Vatican Grants Emergency Plenary Indulgence for Divine Mercy Chaplet

By Chris Sparks

The Church is responding to the problems we all face as a result of this pandemic with great seriousness and generosity. The Holy Father is throwing wide open the doors of the Church’s storehouses of grace for the faithful, making it as easy as possible for all of us to be assured of the graces we need to speed the sick and the dying through Purgatory, and to be assured of the graces needed for salvation at the moment of our deaths.

Spread the news of these special graces to every Catholic on the front lines of facing this disease that you know. Make sure they know how to make use of these graces.

New Plenary Indulgence

Because of the pandemic, anyone who, with “the will to fulfil the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer according to the Holy Father's intentions), as soon as possible,” recites the Divine Mercy Chaplet with the intention “to implore from Almighty God the end of the epidemic, relief for those who are afflicted and eternal salvation for those whom the Lord has called to Himself,” can receive a plenary indulgence each day.

This great news was announced in an official decree from the Apostolic Penitentiary on March 20, 2020.

There are other ways to gain this special plenary indulgence, as well:

• the faithful suffering from coronavirus and subject to quarantine by order of the health authority in hospitals or in their own homes, with a spirit detached from any sin, can gain the plenary indulgence if they “unite spiritually through the media to the celebration of Holy Mass, the recitation of the Holy Rosary, to the pious practice of the Way of the Cross or other forms of devotion, or if at least they will recite the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and a pious invocation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, offering this trial in a spirit of faith in God and charity towards their brothers and sisters, with the will to fulfil the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer according to the Holy Father’s intentions), as soon as possible.
• “Health care workers, family members and all those who, following the example of the Good Samaritan, exposing themselves to the risk of contagion, care for the sick of Coronavirus according to the words of the divine Redeemer: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15: 13), will obtain the same gift of the Plenary Indulgence under the same conditions.”
• “This Apostolic Penitentiary also willingly grants a Plenary Indulgence under the same conditions on the occasion of the current world epidemic, also to those faithful who offer a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, or Eucharistic adoration, or reading the Holy Scriptures for at least half an hour, or the recitation of the Holy Rosary, or the pious exercise of the Way of the Cross, or the recitation of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, to implore from Almighty God the end of the epidemic, relief for those who are afflicted and eternal salvation for those whom the Lord has called to Himself.”

And here’s a crucial concession to us all, in case we can’t receive the Anointing of the Sick during this period of pandemic and quarantine:

• “The Church prays for those who find themselves unable to receive the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and of the Viaticum, entrusting each and every one to divine Mercy by virtue of the communion of saints and granting the faithful a Plenary Indulgence on the point of death, provided that they are duly disposed and have recited a few prayers during their lifetime (in this case the Church makes up for the three usual conditions required). For the attainment of this indulgence the use of the crucifix or the cross is recommended (cf. Enchiridion indulgentiarum, no.12).”

Divine Mercy graces and promises

And more: Make sure they know of the special graces promised to us by our Lord through St. Faustina. Make sure people know that we can obtain unimaginable graces for ourselves, for those suffering as a result of this coronavirus, and for the whole world as we groan beneath the burden of this pandemic.

Jesus told St. Faustina of a number of ways to help people make sure that their final destination is Heaven.

Jesus made extraordinary promises for praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet:

At the hour of their death, I defend as My own glory every soul that will say this chaplet; or when others say it for a dying person, the pardon is the same. When this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God’s anger is placated, unfathomable mercy envelops the soul, and the very depths of My tender mercy are moved for the sake of the sorrowful Passion of My Son (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 811).

… when they say this chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand between My Father and the dying person, not as the just Judge but as the merciful Savior (Diary, 1541).

He also made extraordinary promises for veneration of the Divine Mercy Image:

Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You. I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish. I also promise victory over [its] enemies already here on earth, especially at the hour of death. I Myself will defend it as My own glory (Diary, 47 and 48).

Jesus made extraordinary promises for those who trust in Him.

The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is — trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive (Diary, 1578).

