Saturday, March 13, 2010
Rethinking Fr. Amorth's claims of Satanism in the Vatican.
In the light of the current attacks upon the Holy Father and the Church.
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In my former post I included a claim by a parish worker that "He’d rather work “under the radar” of the hierarchy within his parish community as together they quietly dissent from various official positions and be for one another and the people they serve in the wider community" Going on to explain his belief that the hierarchy or "clerical leadership" of the Catholic Church is "in a state of self-implosion. It’s not going to last.”
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Considering the new sexual abuse scandals now emerging in the headlines in Europe, and the attempts to drag the Holy Father into the fray, I can see how one could be tricked into believing the Church is collapsing. The idea of parish workers and Church functionaries working under the radar to undermine Church teaching - yet believing they are doing God's work - while nothing new, reminded me of Fr. Amorth's revelation that there are Satanists in the Vatican.
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Reading various interviews with Amorth, that are more than just pull-quotes from the more in-depth interview, one soon realizes he is not necessarily referring to the obvious, in your face Satanic ritual, much less suggesting there are secreted apartments where such things take place. Rather it seems to me he is speaking about those who make themselves enemies of the Church, perhaps those who ascribe to 'occult' beliefs, such as the Enneagram, or seemingly harmless new age spiritualities and practices. Most likely, there are those in the Vatican who believe as the little parish worker just referred to who boasts, "he'd rather work under the radar, within the parish, to quietly dissent..." I think Amorth would likely call these things evil, and since evil is Satanic - such folks may well be part of the group of Satanists he is referring to.
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At any rate, understood in this aspect, it seems to me Fr. Amorth's claims are not sensational at all, but synchronize well with the related assertions by Pope St.Pius the X in his encyclical on the doctrines of the Modernists.
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Pius X
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"The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking "men speaking perverse things" (Acts xx. 30), "vain talkers and seducers" (Tit. i. 10), "erring and driving into error" (2 Tim. iii. 13). Still it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ's kingdom itself. Wherefore We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetfulness of Our office.
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That We make no delay in this matter is rendered necessary especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the more mischievous, the less conspicuously they appear. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man." - PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS
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The great need of prayer and vigilance.
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Now, with greater fervor than ever, we must pray for the Holy Father and the bishops and priests in union with him. We need to be careful not to believe on first glance the edited, sensationalized headlines and news stories that will be coming out against the Pope, we need to have great confidence in Our Lord's guarantee, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." [Mt. 16: 18]
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Heretofore I would rely more on people such as Fr. Z for links to what is really being said; after reading his post Scrub Alert: The Times re-opens its bear-baiting pit and subsequent comments this morning, I think one can get a better perspective on what is really going on from his blog. As in the case of Fr. Amorth, the first reports of what he said were taken out of context by the mainstream press, and it will be the same thing with these scandals. It's always like that.
Powerful words indeed from my Confirmation patron! And one doesn't have to look very far afield for dissent. My own pastor said once (in my hearing) that "whenever anything comes from Rome, we close our eyes". So I am now going to follow your advice and ramp up the prayers for him.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Terry. I had a feeling there was more to it than the bits and pieces we were getting in the press.
ReplyDeleteAmen, Terry.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this clarification. Your words really help me put this in perspective.
ReplyDeleteFaustina
"So you're saying that the Church is not in need of reform? Ever? I'm sorry, but given the devastation and pain that the clergy sex abuse scandal has and continues to cause for people, I find the idea that somehow we just carry on, "business as usual," to be mind-boggling."
ReplyDeleteThe reform needs to occur in the public school and Hollywood also. And also mainline Protestentism. As a former neo-pagan and now Catholic, the Church in Her teaching is the only organization with the answers.
To many reformers do not seem to realize or maybe do not want to realize that the reforms they want are the lead to Destruction.
Faustina
FYI:
ReplyDeleteAbout the above post. I am a computer spaz. I meant to comment on another blog entry.
Faustina