Posts Tagged ‘the vatican’

The Three Dangers of the Frank Pavone Case: Danger One The Errors of the Church

Posted: December 21, 2022 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions
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Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,

“The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice…”

Matthew 23:1-3

Before I begin this series of posts let’s stipulate the following right up front:

The fight against Abortion is just and right and the efforts of Priests for Life in general and the former Father Frank Pavone in particular to oppose abortion and promote life have been to my knowledge a fine and noble undertaking in the best traditions of the Catholic Church and a service to all humanity.

That being said let’s get to the issues at hand.

There is a lot we don’t know about about the Frank Pavone case and the Vatican can take a lot of credit for this. However there are priests who have some background because when he was still Fr. Frank Pavone they were aware of the history between himself and the Bishops over him. His willingness to defy edicts from Bishops would not tend to grab sympathy from people who like him have taken a vow of obedience to such authority nor might the final result be a surprise to them.

But all of this is internal from as one might put it, “inside the club” outside the club this looks very different.

It looks like the Vatican which has over the last few years been very forgiving to those openly flaunting church teachings even to the point of advocating mortal sin while cracking down on the faithful.

As the Vatican letter states Fr. Pavone is a very public figure and creating this image, without explaining to the faithful the background behind it is not only foolish and short sighted, it plays into the hands of every group whose primary goal is to bring down the church, it increases the chance of schism and suggests a double standard for those who follow church teaching on subjects like abortion and those who do not. Given the recent history of the church under this pontiff I suspect very few daily mass Catholic will find such a double standard surprising

The folks at Church Militant put it best, even if all that is alleged by the Vatican is true and correct, and it’s very possible that it is, this was not the way to do things in a media age.

More importantly it illustrates the problem with putting off an issue that was illustrated during the gay pedophilia scandals.

Over and over the church rather than confronting the issue up front when it happened, they punted, transferred and tried to hide the issues. Stalling only made things worse until the scandals exploded much worse then it would have been it they had just been taken care of when they first came up.

If the then Father Pavone was disobeying his bishop back in his days in NY the church would have been better off cracking down at once, punting on the issue and stalling on the issue is one of the reasons why it’s a crisis for the church.

I know and concede that the Vatican by it’s very nature moves slowly and quietly and whenever possibly privately but this is just plain stupid and contrary to the spirit of Christ who when before Annas said:

The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his doctrine. Jesus answered him,

“I have spoken publicly to the world. I have always taught in a synagogue or in the temple area where all the Jews gather, and in secret I have said nothing. Why ask me? Ask those who heard me what I said to them. They know what I said.”

When he had said this, one of the temple guards standing there struck Jesus and said, “Is this the way you answer the high priest?”

Jesus answered him,

“If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?”

John 18:19-23

When you have truth on your side, the thing to do is be open. The church should understand that and act accordingly.

Of course there is the possibility that the folks at the top who made this decision DO understand it and are silent because of it. I hope and pray this is not the case. I honestly don’t know, and frankly I suspect most of the people who read this post don’t know either.

NO MASS FOR YOU! (but give us your money)

Posted: March 13, 2021 by datechguy in catholic
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Saw this at Don Surber via disclose TV concerning the finances at the Vatican under Francis:

The Vatican admits it has nearly depleted its financial reserves and pleads for more donations from the faithful.


“The Vatican published its 2021 budget in its latest effort at greater transparency. It seeks to reassure donors that money is being well spent after mismanagement.

The irony is this story comes a day after this one:

For decades thousands upon thousands of resident priests and student priests and curial priests and pilgrim priests said their Masses at the many altars of the Basilica.

That’s gone. Suppressed to force priests to concelebrate, which is absolutely APPALLING.

Think about this for a second, these people are suppressing the Holy sacrifice of the Mass at St. Peter’s in the Vatican and yet they expect the actual faithful to give them money!?

Cripes I know Francis has been very explicit on the existence of the Devil (which along with his stress on mercy are one of this few good points) but I suggest it’s not necessary for him to give him run of St. Peter’s to drive the point home.

