BrTomFordeOFMCap
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Curia Archbishop Defends Sacrilege: “John Paul II Gave Communion To All Pro-Abortion Politicians”

I know I've put my money where my mouth is and paid the price. What have you actually stood for? What price have you paid for the Faith except tap a few keys?
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Curia Archbishop Defends Sacrilege: “John Paul II Gave Communion To All Pro-Abortion Politicians”

The reference to 'interdict' is a red herring. Perseverance in manifest grave sin (living as a spouse with someone outside marriage, public support for abortion etc) is the key factor. As regards the Popes it is possible that they did give Holy Communion to those who should not receive. It is common to give Holy Communion to those who present themselves properly unless you know they have not been …More
The reference to 'interdict' is a red herring. Perseverance in manifest grave sin (living as a spouse with someone outside marriage, public support for abortion etc) is the key factor. As regards the Popes it is possible that they did give Holy Communion to those who should not receive. It is common to give Holy Communion to those who present themselves properly unless you know they have not been to confession and you have not had a chance to correct them. One has to give them the benefit of the doubt (they may have been to confession with sincere repentance!).
BrTomFordeOFMCap

French riot police clash with protesting firefighters in Paris

ahem? "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword." We can resist social evils and protest but never by violence. The French have a long tradition of violent protest but on the antiCatholic side. Violence escalates and often it is the innocent who suffer the most.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Amazing: a trail of termites (up) and a trail of ants (down)

And we thought we invented traffic control.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Leftist feminist "interviewed under caution" by police in the UK for tweeting that a man who just …

Thanks for posting this. It's an interview that's really worth watching.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Schneider's Personal Opinion: God Will Show Couples (Also Naturally) Avoided Children

You have raised some very interesting questions! Questions that won't be solved in a comment box! 🙂
How does an omnipotent God interact with a finite and contingent creation, especially with humanity, the self-aware and morally free part of that creation?
What is the relationship between Divine freedom and contingent human freedom?
One could say that as God is the Creator of souls it is He who …More
You have raised some very interesting questions! Questions that won't be solved in a comment box! 🙂
How does an omnipotent God interact with a finite and contingent creation, especially with humanity, the self-aware and morally free part of that creation?
What is the relationship between Divine freedom and contingent human freedom?

One could say that as God is the Creator of souls it is He who chooses to which parents those souls are born and that when human parents refuse to co-operate He can choose to send those souls to other parents at that or another time.

This question doesn't just touch on the conception of human beings but on all our actions. Bishop Schneider's remarks also suggest that God will show us all the good that we could have achieved but did not because of our choices not to co-operate with Him. All our actions have consequences we cannot see but we will one day have to face.
Pax et Bonum!
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Church Is Two Hundred Years Behind: Behind What?

Perhaps someone should remind PF of what our Lord said to the first Pope: "Get behind me Satan for the way you think is man's way and not God's".
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Schneider's Personal Opinion: God Will Show Couples (Also Naturally) Avoided Children

If you read Genesis you will see that man and woman are co-workers, even co-creators with God. He gives us the capacity to choose between good and evil but urges us to choose good, to choose life and not death. That there are souls who never come to be because their parents chose not to conceive them is no more inconceivable than that there are souls denied the beatific vision because they died …More
If you read Genesis you will see that man and woman are co-workers, even co-creators with God. He gives us the capacity to choose between good and evil but urges us to choose good, to choose life and not death. That there are souls who never come to be because their parents chose not to conceive them is no more inconceivable than that there are souls denied the beatific vision because they died without baptism or were aborted before they even got to be born. There are untold millions of them in the last 50 years alone.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Ireland Catholic schools cancel talks by US chastity speaker who opposes homosexuality, contraception …

What those of you who have never experienced the attentions of the 'Jimmy Martin' brigade need to understand is that they really harness their resources and their allies to maximise their impact. They phone and phone, email, write letters and put pressure not just on those in charge but on secretaries and other staff members. Often it is these people who endure the brunt of the hostility. They will …More
What those of you who have never experienced the attentions of the 'Jimmy Martin' brigade need to understand is that they really harness their resources and their allies to maximise their impact. They phone and phone, email, write letters and put pressure not just on those in charge but on secretaries and other staff members. Often it is these people who endure the brunt of the hostility. They will spread their net wide and pressure a Catholic organisation's benefactors and donors aiming to impact on funding. They will not only complain to their friends in the media but to the police etc. All of this can happen really fast, over night in fact. We still do not have an effective way to deal with them and 'once bitten twice shy.'
The 'Catholic' school system in Ireland is the State system because the majority of schools were founded as Catholic but funded by the State. That's been the system here since the British ruled. Few 'Catholic' schools actively keep to that ethos. Most of the school funding is from the State and if the politicians get on their 'high horses' about something the pressure on the school management just mounts.
In a sane world this would be recognisable as blatant bullying but being Catholics means that we can't be victims of bullying.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Remarkable footage. Begging is by those who not need it

