PapaB: I've only just read your excellent letter to the editor. It was just right!

Yes, I think we should read Gloria's forum too and she has some stunning photos of our Papa!!!! Government health warning, Bood, before you look at some of them!!!!!

Thanks for the link! I will check it out.

Mary, my health hasn't been very good lately, I think a nice healthy dose of B16 will do me some good!

in danger of repeating myself... I just posted this over in Teresa's blog - I have a strange need to say it again:

Just on a personal note: I just signed up for all possible 'support the Pope' sites I could stumble across. I cancelled the local paper and subscribed to 'Die Tagespost' instead. Very good paper!!!
I've been trying to reason with people at work, at home, with friends, with neighbors and with fellow Catholics.
I have refused to watch the news. I have refused to listen to my fav. morning show on the Radio, which always structured my morning routine by it's rather structured layout. I have listened to that station (B3 on BR) since I was 12!! I can NOT take their anti Catholic bigotry - in Bavaria of all places!!!

We have a very young, nice Priest who is theologically sound and great with kids, but who is also helplessly overworked. Offering assistance is to him a granted thing.

I'm hyper excited about going to Rome in a few weeks! I even have Tom all fired up. I told him about the ludicrous 'arrest the Pope' thing.
He then made himself twice his already rather tall size and said: "I'm going to Rome, and if needed, I'll stay down there to show my support!"

I think he would sign up to a Papal Army/the Swiss Guard instantly!
Men... strange creatures.

***

Wonderful GA today - and it came straight from his heart.
Somebody had mentioned that the devil hates holiness - that's why this wonderful, humble, sweet, brilliant, beautiful man is being attacked with such velocity. I agree. Joseph Ratzinger oozes holiness; it must be very painful for Satan to tolerate him as the successor of Peter!


Sorry for the rant... it was needed... thanks!

If anyone should come across an open letter written by a certain person whose initials are HK, this is a warning.I've read it, but I don't propose to make a big deal of it here.

I'd just remind that nasty little man [I wouldn't call him any animal name, because I love all animals too much], that the Holy Office and, indeed, the Inquisition still exist for people like him......and I would personally marmalise him, if I got near him. I also remind him that the Magisterium of the Catholic Church is her strength and can't be altered by anyone. Full stop.

I've read it too, Mary!

And Mr. Kung made my blood boil. I refer to him as "Mr." because I don't consider him a priest. If he is, it is in the church of Hans Kung, membership of one, made in his own image and likeness. His bitter jealousy of Joseph Ratzinger sends him rushing to the media frothing at the mouth every time he thinks he can do some damage to the Pope. He spouts the same sick, tired criticisms and calumnies. If he spent 5 minutes trying to seek the truth of the situation at hand, he would see that any charges or complaints are false. But Mr. Kung is not interested in the truth. He is interested in promoting Mr. Kung.

I debated whether to post his latest rant but decided, why bother? We've heard it all before many times. If anything, it gets worse and more unhinged each time. I think he should join forces with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and form a church for blithering idiots.

News from PapaB in Hawaii

I have been worrying for a while about where PapaB had disappeared to after posting a lot on the forum a month ago. She seemed to have abruptly dropped off the face of the earth. So finally I emailed her at her home email address and this evening I got a reply.

She's been in the hospital for more than two weeks with a bad case of pneumonia and afterwards was recuperating at her god-daughter's place. To make matters more complicated, she seems to be locked out of the forum again. I think this is the fourth time that has happened.

We are going to try to get her back. In the meantime, she sent this message:

"Please tell everyone on the Forum that I’m sorry I couldn’t do more posting but most of all, how much I missed all the interaction and their posts."

I'm sure she would appreciate some prayers to help along her recovery. And maybe a few entertaining posts.

J join in your prayer!!!

Dear Linda/PapaB!!!!

Our prayers are with you. Get well very soon! We need you!

I think PapaB gets locked out of the forum if she doesn't log in for a while, though I can't think why this is so. She may have to choose another slightly different name and start again. We'll get you back, dear PapaB !!!!!!!!!

Chere Flo!
How wonderful that you are going to Lourdes! Please take some photos and post them here. And thank you for the prayers. Have a great and holy time!
Luff, Mary xxxx

It's so good to see you back on the forum Linda!!! Glad you're feeling better... prayers for to continue on the road of recovery.

Hooray, PapaB!

Delighted to see you back and without the usual huge struggle.

Flo,

Thanks so much for your prayers for little Anna. She's had jaundice since birth and is being monitored for it. It's great to know that you spoke to Our Lady about her at Lourdes. I'm sure that prayers said there are very powerful.

Thank you for being so kind.

i know it's absolutely off topic and probably nobody agrees with me, but it doesn't matter, i have to post this link :

svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=132587 and go to clip "prins daniels tal" at page 2

it's sooo beautiful, so amazing, so heart-stopping, so lovely, so...., - i don't know what more . yesterday i watched swedish TV "only" from 1PM until far after midnight - the whole broadcasting was absolutely great

Flo,

I've been reading about it in our newspapers. It's definitely strange. I can imagine what an uproar it is causing in France.

Flo, I'm from South Africa and our team Bafana Bafana (placed very low down the scale of Fifa's ratings for the world!)actually made France's team look like amateurs today. Bafana won this match, as you may know by now but it did not help us one bit. We are the first host country in the history of World Cup Soccer not to make it into the second round (or whatever it is called). But no one in South Africa is angry at our team;they are having parties all over the place and everyone is still enjoying the other games. Perhaps the old famous countries like France should relax a bit about competitions and enjoy the game. Sport has become too much like men making war, I think.

Glad to hear though that the "other" scandal has suddenly become less newsworthy!

Your country has excellent soccer players, Flo. Just a pity they didn't act like a real team this time. However, at least they will now be rid of the vuvuzelas.....

Congratulations to the South African team for its performance! So good to see how they put their heart into those matches, especially against France. Even if they didn't make it to the next round I think they thought some of the other teams a thing or two about what soccer is all about really: enthusiasm and sportsmanship.
I think the problem with teams like France and some of the other European teams is that some of their 'stars' have lost touch with reality completely. Being paid ridiculously high sums of money and being treated like 'gods' they start to behave like divas.

Yay! I'm in and can post although the brief text I used disappeared ... lets try again!

Hi Papabear!

I wanted to make a new thread, but for some reason I'm not allowed to. Do I need to have a certain amount of posts, or is making new threads not allowed?

See? I have to go in and edit to get the text to "take."

My problem is that I also can't paste in articles. I sent an FFZ to Janet so we'll see ....

Posting problems

I just sent an email to Mary for advice on the problems you girls are having. She's more knowledgeable about the technical stuff on the forum than I am.

I'm not sure what is messing up PapaBear's posts. But, Bood, I think one of the other girls also complained a while back about not being able to open a new thread. I'm wondering if one of the Italian admins did something to prevent everyone except admins from opening new threads. Previously anybody could open a thread but often when a new member joined, they would get confused about how to post and would accidentally start a new thread instead of a new post, which lead to a lot of odd and confusing threads being added. However, all the previous Italian admins have left the forum.

Mary has opened a couple of new threads since she was named a vice-admin. I haven't tried to open any although I am listed as a vice-admin also. I don't think there is an admin around now who knows how to remove whatever lock is in place but I'm sure Mary or I (if I'm able) would be glad to open any threads anybody wants to start. Just let us know. Sorry about the problems. We are in a kind of technological limbo here.