My daughter, know that My Heart is mercy itself. From this sea of mercy, graces flow out upon the whole world. No soul that has approached Me has ever gone away unconsoled. All misery gets buried in the depths of My mercy, and every saving and sanctifying grace flows from this fountain. My daughter, I desire that your heart be an abiding place of My mercy. I desire that this mercy flow out upon the whole world through your heart. Let no one who approaches you go away without that trust in My mercy which I so ardently desire for souls.

Pray as much as you can for the dying. By your entreaties, obtain for them trust in My mercy, because they have most need of trust, and have it the least. Be assured that the grace of eternal salvation for certain souls in their final moment depends on your prayer. 

You know the whole abyss of My mercy, so draw upon it for yourself and especially for poor sinners. Sooner would heaven and earth turn into nothingness than would My mercy not embrace a trusting soul (Diary, 1777).

Jesus also made extraordinary promises to all those who spread the message and devotion of Divine Mercy:

Souls who spread the honor of My mercy I shield through their entire lives as a tender mother her infant, and at the hour of death I will not be a Judge for them, but the Merciful Savior. At that last hour, a soul has nothing with which to defend itself except My mercy. Happy is the soul that during its lifetime immersed itself in the Fountain of Mercy, because justice will have no hold on it (Diary, 1075).

Turn to Our Lady

So during this pandemic, let’s thank God for the tremendous graces He’s made available to us through the Holy Father and through St. Faustina. Let’s make sure we spread the word of God’s merciful love, and make regular use of the devotions He’s given to us with such exceptional promises. And let us join the Holy See in asking the Blessed Mother for her special help now:

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and of the Church, Health of the Sick and Help of Christians, our Advocate, help suffering humanity, saving us from the evil of this pandemic and obtaining for us every good necessary for our salvation and sanctification.

Pray for me; I’ll pray for you.

Chris Sparks serves as senior book editor for the Marian Fathers. He is the author of the Marian Press book How Can You Still Be Catholic? 50 Answers to a Good Question.

Pope Francis calls on Christians worldwide to combat coronavirus pandemic with midday prayer on March 25

Pope Francis is seen in a window greeting a few nuns standing in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican March 22, 2020, after reciting his weekly Angelus prayer from the library of the Apostolic Palace. (CNS photo/Alberto Lingria, Reuters)

Pope Francis has called on the leaders of all the Christian churches, communities and confessions worldwide, as well Christians everywhere, to join together in praying the Our Father on March 25 to implore God to rid the world of the coronavirus pandemic that is wreaking havoc everywhere.

He also said that he would lead a prayer service from the front of St. Peter’s Basilica on March 27 and afterwards would offer a blessing “Urbi et Orbi”—“to the city of Rome and the world”—with the Blessed Sacrament.

Francis announced these two prayer events after midday on Sunday, March 22, after reciting the Angelus from the library in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, where he usually meets heads of state, religious leaders and distinguished persons.

“In these days of trial, as humanity trembles at the threat of the [coronavirus] pandemic, I would propose that all Christians join their voices together to heaven,” Francis told a virtual audience following on Vatican News Media.

[Explore all of America’s in-depth coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]

“In these days of trial, as humanity trembles at the threat of the [coronavirus] pandemic, I would propose that all Christians join their voices together to heaven,” Pope Francis said.

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“I invite the heads of the churches and the leaders of all the Christian communities, together with all Christians of the various confessions, to invoke the Almighty, the All Powerful God, by reciting contemporaneously the prayer that Our Lord Jesus has taught us,” he said.

“I therefore invite everyone to recite the Our Father at midday on March 25 next, on the day when many Christians recall the annunciation to the Virgin Mary of the Incarnation of the Word, so that the Lord may listen to the unanimous prayer of all his disciples that are preparing to celebrate the victory of the Risen Christ,” Francis said.

He also announced that he will preside over “a moment of prayer” from the steps of the basilica Saint Peter’s at 6 p.m. Rome time, next Friday, March 27. He said the square would be empty, but he invited people across the world “to participate spiritually” in this prayer which, he explained, would include readings from the Scripture and adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

He invited them to participate through “the means of communication,” that is, by television, radio or social media. He said that at the end of the prayer service he would give a blessing “Urbi et Orbi” with the Blessed Sacrament. Keen to share God’s mercy to people at this deeply troubling moment in human history, Francis said “the possibility of receiving a plenary indulgence” would be linked to the prayer service.

