Tuesday, April 29, 2014

A New Blow Against the Franciscans of the Immaculata --- Pilgrimage Church Refused Them

(Rome), a new blow by  the Commission  set upon  the  Franciscans of the Immaculate by the Congregation for Religious. The lay association Mission of the Immaculate Mediatrix (MIM) was denied the Marian Sanctuary of Pompeii.  Since the year 2004, MM brought believers together to  take a pilgrimage from Naples and Campania  to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, the most famous Marian shrine in this part of southern Italy. Yesterday, on Divine Mercy Sunday, however, the faithful were denied  access to the holy image

Prohibition of Commissar Volpi Led Prelate of Pompeii to Ban

On 10 April, when everything was already organized, the faithful were informed by the rector of the Basilica, Monsignor Salvatore Acampora,  the use and access ban without notice. Pilgrimage, Holy Mass, Rosary and Marian songs had to be canceled. On request of the disappointed believers, Msgr Acampora declared the following day that the Church has the status of a Pontifical Basilica Cathedral and was erected as a Territorial Prelature in 1926. So it stands under papal law, which is why the responsible Prelate and Pontifical Delegate for the Shrine, Titular Archbishop Tommaso Caputo currently could not ignore the measures of the Apostolic Commissar of the Franciscans of the Immaculate,  Fr Fidenzio Volpi.

"Tell us What We Have Done Wrong?"

Commissioner Volpi had in the course of the destruction of  the Franciscan Order, which the Congregation of Religious calls "normalization", forbid on 27 November, 2013, the ecclesiastically recognized lay association from any activity.  "A radical intervention, which took place without any justification. Tell us what we've done wrong: If it is a sin, an act against the Gospel or a violation of canon law" demanded Claudio Circelli, one of MIM leaders of Naples, for the last ten years, who organized the annual pilgrimage to the Queen of the Rosary.

Unfounded Prohibitions: "So They Don't Apply to Believers"

The ban on the pilgrimage's access at the basilica of Pompeii can be justified formally,  with the activity ban on the MIM.  "A ban in reference to the unjustified ban of the Commissioner, and one washes the other's hands. That's arbitrariness. So it doesn't apply to  the faithful," wrote the newspaper which quoted Il Mattino di Napoli, an  indignant member of the MIM. In fact, a Commissioner Volpi has not justified that the prohibition will result in further bans after themselves without ever explaining in order to punish the lay organization.

Old Mass, Promoting Tradition, Criticism of the Second Vatican Council - For Some Unbearable

The provisional administration of the Franciscans of the Immaculate was arranged by the prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, João de Aviz Cardinal Bráz in July 2013.   A step that also took place with the express approval of Pope Francis in a form that the Order took every opportunity to appeal.
The crackdown is connected with that of the hitherto flourishing religious order under Benedict XVI. which changed internally to the  old rite and intellectually took a  very active part in the debate initiated by the German theologian Pope   on the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. It undertook a defense of Catholic tradition against modernist tendencies in the Church and especially in the training of theologians and priests,  which to some was unbearable in the Church, but under Benedict XVI. they could not take action against the Order. However, due to the pontificate change to Pope Francis, they were active immediately and with the utmost severity against the Order. The arbitrary act against the Order has overshadowed the current pontificate.

MIM - Marian and Missionary

The MIM was established in 1990 by the founder of the Franciscans of the Immaculate   in 2013, the deposed   Superior General Father Stefano Maria Manelli in the Marian shrine of Loreto. The MIM align themselves with lay people who try to live in their respective state of the charism of the Order. They vow  to be Marian and missionary and to promote the devotion to Mary and to promote the mission ad gentes, particularly "where the struggle for the salvation of souls and the edification of the Church is particularly fierce."
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Wikicommons





20 comments:

Anonymous said...

