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| WHO & EU Launch AI to Control Online ‘Misinformation’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-25-2025, 08:48 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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WHO & EU Launch AI to Control Online ‘Misinformation’
Cindy Harper via TIA | October 24, 2025
The World Health Organization has introduced a major overhaul of its global monitoring network, unveiling an AI-powered platform that tracks online conversations and media activity in real time.
Known as Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources 2.0 (EIOS), the system is being presented as a new step in “pandemic preparedness,” but its reach extends well beyond disease surveillance.
The upgrade is part of a growing merger between health monitoring, digital tracking, and centralized information control.
![[Image: R041_Eio.jpg]](https://traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_r-z/R041_Eio.jpg)
The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) launches the EIOS new version
Developed with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), the new version of EIOS is designed to scan the internet for signals of emerging health threats.
According to the WHO, it now automatically analyzes social media posts, websites, and other public sources to detect possible outbreaks.
While this is described as a tool for early warning, it effectively allows a global health authority to observe the world’s digital conversations under the banner of safety.
The WHO’s EIOS Collaboration page indicates that partners are also exploring projects such as “News Article Credibility Detection” and “Misinformation Classification Systems.”
These initiatives suggest a growing interest in shaping how information is categorized and filtered.
The latter effort appears linked to the JRC’s “Misinfo Classifier,” released in 2020, which the JRC described as an AI program that detects “fake news” by analyzing the tone and intensity of language in articles.
The organization claimed the tool achieved an 80% success rate and stated that “this is comparable to the state of the art right now.”
At the time, the JRC said the classifier was already in use by the European Commission and European Parliament, and that it would soon be shared with professional fact-checking organizations.
The existence of that project highlights how data analysis and information control are being integrated into public health infrastructure.
![[Image: R041_Ted.jpg]](https://traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_r-z/R041_Ted.jpg)
The head of WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, relies on Xi Jinping, president of Communist China
The WHO reports that EIOS now operates in more than 110 countries and collaborates with over 30 organizations, including national governments and the European Commission. The platform is being offered “free of charge” to eligible users, along with training materials and support.
This approach ties national monitoring systems directly into a WHO-managed network that continuously gathers and processes global data.
The WHO’s concept of “social listening” sheds more light on this strategy. It defines social listening as “the process of listening to and analyzing conversations and narratives” to understand people’s “attitudes, knowledge, beliefs, and intentions.”
In practical terms, this means that the organization is not only collecting data about disease but also analyzing how citizens think and communicate online.
In its October 13 announcement, the WHO described EIOS 2.0 as “more open, more agile and more inclusive.”
However, under that language lies an expanding surveillance framework that uses artificial intelligence to interpret global social behavior.
A system supposedly for improving health security could easily function as a tool for monitoring public opinion and online expression.
This initiative combines artificial intelligence, government cooperation, and social media tracking under the label of global health security. It represents a change from traditional disease control toward the ongoing analysis of public communication, where algorithms determine which discussions appear “relevant” or “misleading.”
This is something that the WHO has been looking at implementing for some time.
For countries choosing to adopt EIOS, dependence on WHO data and analysis may come at the cost of digital independence.
Under the justification of protecting public health, the WHO is establishing an always-on digital network that watches, classifies, and evaluates global discourse, quietly redefining what it means to manage health and information in the same breath.
This article was published by Reclaim the Net on October 19, 2025, under the title “WHO and European Commission Launch AI System to Monitor Social Media and Online “Misinformation” in Real Time"
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| Leo XIV Escalates Climate Change: "Countries Will Disappear in Less Than Fifty Years" |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-25-2025, 08:43 AM - Forum: Pope Leo XIV
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Leo XIV Escalates Climate Change: "Countries Will Disappear in Less Than Fifty Years"
![[Image: goqfcmexwiel0v2lmidvummrf237vcfc8nyk53n?...1761462011]](https://seedus0275.gloriatv.net/storage1/goqfcmexwiel0v2lmidvummrf237vcfc8nyk53n?secure=P_mYy3L44gUK1_yxrCgwVw&expires=1761462011)
gloria.tv | October 24, 2025
On 24 October, Pope Leo XIV participated in a meeting of bodies of the Rome Synod on Synods that emphasized buzzwords such as listening, participation, dialogue and inclusion.
He spoke several times about the 'care of creation' as a mission priority: "I recently met with a bishop from Oceania who told me that climate change is such an urgent issue that, if things continue as they are, his country will disappear in less than fifty years."
