THE "UNFORGIVABLE" SINS OF PRIESTS BEFORE THE HOLY VIRTUES OF THE ANALPHABETIC CATHOLICS OF THE FAITH

 

… we could modify and rewrite the final part of our profession of faith: “I believe in social media and in the life of the world to come ". And if anything,, rather than the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, we could rename it Symbol of faith of the illiterate Catholic, who laughs at knowledge and who gave life to the faith of «… according to me, I think that …". And all this, that is very clear: it is not the fault of the priests at all.

- Actuality -

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In putting his hand to a new book or articles related to the doctrine of the faith, I always ask myself a question: this further waste of time is necessary, considered that the first to show that they want bread, circus and a lot of itch are the Catholics first, or self-styled, or the little that remains of the disastrous Catholic world? It is legitimate and admissible for a presbyter and a theologian to be assailed by questions that lead him to ask such serious and heavy questions to himself.?

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In the digital age i social media they have brought out legions of fools who until yesterday discussed the most complex historical issues in a bizarre way, social, political and religious giving their "pearls of wisdom" in bars or hairdressing salons, where everything remained enclosed at the end of their "learned" discussions. Today, in the wrecked upside-down world we live in, in a condition of irreversible decay - a phenomenon I have been talking about and writing about for two decades now -, the ignorant equipped with a culture that does not even reach a medium-low level, plagued by those forms of illiteracy that can be both recurrent and digital, on social media it can have ratings and a following that the most qualified scientific experts or popularizers cannot even imagine. Just think of the so-called influence, which, as the name implies, have the worst influences on our young people and adolescents, it is useless to detail at what low and immoral levels.

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In this confused chaos we also find a large army of true or presumed Catholics, launch into the spasmodic morbid search for things that can excite their itches, but they have nothing to do with the truths of the revealed faith. At most, theirs is pure fideism, almost always supported by magical elements, superstitious, esoteric, millennial, in conclusion: decadent neopaganism, which has nothing to do with that great pagan culture to which Christianity is the first to be indebted, it is enough to quote Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, to follow the great thinkers, Roman literati and jurists.

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To returning illiteracy and digital illiteracy is joined by another form of illiteracy, that of the illiterate in the doctrine of the faith, the arrogance of which is often greater than their own ignorance. May it never be that a priest or a theologian dares to intervene, worse to recall or highlight the errors of certain illiterates in the doctrine of the faith. I've done it several times too, generally with these results: the dialogue begins with an aggressive "you are incompetent because you don't know that ...", to end with an imperative «be ashamed!», if not worse with a lapidary «you are a priest ashamed!».

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I social media they should not be underestimated with a spirit of superiority and snobbery clerical-chic, because they constitute a world in which hordes of Catholics or presumed Catholics bask in the most unlikely Marian apparitions ever recognized by the Church, who often publicly disavowed them in a decisive and unappealable way, they were so false, but above all deviant for the faith, especially of the simplest and most fragile people. Amazing revelations about the true Third Secret of Fatima follow, according to them, kept hidden by the Church in a malicious way. The "prophecies" of Nostradamus, written in quatrains so ambiguous that anyone can come up with anything they want afterwards. The sensational falsehood of the "prophecies about popes" attributed to the Irishman St. Malachi Bishop of Armagh, lived in the twelfth century, widely denied by the learned Jesuit scholar Claude-Francois Menestrier at the end of the 17th century^[1] and already reworked à manipulated earlier in the sixteenth century. The "prophecies" of the Blessed are also very tantalizing Anna Katharina Emmerick, declared inauthentic by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the same time as his beatification^[2]. Although unfortunately I have found how useless and fruitless it is to explain to certain illiterate people in the doctrine of the faith that beatifying a servant of God or canonizing a blessed does not imply beatifying and canonizing everything he said., written or done, least of all to recognize his mystical visions or inner locutions. Equally useless to explain that the apparitions and Marian messages, including those recognized by the Church, they do not constitute pillars of the deposit of credit and they do not at all oblige believers to adhere to faith.

