The priest's bad words, the Latinisms of the new cat-kaifans suffering from doctrinal illiteracy and the laughter of the disenchanted old Cardinal

THE PRIEST'S WORDS, THE LATINISMS OF THE NOVELS CATTO-KAIFANI AFFECTED BY DOCTRINAL ANALPHABETISM AND THE LAUGHTERS OF THE DISENCHANTED OLD CARDINAL

 

“A good priest with a truly priestly heart can be recognized even by bad words. Only a genuine man of God can swear words with genuine purity of heart without ever being vulgar. Thanks for the laughs you gave me, these days we desperately need it ".

- Church news -

.

.

PDF print format article

 

.

The technician who takes care of the assembly is outside Italy, the audio reading of the articles will be inserted by the end of September

.

 

.

After some time a Cardinal with decades of life spent in the Roman Curia confided to me that years ago a letter signed by several "integral Catholics" reached the Vatican and made the rounds of all the offices of that section of the Secretariat of State, causing the monsignors to laugh with laughter as they turned between them from desk to desk. The object of the protest was me, presented as a highly unworthy priest because he was guilty of scandalizing the immaculate faithful by sometimes using colorful words not suited to a minister in sacred. For this they invoked severe canonical sanctions against me. Bearers of the petition were those characters that have always been known to us priests, those endowed with such a vocation in the rag of their robes that Kaifa appears angry before the Sanhedrin like a novice beginner.

.

These characters they feel first of all noble soldiers placed as halberdiers in defense of the true Catholic tradition and of the most rigid sexual morality always applied and rigorously to others, never to themselves and least of all to their children, daughters and grandchildren, only to the children and grandchildren of others. For them the Church was born suddenly in 1570 with the Roman Missal promulgated by the Holy Pontiff Pius V, from which they jump directly to the beginning of the twentieth century, to the pontificate of the Holy Pontiff Pius X, the one who condemned that trembling Modernism that the Halberdiers know in the same way as the Latin of the Tridentine missal.

.

Halberdiers have three sets: Latin, St. Thomas Aquinas and the fight against Modernism. As for the Latin I will just mention that years ago, copiously taking the piss out of the members of a circle of so-called and improperly called "traditionalists", I sang to him on the meter of the Gregorian preface the Poetry of the Sparrow by Valerio Gaius Catullus, finally saying: «This is indeed a sacred liturgy, little that messalaccio by Annibale Bugnini approved by the improvised Holy Pontiff Paul VI!» [cf.. see WHO]. And everyone agreed with me enjoying from the seventh heaven. Well, however unusual it may seem, you should know that even I am endowed with a common sense of modesty, for this I avoided adding the singing of some collection, taking from the Catullian carmina some delicacies of the type:

.

«I will bite you and break in, Aurelius pathically and Cinaede Furi, who thought I was from my verses, because they are soft, a little modest»¹.

.

But if I did the Halberdiers would have further confirmed that yes, which was the language of the angels that from the benches beyond the altar balustrade takes you directly to Heaven, not thanks to the sacred mysteries, but thanks to the magic of the Latins an end in itself. For this reason I limited myself to the Poetry of the Sparrow passed off as a preface, avoiding turning certain lustful carminas into collections., which of course I know by heart since the days of classical high school.

.

Segue San Tommaso d'Aquino, which these halberdiers know in the same way as the Latin of the Tridentine Missal, unable to understand that the Angelic Doctor e Doctor Common speaks of the mysteries of faith and provides an effective and still unsurpassed speculative method, but neither his method nor his extraordinary production in themselves constitute immutable truths of the faith. Let's take one example among many: today Catholic doctrine teaches that the soul is blown into the living being from the moment of conception. L’Aquinate, which followed Aristotle's speculative method, argues that in the course of the growth of the fetus they develop in succession: first a vegetative soul, then a sensitive soul, at last, when development is adequate to receive the intellectual soul, this is infused directly by God in the third month of pregnancy [cf.. QUESTION Iª q. 118 a. 2 ad 2].

.

Aquinas had a different idea also regarding the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, believing that she was not born without original sin but that soon after her conception she received an extraordinary sanctification in her soul that canceled original sin [cf.. QUESTION IIIa, q. 27, a. 3 ad 3]. You understand well that between conception without original sin e cancellation of original sin, the difference is not merely semantic, but precisely substantially theological.

.

Equally unique the way in which the Halberdiers justify the fact that the genius and science of the very pagan Aristotle are at the basis of Aquinas's speculative method. Soon packaged and answered: Aristotle was in fact a Christian, having perceived centuries before, even without realizing it, the mystery of the incarnation of the Word of God. This is a statement as stupid as it is illogical that began to circulate in the areas of the decadent neo-scholasticism of the late nineteenth century.. The parrots of the unspecified tradition that today repeat it and propagate it as a truth of faith, they do not even realize that in this way they are defining Aristotle as an "anonymous Christian", according to the controversial and dangerous theory of Karl Rahner, another sworn enemy of theirs, although they do not even know the title of his main works. It matters little, because the Catholic and theological culture of the Halberdier of true and pure tradition is based on a castle of "it is said that ...".

.

Finally, the evil specter of Modernism, of which the Halberdiers speak starting from a total lack of knowledge, as well as a critical spirit. Then, if they are supported by a deranged priest, excommunicated and discharged from the clerical state, irreparable damage is soon done. Not all the measures that followed the Encyclical Feeding of Dominic's Sheep of the Holy Pontiff Pius X were by no means far-sighted, on the contrary, they partly favored the development of a dangerous reactive Modernism, on the other, they crystallized theological speculation in four stagnant and rancid formulas of decadent neo-scholasticism, effectively preventing theologians from speculating outside those four sclerotic and intangible formulas. This while on the other side, the Protestants, they carried out very thorough studies on the biblical sciences and exegesis, which decades later we were forced to make up for, after being paralyzed for decades in those four sclerotic and intangible formulas that made up the unsuccessful struggle of the Holy Pontiff Pius X - or rather who for him - against Modernism, that in retrospect we can affirm that it was indeed condemned and opposed, but in a completely different way, not in the narrow-minded way that was often adopted.

.

Among the many Protestant scholars I quote as an example the great commentary on the Letter to the Romans by the theologian Karl Barth, which still remains unsurpassed in the context of exegesis novo testamentaria and to which all of us must necessarily refer.

.

We cannot speak of Modernism if you do not know and are not moved by the conscious honesty that it was born and developed as a reactive thought within a Church that throughout the nineteenth century was wrapped up in purely political questions - undoubtedly justified by history and from the events of those years following the French Revolution -, while Catholic theology languished and stagnated in forms of true ignorance. So it is not possible to talk about Modernism if not starting from a fact: the French Alfred Firmin Loisy and Italian Ernesto Buonaiuti they are two figures to be counted among the most brilliant thinkers of the twentieth century. Only illiterate bigots or some deranged priest can treat them with heretical sufficiency from the top of their total lack of knowledge. And I conclude by specifying, to be fair, that by Holy Mother Church Ernesto Buonaiuti was treated with such a ferocious lack of Christian charity that he really cries to heaven, like it or not the Halberdiers fighting against the specter of that Modernism that they do not know and of which the Holy Pontiff Pius X, who rightly and prudently condemned him, at the same time it favored its development and dissemination thanks to repressive measures and actions that were anything but far-sighted. But I am preparing a book on this very complex and articulated theme, if I don't crack first.

.

Perhaps my interlocutor Cardinal he wanted to laugh further, for this I have heard it starting by saying: It's true, Eminence, I say bad words, Alas! Sometimes I also say many and some Catholic or Catholic from the gloomy sacristy reproaches me about the moderns social media, on the contrary, I acknowledge that they have protested by writing to you too, what he tells me. Some of these have even told me that I am too explicit, for example in the references - in my opinion completely natural and scientific - to human sexuality, because they say I should use euphemisms, for example some Latin terminologies, not too explicit terms. E, as known, Latin is terribly appealing to all those who do not know it, because it does a lot chic.

.
Eminence, the problem is not Latin, that I know. The problem is who does not know Latin. Let me explain: as far as I'm concerned, I can also blur out saying "You've broken your brain!». But if I don't translate that this literally means "you broke your dick", who understands this noble Ciceronian expression in splendid Latin?

.

The Cardinal starts laughing as he did not dare to do even at the time, young monsignor of the curia that he was, in the eighties he saw the film The Marchese del Grillo together with John Paul II and other prelates. Which John Paul II, to what the Cardinal himself refers in camera of love, apparently he commented on the film saying that the director and screenwriter had understood everything about papal Rome.

.
I let the Cardinal finish his laughter and I carry on: sometimes we priests are like certain caring doctors of the health insurance, that prescribed the recipe they say to the poor uneducated ignoramus: «These suppositories must be taken pro rectal via». Very serious mistake! Because at that point of two o'clock: or that patient is clearly told that the suppository must be pushed into the asshole, or he will end up being taken to the emergency room after having swallowed suppositories for a month by swallowing them with a glass of water.

.
Why certain demure delicate ears they yearn so much for those Latinisms that they don't understand? Perhaps because they want the Church to use magic formulas that the more incomprehensible they are the more effective they would be? I'll explain it to you because they yearn for Latinisms: because they have never been confessors, to begin. Or do you think that Saints confessors such as San Leopoldo Mandic and San Pio da Pietrelcina presented themselves, repent and repent, libertines and women of easy virtue to speak of fellatio, cunnilingus, ani trade, fornication against nature, intrusion, scenterasty …

.

Try to imagine a man who confesses to having had sexual intercourse with another man, today it is so fashionable, indeed it is a trend, to the point that it is no longer sin but a high expression of love (!?). Above all, try to imagine me, confessor, than to fulfill what certain Catholics and Catholics with delicate ears and therefore yearning Latinisms demand, I start talking to the penitent like this:

.

«… you would take into your hand another man's grave, and your other into his own, and so alternately shake the rods with your hands, so that by means of that pleasure you would cast the seed from yourself? If you did, thirty days of penitence in bread and water!»².

.

The elderly Cardinal at this point he almost fell from the chair lying under the table, as I went on: … in conclusion, Eminence, I can also make happy those who yearn to hear Latinisms, I can also tell him via rectal, only to swallow the suppositories for a whole month instead of putting them in the asshole. I can also respond to some self-styled Catholics who are highly arrogant and irreverent towards us priests by blurting out «Tace. Maxiom crazy brain!». After that, who explains to him that I just told him "shut up, you big dickhead"? Or maybe they think they can translate the terminologies of an ancient dead language with the search engine Google?

.

The Cardinal smiles from the top of its eighty years that have long since passed, during which he saw everything and more in the Church, including armies of Pharisees, Pelagians and Puritans full of private vices and propagators of the most rigid public virtues always claimed and rigorously on the skin of others. Finally telling me in a tender and paternal tone:

.

“A good priest with a truly priestly heart can be recognized even by bad words. Only a genuine man of God can swear words with genuine purity of heart without ever being vulgar. Thanks for the laughs you gave me, these days we desperately need it ".

.

Yup, we need it, because having to choose whether to cry or laugh, all in all it is always better to laugh with the holy irony of faith. And to conclude with a laugh. It happened that mocking and irreverent Tuscan boys in the mood for jokes call the Convent of the Capuchin Friars Minor in Florence, making their debut:

«… pronto? Listen to Father and we have du’ whores and a yes you know what to do, we can send them to you?».

The Capuchin answers seriously at the other end of the phone:

"...’ o Son, we are sixteen here, with du 'sole whores' that you what we do, a little bit not even shit smooth!».

.

And we are talking about the Capuchin myths and seraphic, imagine what they would have answered if they had called the Convent of those pitt bull of the Dominicans.

From the island of Patmos, 4 September 2022

.

.

NOTE

¹ See. Catullo (Carmen 16) translation from classical Latin: “I'm going to shove it up your ass and then into your mouth, Aurelio cocksucker and Furio fennel smashed, than for my verses (poetic) tender and kind, you thought that I am a wreck ".

.

² From an ancient collection of Tariffed Penitences, translation from medieval Latin: “You took another man's cock and he took yours, after that, in this way, you played with your respective cocks through your hands, until he ejaculates with pleasure? If you did, I impose you thirty days on bread and water as penance ".

.

.

THE LATEST BOOK BY ARIEL S. LEVI of GUALDO – TO ACCESS THE BOOKSHOP CLICK ON THE COVER

.

 

.

.

.

.

.

______________________

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

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

n Agency. 59 From Rome
Iban code:
IT74R0503403259000000301118
For international bank transfers:
Codice SWIFT:
BAPPIT21D21

If you make a bank transfer, send an email to the editorial staff, the bank does not provide your email and we will not be able to send you a thank you message:
isoladipatmos@gmail.com

We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

.

.

.

It is being distributed “Sadness of Love”, latest editorial work by Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo dedicated to the memory of Cardinal Carlo Caffarra

IT IS IN DISTRIBUTION THE SADNESS OF LOVE, LATEST EDITORIAL WORK BY ARIEL S. LEVI di GUALDO DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF CARDINAL CARLO CAFFARRA

 

«Those of us who were trained in theological field on the pages of the recent supreme magisterium of the Pontiffs Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II, treasuring the great homiletics of Benedict XVI, worthy of the sermons of the Holy Pontiff Gregory the Great, reading certain recent documents or hearing certain daily sermons from a vanished country priest, can reasonably come to say that from golden eagles we have moved on to intensive battery farmed chickens ".

- Editorial news -

.

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

.

.

to access the book shop click on the cover of the book

The 6 September it is the fifth anniversary of the death of Cardinal Carlo Caffarra who in 1981 he was commissioned by the Holy Pontiff John Paul II to found the Institute for studies on marriage and the family. The work of Father Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo is a critical examination of love joy in relation to the Human life. About the love joy the Author writes:

.

