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father ariel

Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo
Presbyter and Theologian

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Latest posts by father ariel (see all)

• Aldo Moro at the seaside in a jacket and tie, bishops and priests in their underwear, we “rigid priests” called “Pharisees” e “formalist” if we dare to appeal to priestly dignity - 27 June 2024
• One note from Padre Ariel I cannot be silent: «As annoying as a sea urchin inside your underwear» - 31 May 2024
• Holiness, and from 2011 what a testimony and lament that «a universal cloudburst has broken out in the Church». If today you have decided to use my styles and phrasebooks, at least pay me the royalties - 28 May 2024

HAPPY AND EVEN HONORED TO WORK FOR FREE, BUT WE TRY NOT TO EXAGERATE …

“Do you not know that those who perform sacred service eat what is offered in the temple? And that those who wait at the altar have a part in the altar? Similarly, the Lord has ordered that those who proclaim the Gospel live from the Gospel" [The Cor 9, 13-14].

Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

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Dear Readers,

The magazine The Island of Patmos will complete 10 years of journalistic and editorial activity in October of 2024. When we started our business, there were several who gave us less than a year to live. The result was that we moved forward with an ever-increasing number, surpassing in 2022 the two hundred million visitors in 8 year old.

In 2018 we also opened the Edizioni The Island of Patmos, whose books continue to sell well in a market made up of a niche audience, certainly not from those much more numerous "Catholics" who become cultured by jumping from one blog to another where they feed on “prophecies” e “revelations”, or whatever Facebook they ask you to explain to them in four lines the Prologue of the Gospel of John and the incarnation of the Word of God, because on a ufology site run by an anonymous person they read that Jesus Christ was an alien.

We never asked for anything, we just limited ourselves to inserting the link to the convenient and secure account PayPal and the number of our current account at BPM in Rome, certain that those who wanted to support our work would do so without needing to be solicited to do so.

At the end of summer we have to pay the dedicated-server and the various annual subscriptions for a total amount of 5.800 Euro. What we currently have in our account PayPal and in the current account it is however a laughable sum:

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I consulted with the brothers and we decided to remember the Apostle's warning:

“Do you not know that those who perform sacred service eat what is offered in the temple? And that those who wait at the altar have a part in the altar? Similarly, the Lord has ordered that those who proclaim the Gospel live from the Gospel" [The Cor 9, 13-14].

Why hide the bitterness, especially when you have a generous temperament by nature? For this reason, I believe it is necessary to add some clarifications in the form of a question: some, or maybe many, they think that priests are lemons to be squeezed? Because the logic of the unspecified “Catholic” is the following: when he falls into need he turns to good priests, that he finds, because they are still there, perhaps less and less, but there are. But, if he has to put his hands in his pockets and contribute to the pastoral work of good priests, in this case start publishing on social media posts and photos of the worst that can be found among priests and that no one has ever denied exists and is there. Strange logic, you don't think so? When you have to take it from good priests, it is taken with both hands, but when the work of good priests needs to be supported, then you seal your wallet and go look for the worst that can be in the clergy, like everywhere, publishing cries and laments about social media in order to justify one's selfishness and greed.

For years I have dedicated myself to the apostolate with priests and from this privileged observatory I know and see first-hand cases of elderly and sick priests who, after a life dedicated to assisting and caring for the People of God, today find themselves in conditions of loneliness and abandonment, experiencing first of all the ingratitude of the numerous people to whom they have done good as long as they had the physical strength to do it. However, if you call the Catholic-so-called to his responsibilities towards priests, in response he publishes you on social media the photo of the priest celebrating the Holy Mass at the seaside in a bathing suit on the mattress, inserting the caption if anything: «… we should also finance these people?». He doesn't tell you, But, of the old and holy parish priest, today forgotten in a retirement home with the catheter attached to him, who saved his marriage and who convinced his wife not to abort a child who was then born and who grew up and became an adult and gave him the joy of becoming a grandfather. Some things aren't, those are not told either with photos or captions social media.

Among the various forms of ingratitude I confess that I was particularly struck by those people who, in addition to only having hands to take, believe that one should even demand from the priest, at the head of all those who have ended up in the circles of the various holy men and the various self-styled visionaries in close contact with the many speaking or crying Madonnas who reveal trembling catastrophic secrets to the various charlatans who go crazy in the square. And today, the people who fall into these networks, there are more and more. Until many of these deceived and plucked like chickens end up turning to us, than doing our duty, that is, the priests, shepherds care of souls, over the years we have helped and supported desperate people, deceived and betrayed, looking for appropriate and prudent solutions, not limiting ourselves to mere spiritual comfort but often trying to help them also through specialists or legal consultants we trust and know, who often helped them even for free, considering that the crying idiots had been reduced to chicken legs stripped of their flesh by the most voracious of the worst barkers.

Some of them happened to have sensitivity to pour 5 O 10 euros into our account to support our work, if anything after having given money to certain people for years? Of course not, the money is given without hesitation to those who say they talk to the Madonna, who boast psychic gifts, of foresight or healing, or that at a distance of 55 years after his death they present themselves as spiritual children of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, to whom the Holy Capuchin, needless to say, revealed sensational things that they, in turn, they reveal only to a select few, obviously paying, of course!

I have always had a bad relationship with numbers, But, despite not knowing how to divide without a calculator, I also get to some elementary calculations: how they can, a man or woman not even sixty years old to have been the favorite spiritual children of this Holy Friar who died in 1968 and having received extraordinary confidences from him? Padre Pio of Pietrelcina perhaps went to take his spiritual children from nursery or nursery school to make them privileged custodians of his secrets?

My speaking is naked and raw? Yup, because this must be the case with all the bitterness of the case on the part of a priest who, together with his fellow editors, has spent time, energy, human and spiritual resources for many people, including those who, after having even had their underwear taken off by the worst charlatans, came to us crying for help. And they had help, immediate and without sparing any of ourselves, that we often stayed up late at night responding and taking care of their problems. But, in exchange, they didn't even offer us a coffee, this is what hurts, quite a lot of.

More than asking – something we have never done – I confide bitterness to you, which I believe has its own reason for being, let those who have benefited and continue to benefit from our hard work do the rest, while forgetting that "those who proclaim the Gospel live by the Gospel".

the Island of Patmos, 13 June 2023

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