Exclusive Interview with Cardinal Ratzinger: the man who would become Pope



Ten years after it was first filmed, EWTN have released an encore of a historic interview that it did with the then Cardinal Ratzinger.

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The precise reason Padre Pio refused absolution to a woman who had an abortion and why he eventually granted her absolution

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Throughout my adult life I've been surrounded by young female friends who tell me that they view me as a Latin Mass Catholic who takes sin and the sin of abortion in particular too seriously. They wear rictus smiles and claim it's not really so dire a sin when a woman employs a doctor to slaughter the little one inside her because she wants to prioritise her career or doesn't want a child with her current boyfriend. Or they reiterate the reason that I heard from the lips of hundreds of women when I was with them during their crisis pregnancies: that they can have a baby and provide for one, but they do not feel ready. 

In response I have often tried to defend the Church's teachings on the gravity of abortion as a mortal sin by reminding my coffee companions and colleagues that Padre Pio took the sin of abortion so deathly seriously that he was known to have refused absolution if a penitent confessed to having had an abortion.
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I do not believe The Third Secret of Fatima came to pass with the attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981

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I may sound alarmist but heart and soul I believe the Third Secret of Fatima has not yet fully come to pass: that the bloodbath foretold by Our Lady when she appeared to Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco has not reached its bitter conclusion which will be marked by a massacre of the Holy Father, bishops, men and women religious and lay faithful. Indeed, I believe that this rude shock is ahead of us, not behind us.

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The British Medical Association has given written evidence to members of Parliament that confirms pro-life doctors face pressure to take part in abortions, and discrimination if they do not comply.  There is a full and detailed report by Simon Caldwell, which I urge everyone to read. 
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