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Caught between two beasts who cultivate the culture of death, the Pope blooms forth for the culture of life

      In today's editorial we tell a tale of two butchers, two men in wolves clothing who pose as shepherds ready to lead the poor innocent lambs of the world to the slaughter, but there is only one true shepherd and he resides in Rome and he is doing all he can to bring about a truce. But he is thwarted by the beast from the east and the west who both reject any kind of a truce. The Holy Father is truly the rose between two thorns who embody the ilk of Hitler. For today's commentary entitled A rose between two thorns!, click on CATHOLIC PewPOINT.

The rose between two thorns!

      Here we are entering the third week of what the news magnates call the "crisis" in Kosovo. Folks, it's not a crisis, but rather a war. What else do you call it when souls are being murdered? Just as we have long called abortion a war because of the senseless slaughter of millions and millions of innocent babies who never had the opportunity to breathe life outside the womb, so also we have to call the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian people in Kosovo the very same thing. This is a tale of two butchers. On one side you have the ethnic-cleanser - a modern day Hitler - in Slobodon Milosevic, reviled in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Slovenia and tolerated in Serbia; on the other you have a modern day Herod in the person of William Jefferson Clinton, reviled in pro-life circles everywhere and in conservative camps, tolerated by middle America and those who are duped into thinking the "good economy" is attributed to him, and promoted unabashedly by liberals and Hollywood's immoral and amoral establishment. What is the difference between the two men? Really, nothing!

      Both butchers have been the bane of the 90's; Milosevic in breaking up the former Yugoslavia and reeking havoc with his pro-Serb machinations; Clinton with his disregard for the Commandments of God from adultery to murder, not to mention lying and stealing. How many find it ironic that this same man who refused to serve in his military during the Vietnam war and took refuge in Russia, sleeping with the enemy, is now willing to commit our young men and women to a war that America is much too involved in percentage-wise compared to the rest of Europe? It is well-known that Clinton sold out to the United Nations long ago. There are even rumors that the stealth pilot shot down in Serbia last week was not a United States serviceman at all but a UN foreigner and if word got out it would raise the hackles of Americans everywhere how deep the UN connection has grown within our own military efforts. Think about it, almost minutes after the three POW's were captured and turned up in Belgrade their stock photos and names and home towns were disseminated to all media outlets. The pictures clearly showed the US flag emblems on their uniforms. The interesting thing is that in the Gulf War soldiers wore detachable emblems and much more camouflage without the stars and stripes visible. Think about it. If these were American troops for NATO wouldn't they have worn the NATO emblem? It all seems too much like "wag the dog" to get the American public in an uproar over something that heretofore most polls showed a lack of interest in getting involved in the Balkans. It reeks of Clintonism. Also, nothing, absolutely nothing on the stealth pilot who we have been told is safe. But who is he? We may never know unless it is expedient for the polls.

      But polls are not the gist of this commentary, but rather a single Pole - the Holy Father's involvement. What we want to focus on today is the absolute rejection by both Milosevic and Clinton to the intense peace pleas by his Holiness Pope John Paul II who, after working around the clock for days and calling over 21 ambassadors to the Vatican plus meeting with the President of Italy, dispatched his chief lieutenant - Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican's top foreign-official, to Belgrade to meet face to face on Holy Thursday with Milosevic as well as arrange a personal audience with the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle who was in full agreement with the Pope's proposal that a special "Easter Truce" be employed by both sides through next Sunday which is the day the Eastern Orthodox celebrate Easter. It is also Divine Mercy Sunday in the Western Church, no coincidence. The report from FIDES news service out of the Vatican said there was no word on Milosevic's reply but the fact that he continued, in fact intensified the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo spoke volumes. Meanwhile, Clinton rejected the Holy Father's appeal with the lame excuse that an Easter truce "would not serve to honor the occasion." We ask you, Mr. President, what would serve to honor the occasion? Do you think the Warning might?!? We'll have much more on the pending Warning and subsequent Miracle in Friday's editorial which you won't want to miss. We assure you of that!

