en.newsThe problem with the Vatican Nativity Scene's controversial featuring of the seven corporal works of mercy is not nudity but bad theology, writes Father Dwight Longenecker.
On his blog (December 17), Longenecker criticises the idea that we can earn heaven with good works. The Vatican Nativity Scene worries him "because it is placing good works front and center rather than the Incarnation.” This way, the religion of grace is substituted by a "religion of works".
Longenecker writes that "they [the Vatican] don’t believe any longer in the need for redemption and salvation.” And, “They think everyone will go to heaven in the end.”
ROME, December 20, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican Nativity scene featuring a naked man, a corpse, and no sheep or oxen is the artistic offering of an abbey which is the focus of Italian LGBT activists, it has emerged.
Enquiries by LifeSiteNews have revealed that the Abbey of Montevergine, which donated the innovative ‘Nativity of Mercy,’ houses the Marian image that has been adopted as patroness by LGBT activists in Italy. The abbey shrine is the annual destination of a sort of sacred and profane “ancestral gay pride” pilgrimage which, according to one LGBT activist, in recent years has gained the “active, political participation of the LGBT community.”
An official of the Vatican’s Governorate has told LifeSiteNews that the abbey of Montevergine initially proposed the original idea for the ‘Nativity of Mercy.’ The Vatican discussed and developed a more detailed design with the abbey, then submitted final plans to the Secretary of State and Pope Francis for approval, which was duly granted.
Clothe the naked figure - a very buff body of one who heavily exercises each day.
Diane Montagna / LifeSiteNews
“The presence of the Vatican Nativity Scene for us is a reason to be even happier this year,” Antonello Sannini, president of homosexual activist group Arcigay Naples, told LifeSiteNews on Tuesday. “For the homosexual and transsexual community in Naples, it is an important symbol of inclusion and integration.”
Emma Bonino
Fury over the Christmas crèche
The Christmas crèche fury blew up on Twitter last week, when photos of a virtually nude male figure representing the corporal work of mercy ‘to clothe the naked’ made the rounds on social media, sparking sharp criticism and debate.
Viewers lamented the figure’s “prominent placement and languid pose,” according to Breitbart, which reported that the figure’s pose “led many on social media to suggest that there is a vaguely homoerotic tone to the scene.”
Facebook, adding to the fury, rejected the photo referencing its policy against “sexually suggestive or provocative” images.
One observer remarked, regarding the poor man in need of clothes: “I’ve worked with a personal trainer. That guy’s been in the gym two hours a day, six days a week.”
“This horrendous exhibit is a sacrilegious, highly deceitful and malevolent attempt to turn the holy innocence of the manger in St. Peter’s Square into a lobbying tool for the homosexual rights movement, is just the latest fiendish act, but one that’s symptomatic of this entire pontificate,” one source close to the Vatican told LifeSiteNews.
Meanwhile, the Neapolitan artist who crafted the crèche, Antonio Cantone, appeared to suggest that he intended it to be provocative.
“It is not a camp nativity; it is particular and makes you think,” he said. “It leaves no one indifferent; there are provocations.”
Enter a Marian Icon
This year’s Christmas crèche also features a reproduction of the ancient and beautiful icon of Our Lady of Montevergine. The original icon, housed in a chapel of the mountain shrine, measures 12 feet high and six feet wide, and depicts the Blessed Virgin seated on a throne with the divine Infant Jesus seated on her lap.
The Marian image is dark, and so the icon is often referred to as one of the “Black Madonnas.” Among local Italians, her dark complexion made them believe she was part of the serving class and so she came to be affectionately known by the faithful as “Mamma Schiavano” or “Slave Mama.”
Each year, Our Lady of Montevergine is honored through two pilgrimages to her mountain shrine: one on February 2, the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Candlemas; and the second on September 12, the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, which is preceded by a three-day festival.
On the night before the feast pilgrims are hosted by Ospedaletto d’Alpinolo, the nearest town to the abbey, before making the “sagliuta” or “juta” (from the Italian “salire,” i.e. ascent) on foot to the shrine of Our Lady of Montevergine early the next morning. The three-day celebration is a mix of sacred and profane, and features dances and songs accompanied by large tambourines.