Pope Leo XIV reiterated that there is an "urgent cry" from people in different parts of the world, whether due to poverty, injustice, or climate change.
Learning from those “who may never be members of the Church”
When talking about Africa, Pope Leo XIV said that he wants the Church to be a bridge, especially when Christians find themselves in the minority alongside members of other religions, such as Islam.
He proposed a Church that listens to "the wisdom that we find in men and women, in members of the Church and in those who are searching and who may never be members of the Church, but who are indeed looking for truth".
Women religious as ministers of sacraments
When asked when "men and women will be equal in the Church", Leo XIV replied: "Unfortunately, the way we live out our faith is often influenced more by our culture than by Gospel values."
He also presented a Peruvian role model: "There is a congregation of consecrated religious women whose vocation is to serve in places where there are no priests. In these remote communities, they are authorised to baptise, act as official witnesses in marriages and bring the presence of the Church to people who would otherwise be deprived of it."
Leo XIV wanted to “set aside the more complex questions that are being studied by various working groups”. He believes that “the real issue lies in the cultural obstacles that still exist.”
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| Pope Leo holds service with Charles III, head of church that canceled Catholicism for centuries |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-25-2025, 08:39 AM - Forum: Pope Leo XIV
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Pope Leo holds service with Charles III, head of church that canceled Catholicism for centuries
Nearly five centuries after England outlawed the Mass, its monarch joined a Vatican service with Pope Leo for ‘Christian unity.’
![[Image: GettyImages-2242408628.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/GettyImages-2242408628.jpg)
VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - OCTOBER 23: Pope Leo XVI meets with King Charles III during an audience at the Apostolic Palace
on October 23, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican.
Photo by Simone Risoluti - Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images
Oct 24, 2025
(LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted - not all hyperlinks included from the original]) – King Charles III prayed alongside Leo XIV in the Sistine Chapel during a state visit to the Vatican – a gesture unprecedented since England’s schism from Rome.
The king and queen were seated next to Leo XIV, with the Anglican Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell co-presiding over the ecumenical service of psalms and readings.
The theme of the service was “Christian unity” and was based on Sext (the midday prayers in the Divine Office).
After the ceremony, Leo XIV and the king left the sanctuary together, exchanging a few words as they did so.
Among those present was Cardinal Vincent Nichols of the Archdiocese of Westminster, who was seated next to Rosie Frew, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly. Frew was dressed in a Roman collar, and the two could be seen talking together in the chapel before the service.
The earlier meeting and service
Earlier in the day, Leo XIV received the royal couple in audience and discussed “matters of common interest,” including “environmental protection and the fight against poverty,” and “the need to continue promoting ecumenical dialogue.”
The king and queen also took part in another ecumenical service at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, led by Cottrell and Cardinal James Michael Harvey of the Basilica itself, with many of the same dignitaries mentioned taking leading parts.
At this earlier service, the king and queen were again seated in the sanctuary on thrones that bore the royal coat of arms and the words from the Gospel of St. John, Ut unum sint (“That they may be one”).
“The throne will remain in the apse of the Basilica,” reported Vatican News, “and will be used in the future by the king himself and his heirs and successors.” The king was also awarded the honorary title of “Royal Confrater,” with Cardinal Harvey claiming that Charles was being welcomed not just as a head of state but also as a “brother.”
The king bestowed upon Leo XIV the title “Papal Confrater” of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and the “Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Bath.”
The English ‘Reformation’
As the king of the United Kingdom, Charles III is the “Supreme Governor of the Church of England.”
In the 1530s, King Henry VIII’s Parliament passed laws bringing England into schism with the Catholic Church. Communion was restored in the 1550s by his daughter Queen Mary, but broken again by Queen Elizabeth I in 1558. Since the break with Rome, no reigning British monarch has prayed in public with a Pope.
The English were obliged to attend Anglican services or face crippling fines. Many Catholic priests were executed as “traitors” during this period.
It took several centuries before civil rights were fully restored to Catholics and the practice of the Catholic religion made legal. To this day, British law prohibits the monarch from being a Catholic and requires a series of Protestant oaths at the coronation ceremony.
The king also recently visited the Birmingham Oratory. However, none of this indicates an imminent conversion to the Catholic faith. Charles III has made visits to many other religious sites, and has previously expressed his sympathy with “Guénonian traditionalism” (or “perennialism”). While some aspects of perennialism may appeal to Catholics, it posits a “transcendental unity of religion” – namely, that all “traditional religions” are manifestations of single, “true religion” prior to each of them.
This philosophy, which is incompatible with the Catholic Faith, is at the root of Charles’ interest in interfaith activities.
