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NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH & THE VATICAN

Ultimo Aggiornamento: 05/10/2013 16:55
24/11/2005 23:23
 
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This is for news items about the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican, as well as relations with other religions, and major developments within the other Christian confessions...

This is an interesting bit from Zenit today:
http://www.zenit.org/english/
Coexistence With Islam Is Possible, Says Journalist
Luigi Accattoli's Book Talks About Muslims in Italy


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/01/2009 18:39]
25/11/2005 00:11
 
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Don't know why but your link is not working again. The one below works, I hope.

www.zenit.org/english/
25/11/2005 00:57
 
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Faulty Link
Benefan - you're right; it seems one should not put in the http...I am intrigued by the book on the "good" Muslims in Italy.
25/11/2005 21:07
 
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Homosexuality and priesthood
I erroneously posted this under "News about Benedict" earlier today. Sorry!
---------------------------------------------------------------
It won't be released officially till November 29 but Catholic World News earlier this week published the text of the much-speculated Vatican document setting guidelines for the admission of homosexuals into the priesthood. By all accounts, Pope Benedict XVI approved the document last August 31, but the question has been under study since the previous Papacy.
www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=40891

As expected, it has already drawn much fire and ire from liberal circles, although it seems to strike a very reasonable balance between respect for and understanding of homosxual reality, and a concern for the Church's teachings on homosexuality and the problems likely to confront both the Church (as well as the priest concerned)if a homosexual priest has not fully committed himself to celibacy.

On the other hand, the Bishops Conferences in Germany and Switzerland have just issued statements welcoming and supporting the "Instructions".

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/11/2005 21.47]

25/11/2005 21:39
 
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France's Abbe Pierre and his public "confession"
I confess I never heard of 93-year-old Abbe Pierre - a French icon, it appears - until he made headlines (not for the first time, obviously) earlier this month that has sent ripples through the Catholic Church. Following is a translation of an article that tells us what the flap is all about. It is followed by Panorama's interview with 91-year-old Cardinal Ersilio Tonini of Ravenna(the cardinal who was photographed last July receiving all those heartwarming caresses from the Pope) who comments on Abbe Pierre's confessions and on the question of pristly celibacy in general.

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"My God, why?"
By Alberto Toscano

“I am 93 years old, and my faith keeps making new demands!” , so says Abbe Pierre, a living symbol of French Catholicism, in an autobiographical book entitled “My God- why?”, which came out in Paris recently and which is destined to provoke a lot of discussion.

Abbe Pierre has been very well-known in France for over half a century, starting from that severe winter of 1954 when he fought on the side of homeless people and defied authority in the name of generosity.

This time, he has chosen to lay his prestige on the line to promote public discussion of problems that may affect the future of the Catholic Church. Including the delicate matter of priestly chastity.

Here we have one of the most respected religious figures in the world admitting to having had sexual relations as a priest. The 93-year-old priest has chosen to review his life in public with the evident intention of pushing the Church to discuss the issues which are dear to him.

The book is actually a series of reflections – or perhaps better, meditations – by him that have been rewritten into journalistic style by Frederic Lenoir, an expert on religious issues and religion editor for Le Monde magazine.

At the same time, France’s Channel 2, the country’s main TV outlet, is rushing to finish a scheduled Christmas telecast about the Abbe Pierre, based on a fiction by Claude Pinoteau.

The old priest says it is his right and obligation to throw stones into the pond of Catholic doctrine. And since he has never been known to act subtly, he actually throws in quite a boulder!

Here is what he says: “ Personally, I had chosen very early to dedicate my life to God and to my neighbor, for which purpose I took a vow of chastity. In a certain sense, my life (since then) has been like that of a prisoner. When you know that you cannot allow yourself to have something which you really want, then you must learn to do without. I knew that my life as a priest, totally dedicated to helping the poor, was irreconcilable with having a love life. I had to keep desire from taking root in me. I would define my status as being one of consensual slavery. But this does not diminish in any way the force of desire, to which I have yielded temporarily on a number of occasions. I never had regular relations because I wanted to prevent sexual desire from taking root in me, as that would have pushed me to a lasting relationship with a woman, which would have been contrary to the life choice I had made.”

