THE PAPACY - A HUMAN CONSTRUCT

AT THE TOP OF CORRUPT ROMAN CATHOLICISM SITS THE PAPACY - A HUMAN CONSTRUCTION - AND NOT CREATED BY GOD OF HIS SON JESUS CHRIST.

The words of scripture that the RC apologists rely on for their doctrine of the papacy and papal infallibility are:

Mat 16:15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

Mat 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Mat 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Mat 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

This passage is most frequently quoted by Catholics to support Petrine theory (papal succession), that proposes Jesus founded His church on Peter (the rock). The Protestant will usually point out that two different words for "rock" are present in the Greek text- "thou art Peter (Petros), and upon this rock (petra) I will build my church;" ... . The distinction that is apparently being made in the Greek is one of size. Petros equates to a pebble, or small stone, while petra equates to a massive foundation stone, too large to be moved:

This distinction in the Greek, the Protestant points out, makes it clear that Peter is not the rock that the church is founded upon, but rather Peter's profession of faith and/or Jesus Himself. To this the Catholic will likely respond that early church fathers indicate the book of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic, not Greek. The Greek, they will say, has been incorrectly rendered because petra, being feminine in the Greek, could not have been used to represent Peter's name. They will propose that what Jesus really said in Aramaic to Simon Peter was this: "thou art Peter (Kepha), and upon this rock (kepha) I will build my church;" ... . The original Aramaic, they will point out, makes it quite plain that Peter was indeed the rock.  No Aramaic texts of Matthew have survived, they have all been lost. So just what the Aramaic texts might have said is nothing but pure speculation. So speculation is all they can muster as evidence to support Petrine theory in Matthew 16:18.

Some Catholics may even suggest that there has always been a unanimous Church interpretation of this passage in support Petrine theory, at least up until relatively recent Protestant dissent to the presumed authority of the papacy. The following is presented to show that even early "Christian fathers" were actually quite diverse in their interpretation of this passage in Matthew and they most certainly did not agree that Peter was the foundation rock (petra) which Jesus spoke about.

BISHOP STROSSMAYER

An interesting and important speech - which some say was made by Bishop Strossmayer of Croatia ant Vatican One in 1890 - and others say was actually written by a former Augustinian priest - a Mexican named Dr Jose Agustin de Escudero.

FATHER JOSE AUGUSTIN DE ESCUDERO

Whichever of them wrote the speech it seems to me that the content of the speech is very important and very informing. Its conclusions are:

    (1) That Jesus has given to His apostles the same power that He gave to St. Peter.

    (2) That the apostles never recognized in St. Peter the vicar of Jesus Christ and the infallible doctor of the church.

    (3) That St. Peter never thought of being pope, and never acted as if he were pope.

    (4) That the Councils of the first four centuries, while they recognized the high position which the Bishop of Rome occupied in the church on account of Rome, only accorded to him a pre-eminence of honor, never of power or of jurisdiction.

    (5) That the holy fathers in the famous passage, 'Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,' never understood that the church was built on Peter (super Petrum) but on the rock (super petram), that is, on the confession of the faith of the apostle. I conclude victoriously, with history, with reason, with logic, with good sense, and with a Christian conscience, that Jesus Christ did not confer any supremacy on St. Peter and that the bishops of Rome did not become sovereigns of the church, but only by confiscating one by one all the rights of the episcopate.

It is also important to note that for the first 1870 years of Catholicism it was not a defined doctrine of the church that the pope was infallible.

The doctrine of papal infallibility was not totally new - it had been used by Pope Pius in defining the Immaculate Conception of Mary as a dogma in 1854.

The bishops at the council were divided into three camps:

1. Those promoting infallibility and their supporters - people like Henry Manning.

2. A majority of the bishops who did want to strengthen papal authority - but not actual papal infallibility.

3. A minority of 10% who opposed the definition because it was a departure from the position of the early church and would create more tensions with non-Catholic churches and governments. In this group, you had most of the German and Austro Hungarian bishops, half of the American bishops, one-third of the French bishops and most of the Chaldean and Melkite bishops.

The First Vatican Council was very controversial and involved the 1050 bishops present in a great argument. Urged on by Pope Pius the majority got their way.

