the NYTimes however is sarcastic as ever pushing the idea:
Trying to Be Everyone’s Pope, Tours Secular France
After visiting Africa, Pope Leo’s four-day trip to France shows how he is seeking to appeal to Roman Catholicism’s original heartlands as well as to the church’s newest strongholds."
trying to be everyone's pope?? seeking to appeal? who is the gender expert Karen who wrote this article?
A Catholic would say it was an outreach to remind people about the importance of Christ and how the church helps people to know love and serve the Lord.
But that's just me.
This secular video is a better summary of what is going on:
,,,,,,
Doing his thing: Multicultural outreach.
Catholicism is not European or white Anglo Saxon church.
Which is why the Pope is pushing outreach to migrants, even though in the US a lot of ordinary folk in the USA are upset on how the church used their money to help the drug cartels smuggle people into the USA along with drugs and gang members hiding with real refugees and those seeking to better themselves ,
( There is also a lot of resentment because migrants are easily underpaid and steal their jobs but that could be fixed with amnesty and rules)
In the USA, the religious revival tends to be evangelical and Catholic and partly inspired by Charlie Kirk, who was killed for daring to outreach both politics and conservative religious ideas to college students.
but in France, like in the US, the younger folk are slowly returning to church.
According to the two senior Gulf officials cited by Middle East Eye, Trump was told that attacking Iran during Hajj would leave hundreds of thousands of pilgrims stranded.
The sources also said Trump was warned that striking during the holy period leading up to Eid al-Adha would further damage Washington's standing in the Muslim world.
The U.S. had previously attacked Iran during Ramadan, but an attack during Hajj was described as carrying far greater logistical consequences for Saudi Arabia, which hosts around a million foreign pilgrims each year, as well as Gulf air travel hubs in Qatar and the UAE, and countries in South and East Asia from which many pilgrims depart.
Yup. We had a British lady staying here for a week when the attacks started because her flight via Qatar was cancelled. Now imagine what that would do if the Mullahs pulled a similar stunt now
.
May 23, 2026
Muslim pilgrims perform the tawaf ritual by circling seven times around the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. More than a million Muslims are gathering for the hajj pilgrimage, which is taking place in the shadow of the Middle East war, as animosity smoulders across the region despite a fragile ceasefire.
alas the Iranian Mullahs are busy posting on X that Muslims should recognize your urgent duty and direct all your motivation toward the real enemy of the Islamic Ummah — the Arrogant Powers.
'
Sigh. So why should people worry?
well, some people remember the 1987 attack on Mecca and the Mullahs have politicized the pilgrimage for years by having some of their "pilgrim" do demonstrations.
Hajj 2026 faces unprecedented threats as Iranian missiles target Saudi Arabia. 1.8 million pilgrims, 130+ cancelled flights, and $9 billion in new air defenses.....
hygiene and vaccinations are quite sophisticated as their site emphasizes who needs which vaccines etc.
there is a headsup about MERS and contact with camels for foreigners to follow.
and they stress usual precautions to prevent heat stroke, dehydration etc.
the Catholic church is imploding but the press loves Pope Leo for being obedient to the fads of the global elite.
Global warming for example.
Here in the Philippines for example, the church is backing no investment in fossil fuels at a time when people are hurting from the high price of Diesel and they now found a natural gas field that could help the Philippines.
But the bishops are pushing solar panels all over the place.
I haven't heard if they have approved of the valuable rice land in our area being diverted into solar farms to supply electricity to Manila ... And of course no one wants to ask what will happen when a typhoon hits (they will just blame it on global warming of course).
but the main problem is the synodality scam is the blurring of the importance of chastity. Pope Leo already has said he wants to decrease the emphasis on sexual sin (never mind that the sexual revolution has led to the breakdown of families with the resulting drug use, depression and abortion).
So how will he do this? Quote scripture? Stay true to the traditional teachings of two millenia?
Nope. Let the synods do it and then claim that they are the voice of the people and therefore the voice of God.
Synodality is of course a scam.
Supposedly the parishes met with people who were asked what they wanted the church to do:
but this ignored that such meetings tended to be hijacked by those who have time to be involved political activism, which results in normal folks being silenced or just not coming to the meetings.
