3-12-13 - NAP DREAM -  I was living in a house somewhere with my husband where the winters got cold and icy.

This one day, an older woman came to the house to visit - might have been the landlady - she invited us to go ice skating in the backyard.

I really didn't like the cold all that much so I didn't want to go, so I was cleaning the house while the others were outside skating on the ice pond.

Inside the kitchen, I discovered that the kitchen floor had piles of slushy ice all over the floor - everywhere - at least 6 inches deep.  I took a broom to sweep the ice toward a floor drain so it would go down the drain as it melted.

Then I was told by the maintenance man that the stand pipe that went into the basement was stopped up so we shouldn't use the water.

That meant I couldn't use the toilet, or do the dishes, and how was I supposed to stop the ice from melting and going down the drain.

That was an impossible dilemma for me to deal with.

Then  everyone who had been out iceskating came in and I was supposed to feed them, and of course, the sink was fully dirty water because I couldn't let it go down the drain, and no one could go to the bathroom - not to mention the icy slush was still all over the kitchen floor.

I just didn't know what to do until the maintenance man got the standpipe unclogged.

3-12-13 - NAP DREAM - I was either visiting or working at a place built on the side of a steep hill that had multiple wooden sluceways on the side - going sideways...  in Washington State, these are called 'flumes'.

I don't remember any conversations or what we were doing there - just that I was there.

Later, I had a vision of Wolf Blitzer from CNN while thinking about this dream.

On CNN, Wolf Blitzer took a prominent place on the TV screen while we awaited the announcement of the new Pope, who announced his name as Francis.  He is to be the Reformer of the Catholic Church.

[end of excerpt]

I hope you can see the astonishing connections here.

Thanks again.

Regards and best wishes,

Joseph E. (Joe) Mason
http://www.greatdreams.com/crpcirc.htm

Taken from: http://www.greatdreams.com/sacred/hanged-man.htm

9-6-01- DREAM - I was living in a house with a lot of other people. The water standpipe coming from upstairs had been shut off, but when the maintenance man and I went to check it out, I noticed that drops of water were coming down. I was standing under the pipe opening when the water was turned back on and the water poured on the top of my head forcefully. It felt warm and wonderful and it was so relaxing and peaceful. It was an initiation of some kind.

Later, when I was laying in bed, the men in the group were discussing what kind of event they could make up for an initiation for people and I knew I had already been initiated and didn't need another one at the hands of man. But to me, sitting on the bed was a grandmother reading stories of Jesus life to her male grandchild from a Golden book.

***************************

One from 2003:

12-16-03 - DREAM - I was at my house, but don't know what city. A huge old tree caught fire in front of the house and at first I thought it was no big deal, but then I realized that the branches reached up and over the house and the house could catch fire. So I rushed inside the house and attempted to run a water-hose up the stairs, but I was actually using vacuum cleaner hose and stretched it. I kept calling for help from my kids, but they didn't come to help. Finally I got the hose stretched all the way upstairs and aimed to hose out the front screen window and saw that Tom and Robert had already put out the fire with an outside standpipe and hose.

Then when I was telling someone about the fire, I realized I hadn't been calling my kids by their right names. I was calling Tom - Michael and calling Robert - Tom. No wonder they didn't come to help me. Nevertheless the fire was out and there was just a smoking pipe standing in front of the house.

I then went to a neighborhood bar where they were having a pool table delivered. I was trying to help them even thought they were going about it all wrong. They wanted to place it on the 1st floor, but they took it down an outside basement stairs and then up to the 1st floor via an inner stairway. But they didn't have anything out of the way and all the gardening equipment was on the stairs - like the rototiller and the wheelbarrow and other large metal tools. I told them that stuff was too heavy for me to lift.

Then a whole group of people came down to help - everyone was dressed in pajamas and bathrobes and was jolly and laughing.

I told the bar owner and I had always though I would like to go into the bar business.

