Ad multos annos!

 Today is the 5th anniversary of the election of the Holy Father, Benedict XVI!

Pope weeps with victims of sex abuse

VALLETTA (AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI wept during meetings with Maltese victims of the paedophile priest scandals rocking the Roman Catholic Church and expressed his own "shame and sorrow."

"He listened to us individually, and prayed and cried with us," said Lawrence Grech, one of eight abuse victims who met the pope for 25 minutes in the Vatican's embassy in Malta. [According to Fr. Z, Grech is one of the most vocal about the scandal.]

The Vatican said Sunday that Benedict had "expressed his shame and sorrow over what victims and their families have suffered."

The pope "prayed with them and assured them that the Church is doing, and will continue to do, all in its power to investigate allegations (and) to bring to justice those responsible for abuse," a Vatican statement said.

Benedict promised the victims "effective measures designed to safeguard young people in the future," it added.

"I was impressed by the humility of the pope," Grech told AFP.

"He was ready to take on the embarrassment (for deeds) done by others. He was very courageous...
"He even blessed a cross I had and thanked me for speaking out about the abuse," he added, struggling to hold back his tears. [Hey Obama-maniacs!  Will your idol do this too?]

Earlier, he said, he had wanted an apology: but now his anger had subsided and he was satisfied with his meeting with the pope, "the topmost person who could have listened to me and my story."

"I will continue my battle, not against the Church but against paedophilia." [Which is the real battle.  The mainstream media and the liberal hacks are directing their energies against the Church.  Now you see who the real agents of evil are.]

Malta recently joined the list of countries shattered by paedophilia priest scandals in the past several months.

Grech and other members of the group gave a press conference last week at which they told how they were abused at an orphanage in central Malta run by priests.

Benedict, who met with victims in Australia and the United States in 2008, has come under increasing pressure over allegations that the Vatican hierarchy, himself included, helped protect predator priests.

While the Vatican and senior bishops have rallied around the pope, the Catholic leadership has faced mounting pressure to repair the Church's image. [Which liberals and modernists like McBrien, Kung, Pfelger Pro-choice Obama nuns are doing!]

On the flight to Malta on Saturday, the pope said Church had been "wounded by our sins".
"Malta loves Christ who loves his Church which is his body, even if this body is wounded by our sins," he said.

Predominantly Catholic Malta, where one in three children under 16 attend Catholic schools, has itself been hit by numerous abuse cases.

The Maltese Church revealed recently that a paedophilia "response team" it set up in 1999 had received allegations against 45 priests.

Although nearly half of these had been ruled groundless, it added: "For the Church, every case is one too many."

Malta has also been scandalised by revelations that a suspected paedophile priest has retired here from Canada.

Amid the global furore over paedophile priests, the pope has faced an uphill battle in getting across the messages he had planned for Malta -- notably on immigration.

Malta is the smallest member of the European Union with a population of some 443,000. It lies halfway between Sicily and the north African coast, and took in a record nearly 3,000 boat people in 2008.

Hundreds remain crowded into detention centres awaiting word of their fate.

Benedict has called several times over the past few months for fair and human solutions on the issue.

Malta has one priest for every 490 Catholics, compared with a global average of one in nearly 2,900, according to Church statistics.

Abortion is illegal though an increasing number of Maltese are in favour of overturning the ban on divorce.[which does not make it right!  Go to 1940s Germany and it is legal to kill those who are "unpure".  Same logic we have for those who are fighting for abortion.]

During the visit the pope reiterated the Vatican's anti-divorce stance. [which is the REAL REASON why the "rights activist" are mad against the Holy Father!]

"Your nation should continue to stand up for the indissolubility of marriage," he said. "And for the true nature of the family, just as it does for the sacredness of human life from conception to natural death."

Benedict left Malta in the evening to return to the Vatican, completing his 14th overseas trip since 2005 and the first this year.

***

You can feel the Holy Father's pain...

for the pain the victims are suffering and how he empathizes with them...
for the pain he is suffering for the faults his priests committed...
for the sheer incompetence and lack of commitment to their duties of his bishops...

Pray, pray, pray...

Grrr!!!!

I was working on my laptop last Friday.  The usual stuff:  office work and of course, blogging.

