only possible panacea for the evils of bewildered priests? Not always. If by culture we mean the one that dialogues and fraternises with today's man without demanding daring and tiring objectives, without asking for conversion, surely not. We ask ourselves then - borrowing a thought from Benedict XVI -, whether dialogue combined with cultural fraternization can truly replace mission, with the real risk of obscuring the truth and corrupting the faith. Because this is the focal point on which we must insist, it is the faith of priests that must be protected so that the Truths they transmit in the name of the Church direct the dialogue with the world and not vice versa. Men of God who, through an enlightened and lived faith, know how to make God credible in this world. Above all men of God, and only later learned scholars of a theological discipline.

The Blessed Apostle Paul equipped with the sole the wisdom of the cross at the Areopagus of Athens, temple of culture and dialogue of the ancient world, he did not hesitate to affirm the truth of the Resurrection at the cost of being pitied and derided by those who held the keys to Greek culture. The renunciation of the Truth today seems extremely realistic and perhaps opportune, even in the face of a possible peacemaking dialogue with modern culture or with other religious faiths, but it can be lethal for the faith that risks losing its binding character and its seriousness [See. Benedict XVI, What is Christianity, Milan, 2023, ed. Mondadori, pp. 9-11].

For this reason in front of the bewildered priests it is important to re-propose a spiritual therapy of return to Christ, to that spirit of prayer and devotion that the Seraphic Father Francesco recommended to the wise doctor Antonio of Padua in one of his letters:

«To Brother Antonio, my bishop, Friar Francesco wishes health. I am pleased that you teach sacred theology to the friars, as long as in this occupation, does not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion, as it is written in the Rule» [See. Franciscan sources NN. 251-252].

Therefore together with culture it is necessary to start afresh from prayer and devotion, elements that favor the adoration of God in Spirit and Truth and which in my humble opinion form the antibodies for a healthy and wise culture. Real life puts an evidence before us: when a priest enters a crisis or is disoriented, the reasons are almost always to be found in the fact that he feels alone and that he has lost the points of reference that he once had clear. The crisis in men of God is never primarily cultural but of meaning and identity. Fundamental, in these cases, it is knowing how to count on the paternal heart of one's own bishop or ordinary whose first duty is to accompany and protect one's own priest. In Presbyters of the Order of Paul VI, the Pontiff explains that a priest is intimately and inseparably linked to his bishop and to his particular Church in communion with the universal Church. This bond is not only of a juridical nature but above all spiritual and human. The bishop is the one who possesses the fullness of the priesthood of Christ, and as such it expresses Christ in his very being and working. They, like Christ, he is called to express his concern for the Twelve and the disciples, never letting them miss his presence in times of trial and loss. Most of the time I find myself meeting priests, the most common sufferings they feel they share are given by the abandonment and loneliness they experience on the part of their shepherds, not to mention some who experience outright ridicule. This non-affective mode of relationship between bishop and priest should make us reflect a lot, because in front of a priest incapable of pastoral love towards the faithful, sometimes, hides a bishop incapable of love towards his own priest. But love was not the sign that should have distinguished the life of the Apostles and disciples of Christ? [See. GV 13,1-15; 13, 34-35].

We all know loyal bishops in punctually organizing retreats and the ongoing formation of their clergy, even with enviable cultural profiles but who are terribly distant from those over whom they should exercise that paternal custody from which the term derives episkopos which in ancient times referred to a divine patronage of custody.

Bishops who do not find the time to devote to their elderly priests, ill or in difficulty and who draw information from other sources: “They told me that…”, instead of exposing yourself personally with a phone call and say: "I'm worried about you, how are you? I can do something? I want to come to you for lunch". If the priest goes into crisis, oh what i donde, it's because it experiences all of these and so much more, not just because it is culturally deficient.

The solitude of the clergy today it is increasingly becoming the first pathological emergency to heal which joins the second more markedly spiritual pathological emergency which is given by the lack of familiarity with Christ. I wonder, what can be done in the face of these emergencies? The suggestion may be enough to broaden one's culture? Irony of fate, the priests who most often go into crisis are the most qualified and culturally most prepared, that seem to be self-sufficient. Where does the identity of these brother priests reside?? Certainly not in culture alone, but in a mystical relationship with Christ that has failed. The characteristic of the priesthood, explains Benedict XVI, it consists in nothing but being priest in the sense defined by Jesus Christ on the cross. This means that the priestly crisis is not essentially a cultural crisis but the inability to stay - in the sense of taking up residence - together with the Lord on the cross.

This speech leads us to mercilessly acknowledge that we are witnessing, much more today than in the past, to a crisis concerning the priestly identity which is no longer rooted and understood in those who choose to respond to the vocation. So let us first of all try to understand that the priest does not live by his own light and that his being a priest is true only in relation to the unique and eternal priesthood of Christ who calls man to be united with him in the ministry of mediator.

In this dynamic of mystical and sacramental union to the one and eternal priesthood of Christ man is called to a progressive stripping of himself - not only from goods but above all from his own ego - which recalls that necessary search for perfection which was proposed to the Rich Young Man and which the Apostles undertook in following the Master, abandoning everything [See. MC 10,17-22; 28-31]. For priests this stripping represents the only valid foundation that informs the "necessity of celibacy, as well as liturgical prayer, of meditation on the Word of God and the renunciation of material goods" [See. R. Sarah with Benedict XVI, From the bottom of our hearts, Siena, 2020, ed. Cantagalli, p.26]. The more we know how to undress and decentralize ourselves, the more Christ, his Word, his prayer and essentiality of life will clothe our priestly and human identity.

These essential elements they help us understand what the crisis of priestly identity consists of and where it is necessary to intervene for a recovery. A bewildered priest is one who no longer considers his ministry as an exclusive work of Christ but above all a personal work. This replacement of the characteristic of the priesthood it is very sneaky and reveals itself in the craving for activism and narcissism. At a time when the priest assumes he is indispensable, indulging the desire to appear always and in all circumstances, shunning that salutary concealment which allows Christ to act in him, one falls into that diabolical temptation which eliminates the work of God favoring the work of man as we see happening in those who wanted to make a name for themselves during the construction of the Tower of Babel [See. GN 11,4].

Likewise managerial activism, it becomes the new Liturgy of the Hours that needs to be celebrated, eschewing the static nature of contemplation at the Master's feet ― now considered a waste of time ― in favor of commitment in various areas, even in those who do not properly belong to the priestly ministry. Today it is not uncommon to see priests playing politicians, Of influence, Of TikToker, of social workers, of psychologists, of television pundits, Of manager of commercial or welfare enterprises, of teachers and so on to follow. With the presumption that doing well and for the good is equivalent to being a good priest equally, ending up eliminating the specifics of the priestly vocation as Christ conceived and understood it for the Church.

