Vatican Throws Cold Water On President Obama's Mystic Monk (Updated)

Update- See Related Link Did Obama Actually Talk About Monk Joachim of Fiore?



When it rains it pours for Obama among Catholics

Now let me be clear this is actually what Raniero Cantalamessa preacher to the Pontifical Household is saying while preaching to the Pope today

I will try to get a full translation and post it later.

Update- The London Times has much more expanded article on this here

Full Text of the Lenten Homily to the Pope is here

. A new age of the of the Holy Spirit?"Thus, condemnation will never come to those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit which gives life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death...anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But when Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is alive because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has made his home in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you".

These are four verses about the Holy Spirit from the eighth chapter of the Letter to the Romans. Christ's name is repeated a full six times in the text. The same frequency is repeated throughout the rest of the chapter, if we consider both the times he is referred to by his name and by the word Son. This fact is fundamentally important. It tells us that for Paul the Holy Spirit's work does not substitute Christ's work, rather it continues it, it fulfills it, and it actualizes it.

The fact that the recently elected president of the United States referenced Joachim of Fiore three times during his electoral campaign has renewed interest in medieval monk's teachings. Few of the people who talk about him, especially on the internet, know or care to know just what exactly this author said. Every idea of church or world renewal is offhandedly attributed to him, even the idea of a new Pentecost for the Church, which was invoked by John XXIII.

One thing is certain: whether or not it should be attributed to Joachim of Fiore, the idea of a third era of the Spirit that would follow on the era of the Old Testament Father and the New Testament Christ is false and heretical because it affects the very heart of the Trinitarian dogma. St. Gregory Nazianzen's statement is entirely different. He makes a distinction between three phases in the revelation of the Trinity: in the Old Testament the Father fully revealed himself and the Son is promised and announced; in the New Testament the Son fully revealed himself and the Holy Spirit is promised and announced; in the time of the Church, the Holy Spirit is finally fully known and we rejoice in his presence.[1]

Even I have been put on a list of Joachim of Fiore's followers just because I cited this text of St. Gregory in one of my books. But St. Gregory refers to the order of the manifestation of the Spirit, not its being or acting, and in this sense his position expresses a incontestable truth, that has been peacefully accepted by all tradition. The so-called Joachimite thesis is ruled out by Paul and the whole New Testament. For them, the Holy Spirit is nothing other than the Spirit of Christ: objectively because it is the fruit of his Paschal mystery, subjectively because he is the one who pours it out over the Church, as Peter will say to the crowd on the very day of Pentecost: "Now raised to the heights by God's right hand, he has received from the Father the Holy Spirit, who was promised, and what you see and hear is the outpouring of that Spirit." (Acts 2:33)

Therefore time of the Spirit is coextensive to the time of Christ.The Holy Spirit is the Spirit that proceeds primarily from the Father, which descends and "rests" in fullness on Jesus, and in him becoming a reality and takes to living among men, as St. Irenaeus says. And in Easter and Pentecost he is poured out over humanity by Jesus. The proof of all this is precisely the cry of "Abba" that the Spirit repeats in the believer (Galatians 4:6) or teaches the believer to repeat (Romans 8:15). How can the Spirit cry out Abba to the Father? He is not begotten by the Father, he is not his Son… He can do it, notes Augustine, because he is the Spirit of the Son and he continues the cry of Jesus. .......................

I am actually trying to find the three occasions that Obama mentioned him in his Speeches. So far this seems to have started from comments of the Mayor of the hometown where this monk was from in Italy

So at this point I am not sure he actually did. He might have but on the other hand I have not seen a link yet to one of Obama actual speeches. IF U find it I will update.