Even with shift, NYC St Patrick’s Day parade draws gay protests…
We don’t want just any gay group in St. Patty’s Day Parade we want ‘Irish Queers!’
NEW YORK, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Gay rights activists and elected officials said on Tuesday they would continue to protest New York City’s main St. Patrick’s Day parade even as organizers prepared to let a gay group carry a banner this year for the first time in the parade’s history.
The problem, they say, is that the group, an organization of gay NBCUniversal employees, does not represent gay Irish-American people at an event that marks the most prominent celebration of Irish heritage in the United States.
“The issue has never been about having a gay group in the parade,” Daniel Dromm, a City Council member, said at a news conference outside City Hall where he was joined by Irish Queers, a group that has organized annual protests of the parade. “It has always been about having an Irish gay group in the parade. For the parade organizers to try to pull this trickery by allowing an organization called OUT@NBC to march in the parade is not a solution.”
The main parades in both New York and Boston have faced years of mounting criticism from activists and corporate sponsors. Organizers New York’s event said in September they would end their policy of barring gay groups from displaying identifying banners.
They allowed only the group from NBCUniversal, the Comcast Corp unit that broadcasts the parade, to join on March 17, but suggested similar groups may be able to apply for the 2016 parade.
NBC Universal said in a statement on Tuesday the group’s presence would be a “first step towards an increasingly inclusive era” for the parade.
The foundation behind the parade, which did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday, had long said participation of clearly identified gay groups would run against the event’s roots in the Roman Catholic Church, which says gay and lesbian sex is sinful.
The parade, entering its 253rd year, is the oldest and largest St. Patrick’s Day event in the country, according to organizers.
A similar fight over the inclusion of gay groups has long simmered in Boston. In December, a new group of gay and lesbian U.S. military veterans called OutVets was approved to march in the Boston parade.
Despite that, another group, Veterans for Peace, last week sued Boston in federal court, contending that city officials have long given preference to the Allied War Veterans when granting parade permits.
Veterans for Peace, who have said they would welcome more than one gay group if they were in charge, have also applied to hold a parade along the same route at the same time, the lawsuit said.
The Vatican did something it has never done before by giving a group of U.S. gay and lesbian Catholics VIP seats at Pope Francis‘ weekly general audience Wednesday.
But in a sign that the welcome wasn’t all it could have been, the New Ways Ministry pilgrims were only identified on the Vatican’s list of attendees as a “group of lay people accompanied by a Sister of Loretto.” And not even that got announced: When a Vatican monsignor read out the list of the different groups of pilgrims in attendance in St. Peter’s Square, he skipped over the group altogether. Francis didn’t mention them, either. Even without a papal shout-out, New Ways Ministry officials were nevertheless pleased that they had been invited to sit up front by Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, the prefect of the papal household who dispenses the coveted reserved tickets for Francis’ audiences. Gaenswein for years has also been the top aide to Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. When Benedict headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he permanently prohibited the New Ways Ministry co-founders, Sister Jeannine Gramick, and the Rev. Robert Nugent, from ministering to gays after determining in 1999 that they didn’t sufficiently adhere to church teaching on the “intrinsic evil” of homosexual acts. Nugent abided by the directive and died last year. Gramick has continued her ministry, changing religious orders to the Sisters of Loretto, and was on hand for Wednesday’s audience. “Pope Francis gives me hope,” she told The Associated Press. “To me, this is an example of the kind of willingness he has to welcome those on the fringes of the church back to the center of the church.” The group’s executive director, Francis DeBernardo, said New Ways Ministry had tried unsuccessfully under the previous two popes to get VIP seats for its Rome pilgrimages. This time, the Vatican ambassador in Washington and the archbishop of San Francisco forwarded their requests onto Rome, a sign that Francis’ call for the church to be more welcoming to gays has filtered down to local church leaders. “We didn’t get the shout-out, but we were very, very close,” DeBernardo said.