I got an update notification from Windows so I updated my Win Vista.  It's legal because its an OEM version.

So after the update, it prompted me to restart.

After rebooting, lo and behold, I cannot connect to the Internet either via WiFi, LAN or even using my N51 cellphone.

I did all that I could think of to get connected again and still nothing.

The only solution left is for me to use the Recovery Disk of my Toshiba laptop which unfortunately did not come with it.  Mine was bought from the US and the guy who bought it says it does not have one when he bought it but the others that we bought have the disk.

GRRRR!!!!!

Now I am stick with my laptop doing MS Office applications and running multimedia files.  As for emails and blogging, I am using an officemates computer.

So until then...

Pray that...

...Laptop gets fixed miraculously!

...Microsoft fixes this problem which their update caused in the first place!

...My boss gives me a new laptop!  HUZZAH!

RANT TIME: More horrific vestements and more...

As requested by Ben Vallejo...

Okay...

Open wide and say....

AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

And the popesa herself...

AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

***

Kidding aside...

Liturgical color is not there for sheer fashion.  Liturgical colors are specific colours which are used for the vestments and other specific hangings used inside the church during the Liturgy.  The colors are used to convey the specific mood of the specific season or occasion of the Liturgy being celebrated.  It works just as much as we use color in specific civil or secular occasions.

So with that kaleidoscopic version of a vestment, what is the liturgical color and what is the liturgical season?  Maybe for them, the rainbow is a color.


When you talk to modernist priests about this, you get the rebuke of "You are too legalistic!"  or "You are too rigid!."  Then, if that is the case...

Who will we follow?  If we do not have laws or regulations, whose directive or rule or we going to follow?


Yours, Father Kung?  These dissidents would not want you "to take anything that comes out of Rome."  They just want you to listen to them and that's it.  Don't question.

Food for thought...

Anarchists and "freedom fighters" would tell you not to follow any rule...just theirs.

You might the ask why I am taking such length at discussing this when it what I showed was Episcopalians.  Don't be so sure.  Some Catholic priests look up to the Episcopalians and wanted our beloved Catholic Church to be like them:  decentralized, married clergy, women priests and bishops, practicing gay bishop, gay marriage, contraception, liturgical dancing...

Lawlessness in simple liturgical vestments and colors is just the tip of the iceberg on dissent.

The way the Episcopalians and Anglicans have redefined what was written in the Bible is complete and utter perversion of the Judeo-Christian tradition of what we all believe.  Quite frankly, perversion is an understatement.

So, if your priest is guilty of any liturgical violations, it means any of the two:

1.  He is uninformed of the liturgical laws of the Church and plans to stay that way because quite frankly that is how most Catholic seminaries work today.

and...

2.  They know the liturgical laws but opt not to follow it because "this is Vatican 2!".  Quite frankly, you must be on the lookout for these types.  They are like these...

More than meets the eye!

The Holy Father smacks inculturation at Mass!

 "The lack of attention which is sometimes provided for the cult of the Blessed Sacrament is a sign and cause of the darkening of the Christian sense of mystery, as when at Mass, Jesus no longer appears as central, but [instead] a community busy with many things rather than being recollected and drawn to their unique need: Our Lord. However, the primary and essential attitude of the Christian faithful who participate in liturgical celebration is not to do, but to listen, open up, receive... Obviously, in this case to receive does not mean to be passive or indifferent to what happens there, but to cooperate... If from the liturgy the figure of Christ does not emerge... we would not have the Christian liturgy..."

"How are distant from all this are those who, in the name of inculturation, fall into syncretism by introducing rites borrowed from other religions or cultural particularities into the celebration of Holy Mass [Ouch!  That's gotta hurt Fr. Anscar!] (cf. Redemptionis Sacramentum 79)! The Eucharistic mystery is 'too great a gift' -- wrote my venerable predecessor, Pope John Paul II -- 'to tolerate ambiguities or reductions,' above all when, 'stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet.'"

"...worship cannot be born from our imagination, which would be a cry in the darkness or a simple self-affirmation. True liturgy presupposes that God responds and shows us how we can worship Him."


***

Ad multos annos!  Benedetto XVI! 

Supreme Knight in the Philippines!

Supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus (KofC), Carl A. Anderson and his wife, Dorian, arrive at the Mactan International Airport in Cebu City Thursday for the KofC Philippines' 8th National Convention. Anderson is the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the world’s largest Catholic family fraternal service organization, which has more than 1.78 million members.

Courtesy of CBCPNews

AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Anglican Church...

A kaleidoscope liturgy!

***

What could have been the liturgical season this Anglican bishop is celebrating?  Hmmm...

Extra-ordinary season?

Pretty confused with the colors, right?  Reflects their current situation.

Look who celebrated Ad Deum at the Sistine Chapel

Obviously, it was not only Benedict XVI who celebrated the Mass towards the Lord "post Vatican 2".  This means it is not only Benedict's view.

But why the resistance of most of the bishops?

Sometimes...they are just too full of themselves.

Commentary by Hilary White, Rome correspondent

ROME, April 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Quite honestly, when I saw that Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens had told the British media they plan to have Pope Benedict XVI arrested and charged with “crimes against humanity,” during his visit to Britain in September, my first reaction was somewhat different from those of most of my friends and colleagues here in Rome. Whereas most of them burst out laughing, I felt like cringing in embarrassment on behalf of these two men, particularly for Professor Dawkins. [I too feel the same way.  Pitiful.]


The fact that Dawkins, and his henchman Hitchens, believe, apparently with utter seriousness, [self hypnosis maybe] that they can arrest Pope Benedict during his visit, indicates a disconnection from reality that ought to prompt the sympathetic attention of a competent physician.
 
Professor Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and ethologist, held the Oxford University Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science and is the author of many books, including The God Delusion - a title I find increasingly ironic.

He told the Times on Sunday that Pope Benedict should be arrested for helping to cover up the crimes of priests who abused young people, under the same provisions that allowed former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to be detained and deported. The pope, Dawkins said, “is a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence.” [His only body of evidence is the NYT article.  That's a university professor talking to you.  Pitiful.  Really.]

He is backed up by Christopher Hitchens, another evangelical atheist [quite an ironic term, isn't it?] – though more forthrightly a political campaigner with no pretensions to scientific objectivity – and two lawyers who are clearly delighted to take their no doubt massive fees to tell the media, with perfectly deadpan expressions, that they have “come to the view” that “the Vatican is not actually a state in international law,” and so Pope Benedict has no immunity from prosecution as a head of state.

“There is every possibility of legal action against the Pope occurring,” Stephens said, apparently with not the slightest hint of a smirk. The two have announced they are assembling a legal case to have the pope detained and charged in September. Let us hope that they remember to inform the 179 countries that maintain diplomatic relations with the Holy See. [Tell it to the marines!]

The absurdity of the proposal, and its defiant refusal to acknowledge the facts of the matter [which most anti-Catholics do] – including the fact that Benedict has been completely exonerated of the charges made recently by the New York Times and other media – demonstrates that Professor Dawkins is suffering from the special kind of delusions that can occur when a massive ego combines with a willing and enabling audience of reporters.

He likes to be known as a champion of “rational” and “scientific” thought and asserts that since no one can see, feel, hear, touch, taste or smell God, or measure him in a graduated flask, there must not be one.  But, not content with holding this fundamentalist version of materialism himself, Dawkins has remade himself as a kind of atheistic witchfinder general. His vituperative hatred for religion, and for Catholicism in particular, has transformed his public persona from respected man of science to that of increasingly shrill and humorless pedant. A crank, who does not know when the world is laughing at him. And it is sad. [Again...pitiful.]

His insults, his weird rants on his blog, his refusal substantively to address any particular point about religion in debates, his demonstrable ignorance of the simplest theological concepts, and now his apparently sincere belief that he can have the pope arrested, have reduced him to a laughingstock.[Maybe andropause?]

With this latest media stunt, that Catholic Herald editor and Daily Telegraph blogger Damian Thompson has called “monstrously silly,” Dawkins has placed himself in the company of flat-earthers and people who think the moon landings were faked, with crackpots and conspiracy theorists, too blinded by their religious mania to see that the world is not laughing with them, but at them.