"After the close of the Synod on the family, the womb of the elephant gave birth to 19 March 2016 the country mouse of the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation love joy, a device of ambiguity built on the said and the unspoken, on ambiguous two-way sentences, emotional sentimentality and many sociologisms that in fact decree the death of what for centuries has been the precise language, decisive and unambiguous of the Magisterium of the Church supported on the most solid and clear principles of classical metaphysics, long placed in the attic to make room for decadent German romanticism and the little heart that beats and that looks to the immediate of its own subjective "I" rather than to the future and to God. Those of us who were trained in theological field on the pages of the recent supreme magisterium of the Pontiffs Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II, treasuring the great homiletics of Benedict XVI, worthy of the sermons of the Holy Pontiff Gregory the Great, reading certain recent documents or hearing certain daily sermons from a vanished country priest, it can reasonably be said that from golden eagles to intensive battery farmed chickens, as has sometimes happened at cyclical intervals in the history of the Church, even if never at the bleak levels of our times […] Some superficial might misunderstand, in good or even bad faith, objecting that in these pages I have addressed severe criticisms of an Apostolic Exhortation given by the Roman Pontiff. Anyone who accuses me of this would be in grave error, because I do not criticize a given norm at all, before which I would be silent and would carry out the provisions of the supreme magisterium. What is critical is an undisclosed norm and questions that have never been answered, leaving everything wrapped in ambiguity. This is the object of my criticism: the lack of a norm together with the lack of clarity and response. The faithful servant of the Church reasons, debates and criticizes as long as it is allowed. After the Church has spoken, her job is to carry out and transmit the teachings and to keep the standards given, unless otherwise creating scandal in the People of God and fractures of ecclesial communion. No One, Catholic priest or lay person who whatever, he can disagree and substitute his own personal opinions for the authority of the Church, German theologians take care of this, it has always been their prerogative e pontifical privilege».

.

It is well known and known how much Father Ariel is a thinker, an analyst and a theologian who leaves his mark when he scratches. And who gets the scratch, it generally has two possibilities: or keep it and treat the wound, or find themselves in serious difficulty in denying what he wrote true and indisputable. This is why it has happened over time several times, various people who felt hurt by his words or his reproaches, not being able to deny it nor wanting to debate the merits of the precise issues raised, they attached themselves to the expressive form, which in the case of this writer is often ironic, sometimes even colorful. But on the other hand it is known: in this way the Pharisees already acted in time.

.

Discussing the delicate issue of Human life the Author is placed in the middle in a point of balance between those who would like to relativize it and those who would rather "dogmatize a condom by enclosing within it Catholic morality and the entire mystery of evil". In this regard he specifies:

.

"I would like to clarify from the beginning of my exposition that I have never been to certain kinds of perverse thoughts and games, nor do I intend to be there as a man and as a Catholic, as a priest and as a theologian. This book intends to be a clear and objective proof of this in open criticism addressed both to those who would like to apply to the Church the lacking moral sense of the world and its disordered and unruly sexuality., both to those who are animated by those forms of dark moralism that have nothing to do with healthy and authentic Catholic morality, right on the most important of the theological virtues: the charity (cf.. The Cor 13), certainly not on the principle of The highest law is the highest wrong (supreme justice often equates to supreme injustice). And the truth is based on charity, while charity is such if it is governed by truth (cf.. Charity in truth). Because it is on charity that we will be judged by God ".

.

From the island of Patmos, 30 August 2022

.

TO ACCESS THE BOOKSHOP CLICK WHO

.

.

.

.

.

______________________

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

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

n Agency. 59 From Rome
Iban code:
IT74R0503403259000000301118
For international bank transfers:
Codice SWIFT:
BAPPIT21D21

If you make a bank transfer, send an email to the editorial staff, the bank does not provide your email and we will not be able to send you a thank you message:
isoladipatmos@gmail.com

We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

.

.

.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia is not simply the “idiot brother” of Don Abbondio but the whore of Babylon kneeling before the Prince of this world

ARCHBISHOP VINCENZO PAGLIA IS NOT SIMPLY THE IDIOT BROTHER OF DON ABBONDIO BUT THE MERETRICE OF GENUFUL BABYLON BEFORE THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD

 

"The first condition for the end of the eclipse of traditional values ​​and for Catholicism to emerge from its crisis is that the Church resume its function, which is not conforming to the world, but counter it " (Augusto Del Noce, 1971)

- Actuality -

.

.

PDF print format article

 

.

.

the textual words of H.E. Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, click on image to open the video

Of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia I have already dealt with epithetizing it Don Abbondio's idiot brother, today she deserves the title of whore of Babylon kneeling at Prince of this world [cf.. GV 14, 30]

.

“He had written a mysterious name on his forehead: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and abominations of the earth "" [AP 17, 5].

.

The statements made by this idiot in the etymological sense of the term - from the Greek ἰδιώτης (idiots) which means "private man" and indicates the incompetent person, inexperienced and inept - they are of unprecedented gravity, all the more by covering the very delicate role of President of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Recently participating in the program The hot roof on the sinister and politically correct Rai Tre magnified the law 194 the 1978 on legalized abortion by stating: «I think now the Law 194 is a pillar of our social life ". After climbing for 40 seconds on the mirrors, to the dry question of the interviewer who pressed him: «You say the Law is not in question 194?». The Idiot replied: «In no, absolutely… absolutely!».

.

Words in themselves not even commentable in front of which comes to mind a phrase of the philosopher Augusto Del Noce who painted our current situation by writing these prophetic words four decades ago:

.

"The first condition for the end of the eclipse of traditional values ​​and for Catholicism to emerge from its crisis is that the Church resume its function, which is not conforming to the world, but counter it " [Sunset or eclipse of traditional values? Rusconi Editore, Iª ed. 1971]

.

Can a bishop please the world with similar flattery, instead of opposing those who proclaim abortion "sacrosanct right" and "great social achievement"? Respect must be paid to a bishop who is the legitimate successor of the Apostles and a member of the Sacred Apostolic College, always, regardless of his weaknesses, fragility and lack of objective merits that can make him a character even below mediocrity. As confessor and spiritual director of numerous priests, I have often heard the complaints of various confreres who explained to me how their bishop was an idiot emeritus. And they were right, because such it was in the disastrous concrete facts. And to all of them I have always answered:

.

«… And to this emeritus idiot you owe filial respect and devout obedience, always and regardless. Therefore try to live your bishop's objective idiocy as a test of faith. You can not estimate it, because the esteem is not due to him, if he wants it he has to earn it. But respect and obedience yes, it is always due to him and cannot in any way be canceled from his demerits of which at the opportune moment he will have to answer to God as it is written: “Everyone was given much, much will be asked for; to whom men have committed much, much more will be required”» [LC 12, 48].

.

On the one hand, I collect the complaints of the priests towards their bishops, on the other hand, those of various bishops who can no longer cope with certain priests. And both are right. For years now, to priests who complained about their not particularly lovable bishops, paternal or doctrinally brilliant I reply: "In a short time you and your brothers will regret your bishop with tears in your eyes". Sentence repeated to dozens of priests starting from 2017, when the highest leaders of the Catholic Church crossed the threshold of no-return by celebrating the 500 years of Martin Luther's pseudo-reformation, who was by no means a "reformer", how he painted it La Civiltà Cattolica, nor a subject about which we can say: “I believe that Martin Luther's intentions were not wrong. He was a reformer ". Why so the Supreme Pontiff Francis defined in an off-the-cuff rant on a high-altitude plane this diabolical heresiarch who gave birth to a dramatic schism, certainly not a reform. That was done by the Council of Trent, not Luther. Today, the same priests, they write to me, they call me or face to face they tell me: "You were right, if I could have the previous bishop I have complained about so much, I would not kiss his hand but his feet!».

.

I spread a merciful veil on the criteria for selecting our new bishops under this august pontificate, all with the poor and the migrant on their lips, so much so that after hearing one, all the episcopal homilies delivered from north to south were heard, from east to west by the Italian bishops.

.

That ours are not times of “golden eagles” it is clear to anyone who has even the slightest light of reason. For this reason it is worth delineating the difference between an idiot bishop to whom filial respect and devoted obedience are always due., from a bishop reduced to a whore of Babylon kneeling at the knees of the Prince of this world. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia must be publicly paid all that holy contempt that any believer is required to pour out on what is evil and which as such constitutes a grave sin, in the specific case the crime of abortion, regulated in our country by a law that is by no means a "pillar of our social life" but the worst of the legalized crimes perpetrated against life. This is why we must not pay filial respect and devout obedience to Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, because, abusing the episcopate in the worst way, he expressed concepts that contradict the structure of our morality and our ethics, which both rest on the pillars of the deposit of the Catholic faith. He remains a legitimate bishop with an important and delicate ecclesiastical office, this is out of the question. But, if its power which involves first of all the supreme custody of the doctrine of the faith, it exercises it in order to sacrilegiously deny the foundations of Catholic morals and ethics, in that case it must not be nor heard, neither obeyed nor followed and least of all respected, but rather made the object of holy Christian contempt.

.

Vincenzo Paglia is a shame of the episcopate belonging to that nefarious category of people towards whom the Holy Scriptures thunder:

.

"I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot! But because you are lukewarm, that is, you are neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth " [AP 3, 15-16].

.

Together with Vincenzo Paglia all the ambiguities and duplicities of this pontificate are also likely to be vomited from the mouth of the Almighty, to which the serious and objective demerit of having included immoral and clearly heterodox subjects in all the most delicate key positions goes, thus running the risk of "[…] go down in history as an eccentric pursuit of the new and the sensational as a substitute for the search for meaning, which has ended up producing a doctrinal and pastoral confusion that has never occurred previously in the history of the Church ".

.

The latter words with which I open my book dedicated to the memory of Cardinal Carlo Caffarra which will be distributed in early September and which I invite you to read, only to lift you up a bit, to gain confidence in the fact that all is not lost and to be able to touch firsthand that in the midst of so many fearful career rabbits who are de-building the very foundations of Catholic doctrine, there are always also lions who aspire to conquer the prize of eternal life as their only career ambition. Leoni that it is good not to go to annoy with the word of angry clerical reproach, because they bite and tear, as it should and as befits the Lions of God placed in custody of the doctrine of the faith and the health of the souls of believers of Christ entrusted to us by the Redeemer.

 

From the island of Patmos, 28 August 2022

.

.

.

___________________

Dear Readers,

please read this article [WHO vedere] and to be as sensitive and thoughtful as you can

Thank you

.

.

.

______________________

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

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

n Agency. 59 From Rome
Iban code:
IT74R0503403259000000301118
For international bank transfers:
Codice SWIFT:
BAPPIT21D21

If you make a bank transfer, send an email to the editorial staff, the bank does not provide your email and we will not be able to send you a thank you message:
isoladipatmos@gmail.com

We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

.

.

.

The Catholic Church does not take orders from anyone, much less from the Ukrainians who have lost contact with reality in a triumph of arrogance that will cause serious damage to all the people of Europe

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOES NOT TAKE ORDERS FROM ANYONE LESS FROM THE UKRAINIANS WHO HAVE LOST CONTACT WITH THE REAL IN A TRIUMPH OF ARROGANCE THAT WILL PRODUCE SERIOUS DAMAGE TO ALL POPULATIONS OF EUROPE

 

No one can prevent the Catholic Church from praying for the redemption and health of Hitler's soul as well as for the redemption and health of Stalin's soul, because it has a duty to do so. Which he did at the right moment just as certain characters were perpetrating their worst crimes against humanity. The Church does not follow the emotional-destructive directives of a former comedian elected President of Ukraine but the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

- Actuality -

.

.

PDF print format article

 

.

.

to access the bookshop click on the image

In my book published a couple of months ago: War and ideological propaganda, I anticipated facts and problems that are coming to light now in their dramatic political and economic gravity.

.

Remember last television season, where of talk show in talk show they praised Slavic Ukrainians (glory to Ukraine)? Remember the unspoken critical voices? Remember how a historical expert like Franco Cardini - author of Ukraine, war and history - not being able to be silenced or declared non-authoritative, it was silenced with the mandatory publicity to be broadcast, then making it disappear from the screen after the advertising break? But most of all: remember the Ukrainians invited to the television studios who, with memorable arrogance, pointed the finger at Italy and the Italians affirming from evening to evening: “You don't have to buy gas from Russia, you have to make sacrifices for us, because we also fight for your freedom "?

.

Under the eyes of the silent conductors, beset by the need to broadcast the mandatory advertising only when Franco Cardini or other scholars and qualified experts in history and geopolitics spoke, we had to put up with without the possibility of replication of the emotional subjects drugged by the propaganda of Vlodimir Zelenski - who seems to have been no stranger to drugs - who without the possibility of replication claimed in prime time that we Italians were obliged to sacrifice our children for the children of others who had decided to fight like fawns against a lioness, convinced to win. That the lioness - in this case Russia - attacked them, it is undoubted. Equally there is no doubt that on the one hand there is an aggressor and an attacked, in a very complex geopolitical context, old and delicate in which the problem cannot be solved by judging in a superficial and unappealable way who is the good and who the bad, because in wars when one kills all are victims and perpetrators.

.

The Ukrainian rulers and a good part of the population, including the Catholic one and unfortunately also some bishops of that country, have already attacked the Holy See and the Supreme Pontiff in the past, declaring themselves indignant at the idea of ​​having a Russian woman and a Ukrainian woman carry the cross during the Way of the cross during the rites of Holy Week, to the point of obscuring it on the television networks of free Ukraine, that unlike bad Russia it would be a democracy, not a dictatorial regime (!?). A similar harsh protest followed these days because the Supreme Pontiff dared to address a thought and a prayer to Darya Dygin, daughter of Alexander, famous and questionable Russian ideologue, killed in an attack:

.

“I think of a poor girl who was blown up by a bomb that was under the seat of the car in Moscow. The innocent pay for the war " [cf.. WHO]

.

The Ukrainian Government reacted with a diplomatic protest through its ambassador and convening the Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See in Kiev.

.

We are in a delusion of omnipotence to which are added blind ignorance and arrogance. No one can prevent the Catholic Church from praying for the redemption and health of Hitler's soul as well as for the redemption and health of Stalin's soul, because it has a duty to do so. Which he did at the right moment just as certain characters were perpetrating their worst crimes against humanity. The Church does not follow the emotional-destructive directives of a former comedian elected President of Ukraine but the Gospel of Jesus Christ on which it is written:

.

