Not a bad day, a bad Church and it's the present Pontiff mostly to blame for giving us it to us. I wish I could be in a warm and comfortable place of believing in him, but I've seen and heard too much. But, yes, I wish I could get back to the safety and comfort of believing in him. It's very,very cold and uncomfortable place to be asking very hard questions about a reigning Roman Pontiff.. But it was Jesus Himself who told us that the Truth will set us free, so I'll just have to stay uncomfortable. Maybe if I tell myself often often he's had some very sudden conversion experience myself I might even start and get back to that warm safe place with you.. But I doubt it.
Deep down, I know you're right. For someone who rabbits on and on about trusting in God, I need to practice what I preach.
I think deep down Leftists truly admire Hitler. After all, Hitler was just putting Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” into practice. Hitler practiced what Darwin preached. Like most Leftists I’ve had the misfortune of meeting, Hitler was also a new-ager and loved the writings of Nietzsche. If Hitler was a precursor of the Antichrist, Nietzsche was surely a precursor of the False Prophet.
You've called it Dolours. Good idea to pray for his successor. I still pray for PF in every rosary and for BXVI too but PF is off my radar these days. To avoid sin I keep clear of him and let God and Our Lady sort him out. I pray for his salvation but I'm better off steering clear of his speeches and remarks.
Well said DeGaulle. I keep reminding myself God permitted this and all things work toward good for those who love God so...gotta pray for more trust.
I know many are forlorn at all that has happened and the prospect of praying for Pope Francis. Even to the point of giving up. But remember this: It is when we are most lost that we need prayers the most. How many of us have children who have gone astray? Would we give up on praying for them? How much more then should we pray for the man who is given the duty of guiding them. Prayer is our only weapon at this point. Stopping prayer for the Pope is like giving up. Remember even if we cannot totally turn things around through prayer, we can mitigate the bad things that are happening. Perhaps the very Catholic statements the Pope just made about marriage and abortion were a direct result of prayer. What would he have said without those prayers? It is not only the Pope who is being tested right now but each one of us. Please everyone continue to pray for the Pope. The only one who wants prayers to cease for the Pontiff is the devil.
“If God exists, then there is always something to hope for, even when no human voice can any longer summon me to hope.“ Pope Benedict XVI
Maybe I am wrong but Pope Francis behaves mostly like a politician -- he is a leftist in much of his thinking -- I may be wrong but he does not seem to be concerned about the salvation of souls!
But I respect his comments about abortion. Perhaps, our prayers are being heard and he will surprise us all. The preaching of the final destination of souls which the Church encases in the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Hell and Heaven) has never been more necessary than at the present time. The 4 Last things are the ultimate reality -- Over to you Pope Francis ---
Pope Francis is a uniquely bad Pope and one that is driving all that hold the true Faith half-demented. It will probably get worse and might not ever get better. Nevertheless, Pope Emeritus Benedict chose to retire and we have insufficient reason to do anything other than accept Pope Francis as our Pope, no matter how cold and uncomfortable it gets (and I am in exactly the same position as that which you eloquently describe), because the alternative, to completely reject him, is currently unthinkable. There's a harsh lesson for us all-we can believe in no mere man. Only; The Way, The Truth and The Life. He didn't make the extraordinary statement, "But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?", for nothing. Our Lord was aware that, though the Faith might come to something which all might take for granted, distributed all around the world, as it is, man might let it all slip through his fingers. I had a thought yesterday, at Mass. The priest prayed that we accept and welcome immigrants at the Prayers for the Faithful. I had my usual knee-jerk reaction about invading Mohammedans and the collapse of Western Civilisation. Then it dawned on me that God paints in broad brush-strokes and that His Time is not our time. Maybe, Western Civilisation has only been a vehicle for His spread of the Faith, but this civilisation has inherent self-destructive qualities which now ensure that it has run its course, having done its job of getting the Faith around the world, and is in the process of destroying itself. What about it? It's not an idol. God's main purpose is the salvation of as many souls as He can. This may require the collapse and complete destruction of almost every worldly good thing we know. Every temporal certainty we have is in the very painful process of complete collapse. The future is the rise of the Faith among the demographically-exploding sub-Saharan Africans who are going to numerically overwhelm us all, and perhaps even including the Mohammedans. This, of course, would be a process of centuries. Rest in Peace, Western Civilisation, God lives.
Hitler, and all of the leading Nazis, were great Progressives. They had great faith in technology and the transformation of man, including via genetic means. The Nazis (National Socialists) came from the Left, a counter to the rise of Bolshevism in Germany. Mussolini also was of the Left. Franco, who dropped them completely when he no longer needed their help to defeat Spanish Bolshevism, was the only one of this trio of dictators to come from the Right.
