The Vatican Received A Refugee Family

A September 6. 2015, article entitled The Pope opens the Vatican to refugees, calls on Europe's churches to follow suit [1] began with this paragraph:

In light of the massive refugee crisis in Europe, Pope Francis announced Sunday that he will give temporary housing in the Vatican to at least two refugee families and asked that every European parish, monastery, and shrine to do the same. [2]

On September 18, 2015, the Vatican had chosen a family of four from Syria to be housed at St. Anne's parish. [3]

This blogger confesses that he did not believe that the pope would actually make good on his promise and is surprised and happy that he did even though the gesture is merely symbolic and in his opinion, merely for show.  What continues to trouble this blogger is the temporariness of the housing arrangement for this family.

When does this temporary period end?  If it is only temporary, then when will they be kicked out?  When they are asked to leave, where would the Vatican send them?

Given that these four members of the refugee family are not illegal immigrants wanting better economic opportunities but what if they, like the many millions of illegal aliens that have taken up residence illegally in another country, want to stay and demand they be afforded their legal rights and health benefits?  What will this pope do?  Perhaps he ought to replay on video his lecture to the United States Congress to remind him of his own words [4], [5]:

In recent centuries, millions of people came to this land to pursue their dream of building a future in freedom. We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners. I say this to you as the son of immigrants, knowing that so many of you are also descended from immigrants. Tragically, the rights of those who were here long before us were not always respected. For those peoples and their nations, from the heart of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and appreciation. Those first contacts were often turbulent and violent, but it is difficult to judge the past by the criteria of the present. Nonetheless, when the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past. We must resolve now to live as nobly and as justly as possible, as we educate new generations not to turn their back on our “neighbors” and everything around us. Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal subsidiarity, in a constant effort to do our best. I am confident that we can do this.

Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions. On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Mt 7:12).

Perhaps what this pope ought to also keep in mind are these words of Jesus (referring to the legal scholars and the Pharisees) and ask himself if his symbolic gesture will save him: "They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders [6], but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." [7]  And "[w]oe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence." [8]


[1] http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/09/06/pope-opens-the-vatican-to-refugees-calls-on-europes-churches-to-follow-suit/
[2] Ibid., accessed October 19, 2015.
[3] http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/09/18/vatican-welcomes-its-first-family-of-refugees-following-popes-appeal/
[4] http://abcnewsradioonline.com/politics-news/pope-francis-gives-historic-speech-to-congress.html
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBM7DIeMsP0
[6] In this case, the burden is being placed on the shoulders of the custodians of St. Anne's parish.  Certainly, this pope is not going to take care of this refugee family personally.  He simply delegated his well-intentioned work to others, most likely without the least bit of guilt.
[7] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23%3A4&version=NIV
[8] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23%3A25&version=NIV

Do They Know Or Know Not What They Do?

On the cross, Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." [1]

This blogger has no clue as to what Jesus meant by the words in Jesus' last prayer [2] but proceeds with his analysis anyway.

First of all, who were the ones that Jesus asked His Father to forgive, Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Roman soldiers, members of the Sanhedrin, the people who called for his crucifixion and those who stood by with indifference?  Or was Jesus speaking prospectively as well, to the current church leaders who pay lip-service to God but whose real interests are money and politics, to the general populace who are obsessed with what is secular and to the children who are consumed by social media and all things virtual, but pay little to no heed to what is holy and eternal?

Secondly, was Jesus praying for a blanket forgiveness for all or for only those who did not know what they were doing?  If Jesus had prayed for unqualified forgiveness, His words could have been: "Father, forgive all of them" but those were not the words.  His words were "forgive them" and He followed them with a reason as to why they ought to be forgiven: because they did not know what they were doing.  What if some of them knew what they were doing?  Would they be forgiven too?  Would Judas have been forgiven since he supposedly knew what he was doing?  Could Judas have been forgiven if he could claim temporary cognitive insanity [3], not knowing the nature of his betrayal was wrong, or claim that he knew right from wrong but was unable to resist the impulse to commit the wrongful act [4] of betrayal because he was possessed by Satan or because he was there to fulfill the destiny of Christ as God intended?  Or, was Jesus trying to provide an excuse for everyone who played a part in His crucifixion, being that they had no idea what they were doing, including Judas, and everybody else prospectively, including those in the present day and beyond, because of Original Sin, so that His Father in Heaven would have mercy on all the sinners, making the last prayer of Jesus a prayer asking for forgiveness for all?

