A Halloween Thought

On October 21, 2016, Mary Rezac filed an on-line article entitled What to do about Halloween? Catholic moms – and an exorcist – weigh in  on behalf of the Catholic News Agency.  Quoted below is the portion from an exorcist's perspective [1]:

An exorcist’s perspective

Father Vincent Lampert is a Vatican-trained exorcist and a parish priest of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis who travels the country, speaking about his work as an exorcist and what people can do to protect themselves against the demonic.

He said when deciding what to do about Halloween, it’s important for parents to remember the Christian origins of the holiday and to celebrate accordingly, rather than in a way that glorifies evil.

“Ultimately I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the kids putting on a costume, dressing up as a cowboy or Cinderella, and going through the neighborhood and asking for candy; that’s all good clean fun,” Fr. Lampert said.

Even a sheet with some holes cut in it as a ghost is fine, Fr. Lampert said.

The danger lies in costumes that deliberately glorify evil and instill fear in people, or when people pretend to have special powers or dabble in magic and witchcraft, even if they think it’s just for entertainment.  

“In the book of Deuteronomy, in chapter 18, it talks about not trying to consult the spirits of the dead, not consulting those who dabble in magic and witchcraft and the like,” he said, “because it’s a violation of a church commandment that people are putting other things ahead of their relationship with God.”

“And that would be the danger of Halloween that somehow God is lost in all of this, the religious connotation is lost and then people end up glorifying evil.”

It’s also important to remember that the devil and evil spirits do not actually have any additional authority on Halloween, Fr. Lampert said, and that it only seems that way.

“It’s because of what people are doing, not because of what the devil is doing. Perhaps by the way they’re celebrating that day, they’re actually inviting more evil into our lives,” he said.

One of the best things parents can do is to use Halloween as a teachable moment, Fr. Lampert said.

“A lot of children are out celebrating Halloween, perhaps evil is being glorified, but we’re not really sitting around and talking about why certain practices are not conducive with our Catholic faith and our Catholic identity. I think using it as a teachable moment would be a great thing to do.”

Fr. Lampert mentioned that it is important to remember the "Christian origins" of Halloween.  This blogger wondered what that might be and found an article written by Susan Hines-Brigger for the franciscan media entitled Halloween and Its Christian Roots.  Below is an excerpt [2]:

The true origins of Halloween lie with the ancient Celtic tribes who lived in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany. For the Celts, November 1 marked the beginning of a new year and the coming of winter. The night before the new year, they celebrated the festival of Samhain, Lord of the Dead. During this festival, Celts believed the souls of the dead, including ghosts, goblins and witches, returned to mingle with the living. In order to scare away the evil spirits, people would wear masks and light bonfires.

When the Romans conquered the Celts, they added their own touches to the Samhain festival, such as making centerpieces out of apples and nuts for Pomona, the Roman goddess of the orchards. The Romans also bobbed for apples and drank cider, traditions which may sound familiar to you. But where does the Christian aspect of the holiday come into play? In 835, Pope Gregory IV moved the celebration for all the martyrs (later all saints) from May 13 to November 1. The night before became known as All Hallow’s Eve. Eventually the name was shortened to the current Halloween. On November 2, the Church celebrates All Souls Day.

The purpose of these feasts is to remember those who have died, whether they are officially recognized by the Church as saints or not.

This blogger used to think that the "feast" Halloween was the opposite of the "feast" of All Saints Day, the former being a celebration of evilness in darkness and the latter a celebration of holiness in daylight, and that on Halloween night, he could act out his naughtiness in thought and in deed without God knowing about it.  That was in a sense extremely liberating.  It was like having his parents away from home so he can do anything that he is not supposed to do: being true to himself, the sinner who relishes in everything that is bad and forbidden.

He has since grown out of it and no longer finds Halloween fun, nor does he still think that All Saints Day is antipodal to Halloween night since many individuals whose saintliness is questionable have nonetheless been canonized, and therefore both Halloween and All Saints Day in his mind have merged together (maybe All Souls Day too), forming a single occasion for remembering or mimicking souls that are both holy and unholy, agreeing in part with Susan Hines-Brigger that "[t]he purpose of these feasts is to remember those who have died, whether they are officially recognized by the Church as saints or not." [3]

Since Halloween is an evening of imagination, masks and costumes, perhaps someone ought to design a few outfits that show what some saints that are in Hell, if any, could look like, as compared to some of the more popular devil outfits that are already out-of-stock for this year. [4]


[1] http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/what-to-do-about-halloween-catholic-moms-and-an-exorcist-weigh-in-71576/
[2] https://www.franciscanmedia.org/halloween-and-its-christian-roots/
[3] Ibid.
[4] A link to the retail website is not provided but one can do a Google search under "devil outfit for halloween 2016" and see what pops up.

Earthquakes In Italy

When a disaster strikes but leaves part of a Catholic church that is in its way standing or items of significance inside it largely unscathed in some form or another, the first question that comes to mind is whether God had a hand in it.  The atheist's answer is always no but this blogger always thinks yes.

It is sad to see a church or part of one turn into a pile of rubble but if that is what God wants, any hint of sadness must be converted into acceptance.  On Sunday, October 30, 2016, "'[i]n the walled town of Norcia, [Italy.] the 14th-century basilica of St. Benedict was devastated [by an earthquake], with only the façade still standing.'" [1]  Below is a photograph of the Basilica di San Benedetto before the earthquake [2] and immediately below it are two photographs of the Basilica di San Benedetto after the earthquake [3], [4].  Further below is a before and after picture of a church in Amatrice, Italy [4], hit too by the same earthquake.

Basilica di San Benedetto
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/

Matteo Guidelli /Associated Press

MATTEO GUIDELLI / EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

Chiesa di Sant'Agostino
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37176601

The photographs show that the front entrances of both churches were left standing.  Why is anyone's guess.  Maybe God is saying that the door to the Church built on the suffering and death of Christ remains open to all but not what was behind it which needs to be cleaned out and rebuilt.  Unlike Francesco d'Assisi who was asked by Christ to rebuild His Church (not the Church of San Damiano that Francesco thought that needed rebuilding "but rather the universal church that was suffering from inside scandal and avarice as well as outside heresies") [6], this pope did not appear to have received the same assignment.

The Sunday earthquake that caused the churches in Norcia and Amatrice to collapse was not the first to hit central Italy. On September 27, 1997, an earthquake damaged the Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi, [7] located approximately 80.7 km from the Basilica di San Benedetto in Norcia. [8]  The ceiling caved in near the main altar where two friars were killed, [9] the same area where visiting buddhists were given permission by JP2 to place a statute of Buddha on top of the Tabernacle 10 years and 11 months earlier on October 27, 1986, [10], [11].  Traditioninaction.org  thinks that the destruction of the alter was related to a statute of Buddha being placed on top of the Tabernacle, saying that "God may appear to be late, but He never fails to strike..." [12]  The atheist would say it was a coincidence but this blogger, agreeing with Traditioninaction.org, thinks it was a purposeful act of God.

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/30/499955453/6-6-magnitude-earthquake-flattens-much-of-historic-basilica-in-central-italy
[2] http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/01/event-announcing-2016-summer-theology.html#more
[3] http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/oct/30/powerful-quake-shakes-italy-topples-benedictine-ca/
[4] http://www.wsj.com/articles/italy-hit-by-powerful-earthquake-causing-severe-damage-to-buildings-1477837536
[5] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37176601
[6] http://www.stfrancisuptown.com/our-parish/the-life-of-st-francis-of-assisi/
[7] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/earthquake-assisi-in-mourning-as-quake-shatters-basilica-of-st-francis-1241382.html
[8] Google directions
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/27/world/a-fatal-quake-shatters-fresco-in-assisi-shrine.ht
[10] http://www.traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A430rcAssisi1986.html
[11] Photographs - Google search
[12] http://www.traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A430rcAssisi1986.html

Rediscovering Innocence

Quoted in part below is the definition of "innocence:" [1]

1.  freedom from sin [worldly, as opposed to Original] or moral wrong.
2.  freedom from legal or specific wrong; guiltlessness[.]
3.  simplicity; absence of guile or cunning; naiveté.
4.  lack of knowledge or understanding [of people who are evil; trusting].
5.  harmlessness; innocuousness.

Everyone is born innocent according to the definition above (as annotated), but everyone is corruptible and defilable, and everyone is corrupted and defiled to a degree over time but one ought to leave room for the possibility that there are those who with God's grace have chosen to remain pure and wholesome throughout most of their lives, to give hope to everybody else who are like them (who were not immaculately conceived but were born as sinners), using themselves as real-life examples to show those who are corrupted and defiled that innocence is not dead, or lost, but rather it is an innate quality that has become latent but is readily rediscoverable and renewable at any moment and at any time in one's life: all that one needs to do is to wipe clean one's past and change one's mindset, that innocence is not vulnerabilities exposed but strengths consolidated, and to know that life's fundamental task is to engage evil in a difficult and seemingly endless battle to preserve it, one that cannot be won alone without God and without supplication.

The easy way out is to suppress one's innate innocence.  To give up on nurturing innocence is to lose the battle against evil even thought it may appear that wearing the purity of innocence is tantamount to having a death wish because common sense seems to conclude that evil relishes in identifying the innocent ones as easy prey to hunt down and kill, except that it is not evil's intent to eliminate those who are innocent but only to spoil their innocence, just as the Serpent never wanted to kill Eve who was once innocent but only to corrupt and defile her.  Once innocence is locked away in darkness, evil enters the soul and festers from within it, transforming it until the mind that is linked to the soul shines through with a fake illumination showcasing its dazzling array of tantalizing worldly desires that are intelligently crafted but are invariably unfulfillable and unfulfilled which ultimately destroy the soul with total emptiness.

A person needs to be resolute and strong to wear an armor of innocence.  It is only the weak ones who put theirs away in storage, and join in the chorus of satanic voices that advocates every kind of discontent imaginable that is devoid of the innate love that comes from God, the purity of which is paired with and inseparable from the purity of innocence.

The reality is that those willing to march under the flag of innocence are far and few in between, if any, whereas the group saluting the flag of cunning and deceit is growing in size and popularity in the religious, secular, military, civilian, political and journalistic sectors.  To have a world where people are brave enough to rediscover and reclaim their innocence is therefore only a dream, but the hope for an army of innocents, even if it is a lonely army of one, is very real because living a life of innocence is not only possible but also within reach.


[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/innocence

Is This Charity?

An article written by Hannah Brockhaus for EWTN News entitled Rome's poor to be guests of honor at Vatican concert  dated October 26, 2016, is quoted in part below [1]:

The Vatican will host a concert for the poor and homeless of Rome next month, not only using the concert to raise money for Pope Francis’ charities, but also inviting the poor to attend as the guests of honor.

Called “With the Poor and for the Poor,” free-will donations taken at the end of the concert will benefit Pope Francis’ charitable projects: this year, the building of a new cathedral in Moroto, Uganda, and an agrarian school in Burkina Faso.

The concert will take place Nov. 12 in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

Following the concert, volunteers of the Jubilee of Mercy and members of the choir of the Diocese of Rome will distribute a meal and a small gift to the invited guests as a reminder of the evening.

This blogger wishes to rename the event.  Instead of calling it "With the Poor and for the Poor," he wants to call it "Using The Poor To Raise Money For The Church."  Maybe he does not understand the article or has misinterpreted it, but based on his understanding or misunderstanding, this is how he reads it:

The Vatican will bus some people around the local area who are supposed to be poor and homeless or who are representatives of the poor and homeless to a concert (perhaps a photograph will be taken of them as evidence of the states of their mendicancy but there will be no scientific record of the pungency of the odor of poverty and homelessness since there is no technology to collect and store it for sale and distribution).  They will be asked to go through security and sit still for a period of time without bathroom breaks, listening to music they may or may not enjoy but then who cares.  They will serve as props for a fundraiser for which they will receive a "compensation package" consisting of a cold box snack and a token gift.  (It would be interesting to find out what kind of "small gift" would be handed out, a religious medal, a rosary, a "selfie" of the pope?)  The money they help raise would pay for the pope's "charitable projects" among which are "the building of a new cathedral in Moroto, Uganda, and [the building of] an agrarian school in Burkina Faso," [2] each of which ought to be a self-sufficient revenue generator, if all goes according to plan.

The article did not mention that the very ones who are being used to raise money for the pope's charitable projects will benefit in any way from the fundraiser, although it is clear to this blogger that the funds raised would help pay the administrative costs of running the pope's charities and the costs of having a new cathedral and an agrarian school.

Aside from the questionable tactics used for this fundraiser, this blogger admits that this pope has a brilliant mind for raising funds to fund self-sustaining religious and educational institutions.  Perhaps he ought to form at least two tax-deductible charitable organizations [3] to raise funds in the United States, perhaps naming them Francis I Catholic Fund, the Catholic version, and Francis I Poverty Relief, the secular version; that way, he would not have to use the poor to raise money and be criticized by this blogger, but then, what charity does not use the poor to pay its administrators their salaries and other expenses including those necessary to maintain its grounds, its buildings and its on-going existence?


[1] http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/Vatican.php?id=14484
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-section-501-c-3-organizations

The Hagia Sophia

http://paulcgardiner.blogspot.com/

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/88209.htm

The last post revealed this blogger's deficiencies in sentence formation.  This entry reveals his deficiencies in idea formation.  His thoughts inspired by the recent "takeover" by Islam at the Hagia Sophia in İstanbul, Türkiye, are are messy and conflicted.

The "takeover" news was from an article dated October 25, 2016, written by Michael van der Galien for PJ Media entitled "After 80 Years, Islamist Turkey Again Seizes Hagia Sophia Church for Islam."  [1]  Digging into the history of Constantinople [2], modern day İstanbul [3], is beyond the scope of this blog.  Suffice it to say that the Hagia Sophia was built by the East Roman Empire [4] and ought to belong to the Orthodox Church [5].  It was not so long ago that an article published by pravoslavie.ru reported that Russia wanted Türkiye to return the Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church.  The article, entitled "Moscow Wants Turkey To Return Cathedral Of Agia Sophia To Orthodox Church," [6] was dated November 26, 2015.  Less than a year later, the world knows that Moscow is not about to get its wish any time soon.

The actual "takeover" of the Hagia Sophia occurred "in 1453, [when] the Hagia Sophia was converted to a mosque.  In 1935, the first Turkish President and founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, transformed the building into a museum." [7]  In early 2016, according to PJ Media's article, "the Turkish government announced that it had appointed a permanent imam to the Hagia Sophia[, which] means that the Islamic call to prayer will now be heard five times a day, instead of two times -- and that it will basically function as any other mosque." [Emphasis original.]

Since this blogger is a Catholic (more accurately, supposed to be one), he probably should not talk about the Orthodox Church, but since it is also under a forgiving God, and a forgiving Son of God, he will go ahead banking on Their forgiveness.  Below are his fragmented thoughts.

First of all, Moscow's proposal is in this blogger's opinion, eminently fair, saying that the Hagia Sophia belongs to the Orthodox Church and "Russia is ready to participate financially, and to involve the best Russian architects and scientists in the restoration of the universal Christian monument." [8]  However, there is no indication if the restored building will serve as a fully functional Orthodox Church or continue to be a museum.  If the intent is to run it as a museum, who would collect the revenue from ticket sales?  Since the Orthodox Church is founded by Christ [9], does anyone think He would be happy to have His church operate as a museum and collect an entrance fee?

These matters do not need to be addressed because the Hagia Sophia is not going to be restored by Russia and it is not likely going to accommodate Orthodox Masses any time soon since an imam has been appointed to it.

When the Hagia Sophia was a secular monument for the last 80 or so years [10], was Allah happy with it being a museum instead of a mosque?  Should Allah care when the Blue Mosque [11] is only a 7-minute walk from the Hagia Sophia? [12]  Is Allah the same God as the Christian God and the Jewish God?  Are Judaism, Christianity and Islam not the big three Abrahamic religions? [13]

Sultan Ahmet Mosque, a.k.a. the Blue Mosque
Google Images

If God and Allah are one and the same, then does it make any difference who prays at the Hagia Sophia?  Has a prayer ever hurt anyone?  If a prayer is intended to cause harm, would it not be a curse instead?  Does saying Muslim prayers five-times a day at the Hagia Sophia annoy Christians more than saying them just two times a day?  How many modern day Muslims from around İstanbul have the time and the dedication to make a special trip to the Hagia Sophia to pray there five times a day?  Are the non-Muslims who have never participated in a five-times-a-day prayer gathering envious because some Muslims do pray five-times a day but they do not?  Does limiting the Muslims to twice-a-day prayer at the Hagia Sophia make Christians happy even though they have not expressed any interest to pray to God at the Hagia Sophia with any regularity?

Why do people always have to draw differences among themselves?  What are the reasons for having the Orthodox Church separate from the Catholic Church, for Christianity to have so many denominations [14] and for the Catholics to have so many different religious congregations [15]? What good is being done when a priest in the United States sometimes asks his congregation to pray for the troops who go to battle and kill when Christ says to "love your enemies?" [16]   Why not simply pray for a truce that would lead to a lasting peace rather than praying with a "us" versus "them" mentality?  Who is truly sinless and can cast the first stone? [17]  On the contrary, why not pray for the American troops who risk their lives for the citizens of the world so that they could be free?  The question then becomes free to be what--suffering refugees?  Without the gratuitous destabilization of Iraq, Libya and Syria, there probably would be a lot fewer refugees in the world than there are at present [18].  The fact that the world's media and this pope no longer focus their attention on the plight of the refugees does not mean that they have miraculously vanished or have returned home to live their lives with some semblance of normalcy.

Are people necessarily better off when they are being subjugated by an oppressive, well-funded majority rather than by an oppressive dictator?  How happy are the Greeks with the European Union's austerity measures?  Would they be even less happy if they were under a dictator and not part of the EU?  Are the refugees freer and happier now that Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi are dead and Bashar al-Assad is gone, knowing perhaps that Hussein's and Gadaffi's deaths and al-Assad's current absence could be considered as rites of passage by the politicians who sealed their fates and as abstract political trophies to be carried by the same politicians to their eventual graves and beyond?  If a dictator is so repugnant, why do so many people, Christians, Jews and Muslims choose freely to believe in one, Who happens to be perfectly benevolent, Who is God?  Why do they not assemble a democratic government so they can pray to it, or lobby its members for special "graces"?  Perhaps one is already in existence, populated by self-righteous and unforgiving intellectuals who think that they are always correct in their judgments and anyone who disagrees with them is always reprehensible.

And where does the "takeover" of the Hagia Sophia fit into all of these haphazard thoughts?  Perhaps there is a workable one that will sort of link them together to give them a purpose: let the Hagia Sophia be the only building in the world that all three major Abrahamic religions can share amicably, so that the faithful can say their prayers under one huge dome ("55.60 m. from ground level, 31.87 m. from North to South and 30.87 m. from East to West") [19], rotating the times and days each religion would be able to use the place, with no one religion claiming it as its own, but giving it to God, the one and only God that unites all of humanity without differentiating between "us" and "them" under one Love which is consistently pure and stable irrespective of the differences in religions, languages, cultures and governments.



[1] https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/10/25/after-80-years-islamist-turkey-again-seizes-hagia-sophia-church-for-islam/1/
[2] http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars14011600/p/Byzantine-Ottoman-Wars-Fall-Of-Constantinople.htm
[3] http://history.info/on-this-day/1930-the-city-of-constantinople-renamed-to-istanbul/
[4] http://ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/history
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia
[6] http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/88209.htm
[7] http://www.teslasociety.com/hagiasophia.htm
[8] http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/88209.htm
[9] http://www.antiochian.org/whatorthodoxbelieve
[10] http://www.teslasociety.com/hagiasophia.htm
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Ahmed_Mosque
[12] Google Directions: 7 min (550 m) via Kabasakal Cd. and Atmeydanı Cd.
[13] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religion
[14] https://theway21stcentury.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/how-many-christian-denominations-worldwide/
[15] http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article22 96.php (bottom of page)
[16] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205:43-48
[17] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8%3A1-11&version=NIV
[18] http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.ht
[19] http://ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/int-hagia-sophias-dome

Unequal Sinners

[Please note that in this entry there are many questions that are overly long, awkwardly constructed and nearly incomprehensible.  So why not re-draft them for ease of reading and clarity?  The answer is simply that this blogger does not know how, especially when he wants to position his counterpoint immediately after making his point.  When he concluded his last post with the promise that he would continue to reveal his mind's deficiencies in this blog, he had not anticipated that he would fulfill his promise this dramatically. This blogger welcomes any suggestion that would help him improve his prose.]

Not many in the world wake up and think of themselves as sinners, and even less think that they sin, and why would they?  The majority of people make do with the abilities that they have, trying to live their lives they know best how to.  Is that not enough for salvation, by not  shaking their fists at their Creator, asking why some people have been given so many special gifts that they can use to distinguish themselves whereas they, as a group, seem to be bound permanently to mass mediocrity, despite being inconceivable that they should think that they together are somehow left behind and forgotten, for without them, the world would come to a halt, just as without the earth's sands there would be no pyramids in Giza [1], no brick and no cement for roads and walls and no glass [2]?  Can people be blamed for not thinking of themselves as sinners when they are working so hard to make a living so that they can spend what they earn on what they like to do and own, and for not wanting to worship God with so little time and so much self-perceived unfairness in life (even though not too many people go to bed wishing that they would die in their sleep and not wake up because God has been so unfair to them)?

Can the atheists in China who in less than a generation have gone from rags to riches [3], [4] without knowing God their entire lives be blamed for the absence of monotheism in their country, even though without God they would not have existed, even though in this day and age with a mountain of online information they can somehow still be clueless about God?  Can those behind the secular media around the world be blamed for asking questions only as they pertain to the mental and physical aspects of existence but not its spiritual dimension?  Are humans merely two-dimensional creatures and as such they are unlike their Trinitarian God composing of intellect and love that is God, flesh and blood that is Christ and energy and momentum that is the Paraclete?

Can God be blamed for giving many atheists in China wealth but leaving the many Christians (most of them Catholics) in the Philippines [5] to suffer economic poverty [6] (first, as if Christ is not present in the midst of suffering and has no concept of it having gone through His Passion in the flesh; second, as if wealth is desirable, i.e., not burdensome, real, i.e., not debt, not just paper, not a concept and a belief system consisting of numbers that are not in truth accountable, and pure, i.e., wholesomely accreted and tangible, such as improvements in the quality and quantity of natural, non-genetically modified foods for all to consume, in contrast to the unproductive and invisible shares of companies and many other investment vehicles that are merely legal contructs that are traded and stored in the memory banks of super computers and in contrast to the products of the economic theory of demand and supply that are valued based on collective expectations of futures that are unknowable (for example, natural disasters) and artificial (for example, interest rates); and third, as if the wealth that is so desired and envied is necessarily a gift from God and not from Satan)?

Would it be reasonable to conclude that both atheists and Christians around the world who suffer economic poverty and accept their supposed lack of talents and abilities, who are not shaking their fists at God, making do with what they have without bitterness are already saintly and on their way to salvation?  Without more, the answer is no, according to the Catholic church.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church ("CCC ") 846 states that "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is [H]is Body: ...[People] could not be saved, who knowing that the Catholic church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse to enter it or remain in it." [7]  However, CCC 847 states that "[t]his affirmation is not aimed at those, who through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or [H]is Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do [H]is will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience--those too may achieve eternal salvation." [8]  How the Catholic church expects those who do not know Christ and His Church to know how to seek God when Christ specifically said, "No one comes to the Father except through me" [9] is a mystery. And what about those who know and worship God but reject Christ as the Messiah? [10]  Can they be saved?  This the political pope would not dare to answer.

Again, per the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Church is Christ's Body, which it ought to be and is; but, is not the Catholic church today, a corrupt an institution as any that runs on power and money, systematically mutilating Christ's Body (metaphorically speaking)?  If it is, do the words in CCC 846 and 847 written by the church still have credibility?  Even if they do not, and may not represent God's Truth, those words nonetheless deserve points for giving sinners equality that God supposedly failed to give, that they desire so much and clamor for so loudly, by sending them all [11] to Hell.


[1] http://www.seeker.com/how-the-ancient-egyptians-really-built-the-pyramids-1768525652.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand#Uses
[3] https://www.ft.com/content/9ddb3ffc-5734-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2  Note: this blogger is not certain if the individuals identified in the article cited are atheists or not.
[4] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-01/25/content_23241391.htm Note: this blogger is not certain if the individual identified in the article cited is an atheist or not.
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_Philippines
[6] https://psa.gov.ph/content/poverty-incidence-among-filipinos-registered-263-first-semester-2015-psa
[7] http://ccc.usccb.org/flipbooks/catechism/index.html#242/z
[8] Ibid.
[9] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+14:6
[10] http://www.aish.com/jw/s/48892792.html
[11] All means all, including those standing at the door of the Catholic church not wanting to enter and become an accessory, aiding and abetting those in the clergy (by contributing time and/or money) who have committed, and perhaps still committing, acts that are not only illegal but also sacrilegious and/or immoral, as well as the clergy people and the lay Catholics who may look like they have chosen to "remain in [the Catholic church]" but in reality have left "Christ's Body" (quoting CCC 846) by sinning.

God, Adam And Jesus - Refuting John Duns Scotus

Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." [1]  Therefore, those who think that they have come to any definitive conclusion about God without going through Christ cannot be thinking right, however brilliant and logical.

Taking on master theologians like Fr. Peter Lombard and Blessed John Duns Scotus [2] by someone far less erudite and intelligent with poor writing skills such as this blogger is not very smart at all, but since audacity is separable from ignorance and incompetence, this blogger will therefore dare comment on the theologians' arguments for predestination even though he is not so qualified.

The question John Duns Scotus asked was this: would the Son of God have come into existence had Adam not sinned against God?  Scotus wrote [3]:

“Without attempting to settle the matter dogmatically, one may state in accord with the last mentioned opinion in distinction 41 of the First Book [of Sentences [written by Fr. Peter Lombard]] that, in so far as the objects intended by God are concerned, since the predestination in general of anyone to glory is prior by nature to the prevision of anyone’s sin or damnation, this is all the more so true of the predestination of that soul chosen for the greatest glory.  For it appears to be universally true that He who wills in an orderly manner intends first that which is nearest the end.  And so just as He first intends one to have glory before grace, so also among those predestined to glory, He who wills in an orderly fashion would seem to intend first the glory of the one He wishes to be nearest the end.  Thus, He wills glory for this soul before He wills glory for any other soul, and for every other soul He wills glory and grace before He foresees those things which are the opposite of these habits [i.e. sin or damnation]…

“If man had not sinned, there would have been no need for our redemption.  But that God predestined this soul [of Christ] to so great a glory does not seem to be only on account of that [redemption], since the redemption or the glory of the soul to be redeemed is not comparable to the glory of Christ’s soul.  Neither is it likely that the highest good in creation is something that was merely occasioned only because of some lesser good; nor is it likely that He predestined Adam to such good before He predestined Christ; and yet this would follow [were the Incarnation occasioned by Adam’s sin].  In fact, if the predestination of Christ’s soul was for the sole purpose of redeeming others, something even more absurd would follow, namely, that in predestining Adam to glory, He would have foreseen him as having fallen into sin before He predestined Christ to glory.

“It can be said, therefore, that with a priority of nature God chose for His heavenly court all the angels and men He wished to have with their various degrees of perfection before He foresaw either sin or the punishment for sinners; and no one has been predestined only because somebody else’s sin was foreseen, lest anyone have reason to rejoice over the fall of another.

The arguments presented above seems on the surface to be logical, and if logical, they would apply to humans that exist in time but not necessarily to God Who exists in timelessness.  In Heaven, things, whether destined or not destined for glory, do not have to be formed seriatum based on man's timeline and logic since they can also occur simultaneously, spontaneously, revertively, miraculously, timelessly and in ways beyond man's comprehension.  Thus, any attempt to confine God to what humans know and can comprehend is wrong.

Also wrong is to limit God to a static existence of predestination, even if the predestination is God's and even if God has intentionally left parts unpredestined.  For Peter Lombard and John Duns Scotus to conclude that God's work had to conform to what they believe to be their infallibility is to be God, even superior to God.  They are not God and their conclusion that the predestination of Christ had to have preceded Adam's existence without leaving room for any other possibility is wrong.

One possibility that they precluded is that the Son of God requires no predestination since the Son of God is, in essence, God.  "[T]he [Catholic] Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is 'consubstantial' with the Father, that is, one only God with him.  The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed 'the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father'. [4]  Since the Son of God is consubstantial with God and there is no entity greater than God, both God and the Son of God cannot be predestined.  God, in consubstantiation with the Son and the Son in consubstantiation with God can, however, will  to have predestiny (the crucifixion was a "willed predestiny") but that is not predestiny--that is Free Will.

The Free Will that "predestined" the crucifixion came to life in the prayers of Jesus at Gethsemane.  "[Jesus] fell with [H]is face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.  Yet not as I will, but as you will.'" [5]  This is evidence that what Jesus knew to be "predestined" could be changed, and because He is consubstantial with God, He could change if He wanted to; yet, He gave God the choice with these words: "[N]ot as I will, but as [Y]ou will."  In other words, Jesus' Passion was not the result of a predestiny but a revocable will.  A revocable will is fluid, changeable at any moment.  Therefore, it is wrong to conclude that the Son of God has a preassigned destiny that forecloses any change subsequent to the preordination.

The words spoken by Jesus during His second prayer at Gethsemane confirm the foregoing conclusion.  They were: "'My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may [Y]our will be done.'" [6]  This prayer, if prayed by this blogger, would be far less eloquent: "Father, if you really want me to suffer through the agony, the torture and the crucifixion, I will do it."  This shows that the Son of God Who was given "the cup" is consubstantial with and not subordinated to God because the Son of God said, "[M]ay [Y]our will be done," meaning that He willed freely to do what God had willed ("predestined" if one wants to think that way), even though He had the Free Will not to comply with God's will ("predestiny"); or, it can be said that the Son of God being consubstantial with God had willed freely to do what He Himself had previously willed or "predestined" (again, if one wishes to think that way) even though He had the Free Will not to fulfill His Own will ("predestiny").  Here, also, the predestiny that Scotus referred to does not apply to the Son of God because He is consubstantial with God and can revoke at any time any "predestiny" and any semblance of it.

On a separate point, even though it is true to say that "the glory of the soul to be redeemed is not comparable to the glory of Christ’s soul," the implication here is that a redeemed soul (as opposed to a soul yet-to-be-redeemed) is never going to be comparable to the glory of Christ's soul.  This implication diminishes the salvific value of Christ's Passion and invalidates Christ's own words: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them." [7]. Accordingly, in order to give meaning to Christ's Passion and Christ's words, one ought to conclude that upon redemption a redeemed soul is united with and shares in the glory of Christ's soul.

Returning to the conclusion that the "[i]ncarnation of Christ was not foreseen as something occasioned [by sin], but that it was foreseen by God from all eternity and as a good more immediately proximate to the end..." [8], John Duns Scotus wrote:

 [T]his is the order followed in God’s prevision. First, God understood Himself as the highest good.  In the second instant He understood all creatures.  In the third He predestined some to glory and grace, and concerning some He had a negative act by not predestining.  In the fourth, He foresaw that all these would fall in Adam.  In the fifth He preordained and foresaw the remedy—how they would be redeemed through the Passion of His Son, so that, like all the elect, Christ in the flesh was foreseen and predestined to grace and glory before Christ’s Passion was foreseen as a medicine against the fall, just as a physician wills the health of a man before he wills the medicine to cure him.” [Emphasis original.]

This blogger understands and can accept the first four of Scotus' numbered statements.  The fifth is somewhat difficult to digest.  Scotus said, "like all the elect, Christ in the flesh was foreseen and predestined to grace and glory before Christ's Passion was foreseen...."  First of all, Christ is not "like all the elect" that had been "predestined to grace and glory." Christ is consubstantial with God, not inferior to God; therefore, He can will His Own "destiny" if He so chooses, and He had done that in the flesh.  The fact that the Christ's will was, and is, identical and coextensive with God's does not mean that Christ is a "yes man" Who does not have Free Will and Whose existence is conditioned upon fulfilling His predestiny.  And the fact that Christ was not mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and that He is the Son of God, mentioned only in much later chapters in the Bible, do not mean that Christ was not present simultaneously and consubstantially with God at the beginning.

Secondly, it is quite strange for the omnipotent [9] and omniscient [10] God to be able to foresee Christ in the flesh being predestined to grace and glory (assuming for the time being Christ is not consubstantial to God) but not be able to foresee simultaneously Christ's Passion.  What other possible event would have led Christ to grace and glory but for His Passion?  Even if no reason is necessary to predestine Christ to grace and glory, why would God play such a silly game, deliberately closing off the mind's one-eye, willing the other mind's eye to foresee only part of the whole predestiny, as if God Who has prevision needs a mind's eye to foresee and more than one at that?  Was it for Self-amusement?  Does God have that much idle time even in timelessness? Seriously, if a predestiny--a finished plan from the beginning--is being foreseen and completed in bits and pieces then it is not really a predestiny, is it?  If Scotus' conclusion that "Christ in the flesh was foreseen and predestined to grace and glory before Christ’s Passion was foreseen" turns out to be correct, then, in this blogger's opinion, it would have resulted more from God's spontaneous exercise of Free Will than from God's predestined plan with every eventual possibility considered and every eventual detail evaluated.  In other words, the conclusion Scotus had drawn could not be a hundred percent correct because of God's omiscience, omnipotence and consubstantial existence with Christ, although it could arguably be correct provided that there exists the possibility of a fusion of antipodes, spontaneous Free Will and carefully considered predestiny, that only  a consubstantiated omniscient and omnipotent God knows why and how it is done, not Peter Lombard, not John Duns Scotus and most certainly not this blogger.

Finally, the comparison of Christ in the flesh being first foreseen and predestined to grace and glory before Christ's Passion was foreseen to a physician willing the health of a man before willing the medication to cure him is a bit off. The first comparison between Christ's predestined grace and glory and a man's health seems fine, but when Scotus analogized Christ's Passion to a medication, he overdid it, since a man's medication does not require a man to suffer and  be crucified, then go to Hell before he is "resurrected" to a state of "grace and glory" of a healthful being.

Ignoring consubstantiality [11], on the same topic Scotus continued to write and write.  Perhaps he was uncomfortable with his own conclusions at the outset, yet he seemed determined to convince himself, and the (Christian) world, that he was absolutely right, but on this particular topic, he had not done enough to convince this blogger that he was right.

Of all of Scotus' statements, the following four (read together), from Scotus' Opus Parisiense (or Reportatio Parisiensis) [12], trouble this blogger the most:

First, God loves Himself.  Secondly, He loves Himself for others, and this is an ordered love. Thirdly, He wishes to be loved by Him who can love Him with the greatest love—speaking of the love of someone who is extrinsic to Himself.  And fourthly, He foresees the union of that nature that must love Him with the greatest love even if no one had fallen. [Emphasis original.]

Christ never talked about God the way Scotus had in the four sentences above.  Simply, in Christ's Own words: "God is love." [13]  Scotus must have skipped over those three words or had forgotten about them.  Scotus must have also forgotten about these other words of Christ [14]:

“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

This blogger doubts that Christ revealed God's love to Scotus and asked him to turn God's unconditional and plenary love for all into a self-indulgent, selfish and segregated love in just four sentences.  In this blogger's opinion, God's love cannot be categorized and ranked as Scotus had categorized and ranked it.   Perhaps unfair, but this is how this blogger "reads" the four presumptive conclusions above: God loves Himself; God uses "others" as an excuse to love Himself; God loves Himself so much that God wants someone outside of God to love God with "the greatest love," a love that only God alone can give, thereby creating another distinct and "extrinsic" God that loves; and God loves Himself so, so much that God wants to unite with that extrinsic "nature" created by God for the sole purpose of loving God with a love so great that no other extrinsic entity can give (Scotus' fourth sentence is being read with Scotus' unstated assumption in mind, that "the greatest love" can only come from a "nature" that is "extrinsic" to God and predestined to love God, not from "fallen" sinners who are "extrinsic" to God and not predestined to love God but nonetheless exercise their individual Free Will to love God).  This is definitely not the God this blogger knows through Christ.

In conclusion (disregarding consubstantiality), whether God made and predestined the Son of God to love God before Adam's creation, or whether the Son of God was created after the fall of Adam by a spontaneous act of Free Will or as a part of a preordained plan, are questions for the self-indulging, self-loving, unproductive idle mind's selfish self-amusement.

The human mind was not made for speculating on and blogging about abstract concepts; rather, it is to be used to find "the way and the truth and the life" through Christ.  The ideal mind, therefore, ought to be a collection of thoughts, hopes and memories, the entirety of which, at all times, would form a continuous prayer of love, expressed in silence, or in any combination with words, with actions, with feelings, with images, with music, with songs, with dance and with art, as the individual person's mind sees fit.  This blogger's mind is nowhere near its ideal and until it is there, as if it is even possible to get there, it would continue to idle and speculate, allowing its deficiencies to be revealed in this blog.

[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+14%3A1-6&version=NIV

[2] This blogger is an admirer of Blessed John Duns Scotus who presented his arguments for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.  See http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/marian/scotus&immac.htm  His arguments for predestination, however, are not so convincing.

[3] http://absoluteprimacyofchrist.org/scotus-writings/
[4] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm, Paragraph 242.
[5] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2026:36-56
[6] Ibid.
[7] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6%3A56&version=NIV
[8] http://absoluteprimacyofchrist.org/scotus-writings/
[9] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p3.htm, Paragraph 268: " Of all the divine attributes, only God's omnipotence is named in the Creed."  That is enough since from omnipotence flows omniscience.
[10] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+139&version=NASB, line 4.
[11] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c3a8.htm, Paragraph 689.
[12] http://absoluteprimacyofchrist.org/scotus-writings/
[13] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+4%3A8, and http://www.usccb.org/bible/1john/4, lines 8 and 16.
[14] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A22&version=NIV

Eve's Feminism

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.'" [1]  This God told to Adam, before Eve was created. [2]

Then came the Serpent. To Eve, It said [3]:

“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

God never spoke to Eve directly.  Eve knew not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge from Adam and therefore what she knew was from hearsay, which is not always fully reliable.  At best, she could be viewed as naïve, but her naïveté was short-lived when she doubted Adam's words and was overcome by her desire to "be like God."