All he was worried about was being arrested for not having a pool table license for 2 hours before closing time.

I was the last one up the rickety stairs to the 1st floor. The owner did everything wrong - I don't know how he ran the business at all.

From 2010

All of a sudden, her daughters showed up with their boyfriends, two really pretty red headed girls in their early 20's, and all of a sudden the woman I was with was really pretty with red hair too. They all took off and left me sitting there.

(The three women were the triple goddess - see: www.greatdreams.com/drmgds.htm

I had seen some light out the window, and knew that dawn was breaking, and the restaurant people were baking bread. I saw 5 large loaves being readied for the oven as I walked by the door.

(These were the shewbread - see below)

The next person who came up to me was a guy from the town garage. He handed me a car key on a ring with a brown leather tag on it, and a bill for the car I could pay when I picked it up for $5. That's what it cost to fix it he said..

I asked him where my husband was. He said, "Jail!" Drunk driving!"

I thanked him and another man came by and I asked him where the jail was, and he said he would show me. So he walked me across the street and kitty corner across the highway and there was the jail.

I walked into the jail, and that's where the car was parked. Another guy came over and said he would give me $130 for the car because it really wasn't driveable, but it was an old Chevrolet and he thought maybe he would help me out and take the car off my hands.

I didn't think $130 was really enough, but it was an old used car, and we talked about how many miles on it, and how many miles per gallon it got, and I said 'about 40, which I didn't know if it was right or not. I just said that.

Two other guys came up to me and acted all concerned about me. I recognized both of them from Milwaukee. Both had their faces painted white with pink polka dots on them and blue eyes, and wore baseball caps.

One of the men took my face in his hands and looked in my left eye and said I had blood in it. I didn't think so, but I took his word for it, because he was a friend and looked so concerned.

i kissed both the guys on the lips because they were good friends from Milwaukee, and they helped me decide to sell the car.

So, the other guy who offered me the $130, came up with the $130 and a whole pile of other dollar bills and change that was in the car, and 30 keys.

I gave him the 2 car keys back so I ended up with 29 keys from him.and the money.

I asked the two white faced guys where the bus station was so I could go back home, and they said they would show me. I was holding my big red purse (which I really own), and I had a bag of french fries to eat from the restaurant.

All of a sudden I woke up.