Criticism
The Vatican described the encounters as a “historic step for Christian unity,” while critics on both sides warned that such symbolism risks obscuring doctrinal division rather than healing it.
Rev. Kyle Paisley, the son of Rev. Ian Paisley and a Free Presbyterian minister, condemned the state visit and ceremonies. Paisley claimed that the King was not “being true to his oath” and said that he should abdicate.
“The Protestant faith historically and theologically is a world apart from Catholicism,” he said, adding that “I don’t for the life of me see how he can engage in that kind of corporate worship … It gives the impression that it’s not essentially different.”
For similar reasons to those raised by Paisley, Catholic theology warns that communicatio in sacris (the communication in sacred things) with non-Catholics is, in many cases, gravely immoral.
Speaking exclusively to LifeSiteNews, Theo Howard of The Two Cities Podcast said:
Quote:Of all the countless postconciliar grave scandals committed by the hierarchy, communicatio in sacris is perhaps the one faithful Catholics have become most numbed to. Nevertheless, at the sight of the present King, his mistress and several ministers of the Anglican sect being invited to actively take part in Catholic worship, faithful English Catholics cannot but hear the cries of the English martyrs, of Margaret Clitherow or William Hart, or those words of St Cuthbert – “But hold no communion with those who err from this unity of the Catholic Faith”.
One of the roots of the contemporary agony of the Church was the deliberate abandonment of Thomistic philosophy. In response to Henry VIII’s Catholic work ‘In Defence of the Seven Sacraments’, Luther scathingly called him “Rex Thomisticus” (the Thomistic King). It was Pope Leo X who then granted Henry the title Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith), which the monarch continues to style himself to this day.
May we respond to these outrages by praying more ardently than ever, that our King, or his successors, convert to the true faith – and that Rome itself be cleansed of Modernism, so that the British King may worthily pray in union with the Catholic Pope, and that what Luther said in scorn may be borne with pride.
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| Rome’s Latin Mass Concessions Come With Conditions |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-23-2025, 08:28 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Rome’s Latin Mass Concessions Come With Conditions
From Cleveland to the Sistine Chapel, mercy is granted only to those who first confess Vatican II.
Chris Jackson via Hiraeth in Exile [slightly adapted] | Oct 22, 2025
It’s a familiar pattern by now: every “concession” from Rome arrives with a leash attached. Every word of compassion conceals a doctrinal condition. Every token nod toward tradition serves to remind you who is boss. This week’s Vatican stories form a single portrait of the post-conciliar Church: a faith administered on parole, a mercy that demands ideological compliance, and a gospel repackaged as therapy.
The Latin Mass on Parole
The headlines sounded merciful: “Vatican grants two-year extension for Latin Mass in Cleveland.”
The faithful in Akron and Cleveland exhaled, grateful that the Mass of their forefathers had not been stamped out entirely. Yet the truth came, as it always does, not from Rome but from a parish email leaked to social media.
The bishop, it turns out, had asked for five years. He was granted two—and only on the condition that the clergy “lead the faithful attached to the anterior ritual form towards full appreciation and acceptance of the liturgical books renewed by decree of the Second Vatican Council.” The Vatican even recommended that one of the traditional Masses be replaced by a Novus Ordo in Latin.
So the “extension” is really an ultimatum: learn to love Vatican II or lose your Mass. The faithful are allowed to kneel only long enough to be re-educated. The Old Rite survives, not as a legitimate expression of the Roman faith, but as a behavioral-correction program. This is not mercy; it’s management. It’s the same technique used with every dissenting remnant: appease, isolate, retrain, and eventually dissolve.
The post-conciliar Church never simply forbids; it “accompanies” you until you stop resisting.
Green Ecumenism in the Sistine Chapel
While Cleveland’s faithful are told to rediscover their enthusiasm for Vatican II, the head of that same conciliar Church prepares to host an ecumenical “prayer for the care of Creation” in the Sistine Chapel. King Charles III will join him under the slogan of “ecological conversion.”
Archbishop Viganò captured it succinctly: two “supreme authorities” of their respective modern churches, united not by faith in Christ but by the “environmentalist and neo-Malthusian ideology of the World Economic Forum.”
Leo will reportedly gift Charles a seat inscribed Ut unum sint—“that they may be one.” But one in what? Certainly not in the Catholic faith once defended by the martyrs whom Henry VIII butchered. The unity on display is the new conciliar unity: emotional, horizontal, and completely un-evangelical.