“We wish to respond to the pandemic of the virus with the universality of prayer, of compassion and tenderness.”

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Pope Francis is of course deeply concerned about the spread of the pandemic and the terrible suffering it is causing to some 300,000 people and their families, as well as the fear it has provoked in countless millions across the globe, and the great damage it is doing also to the world’s economy. Last Sunday, he walked “on pilgrimage” on a deserted street in the center of Rome and prayed before two miraculous images, imploring God to rid the world of the coronavirus pandemic.

Today, he told his global audience: “We wish to respond to the pandemic of the virus with the universality of prayer, of compassion and tenderness.” He encouraged everyone: “Let us remain united. Let us make our closeness felt to those who are alone and to those who are most stricken.”

He told people, let us also express “our closeness to doctors, to health workers, nurses, volunteers” and “to the authorities that have to take hard measures, but ones that are for our good.”

He added, “let us show our closeness to the police, the soldiers who try to keep order always on the streets, so that the things the government orders for our good can be done,” indeed “let us be close to everyone.”

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/03/22/pope-francis-calls-christians-worldwide-combat-coronavirus-pandemic-midday-prayer

Read: Pope Francis’s prayer to Mary during coronavirus pandemic

Catholic News Service March 11, 2020

       
          O Mary,

you always shine on our path
as a sign of salvation and of hope.
We entrust ourselves to you, Health of the Sick,
who at the cross took part in Jesus' pain, keeping your faith firm.
You, Salvation of the Roman People,
know what we need,
and we are sure you will provide
so that, as in Cana of Galilee,
we may return to joy and to feasting
after this time of trial.
Help us, Mother of Divine Love,
to conform to the will of the Father
and to do as we are told by Jesus,
who has taken upon himself our sufferings
and carried our sorrows
to lead us, through the cross,
to the joy of the resurrection. Amen.
Under your protection, we seek refuge, Holy Mother of God. Do not disdain the entreaties of we who are in trial, but deliver us from every danger, O glorious and blessed Virgin.

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/03/11/read-pope-francis-prayer-mary-coronavirus-pandemic 

Miserific Face of Satan

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

“Now there are a thousand times ten thousand roads down which any one of us may travel for a lifetime, But all of those roads are going to end in front of two faces.

One, the Merciful face of Christ. And the other, the miserific face of Satan”.

 

~Archbishop Fulton Sheen

 

 

 

 

Craig Calvert isn’t into “hooky pooky stuff” but there was no mistaking this.

There, in a photo his friend took, was a “big devil face” emerging from a raging fire in Victoria’s East Gippsland region.

The dairy farmer spent 13 hours defending his property from a fire that spat out 100 metre large fireballs.

“It hit us like four or five times, the chopper pilots are heroes, they saved it (the property) …I’m very glad people did not get killed here,” he told Channel 7.

“We had fireballs coming over, jumping. Some of them were 50 metres to 100 metres across.

“We’ve got a photo a friend took and I’m not into hooky pooky stuff but there was a big devil face in it.”

https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/there-was-a-big-devil-face-in-it-spooky-photo-from-fires/news-story/c08b756dc17757a28a6fcd6db3f9b5e2

 

 

What is the Essence of the Demonic? by Archbishop Fulton Sheen

 

Scott Brossart·Tuesday, 3 December 2019·Reading time: 3 minutes

 

