Posted in category "Humor"
“At what time does he have to be back in the seminary?”
It might be an innocent question, except for the fact the man asking it is a Papal Gentleman, Angelo Balducci, and the man he’s talking to is his pimp, Vatican chorister, Thomas Ehiem.
In addition to his escort service, Ehiem, 29, a professional chorister born in Nigeria, was a member of Cappella Giulla. This choir is used in St. Peter’s for Mass and other ceremonies which do not involve the pope. 
The silver-haired Balducci, 63, was arrested on February 10, 2010, suspected of involvement in widespread corruption in the awarding of public works contracts by Italy’s Civil Protection Agency. He is alleged to have steered public works contracts towards favored bidders. A well known and powerful local figure, Balducci is married with two children.
A Papal Gentleman since 1995, Balducci has long worked closely with the Holy See on behalf of the Italian state. He has overseen the logistical and infrastructural requirements of events such as Holy Year in 2000, the canonizations of Padre Pio and Opus Dei founder Jose Maria Escriva in 2002, and the beautification of Mother Teresa in 2003.
The Gentlemen of His Holiness, or Papal Gentlemen, are ceremonial ushers of the Papal household. In the words of a 1968 ordinance, they are expected to “distinguish themselves for the good of souls and the glory of the name of the Lord.”
Ehiem said he had been introduced to Balducci more than ten years ago. He claims: “He asked me if I could procure other men for him. He told me he was married and that I had to do it in great secrecy.”
At was during the time he was investigated for corruption that wiretaps revealed his sexual activities.
Phone taps of the last two years reveal that Balducci regularly contacted two men, Thomas Ehiem and Lorenzo Renzi, to ask them to set up “appointments” for him.
Balducci is recorded describing the precise physical details of the men he wanted: the man’s height, weight, skin color, and several availability.
In one wiretap from December 2009, Renzi is heard explaining the rules: “You’ll get up to 2,000 euros…Do not touch his balls. You need the money. Put on some music, take out the (inaudible), swallow the Viagra, and adelante!”
In 72 pages of transcribed wiretaps, Ehiem tells Balducci about one possible candidate: “I saw your call when I was in the Vatican, because I was doing rehearsals…in the choir…in St. Peter’s…. Angelo..I’ll say no more. Two meters (6 -foot-7) 97 kilos (250 lb.), 33 years-old and completely active (top).
The transcripts record that during five months in 2008, Ehiem procured for Balducci at least ten contacts, including “Two black Cuban lads, a former male model from Naples, and a rugby player from Rome.
Balducci’s escorts came from many different backgrounds, some being illegal immigrants who badly needed money.
Others were seminary students in Rome.
In January 2010, the Carabinieri recorded an exchange in which Balducci and Ehiem discuss a seminarian. Balducci is said to have asked: “Listen, have you spoken with the seminarian by any chance?” Ehiem says he is “probably at Mass or something.”
On January 11th Ehiem calls again to recommend “a colleague or friend” of the seminarian because the latter is unavailable. He says the colleague is “better, taller, a bit taller than you.” Later Ehiem asks: “Can I send (him) around straight away?”
He asks where Balducci is. Balducci tells him: “Up at the seminary…where the cardinal lives.” Ehiem replies: “He could get there within half an hour…the time it takes to catch a taxi and get there.”
I wonder if Angelo Balducci ever met Enrico Luizi, a Papal Gentleman who was murdured by a hustler in 1998.
That story can be found here.
On March 16, 2010 the Holy See announced that Pope Benedict XVI will preside over the beatification of the Venerable John Henry Newman on September 19, 2010. The location for the Mass hasn’t been decided yet, but the site of the former MG Rover factory is now the “preferred venue” for Benedict XVI’s beatification of Cardinal Newman. It is easier for security, and is closer to the place where Cardinal Newman will be venerated: Birmingham Oratory. One of the concelebrants of the Mass is sure to be the Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminister and head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.
In preparation for his beatification, in October 2008 authorities opened Cardinal Newman’s grave to exhume and rebury his body. Gay rights activists protested the separation of Newman from his longtime companion with whom he shared his burial place. The idea of Catholic pilgrims going to the gravesite of two men to venerate one of them as a “Blessed” was too uncomfortable for church authorities to tolerate.
In a queer coincidence on the eve of Newman’s beatification, Birmingham Oratory experienced an upheaval over a relationship between the provost of the Oratory and a young man. Their relationship appeared to echo Cardinal Newman’s relationship with a priest, Fr. Ambrose St John a century before.
At the heart of the conflict are the allegations surrounding a close but chaste friendship between the former Provost of Birmingham Oratory, Fr. Paul Chavasse, and a young man. Fr. Chavasse had also served as Actor for the Cause of Newman’s canonization. He has been replaced in both positions by the Very Rev. Richard Duffield. 
“Around 2 1/2 years ago, in the autumn of 2007, Fr. Chavasse began to form an intense but physically chaste friendship with a young man, then aged 20, which the Fathers of Birmingham Oratory regarded as imprudent,” an Oratory spokesman said. The young man had been rejected as a candidate for the priesthood, and Fr. Chavasse had complained on his behalf. Fr. Chavasse assured skeptical members of the community that he was not sexually involved with anyone, but these men continued to confront Fr. Chavasse and informed Rome of their concerns and suspicions.
Fr. Felix Seldon was appointed to conduct an “apostolic visitation” of the Birmingham Oratory. Here is the upshot:
- Fr. Paul Chavasse “willingly” resigned as Provost of the Oratory and also as Actor for the Cause of Newman’s canonization in December 2010 – less than a year before Newman’s beatification. He was directed to leave for a long retreat, or a fund raising trip to America–depending on which news story you read. Anyway, he’s vanished.
- The three members of the Birmingham Oratory that complained the loudest about Fr. Chavasse–Fr. Philip Cleevely, Fr. Dermont Fenlon and Br. Lewis Berry have been ordered “to spend time in prayer for an indefinite period” in religious houses hundreds of miles apart. No date was given for their return to the Birmingham Oratory.
An Oratory spokesman downplayed the homosexual allegations of the conflict. He explained there had been disagreements in the community how best to approach the beautification of their founder, Cardinal Newman. Fr. Fenlon, Fr. Cleevely and Br. Lewis were described on one blog as “known upholders of tradition and conservative Catholic values.” They have publicly opposed an interpretation of Cardinal Newman as a patron of conscientious dissent. As a theologian, Cardinal Newman played an important role in developing the modern formulation of the primacy of conscience, which is of fundamental importantance to gay and lesbian Catholics who reject in good conscience the standard teaching on sexuality.
The three men have also publicly protested the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales lack of vigorous opposition to sex education and relationships policy in schools put in place by the British government. Archbishop Vincent Nichols is president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference. He previously served as Archbishop of Birmingham from 2000 to 2009.
