Francis: We should caress our neuroses

 

You just can't make this up.  Francis, whose mental health has been in question for many years, said that we should "caress our neuroses."  See here.

Pope Francis has admitted that he has "some nerve problems" which require treatment as well as various neuroses. See here. A neuroses is defined as, "A relatively mild mental illness* that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress such as depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior and hypochondria."

* Francis has been described as a "sociopath." See here.

Profile of the sociopath here.

Father Malachi Martin on perfect possession

"The symptoms of possession, Father [Malachi] Martin says, are often confused with mental illness. 'Science spent a lot of time trying to prove that these people were, so to speak, loonies,' he says. 'Now most of my cases are referred to me by psychiatrists.' Victims tend to undergo a startling change of personality. They may become unpredictable, violent and treacherous. They humiliate their families, plot against their friends

, lie to their colleagues. 'They have become alien entities. They have surrendered their wills. The most extreme state is ‘perfect possession’, when the demon has taken complete control. The perfectly possessed person is totally lost. There is nothing I can do,' says Father Martin.

'The peculiar thing is that these people are usually highly sophisticated, and the last thing you would suspect is that they were in league with the Devil. But there is always something about them. It may be a look in their eyes, a tone of voice, a sense of coldness, of contempt. Some- thing inhuman. When you encounter it, you know you have met the true enemy.'" Full article here.

The Kolvenbach Report and Francis: What did it warn of?

Rorate Coeli notes:

"The superiors of religious orders and societies are consulted by the Congregation for Bishops when their priestly members are considered for an appointment as bishop.

It is a well known and established information in the Holy See (as it was in Buenos Aires before) that, when Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, was tipped by the then-Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Quarracino, to become his auxiliary, in 1992, the then-Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach -- who was struggling to recover some credibility to his order after the severe intervention by Pope John Paul II and the removal of Arrupe and Arrupists who had run the great Society to the ground following the Council -- wrote an unfavorable report on the possible nomination.

The report is said to be highly detailed, and to reveal all the character inclinations that are evident in the personality of the current Pope.

Now, it would be one of the scoops of the century if a journalist revealed to the world this most important historical document. The "grown-up" Catholics of our age, "emancipated" by Vatican II, can surely take what Father Kolvenbach was trying to warn Pope John Paul II and his advisers about Father Bergoglio. And surely the new enlightened Vatican can be transparent enough to let all Catholics and all others know the contents of such a precious report.

Time to let the sunlight in."

Precisely.  What was in that report?  Was concern expressed over possible mental illness in Father Bergoglio? After all, he has admitted himself  that he suffers from neuroses.

Pope Francis has admitted that he has "some nerve problems" which require treatment as well as various neuroses. See here. A neuroses is defined as, "A relatively mild mental illness* that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress such as depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior and hypochondria."

* Francis has been described as a "sociopath." See here.

Government-Funded Publication: Homosexuals are narcissistic

As noted here, in a publication offered by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, homosexuals are narcissists.

A summary of this government-funded publication:

"According to orthodox psychoanalytical theory, narcissism and homosexuality are strongly associated. This association played a major role in pathologizing homosexuality. The present study compared self-esteem and two measures of narcissism among 90 homosexual and 109 heterosexual male students, who filled in a demographic questionnaire, Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, and the Pathological Narcissism Inventory, which addresses both grandiose and vulnerable subtypes of narcissism. The hypothesis, which is based on the Freudian connection between narcissism and homosexuality, is supported by the results, indicating that the homosexual students score higher in both measures of narcissism and lower on the self-esteem measure, compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Intra-psychic, as well as environmental, interpretations of the results are suggested in the discussion."

Readers of this Blog know that I have been saying this for years.  It takes time for the U.S. government to catch up to reality at times.

Rather than catering to a small minority with a radical agenda to "normalize" pathology, the United States should be leading by example.

The homosexual pathology is a mental illness with consequences for all of society.

It is irresponsible to deny this.

Related reading here.

A sense of balance: Faith and Reason; Natural and Supernatural

In his 1998 Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason), Pope John Paul II said that, "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth - in a word, to know himself - so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves" (cf. Ex 33: 18; Ps 27: 8-9; 63: 2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).