It is the Church of atmospheric fellowship, where conversion is environmental and salvation means sustainability. The Sistine Chapel becomes a kind of interfaith greenhouse: Michelangelo’s Last Judgment presiding over a climate summit.
Mercy for the Planet, Silence for the Martyrs
While the Vatican choreographs its ecological pageant, the Secretary of State assures the world that the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria “is not a religious conflict.” Cardinal Parolin, ever the diplomat, explains that the violence is “a social one,” the result of “disputes between herders and farmers.”
But the facts defy him.
Between January 2023 and December 2024, Nigeria suffered a surge in religiously motivated violence, particularly in the North and Middle Belt. Armed groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) led coordinated assaults on churches, villages, and clergy. In Plateau and Benue States alone, thousands were displaced and hundreds killed, including over 1,100 Christians, among them twenty priests, within a single month after the 2023 presidential inauguration. During Christmas 2023, joint attacks by local and foreign militants left nearly 300 dead; by June 2025, another 200 displaced Christians were massacred in Benue.
(Parolin’s “herders”above)
Church leaders describe the campaign as deliberate, a jihadist strategy to expel Christian populations. Radicalized Fulani herdsmen, aided by Islamist militias, continue systematic attacks and land seizures. Even Catholic schools have been assaulted, such as the 2024 attack on a Christian high school in Makurdi, where blasphemy accusations and witchcraft-related killings inflamed the violence. Dozens of clergy have been kidnapped or murdered, while regional hisbah police enforce Sharia restrictions in northern states, defying constitutional law.
Yet Parolin tells us this is about “social tensions.” The same Vatican that can detect “microaggressions” against the environment cannot recognize a genocide against its own flock. When the blood of martyrs cries from the ground, Rome hears only the “cry of the earth.”
Universities Without Faith
From diplomacy to academia, the same decay spreads. Georgetown University, once the proud flagship of Catholic scholarship, has chosen a new president who publicly rejects the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.
Eduardo Peñalver announced years ago that he “takes inspiration” from “committed gay couples” and believes the Church “erred” in her moral teaching. That alone should have disqualified him. Instead, it qualified him.
The Jesuits call him “an exceptional leader steeped in the Catholic and Jesuit tradition.” And indeed he is, if that “tradition” means perpetual dissent disguised as dialogue. The universities that were meant to defend the faith now produce administrators who deny it with a smile. Their theology departments churn out relativism as readily as their cafeterias serve fair-trade coffee.
Once the faith leaves the sanctuary, the classroom quickly forgets it ever existed.
The Synodal Mood of Rome
Leo’s own addresses this week were minor variations on the same theme. Speaking to the Portuguese College, he praised the “polyphony of unity” and “listening to what the Spirit inspires in each believer.” The words sound harmless, even poetic. Yet beneath the glow lies the same synodal anthropology: revelation as conversation, truth as tone, the Church as a focus group for the Holy Spirit.
But the deeper signal came in his General Audience on the Resurrection.
The Therapeutic Resurrection
![[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1080.jpeg]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!GtSK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbfd75da6-aa1d-460f-b77d-755468930436_1620x1080.jpeg)
(The grotesque, distorted, sculpture of the Resurrection in Paul VI Audience Hall)
“The resurrection of Jesus Christ,” Leo began, “can heal one of the malaises of our time: sadness.” What follows is not apostolic preaching but cognitive-behavioral therapy. Christ’s victory over death becomes a “gentle reminder when the going gets tough.” The two disciples of Emmaus are not witnesses to divine revelation but patients learning perspective.
The Resurrection, in his telling, is no longer the cosmic reversal of sin and death, it’s the emotional recovery of disappointed men. It “changes our outlook,” he says, “filling the void of sadness.” Gone are the thunderclaps of Easter morning, the stone rolled away by angelic power. Gone the triumph over Satan, the promise of our own glorified bodies. What remains is a moral of resilience.
Where Scripture proclaims “If Christ be not risen, your faith is vain,” Leo offers something closer to “If Christ be not risen, you might feel sad—but take heart.” The event that once shattered the pagan world is rewritten as a mood enhancer, a wellness narrative for the spiritually fatigued.
This is the last mutation of Vatican II religion: revelation reduced to therapy, miracle to metaphor, resurrection to reassurance. A Church that once declared “He is risen indeed” now whispers, “He will make you feel better.”
Conclusion: The Faith That Comes With Conditions
Across these stories, Cleveland, the Sistine Chapel, Nigeria, Georgetown, Rome itself, the pattern repeats. Every grace is conditional, every truth emotional, every miracle interpretive. The Mass is extended only if it promotes Vatican II; unity is celebrated only if it ignores doctrine; persecution is acknowledged only if it’s not too religious; and the Resurrection is preached only if it comforts rather than converts.
