The faithful are asking the Pope for clarity against the attacks of evil
Roberto de Mattei
Il Tempo
August 14, 2016
During the month of August, ‘Casa Santa Marta’ in the Vatican is emptied of its guests, but Pope Francis will spend the entire month in the Vatican, just like the past three years.
Francis has announced he will forego a traditional papal appointment - the National Eucharistic Congress to take place this year in Genoa from the 15th to the 18th of August, while on the 19th of August the Pope will go to Assisi to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the encounter among religions, organized by the Community of St. Egidio. The Vatican Press Office did not communicate this however, but the ‘Imam’ from Perugia, Abdel Moh’d in an interview to TV 2000 (The Italian Bishops Conference TV).
Pope Bergoglio will then be in Georgia and Azerbaijan from September 30th to October 2n with the Orthodox and the Muslims, and then in Lund, Sweden, on October 31st to commemorate the five hundred years of the Protestant Reformation. Ecumenical initiatives are the compass to his pontificate, which seems to suggest the intent in building a common platform among religions, with the risk, noted by many, of emptying Catholicism and favouring the creation of a ‘super syncretistic religion’.
The lunch on August 11th with 21 Syrian refugees, all Muslims, who arrived in Italy following the papal trip to the Isle of Lesbos, enters this view of ‘preferential option’ for non-Catholics. Such a strategy demands the denial of the existence of religious wars. And yet the Church is suffering persecution all over the world.
Monsignor Dominique Lebrun, Archbishop of Rouen, voiced his intention of starting the process of beatification which will lead to the recognition of Father Jacques Hamel’s martyrdom - killed ‘in hatred of the Faith’ like so many Christians of our times. Will a word of approval come from Rome?
Will a sign of support come for the three Spanish bishops taken to court for having criticised the law, just passed in Madrid, which promotes trans-sexuality? The Spanish Osservatore against LGBT-phobia, denounced the Bishop of Getafe, Monsignor Joaquin Maria López de Andújar, his auxiliary, José Rico Pavés and the diocesan titular of Alcalà, Monsignor Juan Antonio Reig Pla ‘for incitement to hatred and discrimination towards the homosexual community’.
But the worst is yet to come. A public black mass has been organized for August 15th by an American Satanist group at the Civic Center in Oklahoma City, with the permission of the local authorities. The city’s Archbishop, Monsignor Paul Coakley, has called on the faithful to ask the intercession of St. Michael the Archangel, Our Lady and all the Angels and Saints ‘that the Lord may take care of our community and protect us from evil and its many destructive and violent manifestations’.
Today, however, it is not only an American diocese suffering the attacks of evil, but the entire Church. The disoriented faithful turn to the Vicar of Christ, asking him to show his paternity not only towards those distant, but also to those closest to him, more than ever in need of clarity and encouragement in this tempestuous, historical period.
[Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana]