The “juta dei femminielli”
Our Lady of Montevergine has a particular significance for homosexuals and transgenders in Italy. According to a legend, Our Lady of Montevergine saved two homosexuals from death in the winter of 1256. The couple had been beaten and driven by night from their city and brought to the mountain where they were tied to a tree and left to die of the cold or be eaten by wolves. According to the legend, Our Lady of Montevergine had pity on them and ‘miraculously’ freed them. In 2017, La Repubblicacalled it “the progressive miracle of a gay friendly Madonna.”
More commonly, she is known as the mother “who grants everything and forgives everything.”
Strange, tortured looking tiny angels and Mary with ominous looking hands gesticulating toward the tied up, not yet unwrapped baby Jesus
The “juta dei femminielli” [ascent of the femminielli] is therefore held each year on Candlemas Day to recall the legend through song and dance. Femminielli is a term used to refer to a population of homosexual males with markedly feminine gender expression in traditional Neapolitan culture.
The LGBT community also looks to Our Lady of Montevergine because she sits on the ancient temple site where the pagan goddess Cybele was once worshiped. In a 2014 article entitled “the procession of the femminielli,” La Repubblica noted that the eunuch priests of Cybele ritually castrated themselves “to offer their sex as a gift to their goddess in order to be reborn with a new identity.”
Antonello Sannino, the president of Arcigay Naples, told LifeSite that the “juta dei femminielli” involves a “mix of the sacred and profane.” Admitting his own distance from the Church, Sannino said “there is a strong popular devotion among believers” but for others represents entrusting oneself to a non-Christian divinity.
The annual Candlemas pilgrimage is a kind of “ancestral gay pride,” he said, and has been a “way to welcome into the culture of the city [of Naples], the figure of the femminiello which is disruptive in a binary ‘masculine-feminine’ society.”
Montevergine politicized
In 2002, the pilgrimage made the papers when the then abbot of Montevergine, Tarcisio Nazzaro, expressed his displeasure at the presence of the Neapolitan ‘femminielli.’
According to La Repubblica, during Holy Mass, Nazzaro told them: “Your prayers aren’t prayers but a clamor that Our Lady is not pleased with and so does not welcome. You are like the merchants that filled the temple until Jesus threw them out.” Allegedly, he later confided to the Sacristan: “I don’t have anything against anyone and I didn’t wish to offend anyone, much less these individual faithful. But what’s too much is too much. We need a little respect for the sacred place, and the dignity of the shrine has to be preserved.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in paragraphs 2358-2359, that although homosexual inclinations are “objectively disordered,” men and women who suffer this trial “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” and “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” but like all Christians they are “called to chastity” and to Christian perfection.
Burying the dead
Diane Montagna / LifeSiteNews
Sannino didn’t berate the abbot but thought the presence at the abbey in 2002 of Vladimir Luxuria, Italy’s first transsexual parliamentarian, precipitated the dispute. “It was too political in 2002,” he said.
That incident galvanized the LGBT movement, Ottavia Voza, president of Arcigay Salerno, told LifeSite. Another minor incident followed in 2010, but the “active, political participation of the LGBT community” began after the dispute in 2002.
A new abbot and a new approach
The horrified man burying the dead
In September 2014 under Pope Francis, a new abbot of Montevergine was elected, Dom Riccardo Luca Guariglia. Earlier that year, Luxuria wrote a letter to Pope Francis on behalf of the LGBT community, and publicly presented it at the Candlemas pilgrimage at the Shrine of Montevergine. No one is aware of a response to that letter. An English translation can be read here.
In 2017, leaders of the LGBT community also met Abbot Guariglia. Voza said the relations are now “excellent” and this year they “had an opportunity for dialogue with the abbot.” Voza told LifeSite that Vladimir Luxuria was there and the abbot “stopped to speak with us.” It wasn’t a private meeting but “in essence, he gave us his blessing,” Voza continued, adding that the incident in 2002 “was completely overcome.”