A faith so managed cannot convert the world because it no longer believes the world needs converting. The shepherds have become therapists, and the Gospel, a group session. But the empty tomb still waits outside their window, unmanageable, untamed, and gloriously true.
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| The Sermons of St. John Vianney |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-22-2025, 01:17 PM - Forum: Resources Online
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THE SERMONS OF SAINT JOHN MARY VIANNEY NO.1
Taken from here.
THE DREADFUL STATE OF THE LUKEWARM SOUL
In speaking to you today, my dear brethren, of the dreadful state of the lukewarm soul, my purpose is not to paint for you a terrifying and despairing picture of the soul which is living in mortal sin without even having the wish to escape from this condition. That poor unfortunate creature can but look forward to the wrath of God in the next life. Alas! These sinners hear me; they know well of whom I am speaking at this very moment. . . . We will go no further, for all that I would wish to say would serve only to harden them more. In speaking to you, my brethren, of the lukewarm soul, I do not wish, either, to speak of those who make neither their Easter duty nor their annual Confession.
They know very well that in spite of all their prayers and their other good works they will be lost. Let us leave them in their blindness, since they want to remain that way . . . .
Nor do I understand, brethren, by the lukewarm soul, that soul who would like to be worldly without ceasing to be a child of God. You will see such a one at one moment prostrate before God, his Saviour and his Master, and the next moment similarly prostrate before the world, his idol.
Poor blind creature, who gives one hand to God and the other to the world, so that he can call both to his aid, and promise his heart to each in turn! He loves God, or rather, he would like to love Him, but he would also like to please the world. Then, weary of wanting to give his allegiance to both, he ends by giving it to the world alone. This is an extraordinary life and one which offers so strange a spectacle that it is hard to persuade oneself that it could be the life of one and the same person. I am going to show you this so clearly that perhaps many among you will be hurt by it. But that will matter little to me, for I am always going to tell you what I ought to tell you, and then you will do what you wish about it . . . .
I would say further, my brethren, that whoever wants to please both the world and God leads one of the most unhappy of lives. You shall see how. Here is someone who gives himself up to the pleasures of the world or develops some evil habit.
How great is his fear when he comes to fulfil his religious duties; that is, when he says his prayers, when he goes to Confession, or wants to go to Holy Communion! He does not want to be seen by those with whom he has been dancing and passing nights at the cabarets, where he has been giving himself over to many kinds of licentiousness. Has he come to the stage when he is going to deceive his confessor by hiding the worst of his actions and thus obtain permission to go to Holy Communion, or rather, to commit a sacrilege? He would prefer to go to Holy Communion before or after Mass, that is to say, when there is no one present. Yet he is quite happy to be seen by the good people who know nothing about his evil life and among whom he would like to arouse good opinions about himself. In front of devout people he talks about religion. When he is with those who have no religion, he will talk only about the pleasures of the world. He would blush to fulfil his religious practices in front of his companions or those boys and girls who share his evil ways . . . .
This is so true that one day someone asked me to allow him to go to Holy Communion in the sacristy so that no one would see him. Is it possible, my brethren, that one could think upon such horrible behaviour without shuddering?
But we shall proceed further and you will see the embarrassment of these poor people who want to follow the world without-outwardly at any rate-leaving God. Here is Easter approaching. They must go to Confession. It is not, of course, that they want to go or that they feel any urge or need to receive the Sacrament of Penance. They would be only too pleased if Easter came around about once every thirty years. But their parents still retain the exterior practice of religion. They will be happy if their children go to the altar, and they keep urging them, then, to go to Confession. In this, of course, they make a mistake. If only they would just pray for them and not torment them into committing sacrileges. So to rid themselves of the importunity of their parents, to keep up appearances, these people will get together to find out who is the best confessor to try for absolution for the first or second time
'Look, says one, 'my parents keep nagging at me because I haven't been to Confession. Where shall we go? 'It is of no use going to our parish priest; he is too scrupulous. He would not allow us to make our Easter duty. We will have to try to find So-and-So. He let this one and that one go through, and they are worse than we are. We have done no more harm than they have.
Another will say: 'I assure you that if it were not for my parents I would not make my Easter duty at all. Our catechism says that to make a good Confession we must give up sin and the occasions of sin, and we are doing neither the one nor the other. I tell you sincerely that I am really embarrassed every time Easter comes around. I will be glad when the time comes for me to settle down and to cease gallivanting. I will make a confession then of my whole life, to put right the ones I am making now. Without that I would not die happy.