The council was suspended by the pope - and never resumed and left most of what it had intended to do undone/

PATS VIEWS:

1. I believe that JESUS HIMSELF is the head of the Church and not the pope.

2. I do not believe that the pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth.

3. I do not believe that Peter regarded himself as a pope.

4. I don't know if Peter was ever in Rome?

5. I believe that the papacy is a human construct.

6. I think that the pope by tradition and by being the bishop of an important city has become the FIRST AMONG EQUALS.

7. I believe that the Vatican has become more and more corrupt over the ages and that many of the popes were bad, weak or evil men.

8. I believe that the Vatican and the RC Church needs major reform.

9. I believe that the Holy Spirit speaks through EVERYBODY and not just through prelates and clerics.

10. I believe that the Catholic church and all churches should be governed by a council of all its members - representing laity and clergy.

11. I believed that all churches should follow the Bible - especially the New Testament - rather than man-made canon laws.

THE GYNAE BISHOP

PHONSIE CHALLENGED ON TV3

Bishop claims cancer vaccine ‘70% safe’

• The Irish Times
• 28 Sep 2017
• PAUL CULLEN Health Correspondent

Bishop Cullinan: said money would be better spent promoting chastity

The Gardasil vaccine against cervical cancer is “only 70 per cent safe”, a Catholic bishop has suggested.

Bishop Phonsie Cullinan, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, says parents are being pressurised into agreeing to have their daughters vaccinateed. The money spent on it should be diverted to helping young people stay chaste.

Although the vaccine is backed by the World Health Organisation and other international scientific bodies, he maintains there are “conflicting opinions” from experts about its safety.

Bishop Cullinan says the experience of the Regret group of parents who have concerns about Gardasil should not be “rubbished”.

He has also asked why the vaccine is not being given to boys: “Why is this vaccine being ‘offered’ only to girls? One can add that the male contraceptive has been available for years. Are men using it? Why not? Where is the equality in that?”

In supplying his remarks to The Irish Times, Bishop Cullinan says they are intended “with great respect for medical personnel. But debate is good, once it is reasonable.”

He questions whether the vaccine will “lull our girls into a false sense of security”, making it more likely some of them engage in more risky behaviour.

Sexual activity

“More sexual activity means an increased risk of infection and therefore an increased risk of serious health problems,” he said.

“I wonder could the large amount of money being spent on this vaccine be better spent on programmes which encourage our young people to live clean and chaste lives. I know that the vaccine may do some good but from what I have read it is not the most effective way to guard against cervical cancer.”

Up to 30,000 adolescent girls are due to receive the vaccine in schools this month, but uptake rates have fallen to 50 per cent as a result of opposition from a number of groups. Their claim that hundreds of girls who received the vaccine are suffering long-term health effects as a consequence have not been supported by any scientific study.

Bishop Cullinan says the vaccine offers “no absolute guarantee” of “full protection” against cervical cancer.

“The vaccine covers 70 per cent of cervical cancers. Would you go on a plane that was 70 per cent safe? Smear tests will still be necessary.”

“There seems to be pressure on parents to get their girls vaccinated with the Gardasil product,” he said. “The insinuation is that to be a ‘good parent’ you should do this. But there are conflicting opinions from experts about the safety of this vaccine.”

‘Young lives ruined’

He suggests those interested in the concerns expressed by Regret should look up the group’s videos on YouTube.

“As a Bishop I have spoken to young people, especially young women, who tell me (with tears) how they have been used and dumped over and over. This can result in forms of depression, lack of self-esteem and even self-harm. This is what I have seen in young lives. Does our promiscuous attitude to sexual behaviour bring true happiness? And the reckless partying and porn? I see so many young lives being ruined.”

Cullinan challenged:

Sir, – Further to “Catholic bishop claims cervical cancer vaccine ‘only 70% safe’” (Online, September 27th), is it the case that a Catholic bishop can make remarks on any topic and have them appear in The Irish

Times? Or is it the case that alongside being a bishop, Phonsie Cullinan is a medical professional or researcher? One of these must be the case for your newspaper to have published his remarks on the HPV vaccine. In his remarks, the bishop says that “debate is good”, which is a fine-sounding platitude, but a person in a position of respect questioning the opinions of qualified medical professionals without any relevant qualifications of their own is not good. The simple fact of the matter is that his comments will not help parents who are unsure of what to do about the vaccine; they only risk clouding the question further.