      Our Lady's Medjugorje Message for March should wake us up to what we can expect in the world and in the Church. On the secular side, the manipulating going on in the media and fabrications being foisted on us by the government, specifically the Clinton administration now in cahoots with our military and the UN posing under the guise of NATO should alert us. The newspapers and around-the-clock news programs give us a good inkling of what America is in for - a long, drawn-out ineffective war that will mirror Vietnam with countless servicemen returning in body bags if ground troops are committed. Both the thorns in the ointment - Milosevic and Clinton are painting the public into a corner and we have to wonder if they're not in cahoots to effect their clandestine agenda of establishing a one-world order. If this sounds paranoid, look around you. Look at the fabricated prices for oil in the last two weeks nationwide and other manipulated price hikes. Yet the DOW continues to climb at unbelievable rates. It sounds too much like a house of cards that will come tumbling down. We don't want to be under it when it does but as long as we continue to deal with these sinister gamblers from Belgrade and Washington D.C., the deck is stacked against us. So what are we to do? What Our Lady asks of us: Pray! Pray! Pray! As Our Lord reminds us in Matthew 25 regarding the parable of the ten virgins, to always have our lamps lit "for you know neither the day nor the hour" (Matthew 27: 13).

      We can be assured if anyone has an idea of what is to come our dear Holy Father knows. He is that glorious rose of life between the two thorns of death (Milosevic and Clinton). Don't ever think for a moment that he is not gifted with private revelation as the Totus Tuus Vicar of Christ. Through negotiations and his public pleas John Paul II is doing all he can, despite the constant rejection, to warn the world before the Warning and a possible escalation of World War III that, during this time when we celebrate the Pachal Lamb, those two thorns are false shepherds who lead innocent lambs to the slaughter. We must continue to pray that the rose will not wilt or be suffocated by those two thorns of the culture of death. We all need to stop and listen to the rose of Christ...the rose between two thorns!

Michael Cain, editor

Anarchy rules as Pope Innocent VIII loses all control of decorum within the papal court as Christians revolt

      Things only went from bad to worse with the election of Pope Innocent VIII who succeeded Pope Sixtus IV. If that weren't bad enough, it would deteriorate farther before the Church would recover but by that time it would be too late for many for the rebellion stallion was already out of the corral and no posse of impeccable morals could round them up for there were few within the ranks of the cardinals who sought to fulfill their vocations as God intended. The result: anarchy among the people, a total depletion of the Vatican coffers and corruption from the top down. It was the worst of times that would get even worse in the years to come. For the ninety-ninth installment titled Pope Innocent VIII: Trying to corral the stallion of rebellion after it has bolted the barn , click on THE HISTORY OF THE MASS AND HOLY MOTHER CHURCH.

Pope Innocent VIII: Trying to corral the stallion of rebellion after it has bolted the barn

      As the 213th successor of Peter, chosen on August 29, 1484, Pope Innocent VIII was a buffer, so to speak between two Roman Pontiffs who did more to discredit the Church's position than anyone else of their time. After Sixtus IV's death on August 12th, a concerted effort was launched by Sixtus' nephew Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere to get elected. He would eventually be elected in 1503 when the stallion of rebellion had bolted the barn and he would only help the stampede. Nevertheless, in 1484 he did not have the clout to be elected, but he did have enough influence to nominate someone he could control. That man was 52 year-old Cardinal Batista Cibo, a Genoan by birth who had been the son of a Roman senator. He was totally inexperienced politically-wise and his easy going manner won him over to his peers in the Conclave. Thus he was elevated to the throne, the first in a line of pontiffs whose lustful ways would bring great shame to Holy Mother Church, though in defense of Innocent VIII, he fathered bastard children before his conversion to the priesthood and sought to fulfill his obligations by providing for them via arranging influential marriages for them. To his credit he was celibate once he became ordained. The same could not be said for his immediate successor Pope Alexander VI who we shall cover next week.