'Well, another will say to him, 'when that time comes you ought to go to the priest who has been hearing your confessions up to the present. He will know you best. 'Indeed no! I will go to the one who would not give me absolution, because he would not want to see me damned either.
'My word, aren't you good! That means nothing at all. They all have the same power.
'That is a good thing to remember when we are doing what we ought to do. But when we are in sin, we think otherwise.
One day I went to see a girl who was pretty careless. She told me that she was not going back to Confession to the priests who were so easy and who, in making it seem as if they wanted to save you, pushed you into Hell. That is how many of these poor blind people behave! 'Father, they will say to the priest, 'I am going to Confession to you because our parish priest is too exacting. He wants to make us promise things which we cannot hold to. He would have us all saints, and that is not possible in the world. He would want us never to go to dances, nor to frequent cabarets or amusements. If someone has a bad habit, he will not give Absolution until the habit has been given up completely. If we had to do all that we should never make our Easter duty at all. My parents, who are very religious, are always after me to make my Easter duty. I will do all I can. But no one can say that he will never return to these amusements, since he never knows when he is going to encounter them.
'Ah! says the confessor, quite deceived by this sincere sounding talk, 'I think your parish priest is perhaps a little exacting. Make your act of contrition, and I will give you Absolution. Try to be good now.
That is to say: Bow your head; you are going to trample in the adorable Blood of Jesus Christ; you are going to sell your God like Judas sold Him to His executioners, and tomorrow you will go to Holy Communion, where you will proceed to crucify Him. What horror! What abomination! Go on, vile Judas, go to the holy table, go and give death to your God and your Saviour! Let your conscience cry out, only try to stifle its remorse as much as you can. . . . But I am going too far, my brethren. Let us leave these poor blind creatures in their gloom.
I think, brethren, that you would like to know what is the state of the lukewarm soul. Well, this is it. A lukewarm soul is not yet quite dead in the eyes of God because the faith, the hope, and the charity which are its spiritual life are not altogether extinct. But it is a faith without zeal, a hope without resolution, a charity without ardour . . . .
Nothing touches this soul: it hears the word of God, yes, that is true; but often it just bores it. Its possessor hears it with difficulty, more or less by habit, like someone who thinks that he knows enough about it and does enough of what he should.
Any prayers which are a bit long are distasteful to him. This soul is so full of whatever it has just been doing or what it is going to do next, its boredom is so great, that this poor unfortunate thing is almost in agony. It is still alive, but it is not capable of doing anything to gain Heaven . . . .
For the last twenty years this soul has been filled with good intentions without doing anything at all to correct its habits.
It is like someone who is envious of anyone who is on top of the world but who would not deign to lift a foot to try to get there himself. It would not, however, wish to renounce eternal blessings for those of the world. Yet it does not wish either to leave the world or to go to Heaven, and if it can just manage to pass its time without crosses or difficulties, it would never ask to leave this world at all. If you hear someone with such a soul say that life is long and pretty miserable, that is only when everything is not going in accordance with his desires. If God, in order to force such a soul to detach itself from temporal things, sends it any cross or suffering, it is fretful and grieving and abandons itself to grumbles and complaints and often even to a kind of despair. It seems as if it does not want to see that God has sent it these trials for its good, to detach it from this world and to draw it towards Himself. What has it done to deserve these trials? In this state a person thinks in his own mind that there are many others more blameworthy than himself who have not to submit to such trials.
In prosperous times the lukewarm soul does not go so far as to forget God, but neither does it forget itself. It knows very well how to boast about all the means it has employed to achieve its prosperity. It is quite convinced that many others would not have achieved the same success. It loves to repeat that and to hear it repeated, and every time it hears it, it is with fresh pleasure. The individual with the lukewarm soul assumes a gracious air when associating with those who flatter him. But towards those who have not paid him the respect which he believes he has deserved or who have not been grateful for his kindnesses, he maintains an air of frigid indifference and seems to indicate to them that they are ungrateful creatures who do not deserve to receive the good which he has done them . . . .
If I wanted to paint you an exact picture, my brethren, of the state of a soul which lives in tepidity, I should tell you that it is like a tortoise or a snail. It moves only by dragging itself along the ground, and one can see it getting from place to place with great difficulty. The love of God, which it feels deep down in itself, is like a tiny spark of fire hidden under a heap of ashes.
