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| Silvana De Mari |
Dearest Papa Francesco,
I address you in a familiar manner because I now realize how much you love being an ordinary person, without frills, without gold and without ermine, an ordinary person, like anybody else. An ordinary person who likes to watch soccer. An ordinary person who like many chat amiably in the airplane … A common person like many others. We need a Pope .
Forgive me, dear Papa Francesco, not to call you, your Holiness, I believe you to be a delightful person, the ideal neighbor, but we need a Pope. They kill Christians as dogs. Your Holiness, between a soccer game and the kissing of a disabled child or two, could you do a little something more in line with your role? In the last couple of hours 10 churches have been burned in Egypt. Could you do something?
Perhaps put on your trappings, the gold and ermine, which are not trash, your Holiness, but are symbols of 2000 years of history and with that “stuff” go to Egypt instead of watching soccer? It's not just Balotelli who wants to talk to you, there are also the parish priests of the Catholic churches in Nigeria that would have something to say, I mean those who survived; those already dead have nothing to say.
At a time when Christianity is under attack as never before, we need Holiness in a Pope. We need someone to appoint as the first problem the Christians massacred in Nigeria and Christians massacred in Pakistan during an Easter homily, because they’re but now they’re dead, and why Holiness were they were killed, and with them the freedom to human dignity?
Holiness, I don’t want to teach you how to do so, I understand that you are a professional when it comes to Christianity and I a fledgling amateur, but sometimes it happens that amateurs are brighter in judgment. Noah's Ark, for example, was built and run by amateurs, while the Titanic was built and guided by professionals.
I do not want to jinx you with the comparison, but Christianity gives me the impression of the Titanic. The iceberg is called Islam: you say it's so good and spiritual, if you say that as an expert, it may be so. But, I insist, the captain of the Titanic was also an expert, one of the best.
St. Peter was an amateur, however, for half his life he'd been a fisherman, zero theological studies, a duckling compared to you. St. Peter said to the Romans that they, as human beings, of course, were brothers, sons of the same God, but that their religion was false. His task was to convert them or die in the attempt of converting them to the one true faith, not finding merits in a false faith so that those who are born into it never leave it. St Peter died in the attempt, but eventually converted them. Should not this be your role? Convert to Christianity. Or die in the attempt .
On the island of Lampedusa you need had to utter a single sentence I bring the love of God. Throughout the Koran the word love is not mentioned once. It would have sufficed. On Lampedusa you bowed in front of the "spirituality" of Ramadan, you bowed to Islam, and you represent Christ. He Who represents Christ does not bow before anyone: I am the way , the Truth and the Life.
I am the Life, the Truth and the Way, but no matter what efforts to evangelize, even to proselytize, because it appears so much all religions are equal; Your Holiness, in my Gospel it does not say this. Or is yours is a different gospel, or there is an excess of professionalism that is crushing.
St. Peter to the Romans had said that they, of course, were brothers, but that their religion was false. He was killed because of saying this. Holiness people die. People are murdered. People die a horrible death. You go to watch soccer. We need a Pope . Someone who is the heir of Jesus Christ and St. Peter, someone who is willing to be hated . Because it's all here. Jesus Christ was killed by people who hated him. St. Peter was killed by people who hated him. Anyone Who is fighting for a cause, will be hated.
Whoever tolerates everything the opposite of everything with the usual happy face is a conniving. We cannot be loved by all, if we stand for something. If I remember correctly it is also written in the Gospels. Do not be afraid to be hated. Your predecessor was hated a lot. Also sentenced to death by a fatwa after his Regensburg speech, Osama Bin Laden had decreed his death.
You are loved by all, Your Holiness. Are you sure that's an advantage? I think the time has come to be hated. Put on all your trappings, which are not trash but symbols of 2,000 years of history, give the weight of those 2000 years, and go to Cairo, and fight for Coptic Christians, and weep over their burned churches and then go to Syria and then later to Pakistan. Then, if you have time, you can also go to a soccer game but I don’t think that time will allow it. We are at the darkest moment of Christianity since the beginning of time. We need a Pope .
[With thanks to Anthony Fraser]
43 comments:
Very well said, Silvana. May God bless you abundantly. I feel your pain. All Catholics of good will want our Pope to succeed but as you write, he needs a wake up call.