Given this order you’d think that they’d go to the enemies of the faith for their cash just like we’ve seen happen in America with the current administration but those folks are too smart for that. Why should they pay for what this pontificate has been giving them for free? Plus you never know when the Holy Spirit might kick into gear and suddenly those millions might end up actually being used to save souls.

That’s one of the things about having a continual line of Popes since the days of St. Peter, you’re bound to get a few Lemons in there and given the run of Saints that have been in the Chair of St. Peter the law of averages was bound to kick in.

Pray for him.

And don’t leave the church over this stuff, that’s the trap for actual believers the truth of Christ and his Church is eternal, this situation isn’t.

The Vatican Took down the Bible from their web site!

Posted: July 14, 2017 by datechguy in catholic
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President Merkin Muffley: Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

I was in the process of writing a blog post about parenthood on the occasion of my oldest son’s birthday and I wanted to finish by quoting St. Paul in scripture so I hit my bookmarks to the psalms as the quickest way to access the bible on the vatican and got this message

My first thought was they finally fixed The Psalm section which was a pain in the neck so I went to my base link on the blog, clicked on the Bible which goes to the index page and got the same thing.

I figured the vatican site might be down but when I clicked on it, it came up normally so I looked for the link to the bible and didn’t see it where it had been before. Looking at the main page I found a reference link which had a page with a link to the Catechism of the Catholic Church , Canon law and some new links I hadn’t seen before including COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH written by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. But at the top of the list was The Bible. So I clicked on the link figured I’d have to update my bookmarks and saw this….

Here is the text if you can’t read the screen shot:

“The Holy Bible is available in almost every language on earth: the Episcopal Conferences take care of the continuous updating of the translations. In order to have access to the latest Bible version, kindly consult the website of your Episcopal Conference. ”

Seriously you’re the vatican and you TOOK THE &(#$(@(% BIBLE OFF YOUR WEB SITE! You actually think it’s more important to carry a 13-year-old document by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace available for visitors than the Bible?

What on earth is going on in Rome?

Closing thought. There is only one thing more frightening to me han the thought that the Bible was removed from the Vatican’s web site without Pope Francis knowledge and approval. The idea that it was.

UPDATE: I decided to see how easy it is to find the bible on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Website. Fortunately there is a front page link that looks like this:

The first two choices take you the readings from Today’s mass in either English or Spanish, the third choice Books of the bible brings you to both a list and a link to each chapter of each book of the bible (and in terms of Psalms is far superior to the old vatican version which had no link to individual Psalms just to the book that started you on #1 which was a real pain in the neck).

Let’s hope all the other conferences worldwide are just as diligent.

I still think pulling the Bible from the Vatican web site is a horrible idea both in terms of practice and in terms of optics.

Update 2: I guess the 1st printing of my book is now a collector’s item as it contains these words in the introduction that will have to be revised:

As might be expected I will be quoting scripture extensively throughout. All scripture used comes directly from the Vatican Web Site (http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_INDEX.HTM) unless otherwise noted, so that if you have access to the internet, you can confirm the quotes you see.

If you are reading an electronic version of the book you will find some hyperlinks embedded to both scripture and some other items.

I guess I’ll have to fix those paragraphs and redirect the links in the electronic version when I get a chance.  I guess you’d better buy the book now while you can.

Update 3:  Can’t help but thinking of Dr. Strangelove

Gentlemen you can’t read the Bible here, this is the Vatican!

Update 4: Added the text of the screen shot

Update 5: Subscriber Richard Shuford reminds me that the internet and more specifically the Wayback Machine is forever and while the July 5th capture showed the bible gone the June 6 2017 capture still has the main page but I’m linking the Jan 31st 2017 version which has all the pages there available and readable.

Perhaps I should provide a permanent link but the real story is this.

For at least 11 days the Bible has been gone from the vatican web site. This is a newsworthy story and yet I’ve seen no reporting on this other than mine. That means not a single member of the press in the world has attempted to access the bible online there in that time.

I’d like to say that’s a surprise, but that would be a lie.

Update 7: Scripture is back at the Vatican site but Beware of the Leopard!