In my opinion the bishop should not have made comments about the HPV vaccine as I don’t see that he is qualified to do so. What truly worries me, though, is how The Irish Times felt that it was newsworthy or in the public interest to print them. To me that seems simply reckless. – Yours, etc, DAVID HARTE, Inchicore, Dublin 8.

Sir, – Bishop Phonsie Cullinan’s comments on the HPV vaccine were at best ill-advised and at worst extremely ignorant.

He is ignoring vast tranches of evidence that support the safety of this vaccine and his beliefs will no doubt further confuse worried parents on this topic.

There are no “conflicting questions” from experts about its safety and the World Health Organisation has backed this up countless times.

Linking the HPV vaccine to low self-esteem and depression is plain wrong.

Mentioning the HPV vaccine in the same sentence as promiscuity, pornography and reckless partying is plain perplexing.

The best way to describe this vaccine’s safety to people like Bishop Cullinan is to use an analogy. Imagine someone has been accused of a crime and acquitted in a court of law yet is still assumed to have committed that crime by some. That is where some are on this vaccine. It has had its safety rigorously tested countless times and, importantly, it will continue to have it tested into the future. There is no conspiracy. Perhaps the bishop should listen to some of those who have suffered from cervical cancer and their families before he decides to make more ill-informed comments on this topic. – Yours, etc,

Dr NIALL BREEN, Dublin 5.

PAT SAYS:

Phonsie "The Terminator" Cullinan is now making pronouncements about lady's cervixes and calling for his version of chastity to replace medical vaccines!

And he is such an expert on the female genitalia and reproductive organs that The Irish Times quotes his every word on the matter!

I can just picture Phonsie in his little chapel in Bishop's House, Waterford, asking God's guidance on what to say about what Dame Edna Everidge calls "my front bottie".

And of course in line with his Opus Dei beliefs Phonsie will have consulted what the Church Fathers have to say about the front bottie. 

• Woman is a temple built over a sewer. –Tertullian, “the father of Latin Christianity” (c160-225)

• [Women’s] very consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame.–Saint Clement of Alexandria, Christian theologian (c150-215): Pedagogues II, 33, 2

• Nor are the women to smear their faces with the ensnaring devices of wily cunning. . . The Instructor [Christ] orders them to go forth “in becoming apparel, and adorn themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety, subject to their own husbands.”  –Saint Clement of Alexandria, Christian theologian (c150-215): The Instructor

• In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil’s gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: Man! Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die… Woman, you are the gate to hell. –Tertullian, “the father of Latin Christianity” (c160-225): On the Apparel of Women, chapter 1

• For it is improper for a woman to speak in an assembly, no matter what she says,
  even if she says admirable things, or even saintly things, that is of little
  consequence, since they come from the mouth of a woman. –Origen (d. 258): Fragments on First Corinthians, 74

• Woman does not possess the image of God in herself but only when taken together
  with the male who is her head, so that the whole substance is one image. But
  when she is assigned the role as helpmate, a function that pertains to her
  alone, then she is not the image of God. But as far as the man is concerned, he
  is by himself alone the image of God just as fully and completely as when he and
  the woman are joined together into one. –Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius (354-430)

• What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman… I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children. –Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius (354 – 430): De genesi ad litteram, 9, 5-9

• Woman is a misbegotten man and has a faulty and defective nature in comparison to his. Therefore she is unsure in herself. What she cannot get, she seeks to obtain through lying and diabolical deceptions. And so, to put it briefly, one must be on one’s guard with every woman, as if she were a poisonous snake and the horned devil. … Thus in evil and perverse doings woman is cleverer, that is, slyer, than man. Her feelings drive woman toward every evil, just as reason impels man toward all good. –Saint Albertus Magnus, Dominican theologian, 13th century: Quaestiones super de animalibus XV q. 11

• As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence. –Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, 13th century: Summa Theologica I q. 92 a. 1

If the vagina is the gateway to Hell why is Phonie giving so much thought to it?

I may be wrong?

Maybe Phonsie is a medic who specializes in gynecology?

Or maybe he was a midwife before he became a priest?

Or maybe he was once chaplain to a Sexually Transmitted Disease clinic?

AND - why is Phonsie, as a bishop, talking to young women about their sex lives and their front hotties?

This latest intervention by Phonsie sends his reputation further down the TUBES!

