Denying the faith and the Holy Spirit

I'm making just a quick "hold that thought" note about a complicated topic. This morning after watching Mass on EWTN (Father Pacwa hit his sermon right out of the ballpark, right away, totally excellent, I would have added just one thing :-) there was an excellent brief segment about one of the early church fathers. I'll talk more about who when what later but just want to make this point.

He was a bishop who lived a few centuries after Christ, during a time of terrible on and then off persecutions. The emperors and/or their local people would periodically decide to torture and force Christians to renounce Jesus Christ and worship idols, or die.

This became a huge topic (besides the obvious) in the early Christian Church. Remember that is YOUR church too, there was no "Protestant" versus "false church," you ALL come from the truth and the blood of the one true Church.

The topic was... what to do when a persecution was over with, and people who had denied Christ and thus saved their lives repented and wanted to return to the Church, while those who had not denied Christ had died for the faith. Remember, it was not just words mumbled at the point of a sword. Those who were forced to abandon Christ actually had to now regularly worship idols and false gods, not just cross their fingers behind their back and tell a fib. They truly had to turn their back on Jesus Christ AND actively worship idols.

Some in the Church rightly felt this was unforgivable. However some in the Church rightly felt this was forgivable. This is why there is a "Pope," a "Peter," by the way, not to make stuff up because he feels like it, but to help people to respond to the thorny theological questions of the time when they are in it, I mean, duh. By the way, the Pope during the time of this bishop was martyred in the persecution.

The Popes who reigned during the persecutions came to conclude that this was forgivable and believe you me, that was a really unpopular decision for some. The Popes decided on the side of scripture where Christ said that one should not forgive just once, or seven times, but seventy times seven times. The Popes and the bishops, however, felt that not just a hand wave was needed for such people, but genuine repentence and genuine penance (prayer and deeds) to atone for abandoning Christ.

Now, here is why some people correctly could hold the opposite view-that apostacy or whatever it is called-is not forgivable, and I will advise you how to understand how Christ reconciled the two facts that fuel each side in the debate.

Those who feel it is unforgivable cite the scripture when Christ said that offenses against the Holy Spirit are not forgivable. They correctly understand that denying Jesus Christ and then worshipping idols is an offense against the Holy Spirit. This is why people against forgiveness were not being mean, but were God fearing scripture readers, just like the forgiveness side.

Here is the distinction. Christ is saying to freely forgive genuine human weakness. People who broke under torture, or who feared torture on behalf of themselves and their families, were responding to genuine human weakness. Who cannot forgive genuine human weakness when it is genuinely mourned and repented, and conversion of the heart then occurs? That is why Christ says to forgive them repeatedly, as he would have done.

However, here is where that would not qualify for the repeated or even one time forgiveness. The primary offense against the Holy Spirit is to be cynically willing to sin with the planned assumption that "Hey, I'm going to get forgiven anyways." So those who jumped to worship idols, not doing so out of weakness and terror, but doing so because they figure God is mushy and will just forgive them anyways, they are the ones who will be denied forgiveness because they were committing an offense against the Holy Spirit.

So the "forgiving" side and the "tough" side were equally grounded in scripture and equally correct. They needed to discern the difference between those many who caved in due to genuine terror and weakness, and those who caved in due to attempting to manipulate the forgiveness of God through the Holy Spirit. This is why the Popes and the bishops in general decided on the side of forgiveness, trusting that God in his final judgment will sort out the hopefully minority of those who cynically jumped to abandon Jesus Christ, figuring it didn't really matter to God, who was "sure" to forgive them, anyway.

Here is a modern analogy to make it clearer. Sadly this is an all too common scenario.

A single mother lives with a "boyfriend" who abuses the mother's baby. She does not report the boyfriend until the baby is actually seriously injured or killed, and the cruelty is thus uncovered at the hospital by police.

