Friday 29 January 2016

POPE FRANCIS AND HIS PROTESTANT "BROTHER BISHOP"

In a recent message recorded on an Iphone Pope Francis called Bishop Tony Palmer his BROTHER BISHOP and sent greetings to a USA conference of evangelical church delegates.



Tony Palmer's whole talk is good - but you can skip to Francis' recording if you wish.

Sadly Tony Palmer was killed in a motor bike accident shortly after this. 





Bishop Palmer was buried at St Johns RC Church, Bath in the UK. Canon David told us that because Tony was not a Roman Catholic he had to ask his bishops permission to celebrate the requiem and though Tony’ s wife and children are Roman Catholics, permission still had to be given for the requiem. The bishop agreed but said that Tony could not be buried as a bishop as he was not a Roman Catholic bishop. However, Pope Francis said he should and could be buried as a bishop…and so that put an end to that little bit of ecclesiastical nonsense!

Canon Ryan
TONY AND FRANCIS:

tony-palmer-francis.jpg

“Pope” Francis advised Tony Palmer NOT to Convert, ordered him buried as a Catholic Bishop!

[The church communion Palmer was “ordained” in sees itself] as part of a “convergence” movement, seeking to combine evangelical Christianity with the liturgy and sacraments typical of Catholicism.
That convergence, Palmer told me, “is a precursor to full unity between the Protestant and Catholic Churches.”
Palmer and [his “Catholic” wife Emiliana] Calisi began doing joint missions around the world — which is what took him to Buenos Aires in 2006. Its archbishop, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, had overcome his reservations about the charismatic renewal and enthusiastically backed a 6,000-strong joint Catholic-evangelical gathering that year in Buenos Aires’ Luna Park stadium. 
At one point, when Palmer was tired of living on the frontier and wanted to become Catholic, [then-Cardinal] Bergoglio advised him against conversion for the sake of the mission.
“We need to have bridge-builders”, the cardinal told him. 
On June 24 [2014], Palmer took a group of evangelical leaders who jointly reach more than 700 million people to meet and lunch with Francis, which he reported to me a few days later, as he left for two weeks in South Africa. The delegates included Copeland, the televangelist James Robison, as well as Geoff Tunnicliffe, head of the Worldwide Evangelical Alliance. They told Francis they wanted to accept his invitation to seek visible unity with the Bishop of Rome.
Palmer handed the pope a proposed Declaration of Faith in Unity for Mission the evangelicals had drawn up, which they proposed would be signed by both the Vatican and leaders of the major Protestant churches in Rome in 2017, on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
Palmer told me the draft Declaration has three elements: the Nicean-Constantinople Creed, which Catholics and evangelicals share; the core of the Catholic-Lutheran declaration of 1999 making clear there is no disagreement over justification by faith; as well as a final section asserting that Catholics and evangelicals are now “united in mission because we are declaring the same Gospel.”
The closing section speaks of the importance of freedom of conscience and the need for Catholics and evangelicals to respect each other’s mission fields and treat the other with respect, not as rivals. Francis had taken the draft and said he would think about it. Palmer and I agreed to speak again when Francis got back to him, but that was not to be.
Last Wednesday, in Bath, Palmer’s funeral was a Catholic Requiem Mass at which most of the congregation were evangelicals. He was buried in a Catholic cemetery, united at last with the Church he felt at home in. 

(Austen Ivereigh, “Pope’s Protestant friend dies, but push for unity livesThe Boston Globe, Aug. 7, 2014)

WOULD LOVE TO HEAR PEOPLE'S VIEWS ON THIS WHOLE THING

3 comments:

  1. Truly extraordinary in the depths of mutual love and generosity - the Spirit lives! Thank you so much for sharing. Yet here in Northern Ireland we continue to operate segregated schooling. If Protestants and Catholics were of different colour segregation would be illegal.
    Former Parishioner of St Bridget's

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  2. I was by baptism a northern Catholic. I make the distinction because after many years of working among the Irish in the Midlands and London I came to recognise many differences between Catholics from the different political parts of Ireland.
    I have also worked among people from many other races and different ethnic origins. I have worked and lived among folks of every faith and none.
    Northern Irish Catholics are in general insular, very parochial in outlook and less accepting of the faith of others.
    I have little doubt that that much of that is the result of separate schooling.and please spare me the time worn arguments. Ive heard them all before.

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  3. Thank you for bringing this unbelievable act of folly on the part of Francis to your readership. In overturning the legitimate decision of the Diocesan Bishop of Clifton that Revered Palmer was not to be buried according to the Rites of the Roman Catholic Church, let alone as a bishop, you get to know all you need to know about this Pope. He overturns dogma and tradition on a whim, with no thought whatsoever as to the implications of his decision on the Faithful, who on this occasion were deeply distressed and confused by what happened. The bishop too was utterly bewildered, and felt humiliated to be dressed down by the pope in such a public way. I know of many bishops and priests who are saying why should we uphold Catholic Tradition and Teaching? Why should we when the pope can overturn it on a whim. The allowing of women to have their feet washed at the Mandatum on Holy Thursday by executive decree of the pope is yet another example. No pope has the right to behave in this way. I am not alone in being deeply troubled by this pope. Faithful Catholic in Clifton diocese.

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