As ISIS makes inroads into Libya, officials in Rome are panicking about an Islamic State just across the sea but have no idea how to combat the crisis.
ROME — Last weekend in Italy, as the threat of ISIS in Libya hit home with a new video addressed to “the nation signed with the blood of the cross” and the warning, “we are south of Rome,” Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi shuttered up the Italian embassy in Tripoli and raised his fist with the threat of impending military action. Never mind that Italy has only 5,000 troops available that are even close to deployable, according to the defense ministry. Or that the military budget was cut by 40 percent two years ago, which has kept the acquisition of 90 F-35 fighter jets hanging in the balance and left the country combat-challenged to lead any mission—especially one against an enemy like the Islamic State.
In fact, Renzi didn’t specify exactly who would wield that military might, and, two days later, when no one volunteered to lead the charge, he backtracked. “It’s not the time for a military intervention,” Renzi told an Italian television station Monday night and said the United Nations had to lead the way. “Our proposal is to wait for the UN Security Council. The strength of the UN is decidedly superior to that of the radical militias.”
Whether the time is right or not, there is no question that there is a palpable tension in Italy over the ISIS threat—Libya is just 109 miles away from the island of Lampedusa and 300 miles from Sicily—made worse by a 64 percent increase in illegal migrant arrivals by sea since last year. In all of 2014, more than 170,000 people arrived from Libya and Turkey, the highest number ever recorded. Last weekend, as the embassy staff made their way to Italy on a mercantile ship, 2,164 migrants left the same Libyan shores en route to Sicily. The week before, more than 300 people were lost in the same seas as their rickety fishing boats capsized before rescuers could save them.
Anti-immigration politicians have argued for months that it would take little for jihadi fighters to infiltrate a migrant boat and effectively end up taxied into Italy by rescue ships and the Italian navy. In a biting editorial in Il Giornalenewspaper, owned by the Silvio Berlusconi family, Sergio Rame hypothesized that the recent influx was an attempt by terrorists to effectively “smoke out” the Italian navy into rescuing the migrants, in an attempt to lure the boats close to Libyan shores in order to launch an attack. The Italian government, which supports the rescue of migrants fleeing war, dismissed the theory.
Meanwhile, the Italian government said they are prepared to deploy 500 special anti-terrorism police to protect sensitive tourist sites in Rome.
What is disturbing is that something is drastically changing in the migrant shuttling business, which has lead defense analysts to warn that Italy has never been so exposed to an attack. For the first time since Italy started officially rescuing migrants in 2013—first through its now defunct Mare Nostrum program and later through the European Union’s border control Frontex Triton mission—the smugglers, who usually melt in with the migrants, are armed and dangerous. Last weekend, smugglers wielding Kalashnikovs fought the Italian coast guard rescue boat to wrestle back a smuggler ship after the human cargo had been rescued and the boat seized. They hauled the boat back towards Libya, presumably to fill it up again. The Office of Migration in Rome says there could be as many as half a million people in camps waiting to come to Italy and the unrest will push them out faster.
Italy has been on ISIS’s radar for quite some time. In October, the group dedicated the cover of its Dabiq magazine to a story called “Reflections on the Final Crusade” about how they will conquer Rome, complete with a photo of a black jihadist flag flying over St. Peter’s Square. “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah, the Exalted. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market,” said the article in Dabiq. “Every Muslim should get out of his house, find a crusader and kill him… And the Islamic State will remain until its banner flies over Rome.”
