Gods Suffering, Meteors raining, pissing kidney stones, and Cardinal Christoph Schönborn

To: Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Cardinal Roger Mahony, Cardenal Julio Terrazas, Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, Monseñor Antonio María Rouco Varela, JE SUIS MUSULMAN FAN DU CARDINAL, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, John Tong Hon, Cardinale Agostino Vallini, Gabriel Zubeir Wako, George Pell, Angelo Scola cardinale di Milano, Norberto Rivera Carrera, Monseñor Rubén Salazar Gómez: Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, Card.Angelo Bagnasco, His Beatitude Mar George Alencherry, Dominik Duka, Juan Cipriani, Arch. Bishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Marc Ouellet, Archdiocese of Boston, Archdiocese of Chicago, Archdiocese of Galveston – Housto, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Archdiocese of New York, Mauro Piacenza, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Kardinal Christoph Schönborn, Sarah Robert, JOÃO BRAZ De AVIZ, Peter Turkson, Kardinal Josip Bozanic, Dom Odilo Pedro Scherer, Papa Silvestro IV - Card. Philippe Xavier, Erdő Péter bíborost az első Magyar, Luis Antonio Gokim Tagl,

Open Letter to Kardinal Christoph Schönborn

Sir,

Your answer to the question of suffering is “And Jesus gives a clear answer: you need to repent, you convert and change your life.”

Just as God gives the rain to both the good and the bad and so it is that he rains down meteor rocks from the sky on both the good and the bad. And while we are on the subjects of rocks, rain, and stones -- I three times had a kidney stone and couldn’t piss a lick.

The first time I ever had a kidney stone I was doorman at a church, Bellarmine Chapel, and every Sunday I would open the door and tell people “Good morning. Welcome.” One morning I was in pain and didn’t know why. By the time I went home I was balled up like a little baby on my bed wondering what the hell was wrong with me. When I went to the doctor he told me I had a kidney stone and gave me the pain medicine that any god couldn’t give.

The second time I had suffered a kidney stone I wasn’t attending church any longer, the whole cover-up of priest abusing children really turned me away, and I was a manager for some rock and roll band called Align Orion and I was trying to get a recording done. We had just finished a set and the new kidney stone hit, by the time I walked out the door I was balled up outside the doors of the studio on the ground in pain. This time I didn’t even ask for help from the almighty but just went to the hospital for the pain medicine.

I’ll bet you the most devout of saints have gotten kidney stones just as the worst of the worst of sinners. So, if you are always placing the God of Love as the answer then it’s been my experience that he brings pain in things that are even smaller then mustard seeds. Anyway, after my third kidney stone I asked God that question, “What is it that you want me to learn from this suffering God.”

“Kidney stones are evil,” he replied.

“Yes! Yes,” I exclaimed into the sky. “Then why did you make them?”

He hasn’t spoken to me since he handed over his jealousy to me. But today, after reading your answer on why there is suffering, I just had to google what is your God of Love, who is responsible for meteors, and kidney stones raining on or out of everyone…

[link to www.google.com]

what is that God up to now when it comes to the suffering of the innocent children -- Sometimes it’s a bullet, sometimes it’s a fire, sometimes it’s a walk on the ice, sometimes it’s a priest, sometimes a grandmother… If you wish to blame him for all that is good then he gets the credit for all that is bad also. Is it the devil or the Gods of happy sledding memories that have the final say in snowstorms that make our roads slick as ice? Someone is gonna suffer for it!

And whoever made the kidney stone needs to be condemned to hell forever… right along with the child rapist and those that fund wars that kill the innocent through inquisitions or crusade or bomb.

Sincerely,

Peter Anthony

(The Cardinal's Messege to Peter Anthony)

My thoughts on the Gospel on Sunday why there is evil? How can God allow that? -After the suffering of others is always a question for me the question: what will God this tell me?

Why evil?

How can God allow that? If God is good, why then so much suffering? These issues to move since time immemorial, even at the time of Jesus. As people come to him and tell him something terrible that happened in Jerusalem. Pilgrims from Galilee, the home of Jesus, probably suspected of being terrorist insurgents, resistance fighters against the Roman occupation. The Governor of the Emperor, Pontius Pilate, had simply slaughtering it by his soldiers in the Temple "so that its blood mingled with that of the sacrificial animals".

This shocking brutality moved many obviously, even if such atrocities were at that time nor rare like today in the region. (Think of the daily scares from Syria!) How can God allow such, so we ask today. At that time, people's reaction was different: this Galilean downloaded sure guilt, and therefore God has punished them.

Is the suffering of God's punishment? Or God is so faint that it cannot prevent suffering? Or is he so heartless that he will not prevent it? The response of Jesus is surprising. He did not question arrives, whether these murdered Galileans were special sinners, whether God has punished them, or why it did not prevent the suffering. Jesus applies the views of ourselves.
This terrible news to bring you to think. It should be me to the question: how am I even before God? How about with me, if I were suddenly to victims of violence and would have to appear before the judgment seat of God?

The question after the suffering of others is always a question for me: what will God through this message tell me? And Jesus gives a clear answer: you need to repent, you convert and change your life.

To illustrate this, he tells of a catastrophe that was on everyone's lips was: the collapse of the Tower from the pool of Shiloah, has taken the lives of 18 people. When you hear such news, Jesus essentially says they take own repentance for the occasion. Everyone should tell himself: even I can at any moment victims of a disaster, a violent crime are. How looks it then when myself, in my heart, in my life?

Why suffering? This question is not abstract theory to answer, but by life itself. It isn't about the suffering in General, but simply question: what have you, my God, to tell me through this suffering? What can and must I learn from it?

Jesus gives himself the answer with the little parable of the patient husbandman. The tree, which grows there in the vineyard, brings no fruit for three years. Away with him! Not pays off, hurts only! The winemaker wants to try it again, the tree give one last chance, one last. God does just that: I'm escape a disaster - God gives patient a chance to change my life, me still!

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn