Francis Trips & Preaches "Ecological Virtues"
Francis shocks onlookers as he stumbles and falls on the steps in St Peter's Square
"Pope" Francis stumbled and fell as he walked up steps in St Peter’s Square on Saturday.
The pontiff struck a prayer-like pose as he tumbled up the steps,
stopping his fall with his hands before being helped by two security
personnel walking beside him.
He then continues his ascent, apparently unfazed by the slip-up.
Since becoming "the leader" of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013 he has showed no signs of slowing down.
On Friday, "Pope" Francis released his first pop-rock album in Italy.
Wake Up!, an 11-track Vatican-approved album, features many of the most moving addresses of Pope Francis’s papacy laid over rap, pop-rock and Latin rhythms.
Since becoming "the leader" of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013 he has showed no signs of slowing down.
On Friday, "Pope" Francis released his first pop-rock album in Italy.
Wake Up!, an 11-track Vatican-approved album, features many of the most moving addresses of Pope Francis’s papacy laid over rap, pop-rock and Latin rhythms.
Human ecology?
· Message from the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue to Hindus for the Feast of Deepavali ·
“May we Hindus and Christians, together with people of all
religious traditions and good will, always foster a culture which promotes
human ecology”: this was the theme of the message sent by the Pontifical
Council for Interreligious Dialogue to Hindus for the Feast of Deepavali, which
is celebrated on 11 November. “His Holiness Pope Francis”, the message states,
“in his Encyclical Letter Laudato
Si’, has recently addressed the environmental and human ecological crisis
threatening our planet. Thus we deem it opportune to share, in keeping with our
cherished tradition, some thoughts on the need to promote human ecology, and to
foster a rediscovery of the interconnectedness of creation. Human ecology
points to the relationship and responsibility which humans have towards the
earth and to the cultivation of "ecological virtues". These virtues
include a sustainable use of the earth's resources through the adoption of
policies, at national and international levels, which respect the
interconnectedness and interdependence of human beings and nature. These
issues, as we know, have a direct bearing not only on the current health of our
earth - the home of the human family- but also for generations to come”.
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 6, 2015 (LifeSiteNews)
-- The homosexual friend of Pope Francis who took his partner to meet
the Catholic pontiff in DC in September is now defending the pope from
gay activist critics upset over the controversial meeting with Kim
Davis. Instead, Yayo Grassi claims, gay activists should credit Francis
for his efforts to change the Church’s attitude on homosexual issues.
Word
of the pope’s meeting with Grassi and his boyfriend, their second
meeting as a couple with the pontiff, came immediately after the Vatican took steps to distance itself
from Davis. After the news came out about the pope’s meeting with
Davis, Vatican spokesmen rebuffed news headlines by claiming the
audience with Grassi and his partner was “the only real audience” at the U.S. nunciature that day.
Grassi,
a former student of the pope’s, said that Pope Francis is taking steps
to change the Church on LGBT issues, and also claims the pope has told
him that he never made some of the strongest statements in support of
marriage attributed to him while still a cardinal in Argentina.
“He
said as a matter of fact he never expressed himself about this question
(gay marriage),” said Grassi. “And he ended up by saying something that
to me is so important. He said, ‘believe me, in my pastoral work there
is no place for homophobia.’”
"He
has never been judgmental," said Grassi, who says the pope has always
known of his same-sex inclination and relationships. "He has never said
anything negative."
Initially
reports said the pope had met with Davis, who had been jailed for
refusing to issue “marriage” licenses to same-sex couples, and told her
to stay strong amidst the attacks she’d been under for refusing to
capitulate to support for homosexual “marriage.”
However
circumstances surrounding the meeting then took a bizarre turn as the
Vatican press office would neither confirm nor deny the meeting with
Davis.
This
was then followed by a Vatican statement distancing Pope Francis from
her, asserting their meeting was not a real audience and “should not be
considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular
and complex aspects.”