The persecution of the Faithful from the enemies of God within the Church continues apace. As does the terrible silence of those in authority whose duty to denounce and fight such evil persecution, is great. The silence of priests, Catholic organisations, Media outlets and those with a platform is another awful indictment of the state of the Church. The very stones cry out . . . Blessed Michael, defend us in battle . . .

Anonymous said...

Lynda, these in authority that you mention are precisely those who are orchestrating this persecution. Faithful Catholics have no friends in Rome. What they do now to these Franciscans trying to stay clean of counterfeit Catholicism has been done to the SSPX for many years.

Let them do their dirt. They do so at their own peril, not ours. Better to be Catholic at home than heretic in their pews. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not leave us orphans. It is not the first time in history that Catholics had to wait months to get to hear Mass and receive the Sacraments. That in itself is a blessed occasion for many graces. Let the worshippers of antipopes be forced to choose whether or not to break the First Commandment like their Luther worshiping Protestant counterparts. Scandals there must be but woe to them by which they come.

"They will put you out of their synagogues." Yes, they will.

Deacon Augustine said...

Reminds me of the time when Cardinal Ratzinger decried "the filth" in the Church. It seems the present regime is giving the filth plenty of opportunity to expose itself to the light of day. By their fruits shall ye know them!

Genty said...

"Soon, soon," said Francis when asked to give the FFI a break. Perhaps what he actually meant was that soon, soon, they will cease to exist so the 'problem' will just go away.

M. Prodigal said...

The persecution is not only against the holy and faithful friars but even against the lay associates who wish to live holy Marian lives. The modernists hate this! Why in the world cannot the laity gather for prayer and pilgrimage? Never has this sort of attack been done against the most faithful of Roman Catholics. But the commissar continues to draw his large salary and the dissenters seem to be able to travel at will, etc. That is far from a true Franciscan charism. But that is the goal, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

I do not like this commissar.

Anonymous said...

I hope they move to the SSPX.

Damask Rose said...

"The persecution is not only against the holy and faithful friars but even against the lay associates who wish to live holy Marian lives."

Yes, indeed. It's an attack on Mary. What next, a ban on the Brown Scapular? "...lay associates who wish to live holy Marian lives." Chastity is under attack.

Anonymous said...

They can't. They must endure the persecution from the Vatican as saints do.

Athelstane said...

Which faction of the SSPX?

Anonymous said...

This Pope must go.

Anonymous said...

And orthodox Catholic blogger, Deacon Nick Donnelly is unlawfully and unjustly silenced by his bishop for upholding the truth of the Faith and morals and exposing grave scandals by those high up in the Church. The enemies of Christ and His Church within the Church are encouraged in their ongoing, worsening attacks on the Faith and morals, while they persecute those who uphold the Faith, more viciously and with greater abandon. We are truly witnessing the greatest ever evil in the Church.

Martina Katholik said...

@ Lynda
"It was at a conference in the mid–eighties that I listened to Hans Küng hold forth in triumphalist tones on the victory of the progressives. “We” control, he announced, the seminaries, the academic departments of theology, the catechetical and liturgical institutions, the publishing houses, the magazines that matter, and the chanceries. Most of the bishops, he said, are now on “our” side, and those who aren’t have been neutralized. Anyone who wants a future in the hierarchy or the Catholic academy has no choice but to cooperate, he observed. It was a clean sweep; all that was left were a few details; the disgruntled band of risibly reactionary dissidents from the new order didn’t understand what had happened and couldn’t do much about it."

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/the-catholic-center-21

LeonG said...

Good point - Fellay did what Ratzinger was trying to do for years but Archbishop Lefebvre was too discerning for him: let him divide The Confraternity with spurious offers. Now traditionalists have to think hard about The SSPX and its fragments.

LeonG said...

There we are Lynda - double standards, whited-sepulchry, hypocrisy and treachery. All the hallmarks of liberal modernist papacies whose actions speak louder than humbug.

LeonG said...