JMJ,
George Brenner
South Bend, In
Indeed, very well said. Will he read this? Will he take it to heart at all? Yes, we need a Pope! He doesn't seem to like the true role of the Papacy and wants to turn it on its head, perhaps to try to win over non-believers. How misguided this man seems to be. God help us and help him.
This is very well stated: We do need a Pope!
Dear Ignatius Corboy,
It is indeed "very sad".
For if you were were one of those directly affected for example, let us say, in Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Syria, Kenya or in so many other places, you might think otherwise.
But we can talk civilly, whilst other people die, often savagely.
May God bless us both, for I am pretty sure He does not want a house separated.
What arrogance and presumption this is written with. The "fledging amateur" stinks of false humility, and instead of praying for our Holy Father and the Church, you accuse(unabashedly, and with nothing but vile rhetoric) him of indifference towards our persecuted Christian brethren? Behind a keyboard. Galling.
Yes! our boys suffered with rape, degradation and humiliation from our gay priests and bishops as the Pope...s looked the other way! You would have us, also, look away in silence? NO MORE! Thank you...as a pope needs to be many things...strong is one! We are in dark times...Great Letter...Thank you for saying It!!!! Gordon
Igantius Corboy:
I am assuming you are new to this blog based on your comments. If you were more familiar with us you would see that many of the issues you bring up are ones we have discussed in the past.
That being said I believe you are greatly misjudging those who are concerned about some of the words and actions of the present Pontiff. Your criticisms of those who question the direction of this papacy seems to center on the outward trappings of the Popes: shoes, jewelry, whatnot, to use your words. Once again if you were a regular reader here you would see that our concerns center on two points: Faith and morals. It is on those two points where we find the Holy Father most troubling. This blog is not one of those blogs that support the very unCatholic concept called "papolatry", that manner of thinking which abhors any criticism whatsoever, however small, directed against the Pope. Papolatry has done serious damage to the Church and it is something we here totally reject. Your typical papolater has a difficult time distinguishing between the ideas on Infallibility and impeccability, often confusing the two, and this misunderstanding has left many souls spiritually stranded. The Pope is NOT impeccable, and after 2,000 years of Church history that should be self-evident. We here try to point out, we hope with charity and understanding (but not without humor and a little well-deserved sarcasm when need be), some of the foibles of our more uninspiring Churchmen. We do this to point out the obvious fact that so often our Churchmen are outrageously derelict in their duties.
Like you I admire Francis for his efforts regarding that horrible situation in Syria, a situation created by Washington and Tel Aviv to advance their own agendas, and which will see the destruction of the Christians there, Catholic and Orthodox. You may wish to peruse several of our posts on that subject before hurtling accusations. And, for the record, Benedict XVI, whom we did not shy away from criticizing when necessary did indeed try to make efforts to intervene in Syria (see: http://orientale-lumen.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-tablet-bishop-denounces-melkite.html). That he was unsuccessful shows you some of the chicanery that goes on in Vatican circles.
While Francis is hardly the first Pope to make overtures to the Orthodox, as you claim, I do admire greatly such efforts on his part. Though I would wonder what a typical Orthodox prelate would say after witnessing some of the unspeakably dreadful "Masses" that our present Pontiff finds so wonderful. I can see these Orthodox prelates being outwardly polite but inwardly disgusted. It is also well known that when Benedict issued his famous Motu Proprio on the Ancient Rite Mass many Orthodox saw this as a positive step toward reunion. Will they be as happy with the kind of ugly Masses they see the current Pope celebrating? Frankly, I doubt it.
I am not doubting you here, but as a matter of interest I would appreciate your source for the statement that the Vatican spent $7 million bucks on Benedict's musical concerts.
Miss De Salvani's letter to the Pope was the letter of a woman in anguish for the Faith she holds dear and which she sees disappearing from the earth. Try to see it in that light, not as a "hate campaign". She is only one of many watching in horror as the stink of Modernism overwhelms The Church and destroys the sacredness that has nourished the Church for 20 centuries.
Ignatius Corby
This letter is criticizing the way that Pope Francis exercises his office, not his soul. There are many crises going on in the Church these days. Some Catholic theologians and authors, that is those who are willing to acknowledge that there is anything wrong, believe one of the root causes of many of these problems is the hersy of Modernism (as defined by Pope Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis). I ask you are we all better off pretending that nothing is wrong? Sodomite clergy abusing children, financial scandals, drastically declining population numbers (facilitated by aortion and contraception which virtually NO clergy is willing to discuss) and the list goes on. pope Francis seems to believe that the Church has never been better, based on his public statements. Can you understand how some people may be quite frustrated? None of the posts here are seriously concerned about what type of Episcopal Pectoral Cross any Pope wears nor his tastes in music. Again we are just concerned with the way he is executing his office.
