We got this from Spain on August 1st, 1864:
“Dear Master,
I take the liberty of sending you the new ordination of Monsignor Pantaleon, Bishop of Barcelona, just published in El Diario of Barcelona on July 31st. As you can see he wants to follow the footsteps of his predecessors. As for myself, sincere Spiritist, I forgive his cursing towards us but cannot help it thinking that he could use his education in a more beneficial way for the good of faith and his fellow human beings. To give only one example we have all the time these gruesome bull-fighting shows in which the poor animals, after spending their life serving people, come to die in those sad arenas for the cheers of a bloodthirsty multitude, whose instincts are excited in those barbarian games.
That is what you should attack, Monsignor, and not Spiritism that daily brings you back stray sheep that you had lost because I, who sincerely believed in God and that acknowledged his greatness in nature, I could not come close to a Church before becoming a Spiritist, given the huge disagreement before my eyes between those that believe to be God’s representatives on Earth and that great figure of Jesus Christ that the Gospels show us to be love and abnegation. Yes, I used to say to myself, Jesus sacrificed for us; he makes his triumphal entry in Jerusalem, simply dressed and riding a donkey, and you that are supposedly his representative are covered in silk, gold and diamonds. Is that what the Divine Messiahs called neglecting the earthly fortunes when teaching his apostles? No. Yet, Monsignor, I must confess that since the time I became Spiritist I was able to return to your churches; I was able to pray to God from the bottom of my heart, despite the mundane music dressed like opera there; I was able to pray thinking that all the theatrical pageantry could be useful to some people in helping to raise their souls to God; I was then able to forgive your luxury and even understand it in a way. As you see, Monsignor, it is not against the Spiritists that you should direct your rage and if, as I do believe so, you are only concerned with the wellbeing of your herd, you must rethink the way you see Spiritism that only preaches love to our neighbors, forgiveness of offenses, kindness, charity and love towards our enemies. Dear Master, forgive me for these lines that were suggested by this new ordination. Spiritism came to revive my faith, explaining to me all miseries of life that up until now I was incapable of understanding. Sincerely persuaded that we work towards our own advancement and that of humanity I will unstoppably propagate this doctrine in my circle of relationships, and for that I will employ a profound conviction and the means that God gave me.
Sincerely, etc.”
The following is the ordination of Mr. Bishop. We reproduced it in full in order to not diminish its reach. Mr. Bishop of Barcelona is deservedly considered a man of merits; he must have then gathered the strongest arguments against Spiritism. Our readers will judge if he is more fortunate than his comrades and if the final blow to us will be given from the other side of the Pyrenees. We will just intercalate some observations.
“We, D. D. Pantaleon Monserra y Navarro, by the grace of God and the Saint Apostolic Se, Bishop of Barcelona, knight of the Gran-Cross of the American Order of Isabel, the Catholic, from the Counsel of Her Majesty, etc.
To our beloved and faithful diocesans,
Placed on Earth as in a region of darkness that impedes the vision of things placed on a superior order, man cannot move one step ahead to seek them without the clarification of faith. If separated from that guide he will trip and fall today in the extreme of disbelief that denies everything, and tomorrow in the superstition that believes everything. Our time that intends to follow reason and commonsense, not admitting as true but those things shown by fallacious witnesses, is trespassed by a huge current of ideas, consequently leading to the denial of the supernatural and an excessive credulity. One and the other are the product of human intelligence pride that refuses to give reasonable attention to the revealed word of God.
The current generation is forced to witness this said display given to us by the most advanced peoples in science and civilization. The United States, the so called model nation, and some parts of France, including Alger, are for some time involved in the ridiculous study and application of Spiritism that comes, with such a name, resurrect the former practices of necromancy by the evocation of invisible Spirits in their resting places, beyond the grave, consulting them to uncover hidden secrets under the veil of God cast onto time and eternity.”
Observation: If we are prone to reproach for having relationships with the Spirits it would be necessary that the Church did preclude them from being evoked since it is evident that there are a large number of spontaneous manifestations, even with people that have never heard about Spiritism. How did the Fox sisters in the United States, the first to reveal their presence in that country, how did they come to enter into communication with the evocations, if not through the Spirits that came to manifest to them when they did not even dreamed about it? Why have those Spirits left their designated place beyond the grave? Was it with or without God’s permission? Spiritism has not come out from the mind of a single man like a philosophical system created by imagination. If the Spirits had not manifested by themselves there would not be Spiritism. If they cannot be stopped from manifesting then Spiritism cannot be stopped like a river that cannot be stopped in its course unless the source is suppressed. Pretending that the Spirits do not manifest is a question of fact not opinion. There is no possible argument against the evidence of facts.
