Photo of the Week

Card. Bergoglio giving Communion in the hand

Above and below first row you see then Card. Jorge Bergoglio giving Communion to the crowds in Buenos Aires. The Cardinal is handing out hosts on August 7, 2004, at the Mass on the feast day of St. Cajetan at the Sanctuary of St. Cajetan in the neighborhood of Liniers.

The devotion of St. Cajetan, founder of the Theatines who founded hospices for the poor and sick, is very popular in Buenos Aires. He is known as the patron of labor, and the devotion heightened among the worker class with the difficulties it encountered after the recession of 1929, which broke the economy of the country.

At that time a chapel dedicated to the Saint was constructed in Liniers by the Sisters of the Divine Savior to serve their convent and school for girls. The devotion grew, the small chapel was transformed into a church and given to the Archdiocese, and today it is one of the main centers of pilgrimage in Buenos Aires. It attracts a large number of people on the 7th of each month, especially on August 7, the feast of St. Cajetan. The devotion to this Saint is symbolized by wheat stalks with a picture of the Saint and a prayer attached to it. The wheat stalk represents the providing of bread and is given to someone who is having problems in the work world. (For more on this topic click here or here)

In the photos above and below first row you see Card. Jorge Bergoglio, today Pope Francis I, giving Communion to the crowds without any particular concern about spiritual or ceremonial propriety. Anyone who extends his/her hand receives Communion from him. Hardly a procedure befitting to traditional devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

In the second and third rows below, you see him giving Communion to sleeveless young women present at a picnic commemorating the 75 year anniversary of the Congregation of Our Lady of Mercy in Argentina and Uruguay.

These examples speak a great deal on the progressivist tendencies of Pope Bergoglio, and should teach us what to expect from him.

Cardinal Bergoglio gives Communion 02

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Posted March 24, 2013

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