This remind me of the encounter groups we were forced to attend in medical school: at the start of the first session we were always asked personal questions supposedly to enhance trust but in reality they would remember what we said and would bring it up later. In other words, it was not helping us to communicate as much as to intimidate those of us who tended to be disagreeable and of course it was a warning to the quiet to remain silent.
Me? I always arranged to get an emergency call from the nurses during the meeting so I could leave.
But once my roommate's group met in our apartment, and when she objected they all attacked her.
Although it was not my group, I came over and pointed out they had their facts wrong and since unlike my group, who could use the embarrassing information we gave at the start of the meeting, they didn't have any way to destroy me and of course they didn't use things like facts to disagree with me, so voila, they then shut down the meeting.
But you can see how easily such meetings can be manipulated.
To make things worse:
quiet believers and those busy with their families and those like me who are essentially home bound were not involved,
hence the data base they are using is not an accurate survey, so the reports will not represent the actual opinion of the average practicing Catholic.
The latest imposition of the Synod is the recently published full-fledged endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle in the Final Report of Study Group Number 9 “Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues.”
This report attempts to dismiss Catholic teaching on the inherent immorality of homosexual acts – and the disordered nature of the homosexual inclination – by stigmatizing that teaching as the expression of an obsolete “paradigm” that no longer can be relied upon to communicate God’s will to His people.
Even worse, Report Number 9 considers all Catholic teaching as subject to change...
The Synod has become the Holy See’s officially sponsored agent of destruction of Catholic doctrine, which is disparaged and dismissed.........
He then gives this example:
The Synod office has decided to publish the claim of a lobbyist for the homosexual lifestyle that, “I know of many priests who have been attacked because of their support for LGBTQ folks. . . .they get hit by the hateful arrows of homophobia.’
Then Father dares to sardonically point out
Is this claim an example of the “sense of faith of the faithful”? Or a repudiation of the Faith of Christ on behalf of immorality?
He summarizes that this won't stop with this report:
This Vatican-sponsored destructive subversion must come to an end now. Souls are endangered by the scandalous false teachings being propagated by the Synod. Pope Leo needs to strengthen the brethren in the Faith by putting an end to this poisonous betrayal of God’s truth.
She was with a delegation from the Dept of Agriculture that sent a group to China, Hong Kong and Macau to discuss organic food exports. But at the last minute, the Chinese part of the trip was canceled. Hmm... wonder if China is mad at the Philippines again.
Well, on the way home she ran into a British lady who had worked as a medical missionary to the Philippines years ago and had adopted a daughter here, so she was visiting friends and family here. And since her plane trip back to the UK was via Doha, alas her plane trip was canceled. Presumably the airports are closed due to drone strikes, and will reopen soon.. If she was rich she could reschedule via North America but she isn't rich and the airlines just say wait.
So she is staying in the guest room.
Luckily she is a dog person and the dogs are letting her alone (we have five watchdogs who we leave outside to roam at night to guard the house and business compound).
Don't ask me what is going on with the war.
Much of the news ignores that Iran has had proxies making war against lots of folk in the Middle East: Syria's civil war comes to mind, and their proxy Hezbollah put thousands of rockets in civilian areas of Lebanon, but if Israel takes them out, the news merely says Israel is attacking another country.
Sigh.
Sometimes I think that I know more about the military than a lot of these reporters. And of course there is a lot of propaganda out there: From China or the extreme left.
Trumpie boy finally called out someone named Tucker Carlson for being an anti Jewish bigot, and some of the anti Jewish stuff out there is so ignorant that one wonders if they are reading the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was a Russian disinformation book put out by the Czar's version of the KGB... I even read that some politician posting a recipe that includes Jewish blood as an ingredient.
But hey, the press won't notice this because he is a Kennedy
In the meanwhile, the Pope has his knickers in a knot about trumpieboy on many levels.
Of course, he was quiet about the Syrian civil war with Iranian mercenaries who helped support the Assads in a war that killed half a million people. For that matter, he didn't notice or the fact that Iran's proxies shot rockets went against Israel and a lot of innocent ships in the Red Sea.
,,. Heck, the Pope can't even criticize China for sentencing Jimmy Lai for daring to say Hong Kong should have freedom of speech (under legal agreement after Chinese takeover of Hong Kong the British law was supposed to stay there). Instead, the Chinese govt imported their patsies to run the place, something most folks there know (because they speak a different dialect).