“That exaggerated desire to know everything by ridiculous and reproachable means is not but the fruit of this need, this emptiness that mankind experiments after rejecting everything that has been presented as truth by their sovereign, legitimate and infallible: the Church.”
Observation: If what that infallible sovereign proposes as truth is demonstrated to be an error by the observations of science is someone at fault by rejecting it? Was the Church infallible when those that believed in the movement of Earth or in the antipodes were condemned? When even today it condemns people that believe that Earth was not formed in six times twenty four hours? If the Church wants to have its word accepted it would be necessary that none of the teachings be belied by the facts.
“At a time of eagerness to know everything by themselves the truth was rejected as superstition because they did not understand it or there was no agreement with the messages received about it. Later on what was neglected was then considered necessary; it was examined again and depending on the imagination of whoever examined it, if persons of lively imagination or nervous and irritable temperament, people then admitted in their belief system what thy heard an learned from the evoked Spirits, in a moment of melancholic exaltation.”
Observation: We had never thought that faith, that is, the adoption or rejection of the truths taught by the Church, according to the exam performed by the one that sincerely wanted to return there, was a matter of temperament. If to give the Church preference when compared to other beliefs one must not be nervous or irritable nor have a lively imagination there will be a lot of people that will definitely be excluded by the force of their personality. We believe that in this century of intellectual development faith is a matter of understanding.
“That is how a religion was created; by renovating the deviations and aberrations of paganism it threatens to lead a society that seeks the supernatural to madness, extravagance and to the filthiest cynicism.”
Observation: Here we have once again a prince of the Church proclaiming in an official decree that Spiritism is a created religion. It is the case of repeating here what we have already said about it: If one day Spiritism becomes a religion the Church would have been the first to propose the idea. In any case this new religion, in case it becomes one, will stay away from paganism for the main reason that it does not admit a localized hell with material penalties, whereas the hell of the Church with its flames, tridents, boilers, sharp blades and nails that shatter the condemned ones and the demons that excite the fire constitute an amplified copy of Tartarus.
“The great promoter of that sect of modern illuminati, Mr. Allan Kardec himself, confesses that in The Spirits’ Book by saying that sometimes those Spirits are happy to respond ironically and equivocally, confusing the unfortunate ones that consult them. And although it warns about the need to identify between serious and superficial Spirits he cannot give us the necessary rules to such identification, a confession that reveals the whole deception and vanity of Spiritism with its deplorable consequences.”
Observation: We refer Mr. Bishop of Barcelona to The Mediums’ Book, chapter XXIV.
“If that system that establishes a monstrous commerce between light and darkness, truth and error, good and evil, and in one word God and Belial, if it does not make proselytes in Spain, there is undoubtedly eager promoters and the metropolis of our dioceses is the chosen theater to employ all means that can be suggested by the absence of truth and moral ruin. The proof of that is in the fraudulent spread that is taking place, despite the effort carried out by local authorities, of thousands of volumes of The Spirits’ Book translated to Spanish, written by the first preacher of these lies, Allan Kardec.”
Observation: It is very difficult to conciliate these two statements: Spiritism does not make proselytes in Spain and that there is undoubtedly eager promoters. Also, one cannot understand how come a country that has no Spiritists would receive thousands of The Spirits’ Book.
“Reading that original publication we say to ourselves: each century has its concerns, its favorite mistakes, and ours is a tendency to deny what is invisible, seeking certainly only in what is tangible matter. Isn’t that incredible, hadn’t we seen it, that at the height of the nineteenth century, rich in discoveries regarding the laws of nature, observations and experiences, had adopted the dreams of magic and apparitions of Spirits by the evocation of a simple mortal? However, that is the case! It is this new heresy apparently imported from idolater countries to the countries of the new world, invading the old, and here found followers, despite the lighthouse of Christianity that has illuminated it for eighteen centuries, condemning such ridiculousness, despite the light beam spread all over the world and in particular in Europe.”