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Faced with this and to what follows which is harmful to the faith and the health of souls, the terrible warning of the Blessed Apostle Paul resounds:

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«The day will come, indeed, when they will not endure sound doctrine;, ma, having itching ears they, will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, refusing to listen to the truth to turn to fairy tales " (II Tm 4, 2-4).

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Sui social media the criticisms directed at priests and to all the highest ecclesiastical hierarchies they sprout like wildflowers after the rain, of practices that are always severe and merciless. In this sense, I think I am the last person to be accused of partisanship, they try it several of my books - which of course I invite you not to read, what a huge waste of time that would be! - and numerous articles in which I highlight the worst defects of the clergy and of our ecclesial hierarchies, doing deep analysis, impietose e severe, May finished at se stesse, because every critical analysis always contains possible solutions, together with so much bitterness, but above all to my inextinguishable love for the Church, which is eternal as is the priesthood with which I have been marked and ontologically transformed with an indelible character.

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Over time I have seen firsthand how the defects and shortcomings of our clergy constitute a splendid pretext for that army of Catholics, or self-styled, who in no way intend to commit themselves to a serious journey of faith, which implies first of all being trained and guided, rely on teachers and follow them. Much easier to go online, type in a search phrase and then start turning from one blog to another, where sensational incompetents presume to speak of the most complex and delicate foundations of faith seasoned in a sensationalist sauce, without ever missing two essential elements to arouse the necessary itch: catastrophism and conspiracy.

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You are perhaps assailed by the ancient question: who we are, where we come from, Where are we going to go? You want to know what the mystery of eternal life is, the immediate or particular judgment of God, the resurrection of the dead and the universal judgment? Don't waste time buying and reading my book The path of the three keys, where in narrative form I speak of hindmost through a dystopian novel, among other things, it costs 22 Euro, it would just be money thrown away, after all it is the useless work of a priest and a theologian who tried to translate the main mysteries of faith into literature in the season of his human maturity, intellectual and spiritual. You want to know what the mystery of life is? Just type a key phrase on a search engine and then drink from the most absurd pages in which improbable and mostly anonymous internet "theologians" mix together myths, pagan beliefs, legends, reincarnation theories, near-death experiences, pieces extrapolated from some wildly manipulated writings of the Fathers of the Church, finally presenting gods potpourri who have nothing Catholic and Christian. And if a priest or a theologian dares to explain that the foundations of the Catholic faith are quite different, it will be enough to answer as usual: «…ah, but I read that ... ". And if we start talking to these people about some social media, exercising our ministry as pastors in the care of souls and theologians, reactions and responses will be those I have already mentioned: «Be ashamed!», always in the best hypothesis, of course.

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In the opinion of many Catholics who proclaim themselves to be devotees and practitioners, the blame for all this is attributable only to priests who do not preach well, who do not do catechesis, which are not available, to follow with the whole sequela of the defects of our clergy, which the undersigned has never denied nor intends to deny, having brought them to light without hesitation.