TRANSFORMATION AT DAWN

Alchemical Transformation in the Golden Dawn

This article was written by Lyam Thomas Christopher
posted under Kabbalah

The Great Work is not an easy task for the human animal. It is the alchemical change from human to more-than-human, and it brings the student of the occult into a direct relationship with the predicament of mortality and with the compromises that he has made in order to survive in the material world. Plunging into these issues when most people would turn back, the student finds himself on a journey through disillusionment, self-doubt, and a dreadful loss of purpose—and possibly a journey that arrives at a new vista of life going far beyond what ordinary consciousness can fathom. In the process of this magical work, life usually gets worse before it gets better. The immortal Self awakened by the Golden Dawn’s Kabbalistic techniques, by its very definition, brings with it a permanent joy and realization, yes, but these rewards are obtained by a journey through darkness. For the true thrust of the Golden Dawn comes as an assault from within. The Great Work brings forth an inner truth that destroys what we hold most dear. It dissolves from the inside the stranglehold that our biology has upon our spirit, subduing the animal and calling forth the god. This is not good news to the ego, the “assumed identity” that you and I have adopted in order to survive in the world. We have spent at least eighteen years creating a fully functional personality capable of finding food and shelter, forming profitable relationships, and rearing offspring. To discover other possibilities beyond this baseline of existence poses a threat. The human animal fears the power of magic because, in its essence, magic seeks to supplant the animal motives with deeper ones. It seeks to penetrate beyond the boundaries of our daily survival drama. The fact that the body, which you and I work so hard to care for, is mortal—and obviously expendable in the hands of some deeper purpose—is the last reality we want to face! For those of us morbid enough to value this kind of self-discovery there are available the hidden traditions that still maintain magical practices of self-transformation. The grade system of the Golden Dawn spells out one such program of practice for us. Granted, there are many modern-day offshoots of the Golden Dawn that have become too “respectable” and mainstream to explore the darkness of the human soul. They teach the rudiments of Kabbalah and Egyptology, revealing to us secret handshakes and granting us prestigious certificates, all while oozing an aura of empty mystery with every email. But for those of us who are looking for more than diplomas and historical trivia, there are the less impressive curricula that still teach the distasteful, hands-on work of killing and resurrecting the human animal. To begin this not-so-glamorous process of transformation, the Golden Dawn student enters the first grade of the Outer Order: Neophyte. In most temples, the student’s primary responsibility in this grade is to perform two exercises every day: the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) and the Middle Pillar. He must also complete a small amount of reading, study, and group ritual, but these formalities, as important as they can be, are secondary to the actual daily practice of self-initiation. The LBRP and Middle Pillar exercises restructure the psyche of the student and set the stage for the transformation process to begin. To do this, the LBRP creates a cleared “space” within the student’s imagination. He draws a magic circle of protection, he intones Hebrew names of God, and he draws sigils with the intention of warding off the influences of the material world from his inner landscape. Following this, the Middle Pillar exercise invokes the highest, purest spiritual light from the student’s divine aspect, drawing it downward into the cleared space and into his body, all the way to the feet. The student thereby identifies himself with a continuum of pure, unconditioned consciousness. He becomes the Middle Pillar of the Tree of Life. This is not so much pictured as an actual tree, but as a framework of interconnected spheres, which symbolizes the creation of the universe from spirit into matter. Neophyte is a probationary grade. By creating this cleared space, the student introduces himself to future possibilities. If he isn’t yet ripe for spiritual change, his ego has a chance to wage its war of resistance and win. And it often does win. The student who isn’t ready for transformation either stops the process honestly and quits the Golden Dawn (usually for very “rational” reasons) or he joins the social club of New Age charlatans, accumulating grades, certificates, and a storehouse of impressive and useless information. Invisible to him are the students who proceed onward into the inner roller-coaster ride of the grades that follow. No one can fully understand the changes that come next, except those who have gone before. The next step then is to jump-start the process of dissolving the personality. The student proceeds into the realm of the four Elemental grades: Zelator = Earth Theoricus = Air Practicus = Water Philosophus = Fire In each of these grades, he uses Kabbalistic ritual to call forth one of the Four Elements, experiencing intimately its inner psychic correspondences. His personality becomes temporarily unbalanced, preoccupied with anything that corresponds to that Element. In Zelator (the Earth grade), for example, he feels the heaviness and the grit of life in the world. The physicality of everything around him comes into sharp focus. Even the supposedly exalted phenomenon of light can appear as darkness, as just one kind of brick in the tomb of matter. In Theoricus (the Air grade), thoughts