Wanting to be equal to God made Eve a feminist, the first in the world, who ought to be called the  queen of feminism. Even without a crown, she has many followers, including nuns for whom, or rather, for whose sins, an archbishop from Indianapolis, Indiana, and soon-to-be cardinal, has the utmost compassion. [4]

Feminism is a derivative of pride and is equally as sinful. According to "the Dominican priest, Father Juan Jose Gallego, an exorcist from the Archdiocese of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain[,]" [5]  "pride is the sin the devil likes the most." [6] For someone who is supposed to serve God to have compassion for the deadly sin of pride and its derivatives, of which feminism is one, that Satan favors is unwise.  Equally unwise is for one to have compassion for those who unrepentantly embraces them.

Eve's feminism probably did not endear Eve to God.  God, drawing a sharp contrast to Eve, gave man a very special woman.  She is the Immaculate Conception, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Mother of Jesus,  Whose obedience to God was, and is, absolute and Whose humility no woman before or since can match, and in Whose footsteps no feminist and secular nun (or woman) wants to follow. [7]

Therefore, it can be concluded that Eve, the feminist, has many daughters who are nuns who are just like her, who want to be like God, to perhaps blaze an alternative path to eternity (wherever that might be).  As luck would have it, or more precisely as fate would require it, they have to their benefit, many sons of Eve who are their sympathizers and who wield power presently from the highest echelons inside the Vatican.


[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A15-17&version=NIV
[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A4-3%3A24
[3] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis3%3A1-6&version=NIV
[4] https://www.ncronline.org/news/sisters-stories/sisters-friend-vatican-named-head-indianapolis-archdiocese
[5] http://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=66241
[6] Ibid.
[7] http://girltalkhq.com/the-catholic-nuns-on-a-mission-to-fight-for-a-womans-right-to-choose/  Perhaps it is time for feminist and secular nuns to form their own religion and elect their own popess who would appoint priestesses.  Then they can stop complaining about a male-dominated Vatican and create their own church, just as King Henry XVIII did, and gave the world the Church of England.

Dreams And Ideals

Living a life of dreams and ideals is a guarantee of continual disenchantment, even within the confines of a place of worship.  Does that mean one has to abandon the dream of an ideal and wholesome existence and immerse in a world of possessions, food, alcohol, sex, drugs and entertainment in order to be happy?  Is happiness in life only to be found in the celebration of youth, beauty and decadence?

Wherever happiness is, it often seems to be at places where this blogger does not fit in, but he has not given up seeking it.  It is most certainly not in this blog.  Many entries here show his dissatisfaction with the pope, but his dissatisfaction has nothing to do with the pope personally, or maybe it does, but still the dissatisfaction is not so much with the pope himself but more with the splendor of Original Sin in every man that he manifests.  Blogging is his way to vent his frustrations with the Catholic Church, a place where the living body of Christ resides and supposedly a place for those who seek Christ's peace away from the noises of society and for those who have lost their way among life's onuses.

Even though the Catholic Church still houses the Holy Eucharist, it is no longer a place of refuge, notwithstanding the fact that it was staged as such by this pope for a number of carefully selected and screened Syrian refugees.  The Vatican ought to stand rooted as a pillar of holiness and as an impenetrable shield for all who seek protection from the Enemy, yet it has been transformed into a stage to meet and greet, without much, if any, reverence for or reference to God.  Even acting in the capacity of a state, the Vatican cannot separate itself from Jesus Christ and His Church, since without the Son of God, there would be no Peter, the Apostle, no Catholic church and no Vatican.  This rather secular pope, a monarch of sorts, has under him more dramas, political, social, administrative and secular, being played out over the period of his papacy than all the occasions of royal pomp and circumstance around the world combined.

Based on his observations, which may very well be biased, this blogger concludes that the Vatican is no longer serving God but itself by partnering with interests that have the backing of money and power to keep itself in "business," so to speak, paying only lip-service to the those who are lost, who need a true shepherd to guide them, not from the stage with a microphone or at a staged event, being watched over by a team of attendants and guards, but who in the pope's own words, is a "'[shepherd] living with the smell of the sheep.'" [1]

The CNN article below, dated September 24, 2015, reveals the state of sacrilege at the Vatican [2]:

The Catholic Church is the spiritual home to 1.1 billion people around the world. It's also a big business that handles billions of dollars. 

Here's how it makes money and how it spends it. 

1. The Vatican Bank has $8 billion in assets

The Vatican Bank, which has about $8 billion in assets, has often been at the center of scandal and corruption since it was founded in 1942. Pope Benedict began the process of cleaning the bank up, and Francis has continued that work.

Vatican Bank accounts are only supposed to be held by residents of Vatican City and church personnel. But according to Gerald Posner, a Vatican bank scholar and the author of "God's Bankers," these accounts were often awarded to powerful Italian officials looking to stash money without paying taxes. 

The bank closed over 4,000 accounts to weed out corruption and currently has a total of 33,400 accounts. 

The bank, formally known as the Institute of Works of Religion, has made progress, but still has a long way to go in becoming more transparent. 

2. The Vatican had over €1.1 billion off its balance sheet

The Vatican is a separate entity from the Vatican bank, and underwent its own clean up last year. 

When it released its 2014 financial statements in July, the Vatican said it had more than €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) in assets that weren't previously on the balance sheet.

The Vatican has two main entities. The Holy See, which governs the Catholic Church and the Vatican City State, which governs Vatican City.

The Holy See reported a deficit of €25.6 million ($27.9 million) in 2014, even though it received over €50 million from the Vatican Bank. Its biggest expense last year was paying its 2,880 employees a total of €126.6 million.

The Vatican City State is responsible for running the Vatican Museums and in 2014 had a surplus of €63.5 million -- nearly double what it was the year before.

3. The Sistine Chapel is for rent - kind of 

In October 2014, [under the Francis papacy,] the Sistine Chapel was rented out for the first time to the automaker Porsche. 

Forty Porsche fans paid $5,900 to attend a gala under Michelangelo's famed painted ceiling as part of Pope Francis' Art for Charity project.

Whereas the average visitor is permitted only a short stay in the chapel, for fear of damage to the frescoes, the Porsche guests were treated to a private choral concert and a dinner in the exhibit. 

Although money did change hands, the Vatican still contends it isn't renting out the chapel.

"The Sistine Chapel can never be rented because it is not a commercial place," Vatican spokesman Monsignor Paolo Nicolini said.

Instead, he described it as being "visible" for private groups.

But don't try booking the chapel for your birthday or wedding anytime soon -- events are limited to art-related functions.

4. It costs how much to become a saint?! 

It's not cheap to get a priest canonized. To wit: The Our Lady of Victory National Shrine & Basilica in Lackawanna, New York, has raised over $250,000 in an effort to canonize its former priest, Father Nelson Baker.  [The unofficial figure is $550,000 [3] so he should almost be (halfway) there.]

The funds cover the publication of materials about Baker, prayer cards, communication between the church and the Vatican, travel costs for visits to and from Rome and the fees of a canon lawyer. 

The cost of canonization can vary greatly depending on the length of the process and the specific evidence needed to prove that a candidate is qualified for sainthood.

The church first appealed to Rome to have Baker canonized in 1987. The case was approved in 2011, but Our Lady of Victory still has to prove that Baker performed miracles. [4]

5. Tourism in Vatican City has tripled under Pope Francis 

Tourism under Pope Francis has nearly tripled since he replaced Pope Benedict in March of 2013. 

Over 12 million visitors have flocked to the Vatican for events featuring Pope Francis. And those figures don't even include the attendance for Pope Francis events that were held outside of the Vatican -- that tacks on another nearly 13 million visitors.

