18 June 2016. The Rightwing Pro-Lifers Fuck Up Yet Again… Distort What the Pope of Rome Actually Said

______________________________

Right now, all the rightwing Pro-Lifers are howling about what Francisco Bergoglio, the Pope of Rome, said. Well, this is what Pope Francisco said:

It’s provisional, and because of this, the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say, ‘Yes, for the rest of my life!’ but they don’t know what they’re saying because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know.

In short, he was criticising today’s refusal to commit to anything permanently. That is, he was UPHOLDING tradition and morality. Life Site News is a pack of rightwing nutters who lie and distort shamelessly. The rest of the Pro-Life crowd is just as bad and lie just as shamelessly (as the recent Planned Parenthood vids showed to all concerned). Pope Francisco was reiterating ancient truths, but these jabronies are so stupid that they didn’t see it.

BMD

Advertisement

18 June 2016. RELIGION… the Enemy of Mankind; FAITH… the Deliverer of Mankind

Sadly, most who call themselves “Christian” in the USA are anything else but… beware all “Evangelicals”, all those who were once such, and all those who advocate that we adopt their notions and agenda. “Evangelicalism” is an Antichristian fraud, best avoided by Christian folk…

______________________________

Vladyki Lazar Puhalo posted this on FB:

“Religion” doesn’t equal Faith or a life in Christ; most certainly, it isn’t an understanding of and adherence to the Gospel. “Religion” inculcates bigotry everywhere. “Religion” and Faith aren’t the same things. In America, “religion” is hardly more than a cultural affectation, at some times, a fanatical one at that, but secular civil law protects citizens from its worst excesses; in dozens of other nations around the world, “religion” is a deadly obsession. In Islam, the worship of the book forms an idolatry shared by many Christians. Too many Christians hear, “It says in the Bible…” and judge God to be cruel and malicious, but they somehow don’t hear Jesus Christ say, “But I say unto you…” Men call Allah merciful as they behead the innocent with a hunting knife. Preachers who advocate mass murder spout the name of Jesus. Small wonder atheism is growing so rapidly. Some of the loudest voices in the Christian world from Texas to Nigeria slander God and ignore Christ; they bury the Gospel in a dark shroud of wilful ignorance. Some use the Koran as a weapon and justification for some of the most wicked and inhuman actions on the face of the earth. Truly, small wonder atheism is on the march in our world.

Let’s not be coy… what passes for “religion” in many quarters has nothing of God or of the Numinous in it. However, let’s not be smug… we do have Rod Dreher, Victor Potapov, John Whiteford, and Paffhausen the Great amongst us, don’t we? We do have too many who try to “square the circle” by trying to combine godly Orthodoxy with demonic “conservatism”. We do most certainly have “logs in our eyes”… our own guilt in this isn’t minor or slight.

BMD

18 June 2016. A Thought from HH…

______________________________

18 June 2016. A Point to Ponder

______________________________

As followers of Christ, we really need to learn the difference between “moral outrage” and “moral grief”.

Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

In a later post, Vladyki Lazar elaborated:

Some of you have asked me to explain “moral grief”. Perhaps, we can discuss it briefly, looking at the Holy Fathers. The best example of Moral Grief is Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane just before his betrayal. As the Fathers tell us, Christ had no fear of death. He certainly knew who He is. What then, was the “chalice” that He suffered from so greatly that He wished to have it removed? He was referring to His grief over the conditions and bondage of humanity. As the great Russian Father Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky said, “Christ suffered more greatly from His moral grief for humanity than He suffered physically on the cross”. Christ expressed no outrage over mankind’s sins, which He had come to bear away. Even when commenting on the self-righteous, He was sharp and stern, but without outrage. With the woman taken in adultery, we don’t see any moral outrage in Christ, rather, being concerned for her healing and salvation, He demonstrates a moral grief toward her accusers who were, despite their own moral outrage, themselves immoral, and full of sin. Moral grief never seeks the punishment or degradation of another, but feels grief over their bondage and inner human suffering. Moral outrage wallows in the desire for punishment, it rages against the other, not feeling a deep sense of humble grief over their condition. I hope this will explain to some degree.

I quite agree and have nothing to add to the above.

BMD