What People are Commenting
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Palestinian Crib, Chinese Church & Ireland
Chartres Pilgrimage under Scrutiny
What next will Francis destroy? The Chartres pilgrimage?
Looks like a good possibility. Naive trads and conservatives should wake up – this is the result of the compromises. Everything will be taken.
Yes, the pilgrimage will be allowed, but the final Mass in the Cathedral will be Novus Ordo. I wonder how many will swallow that just to have the pleasure to meet friends at the pilgrimage....
M.G.
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Preaching XI Jinping, not Christ
Thank you for your recent article on China and Communism. Since Communism is a regime that controls everything – including religion – well then, China is communist.
The recently appointed bishop Shen Bin of Shanghai (the Vatican was only informed days afterwards!) has announced his new ‘pastoral programs’. You won’t be surprised it is all about Sinization of Religion. That is, his program is all about adapting religion to China’s Communist ideology and party. It is openly defiant to any Catholic authority (not that the present Catholic authority would be that much different from the communist line being pushed.)
Still the Gospel of Xi Jinping is NOT the Gospel of Christ. All the above ground churches are red in China, so sad to say, and the Underground Church is going further under. I pray for them, as they are the faithful Catholics of China.
G.G.
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Swiss Black Madonna Dishonored
Horrible events! Our Lady of Einsiedein! [Read news report below]
With a modernist history by a modern monk.
Shockingly, no one came to Our Lady’s defense.
Please repost TIA’s wonderful history of this place and statue. It’s truly marvelous.
K.C.
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TIA responds:
Dear K.C.,
We do not have an article on Our Lady of Einsiedeln. We have articles on other Black Madonnas, here, here, here, here and here.
Cordially,
TIA correspondence desk
Jim Hoft
Nov. 19, 2024 - An Afghan asylum-seeker ripped off the clothing of the famous Black Madonna in Switzerland and took her crown in an evil attack on Monday.
An Afghan asylum-seeker in Switzerland entered the Shrine of Our Lady of Einsiedeln southeast of Zurich and vandalized the famous statue of the Black Madonna.
The Afghan man climbed the altar, ripped off the clothing on the Black Madonna, took off her crown, and placed it on his head.
He wore the crown and clothing until police arrived to arrest him.
The shrine of the Black Madonna was established in the 9th Century.
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Loss of Faith in Ireland
Ave Maria Purisima!
You asked me a question about the reasons for the loss of the Faith in Ireland. This I think could be the subject of a whole book, but I will try to keep my views relatively short. There are many reasons I think, none of them dramatic in their own right, but all contributing to the decline. Vatican II was the killer punch, but the weakness was already there.
Urbanization and emigration. Ireland was a largely rural country down through the ages but from the 1930s, a movement to the cities began and then, a movement to emigrate outside Ireland, largely to the United Kingdom. Of course, many also went to your own country, but they rarely returned and therefore did not influence Ireland as much. So young girls and boys looking for work went to Dublin and were exposed to materialism and other influences they had never experienced. Dance halls, popular music, unsupervised mixing of boys and girls etc. You can imagine the result. Those who went to England were exposed to a Protestant culture and an atheistic one and fell away from the Faith. Many turned to alcohol and gambling. When they returned, they had a negative influence on many whose faith was weak in the first place convincing them they were old fashioned or superstitious etc.
Television. People on the east coast of Ireland were able to watch British TV for some years, but TV became widespread from 1960 when Ireland opened a national TV station. This brought in many foreign influences and was a distraction. Instead of praying the Family Rosary people watched TV at night. Many were exposed to sinful films and plays and soap operas for the first time. The Church which had operated censorship could not censor the television.
Weak liberal priests. They existed throughout the ages, and many were evident before Vatican II. They talked of the love of God not His Justice. They handed down meaningless penances in the Confessional devaluing the seriousness of sin. The "Stations of the Cross" on one's knees was replaced by "one Our Father and Three Hail Marys."
Coeducation. In rural areas there was a tradition of sending girls to convent boarding schools. In 1965 free high school education was introduced along with a free bus service for children in rural areas. This led to a decline in girls being sent boarding and instead, going to local "community schools" where both boys and girls were taught together. So, the girls no longer had the good influence of teaching Nuns and were placed alongside boys and occasions of sin.
Vatican II. Was the nail in the coffin. Discipline in the Church and among the faithful had been declining for years but Vatican II destroyed this discipline. The sodalities were disbanded as being old fashioned, the church veil was no longer worn, the Catechism was changed to a less demanding one and a whole new breed of Priests emerged, many of whom were homosexual. Priests were told they must live in the "real world" and bring the Gospel to the faithful. So, some went to public houses at night, some even formed popular music groups, some went on TV programmes and generally discipline declined to an alarming point. In Catholic schools, corporal punishment was being phased out and vocations were in rapid decline.
I think you probably know the rest even better than I do. Many were weak in their Faith for decades and this weakness was exposed, and the Devil took full advantage. We had not enough strong young ladies like you S.J. and the other young Ladies at TIA. As Catholics, we are constantly under attack, and we must be strong and stand firm for what we believe and what we want in our spiritual life.
The Devil is everywhere, sometimes in our friends, sometimes even in our own family. The Faith can be saved only with the help of young people like you who challenge the world and never obey it. … We need virtuous young ladies to give good example to the rest of society. Girls have always been disciplined more strictly than boys, because society has recognized the importance of virtuous girls and young ladies.
God bless you. May you grow in piety and virtue every day and may you remain steadfast in purity.
Yours sincerely
C.P., Ireland
Posted December 10, 2024
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The opinions expressed in this section - What People Are Commenting - do not necessarily express those of TIA
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It is interesting that Pope Francis ordered a Nativity scene to be placed onstage at Paul VI Hall in the Vatican. In it the Crib is wrapped with a Palestinian scarf. Even if it is not the official Nativity scene, which is traditionally placed in St. Peter’s Square, it is indisputably a way he found to express his solidarity with the Palestinians being killed in Gaza. An indirect way to go against the genocide the Jews are committing against the Arabs in that area.
I strongly disagree with Francis on his destruction of the Catholic Church, but on this issue I agree with him. What the Jews are doing in Gaza and in Palestine is a horror, not different than what the Nazis did with the Jews…
News reports here and here
Sincerely,
G.L.