One such mother scenario is that she is weak and craven and is so scared of the "boyfriend" that she lets the baby be hurt and die. That is still absolutely no excuse, either morally or legally, but she would be "eligible" for lack of better words for appropriate forgiveness after genuine repentence.

The other such mother scenario is that she is weak and craven but also cynically figures that at least she still "has" the boyfriend, and that even when they are caught she can claim that she was too scared to stop the abuse. She is planning ahead her "excuse" for her own selfish reasons (continue to have sex, money or whatever from the boyfriend while he abuses the baby). She, spiritually (and legally, of course) is not eligible for forgiveness, using our analogy.

This, by the way, is one reason the Catholic Church is against the death penalty. They hope against hope that even the worse of the worse can experience genuine conversion and repentence, even if they were cynical about it all their miserable lives.

So I wanted to deeply warn, as I have before, those of you who know the truth of the faith yet continue to deny Jesus Christ and the one true God, obeying him, figuring that you can always do it "later" because good old mushy God and "JC" will "forgive you anyway." That is in the realm of the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. And yes, Protestants, Paul warns against grieving the Holy Spirit too... I know a lot of you feel better when Paul says so "in addition" to Jesus Christ himself! :-)

But those of you who cynically worship idols for money or whatever reasons, including fear, but do not do so from weakness, but from cynical strength, counting on God's mushy and easy forgiveness, even if you are absolved by a priest and so forth, if you are under false pretenses you can well wake up in hell, believe you me, just like the man Jesus talks about in Luke 16.

There is an overflowing abundance of mercy like flowing waters for the genuinely weak and flawed, even if it takes them at the point of the sword to denying Jesus Christ. Manipulators and semi-believers cannot count on that, though, as Jesus Christ, and later Paul, both warn.

1 of best prayers ever and deep trouble help pt. 2

I came across one of my favorite prayers a few days ago when I bought the book "Day by Day with the Catechism" at a Catholic Church run rummage sale. It's a very well known and valued prayer among Catholics who look for thoughtful prayers, and I was happy to see it included in this booklet. As I reread it, I thought of my recent blog posting about getting out of deep trouble, where I provide commentary and advice through the wisdom contained in Psalm 1 of the Book of Psalms. I realized that I could do something similar with this prayer, so here it is.

This prayer is entitled "A Prayer for All Things Necessary to Salvation" and it was written by Pope Clement XI (1649-1721). As you read through this prayer, written by a Roman Catholic Pope, and thus heir to St. Peter, who Catholics consider the first pope, recognize that this scholarly and spiritual man has developed a virtual checklist of the correct things to ask God for. This is why I had the idea that if any of you are in deep trouble, you can take this prayer and thoughtfully use it to attune yourself more to the desires expressing within the prayer, and less to the worldly things and temptations that may be the cause of or contributing to your suffering as you attempt to handle the deep trouble that you may be in. Just a note, remember that I explained that to be "sanctified" means that one is focused on serving God first and foremost.

PRAYER FOR ALL THINGS NECESSARY TO SALVATION

I believe, Lord, but may I believe more firmly.
I hope, but may I hope more securely.
I love, but may I love more ardently.
I grieve, but may I grieve more deeply.

I adore you as my first beginning.
I aspire after you as my last end.
I praise you as my perpetual benefactor.
I invoke you as my merciful protector.

Direct me by your wisdom.
Keep me in your grace.
Console me with your mercy.
Protect me with your power.

I offer you, O Lord,
my thoughts, that they may be about you;
my words, that they may be spoken for your glory;
my actions, that they may accord with your will;
my sufferings, that they may be accepted for your sake.

I desire whatever you desire.
I desire it because you desire it.
I desire it insofar as you desire it.
I desire it for as long as you desire it.

I pray, O Lord, that you will enlighten my mind,
inflame my will,
cleanse my heart,
and sanctify my soul.

May I repent of past sins,
repel future temptations,
correct wicked tendencies,
and cultivate virtuous ideals.