and daydreams become overly pronounced. Elation, wonder, and the temptation to chase after glamorous images become commonplace. This gives the student a chance to reach a better understanding of his powers of imagination and his habits of thought, and to organize them and eliminate obsessions. In Practicus (the Water grade), the student gains gradual perspective over emotion and intuition, seeing these as a playing field that reveals the influence of higher forces, similar to the way that the surface of water that displays the influence of wind. And lastly, in the Fire grade, his ritual invocations fan the flames of his animal powers. Passions and instincts rise from below, and the old personality begins to burn away and disappear. These four grades call forth, purify, and consolidate the each of the Elements, showing how these four come together to produce the illusion of the personality. The student discovers that his ego isn’t inherently real or composed of any singular essence, but rather that it is an arbitrary patchwork, woven together from separate Elemental threads. The false image of the ego shows itself for what it is, and the question of whether anything lies beyond its ingredients becomes serious. A new perspective begins to dawn, and the student realizes that the real work hasn’t even begun yet. The Elemental grades actually comprise the preliminary work, and a new landscape awaits him as he readies himself to embark on the Great Work itself. The next task then is to balance the Elements—the facets of the personality—until their unity-in-diversity yields forth something more than the sum of its parts. The Portal Grade is therefore the last grade of the Outer Order, and it reverses the process of disintegration brought on via the Elemental-Grade exercises. All four Elements, which now stand in the four quarters (North, South, East, and West) symbolically untangled from one another, are brought back together meaningfully. This reintegration creates a healthy, sturdy base on which (or within which) to ignite the “oven” of the Great Work. In Portal and the grades that follow, the language of alchemy, which has remained unreliable and even impenetrable till now, begins to make sense. The sturdy foundation (or vessel) that the student has built via the Elemental grades becomes tangible to the inner senses as a sort of inner, ethereal body, neither energy nor matter. In the midst of the four Elements the newborn adept can discern, for the first time perhaps, a sort of stasis field within which he can manipulate the three hidden alchemical principles: Mercury, Sulfur, and Salt. As he proceeds into adeptship, he graduates from working with the four visible Elements (the outer facets of the quintessence) to the three invisible principles of the Trinity (the inner aspects of the quintessence). These three supernal principles, expressed in their raw form, are the Salt, Sulfur, and Mercury of alchemy, and they comprise the intangible "guts" of the Four Elements, beneath the "skin" of tangible sensation. They must not be confused with the salt, sulfur, and mercury of common experience. Into the stasis field—alchemical Salt—the magician begins to concentrate Mercury, the volatile, meandering aspect of mind, and Sulfur, discipline and concentration. His visualization ability now acts from a higher dimension, and it becomes nearly impossible to relay these deeper activities in words. But this kind of magical work has many symbols that attempt to explain it. The alchemists have sometimes represented the process as a crucified serpent, such as the serpent that Moses affixed to a cross in the desert. The cross represents the framework established by the preliminary work (Salt), the Serpent represents the volatile mind (Mercury), and the nails represent the fixation, the restraint and focus (Sulfur) applied to the volatile mind. The adept, in other words, is now capable of working with the quintessence. He can use visualization, breath, and ritual actions to contain his mind’s volatile tendency (Mercury) within a localized area (Salt) and concentrate it to crystallize into manifestation (via the principle of Sulfur). The end product of this effort is the legendary philosopher’s stone, none other than manifested spirit. His body begins to transform and take on the quality of invisible radiance. Another image that represents this idea is that of the squared circle, common to Renaissance magicians. Renaissance humanists symbolized the unexpressed, divine self of an individual as a circle (Mercury). It’s expression in matter, in the outer world, they visualized as a square (Salt). So, for the magician of antiquity, the squared circle—or circle with a square drawn around it—represented manifested spirit. Sulfur he represented as a point in the center of the circle. The point is the constant, balanced pressure (or meditation) that gradually pushes spiritual potential into matter, forcing it to crystallize and come forth. To summarize then, the Work in the Golden Dawn’s Outer Order is to dissolve the false personality and make it disappear. The Work in the Inner Order is to call forth the true “personality,” to make it appear or express itself tangibly in the physical world. Though at first glance, the mysticism of the Golden Dawn seems to focus on dissolving the self into spirit, become more subtle and airy, it may come as a surprise to many that the further work of the inner order actually reverses this process such that the adept actively comes out into the world as a direct expression of his Higher Self. In the open air of awakening, his outer world of appearances is consumed by the Worlds within and by the very process of transformation itself. His very presence, without effort, begins to act as a catalyst for magical change wherever he goes.