Bishops of any stripe don’t appreciate publicity-seeking troublemakers. With the halogen glare that will accompany the pope’s visit in September, I’m not surprised all four men were sent packing to distant monasteries.
Questions about Cardinal Newman’s sexuality revived when he was exhumed in 2008.
Newman, a founder and member of the Birmingham Oratory, was buried in the small cemetery at Rednal near the Oratory County house. At his request, he was buried with Fr. Ambrose St John.
At the request of the Vatican, the British government gave permission for the cardinal’s remains to be transferred from Rednal into a sarcophagus that will stand between the marble columns opposite the Holy Souls’ Altar in Birmingham Oratory Church. The Vatican is understood to have made the request so that Roman Catholic pilgrims could come and pray at Newman’s tomb. It is not traditional for veneration to occur at shared tombs.
Responding to recent insinuations in the British press that Cardinal John Henry Newman was gay and was an intellectual forefather of today’s dissenters from Catholic teaching, Fr. Ian Ker, the author of the “definitive” biography of Newman, called the claims that the cardinal was gay are “absolute rubbish.” He says there is “irrefutable evidence of Newman’s heterosexuality.”
This evidence rests in the “sacrifice” to a life of celibacy to which Newman felt he had been called at age 15. “A modern reader should not need to be reminded that in 19th century England homosexuality was illegal and generally considered to be immoral,” wrote Fr. Ker. “The only ’sacrifice’ that Newman could possibly been referring to was that of marriage,” he said.
In a article entitled “John Henry Newman and the sacrifice of celibacy,” published in L’Osservatore Romano on September 3, 2009, Fr. Ker comments that “the decision to exhume the body of Venerable John Henry Newman has provoked reactions, in particular on the part of the homosexual lobby.” According to Ker, this “protest” carries the idea that “Newman wanted to be buried with his friend because he had some kind of bond with him or something more than just a simple friendship.”
When Fr. Ambrose St John, who was 14 years his junior, died in 1875, Newman compared his own grief to that of a husband’s for a wife. “I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband’s or wife’s, but I feel it is difficult to believe that any can be greater, or anyone’s sorrow greater, than mine.”
Newman wrote in his diary about Fr. St John’s love for him: “From the first he loved me with an intensity of love, which was unaccountable.” He later added: “As far as this world was concerned, I was his first and last…he was my earthly light.”
The cardinal repeated on three occasions his desire to be buried with his friend, including shortly before his death in 1890. “I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Fr Ambrose St John’s grave – and I give this as my last, my imperative will,” he wrote, later adding: “This I confirm and insist on.”
The two men had a joint memorial stone that is inscribed with the words he had chosen: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem (Out of shadows and phantasms into the truth.”)
British gay rights activist Mr. Peter Tatchell observed: “It is impossible to know whether or not the relationship between Newman and St John involved sexual relations. Equally, it is impossible to know that it did not.”
“To be fair and to err on the side of caution, given both men’s rather orthodox religious beliefs,they probably did not have a sexual relationship. It is likely that they had a gay orientation but chose to abstain from sex. Sexual abstinence does not, however, alter a person’s orientation. A person can be gay and sublimate hteir gayness into spiritual and artistic pursuits, and into strong, intense platonic same-sex relationships, which is probably what Newman and St John did.”
“But many of these platonic relationships were, in fact, expressions of latent homosexuality which never fund physical expression because the men concerned lived in a homophobic culture where they either had no conception of the possiblity of same-sex love or, for religious reasons, dared ot express this love sexually.” 
“Ker’s article is full of bald assertions that Newman was heterosexual, but it offers no proof or evidence. It dismisses the possibility that the Cardinal could have had a relationship with St John and even condemns the plausible suggestion that he might have been gay and celibate.”
The history of the Catholic Church is littered with popes, cardinals, bishops and priests who were secretly gay. Down the ages, lots of clergy have had gay relationships. Indeed, about one-quarter of the current Catholic priesthood is estimated to be gay. Why should anyone be surprised by the suggestion Cardinal Newman might have had a same-sex relationship?”
The sexuality of Newman has long been a subject for conjucture. Charles Kingsley’s famous attack on Newman for his dishonesty, insincerity and sexual ambiguity. Kingsley compared Rome’s Catholic descendants as treacherous and effeminate and the pagan Germanic people or their English Protestant descendants as honest, trustworthy, and physically strong defenders of truth. When in 1864 Kingsley asserted that “truth, for its own sake had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy . . . [and] Father Newman informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon which Heaven has given to the saints wherewith to withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which marries and is given in marriage,” Newman roared back with his seminal work Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
John Henry Newman’s first steps toward Roman Catholicism came from his participation, study and writings as part of the Oxford Movement. This religious movement began 1833 by Anglican clergymen at Oxford University to renew the Church of England by reviving certain Roman Catholic doctrines and rituals. This attempt to stir the Established Church into new life arose among a group of spiritual leaders in Oriel College, Oxford. Prominent among them were John Henry Newman Richard Hurrell Froude. Froude died in 1836 at the age of 33. Newman, 35 years old at the time, was profoundly moved by his death. 
The idea that the Oxford Movement contained a significant stream of homoeroticism was popularized by Sir Geoffrey Faber in the book Oxford Apostles – A Character Study of the Oxford Movement, published in 1933. One commentator declared, “Of the mutually feminine attachment which bound Newman and Froude together, there is no need to say more.”
In his journal of the late 1820s Froude records his struggle against “vile affections” and, referring to an unnamed undergraduate private pupil, cautions himself “above all (to) watch and pray against being led out of the way by the fascination of his society.”
Newman’s poems of the 1830s echo similar themes (”A Blight”), but also use well-known Biblical male pairs to make suggestive homosexual statements (”David and Jonathan” and especially “James and John,” with its reference to a state where “man may one with man remain.”
To his elegiac poem, ”Separation of Friends,” Newman added these final lines after the death of Froude in February 1836:
“Ah! dearest, with a word he could dispel
All questioning, and raise
Our hearts to rapture, whispering all was well,
And turning prayer to praise.
And other secrets too he could declare,
By patterns all divine,
His earthly creed retouching here and there,
And deepening every line.
Dearest! he longs to speak as I to know,
And yet we both refrain:
It were not good; a little doubt below,
And all will soon be plain.”
“But isn’t it about time,” said one commenter on a British news site, “that the Church stopped all this hypocritical nonsense and admit that the man they are about to beatify was gay, and that he was in loved with Fr Ambrose St John to the extent where they even wanted to get buried together. They may well have lived chaste lives and suppressed their sexuality successfully, but you cannot get around the content of the letters passing between the two of them.”
“And instead of branding Newman as ‘intrinsically disordered’, and effectively saying that he should never have been a priest, let alone a Cardinal, as the current regime would have to say, they should celebrate the life of a wonderful thinker, a truly gifted writer, and a man who was not ashamed to express his love for another man while at the same time observing a celibate life.”
