Posted on 03/13/2007 at 08:57:58  |  Reply  |  Report Abuse |  0

Here is a question for which I still have no answer.
I hope you will help.
How can the muslim community be guided by God when islam does not recognize the Holy Spirit and therefore muslims do not pray Him?
Why is it that,it seems to me, at least in ancient times, some Catholics regarded islam as a demonic religion?
Await your news
Cheers
Guido

Posted on 03/11/2007 at 04:34:38  |  Reply  |  Report Abuse |  0

I hear the Catholic hierarchy pin a lot of hopes on Latin America, supposedly the most Catholic place on earth.
But when I look at it, I get shivers down my spine.
Mexico for centuries had free-masonry governments, although the people seem to have been profound in their Catholic belief.
Lately, they have had the first Catholic President for ages, Vicente Fox, who betrayed all his electoral promises.
Central America is just anybody's guess.
My father worked in El Salvador and the tales he brought back home of corruption and immorality were amazing.
Venezuela has a leftist President, a friend of Fidel Castro's.
Colombia is the birthplace of cocaine ; 90 % of the land is in the hands of 1 % of the population, half of the country is in the hands of the leftist guerrillas, financed by the drug, and recently I saw what happens in the emerald mines of that country: the owner had a house like Bill Gates' and the workers had just enough to eat.
Peru and Ecuador I don't know very well, although i know conditions are so bad that everyone there is trying to emigrate.
Chile still has plenty of nostalgics of the Pinochet regime.
Argentina was so hopeful of the Monetary Fund's policies that instead of becoming the richest country in the continent went down to become the home of the starving.
Brazil is supposed to be the most Catholic of them all, although I hear that the main concerns in a Brazilian's mind are football and body-care. They too have a socialist atheist leader, Lula,
Paraguay is just coming out of the terrible Stroessner dictatorship during which civil rights were just anybody's guess.
Bolivia is just too funny: right now they have an indigenous President who promises to work (at long last) for the illiterate poor. Will he succeed?
I find it very weird that anybody could bet on Latin America for a return of Catholicism to the front of the scene.
Cheers
Guido

Posted on 03/07/2007 at 10:17:04  |  Reply  |  Report Abuse |  0

It seems to me that the secular society is becoming more and more "sinful".
You only have to listen to politiciansw' arguments just before an election to see that there is absolutely nothing, at least in Europe, in their programmes that is close enopugh to what God would like to see.
Just now in France 2.000 doctors have signed a petition for legalization of euthanasia, claiming that they have done it illegally anyway.
But I never here one single bishop defend God's interests.
Don't you think bishops are keeping too quiet?
There are also sins of omission, aren't there? . . .

Cheers
Guido

Posted on 03/06/2007 at 02:06:06  |  Report Abuse |  0

Here is the approximate translation of an Italian Website I found last night:

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MEDJUGORJE AND GARABANDAL

Those of Fatima have not been the only apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the Twentieth century: the Virgin, in fact, has appeared very many times in Medjugorje (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Garabandal (Spain) and in very many other places, especially in Europe.

Sure, the facts of Fatima, constituting one of the Marian apparitions of the past century officially approved by the Church, accomplices also some strangest “ coincidences”, have induced one devotion widely diffused in the world. But the messages entrusted to humanity by the Madonna in Medjugorje and Garabandal are equally interesting and, in a sure sense, complementary to those of Fatima (and to the Prophecies of the Popes by Saint Malachy) as far as the argument of the end of the world, and especially its “when”. We see, therefore, what these messages say.
* * *