      Though historians claim he carried out the tremendous task of pacifying the Catholic states and his inexorable insistence on stopping slave traffic as well as assisting Christopher Columbus in his undertaking to discover the western route to the Indies which ultimately led to the New World, for the most part Innocent was a stop-gap pope who was, in a word lax. This possibly could have been attributed to the fact he was chronically ill. Despite all of this he had inherited a real mess left by Sixtus - debts and debauchery in the Vatican court. Most of the cardinals of that time were not fixed on God's will but rather their own depraved, worldly lust and this aided greatly in distancing many from Rome and helped pave the way for the Reformation that was just a few decades away. When we understand the moral depravity of Rome at this time, we can better understand the mentality of those who bolted; not that we can justify it, but they evidently had no one to appeal to, that's how bad the Church hierarchy had sunk to in these sad times, a blight on the glorious history of the Church.

      Because of his ineptness to control the cardinals' wayward ways and his inefficiency in dealing with political barons, he made many mistakes during his eight year reign. One of his worst was to side with the rebellious barons from Naples against the powerful Ferdinand I, the Neopolitan king who countered by refusing to pay the papal dues. This cut Innocent to the quick for the Holy See was already deeply in debt. To offset this, Innocent made an alliance with Florence's power broker Lorenzo de' Medici to whom the Pope had married off his do-nothing son Franceschetto to Medici's daughter. To make matters worse, Franceschetto had a thirteen year-old illegitimate son whom Innocent made a cardinal. That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back and made the entire College of Cardinals a mockery. The people began to rebel and ignore all of the Church's directives and Innocent wrongly blamed Ferdinand, abusing the powers of the papacy to excommunicate Ferdinand. Even though Innocent would seek a reconciliation and reinstate Ferdinand when he saw the damage he had done and tried to amend his ways, it was too late. The papal state of L'Aquila had been lost and any political prestige went by the wayside as well. To add fuel to the fire, Innocent played all sides and ended up the dolt in all cases. He tried to form a union with the Ottoman empire that backfired when the Pope proved no better than the Sultan Bayezid II by selling cardinalates to the highest bidders...even if they weren't Catholic!!!

      Innocent VIII also inadvertently opened pandora's box by formally recognizing King Henry VII as the rightful king of England whose son King Henry VIII would be the bane to English Catholics throughout the coming century through his lustful, proud, slothful life and that of his illegitimate offspring Elizabeth I. He further alienated Christian Europe by enforcing the Inquisition in Germany under the guise of ridding the country of witches, but it was a political weapon that he and the German barons used forcefully to hold the citizens in check and fear. It was not what the Inquisition had been established for and most probably played a significant role in Martin Luther's disdain for Rome and its policies. Again, we are not condoning Luther's actions for there is no excuse for that, but considering the climate of these times, suffice it to say that it's very possible the Reformation could have been averted had the Church had the quality of leadership it would attract to the papacy after the revolt in the mid-sixteenth century. When he died, from what many believe was gout, on July 25, 1492, the papal states were in anarchy and the coffers empty. The Holy See had sunk to a new low and it only fueled further the flames of rebellion as we shall see next installment when we cover the "Bill Clinton" of the papacy - the lecherous and politically correct Pope Alexander VI - the Borgia Pope and his concubines.

Next issue: Pope Alexander VI: The lust for power and prestige

Reunion of Mother and Son

      In Chapter 7: Jesus seeks first His Mother we see the tender reunion of Mother and Son as the Sorrowful and Sacred Hearts are reunited as One. While we may not totally fathom the supernatural significance of this meeting, we can surely relate to the human significance of a Mother who has given her all and suffered through it all, to share in the glory of her Son. This was the case with Jesus and His Blessed Mother as, in this short interval, they share in the glory of God's victory. These meditative lessons, imparted by Our Lady to the Hidden Flower of the Immaculate Heart after Pentecost 1993, are meant to inspire and prompt a greater understanding of the Glorious Mysteries. For part one of Chapter 7, click on "MY LORD AND MY GOD!"

      Dear Father, it is Monday and I am preparing for Holy Mass. I am told by our Blessed Mother that our dear Blessed Jesus has permitted this suffering that I might give all to Him in order to bring to fruition the Divine Will in my own life. I have been in prayer for some time. I have tested her voice, and I begin.