However the Holy Father had reaffirmed support for Davis’ stance
on his way back to Rome, telling journalists on the flight it was a
human right for government officials to refuse to conduct a duty that
violates their conscience.
The pope’s defense of Davis, and then the news of the meeting, brought a major backlash from the left. It was this vitriol toward the Holy Father that convinced Grassi to speak up, he says.
“So
I thought it is my friend who is being attacked,” he said. “The least I
can do is defend him with the facts that I know. I don’t have to lie.
All I have to do is tell exactly what happened.”
“One
of the things that upset me extremely and profoundly was that people
who were so much in love with this Pope immediately turned against him,”
Grassi said in an interview
with the homosexual publication Washington Blade. “And I was telling my
friends how can you forget everything this guy did? How can we forget
these things for something that this woman said that we don’t even know
is true or not?”
“To
me it was a meeting with a friend of mine,” Grassi stated of his
encounter with Pope Francis. “It was a meeting between two friends…who
love each other and I admire him deeply. That would have been the end of
the story and I wouldn’t have you here sitting in my kitchen if it
wasn’t that this lady Kim Davis came out with this information saying
she got a private audience with him.”
Davis’ attorneys have maintained the facts around the pope’s meeting with her, that the encounter was private and initiated by the Vatican.
Davis is currently appealing
to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn four lower-court
decisions, reversing two injunctions against Davis and grant her an
injunction from having to follow the Supreme Court's marriage ruling, as
well as overturn the contempt of court decision that landed her in
jail.
Grassi’s version of the pope’s opposition to Argentina’s 2010 redefinition of marriage
when he was a cardinal there differs from media reports on
then-Cardinal Bergoglio’s statements, with his alleging the pope had
disavowed his comments in defense of marriage during the country’s
debate over the law.
"Let's
not be naive, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a
destructive pretension against the plan of God," said then Cardinal
Bergoglio. "We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a
machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the
children of God."
The future Pope Francis
also requested the clergy of his parishes read a declaration defending
marriage from the pulpit, saying as well the bill to redefine marriage
“could gravely injure the family,” and called into question "the
identity, and the survival of the family: father, mother, and
children."
Grassi
recounted when he’d read in the news that Cardinal Bergoglio had said
“quite strong and negative things about gay marriage.”
“I
was extremely surprised when I saw that,” he said. “So I fired an email
to him explaining to him how much I owed him, what an important person
he was in my life, how much he developed my most progressive thoughts in
my life and that I was disappointed to hear that he was saying these
negative things about gay people and about gay marriage.”
Grassi
said the letter was lengthy, in which he mentioned his boyfriend by
name and told him how they’d been together 14 years, to which Grassi
said he received a “beautiful reply – a very loving reply,” from the
pope.
“He
started by apologizing because he had hurt me, because I was hurt,”
Grassi stated. “And immediately after that he said I have never said any
of those things that the press is publishing about me.”
It
was then Grassi said the future Holy Father stated he’d never spoken on
the issue, and that there was no place in his pastoral work for
homophobia.
Grassi
further disputes any assumption that Pope Francis is not on board with
the goals of homosexual activists, and contends the Holy Father is
putting forth genuine effort to affect change in the Church for LGBT
individuals.
“What
I can say is we have to recognize the small steps that Pope Francis has
taken and that considering the place where he comes from are actually
giant steps,” stated Grassi. “It’s not that the man does not want to do
it. He has a timing for things. He has a way of saying things that are
so extraordinary and making them with small steps.”
German and Swiss bishops hail Synod’s new tone welcoming those in sinful unions
Both of the official websites of the German and the Swiss Bishops' Conferences, katholisch.de and kath.ch, have published numerous articles commenting upon the Synod of Bishops on the Family and its Final Report, as it was consensually approved by the bishops in Rome on October 24, 2015.
The tendency of both websites is the same. Both are rejoicing about the fact that the language of the Synod's document does not speak of sin and a deeper need for conversion anymore, but, rather, welcomes people in different life situations – independently of the prior questions as to whether their ways of life are sincerely and actually in accordance with God's Laws or not.In the following, I will give a few representative examples.
