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We are, let us say, in a time of drastic swings, from one side of the pendulum to the other. Perhaps we can see it better as a wildly fluctuating needle on a gauge. Or, as an out-of-control teeter-totter (roller coaster?).<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The greatest foci — and controversies — are in Rome and Washington.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n We’ll not make any judgments here.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n But how similar it seems:<\/span> controversies continue to surround the Holy Father as well as the U.S. president, who at times seem diametrically opposed to each other, though (can’t we all get along?)<\/em>\u00a0both know the Lord’s Prayer<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We’ll deal with this initially from a mystical perspective — although that may not shed as much light on matters as one might fancy.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n But if it was a future Pontiff,<\/span>\u00a0our current Holy Father might also seem to fit the bill, taking “rocks,” as it were, over that papal exhortation on the civilly-remarried and Communion (Amoris Laetiti<\/a>a<\/em><\/span>), immigration, and other matters (and occasionally hurling stones of his own).<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n When it comes to the Church, there was also the prediction from the revelations in Akita, Japan, whereby a deaf nun “heard” the Virgin prophesy a time when\u00a0“the work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops.”<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Has that time begun to arrive?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Bishops are currently opposing other bishops, and cardinals other cardinals, over everything from the aforesaid Vatican document and homosexuality to the apparitions of Medjugorje. Divisiveness? Guam, anyone? Jump to where politics and religion intersect.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Reports a news blog: “In a twenty-minute address<\/a><\/span> to the U.S. regional meeting of the World Meeting of Popular Movements, Bishop Robert McElroy [of San Diego] said that ‘President Trump was the candidate of disruption. He was the disrupter.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Well, now we must all become disrupters.’\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Acknowledging that the United States is living ‘a pivotal moment as a people and a nation’ in which ‘bitter divisions cleave our country and pollute our actual dialogue,’ the bishop urged his hearers to resist the temptation to unite under the president and rather to oppose him at every turn.”<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Another California bishop,\u00a0Bawai Soro, who came to the United States as a refugee from Iraq in 1973, wrote, to the contrary:\u00a0\u201cMr. Trump has no one to apologize to for his immigration doctrine for the simple reason that coming to America is not a right but a privilege, a privilege that is earned by waiting in line for however long it may take to reach America.”<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n An active, fluid landscape, have we.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Will it turn molten?<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n In the U.S., good,<\/span> faithful Catholics write us with remarkably different — drastically different — views of the Pope, as well as President Trump. We respect all views, as long as they are not filled with vitriol (which is currently in overabundance). Is the Pope really ready to unfurl an ecumenical liturgy (he visits an Anglican church today)? Is he trying (as Evangelicals shout) to form a one-world religion? Or is it simply his focus on mercy?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Our mailbag <\/a><\/span>contains the various points of view. “In your blogs and website, you write abundantly from the Catholic\/Christian perspective,” wrote Charmaine Lydon-Betjemann of Silver Spring, Maryland. “I go to your website on a daily basis. It is very thought-provoking. I have quite a few of your books<\/a><\/span> on my shelves. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/IMG_2867.jpg\")
First the Pope: At Fatima, after the main apparitions, the seer Jacinta Marto, who died soon after (at age ten), was shown a vision of the Holy Father praying alone in a room while people outside “shouted ugly things and threw rocks through the window.”\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong>Another time she\u00a0saw a Pope who had gathered a huge number of people together to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Again, it seemed like some kind of crisis moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>Perhaps it pertained to the Pope at the time (Benedict XV). <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n