      I do not know how I 'move' from one point to another. I mean 'move' in the physical sense that we in our earthly life understand it. When the interior vision begins, I am no longer in the garden of the tomb. I have returned to the small, cloister-like cell in the house of the Last Super where the Blessed Mother keeps her constant vigil.

      She has returned to her knees, her eyes riveted upon the Image of the Suffering Face of Jesus, her Divine Son. She has her hands crossed upon her breast; her head is bent slightly to the right. I wonder, no, ponder upon her thoughts, and I am given to understand that she remembers in infinite detail every moment of her Divine Son's Passion.

      At each sacred moment of this infinitely valuable suffering, she offers praise to the Father, and being filled with the Holy Spirit, says from her pure heart, "O Father, Thy Will be done, always. I thank You, O Word of God. I bless You and adore You for perfectly fulfilling the Will of the Father. I adore each of Your holy steps. I praise You for Your joy in suffering. I kiss each of Your holy steps. I offer thanksgiving for every drop of sweat, every drop of blood, every insult, and injury. For the unspeakable tortures You endured, and which Your poor Mother has suffered in union with You in her soul. O, Merciful Gatherer, Who has loved man from all eternity, let that sacred moment come. Let the darkness be dispelled that the faith of those whom You have chosen may be forever strengthened. Permit, O most Holy Trinity, that the will if man may be Your Will alone. Teach men that each moment lived in Your Will weakens, destroys the evil one. Let Your Glory be revealed according to Your Will. Relieve the sorrows of the Mother's heart, which willingly gives to You, all thanks on behalf of all men."

      Her beautiful prayer of love and petition is finished. And in that very moment, the entire room is filled with the very same resplendent light, which issued forth from the tomb and encased, surrounded, and emanated from our Risen Savior's body. It is more beautiful than words can utter. It is not a stagnant light, but a living light, which envelops, enfolds, engulfs, and transforms. Unlike the Roman soldiers asleep in the garden of the tomb, Mary is truly penetrated by this Heavenly Light.

      She, Our Blessed Mother, turns, still upon her knees. She is radiantly beautiful, for she, too, now filled with this light, emanates it back to its source.

      "Son!"

      The Mother's cry of joyful welcome, of a heart mended of its sorrows, of hope seen, lived, touched, known. Only then am I able by God's own grace, to look in the direction of the Blessed Mother. I behold in the very center of the room the risen Christ, my beloved Jesus Who is so resplendent as to be unutterably beautiful, causing heart and soul to swell in such ecstasy of love that were it not God who sustained me, I am certain my heart would burst and my soul would rush to His embrace.

      "Mother, the Father has heard your prayers. All the while I have heard your beautiful prayers. Behold, most Holy Mother, I come to you, the first among all created beings. I come to give you anew My Love, My Peace, My Joy! The great trial has passed."

      "O! My Beloved Son, may the Most High God be forever praised. Thank You for being so merciful to one so lowly. Truly, You are part of my heart.

      "As you have always been part of Mine. I have not yet returned to the Father, Mother, but you have seen and witnessed that which your faith never faltered in. May the Father embrace you, His Holy Daughter, and give unto you every grace and consolation."

      "His Will only, my Son! Now and always."

      "Do not go to the tomb with the other women. Remain here in prayer, for they, too, will witness, each in their own way, the power and glory of God. The victory is won, My Mother!"

      "I will pray. My soul goes wherever You go, my Son, unless You command otherwise. Can a mother ever be parted from her son?"

      Though they have not touched, Jesus moves forward. He is not standing on the floor, but perhaps in inch above it. He is fully present. This is no phantom, or illusion. He is truly three-dimensional and the light pours forth from the wounds to His hands, feet, and side.

      He allows His Holy Mother to gaze upon these wounds, which she does with such holy reverence that were we able to see how humbly, how purely she adores her Divine Son, we could but weep over our tepidity, our coldness, our lack of good will.

      For a while they gaze at each other, the Mother and the Son, the Risen Savior. No more words are spoken and the conversation of Their souls is hidden from my heart.