I am not a traditionalist and I don't mind what the pope wears or watches, but I do miss having a pope.
I have a parish priest, a local bishop, I need a pope. Someone who is less of himself but more of Christ. Someone who would boldly proclaim the Truth even amidst the hostile environment,
I think we all need to take a deep breath and follow the example of Our Blessed Mother. When things happened that she did not understand, she kept them and pondered them in her heart. She didn't go off the deep end. I understand your angst, but we all need to ask ourselves where the angst is coming from. This post shows someone who has very definite ideas about how a pope should act and what he should or shouldn't say, and Pope Francis is not living up to those standards. Remember, Christ didn't meet the expectations of what the Jews were expecting in a Messiah, either. Our Lord seldom does things the way we want or expect.
You don't need a pope. You need to renounce the Catholic religion and not remain like a festering hemorrhoid on the Mystical Boyd of Christ from denigrating the Vicar o Christ on earth. But I have to admit your blog is excellent fodder of Comedy Central.
Dear Ignatius Corboy,
Thank you for your kind diagnosis of "bloody crazy".
With reference to the "International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems", what official diagnosis should I be looking for?
It's good to know that the medical profession is looking after my health, even on small blogs like this.
Thank you
Ignatius:
I will remind you - again - that if you were more familiar with this blog you would see that this blog, unlike many others I am saddened to say, does care about what is happening in the Middle East to our Christian brethren. I will also remind you once again that I applauded and took part in the Holy Father's call for prayer and fasting on September 7th for peace in Syria, something you would know if you had perused some of the posts here.
But that doesn't blind me to the problematic statements of our current Pope. And if you have by now read his second famous interview with Scalfari, published the day before yesterday, you will see that we have a Pope who has said some appalling things. How do I reconcile his good actions with his bad? I cannot. (His calling "proselytism" as "nonsense", for example, would be hard to square with Our Lord's admonition to "teach all nations, etc.") But I do know that in the past 20 centuries the Church has had great Popes, good Popes, average Popes, mediocre Popes and villainous Popes. How Francis will fit into that list only time will tell.
Mr Lim: I will leave your post up as an example of the type of Catholic who has a very sketchy view of the Church's history.
.....from Confessions of St. Augustine-36......
"But tell me, Lord, You who alone reign without arrogance, because You alone are the true Lord who have no Lord: tell me whether a third kind of temptation has passed from me or can it ever pass wholly in this life........the desire to be feared and loved by men for no other reason than the joy I get from it, which is no true joy? It is a lamentable state, a base vaingloriousness. From this it comes that men neither love You utterly nor fear You with righteous fear: thus it is that You resist the proud but give grace to the humble: You thunder upon the ambition of this world..........the enemy of our true beatitude presses hard upon me, spreading all about me his snare of Well done, Well done; and while I receive praises too eagerly, I lose caution and am caught by them, and so separate my joy from 'the truth' and place it in the deceitfulness of men: and in this way the enemy has me like himself---not in any concord of charity, of course, but in the fellowship of like punishment.......the devil who resolved 'to establish his throne in the north', that men darkened and frozen may serve him while he makes perverse and distorted imitation of You.
A man who wishes to be praised by men when You do not praise him, will not be defended by men when You judge him, nor delivered by men when You condemn him. But it can happen, not that a sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, not that a man is blessed who does ungodlily, but that he is praised on account of some gift that you have given him: even so, if he rejoices more because he is praised than because he has the gift, then this man too is praised by men but blamed by You, and the man who praised him is better than himself who is praised: for the one took pleasure in God's gift in man, whereas the other took more pleasure in what man gave than in what God gave."
Viva Cristo Rey!
Thank you for your well-expressed letter to Pope Francis. You are himble and clear, and saying what needs to be said. I ask God to bless you for your curage.
Loose not sight of the Objective
One Body, One Lord !!
We should work for Unity in our Church, not worry so much about the things that tear us apart.
God's hand directs all things, pray for Unity, pray for Peace, and with God all things are made possible.