“I can’t believe the irrational and inhuman knots this hierarchy ties itself up in.”
These two books provide interesting reading on Cardinal Newman’s sexuality and careful expression: in The Friend (2003) the late historian Alan Bray presented major research on the relationship between Newman and St John, sifting thorugh the Cardinal’s diary, letters and notes. Secret Selves: Confession and Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Autobiography (2009) by Oliver Buckton argues that literary “secrecy”–the very act of holding back information in a novel or memoir–was a primary and provocative indicator of Victorian homosexuality. One of the works he examines in his book is Cardinal Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
A great deal more can be said by quite consciously saying much less.
My first Nihil Obstat post about Cardinal Newman - “Keep it Secret” - can be found here.
Co-founder of the ultra conservative Family Research Council (with James Dobson), and board member of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), for decades Dr. George Alan Rekers was a prominent anti-gay activist.
So he did what any straight, family-oriented Baptist minister would do when they are looking for someone to carry the luggage on a ten-day European excursion. He went to rentboy.com and hired a prostitute.
On April 13, 2010 Miami New Times reporters took a photo of Dr. Rekers and a young man, “Lucien,” as they arrived at Miami International Airlines on Iberian Airlines flight 6123. Rekers was caught pushing an overloaded luggage cart. Reached by the New Times before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. “I had surgery,” Rekers said, “and I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.” The Miami paper was quick to note that “medical problems didn’t stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart” through the airport. 
It would be impossible to stumble upon the rentboy.com hompage, which features well-muscled young men and youths rubbing each others crotches, and not figure out what the site means by “rent boy.”
The pictures of Lucien (real name: Jo-Vanni Roman) on his rentboy.com profile showed a shirtless young man with delicate features, guileless eyes, and sun-kissed, hairless skin. The profile touts his “smooth, sweet tight ass” and “perfectly built 8 inch cock (uncut). He describes himself as “sensual,” “wild,” and “up for anything”–”as long as you ask.” His “Tastes/Specialties/Fetishes include: Vanilla, Leather, Anal, Oral, Shaving, Spanking, Role Playing, Kissing, Toys, Feet. His “Talents” offer “Modeling, Go-Go Dancing, Stripping, Massage, Travel Companion, Tour Guide, Interpreter.”
Undoubtedly that part is where Reker spotted his experience as a “Travel Assistant.” 
“In all honesty, I did go on the trip with him, Roman told reporters. “He was setting me up as a companion. In all honesty, he’s a very kind family-values man.” The young male escort was paid $75 a day plus expenses to travel with Rekers in April to London and Madrid.
Roman, 20, would give nude massages to Rekers, 61, every day during their trip. Rekers allegedly named his favorite maneuver the “long stroke”–a complicated caress “across the penis, thigh…and his anus over the butt checks. Rekers liked to be rubbed down there,” he said. He was “rock hard.” Rekers was “very gay for me” Roman said.
“Down there”… I thought only Catholic girls said “down there.”
Lucien/Jo-Vanni is the same age as a son that Rekers adopted more than four years ago, which might not be relevant were it not for Rekers vigorous opposition to adoptions by gays. Rekers testified in favor of nasty homosexual adoption bans in both Arkansas and Florida.
On his blog, ProfessorGeorge.com–right near the lame luggage excuse–there’s a post labeled: “Should homosexuals be allowed to adopt children?” This leads to a page full of outright falsehoods, including:
“Large research studies consistently report that a majority of homosexually-behaving adults have a a life-time incidence of one or more psychiatric disorders, while a majority of heterosexually-behaving adults do not suffer a psychiatric disorder…So my professional conclusion that homosexually behaving adults should not be allowed to adopt children is based on research and logic.”
“While he keeps a low public profile, his fingerprints are on almost every anti-gay effort to demean and dehumanize LGBT people,” said Wayne Besen, a gay rights advocate and executive director of Truth Wins Out, which investigates the anti-gay movement. “His work is ubiquitously cited by lobby groups that work to deny equality to LGBT Americans. Rekers has caused a great deal of harm to gay and lesbian individuals.”
While Rekers continues to maintain the Lucien/Jo-Vanni was brought along primarily for the purpose of carrying his luggage, he’s now also explains that he found the lad on rentboy.com because he wanted to have someone’s mortal soul, like Jesus did.
Rekers had a Facebook exchange with the gay blogger Joe. My. God. in which he posted this beautiful sentiment:
“I have spent much time as a mental health professional and as a Christian minister helping and lovingly caring for people identifying themselves as ‘gay.’ My hero is Jesus Christ who loves even the culturally despised people, including sexual sinners and prostitutes. Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them.”
“Mark 2:16-17 reads, “When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the ’sinners’ and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ Upon hearing this Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’ In fact, in a dialogue with hypocritical religious leaders, Jesus even stated to them, ‘I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.’”
“Like John the Baptist and Jesus, I have a loving Christian ministry to homosexuals and prostitutes in which I share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them (see I Corinthians 6:8-11.)”
“Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way “hate” homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called ‘Lucien’ in the news story.”
“1) It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and 2) the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins.”
“If you talk with my travel assistant that the story called ‘Lucien,’ you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.”
Joe. My. God responded: “Oh, well that explains EVERYTHING! Dr. Rekers is curing homosexuals ONE BY ONE by hiring them on MALE PROSTITUTION websites! Glory! Praise His Name!”
The Gay Moralist blogger, John Corvino, commented on Reker’s situation in a more serious, personal note: “I was once a closeted homosexual conservative myself, and I came close to entering the Catholic priesthood. I often wonder whether, had my life gone slightly differently–different influences, different opportunities, different choices–I’d be missing truths that seem obvious to me now.”
“I even wonder whether I might have acted out sexually in inappropriately ways–hiring male prostitutes privately while railing against homosexuality publically, or htting on college seminary students (not children) in my priestly care. While I’m no longer a believer, the phrase ‘There but for the grace of God’ still resonates with me.”
Dr. Rekers posted this final message on his blog: “I am immediately resigning my membership in NARTH to allow myself the time necessary to fight the false media reports that have been made against me. With the assistance of a defamation attorney, I will fight these false media reports because I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever. I am not gay and never have been.” – George A. Rekers, Ph.D.
When queried about Reker’s resignation, spokesman David C. Pruden said that NARTH never pressured Rekers to resign from the organization, where he served on the board and the scientific advisory committee. “We didn’t need to,” he said. “(Rekers) very graciously suggested it from almost the first press report.”
“Without judging anyone else, let me say that I do know that if being stupid or even a hypocrite eliminated someone from public involvement, almost all of us who were honest would have to live alone in a cave somewhere,” Pruden added. “I know I would.”
TV comedy shows jumped all over Dr. Rekers’s spring vacation revelations. Among the most hilarious are Colbert Report’s “Alpha Dog of the Week – George Rekers;” and The Rachael Maddox Show.