Cardinal Ratzinger can hardly speak himself since he contributed to it exponentially especially reissuing the letter to bishops in 2001 to cover up clerical and episcopal sexual predation of children. None of them can cast the first stone.

Tancred said...

He was hardly "covering" up anything. You are here merely repeating the agitprop of the media concern being used against the Church.

LeonG said...

Unfortunately, this is not so. Everything has been done to cover up at best and obfuscate and prolong at worst. The letter to bishops to keep paedophile cases secretly within church was first approved in 1962 is just one method. Others include out-of-court no-tell settlements with victims & their families; accusations of disloyalty and schismatic behaviour to intending informants; intimidating clerics who want to expose and blocking the release of crucial information such as diocesan dossiers from local judicial authorities. The role of The Vatican has been active complicity and it has also covered up for sexual predators in The Vatican City - no accident that the age for sexual consent was 12 years of age until last year.
Certainly, once pope, Benedict XVI commendably defrocked over 400 plus presbyters but this is after 2005 and well after the horse had bolted. I know of cases where intending informers are ordered locally to say nothing at all. While child abuse is even worse in secular society there have been investigations into the possible inter-connection between the high level abuse in the church and amongst the ruling classes in western countries. I have been studying this for many years as I had personal experience of how some priests in Scotland assisted the politicisation of the homosexual movement in Glasgow and Edinburgh. One of the priests was a well-known Dominican who died several years ago.
Exposure only and the threat of it has made the church authorities act but this has been inadequate without the action of the secular judicial system and Catholic lay who had had enough of waiting for justice from those in whom they had mistakenly placed their faith and trust.
The tragedy is that solutions were existent in the 1950s and 1960s - Fr Fitzgerald & the Servants of the Paraclete and an isolationist programme for paedophile priests which was over turned by Pope Paul VI and the Sacred Congregation for Religion which declared in 1961 that pederasts and similarly oriented men were inappropriate choices for the priesthood and religious life. This was also over- looked by our liberal modernist conciliar protagonists who have been running the church into the ecumenical and interconfessional dust since 1965.

Catholic Mission said...

ATTENTION : Fr.Fidenzio Volpi Ofm.Cap, Apostolic Commissioner, Franciscans of the Immaculate.
Implicit desire ( baptism of desire) is not known to us in personal cases in 2014.They are hypothetical. They are possibilities.They are not explicit for us. They are not visible. Invisible cases cannot be exceptions to the literal interpretation of extra ecclesiam nulla salus according to Fr.Leonard Feeney of Boston.

Salvation in Heaven is only visible to God. You cannot name any exception.

Similarly in Vatican Council II, Lumen Gentium 16 ( saved in invincible ignorance) 1, Nostra Aetate 2(saved with a ray of the Truth) 2,Unitatis Redintigratio 3 ( saved in imperfect communion with the Church) 3, and Ad Gentes 11 ( saved with seeds of the Word) 4 are not known exceptions to the dogma on exclusive salvation in the Catholic Church.
Vatican Council II ( Ad Gentes 7) also agrees with extra ecclesiam nulla salus when it states 'all' need 'faith and baptism' 5 for salvation. All need to enter the Church 'as through a door'. Do you accept this?

Vatican Council II (AG 7) is saying all Buddhists, Jews, Muslims and other non Christians need 'faith and baptism' for salvation (to avoid Hell). All Protestants,Orthodox Christians and Pentecostals need Catholic faith, which includes the Sacraments and the traditional faith and moral teachings.

This is Vatican Council II. This is the text of Vatican Council II. The text does not say LG 16, NA 2, UR 3 are explicit for us.Possibilities cannot be exceptions.Do you accept this?

Do you want the Franciscans of the Immaculate and other Catholic religious communties to accept this tradtional interpretation of Vatican Council II ?

Could you affirm this rational interpretation of Vatican Council II in public and set an example for all religious communities ? Please affirm Vatican Council II.
-Lionel Andrades

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