THE MEDJUGORJE MESSAGE

In June 1981, six boys ( four females Ivanka, Mirjana, Vicka, Marija and two males: Ivan and the Jakov small) of the village of Medjugorje, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, were witnesses to the apparition of the Madonna close to the top of the Podbrdo, one small mountain in the center of Yugoslavia. In a series of apparitions, that still today continue even if with minor frequency (day 25 of every month), the Madonna sends to the world a message that can be condensed in five points : prayer of the heart, fast, reconciliation with God and the next one, conversion and peace.
In order to emphasize the seriousness of the situation and the urgency of its demands, the Virgin., in the course of time, has entrusted some of the seers 10 secrets that describe the events that will be taking place if humanity does not succeed in converting. Of six seers only three (Mirjana, Ivanka and Jakov) have received all the ten secrets. The others, until this moment, have received only nine. Mirjana would have asserted that, before a “visible Sign”, “three warnings” will be given to humanity . The warnings will be events on the Earth, and Mirjana will be witness. Three days before one of these warnings, it will inform a clergyman of its choice. The testimony of Mirjana will be a confirmation of the apparitions and will be an incentive for the conversion of the world. After these warnings, the visible sign will come for all humanity in the place of the apparitions in Medjugorje. The sign will be given like testimony of the apparitions and callback to the faith.
Always according to Mirjana, the ninth and tenth secret is serious . They are a Punishment for the sins of the world. The punishment is unavoidable because we cannot wait for conversion of the entire world. The Punishment can be reduced through prayer and penance. It cannot but suppressed. After the first Warning, the others will follow within a period of rather short time. People will have time for conversion. This time is a period of grace and conversion. After these warnings, the visible sign will come for all humanity in the place of the apparitions in Medjugorje.
All ten secrets are for the entire world. The first three secrets are three extreme warnings to the world like last possibility to be converted. The third secret (that it is also the third warning) will be a visible sign given on the hill of the apparitions in order to convert those who do not believe. The seven secrets will then follow, more serious, above all the last four. Vicka has cried receiving the ninth and Mirjana receiving the tenth one. The seers of Medjugorje say that, with the realization of the secrets given by Our Lady, life in the world will change: after that, men will believe like in ancient times.
The Madonna also has said to the boys that, when the apparitions stop in Medjugorje, the other ones will also finish, all in which Marian apparitions have been taking place. When this happens, the events described

Posted on 03/05/2007 at 08:55:56  |  Reply  |  Report Abuse |  0

Listen to this story.
I had quit my job in 86 and started my new life in a very famous French Gandhian community, where they never taught me one bit about Gandhi but made me work like a slave.
Then I met an architect near Toulouse and worked for him.
It was then that I received a letter from London, from Mrs. Mansfield (I had stayed at her place for two years in the 70's). She was asking me whether I could go up to Devon and help a freind of hers, a retired colonel of the British Army, because his leg had gone wrong and he couldn't take care of his little farm.
In those days, I wasn't practicing my faith all that much. I knew I wanted to give my life a spiritual turn, but all I did was pray the Spirit for guidance in my earthly life and sometimes say the Rosary.
I went to Devon hitch-hiking. When I got there the colonel said that he didn't need me anymore (which was not true). I said to him that I had had a difficult journey and that in any case I wanted to visit Mother Teresa's brothers (I'll tell you about it later) and I needed a place to spend the freezing English winter (it was October and it rained a lot).
He said that if I wanted to stay with him I would have had to renovate the barn, that he wouldn't either pay me not feed me. In those days I was very courageous so I accepted.
He only fed me breakfast.
With the little money I had I bought myself a big pack of wheat grains for chicken and little more. I would also collect the green apples that the neighbour left on the ground to rot.
The colonel's house was an ancient wartermill. The old miller had died of an accidental death. Then an engineer had bought the house and had died of an accidental death. His wife had had to have two hip operations and the colonel was in for a hip operation too.
While I was staying at the French architect's I had come across a book on Feng-shui, an ancient chinese art of arranging your home.
I had read that houses have memories and that what happens to one owner may happen to the next owner within a short time. Curiously enough, that had been the case there.
The colonel's house had something "odd" about it.
One morning he and I climbed the stairs to go for breakfast and we found the lights on and the door (which he always locked at night) open.
Other strange things were happening there, like that tools would disappear and doors slammed close even without the slighest breeze.
Not very far from the colonel's house there was a monastery. Sometimes I would walk there a few miles for mass and once I found a booklet in the church saying that houses that have water running underneath it may show signs of "funny" events. In fact, the little stream that used to work the mill run underneath the colonel's house.
The colonel was an occultist and he would not stop telling me about his occult interests. At that time, I didn't have a precise "philosphy" myself, but I knew that the occult was wrong so, because I had decidsed to take up the colonel's challenge, I would question everything he said.
I stayed five months with him, doing all sorts of jobs, not having aven a bicycle to move around and eating a little wheat soup for lunch and supper.
Then the colonel got tired of my polemics.
One day he said to me: "You challenge people".
He said that because I was not eating well he was going to give me one vitamin pill in the morning. It was about the fourth month of my stay.
Only that, one morning, while I sit at the table for breakfast, I see two pills instead of one. I started worrying a bit.
Then he said that he would give me supper: it was always curry rice.
He was extremely "hard-fisted", stingy, but I thought maybe he had finally felt sorry for me and really wanted to help.
But the more I ate, the less energy I had, until one day , to my amazement, I was strictly unable to hammer a nail.
I thought it was due to my poor diet. I then decided to do the only thing I knew: completely fast for three days.
I should have gone to see a do