He adds: “I have therefore known the experience of sexual desire and its rare satisfaction, which beame transformed in turn into a source of dissatisfaction because I did not feel authentic in my behavior.”

And here is the conclusion he draws on the problem of priestly chastity: “I realized that sexual desire, in order to be fully satisfied, must be expressed in a relationship of love that is based on trust. Such a relationship was not possible for me. So I could only make women unhappy, as I was a prisoner of the contradiction between two life choices that are irreconcilable.”

And now, what to do? “I know priests who live in concubinage with women they have loved for years and who accept their situation and continue to be good priests. So the question of married priests and the ordination of married men is crucial for the Church. I am convinced that the Church needs both – married priests as well as priests who have chosen to consecrate themselves totally to prayer and to helping their neighbor. Jesus chose married apostles like Peter, and bachelors, who doubtless remained so, like John.”

In effect, even at age 93, Abbe Pierre is more combative than ever.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Cardinal Tonini's response


Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, archbishop emeritus of Ravenna, is quite upset. He has just read the intimate revelations of the Abbe Pierre, who has been called the Saint Francis of our day, a Capuchin friar who left everything to be on the side of the “least among men.” At 93 years, he has now confessed to having sinned several times by having occasional sexual encounters, told in an interview-book with Frederic Lenoir.

For the 91-year-old Cardinal Tonini, it is the collapse of a myth. “I felt bad reading his words. The Abbe Pierre was one of the better symbols of France – he bore witness to a commitment that did not stop with making social demands but expressed itself in concrete acts of solidarity and was able to mobilize thousands of persons to his cause all over the world. Now this symbol has crumbled to dust, and for many of us, it is a day of great sorrow.”

Abbe Pierre’s biography has its share of dramatic episodes. Born Henri-Antoine Groues into a well-to-do family, he donated his inheritance to the poor when he was 19 years old to enter a Capuchin monastery in Lyon. He came out years later and became a diocesan priest.

He aided the victims of Nazism, fought with the partisans, became elected deputy to Parliament. In protest [the article does not say to what], he resigned from Parliament and with an ex-convict, he founded the Emmaus Movement to set up communities for poor people, ex-drug addicts and ex-prostitutes who wished to have a new life. The movement is now found in 50 countries.

Eminence, what did Abbe Pierre mean to your generation?
He was a model of altruism and generosity not only for my generation for so many people, believers and non-believers alike. For instance, I think of Annamaria Tonelli who, as an adolescent saw the Abbe Pierre hen he visited Forli. She started to collect contributions and donations for Africa, until she finally decided to leave evrything her and go to Somalia. What would she say if she read these revelations now?

Maybe Abbe Pierre only needed to unburden his conscience…
But why do it publicly, especially in a book, I ask. It would have been enough to say it to his confessor. I feel like we are back in the 70s when there were priests who announced to their flock during Mass: “Tomorrow I am getting married.” This does not do the Church good in any way.

Did you ever desire a woman?
I entered the seminary when I was 11 years old. When I was 20, I dreamed of having a family with two or three children. But soon I understood that I would realize myself even better with a family far more vast and numerous, like the Church.

You have not answered me.
I sought to protect myself. I never read a book that would have made me blush. I avoided giving way to curiosity. I devoted myself fully to studying philosophy, history, foreign languages. I prayed very faithfully. And I counsel young priests to do the same in order to safeguard their chastity.

Which was more difficult for you – the lack of a woman or failure to become a father?
Celibacy is not a price you pay to become a priest. On the contrary, it is the extraordinary opportunity to have an even wider paternity. I have had so many children and continue to have more, even at my age the young priests when I taught in the seminary; the university students when I was an assistant Professor with the Italian federation of Catholic universities; the faithful here in my diocese of Ravenna; and all those who come to me daily to seek a word of comfort, or sometimes,simply to be with someone who is willing to listen.

