I love how Rorate Caeli calls honesty “ham-handed and amateurish,” and praises Machiavellianism, calling it “sly and skillful.”
Precious.
Mary Victrix
I love how Rorate Caeli calls honesty “ham-handed and amateurish,” and praises Machiavellianism, calling it “sly and skillful.”
Precious.
Mary Victrix 
Oh my goodness! Just read all of the “shameful” things Sr. Fernanda has written! She writes about MERCY! “Let us all live a life of mercy!” This author is accusing her of wrongdoing because she encourages people to be merciful?! Sr. Fernanda was WELL CHOSEN for this mission, and we pray for her daily.
Obviously Rorate is reading your blog and it is giving them fits. I wonder what user name Adfero has created to comment here….
Just read article on Rorate…
It’s no coincidence that Faustina’s first class relic and image of Divine Mercy are in the Griswold chapel. No coincidence that Fr. Peter invited Fr. Gaitley MIC to give a talk at the Marian Conference last year.
Our Heavenly Father has always desired we learn His greatest attribute; mercy, and imitate Him, in thought , word, and deed! Its written in His word (scripture).
This is perfection! This is what we are all called to do: “Be thou merciful as I am merciful”. “Blessed are those who are merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”.
It is God’s desire to have a nun, who apparently understands the message of mercy, direct the FI Sisters now. This is a very positive change!
Read the definition of Mercy in “Rich in Mercy” ~ St. Pope John Paul 2. Read St. Augustine, or “In Faustina’s School of Mercy (Misericordia Publications). Read the bible…the message of mercy is everywhere!
The Mother of Mercy and Divine Mercy must take center stage in the FI now….
This is the “New Springtime”!
God bless the Francisans of the Immaculate with docility! Pax!
Ave Maria Fr. Angelo,
God bless you Fr. for your guidance and formation .Keeping you always in my thoughts and prayers.
In the two hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Marge Alice Sr.Faustina
Sr. Faustina,
Nice to hear from you! You are in my prayers. Please pray for me!
While I remain very alarmed at this entire development with the sisters, I must say that Adfero at Rorate is not leading with his best foot in employing this Faverzani article, which is remarkably short on specifics.
When you dig in looking for actual quotes from Sr. Barbiero, what one finds in the article is quite scanty. She said something apparently about “women’s power,” at the Beijing Conference, something which will give women a new sort of “citizenship” in “society, politics, economics, the Church, and academia” – which while not exactly promising, is hardly a fragment of a sentence. And then there’s some stuff on divine mercy. (I do think there are concerns with some aspects of the cultus of divine mercy which has developed, but there is not enough information here to say whether Sr. Barbiero is fishing in those waters.) The rest is a condemnation of various aspects of the Beijing Conference, none of which I would dispute, but precious little from Sr. Barbiero.
Perhaps she really is a…well, modernist termite. But if she is, we need a good deal more evidence than this. All I can say now is that on my initial impression, she’s not the sort of woman religious I would have picked for this position. If Rorate knows more, they ought to publish it.
Richard,
Good point.
Whatever else may be true Adfero’s work, it is a “[sort of] sly and [not so] skillful” hit piece. Machiavellian none the less.
Richard…
Would you mind clarifying this portion of your post?
(“I do think there are concerns with some aspects of the cultus of divine mercy which has developed,…”)
Hello Marie,
“Would you mind clarifying this portion of your post?”
Out of respect for Fr. Geiger and his blog, I don’t want to take this very far down what Fr. Z likes to call “rabbit hole.” Let me say up front that I don’t object to the Divine Mercy devotion *in se*, and indeed it was one of my first pathways back to the faith, thanks in part to a very holy priest who, now into his 90’s, has a deep devotion to it.
I will content myself with observing that in some places, the emphasis on the unconditionality of Divine Mercy has led some to teach that penance is not necessary for reception of communion on this solemnity. Which, of course, can never be true. Reception of Communion in an unworthy state will actually make one’s situation worse, not better (1 Cor. 11:27-30). Mercy cannot make sense without an understanding of its proper referent, justice; and in our therapeutic era, such understanding is often lacking.
Excerpt from Rorate post:
“Sister Fernanda Barbiero absolutely loves the new “Church of Mercy,” as can be seen in an editorial she wrote on 26 January this year about “Consecration and Service,” taking her cue from a book on the same subject by Cardinal Kasper, where he talked about the upcoming Consistory on the Family. Sr. Fernanda just cannot hold herself back: “The symphony of God’s mercy is music you can hear throughout the Bible,” and then she goes on to define it as the “defining principle of God” and the “key to understanding all the Gospel” before coming to her final apotheosis, “Let us all live a life of mercy!”