Good Lord, grant that I may love you,
renounce myself,
and do good to my neighbor,
and be detached toward the world.

May I strive to obey my superiors,
support my inferiors,
aid my friends,
and spare my enemies.

Help me to overcome sensuality by self-denial,
avarice by liberality,
anger by meekness,
and tepidity by devotion.

Make me prudent in counsel,
steadfast in danger,
patient in adversity,
and humble in prosperity.

Grant, Lord, that I may be attentive at prayer,
temperate at meals,
diligent at work,
and constant in resolutions.

Let my conscience be upright,
my outward appearance be modest,
my conversation edifying,
and my whole life be ordered.

Help me to labor to overcome nature,
to cooperate with your grace,
to keep your commandments,
and to further my salvation.

Teach me the futility of earthly things,
the greatness of Divine things,
the shortness of temporal things,
and the length of eternal things.

Grant that I may be prepared for death,
fear judgment,
avoid hell,
and obtain paradise-
through Christ our Lord.

Clement XI (1649-1721), Pope and Scholar


Now that you have read this prayer, marvel along with me at each and every line, how each one could be the topic of a prayer request. Yet, how many people ask God through prayer to "desire whatever you desire," to "hope more securely," to "cultivate virtuous ideals," to "spare my enemies," to "overcome avarice by liberality," to "overcome tepidity by devotion," to be "constant in resolutions," or to "cooperate with your grace?" People, even true believers, tend to pray to God when they "want something," and that is fine, if only what you want are the qualities and devotion to God that are listed here! When one prays to God for any or all of these qualities, one sets one's self on a different path, one where one recognizes more clearly the blessings that one has received (and answered prayers), and understanding of why and where a specific aspect of life that is not going as hoped is still not a total loss.

So a great exercise for everyone who wants to become closer to God would be to regularly pray this prayer and, as a way to promote one's spiritual development, why not select one or two specific lines of request in this prayer as the focus of your "prayer request to God." I think this is the type of prayer one should read and reflect upon at the beginning of each day.

I hope that you have found this helpful!

Pope proposed 1914 World War I Christmas truce

I was not going to blog again today but this is an important message from Christmas past. Click on the link to see the actual front page of the "Atlanta Constitution" for December 25, 1914.

Look at that FRONT PAGE, an engraving of Jesus mourning the war dead on His Day, Christmas, with a poem, and reporting of the Pope's peace efforts.

IMAGINE THAT IN THIS 2008 DAY WHERE PEOPLE ARE BATTERED INTO NOT EVEN MENTIONING CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FOR SHAME TO ALL WHO SUPPRESS CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.newspaperarchive.com/DailyPerspectiveFullView.aspx

snip

1914: "Christmas Truce" observed

Soldiers on the Western Front laid down their arms this evening in observance of the Christmas holiday. The "Christmas Truce," as it has been referred to, was proposed by Pope Benedict XV earlier in the month but was roundly rejected by commanders on both sides. Although the first denial had come from the Russians, whose Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January 7, eventually all sides refused to honor the truce.

Despite their commanders' refusal to honor the day, soldiers in the trenches on the Western Front embraced the truce by singing Christmas carols to each other across the area known as "no man's land." "[Foreign Legion officer Phil Rader said,] ‘We had been in the trenches for twenty consecutive days, before Christmas dawned. For twenty days we had faced that strip of land, forty-five feet wide, between our trench and that of the Germans that terrible no man's land, dotted with dead bodies, criss-crossed by tangled masses of barbed wire,’" reported The Sheboygan Press on March 25, 1915. "‘Thoughtlessly I raised my head, too. Other men did the same. We saw hundreds of German heads appearing. Shouts filled the air. What miracle had happened? Men laughed and cheered. There was Christmas light in our eyes and I know there were Christmas tears in mine. There were smiles, smiles, smiles, where in days before there had been only rifle barrels.’"