Pope John Paul II used to whip himself with a belt and sleep on a bare floor to bring himself closer to Christ.
He had a particular belt for self-flagellation according to the Italian-language book, Why He Is a Saint: The True John Paul II Explained by the Postulator of the Cause of Beatification” (Rizzoli Publications). A postulator is an official who presents a plea for beatification or canonization in the Catholic Church. 
In the book, the postulator, Polish Monsignor Slawomir Oder, together with journalist Saverio Gaeta, director of the magazine Famiglia Christiana, compile several testimonies that reveal details about the pope’s life.
“As some members of his own entourage were able to hear with their own ears, both in Poland and in the Vatican, Karol Wojyka flagellated himself,” the book says. “…in his wardrobe, among his soutanes, he had hanging a particular belt for trousers that he used as a whip, and which he would ensure was always taken to Castel Gandolfo.”
The fact that John Paul II whipped himself in “bodily penance” was first revealed last November by Sister Tobiana Sobodka, a Polish nun who worked for Pope John Paul in his Vatican apartment and at the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo in the hills south of Rome.
In Santo Subito (A Saint Now) by Andrea Tornielli, the Pope’s biographer and Vatican correspondent of Il Giornale, Sister Sobodka said: ”We could hear it – we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo. You could hear the sound of the blows when he would flagellate himself. He did it when he was still capable of moving on his own.”
He must have been really going at it hard if they could hear him in the next room!
When I read the Pope was flagellating himself I immediately thought of three other Catholic self-flagellators:
- The albino monk from Opus Dei in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. He beat himself to chastise his body.
- The monk Berengar, the assistant librarian in The Name of the Rose. He whipped himself in penance for his homosexual desires and affairs. He pressured the young illuminator, Adelmo, for sex in exchange for access to a forbidden book. Adelmo committed suicide. Berengar, doubly guilty, had a loud whipping session within hearing of visitors Brother William of Baskerville and his novice, Adso of Melk. 
- The chanting, wailing penitent flagellators in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, inflicting self-punishment with birch wands in hopes God will spare them the Black Plague.
“When members of or former member see the monk go at it in the movie (The Da Vinci Code), they just burst out laughing, it’s so nutty, said the Rev. Michael Barrett, a priest of Opus Dei.
“There is no blood, no injury, nothing to harm a person’s health, nothing traumatic,” he added. “If it caused any harm, the Church would not allow it,” he wrote on the Opus Dei website when the movie came out in 2006.
“This voluntarily accepted discomfort is a way of joining oneself to Jesus Christ and the sufferings he voluntarily accepted in order to redeem us from sin. The Da Vinci Code’s masochist monk, who loves pain for its own sake, has nothing to do with real Christian mortification,” Fr. Barrett said.
Do religious self-flagellators receive a perverse sense of gratification of the flesh by causing it pain? 
Not according to retired prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins. In the case of saints who subjected themselves voluntarily to rigorous penance, these practices had nothing to do with psychological imbalance, he emphasized.
He said: “The saints are in the first place very normal persons. If this wasn’t so they wouldn’t be able to be saints. There are many saints who did penance and saw this as a way to bring their body under control; it has nothing to do with psychology.”
One of our most recent saints, St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, didn’t shy away from pain: “Blessed be pain. Loved be pain. Sanctified be pain…Glorified be pain! (The Way, 208). “If you realize that your body is your enemy, and an enemy of God’s glory since it is an enemy of your sanctification, why do you treat it so softly?”
Future historians and investigative journalists may uncover what was Pope John Paul II’s connection to Opus Dei. How was he helpful to them? How were they useful to him? It appears he adopted their self-mortification practices.
But would Pope John Paul II been more “saintly” if he would have spent the time instead comforting a sick child in a hospital; stand outside an abortion clinic and offer his hand and financial support to an unmarried, pregnant woman about to enter; or make it known to the corps of elite Catholic business titans and government officials clean water for drinking, sanitation and agriculture was needed for all people, but especially the poor who have no other alternatives or place to go?
I think so. Sometimes it is much easier to beat yourself up than do the right thing.
Conservative Catholics must be more a little dismayed at the thought of John Paul the Great whipping his back and buttocks with a belt. I know I would be. What would I say if my children asked me about it? Sheesh.
For more flagellation on the Pope’s behavior:
CAUTION CHURCH AHEAD: “Pope beats himself up for his failings: Unfortunately, they’re the wrong failings.
Slate: The Allure of the Whip by Niklaus Largier. The article also discusses Historia flagellatium written in 1700 by the abbe Jacques Boileau.
Here’s the video on YouTube of Silas, the Opus Dei monk, chastising his body. Would you say there was an erotic element to this ritual?
And for all of you busy, multi-tasking, but still pentitent-minded Catholics, don’t miss: Great Inventions: The Flagellator - Convenient Hands-Free Self- Flagellation.
Thumbing through my copy of Magnificat in church last week, I came upon the story of Saint Ethelfleda. Her tale breathes a warm, oddball humanity–in contrast to the usual Magnificat fare of sanctity, torture and grim death for aspiring saints.
Saint Ethelfleda is someone I can relate to: swims naked, prays outdoors, entertains generously, and inspires young people.
Here are her miracles of renown, and those of her teenage admirer – who went on to surpass her in weird tales.
Saint Ethelfleda (c.930 – Feast Day – October 23) was a member of the Anglo-Saxon nobility. Following the death of her husband, she spent the rest of her life as abbess of Romsey. Her devotional acts included chanting psalms while standing naked in the cold water of the River Test.
One day, as Ethelfleda was preparing for a visit from her kinsman, King Athelstan, the royal chamberlain arrived in advance to see if she had the provisions necessary to host the king and his large retinue. Upon being informed by the chamberlain that she lacked an adequate supply of ale, Ethefleda answered, “My patroness, the Virgin Mother, will send me an abundance of ale.” She thereupon withdrew to an oratory of the Blessed Virgin, where she ardently prayed for heavenly intervention.
When on the next day the king and his men arrived after attending Mass, Ethelfleda’s modest barrel of ale supplied all they wanted without running dry.
Her legend also tells that she spent time with the king and queen at court, where Ethelfleda’s habit–for “ascetic reasons” –of bathing in the nude at night was the occasion of the queen’s nervous illness, brought on by the queen’s “indiscreet curiosity” when she followed her to see where she went. The queen was afterward cured by the abbess’ intercession.
The Magnificat story ended by saying the elderly Ethelfleda was frequently visited by a teenage boy who drew inspiration from her example. The youth was the future abbot of Glastonbury and archbishop of Canterbury – Saint Dunstan.
Saint Dunstan (909?-May 19, 988, Feast Day – May 19) was born near Glastonbury and lived for a time in the household of Saint Ethelfleda’s kinsman, King Athelstan. The dreamy young man became a great favorite of the king, his relatives and other members of the court became jealous and envious. They accused Dunstan of studying heathen literature and black magic, and prevailed upon the king to order him to leave the court. 