Pope Benedict received some 20.5 million visitors during his tenure from 2005-2013. [5]

Is this the kind of church Christ had imagined that it would become as if He did not already know?  Why did God allow the Catholic Church to deteriorate?  Is it because that popes and cardinals have been given the same Free Will as Adam and Eve and everyone else to sin against God?

It would be a tragedy if a natural disaster flattens the Vatican, but it would be better to start over than to continue down its snaky and damnable road. [6]  Perhaps upon the debris will walk a true saint, like Francesco d'Assisi in the early 13th century who heard Jesus say to him, "'[G]o rebuild my Church, which you see is falling into ruins.'"  [7]  Maybe then will Heaven on earth can become a reality and happiness can be within this blogger's reach without having to live a decadent life trying to find it.



[1] http://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/pope-francis-priests-should-be-shepherds-living-with-the-smell-of-the-sheep/13439
[2] http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/24/news/pope-francis-visit-vatican-catholic-church/
[3] https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2016/09/23/vatican-tightens-rules-miracles-money-sainthood-cases/
[4] This blogger posted an entry on September 25, 2016, entitled New Rules For Sainthood, thinking that this pope wanted the change because he wanted to make certain that unsaintly people do not become saints.  This could be pure naïveté on the part of this blogger.  After writing this entry, he now concludes that the purpose for this change is not to protect the saintliness of sainthood but to make the process even more expensive, i.e, more money for the Vatican.
To prove that Baker performed miracles, follow the examples of those who had JP2 and Teresa of Kolkata canonized.  Find some people and some doctors in obscure corners of the world and pay them lots of cash to say what needs to be said, and pay those who are vested with the responsibility to ascertain the validity of miraculous claims even more cash.
This is how this skeptical blogger views the processes that have led to some of the recent canonizations which can be as corrupt as some individuals that were canonized.
[5] This blogger does not understand why so many more people go to the Vatican under this pope than his predecessor.  Had God been replaced?  If no is the answer, then the large number of people who have gone to the Vatican under this papacy could not be because of God, since God has not changed, but because of a persona, since that is now different.  A show of love for God by visiting the the Vatican ought not to be dependent on the persona of a pope.
Those who serve God are supposed to be as invisible as they can be, to act as conduits for the Holy Spirit to shine through to the people, but the people do not seem to care about the Holy Spirit; instead, they prefer a human being emboldened by a common popularity, even if the commonness is feigned and the popularity belongs to a person who is a savvy meglaomaniac politician fluent in the language of environmental and social secularism.  This blogger doubts that many of these people who enjoy this pope would be just as enthusiastic in the presence of the Son of God, Who spoke God's Truth (not the language of relativism and hypocritical secular egalitarianism that they like to hear) and Who was so unpopular in His time that He was crucified.  This blogger doubts that the mass mentality back then was any different than the mass mentality today.  If Christ were alive in this world, he would not be nailed to a cross (not even by members of ISIL) but he would be crucified with words by the secular media and by Catholics who find Him too (ironically) "unforgiving."
[6] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A29-30&version=NIV
[7] http://www.capuchins.org/stfrancis.html

Vatican Conference On Sport And Faith - The Conclusion

It is Saturday, October 8, 2016, in Rome, Italy, and the Vatican Conference On Sport And Faith that began on October 5 to October 7, 2016, [1] had ended.  The purpose of the conference was described as follows [2]:

To unite people from every faith, nationality and culture through sport, in a common goal: To help the ones who need it most, especially the marginalized and the disadvantaged, and to encourage everyone to develop their life skills, character, values, and enjoyment of life itself, through sport.

The purpose seemed worthwhile, but since when is the Vatican the proper venue to host such a conference as if the Vatican were a secular conference center to advance a secular purpose, however noble? [3]  Were not the merchants at the temple trying to earn a living to support their families noble? Perhaps, but the temple was not the place to be noble, and neither is the Vatican built in the name of God.

On the contrary, both the temple in Jesus' time and the Vatican in the present are places for those who stand upon their grounds to be humble, not noble.  In Jesus' words [4]:

“It is written,” [H]e said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’

Were the conference participants along with the pope and his entourage robbers?  Not in the sense that they were taking the Vatican Museum's priceless paintings for their own use without permission but in the sense that they were robbing the sanctity of the place that ought to be a place to supplicate before God with deep faith and reverence and to meditate what the Son of God had gone through as man for the salvation of souls.

In this blogger's opinion, the Vatican is not to be a backdrop to advance a social or political cause, a conference center or a place to host a gala reception for secularists and Catholics alike.

The conference was not in the least a religious event nor were the pope's remarks particularly ecclesiastical.  The pope did mention God in passing in his statement on October 5, 2016, [5] that opened the conference but did not quite make God the central part of his statement.  He ended his remarks by delegating the faith part for God to work on, as reported in the Summary of Bulletin  by the Holy See Press Office [6]:

I trust that these days of meeting and reflection will allow you to explore further the good that sport and faith can bring to our societies”, concluded the Holy Father, commending to God this task, its hopes and its expectations.

The pope's hope was that "sport and faith" could be combined to further the good in society by the end of the conference, and that God would help realize that hope, but God did not accept the pope's delegated responsibility.  God left women's pre-existing dissatisfaction with the sports world intact the entire time.  The conference did, however, provide "[Ms] Ackerman with an audience full of world sports leaders to listen to her message [about gender inequality] — from IOC president Thomas Bach to Arsenal soccer club CEO Ivan Gazidis to New York Giants co-owner John Mara." [7]  In regard to the number of women in leadership roles in the sports world, Ackerman said, "To me anything less than 30 is not good, and 50-50 is the ideal. So the hope is that over the next 15 years we can get closer to equality," as reported by Foxnews.com and other media outlets. [8], [9], [10]

Gender equality became at some point an issue at the conference.  What is next?  Transgender equality, sexual orientation equality, racial equality, religious equality, age equality?  When will the pope address all of these secular issues within the walls of the Vatican?  Will he simply ignore them?  Using a cliché, the blogger thinks that the pope opened "a can of worms" with this conference, and now he does not appear to know what to do with all the worms that have become snakes crawling all over him.

Maybe he will have all this figured out by the second annual sports and faith conference next year, if there is to be a repeat misuse of holy grounds.  Or, maybe God will consent to doing the work the pope delegated.


[1] http://www.cultura.va/content/cultura/en/dipartimenti/sport/risorse/gratuity.html
[2] http://www.sportforhumanity.com/2016-conference/
[3] Perhaps the Vatican had been used for secular purposes in the past but having such precedents does not make it right.
[4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+21:12-13
[5] http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/10/05/161005e.html#
[6] Ibid.
[7] http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2016/10/07/female-sports-pioneers-carry-message-to-vatican-conference.html|
[8] Ibid.
[9] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/female-sports-pioneers-carry-message-to-vatican-conference/2016/10/07/7cebdd98-8ca2-11e6-8cdc-4fbb1973b506_story.html
[10] http://reviewtimes.com/national-sports/2016/10/07/female-sports-pioneers-carry-message-to-vatican-conference/

Pope On "Short," "Clear" And "Non-boring" Homilies

From the Hawaii Catholic Herald  dated May 23, 2014: [1]

[The pope] also warned [seminarians] not to give “boring homilies,” saying their reflections should be brief, powerful and address the problems and concerns people are really going through.

From The National Catholic Reporter  dated April 30, 2015: [2]

Pope Francis told 19 new priests earlier this week to make sure "that your homilies are not boring."

From the Catholic Herald  dated November 10, 2015: [3]

Pope Francis has pleaded with priests to give short, clear homilies, after ordaining a Rome pastor as an auxiliary bishop of Rome,

Ordaining Bishop Angelo De Donatis, 61, yesterday at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Pope Francis reminded the new bishop of something he had told him earlier.

“Let your words be simple so that everyone can understand. Don’t give long homilies,” the pope said

Now, the pope's own homily, from EWTN News  dated October 6, 2016: [4]

The Holy Spirit is the “great gift” of God the Father who helps us avoid the stupidities of a legalistic faith while leading us forward in Christian life, Pope Francis has said.  