Would it resolve the problem of vocations in the Church if it did away with priestly chastity, as Abbe-Pierre proposes?I don’t think so. The crisis in vocations also affects the Protestant churches and the oriental churches where they allow married priests. We have a priest shortage because it is difficult for young people to make a definitive choice for the priesthood.

Abbe Pierre also recommends female priests and homosexual marriage.
I ask myself what entitles him to play the teacher in these matters and to treat issues that are outside his competence. Let us leave the discussion of such delicate issues to the theologians and the experts.

After all this, what would you advise Abbe Pierre?
I would advise him to reread Socrates’s prayer: “Dear Pan, and all of you who are the gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside, and that everything I have outside be in accord with what I am inside."

25/11/2005 23:21
 
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Abbe Pierre
When I was a teenager I read a book about "saints" of our days - people who sacrificed their lives for Christ and people. Abbe Pierre was one of them.
After hearing about his confessions I felt really upset. Whom are we to believe? Doesn't the Bible say something against shattering the faith of the others? [SM=g27813]
26/11/2005 00:28
 
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Re: Abbe Pierre
Yvonne, I understand how you feel. That's why I thought Cardinal Tonini was right when he said that the Abbe should simply have left these revelations at the confessional, and not make them public they way he did. It does not help anyone, and it actually shakes one's faith in people who are supposed to be Christ's ministers.
27/11/2005 01:49
 
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Re: Homosexuality
If you read Italian, check out the interesting discussion that has been going on about the subject in the Papa Ratzinger Forum thread of the main forum, under the topic Omosessualita.
27/11/2005 03:07
 
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EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE AND RELIGION

For Star Trek fans and science buffs, here is a very interesting article about one of the papal astronomers at Castel Gandolfo who is writing a book about how the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe would affect or not affect our view of the faith. Very thought-provoking, controversial, and humorous at times.

www.sundayherald.com/53020
27/11/2005 16:41
 
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Linking to this site
May I ask if you would mind if I link to articles that appear here, over at the RFC? I haven't written this as a pm as I think that others who have dual citizenship may be wondering the same.

Specifically, I would like to refer to Teresa's translation of the Abbe Pierre piece with Tonini's response.

[SM=g27833] [SM=g27833] [SM=g27827]: [SM=g27824]
27/11/2005 17:17
 
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Wulfruna - Of course, feel free to do so with any translation that I post here. In fact, all these months, Ratzigirl has allowed us to post anything from her forum into the RFC, and I did a lot of that...I'm just not going to "double-post" my own
posts now, because someone complained on the RFC that they did not see the point in duplicating whatever has appeared in the Italian forum.

My point was that many anglophones usually don't want to be bothered to have to navigate a forum conducted in a foreign language, and I did not want people like them to miss out on the goodies from Ratzigirl's forum, or from the French and German sections of the RFC, for that matter, which understandably, most anglophones who read neither French nor German would not bother to check out.
27/11/2005 19:24
 
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BRAVO TONINI

Why in the world Abbe Pierre decided he had to air his true confessions to the world at large at the age of 93 is beyond me. It's bad enough that he has apparently broken his vows several times but why inform the world about it and in a way that seems he is trying to justify his behavior. Is he Catholic or not? Is he a priest or not? If yes on these questions, then he knows he is not supposed to behave in that fashion. No wonder so many average Catholics are confused about their faith when pastors worldwide don't seem to have a clue how they are supposed to live or don't have the faith and self-discipline to do it. Little Cardinal Tonini is my hero for the day. Also, I hope I am that lucid in my 90s.

Yvonne, one consolation. Papa has said many times that the church is for sinners, that Christ came here for them. Papa says we should not be discouraged by people who fall but take hope in Christ's example and his mercy; and poor Papa certainly knows about the failures of the clergy from his many years at the CDF. He still remains hopeful and full of choy so we need to try too despite our disappointments in people.

27/11/2005 19:58
 
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Re: Abbe Pierre's gratutious public confession
I think the writer suggested it was his way of trumpeting his
pet reforms for the Church, starting with married priests, for instance.