In the meanwhile, it is the start of summer here: Hot and dry season that will last until the monsoon arrives in June.
It is of course Lent, and last evening, during mass, a bunch of people came into the parking lot in a bus all with similar tee shirts;;They didn't come into church but went to the nearby open shrine to Mary across the parking lot.
. It is a fiesta celebration for Mama Mary, and the Church has the Divina Pastora shrine here (translation: Holy Shepherdess). When we went home, there were five other buses parked in the street, and the maid said they were doing a pilgrimage to various shrines for some feast day this weekend.
As a Yank I am not up to date on all the feast days here. The city church honors the Three Kings so we have that fiesta, and the Divina Pastora shrine is there because the Spanish gave a statue of this Spanish madonna to a local family and it saved them from a flood, and then we also have barangay (Neighborhood) fiestas: ours is San Lorenzo, St Lawrence, the patron saint of bakers (don't ask) and the next neighborhood is St Vincent (the Spanish one), and this week another neighborhood where the mayor lives is having a fiesta (non saint) and then there is the Sandal fiesta (one of the local businesses run by a previous mayor, so not celebrated with this mayor). There are also federal holidays for various heroes, and then there is Ramadan, and of course Chinese New Year, The big fiesta here is May 1, a feast of Mama Mary, when lots of local people travel home for family reunions
but the big celebration is Christmas season lasts from Sept to the end of January and again it is a reason for traveling home for family reunions.
I mentioned I was in church yesterday, i.e. Saturday...I should note that since Vatican II, Catholics recognize the ancient practice of starting the sabbath on the evening.
If you have Jewish neighbors you would be familiar with this, since many Jewish families dress up and do a formal dinner on Friday night. This is best known to gentiles via the scene in Fiddler on the roof, but many Jewish families continue this practice (I had a Jewish roommate in Medical school whose mother kept kosher).
Well, anyway, here in the Philippines we have all the holidays off: Including the Muslim ones. Even though we are in a rural area, we do have a halal butcher down the street and several of the kiosks at the palenke are run by Muslim women. I am not sure if they are from Mindanao or were reverts after working in the Middle East.
there are a million Filipinos in the Middle East, so here people worry about war there.
But I have to shake my head in wonder when the US MSM breathlessly say 1000 Yanks out of 100 thousand living there want to go home because they are in danger. Well, the Phil gov't also say 1000 people want to return home too. But the other million are staying put for now.
,,,Bishop Sheen was a popular Catholic speaker who had his own TV show, which you can still find on you tube. A bit flamboyant for today's laid back media, but very informative and often very funny. Lots of people in the USA think he was a saint, so most are happy that he might be declared one by the church.
Trivia fact about him: Martin Sheen chose his name for his stage name.
But coming back to the baby who lived: as a doc I see why this incident is called a miracle, but, is this a miracle? such things happen in medicine although very rare....
the medical explanation is that the hemoglobin in babies carries oxygen differently so prolonged lack of oxygen is not as dangerous as it is for adults, but betting a baby back after a one hour delay is unusual, and getting a child who recovered fully after this is sort of a miracle too, so I guess you could call it a miracle.
as a doc, I did have a similar case of full recovery of a baby.
when I worked in rural Africa 40 years ago. Premature babies usually didn't survive, and the only incubator was a wooden box with a glass lid, where we controlled the temperature with light bulbs and supplied oxygen via a tube.
One Christmas, we had a three pound baby who was struggling to survive.,
When she started gasping, the nurse called me to help.
We increased her oxygen and started to stimulate her, rubbing her to encourage her to breathe. But then suddenly she gasped and died: i.e. turned pale and went weak. So we started CPR.
She did come back but her heartbeat kept going off and on and she was not breathing. Finally, after about a half hour, she again turned pale and lacked a heartbeat,
so since nothing was working I figured it was time to do something illogical, I instructed the nurse: Petronilla, baptize her. So she was baptized Mary,,, at which point she started breathing and moving a bit and within five minutes she was breathing on her own and looked normal.
A miracle from being hit with cold water on her head? I don't know. But she did recover and eventually went home.
Now there is another part to this story.