In the eagerness to make a name for yourself and exercise power by doing, the priest becomes depersonalized, his day is no longer marked by prayer, it becomes more and more difficult to fulfill all the hours of the breviary, and Holy Mass is just a parenthesis to be celebrated quickly, preferring the II Canon of the missal and in no more than fifteen minutes. Stopping in the confessional is increasingly rare because an undefined theology of mercy has led to the understanding - both in the laity and in the clergy - that the reality of sin no longer exists and if it exists there is official forgiveness without the need for repentance and conversion of life.

Visiting the sick and communion on the first Friday of the month they are increasingly rare, as well as the pastoral care of the suffering which is left to a few specialists in the sector as well as that of families and engaged couples.

Other examples could be given but these are already more than enough to draw an updated profile of what the priest experiences today. We want to invest in culture? A commendable position but primarily we seek to strengthen its priestly identity. We call the priest to fervent and constant prayer, to the valorisation and rehabilitation of that fraternity with one's bishop and with one's confreres, let us help him not to come down from the cross of Christ. Above all, let us instill in the hearts of young clerics the duty of charity combined with that mutual love which leads to forgiveness and which does not rival and does not struggle in the egocentric narcissism of the cold careerist of the sacred.

Loving priests is a great and demanding task, a responsibility of the whole Church that it is no longer possible to procrastinate without weakening the sanctification of the people of God and betraying that institution of the sacred ministry that the Lord wanted on Holy Thursday.

Laconi, 24 February 2023

 

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The castaway “Marian Pole” of Verona. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for Alessandro Minutella to tell the truth

THE SHIPWRECKED POLO MARIANO IN VERONA. IT'S EASIER FOR A CAMEL TO GO THROUGH THE EYE OF A NEEDLE THAN ALESSANDRO MINUTELLA TO TELL THE TRUTH

Ours are strictly substantive questions, based on the facts and on the sums of money offered and transferred to specific current accounts. We await a response from Mr. Minutella, not interpretations or manipulations of reality as in many other cases it has done. We know that this is particularly difficult and tiring for him, but for once we hope to try to tell things as they really went, or: that for once try to tell the truth.

- Church news -

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Editors of The Island of Patmos

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Find the priest,

Jesus Christ be praised!

We wish to thank you for your availability and for the space you have agreed to reserve for us in your magazine The Island of Patmos.

We are a Venetian couple who lives in the Veronese hills, married by 27 year old. We received the great grace of re-conversion by going to March 2011 in a European center of Marian spirituality. Since then our only desire has been to consecrate our life and marriage to Jesus and Mary. Desire that has gone from strength to strength and consolidation, even though we later fell, in all good faith, in the spirals of the “Piccolo Resto” of the presbyter excommunicated e dismissed from the clerical state Alessandro Minutella.

On the morning of 23 February Mr. Minutella, in the direct address book Saints and Coffee On the canal Radio Domina Nostra, At the minute 07:10 he launched into a false statement, in which regard we would like to give our version of the facts so that the souls who follow this character seriously begin to consider which ominous and baleful way they are walking. This is how much Mr. Minutella declared:

«[…] I would like to say something that I have never said for a matter of modesty, let's call it, respect for situations. Anyway, since I have been asked by many what happened to the Polo Mariano. The Polo Mariano is not structurally linked to a place, whereby, if it has moved from the Veronesi hills to Trebaseleghe (Padova) nothing changes. There were some management problems, also due to my prolonged absence that I didn't like them. And until proven otherwise, I'm the one making the decisions. I begged for it, I thought about it and I realized that it was no longer possible to continue in those parts. But so, serenely, I had given indications that were obviously not respected, then everyone says what they want, we have personal conscience and that was it, the work continues elsewhere […]» [see video WHO].

This statement totally based on alteration and manipulation obliges us to highlight some facts, explaining why we decided to give a public witness, moved by that charity which has the salvation of souls as its main cornerstone, that is, all those people who need to know the true unfolding of the facts in order to then draw their own conclusions. Choice, this ours, resulting from a private period of extensive discussion with one of the people involved in the matter, according to the evangelical dictate of fraternal correction «If your brother commits a fault, go and admonish him between you and him alone" (Mt 18,15).

Now let's move on to the facts: our knowledge of the Palermo priest Alessandro Minutella dates back to June 2018, initially via the social network Facebook. After three months we decided to go and meet him in person in Sicily at the Center for Marian spirituality "Piccola Nazaret" which he founded in Carini. On that occasion we were invited to dinner and stayed with them for a few days. Impossible to deny and deny the feelings of esteem and sympathy that moved us in knowing this reality, in fact we decided more and more over time to collaborate in the work and "mission" of this priest. Subsequently, as they began to look for an available space to found another spirituality center in Northern Italy, precisely in the Verona area, since we are from the area, we have made ourselves available to help in finding a suitable place. After various searches we proposed to Minutella a place in the hills with a farmhouse of over 400 square meters and adjacent land for over 35.000 sq.m., where a relative of ours was born.

Back from one of his tour in Spain, Minutella came to visit the place and was enthusiastic about it, so much so that he immediately wanted to call "Polo Mariano" and found an Association that same day which he decided to call "San Michele Arcangelo". It was at that point that we bought the place and donated it to the Association. Minutella asked us to become the Presidents, but we blindly trusted and took a step back, also being incompetent in the matter. So another person decided, present there, as President of this newly formed Association. After some problems related to certain obstacles placed by third parties, we and the President in question decided to continue to carry on the Association, on the bank account of which substantial offers also began to arrive for the construction works of the Polo Mariano. All this with the approval of Minutella and the people close to him.

Towards the end of the year 2021 the President informs us of her intention to leave the Presidency of the Association, except, however, remain in office in accordance with the Staff of the minutella. So it kept going, despite the trying times, until communication came, justified in our opinion by sterile motivations, according to which the offers of the faithful destined for the creation of the Polo Mariano should no longer arrive on the IBAN account of the "San Michele Arcangelo" Association, as had hitherto been the case, but on the only IBAN account of Carini's "Little Nazareth".. At that point it was clear to us that something was wrong and we wondered the reason for that decision.

To this and other similar questions, encouraged by the many people who invited us not to give up, for the sake of peace, and for “not to disobey the father” ― classic leitmotiv which unfortunately still continues today to condition the minds of many poor faithful ―, we decided not to give answers, but to trust and accept this decision.

