Background on Moloch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch
Saturday, July 28, 2007
In his exclusive interview with Vittorio Messori in 1985, Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect for the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) expressed how “Vatican II is in the strictest continuity with both previous councils…Whoever accepts Vatican II…at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church.” (Ratzinger Report, pg. 28)
Our beloved Holy Father also explained that it is absolutely incorrect to refer to "Pre-Vatican II" and "Post-Vatican II," as if there were changes in the Church's position in matters of faith and morals. This point is lost on both "liberals" and "conservatives" alike within the Church. Both camps have a skewed understanding of the Magisterial teaching of the Church:
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Dossier/2000-12/article4.html
By way of example, Mrs. Eleonore Villarrubia, mother of Louis Villarrubia ("Brother" Andre Marie of the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire), wrote the following words to a Catholic lay woman named Ann Duclos a little while back:
"St. Benedict Center adheres to Catholic dogma as it has been taught for two millenia. Vatican II did not change doctrine. NO ONE can change doctrine. Vatican II was merely a pastoral council, not a doctrinal council. This is history and fact. The changes were brought about by liberal churchmen who undermined the church from within. This, too, is history."
Such an attitude (and many "traditional" Catholics share this view) betrays a profound ignorance of what an Ecumenical Council is and of the Church's gift of infallibility. The gift of infallibility is not restricted to ex cathedra statements and to dogmas explicitly so defined. Rather, it extends as well to the official teaching of the Church regarding all important questions of faith and morals.
Ecumenical Councils are solemn assemblies of the Bishops of the whole world which are called together by the Supreme Pontiff and which meet under his authority as the successor of Peter. As Lumen Gentium, No. 22 teaches: "There never is an ecumenical council which is not confirmed or at least recognized as such by Peter's successor."
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 891 explains: "...The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium, above all in an Ecumenical Council."
Each Ecumenical Council provides us with a better understanding of the mind of Christ which is always present in the life of the Church and therefore may be viewed as a new element in the development of doctrine as well as another event which consolidates Catholic Tradition. This is why Pope Benedict XVI said that, "Whoever accepts Vatican II...at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church."
Of course, there are those within the Church who are often described as "liberal" and who disregard those passages of Vatican II which they are uncomfortable with. For example, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, No. 36, tells us that, "..since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended.." But this same document tells us (again in No. 36) that: "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites." And No. 54 of this same Vatican II document states: "In Masses which are celebrated with the people, a suitable place may be allotted to their mother tongue. This is to apply in the first place to the readings and 'the common prayer,' but also, as local conditions may warrant, to those parts which pertain to the people, according to the norm laid down in Art. 36 of this Constitution. Nevertheless, steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."
And hasn't this teaching of Vatican II been largely ignored by those who sought to banish the Latin language altogether?
May we all strive to listen to the voice of Christ as He speaks to us through the Magisterium of His Church. There is no "Pre-Vatican II Church" or "Post-Vatican II Church." These empty slogans are often employed by unhappy individuals who want to promote their own agenda and who often possess a rather distorted idea of what the Church teaches.
Paul.
Our beloved Holy Father also explained that it is absolutely incorrect to refer to "Pre-Vatican II" and "Post-Vatican II," as if there were changes in the Church's position in matters of faith and morals. This point is lost on both "liberals" and "conservatives" alike within the Church. Both camps have a skewed understanding of the Magisterial teaching of the Church:
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Dossier/2000-12/article4.html
By way of example, Mrs. Eleonore Villarrubia, mother of Louis Villarrubia ("Brother" Andre Marie of the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire), wrote the following words to a Catholic lay woman named Ann Duclos a little while back:
"St. Benedict Center adheres to Catholic dogma as it has been taught for two millenia. Vatican II did not change doctrine. NO ONE can change doctrine. Vatican II was merely a pastoral council, not a doctrinal council. This is history and fact. The changes were brought about by liberal churchmen who undermined the church from within. This, too, is history."
Such an attitude (and many "traditional" Catholics share this view) betrays a profound ignorance of what an Ecumenical Council is and of the Church's gift of infallibility. The gift of infallibility is not restricted to ex cathedra statements and to dogmas explicitly so defined. Rather, it extends as well to the official teaching of the Church regarding all important questions of faith and morals.
Ecumenical Councils are solemn assemblies of the Bishops of the whole world which are called together by the Supreme Pontiff and which meet under his authority as the successor of Peter. As Lumen Gentium, No. 22 teaches: "There never is an ecumenical council which is not confirmed or at least recognized as such by Peter's successor."
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 891 explains: "...The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium, above all in an Ecumenical Council."
Each Ecumenical Council provides us with a better understanding of the mind of Christ which is always present in the life of the Church and therefore may be viewed as a new element in the development of doctrine as well as another event which consolidates Catholic Tradition. This is why Pope Benedict XVI said that, "Whoever accepts Vatican II...at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church."
