the "new evangelization" in Brazil

...with Padre Elvis

All shook up!

The Fruits of the “New Springtime” of Vatican II in Italy

Abandoned by God? Italian churches turned into banks, bars, shops (PHOTOS)

Published time: October 31, 2014 14:48

Madonna della Neve church in Como, Italy was turned into a successful car repair shop by the building’s new owners. (Photo by Di Martino)

With the Italian economy crippled by recession, more and more churches are being deconsecrated and sold to private buyers, who repurpose these former houses of God into banks, theaters, night clubs and even car repair shops.

Several thousand churches have recently found new owners, indicating the hard times experienced by the Catholic Church and Italy’s general switch towards secularity.

“I loved all of them. I like places, which have irony in them. And that was the feeling I experienced in all of those churches,” says local photographer, Andrea Di Martino, who visited and took pictures of 70 former churches.

Madonna della Neve church in Como was among the first such churches he visited, inspiring the whole project.

It was deconsecrated in the late 1950s and turned into a successful car repair shop by the building’s new owners.

“When I left it, I realized that I want to learn what’s happened to the rest of those churches,” the photographer said.

Churches in Italy are deconsecrated when the condition of the building makes it dangerous, or when attendance drastically decreases.

They sell pretty well due to being solid structures, with high ceilings, usually located in the centers of towns and villages.

In the port town of Ugento, clerics had to clear the St. Philomena church so that court hearings could be held there. (Photo by Andrea Di Martino)

The Santa Lucia church in Montescaglioso fell into the hands of sports fans, who decorated the walls with football posters and also installed a Ping-Pong table. (Photo by Andrea Di Martino)

 

 A church in Salerno, dating back to 1,000 AD, has been turned into a museum of the local medical school. (Photo by Andrea Di Martino)

The former Santa Sabina church, which was completed in 1036, has served as a bank for the last four decades. (Photo by Andrea Di Martino)

A multimedia library found its home at Milan’s former church of Santa Teresa, which was built in 1694. (Photo by Andrea Di Martino)

A former house of God in Viareggio, which was deconsecrated in 1977, became a pizza place, named ‘La Chiesina’ (the [little] church). (Photo by Andrea Di Martino)

Repurposing defunct church buildings is a practice common not only in Italy, but in other Western European nations as well. In 2008, Dutch bookstore chain, Selexyz, turned a 1294 church in Maastricht into one of the most famous book shops in the Netherlands.

Source: Russia Today

The 'spirit' of Vatican II was blowing strongly through St. Peter's Square today at Francis' general audience!

Photo-op Friday!

Ah so cute!

There is nothing which makes modernism go down easier than an orchestrated photo-op which melts one's heart and also brings one's guard down!

Francis the modernist takes his sideshow outside again!

No more is the sweltering Roman summer heat causing Francis to hold his Wednesday general audience inside the monstrosity known as the Paul VI Audience Hall.  The show is now back in St. Peter's Square, where the adoring mobs can listen to Francis tell them such modernist gems as:

Dis-unity is a sin!

Stop gossiping!

If one so desires, one can watch the entire circus show below.

Francis' radio address and one question interview in Brazil 2013

This is a Vatican Radio English translation of a broadcast made by Pope Francis after lunch on Saturday 27 July 2013, when he visited the studios of " Cathedral Radio" in Rio de Janeiro, where he spoke the following words:

Good morning, good evening to all the listeners. Thank you for your attention here and I thank the members of the Radio for the kindness in giving me the microphone. I thank them and I'm looking at the radio and I see that media today is very important. I would say that a radio, a Catholic Radio pulpit today is the closest we have. And 'where we can announce, through radio, human values, religious values, and above all to proclaim Jesus Christ, the Lord; give the Lord the grace to make room for Him in our lives. So I greet you and thank you for all the effort of this archdiocese to have a radio and keep it, with a network so great. To all you listeners I ask you to pray for me, pray for this radio, to pray for the bishop, to pray for the Archdiocese, so that we unite in prayer and work, as the priest said earlier, for a more human culture, more rich in values, and does not exclude anyone. That we all work for that word that isn’t liked these days: solidarity. It 'a word that one tends to try to put aside, again, because it is annoying and yet it is a word that reflects the human and Christian values ​​that today we are urged to go against - as the priest repeated a little while ago - the culture of waste , according to which everything is excludable. A culture that always leaves out the people: excludes the children, excludes the young, the elderly, excludes all those who are not needed, that do not produce and this can not be! In contrast, solidarity includes all. You must continue to work for this culture of solidarity and for the Gospel.

The Pope is asked a question on the importance of the family:

Not only would say that the family is important for the evangelization of the New World, The family is important, it is necessary for the survival of humanity. If there is no family, the cultural survival of humanity is at risk. The family, like it or not, is the basis.

Theology of the Tattoo

***** Caution: immodesty & indecent tattoos *****

 Another fruit of the Second Vatican Council.  Taking Saint John Paul II's theology of the body to a new level.  What's next?  A show your body piercing mass?  Or mutilation and mysticism?



More: 

• “Show Your Tattoo” Mass!

niece of Francis says uncle is here to renew

Francis' niece is an artist and was recently interviewed on skype by a Miami news channel.  In their story they said, 

"Bergoglio (the niece of Francis) said she is not religious, but spiritual and she doesn't subscribe to any one religion."

Does that sound like anyone you know?  A Vatican II Novus Ordite?  Francis' niece knows what is wrong with the Novus Ordo faith too,

"I'm not afraid to say I see the church as outdated, and that's why I believe life has put my uncle to renew this certain system of thought that was getting stagnated."

Can you believe it?  The opening of the window (Vatican II) to let in a breathe of fresh air by John XXIII is now stagnant.  The disease is modernism  but the cure is more modernism.  If only we could implement Vatican II in the proper spirit as it was intended, why...there would be peace on earth and no suffering!  My what interesting times we live in!

How the Bergoglios imagine themselves