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Let's try to examine the glass which as usual is always half empty and half full, starting from the crisis of vocations, by the progressive reduction in the number of priests and their ever higher age in all Western countries. If today, a priest alone, he is forced to take care of four or five parishes scattered throughout a territory, several kilometers away from each other, in which up to fifty years ago there were a parish priest in each, up to seventy or eighty years ago also the assistant parish priest, fulfilled his painful ministry as a "compulsive celebrator" of Holy Masses running from one church to another, how much time will he have left for all other pastoral activities, especially including catechesis and the formation of the faithful, in addition to taking care of one's spiritual life? How Much, to study and prepare? The Eucharistic celebration represents the culmination of a life path that engages the Christian in many actions. The experience of faith and the life of faith is not reduced to a Sunday Holy Mass, that the path of Christian life is the maximum fulfillment. Therefore it would not be better to leave only one parish church open in all that district and close the others, if priests to be sent to every parish scattered from town to town there are no more? No, It can not be done, because the faithful will rise up instantly - and usually in a turbulent way -, putting forward the problem of the elderly who would have to move uncomfortably in the parish four or five kilometers away, thing this unacceptable. Their protests almost always add references to the lack of Christian charity, except not even knowing what this fundamental theological virtue is for the Catholic faith, which however constitutes a term with effect, especially if pronounced by someone who does not even know its meaning. At that point the bishop, not intending to have problems with the faithful who know the word "rights" but ignore the word "duties" of believers of Christ, calls the poor priest and in an amiable way invites him to sacrifice himself for the good of salvation of souls, ignoring - hopefully involuntarily -, that it is not about the faithful, but of the worst kind of infidels: that of overbearing egoists.

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Had the Holy Mass on Sunday around the corner of the house and forced a poor priest now on the verge of exhaustion to celebrate in three parishes starting at 8.30 Everyone 12.30 in the morning and in another two from 17 Everyone 19, here we see the same "poor elderly" - for whom it is impossible to travel four or five kilometers to reach the nearest church on Sunday -, get in the car in the early afternoon and drive 40 O 50 kilometers to go to a large shopping center in the provincial capital. But they must have the church next door, because in that case they are elderly people for whom it would be a mortal sin to lack unspecified charity, while if they have to travel a distance ten times greater in the direction of the large shopping center, in that case they suddenly become youngsters, preferring promotional discounts much more, or the get three pay two, to all the fundamental principles of Christian charity, which should also be exercised towards priests.

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The theory that the faults are all of the priests, while the faithful who make up the members of the People of God are innocent creatures tortured by inadequate shepherds, is destined to be taken seriously only by those bishops who in order not to have problems with the protests of the pretentious and selfish prefer to sacrifice the physical health and spirituality of their priests, not hesitating to reduce them to serial celebrators of Messe running from one parish church to another in all the surrounding villages.

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A completely secondary task of the bishops it would also be to remind their subjects^[3] that if Christian families, or the little that remains, they are no longer able to promote birth, welcoming and stimulating new vocations to the priesthood, no one can complain that the Church does not "make" more priests, also because priests are not manufactured, the first nucleus in which a vocation is welcomed and cultivated is the Christian family. But since, as we said just now, the new generation bishops are happy to welcome all the honors of the episcopate, but not the heavy burdens that it entails, they prefer to squeeze their priests increasingly reduced in number like lemons on the citrus squeezer, increasingly at an older age, more and more sold out, often frustrated and unmotivated, surrounded by self-styled selfish faithful, lazy, gossip and quarrels, of which, however, they decide to please whims and whims, thus avoiding having problems to solve and unpopular decisions to make, like the suppression of parishes that can no longer have a parish priest, something that most of the bishops are careful not to do.

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Complain that the Church and priests do not spread sound doctrine it is false and ungenerous. There are numerous religious institutions that have taken care to set up excellent sites on the internet to make the text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the documents of Magisterium of the Church, the lyrics of the Old Testament, of the Holy Gospels and of Apostolic Letters with comments and explanations. There are numerous sites that collect the Sunday homilies, videos in which bishops, parish priests and theologians engaged in pastoral activities and in the dissemination of Catholic doctrine hold lectures and conferences, many bishops publish a commentary each week with accurate explanations of the Holy Gospel (just a few examples: WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO, etc …). Our editor and Capuchin theologian Ivano Liguori gave our readers a series of catecheses on the Sacrament of Penance collected in the column Catechism breakfast with Cappuccino, that we have published in video on ours Patmos Island. What diffusion they had? They have been greatly appreciated by a number of "niche" Catholics interested in truly deepening their knowledge of the faith and the Sacraments.