«It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick […] in fact I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners " [Mt 9, 12-13].

.

What I had to analyze and express I wrote about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in a book to which I refer you.

.

After the summer break the various are recovering talk show at the gates of an autumn that is taking shape very critical. These various programs have reopened, airing the complaints of entrepreneurs, traders and individuals who are receiving skyrocketing electricity bills and are unable to pay, while no one seems to have the manly political attributes to say that the war was a failure and worse still the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, where an army is not armed but a civilian population. Except then broadcast on our newscasts news about brutal Russian soldiers killing unarmed civilians. Again the question remained unanswered: a so-called unarmed civilian holding a Kalashnikov and that opens fire on the enemy, we're really sure it's a unarmed civilian?

.

Soon, when the cold arrives, there will be the problem of gas for heating systems. Our heroics will succeed men-company that lead the various talk show to bring Ukrainians back to the television studios to point the finger at the Italians and tell them that they have to sacrifice their children, their families and their businesses to support Ukraine in its arrogant suicide policy? It will be interesting to hear what the various presenters who praised last season television will say at the beginning of next winter Slavic Ukrainians (glory to Ukraine), in front of the Italians who in a very inglorious way risk finding themselves really at the gas barrel, while already from now, the managers of nursing homes for the elderly and nursery schools are saying in alarmed tones that they will not be able to pay the now tripled electricity bills and the gas bills that will soon arrive, but at the same time they certainly cannot triple the monthly fees of their guests.

.

Everything else is written in my book, with all due respect to those who have praised for months of talk show in talk show: glory Ucraini! Let's see if the same cry to him men-company they will have the courage to repeat it again this winter with the Ukrainians in the studio pointing the finger and repeating every evening to the Italians reduced to gas: "You must make sacrifices for us".

 

From the island of Patmos, 26 August 2022

.

.

___________________

Dear Readers,

please read this article [WHO vedere] and to be as sensitive and thoughtful as you can

Thank you

.

.

.

______________________

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

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

n Agency. 59 From Rome
Iban code:
IT74R0503403259000000301118
For international bank transfers:
Codice SWIFT:
BAPPIT21D21

If you make a bank transfer, send an email to the editorial staff, the bank does not provide your email and we will not be able to send you a thank you message:
isoladipatmos@gmail.com

We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

.

.

.

"The game of the lotto is the tax of fools". We are legalizing everything: abortion, euthanasia, road, prostitution, gamble … why not also legalize femicide?

"THE GAME OF LOT IS THE TAX OF FESSI". WE ARE LEGALIZING EVERYTHING: ABORTION, EUTHANASIA, DRUG, PROSTITUTION, GAME OF CHANCE ... WHY NOT LEGALIZE FEMINICIDE ALSO?

 

It seems right that a freak who kills a woman should end up in jail as once there ended up women and gynecologists who killed children with illegal abortion? If a mother who kills her child and a gynecologist do not end up in jail like a killer carries out the murder, because a man has to end up killing a woman? At most, let's entrust him to a charity and let him do some socially useful work.

- Actuality -

.

.

PDF print format article

 

.

.

Emma Bonino promoter of various campaigns against conscientious objectors

In his cabaret yiddish the teacher Moni Ovadia jokes about the speck of a stingy old Jew who insistently begged the Lord to make him win the lottery. After nagging prayers it resounds on the sky of that one shtetl an annoyed voice: «Shlomo, I also make you win, but you spend two bucks and at least buy a ticket!».

.

Many years ago, when I was a university student, the prize money of the old New Year lottery had reached five billion of the old lire. All my companions had bought at least one ticket, except me. A friend asked me why I hadn't bought one for a few lire, less than a pack of cigarettes cost. I replied: "The chances of winning are so remote that if I really win I will be lucky enough to find the winning ticket on the ground as I walk down the street".

.

Gambling it has always been a big business for the underworld, in particular for the mafia associations present in our country: the Camorra, the 'ndragheta and Cosa Nostra. The 27 June 1998 the law that makes gambling legal in our country comes into force, regulated and managed by the State Monopolies. In the following years, the Legislator intervened with other laws: In the 2005 promulgates the law n. 266 which defines the role of the Autonomous Company of State Monopolies which deals with games involving cash winnings and the contrast of the jungle of illegal sites without state authorization to operate in Italy, in particular those of video-poker online, with domicile in a tax haven and the server provider in some remote Asian country free from all the rules of the various national states. Between 2009 and the 2011 the Legislator deals with the protection of minors of 18 year old, who are prohibited from gambling under the laws 88/2009 e 98/2011. These laws have increased the penalties for those who do not comply with the necessary measures on the prohibitions imposed on minors, in particular for internet sites and gaming and betting centers. In 2012 a law decree named after Renato Balduzzi, at the time minister of health, dealt with gambling addiction, known as ludopathy, a disorder that falls within the delicate sphere of psychiatric expertise.

.

There are two currents of thought: people in favor of legal gambling argue that banning it would favor the spread of unauthorized sites and clandestine gambling halls managed mostly by organized crime. The opposites argue that the plague of addiction, gambling addiction, it can lead to the ruin of entire families, to all must be added the considerable expenses borne by the National Health Service for the treatment of compulsive gamblers.

.

It is now widespread thought that to avoid evil one must resort to evil by saying that evil is good. Let's clarify: the "great Italian" Senator Emma Bonino, according to the unfortunate papal definition in addition to calling abortion a "great social achievement" and complaining to the European Parliament and the International Court of Justice excessive presence of conscientious objecting doctors in our country - which is what makes it, precisely, a "great Italian" worthy of papal commendation as such -, still maintains that legalized abortion has eradicated clandestine abortion, ending the plague of the poor dying only one of septicemia under the knife of the mothers, while the rich went to Swiss clinics to have an abortion in complete safety. Why not apply the exact same logic and state that femicide should be legalized, or at least decriminalize it? It seems right that a freak who kills a woman should end up in jail as once there ended up women and gynecologists who killed children with illegal abortion? If a mother who kills her child and a gynecologist do not end up in jail like a killer carries out the murder on request, because a man has to end up killing a woman? At most, let's entrust him to a charity and let him do some socially useful work.

.

The hyperbole is evident, only the emotional blind and digital illiterate can fail to grasp the completely provocative sense, paradoxical and not least grotesque as well, misunderstanding the clear meaning and finally accusing me of having instigated femicide. And I can guarantee you that there will be no shortage of this kind of webeti who only read the title and perhaps the subtitle. Not just because i webeti they never die, but why if he had also been shot in the forehead, you can be sure that the bullet would ricochet to go and kill a poor innocent who passed by on the street.

.

But this is the logic with which for decades, starting with the law on the legalization of abortion, the Italians were drugged by that Mephistophelian party known as the Radical Party, whose emotional logic is known: why force a poor woman to risk her life under the knife of a mummy, while the rich ladies go to have an abortion in Switzerland? Yup, but the members of the Mephistophelian party, at the head of all Marco Pannella and Emma Bonino great pontifical Italian, they never answered a fundamental question: and who would it be that forces both the poor girl and the rich lady to kill an innocent human being? It is perhaps morally permissible, as well as mandatory, kill innocent and defenseless creatures?

.

Put this thought through others will follow accordingly. For example, it is known that one of the oldest professions in the world is prostitution. Whereas it cannot be eradicated, in that case let's legalize it. The same is true for the consumption of soft or hard drugs. Once prostitution and drugs are legalized, perhaps we would not have deprived the various mafias and criminal associations of a large turnover, always according to the principle of legal abortion that would have defeated the clandestine one? Basically it is simple to do, it is enough that the State - which has already become infanticide with law no. 194 the 1978 - you also become an exterminator of the terminally ill, pimp of prostitutes, drug dealer and so on to follow. Otherwise what kind of marital status, what kind of rule of law would ours be, if he denied the "right" to commit suicide, prostitution, get high? In this way the evil will cease to be evil and will be legalized becoming lawful. On the contrary, we will impose on the whores the obligation to have a regular commercial license, we will give them a VAT number with a rate of 22%, the obligation to issue customer tax receipts after customer and finally submit the annual tax return. I can already imagine the receipts of the whores with the details of the performances and relative prices varying from anal intercourse up to sadomasochistic ones. If you want I can also imagine the face of the accountant, both the whore and the customer, to which these receipts will be presented for the annual tax return and to be inserted under who knows what deductibility item for the customer.

.

It will therefore be good to get a move on, in this Italic cathophobic semi-slave society of the Vatican and therefore far from reaching the levels of great civilization of the Scandinavian countries, that for some decades the happy world record of suicides and the highest rate of suffering from acute depressive syndromes have been disputed with Japan.

.

While there are plans to remedy certain problems with legalizations, few think of replacing cash with electronic money, which could be beneficial by acting as a great deterrent in a country where the Istat data of 2018 talk about 110 billions of tax evasion per year, of an underground economy equal to 192 billions and illegal activities amounting to 19 billions. Obviously, that on illegal activities is a very approximate figure, because the turnover of crime is much higher. With e-money that involves traceability, how would a whorehouse pay a whore? Soon said: or the lady has an unlikely mechanism to swipe credit and debit cards between the breasts or buttocks, or the payment would be difficult to say the least. Equally difficult for a criminal entrepreneur to pay illegally to workers without contributions and insurance coverage, in a country like ours where media are recorded 3 deaths per day at work, according to the statistical data of 2019. The same would be true for the high number of craftsmen who in the South of Italy in particular carry out bricklaying activities, plumbers, electricians, aerialist, IT technicians ... without being anywhere as individual firms or self-employed workers. And there are not a few who are currently also benefiting from grillino income of citizenship, while pocketing a few thousand euros per month in total black without paying even the shadow of a tax or contribution. With traceable electronic money, how the citizen could pay them? This is true for the plumber as well as for the freelancer with salty fees, who smilingly asks the customer: “With or without an invoice?».

.

Once the law was made, the deception was found, recites one of the best known idioms of our Italian soil. Which is undoubtedly true, in which we Italians have always been masters. However, there are limits to even the most ingenious and imaginative craftsmanship: it is in fact true that the fraudulent flair of the Neapolitan speck personified by Totò, can also manage to even sell the Trevi Fountain to an Italian-American tourist, however, not even the most whimsical of cheaters can succeed in circumventing certain anti-fraud laws, because it would be like pretending to be able to challenge the natural laws of physics. Proof of this - to give an example - are the current tests for driving licenses or those for admission to the faculty of medicine and surgery, impossible to manipulate, because they are centralized and armored by an impenetrable electronic system that makes it impossible to identify the person to be favored by the godfather on duty.

.

With traceable electronic money, how a drug dealer or a fence of stolen goods could get involved in the criminal trade? Someone thinks they could turn to their friend butcher or to the compliant tobacconist to be swiped with non-existent transactions with ATMs or credit cards? And even if it did, how, the butcher or his friend tobacconist could then give him cash in exchange, style scams on citizenship income, if there is no paper money and everything proceeds only by traceable electronic circuits?

.

We have been able to legalize abortion, we are in the process of legalizing euthanasia, we have made gambling a state monopoly and we are unable to crush tax evasion, prostitution, drug dealing and criminal circles of various kinds because according to some, electronic money would be a violation of individual freedoms and a control exercised on citizens much worse than that of George Orwell's Big Brother? But we are truly a society of schizophrenics borderline!

.

A subject opposed to electronic money he said in a stupidly provocative tone: «And you priests, how would you take offerings for churches, for charitable activities, for the celebration of Holy Masses and so on?». I replied: "Simple, with electronic money. On the contrary, it would be more convenient and practical than the small change that those large lice of many faithful put in the offering basket, forcing us to change a few kilos of coins into a few pieces of paper 5, 10, 20 cents". And I went on to explain that for us priests, members of a religious group recognized by the State as an institution of public law, electronic money, for offers and more, it wouldn't be a problem at all, rather a great and practical convenience. If anything, it would be a problem for the Casamonica family who also manage the begging tour in the capital of Italy. Or can someone imagine a petulant gypsy - or if we prefer the politically correct language a Roma - annoying passersby by asking for money with the pos at your fingertips for ATM and credit card transactions? In our churches we could easily install an electronic mechanism for the payment and collection of offerings, such as those found in all centers and places where payments can be made self-service. But we are a body of public law, not the begging circuit run by the Casamonica clan, we are neither fences nor drug traffickers.

.

Yet our glorious Republic the system for charging taxes has found it. All in all it is an older system than one might imagine: the game of the lotto, that at the dawn of the Unification of Italy a great statesman, Count Camillo Benso of Cavour, called "the tax of fools". In fact, according to the data reported in a book very interesting published in 2017 and written by Giulia Migneco and Claudio Forleo, which followed a second written by the same authors during the lockdown of Covid-19, with legalized gambling the state has cashed in 2018 the amount of 105 billion euros. An amount that ironically corresponds to what Istat indicates as the volume of tax evasion in our country, equal to 110 billion euros. The great nineteenth-century statesman was therefore right when he referred to the lot as "the tax of fools". In retrospect I add: the Italian feels so smart and entitled to evade taxes, up to not paying those taxes useful to keep the system of our welfare state in place. But at the same time she is so stupid as to run to the lottery office to pay the "tax of fools", placing himself in front of everyone on the bar table with a coin in hand to scrape one ticket after another by scratch&Vinci.

.

To gambling addiction in relation to Catholic morality years ago I dedicated a lecture at the request and invitation of the friends of the Lions Club. I don't have much to add to what I said at the time, I therefore refer to the registration of this my lecture which you can find on the Youtube channel from The Island of Patmos.

.