"What then is the demonic? The demonic is the temptation away from the Cross of Christ in redemption. That's the essence of the demonic. This is an example of the demonic: taking down of crucifixes from our hospital rooms, from our school rooms. I went to a bishops' meeting in the convent and the sister was, well she didn't look like a sister, but she said she was. But the essence of the demonic is the anti-Cross and all that it means. It means sin, it means redemption, it means glorification, it means resurrection, it means an eternal peace and joy, but not the Cross. So we have movements in the Church today where we have this spirit without a Calvary. No mention of a Cross or of discipline. Just the celebration. It is because we know what clear water is that we are offended by foul waters. It is only because we know Christ that we begin to see evil in its depth because evil is relational. Evil has no substance of its own. It is a parasite on goodness. And the more Christlike we are, the deeper is our vision of the evils of the world and the evils that can creep into the Church. How long this conflict with evil forces will last, well we do know, but now it is intensifying and it centers so much on the Eucharist which brings us to the necessity of the Holy Hour. I don't know if you have many tabernacles robbed in this diocese, but we do. In one diocese there were two country parishes within 7 miles of one another where the Blessed Sacrament was stolen, corpuses torn of the crucifixes. No Christ on the Cross. There must be a consecrated host for a Black Mass, that is an absolute essential. It is where everything will be done backwards. The Our Father will be said backwards, prayers will be said backwards.

And when the priests join the movement, they have the Body of Christ to recrucify. We may be a little lax in our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, but Satan is not.

Scripture tells us that Satan believes. He believes and therefore he seeks Him out. And this then, is an additional reason for the Holy Hour. One bishop jokingly said, "That means I must give up my alcoholic drinking hour in order to have my Holy Hour." Now there are a thousand times ten thousand roads down which any one of us may travel for a lifetime, But all of those roads are going to end in front of two faces. One, the Merciful face of Christ. And the other, the miserific face of Satan."

~Archbishop Fulton Sheen

 

Maybe, when one legislates against Creation - as has recently been the case in Australia (extreme abortion laws; euthanasia; yes to gay ‘marriage’) - then Creation may legislate against the legislator.

 

The fires that have been raging all the way down the eastern side of Australia have become so fierce and unstoppable that standard descriptions such as “bushfire” have had to be replaced with words like “atomic”.

 

“Up until an hour or so ago it was pitch black, you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you. It was just insane”.

 

The Rural Fire Service said firefighters were in "uncharted territory" at the peak of the crisis ….

 

… with one responding to footage of the NSW “megafire” with …. “This looks like hell.”

 

"Within 30 minutes this great wall of fire just came from the back of our cul de sac and within seconds the trees were catching fire, and the sky was orange and yellow. It was like Armageddon …".

 

MidCoast Mayor David West, who lives in Brimbin, said that he had never seen anything like the nearby fire.

"I'm looking at a sky that's screaming danger, that's saying 'get out of my way, I'm going to kill you'," he said.

"I know that sounds melodramatic but it's not. This is a fire that's devouring everything in its path."

 

 

 

1 John 3:2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Pope Francis: 'There is corruption in the Vatican'

Pope Francis admitted that there is financial corruption in the Vatican. He said an ongoing internal investigation into the corruption at the Vatican would "see if they are guilty or not."

Pope Francis admitted there is financial corruption in the Vatican, describing it as a "scandal" on Tuesday. The pope's statement marked the first time he has acknowledged corruption in Vatican finances.

"There is corruption, it's clear. With the interrogations we will see if they are guilty or not. It is an ugly thing, it's not nice for this to happen in the Vatican," Francis said during an in-flight press conference on the way back from Japan.


Read more: Opinion: A synod that could make history










The pope told reporters that there was a Vatican investigation underway into the allegedly fraudulent use of the Peter's Pence, the pope's charity fund, to buy a luxury property in central London. The pope has previously said that such a purchase is not necessarily a misuse of charity funds.






"What happened, happened: a scandal. They did things that do not seem clean," the pope said.




These were the first public comments made by Pope Francis on the issue of financial corruption. The pope stressed that the internal investigation was going well.






"For the first time, the dirt is being uncovered from within the Vatican, rather than from outside," Francis said.










https://www.dw.com/en/pope-francis-there-is-corruption-in-the-vatican/a-51431279

Carsten Peter Thiede’s early dating of Matthew’s Gospel

 

“The neomodernist stranglehold is exemplified by the treatment accorded Fr. Jean Carmignac, who died in 1986. Perhaps the greatest French Bible scholar of the century, who dated the writing of each of the four Gospels between A.D. 40 and 50, he was never allowed to publish

his research, on orders of the French bishops. They accused Carmignac of "an obsession of struggling against the majority of exegetes".”