Lyam Thomas Christopher Lyam Thomas Christopher (Florida) has been a student of Hermeticism and the Golden Dawn for over fifteen years. After receiving his B.A. in Liberal Studies he went on to receive his Adeptus Minor from Ra Horkhty Temple. A former bookseller, the author is... Read more

Excerpted from: http://www.greatdreams.com/sacred/transformation/transformation-at-dawn.html

2-17-12 - MULTIPLE VISIONS AND DREAMS

KING ARTHUR PENDRAGON JUST WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE TODAY.

I had visions of documents all referring to things about King Arthur and was told to "LOOK DOWN"

then I had a dream about going to a library and met a blonde woman at the doorway that I knew from work and we said "Hello", but I couldn't stop and chat because I had to go to the bathroom.

In the bathroom there was a burst pipe and so much water was coming out of it, I left the bathroom to leave the building and the water ran like a river behind me like it was chasing me, even when the hallway went uphill and I noticed the hallway was made of red brick, and there was another standpipe at the doorway that had a rod sticking out of it at the bottom and it was sparking towards my foot where the water was creeping up behind me. And I heard the words " SPARKS SPARKS SPARKS, PENDRAGON, PENDRAGON, PENDRAGON."

I came out of the doorway of the library and jumped off the porch onto a muddy field where a very large man was standing, and I ran for my car and woke up.

I knew I had to go back to sleep, so I went to the bathroom, took the phone off the hook and went to bed, where I had another dream.

In the second dream, I was shown a lake with an island in it like I was flying in an airplane right over it, and I knew that was where King Arthur Pendragon was buried.

Francis (Latin: Franciscus; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936) is the 266th^[2][3] and current pope of the Roman Catholic Church, elected on 13 March 2013. In that role, he is both the leader of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of the Vatican City State. From 1998 until his election as pope, he served as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and was made a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II.

Francis is the first Jesuit and the first from the Americas to be elected Pope. He is the first non-European pope since Syrian-born Pope Gregory III, who served for ten years (731–741).

Early life

Jorge Mario Bergoglio^[4] was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, one of the five children of Italian immigrants^[5][3] Mario Jose Bergoglio, a railway worker, and Regina Maria Sivori, a housewife. As a teenager, Bergoglio had a lung removed as a result of an infection.^[6] He studied and received a master's degree in chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires before he decided to pursue an ecclesiastical career.^[7]

Ecclesiastical career

Jesuit

Bergoglio entered the Society of Jesus on 11 March 1958 and studied to become a priest at the Jesuit seminary in Villa Devoto. In 1960 Bergoglio obtained a licentiate in philosophy from the Colegio Máximo San José in San Miguel, and in 1964 and 1965 he taught literature and psychology at the Colegio de la Inmaculada, a high school in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, and in 1966 he taught the same courses at the Colegio del Salvador in Buenos Aires.^[8]

In 1967 Bergoglio finished his theological studies and was ordained to the priesthood on 13 December 1969, by Archbishop Ramón José Castellano. He attended the Facultades de Filosofía y Teología de San Miguel (Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel),^[9] a seminary in San Miguel, Buenos Aires. Bergoglio attained the position of novice master there and became professor of theology.

The Society of Jesus promoted Bergoglio and he served as provincial for Argentina from 1973 to 1979.^[10] He was transferred in 1980 to become the rector of the seminary in San Miguel, and served in that capacity until 1986. He returned to Argentina to serve as confessor and spiritual director in Córdoba.^[8]

Bishop

Bergoglio was named Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and was ordained on 27 June 1992 as Titular Bishop of Auca,^[11] with His Eminence, Antonio Cardinal Quarracino, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, serving as principal consecrator.

Bergoglio succeeded Cardinal Quarracino as Archbishop of Buenos Aires on 28 February 1998 and was concurrently named ordinary for Eastern Catholics in Argentina, who had lacked their own prelate.

