{"id":2484,"date":"2019-02-08T00:34:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T00:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/?p=2484"},"modified":"2019-02-08T00:34:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T00:34:10","slug":"cardinal-caffarra-satan-is-hurling-at-god-the-ultimate-and-terrible-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/2019\/02\/08\/cardinal-caffarra-satan-is-hurling-at-god-the-ultimate-and-terrible-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinal Caffarra: Satan is Hurling at God the \u201cUltimate and Terrible Challenge\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Cardinal Caffarra: Satan is Hurling at God the \u201cUltimate and Terrible Challenge\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

source: http:\/\/m.ncregister.com\/blog\/edward-pentin\/cardinal-caffarra-satan-is-hurling-at-god-the-ultimate-and-terrible-challen#.WS7n0uvyuJB<\/a><\/p>\n

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Posted by Edward Pentin on Saturday May 20th, 2017 at 5:46 AM<\/div>\n

In a Rome speech, the Italian cardinal warned that societies are now facing a \u201cfrightful\u201d war on marriage and the family but urged the faithful not to be afraid, to witness to Christ, as the victory is already won.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Article<\/p>\n

Satan is hurling at God \u201cthe ultimate and terrible challenge,\u201d\u00a0to show he is capable of constructing an \u201canti-creation\u201d that mankind will be deceived into thinking is better than what God has created, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra has warned.<\/p>\n

The archbishop emeritus of Bologna said this decisive confrontation is taking place now, and is being fought primarily over marriage and the family \u2014 a prediction Sister Lucia\u00a0made in a letter the Fatima visionary sent to him over 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

The cardinal was speaking May 19 to the Rome Life Forum<\/a>, 100 life and family leaders from over 20 nations who had gathered near the Vatican to discuss the crisis in the Church and in the family, and the hope for renewal in Our Lady of Fatima.<\/p>\n

Cardinal Caffarra, who helped found the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in 1981, began by explaining that human history has always been a tale of confrontation between two forces: \u201cThe force of attraction,\u201d that is the wounded Heart of the Crucified Risen One, and the \u201cpower of Satan,\u201d the father of lies, the \u201cmurderer from the beginning\u201d who seeks to extinguish truth in the heart of man.<\/p>\n

This area of confrontation, the cardinal continued, is being fought in an interior and exterior dimension: within both the human heart and human culture.<\/p>\n

He made clear that the Lord\u2019s force of attraction \u201ccan only take effect on those who \u2018are from the truth\u2019 \u2014 those \u201cprofoundly available to the Truth, who love the truth, who live in familiarity with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But \u201cthere is no truth\u201d in\u00a0Satan, he added, who seeks to kill truth in the heart of man by \u201cinducing\u201d him to unbelief. He is constantly refusing the truth; his action in society is to oppose the truth. \u201cSatan is<\/em> this refusal,\u201d the cardinal remarked. \u201cHe is<\/em> this opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Satan is therefore always working against the Lord\u2019s strong force of attraction to Himself, seeking to \u201cneutralize\u201d it. And this battle within the human heart becomes manifest in society and culture, leading to \u201cthe culture of the truth and the culture of the lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Destroying two pillars of creation<\/strong><\/p>\n

This confrontation, Cardinal Caffarra went on to explain, shows itself with \u201cparticular clarity\u201d in two developments, the first being \u201cthe transformation\u201d of the crime of abortion into a legal and subjective right.<\/p>\n

Legalized abortion \u201csignifies calling what is good, evil, what is light, shadow.\u201d It is a Satanic attempt, he said, to produce an \u201canti-Revelation,\u201d to generate an \u201canti-creation.\u201d The cardinal added that by ennobling the killing of humans, Satan has \u201claid the foundations for his \u2018creation\u2019: to remove from creation the image of God, to obscure His presence therein.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second development showing the \u201cculture of the lie\u201d is the \u201cennoblement of homosexuality,\u201d the cardinal said, which \u201cin fact denies entirely the truth of marriage, the mind of God the Creator with regard to marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marriage has a \u201cpermanent structure\u201d in the mind of God because the union of man and woman is the \u201chuman cooperation in the creative act of God,\u201d Cardinal Caffarra said.<\/p>\n

For this reason, the elevation of abortion to a \u201csubjective right\u201d and equating a homosexual relationship to marriage represent the destruction of \u201ctwo pillars of creation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the root of this is the work of Satan, who wants to build an actual anti-creation,\u201d Cardinal Caffarra said. \u201cThis is the ultimate and terrible challenge which Satan is hurling at God. \u2018I am demonstrating to you that I am capable of constructing an alternative to your creation. And man will say: it is better in the alternative creation than in your creation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the frightful strategy of the lie,\u201d the cardinal continued, \u201cconstructed around a profound contempt for man.\u201d <\/em>He noted that man is not capable of \u201celevating himself to the splendor of the Truth\u201d and so Satan continued to \u201ctell him banalities about man\u201d and that the Truth \u201cdoes not exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Christians must testify<\/strong><\/p>\n

To combat Satan\u2019s lies, Cardinal Caffarra stressed that the faithful are called upon to testify: to \u201cannounce openly and publicly\u201d through such actions as this weekend\u2019s March for Life in Rome, and to proclaim divine Revelation, speaking in particular of the \u201cGospel of Life and Marriage,\u201d and doing so \u201cas if in a trial.\u201d The alternative, he said, is to remain silent or saying something else, but at the same time, he stressed that should not be taken to mean that Christians should be \u201cantipathetic to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cardinal stressed that just as medicine \u201cproposes the cure while excluding the illness,\u201d so should we \u201clove the sinner, but persecute the sin.\u201d It would be a \u201cterrible doctor,\u201d he said, \u201cwho adopted an irenical attitude towards the disease.\u201d Instead, the Christian should \u201chunt down the sin,\u201d he said, \u201ctrack it down in the hidden places of its lies, and condemn it, bringing to light its insubstantiality.\u201d<\/p>\n

He concluded that \u201cChrist is witness\u201d and reassured those present of the words from the Gospel of John: \u201cWhen I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In supplementary words after his talk, Cardinal Caffarra recalled the letter he received from Sister Lucia when he was facing trials in establishing\u00a0the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.<\/p>\n

He said he would \u201cnever forget\u201d the last words of her letter, \u201cwords that are engraved in my heart,\u201d in which Sister Lucia wrote \u201cthere will come a time when the decisive confrontation between the Kingdom of God and Satan will take place over marriage and the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said she underscored that those who are going to work for marriage and the family \u201cwill undergo trials and tribulations\u201d but added: \u201cDo not fear, Our Lady has already crushed his head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardinal Caffarra told the conference that his talk was \u201cbased on these words of Sister Lucia, and therefore on the conviction that what Sister Lucia said in those days are being fulfilled in these days of ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

See the full text of the cardinal’s talk\u00a0here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Cardinal Caffarra: Satan is Hurling at God the \u201cUltimate and Terrible Challenge\u201d source: http:\/\/m.ncregister.com\/blog\/edward-pentin\/cardinal-caffarra-satan-is-hurling-at-god-the-ultimate-and-terrible-challen#.WS7n0uvyuJB Posted by Edward Pentin on Saturday May 20th, 2017 at 5:46 AM [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2485,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions\/2485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}