 

Paul Likoudis

 

 

 

Then came Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede with his dramatic evidence for a radical early dating of the Gospel of Matthew. We read a little of it in the following account:

https://www.preteristarchive.com/1996_thiede_eyewitness/

 

The Tetragrammaton and the Christian Greek Scriptures

 

---

 

Christmas Eve 1994 would have come and gone like any other, had it not been for three tiny papyrus fragments discussed in The Times of London’s sensational front-page story. The avalanche of letters to the editor jarred the world into realizing that Matthew d’Ancona’s story was as big as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The flood of calls received by Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede, the scholar behind the story, and the international controversy that spread like wildfire, give us an inkling as to why the Magdalen Papyrus has embroiled Christianity in a high-stakes tug-of-war over the Bible.

 

Thiede and d’Ancona boldly tell the story of two scholars a century apart who stumbled on the oldest known remains of the New Testament–hard evidence confirming that St. Matthew’s Gospel is the account of an eyewitness to Jesus. It starts in 1901 when the Reverend Charles B. Huleatt acquires three pieces of a manuscript on the murky antiquities market of Luxor, Egypt. He donates the papyrus fragments to his alma mater, Magdalen College in Oxford, England, where they are kept in a butterfly display case, along with Oscar Wilde’s ring. For nearly a century, visitors hardly notice the Matthew fragments, initially dated to a.d.180-200; but after Dr. Thiede redates them to roughly a.d. 60, people flock to the library wanting to behold a first-century copy of the Gospel.

 

But what is all the fuss about? How can three ancient papyrus fragments be so significant? How did Thiede arrive at this radical early dating? And what does it mean to the average Christian? Now we have authoritative answers to these pivotal questions. Indeed, the Magdalen Papyrus corroborates the tradition that St. Matthew actually wrote the Gospel bearing his name, that he wrote it within a generation of Jesus’ death, and that the Gospel stories about Jesus are true. Some will vehemently deny Thiede’s claims, others will embrace them, but nobody can ignore Eyewitness to Jesus.

[End of quote]

 

Paul Likoudis, writing for EWTN in 1997, has more to say on the matter.

I (Damien Mackey) would not necessarily agree with him, though, that “Matthew's is the first Gospel”. Fr. Jean Carmignac (mentioned in this article) made an excellent case for (if I recall correctly) Mark’s being basically the Gospel of St. Peter – and therefore the first gospel - translated by Mark into Greek.

Paul Likoudis: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/new-book-claims-four-gospels-written-

 

New Book Claims Four Gospels Written Before Fall Of Jerusalem

 

….

 

The hundred years' war on the Gospels-led by Rudolf Bultmann, who charged that "we can know practically nothing about Jesus' life and personality," and escalated by some of the most prominent Catholic Bible scholars working today-has produced the intended results of religious indifference, agnosticism, and atheism.

 

Typical of the Bultmann-inspired Catholic exegetes is Fr. Jerome. Murphy O'Connor, O.P., who, writing in the December, 1996 issue of the Claretians', pontificates that the Gospels are "mythical embellishments," that Jesus didn't know He was God and didn't know where His power came from, that Mary considered Him an embarrassment to the family, that she was not at the foot of the cross as the evangelists relate, and more.

 

"Do the Gospels Paint a Clear Picture of Jesus?," he asked. Definitely not, he tells his students and readers.

 

At the core of the dissident biblical exegesis which has produced such disastrous consequences for Catholic life, liturgy, catechetics, and scholarship is a refusal to believe that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses of the events described.

 

Though there has been no shortage of genuine Catholic exegetes, archaeologists, and historians who have insisted on an early dating of the Gospels to within a decade or two of Jesus' life, these scholars have often found it difficult to break through the controls put in place by an oppressive neomodernist establishment in both Catholic and Protestant institutions.