The lukewarm soul comes to the point of being completely indifferent to its own loss. It has nothing left but a love without tenderness, without action, and without energy which sustains it with difficulty in all that is essential for salvation. But for all other means of Grace, it looks upon them as nothing or almost nothing. Alas, my brethren, this poor soul in its tepidity is like someone between two bouts of sleep. It would like to act, but its will has become so softened that it lacks either the force or the courage to accomplish its wishes.
It is true that a Christian who lives in tepidity still regularly-in appearance at least-fulfils his duties. He will indeed get down on his knees every morning to say his prayers. He will go to the Sacraments every year at Easter and even several times during the course of the twelve months. But in all of this there will be such a distaste, so much slackness and so much indifference, so little preparation, so little change in his way of life, that it is easy to see that he is only fulfilling his duties from habit and routine . . . . because this is a feast and he is in the habit of carrying them out at such a time. His Confessions and his Communions are not sacrilegious, if you like, but they are Confessions and Communions which bear no fruit-which, far from making him more perfect and more pleasing to God, only make him more unworthy. As for his prayers, God alone knows what-without, of course, any preparation-he makes of these.
In the morning it is not God who occupies his thoughts, nor the salvation of his poor soul; he is quite taken up with thoughts of work. His mind is so wrapped up in the things of earth that the thought of God has no place in it. He is thinking about what he is going to be doing during the day, where he will be sending his children and his various employees, in what way he will expedite his own work. To say his prayers, he gets down on his knees, undoubtedly, but he does not know what he wants to ask God, nor what he needs, nor even before whom he is kneeling. His careless demeanour shows this very clearly. It is a poor man indeed who, however miserable he is, wants nothing at all and loves his poverty. It is surely a desperately sick person who scorns doctors and remedies and clings to his infirmities.
You can see that this lukewarm soul has no difficulty, on the slightest pretext, in talking during the course of his prayers.
For no reason at all he will abandon them, partly at least, thinking that he will finish them in another moment. Does he want to offer his day to God, to say his Grace? He does all that, but often without thinking of the one who is addressed. He will not even stop working. If the possessor of the lukewarm soul is a man, he will turn his cap or his hat around in his hands as if to see whether it is good or bad, as though he had some idea of selling it. If it is a woman, she will say her prayers while slicing bread into her soup, or putting wood on the fire, or calling out to her children or maid. If you like, such distractions during prayer are not exactly deliberate. People would rather not have them, but because it is necessary to go to so much trouble and expend so much energy to get rid of them, they let them alone and allow them to come as they will.
The lukewarm Christian may not perhaps work on Sunday at tasks which seem to be forbidden to anyone who has even the slightest shred of religion, but doing some sewing, arranging something in the house, driving sheep to the fields during the times for Masses, on the pretext that there is not enough food to give them-all these things will be done without the slightest scruple, and such people will prefer to allow their souls and the souls of their employees to perish rather than endanger their animals. A man will busy himself getting out his tools and his carts and harrows and so on, for the next day; he will fill in a hole or fence a gap; he will cut various lengths of cords and ropes; he will carry out the churns and set them in order. What do you think about all this, my brethren? Is it not, alas, the simple truth?
A lukewarm soul will go to Confession regularly, and even quite frequently. But what kind of Confessions are they? No preparation, no desire to correct faults, or, at the least, a desire so feeble and so small that the slightest difficulty will put a stop to it altogether. The Confessions of such a person are merely repetitions of old ones, which would be a happy state of affairs indeed if there were nothing to add to them. Twenty years ago he was accusing himself of the same things he confesses today, and if he goes to Confession for the next twenty years, he will say the same things. A lukewarm soul will not, if you like, commit the big sins. But some slander or back-biting, a lie, a feeling of hatred, of dislike, of jealousy, a slight touch of deceit or double-dealing-these count for nothing with it. If it is a woman and you do not pay her all the respect which she considers her due, she will, under the guise of pretending that God has been offended, make sure that you realise it; she could say more than that, of course, since it is she herself who has been offended. It is true that such a woman would not stop going to the Sacraments, but her dispositions are worthy of compassion.
On the day when she wants to receive her God, she spends part of the morning thinking of temporal matters. If it is a man, he will be thinking about his deals and his sales. If it is a married woman, she will be thinking about her household and her children. If it is a young girl, her thoughts will be on her clothes.
If it is a boy, he will be dreaming about passing pleasures and so on. The lukewarm soul shuts God up in a n obscure and ugly kind of prison. Its possessor does not crucify Him, but God can find little joy or consolation in his heart.