NOTE: Soldiers emerged from both sides of the trenches and entered no man's land, exchanging gifts, singing songs and in at least one area, playing a game of soccer. Groups of soldiers removed the bodies of their fallen comrades behind the lines, and for a brief time, were able to leave the war and rejoin civilization as they had once known it. Unfortunately, the war resumed the following day and where there had been smiles and songs the day before, there were again only the sounds of artillery and machine gun fire.

Bishop saved household money to build hospital

Still researching, and came across this. I mention it because one of the favorite ignorant loud mouth accusations against the Catholic Church is that her bishops live large on the hog. Actually, throughout the centuries, bishops, and even Popes, have been known to live very austerely, and with the money they save on household expenses (including the basics of food and fuel for heat and light) have done great things.

A specific example is St. John Chrysostom, who lived from 347-407 AD. In the book I am reading it states "As for himself, St. John built a great hospital with the money he had saved on household expenses in his first year as bishop."

Now, people are going to say mean and ignorant things no matter what the truth may be. But I wanted to remind faithful readers that there is a several thousand year history of severe "budgeting" and sacrifice by not only those who minister to the poor, but indeed bishops and Popes who scrimped and lived in privation in order to donate what they had to great causes for the needy. So like me you can ignore the mean mouths who predictably comment on news stories that mention the Catholic Church how fat and rich everyone is, since that's far from true, and in fact, is the opposite of one of the longest traditions of individuals scrimping on basics in order to feed the poor, build hospitals and establish charitable foundations with their "saved household money." And no, it's not because they got a large expense account; they often went without food, candles for lighting, or wood for heating.

Advice for those rusty about praying

Most of the faithful, hopefully, know the "Our Father" and probably also the "Hail Mary" and the "Glory Be." You've probably also read that many people spend time at prayer, and perhaps wonder "what to pray" if you are just beginning to or seek to enrich your dialogue with God. Some of you buy prayer books, either Catholic or Protestant, for new sources of prayers. That is fine, since most of them are hopefully based on Biblical sources and are theologically sound.

Try to avoid prayer books that have "contemporary language" placed around prayer, where sometimes the authors actually rewrite prayers to be "modern." I've flipped the pages of some of them and find that they can be fronts for slippery and inaccurate dogma.

I have some suggestions for engaging in or restoring a more substantial prayer life with God. The first suggestion is to read part of one of the Psalms in the Bible as a prayer. After all, the 23rd Psalm is the prayer so many know as "The Lord Is My Shepherd (I Shall Not Want)." Those who wrote prayers often took their lines and inspiration directly from these Psalms (which are indeed prayers, ones that were meant to be sung). So if you are saying your nightly prayers, for example, and you want to do more than what many of us do, which is one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and one Glory Be, open the Bible and read part of one of the Psalms as a prayer.

The second suggestion is to read prayers that were written and said by others that have gone before. There is a wealth of Internet sources of original writings, homilies and prayers by saints, holy people, pious laymen and even the earliest Church fathers. For example, you can research a favorite saint and use one of their quotations as a prayer source for you. Better yet, click on a saint that you know nothing about, through a site such as http://www.catholic-forum.com/, and read several of them until you find an inspiring prayer source.

But be careful and read only prayers that are derived from their original sources. I've noticed that whenever certain saints are googled, in addition to reliable Catholic references you are also likely to get a few responses that are "this saint spoke to me on my trip to ...." and those should assuredly be avoided. Find sources for the saint's actual words and read them for prayer ideas, not modern machinations.

For example, here is a wonderful source. This web site has a list of prayers written by Popes.
http://www.catholicdoors.com/prayers/pope.htm

For example this prayer was written by Pope Innocent III.
http://www.catholicdoors.com/prayers/english3/p02553.htm

PRAYER FOR HELP AND MERCY
(By Pope Innocent III.)