She doesn’t stake out her territory, doesn’t feel the need to make any distinctions, doesn’t hold back, doesn’t express any whys or wherefores; the danger – a very real danger – is that the whole order of things will be changed, and cheap sociology will take the place of transcendent faith. According to the Italian news agency Adnkronos, Sr. Barbiero, President in 1998 of the Pontifical Institute Regina Mundi, was asking for some very loose and ill-defined “overall reform” in the life of Nuns, and was asking the Nuns themselves to “set out on a path of liberation,” using a language more commonly found in feminist tracts than in convents.”
Cheap sociology? Not transecendent faith?
Trusting in God’s Mercy is liberating!! Total surrender to His Providence; loving Him and neighbor IS THE FAITH.
From “In Faustina’s School of Mercy”:
Mercy is very closely connected with active love of neighbor, but is not identical with it. According to Father Jacek Woroniecki, O.P., who comments on the thought of St. Thomas, love differs from mercy in its object; love aims at increasing the neighbor’s good, and mercy at remedying evil that plagues him. In traditional theology mercy is one of the moral virtues. But of all the virtues which relate to our neighbor, writes St. Thomas, mercy is the greatest, (….) since it belongs to one who is highher and better to supply the defect of another, in so far as the latter is deficient’ (II-II, q. 30, a. 4.).
The Holy Father John Paul II, as well as other contemporary theologians, who follow his example, define mercy not only as a virtue, but as a ‘Christian lifestyle’ which reveals and realizes itself particularly in the face of suffering, injustice, poverty, as well as physical and moral evil in which man becomes entangled. Therefore, performing mercy cannot be a transitory phenomenon, something done by chabce, but it musst be a permanent disposition which is defined as a ‘lifestyle’ or a ‘moral attitude’. Mercy, then, is a moral attitude towards another person, particularly towards someone who is in special spiritual or material need. It flows fro the conviction that if man experiences mercy from God, he should also show mercy toward his neighbor.” (Pg. 10-11)
~God reveals His mercy in the Book of Genisis. The promise of a Redeemer and His Mother to bring us out of the mire that our first parents put us in!
(Actually, mercy occurs in the creation story, but why be nit picky….)
Mother of Mercy, we love you! 🙂
There are some traditionalists who do not like the Divine Mercy devotion. Google it. You will find articles by some of the usual suspects, Tradition in Action, SSPX.
“There are some traditionalists who do not like the Divine Mercy devotion.”
There’s a spectrum out there.
The FSSP priest I esteem most highly has spoken well of it – properly understood. I know a number of traditionalists with an attachment to it. By no means is opposition anything like universal (though you can find it out there, sure).
Some oppose it because they worry over the emphasis on the unconditionality of Christ’s mercy, which I think is a distortion more in practice, albeit a danger that one must be wary of (see my comment above). And there are others who (I cannot help but think) simply take a posture of suspicion to almost any post-conciliar development in general, and to one promulgated by John Paul II in particular.
Yes, I know. I tried inviting a young man, who identifies himself with traditioanlism, to come with me and my husband to the National Shrine of Divine Mercy in Massachusetts. His response was shocking…”I can’t do that. We (traddys) can’t even read the Diary of Faustina. It’s forbidden by two popes…” So they will be obedient to the two popes, who questioned the messages of Faustina, but not a successor (JPII), who had it scrutinzed throughly and was found doctrinally sound! It’s all about denying Vatican II popes!
Sad thing is they do not see that Satan does not want us to trust in God. Satan hates the message of mercy! He will cloud the eyes and hearts of many souls with his deception; fear.
~Just a thought. As nice as this young man is he lacks joy. He condemns many people because they are not like him. He has an exclusionary mentality. My Protestant friends exhibit more joy!
Be optimistic….God’s love (and mercy) endures forever!! 🙂
Father Angelo, I like Divine Mercy, but one thing about it is suspect to me. Jesus calls St. Faustina, “Purer than the Angels.” This can be true, however, for no human being. I am thinking that maybe Faustina erred in this part of what she said. Fr. Groeschel said in “A Still Small Voice,” that apparitions can contains error and still be from God.
What are your thoughts on the statement, “Purer than the Angels”? I would love to hear your insight.
-Dawn