In Africa, unless both parents were baptized Catholic and married in the church, we did not baptize babies because their parents might not bring them up in the church. So the local priest, hearing what I had done, was very annoyed, especially since the father was the local shaman and not a Christian. ]
But as I explained: well, we tried everything else so I figured it was time to ask for a miracle.
LOL
In medicine, we do see a lot of coincidences: people who should live but who die, but also those who we thought would die but survived...
when I was in medical school one teacher pointed this out, ,and said that was why few doctors were pious, but most did believe in a higher power and an ultimate reason for all the things we saw, both good and bad.
As we wrestle in my home state of Minnesota with the fact of deep corruption in the political and economic orders, I want to draw attention to the “social justice” dimension of this problem. Catholic social teaching has a good deal to say about official corruption, insisting that…
As we wrestle in my home state of Minnesota with the fact of deep corruption in the political and economic orders, I want to draw attention to the “social justice” dimension of this problem.
Catholic social teaching has a good deal to say about official corruption, insisting that it undermines confidence in our leaders, compromises the integrity of the institutions of government, and subverts the rule of law.
But even more importantly, it deeply harms the poor, stealing resources from them, increasing inequality, and blocking essential services such as health and education.
italics mine.
And if the widespread fraud in Minnesota is also present in a number of other states, we are dealing with a massive violation of human rights and a heinous attack upon the poor and needy.
This should not be a matter of partisan politics. Rather, wherever this corruption exists, it should be fought and those responsible for it brought to justice.
This is true, and is one reason I am so angry at protesters who are essentially being manipulated to distract attention from this very real harm being done by the corrupt politicians in that state.
The text was originally written in Latin. It is a metrical paraphrase of the O Antiphons, a series of plainchant antiphons attached to the Magnificat at Vespers over the final days before Christmas.
The hymn has its origins over 1,200 years ago in monastic life in the 8th or 9th century. Seven days before Christmas Eve monasteries would sing the “O antiphons” in anticipation of Christmas Eve when the eighth antiphon, “O Virgo virginum” (“O Virgin of virgins”) would be sung before and after Mary's canticle, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46b–55). The Latin metrical form of the hymn was composed as early as the 12th century.[4]
The 1851 translation by John Mason Neale from Hymns Ancient and Modern is the most prominent by far in the English-speaking world,
----------------------------
I should explain that Vespers is the evening prayer of the Divine Office, where psalms are recited or sung several times during the day. Usually these include a hymn, several psalms preceded by a short bible verse or poem called an antiphon, a bible reading, and then a canticle: For vespers it is the Magnificat of Mary from the gospel of Luke.
these prayers vary from day to day and can be found on line, the most popular app for this is at Universalis.
The history of the O antiphons preceding Christmas can be found here:
Religious persecution in Nigeria has been going on for decades. Remember when Michelle Obama headed a protest to bring back the Christian girls kidnapped by Boko Harum?
both Christian and Muslim communities have been ravaged by armed groups. According to the report, Nigeria experienced a staggering 9,970 attacks, resulting in the deaths of 55,910 people and the kidnapping of over 21,000 individuals during this period.
Alarming report: crisis of violence and kidnappings against Christians in Nigeria rises to critical levels |
But the story has been ignored by the western media.
But now, a famous comedian dared to mention it in his show, and accused the US MSM for ignoring what has been going on there, implying the lack of coverage is partly racist, partly because the MSM doesn't cover Christians (or moderate Muslims) being killed but mainly because the Jews/Israel can't be blamed for the deaths.
So the press did cover Maher's remarks, but in a snarky way:
For example, this MSM doesn't say Bill Maher rebukes the MSM for it's lack of coverage: The headline say he "gripes" about it,
Gripes? Gripe usually implies complaining about a petty thing that annoys you, not horror and dismay about genocide.
But at least they did a full report of the discussion of which I post part here:
On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher...
Rep. Mace said the slaughter of Christians in Syria was ignored at the UN this week, and Maher interjected that the same is true for Nigeria. He diagnosed the apathy in relation to the situation in Gaza:
REP. NANCY MACE: We saw the world leaders come to New York this week, the UN summit, and we had the president of Syria, the prime minister of Syria there, and while he’s there speaking at the UN, speaking with world leaders, we gave him a visa to travel here. There were Christian villages in Syria that were being burned down.
BILL MAHER: And Nigeria.
REP. NANCY MACE: No, in Syria.
BILL MAHER: No, but both.