A patient in the hospital said to me that since Vatican II we need not worry about purgatory anymore, at which I replied do you pray for the dead at which she said yes. I asked her if prayers were necessary for those in Heaven. Well no since they are no need of our prayers. Well then do we pray for those in hell? Well no for prayers can not help them. So you see we are praying for mercy for the poor souls in purgatory.
The point is we need clarity and not babel from all clerics but certainly from the chair of St. Peter.....and so we pray
JMJ,
George Brenner
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Thank you very much, Silvana. We need a Pope.
Yes, we need a Pope.
We all pray for his conversion.
May God bless you abundantly.
Hi. I dont think that the Pope is loved by everybody. In fact, tere are many who would love to see him away, like those who are not certain of what he is doing, of what he is saying.
We are not talking about a mystery such as the incarnation. There is distinct Catholic doctrine and dogma and gospel truths that the Pope has contradicted with his words. This is easily understood by anyone who knows the faith and is not blinded by moral relativism. When you see clergy contradicting doctrine and dogma, you should speak out against it and defend the faith.
Papalotry is a heresy.
You have no idea what types of aid anyone here is or has given to their fellow man. Typical argument when you can't refute facts.
When the things that year us apart are heresy, we must do more than worry about it. Abortion either is or is not murder, there is no compromise with those two opinions, and only one is true. As Christians, we are called to defend truth with our very lives, not tolerate lies for the sake of "unity." Lies lead to physical and spiritual death, ignoring them for the sake of getting along is void of compassion and love.
You all sound as though you have your heads stuck up your asses!!! Far out, leave the doctrines to the Doctors of the church!!!
Pope's are human and they should be let as such, this woman who wrote this letter is obviously crazy and probably just wanted something to do, something to fill her day in, so she goes ahead and writes an unrealistic letter to his holiness. Sad thing is, you all read it, like it, take it in, and most likely publish it everywhere else.
Pull your heads out of where they are so well placed and go over to the middle east(including madame responsible for the letter) role up your sleeves and start bringing peace there your selfs. Stop airing your bloody powers of self proclaimed brilliance and actually do something!!! Leave the holy father to do as God Wills him and pray for the poor bastard if you all truly believe he has a problem.
Enough with the "crazy" and "asses" already. Please find some peace from your anger.
Not all comments are pro the letter. However, many here feel some concerns and if those concerns are in error, for who here is infallible, then I would welcome some reasoned argument as to why and I could change my mind.
In the meantime your "asses" and "crazy" comments do not persuade me. Have you ever wondered about where your clear anger and frustration come from? Perhaps you should pray and ask yourself?
Anon@12:16am:
I think we would appreciate it if you would keep the vulgarities out of your comments. You are welcome to comment here, and we appreciate views both pro and con. But let us comport ourselves like ladies and gentlemen.
I will leave your post up this time.
Regarding your comment about peace in the Middle East you would know if you were more familiar with this blog that the Middle East is very dear to our hearts at The Eye Witness and we do what little we can to bring some understanding of the actual situation there, as opposed to the usual propaganda.
Indeed, we need a Pope for the fight, this one to his own admission, isn't the one, but it's God who is in charge thanks be to God. Kyrie eleison
I have very much enjoyed reading this blog . I too share Ms De Mari's concerns and yearn for a true Pope. It is validating to see how many others share this concern. We can only pray for him and for each other for discernment at this point, and not attack each other, as that is truly not what Our Lord would want. May God bless all who are searching for Guidance and bring us to the Truth.
To all of your comments we need a Pope let me just say this once so that you will remember next time.We have a Pope and his name is Benedict XV the only true vicar of Christ he was removed from the Papacy by Francis dogs (MASONS CARDINALS)who control the vatican in order for Francis to start his reign.Francis is the FALSE PROPHET and you all know that but are still hoping that we the true messengers of God are wrong .well we are not and we have been telling you the truth since 2010
Gosh this guy is "a chosen one" a "true messenger" from God, oh my please forgive us. You're forseeable talents are so incredibly mighty. I bow in thy presents. Please do not smite me oh chosen one, I shake in thy presents. I only wish to serve thy greatness with all my being.
You sound worse than a Star Wars fan on opening day of the trilogy.
The day followers of MDM become dispensors of wisdom? That's the day I... Well, never mind. It's not going to happen. Followers of Maria DM *cannot* dispense what they lack.
@Anonymous 12:23 AM on 15 Oct 2013
Who is Maria DM?
This article is about a letter written by Silvana De Mari is this the same person?
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