Eight reasons why today's world despises and resists Christianity

Tribulation Times

INTRODUCTION TO NEW MISSAL: http://www.catholicprophecy.info/missal11.html

November 8, 2011   

(Rev 12:10-12) And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying: Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ: because the accuser of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of the testimony: and they loved not their lives unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you that dwell therein. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time.

RENEW AMERICA: Eight reasons why today's world despises and resists Christianity

HEADLINE: Vatican stunned by Irish embassy closure

MOYNIHAN REPORT COMMENTARY:  The Irish embassy to the Holy See, located on the Janiculum Hill near to the resi

Image by sarflondondunc via Flickr

dence of the American Ambassador to the Holy See and near the American Academy in Rome, is the Villa Spada, the single most valuable property of all the Irish embassies in the world, according to reports.

However, note well: Ireland will not be selling the Villa, but moving staff from its Embassy to Itay over to the Villa Spada to work there.

Many observers are seeing this decision as a severe blow to the Vatican's international prestige, and that view seems correct -- it is a blow to the Holy See that a country with as long a Catholic tradition as Ireland has decided to close its embassy.

Most observers are also seeing it as a direct retaliation of the Irish government against the Church for the Church's many years of allegedly lax supervision in dozens of cases of child abuse and sexual abuse (see the articles reproduced below).

Two points need especially to be stressed.

First, this may not be a unique case.  No one knows for sure, but there are already persistent whispers in diplomatic circles here that as many as 40 countries are considering closing their embassies to the Holy See.

If this is even one-third true, the trajectory of the Vatican's diplomatic importance in world affairs will be downward, following several decades in which the diplomatic role of the Vatican -- especially under Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) -- seemed crucial, even decisive, in a world divided into two blocs, one capitalist, one communist.  So the Vatican's "diplomatic weight" seems, already with this decision, and potentially even more so with similar decisions, to be in decline.

Second, the consequences.  What are the consequences for the world of a dimished diplomatic role for the Holy See?

Inevitably, that the Church's positions on social and moral issues would receive less attention.

The Church's views, on the level of the world's political elites, would be, in effect, marginalized.

The Church's moral voice would be, quite effectively, diminished, weakened, muffled, precisely at the moment when many moral debates -- over the nature of marriage; over the "life issues" from abortion, sterilization and contraception through organ harvesting and euthanasia; over the justice or injustice of our globalized, and globalizing, economic system -- are reaching a pitch of intensity, and are being decided and set into the "stone" of codified law.

Whatever opposition the Church might have to some of these developments will be less influential, less consequent

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ial, if the Church's diplomatic prestige is reduced.

OPINION: Mary Kenny: We'll surely live to regret diplomatic Vatican snub

MORE: Irish Vatican closure saddens dwindling faithful

Thoughts and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: The Holy Eucharist

11. He has given me to understand that His Sacred Heart is the Holy of Holies- the Sanctuary of Love- that He wills to be known at present as the Mediator between God and man; for He is all-powerful to reconcile them, turning aside the chastisements that our sins have merited and obtaining mercy for us.

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This month's archive can be found at: http://www.catholicprophecy.info/news2.html.

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