REP. NANCY MACE: In Nigeria, yes.
BILL MAHER: Nigeria, I mean, the fact that this issue has not gotten on people’s radar…
REP. NANCY MACE: Right, no one’s talking about it.
BILL MAHER: It’s pretty amazing. If you don’t know what’s going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck. You are in a bubble.
And again, I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They’ve killed… Over 100,000 since 2009. They burned 18,000 churches. This is so much more…
These are the Islamists, Boko Haram. This is much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza.
They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?...
Well, because the Jews aren’t involved. That’s why. It’s the Christians and the Muslims who cares.
The deaths are not just from Boko Harum but also from the Fulani herders who have been inspired and armed by Islamicist leaders to invade farmland and kill the mainly Christian farmers: most of those killed by both groups are Christians, and often churches and pastors are being killed or kidnapped, but moderate Muslims are also being attacked.
persecution has been covered in various Christian news outlets however, and here is a dicussion on July 10 on EWTN (start at 35 minutes)
most of the Catholic bishops are as quiet on Charlie Kirk's assasination
this is the sermon at the Red Mass, which is the yearly celebration of the legal profession.
The religious service requests guidance from the Holy Spirit for all who seek justice, and offers the legal community an opportunity to reflect on the power and responsibility of all in the legal profession.
Mainly posted so I can listen to it on my tablet later.
Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, has praised the late far-right influencer Charlie Kirk as an "apostle of civil discourse" and an exemplar of Christianity, the first major praise from a Catholic prelate following Kirk's shooting death on Wednesday, Sept. 10.
Barron of course is an on line influencer.
and Bishop Strikland, who was axed from his job but is still a full bishop, has a similar take
Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller referred to Charlie Kirk as “a martyr for Jesus Christ” and condemned the “satanic celebration” of his death by some detractors...“[Kirk] gave his life in following his Lord, as a sacrifice for the truth that man is made in God’s image, male and female, and in opposition to the lies and self-mutilation promoted by so-called ‘trans ideology’ and ‘gender-affirming care,’” Cardinal Müller continued.
“He upheld and lived in defense of the beauty and sanctity of marriage and family, as ordained by God the Creator, and stood up for the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death,” the German cardinal added.
hmmm... well he is German so what would he know?
but what about Yankee bishops?
The American bishops are quietly pushing the pro life and pro Jesus ideas but raarly get into the media: and those pushed by the Pope tend to be heretics nice guys who would never judge.
Cardinal Dolan: Charlie Kirk Was Like A "Modern Day St. Paul," Knew What Jesus Meant When He Said "The Truth Will Set You Free"CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN: I was caught off guard, and that doesn’t happen much. I said, I wonder who he was—and this overwhelming sense of sorrow and renewal. I thought, I’ve got to learn about this guy.
The more I learned about him, I thought: this guy is a modern-day St. Paul. Missionary. Evangelist. Hero.
He knew what Jesus meant when He said, “The truth will set you free.” Now, I understand he was pretty blunt and direct and did not try to avoid controversy or confrontation. The difference was the way, the mode, the style that he did it—always with respect. And not only was that a gracious, virtuous thing to do, it was effective.
When your opponents see, “This guy respects me. We disagree here, but he kind of enjoys me, and he’s thanking me for being here and telling me he appreciates the trust I have in him in sharing my views”—I thought, this guy can teach us something.
I’ve been spending the last week reading about him. Last night I was at NYU Catholic Center with about 200 students, and this is what they talked about. You guys, you’ve got a box seat to what is going on in the world: this return to religion.
WTF?
it is almost as if his death is illuminating those who distrort and lie about him and his positions are the same ones who oppose traditional values.
At great personal risk, he took his arguments into the darkest regions of the American campus (I almost wrote, “darkest Africa” by mistake). And he acted, consistently, with honesty, good humour and cheer. Also with patience, and prudence, given his immersion in university environments. Because he had detached himself, personally, from the filth of campus life, he was able to obtain a magnificent education, and was more learned in political philosophy than any living soul, except perhaps Thomas Sowell (age ninety-five).
Yet he was still young (barely thirty), and had an extraordinary career ahead of him — for he was profoundly lovable, even though he was smeared and libelled by “the Left.” He did not return their viciousness, for he was genuinely Christian.