These were the results: from 1 January 2022 al 16 December 2022 (day on which the President resigned from the "San Michele Arcangelo" Association), the monthly offers of the faithful for the Polo Mariano have not arrived. The poor faithful donors who believed in this work and for which they paid their contributions, they began to wonder and inquire as to why the Polo was not going ahead. We reported all this to Minutella who answered us: «Tell for technical problems or the Municipality» (!?). Tired of lying we started telling people to call down to Sicily and inquire directly with interested people.

From then on it was all a succession of hidden recordings, which apparently is quite usual for them, of suspicion and humiliation in front of other people, without any possibility of defending himself against unfounded accusations, but this also seems to be very usual in that environment. All by the Minutella staff and the Minutella itself.

Since it has been pointed out several times privately to no avail, we would like to emphasize that it would be a duty on the part of the President of the "San Michele Arcangelo" Association to let the faithful who generously made their contributions in cash know where their offers ended up, given that they were collected for a specific purpose and behind specific projects. We look forward to it now, after this public testimony, the faithful are informed about all this precisely by virtue of that evangelical parrhesia, much praised by them.

Above all, we wish to thank God for having taken us away from this sectarian reality in which we had ended up above all through ignorance and approximation in matters of doctrine and faith, welcomed back today into His Holy and only Catholic Church. After totally and definitively dissociating ourselves from this dangerous sect, we wish to thank you for having allowed our souls - now aware of the error committed and of having seriously injured Our Lord -, to come back with more momentum, ardor and zeal in the arms of that Mother, the church, that despite being hurt and humiliated by His enemies, she is Mother and Mother she remains, continuing to breastfeed her children with the pure spiritual milk of the Holy Sacraments.

In conclusion we would like to bring to Mr. Minutella this message from a large group of Veronese, inviting him to answer "on the contents" and not throwing anathemas left and right, or creating his usual fanta-stories and finally presenting himself as a victim against whom everyone rages. These are the questions on the merits:

 

  1. In Verona many people, after having made life choices in which we detached ourselves from our homes and in which we worked with the resources possible in the construction of the Polo Mariano, they wonder what happened to this project and the money offered for the realization of the same. He wants to provide an answer?
  1. In the face of the many donated offers, considers it serious to liquidate everything in less than a minute during a live on Domina Nostra channel Of YouTube?
  1. It is possible to have precise clarifications regarding the silence extended up to now on the Polo Mariano and which we only learned this morning not «to be structurally linked to a place», but something that "moves" from one part of the Veneto to another according to his personal and indisputable decisions?
  1. How can a serious and mature person settle in 40 seconds a work in which so many people have invested, believed and trusted, clearly letting it be understood that when something no longer suits him or when his indications "are no longer respected" he is ready to replace it without even having the intellectual honesty to say what really happened?
  1. A Verona, according to him at least until some time ago the only place that "the Madonna" had chosen before changing her mind and wanting to move to Padua, very serious doubts begin to arise about this project in general, intends to clarify everything both on a spiritual level and on a material and financial level?

Ours are strictly substantive questions, based on the facts and on the sums of money offered and transferred to specific current accounts. We await a response from Mr. Minutella, not interpretations or manipulations of reality as in many other cases it has done. We know that this is particularly difficult and tiring for him, but for once we hope to try to tell things as they really went, or: that for once try to tell the truth.

Thanks again dear Fathers de The Island of Patmos, we recommend ourselves to your prayers with a sincere wish for your apostolate.

Giannantonio and Barbara (Verona)

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Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller's book contains reality and truth, but it makes us long for all the men of the old school like Cardinal Angelo Sodano

- Church news -

CARDINAL GERHARD LUDWIG MÜLLER'S BOOK CONTAINS FACT AND TRUTH, BUT IT MAKES US LISTEN TO ALL OLD SCHOOL MEN LIKE CARDINAL ANGELO SODANO

we must kiss the hand that slaps us, if that hand is the hand of the Supreme Pontiff or of our Bishop. Too bad a poor priest like me learned this lesson, but a great theologian like Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller did not learn it, who even titled his own book: In good faith.

Author Hypatia Gatta Romana

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Hypatia Gatta Roman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The radical left of Micromega resists the “violence” of Baptism. That is to say: the ridiculous paradox of God-obsessed atheists

THE RADICAL LEFT OF MICROMEGA RESISTS THE “VIOLENCE” OF BAPTISM. THAT IS TO SAY: THE RIDICULOUS PARADOX OF GOD-OBBSESSED ATHEISTS

Circles of anti-clerical atheists could run the serious risk of being asked a much more dramatic and realistic question: if a father and a mother who bring a newborn to be baptized would commit violence to them by means of baptism, those fathers and mothers who decide instead to prevent their children from coming into the world through the practice of abortion, what kind of violence they commit, on the children?

- Church news -

Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp..

 

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“Why Baptism for Minors Should Be Banned” is an article appeared on Micromega signed by Alessandro Giacomoni, in which the editorialist claims that the Catholic Church subtly forces them to baptize their children to avoid being discriminated against in the context of their own social community [see article: WHO]. According to this thought, parents would therefore be blackmailed into taking their children to the baptismal font, under penalty of being seen as "rare animals" to be avoided, to sympathize and therefore to discriminate.

These statements of the reporter they only denote a visible ignorance enriched by clichés about the sacramental and pastoral realities of the Church. Moreover, Nowadays, among the majority of those who define themselves as "non-practicing Christians" this problem is not contemplated in the slightest, least of all do they face the problem of being reprimanded by their own priest. As the parish priests know well, it is easier for the opposite to happen and for a "non-practicing Christian" to blame the priest and say what is right to do, sometimes even bordering on personal offense or aggressive verbal attitude.

We wonder: it will not be, perhaps, that this Micromega columnist is referring to the usual familiar faces of anti-clericalism? The list is soon done: let's start with the small Italian circles of the UAAR association (Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics), to then move on to some nostalgic for Communism and the most vulgar Socialism, ending with those mythological figures of the activists who set up a gazebo in Piazza del Popolo at the weekend, deeming it possible to democratically decree the end of the Catholic Church and of the Christian message through a collection of signatures.

If this is the level of dispute, then we really are at the tragicomic farce. So that, just to lighten things up a bit, one could paraphrase that expression of the nice Obelix ― the friend of Asterix ― who reinvented the acrostic S.P.Q.R. from the well-known meaning «the senate and the Roman people» translating it into «sThese Romans are crazy". Just so: "these atheists are crazy" who talk about God and the things of God more than the priests themselves talk about it. Their "secularist dogmatisms" are hilarious but smell of mothballs like grandmother Abelarda's old lace, to quote another mythical figure from classic comics. Robust nurses are therefore urgently needed to accompany the compulsive obsessions of atheism which claims to refute an entity, the divine one, that it shouldn't exist and therefore shouldn't even create any problems for sane people: "these atheists are crazy".