 

(The neomodernist stranglehold is exemplified by the treatment accorded Fr. Jean Carmignac, who died in 1986. Perhaps the greatest French Bible scholar of the century, who dated the writing of each of the four Gospels between A.D. 40 and 50, he was never allowed to publish his research, on orders of the French bishops. They accused Carmignac of "an obsession of struggling against the majority of exegetes.")

 

Now comes a German scientist, Carsten Peter Thiede, director of the Institute for Basic Epistemological Research in Paderborn, who, with Matthew D'Ancona, is about to dash to pieces the Bultmann-built edifice of modernist exegesis.

 

Their recently published book, (Doubleday, 1996), is about a small piece of papyrus held at Magdalen College, Oxford, which is the oldest fragment of in existence today.

 

The fragment contains disjointed segments of 26, but even more important than the writing style, which Thiede pinpointed to the time of Jesus' life, is the use of KS, an abbreviated form of [missing], to refer to Jesus as Lord God- meaning that the ancient author believed that Jesus is divine.

 

Thiede, a papyrologist, furthermore concludes that must have been the first Gospel written.

The implications of this are enormous. As Thiede and D'Ancona write in their book:

 

"Bultmann was wrong: The authors of the Gospel could hear far more than the faintest whisper of Jesus' voice.

Indeed, the first readers of may have heard the very words which the Nazarene preacher spoke during his ministry, may have listened to the parables when they were first delivered to the peasant crowd; may even have asked the wise man questions and waited respectfully for answers. The voice they heard was not a whisper but the passionate oratory of a real man of humble origins whose teaching would change the world."

 

The issue of the dating of the Gospels has implications, furthermore, for believers and nonbelievers alike. "... We have come to realize the extent to which this new claim is directly relevant to the fundamental faith questions which all people, Christian and non-Christian, atheist and agnostic must ask themselves. The redating of the fragments, in other words, has a life beyond the confines of the academy. . .

"The redating of the Gospels- a process which is only now beginning in earnest-may seem an enterprise appropriate to its times, to the mood of the millennium's end. There is now good reason to suppose that the [missing], with its detailed accounts of the Sermon on the Mount and the Great Commission, was written not long after the crucifixion and certainly before the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70; that the was distributed early enough to reach Qumran; that the belonged to the first generation of Christian codices; and that internal evidence suggests a date before A.D. 70 even for the nonsynoptic .... These are the first stirrings of a major process of scholarly reappraisal."

 

International Upheaval

 

Thiede's findings are causing an international upheaval among Bible scholars, particularly Catholic exegetes who have bought the Bultmann line that separates the Gospels to a generation or more from Jesus' contemporaries (making them the unreliable voice of an uncertain community) ….

 

Two hundred years ago, one of the leaders of the Enlightenment, Reimarus, described the task of Church-haters to be to "completely separate what the Apostles presented in their writings (i.e., the Gospels) from what Jesus himself actually said and taught during his lifetime."

….

 

Footnote

 

Among the brief sections of the Gospel on the Magdalen fragment is: "Then one of the XII, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest and said, 'What will you give me for my work?'"

….

Institut Catholique de Paris ignores Carmignac

Fr Jean Carmignac

dates Gospels early

 

Part Two:

Institut Catholique de Paris ignores Carmignac

 

 

 

“The Catholic weekly Il Sabato has been hunting down his manuscripts. It discovered that

Fr. Carmignac’s entire archive is to be found at the Institut Catholique in Paris where he

had taught. In all these years, the Institut Catholique has taken care not to tend to the publication of those pre-announced works, and, above all, it has prohibited people

from seeing the material when they ask to see it ...”.

 

The Wanderer

 

 

 

In the 1990’s, colleague Frits Albers (RIP), PH.B, wrote about what he considered to be the “betrayals” perpetrated by Paul Cardinal Poupard, the Archbishop of Paris, including his complete snub of the research of Fr. Jean Carmignac.

 

 

...

History has recorded several major betrayals by Cardinal Paul Poupard, Archbishop of Paris and president of its Institut Catholique. I will briefly describe two of them here as an introduction to his major one, his ‘resolution’ of the Galileo Case.