“The fishermen of Lampedusa still remember what happened in 1986″. Salvatore Martello, president of the Consortium fishermen of Lampedusa, at this time continues to tell the tale to those who ask what the situation in the island after the Islamic state has taken the city of Sirte in Libya. On April 15, ’86, 24 hours after US President Ronald Reagan ordered an air strike on Libya to eliminate Gaddafi, Colonel retaliated by ordering the launch of two Scud missiles on Lampedusa, where he had an office center Loran NATO. The islanders felt distinctly around 17 the two strong explosions of missiles, and panic took refuge in the “dammusi” of the inland areas of Lampedusa: “The then Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini said that the missiles Gaddafi would not have arrived in Italy, because he did not consider Lampedusa as Italian at the bottom. Here you are. The climate that we live in these days is the same as then, a sense of abandonment. ”
What is the situation in the last few hours? This morning the boats Lampedusa came out to fish as always. But gradually they all decide to return prematurely. With the news that are out there, the continued illegal landings of these days, the tension for a war or an attack, there is a lot of fear. Tripoli is 180 miles from our island, while the Gulf of Sirte is about 200 miles. We usually we go about 50 miles away from Lampedusa, so the distance from the Libyan coast is reduced to 130 miles. And Porto Empedocle, the closest Sicilian port, is also 130 miles. Lampedusa We are in the midst of chaos, while the distance with Italy and one with Sirte for us is the same. We still remember when Gaddafi fired two missiles in 1986. At the time one came close, another passed the island without hitting. But we were left to ourselves, and we are today.
What do they tell the fishermen with whom he talked in recent days? Today returning fishermen have told me: “We scared to stay at sea. You can not rest easy. Listening to the radio on board constantly hear news of new boats nearby and now we fear that Libya should not start only more migrants. Those who occupied Sirte are terrorists who cut off heads. ” Yesterday came the news that were killed 21 Coptic Egyptians. Perspectives that we can have with a neighbor like that? Only fear.
Meanwhile these days continued bailouts of Boat Migrants at sea: only between Saturday and today as many as 800 people were rescued from the lookouts. The problem is that the situation in Libya is out of control. We fishermen ultimately did not happen to cross barges (because the operation Triton also pushes the lookouts over the water where the fish usually Lampedusa, ed), but it happened an unusual fact that we were very worried.
What? Yesterday (the day before yesterday to the reader, ed) a lookout of the captaincy was close to a boat load of migrants to save them. During the rescue operation, approached another boat, carrying the smugglers, who attacked the lookout Italian with machine guns. The men of the captaincy were armed only with pistols in order, so they had to go without being able to return fire. No one knows why he was fired at with machine guns, a hypothesis is that the smugglers wanted to recover the barge before it was seized by the captaincy. Whatever the reason, it does not matter: it is the first time that happens, however, the concern remains that happen again. The fishermen are wondering what they could do if it happened to them, that they are not armed. How do we respond when shot at? You know, here we do not even know who defends our coastline. We went to Germany and France to bring down Gaddafi, but at least when he was there we had one head with which speak now in Libya do not know who’s in charge and there is no one who takes the order. In theory should defend our shores the Italians, or Europe. But for the moment we have not seen anything. Why are they waiting to defend themselves? In recent times there have been more patrols, increased only relief. You have to control who starts from Libya, because once at sea is impossible to stop people.
You already had economic losses for this situation? Here in Lampedusa we are in pre-bankruptcy. Tourism-related economic losses caused by the landings and we have had many since 2009. But if it continues the forced stop fishing, for fear of dying when we go out into the sea, we will have to ask the government for a state of emergency.
Michele Ferrero Michele Ferrero is said to have named Ferrero Rocher after a sacred grotto in Lourdes
Michele Ferrero, the innovative confectioner and Catholic, has died at the age 89.
The Italian entrepreneur and billionaire’s company, Fererro, produces Nutella chocolate spread, Ferrero Rocher chocolates, Kinder eggs and Tic Tacs.
Mr Ferrero, who died at his home in Monaco on Saturday after months of illness, was a devout Catholic and, according to The Times, named Ferrero Rocher after the sacred grotto, the Roc de Massabielle, in Lourdes. He is said to have made an annual pilgrimage to Lourdes.
The Times also reports that each of Ferrero’s 14 production facilities around the world, including in Turkey and China, feature a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Mr Ferrero created Nutella in the early 60s after adapting his father’s chocolate spread recipe by adding hazelnut.
