How bad is the rot within the Church?
Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa surprisingly decided last week to cancel three separate public prayers of reparation for a “gay pride” parade scheduled to take place in the northern Italian city.
The instruction to cancel the prayers, first reported on the Italian blog MessainLatino, came from his auxiliary Bishop Nicolo Anselmi.
According to the Italian Catholic daily La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, Bishop Anselmi told the three parish priests in question by phone that Cardinal Bagnasco considered the initiatives “inappropriate.”
The Rosary and Eucharistic Adoration were to have been offered in three Genoa churches over three days, June 13-15, to coincide with the parade taking place in the city on June 15.
But the day before the first prayer of reparation was to have taken place, an instruction from the archdiocesan curia was issued asking the priests of those churches to cancel the planned moments of prayer.
“We are sorry to have to inform you that the diocesan curia of Genoa has asked priests and Church leaders indicated below to cancel moments of planned public prayer reparation,” read a statement issued on the web page of Santo Rosario in Italia, an organization coordinating prayers of reparation across Italy.
“We therefore invite the faithful interested in the prayer of reparation to pray elsewhere in spiritual communion,” it added.
Over the weekend, the Register asked Cardinal Bagnasco, a former president of the Italian bishops’ conference who serves as president of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences, why he took the decision.
But the cardinal, 76, who some consider a possible future pope, did not respond. Neither did Bishop Anselmi whose secretary told La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana’s Andrea Zambrano that the bishop was “busy all day in a meeting and cannot be disturbed or left messages.”
Zambrano contrasted how such reparatory prayers are denied while other churches in Genoa, such as San Pietro in Banchi, have been allowed to hold “anti-homophobic vigils” since at least 2017.
Go here to read the rest. Doubtless worse than even the most cynical among us can imagine.
Christ’s Church is led by many evil men. I include the cowards in this as they have had more than ample time to defend their flocks, but repeatedly choose to allow wolves to ravage the sheep. May God have mercy on the souls of these hirelings.
The likes of Fr. Martin, Fr. Rosica, Fr. Michael G Ryan, Cardinal Cupcake, Cocopuff & Katheter didn’t rise the their level of influence and maintain that level on their own. They’ve had a lot of help and assistance from this world and…well, you know.
Christ’s Church is led by many evil men. I
Don’t know about that. I suspect Fr. Mankowski hit the nail over the head with ‘tames in clerical culture’. My sense of the matter is that there are many bad men knocking about, but they’re not the modal type. The real problem is an absence of good men.
I think the problem is more than a lack of good men. I think the problem is the presence of a bad ol’ boys network that takes care of its own.
We need a new Pope and a complete new hierarchy. I see no other answer. God will take care of this when the time is right which may be closer than some think.
Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco is one of the few prelates who has spoken out against the worldwide persecution of Christians. This makes this announcement quite surprising and disappointing.