News Item: : The Genuine Care of Souls
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Tuesday 17 January 2017 - 21:38:56

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Because the soul of St. Pio of Pietrelcina was such a pure dwelling place for the Most Holy Trinity, he had a genuine hatred of evil and of sin. His love for God inspired and motivated him in his great mission for the salvation and sanctification of souls in the Confessional.

As the 20th-Century progressed - perhaps in this context it would be more accurate to say regressed - St. Pio became increasingly troubled by the breakdown of marriage and family life. He famously stated that ''divorce is the passport to Hell''.

To strengthen marriage and family life, St. Pio called on married couples and their children to take the Holy Family for their model: ''Following the laws of nature, the first words a baby speaks are mama and papa, then the names of Jesus and Mary should follow.''

Whenever it was the best approach for a particular given soul, St. Pio could be very gentle with penitents in the Confessional. As a true doctor of souls, he was guided by the Holy Ghost in discerning and applying which was the correct spiritual and practical medicine for each person.

This meant that, when it was warranted, he could also be stern to the point of being harsh with insincere penitents and unrepentant sinners.

Sometimes, St. Pio would refuse to give absolution to a person on one or even more occasions. If this happened, it was always done with the long-term aim of bringing that person to a sincere conversion and an integral confession.

In relation to this practice, St. Pio once explained to a confrere: ''My son, to rouse certain souls you need cannon-balls. Treating them with gentleness is a waste of time. They need to feel God's anger when the strength of His mercy is not enough.'' Another time, he reflected on the fact that sinners ''need to be called to conversion, to penance! And when the good manners are no use, you need to be strict to wake them up from the lethargy of sin and vice.'' As at least one of his letters makes clear, St. Pio was not always particularly happy about having to speak to some people harshly, but he did it for the sake of their eternal well-being.

It must be remembered, too, that St. Pio was frequently blessed with the ability to read souls; and he could thus tell penitents what their own sins were. When someone loves God so much, it must be distressing to see the state of an unrepentant sinner's soul as they damn themselves still more with insincere confessions. 

A famous example of all of this is presented by the case of the gangster who had only gone to Gargano in order to murder his wife, so that he could thus elope with another woman!

What this gangster had not banked on, whilst still in the planning stages of his evil crime, was being drawn by grace to kneel at the grille of St. Pio's Confessional. As he approached, St. Pio saw the state of his soul and suddenly shouted, ''Go away! Go away! Go away! Don't you know that it is forbidden to kill somebody?'' That man was so shocked that he ran away through the countryside, tripped over a rock into some mud and suddenly acknowledged in his heart all of the horrors of his life of sin.

Tormented in his soul, the troubled gangster returned to the friary. This time, he was received with great kindness by St. Pio, who then listed all the sins of the man's life to him in incredible detail! When the amazed man subsequently repented of these various sins, and received sacramental Absolution, St. Pio promised that, if he did not offend God anymore, he would be blessed with a child. One year later, the man returned as the happy father of a new-born child; a baby that had been born from the wife that he had earlier been planning to murder!

There are many examples of St. Pio's dealings with souls in the areas of chastity and Holy Matrimony. Let us focus on just two for today.

The first relates to the time when a young married woman came for Confession and Absolution in 1962. St. Pio instructed her to enclose herself in the silence of prayer, in order to save her marriage. As her home-life seemed so smooth at that time, she was greatly surprised by this spiritual counsel. Nevertheless, she followed the saint's instructions. When a storm did subsequently break in her marriage, this young lady was well prepared by the interior life that she had cultivated in the Lord. With God as her rock and strength, she was thus able to save her family from a sure break-up. 

Another time, a man who was esteemed and admired as a good Catholic came to the Franciscan friary. In reality, however, this fellow had neglected his wife and was at that time attempting to compensate for his loneliness by the grave sin of adultery with another woman. When he entered St. Pio's confessional and began to speak of a ''spiritual crisis'' that he was going through, St. Pio suddenly stood up and shouted: ''What spiritual crisis? You are a vile pig! And God is angry with you! Go away!''

As we noted above, such an approach was employed by St. Pio when this would prove the most effective means to bring about a sincere repentance and conversion in a hard-hearted person's soul. 

What was this, if not a genuine and effective pastoral practice for the salvation and sanctification of souls?

Sadly, there are too many Modernist prelates and priests who have emptied words of their objective meaning. This is most troubling in the case of words that once had a valid place in the pastoral care of souls. I think, for example, of terms such as accompaniment, dialogue, openness and mercy. After decades of misuse, these words have been effectively emptied of their real content, to become merely empty slogans of a corporate-style Nu-Church. They have become a cover for those who want to advance grave sin and widespread acquiescance with grave sin.

It is impossible, at this point, not to think again of that dire set of ''Criteria for the application of Amoris Laetitia'' that has been so scandalously put out by Archbishop Scicluna of Malta and Bishop Mario Grech of Gozo.
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Who's on First? No, not Abbott and Costello, but Scicluna and Grech! They would like to accompany souls somewhere. Judging by the scandalous and heretical document they've just issued, theirs is an offer you'd do well to refuse...

As we have already discussed, theirs is a document which is at once blasphemous, sacrilegious and heretical.

It offends God, goes against Sacred Scripture and Tradition, sunders the unity of the Church, subverts the sacraments of Holy Matrimony, Holy Confession and Holy Communion, and leads souls into error, impenitence and grave sacrilege. Unchecked, it will lead countless souls into the eternal fires of damnation in Hell.

And yet, in the face of genuine criticism from respected Catholics like Fr. Brian Harrison and Dr. Ed Peters, as well as countless concerned priests and laity on the internet, Archbishop Scicluna remains unmoved.

Indeed, as the top headline at Canon 212 relays this evening, Scicluna has had the temerity to say to The Times of Malta: ''I am saddened by the reactions from certain quarters and invite priests who may have concerns to come forward and discuss them directly with us because we want to be a service to our people.''

Scicluna also claims that his document urges priests to avoid, what he calls, the extremes of laissez-faire and rigidity.

Well, I do hope that the priests of Malta and Gozo, as well as the faithful laity, resist this evil document with all of their Catholic will and might.

For cutting right through Scicluna's deceptively sweet doggerel is the objective fact that a person cannot be married and at the same time not married to their spouse. And Christ's teaching on the evils of adultery is clear. Who do these bishops think they are to consider themselves more merciful than Our Divine Saviour? Clearly, some dark evil is at work. May Jesus protect us all with His Precious Blood from this grim travesty!

As a mere layman, I can only hope and pray with countless others, that Archbishop Scicluna and Bishop Mario Grech will soon destroy their sinful document and make a sincere public act of repentance for their public promotion of adultery, sacrilege and heresy.

Sad to relate, but these men must also go to Confession for these very public sins. Let us pray that they will find a confessor who, in his administration of the Sacraments, is more akin to St. Pio than to the scandalous approach they have employed hitherto.

If you get chance, do have a read of Fr. Brian Harrison's articulate piece, called The Maltese Falcons, over at 1 Peter 5.

St. Pio - Pray for us!



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