He was reportedly Italy’s richest man. The Ferrero company has annual sales of more than €8 billion (£5.9 billion).
Pope Francis, who has worked hard to carve out a reputation as a reformer, is facing one of his most daunting challenges when it comes to the Catholic Church's finances, particularly the Vatican Bank. Since World War II - when the bank was created as the equivalent of the Federal Reserve combined with a commercial bank - it has operated with few checks and balances. Over the decades, it has become embroiled in seemingly endless scandals that include questions about wartime profiteering with Nazis, gigantic business schemes and political slush funds.
The Vatican did not even have a law against money laundering until 2011. Some previous popes - including Paul VI in the 1960s and John Paul II in the 1980s - had promised upon their election to tame the church's unruly finances. But they were inevitably defeated by entrenched powers inside Vatican City who pretended to embrace reforms while working surreptitiously to maintain the bank's outlier status. The issue facing the church is whether Francis, riding a remarkable wave of international popularity and goodwill, can accomplish what frustrated his predecessors.
Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has energetically tried to remake the bank into a transparent and accountable institution through decrees, key appointments and an overall reorganization. By tapping outsiders for important management and enforcement roles at the Vatican Bank, he has started to loosen the grip of old-guard clerics, mostly Italian, who have long wielded the city-state's money power. And Francis' appointment of a respected cardinal, George Pell of Australia, to oversee a new uber financial department, has received a mostly positive reception from Vatican watchers.
But has Francis done enough? Will the Vatican Bank move forward as a compliant member of the international financial community, or will it remain the equivalent of an offshore bank in the heart of Rome? It is too early to tell, in part because no one is certain how long Francis will be pope.
He is 78, so in the cutthroat world of Vatican backdoor politics some of his opponents are already jostling to prepare for a post-Francis papacy. A few had tried to derail his election by spreading rumors that he was physically too weak to be pope (as a teenager he had lost one lung to an infection). Other insiders did not like that Francis had never worked inside the Vatican. Others wanted an Italian as pope after 35 years under Polish and German pontiffs. Those same powers - some cardinals and other ranking clerics inside the Curia, the Vatican's bureaucracy - are still in place. And they are quietly bristling at Francis' reform efforts, considering them a misguided abridgment of the Vatican's sovereign rights.
There is little doubt that if Francis' tenure is not long, those who want to roll back the clock on money reforms will have a chance at doing so. This means that with the clock running, Francis needs to take bold steps that cannot be undone, even by a regressive future pope.
One key move Francis could make is to approve the release of the Vatican's Holocaust-era files in its secret archives. They probably contain not only answers to how early the Vatican knew about the Nazis' mass murder of innocents, but also crucially important documents from the Vatican Bank, founded in June 1942. My research reveals that the bank hid behind mostly cloaked investments in Italian insurers to reap profits in Nazi-occupied countries. Some profits might have come from the theft of life insurance proceeds from Jewish policyholders who died in Nazi death camps.
But the answers regarding the precise role the bank might have played with the German and Italian fascists remain off limits. As recently as 2013, the Vatican denied my request for access to those files.
In 2010, when Francis was the cardinal of Buenos Aires, an author asked him about those sealed documents. "What you said about opening the archives relating to the Shoah (Holocaust) seems perfect to me. They should open them and clarify everything. The objective has to be the truth," the future pontiff said.
Since Francis was so unequivocal before he became pope, there was high hope that he would quickly release the documents to independent historians for review. Despite pleas from Jewish groups and leaders during his visit to Jerusalem in May, he did nothing.
It is time for Francis to free the files. It would burnish his reformer pedigree. And it is an act that could not be reversed. In so doing, Francis would send the unequivocal message that his insistence on transparency is not simply a buzzword but a theme he insists on applying to the finances of the church, both in its past and going forward. He would cement his reputation as the tough new sheriff in town.
When it comes to the Vatican Bank, a dose of law and order seems long overdue.