Observation: Considering that the Mr. Bishop of Barcelona is so much surprised by the fact that the nineteen century accepts Spiritism so easily, despite the positive tendencies and the richness of its discoveries with respect to the laws of nature, we would tell him that it is precisely the aptitude towards these discoveries that produces such a result. The relationships between the visible and invisible worlds constitute one of the great natural laws that was reserved to the nineteen century to reveal, as well as so many other laws. Fruit of experience and observation, based on positive facts up until now misunderstood, badly studied and even worse explained, Spiritism is the expression of that law and for that very reason destroy the fantastic, the marvelous and supernatural falsely attributed to those facts, making us enter the category of natural phenomena.
Since Spiritism comes to explain what was inexplicable; demonstrate what affirms and provides reason; since Spiritism does not wish to be credited by word; since it leads to examination and only wants to be accepted with knowledge of cause, for these reasons Spiritism corresponds to the positive ideas and tendencies of the century. Far from being an anomaly, the easy acceptance of Spiritism is a consequence of its own nature that places it among the sciences of observation. Had it been surrounded by mystery and had it claimed a blind faith it would have been repealed as an anachronism.
Young still, Spiritism like any new idea of certain importance finds opposition as from:
1.Those that only believe in tangible matter and deny any intellectual power beyond mankind;
2.Certain wise persons who believe that there is no more secret in nature or that they are the only ones supposed to unveil what is still hidden;
3.Those that always fought against the ascendance of the human Spirit because they fear the development of the ideas that may harm their personal interests if allowing things to be seen very clearly;
4. Finally, those that have no preconceived idea and for not having studied Spiritism assess it by the misinterpretations given by the adversaries that try to discredit the doctrine. This constitute the large category of opposition but it is diminishing day by day because the number of those that study the doctrine also increases daily; preventions fall flat before a serious examination and before the confirmation that people were mistaken about certain points.
Judging by the space covered by Spiritism in such a short time it is easy to predict that the only adversaries that will remain are the ones with preconceived ideas and since these are a small minority their influence will be null. They will suffer the influence of the masses and feel forced to follow the current. The manifestation of the Spirits is not only a belief: it is a fact. Denial has no value before a fact unless demonstrated that such a fact does not exist, something that has not happened yet. Because such a fact is confirmed in all corners of the globe on a daily basis one does believe in what is seen. That is what explains the deniers’ impotence to stop the spread of the ideas. A belief is only ridiculous when false; it is no longer ridiculous if based on something positive. Ridicule is the attribute of someone that is adamant in denying evidence.
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You must be convinced of this, dear children and brothers, of the need that mankind has to believe and when the true beliefs are neglected even the false ones are embraced with little enthusiasm. That is why the great Pascal says in one of his thoughts: – ‘the non-believers are the ones that are most prone to believe in everything’ – The Spirit of darkness uses people as his toy and instrument of his evil intents, using their vanity, credulity and presumption to turn them into promoters and apostles of what they laughed at before, of something that they qualified as chimeric invention and scarecrow of weak souls. No, brothers, the true faith, the doctrine of Christianity, the constant teaching of the Church have always reprimanded the practice of those evocations that lead to believe that people have some power upon the Spirits that only God actually has. ‘It is not in the power of a mortal that souls separated from their bodies after death come to reveal to them secrets that are covered by the veil of the future’ ()”.Observation: Spiritism also says that it is not given to the Spirits the revelation of the future and formally condemns the use of communications from beyond the grave as a means of foretelling. It says that the Spirits come to instruct us and help us improve and not to read the future to us. Besides, it says that nobody can force the Spirits to come to communicate when they do not wish to do so. It is a malicious deviation of objective to pretend that Spiritism is about necromancy (The Mediums’ Book, chap. XXVI).
“Had the divine wisdom considered useful to the happiness and rest of human beings the instruction about relationships between the world of the Spirits and the corporeal world that would have been revealed to us in such a way that no mortal could have been mistaken in their communications; it would have taught us a means of recognizing the truth or indicating the error and it would not have abandoned us to find such discernment through reason, that is a very weak light to uncover those regions that extend beyond death.”Observation: If God allows such relationships to take place today – since we must admit that nothing happens without God’s consent – it is because God considers it to be useful to the happiness of mankind, by given proof of a future life in which many no longer believe and because the always rising number of nonbelievers demonstrates that the Church alone is impotent to keep them stable. God sends helpers in the Spirits that manifest. Repealing them is not a proof of submission to God’s will; cursing and mistreating their interpreters is to do the same as the Jewish with respect to the prophets, something that made Jesus cry for the fate of Jerusalem.