As he was departing Dunstan was attacked. According to various accounts, he was beaten and thrown in a duck pond or cesspool, where his enemies pushed him face down in the muck.
He fled to Winchester and entered the service of Bishop Aelfheah the Bald, who endeavored to persuade him to become a monk. Dunstan was doubtful about whether or not he had the vocation to celibate life, but an outbreak of tumors all over his body–probably from blood-poisoning caused by the treatment to which he had been subjected, changed his mind. 
He made his profession at the hands of St. Aelfheah (”Elf-high”) and returned to live the life of a hermit at Glastonbury, working on his forge and playing his harp. Here the Devil is supposed to have appeared to tempt him, and Dunstan seized him with his blacksmith tongs and made him promise never to enter a house with a horseshoe over the doorway.
Dunstan also worked as a silversmith and in the scriptorium while he was living at Glastonbury. Dunstan drew his own self-portrait in the small, kneeling monk beside Christ in the Glastonbury Classbook. The inscription reads: “I ask you, merciful Christ, to watch over me, Dunstan. May you not permit the Taenarian storms to swallow me.” 
Did Saint Dunstan delve into occult practices in his youth? Perhaps. It has been speculated that his famous fight with the Devil was in fact a battle with his own desire to fully resume his former practices and studies.
The sketch in his own hand showing Dunstan holding the hem of Christ’s garment; and his petition for Christ’s aid to save him from the underworld–or Hell–may be more illuminating than we realize about his inner and outer life.
The “heathen literature” Saint Dunstan studied when he was younger may have been some Irish manuscripts describing druid practices and beliefs that survived Saint Patrick’s efforts at destroying all of them. His early education was received from Irish monks at Glastonbury. Dunstan obviously had access to manuscripts by Ovid or other ancient Greeks with his reference to “Taenarian storms” – Taenarius or Taenarus is the path or gateway to the underworld or Hades.
At least one person thought St. Dunstan might have practiced or dabbled in magic: William Godwin (1756-1836) , who included him in his book, Lives Of The Necromancers: Or An Account Of The Most Eminent Persons In Successive Ages, Who Have Claimed For Themselves, Or To Whom Has Been Imputed By Others, The Exercise Of Magical Power. The book was published in 1834. The other necromancer of ancient Britain Godwin cited was Merlin.
Goodwin asserted that at least one of Saint Dunstan’s “miracles” was really magic. As the story goes Eadmund, a young king of 18, sought the advice of Dunstan, but the jealousy of the courtiers was aroused and he was driven from court.
“For, a few days later, the king rode out to hunt the stag in Mendip Forest. He became separated from his attendants and followed a stag at great speed in the direction of the Cheddar cliffs. The stag rushed blindly over the precipice and was followed by the hounds. Eadmund endeavoured vainly to stop his horse; then, seeing death to be imminent, he remembered his harsh treatment of St. Dunstan and promised to make amends if his life was spared. At that moment his horse was stopped on the very edge of the cliff. Giving thanks to God, he returned forthwith to his palace, called for St. Dunstan and bade him follow, then rode straight to Glastonbury. Entering the church, the king first knelt in prayer before the altar, then, taking St. Dunstan by the hand, he gave him the kiss of peace, led him to the abbot’s throne and, seating him thereon, promised him all assistance in restoring Divine worship and regular observance.” (Catholic Encyclopedia)
At that time Dunstan was 19 or 20 years old. He became the Keeper of the Treasure and the chief adviser to the king. When his royal friend was stabbed in May 946 by the outlaw Leof, the abbot buried him in the abbey.
It sounds like a spell Merlin would have concocted to change the king’s heart.
A counselor to successive kings, Dunstan continued to have potentially fatal run-ins with them. On the day of his coronation in 956, newly crowned King Eadwig left his banquet to join two women in bed–the king’s foster-mother, and her daughter, Aelfgifu. Dunstan followed in a fury and dragged the startled king back to the hall and his knights. The episode, no surprise, led to Dunstan’s exile and flight for his life.
Besides the number of times he was thrown out of court and then restored, Dunstan’s life was notable for the number of visions of angels and demons, including a warning by angels that he would die within three days. He did.
“..for all his life this unique and marvellous man had revelation of things distant in space and in time, and his happy spirit, full of the artist, metal-worker, lover of tunes and gay, lived on the edge of this world; the good and the evil of the unseen supported and attracted him as they do such few as are placed on the outposts of humanity.” (Hilaire Belloc, History of England)
The little ditty below by E.J. Montini appeared in The Arizona Republic in response to a $50,000 donation by the Most Reverend Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix, Arizona, to the anti-gay marriage campaign in Maine. 
A reader had a sad refrain
But did not wish to write it plain.
And so with Seuss-like zeal did deign
To craft a query in quatrain.
He (or she) wrote:
“Mr. Montini, could you explain,
“Is the Phoenix Catholic Diocese insane?
“While poor folks here are full of pain
“Our church sends 50 grand to Maine?”
My response:
Yes, Bishop Olmstead did ordain
That he would help his friends in Maine
Who needed money to maintain
Their anti-married gays campaign.
In Maine a state law did proclaim
That any Dwight could marry Dwayne.
The church held this view in disdain
And sought the old laws to retain.
To win that vote they had to gain
Some riders on their money train.
Our bishop from his vast domain
With cash did shower them like rain.
Fifty thousand dollars came
From Phoenix all the way to Maine.
And helped the churches in their aim
To bring the old rules back again.
Meantime, OUR state is full of pain.
The governor has made it plain.
State services we can’t maintain.
The budget crisis is to blame.
While politicians play their game
The poor are going down the drain.
They need assistance that’s humane
Their meager lifestyle to sustain.
By sending money off to Maine
The bishop seems to make the claim
That poor folks here eat quiche Lorraine
And wash it down with fine champagne.
What does Phoenix have to gain
From shipping 50 grand to Maine?
Can one stake a moral claim
When politics is made to reign?
Politicians are the bane
Of everything that’s good and sane.
Do not Christians in the main
Avoid the secular and vain?
It seems a little inhumane,
Less like Abel, more like Cain,
To send money with the aim
Of changing policy in Maine.
But bishops like old monarchs reign,
Each one a little Charlemagne.
Parishioners cannot constrain
Their spending habits or terrain.
A reader can to me complain
With four lines meant to entertain.
And I can rack my little brain
To rhyme her back in the same vein.
But rhyming doesn’t change the game.
And rhymers cannot be profane.
The bishop here sent cash to Maine.
All we can say is, that’s a shame.
- Thanks to Voice of the Faithful for this little gem.
Yesterday was a day of quotable quotes by fellow Catholics and would-be Catholics.