The old man fell through the liberal trapdoor most "social-activist" priests get caught into. From thoroughly laudable causes to help the "least of My brethren", they forget that their mission as priests is primarily to strengthen and propagate the faith, not to redress material ills on earth.

From there, it's a small step to advocating other liberal issues that are clearly against the Magisterium of 2000 years such as married priests, homosexual unions and the like. And in today's media-oriented world, it's easy to make waves by being an iconoclast, as the media love nothing better than to publicize anyone who "takes on" the Establishment, especially if the target is the Catholic Church!

The liberal-activist priests become so convinced they alone are right that the overweening force of their self-conviction does not make them see that 1)they are, in fact, advocating elements from other religions; and 2)if someone really finds the Church teaching and practices on some issues intolerable and abhorrent, it is dishonest, to say the least, to remain Catholic, much less a Catholic priest, and be in open defiance of, or in pitched battle against, the Church (and yes, of its "Establishment", because every institution must obviously be run by its Establishment, not by renegades).
27/11/2005 22:15
 
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Abbe Pierre and other liberal mided priests
Why will they not leave this backward, papist, hierarchical, dominant, unenlightened, opressive, ignorant church. There are so many liberal, enlightened, modern..(and so on) churches to be joined. Why stay and complain?
I am very bakward indeed but I like it. [SM=x40799]
27/11/2005 22:28
 
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Signs of renewal in the Church
Yvonne- Exactly! If they find all sorts of things wrong with it, they should just leave!

Anyway, here's a good antidote for the renegades, an Advent message full of hope from a blogger on the excellent French site chretiente.info, which Sylvie indicated two days ago.

We owe Beatrice for calling attention to this article. In my translation, I have omitted most of the writer's brief introduction which consists of his reflections on Advent and a brief news item about his local church...

-------------------------------------------------------------

Advent - by D. Florent, 11/25/05

..Advent is a period of preparation for renewal...In France, as in the whole Christian world, Advent this year has a genuine taste of renewal.

Think: It’s the first Advent under our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI!. It will be his first Christmas (as Pope)! Yet what achievements already in just a few months! What a blessing our Pope is!

Why don’t we do a little tour of the “new days” that await us, and where we see the glimmerings of dawn, thanks to our Pope?

China – One perceives a number of rapprochements between the “two Churches”…since Benedict XVI has chosen to welcome the bishops of one as bishops of the other as well…

Vietnam – It is said that establishment of diplomatic relations with the Holy See is now just a matter of time!

Spain – Where, faced with a government that is increasingly taking anti-Christian measures, the people are expressing their sorrow, with as many as two million taking to the streets to protest…

Italy – Where the minister of health has just reminded his fellow citizens that it is necessary to respect human life! Maybe we should send our (French) ministers to train in Italy!

Poland – Which has just presented testimony in the very corridors of power of the “new Europe” about the tragedy of abortions performed routinely as institutional murders…

And France, yes in France itself – some initial bishops’ nominations that appear hopeful….A previous generation appears to have lost “weight” in the face of the new bishops who have the following in common: they have the Faith, they love the Pope, and they believe in the sacraments! Is that not modern?

Estonia- Where, for the first time in almost a century, the Bishop’s See in Tallinn, the capital, is occupied – and by a French bishop! He comes from the Opus Dei which has borne much magnificent fruit, but he learned the Estonian language and now conducts his flock towards the Lord.

In the whole Orthodox world- The dialogue with the Catholic Church is becoming richer and more sustained than ever before. Deo gratias!

And even on the part of the Pius X Fraternity, many recent signs indicate that the movement is slowly drifting back towards the Roman side.

May I be allowed a wish?
May I hope that each of you who reads these lines choose one of the causes mentioned above and make it your cause in your prayers?

May I hope that each of you can write to say, “I, So-and-So, choose this particular intention and I will pray for it during this Advent season”?