But let's go ahead, the good columnist begins by sifting through the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Code of Canon Law with the same attention and awareness with which one leafs through the newspapers on the barber's table and then extrapolates some definitions by operating a mash-up of secular exegesis which concludes with this rare pearl of "wisdom":

«It follows that even to this day, every prelate can easily afford disparaging utterances against the baptized».

The question arises spontaneously: but what sci-fi film has the good columnist seen? How many churches did he enter, how many Masses or homilies he attended, how many baptisms has she seen to be able to say these things with such certainty? We are not given to know, but let us assume none of these things, what we know, however, is that in front of a certain snooty moral superiority it is not possible to do anything, except to recognize that in some individuals critical thinking is clinically dead.

The apex of the article, how not to expect it, comes to ask for the abolition of baptism and the inclusion of secular baptism as the confessional one would violate the "convention on the rights of children, ratified by Italy in 1991", and again «every decision, legislative action, legal provision, public or private initiative must safeguard the best interests of the child» which obviously for ours, baptism does not do. So baptism for a child would be an occasion for harm? Of what entity? What aggravating injuries are to be prevented? It would be interesting and we would have an easy game in inviting the journalist to do the same with other religious faiths, for example the Abrahamic ones, which provide for the practice of circumcision as a sign in the flesh, which is decidedly more invasive than the gesture of pouring a little warm water on the head of a newborn, you don't think so? And if by chance, once he becomes an adult, the young Jew or young Muslim wanted the foreskin back, what do you plan to tell him, the wise columnist of Micromega so shocked by a little warm water poured on a baby's head? Because a few drops of warm water leave no visible mark, while the removal of a foreskin from the male genital organ leaves an indelible mark for life. It is not by chance, the Jews, they define circumcision with a beautiful expression full of spiritual meanings: Circumcision (Brit please), which literally means “covenant covenant”. But we already know that at certain addresses it is better not to knock, because you find bread for your teeth and sometimes even more. So better attack Christians, especially Catholics, because they don't say anything and don't defend themselves, to then take the applause and i likes of the dominant modern thought with its own icone pop who dominate on TV, on the web and in parterre of the Sanremo festival.

The theory that has always been the most popular is that the child will have to decide once he becomes an adult, whether to be baptized or not. Theory that would like to be presented as logic, but that in fact it is not, nor are all those statements based on pure and ill-concealed prejudice. Soon said: by applying this pseudo-logic, parents should not take any initiative aimed at growth, to the training and even to the physical care of the child, that once he becomes an adult he may deem it appropriate to be completely different, compared to what his parents have chosen for him. This is true for everything, from the choice of school to orthodontics through which the dentist applies a special appliance to correct crooked teeth, or to widen a narrow tooth opening. What if, once he becomes an adult, the son says he would rather go to another school, or have crooked teeth and a narrow dental arch, rather than wearing braces for several years? How can, a parent, choose and decide to have a child undergo orthopedic surgery to correct flatfoot, or have him wear a growth-phase brace for a few years to correct a form of scoliosis? How dare they, the parents, choose for him what they see fit, better and healthier? Maybe it's not violence? What if his son preferred flat feet and scoliosis when he came of age, instead of being operated on by an orthopedist or instead of wearing a brace for years? Because, these atheists-agnostics-rationalists do not try to leave their children free to choose what they instinctively deem appropriate to do? It would be very interesting to see what a child of a few years who has not yet acquired a sense of danger would choose to do.

I wish to remind our Readers that objections to infant baptism are not a recent discovery, but this problem had already been posed in the first centuries of Christianity and the arguments of the opponents were not very different from those of today. Seems useful to me, so, to remind and enlighten the faithful on the subject by making the Fathers of the Church speak who wrote wonderful pages on baptism, both to defend it from opposition and to enlighten minds with that thought of the Apostolic Church which has always believed and lived baptism as conformation to Christ and the beginning of a serious journey of conversion to the Gospel and renunciation of sin. In this regard, the holy bishop Augustine of Hippo responds in his Letter to Bonifacio [See. Letter 98 of Sant'Agostino in Bonifacio 7-10,11]:

“Because of your usual intense aversion to the slightest lie, in your last question it seemed to you that you had proposed a very difficult question. "If ― you say ― I presented you with a child and asked you if, gives adult, he will be chaste and will not be a thief, no doubt you would answer me: “I do not know”. Likewise if I asked you if the child was still at the same tender age, think something good or bad, you would say: “I do not know”. If, therefore, you dare not guarantee anything certain as to his future conduct and present thinking, why not when they are presented at baptism, the parents, on the other hand, answer to them as guarantors and affirm that they do what that age cannot think or, if he can, remains unknown to us? In reality, to the godparents who offer us a child to be baptized, we ask if he believes in God and in the name of the little one, who doesn't even know if God exists, they answer: “Believe”. All the other individual questions addressed to them are answered with the same certainty. I am therefore amazed that parents respond in place of children with absolute certainty since these are such serious and demanding things, affirming that the child performs such important actions on which the questions asked by the minister of baptism at the moment that he is baptized concern; while at the same time if I asked them this other question: “This baby, who is now being baptized, he will be chaste or he will not rather be a thief?”, I don't know if anyone would dare to say: “It will or it won't be”, as without a shadow of a doubt I am told that he believes in God”. Eventually, conclude your reasoning by saying: ” Use the courtesy to briefly answer these questions of mine, not attaching the rule of custom but citing the reason and explanation".

In this answer one can perfectly see the role that the Bishop of Hippo attributes to the faith of parents and godparents who freely and voluntarily accompany their children to baptism. The baptized child is made faithful not by an act similar to that of faithful adults, but from the Sacrament of the same faith which is transmitted as a good thing by those who have already experienced Christ and wish to transmit it. In the same way, for St. Augustine, both parents and godparents respond to their children's baptism by affirming their beliefs, free and non-coercive will, in times where calling oneself a Christian was much more uncomfortable and dangerous than today. We understand that the baptized child is called faithful - in the sense of united with Christ - not simply by giving the personal assent of his intelligence, but with receiving the Sacrament of the same faith that was transmitted in one's family. When then the child, crescendo, will begin to understand, he will no longer need a new baptism, but he will understand the Sacrament received and will comply, with the consent of his will, from the spiritual reality represented by baptism.