The naked man dominates the scene from this angle.
“He welcomed us,” Voza said, “and understood the importance of the presence of the community.”
Matters intensified politically in 2017 when LGBT activists inaugurated Italy’s first ever “no gender” bathroom in Ospedaletto d’Alpinolo during the February 2 pilgrimage, and a civilly ‘married’ homosexual couple was given honorary citizenship by Ospedaletto d’Alpinolo’s civic authorities. Together with the LGBT activists, the civil authorities also unveiled a plaque at the entrance of the town, reading “Ospedaletto d’Alpinolo is against homotransphobia and gender violence.”
Once again, from the other side, the Holy Family is lost with all the other activity distracting viewers attention.
At the ceremony, Vladimir Luxuria said the small town of Ospedaletto d’Alpinolo should serve as a model for the rest of Italy.
Abbot Guariglia was interviewed about the ‘juta dei femminielli’ in 2017, saying: “St. Benedict tells us that guests are to be welcomed as Christ himself” and the abbey has “this peculiarity, that of being welcoming every type of pilgrim who comes to the shrine, first, to give homage or to entrust themselves to the Mother of God, and then also to celebrate the Sacraments.”
Descent into neo-paganism
Sannino welcomed the Vatican Nativity Scene, saying he believes it is an “important symbol of inclusion and integration,” but whether it signifies greater openness by the Church depends on “how conscious” Vatican officials were of the connection with LGBT activists in making the decision. “We hope that the Church will finally develop a real sense of openness in the wake of the Pope’s words,” he said, referring to Francis’ “Who am I to judge?” comment. “The Church is extremely slow in its transformations,” he believes, and is fairly confident “this will also happen.”
But people in Rome are wondering how Pope Francis will respond. As in past years, Pope Francis is expected to spend time before the crèche in silent prayer on December 31 after Vespers and the chanting of the Te Deum prayer of thanksgiving in St. Peter’s Basilica. The concern is that the optics of his silent prayer before the icon of Montevergine and the naked man, positioned on either side of the Nativity Scene, will send a signal, or be used by the more politically motivated in the LGBT community, to push their agenda.
A strange man
Officially, the Vatican isn’t commenting on the Nativity scene, so it’s unclear how aware those who made the decisions are of its connections to Montevergine abbey and its associations with Italy’s LGBT activists. LifeSite contacted Vatican spokesman Greg Burke but he declined to answer.
Italian Church historian Roberto de Mattei of the Lepanto Foundation sees this as the latest attempt to “paganize Italy and Europe” through indirect means, in what he calls “soft neo-paganization.”
A strange angel
This involves choosing places of Christian worship “to return them to their pagan origins,” De Mattei explained, sending Christianity back into the age of catacombs where it was persecuted by the pagans. The LGBT movement is not only political or cultural but a “religious movement” with pagan characteristics, he added. “This should not surprise us, because sex was also at the center of many pagan cults,” De Mattei said. “This therefore portends a new neo-pagan persecution of those who remain faithful to Catholicism.”
De Mattei noted that next year marks 50 years since the cultural, or sexual, revolution of 1968, and he believes it is now being “transformed into a religious revolution” where sex is still at the center, but being “transformed into a divinity intended to replace Christianity.”
en.news Italy has legalised euthanasia on December 14. According to the new law Italians can write “living wills” and refuse medical treatment including hydration and nutrition. Hospitals and doctors will be forced to collaborate.
In November, Pope Francis said to the Pontifical Academy for Life, that people may refuse life-prolonging medical treatment without excluding hydration and nutrition. According to La Repubblica Francis’ speech was necessary “to overthrow the last resistance of some Catholics and to convince at least a group of them to give their consent” to the law.
The Italian Bishops conference did not speak out against the law.