Russian researchers expose ‘NSA’s secret weapon': Outrage at program that enables America to spy on EVERY home computer in the world is uncovered
The NSA has figured out how to hide spying and sabotage software deep within hard drives, according to cyber researchers and former operatives
The group said it found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs
The most infections were seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria
The infections started in 2001, but increased drastically in 2008, the year President Barack Obama was elected
The tools are designed to run on computers even when they are not connected to the Internet, and even the makers of some of the hard drives are unaware that these programs have been embedded
The spies made a technological breakthrough by figuring out how to lodge malicious software in the obscure code called firmware that launches every time a computer is turned on
The National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives, allowing them to monitor and eavesdrop on the majority of the world’s computers – even when they are not connected to the internet.
The Moscow-based security software maker Kaspersky Lab said it has found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs, with the most infections seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria.
The targets included government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists.
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Kaspersky said it found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs
The NSA has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives , giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world’s computers, according to Kaspersky (file photo)
The NSA began infecting computers in 2001 claims Kaspersky, ramping up their efforts in 2008 when President Barack Obama was elected.
This ‘surpasses anything known in terms of complexity and sophistication of techniques, and that has been active for almost two decades,’ said Kaspersky.
What’s more, even the makers of these hard drives are unaware that these spying programs have been installed, with the NSA obtaining their source codes by going so far as to pose as software developers according to former intelligence operatives, or telling the companies the government must do a security audit to make sure their source code is safe.
According to Kaspersky, the spies made a technological breakthrough by figuring out how to lodge malicious software in the obscure code called firmware that launches every time a computer is turned on.
Disk drive firmware is viewed by spies and cybersecurity experts as the second-most valuable real estate on a PC for a hacker, second only to the BIOS code invoked automatically as a computer boots up.
‘The hardware will be able to infect the computer over and over,’ lead Kaspersky researcher Costin Raiu said in an interview.
Though the leaders of the still-active espionage campaign could have taken control of thousands of PCs, giving them the ability to steal files or eavesdrop on anything they wanted, the spies were selective and only established full remote control over machines belonging to the most desirable foreign targets, according to Raiu. He said Kaspersky found only a few especially high-value computers with the hard-drive infections.
The firm declined to publicly name the country behind the spying campaign, but said it was closely linked to Stuxnet, the NSA-led cyberweapon that was used to attack Iran’s uranium enrichment facility. The NSA is the U.S. agency responsible for gathering electronic intelligence.
A former NSA employee told Reuters that Kaspersky’s analysis was correct, and that people still in the spy agency valued these espionage programs as highly as Stuxnet. Another former intelligence operative confirmed that the NSA had developed the prized technique of concealing spyware in hard drives, but said he did not know which spy efforts relied on it.
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said the agency was aware of the Kaspersky report but would not comment on it publicly.
Kaspersky published the technical details of its research on Monday, a move that could help infected institutions detect the spying programs, some of which trace back as far as 2001.
Eugene Kaspersky (file photo) published the details of his research on Friday
The disclosure could hurt the NSA’s surveillance abilities, already damaged by massive leaks by former contractor Edward Snowden. Snowden’s revelations have upset some U.S. allies and slowed the sales of U.S. technology products abroad.
The exposure of these new spying tools could lead to greater backlash against Western technology, particularly in countries such as China, which is already drafting regulations that would require most bank technology suppliers to proffer copies of their software code for inspection.
Peter Swire, one of five members of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, said the Kaspersky report showed that it is essential for the country to consider the possible impact on trade and diplomatic relations before deciding to use its knowledge of software flaws for intelligence gathering.
‘There can be serious negative effects on other U.S. interests,’ Swire said.
Technological breakthrough
Kaspersky’s reconstructions of the spying programs show that they could work in disk drives sold by more than a dozen companies, comprising essentially the entire market. They include Western Digital Corp, Seagate Technology Plc, Toshiba Corp, IBM, Micron Technology Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
Western Digital, Seagate and Micron said they had no knowledge of these spying programs. Toshiba and Samsung declined to comment. IBM did not respond to requests for comment.