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Thus, when a miserable mortal, deviated by imagination, pretends to send us news about the fate of the souls in the other world; when people of short vision dare to want to reveal to humanity and to an individual their indefectible future destiny they steal a power that belongs to God and that is not renounced except if to the good of the peoples, warning or reproaching them through his envoys that, like prophets, carry with them the proof of their mission in the miracles that they carry out and in the constant realization of what they announce.”
Observation: So, you deny the predictions of Jesus since you do not acknowledge his announcements about what happens today. What do these words mean? “
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”
[1]“
We can consider as visionaries those that have abandoned the truth and have given attention to fables, willing to have their fantastic dreams and delirious imagination heard as if they were revelations. Writing to Timothy St. Paul forearmed him against all that (I Tim. 4:7).[2] The apostle already foresaw eighteen centuries ago what disbelief would offer in our days to fulfill the hole that is left in a soul that has no faith.”Observation: In fact, disbelief is the ulcer of our times. It does leave a huge emptiness in one souls. Why the Church does not fight against it then? Why can’t the Church keep the followers in their faith? Yet, it has the material and spiritual means to do so. Doesn’t the Church has immense treasures, a countless army of preachers and the religious education of youth? If its arguments are not successful against disbelief it means that they are not strong enough. Spiritism does not follow those steps. It does what the Church does not. It addresses those that the Church cannot reach and is able to give them faith in God, their own soul and a future life. What to think of a doctor that, incapable of healing his patient, would oppose that the patient accepted the care of another doctor that could save him? It is true that Spiritism does not preconize one cult in detriment of another; that does not cast anathema onto any one otherwise it would be welcome by him whose exclusive cause he would have embraced; but it is precisely because he is the bearer of a rallying word to which all can answer: "
there is no salvation but through charity," that Spiritism comes to put an end to the religious antagonisms that have shed more blood than the wars of conquests.
“
After having rehearsed fortune telling and animal somnambulism through magnetism, unable to get anywhere beyond the reproach of every sensible person; after having seen discredited the turning tables, they unrooted the infect cadaver of that Spiritism with the absurd of the transmigration of souls, neglecting the articles of our symbol as taught by the Church, trying to replace them by others that destroy them, admitting an immortality of the soul, a purgatory and a hell that are different from what our Catholic faith teaches us.”
Observation: This is very true. Spiritism does not admit a hell where there are flames, tridents, boilers and sharp blades; Spiritism does not admit either that it is a joy to the elected ones to lift the cover of the boilers to find their the condemned ones there, perhaps a father, a mother or a brother; Spiritism does not admit that it is pleasing to God to hear for the whole of eternity the screams of desperation of his creatures, not being touched by the tears of regret, more cruel than that tyrant that had a breather built between the jail cells of his palace and his own bedroom, to have the pleasure of hearing the groaning of his victims; Spiritism does not admit, finally, that supreme happiness consists of a perpetual contemplation that would be a perpetual uselessness, nor that God may have created the souls to enjoy a few years of active existence followed by the eternal punishments or the useless beatitude. If that is the cornerstone of the edifice then the Church is right about fearing the new ideas. Such beliefs are not the ones capable of topping up the huge abyss of disbelief.
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With that and with what was said by the wise Bishop of Alger, everything that the disbelievers were able to do was to change places to entice a number of believers whose simple and not much enlightened faith is easily given to anything that is extraordinary and, at the same time, placing a new obstacle to the conversion of those souls buried in religious indifference that when realized that someone wanted to reduce Christianity to a fabric of superstitions they ended up saying blasphemies against that belief and its author.”
Observation: Here we have something singular! It is Spiritism that preclude the Church from converting the souls buried in religious indifference. Why then hasn’t the Church converted them before the appearance of Spiritism? Is Spiritism more powerful than the Church? If those that are indifferent are more easily attracted to Spiritism it seems that what is given to them is then more convenient.