In our parishes and Caritas centers there are many people who come to ask for help for basic necessities, or because about to see the light or gas cut off, after squandering salaries and pensions in legalized gambling. To many of my brothers with a tender heart who have repeatedly told me “how can you not help them?», I replied that giving any kind of help to someone with gambling addiction is like buying drugs for a drug addict in withdrawal, how to pay a prostitute's services to a sex addict. It is not charity, but pure unconsciousness. Above all it is evil that is added to the much evil that these subjects bring to themselves and their families. Affected by gambling addiction, after having bled to death for having paid "the tax of fools", it must be said in a severe tone and almost always with an ugly face: that you also turn off the light or the gas, that you also have difficulty shopping and eating, I do not care and must not care, least of all take pity. The only help I can give you and which in conscience I am required to give you, is to refer you to a good psychiatrist who can cure you of this dangerous addiction.

.

It is a huge sadness see elderly retirees come out of tobacconists with scratch lines&win and then go shortly after to the Caritas center to ask for some shopping. Equally sad to see lines of people, young and old, including many fathers and mothers of families, burning sums of money for unlikely number systems, while the mega billboard shows the stratospheric sum of the prize pool written in large letters, which as of today is equal to 259.600.000 Euro. Figure in front of which tax evaders suffering from gambling addiction who justify their frauds to the state by taking shelter behind the finger of "I don't pay politicians' wages with my taxes", they don't even realize that taxes are paying them the worst way, like perfect fools, coupon behind coupon, scratch cards&win by scratch&Vinci. In addition to the fact that the much recriminated salary of politicians, in the pockets of the general state budget is equivalent to a few euros in our pockets, although it has always been the excuse and the ridiculous finger behind which small and large tax evaders shelter.

.

If the prize pool has reached that figure, some have wondered how much is the far greater sum raised with the bets by the State Monopolies? It is not easy to live in a country where abortion is considered "an acquired right" and a "great social achievement", where it is believed that euthanasia is "an act of humanity towards a poor terminally ill person", where the state makes money on gambling, to which on the one hand it instigates, on the other hand, it invites us to be cautious because "gambling can be addictive". But, a traceable electronic money that would deal a fatal blow to organized crime, to drug dealing, to prostitution, to illegal work, tax evasion and so on to follow, that no, because it would be a serious injury to personal freedoms.

.

The Italian People has a very strange concept of "right" and "freedom", instigated as he is to scratch in the hope of winning, with a state that puts its conscience at peace by warning that "gambling can be addictive" and that it will soon give us euthanasia, same-sex marriage, the possibility of adopting children for gay and lesbian couples, free drugs and many other wonderful rights linked to genuine aberrations transformed into good according to the law.

 

From the island of Patmos, 25 August 2022

.

.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Emiliano Mandrone, Electronic money for the fight against tax evasion? in online magazine Economics and Politics, edition of 4 November 2019

Ardizzi and P. Play, The social cost of payment instruments in Italy, Institutional issues, Bank of Italy, 2012.

Grazzini, Towards public digital currency: the audacity of Christine Lagarde and the prudence of Mario Draghi, Economics and Politics, 2019.

Mandrone, The honest gang that wants electronic money, lavoce.info, 2015.

Mandrone, The social role of economic education, INAPP, 2017.

Realfonzo, 100 billions of public under-investment and competitiveness deficit. Italy needs industrial policies, Economics and Politics, 2019.

K.S. Rogoff, The end of the money. A proposal to limit the damage of cash, The assayer, 2017.

Velvets, G. Casamatta, L. Bousquet, G. Poniatowski, Estimating International Tax Evasion by Individuals, WP No 76, European Commission, 2019.

Years 2013-2016 the economy not observed in the national accounts, Report Statistics, STATE, 2018

.

.

___________________

Dear Readers,

please read this article [WHO vedere] and to be as sensitive and thoughtful as you can

Thank you

.

.

.

______________________

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

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

n Agency. 59 From Rome
Iban code:
IT74R0503403259000000301118
For international bank transfers:
Codice SWIFT:
BAPPIT21D21

If you make a bank transfer, send an email to the editorial staff, the bank does not provide your email and we will not be able to send you a thank you message:
isoladipatmos@gmail.com

We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

.

.

.

There are priests who propagate and recommend reading the work of Maria Valtorta, ignoring that the Church has declared it misleading and dangerous

THERE ARE PRIESTS WHO PROPAGAND AND RECOMMEND THE READING OF THE WORK OF MARIA VALTORTA, IGNORE THAT THE CHURCH HAS DECLARED IT AS LANDING AND DANGEROUS

 

The Opera della Valtorta "was placed on the Index on 16 December 1959 and defined “Badly romanticized life of Jesus”. The provisions of the Decree of the Holy Office were republished with an explanatory note on 1 December 1961. After the abrogation of the Index, what was published on By Janet (1966) that, although abolished, l’Index kept “all its moral value” for which it is not considered appropriate to disseminate and recommend a Work whose condemnation was not given lightly but after weighted reasons in order to neutralize the damage it can cause to the most inexperienced faithful "

(Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith)

- Church news -

.

.

PDF print format article

 

.

.

the famous science fiction film of the 1980s: E.T. the alien, by Steven Spielberg

Many simple people and in good faith they turned to the Fathers de The Island of Patmos to ask about the work of Maria Valtorta and to inform us that it has been recommended for reading by various priests, some of which use the texts of this imaginative author in their catechesis. Very serious thing, because a pastor in the care of souls cannot ignore that these are writings repeatedly condemned and advised against by the Church. Any priest who uses them or who advises them in reading bears the responsibility of administering poison to the People of God.

.

My free judgment as a scholar on Maria Valtorta it has always been bad. For little worth I consider this Author affected by bizarre mysticism and narcissistic megalomania. A free judgment based on the absurdities of what today is known and seriously improperly indicated as "The Gospel of Maria Valtorta".

.

Contrary to those who elevate their own opinions and the subjective feeling to intangible truths of the faith, for my setting and theological training, juridical and ecclesial, when I express free opinions I always specify that they are such and that as such they leave the time they find. Unless it announces truths of faith, making me the voice and faithful instrument of the Church which has given me the mandate to do so by the sacrament of grace, thus fulfilling a duty from which I cannot and must not shirk. In the event to, to the "boarding Catholic" who begins by saying "... I disagree, because in my opinion… I believe that… »I am obliged to reply that he is in grave error, not because I'm right, but because I announced what the Church teaches, clarifying what are his judgments given, before which no believer who is truly such can reply: "… I do not agree, because in my opinion ... I believe that ... ". No single priest and no faithful Catholic can and never should dare to declare authentic what the Church has declared false or impudently say to believe in what the Church has clearly said that one must not believe or give faith. therefore I repeat: it is very serious that priests disseminate and transmit the writings of Maria Valtorta in open disobedience to the decisive and negative judgments given by the Church on this work of fantasy, presenting them as authentic and as edifying works for the spirit of believers.

.

Like it or not to certain passionaries, declare to the Catholic faithful that Maria Valtorta's is not a work of mysticism and spirituality but a colossal hoax containing serious doctrinal deviations that damage the faith, a vision at times even grotesque of Divine Revelation and Mariology, it is not a free and subjective personal opinion, but the judgment of the Church, to whom I am bound to pay obedient respect and which as a presbyter and theologian I am bound to transmit to the People of God, inviting him to listen and respect the judgment that the Ecclesiastical Authority has given.

.

Clarify yourself these fundamental elements, not always easy to make understood by those who live the experience of faith in an immature way, subjective and emotional, I now let the documents through which the Ecclesiastical Authority has expressed itself over time on the work of Maria Valtorta speak.. Clear and precise opinions before which no believer, but above all no pastor in charge of the care and guidance of souls, can reply: "… I do not agree, because in my opinion ... I believe that ... ".

.

_________________________

.

A LIFE OF JESUS ​​BADLY FAMILIAR

The Osservatore Romano edition of 6 January 1960

.

In another part of our Journal there is the Decree of the Holy Office with which a work in four volumes is put on the Index, by anonymous author (at least in this print) published on the Isola del Liri. While dealing exclusively with religious topics, said volumes have no imprimatur, as required by Can. 1385, 1 n.2 of the Code of Canon Law. The Publisher, in which a short preface, writes that the Author "in the likeness of Dante gave us a work in which, framed by splendid descriptions of times and places, countless characters present themselves and turn their cake to us, the strong, or admonishing word. The result was a humble and impressive work: the literary homage of a grieving sick person to the Great Comforter Jesus ". Instead, to an attentive reader these volumes appear to be nothing more than a long prolix fictional life of Jesus.

Apart from the vanity of the approach to Dante and despite his illustrious personalities (whose undoubted good faith was surprised) have given their support to the publication, the Holy Office believed it necessary to put it in the Index of Prohibited Books. The reasons are easily identifiable by those who have the painstaking patience to read the almost four thousand pages of dense print. First of all, the reader is struck by the length of the speeches attributed to Jesus and the Blessed Virgin; by the interminable dialogues between the many characters that populate those pages.

The four Gospels present us the humble Jesus, Reserved; his speeches are meager, incisors, but of maximum effectiveness. Instead, in this kind of fictional story, Jesus is talkative at best, like a protester, always ready to proclaim himself Messiah and Son of God and to give theology lessons with the same terms that a professor of our day would use. In the story of the Gospels we admire the humility and silence of the Mother of Jesus; instead for the author (or the author) the Blessed Virgin has the faculty of a modern propagandist of this work, it is always present everywhere, she is always ready to give lessons in Marian theology, up-to-date up to the latest studies by current specialists on the subject.

The story unfolds slowly, almost gossip; we find new facts there, new parables, new characters and many, many, women following Jesus. A few pages, then, they are rather rough and recall certain descriptions and certain scenes from modern novels, come, to give just a few examples, the confession made to Maria by a certain Aglae, woman of bad habits (cf.. vol. I, p. 790 SS.), the unedifying story on p. 887 ss. of I vol., a ballet performed, certainly not modestly, before Pilate, in the Praetorium (cf.. vol. IV, p. 75), etc…

At this point it comes, spontaneous a particular reflection: The Work by its nature and in accordance with the intentions of the Author and Publisher, it could easily reach the hands of the religious and the pupils of their colleges. In this case, reading of such passages, like those mentioned, it could hardly be accomplished without danger or spiritual harm. Bible studies specialists will certainly find many historical blunders there, geographic and the like. But being a … novel, these inventions evidently increase the picturesque and the fantastic of the book. Ma, in the midst of so much ostentatious theological culture, you can take some … pearls that certainly do not shine for Catholic orthodoxy. Here and there it expresses itself, about the sin of Adam and Eve, a rather strange and inaccurate opinion. In vol. I a page. 63 this title reads: "Mary can be called the second child of the Father". Statement repeated in the text on the next page. The explanation limits its meaning, avoiding an authentic heresy; but it does not remove the well-founded impression that a new Mariology is being built, that easily crosses the limits of convenience.

In the II vol. Pag. 772 it is read: «Heaven is Light, perfume and harmony. But if the Father did not bathe in it, in contemplating the All Beautiful that makes the Earth a paradise, but if in the future Paradise should not have the living Lily in whose bosom are the Three pistils of fire of the divine Trinity, luce, scent, harmony, the joy of Heaven would be crippled by half ". Here a hermetic and very confused concept is expressed, Fortunately; because if you were to take it literally, it would not save itself from severe censorship.

Finally, mention of another strange and imprecise statement, in which it is said of the Madonna: «Tu, in the time you stay on Earth, second to Peter as an ecclesiastical hierarchy …».

The Opera, so, it would have deserved a sentence even if it had only been a novel, if only for reasons of irreverence. But in reality the author's intention demands more. Scrolling through the volumes, here and there we read the words «Jesus says…», «Maria says…»; or: "I see…" and similar. On the contrary, towards the end of the fourth volume (pag. 839) the author turns out to be an author and writes that he is a witness of all messianic time and that he is called Mary. These words make you remember that, about ten years ago, some voluminous typescripts were circulating, which contained pretended visions and revelations. It is known that at the time the competent Ecclesiastical Authority had prohibited the printing of these typescripts and had ordered that they be withdrawn from circulation.. Now we see them reproduced almost entirely in the present Work. Therefore this public condemnation of the Supreme Sacred Congregation is all the more timely, because of grave disobedience.

.

.

REPLY OF THE PREFECT OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH TO A REQUEST FOR AN OPINION ON THE WORK OF MARIA VALTORTA

.

Rome, 31 January 1985 – Prot. n. 144/58

.

By His Most Reverend Eminence

Giuseppe Cardinal Siri

Metropolitan Archbishop of Genoa

.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

By letter of 18 May, the Reverend Father Umberto Losacco, Cappuccino, he asked this Sacred Congregation for clarification regarding the writings of Maria Valtorta, collected under the title: The Poem of the Man-God and if there was an assessment by the Magisterium of the Church on the publication in question with the bibliographic reference. In this regard, I have the honor to point out to your Eminence - who will consider the advisability of informing the Reverend Father - that the Work in question was actually placed on the Index on 16 December 1959 and defined by The Osservatore Romano the 6 January 1960 "Life of Jesus badly fictionalized". The provisions of the Decree were republished with an explanatory note still on The Osservatore Romano of December 1st 1961, as can be seen from the documentation attached herewith. Having then believed that the printing and dissemination of the Work in question was lawful, After the successful repeal Index, always on The Osservatore Romano (15 June 1966) what was published on By Janet (1966) that, although abolished, l’Index retained "all its moral value" for which it is not considered appropriate to disseminate and recommend a Work whose condemnation was not decided lightly but after weighted reasons in order to neutralize the damage that such publication can cause to the most inexperienced faithful.

Grateful to all of His gracious provision in this respect, profit of the occasion to confirm with the highest consideration Your most reverend Eminence.

Dev.mo

XJoseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Prefect

.

.

MESSAGE FROM THE ITALIAN EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE TO THE EDITOR OF THE WORK OF MARIA VALTORTA

Rome, 6 May 1992 – Prot. N. 324/92

.

For the attention of

Valtortiano Publishing Center

.

Esteemed Publisher,

Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Metropolitan Archbishop of Milan, at the time Secretary General of the Italian Episcopal Conference

following frequent requests, which also reach this Secretariat, of an opinion on the attitude of the Ecclesiastical Authority on the writings of Maria Valtorta, currently published since Valtortiano Publishing Center, I reply by referring to the clarification offered by Notes published by The Osservatore Romano the 6 January 1960 and the 15 June 1966.

