VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis has removed an archbishop from his position as a second-in-command Secretary of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), reportedly because he was the driving force behind last year’s CDF document denouncing proposed ‘blessings’ for same-sex couples.
Archbishop Giacomo Morandi has been named by Pope Francis as bishop of the Italian diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla – a move viewed by Vatican observers as a demotion because he will now shepherd a diocese, not an archdiocese, although Morandi will retain the title “Archbishop.”
A prolific, if pseudonymous, Twitter commentator, believed to be a Vatican insider, proposed that Morandi was demoted because he was “less than enthusiastic” about the pontiff’s crackdown on the Traditional Latin Mass.
“Today’s victim of Francis’ displeasure is Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, the Secretary of the CDF; he has been sent to Reggio Emilia-Guastalla,” wrote Twitter user Monsignor Ferrari.
“Because he was less than enthusiastic about TC [Traditionis custodes],” he continued.
“It is about creating fear in the Vatican, as if we didn’t have enough,” added Ferrari.
Today’s victim of Francis displeasure is Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, the Secretary of the CDF, he has been sent to Reggio Emilia-Guastalla.
Because he was less than enthusiastic about TC.
It is about creating fear in the Vatican, as if we didn’t have enough. pic.twitter.com/9yJHB418nP— Monsignor Ferrari (@ServizioVatican) January 10, 2022
But since the CDF issued its statement barring the blessing of homosexual relationships, Pope Francis has rewarded dissident religious who promote the normalization of homosexuality within the Church with warm personal letters of thanks and encouragement – gestures which now stand in stark contrast to his harsh treatment of Archbishop Morandi.
The move by Francis against Morandi is seen as the beginning of an overhaul of the vast Vatican bureaucracy, possibly shifting power away from the CDF, placing the guardian of Church doctrine in a position of less prominence under a proposed Dicastery for Evangelization.
In March 2021, LifeSiteNews reported that the CDF had declared that it is “not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.”
“The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan,” the statement read.
As governments across the globe seek to mandate abortion-tainted Covid-19 “vaccines” on millions of people against their will, medical autonomy continues to diminish worldwide, setting a dangerous precedent for future generations.
In response, during this Season of Advent, we have an important petition sponsored by Deacon Nick Donnelly of England, which makes the case that reception of the COVID vaccines currently available in the Western World is “morally illicit” for virtually all, if not every individual, in ordinary circumstances.
“The Bethlehem Declaration” has already been initially endorsed by four Catholic prelates, including Bishops Marian Eleganti, Rene Henry Gracida, Athanasius Schneider, and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, along with ten priests and many scholars, activists and journalists from the United States, Europe, and Australia.
It also provides a compelling presentation, rich with hyperlinked resources documenting that not only are these injections morally illicit, but ineffective, unsafe, and unnecessary.
Calling mandates for reception of these chemicals “acts of violence” and “criminal,” the document also encourages those facing these difficult situations to exercise the virtue of prudence to the best of their ability while providing plenty of information to assist them in doing so.
Deacon Donnelly said this manifesto received its name since the Church is presently contemplating the “baby Jesus who manifests the sanctity of life of all babies, created in the image and likeness of God.”
“Bethlehem is also associated with the massacre of the Holy Innocents by King Herod,” he said. “This petition gives us the opportunity to protest on behalf of these silenced victims of the pharmaceutical industry” who have been exploited and used for the development and testing of COVID-19 vaccines.
Another signatory, child advocate Elizabeth Yore, called the Bethlehem Declaration “an outstanding document” which serves as “the definitive response to the globalist tyrannical health Madness.” Encouraging everyone to read it, she said, this petition “must resonate strongly amidst the noisy covid clatter.”
“I so love the gravitas of this grace-filled and divinely inspired document,” Yore said.
The Bethlehem Declaration concludes with the following appeal expressing the intention of this petition:
We therefore respectfully appeal to the Holy Father, the CDF, all Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, lay faithful, and all people of good will to vehemently oppose the reception of these morally tainted, dangerous, and ineffective products, along with the gravely unjust mandates for their reception being imposed upon millions of students and workers across the Christian West.
The Bethlehem Declaration:
Challenging the moral liceity of the abortion-tainted experimental injections for COVID-19 and calling for universal opposition to ‘vaccine mandates’
'For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man’ (GS 22).
Whereas the Second Vatican Council rightly summarized the horror of abortion classifying it as an “abominable crime” which also encompasses a “supreme dishonour to the Creator” (GS 51 § 3; 27);
Whereas St. John Paul II taught all must oppose such deliberate “murder” of the most vulnerable with “maximum of determination” (EV, 58; CL, 38);
Whereas, the sanctity of pre-born babies, created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:27), is gravely violated by their utilitarian exploitation and commodification; thereby furthering the descent of the human race into “a civilization of ‘things’ and not of ‘persons’, a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used” (St. John Paul II, GS, 13);
Whereas all of the experimental COVID-19 gene-based vaccines currently available in the Western world, are abortion-tainted having been tested or developed through the abuse of stolen fetal cells from the bodies of murdered pre-born children…
TO CONTINUE READING THE BETHLEHEM DECLARATION AND SEE ITS INITIAL SIGNATORIES CLICK HERE
**Photo Credit: Mike Baumeister on Unsplash
The CDF explained that blessings “belong to the category of the sacramentals, whereby the Church ‘calls us to praise God, encourages us to implore his protection, and exhorts us to seek his mercy by our holiness of life.’”
It pointed out that to receive a blessing, one must “be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation, and fully revealed by Christ the Lord.”
The Congregation also emphasized that blessing of homosexual unions “cannot be considered licit” since “blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments.”
Blessings for homosexual couples have been pushed by Catholic leaders in Germany, especially, including Cardinal Reinhard Marx and other bishops who form part of the country’s “Synodal Path” and have called for a liturgical blessing of such relationships.
In a 2019 Declaration of Truth, Catholic Church leaders such as Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider wrote that two persons of the same sex “sin gravely when they seek venereal pleasure from each other.”
“Unions that have the name of marriage without the reality of it, being contrary to natural and Divine law, are not capable of receiving the blessing of the Church,” they stated.
Gerhard Cardinal Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, commented about blessings for homosexual couples, saying, “On the morning of creation, God blessed the first marriage as the union of a man and a woman. A union of whatever kind, which is contrary to God’s Will, cannot at the same time be declared to be approved by God.”
“For to bless, benedicere, means to declare something to be good and to become good in God’s view and towards God,” he commented.
“However, no other forms of living together can be blessed by the Church — if she remains loyal to her Divine Founder — except marriage and consecrated life; individuals, on the other hand, can all be blessed,” he continued.
“This does not only refer to the partnership of people with sexual inclinations to persons of their own sex. Also the partnership of a man and several women or of a woman and several men cannot be blessed by the Church. Even normal friendships are not formally blessed. Marriage between a man and a woman is part of the essential characteristic of the Church, since it is the fertile nucleus of the Christian family. It was instituted as a Sacrament by Jesus Christ and is inseparable from the community of believers. It is only with Jesus that, in the face of many an obscuration (caused by Original Sin) of marriage, God’s original Will for monogamy, indissolubility, openness to the child and sacramentality has once again become fully apparent.”