Cardinal

At the consistory of 21 February 2001, Archbishop Bergoglio was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II with the title of cardinal-priest of San Roberto Bellarmino. As cardinal, Bergoglio was appointed to several administrative positions in the Roman Curia:

• Member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
• Member of the Congregation for the Clergy.
• Member of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
• Member of the Pontifical Council for the Family
• Member of the Commission for Latin America

Cardinal Bergoglio became known for personal humility, doctrinal conservatism and a commitment to social justice.^[12] A simple lifestyle contributed to his reputation for humility. He lived in a small apartment, rather than in the palatial bishop's residence. He gave up his chauffeured limousine in favor of public transportation.^[13]

On the death of Pope John Paul II, Bergoglio was considered one of the papabile cardinals. He participated as a cardinal elector in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI. It has been reported that Bergoglio was in close contention with Ratzinger during the election, until he made an emotional plea^[14] that the cardinals should not vote for him.^[15] Earlier, he had participated in the funeral of Pope John Paul II and acted as a regent alongside the College of Cardinals, governing the Holy See and the Roman Catholic Church during the interregnum sede vacante period.

During the 2005 Synod of Bishops, he was elected a member of the Post-Synodal council. Catholic journalist John L. Allen, Jr. reported that Bergoglio was a frontrunner in the 2005 Conclave. An unauthorized diary of uncertain authenticity released in September 2005^[16] confirmed that Bergoglio was the runner-up and main challenger of Cardinal Ratzinger at that conclave. The purported diary of the anonymous cardinal claimed Bergoglio received 40 votes in the third ballot, but fell back to 26 at the fourth and decisive ballot.

On 8 November 2005, Bergoglio was elected President of the Argentine Episcopal Conference for a three-year term (2005–2008) by a large majority of the Argentine bishops, which according to reports confirms his local leadership and the international prestige earned by his alleged performance in the conclave. He was reelected on 11 November 2008.

Relations with the Argentine government

On 15 April 2005, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Bergoglio, as superior in the Society of Jesus of Argentina, accusing him of involvement in the kidnapping by the Navy in May 1976 (during the military dictatorship) of two Jesuit priests.^[17] The priests, Orlando Yorio and Franz Jalics, were found alive five months later, drugged and semi-naked. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.^[18] Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine investigative journalist and author, wrote a book about this and other related events titled El Silencio: de Paulo VI a Bergoglio: las relaciones secretas de la Iglesia con la ESMA.^[19]

According to the book, after their release, Yorio accused the then Provincial of his Jesuit order San Miguel, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, to have denounced him. Father General Pedro Arrupe in Rome was informed by letter or during the abduction, both he and Orlando Yorio were excluded from the Jesuit Order.^[20]

Bergoglio told his authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, that after the priests’ imprisonment, he worked behind the scenes for their release; Bergoglio's intercession with dictator Jorge Rafael Videla on their behalf may have saved their lives.^[21] "The cardinal could not justify why these two priests were in a state of helplessness and exposed," according to Luis Zamora, who said that Bergoglio's testimony "demonstrates the role of the Church during the last military dictatorship."^[22]

In 2010, Bergoglio told Sergio Rubin that he often sheltered people from the dictatorship on church property, and on one occasion gave his identity papers to a man who looked like him, to enable the recipient to flee Argentina.^[23]

Verbitsky also writes in his book that the Argentinian Navy with the help of Cardinal Bergoglio hid the dictatorship's political prisoners from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. Bergoglio was hiding them in his holiday home on an island called El Silencio, according to the book.^[24]

Papacy

Bergoglio was elected pope on 13 March 2013,^[25][26] the second day of the 2013 Papal conclave, taking the papal name Francis.^[27] Cardinal Dolan, a first-person witness and participant in the proceedings of the Conclave confirmed that immediately after the selection was announced, the new Pope said "I choose the name Francis, in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi."^[28] Vatican spokesman Tom Rosica, also verified that Bergoglio chose Francis in honor of Francis of Assisi.^[29][30] However, those not initially aware of the statement made by the new Pope in the Conclave mistakenly believed that, as a Jesuit, he chose Francis after Francis Xavier.^[31][32]