      It is more than I could ever dare to hope for, but to see interiorly the reunion of Mary and Jesus after the Passion, the love between Them…His Sacred Heart and her Immaculate Heart is of such chaste purity that it is a living love which causes the light to continually grow brighter, until it appears to me that Our Blessed Mother is lost within the light, gathered up into into a higher realm of ecstasy from which all human eyes are kept lest the finiteness of the human thinking make jest of such supernatural love.

      Then, abruptly, Jesus is gone. The room is dark, lit by a small candle, which has nearly burned out. I can not tell you how Jesus came, or by which manner He left. I am given to understand that in eternity where the human body is no longer subject to the natural laws of nature, movement ads we understand it is irrevelant. That in the eternal life of the soul and the eternal life to which our bodies will be called upon the day of Final Judgment, then we shall clearly understand the magnificence of the Spirit. Were our faith the size of a mustard seed our very souls could be moved in this supernatural, eternal air and we would be lifted out of and above our heavy bodies so as to live in the Will of God!

      Mary, our Heavenly Mother, remains bowed in prayer, but I am privileged to see that from her whole being radiates a light that throbs with each beat of her Immaculate Heart.

NEXT INSTALLMENT: Part Two - Chapter Seven: Our Lady's Meditation

      While the Western Church celebrates Easter forty days after Lent and forty days before the Ascension, the Orthodox Church composed of autonomous national Churches throughout the mideast, Eastern Europe, and western Asia, traditionally celebrate Easter a week afterwards. Thus, the Second Sunday of Easter in which many commemorate Divine Mercy Sunday, is actually Orthodox Easter. The word "Orthodox" is derived from the Greek word orthos meaning "right" and doksa which means "opinion" which together mean "having the right opinion" and was first adapted after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 to differentiate between those who adhered to Church doctrine (Orthodox) and those who did not. Today "orthodox" can mean the same thing when referring to Roman Catholicism as being totally true to the doctrines of Holy Mother Church, but the common nomenclature is "traditional" as opposed with the word that describes the Eastern Churches that broke away from Rome in the Schism of 1054. Nevertheless, the Holy Father pressed for an Easter Truce that would have lasted throughout this week between the Western Easter and the Eastern Easter in respect for both faiths, but Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic and William Jefferson Clinton of the western NATO nations, primarily the US, both rejected the Pope's plea. (sources: 1999 Catholic Almanac, Our Sunday Visitor, Publishers; Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon, S.J., Doubleday; Catholic Encyclopedia, Thomas Nelson Publishers).

Events Today in Church History

      For pertinent events that are memorable in Church history today, click on MILLENNIUM MILESTONES AND MEMORIES

Historical Events in Church Annals for April 6:

1199


Death of the great crusader Richard the "Lionhearted", King of England.

1203 A.D.


Death of Saint William of Ebelholt, canon regular who was renowned for miracles attributed to him and was canonized twenty one years after his death by Pope Honorius III.

1249 A.D.


Another great crusader Saint Louis (King Louis IX) is captured by the infidels but would survive and return to France.

SIMPLY SHEEN: Mislead and confused

      They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the words of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen have been known to launch a thousand images in one's mind, one of the ways this late luminary did so much to evangelize the faith. Because of the urgency of the times and because few there are today who possess the wisdom, simplicity and insight than the late Archbishop who touched millions, we are bringing you daily gems from his writings. The good bishop makes it so simple that we have dubbed this daily series: "SIMPLY SHEEN".

"Nothing is more clearly witnessed by individual experience than that we may do a wrong thing and think that it is right. Our Blessed Lord said, 'They will kill you and think that they have done a service to God.'"

   Dear children! I call you to prayer with the heart. In a special way, little children, I call you to pray for conversion of sinners, for those who pierce my heart and the heart of my Son Jesus with the sword of hatred and daily blasphemies. Let us pray, little children, for all those who do not desire to come to know the love of God, even though they are in the Church. Let us pray that they convert, so that the Church may resurrect in love. Only with love and prayer, little children, can you live this time which is given to you for conversion. Place God in the first place, then the risen Jesus will become your friend. Thank you for having responded to my call.
For more on Medjugorje, click on MEDJUGORJE AND MORE

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April 6, 1999 volume 10, no. 67   DAILY CATHOLIC