Gracious Lord almighty, Jesus Christ,
let Thy sufferings aid us,
and defend us from all pain and grief,
all peril and misery,
all uncleanness of heart,
all sin,
all scandal and infamy,
from evil diseases
Or soul and body,
from sudden and unforeseen death,
and from all persecution of our foes visible and invisible.
For we know that in what day or hour we call to mind Thy Passion,
we shall be safe.
Therefore, relying on Thine infinite tenderness,
we beseech Thee,
O loving Saviour,
by Thy most benignant and sacred sufferings
to protect us with gracious aid,
and in continual tenderness to preserve us from all evil.
Amen.

Spiritual direction: Understanding the Popes

I need to now detox conspiracy theorists from their crazy theories about the untimely death of Pope John Paul I. This kindly man, the predecessor to Pope John Paul II, died after only about a month as pontiff. Since Popes are not given autopsies it is assumed he died of a heart attack or stroke (and that is indeed the case, I can assure you) but there is no medical report, obviously. So since this is the time of freak show New Age paranoia and conspiracy theories there are many who keep the suspicion toward the Vatican and Catholics in general churning through this innuendo and libel. Here is the healthy way to think of it.

Hardly a day goes by that a child doesn't fall dead in elementary school or high school. Sometimes this happens in a sports context, and sometimes it just happens in the class, walking down the hall, or in other routine activity. Can you think of something more shocking? Should not paranoids worry more about a child who is healthy who drops dead than a middle age or older man who has suddenly received one of the most stressful "jobs" in the world? Who are you more surprised by, an older, sedentary man who becomes Pope and has a heart attack or stroke, or a healthy 7 or 8 year old child who drops dead in school with no warning signs of a pre-existing medical condition? Yet obviously each child's death is examined and usually a medical reason is uncovered. Why are not the paranoids running around and creating blogs and websites of suspicion around every child who suddenly dies? Because they are not pursuing an agenda, therefore reality sinks in. If you are not carrying an axe to grind you are able to comprehend reality. A child drops dead and it's a tragedy, but because you don't have an axe to grind you accept that it is a tragedy, feel bad for the parents, maybe hug your own child a little closer that night, and move on. But a middle age or older man who happens to be the Pope drops dead upon having that very heavy mantle fallen upon his shoulders and out come the axes. Half is from people who hate Catholics, and half is from you own weak self hating Catholics. You "want" to find something nefarious in order to self aggrandize and weaken the faith in reflection of your own loss of dignity. That is what it really is about. Catholics, like many others, have lost their own self respect and dignity. Everything is a dirty soap opera to you. So some poor man of God who falls of a medical problem when he receives the mantle of St. Peter suddenly is the the object of the most disgusting and undignified fantasy about conspiracies and pagan spiritualism. *Slap* Snap out of it! Regain your brains and your dignity! Momentous and strange things happen all the time. Stop turning those that involve the Catholic Church into some freak show. There's not a day that goes by that someone's relative doesn't just fall dead of some undiagnosed or undetected existing medical condition. No one runs around saying it is a PTA conspiracy, or that the garden club had it in for him. Good grief, I do despair of humans. I hope this helps but I won't hold my breath about it.

Spiritual direction: Understanding the Popes

Here is another quick spiritual direction regarding understanding the Popes. I want to comment about Pope Paul VI, who I remember very well. In fact I remember all the Popes since my birth, so that covers Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, and of course our present Benedict XVI. So I know what I speaketh about!

Many cruel and incorrect things have been attributed to Pope Paul VI, going so far as to call him an antipope, and I must tell you that makes me very unhappy and annoyed. There are two things that you need to understand. The first is that there is a difference between making decisions about liturgy and so forth, whether you agree with them or not, and remaining true to the faith as Vicar of Christ. If you actually read his encyclicals you will see that Pope Paul VI was devoutly and purely true to Jesus Christ and God and certainly does not deserve the labels he has been unfairly and ignorantly slammed with. Pope Paul VI, however "liberal" he may have seemed, was liberal only in the context of trying to interact with the rapid modernization of society and the accompanying pressures, but without changing one iota of Church doctrine. It is a feat to be applauded that all this centuries' Popes have maintained 100 percent purity of doctrine even as they took the brunt of the secular and relativistic assaults. For example Pope Paul VI continued to instruct beautifully in the true presence of the Holy Eucharist (as society demanded symbolism and "scientific realism"), the sanctity of life (in the face of the legalization of abortion), and the priesthood in the image of Christ (as certain people started "demanding" "women priests"). His doctrine remained perfect and pure and it is outrageous to imply otherwise.

