The devil has two main weapons for damaging the Church, Pope Francis says, and his principle weapon is division.
The Pope said this today when he addressed a group of new bishops assigned to mission territories, who are in Rome for a course sponsored by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
After encouraging the bishops to experience God’s mercy as pilgrims so that they can transmit it to their flocks, and to remember to always be close to their priests, the Holy Father had a warning.
“Watch carefully,” he said, “so that all that is put into action for evangelization and the various pastoral activities you promote is not damaged or frustrated by existing divisions or those which can be created. Divisions are the weapon that the devil has most at hand to destroy the Church from within.” Continue reading
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has warned that Europe risks forfeiting its “Christian inheritance” and that an “Islamic conquest” could be in its future.
“The Obama administration long has been forcing Christians and others of faith to violate their beliefs to accommodate “nondiscrimination” laws that give special privileges to homosexuals and transgendered persons, and now a federal commission has proposed codifying the practice. …Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is on record insisting that to protect “gay” rights, “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” (
Pope Francis met with a group of Italian Pentecostal pastors Sept. 8, telling them that unity is achieved by walking patiently together.
“A state court in Minnesota, which already is heavily influenced by a large population of Muslim immigrants and has one district represented in Congress by a Muslim, has decided that in America, it’s American inheritance law that applies. …The opinion, which was marked “unpublished” and not to be used for citation, involved the claim of Hosameldin Ibrahim Imbabi of Gold River, California. Representing himself, he claimed that all of the parties in the case were Muslims, so the state court should apply Islamic law.” –
“VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Mother Teresa of Calcutta, known as the “saint of the gutters” during her life, was declared a saint of the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Francis on Sunday, fast-tracked to canonization just 19 years after her death. Tens of thousands of pilgrims packed St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for a service to honor the tiny nun, who worked among the world’s neediest in the slums of the Indian city now called Kolkata and become one of the most recognizable faces of the 20th century.” –
It had been a very busy time. I’d already been in Israel and Palestine for a month or so. In between volunteer shifts (I was there with the World Council of Churches) I had been taking every opportunity to meet people and see the sights.
“The petition states: We, the undersigned, are scandalized and disheartened by the Pontifical Council for the Family’s new project known as The Meeting Point: Project for Affective and Sexual Formation. This project has many dangerous flaws. For example:
“The agency has been dubbed ‘Catholics In Action’ because the faithful have occupied so many senior positions. But could their dominance be weakening? …The CIA is the best known of the 17 agencies that comprise the American intelligence community. It has earned itself nicknames like “Catholic Intelligence Agency” and “Catholics In Action”. It’s worth exploring why. No official statistics exist on Catholics in the CIA or any other American intelligence agency. But one interesting clue is the relatively high number of Catholics who have served as director of the agency.” –