Effeminate Priests

Our Lord laments to Luisa Piccarreta about effeminate Priests, sacrilegious Masses, and the laity touching the Blessed Sacrament with their hands. 

From the Church-approved Volume Seven of the spiritual "Diary" Book of Heaven, of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta.  Imprimatur of Archbishop Joseph Leo and Nihil Obstat of (now Saint) Fr. Annibale Di Francia. 

The Lord, in a very afflicted state, lamented to Luisa: “My daughter, so much bitterness is given to Me by creatures that I cannot contain it all. For this reason, I wanted you to participate in it [as a victim soul]. In these times, all is effeminate. Even the clergy have lost the masculine character, and have acquired feminine manners. It has become more difficult to find masculine Priests, since there is an abundance of effeminate ones around. Oh, in what a deplorable state humanity is found in.” Luisa then wrote that she did not understand the meaning if what He had told her, but she still writes it down because she is under obedience to do so. (Oct. 23, 1906.)

My note: Since Luisa did not understand about effeminate priests, this appears to have been a prophetic utterance on the part of the Lord, who was talking about a future time, as He frequently does with Luisa. Seminarian Francesco Forgione, now known as St. Padre Pio, in that same year of 1906, was undergoing his formation in southern Italy, where Luisa lived. His training for the priesthood was very rigorous and demanding. Padre Pio himself in later life admitted that his seminary regimen could have been less severe and strict. It is not likely that there was a problem with effeminate priests in that era.

Three days prior to the above experience, Luisa had a vision which also appears to have been prophetic. Here it is revealed that Jesus considers that the laity, by putting their hands on the Holy Sacrament, entering the Sanctuary, and touching the Priests, are guilty of profanations deserving of severe chastisements.

In this vision Luisa found herself in a church where many people were taking part in the sacred ceremonies. Then, it seemed that with the approval of those in authority, other persons entered who began to profane the Sanctuary. Scurrying here and there, they sacrilegiously put their hands on the Holy Sacrament and also upon the Priests. Luisa, upon seeing this, cried out to the Lord to stop them from profaning His Sacred Temples, and she feared for the severe chastisements that He would pour out upon men for such horrible sins.

But the Lord replied that these enormous crimes are caused by the sins of the Priests. First, they profaned in a hidden manner His Holy Church with sacrilegious Masses, by mixing impure acts in the administration of the Sacraments. Committing these acts under the guise of holiness, they have arrived at not only profaning His churches of stone, but also at violating His living temples which are the souls, and profaning His very Body.

All of this eventually filtered down to the laity. Not seeing in the Priests the necessary light for their own progress, finding instead only shadows, they have become so darkened as to lose the beautiful light of the Faith; and without this light it is no wonder that they have come to such grave excesses. Prayer is needed so that the Priests may become a light for the people, permitting the seculars to reacquire the light to see the errors they are committing. Seeing them, the they will be reluctant to continue these grave excesses, which will be the cause of equally grave chastisements.

I have freely translated the above from the original Italian found Here. 

To learn more about the mystic Luisa Piccarreta, click Here.