Bergoglio Respects Those Who Commit Suicide On Heaven and Earth, pp. 92-93: “There was a time when they did not perform funerals for those that committed suicide because they had not continued on towards the goal; they ended the path when they wanted to. But I still respect the one who commits suicide; he is a person who could not overcome the contradictions in his life. I do not reject him.” Bergoglio 6 February 2016: I remember the death of a priest friend. He was an apostle, a man of God. But he had been in a coma for a long time, a long time.... The doctors were saying: “we don’t know how he is still managing to breathe”. Another priest friend came in, approached him and spoke to him. He heard him. “Let the Lord take you. Let yourself go forward. Have faith, trust in the Lord”. And with these words, he let himself go in peace. Bergoglio quoting Primo Mazzolari: "I love Judas too, he is my brother Judas."
Accenture defines itself as “a proud leader in supporting the LGBT community”. One wonders if the Vatican considers itself part of it. According to the ‘Global Diversity List’ the company is among the “top 10 LGBT employee networks”. It also sponsors many events promoting gay ideology.
The prefect of Vatican Communications, Monsignor Dario Viganò, tried to justify himself by calling the software he purchases from Accenture as “agnostic”, however, the Vatican money still goes to a company that actively promotes mortal sin. All this, the Vatican calls “reform”.
MADISON, Wisconsin, December 18, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – In a letter addressed to the diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, Bishop Robert C. Morlino asks Catholics to combat the evil encroaching upon our world by enlisting the aid of St. Michael the Archangel.
“I hope that I do not need to make the case for the reality of the presence of evil in our world. My sense, from talking to people, from watching and reading the news, and from seeing the interaction of people -- particularly on social media -- is that almost everyone is aware that there is something very wrong in the world,” said the Madison Bishop in his letter.
“What seems not to be clear to people is exactly what it is that is wrong with our world,” he continued. “I know that it’s very much out of fashion, but I am proposing that what is wrong, is the very same thing that has been wrong for millennia: sin.”
Bishop Morlino has asked for particular petitions “to be added into the General Intercessions at all Sunday and Solemnity Masses, and for the petitions to be offered always to the Father and through the Son, but also with a particular prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, who in Scripture is called ‘the great prince,’ and ‘guardian of [God’s] people (Daniel 12:1). And who, through Scripture, we see as the great warrior angel who defeats Satan himself and drives him into hell.”
“It is our duty to pray and to work for the triumph of good in our world, for the triumph of Christ the King,” said Bishop Morlino. “It is our duty to pray and to work for the casting out of evil, and for the binding and casting of the one who is called the enemy of our human nature and the father of lies, so that all that is not of God might be defeated.”
Personal Devotion to the Great Warrior, St. Michael
Madison’s Bishop has asked not only for the inclusion of the prayer to St. Michael at Sunday Masses, but in the daily prayer lives of all the faithful.
“I would encourage that through your own prayer, too, you make certain to include the intentions for the casting out of evil in our own lives, and rely more frequently upon the heavenly intercession of St. Michael the Archangel.”
More Reverence: Bishop Morlino Implored Diocese to Receive Communion on the tongue, While Kneeling
“I’m going to ask that we move together towards greater reverence when receiving Holy Communion. I’m going to ask that people be encouraged to receive Communion on the tongue and kneeling,” he said during his April 11 Chrism Mass homily.
“There is no question that Communion on the tongue is more reverent. And it doesn’t lend itself to a casual kind of behavior. I’m going to ask, beginning in the Fall, that our students are taught to receive Communion on the tongue,” he added.
The Vatican communications, chaired by Bishop Viganó, selects Accenture to develop Vatican News, its new communications system. The company is defined as “especially committed to the LGBT community”. On its website for Spain, the corporation has a specific section of "LGBT", in which they detail the measures taken to be more "inclusive".
Culpable Silence: Last week the Italian parliament approved a law introducing assisted suicide accompanied by the total silence of Pope Francis and almost all of the Italian bishops. One of the most virulent proponents of the unjust law was Emma Bonino, a former abortionist who has been for many decades a diabolical presence in Italian politics. Pope Francis produced an Italy wide scandal when in February 2016 he called her – quote – “one of the big ones in today’s Italy”. When the law was passed Bonino, sitting in the Italian Senate, was shedding tears of joy.