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To avoid having people of little faith scandalized by what they read in The Spirits’ Book precluding them from believing that those teachings are in harmony with all cults and beliefs, including the Catholic faith as pretended by Allan Kardec, we remind them that the Sacred Scriptures condemn them as madness, saying by the mouth of Ecclesiasts: “Foretelling and dreams are vain things and the heart suffers with such chimeras; be suspicious every time they do not come from the Almighty because our dreams make people sad and those that trust them are abated.” (Ec. XXXVI: 5,7)Jesus reproaches his disciples for having believed in the apparition of a ghost when they saw him walking on waters and he does not want them to believe that unless through the signs that he provides of himself. (Luke XXIV: 39). The Church and its saint fathers as interpreters of the divine word have constantly repealed these deceiving practices through which one believes that the Spirits communicate with people and an enlightened reason also repeals them for it realizes that it cannot embrace the truths and all things of the supernatural past without the support of faith. How can someone’s mind, by itself, pretend to reach something that cannot be verified and that took place somewhere and under unforeseeable circumstances? If on other occasions we have raised our voice against this impious materialism and that systematic disbelief that denies the immortality of the soul when separated from the body, in the different states reserved by the divine justice in eternity, today we are forced to protest against that active communication attributed to the evocation of the dead, pretending to reveal things that are only perceptible by the infinite arms of God. My beloved brothers and children, don’t be carried away by these empty fables that contain the same mistakes and concerns found in barbarian and ignorant peoples and every absurd invention of persons whose souls, weakened by the absence of a true faith and by superstition, abjure the true religion revealed by the son of God, degrades human reason and expels purity from the soul. Far from our well beloved diocesans, and in particular those readers that rightly so are considered enlightened and civilized, far from them to believe in those novels written by dreamers like Allan Kardec, people of exalted and delirious imagination! Far from you then that anti-Christian faith that brings ghosts from the grave, the errant Spirits; far from you that superstition brought into our religion by pagan people converted to Christianity, and whose writings of their supporters were soon expelled.”Observation: The Spiritists have never ever made ghosts come out of their tombs by the very simple fact that those tombs only contain mortal remains that are destroyed and not resuscitated. The Spirits are everywhere in space, happy for being free and disentangled from the body that made them suffer. That is why they are not attached to their remains, trying on the contrary to be further away than closer. Spiritism has always rejected the idea that such evocations would be easier near the tombs from where something that is not there cannot come out. It is only in theaters that such things are seen.
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Carefully avoid having your children reading such productions and becoming impressed by their figures, carried away by the curiosity of the youth, things that have the effect of clouding the common sense of a large number of people that are now suffering in mental health institutions, victimized by Spiritism. Do everything in your power, my dear brothers and children, to keep pure the doctrine that was taught to us by our divine Teacher. Refer solely to his sacred word when dealing with the future. Knowing that it is only up to the Divine Providence to know how to guide mankind through the vicissitudes of life, trying their faith and reviving their hope and not willing to probe their future fate, make sure that such a fate is ensured through their good works and through that confirming your vocation of sons of God called to share the treasures of our Celestial Father.”
Observation: Instead of trimming the curiosity of kids wouldn’t such a suggestion stimulate that of their parents, and isn’t that what it does? As for mental diseases it is always the same story that is becoming worn out and whose result has not been more successful than the pretense ghosts. Experiments happening everywhere, more in the privacy of families than in public, mediums found everywhere, in all layers of society at all ages, each one knowing well how to position themselves with respect to the veracity of the phenomena. That is why all efforts employed to fantasize Spiritism are fruitless. The number of those deceived by false allegations is very small and many of these find out the truth by themselves. How can one persuade a whole crowd that it is night time when in fact it is daylight and everyone can clearly see that? Such a capacity of practical control given to everyone is one of the special characters of Spiritism and it is what constitutes its strength. That is much different when compared to philosophical doctrines that can be fought against by reason. Spiritism is based on facts and observations that each person incessantly has at their disposal. The whole argumentation of Mr. Bishop of Barcelona is summarized like that: the manifestations of the Spirits are fables imagined by non-believers in order to destroy religion. One must only believe what we say because we are the owners of the truth. Do not analyze anything beyond that because there is the risk of being seduced.