This blogger has no answer to any of the questions above and does not expect to have them during his lifetime, but thinks that it is not important to know the answer to any of these questions.  What is important is the implication contained in the words that were unuttered.  Here, one must ask why did Jesus bother to say this prayer to His Father in Heaven?  Did He know something nobody else knew?  Of course He did.  He is the Son of God after all.  So what did He know?

This blogger believes firmly that Jesus was so forgiving and loving that He did not want to see those who did not know what they were doing punished by His Father even as He was dying in pain brought on by the very people who put Him there because the punishment would for them had they not been forgiven be eternal and so severe that Jesus could not bear it and if it was the last thing He could do as a man in the flesh to save them it would be to give to His crucifiers His undying love by His last prayer.

So who were Jesus' crucifiers?  The obvious ones were the Roman soldiers who hammered the nails into his hands and feet.  Did they know what they were doing?  Of course they did.  Back in those days they did not have the internet to check on the news reported two hours ago on a certain "criminal" that Pontius Pilate did not want to put to death, and that the people wanted Him crucified, but being in a relatively small community of people in which Jesus would have easily stood out by the words He said and the miracles He performed, they would have known who Jesus was, and if they had any doubt who the bloodied individual carrying the cross to Golgotha was, they only had to read the inscription they nailed to Jesus' cross identifying Him as Jesus, King of the Jews. [5]

The Roman soldiers were not the only crucifiers.  Indeed, any sinner who sins is a crucifier of Jesus, for it is the death of Jesus that had allowed for the redemption of Sin and all of Sin's variations from the birth of Sin to the death of Sin.

Furthermore, no sinner sins unknowingly.  In other words, all sinners know what they are doing when they sin, and when they sin they become crucifiers of Jesus but that does not mean than no sinner will benefit from the last prayer of Jesus on the cross.

The last prayer Jesus said to His Father was a private, intercessory plea.  When son and father converses, the communication is more than the meaning of the words alone.  Jesus' last prayer in the flesh to His father is no different. [6]  When Jesus prayed to His Father, He was asking His Father to forgive and not punish those who have sinned knowing how severe and unbearable the punishment would be.  Therefore, the words "for they know not what they do" according to this analysis would mean that the sinners know not what their individual punishments would be, but if that were known to them, they would not sin against God.  Because sinners act without knowing the Truth, they truly know not what they do.

[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+23%3A34&version=KJV
[2] "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" was not a prayer; it was a question asked in painful desperation by an impatient Son addressing His Father, and therefore this was not Jesus' last prayer as Pope Benedict XVI had indicated.  As much as this blogger respects the knowledge and intellect of Pope Benedict XVI, on these words of Jesus, he diverges from the Pope Benedict XVI's interpretation at  http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20120215.html
[3] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Insanity+Defense
[4] Ibid.
[5] http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-t001.html
[6] Behind Jesus' words was His unconditional love for sinners with whom He lived in the flesh as man.  He understood their challenges, their pains, their propensities to sin and their failures.  Jesus had put Himself as part God and part man between God, the Creator and man, the sinner, even as He was suffering and dying on the cross, He found it important to say His last prayer as man in the flesh with love  for the salvation of souls because prayers that are said with love in the flesh are heard clearly in Heaven and are answered.

Right To Die Now Legal In California

California governor Jerry Brown, "a lifelong Catholic and former Jesuit seminarian" signed into law "legislation [on] Monday[, October 5, 2015,] allowing terminally ill people in the nation's most populous state to take their own lives." [1], [2]

Suicide in California is henceforth officially state-sanctioned and state-sponsored.  This is yet another step forward toward secularization by the state since life is no longer being treasured as a gift from God but something that is devoid of meaning and hope.