And, in No. 9 of this wonderful Encyclical Letter, John Paul cites the First Vatican Council: "The First Vatican Council teaches...that the truth attained by philosophy and the truth of Revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive: 'There exists a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only as regards their source, but also as regards their object. With regard to the source, because we know in one by natural reason, in the other by divine faith. With regard to the object, because besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God which, unless they are divinely revealed, cannot be known'. Based upon God's testimony and enjoying the supernatural assistance of grace, faith is of an order other than philosophical knowledge which depends upon sense perception and experience and which advances by the light of the intellect alone. Philosophy and the sciences function within the order of natural reason; while faith, enlightened and guided by the Spirit, recognizes in the message of salvation the “fullness of grace and truth” (cf. Jn 1:14) which God has willed to reveal in history and definitively through his Son, Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Jn 5:9; Jn 5:31-32).

Why is this point so important? Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains: "To see the purely human aspect of things is a necessary foundation for seeing the supernatural aspect. One who does not see the human aspect is insensitive and superficial, and his attitude is incompatible with the true faith. The deeper one sees the natural tragedy of death [for example], then the more one is able to grasp the tremendous significance of our redemption through Christ, and the more one possesses that true faith which St. Paul expresses by asking, 'O death, where is your sting?' But as soon as one jumps over the human aspect without passing through it, one does not ascend to the supernatural aspect, but rather replaces the natural with the supernatural aspect, which can only be attained by faith - one treats the supernatural aspect as if it were the natural, one takes it for granted, and omits that sursum corda, that ascent into the supernatural world which is possible only in faith. If the human aspect is not duly seen, then the aspect of faith is naturalized, and dragged down to the level of the obvious. If the human aspect is suppressed or omitted, then the aspect of faith becomes ungenuine, unreal." (The Devastated Vineyard, pp. 224-225).

We need to maintain this sense of balance between faith and reason, natural and supernatural, at all times. Without it, our life as Christians becomes distorted. For example, some have made an idol out of learning and have embraced a false intellectualism which ignores faith in an attempt to avoid the will of God and His Commandments. This is what Soren Kierkegaard meant when he said, "It is to get rid of doing God's will that we have invented learning...we shield ourselves by hiding behind tomes." (Kierkegaard, quoted in Lowrie, Kierkegaard, New York, Harper, 1962, Vol. II, p. 539).

In an article which addresses illness and healing, and which may be found here, Michael Brown writes, "'Strange as it may seem to many Christians today, the main factor in conversion [in olden times] was exorcism -- the driving out of demons,' MacNutt [referring to Fr. Francis MacNutt] notes emphatically in a book called Healing. 'Belief in the supernatural was accepted in those days and Christianity was presented as being in direct conflict with pagan gods, something like a spiritual 'shoot-out.' That's in contrast to the modern way of attributing ailments (whether bodily or mental) to purely physical and psychological effects. Perhaps the safest approach is to first cast out potential spirits. Exposure to evil can cause maladies.
'What has happened to the major thrust of early Christianity: to heal and exorcise?' asked the former professor, who now runs a ministry in Jacksonville, Florida. Perhaps the decline of fervor dates to a decline in belief in prayer for healing. What happened in all those centuries to diminish the Church's belief in Christ's healing ministry is complicated; but certainly one of the main factors was that Platonic, Stoic, and Manichean thought infected Christian spirituality.
'Another attitude, one of superiority toward healing, holds that miracles were needed to establish the Church, but now that people believe, there is no further need for signs or proof,' he says. 'This attitude is the outcome of an overemphasis on doctrine: healing of the sick takes place, not primarily because God is compassionate and desires to heal broken humanity, but because He wants to make a point.' In other words: Christianity has been over-intellectualized. It is a fact that both healing and exorcism have been shoved aside in modern Catholicism -- which strikes at the heart of our faith."

As Avery Cardinal Dulles explained in his book "The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith," "Thomas Aquinas at one point defines faith as 'the habit of mind whereby eternal life begins in us, causing the mind to assent to things that do not appear' (S.Th., 2-2, 4.1). Later he explains that, 'since in assenting to matters of faith a person is raised above his own nature, it is necessary the ascent arise from a supernatural principle moving the person inwardly; and this principle is God.' (S.Th., 2-2, 6.1). Once faith is understood as a foretaste of the beatific vision it follows evidently that it cannot be other than supernatural. Only God can impart, when he chooses, a share in his own divine life, which lies beyond the capacities and merits of any creature." (pp. 225-226).

We ignore this balance of faith and reason, natural and supernatural, at our own peril. As John Paul said, "..reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing the capacity of men and women to know themselves, the world and God in an appropriate way" (Fides et Ratio, No. 17).