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In order to avoid the dangers that may affect you and considering the divine authority that was given to us to point that out to you and keep you safe according to the mandate that was assigned to us and acknowledged by the Article 3rd of the last agreement, and according to what was foreseen by the saint canons and the rules of the kingdom with respect to the sins that we have indicated and fought against, we condemn The Spirits’ Book translated to Spanish with the title ‘Le Libro de los Espiritus’, by Allan Kardec, as from articles 8 and 9 of the promulgated catalogue given the prescription for that objective by the Council of Trento. We therefore prohibit the reading of such a book by every diocesan of ours, without exception, and command them all to deliver to their respective priests the books that may eventually fall in their hands so that they can be sent to us safe and dry.Given in our visit to Mataro on July 27th, 1864.”
Pantaleón, Bishop of Barcelona
By the order of SES Monsignor Bishop
Don Lazaro Bauluz, secretary
-o-
The prohibition assigned by the bishop of Barcelona to all of his diocesans, without exception, to get involved with Spiritism is based on that of the bishop of Alger. We strongly doubt that it will be more successful than the other although in Spain because in that country the ideas spread like elsewhere, even under the muzzle that keep them like in a hot greenhouse. The
auto-da-fé of Barcelona accelerated its blossom. Apparently the effect produced by that ceremony did not correspond to the expectation since it was not repeated. Yet they now want to execute in private what they no longer dare do in public.
By inviting his diocesans to return all the books that fall in their hands Monsignor Pantaleon certainly does not wish to collect them. He prohibits the evocation of the Spirits and that is his own right but he forgot something of paramount importance: prohibiting the Spirits from entering Spain.
He is surprised by the fact that Spiritism creates roots so easily in the nineteenth century. We must be even more surprised by seeing the resurrection of Middle Ages habits in this century. And what is even more astonishing is to find people, in fact educated people that understand so little the nature and the strength of the idea to believe that one is capable of blocking its path as one does to a parcel of merchandise at customs’ border.
You regret Monsignor that the non-believers and the indifferent ones remain deaf to the voice of the ministers of the Church while they listen to Spiritism. The reason is that they are more touched by the words of charity, encouragement and consolation than those of anathema. Do you believe to lead them by swearing at them like the recent words said by the priest of Villemayor-de-Ladre against a poor schoolmaster that made the mistake of displeasing him?
Here is the canonic formula published by Madrid Correspondence on June 1864 by which the famous imprecation of Camille is almost a sweetness. The poet was able to put it in the mouth of a pagan; he dared not put it in the mouth of a Christian.
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Damned be August Vincent; damned be the clothes that cover him, the ground on which he steps, the bed in which he sleeps and the table at which he eats; damned be the bread and everything else that feeds him, the spring from where he drinks and everything else that he drinks.
May earth open up below his feet and bury him at this time; may Lucifer seat on his right hand side. Nobody should talk to him or face excommunication for just saying good-bye to him; damned may also be his fields upon which no rain shall ever fall so that they produce nothing; damned be his horse, his house and all his properties.
Damned be also his parents, the children that he may have or will have that will be in small number and bad ones; these shall beg around and nobody will give them the alms but if they get some they must not eat from them. And even more, may his wife widow right now and his children orphan without a father.”
-o-
Was it really in a Christian temple that such horrible words were pronounced? Was it really a minister of the Gospels, a representative of Jesus Christ that pronounced such words? Who would, out of a personal insult, curse a person to the execration of her fellow human beings, to the eternal damnation and to all miseries of life, that person, her parents, current and future children and everything else that belongs to that person? Jesus has never used similar language; he prayed for his executioners and said: “Forgive your enemies”; he makes us daily repeat in the
Our Father prayer: “
Lord, forgive our offenses as we have forgiven the ones that offended us”. When he reproaches the Scribers and Pharisees does he cast the rage of God upon them? No, he foresees the miseries that may reach them.
And you, Monsignor, you are surprised by the progress of disbelief? You should be surprised, instead, by the fact that right in the nineteenth century Jesus Christ’s religion is so little understood by the very ones that are in charge of teaching it. Don’t be surprised then that God sends His good Spirits to refresh our memories about the true meaning of His law. They do not come to destroy Christianity but to free it from the false interpretations and abuse introduced by humanity.
[1] Joel 2:28
[2]“
Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;”