The youth who knew him from TIcToc already knew what he believed, and reports of them returning to church I noted a few days ago
but except for Bishop Barron, these grownups didn't know who he was. Heck, I didn't know who he was for that matter.
It is getting late, so I will merely post this long discussion on Tucker Carlson about him so I can listen to this later.
No I don't usually follow Tucker, but the interview is interesting
I live in the Philippines so can't judge this, but if CNN says it's so, maybe it's true?
Religion is making a revival, and at the center is Roman Catholicism who has laypeople on line at the head, not the Vatican per se.
... this summer Pope Leo met with 1,000 Catholic influencers –...at the Vatican, underlining the importance of what the church leadership sees as “digital missionaries.”
and now it is open, as we see thousands praying at meetings mourning the death of conservative and Christian influencer Charlie Kirk, a Prostestant married to a Catholic.
Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, writes about when a preference cascade becomes a flood: He identifies this as the quiet people finally realizing that they are not the only ones with these beliefs and that Kirk's death is bringing them out into the open.
She describes the packed churches after the assasination of Charles Kirk and interviews a pastor of a non denomenational church near colleges in Pittsburgh:
These young people are rejecting an ideology that’s inherently against the idea of God....But there in my church, there is very, very, very little conversation about politics...The conversation is people need Jesus and a return to traditional ways of thinking about identity and relationships, and our place in the world, and what really matters in life,”...
“The wave has been rising. And I think that the assassination of Charlie Kirk just reinforces some of these core values...
The Sanctuary wasn’t the only congregation to be filled to the rafters. My tiny little country Catholic church was packed in the aisles and at the door...
Howard said this return to faith may not be just about Kirk, adding that not everyone at their services agreed with all of his politics.
“But the one thing that everyone is agreeing on is his boldness about his faith in Jesus,” he said.
Before Kirk’s death, there was this sense that if you talked about your faith, there would be guaranteed backlash, explained Howard.
“You see this politically. Well, it’s similar when it comes to faith, where it’s like, if I’m open and honest about what I really believe, I will be called a bigot. I will be called hateful. I will be called an enemy of love, and I will be sidelined, and I’ll be persecuted. And that has been the reality for the last 20 years,” he said.
“Well, now what you’re seeing is people who are saying, I don’t care. I’m going to be bold and unashamed,” Howard said.
“These kids have a light that pierces through the darkness, and that can actually change what’s wrong in our world,” Howard said.
“And this is our moment.” .....
So when innocents are killed, and we turn to prayer for their families, the clueless take the time to ridicule believers. The problem? They seem clueless about how belief in a higher power works.
So the very mild Bishop Barron took it to himself to correct them: NYPost:
Minnesota Bishop Robert Barron sharply criticized Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for dismissing calls for prayer following Wednesday’s deadly Catholic school shooting, calling the mayor’s remarks “completely asinine.”
“Catholics don’t think that prayer magically protects them from all suffering. After all, Jesus prayed fervently from the cross on which he was dying,” Barron told Fox News Digital.
Barron, an influential Catholic leader who leads the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, argued that critics misunderstand the role of prayer....
“Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God, which strikes me as altogether appropriate precisely at times of great pain,” he said. “And prayer by no means stands in contrast to decisive moral action. Martin Luther King was a man of deep prayer, who also effected a social revolution in our country. This is not an either/or proposition.”
“We know that God is all-good and all-powerful, and yet we also know that there are wicked people in the world who do terrible things. And so we must say that the just and merciful God permits some evils so as to bring about a good that we might not be able immediately to see. God is faithful in his love, but the ways of his providence are often inscrutable to us. We also know that, in Jesus, God journeyed all the way to the bottom of our suffering, accepting, as St. Paul said, ‘even death, death on a cross.’ We cannot always understand why God permits evil, but we know for sure that he accompanies us in our suffering,” he said.,,
The new pope is recognizing the voices of the ordinary people outside the affluent west.
So this is good news:
We Filipinos were hoping for our singing Cardinal Tagle to become Pope, but the fact that Pope Leo is appointing Cardinal Sarah so he can inspired people to pray is good news.
Here in the Philippines, religion is everywhere..., but we have fiestas to celebrate our love of the lord, and we worship him as part of our family feasts, but we have many chapels open for silent prayer, aka Eucharistic adoration chapels.