After this description so clear, we can understand that all things considered good are transmitted from parents to children and that often the passions of the fathers become those of the children, but no one would ever dream of saying that the child is the victim of violence.

In the Rite of Baptism the priest asks: "What do you ask of the Church of God?» is a simple question that defines a very free will to proceed on a journey of faith through baptism. But this is not enough, the priest informs the parents of the baptized of the responsibility for this request: «asking for Baptism for your child, you are committed to educating him in the faith, Why, in keeping the commandments, learn to love God and neighbor, as Christ taught us. You are aware of this responsibility?». If this awareness exists, well, otherwise wait, there is no hurry in the things of God, it is useless to baptize your child for other reasons than because you want him to live the same life as Christ. Baptism is the beginning of every discipleship and that evangelical change (Metanoia) ― involving the whole family, Home church, to constitute the fulcrum of the first announcement of the faith.

St. Fulgentius of Ruspe in Rule of true faith [See. 30,14] he claims:

«[…] no man can receive eternal salvation, if he has not converted down here from his sins with penance and faith, and that through the sacrament of faith and penance, that is, by means of baptism, he didn't get rid of it"

The “Institutional Church”, let's call it that for the less skilled in these matters, subsequently takes over this awareness and accompanies the family's journey of faith, strengthening it and directing it to the fullest with the grace that comes from the Holy Spirit. But the same is not the case with learning? When the six-year-old enters first grade, he doesn't already know many things and is able to speak. Where did he get this information from if not the house? Attending school and following the learning path is just the continuation of what the family has already done, structuring it in a robust way and opening to the pleasure and desire for knowledge the young minds that tomorrow will be able to govern themselves in the world as mature people.

Finally, we cordially invite the journalists of Micromega to exempt himself for the future from these embarrassing utterances that would have made men of great talent and intellect of the caliber of Enrico Berlinguer and Marco Pannella pale, or which would lead an authentic liberal like Daniele Capezzone to hastily call them ignorant without any hesitation. Indeed, let it be clear: the exponents of the old Italian Communist Party, or the Radicals who grew up in the political school of that brilliant mind of Marco Pannella - of whom we share little or perhaps nothing, but which we recognize however as having undoubted political qualities ―, with certain vulgar subjects they have nothing in common both on the level of ideality and on that of the exposition of the criticisms formulated against the Catholic Church.

The proposal of lay baptism? It is certainly the best gimmick of atheist "dogmatism"., after the one that led them to propose the figure of ... "lay hospital chaplain". All done to pursue the desperate desire to become the new priests of secularism with all that liberal-clerical baggage that derives from it. The Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, who in terms of criticism of the Church was second to none, taking up the acrostic S.P.Q.R. translated it into "Solo Priests Qua Regnano". Yup, you pursue this dream to be the new reigning lay clergy of worldliness, but remember one thing, if after two thousand years the Church is still present and baptizes by command of Christ it is because there is that something more - we ask the atheists, maybe it's God? ― who supports and defends it. Perhaps a little more attention would be better on your part, at least a little more caution. Also because anti-clerical atheist circles could run the serious risk of being asked a much more dramatic and realistic question: if a father and a mother who bring a newborn to be baptized would commit violence to them by means of baptism, those fathers and mothers who decide instead to prevent their children from coming into the world through the practice of abortion, what kind of violence they commit, on the children?

Laconi, 6 February 2023

 

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Over the centuries, sacramental confession has undergone radical changes that are great “theological doctors” of Facebook and Twitter ignore

- Church news -

OVER THE CENTURIES THE SACRAMENTAL CONFESSION HAS UNDERGOING RADICAL CHANGES THAT THE GREAT “DOCTORS THEOLOGISTS” OF FACEBOOK E TWITTER THEY IGNORE

Thanks to Social media a lot of, grouped together in dense legions of increasingly fierce fools, as well as worse than the biblical invasion of locusts, they usually self-form in this way: first pick from a blog to the other, then they engage in the use of words of which they do not even know the etymological meaning - but above all the meaning they have in the philosophical language, metaphysical and theological-dogmatic -, finally they get on the chair of Facebook o di Twitter to give lessons of correct doctrine to us theologians, firing one nonsense after another in bursts, often even violently and aggressively.

 

 

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By asking a question a Reader I was inspired by this article that could be useful to many people:

 

«It is true that Christ condemns sin and not the sinner. It is true that the sinner is to be forgiven seventy times seven, therefore always. But on the hundredth time that a person comes to her to confess the same sin, she never thinks that maybe she is "sucking" us a little? The first Christian communities, if I remember correctly, didn't go so lightly in the judgment on the sinner e, after sin, contrition of heart was not enough and before being readmitted into the community he had to pass under the public caudine gallows. Probably my feelings of guilt arise from here ... masochism? But it seems to me that even in the apostolic canons they speak of this path ".

 

Capuchin friar confessor (photo by Aldo Lancioni)

 

These are questions that offer opportunity to do some sacramental dogmatics, subject to which I have devoted myself a lot together with the history of dogma.

In the sad and confused times we are living in, we priests and theologians have to deal with the reality of "Catholics" who range between magical-aesthetic and the most vulgar fideism. Thanks to Social media a lot of, grouped together in dense legions of increasingly fierce fools, as well as worse than the biblical invasion of locusts, they usually self-form in this way: first pick from a blog to the other, then they engage in the use of words of which they do not even know the etymological meaning - but above all the meaning they have in the philosophical language, metaphysical and theological-dogmatic -, finally they get on the chair of Facebook o di Twitter to give lessons of correct doctrine to us theologians, shooting nonsense in bursts, often even violently and aggressively. And not always, Unfortunately, you can laugh at the nonsense of these internetici theologians. Sometimes yes, others do not.

Here is a typical example of sinister and vulgar fideism based on the magical-aesthetic, of the series ... abracadabra the magic is done! Someone wrote on my page social that "the prayers recited in Latin are very powerful and the devil just can't stand them", because he is terrified of it.

For pedagogy, above all out of authentic Christian charity, such people cannot be taken seriously, they are just for fun. What else could be done with subjects who from their professorships erected on social media they think they can speak of the mystery of divine grace, of the sacramental - which is the most complex branch of dogmatic theology - and of the discipline of the sacraments, with the slight nonchalance with which one can discuss the latest article published in a magazine Of gossip?

Here then is the tease addressed to these people becomes an appropriate and pedagogical act of the most authentic Christian charity. Indeed, what is not serious and what appears so grotesque and anti-scientific, anti-doctrinal and anti-theological, it must be deprived of value. To do this, the most effective weapon is irony and wise and charitable mockery.