Now, many have correctly pointed out severe consequences from questionable implementations from Vatican II (which he inherited, as it was convened under John XXII). However, just because there were severe consequences from a direction that the Church took does not mean that everything would have been hunky dory otherwise. This is my second point. Somehow this odd view of human progress has crept into modern thinking. It is the "road not taken" attitude where somehow people assume that if all else was equal, that one decision makes all the difference between one outcome and another. This is not scholarly and incorrect to even the most casual student or observer of human history. Let's use the example of the change in the liturgy that was an outcome of Vatican II. I agree that there were many bad consequences from decisions made about the liturgy. But I'm a smart person and I know that if you could wave a magic wand and make those liturgical decisions to have "never happened," other very problematic things would have happened instead because this is the age of the crisis of faith. It's not like abortion would not have happened, for example, or the attacks and erosion of relativism. It's not like Catholic parents would have continued to be an island of faith, raising goody goody families with well formed Catholic children while the rest of society turned to Internet porn, New Age, abortion, single parenting, substance abuse and the pressures of Communism and socialism. If Pope Paul VI "had not changed the liturgy" are you telling me that you think that the rest of society would have allowed the Catholic Church to sail untouched because it still had the Latin Mass and the Extraordinary Form? Don't we wish that the evolution of history and current events are so simplistic, but they are not. Who knows how many might still have fallen away from the Church even if the Latin Mass and traditional liturgy were preserved? What if some well springs of vocations that thankfully still exist today never came into being because of a cultural clash with the Latin Mass and traditional liturgy? There are people in the Church today who would probably not have been called, just as there are others who perhaps were not called who would have been had the traditional liturgy remained as the Ordinary of the Mass. Whenever a major decision such as what Pope Paul VI faced is made, you must understand it is not pure and linear, with all of subsequent events being "good" or "bad." That's why I call them consequences. There are consequences of the change in the form of the Mass, but there would have been consequences of not changing the form of the Mass too. People are used to a kind of cost-benefit analysis but they are weak at considering "missed opportunity" analysis. Whenever a decision is made there are consequences, and there are consequences of making no decision (status quo, therefore) too. I can assure you that even if Pope Paul VI argued for and preserved the Latin traditional liturgy the Church would still have been assailed by the pressures I already mentioned. Ironically when that happened people would have blamed the traditional Latin Mass! In that "alternate scenario" I can see the crisis of the Church hitting and people blogging angrily about that stale Latin Mass, even as the faith of those who are true would have been sustained by the traditional Mass, as well it should be. I'm just saying that the crisis in the faith for Catholics (and the other faiths, incidentally) would still have occurred because of the very unfortunate times that we find ourselves in. By unfortunate I don't mean matters of luck. I mean that there is a very troubling global and humanitarian crisis of faith which comes from a turning away from God, the destruction of the family, the abuse and killing of children, and materialistic and substance addictions. That would have happened either way, obviously, with traditional Mass or the Vatican II ordinary of the Mass.

So you must take a more adult and mature attitude toward the Popes and the Catholic Church. While children are the future, we can only fix the mess if thoughtful people are all grown up and sit at the big boy and big girl table. Calling someone an "antipope" and slamming the Vicar of Christ is churlish, stupid and un-Christian. I've been spending time reading the Encyclicals of the Popes, including Pope Paul VI for comfort as we sit in this unbelievable mess of a world. People ought to thank his memory, and all the Popes, who have preserved the purity of doctrine and their role at Vicar of Christ in the midst of the, no nice way to put it, crap that people have made of the world they have been given while turning away from God, no less.