Sarah has a book about the importance of silently praying and listening to the Lord's voice. His book Silence stresses the need for this in a noisy world where action is stressed and noisy arguments keep us distracted from what is really important.
For Catholics, we meet God in the duties of our daily lives, in serving our family, in charitable works, but also in prayer: not just in fiestas and charismatic praise but in the quiet of daily prayer and in silent prayer including at the chapel that is kept open for prayers
In the past, the entire church was kept open, but with crime, most churches are locked but they keep a small side room open for people to pray.
Pope Leo XIV affirms family is based on union between a man and a woman, unborn has inherent dignity
well well well.
The question is: Why should this be a headline? Isn't the Pope Catholic?
the article then questioned about how in the past he condemned the sexual ethic pushed by the media and although in the past he claimed irregular sexual practices outside of marriage were wrong, that all are welcome in the church.
This type of comment assumes that Catholic churches are similar to Protestant churches, where you have to join the church and be perfect or they will throw you out.
No one checks you at the door of a Catholic church, or stops you if you want to visit and pray quietly, or want to attend a mass. We know adulterers, crooked politicians, drug users, and gays are among the worshipers, but hey, they are family.
But the priest might not give you communion if you openly proclaim you support sin, and here in the Philippines, they might ask you to coverup if you dress immodestly.
Is it me, or has suddenly things are improving: Is the tide turning back against the activists pushing woke issues? (the media, the entertainment industry and those NGOs who got US Tax money to do this)?
https://youtu.be/Emq2YbekHMY?si=TeCDOGZTGUxatXIf
Trumpieboy is making peace in the Middle East by telling the Arabs to return to their long tradition of trade not war.
Then I read reports are that young men are returning to church,
so is the culture is reverting to tradition?
Don't ask me: I live in the Philippines, and the elite here are still parroting the woke line, but the ordinary folk just ignore them and worry more about buying rice than these things.
and the ones who should have invoked the constitutional amendment to remove an incapacitated president remained silent: and it was George Clooney, not a Democratic party leader, who saw how the debate exposed Biden's incompetence, and who ended up writing the editorial saying Biden shouldn't run because of his mental problems.
And Clooney took a lot of flack for it
But the question is why didn't Pelosi or Shumer or Kamela or Clinton do this? Instead the establishment and press gaslighted the public about what was going on.
And we still don't know if Jill Biden or Obama minions were the one running the country
But you know this wasn't the only cover up of incompetence.
Why was the incompetence and problems of Pope Francis covered up?
They breathed not a word about the man, who subjected the Catholic Church to 12 years of brutal tyranny, blatant material heresy, vindictive psychopathy, and rampant predator protection. Only now, the truth emerges from his collaborators that Bergoglio is safely and securely entombed.
,,,Deep censorship existed in the religious and secular media outlets about the widespread unpopularity and instability of Jorge Bergoglio. Those of us who criticized his bizarre actions and troubling statements were branded as fringe outcasts, unmerciful and uncharitable malcontents. Some were even excommunicated-daring to speak the truth about the reality of Bergoglio...
Yup. And now we will be gaslighted as if this never happened.
As for the new Pope, Yore's article quotes Bishop Ganswein:
Now a new phase opens. I sense some widespread relief. The season of arbitrariness is over. We can begin to rely on a papacy that can guarantee stability and rely on existing structures, without overturning and upsetting them.”
So it is a full court press of loving this new pope except for the radical trads who hate everyone to the left of Pius IX
But maybe there is hope: the modern Jeremiah, Ann Barnhardt, has some questions but she admits that her grassroots sources in Rome say that the average cynical easy going Roman citizens are happy with this pope and happy to see the end of Pope Francis being in charge.
And that is good news for the church.
O Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest,
Thou hast permitted Pope Leo XIV to ascend the Chair of Peter at a time of great confusion and suffering for Thy flock.
We place him into Thy Sacred Heart, praying that he may be conformed ever more deeply to Thee, governed not by the… pic.twitter.com/3ouseVaK1D
— Bishop J. Strickland (@BishStrickland) May 11, 2025
« God cares for us, God loves all of us, and evil will not prevail ! We are all in God's hands. Therefore, without fear, united hand in hand with God and among ourselves, let us move forward. » pic.twitter.com/AkHijYfYdK
the new Pope is a Chicago guy who worked in Peru as a missionary (and I believe is a citizen of that country).