Vatican: In a move that caught just about everyone off guard, the Vatican said yesterday it would make it easier for conservative Anglicans uncomfortable with women priests, openly gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions to re-join the Roman Catholic Church. Anglicans would be able to “enter into full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” said Cardinal William J. Levada, the perfect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at a news conference announcing the decision. “The unity of the church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows,” he said.
“I don’t want to be a Roman Catholic,” said Martyn Minns, an Anglican bishop from Fairfax, Virginia. “There was a Reformation, remember.” 
“Not all Anglo-Catholics can accept certain teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, nor do they believe that they must first convert to Rome in order to be truly catholic Christians,” said the Rev. Jack Leo Iker of Fort Worth, Texas.
Your Censor Librorum says: I don’t think more than a handful of Anglican bishops, priests and congregations will take advantage of the Vatican’s new “Apostolic Constitution” to join the Roman Catholic Church. Bishops have big egos, and they will be nothing but small potatoes in the Church, because a lot of them are married. The big upside to this for liberal Catholics is the issue of a married priesthood. Why make an exception for Episcopalians, but not Catholics–Catholic priests, former priests and parishioners are going to ask. This latest Vatican outreach to bolster the fold with more conservatives is going to end up as a big pain in the neck for U.S. and other Roman Catholic bishops.
Sports: ESPN analyst and Ex-Met general manager, Steve Phillips, had a fling with a 22-year-old production assistant named Brooke Hundley over the summer. He dumped her. She got mad and wrote to his wife. The New York Post published her letter. “…he enjoys being with me,” Brooke wrote to Marni Phillips, “because I have more of a passion and drive to really do something with my life. And that you’re making him go to mass and therapy despite the fact that he doesn’t believe it will save your marriage, but he doesn’t want to lose hs kids.”
She went on..“I’m not telling you all of this to hurt you in any way, but simply to show you that I am a real person in his life and that I care deeply about his happiness. I was raised Catholic too and while I know our faith dissuades divorce, it also respects it with regards to infidelity because people should have the opportunity to be with the whomever makes them happy and can give them what they need.” 
The finale is the worst: “I may be only 22, but I’m not stupid, and I hope you can understand we never wanted you to find out this way. I want you to meet me and I want to tell you anything you may want to know, my cell number is xxxxx, check the phone records you can see I’m not lying and to top it off Steve has a big birthmark on his crotch right above his penis and one on his left inner thigh, so you know I’m not being fake.”
Your Censor Librorum says: I hope Mrs. Phillips can see a way to speak to her husband again after she’s finished beating him to a pulp. As for Miss Hundley, where did you hear the Church “respects” infidelity if a married person finds someone on the side to fill an unmet emotional or sexual need? I must have missed that one in my pre-Cana conference.
American Idol: Adam Lambert is an American Idol runner-up who came out of the closet after the season ended. But a recent Details magazine shoot had Lambert in a steamy embrace, kissing a lingerie model who shed her bikini. “Women know he’s gay, but they are still crazy about him. He’s no Liberace,” said Details editor-in-chief, Dan Peres. “To put him with a beautiful female model felt absolutely right.” 
Lambert told the magazine, “I like kissing women sometimes. Women are pretty. It doesn’t mean I’m necessarily sleeping with them.”
Your Censor Liborum Says: This sounds like Rock Hudson.
Mob Guy: A confessed Gambino family gunman, Robert Mormando, had a surprise for everyone in a Brooklyn courtroom on Monday. He told the judge he was gay.
Mormando, 44, was being sentenced for his part in the 2003 shooting of a bagel store owner, who was wounded in his driveway.
A divorced father of two, Mr. Mormando was born and raised in Ozone Park, Queens, a neighborhood long associated with former don, John Gotti.
Complicating matters, Mr. Mormando had a close personal friendship with Richard G. Gotti, John Gotti’s nephew. Richard Gotti is currently in prison on a federal racketeering charge. While there is no suggestion that the friendship was anything more than that, the mere fact an “avowed” gay man was once “inseparable” from a member of the Gotti family is “an intolerable stain on their name,” said a person who has knowledge of the case.
Indeed, that kind of “stain” can get you killed if you’re mobbed up. In 1992, John D’Amato,a former boss in the DeCavalcante crime family, was murdered by an underling when, after an argument, D’Amato’s girlfriend told his cronies he was gay.
Anthony Capo, a former soldier for the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante family, which is often described as the real-life “Sopranos,” said he killed John “Johnny Boy” D’Amato after finding out about his secret life.
“Nobody’s gonna respect us if we have a gay homosexual boss sitting down discussing La Cosa Nostra business,” Capo told jurors in Manhattan federal court. “She told me John D’Amato and her were going to sex clubs in the city, swapping partners and John was engaging in homosexual activity,” he said. 
Your Censor Liborum Says: This guy must have been absolutely nuts to come out in court. Didn’t he watch the Sopranos?
A few days ago, Pope Benedict XVI asked the Italian Bishops’ Conference for an “assessment” after the editor of its newspaper, Avvenire, was accused by another publication of homosexual behavior and harassment.
“His Holiness has asked for information and an assessment of the current situation,” said a statement posted last week on the website of the bishops’ group, which publishes the daily Avvenire.
Yesterday, Dino Boffo, director of the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire, resigned–ostensibly in the wake of a tumultuous feud with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. 
The row erupted after Boffo ran a series of stories in Avvenire that criticized the immigration policies and personal life of the prime minister.
Letters from readers complained that a Roman Catholic newspaper had a moral duty to denounce divorce, consorting with teenage girls, naked poolside parties and the prime minister being caught on tape telling a prostitute to wait for him in “Putin’s bed” while he showered.
Boffo, the editor, began to weigh in. “People have understood the unease, the mortification, the suffering this arrogant neglect of sobriety has caused the Catholic Church,” Boffo wrote last month.
Under cover of a paper owned by his brother, Paolo Berusconi, the prime minister retaliated.
Under a front page banner headline, Il Giornale, ran an article accusing Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, of running a “moralistic campaign” against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, 72. The article went on to scrutinize Dino Boffo, 57, Avvenire’s top editor, claiming he had a homosexual affair and had accepted a plea bargain in 2004 for harassing the wife of his lover.
The Il Giornale article openly admitted that the article was in response to Boffo’s criticisms of Berlusconi’s private life, and called Boffo a hypocrite.
In a statement, Mr. Boffo described the report as an “absurd” attempt to smear his reputation. Mr. Boffo described himself as “the first victim” in the 2001 harassment case. He didn’t elaborate on the matter.
After the story appeared, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State and deputy to Pope Benedict XVI, telephoned Mr. Boffo to offer his “solidarity.”
He was joined by Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, the Archbishop of Milan, who said he had offered Mr. Boffo his “esteem and gratitude.”
Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the bishops conference, described the attack on Mr. Boffo as “disgusting.”
Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, former secretary to the late Pope John Paul II and now Archbishop of Krakow in Poland, said it was “the first time a Catholic paper has been attacked with such violence.” He added that he was “very worried by the moral decadence into which Italy is sliding because of the behavior of certain important political leaders.”
Il Giornale ’s attack escalated when another editorial aimed at the Catholic Church itself, mocking not just the “hypocrisy” of sexually active priests with “weak flesh,” but even the “Mitteleuropean” accent of Pope Benedict XVI, a German.
Earlier in the week Il Giornale reported how Dino Boffo had been successfully sued by a woman who claimed that he had tried to steal her husband from her in 2001. The matter, which involved a couple from Terni, near Perugia, was settled out of court in 2004 with Boffo agreeing to pay a small fine. The article claimed Boffo had been listed by police in document as a gay man “noted for this kind of activity.” (It’s not clear–harassment or chasing married men??)
The story dragged in the Italian goverment with Robert Maroni, the Interior Minister, was forced to telephone Mr. Boffo to assure him no such police document existed.
Officials said the alleged police document appeared in reality to be an “anonymous letter” sent to Italian bishops earlier this year.
Prime Minister Berlusconi and his allies had hoped to patch up his relationship with the Catholic Church after months of articles linking Berlusconi with teenage models and “spicy” parties. He denied he paid for sex after an Italian prostitute went public with claims that she slept with Mr. Berlusconi at his residence in Rome.
“Gossip isn’t enough to crucify someone,” Vittorio Feltri, the editor of Il Giornale wrote.
In April, the premier’s wife announced plans for a divorce, accusing him of “consorting with minors.”
“I’ve never had ‘relations’ with minors and have never organized ’spicy parties,’ retorted Berlusconi. “I’ve simply taken part in engaging dinners which were absolutely in line with morality and elegance. And I’ve never knowingly invited anyone to my house who was not a serious person,” the premier told Il Giornale.
After photos of scantily clad guests and a naked man partying at his Sardinian home were published, Berlusconi then found himself embroiled in an escort scandal when Patizia D’Addario claimed she and other women were paid by Bari businessman Gianpaolo Tarantini to attend parties at the premier’s residences. 
Berlusconi admitted that he was “no saint” after the left-leaning daily La Repubblica and sister weekly Espresso posted audio takes and transcripts that it alleges are of conversations between the premier and a call girl on their websites.
Friends of the prime minister warned him he is wadding into dangerous waters with the church that could harm him politically. Many Italians care about what candidates have its normally implicit support. The church generally supports candidates on the right, like Mr. Berlusconi, making the current confrontation that much more unusual and significant.
But Berlusconi’s popularity has started to drop in the polls, and he appears deeply worried about further damage, especially from moderate Catholic voters. This week he announced he was bringing defamation lawsuits against several publications that have been critical of him, part of what his critics and allies alike worry is a dangerous trend toward treating any criticism as disloyal and possibily illegal. (Hmmmm…does this sound familiar in some Church circles??!!)
As part of an effort to mend relations with the Vatican, Mr. Berlusconi had planned to attend a high profile religious service and dine with the Vatican’s No. 2 official when the Holy See issued a statement withdrawing the dinner invitation. The statement also said that Mr. Berlusconi wouldn’t attend the service, known as the “Perdonanza,” or the annual day of pardon for sins. 
Mr. Berlusconi’s plans to attend the Perdonanza was seen by the Italian public as a gesture in the direction of atonement.
The service was established in the 13th century by Pope Celestine V, who decreed that anyone who entered the basilica on August 28 and 29 could receive a plenary indulgence–if they have already confessed to their sins in private and taken Communion.
In its statement, the Vatican said Mr. Berlusconi’s dinner plans with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who officiated Friday’s service, was called off partly out of concern that the meeting woul be “exploited.” The Vatican official said the Holy See didn’t want to be viewed as giving a “benediction” to Mr. Berlusconi’s political positions and his personal life.
The situation become more complicated and shaded when Gian Maria Vian, editor of the Vatican’s semi-official daily, L’Osservatore Romano, didn’t speak out on behalf of Boffo in an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Courier della Sera. 
Vian restated the decision of the Holy See’s newspaper not to write about Berlusconi’s private life because the paper is international and is not designed to cover controversies in Italian politics.
Vian further expressed his opinion that some recent editorials in Avenire were exaggerated when, for example, one article compared the government’s position on immigration to that of the Italian administratin prior to the Holocaust.
The comments of Vian were interpreted as constituting a point of contention between the Vatican newspaper and the Italian Bishops’ Conference. Benedict XVI sought to dispel any ideas of a rift by personally calling Cardinal Bagnasco, president of the conference, and affirming his esteem for the episcopal body.
Both in articles published in Avvenire,as well as in the letter to Cardinal Bagnasco tendering his resignation, Boffo, who is married, insists on his innocence and states that Il Giornale’s accusations are not true.
He thanked the Church for its support, but aded that it “has better things to do than strenuously defend one person, even if unfairly targeted.”
Boffo said he believes the attacks against him are due to the fact that Avvenire is a voice that is independent of “secular power.” He asks, “What future of liberty and responsibility will there be for our information?”
Cardinal Bagnasco expressed in a communique gratitude to Boffo “for the commitment shown over many years with competence, rigor and passion, in fulfilling such a precious assignment for the life of the Church and of Italian society.”
The cardinal also expressed his “closeness and support” to the former director. 
Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco was in the news a few years ago when he claimed that permitting gay marriages was merely the beginning of slippery slope. “Why then say ‘no’ to incest? Why say ‘no’ to the pedophile party in Holland?” he asked.
Draw your own conclusions.
August 2009: Pope Benedict XVI laicized a Franciscan priest who served as a spiritual advisor to the Marian visionaries in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The pontiff, in a document issued “motu proprio” (on his own initiative), returned Father Tomislav Vlasic to the lay state and dispensed him from his religious vows as a member of the Order of Friars Minor. 
Vlasic was confined to a Franciscan monastery in L’Aquila, Italy, in February 2008 after he refused to cooperate in a Vatican investigation of his activities for suspected heresy and schism.
He was also investigated for “the diffusion of dubious doctrine, manipulation of consciences, suspected mysticism, disobedience towards legitimately issued orders and charges contra sextum (against the Sixth Commandment not to commit adultery),” as stated in the interdict signed by Cardinal William J. Levada, perfect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
According to the congregation, all the charges against Vlasic were “in the context of the Medjugorje phenomenon.”
The Medjugorje phenomenon began on June 25, 1981, when six children told a priest they had seen the Virgin on a hillside near their town. Some of the children also claimed to have received ten secrets from Our Lady. 
According to the Medjugorje seers, who currently range in age from 38 to 31 — Marija, Vicka, Ivan, Mirjana, Ivanka, and Jakov — the apparitions of Gospa (as Our Lady is referred to in their native language) are ongoing to this day; 21 years of nonstop messages from Mary, with no end in sight. As one priest who requested anonymity observed, “The Mother of God sounds like a Chatty Cathy doll.” 