God has allowed man Free Will to do as he pleases, and if he so chooses to end his life because of a terminal disease, to give up hope in God for a miracle cure, then God will let him do so.  When one who is diagnosed as terminally ill takes his own life, he is saying to God that not only does he not want to wait for God's healing, he also does not believe that God is able to heal, and perhaps that he does not believe in God at all.

For those choosing to extinguish their lives, this law requires "that patients be physically capable of taking the medication themselves, that two doctors approve it, that the patients submit several written requests and that there be two witnesses, one of whom is not a family member." [3]

This law thus embraces the concept of a self-imposed death penalty (the crime for which is being born to live a life given by God), and legalizes at least two crimes, including the conspiracy to commit murder and murder by lethal medication, contravening one of the Ten Commandments: "[t]hou shalt not kill." [4]

Those who think that this form of euthanasia is merciful ought to think again.  Far from being merciful, this kind of consensual murder-suicide is selfish: selfish from the perspective of the person suffering in the flesh who is unwilling to share in the suffering of Christ and to give the soul a chance to be purified through suffering in order to enter Heaven, and selfish from the perspective of the relatives who no longer want to be burdened by a dying body, wishing to get on with their own lives.

In theory, every human life from its conception is a dying body as new cells grow to replace the old ones (even as the body is developing and maturing for development and maturation can be deemed as the early stages of aging) until some point is reached when the new cells that are replacing the old ones are no longer able to regenerate in a manner that optimizes their intended functions due to Original Sin.

Not many people look forward to experience a dying body going through "prolonged and excruciating pain" [5] but to legitimize artificial life-ending procedures is barbaric secularism that pleases Satan for it is ready to welcome to Hell all who take for granted and who are dead to God's gift of life with an eternity of excruciating pain  that no medication can dull and no death can end. [6]


[1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a580f42e5ffe48f0b71991272f0e972e/california-governor-signs-hard-won-right-die-legislation, accessed October 5, 2015.  See footnote [2] below.
[2] The article and quoted words were accessed on October 5, 2015, when this blogger started composing this entry.  The article had since been re-written and re-dated as of October 6, 2015, with many of the words that appeared in the original article deleted.  This blogger chose not to revise what was quoted on October 5, 2015.
[3] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a580f42e5ffe48f0b71991272f0e972e/california-governor-signs-hard-won-right-die-legislation
[4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20%3A13&version=KJV
[5] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a580f42e5ffe48f0b71991272f0e972e/california-governor-signs-hard-won-right-die-legislation  This blogger assumes that excruciating pain can be dulled by medication and that one does not need to take a lethal dose intentionally that leads to death.  He also believes that prayers can help attenuate pain if not alleviate it entirely in God's time.
[6] No prayer can help either because this blogger imagines that prayers are erased from the memory in Hell, forbidden to be formed and said in Hell and cannot be heard in Heaven.  Most likely, souls in Hell know what prayers are and how powerful they can be while in the flesh but not being to pray to and be heard by God torments them endlessly.

Catholic Priest - Happy, Proud, Gay And (Now) Out-Of-The-Confessional Closet

"'I have to say who I am.  I am a gay priest.  I am a happy and proud gay priest,' [Krzysztof Charamsa, a monsignor] told [the Polish daily] Gazeta Wyborcza." [1]  Will the deceased pope John Paul II, canonized a saint just last year on April 27, 2014, [2]  a fellow Pole, work a miracle and reinstate him as an official at the Vatican's doctrinal office? [3]  What will this pope now say to the still-in-the-confessional-closet priests who are practicing homosexuals, proud or not, out or not, happy or not, "who am I to judge"? [4]

The schisms of the Catholic church are more and more in the forefront and transparent, and are fascinating to watch as they take shape.  Perhaps Saint Malachy was right, that this pope will be the last pope. [5]  Those waiting to see if his prophesy will materialize will have to be patient, however, for this pope will likely live a long life.  He is only 78, going to be 79 in December, 2015. [6]

As far as this blogger is concerned, it is better for a homosexual priest to live in the truth than to hide behind a lie and live a life of hypocrisy and go to confession every time he breaks his vow of celibacy, which brings up another dilemma: when a closeted gay priest confesses to another closeted gay priest, would the confession be valid since there could be a conflict of interest?