Please do so. Let us join our prayers to that of the Holy Father and his concrete actions.
27/11/2005 23:03
 
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Amen!
27/11/2005 23:14
 
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It is my intention...

May I hope that each of you can write to say, “I, So-and-So, choose this particular intention and I will pray for it during this Advent season”?



I NanMn, choose China and I will pray for it during this Advent season.

Great idea Teresa [SM=g27811] [SM=g27830]

28/11/2005 03:40
 
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Priestly misbehavior in Brazil
Remember Sandro Magister’s article on 11/18/05 about what takes place when Benedict XVI meets with his bishops at the Vatican? Some are praised, some are rebuked, some are taken by surprise.

He praised the Italian bishops for “the thorough insight and the united effort with which you assist your communities and the entire Italian nation in acting always for the true good of persons and society.” He was obviously commending them for their campaign in defense of the inviolability of the human being from the first moment of life, helping defeat a referendum issue that would have liberalized Italy’s laws regarding human embryos.

But he was blunt with the Austrian bishops whom he urged to “change course,” pointing to the “sorrowful” fact that “the process of secularization which is now increasingly significant for Europe did not even pause at the doors of Catholic Austria.”

He reminded them: “As you well know, the confession of the faith is one of the bishop’s primary duties...Prudence must not prevent us from presenting the Word of God in all its clarity, including those things that are heard less willingly or that consistently provoke reactions of protest and derision… Don’t deceive yourselves! Catholic teaching offered in an incomplete manner is a contradiction of itself and cannot be fruitful in the long term."

The Pope sprung his surprise on the Latin American bishops. As Magister recounts it:

”Halfway through the synod on the Eucharist, during a break in the work, the pope met with cardinals Francisco Javier Errázuriz, archbishop of Santiago, Chile and president of the Latin American bishops’ conference (CELAM); Pedro Rubiano, archbishop of Bogotá; Cláudio Hummes, archbishop of San Paolo, Brazil; and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires.

”The topic of their conversation was the upcoming general conference of CELAM, the fifth of these after the previous ones held in Rio de Janeiro in 1995, in Medellin in 1968, in Puebla in 1979, and in Santo Domingo in 1992.

”The conference was already set for 2007, but the place and the exact date remained to be determined. The four bishops were prepared to hold it in Rome, in order to ensure the pope’s participation in the work.

”But Benedict XVI said to them all of a sudden: ‘It will be held in Brazil,’ and immediately asked what the country’s most venerated Marian shrine is. ‘The Aparecida,’ they replied. And the pope:
‘In Brazil, at the Aparecida, in May. I’ll be there.’

”The four cardinals were taken completely by surprise. And so were the leaders of the Roman curia – the pope hadn’t discussed the matter with any of them. What induced Benedict XVI to choose Brazil may have been what Cardinal Hummes said at the synod a few days earlier:
’The number of Brazilians who declare themselves Catholics has diminished rapidly, on an average of 1% a year. In 1991 Catholic Brazilians were nearly 83%, today and according to new studies, they are barely 67%. We wonder with anxiety: how long will Brazil remain a Catholic country? In conformity with this situation, it has been found that in Brazil there are two Protestant pastors for each Catholic priest, and the majority from the Pentecostal Churches. Many indications show that the same is true for almost all of Latin America and here too we wonder: how long will Latin America remain a Catholic continent?’

”But the choice of the Aparecida also left the four cardinals speechless. That is indeed the most frequently visited shrine in Brazil, but it is located in an isolated part of the state of San Paolo, and it lacks the structures capable of hosting a large-scale continental congress.

”But none of the four cardinals dared to object. The pope had decided, and his reasons were all too clear. He has at heart a vigorous renewal of the Catholic faith on the Latin American continent, and symbols are very valuable in this regard.

”There’s time to build a convention center on the plain of the Aparecida, until May of 2007.


There may well be another reason for the Pope’s concern over Brazil. The Corriere della Sera, in an article published 11/21/05, says:

The Vatican is investigating 1,700 Brazillian priests – 10% of the total – who have been involved so far in sexual misconduct, including violation of children and women.