Because (and here the irony gets even thicker) atheism is itself a religious proposal. [AMEN TO THAT!!!] To say there is no God is a statement of religious belief. It cannot be proved scientifically, or even logically, that God does not exist. It is a matter of faith. [AMEN TO THAT AGAIN!!!] In effect, therefore, Richard Dawkins has himself become a religious fanatic.

But laugh, or cry, as we might, there is a serious side to all this: these men are using the misery and suffering of the victims of horrible sexual crimes for their own political purposes, and worse, for their own self-aggrandizement. [Which is so true.  Liberal and nominal Catholics are joining the ganging up on the Pope!] The frenzy of pope-bashing that has gone on since Holy Week is an insult not only to the man who has done more than any other religious or political leader to put a stop to the sexual abuse of young people, but to those who have suffered from the crimes and those who have tried to help them.

This is a good moment for the British government to say it is not playing along. It is unlikely that the Vatican
will deign to respond to this with any official statement, but if the government wants to avoid embarrassing Her Majesty, it would be well for there to be some distancing from this latest project of Dawkins. It is one thing for the media to play along with such foolishness, but in the lead-up to a closely contested general election, Gordon Brown cannot afford to alienate millions of Catholic voters. [Well, politicians would definitely do this especially when the election is just right around the corner.  But expect a quick change of colors AFTER the election.]

There is an interesting historical note in all this. There was, in fact, one person in history, after the fall of the Roman Empire, who actually did succeed in arresting a pope.

In 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte, who imagined himself the successor of Charlemagne, declared that the territories ruled by Pope Pius VII, the Papal States, were to be annexed to the French empire. When Pius declared Napoleon excommunicate, the Emperor “arrested” him – historians say kidnapped – and held him prisoner for six years.

It is notable that upon Napoleon’s defeat and imprisonment on the remote island of St. Helena, Pius VII begged the British government to treat his former captor more gently. [Napoleon died of stomach cancer not of arsenic poisoning.]

It is to be hoped that Professor Dawkins has not yet come to the point where he believes he is Napoleon, but if he has, I am confident that our current pope, known for his gentleness and courtly good manners, will be as solicitous for his welfare as was his predecessor for that of the former Emperor.

***

Dawkins and Hitches are so full of fury against Catholics and the Pope.

Let's see Dawkins and Hitchens do the same to Islam... Will they do it?

Nah..  I don't think so.  The reason?  Your guess is as good as mine.

Look! They are kneeling!

Notice how they receive communion...in the tongue while kneeling!

Here's another view of the altar.  Notice the altar to the wall with the six candelabras which means that the priest turns his back from the people! (gasp!)


Don't worry libs...This is NOT a Catholic Church even if it looks like one and they act like one.


These photos are from...(DRUM ROLL PLEASE!)

Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church in Catawba, North Carolina.

Looks can be deceiving eh?

Take a look at this one.  They say they are Catholic.

Rita Ferrone would not dare answer my question about the effects of liturgical inculturation!

I checked on the thread of my discussion with Rita Ferrone on Pray Tell Blog and how she exults the inculturation (which I call adulteration) as espoused by Anscar Chupungco.  I posted it here and am awaiting her response.  I posted my response too to my questions about her painting of the picture of  the great work inculturation did in the growth of the Church in Asia and Africa.

She denies implying or saying that inculturation was instrumental in the growth of the Church in those continents yet she keeps on quoting statistics and even dares ask “Why is this growth happening if liturgical inculturation is driving people away?”

Guess what I found?

My last post was deleted.  She did not answer my question.  It seems she makes it appear that I did not answer her question.

Just as I posted...

This is a classic example of active participation in their own terms.  When you actively participate in discussions such as these, they shut you off and make you appear stupid.

They hate the "centrality" of the Church just as how John Paul II and Benedict XVI did and is doing it.  They hate the hierarchical church.  They hate it when authorities impose on them.  They want more democracy in discussions and in governance. Yet here they are... 

As if you do not know anything about your faith, your patrimony...

These are the real communists...the real dictators and tyrants!  Never wanting anyone to question what they want their Church to be.


Hippies...

Vatican puts abuse rules online to quell critics

Courtesy of Reuters

***

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican published an online guide on Monday to rules for handling sex abuse charges against priests and defended the pope's handling of the media storm, saying he was a "great communicator in his own way."