To be sure, sexuality, be it heterosexuality, bisexuality or homosexuality, is part of human nature and is therefore a part of God's creation.  What is sinful is the expression of any such sexuality without unwavering love toward one another and  abiding Love for God.  What is unforgivable is the breaking of any vow, including the vow of celibacy a religious makes before God, to serve God in the most wholesome manner a man or a woman of cloth can.


[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gay-priest-krzysztof-charamsa-fired-vatican-synod/
[2] http://www.vatican.va/special/canonizzazione-27042014/index_en.html
[3] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gay-priest-krzysztof-charamsa-fired-vatican-synod/
[4] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/who-am-i-judge-popes-most-powerful-phrase-2013-f2D11791260
[5] http://z3news.com/w/st-malachys-medieval-prophecy-claims-pope-francis-final-pope/
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis

Guns And Religion

A 26 year-old man who identified himself as mixed-race, not religious but spiritual [1] "opened fire at an Oregon community college was forcing people to stand up and state their religion before he began blasting away at them, survivors said Thursday." [2]

@BodhiLooney tweeted: '"The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were Christian....If they said yes, then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn't answer they were shot in the legs."' [3]  In total, ten were shot dead and seven were wounded, their conditions still unknown. [4]

Some blamed this and other mass shootings across America on the accessibility of guns [5], even though they could also be blamed equally on the secularization of and spiritual hypocrisy in society.  While this blogger believes that all the guns in the world ought to be outlawed, confiscated and permanently destroyed, he also believes that people ought to have faith in God, although not necessarily embracing any religion in particular since religions in large part have become economic and political entities that worship wealth and power and thrive on hypocrisy.

More and more, guns and religion seem to merge together to form a single concept: death, accompanied by its twin relatives, the threat and the fear of death, as evidenced by the kind of security that is needed to protect the pope from being shot to the armed conflicts in the Mideast and the mass exodus of refugees, from Syria and other places (Kosovo, surprisingly [6], [7], [8]) seeking asylum [9].

[1] http://www.rt.com/usa/317303-ucc-oregon-gunman-identified/

[2] http://nypost.com/2015/10/01/oregon-gunman-singled-out-christians-during-rampage/  This blogger revisited the link on October 3, 2015, to revise a typo from "fired" to "fire" and saw that the words quoted had been removed from the article.  The article was apparently revised since it was posted by the sole original author, Chris Perez. The other two authors were not listed at the time this article was accessed on October 1, 2015.   Thus the article was re-written by them after the posting without documenting that it was updated.  The only remnant of the words quoted "opened fire" can be read under the caption under the first photograph.  Hopefully, they would remain.

[3] Ibid. See comment under [2] above.  Here, too, the quoted words were deleted from the original article and the paragraph was re-written.  Admittedly, the revised version is an improvement over the original; however, as awkward as the original version was, Chris Perez was quoting the tweeter and this entry was quoting Chris Perez quoting the tweeter.

[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/us/oregon-shooting-umpqua-community-college.html?_r=0

[5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/01/shooting-in-oregon-11-essential-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-america/
[6] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-six-charts-that-show-where-refugees-are-coming-from-where-they-are-going-and-how-they-10482415.html
[7] Article: Religious aspects of the Yugoslavia - Kosovo conflict: http://www.religioustolerance.org/war_koso.htm
[8] http://www.dw.com/en/kosovo-population-drain-challenges-germanys-refugee-policies/a-18245189
[9] It is not known that any country in the world has received and accepted a single application for asylum from a United States citizen seeking to escape death by mass shooting due to his/her religious or political beliefs, or choice of entertainment.