 

PART ONE:   WHY I MISTRUST CARD. PAUL POUPARD

 

Here follows the official text of this “public put-down”, issued by the Holy See press office on July 11, 1981, as it appeared in the Osservatore Romano of July 20 1981, mentioning Archbishop [by then not yet Cardinal] Paul Poupard by name.

 

The letter sent by the Cardinal Secretary of State to His Excellency Mons. Poupard on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin has been interpreted in a certain section of the press as a revision of previous stands taken by the Holy See in regard to this author, and in particular of the Monitum of the Holy Office of 30 June 1962, which pointed out that the work of the author contained ‘ambiguities and grave doctrinal errors’.

 

The question has been asked whether such an interpretation is well founded. After having consulted the Cardinal Secretary of State and the Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Faith, which, by order of the Holy Father, had been duly consulted beforehand about the letter in question, we are in a position to reply in the negative. Far from being a revision of the previous stands of the Holy See, Cardinal Casaroli’s letter expresses reservations in various passages - and these reservations have been passed over in silence by certain newspapers - reservations which refer precisely to the judgment given in the Monitum of June 1962, even though this document is not explicitly mentioned.

 

The second example of betrayal involving the Institut Catholique of Paris and its president, Archbishop Paul Poupard, centres on interference with the dissemination of truth by means of the direct and wilful suppression of Catholic scholarship in favour of a free and unencumbered promotion of doctrinal errors. The scandal appeared in the March 19, 1992 edition of the American Catholic paper The Wanderer, quoting two other major European Catholic periodicals, 30 Days and Il Sabato.

 

Reporting a scandal: An editorial in the current issue of 30 Days magazine (issue no. 2), titled “Scandal at the Institut Catholique” raises some tough questions about the openness of modern biblical scholars to research which offers evidence that the Gospels were written by A.D. 50.

 

Reporting on investigative work conducted by the Italian Catholic weekly Il Sabato the editorial asks why the Institut Catholique in Paris will not allow to be printed, or even acknowledge the existence of, the biblical scholarship of Fr. Jean Carmignac.

Fr. Carmignac, until his death in 1986, was one of the world’s leading experts in Hebrew and Aramaic, and his extensive research in language and the Fathers of the Church led him to believe Matthew, Mark, and Luke had written their Gospels by A.D. 50.

 

In addition, Carmignac noted the scholarship of 49 other recognised experts who agreed with him, but whose works also had either been ignored or censored or else they did not dare wage a battle in the name of their scientific conviction.

 

“For the consequences”, stated the 30 Days editorial, “would have revolutionised the dominant exegetical trends today. Many ideas, whose certainty is taken for granted today, would have crumbled ... If the Synoptic Gospels were written in a Semitic language it means they were written soon after Jesus’ years on earth, when the protagonists were still alive. It means that the Synoptic Gospels are the testimonies of people who saw and heard, of witnesses to the facts. It means they are not late elaborations by anonymous transcribers of popular traditions”.

 

In 1983. Fr. Carmignac published a small book containing his findings and conclusions, and promised a later book which he described as “more convincing than ever and, I hope, irrefutable”.

 

But at that time an effort began to bury his work, the editorial said, under hefty shovelfuls of earth ... Six years after his death, none of these texts has ever been published. An impenetrable curtain of silence has fallen on Fr. Carmignac and his work. The Catholic weekly Il Sabato has been hunting down his manuscripts. It discovered that Fr. Carmignac’s entire archive is to be found at the Institut Catholique in Paris where he had taught. In all these years, the Institut Catholique has taken care not to tend to the publication of those pre-announced works, and, above all, it has prohibited people from seeing the material when they ask to see it ...

 

One of the 49 scholars mentioned here by the late Fr. Jean Carmignac is, no doubt, Claude Tresmontant whose magnificent book on that very same topic, The Hebrew Christ, carries a lengthy foreword by the Most Reverend Jean Charles Thomas, Bishop of Ajaccio, dated May 1, 1983: three years before the death of Fr. Jean Camignac. In his Foreword Bishop Thomas refers specifically to the same general state of affairs as was reported by the three Catholic papers mentioned above. There is no change of heart in either the ‘Institut Catholique’ or its president, Paul Poupard ...