On the day of his election, the Vatican clarified that his official papal name was Francis, not "Francis I." A Vatican spokesman said that the name would become Francis I if and when there is a Francis II.^[33]

Bergoglio is the first Jesuit priest chosen to be pope.^[34] He is also the first pope from the Americas, the New World, and the Southern Hemisphere. He is the first non-European pope in 1,272 years. The last non-European pope, St. Gregory III, was born in Syria and reigned from 731 to 741.^[35]

At the time of his election, Francis was fluent in Spanish (his mother tongue), Italian, and German.^[36]

Positions on moral and political issues

Abortion, euthanasia, and contraception

Cardinal Bergoglio has encouraged his clergy and laity to oppose both abortion and euthanasia, describing the pro-choice movement as a "culture of death".^[37] Francis opposed the free distribution of contraceptives in Argentina.^[38]

Homosexuality

He has affirmed church teaching on homosexuality, including that "men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies must be accepted with respect and compassion."^[39][40] He opposes same-sex marriage,^[41] and strongly, but ultimately unsuccessfully, opposed legislation introduced in 2010 by the Argentine Government to allow same-sex marriage, calling it a "real and dire anthropological throwback."^[42] In a letter to the monasteries of Buenos Aires, he wrote:^[43]

Let's not be naïve, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.

He has also stated that adoption by same-sex couples is a form of discrimination against children. This position received a rebuke from Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who said the church's tone was reminiscent of "medieval times and the Inquisition."^[44]

Poverty and economic inequality

On 30 September 2009, Bergoglio spoke at a conference organized by the Argentina City Postgraduate School (EPOCA) at the Alvear Palace Hotel titled "Las deudas sociales de nuestro tiempo" where he quoted the 1992 "Documento de Santo Domingo"^[45] by the Latin American Episcopal Conference, saying "extreme poverty and unjust economic structures that cause great inequalities" are violations of human rights.^[46][47] He went on to describe social debt as "immoral, unjust and illegitimate".^[48]

During a 48-hour public servant strike in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio observed the differences between "poor people who are persecuted for demanding work, and rich people who are applauded for fleeing from justice."^[49] During a May 2010 speech in Argentina regarding the poor, he directed his message to the wealthy by saying: "You avoid taking into account the poor. We have no right to duck-down, to lower the arms carried by those in despair. We must reclaim the memory of our country who has a mother, recover the memory of our Mother".^[50]

Worthiness to receive the Eucharist

In the Aparecida Document, a joint statement of the bishops of Latin America, Cardinal Bergoglio commented on the worthiness of individuals to receive the Eucharist. The text states in paragraph 436 that, "We should commit ourselves to 'eucharistic coherence', that is, we should be conscious that people cannot receive Holy Communion and at the same time act or speak against the commandments, in particular when abortion, euthanasia, and other serious crimes against life and family are facilitated. This responsibility applies particularly to legislators, governors, and health professionals."^[51][52][53]

Bibliography

Books

Jorge Bergoglio; Abraham Skorka (2010) (in Spanish). Sobre el cielo y la tierra [On Heaven and Earth]. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. ISBN 9789500732932.^[54]

Writings

• Meditaciones para religiosos (1982)
• Reflexiones sobre la vida apostólica (1986)
• Reflexiones de esperanza (1992)
• Diálogos entre Juan Pablo II y Fidel Castro (1998)
• Educar: exigencia y pasión (2003)
• Ponerse la patria al hombro (2004)
• La nación por construir (2005)
• Corrupción y pecado (2006)
• Sobre la acusación de sí mismo (2006)
• El verdadero poder es el servicio (2007)
• Mente abierta, corazón creyente (2012)

See also

Pope portal

• List of popes

References

External links

•  Media related to Franciscus at Wikimedia Commons
• Vatican: the Holy See – Vatican web site (Archived at WebCite)