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We confessors know this well when certain people come to confession, often without even knowing why, how they confess or how they don't confess. Repeatedly, after listening to penitents who for ten minutes made nonsense gossip, With all the kindness of the case, I recalled that this precious sacrament is used to absolve sins and return to the communion of God's grace, it is no coincidence that the formula reads: «I absolve you from your sins …». This precious Sacrament does not serve to absolve from a chat, of which God is the first to know what to do with. Again, let us ask ourselves: if a man who left his wife, who later married civilly, then he also left his second wife, to go and live with a much younger girl than him, who has always led a life that constitutes in and of itself a negation of the basic values ​​of Christian life, coming to confession only because he has to act as a godfather or a witness to a confirmation candidate or a wedding - which, moreover, he should not and could not do -, it is never possible to tell you about it: «beh, I don't kill, I don't steal, I don't hurt anyone… maybe sometimes I get angry, sometimes it happens that he tells some little lies ... ". Request: it is never possible? And if this happens, we are sure that the fault lies with the priests who, according to some, would not dedicate themselves to the precious ministry of confessors? The army of Sunday Catholics who receive the Most Holy Eucharist despite having their consciences burdened with mortal sins and who are careful not to confess, perhaps convinced that only priests commit sins, by chance they too constitute our grave fault? We priests are guilty of the fact that a very large number of faithful no longer even have a sense of good and evil? It is the fault of us priests if we find ourselves with faithful or presumed faithful ready to cover ourselves with heavy insults on social media if we dare to remember that abortion is a serious crime, that euthanasia is by no means a gesture of love for a terminally ill person, that two men or two women cannot marry, least of all to adopt "toy children", because far from being love, this is rather the abomination of desolation? This too is the fault of the priests who do not carry out their ministry well? Or, more simply, it is simply a question of self-styled Catholics who attack us for reminding them of the obvious: that evil cannot be called good, least of all love?

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If the theory is true that numbers speak on the internet which constitute a precise thermometer of reality, the panorama that opens up before our eyes is bleak, to be exact this: a video uploaded to YouTube by an anonymous man with no face and name who speaks of Nostradamus' "prophecies" finally interpreted, one month after its publication has recorded 545.321 views. The same day, an Italian bishop, already an excellent specialist in ecclesiology, teacher, formator of priests and laity, pastor dedicated for years to adult catechesis, publishes a catechetical exegesis on the resurrection of the dead referring to the Holy Gospel of that Sunday of the liturgical year, one month after its publication has recorded 223 views. But yet another anonymous one was soon served with abnormal gaps on the foundations of the Catholic faith YouTube publishes a video that heralds the unveiling of the true Third Secret of Fatima kept hidden by the Church right from the title, one month after its publication has recorded 361.222 views. The same day, a learned Dominican theologian specializing in Mariology, publishes a catechesis of 30 minutes to explain the meaning and the profound meaning of the Marian apparitions of Lourdes and Fatima, one month after its publication has recorded 644 views.

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The Church has understood since the advent of the digital age the importance of social media and the means of communication offered by the internet, took the opportunity and took care to make available all those materials that once the faithful Catholics could have found in bookstores or libraries, while those who wanted to hear the exegeses of a good specialist would have had to go who knows where to listen to one of his lectures. Today they can go online and find all these materials. But the numbers, as I just explained, they speak clearly, above all they talk about something else.

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If the numbers speak on the internet, the question is a must: all this, what good is it? Perhaps to create sui social media a square where the perennial lament towards the Church and the priests is raised, by those who follow the new one Friar Cipolla of Boccaccesca memory that exhibits his improbable and absurd relics to fools, while the catecheses organized in the parishes are deserted, our books remain unsold and our catecheses and conferences unheard? This disinterest in the doctrine of the faith, it is perhaps all the fault of the priests?