Precisely for the true good of the readers and in the spirit of an authentic service to the faith of the Church, I'm asking you what, in a possible reprint of the volumes, it is clear from the first pages that the visions e i dictations referred to in them cannot be considered of supernatural origin, but they must be considered simply literary forms that the Author used to narrate, in his own way, the life of Jesus.

Grateful for this collaboration, I express my esteem and I offer you my respectful and cordial greetings.

.

XDionigi Tettamanzi, bishop

General Secretary of the C.E.I.

.

.

All clarified and documented I conclude by reiterating that in the face of these clears, precise and decisive opinions given by the Ecclesiastical Authority, no faithful Catholic, but above all no presbyter in charge of the care and guidance of souls, he should never dare to reply: "… I do not agree, because in my opinion ... I believe that ... ".

From the island of Patmos, 20 August 2022

.

.

.

Dear Readers,

please read this article [WHO vedere] and to be as sensitive and thoughtful as you can

Thank you

.

.

.

______________________

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

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

n Agency. 59 From Rome
Iban code:
IT74R0503403259000000301118
For international bank transfers:
Codice SWIFT:
BAPPIT21D21

If you make a bank transfer, send an email to the editorial staff, the bank does not provide your email and we will not be able to send you a thank you message:
isoladipatmos@gmail.com

We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

.

.

.

Proclaiming new dogmas is more serious than deconstructing the dogmas of faith. Maria Corredentrice? A theological idiocy supported by those who ignore the bases of Christology

PROCLAIMING NEW DOGMS IS MORE SERIOUS THAN DE-BUILDING DOGMS OF FAITH. MARIA CORREDENTRICE? A THEOLOGICAL IDIOCY SUPPORTED BY THOSE WHO IGNORE THE BASIS OF CHRISTOLOGY

 

The Blessed Virgin Mary would have asked to be proclaimed co-redemptrix with a fifth Marian dogma? We smile so as not to cry about certain nonsense. Someone is willing to truly believe that the Blessed Virgin who defined herself as humble servant, the woman of gifted love, silence and confidentiality, which has as its purpose that of leading to Christ, may ask seers or devalued visionaries to be proclaimed co-redemptrix and placed almost on a par with the Divine Redeemer?

— Theologica —

.

.

PDF print format article

 

.

.

"Therefore, after having raised suppliant requests to God again and having invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, to the glory of almighty God, who poured out his special benevolence in the virgin Mary in honor of her Son, Immortal king of the ages and winner of sin and death, to the greater glory of his august Mother and to the joy and exultation of the whole Church, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and Our, we pronounce, we declare and define it to be dogma revealed by God that: the immaculate Mother of God always virgin Mary, finished the course of earthly life, she was assumed to heavenly glory in body and soul ". Therefore, if any, God forbid, dared to deny or question voluntarily what we have defined, know that he has failed in the divine and Catholic faith " (Dogmatic bubble the generous, 1November 1950)

With the dogmatic bull the generous Pope Pius XII proclaimed November 1st 1950 the dogma of the Assumption into heaven of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose solemn feast is celebrated on 15 August. On this occasion, I offer a theological reflection to all those who clamor for the proclamation of the dogma of Mary Co-redemptrix, starting from a question: It is more serious challenge and deconstruct the tenets of the Holy Catholic Faith, or more serious to proclaim new dogmas? Undoubtedly it is more serious the second thing, who, making mistakes and sowing confusion among the People of God, question the dogmas through rereading and reinterpretation, until reaching to their de-construction, it is not said to be animated by malicious intentions, all of this can also be the result of that bad theological formation that has been passed on for over half a century to generations of priests and theologians. Many are my confreres who came out of our disastrous seminaries as priests and drank the best of the heterodoxies taught in ecclesiastical universities., they are really convinced that bad is good, that the defect is virtues, that heresy and orthodoxy is that Orthodoxy is heresy. Not a few, induced to think, they have come to admit that they have received bad theological training and bad priesthood training, almost always trying with effort and sacrifice to remedy it. Those who admit any of this ever, despite their disturbing gaps, we are seeing them become bishops one after the other.

.

Who proclaims dogmas that do not exist It accomplishes a greater error, because it operates by placing itself above the authority of the same Holy Church Mater et Magistra, holder of an authority that derives from Christ himself. And the latter yes, which is a dogma of the Catholic Faith, which has not come to logical deduction, but on the basis of clear and precise words pronounced by the Word of God made Man (cf.. Mt 13, 16-20). And when dogmas are proclaimed that do not exist and cannot exist, in that case we are in the diabolical, because pride enters the scene in its worst manifestation: intellectual pride. I wrote and explained it previously but it deserves to repeat it again: in the so-called scale of the deadly sins the Catechism of the Catholic Church indicates pride in the first place, with the painful peace of those who persist in concentrating in lust - which we remember does not figure in the first place at all, but not even to the second, to the third and fourth - the whole mystery of evil, regardless of the fact that the worst sins ranging everyone and rigor from his belt to rise, not instead of his belt to fall, as in an ironic but theologically very serious tone I wrote years ago [See Catechism n. 1866].

.

I therefore start with an example having by object the so-called Usual Noti, those who just hear the sound of magic of the Latins they lose all sense of reason and any kind of critical sense, with the consequent total distortion of the objective reality. Here then S. AND. Mons. Mario Oliveri, Bishop emeritus of Albenga, defensively to say he was by no means removed from his episcopal see as responsible - partly even involuntary -, for having reduced a diocese to an authentic brothel, to a collection center for overt homosexuals thrown out for serious moral problems by one or even more seminaries, up to find themselves with a considerable number of uncontrollable priests dedicated to every kind of vice and patrimonial deception useful for the maintenance of their vices. None of this jumps in the slightest in the eyes of the Usual Notes, who undeterred and obstinate continue to affirm and write that the poor prelate was persecuted from the "modernist Church" because he loved the The old rite of the Mass, used jeweled mitres seventy centimeters high and giving out Holy Communion all'inginocchiatoio under the canopy supported by knights frac.

.

Just as it happened - the Usual Notes say -, to the members of the Congregation of the Franciscan Friars, not only punished according to them for organizing conferences criticism of Karl Rahner, to have shown the danger of Modernism and Freemasonry; but persecuted above all because they too celebrated - needless to say - col The old rite of the Mass.

.

On the columns of our magazine The Island of Patmos the Dominican pontifical academician Giovanni Cavalcoli and myself, later the Capuchin theologian Ivano Liguori and the Dominican theologian Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci we have written over the years about Karl Rahner, on Modernism and the Modernists, and so on Freemasonry, in very critical and harsh tones. We didn't even just shoot in bursts, we have just fired repeated heavy mortar rounds, with a much higher severity than that used in past conferences promoted by the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception. You should therefore ask you: because they haven't got us any police stations yet? Because, despite having harshly accused Karl Rahner indicating him as the originating source all the returning heresies that invade the Church today, seminaries and pontifical universities, no ecclesiastical authority has ever given us any sighs and least of all recalls?

.

When a few years ago I had a talk with one of the most distinguished Mariologists of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate Conception, I was very impressed by his madonnolatric fanaticism, to follow from his pride, because he already took the dogma of Maria Coredemptrix for proclamation. As a result, within that congregation, the never proclaimed dogma of Maria Coredemptrix was in fact already written in deposit of faith with a lot of theology and cult promoted and spread. All in the complete indifference that all the Popes of the twentieth century, including those particularly devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, even if pleaded several times to this effect they never wanted to consider the possible proclamation of this new Marian dogma. Among these it is enough to mention the Holy Pontiff Pius X, the Venerable Pope Pius XII, the Holy Pontiff Paul VI and the Holy Pontiff John Paul II who wanted the emblem of the Blessed Virgin to be engraved on their papal coat of arms, he was so devoted to Mater Dei, finally the Venerable Pontiff Benedict XVI, who in his capacity as theologian explained and clarified with the timid meekness - perhaps even excessive - that has always characterized him, that the very term "co-redemptrix" created problems on the theological level with Christology.

.

The reigning Pope - who is not shy and meek - he expressed himself three times [1] on this issue reiterating a dry and decisive no:

.

«Our Lady did not want to take away any title from Jesus; she received the gift of being His Mother and the duty to accompany us as a Mother, to be our Mother. He did not ask for himself to be quasi-redeeming or to be co-redeeming: no. The Redeemer is one and this title is not doubled " [2].

.

The reaction of the more radical Usual Notes it was not long in coming: they accused the Supreme Pontiff of being a blasphemer and a blasphemer (!?). All the more reason it is good to clarify: if questioning the dogma of the immaculate conception and the assumption into heaven of the Blessed Virgin Mary is wrong and heretical, on the other hand, promulgate the dogma of Mary the co-redemptrix and act accordingly, up to disseminate so impudent theology, it is far more serious. Then, if in the face of these and other things the Holy See intervenes at a certain point, it is useless to cry out «to the persecution of The old rite of the Mass!». Because if we want to be objective and apply first of all criteria of aequitas together with the sense of proportion, in a completely reasonable way we can say that before the ax was lowered on the poor Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception, the Jesuits were severely hit and together with them various other historical orders and congregations with much more serious internal problems, but mainly responsible for spreading for decades in a dangerous way - as in the case of the Jesuits -, a patently non-Catholic thought. This is something the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception cannot be accused of. If indeed these young and simple fratacchioni raised by Father Stefano Maria Manelli they erred, this happened largely in good faith and also out of not a little ignorance, undoubtedly animated by the best intentions inner and outer, by love for truth and authentic veneration of the Holy Church of Christ.

.

The Jesuits and members of other religious groups that spread the worst destructive theologies, they can be harshly criticized for the way they de-construct or update the dogmas of the faith, but the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception who proclaimed a Marian dogma in concrete facts, giving it as existing and instituting the cult of Mary Co-redemptrix, on the theological level they have committed a much graver error, thus replacing the highest and supreme authority of the Church. And don't object, as do the total fasts of theology which presume for this reason to be able to dissert in the most delicate spheres of dogmatics: «… But St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort in his Treatise on True Devotion wrote that ... but Our Lady of Amsterdam in a private revelation asked that ... this mystic and this visionary said that in a private revelation the Madonna asked him that ... ".

.

The Blessed Virgin Mary would have asked to be proclaimed co-redemptrix with a fifth Marian dogma? We smile so as not to cry over certain nonsense that make some subjects quite arrogant and difficult to manage for us priests and for us theologians, precisely because their arrogance goes hand in hand with their ignorance. Yet the answer is simple: someone is willing to believe that the Blessed Virgin who defined herself as humble servant, the woman of gifted love, silence and confidentiality, the one who has the purpose of leading to Christ, can really ask seers or devalued visionaries to be proclaimed co-redemptrix and put almost on a par with the Divine Redeemer?

.

The very term of co-redemptrix it is in and of itself a solemn theological idiocy that creates enormous conflicts with Christology and the mystery of the redemption brought about solely by God the incarnate Word, which does not need co-redeemers and co-redeemers. The mystery of redemption is one with the mystery of the cross, on which God made man died as a sacrificial lamb. On the cross the Blessed Virgin Mary was not nailed to death like a sacrificial lamb, that at the end of her life she fell asleep and was assumed into heaven, she did not die and rose again on the third day, defeating death. The Blessed Virgin, first creature of the whole creation above all the saints for its immaculate purity, he does not forgive our sins and does not redeem us, he intercedes for the remission of our sins and for our redemption. When we turn to her through prayer, both in the Ave Maria than in Hi Regina of always, throughout the history and tradition of the Church, we invoke her saying "pray for us sinners", we do not ask her to forgive our sins or to save us.

.

This should be enough to close a discourse which cannot be proposed on the theological level such as that of Mary co-redemptrix. An authentic theological idiocy which only the ignorant arrogant and the madonnolatri unaware of what true devotion to the Blessed Virgin is can feed on, but above all what is the true role entrusted by God to Full of Grace in the economy of salvation.

.

the Island of Patmos, 15 August 2022

Assumption into heaven of the Blessed Virgin Mary

.

Notes

[1] See. 12 December 2019 homily at the Holy Mass on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe; 30 April 2020, Holy Mass in the chapel of the Martha House Sancthae; 24 March 2021, in the speech during the general audience.

[2] See. Holy Mass in the chapel of the Martha House Sancthae.

.

.

Dear Readers,

please read this article [WHO vedere] and to be as sensitive and thoughtful as you can

Thank you

.

.

.

______________________

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

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

n Agency. 59 From Rome
Iban code:
IT74R0503403259000000301118
For international bank transfers:
Codice SWIFT:
BAPPIT21D21

If you make a bank transfer, send an email to the editorial staff, the bank does not provide your email and we will not be able to send you a thank you message:
isoladipatmos@gmail.com

We thank you for the support you wish to offer to our apostolic service.

The Fathers of the Island of Patmos

.

.

.

Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci
Of the Order of Preachers
Presbyter and Theologian

( Click on the name to read all its articles )

The "Apostolic Catholic Church". How many words we use and recite without knowing their meaning? At the roots of the concept of "Apostolic"

— Theologica —

THE "APOSTOLIC CATHOLIC CHURCH". HOW MANY WORDS WE USE AND RECIT WITHOUT KNOWING THEIR MEANING? AT THE ROOTS OF THE CONCEPT OF "APOSTOLIC"

.

It is undoubtedly a mnemonic phrase, that stamped in the part of I believe in which we recite «I believe the one Church, santa, catholic and apostolic ". How many, however, know the true and profound meaning of "apostolic"? This part is explicitly recited in the I believe last, but this does not mean that it has a last place in theological reflection, therefore in the practice of the life of faith.

.

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

.

.

PDF print format article

 

.

.

.

.