Was this taken on two separate days? For the first 30 seconds the woman is wearing a grey dress and is bare legged and barefoot but for the rest of the clip she is wearing pink and has green stockings. Same person on two separate days or two different people?
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Bishops Clowing Around - Look At The Stoles' Designs

What we Irish call a serious lack of 'cop on'. Perhaps it was their willingness to disregard Tradition in favour of novelty that got them where they are. If they do not wake up and repent they will end up where they would rather not be.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

What Was the Outcome of Cardinal Marx's Big Abuse Study? Nothing

Whatever the political and ecclesiastical machinations of Marx and co., there is no justification for the denial of clerical sexual abuse of the young and vulnerable. We went through the lancing of that boil here in Ireland, they are beginning to face it in the US, South America, India etc. There have been allegations of cover-ups in Belgium and Holland. The lavender Mafia are everywhere protecting …More
Whatever the political and ecclesiastical machinations of Marx and co., there is no justification for the denial of clerical sexual abuse of the young and vulnerable. We went through the lancing of that boil here in Ireland, they are beginning to face it in the US, South America, India etc. There have been allegations of cover-ups in Belgium and Holland. The lavender Mafia are everywhere protecting their own and Germany is no different.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Hey Bergoglio - this is here to piss you off! Have a nice day

I just ordered my copy through Bookdepository! 🧐
BrTomFordeOFMCap

The biblical foundation of priestly celibacy

What is often overlooked is 1 Tim 3:2 wherein Paul says "a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife" (RSV). The early Church like the Jews of the time (and even the pagan Romans and Greeks) did not practice polygamy nor did the Church allow divorce. Why then the requirement that there be only one wife? It must mean that if widowed he had not remarried. The Church has never forbidden …More
What is often overlooked is 1 Tim 3:2 wherein Paul says "a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife" (RSV). The early Church like the Jews of the time (and even the pagan Romans and Greeks) did not practice polygamy nor did the Church allow divorce. Why then the requirement that there be only one wife? It must mean that if widowed he had not remarried. The Church has never forbidden that (cf 1 Cor 7; 1 Tim 5) but also saw it as a sign of strong passions. The requirement that a candidate for the episcopacy is not subject to such passions would imply that it was a requirement for anyone in sacred orders (deacons and priests are likewise bound). How could he show this? By having raised his family at the time of ordination and not producing any more children or by being and remaining single. That's part of the conclusion of "The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy" by Christian Cochinin SJ and published by Ignatius Press (not all Jesuits are bad). There is plenty of evidence cited in that work that perfect continence was required of all clerics from the beginning of the Church. It seems that this changed for the Eastern Churches under the influence of heresy but they kept the requirement for the episcopate. I also recommend Stefan Heid's "Celibacy in the Early Church."
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Catholic population of S. Korea grows by 50% in 20 years

We have brothers in S. Korea. The picture they paint is not so rosy. Yes the Catholics there are very devout and orthodox but there is also a tendency to baptise without catechesis especially with recruits to the army who must choose a religion. Those who choose Catholicism are quickly baptised and registered but that's it. No formation, no catechesis.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Francis Celebrated Ad Orientem

Probably because the Sistine Chapel lacks a free-standing altar and he has to.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

The Pope Who Will Cast Out the Bad Clergy

May that day come soon!
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Hillary Clinton is new chancellor of NI university

NI doesn't have a prime minister at all. Their assembly at Stormont hasn't met in a long time. This is just Queens (a secular institution) belatedly jumping on a band wagon. It's about not identifying with Trump and by extension Johnson (Prime Minister of the UK and therefore of NI, at least for the moment).
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Remember 2016 in Mexico? The reaction is not exactly new on the part of Francis. He scolded a person …

Give him a break. He's an old man in his 80's and not good on his feet. I'm not fond of people pulling my leg let alone swinging out of me and I'm a lot younger than PF.
BrTomFordeOFMCap

Vatican Monsignor: “I’d probably stop going to Mass”

I think he's just trying to put himself in the shoes of those laypeople who've been abused or had family members abused. He's admitting that it could undermine or destroy one's faith especially as so many are so badly catechised. Just think of all those whose faith is shaken by PF's behaviour and statements!