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The Internet has served to give a voice to an army of pseudo-Catholics always ready for the public and severe lament towards the Church which "no longer evangelizes" and towards "priests who no longer act as priests, who do not do catechesis and who do not instruct the faithful ". Let's clarify: while knowing in depth the serious defects of the visible Church and the shortcomings of my confreres, the numbers, however, tell the opposite. If the faithful want to deepen the issues related to the foundations of faith, or to know something about the mystery of life, of death, of eternal life, of the resurrection of the dead ... they do not go at all to open the numerous pages in which the defective visible Church has made available the Catechism and the commented guide to its reading, they go to drink on blogs and videos where perfect incompetents talk about near-death experiences, tickling people's morbid curiosity. They don't start studying i hindmost, they go and tap into the itchy videos about Nostradamus prophecies. They do not delve into Mariology or the Catholic and healthy devotion to the Virgin Mary, dive like dolphins into the ocean of nonsense of subjects who ignore the fundamentals of faith and tease them with the nonsense of perfect charlatans about the true unrevealed Secrets of Fatima. Besides, you know, for some people the Holy Church is not a mother, she is a teacher but a liar, a cross between a secret sect of powerful and a criminal association that neither announces nor guards the truth, quite the opposite: it hides and disfigures it (!?).

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I fly over to another virulent disease which has been developing after 11 February 2013 the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI made it free and legitimate act of waiver to the sacred throne. In addition to the inevitable conspiracy theorists, dark characters have been unleashed, moved by rare verbal violence and aggression, who have declared the renunciation invalid because, according to them, it occurred under duress, thus making the election of the Successor invalid, defined by several roped leaders of certain demented theories as «usurper antipope, heretic and apostate "as well as" antichrist emissary ". These people support their own bizarre theories on a lack of knowledge of the history of the Church that has an unsettling, cite the Apostolic Constitution Dominic Flock which governs the election of the Roman Pontiff, but unfortunately they have never read, nor is there evidence that they misquote an article after having misunderstood it and completely ignoring that in the following three articles their statements are totally denied. They make absurd references to the Code of Canon Law, but they do not know how the law of the Church is born, it develops, it is interpreted and applied. A real sautéed vegetables finally drowned with the sauce of Marian prophecies and apparitions, in turn distorted and manipulated. What else to say and add, if not ... what a pain! But it is the visible Church that is not up to par with faithful so thirsty for the truth, to be populated with priests who do not live up to the needs of Catholics who are so demanding and eager to exercise the highest and holiest virtues of the Christian life.

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The sad reality - wanting ridiculous, if the whole did not constitute the disaster of faith and above all of souls -, is that if a Catholic or self-styled such has doubts, he is careful not to consult all the materials and sources made available to the Catholic Church on social media, but it sling up Facebook, his Twitter or your Instagram, which, as is well known, are well-known centers of catechesis and doctrine. Unfortunately, there is little to be surprised: be tramite and social media many have come to medicine do it yourself or to the exact sciences do it yourself, perhaps faith could be lacking do it yourself?

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The widespread complaint about the Church that does not evangelize more or lazy priests who do not listen and who do not do catechesis, without taking anything away from the shortcomings of the visible Church and those of the priests, it's just a false justification. There are many parish priests, even of large parishes, who after the Sunday Mass remain for the remaining six days without seeing a parishioner, with their elderly widowed mother and the sacristan who participate in the weekday liturgies constituting the only assembly of the faithful. Despite having tried to organize catechetical meetings for adults and various activities for young people. Obviously, if it all turned out to be unsuccessful, this is not due to the indifference of the faithful, the fault lies entirely with the priest, if anything, also of the bishop who put him in that parish. Then, when some of these faithful or pseudo-faithful present themselves because they need the priest, want for a clearance, want for a certificate, to the slightest objection raised to them the answer will be: "... but I read on the internet that ...".