It is undoubtedly a mnemonic phrase, that stamped in the part of I believe in which we recite «I believe the one Church, santa, catholic and apostolic ". How many, however, know the true and profound meaning of "apostolic"? This part is explicitly recited in the I believe last, but this does not mean that it has a last place in theological reflection, therefore in the practice of the life of faith. So last, but not for this last in importance, the note of ecclesial apostolicity builds a bridge between the personal and community aspect of faith. This connotation, indeed, describes the foundation of the community of believers, in a threefold sense:

.

  1. The Church is built on the foundation of the apostles [Ef 2,20], the witnesses chosen and sent on mission directly by Christ,
  2. It guards and transmits, with the help of the Holy Spirit who inhabits it from within, the teaching of Christ, the good deposit of faith and the sound words heard by the Apostles;
  3. «Until the return of Christ, the Church continues to be educated, sanctified and guided by the Apostles thanks to their successors in the pastoral mission: the College of Bishops, assisted by priests and united with the Successor of Peter and Supreme Pastor of the Church " [ CCC n. 857].

.

In a nutshell these three points they offer an overview of the apostolicity of the Catholic Church. Now we will see them analytically, starting from Sacred Scripture where we find clear references to the presence and choice of Jesus of the Twelve Apostles:

.

"Then, called to himself his twelve disciples, gave them the power to drive out unclean spirits and to heal any disease and any infirmity " [Mt 10, 1-4]. The names of the Twelve Apostles are these: the first, Simone called Pietro and Andrea his brother; James of Zebedee and John his brother; Filippo and Bartolomeo; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; Giacomo d’Alfeo and Taddeo; Simon the Canaanite and Judas the Iscariot, the same one who then betrayed him.

.

The Evangelist continues:

.

«He then went up the mountain, he called to himself those whom he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed Twelve to be with him and also to send them to preach and to have the power to cast out demons [MC 3, 13].

.

It's still:

.

«In those days he went to the mountain to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When it was day, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve, to whom he also gave the name of apostles " [LC 6, 12].

.

The Twelve Disciples are called apostles, the greek ἀπόστολοι (apostles), in Hebrew Messengers (shelichim, plural of delivery person, shaliach, which in both of these languages ​​means literally: sent, because through their ministry Jesus continues his mission. In welcoming the twelve, the whole person of Christ is welcomed, as we read in «Who welcomes you, welcomes me " [Mt 10, 40]. Christ chooses Twelve Apostles precisely. The number of twelve symbolizes universality and refers to the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The greatest novelty in the following of Christ, it consists not so much in the number, as in the fact that it is the teacher who chooses the disciples: while generally in ancient times it was the disciples who chose the teacher from which to draw teachings for the spiritual life. After choosing them, Jesus sends them to preach first throughout the land of Israel and then later to the pagans (defined peoples or gentiles). In this way they begin to pass on and transmit the authentic teaching of Christ. In this way Jesus then forms a college, that is, a stable group of envoys with the permanent mission of transmitting his message and headed by the Apostle Peter. In carrying out this mission, the Holy Spirit gives the apostles all the means and the necessary strength that he needs, through a very special grace: they therefore have the same powers as Christ: the envoys are therefore able to announce and propagate the divine mysteries, to forgive and remit sins and to heal and cast out demons. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit gives him the intelligence to deepen, meditating and announcing the mystery of Christ better.

.

Within the group of apostles, we have seen that the presence of the figure of Simon Peter. He is invested with a special role: he is commissioned by Christ as the principle of unity and communion of faith; he is therefore the visible head of the Church; the apostles are to be in communion with him and below him as regards the doctrine of Christ: this, as we shall see, will also apply to the successor of Peter, dad, and to the bishops who are in obedience to him: cum Petro e sub Petro (with Peter and under Peter)

.

Let us then deepen the figure of Peter: he is commissioned by Christ to a special mission. It is described in a very important passage of the Gospel:

.

«Simon Peter answered: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God ". And Jesus: "Lucky you, Simon son of Jonah, because neither flesh nor blood have revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it "". [Mt 16, 16-18].

.

Simone, whose name Jesus changed to Peter, he is the first and only to recognize that Christ is the son of God, of the living God. He therefore "anticipated" the other apostles in this act of faith: therefore he is placed by Jesus as head of the apostolic college. Three very special powers are bestowed on Peter, that the other apostles do not possess: first of all he will never fail, because Peter is the visible and stable stone of the community of believers; secondly, he has the power of the keys of the kingdom e, third, the power to untie and bind. By this we mean:

.

"The power of the keys designates the authority to govern the house of God, which it is the Church. Jesus, the Good Shepherd [GV 10, 11], confirmed this post after the resurrection: "Feed my sheep" [GV 21, 15-17]. The power to bind and loose indicates the authority to absolve from sins, to pronounce judgments in matters of doctrine and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church. Jesus gave this authority to the Church through the ministry of the Apostles [cf.. Mt 18,18] and particularly of Pietro, the only one to whom he explicitly entrusted the keys of the Kingdom " [cf.. CCC n. 553].

.

We traditionally know that Peter was martyred in Rome in 64 after Christ on the Vatican Hill. Previously, he had been imprisoned at the Mamertine prison, very close to the Capitol. Peter therefore, being head of the apostles, in his martyrdom near Rome he also testifies to the primacy of the Roman see over other communities of believers. A primacy that is not one of domination and despotism, but of service and coordination of all the other dioceses and churches around the world. We anticipate an important concept from now on: the Petrine primacy does not want to diminish collegiality, synodality and common and community work: indeed, Peter and his successors are called to guarantee and confer the dignity and authority of all the apostles and their successors, the bishops. In fact, as we will see shortly, the bishops are the successors of the Apostles. Let us then clarify that the successors of Peter are those placed at the head of the Diocese of Rome, or precisely the bishops of Rome. Historically, the bishop of Rome, it is called by a series of names: Pontiff Maximus, Augustus Pontiff, his Holiness, holy Father, Most Holy Father, or with the more famous one of Papa, which according to a historical theory would be the abbreviation of shepherd of the shepherds, shepherd of all shepherds, O father of the poor, father of the poor.

.

Returning to the analysis of the figures of the apostles, we know all the apostles, except for Giovanni, died at a very old age, they will be martyred during their missions in the East and in the territory of the Roman Empire. Even from the martyrdom of the apostles, we find confirmation that the purpose of the foundation and the apostolic presence is to bring the whole community to an eschatological and holiness goal; all apostolic work has the purpose of leading everyone to the kingdom of God.

.

Whereas the apostles and their first successors (apostolic fathers) martyrs were dying, it was necessary that the message of Jesus be transmitted in any case: for this they chose successors to perpetuate the mission of Christ. Then they conferred the Holy Order of the Episcopate, what kind of consecrated bishops (bishops), with mandate to continue the apostolic mission as successors of the Apostles. In this sense we will also say that the Church receives the profession of faith from the apostles through the successors of those who were the first adherents to the Jesuit movement..

.

Now let's try to understand why the bishops, receiving the Holy Order, they become the official successors of the Apostles. If we read in Acts of the Apostles [cf.. 6, 26] we find that the apostles themselves first gave themselves successors with the task of continuing and consolidating the work of evangelization begun by the Apostles. This work is called the Traditio by two ancient writers of Christianity, Tertullian and Irenaeus of Lyons. The Traditio from the Latin it comes from the verb deliver and it implies the action of handing down and transmitting the faith preached by the Apostles; therefore the bishops by divine institution took the place of the apostles as pastors and guides of the ecclesial community. This handover takes place in a very specific act. So, apostolic transmission, it is conferred through the reception of the Sacrament of Orders, through episcopal consecration.

.

Let's clarify this passage of the ordination of bishops. Christ instituted the Sacraments, that were not born of human creativity, they are all enclosed in the Revelation and in the Gospels. This is in order to clarify incidentally that certain currents of non-Catholic Christianity, teaching that the Seven Sacraments, or part of them, they are only a human creation that took place after the Emperor Constantine, starting from the 4th century to follow, I am in blatant error, because all the sacraments are of divine institution. Among the Seven Sacraments is the Sacrament of Holy Orders, which is unique, but internally divided into three degrees: episcopate (or fullness of the apostolic priesthood), presbyterate and diaconate. Those who receive this sacrament, in their individual and personal ministry they are called to the mission of leading the whole Church to the common good and to holiness. It is therefore a task, at the same time singular and at the same time communal. The action of conferring Holy Order is called ordination: in it it is Jesus who, acting in person Christi through a bishop, he orders a priest and consecrates him bishop: therefore it confers on the priest the fullness of the apostolic priesthood to carry out this mission. The episcopate is therefore the fullness of the sacrament of Orders because it contains the very source from which the three degrees of the Sacrament of Orders derive. In fact, the bishop is also the one who ordains deacons and priests, and precisely as mentioned above, orders a priest to become a bishop.

.

Briefly we will say that the line of succession provides that an apostle, received full powers from Christ to transmit his teaching and to administer all the sacraments, ordained an apostolic father, giving it the same powers and mission; in turn the apostolic father ordained a bishop, for the same purposes. This bishop, around you, ordained another bishop and throughout history, in ordering all the bishops in succession, it has come down to today. Everything is defined: apostolic succession.

.

The transmission of the mandate to transmit and administer the Sacraments to multiple bishops around the world, how many were the apostles originally, it shows that the Church has an apostolic nature, therefore collegial and community. The collegiality and apostolicity of the Bishops implies on the one hand the unity between the Pope and the Bishops because the College of Bishops is linked to its visible head. The Supreme Pontiff is not a tyrant but a guarantor of the very ministry of the Bishops. In fact, he is the guarantor of the unity of the ecclesial body and is the visible material concrete foundation of ecclesial unity (Collegiality = element of Union in the distinction).

.

On the other side, the collegiality of the Bishops it implies that this college has a high degree of authority over the whole Church. The individual dioceses collaborate with each other, each bishop can make decisions about the faithful entrusted to him without always asking for authorization from the See of Rome. Moreover, the bishops, they actively collaborate with each other and with the Roman Pontiff in some special moments: nei synodi o, eg, in an ecumenical council. A synod or council convened by the bishops is accepted and confirmed by the Roman Pontiff, but collegially guided: therefore even these ecclesial meetings are never carried out by the Roman Pontiff alone, to which, however, it is only up to, in the end, to decide.

.

Now we have understood how the Bishop of Rome and the Bishops of the world, as successors of the Apostles they received the mandate of Christ. We will say that in this mandate they have specifically committed themselves to three specific tasks with respect to the people of God: these tasks are called gifts (from Latin duty, task and also gift) and I'm the the task of teaching, the the task of sanctifying and the governing office / steersmanship.

.

The task of teaching it is the duty to teach, transmit the teaching of Christ; it is also called the ordinary magisterium of the bishop. This magisterium / teaching is concretized by the bishop when he teaches with authority, which comes from Christ, and takes place when the bishop teaches concretely in matters of doctrine and morals and these teachings are in communion with the Supreme Pontiff and the Universal Church. This is a teaching of divine origin; then the the task of teaching it is the bishop's first task and concretely with it is meant to preach and teach these truths to the faithful. The faithfuls, from them, they are called to listen in active obedience with sincere filial adherence to their bishop even by asking questions, doubts and clarifications to better understand these teachings, to deepen the doctrine and live it better.

.

With the task of sanctifying: the duty to lead all the people of God to holiness is indicated. The bishop is the bursar, that is, the one who distributes the grace of Christ and the Holy Spirit in equal parts in the Church; this happens in the administration of the sacraments and even more particularly in the Eucharistic celebration, where it is the Eucharist that makes the Church, it sanctifies it and unites it in catholicity; therefore the true presence, real, substance of Christ in the species of bread and wine unites all the faithful (clergy and faithful); at the same time it is the Church that makes the Eucharist, therefore the Church that administers and celebrates it.

.

With the office of governing/governing the duty of the bishops to govern and govern the individual Churches is indicated local or dioceses; they have their own jurisdiction which is exercised for himself by each bishop in an ordinary way. By this we mean that the Divine power that every bishop immediately possesses does not provide for the mandatory delegation to other people: on a concrete level, But, the bishops can however decide to appoint mediators and delegates to better manage the territory, for example priests who perform the role of episcopal vicars, foranei, judicial and who therefore exercise various duties in the name of the bishop.

.

In conclusion these three gifts /Duties they are implemented with the help of presbyters or priests, that despite not having the fullness of the sacred order like the bishop, they too participate and are jointly responsible for the three gifts. The the task of teaching afor example when they preach, they teach and govern God's people, especially in the parish. Here the parish priest is also the one who accompanies and therefore governs the People of God to holiness (exercise of office of government); finally the priest celebrates worship then administers the sacraments and prays for the needs of the people and at the same time administers the sacrament of confession (exercise of the task of sanctifying).

.

Also wanting to synthetically analyze the first degree of the order, we can quickly describe the activity of deacons. They too fall within the ecclesial hierarchy because they are called to service: deacons is a Greek word that can be translated as servant. They still fall within the apostolicity of the Church, because they are assistants to the liturgy, they can have catechetical and para-liturgical duties, although their main task, their vocation is not the call to administer the sacraments in the same way as priests. Deacons participate in apostolicity as they are called to service, especially works of charity, the management of administrative activities of the Church. In some cases, however, the deacon can give the sacrament of baptism and bless the wedding. in some cases, however, the deacon can give the sacrament of baptism and bless the wedding.

.

Rome, 18 January 2022

.

.

.

For those wishing to learn more about the topic, I recommend reading these books:

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 553; 857 – 865.

Vatican Council II, (C)dogmatic institution Lumen gentium,18 – 23.

  1. McDowell, The fate of the apostles. Examining the martyrdom accounts of the closesest followers of Jesus, Routledge, 2016.
  2. Virgil, The resurrection of Jesus, Crossroads, Amazon publishing, 2020.

.

.

.

.

Staff Blog

Father Gabriele

.

.

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

.

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

.

.

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

 









or you can use the bank account:

payable to Editions The island of Patmos

IBAN IT 74R0503403259000000301118
in this case, send us an email warning, because the bank
It does not provide your email and we could not send you a
thanks [ isoladipatmos@gmail.com ]

.

.

.

.

.

.