And so, to that Lady which almost certainly would not be able to translate even the first very simple lines of the De bello Gallico but who invokes the "magic language" of Latin to terrorize the devil, I replied that when we celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice in Italian, or when instead of saying the Lord be with you we say The Lord be with you, surely the devil cracks up with laughter, not feeling struck by the magical Latin that instead knocks him down instantly frightened and stunned.

This complex premise to say that when I've been asked intelligent questions like the one sent by this Reader of ours, it is as if I received a free gift:

"On the hundredth time that a person comes to her to confess the same sin, she never thinks that maybe she is" sucking "us a little?».

Relevant question, because precisely in these cases one can see how much a wise confessor is and enlightened by God's grace. First of all it must be taken into account that Christ, divine cornerstone, he chose Peter for the building and government of his Church (cf.. Mt 13, 16-20). And of all the Apostles, Peter was the most fragile and haughty, as he repeatedly demonstrated, at the same time he also showed himself the most cowardly. If necessary, he was confused, indecisive and ambiguous in matters of doctrine. He was a naive Galilean fisherman, passionate and good that he remained so throughout his life. He did not shine for intelligence, least of all for culture. Suffice it to recall how it was made black in Antioch by the Blessed Apostle Paul, albeit with all due respect for his primacy as Head of the College of Apostles. Now let's retrace that very interesting story of Antioch narrated by the Apostle Paul himself:

«But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him openly because he was wrong. Indeed, before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles:; ma, after their coming, he withdrew and separated himself, for fear of the circumcision. And the other Jews did the same in the simulation, so much so that even Barnabas allowed himself to be drawn into their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not behaving righteously according to the truth of the gospel, said to Peter before all: "Be yourself, being a Jew, live like a Gentile and not in the manner of the Jews, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”. We, that by birth we are Jews and not pagan sinners, knowing however that man is not justified by the works of the Law but only by faith in Jesus Christ, we too believed in Christ Jesus to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; for by the works of the Law no one will ever be justified. If therefore we who seek justification in Christ are found sinners like others, Christ is perhaps a minister of sin? Impossible! In fact, if I go back to building what I destroyed, I denounce myself as a transgressor. Actually by the Law I died to the Law, so that I live for God. I was crucified with Christ, and I don't live anymore, but Christ lives in me. And this life, that I live in the body, I live it in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. Therefore I am not making the grace of God in vain; indeed, if the justification comes from the Law, Christ died in vain "" (Gal 2, 11-21).

In this debate that took place in Antioch, the Blessed Apostle Paul enunciates the theology and doctrine of grace and justification. Exactly what a German Augustinian friar famously donkey misunderstood, I think he was called Martin Luther, forge of enormous damage produced in the Church around the sixteenth century, with all due respect to a certain Catholic flattery which today indicates him as a "reformer" and who calls his schismatic heresy "reform". Among other things, it came from a historic Order that takes its name from St. Augustine who was the author of Of nature and grace.

Always remaining in the order of hyperbolic examples: if a conclave had been held after the death of Jesus Christ, how many Peter would have voted and how many Paul? What a profound difference there was between Peter, Giacomo the Greater and his brother Giovanni, indicated by Christ God with the Aramaic name of "sons of thunder" - boanèrghes ―, then reported in Greek characters as βοανηργες (cf.. MC 3, 16-18). If we compare Peter with figures of apostles such as John or Paul, the difference will appear roughly like the one that could exist between Roberto Benigni and Marcello Mastroianni, tra Jerry Lewis e Gregory Peck. Yet Christ chose him who embodied all our human frailties, giving it the keys to the kingdom and the power to bind and untie (cf.. Mt 16, 13-19), all despite having had much better elements from which to choose the Head of the College of Apostles. So let's try to ask ourselves: because he chose Peter and not others?

It is not an Angel of God who absolves sins, just as it is not a group of Cherubim and Seraphim who lead the Church of Christ, but of priests, Of another Christ acting in Person Christi and that they can often be worse sinners than the one to whom they grant grace and divine forgiveness through sacramental absolution: "Whom you forgive sins will be forgiven ..." (GV 20, 22-23).

Theology, sacramental dogmatics in particular, it cannot be separated from the history of dogma, because in the course of two thousand years the discipline of the sacraments has undergone sometimes radical changes, fruit of a long gestation understood as the acquisition of the perception of the Sacrament and of the Sacraments in themselves. Or perhaps someone thinks that the first Christians had the perception of the Holy Eucharist that we have today? Or that they display the Blessed Sacrament inside the monstrance for Eucharistic adoration, practice of sacred devotion to the Most Holy Body of Christ which will come to life only about 1300 years after the death and resurrection of the Word of God? What prayer books did the first Christians use in the apostolic age and with which Missal they celebrated Holy Mass, perhaps with what certain ridiculous contemporaries call … the missal of Mass of All Time? The early Christians perhaps recited prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary? The Twelve Apostles gathered together sang Hi Regina in Gregorian in the presence of the Mater Dei to honor her while she was staying in Ephesus or Jerusalem? They venerated the relics of the Saints? They went on pilgrimage to the sanctuaries where indulgence could be gained, or perhaps they crowded the hill of Medjugorje where in complete travel package conversion is also guaranteed, besides - of course - the assured apparition of the Madonna? Or, after the February Edict of Milan 313, the Christians screamed, style invaded neocatechumenal: … «We have been recognized and approved… approved! You cannot therefore tell us and do nothing about it: we have been approved! Whoever is against us is against the august emperors Constantine and Licinius who approved us … approved!»? And always after this edict, the Christians were perhaps given the ancient basilicas of the romanitas with a place of honor in the ancient Senate reserved for the Bishop of Rome? I honestly would like to know what science fiction movies some people have seen, it would be interesting to know at least the title.

Simply said,: a sinner could commit that particular sin even once every 48 hours, then going to ask for God's grace and forgiveness. Obviously as long as he is repentant and a “victim” of fragility and weaknesses that he cannot manage and overcome at the moment. It is quite another matter if the sinner continuously commits the same sin because of indolence, laziness or selfishness wants to be weak and fragile and does not intend in any way to react to those weaknesses and frailties to which it could instead react, or worse because convinced ".... Oh well, then I'll go to confession ". In that case, for the good of the penitent, absolution can even be denied. However, I can guarantee that it is difficult for people of this kind - I would say almost impossible - to go back and forth to the confessional to ask forgiveness for the same sin..