“May the Lord give us this grace: to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, so that we will not become stupid, bewitched men and women who sadden the Holy Spirit,” the Pope remarked in his homily at morning Mass at Casa Santa Martha Oct. 6.

More on the same homily from Vatican Radio  dated October 6, 2016: [5]

The Spirit, Pope Francis said, “is the protagonist of this ‘going forward’ of the Church.” Without the Spirit, the Church would be shut up within itself, fearful.

The Pope pointed out three “attitudes” that we can have with regard to the Spirit. The first is that which Saint Paul rebuked in the Galatians: the belief that one can be justified through the Law, and not by Jesus, “who makes sense of the Law.” And so they were “too rigid.” They are the same kind of people who attack Jesus and who the Lord called hypocrites:

“And this attachment to the Law ignores the Holy Spirit. It does not grant that the redemption of Christ goes forward with the Holy Spirit. It ignores that: there is only the Law. It is true that there are the Commandments and we have to follow the Commandments; but always through the grace of this great gift that the Father has given us, His Son, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so the Law is understood. But don’t reduce the Spirit and the Son to the Law. This was the problem of these people: they ignored the Holy Spirit, and they did not know to go forward. Closed, closed in precepts: we have to do this, we have to do that. At times, it can happen that we fall into this temptation.”

The Doctors of the Law, the Pope said, “bewitch with ideas”:

“Because ideologies bewitch; and so Paul begins here: ‘O stupid Galatians, who has bewitched you?’ Those who preach with ideologies: It’s absolutely just! They bewitch: It’s all clear. But look, the revelation is not clear, eh? The revelation of God is discovered more and more each day, it is always on a journey. Is it clear? Yes! It is crystal clear! It is Him, but we have to discover it along the way. And those who believe they have the whole truth in their hands are not [just] ignorant. Paul says more: [you are] ‘stupid’, because you have allowed yourselves to be bewitched.”

The second attitude is grieving the Holy Spirit. This happens “when we do not allow Him to inspire us, to lead us forward in the Christian life,” when “we don’t let Him tell us, not with the theology of the Law, but with the liberty of the Spirit, what we should do.” That, the Pope said, is how “we become lukewarm,” we fall into “Christian mediocrity,” because the Holy Spirit “cannot do great works in us.”

The third attitude, on the other hand, “is to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, and let the Spirit carry us forward. That’s what the Apostles did, [with] the courage of the day of Pentecost. They lost their fear and opened themselves to the Holy Spirit.” In order “to understand, to welcome the words of Jesus,” the Pope said, “it is necessary to open oneself to the power of the Holy Spirit.” When a man or a woman opens themself to the Holy Spirit, it is like a sail boat that allows itself to be moved by the wind and goes forward, forward, forward, and never stops.” But this happens when we pray that we might be open to the Holy Spirit:

“We can ask ourselves today, in a moment during the day, ‘Do I ignore the Holy Spirit? And do I know that if I go to Sunday Mass, if I do this, if I do that, is it enough?’ Second, ‘Is my life a kind of half a life, lukewarm, that saddens the Holy Spirit, and doesn’t allow that power in me to carry me forward, to be open?’ Or finally, ‘Is my life a continual prayer to open myself to the Holy Spirit, so that He can carry me forward with the joy of the Gospel and make me understand the teaching of Jesus, the true doctrine, that does not bewitch, that does not make us stupid, but the true [teaching]?’ And it helps us understand where our weaknesses are, those things that sadden Him; and it carries us forward, and also carrying forward the Name of Jesus to others and teaching the path of salvation. May the Lord give us this grace: to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, so that we will not become stupid, bewitched men and women who grieve the Holy Spirit.” 

This blogger does not find the homily above to be short, or clear or riveting.  In fact, he remains unenlightened and stupid after reading it twice trying to decipher it, and keeps wondering who are the ideological witches, which of the witches' ideologies are bewitching and who have become not only bewitched but also stupid as well.  Without naming names, how would people know who to stay away from to avoid becoming bewitched and stupid?  Is it possible that the pope himself is an ideological witch, or is he merely a savvy ideological politician that "grieves the Holy Spirit" just as much an ideological witch does?


[1] http://www.hawaiicatholicherald.com/2014/05/23/pope-francis-to-seminarians-dont-be-princes-dont-give-long-boring-homilies/
[2] https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/pope-francis-says-no-boring-homilies
[3] http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/11/10/makes-homilies-short-and-simple-says-pope/
[4] http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/Vatican.php?id=14387
[5] http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/10/06/pope_at_mass_be_open_to_the_spirit,_who_carries_us_forward/1263299

Vatican Conference On Sport And Faith

"The Vatican is presenting a conference on sport and faith to world leaders from Wednesday [October 5, 2016,] to Friday [October 7, 2016,] in Rome." [1]  Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President Pontifical Council for Culture said, "'We need to return to when we used sports as a moral instrument. We need to go back to the ethics of sports because it's both a moral and spiritual principle.'" [2]  Who is he kidding?  Does he know how much money is being generated in the sports market globally?  If not, maybe he should read the paragraph quoted below [3]:

Over the next five years to 2015, global sports revenues will grow to US$145.3 billion at an annual compound growth rate (CAGR) of 3.7 per cent due to an improved economy, a rebound in TV advertising, the on-going migration of sports to pay TV and the resurgence of financial services and automobile companies to sponsorship.

With this much money involved, is there room for morality and spirituality in sports?  Listen to the seven-time le Tour de France winner cyclist Lance Armstrong's doping confession here [4] and read about the New England Patriot's quarterback Tom Brady's deflated balls here [5].  The very long article concluded that "it was 'more probable than not' that Patriots employees were deliberately releasing air from footballs and that [Tom] Brady knew about it." [6]  Then there is infidelity.  Read about golfer Tiger Woods' extramarital sexual escapades here [7].

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from the United States, "[t]he Sunday Times ... [on April 3, 2016,] published claims that a British doctor, Mark Bonar, had prescribed performance enhancing substances to some 150 athletes, including Premier League footballers. Arsenal, Chelsea, Leicester City and Birmingham City were all named by the newspaper as having current or former players prescribed medicines by Bonar." [8], [9]

As an aside, Lance Armstrong's net worth in 2012 was estimated at US$125 million [10], Tom Brady's 2016 net worth was estimated at US$172 million [11] and Tiger Woods' 2016 net worth was estimated at US$825 million [12].  Was any one of these sports figures particularly moral or spiritual?  The hope is that not every sports figure is like these men, that many are moral and spiritual, even those whose paychecks are big.

What about faith?  Is faith hidden somewhere in the sports world in between the billions and the lies, and the lies and the doping?  Perhaps it is.  The Vatican conference on sport and faith starts today, October 5, 2016, in Rome.  This blogger is waiting to find out from this pope how faith can be an ingredient in a concoction of wealth, deceit and illicit drugs.


[1] http://www.romereports.com/2016/10/04/vatican-presents-world-conference-on-sport-and-faith
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.big4.com/pricewaterhousecoopers/pwc-global-sports-market-to-grow-to-us145-3-billion/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_0PSZ59Aws
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/sports/football/deflategate-new-england-patriots-nfl-science.html
[6] Ibid.
[7] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-3078432/Tiger-Woods-CHEATED-ex-girlfriend-Lindsey-Vonn-real-reason-split.html
[8] http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/85/england/2016/04/05/22041582/soccer-is-one-smoking-gun-away-from-a-real-doping-scandal
[9] http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/insight/article1684584.ece
[10] https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=lance%20armstrong%20net%20worth%202012
[11] http://moneynation.com/tom-brady-net-worth/
[12] http://moneynation.com/tiger-woods-net-worth-why-its-not-a-billion-yet/