Getting the source code
Raiu said the authors of the spying programs must have had access to the proprietary source code that directs the actions of the hard drives. That code can serve as a roadmap to vulnerabilities, allowing those who study it to launch attacks much more easily.
‘There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information,’ Raiu said.
Concerns about access to source code flared after a series of high-profile cyberattacks on Google Inc and other U.S. companies in 2009 that were blamed on China. Investigators have said they found evidence that the hackers gained access to source code from several big U.S. tech and defense companies.
It is not clear how the NSA may have obtained the hard drives’ source code. Western Digital spokesman Steve Shattuck said the company ‘has not provided its source code to government agencies.’ The other hard drive makers would not say if they had shared their source code with the NSA.
Seagate spokesman Clive Over said it has ‘secure measures to prevent tampering or reverse engineering of its firmware and other technologies.’ Micron spokesman Daniel Francisco said the company took the security of its products seriously and ‘we are not aware of any instances of foreign code.’
According to former intelligence operatives, the NSA has multiple ways of obtaining source code from tech companies,including asking directly and posing as a software developer
According to former intelligence operatives, the NSA has multiple ways of obtaining source code from tech companies, including asking directly and posing as a software developer. If a company wants to sell products to the Pentagon or another sensitive U.S. agency, the government can request a security audit to make sure the source code is safe.
‘They don’t admit it, but they do say, “We’re going to do an evaluation, we need the source code,”‘ said Vincent Liu, a partner at security consulting firm Bishop Fox and former NSA analyst. ‘It’s usually the NSA doing the evaluation, and it’s a pretty small leap to say they’re going to keep that source code.’
The NSA declined to comment on any allegations in the Kaspersky report. Vines said the agency complies with the law and White House directives to protect the United States and its allies ‘from a wide array of serious threats.’
Kaspersky called the authors of the spying program ‘the Equation group,’ named after their embrace of complex encryption formulas.
The group used a variety of means to spread other spying programs, such as by compromising jihadist websites, infecting USB sticks and CDs, and developing a self-spreading computer worm called Fanny, Kaspersky said.
Fanny was like Stuxnet in that it exploited two of the same undisclosed software flaws, known as ‘zero days,’ which strongly suggested collaboration by the authors, Raiu said. He added that it was ‘quite possible’ that the Equation group used Fanny to scout out targets for Stuxnet in Iran and spread the virus.
The video shows men apparently being beheaded after being forced to kneel next to the Mediterranean Sea. A militant says they are sending a message “from the south of Rome”. At the end of the footage the same English-speaking fighter raises his knife to the water and says ISIS would “conquer Rome”.
This morning Egypt and the Libyan government said they had launched air strikes in retaliation against Islamic State targets.
Egypt said the strikes were intended “to avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers”, adding: “Let those far and near know that Egyptians have a shield that protects them.” Most of the victims are believed to be Egyptian.
Bishop Angaelos, leader of the Coptic Orthodox church in Britain, saidthe massacre showed “not only a disregard for life but a gross misunderstanding of its sanctity and equal value in every person”.
He said his prayers were with the victims’ families and also with the militants who carried out the atrocity. “We pray for an end to the dehumanisation of captives who become mere commodities to be bartered, traded and negotiated with,” the bishop said.
In the video released by the militants, an Islamist says in English: “All crusaders: safety for you will be only wishes, especially if you are fighting us all together. Therefore we will fight you all together… The sea you have hidden Sheikh Usama Bin Laden’s body in, we swear to Allah we will mix it with your blood.”
Towards the end of last year, the second-in-command of the Newsociety of St Pius X, Fr. Niklaus Pfluger, gave an interview to a Newsociety magazine in Germany, Der Gerade Weg, in which he answered seven questions ranging over the Church, Tradition, the “Resistance” and the XSPX. Given his important position, his thinking cannot be without interest. Its main lines are presented here below, and then its main flaw.