Who does Phonsie  think he is that he can dictate to Irish men and women in 2017 what they can and cannot do with their bodies?

 

On yesterdays Tonight Show, Ivan and @Cooper_m spoke to Bishop Phonsie Cullinan about his stance on the cervical cancer vaccine. #tonightTV3 pic.twitter.com/I0s302oVKu

— TV3 (@TV3Ireland) 29 September 2017

NEW MAYNOOTH SCANDAL

THE BLOG HAS BEEN MADE AWARE OF A NEW SCANDAL BREWING AT MAYNOOTH SEMINARY - A SCANDAL THAT MAY VERY WELL BE MORE DAMNING THAN LAST SUMMER'S GRINDR SCANDAL.

Dermo

A well placed and well-informed source has made a formal complaint, in writing to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome (CDF)

Amy

To date, the complainant has not received either an acknowledgment of their complaint from any of the three sources.

CDF

The complaint involves both sexual matters and matters of corruption/administration and it names laymen, priests, and seminarians.

The complainant asks the CDF/Vatican to remove the "Pontifical" status of Maynooth until a thorough investigation has taken place. 

They have also asked Diarmuid and Eamon Martin to place the complaint on the agenda for the Autumn meeting of the bishops which takes place in a few weeks in October.

They have also asked the Vatican to break all ties with Maynooth on the basis of their complaint.

Furthermore, the complainant has threatened the bishops with the release of all the information they have to RTE's Prime Time programme if no action is taken by them.

They insist that the matter they have reported requires the immediate resignation of senior people in Maynooth.

The person who made this complaint played a very significant role in the exposure of last year's Grindr scandal at Maynooth - and as such what they have to say carried a lot of weight.

As of yet, while they have named names to me, they have not provided me with the information and evidence I would need to publish all they claim on this Blog.

Needless to say, if and when they do I will bring all the information to the attention of the readers here.

After last year's gay sex scandals the incoming president was appointed for a short three-year term instead of the normal ten-year term.

Furthermore, it was announced that within that three period a new office of "rector" would be created.

Maynooth had only SIX men enter the seminary this year - the lowest in its whole history.

Maynooth is gasping for its last breath.

Another big scandal will kill it off completely!

MORE VATICAN SKULDUGGERY

Skulduggery at the Vatican as former auditor-general, accused of spying, says he was victim of a 'set-up'

Nick Squires, rome THE TELEGRAPH

24 SEPTEMBER 2017

The Vatican was embroiled in fresh scandal on Sunday after a former official claimed that he was forced to step down after his investigations into conflicts of interest made him enemies within the Holy See.

In the latest case of skulduggery and intrigue to hit the sovereign city state, the Vatican countered with unusually explicit accusations that Libero Milone had been caught “spying” on officials.

Mr Milone, 69, was appointed two years ago as the Holy See’s first auditor-general and tasked with overseeing the cleaning up of the Vatican’s opaque finances.

He had an impressive track record, having previously worked for Fiat, the UN and as a chairman of the global accounting firm Deloitte.

He resigned abruptly and without explanation in June, but has now broken his silence on the reasons behind his departure, claiming that he was forced out by shadowy vested interests determined to block the reforms of Pope Francis.

He revealed that on June 19 he was ordered to resign by Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, the Vatican deputy secretary of state, and told that he had been the subject of a seven-month investigation by the Vatican gendarmerie, the city state’s tiny police force.

"The facts presented to me on the morning of the 19th were fake, fabricated," he said. "I was in shock. All the reasons had no credible foundation." He said he was the victim of a “set-up” by Vatican insiders who were scared that his inquiries were beginning to dig up dirt.

The saga began in 2015, when Mr Milone suspected that his computer had been accessed without his authorisation. He called in an outside contractor, who found that his computer had indeed been tampered with, and that of his secretary infected with a spyware that automatically copied files.

The Vatican claimed that Mr Milone had used the external contractor to spy on Holy See officials, going far beyond his brief.

In a forthright statement released on Sunday, the Vatican said Mr Milone had “illegally employed an outside company to carry out investigative activities on the private lives of members of the Holy See.” That was not only a crime, it had also “irredeemably damaged” the Vatican’s faith in him. 

The Holy See had noted “with surprise and regret” the revelations made by the former auditor-general to various media outlets. Archbishop Becciu even alleged that he had been spied on by Mr Milone. "If he had not agreed to resign, we would have prosecuted him,” he said.