I hope this helps.

Spiritual direction: Understanding the Popes

People are strange. There are some things in life that are not as difficult to understand as they seem, but people have to glue their own stuff all over what they are trying to understand, and thus miss the simplicity of comprehension. This is the case with understanding the role of the Pope from the first Pope, St. Peter the Apostle, to now with the Holy Father Benedict XVI, and into the future no doubt (though I hope understanding will increase).

Here is my first quick point. Popes "can't win" when attacked by secularists. This is because they are in a no win situation. Consider this. When Popes had secular authority (ran cities, country states, had armies, made political decisions) they were criticized as being too involved in secular life. Now that the Popes have confined themselves to being the Vicar of Christ and shunned secular authority, they are criticized for not taking more political stands.

I have a lot more to say but I want that to sink in with you. There is no "right amount" of politicizing of the Vicar of Christ. Critics are trembling with "outrage" when Popes interfered with secular matters, or when they didn't. For example, Pope Pius XII has been unfairly criticized for not taking Hitler AND Mussolini on in hand to hand combat by the very same people who are remarkably silent when Jewish refugee ships were turned away by secular governments AND those same governments did not bomb the railroad lines that led to the concentration camps themselves, which would have flummoxed the Nazis and saved thousands, maybe millions, of lives. Yet the Pope is bashed in hindsight for continuing to focus on his role as the Vicar of Christ and no more. I want to slap in the face people who today quote excesses of some of the Popes in secular and political matters yet get all "morally outraged" when the Pope does not speak out on every personal favorite political agenda held by those same critics.

So I want the faithful who read this blog to remember and ponder how times were different over the past several thousand years, where Popes did have secular influence, either directly or through Kings or Queens, and how better off we are now that they only focus on being the Vicar of Christ. When you have to be an apologist remember that the critics have gotten what they wanted: the Pope does not interfere in governments and their affairs. So raking over the same **** of the past is pointless and that's just self congratulatory spewing by critics. They have to harp on the excesses of the past (deliberately misunderstanding the city state composition of government and society during those times of which the Pope had to be part) because the recent Popes of the past several centuries have flatly refused to be drawn into anything other than what they are supposed to do, which is the Vicar of Christ and his pastoral work. No wonder they have to harp on about the past: they are ignorant of the facts and they are frustrated that the Popes cannot be manipulated in the core faith. Trust me, they thought they had a liberal gold mine in the loved Pope John Paul II because he was thought of as "modern." Secularists were shocked to the core when JPII refused to apostate on favorite issues such as sex, sex, sex. They thought they had a "hip" Pope who was skiing, had acting background, a social life before being ordained and who was not camera shy and thus possibly open to manipulation, they figured. Well, oops, not so much. JPII never forgot he is the Vicar of Christ. We may have gotten some nutty liturgical excesses with him but secularists had to gnash their teeth as he kept his faith and those who heeded him pure. Ha ha ha. Nothing like thinking you have a "changeable Gemini" to manipulate and finding out that he was the Rock.

I'll write more on this subject because no one understands the heart and soul of the Popes more than I. No brag just fact. It's important to understand them and to have faith in them.

Poetry about the Popes, written today

A poem on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI and all the Popes from Peter:

It is easy to mock,
To doubt and criticize,
But I ask you one question,
When you look in my eyes.

Could you have tended the flock?
When the huns ran to ruin?
Would you stand for the faith?
In front of tribunal?

With no army or guard,
Except for the cross,
Could you fill the Pope's shoes?
And weed out the dross?

Could you always be strong?
When surrounded by bait?
Would your knees never buckle?
Except at heaven's gate?

Then do not criticize
The heirs of the Rock,
Who fish on Christ's behalf,
Seated on Roman dock.