Most importantly, the German Bishops' Conference organized a press meeting on the same day as the approval of the Final Report, October 24. Among the speakers were the more progressive-leaning prelates of Germany and Austria, such as Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, and Archbishop Heiner Koch, all of whom have consistently proposed a more liberal attitude toward the remarried divorcees and homosexual unions.
Cardinal Schönborn insisted in his own presentation concerning the pastoral care of significantly different marital situations that it is now to be “about a careful examination, an accompaniment.” He stressed that there is a “variety of situations which have to be examined carefully” and that “one needs an accompaniment which allows differentiations.” Schönborn later also spoke about the “homosexual partnership” which “is a partnership, not a marriage.” He said that the Church wanted to keep this distinction. He continued: “That, of course, does not mean that we reject civilly registered partnerships [civil unions]. That, indeed, has to be properly organized and regulated.”
While Cardinal Marx pointed out that there will now be a “stronger integration” of “remarried” divorcees into the life of the Church, such as being godparents at baptisms, Bishop Bode was the most outspoken. He said: “The great step of this Synod does not lie in the determining of the little details. […] When the space has been opened up as it has now been described [in the document], nothing is anymore to be seen about speaking of sin or of something contrary to nature – none of that is in there. I am very glad that this whole document has been approved with a two-thirds majority, right up to the most delicate parts.” This approval might be for some only a little step, Koch said, “but, for me, this is a great step.”
Archbishop Koch stressed that it was important at this Synod to build up trust among the bishops who were at times suspicious of a quasi-colonializing attitude of the Germans toward the African bishops and their positions. “We have gained trust. And we would not again start at the same point where we had started three weeks ago, if we were to start again today,” said Koch.
Moreover, for the German Professor Eberhard Schockenhoff – who had been one of the speakers at the controversial May 25 “Shadow Council” at the Gregorian University in Rome – the Synod also represents a great sign of progress. On October 25, he gave an interview to the German bishops' website, katholisch.de, in which he – like the other above-quoted speakers at the German press conference – praised the Synod's final document as a “great step ahead.” He said that the pope's encouragement toward an increase of decentralization within the Church encouraged the “German Bishops' hope for more freedom of action.” The compromise between the different participants in the German-speaking group at the Synod was for Schockenhoff of great importance because it “opens up the idea of a case-by-case approach” with regard to the “remarried” divorcees. “In this matter, this is a great step ahead.”
With regard to the very liberal approach in the Archdiocese of Freiburg, Germany, Schockenhoff said that this diocese and others can now rightfully say that their “practice of finding individual solutions [with regard to the “remarried” divorcees] is in accordance with the Universal Church's rules.” Herewith, he implies that the practice of allowing “remarried” divorcees to receive Holy Communion – as is currently the practice in the Diocese of Freiburg – is now also supported by the Synod's own message. With regard to homosexual unions, Schockenhoff stressed that “at least, they are not being excluded and condemned at all anymore. There is, after all, now another tone than before.”
Another speaker of the 25 May “Shadow Council,” the Swiss Professor Eva-Maria Faber, of Chur, has a similar assessment and praise of the Synod's final document. She said in an interview with the official website of the Swiss bishops, kath.ch: “There may not be anymore any generalizing judgments concerning different life situations, but it is now to be about looking at what people experience in these situations, and also, how they suffer in these situations.” Therefore, one has to accompany people – such as “remarried” divorcees – on their path, according to Faber.
Faber also stressed – just as Bishop Bode has done – that the language of the Church has changed: “It is striking that in the [Synod's] text, one now uses the expression 'complex situations' whereas in former times, one would have likely used the expression 'irregular situations.' In the preparation for this Synod, Pope Francis has distanced himself from this notion of an 'irregular situation' because it implies a generalizing condemnation.” Faber, therefore, also sees a “positive perspective” in this Synod's final document.
Bertone denies renovation allegations amid VatiLeaks 2