-------------------------------------------------

Pope Francis’s anti-sleaze auditor Libero Milone ‘forced out’ of Vatican role

Tom Kington, Rome

Pope Francis’s efforts to clean up the Vatican’s murky finances and relax rigid Church doctrine are under fire after the resignation of his top auditor and a row with four hardline cardinals over alleged rule-bending on divorce.

Libero Milone, a former Deloitte & Touche auditor appointed to great fanfare in 2015 to poke around the Vatican’s dusty balance sheets, was given the right to open any filing cabinet or computer as the pope tried to end decades of mismanagement and sleaze.

Libero Milone had been given the power to open any filing cabinet or computer as part of his mission to shine a light on the Vatican’s murky finances.

Reporting directly to Francis, Mr Milone resigned this week, fuelling speculation that he had angered secretive cardinals . Mr Milone own computer and office were broken into in late 2015.

His resignation, announced by the Vatican in a brief note, is a blow to the Australian cardinal George Pell, who was brought in by Francis as head of the Vatican’s economy secretariat to run the transparency drive.

“It looks like Pell and his group are being stonewalled,” said Robert Mickens, English language editor of the La Croix International, a Catholic news website.

Cardinal Pell’s stock may fall further if he is charged over sexual abuse allegations dating back to the 1970s in Australia where police are pouring over evidence. He has denied the claims.

On the doctrinal front, Francis’s enemies stepped up their attack over the pope’s 2016 encyclical Amoris Laetitia, in which he suggested bishops can overlook the Church’s rule on refusing communion to remarried divorcees.

Traditionally, the Church regards remarried divorcees as living in sin, instead continuing to recognise their first marriage.

However, in his bid to make the Church more welcoming and less censorious, Francis has hinted that exceptions can be made to allow them to take communion.

Some dioceses have jumped at the chance to change the rules, but four conservative cardinals fought back in September, complaining that they made public when he did not reply.

In April they sent another letter, this time demanding a meeting with Francis. When he again did not respond, they published the letter this week.

The letter complains that “access to the Holy Eucharist,” is being given to “those who objectively and publicly live in a situation of grave sin,” adding, “What is a sin in Poland is correct in Germany, what is forbidden in the archdiocese of Philadelphia is lawful in Malta, and so on.”

The letter was sent by cardinal Carlo Caffarra on behalf of fellow cardinals Walter Brandmueller, Joachim Meisner and American Raymond Burke, who has repeatedly attacked Francis and was recently sidelined by the pope from his role as Vatican liaison to the Knights of Malta.

“I don’t think the pope needs to worry,” said Mr Mickens. “If these people had distinguished themselves by their tireless work for the poor they would have more credibility. Instead they wear fancy clothes and live well off the subsidies of rich benefactors who agree with their sexual agendas.”

PAT SAYS:

I do believe that Pope Francis sincerely wants to reform that Vatican and its officials.

However, I think that his wishes are being frustrated by the Curia - the priests and bishops who are the civil servants.

Some at the Vatican have accused Mr. Milone of being a BULLY!

Sure the whole lot of them there are bullies with very few exceptions. You would have to be a superior bully to bring all those other bullies into line. 

Some of the Vatican crowd have accused Mr. Milone of spying on them. Of course, he was. That was what he was employed to do. To watch and spy on all the corruption and get rid of it.

The fact that they got rid of him is a sure sign that he was on to them and was challenging them about their behaviour and activities.

If Francis wants to do away with the Vatican corruption he needs to bring in a large team of experienced financial investigators from some country like the USA and give them total access to every nook and corner and eventually publish their report at an international venue like the UN.

Of course, if he took that route he would be found dead in bed some morning.

 I also think it would be a very good thing if Italy revoked it's 1929 concordat and took Vatican territory back under Italy's control and give the Italian police and courts - and Interpol and the European courts jurisdiction there. 

Cardinal Gasparri and Mussolini sign 1929 concordat

What a contradiction it is for a statelet like the Vatican - built on nearly 2,000 years of corruption - to claim that they are the true church and represent God and Christ on earth!

CATHOLIC ANNULMENTS

A REGULAR BLOG READER HAS ASKED ME FOR MY OPINION ON CATHOLIC MARRIAGE ANNULMENTS.