Being an ex missionary, this means a lot of the culture war stuff will not work.
In Peru, the Shining path rebels killed a lot of innocent peasants, so maybe liberation theology might not be popular. On the other hand, seeing corruption, atrocities by both the insurgents and the government military, including government overreach of arrests, and the wide gulf between the rich and the poor makes one a bit less sympathetic to Trumpieboy's push for big business and his plan to deport a lot of people who are just wanting to live in a peaceful land and work hard to support their families.
sigh.
But the really important question for Yanks is: Is the new Pope a Cubs fan?
Yes, Pope Leo XIV, previously Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, is reportedly a Chicago Cubs fan. Born in Chicago, his support for the Cubs has been noted by sources like ABC News and has sparked enthusiastic reactions among fans on social media.
But according to USATODAY, his brother claims he is a WhiteSox fan.
A couple of bishops that Pope Francis has tried his best to silence have released a film that is a shot across the bow to remind him of what the catholic church is: An institution to help people meet Jesus. Yes, you can find him at home praying, but the cross reminds us of the two directions of faith; one that connects us to God, and the other that connects us to our neighbor. The first gives strength for the second.
Bishop Strickland is particularly forthright and clearly not afraid to ruffle episcopal feathers in his defense of the authentic Catholic faith.
“[W]e’re in a time when too many of the present-day successors of the apostles are saying, ‘Oh, we can abandon what the apostles said, and we’ve got it figured out, and we’re going to take a different path. And what was sin is no longer sin; what was true is no longer true.’
That’s not apostolic,” he says firmly.
“To be apostolic … is to be rooted in the tradition and history of the apostles, and as Pope Benedict XVI said beautifully, we need a continuity of faith and not a rupture,” he continues.
warning: The film is aimed at Catholics so others might not comprehend the allusions. But it is mainly aimed at bishops and the Pope who are trying to change the church from an institution that helps people find God to the church of what's happening now; a modern secular non judgemental woke NGO where people can proudly do their own thing instead of finding God .
I've been seeing hit jobs on Christianity in the MSM for the last fifty years, usually printed at Christmas or Easter time of course.
So we see this again this year. Ho hum. nothing new here folks just move along.
first the NYTimes editorial wants to instruct you that 2000 years of belief in Mary is mistaken. Is this being done to undermine the faith of believers? Is this being done to instruct those ignorant of what Christianity taught for 2000 years? Of course not. It is aimed at bridging America’s God gulf.
italics mine.
translation: presenting the hip version of the faith to those seeking God: by using a straw man argument and quoting those who are trying to remake Christianity into a faith pleasing to the elite mindset as if they represent the belief of ordinary Catholics. Presumably he couldn't find any believing Catholics in New York City.
Nope: he goes to the experts in academia who are busy destructing Christian beliefs...quoting Pagals, an expert in the Gnostic gospels that date back only 1600 years
Jenkins book, which I have in my personal library, has a lot of details about this trend
Jenkins places the recent controversies surrounding the hidden gospels in a broad historical context and argues that, far from being revolutionary, such attempts to find an alternative Christianity date back at least to the Enlightenment. And by employing the appropriate scholarly and historical methodologies, he demonstrates that the texts purported to represent pristine Christianity were in fact composed long after the canonical gospels found in the Bible. Produced by obscure heretical movements, these texts offer no reliable new information about Jesus or the early church. They have attracted so much media attention chiefly because they seem to support radical, feminist, and post-modern positions in the modern church.
and the NYT writer also quotes liberal Protestant writer who is busy influencing Bible believing Protestant churches to do the same.
Hmm... sounds like some of those theologians trying to hijack the Pope's synodality stupidity by changing dogma on several levels while the Pope says good things then contradicts himself by letting these guys destroy the faith of ordinary Catholics.
Sigh.
and then to add insult to injury, Netflix puts in their insult.
And unlike the NYTimes, someone spent a lot of money to make this film,
Some of it is inspired by some of the pious early writings called gospels but never accepted by the church (again, see Jenkins book) but of course Netflix writers give them a gnostic flavor.
Father Leo, best known as the cooking priest from EWTN also teaches at an American seminary, and has started a podcast on religion in culture, and he puts his two cents in.