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We are quite sure that it is the priests who have become fugitives who fail to teach the foundations of Catholic faith and doctrine? Because the numbers say something else, above all, the consequences produced by the numbers themselves say so.

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Animated by this awareness I decided to publish a new work after the summer where I will explain ours I believe O Profession of Faith, whose real name is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, because it is the result of two great dogmatic councils of the Church and of an ancient history, complex and also fascinating, although I am aware that I will never be able to arouse the charm of one or the other fake madonna who deposits tremendous secrets to a group of charlatans who have been teasing the itch of Boeotians for forty years by announcing "we're close now ... we're close ...". The whole also by mouth - alas! - the director of Radio Maria, left free to speak by our omissive bishops who have painfully tolerated certain forms of mariolatry that are sometimes worse than a blasphemy against the Blessed Virgin uttered by a drunkard in a tavern ...

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If you want, this mine, you can call it "holy priestly frustration". By administering confessions to numerous priest confreres of whom I have been confessor for years, I have often found myself having to answer this dramatic question: «To whom I have given my life, if day after day I am forced to acknowledge that all initiatives aimed at the evangelization of the faithful end in sensational failures?». Truly dramatic question to which I answered: "You gave your life to Christ God who sweated blood in the Garden of Olives (cf.. LC 22,39-44), to Christ God before whom the crowd chose Barabbas (cf.. Mt 27, 15-26), to Christ God abandoned by the disciples who fled (cf.. MC 14, 50-52), to Christ, God denied three times by Peter (cf.. LC 22, 54-62). But above all to Christ God who died on the cross, before which the bishop who consecrated us priests addressed the solemn warning: “Be aware of what you are going to do, imitate what you celebrate, conform your life to the mystery of the cross of Christ the Lord "^[4]».

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I am fully aware that I will waste a whole summer writing a new book that will sell few copies and that will be read by few people, the same ones that we will then find ranting about social media against the Church that does not evangelize and priests who do not do their duty as teachers and pastors in the care of souls, or ask questions about the pages Facebook in which, without pain of ridicule, they ask you to explain the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God with a joke of three lines, and then replicate after a few seconds: "... but I disagree, because in my opinion ... because I read that ... ". A book that will perhaps be of use mainly to me, to be able to tell God, the day I find myself face to face with him, that I have tried to fulfill in every way the mission that Christ has entrusted to me by calling me to be his priest, though, as is well known "... but on the internet I read that ...".

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What else to add in conclusion, in case we could modify and write again the final part of our profession of faith: “I believe in social media and in the life of the world to come ". And if anything,, rather than the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, we could rename it Symbol of faith of the illiterate Catholic, who laughs at knowledge and who gave life to the faith of «… according to me, I think that …". And all this, that is very clear: it is not the fault of the priests at all.

the Island of Patmos, 6 June 2022

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Notes

[1] See. Refutation of prophecies falsely attributed to St.. Malachi on the elections of the Popes, edited by Cristiano Wagnero, Leipzig in 1691.

[2] Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints: «[…] the works in question cannot be considered either written or dictated by Emmerick and not even authentic transcriptions of her statements and narratives, but a literary work by Clemens Brentano and with such extensions and manipulations that it is impossible to establish which is the real core that can be attributed to the blessed. It follows that the writings in question are not the true mirror of the Augustinian nun's thought and mystical experiences.. The individual statements, both those who express a healthy religiosity, and those that present quirks and anti-Semitic sentiments, arose from the creativity and artistic imagination of Brentano ". The Osservatore Romano, edition of 7 October 2004.

[3] In the new pastoral lexicon this term has been dropped into disuse, which, on the other hand, has a profound meaning on the sacramental and ecclesial level, given that "subject" means "subject to the apostolic authority of the bishop", such are his collaborators presbyters and such are the faithful of the particular Church entrusted to him and in which he carries out the function of pontiff in his capacity as member of the College of Apostles.

[4 From the sacred rite of presbyteral ordination.

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