Can I start off by saying that I think that both the human and Christian IDEAL is that every marriage should last for life.

That's the ideal.

However as in many other things in life we humans often fail to reach or to live the ideal.

So what do you do when a marriage gets into trouble and breakdown. Do you take the hard line and tell someone - especially an innocent party, that they have made their bed and must lie on it - and condemn them to a lifetime of loneliness or a lifetime of being a church leper?

The whole point of Christianity is that JESUS came to be the BRIDGE between God and man and woman - and the bridge between the ideal and the real.

So on this question - as on all other questions - we need to ask ourselves WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?

Many people do not understand the difference between DIVORCE and an ANNULMENT.

A divorce is when a civil court makes a ruling that a marriage that was legally valid is now being ended.

An annulment is when a church court says that there never was a valid marriage in the first place due to something lacking in a couple or their attempted marriage. In the church's eyes that can be something like a couple deciding before marriage that they will never have children; one party marrying out of fear or not giving full consent, or one party being secretly a homosexual and not declaring it to the other party.

I do not have much respect for the Roman Catholic Church's marriage annulment carry on for the following reasons:

1. It can take many years to get an annulment. I've met people who have waited 10 plus years.

2. The investigators are mainly priests and they often ask both parties very intimate questions about their life and sexual history.

3. If you are famous, wealthy or well in with especially some senior clergy you can get an annulment easier than and sexual lives.  or Mary Bloggs can.

4. If you are living in the USA it is easier to get an annulment than if you are living in Ireland.

And generally speaking, annulments are ways of controlling people at the level of their emotional and sexual lives. Why should any man or woman have to give a supposedly celibate priest a blow by blow account of what happens in the bedroom?

The RC Church did not really get involved in marriage until the 12th century. Before that time it was a civil, legal matter.

Of course, people like to think that they have God's blessing on their life and marriage. Traditionally they have done this by asking a priest to bless them or give them the Sacrament of Marriage. 

But any couple can sit on a sofa together and ask God to bless them, their marriage and their children and God WILL do just that.

And there is nothing at all wrong with a couple having a church marriage presided over by a priest. In many ways such marriages are more meaningful than a quick visit to a lady at the state registry office.

But I would like the Church to STOP controlling people through marriage, sexuality, schools etc.

The church and the priest should be there to SERVE - not to DOMINATE.

I have been looking after Catholics and others who have had broken marriages for 31 years now. In fact I have celebrated over 4,000 marriagesd and blessing at people's requests. Many of the people I look after have been turned away by judgemental priests - or priests insisting on an annulment. Believe me I have heard horror stories about how people were treated by parish priests, curates and priests in church tribunals.

I always tell people to ignore the whole annulment procedure. I tell them to sort out their affairs through civil divorces, wills and good arrangements for children.

And then I remarry them. 

Sometimes - but far less often these days - people ask me if my marriages are recognized by Catholic Canon Law.

I tell them: NO.

And I go on to tell them that when I marry them they will be married in the eyes of the law of the land and in the eyes of God.

And I ask them: "If you are married in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of God do you really care what some priest, bishop or pope thinks"?

Most people these days do not care about these men and their man-made rules which were manEVEN THE RCufactured as control mechanisms.

And I always say to them:

"IF ALL YOU ARE GUILTY OF IN LIFE IS REMARRYING AND FINDING LOVE AGAIN YOU WILL HAVE NO REASON TO FEAR MEETING JESUS AT THE END OF YOUR LIFE. YOU WILL HAVE FAR LESS TO ACCOUNT FOR THAN MANY OF THE PRIESTS, BISHOPS ETC WHO ARE QUICK TO JUDGE YOU".

If your marriage gets into trouble - do all you can - including getting counseling to save it.

If your marriage is truly over try and part friends with your ex and look after all your responsibilities to them and especially to your children.

And when you are ready - and if you want to - be open to God sending someone new your way and when they arrive see them as a gift of God - and not a sin.

Life is short.

Life is tough.

Make the most of every good thing that comes your way - while of course, always being responsible, just and moral about it.

EVEN THE RC CHURCH TEACHES THAT IT IS THE COUPLE WHO ARE THE MINISTERS OF THE SACRAMENT - AND NOT THE PRIEST.

Is God going to refuse his grace because a priest is not present?