Full Solidarity with Pope Francis - Cardinals

[BarbTherese]

http://cathnews.com/cathnews/33064-cardinals-express-full-solidarity-with-pope

Excerpt "The September session of the council was the first since news broke in late June about an investigation finding credible sexual abuse allegations against then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, since the release in mid-August of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on how six dioceses handled abuse allegations and since the publication in late August of a document by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former nuncio to the United States, alleging that Pope Francis knew of now-Archbishop McCarrick’s sexual misconduct yet allowed him to continue in active ministry."

 

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Catholic Culture News Headlines

https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=38535

Edited September 11, 2018 by BarbaraTherese

[truthfinder]

I mean what else are they going to say ? They're handpicked by the pope, and 4/9 were all mentioned in Vigano's letter.  And it took them more than 3 weeks to even say this.

We live in interesting times.

[Guest]

Personally, my mind is still open on the scandals because it is still an unfolding situation.  I don't think the situation is going to get better, but far worse.  Who is culpably at fault and who is not among us all is still unfolding and from the top down.   I am not going to be surprised when it does get worse.  Grieved but not surprised.

Catholics who will stay in for the long haul and who will not is another unfolding situation.

"The devil made me do it" is an old cliche that does not hold water, none at all - never could, never does.  We all have sufficient Grace to resist temptation no matter the origin.  It is my own weakness when I give in to temptation.  Personally, I do think that Satan is very much involved in the current scandal unfoldings because it is rocking the Church to Her foundations (which remain firm -  Jesus for all time) and those abused have been children - the most innocent, vulnerable, naive and trusting of all -beloved by Jesus.  The abusers have been among our leadership, Graced by Holy Orders, one of the most astounding Graces of all.  Leadership most probably trusted.  It is a terrible and nauseating situation.  It is a situation where words just fail.   Even if Satan is deeply involved, Grace for all is sufficient to resist Satan and its temptations.

Jesus has told us in Matthew that "scandal must come but woe betide from whom it comes" - prophecy.

All Catholics have a vital part to play and that is through prayer and penance.  

Am I doing my part?

I was asked yesterday how I stayed a practising Catholic.  "Because my investment is not in the human element of The Church.  I lost that illusion in my teens (not due to sexual abuse).  That illusion was crushed never to rise again - most thankfully.  Deo Gratius"

There are these lines in a Psalm in The Hours - Psalm 146:

"Put no trust in princes, in children of Adam powerless to save.

Who breathing his last, returns to the earth;

that day all his planning comes to nothing."  http://www.usccb.org/bible/psalms/146

 

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"Demonic Activity and Church Scandals"

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/sexual-abuse-and-the-priesthood/demonic-activity-and-church-scandals.html

n an article about becoming the solution, Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., founder and president of the Ruth Institute, pointed out that if abusers thought people would speak up and be listened to, they would not have gotten away with so much for so long.  If people had listened to poor "James," when he was abused at 11-years-old, the now 60-year-old man abused by Father Theodore McCarrick, would not have had to suffer in silence for decades.  "James tried to tell his parents," Morse wrote.  "They did not believe him, against the word of a respected priest.  James began getting into trouble, doing alcohol and drugs.  The family thought Father McCarrick could straighten him out.  They encouraged him to spend more time with their son."

Father Thomas noted that sexual abuse involving children, both inside and outside of the Church, is especially heinous.  "By sexually abusing children, Satan desires to destroy the icon of the kingdom of God.  He wants to destroy the most innocent version of humanity, which is the child."

The scandalous behaviour.............read MORE on above link

Quote

 

Excerpt from the link:

"Pray and Fast

For the sake of the Church, Father Thomas calls on all Catholics to pray and fast and to act wherever possible to root out evil.  "It can't just be the removal of a few," Father Thomas said.  "It has to be a complete reshaping of the paradigm of the way our Church governs; we need a complete cleaning up.  We need a lay commission to set up an independent study.  The bishops can't do it; they don't know how to do it."

In his work as an exorcist, Father Thomas fasts and prays before confronting the devil.  He pointed out that he does so in a reasonable way — not starving himself to the point of weakness — but makes it sacrificial to strengthen him to fight evil.  "Prayer, fasting and the sacraments are efficacious," Father Thomas said, "but it cannot be without the intentionality of action that comes out of prayer.  We want prayer to change us and we are praying for a change in the whole Church, all the way up.  And we are also praying for the victims who have gone through decades of terrible trauma."

Father Thomas encouraged Catholics to be strong and be prepared to persevere.  "We are in for a long storm," he said.  "The clouds are just starting.  However, our primary concern must be the victims who have been violated and firmly and without doubt prevent new victimizations from taking place in the future.  There can be no tolerance for sexual misconduct perpetrated by clergy or lay people within the Church now or ever again."

 

 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

  "By sexually abusing children, Satan desires to destroy the icon of the kingdom of God.  He wants to destroy the most innocent version of humanity, which is the child."

Well worth repeating methinks!

 It has been said that the most clever deceit of Satan is to convince that it does not exist........and in our day many have indeed been lulled, deceived and blinded re the reality of Satan and its wrathful and vicious, disgustingly filthy, nature.  Now we are seeing it coming out into the open and the sheer destructive, evil and malevolent, pernicious nature of that beast for all to ponder through the nature of these horrific crimes, committed by those in Holy Orders, whose crimes defeat my imagination even.

The extent of the evil of Satan cannot be expressed accurately in words, we can only somewhere approximate with hope - and even then know one falls far short, shorter than shortest.........somewhere around there possibly.  

 

Quote

The following is from the same article I posted previously on the demonic activity and Church scandals:  https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/sexual-abuse-and-the-priesthood/demonic-activity-and-church-scandals.html

" "It has to be a complete reshaping of the paradigm of the way our Church governs; we need a complete cleaning up.  We need a lay commission to set up an independent study.  The bishops can't do it; they don't know how to do it."  

I underscore the above too - has my vote. 

Satan knows that in the end it will loose and Jesus will be victorious.  Until then, Satan will strive to take as many as it can souls to Hell literally and to a hell on earth of suffering for victims of its evils.  The motivating force that boils and pustules in Satan is a hatred so extreme, we just do not have the word to summarise it.  It hates God, it hates Jesus, it hates The Church, it hates the slightest good to the greatest - and it vehemently hates us all too.

The Dominican nun who taught me in college said "If Satan can see even one inch of good about to be effected, it will shift heaven and earth if it could to prevent it".

Never diminish Satan in any way at all.