Almost certainly useless lesson for some self-taught Catholics on the secularism of the state: the concept of Natural Law of the revived neo-scholastics, besides not serving God and the truth, it is in radical conflict with the two foundations of the creation of man: freedom and free will

— Theologica —

LESSON ALMOST CERTAINLY USELESS FOR CERTAIN SELF-TEACHED CATHOLICS ON THE LAICITY OF THE STATE: THE CONCEPT OF NATURAL LAW OF THE REVIVING NEOSCHOLASTICS, IN ADDITION TO NOT SERVING GOD AND THE TRUTH, IT IS IN RADICAL CONFLICT WITH THE TWO FOUNDATIONS OF THE CREATION OF MAN, FREEDOM AND FREE WILL

.

For us men of faith, reason and science is unquestionable that God has instilled in the heart of man the natural sense of good and evil, hence the foundations of those laws which perhaps improperly, but correct, they are defined as Natural Law. The problem occurs when you try to change the Natural Law or Divine Law into Positive Law, in Laws of the State that bind all the associates. Because at that point the sin becomes a crime, with devastating and absolutely undesirable consequences.

.

Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

.

.

 

To enter the bookshop click on the cover

.

How to help our work:

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

.

or you can use the bank account:

payable to Editions The island of Patmos

WERE GOING: IT 74R0503403259000000301118

CODICE SWIFT: BAPPIT21D21
in this case, send us an email warning, because the bank
It does not provide your email and we could not send you a
thanks [ isoladipatmos@gmail.com ]

.

.

.

.

.

 

Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci
Of the Order of Preachers
Presbyter and Theologian

( Click on the name to read all its articles )

The soothsayer Tiresias and Christianity: the reality of disability, between joy and hope

— Theologica —

THE SOOTER TIRESIA AND CHRISTIANITY: THE REALITY OF DISABILITY, BETWEEN HOPE AND JOY

The disability, certainly falls within the theme of suffering, of those who are afflicted and who will be comforted, according to the evangelical beatitude. Persons affected by disabilities are fully included in those who are welcomed into the bosom of Trinitarian love. The world of culture, of philosophical and anthropological reflection has always been fascinated and at the same time shaken by this theme.

.

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

.

.

PDF print format article

.

.

Ulysses and the soothsayer Tiresias

One of the strong themes which involve a lot on an emotional and intellectual level every faithful, by the individual believer, to the priest, from the man of culture to the theologian, it is certainly the issue of disability. To be precise, there is no disability in the abstract, but there are people with physical or mental disabilities, which can be congenital, innate or acquired.

.

I would like to sketch biblical-theological reflections on the theme of disability. I am aware, together with the whole Christian tradition, that the mystery of human evil and suffering remains a mystery and can never be fully disclosed. But it can be contemplated, scrutinized with an eye of faith, hope and charity and be placed in the highest and greatest plan of God's Plan.

.

In this article first of all we will make some historical considerations on one of the most famous and oldest disabled people in history, the soothsayer Tiresias. Subsequently, we will move on to the theme of suffering in the Christian sphere.

.

A DISABLED PERSON KNOWN TO ANTIQUITY. TIRESIA, BLIND SOOTER.

.

The disability, certainly falls within the theme of suffering, of those who are afflicted and who will be comforted, according to the evangelical beatitude. Persons affected by disabilities are fully included in those who are welcomed into the bosom of Trinitarian love. The world of culture, of philosophical and anthropological reflection has always been fascinated and at the same time shaken by this theme. So much so that she has recently allowed herself to be questioned by disability, trying to build a reflection. First of all I would like to point out the text by Gian Antonio Stella: SeveralThe long battle of the disabled to change history, recently published by the well-known journalist of Corriere della Sera. With a journalistic slant, Stella tries to do a excursus starting from different historical figures of people with disabilities who have really proposed their innovative experience for the time of history in which they lived. I would not like to dwell on this text though [1].

.

For some time the Sicilian culture it has lost one of its most fruitful writers, Andrea Camilleri. Almost like a testament, along with some books now out, the author of Porto Empedocle, known for creating the character of Inspector Montalbano, has published a text entitled Conversations about Tiresia. It is a small booklet that faithfully reproduces the text of the homonymous show staged last June 2018 and played by Camilleri himself.

.

The central theme of the text, as the title says, is the figure of the soothsayer Tiresias. Legendary figure, of which little is known. Of course, of him, it is known that he is originally from Thebes, has a daughter named Manto, she guesses too, but above all that he is blind, or as we would say today: blind. The play is a small one excursus from irony, mockery and a few digs at today's world, how this figure has been described, mocked and at the same time loved and respected over the centuries. notoriously, Greek antiquity produced a series of sources on Tiresias. The most interesting thing to note is that in a pre-Christian antiquity, who had a very difficult relationship with the disabled, a physically disabled figure such as Tiresias has instead remained alive in the writing of these authors. Of course, the figure of the Theban soothsayer, it is especially interesting for a cultural reflection on disability.

.

The Pseudo Apollodorus he tried to explain where Tiresias' blindness originated. So he reported three narratives, in its Library; the second and third narratives are particularly interesting[2], also told theatrically in Camilleri's text. In the second narrative, the one according to Apollodorus, Tiresia is the son of Evereo and the Nymph Cariclo: the blindness comes from the punishment of Athena that Tiresias saw naked taking a bath; then Cariclo intervened and asked for mercy for his son. Athena did not remove the blindness of the wretch see, but joined in the ability to be a soothsayer. The third narrative Apollodorus takes it up from the Greek poet Hesiod, and it is the most complex, because it inserts other elements. Tiresias meditated while walking on Mount Citerone: here he saw two snakes in the act of sexual union and then in disgust he decided to trample and kill the female. As soon as the lustful asp was crushed, magically Tiresias changed from man to woman. This image, it induces Camilleri to put in the mouth of Tiresias a theological consideration linked to snakes:

.

“As a teenager, I loved taking long solitary walks on the Citerone and one day, suddenly, while I was sitting on a stone, I saw two large coiled snakes rushing towards me in the act of reproduction. I was lost in thought, for this I reacted as I never should have. Why with snakes, on Citerone, one had to be careful. In order to possess Persephone, Zeus changed into a serpent and Cadmus also "asserted himself" for his escapades. So in those reptiles a god could hide "[3].

.

We will come back to this detail shortly. We observe how Tiresias is truly wise: that is, he is able to go beyond the material aspect and grasp the divine nature of even such an animalistic act as sexual union. However, proceeding with the narration, we know that later the Theban soothsayer became a man again, but his misfortune was not over. Indeed, in an indefinite period, Zeus and Hera quarreled and often found themselves divided by a controversy: if in the act of intercourse the man or the woman felt more pleasure. They could not come to any conclusions because in fact the two main positions confronted each other strongly: Zeus, in fact he claimed it was the woman, while Era was the man. To settle the dispute they decided to turn to Tiresias, considered the only one who could have solved it since he had tested both the male and female nature. Perhaps it would have been better if Tiresias had followed the old adage of not putting a finger between husband and wife[4]. Ma, for that time, he was not careful about this. So, once summoned by the two quarrelsome gods to resolve the overrun problem, replied that sexual pleasure consists of ten parts: the man only tries one and the woman nine, therefore a woman feels a pleasure nine times greater than that of a man. Tiresias thought of answering thus doing Hera a favor, believing that the goddess had answered according to her own reasoning. The goddess, instead, she was furious that Tiresias had revealed that secret: and so it blinded him. Instead Zeus, contrary to his wife's reaction, he decided to repair the damage suffered, and empowered Tiresias to foresee the future and the gift of living for seven generations. And this, in the Greek perspective, it implied having a practically eternal life.

.

Here then are the three elements highlighted in Tiresias' disability: blindness follows the punishment of knowing a deep secret of man. Tiresia, a bit like Prometheus, he is to blame for having ventured to guess and reason, get beyond the achievable: therefore of having entered the highest spheres of the intimacy of man and woman. Of having been able to dissolve the very secret of the total donation of man to woman and vice versa, therefore of their profound identity. At the same time, Tiresias entered the deep secret of bodily pleasure and the origin of life. He really couldn't stand this affront. Like this, he thinks he is displeasing Tiresias, blinding him: but doing so actually takes it away from the view of material things and leaves it forever to the view of information, higher notions and concepts. I dare say that Tiresias can be the slave in the Platonic cave who, freed from the snares of material visions, finally sees the light of Ideas., in the eternity of timeless truth. However, I do not want to enter into a platonic analysis.

.

Returning instead to the disability of Tiresias is added, with the action of Zeus, the gift of foresight and eternal life. The anthropological masterpiece of Tiresias the Theban is definitively finished. The disability, so condemned, so stigmatized in the Greek world, and instead, in Tiresia, loaded with a set of extraordinary gifts donated by the gods[5]. So the lack of light on everyday things matters little.

.

Tiresias knows the fact present in her most intimate secrets. The same applies to future events: knows what is deeper, what is most sought after by every Greek man, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer or historian. The scholar Paolo Scarpi writes about this:

.

«[…] Tiresias' blindness is actually the condition for him to fulfill his role as a soothsayer […] The three reasons presented in the Library, […], in reality they appear connected by a common denominator represented by the optical code on which the story is built. […] sight enters directly into question, configuring itself as a transgression of a code of behavior enunciated by Callimaco […] (the laws of Cronus thus establish who sees an immortal against his will, will pay a great price for this view)»[6]

.

In confirmation of this it seems interesting to note what the Odyssey of the Theban diviner. Homer offers an important task to Tiresias, in fact in the tenth canto we read:

.

"To ask the soul of the Theban Tiresias,

the blind soothsayer, whose precordi are firm:

to him only Persephone gave even when he was dead,

the faculty to be wise; the others are wandering shadows "[7]

.

Ulisse, nell’Ade, he is forced to look for Tiresias, to find out about the way back to Ithaca. In the verses of the Homeric poem, we read between the lines that only Tiresias are granted the extraordinary gifts that make him so wise. I add a couple more elements: in Tebaide, the poet Stazio describes that Tiresias, deaf-mute and blind at the same time, retains its extraordinary powers. Who, physical disability, it is even more pronounced, nevertheless wisdom and prophecy remain. And they will have a dramatic role in Sophocles.

.

Nell’Oedipus Re, Tiresias is called prophesying also the famous incest between Oedipus and Jocasta and the killing of Laius: in this tragedy the prophecy of the blind is even an element of help in the discovery of a moral action condemned by time. The contribution of Tiresias becomes fundamental in the dissolution of the Oedipus drama.

.

Returning and concluding the reading of Camilleri's text, I find a splendid poem dedicated to Tiresias by the poet Thomas Sterne Elliott

.

«I Tiresias, although blind, button between two screws,

old man with withered female breasts, I can see

at the purple hour, the hour of the evening that comes

on the way back, and bring the sailor home from the sea,

I can see the typist at home at tea time, clears breakfast,

turns on the stove and takes out canned food.

Outside the window dangerously hung out to dry

Its combinations touched by the last rays of the sun,

on the sofa (his bed at night) they are crowded

socks, slippers, shirts and corsets.

I Tiresias, old man with shriveled boobs,

you perceive the scene, and predicted the rest -

I too expected the expected guest.

His, the pustular young man, he arrives,

employee of a small rental agency, with a single glance

baldanzoso,

one of the people to whom the security is

like a top hat to an enriched peasant.

The time is now right, as he conjectures,

lunch is over, she is bored and tired,

try to engage her in caresses

which are not rejected, even if unwanted.

Excited and determined, he attacks all of a sudden;

exploring hands meet no defense;

his vanity requires no answer

and takes indifference as a welcome.

(And I Tiresias have pre-offered everything

What was done on this same sofa or bed;

I who sat under the walls of Thebes

and I walked among the humblest dead).

[…]

Then I came to Carthage

Burning burning Burning burning

O Lord You take me

O Lord You seize

Burning[8]

.

The analysis of Tiresias' disability it therefore shows how disability has a contradictory value in the pre-Christian world: in which a relationship of damnation is highlighted, stigma, removal e, on the other, almost instead a state of elevation to higher knowledge. The theme of disability, for the Greeks it therefore called for a sapiential knowledge of the present, a prophetic knowledge of the future, a call to eternal life (certainly not of the same characteristics as the Christian Kingdom of God). Obviously, the aspect totally absent in Tiresias' disability, as indeed to all Greek reflection before the coming of Christ, it is obviously the link between divine and human activity: that relationship between grace and nature that will only subsequently be probed by Catholic theology.

.

In fact, Tiresias suffers from disability in his human nature as a punishment: it is not explained by the Greek myths in what way, after obtaining the disability, his person is brought, through disability, to a path of improvement and moral elevation with the help of the Gods. The disability, in Tiresia, in short, it is a special epistemological methodology but not one of sanctification. A special way of knowing but not of raising oneself to a relationship with the sacred. On the other hand, it is completely different in character, the sense of physical suffering, and therefore also a visual impairment, since the advent of Jesus Christ: all disabilities are part of the affliction and suffering love of Christ. They can therefore be grouped under the great category of suffering.

.

AFFLICT BUT INTIMALLY UNITED IN THE SUFFERING LOVE OF JESUS

.

One thing is certain. About Christianity, it is founded by Jesus and it is a religion of joy; indeed, Christianity, it started with a joyful imperative. «Kaire / Rejoice Maria!» [9] so the archangel Gabriel greeted the adolescent Mary. We certainly recognize with Joseph Ratzinger that "Christianity is therefore the faith of joy"[10]. but yet, within the path of a Catholic faith that is joyful, it does not escape some particularly delicate issues such as suffering, penance and pain. Let us think for a moment that in the journey of the Catholic Church there is a great period of penance and asceticism: Lent. This is because Lent is above all a time of conversion, but also a time of desert and reflection. In that period there is an invitation to linger, in our personal prayer or meditation, on those issues that are ordinarily difficult to assimilate and deal with, like sin, the death, the illness, pain. Suffering is a very sensitive issue. Above all it is delicate because it is experienced by men and women. Theme that we have all touched firsthand. These men are suffering. Therefore they are afflicted. In fact, one of the themes that the Old Testament also speaks to us about is suffering. Let's think, for example, of the story in the book of Job. Uright omo, today we will say a pious, a decent and very devoted person. The Lord, At that time, it allows the devil to be tried in moral suffering, we remember in fact that all his children were killed; so, material, we remember that he lost all his possessions; finally physics, we remember that he fell seriously ill with leprosy and was isolated from everyone, except from four friends.