The reader keep asking:

«The first Christian communities, if I remember correctly, didn't go so lightly in the judgment on the sinner e, after sin, contrition of heart was not enough and before being readmitted into the community he had to pass under the public caudine forks ".

It's true, but we are at the very beginning of the Christian experience, in an era in which many were not yet clear what truly great had happened for all humanity from Calvary to the empty tomb of Christ risen and then ascended to heaven. The currents of the first Christians were different, two are the main ones: the Judeo-Jesuits, that is, the Jews who had chosen to follow the message of Christ and who were very affected by Jewish culture and rabbinic law, in particular of the Pharisaic one, from which lineage came the same Apostle Paul (cf.. At 23, 6) and the converted pagans belonging to the Greek and Latin populations.

As evidenced by the "incident" of Antioch between the Apostles Peter and Paul, the exchanges between the circumcised and the uncircumcised were very intense. And with all the confusion that often followed it was debated whether Christians should continue with the ritual practice of circumcision. Many understood the Eucharist as a celebration of Passover (Passover) which instead of once a year was celebrated once a week. It would then suffice to recall that from then on it will take almost four centuries and two great dogmatic councils to first define at Nicaea in 325, then in Constantinople in 381, the mystery of the person and nature of Christ. And since there were not even lexical terms to define it, the Fathers of the Church were forced to borrow terminologies from the Greek philosophical lexicon and modulate them to give a definition to this ineffable mystery.

At first I called back to the “doctors of sacramental theology” specialized at the academy of Facebook and of Twitter, those to be made fun of by imperative of conscience and above all for Christian charity, ready to launch into topics for which often, if not almost usual, sixty-year-old priests with thirty years of priestly ministry behind them ask for explanations from some theologian brother or dogma historian, if anything, twenty years younger than them, before going into some very complex disquisitions on the theological level, which consequently involve equally complex issues on a historical level. Indeed, it is impossible to understand the discipline of the Sacraments if one does not know the history well and in depth.

It's true, the first Christian communities they had another conception of the forgiveness of sins, suffice it to say that the Sacrament of Penance could only be received once in a lifetime, after a penitential journey made under the guidance of the Bishop. Once the faithful received this sacrament, they could no longer sin, except at your own risk, because he could never receive it again. For seven centuries, absolution from sins was considered a "non-repeatable" sacrament. For this reason, Christians tried to receive absolution before dying, or in any case in old age. And many died without receiving it.

In these first centuries the complex problem of child. Latin term that literally means "slipped", used to indicate the Christians who during the persecutions of the third and fourth centuries burned incense to the pagan gods doing an act of adoration towards them. This is not out of conviction but because they are threatened with death, therefore only for fear of dying. Even before the case of child the discipline of the unrepeatability of penance was held firm. On the readmission of the child to the Community of believers the early Church found itself divided between the Cornelius current, elected Bishop of Rome in 251, inclined to forgive and accept them, and the followers of the Novatian presbyter who denied them any form of acceptance and who ended up excommunicated by the Roman synod. From him came the current known today as the Novatian heresy, who for some centuries continued to find followers. The theological battle waged against the Novatians by Ambrose, bishop of Mediolanum, is memorable, who at the end of the fourth century composed the Of Penance, work divided into two books in which it is refuted: in the first, the theses of the followers of Novatian who considered mortal sins not forgivable and the need to proceed with a new baptism for the followers of their heretical sect; in the second he offers a learned dissertation on the concept of penance and the way in which it must be administered. Bishop Ambrose refutes the Novatians by reminding them that God's mercy offers all repentant sinners his grace. It reaffirms the analogical foundation between baptism and penance and finally reaffirms the unrepeatability of both these sacraments that generate a substantial transformation of life in anyone who repents for the sins committed and the evil that with them has been caused to others. The Novatians claimed to invite on the one hand to penance and repentance, on the other, however, they denied forgiveness, convinced of praising the Almighty with their rigor, but in fact despising God's grace and forgiveness through their blind hardness of heart. Let me now evaluate, to anyone who has read only a few rants of certain self-styled Internet theologians do it yourself, if the Novatian one is not by chance one of the various returning heresies of our present time.

With the descent of the barbarians from Northern Europe - who shortly afterwards converted en masse to Christianity fascinated by the great and virile figures of certain Bishops and Fathers of the Church -, the hypothesis of making this sacrament repeatable to make the path of conversion and Christian life less impossible for these peoples began to be aired.. Hypothesis in front of which many Fathers of the Church and theologians of the time shouted heresy! Presumably, one of these, it would have been Ambrose himself, just mentioned, who three centuries earlier reaffirmed the unrepeatability of penance in one of his famous theological works.

Because with the converted barbarians the pastoral need arises to make the Sacrament repeatable? Because beyond their good will, their habits and customs of life were what they were… well, we must be grateful to the barbarians if this sacrament became repeatable. Only in the seventh century was the private practice of Penance introduced, something we owe to the Irish monks who lived at the time of San Colombano who founded the monastery of Bobbio in the early seventh century and who helped to revive the practice of this Sacrament through a private dimension based on the expiation of sins. Like this, these monks, coming down from the regions of northern Europe to Italy they brought the sacramental habit of "confessing" their sins to a presbyter in such a way as to receive a penance, this paid penance. And here we must explain that for paid penance we mean the classification of the sins to which the penances to be imposed corresponded. This system introduced in the seventh century began to be practiced first in the monastic sphere, then among the people with subsequent great diffusion. We therefore owe the repeatability of this sacrament to the Irish Saint Columban and his monks, instead of being able to receive it once in a lifetime. We also owe him the secrecy of the penitential path instead of the public dimension.

In the two hundred years that followed between the eighth and ninth centuries, i Penitential Books they had a great diffusion and application. the rates enclosed within them consisted mainly of imposed fasts, which according to the gravity of the sin committed could sometimes last days, other times years. Disgrace wanted - because in fact it was -, that the Penitential Books contained within them commutations that allowed the sinner to commute his fast into expiatory works done by himself or even performed by third parties, all in exchange for money, celebrations of Holy Masses, land donations, construction of churches and monasteries in cases of particularly wealthy sinners. Then came the verge of ridicule, this just to remember with an aside that at a certain point in history, in that of Certaldo, Giovanni Boccaccio was born anything but by chance in the fourteenth century and that some of his short stories are anything but fanciful inventions. So I leave the reader to guess, without going into useless and shameful details, which abuses originated certain commutations and how many "holy" monks obtained the construction of great monasteries by selling the atonement for sins in concrete facts, while certain sovereigns and powerful feudal lords subjected to harsh penance came to pay their own faithful servant to do penance in their place (!?). There will also be a reason, if several councils of the Church severely condemned the vile sin of simony, whose etymology stems from the story of Simon Magus who tried to offer money to the Apostles to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit through the imposition of their hands (cf.. At 8, 18-19).