Just over a year after Pope Benedict acknowledged the Holy See had been slow to embrace the Internet, after mishandling the case of a Holocaust-denying bishop, the Vatican posted an "idiot's guide" to its rules on how to deal with abuse charges.

Although the rules are not new, their publication in a short, simple format reflects the Roman Catholic Church's determination to deflect criticism that its response to the sex abuse scandal has been bureaucratic, secretive and defensive. [The local bishops should have handled it immediately and not wait for the Vatican's response since the Holy See's responsibility is the suspension or laicization of the priest in question!]

Official website www.vatican.va called it an "introductory guide which may be helpful to lay persons and non-canonists " to rules for local churches on how to respond to sex abuse allegations. [So it is for the laity and not for the bishops or religious superiors.]

It made clear high up that bishops must report crimes to the police, [Oops.  I stand corrected.] saying "civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed."  [Just like what I said.  It is their primary job because it is both a canonical and even a civil or even criminal matter.  Leave the canonical issue to the Holy See.  BUT the mainstream media wants all of us to think that even criminal prosecution is in the hands of the Pope!  NOOOOO!!!  Obviously, the local bishop must report this his local civil authorities or even put the priest in preventive suspension.  He may even launch his own investigation to see who really is at fault.  Was the priest really guilty or is the suspect making up stories?  If the latter part is true, then I suggest those conniving liars should be brought to justice!]

Bishops should probe every allegation, and any accusation with "a semblance of the truth" referred to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. [That's it.]

This enforcement body once run by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, is under fire from people representing victims of abuse for having responded too late or too leniently. [and from people with twisted agenda like married clergy, women priests, abortion rights...]

The brief document said that "in very grave cases where a civil criminal trial has found the cleric guilty of sexual abuse," the pope himself can be asked to dismiss the priest.

One victims' association, U.S.-based SNAP, [most of the time, this group goes beyond their limits.] called for "deeds, not words" and said "church policies, whether online or not, are largely irrelevant" as bishops could easily ignore them. [oh come on.]

"GREAT COMMUNICATOR"
The Vatican's response to media reporting of the abuse cases has often appeared defensive. It took the unusual step of chiding the New York Times [aka New York Slime or Hell's Bible] by name for being in "attack mode" regarding the pope's response, when he was a cardinal, to the abuse of 200 deaf boys by a priest in the 1950s and 60s. [That's the way to do it.  Enough of the meek lamb approach.]

Last weekend a Vatican lawyer accused the media of a "rush to judgement" over accusations that Ratzinger, before being elected pope, tried to impede the defrocking of a Californian priest who sexually abused children.

The editor of Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano tried to portray the bookish Benedict, whose lack of media savvy is often contrasted with his charismatic predecessor John Paul II, as a pontiff who "may write by hand but is very sensitive to matters of communication" in the Internet age.

"The pope is a great communicator too, in his own way," said the editor, Giovanni Maria Vian. "Everyone has their own way of communicating depending on their personality. But it could be done better, this is true."

Speaking to foreign correspondents in Rome, Vian criticised poor standards of reporting. He toned down talk by some Vatican insiders of a plot against the pope, calling it "ridiculous," but said there was clearly a media campaign afoot. [there really is no doubt about it.]

He added that John Paul II had been subjected to such a campaign that contributed to the attempt on his life in 1981, and spoke of the "dangers" of defaming the present pontiff. [When JP2 spoke against women clergy and married clergy, he too was demonized by the press and the likes of Kung and McBrien.]

Vian blamed media outlets needing stories to counter sinking sales, as well as hostility to the Church. [HA!] He predicted that "more cases will emerge because the campaign will continue, but eventually readers will get bored." [!]

The editor said the pope was "calm as usual" and he denied reports "that the pope is alone and that the Vatican is a nest of vipers. I can say quite honestly that the Church is behind the pope and that there are no unfaithful servants."

***

It will be a matter of time when Satan possesses one media outlet here in the Philippines and they unleash a barrage of attacks against the Church in the Philippines just to get into Hell's bandwagon.

Calling all Filipino bishops.  No time for complacency.  Set up the rules and guidelines even if the media is not making enough noise.

Remember...we build fire escapes in our homes and offices even if there is no fire.  It is called preparedness.