Marija, Vicka and Ivan report daily visions from Mary, while others claim to see her at regular intervals; to Mirjana, Our Lady comes on the second of each month and on March 18, Mirjana’s birthday; to Ivanka, on June 25; and to Jakov, on Christmas Day.
The visionaries have received more than 30,000 visits from Mary.
A log of the messages is posted on Medjugorje Web. Here are the latest messages:
July 25, 2009 Medjugorje message of Our Lady to Marija: “Dear Children! May this time be a time of prayer for you. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
Our Lady Queen of Peace of Medjugorje’s August 2, 2009 Message To Mirjana Soldso Given on the Day for Non-Believers: “Dear Children, I am coming, with my Motherly love, to point out the way by which you are to set out, in order that you may be all the more like my Son; and by that, closer to and more pleasing to God. Do not refuse my love. Do not renounce salvation and eternal life for the sake of transience and frivolity of this life. I am coming to lead you and, as a mother, to caution you. Come with me.”
In 1984 Vlasic wrote to Pope John Paul II to say that he was the one “who through divine providence guides the seers of Medjugorje.”
Retired Bishop Pavao Zanic of Mostar-Duvno did not believe the claims of the visionaries and accused Vlasic of creating the phenomenon. The current head of the diocese, Bishop Ratko Peric, said the church “has not accepted, either as supernatural or as Marian, any of the apparitions.”
“As the local bishop, I maintain that regarding the events of Medjugorje, on the basis of the investigations and experience gained thus far throughout these last 25 years, the church has not confirmed a single apparition as authentically being the Madonna,” he said. He then called on the alleged visionaries and “those persons behind the messages to demonstrate ecclesiastical obedience and to cease with these public manifestations and messages in this parish.”
“In this fashion they shall show their necessary adherence to the church, by placing neither private apparitions nor private sayings before the official position of the church,” he said. “Our faith is a serious matter,” he added. “The church is also a serious and responsible institution.”
November 1523: Inquisitor Mariana in Belmonte, Spain orders the punishment of a woman, Francisca la Brava, who claimed she spoke with Our Lady and received tokens from her.
“It is true that I saw Her,” Francisca la Brava said, “and it happened this way;” I got out of bed to urinate, and as it was at night and dark I could not find the door, and so I said, “Help me Our Lady” and “Why can’t I find this door?” And that Our Lady replied saying, “She is helping you,” and “I am Our Lady who sustains you on the face of the earth.” And that She put Her arm on my neck, and as I was naked, Our Lady put the skirt of her dress over my belly and said, “Do not fear, daughter.”
And Francisca la Brava said to her, “Protect me, Our Lady, if it is a devil who has come to deceive me,” and She repeated, “Do not fear, for I am Our Lady.” And Francisca said to Her, “Mother of God, they will not believe that it is you, even though I say I have seen you.” And Our Lady told her, “Then take this candle and a piece of silk and a magnet.”
Five weeks after the alleged apparitions the Inquisitor rendered a decision: “By rights we could have treated her more rigorously, for the above matter was very public and scandalous for the Christian faithful, since she attracted them and induced them to believe in what she said and made known, when it was all vanity and frivolity.”
“But in deference to certain just reasons that move us to mitigate the rigor of the sentence we decree as a punishment to Francisca la Brava and an example to others not to attempt similar things that we condemn her to be put on an ass and given one hundred lashes in public through the accustomed streets of Belmonte naked from the waist up. And that from now on she not say or affirm in public or secretly by word or insinuation the things she said in her confessions or else she will be prosecuted as an impenitent and one who does not believe in or agree with what is in our holy Catholic faith.” 
Frank McCourt, a former New York City schoolteacher who turned his miserable childhood in Limerick, Ireland, into a phenomenally popular, Pulitzer prize -winning memoir, Angela’s Ashes, died on Sunday, July 19, 2009. He was 78 and lived in Manhattan and Roxbury, Conn. 
“When I look back on my childhood,” McCourt said in Angela’s Ashes, “I wonder how I survived it at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”
The book’s hilarious and irreverent chapter on Mr. McCourt’s preparation for First Communion is reminicent of pre-Vatican II lessons on both sides of the pond.
“He tells us we have to know the catechism backwards and forwards,” Mr. McCourt writes. “We have to know the Ten Commandments, Divine and Moral, the Seven Sacraments, the Seven Deadly Sins. We have to know by heart all the prayers, the Hail Mary, the Our Father, the Confiteor, the Apostles’ Creed, the Act of Contrition, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary…He tells us we’re hopeless, the worst class he’s ever had for First Communion, but as sure as God made little apples he’ll make Catholics of us, he’ll beat the idler out of us and Sanctifying Grace into us.”
The day for First Communion finally arrives. He’s late to church.
“We ran to the church. My mother panted along behind with Michael in her arms. We arrived at the church just in time to see the last of the boys leaving the altar rail where the priest stood with the chalice and the host, glaring at me. Then he placed on my tongue the wafer, the body and blood of Jesus. At last, at last.”
“It’ s on my tongue. I draw it back.”
“It stuck.”
“I had God glued to the roof of my mouth. I could hear the master’s voice. Don’t let that host touch your teeth for it you bite God in two you’ll roast in hell for eternity.”
“I tried to get God down with my tongue but the priest hissed at me, Stop that clucking and get back to your seat.”
“God was good. He melted and I swallowed Him and now, at last, I was a member of the True Church, an official sinner.”
In fact, Frank McCourt ended up to be one of the Church’s principal public antagonists. He delighted in delivering bawdy riffs against what he saw as the church’s hypocrisy, cruelty and joylessness. “I was so angry for so long, I could hardly have a conversation without getting into an argument,” he once said.
Peter Quinn, the novelist and a practicing Catholic, wrote in an email that his friend was neither “contemptuous of believers in general nor Catholics in particular. On a trip we took together in 1998, he went to Mass with me on the Sunday morning that we landed. He respected the fact that I had reached my own peace with the Catholic Church. ‘It’s a good thing,’ he once told me, ‘that you’re raising your kids in the Catholic faith. At least they’ll have a map to follow or throw away. In either case, they’ll know where they are.’”
Mr. McCourt felt it was impossible to fully divorce himself from the church. So when he stood before Pope John Paul II in 2002, accompanying a delegation of 40 mayors from around the world, the little Irish Catholic boy in him took over. He knelt, took the pope’s hand, and kissed his ring.
“I got up and he’s looking at me with his dazzling blue Polish eyes and extraordinary complexion,” Mr. McCourt told the Commonwealth Club of California, “I had a feeling he knew. He knew what a fraud and phony I was. Then I walked away. And I have to admit, as turbulent as my relationship with the church has been (although they don’t know and they don’t care), I was walking on water practically. I was walking on air.”
