Really??? Pope unleashes 'super confessors' to tackle special sins - Yahoo News
By Ella Ide
Vatican City (AFP) - Dubbed 'super confessors', for one year only they can absolve sins usually only pardoned by the pope himself.
And on Wednesday over 1,000 of these "missionaries of mercy", handpicked by Pope Francis, were sent forth to win back the hearts of those who have left the Catholic Church and open the door to repentant sinners across the world.
There are certain evils the Vatican ranks above other sins, from attempting to assassinate the pope to defiling the Eucharist -- the rite of consuming consecrated bread and wine in Church -- by spitting it out or using it in a Satanic ritual.
Since the 12th century, those guilty of these so-called "reserved sins" had their cases evaluated by a secret tribunal in the tiny Vatican city state before they were sent before the pope, who would determine an appropriate penance.
Now, 1,142 priests and monks from around the world have be given the power, for the Vatican's Jubilee Year, to forgive sinners in their flocks -- and possibly fellow priests as one of the special sins is breaking the seal of confession.
Maltese Franciscan Marcello Ghirlando, 53, told AFP he thought giving the 'super confessors' authority usually reserved for the man in white was "a symbolic gesture" to show people the Church is ready to wipe slates clean.
"I think the pope wants to insist that 'listen, God is always going to forgive us if we turn to him with a clean heart, with a repentant heart'," he said with a grin, adding that he was relishing the challenge of bringing people back to church.
Pope Francis has repeatedly warned priests not to turn off potential believers by being boring, inaccessible or overly intrusive, and on Tuesday he told the missionaries they should take a "maternal" approach to sinners.
"Remember, you are not dealing with sin but a repentant sinner, a sinner who wants to change but can't," he said, telling them to "cover the sinner with a blanket of mercy, so that he is no longer ashamed and can rediscover joy."
- 'Spiritual, social revolution' -
Some of the super confessors are already thinking outside the box. One missionary is off to the Canadian Arctic to hear Eskimo confessions, another will tour Australia in a camper, whilst others are packing their bags for Burundi, China and Lebanon.
Vatican watcher John L. Allen, writing for the Cruxnow website, said the pontiff was hoping the missionaries would carry with them his messages on key social issues, from tackling climate change to opening doors to refugees.
"As the 'Pope of Mercy' sees it, this jubilee year isn't just a series of celebrations and events intended to foster deeper piety, however desirable that may be. The far more audacious aim is to launch a revolution -- spiritual at its core, but with imminent social and even political consequences," he said.
American priest Joseph Hlubik, 62, who was meeting up with the other missionaries ahead of talks with the pope, said he hoped that those who have left the Church in recent years "see this as an opportunity to come back".
"People who thought they were outside of the grace of God for one reason or another. Let them find us approachable and understanding," he said, holding his wide-brimmed black hat on in the wind.
Priest Mana Thembalethu from South Africa, 39, said the confessors would be forgiving those who take part in abortions -- but warned "we're not saying abortion is cool, everybody must do it. It still remains a sin".
And 49-year-old Xavier Lefebvre, a Paris-based priest, shrugged off the label "super confessor", saying anyone who takes confession should be super, or they are not doing their job right -- a sentiment shared by Francis.
"Let those who do not feel up to it have the humility to say: 'No, I'll celebrate Mass, I'll clean the floor, I'll do everything but not confess, because I do not know how to do it well'," the pope said.
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We have a Deal! Jesuits Jubilantly Proclaim Climate Agreement
By Pastor Hal Mayer
Jesuits in Britain exuberantly proclaimed the news that a deal had been reached in Paris at the climate change summit, where 195 nations signed a new agreement struck December 11.
Quoting from the Jesuits in Britain website… “A friend of mine who works for DECC (Department for Energy and Climate) really couldn’t contain herself… She spoke of how difficult the negotiations were, how her boss, who had spent his entire career aiming to get to this point, had spent many sleepless nights with representatives from all over the world negotiating language, nuances, square brackets, terms and conditions. Crafting a document of 31 pages (sans square brackets) with terms that could mean exactly the same for capitalist western governments, as they would to communist South American ones.”
With the involvement of the first Jesuit Pope pushing hard for a climate change agreement, and at least one Jesuit website proclaiming “we have a deal,” the odds are becoming pretty strong that the Jesuits are behind the climate deal in Paris.
Keep in mind that the climate change deal is a global agreement in which Pope Francis fully engaged himself in promoting through his encyclical, “Laudato Si,” at a Vatican invitational to approximately 60 big-city mayors, with public statements, such as one just before the opening of the Paris conference in which he said that it would be “catastrophic” if a deal wasn’t reached, and by visits and phone calls with presidents, prime ministers and other official dignitaries, some, apparently, during the Paris conference itself. He was full-on in his office as pope and with his experience as a Jesuit to accomplish the first global agreement on climate change.
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, echoing the pope said, “We have never faced such a test. Political momentum like this may not come again… you have the power to secure the well-being of this and succeeding generations. The time for brinkmanship is over.” He further described COP21 as “a pivotal moment for your countries, your people and our common home, your planet. Let me be clear,” he said, “the fate of the Paris agreement rests with you. The future of our planet is in your hands, we cannot afford indecision… You have the moral and political responsibility for this world… history is calling, I urge you to answer with courage and vision.”
Those grand-sounding words were designed to encourage a deal in response to the papal moral leadership, in which the developed nations would redistribute wealth in terms of billions of dollars through a fund at the UN to support developing countries in decarbonization.
Why are Pope Francis and the Jesuits so involved in the climate change summit? It is because the pope sees the global agreement as his chance to legitimize the Vatican as the guide of the new world order. The agreement is the first truly global achievement in the 21st century. And since the Vatican was at the core of it, with the pope taking a leading role in guiding it into existence, the Papacy stands to gain a pre-eminent position of global influence.
Even though the Jesuits admit that there are limitations and faults in the agreement, it is nevertheless, the first of its kind and will lead to others, for which they are jubilant. It was clearly papal influence negotiating, demanding, and cajoling the nations, that provided the tipping point for the Paris agreement.
President Obama claimed credit for the United States in negotiating the agreement, having shuttled his secretary of State John Kerry between China, India and other “climate offensive” nations for the last year, by signing a climate deal to limit greenhouse gasses with China, and by adding substantially stronger carbon emissions goals for U.S. coal plants through the Environmental Protection Agency. And though it is true that the United States played a key role, it could not have been done without the Vatican’s powerful influence. The two worked together just as the Bible predicted to achieve a climate deal.
The climate change is the first global supranational agreement. All nations that signed it, must give up some of their sovereignty in doing so. That is a crucial point. They must transfer some of their power to the United Nations in doing so. The controlling political power is the United Nations, which the Vatican views as inferior to itself. The Vatican is using the United Nations and the United States as its political tools in laying the foundation for its ultimate goal, of which the climate agreement is the foundation – a universal law linking the environment (or creation) to worship on the only day that Rome promotes for worship – Sunday. Keep in mind that the pope’s influential encyclical “Laudato Si” stresses Sunday worship as an important element in protecting the climate, even alluding to a law of Sunday rest for the environment. The Jesuit pope is clearly now leading the new world order from behind the scenes.
“Under various disguises the Jesuits worked their way into offices of state, climbing up to be the counselors of kings, and shaping the policy of nations.” The Great Controversy, page 235
The Jesuits are shaping the policies of nations all over the world through the climate deal?
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