The Catholic Church is broad, much broader than just the Traditional movement. This movement began in the 1970’s as an understandable reaction of Catholics rendered homeless by the Conciliar revolution, but we will never make Tradition attractive or convincing if we remain mentally stuck in the 1950’s or 1970’s. Catholic Tradition is a vast treasure, not to be confined within the condemnations, which were routine in the 19th and 20th centuries, of modernism, liberalism and Freemasonry. In the 1970’s and 1980’s the SSPX did act as a lifeboat for souls drowning, but in 2014 “our time is different, we cannot stand still.” Church Tradition is one, but traditions are many, and much that is modern is not immoral.
So “we must continually re-position ourselves,” somewhere between denying that there is any crisis of modernism at all in the Church, and denying Church reality, as does the “Resistance.” They turn a purely practical problem of re-positioning into a question of faith, but that “faith” is a fabrication of their own, subjective, personal and in extreme denial of reality — how can Rome not be Catholic? How can Bishop Fellay be Enemy Number One? Ridiculous! The “Resistance” is sectarian, narrow-minded, evil-spirited and divisive.
As for SSPXHQ having betrayed Tradition in 2012, its actions were attacked from both sides, so it acted with reasonable moderation. Its texts were not dogmatic, just responding to circumstances. It did depart from General Chapter decisions of 2006, but who back then could imagine how much less aggressive towards the SSPX Rome would become by 2012? In 2014 our three bishops could all celebrate public Masses in the Basilica of Lourdes!
In brief, the SSPX follows the Spirit, It draws on Tradition. It saved the liturgy (thanks to Archbishop Lefebvre). It is neither monopolistic, nor as disunited or defeated as it may seem. Storms in the Church do continue, but down with conspiracy theories and Apocalypticism, and up with faith, hope and a new youth! (See francefidele.org for the original in German, and a French translation; see abplefebvreforums or cathinfo.com for an English translation)
So where is the flaw in Fr Pfluger’s thinking? It is most clearly seen in the first paragraph above, where he suggests that Tradition can thrive outside of the “19th and 20th century condemnations of modernism, liberalism and Freemasonry.” For Fr Pfluger, as for all liberals, these condemnations are not integral to the Catholic Faith but merely “substantial anchorages” (Cardinal Ratzinger’s own expression), which in a different age the ship of the Church can leave behind, as corresponding no longer to the different circumstances. Therefore if Fr Pfluger does not have a different faith from that of Archbishop Lefebvre, Pius IX, St Pius X, Pius XII, etc., he certainly has a different concept of that Faith, and that different concept underlies all his remarks in the interview quoted.
Thus the problem is much more than just “practical re-positioning.” Today’s Rome is indeed not Catholic. Bishop Fellay is a huge problem. The 2006 General Chapter was implicitly dogmatic. Tradition is not to be made attractive to men, but true to God (mentioned only once, passingly, in the interview). The “Resistance” is far from creating its own “faith.” And so on and so on.
Some 650 words of a
single “Eleison Comments” are by no means enough to make clear the enormous
problem posed by the interview given by the Newsociety’s First Assistant to a
Newsociety magazine in Germany towards the end of last year (cf. last week’s
EC). Fr. Pfluger’s thinking springs from the poisonous modern mentality, so
that it is not surprising if Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of St Pius X (SSPX)
is being poisoned from top to bottom and changed into Bishop Fellay’s
Newsociety (XSPX). The poison consists in the move from God to man; from the
religion of God to the religion of man; from the truths of God to the liberties
of man; from the doctrine of Christ (“Going, TEACH all nations” – Mt.XXVIII,
19) to the uniting of mankind.
Like millions upon
millions of modern men, thousands upon thousands of churchmen in high office
and all too many priests and layfolk of what was once the SSPX, Fr Pfluger does
not understand the crucial importance to the Church of Catholic doctrine.