Posted on 02/27/2007 at 01:28:59  |  Reply  |  Report Abuse |  0

Dearest,
I am Roman Catholic, Italo-Argentinian living alone in France.
This is the seventh forum to which I participate. I have been banned in the previous six (four French ones and two Italian).
They just won't let me talk freely.
They only accept people who do positive propaganda for the Church.
I only want to speak the truth, and the truth I have to tell about me and the Catholic Church has been negative for the last 30 years.
I spent happy first 20 years of my life in South America, enjoying my school, spending free time mostly in my local church playing ping-pong with my friends.
Then I came to Europe with my parents and had trouble finding a job. I found my first job in London, as a worker in a factory. In 1986 I was import-export clerk in a big company in my home town Genoa, but I was very unhappy. I didn't like the people there. I also had a girl-friend and things with her were very difficult. So in the end I said to myself: if I have to stay on in this job, marry this girl-friend and live in this town I hate I shall be extremely unhappy. I was 35.
In the end, I packed it all in and went travelling. I spend a few months in a Gandhian community in France, then met an architect and worked for him in order to learn masonry, then moved to Devon to help an old man who was ill, then spent three months with Mother Teresa's Brothers in Manchester (it was not too bad, but there was absolutely no discipline) and then went to India (4 years).
I lived in Bengal, not far from Calcutta. I met Mother Teresa and I had the most disappointing experience with her: she lied to me (I can explain if you like) and one of her closest nuns cheated me money.
I worked in the Home for Dying and Destitute in Calcutta, a lousy place very badly run (I can explain if you like).
The Indian people in my village persecuted me daily. They harassed me constantly, trying to prove that an Indian is worth more than a European.
In 1992 I came back to Italy and spent three years helping a friend of mine renovate her country house and selling it. Then I moved to London and had the most distressing experience. First I lived one year in the home of an old Irish catholic couple. The landlady harassed me no end. Then I moved to a place in Hendon and, I still don't know why) she told everybody else in the house to harass me.
The pub owner in Oxford where I used to spend week-ends evicted me and I moved to a supermarket cafeteria where people called the police saying that I was filming children (slander). I had the fright of my life.
At that moment, after so much unfriendliness for so long, my nerves broke down.
I came back to Italy in 1997, ill with paranoia and depression, and had to spend months in psychiatric hospital. My father hated me and I had nowhere to go so a drove to France again to meet a friend. This friend introduced my to a formerly Catholic monastery of nuns and I stayed there to work. The nuns never paid me one penny and made me live in a wooden hut with no running water, no electricity, no toilet and no heating.
I endured six years, until , after repeated negative attempts, I cound get a stay permit from the French government. I then went and asked the Mother Superior if she could make me live a bit better (she had done so for other people) but she told me to leave.
Now I live alone in a little house on rent. I have a decent invalidity subsidy and my best company is my sweet little Yorkshire Terrier (Peppino).
I use the computer to keep me busy, but I just can't find any friends.
The moment I tell them that in my view no Pope will ever redress the decadent, materialistic, hedonistic, consumeristic society in which we live, they start harassing me, hating me and isolating me.
They don't want to hear my story about Mother Teresa. As it is bad for the Catholic Church image they refuse it.
I just don't know where to find someone with a bit of sense in his brain who realizes that the Roman Catholic community is completely rotten, h