The Brazilian weekly magazine Istoe reported that in September, the Pope sent a commission to Brazil to investigate widespread reports of sexual misconduct by priests, mostly committed on poor boys. The commission reportedly found that-
·some 50% of Brazilian priests do not keep their vows of chastity; and
·in the last 3 years, more than 200 priests have been sent to psychiatric clinics run by the Church to be “re-educated.”

The Brazilian media has been reporting cases like the following:

A 10-yar-old boy told his grandmother what he had been afraid to tell his mother for fear of being slapped. Father Edson Alves dos Santos, a 64-year-old priest, had raped him and warned him to keep silent about it, or else he would be arrested. It started when he presented himself on Easter Sunday last year to be an altar boy. There followed 5 months of being violated.

Last week, Father Felix Barbosa Carriero was arrested during an orgy of sex and drugs with four adolescents he had recruited through the Internet.

Father Tarcisio Tadeu Spricigo, recently imprisoned after being found guilty of raping a 5-year-old boy, was convicted by his own written testimony. He kept a diary which amounts to a manual on pedophilia, in which he noted his feelings, as well the rules he set himself in order not to be caught.
One of them: Never do it with rich kids.

He wrote: “I prepare myself for the hunt, and I look around serene in the thought that I can have any boy I want without ever lacking a supply, because poor children are the safest in the world..I will never lack for kids whom I can rely on, who are sensual, and who will keep everything in total secrecy – kids who feel the lack of a father and who live only with their mother. They are everywhere….Therefore, I am sure and I have no apprehensions. I am a seductor, and after I have applied my rules correctly, the boy falls straight into my hands, and we will be happy forever.”

The priest, who was re-assigned to another post after the first complaint was filed against him, went on to rape two other boys before he was finally taken into custody.

Father Alfieri Edoardo Bompani, 45 years old, brought street urchins to a country house belonging to his order, on the pretext that he was rescuing them from drug addiction. But he videotaped his assaults on victims who were aged 6 to 10! The police also found a notebook of erotic stories which the priest had written to recount his personal experience. The stories were reportedly couched in such crude language that the magazine could not find anything it could suitably quote.


-------------------------------------------------------------

This why Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in the meditations and prayers he wrote for the Way of the Cross earlier this year, exclaimed in agony:

“How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!”

It is worth re-reading the Meditation and Prayer that he wrote on the 9th Station of the Cross:

MEDITATION
What can the third fall of Jesus under the Cross say to us? We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there! How often is his Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall! All this is present in his Passion. His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison – Lord, save us (cf. Mt 8: 25).
PRAYER
Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all
.

P.S. Brazil is not included among the "national" causes listed in an article above to pray for this Advent, but I am choosing Spain and Brazil to pray for - Spain, because I deplore what is becoming of what was once perhaps the most Catholic nation on earth, and Brazil because it is just too huge a population to for Catholicism to lose!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/11/2005 3.46]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/11/2005 3.49]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/11/2005 1.11]

29/11/2005 00:45
 
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P.S. on Abbe Pierre
Bloomberg.com did a pretty comprehensive round-up today.
The story goes further than we reported here earlier, in that it quotes the Abbe berating the Vatican for, among other things, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, its "macho mentality," and Rome's authority over local churches. He also compares U.S. actions in the Middle East to the worst of the Crusades.

The link is www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aryr3GE390hY&refer=europe

Sorry, I can't seem to get it to link by clicking on the URL. But if you lift the whole www....address and paste it on to the Google search box, you will get the article.
29/11/2005 07:49
 
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Abbe Pierre and my intentions
And he was my hero!!!!!!!!!! [SM=g27825]
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I will pray for Estonia and the dialog with the Orthodox church.
Actually I ave already done it today morning after the mass at 6.30 am, so called here "roraty" from Latin Advent song "Rorate coeli de super...". Beautiful early morning mass - traditionally children and adults bring little lights to the church and the mass starts in complete darkness with only little candles flickering. Uplifting.
[SM=x40790]
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