.

In Job, according to the exegetes, we find four typically human reactions. The first is acceptance (cf.. Gb 1,22). He peacefully accepts that all this comes from God. At the same time, he also demands from him a kind of return in the future. The second reaction, it is rebellion (cf.. Gb 3, 1). He will even wish to die. It is also a typical reaction of today's sick people: it is a desire for tranquility and peace. The third reaction is custody (cf.. Gb 40). Job entrusts himself to God recognizing his littleness, one's being created creature, with respect to God the uncreated creator. So he truly relies on the Creator because he recognizes that he was proud and pretentious towards him. Fourth reaction, the unearthly reward (Gb 42,7). Job is given back all that he had lost in a double way [11].

.

Job is an afflicted one. God after a journey of conversion, of purification and growth is consoled by God. I was very impressed when I too hear the voice of an afflicted one. An afflicted one a few years ago: but that in his today, as today it has been abandoned by all. For this I would like now let you hear the voice of that kind of afflicted that, unlike Job, He did not make it.

.

"I lived (male) for thirty years, someone will say that it is too little. That someone is not able to determine what the limits of tolerance are, because they are subjective, not objective. I tried to be a good person, I've made a lot of mistakes, I have made many attempts, I tried to make sense and purpose using my resources, to make an art of discomfort. But the questions never end, and I'm tired of hearing it. And I'm sick of pormene too. I'm sick of making efforts without getting results, fed up with criticism, fed up with job interviews like unnecessary graphic designer, tired of wasting feelings and desires for the other gender (who obviously doesn't need me), tired of envying, sick of wondering what it's like to win, of having to justify my existence without having determined it, fed up with having to meet everyone's expectations without ever having met mine, tired of putting a good face on bad luck, to feign interest, to delude myself, to be made fun of, of being pushed aside and being told that sensitivity is a great quality. […] Nothing can be expected from this reality. You can't expect a job, one cannot expect to be loved, recognition cannot be expected, you cannot expect to expect security, a stable environment cannot be expected. […] I entered this world as a free person, and as a free person I got out of it, because I didn't like it even a little. Enough with the hypocrisies. […] I know this seems crazy to you, but it is not. It's just disappointment. The urge has passed: not here and not now. I cannot impose my essence, but my absence does, and absolute nothingness is always better than a whole where you cannot be happy doing your destiny. […] Forgive me, mum and dad, if you can, but now I'm home again. I'm fine"[12].

.

It is terrible to read such lines. It is almost impossible to empathize with the pain of a young person who wants to take his own life. It is absolutely impossible to understand the pain of those parents who have lost a child in this way. but yet, this young man was an afflicted one. An afflicted one left alone by all: abandoned to the mentality and fashion of the world, who believes and inculcates everyone that suicide is the only way to live their freedom. This is the freedom that today's world wants to convince us Catholics too that it is the one to live: a freedom that is not true freedom. That freedom that would be expressed in assisted suicide and euthanasia techniques, as happened for the case, rose to the fore of the news, by Dj Fabio. Dj Fabio was also a sufferer, one that we will biblically call afflicted[13]. The world, instead of giving him true freedom, he has abandoned him for good. The rule of law even offers him reason and jurisprudence to found the belief that one can only get out of suffering by committing suicide. As if suicide were the maximum expression of a "freedom"[14]. That freedom that eliminates suffering and affliction. Because a suffering and afflicted life has no value, then it is eliminated. It is taken and thrown away. And everything is disguised with the magic word: li-ber-Ta. Three syllables with which today we ride the wave and allow everything.

.

"We live in an era in which we are entitled to live only if they are perfect. Any insufficiency, any weakness, every fragility seems banished "[15]

.

There is only one answer to this terrible conviction of today's culture. The real answer that each of us can give is this: the joy of Jesus Christ. It responds to a logic of death, of throwaway culture, of necroculture simply by showing the joy and love that Jesus had for the afflicted. Because Jesus Christ himself often met with suffering. That is, Jesus met suffering and afflicted people: who in the body and who in the spirit. And he put himself at the service of them and their relatives and friends. For this he was able to relegate a special place in the Beatitudes to the suffering: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted"[16].

.

If we take a look at the Gospel of the resurrection of Lazarus, let's see immediately how Jesus relates to the death of his dear friend Lazarus. Jesus himself cries. He is afflicted, and lives this moment together with other afflicted ones. Let's try to follow the Gospel text closely:

.

«Jesus loved him very much (agapan = loved with mercy) to Marta, to his sister [Maria] and to Lazarus. Marta then, as he knew that Jesus was coming, went to meet him; Maria, on the other hand, was sitting in the house. Martha said to Jesus: "Man, if you had been here, my brother would not have died! But even now I know that whatever you will ask of God, God will give you ". Jesus told her: "Your brother will rise again". Marta answered him: "I know he will rise again on the last day". Jesus told her: «I am the resurrection and the life; who believes in me, even if it dies, will live; whoever lives and believes in me, will not die forever. You believe this?». She answered him: "Yup, o Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God who must come into the world " (= peepisteuka, the Greek verb expresses a strong leap of faith) Then Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weep, he was deeply moved (embryonic masts = to get angry), he was upset and said: "Where have you placed it?”. They told him: "Man, come and see!”. Jesus burst into tears. Then the Jews said: “See how she loved him!”. After placing the stone in which Lazarus was placed, Jesus then raised his eyes and said: "Dad, thank you that you listened to me. I knew you always listen to me, but I said it for the people around me, so that they believe that you sent me ". E, said this, he shouted loudly: "Lazarus, come outside!”. The dead man came out, with his feet and hands wrapped in bandages, and the face covered with a shroud. Jesus said to them,: "Untie it and let it go" "[17].

.

Let's try to read the text analytically. In verse 5 we see first of all that Jesus performs the action ofagapan that is, he loved Marta deeply, Maria and Lazzaro. agapao is the Greek verb from which it comes agape, that we precisely translate with Mercy. So he loved them with mercy. Also to the verses 20 – 27 Jesus is rebuked by Martha, later also by Maria, of not having been present at the time of Lazarus' death. He gets from them an act of faith in eternal life that happens through His Presence: the presence of Jesus, Son of God in the world. Subsequently (cf.. V.33) when he later learns of Lazarus's death, Jesus is moved: he has an angry movement of passion (so does the Greek verb embryonic masts), of aversion towards death which is one of the effects caused by original sin in turn generated by the devil. Jesus himself, so, expresses aversion and hostility towards death. Commenting on the verses 41 – 42, the exegete Brown writes:

.

"Through the exercise of the power of Jesus, which is the power of the Father, they will know the Father and thus will receive life themselves. Jesus will get nothing for himself, he only wants his listeners to know the Father who sent him. […] The crucial thing is that Jesus gave physical life as a sign of his power to give eternal life on this earth and as a promise that on the last day he will raise the dead "[18].

.

March, Maria and Lazzaro are afflicted. Jesus makes him discover, right in affliction, a true and real relationship with God. Suffering then becomes one of the possible "places" to truly encounter the Lord's love and receive consolation from it. As God did with Job and as now Jesus does with Lazarus. Effectively, the affliction, it can generate a sense of isolation: as we have seen so far, the suffering, if on the one hand it is an experience, on the other hand it is at the same time a solitary experience, permitted by God to the individual and only to the individual. In an indirect way it also affects relatives, the friends and neighbors of the afflicted one, but it serves first of all to the single person. These afflicted ones are not that far in time and space from our lives.

.

We too can be merciful and show God's love to the afflicted. We can express and communicate the joy and vitality of Jesus through these suffering brothers of ours? Through the exercise of material and corporal works of mercy, it is possible to express the biblical sense of consolation. Here is the connection between consolation and a sense of brotherhood: knowing how to enter into someone's drama and support it. To be truly with - brothers through the Mercy / Agape of God for the other. To live by helping the afflicted is to support them. In being a support then there are three drifts that must absolutely be avoided:

.

a) pitying the afflicted one. In other words, there is a risk of creating a victimization. Through this dynamic, the person gets stuck in his own pain and closes himself in a narcissism that prevents him from getting better [19].

b) The narcotic effect. That is, trying to get rid of pain by putting the conscience on it. The person is therefore pushed by society to live as if pain does not exist. This leads to superficiality, which is dangerous because it postpones the problem of pain and aggravates it[20]. In fact, escaping from a problem means aggravating it.

c) Invite the afflicted to see who is worse off than him: there is nothing worse than making existence like a Serie A ranking and saying who is better and who is worse off. It makes no sense to console someone by saying "since there are those who are worse off than you, you have to be fine " [21].

.

Let's see', At that time, the work of mercy to console the afflicted in what it really consists of. The words of the presbyter Fabio Rosini who writes will help us:

.

Physical pain can be harsh, but if there is a reason, it is supported, the heart is serene; if however, the pain is without explanation then becomes unbearable. Affliction needs a word to fill it, that address you, an indication that guides understanding " [22]

.

The same word consolation (in Hebrew nacham), biblically it is rendered with the verbs to rest, stop, find tranquility or even give refuge[23]. This is what we just saw Jesus doing with Lazarus' afflicted relatives. Pacifying a person means giving him that word of fullness, of understanding, sense that pain seems to have stolen from him.

.

"Whoever performs the act of consular is capable of putting himself next to the sufferer by showing him what he cannot see and allowing him to open his heart, the look, the spirit to another perspective, an integral depth that gives completeness "[24].

.

In a certain sense, all Christians are called to console, remember that it is they who are called to give this completeness. So this is the call to be those who remember that God is above all hope in suffering. Remind the world and today's culture that hoping is a typically human act, but at the same time elevating: because it allows even the worst of the afflicted to rise above their pain. As Fabio Rosini always writes, consular, giving hope basically means, make an act of mercy that "makes eternity present, that reveals the face of God in pain "[25]. This will also allow us to resume first of all hope. And hoping is a typically Christian act. More, to hope is the typically Catholic act! Because the believer is the one who has placed all trust in Jesus. And just like Martha and Maria, he expresses his hope aloud in pain. Always keep this in mind, while you prepare sandwiches for the poor, while you prepare the spinal stretcher, while you rearrange the civil protection facilities. Hoping means first of all kindling the expectation of a God who is the immensely good absolute good.

.

Each of us can be a bearer of hope, carriers of joy even to the afflicted of the poorest neighborhoods, to the afflicted one due to grief or depression, or precisely of a disability. Here then is that by relating these reflections to disability, we will say that even the person with disabilities, despite his afflictions and physical pains, he is called to a path of joy and sanctification. There is always a higher plane to which God the Father directs, how he directed the sufferings of Jesus of the Passion, to the joy of the Resurrection. We too will be transported to the joy of consolation. Because when we will console an afflicted one, this will make us truly discover the joy of our life. Our whole life will be knowing how to rediscover the presence of a Trinitarian God, who is with us even in pain. It is by loving who is afflicted, making him rediscover this joy of living, together with the poet Giacomo Leopardi we can say "I have never felt so much living as loving" [26].

.

Rome, 4 November 2020

.

_______________

NOTE

[1] The reader can consult for further information: G. A. Stella, Diverse - The long battle of the disabled to change history, Solferino, 2019, Milan.

[2] Pseudo-Apollodoro, Library, III, 6, 7.

[3] A. Camilleri, Conversations about Tiresia, Sellerio, Palermo, 2019.

[4] A. Camilleri, op.cit.

[5] Along this same line M stands. Schianchi, History of disability - From the punishment of the gods to the welfare crisis, Carocci, Rome, 2012, 40.

[6] Apollodoro, Greek myths, by P. Shoes, translate. at M.G. Ciani, Monadori, Milan, 1996, 55.

[7] Odyssey X, 492 and following, Translation by G. Aurelio Privitera

[8] T.S. Elliott, Wasteland mentioned in A. Cammileri, Conversations about Tiresia, 41 – 42. Check page again.

[9] Luca 1, 26.

[10](J). Ratzinger, Elements of fundamental theology, Morcelliana, Brescia, 69.

[11] S. Pinto, The secrets of Wisdom, Introduction to the wisdom and poetic books , St. Paul, Cinisello Balsamo, 2013, 21 – 23.

[12] Letter from M., a suicide in his thirties, taken from http://messaggeroveneto.gelocal.it/udine/cronaca/2017/02/07/news/non-posso-passare-il-tempo-a-cercare-di-sopravvivere-1.14839837 last access 10/01/20 hours 18.07.

[13] See. http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2017/02/28/fidanzata-dj-fabo-vorrei-notte-non-finisse_n_15055120.html Last Access 23 March 2017 hours 16.43).

[14] https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2019/09/25/news/consulta_cappato_dj_fabo_sentenza-236870232/ Last Access 10/01/10 hours 18.16.

[15]A. D’AVENIA, The art of being fragile, 2016, 147.

[16] Mt 5,4

[17] Gospel according to John, chapter 11.

[18] R. E. Brown, Giovanni, 2014, pp 567 – 568

[19] Fabio ROSINI, Only love creates, 2016, p. 121.

[20] In the same place.

[21] Fabio ROSINI, on,cit, p. 122.

[22] Fabio ROSINI, p. 120.

[23] Fabio ROSINI, p. 127.

[24] Fabio ROSINI p. 129.

[25] Fabio ROSINI, p. 129.

[26] (Zibaldone 1819 – 1820.)

.

.

Staff Blog

Father Gabriele

.

.

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

.

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

.

.

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









or you can use the bank account:

payable to Editions The island of Patmos

IBAN IT 74R0503403259000000301118
in this case, send us an email warning, because the bank
It does not provide your email and we could not send you a
thanks [ isoladipatmos@gmail.com ]

..

.

.