How to know the Pope first! And lots of great videos of the happy moment! (Reblog)

This made me cry watching the videos of the announciation of the Popes. It’s so moving, all the time:

Please go to Focus’s blog here to see tips and the videos! Espcially of John Paul II, it’s incredible.

The American Papist with JPII on abortion

Thomas Peters, the American Papist, has a great article regarding abortion and society, in which he emphasises some of Pope John Paul the Great’s teachings on abortion.

Here it is!

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen on Christ and Peter

The following is excerpted from L’Osservatore Romano and can be found in its full context at: http://www.fultonsheen.com/Fulton-Sheen-articles/The-Voice-of-Peter.cfm?artid=18

But this intuitive awareness of headship in Peter and his present successor, Paul VI, (John Paul I, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI,) makes each Pontiff also the most vulnerable man in all the world.  To be vulnerable is to be accessible to every attack, worry and anxiety which happens to the Church in every area of the earth. As Paul VI told me: “I often find, in my letters and reports when I read them at night, a thorn. When I go to bed they have woven themselves together into a crown of thorns”. This unshielded and exposed personality makes the Pontiff like a solitary tree on a mountain top, exposed to all the blasts of the four winds. The father and mother of a family suffer for their children; the priest bears the wounds of his parishioners, but into that chalice held by the Vicar of Christ seeps all the sorrows, such as those caused by disciples: “some walk with Him no more”, or who leave the Eucharistic Banquet and “go out into the night”. It is in these moments the Pastoral heart is most pierced.

…

The agony in Gethsemane in some way becomes the agony of the Pontificate and to both there is dipped a common cup which the Father gives.

For that reason, it is not just our theology, our tradition and our faith which makes us pledge our loyalty to him; it is also our sympathy, a compassion so great that the world, if it looked closely, might see but one common tear falling down pontifical checks.

What beautiful words from just a section of the opinion that then Bishop Sheen wrote!  He goes on to tell of how the voice of Peter, and the voice of Christ, is sometimes not heard in this day and age by those who should most be able to recognize it.  You should go read this document and re-affirm your loyalty individually to the See of Peter.