Subsequently, the Sacrament of Penance will experience new developments and innovations between the ninth and tenth centuries with the Carolingian theologians beginning to focus attention from the atonement of sins to the accusation of sins, considering it the true heart of the entire penitential process. Without sincere repentance, there can be no forgiveness and atoning penance can risk being an end in itself.. Until reaching the Council of Trent which in 1563 establishes the norms of Confession with a specific decree, structuring the sacramental and canonical discipline of this sacrament as we know it today. In the post-Tridentine era, suitable spaces and places were also created for administering this Sacrament, for example, the penitentiaries inside the great cathedrals and basilicas, hence the use of confessionals created between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century to ensure confidentiality and separation between the confessor and the penitent and to encourage the confession itself. Nobody would be comfortable, to men and perhaps even more to women, accuse your sins to a man who sits in front of you and looks you in the face as you speak. It is worth mentioning that confessionals were invented by the Jesuits, precisely the same ones who between the end of the sixties and the seventies of the twentieth century were the first to remove them from many of their churches to put them in the basements, or by selling them to antique dealers, if anything, to give money to the poor, mind you! Indeed, the casuistic reason of the Jesuit, or it is always noble in and of itself, or in any case it becomes so through manipulation.

It is not true that the sinner "Before being readmitted to the community he had to pass under the public caudine forks". But some historians write it, many read it around and take such claims to be true and then spread them as such. It was not the confession of sins that was public, but the state of penitents, that yes it was made public. The penitents, almost always gathered in groups, they had to make a specific penitential path under the guidance of the Bishop, they certainly could not be kept hidden, but their sins yes, so much so that the Holy Pontiff Leo the Great, the long pontificate of which lasted from 440 al 461, he prohibited public confession and declared it illegitimate and contrary to apostolic norms:

“We forbid that on this occasion a writing should be publicly read in which their sins are listed in detail. In fact, it is sufficient that the faults be manifested only to the Bishop, in a private interview " (Letter 168).

From all these historical notes it should be understood that the Sacrament of Penance, like other Sacraments, has undergone major mutations over time, at times truly radical. Always with all due respect to whoever speaks of Mass of All Time or doctrines, rules and disciplines always and absolutely immutable, with a lot of indisputable seal «it has always been done like this over the centuries!». Typical expression of the imbecile who usually ignores all of the mutations and events that have occurred over the centuries, because a past has been created that never existed, in order to make the present unreal.

I conclude with a touch of irony narrating when a mega-catechist de The Neocatechumenal sect he rattled kikian-carmeniano on the necessity of returning to the Church of the first apostolic origins. And here it is necessary to specify that the mega-catechist made the so-called scrutinies - that is to say that she investigated the consciences - not only of the laity, but even of the priests e, when their assemblies were held in the closed rooms, she talked and rambled heresies outright, while the priest present sat silently next to her, silent, ashamed of himself and of priestly dignity. At that point I quoted some passages from Sacred Scripture in which the Blessed Apostle Paul does not limit himself to exhorting, but he addresses real severe intimations:

"I do not permit a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man; rather it be in silence " (The Tm 2, 12) "As in all churches of the saints, the women keep silent in the assemblies because it is not allowed to speak; but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If they want to learn something, question their husbands at home, it is improper for a woman to speak in church " (The Cor 14, 34-35).

(D)before those clear passages, I told her that her job was to just keep quiet. And having said this, I asked her if she intended to return to the Church of the origins and apply certain commands and precepts to the letter, thus showing that he is truly yearning for the hoped-for return to origins. Not knowing what to answer, the poor ignoramus, paradigm of what mega-catechists actually are neokatekiki, he literally snapped stating: "Well, you always know, that Saint Paul was a misogynist ". Well, even if this is not the place, I think it is appropriate to briefly clarify that the Blessed Apostle, far from being a misogynist, he addressed these words to the inhabitants of Corinth, a basically matriarchal society in which women used to condition men with strong influences and pressures. But when they tried to do the same in the Christian community, trying to put their feet on the heads of bishops and presbyters, the Apostle called them to order. Therefore, the admonition "If they want to learn something, ask their husbands at home ", most likely it was aimed precisely at the wives of the first bishops and presbyters of that geographical area, it is clear from this other passage of the Epistle addressed to the disciple Timothy:

«[…] the bishop must be blameless, the husband of one time, sober, prudent, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not attached to money. Know how to manage his family well and have submissive children with every dignity, because if one does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of the Church of God?» (The Tm 3, 2-5).

The problem is that on the one hand we have more or less sectarian pseudo-Catholics which invoke the return to unknown origins and which instead constitute only a starting evolutionary nucleus to which it is certainly not desirable to return, because it would be like getting out of the car and going back to the time before the invention of the wheel. On the other hand, we have pseudo-Catholics of unspecified tradition who have built a past that never existed, convinced that the Blessed Apostle Peter celebrated the Mass of All Time dressed in solemn vestments with assistant presbyters dressed in copes and deacons dressed in damask baroque dalmatics. Of course celebrating - it goes without saying, needless to say! - in perfect and magical Latin, the one that scares and drives the Devil away, as that certain scientist wrote on my page Social. And certainly Simon, son of Jonah, known as Peter, was also called him “Holiness” O “Most Holy Father”. In fact, when the Roman soldiers arrested him on the Via Appia to take him to the Vatican Hill where he was crucified, they ordered him: "Up there, Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, Your Holiness is under arrest!». And he was dragged towards the torture, giving at the end of his life the proof of the heroic nature of his virtues and dying by the grace of God the martyr.

It took Peter a lifetime to die a martyr, after running away several times, the last in series order shortly before his death, during Nero's persecutions, under the reign of which he ended up captured together with other fleeing Christians and ending up on the cross in what in the early Roman era was a wet and unhealthy marshy place outside the metropolitan urban core: the Vatican Hill. Name that some derive from Vagitano, a pagan divinity who protected newborn babies as they uttered their first cry. Others derive it from forecaster, which in Latin means "to predict", therefore linking it to the fact that in that area they practiced their profession of diviners already in the ancient Etruscan era. Whatever the true meaning of the word, it remains certain that the Vatican is a place where for love and respect for the faith ends up being put on the cross, in antiquity as in the contemporary world.

the Island of Patmos, 4 February 2023

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The topic covered in this article is found in depth in my book Sadness of Love – Click on the image to open the page

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