All his dispositions proclaim that his poor soul is struggling for the breath of life.
After having received Holy Communion, this person will hardly give another thought to God in all the days to follow. His manner of life tells us that he did not know the greatness of the happiness which had been his.
A lukewarm Christian thinks very little upon the state of his poor soul and almost never lets his mind run over the past. If the thought of making any effort to be better crosses his mind at all, he believes that once he has confessed his sins, he ought to be perfectly happy and at peace. He assists at Holy Mass very much as he would at any ordinary activity. He does not think at all seriously of what he is doing and finds no trouble in chatting about all sorts of things while on the way there. Possibly he will not give a single thought to the fact that he is about to participate in the greatest of all the gifts that God, all-powerful as He is, could give us. He does give some thought to the needs of his own soul, yes, but a very small and feeble amount of thought indeed. Frequently he will even present himself before the presence of God without having any idea of what he is going to ask of Him. He has few scruples in cutting out, on the least pretext, the Asperges and the prayers before Mass. During the course of the service, he does not want to go to sleep, of course, and he is even afraid that someone might see him, but he does not do himself any violence all the same. He does not want, of course, to have distractions during prayer or during the Holy Mass, yet when he should put up some little fight against them, he suffers them very patiently, considering the fact that he does not like them. Fast days are reduced to practically nothing, either by advancing the time of the main meal or, under the pretext that Heaven was never taken by famine, by making the collation so abundant that it amounts to a full meal. When he performs good or beneficial actions, his intentions are often very mixed-sometimes it is to please someone, sometimes it is out of compassion, and sometimes it is just to please the world. With such people everything that is not a really serious sin is good enough. They like doing good, being faithful, but they wish that it did not cost them anything or, at least, that it cost very little. They would like to visit the sick, indeed, but it would be more convenient if the sick would come to them. They have something to give away in alms, they know quite well that a certain person has need of help, but they wait until she comes to ask them instead of anticipating her, which would make the kindness so very much more meritorious. We will even say, my brethren, that the person who leads a lukewarm life does not fail to do plenty of good works, to frequent the Sacraments, to assist regularly at all church services, but in all of this one sees only a weak, languishing faith, hope which the slightest trial will upset, a love of God and of neighbour which is without warmth or pleasure. Everything that such a person does is not entirely lost, but it is very nearly so.
See, before God, my brethren, on what side you are. On the side of the sinners, who have abandoned everything and plunge themselves into sin without remorse? On the side of the just souls, who seek but God alone? Or are you of the number of these slack, tepid, and indifferent souls such as we have just been depicting for you? Down which road are you travelling?
Who can dare assure himself that he is neither a great sinner nor a tepid soul but that he is one of the elect? Alas, my brethren, how many seem to be good Christians in the eyes of the world who are really tepid souls in the eyes of God, Who knows our inmost hearts . . . .
Let us ask God with all our hearts, if we are in this state, to give us the grace to get out of it, so that we may take the route that all the saints have taken and arrive at the happiness that they are enjoying. That is what I desire for you . . . .
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| Leo XIV Promotes African Bishop Who Thanked Francis for "Updating the Gospel" |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-22-2025, 01:06 PM - Forum: Pope Leo XIV
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Leo XIV Promotes African Bishop Who Thanked Francis for "Updating the Gospel"
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gloria.tv | October 22, 2025
Pope Leo XIV has appointed on October 22 Bishop Alexis Touabli Youlo, 65, as Bishop of the Diocese of San Pedro-en-Côte-d’Ivoire, Ivory Coast.
Bishop Youlo was ordained a priest in 1987. In October 2006, he was appointed the first Bishop of the new diocese of Agboville.
He has served as President of the Episcopal Conference of Côte d’Ivoire and since May 2022 as President of the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa (RECOWA). RECOWA comprises 154 Catholic Dioceses spread across 11 Catholic Bishops’ Conferences in 16 countries of Anglophone and Francophone Africa.
As President, Monsignor Youlo has repeatedly pushed synodality (“walking together”) and social priorities.
At an assembly he led in Dakar in May 2025, Bishop Youlo placed “justice and peace” and “a synodal Church in West Africa” at the heart of the meeting.
In recent years, he repeatedly organised inter-faith prayers (pictured left) and interreligious events for peace.
In November 2022, he took part in civil clothes in the 26th edition of National Peace Day in Agboville (pictured right).
In a May 5, 2022 interview with AciAfrica.org, Bishop Youlo said, “We thank God for inspiring Pope Francis to write Fratelli Tutti. I think this document is an updated version of the Gospel.”
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