“INDOCTRINATE all nations,” Our Lord could have said. Why? Because all men are
created by God to go to Heaven (I Tim. II, 4). This they can only do by Jesus
Christ (Acts IV, 12), by firstly believing in Jesus Christ (Jn. I, 12), which
they can only do by hearing about the Faith (Rom. X, 17), in other words by
hearing Catholic DOCTRINE. For someone to be disinterested in Catholic doctrine
means that he is not interested in going to Heaven. Good luck to him, wherever
he will spend his eternity!
Now from start to
finish Fr Pfluger’s German interview betrays his relative disinterest in
Catholic doctrine, but as last week’s “Comments” declared, that disinterest is
most clearly betrayed by his implicit disparaging (not too strong a word) of
the great anti-liberal, anti-Masonic, anti-modernist documents, notably Papal
Encyclicals, of the 19th and 20th centuries, let us say from Mirari Vos of
1831 to Humani Generis of 1950. To Fr Pfluger’s way of thinking, probably these
“anti” documents seem merely negative, whereas Catholic doctrine is essentially
positive. One might as well think that medicine is merely negative, while
health is essentially positive. But medicine can be essential to preserving
health, for goodness’ sake! However, why are the Encyclicals such necessary
medicine for the health of the Church today?
Because man is not
made to live alone (Rousseau’s noble savage), he is by nature a social animal
(Aristotle) – observe the thousand ways in which men get together. Now the
French Revolution of 1789, by spurning Aristotle and following Rousseau,
overthrew the natural basis of society and placed it on merely man-made
foundations instead, hostile to human nature as designed by God, and therefore
hostile to God. Therefore as the Revolutionary ideas advanced, through France,
Europe and the world, so the Catholic Church found itself in a more and more
hostile social environment, because the profound influence that any society has
upon the individuals belonging to it has been working more and more against God
and against the salvation of souls.
For a long time the
Catholic Popes were not deceived, and they revived the medicine of the Church’s
true social doctrine to apply it through their Encyclicals to the sickness of
Revolutionary mankind. Thus the Encyclicals teach nothing but the Church’s age-old
doctrine on the nature of human society between man and God, that social
doctrine which it had not been necessary to repeat for as long as it had gone
without saying. Thus the Encyclicals are not an unfortunate accident of
unfortunate times in the past. They are central to the defense of the Faith in
the present, as Archbishop Lefebvre so well learned from Fr Le Floch. But then
came “good” Pope John to declare that modern man is no longer sick, and now
comes
Pope Francis today spoke of his deep sadness at the brutal execution of at least 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by Islamic State fighters based in Libya.
The Pope, speaking in Italian to Revd John Chalmers, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, reverted to his native Spanish to deplore the deaths of the men he called “brothers” and “martyrs”.
He said their deaths must strengthen ecumenism, adding: “They said only: "Jesus, help me!"
IS released a propaganda video on Sunday which appears to show a number of men dressed in orange jumpsuits being simultaneously beheaded on a beach in Libya. During the video an English-speaking jihadi said: “The sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama bin Laden's body in, we swear to Allah, we will mix it with your blood."
Pope Francis said today that the blood of his fellow Christians cried out.
“Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran does not matter: they are Christians! And the blood is the same. The blood confesses Christ,” he said.
Today the head of the Coptic Church in the UK spoke of his sorrow and pain at the murders.
Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Church in the United Kingdom, said that the murders showed a “gross misunderstanding” of the sanctity of life.
“Our prayers are particularly with the families of these young Coptic men, who were fathers, brothers, sons and friends of many within their tight-knit rural communities, in which their absence will cause significant loss and sorrow,” he said.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, this morning issued a statement exhorting Christians to weep with those affected by IS’ brutality.
“The Coptic Church has responded with courage and as always with faith. The darkness which ISIS seek to spread will be overwhelmed by the faithful lives of Christians shedding the light and peace of Christ. I have been in touch with the Anglican Church in Egypt to express solidarity,” he said.