Of course, there are those within the Church who are often described as "liberal" and who disregard those passages of Vatican II which they are uncomfortable with. For example, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, No. 36, tells us that, "..since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended.." But this same document tells us (again in No. 36) that: "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites." And No. 54 of this same Vatican II document states: "In Masses which are celebrated with the people, a suitable place may be allotted to their mother tongue. This is to apply in the first place to the readings and 'the common prayer,' but also, as local conditions may warrant, to those parts which pertain to the people, according to the norm laid down in Art. 36 of this Constitution. Nevertheless, steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."
And hasn't this teaching of Vatican II been largely ignored by those who sought to banish the Latin language altogether?
May we all strive to listen to the voice of Christ as He speaks to us through the Magisterium of His Church. There is no "Pre-Vatican II Church" or "Post-Vatican II Church." These empty slogans are often employed by unhappy individuals who want to promote their own agenda and who often possess a rather distorted idea of what the Church teaches.
Paul.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Stormfront and the SBC in Richmond, New Hampshire...
Mr. Tom Matson, a technology consultant who resides in Cheshire County and who frequently leaves comments at the SBC Watch Blog, has just reported the following: Stormfront, a notorious White Supremacist organization, has initiated a discussion thread at their website: http://www.stormfront.org/, which begins with this lead:
"SPLC stirring up trouble in New Hampshire
A small sect of traditionalist Catholics have lived peacefully in rural Richmond, New Hampshire for more than twenty years. The group, known as the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, established a retreat in the quiet town during the 1980's, which they call the Saint Benedict Center, building a convent, a monastery, a church, and a school, raising families, going about their business and committed to leading spiritual lives in the bucolic, out-of-the-way village.
All that is about to change. Morris Dees, the nation's most notorious and successful barrator, has set his sights on the group. Dees may not be the wealthiest ambulance-chaser in the country - that distinction probably belongs to the well-married Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry - but he is very good at what he does. Like many shysters who sue people for a living, Dees operates a front corporation as a cash repository and tax dodge; Dees calls his the Southern Poverty Law Center, and at last report, the SPLC disposed of more than $175 million in cash. Admittedly, do-gooder Dees salaries himself at a piddling $275 thousand a year. That kind of money wouldn't keep Kerry in cufflinks, but at roughly $750 a day, every day of the year, including shabbot and Halloween, not a bad second income. That's just his base salary - there's lots more to his cut in perks, like his personal bodyguards; and Dees' personal fortune, while not known to us, is no doubt considerable. Remember this operation is 501(c)(3) - tax exempt.http://www.splcenter.org/donate/fina.../financial.jsp
Dees' hostility and contempt for decent people in general and Christians in particular is well established. He and his merry band of licensed legal weasels have filed lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit against Christians, hassling Christian organizations, Christian political figures, and Christian projects at every opportunity, always with his hand out to the Jews for "donations" and featuring his latest attacks as his product, and he has a very successful track record, recently unseating an Alabama Supreme Court justice, Roy Moore. In a 2006 version of his perennial fundraising brochure, the Intelligence Report, Dees targeted the traditionalist Catholics, skilfully skewering these particular Christians, their churches, and their clergy as hate criminals and loony cultists.
In the most recent update to his brochure, aimed at the Richmond church, Dees cleverly adds the charge of terrorist. When Dees' lackeys descended on Richmond a few months ago, the brothers and sisters of the Immaculate Heart church were wise enough to have nothing to do with them, but that didn't stop the SPLC hit team from engaging with the local busybodies and stirring up rumors of midnight machine gun practice and martial arts training at the "cultist compound". Dees raises the spectre of Waco and hints that another massacre at the hands of federal gunmen just might be in order for this church, too.
It appears that Dees' longtime hatchet-hag Heidi Beirich has a worthy understudy, one Suzy Buchanan, and Suzy ominously reports that the locals live in fear of the church members, who are "taking over the town". As proof, Suzy reports that three church members have been elected to local posts, and attributes a "hostile church voting bloc" imposed upon the townsfolk. Get a load of Suzy's hit piece right here:http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intel...e.jsp?pid=1384 Kosher to the rotten core. Need I remind anyone that the Jews literally buy into this thinly veiled bushwacking, and they send Dees millions in cash every year, stoked by the SLPC's constant race-baiting drumbeat and stories of nazis under every bed. Dees' operation is in fact essentially a Jew operation, which he co-founded with a Jew, Joe Levin.
The president of his legal front is a Jew, one Richard Cohen; the "Director of Research" Heidi Beirich is a Jewess; his right hand hit-man, Mark Potok, is a Jew; his chief jackal's-bitch-at-law, Rhonda Brownstein, is a Jewess - a rancid bunch of Shylocks indeed, lousy with Jews from top to bottom. Are we surprised? Not at Stormfront we're not. (There is hardly a negro to be found at the Poverty Palace, by the way, excepting the cleaning staff, and of course Julian Bond's hallowed name on the letterhead.)
If the members of the Immaculate Heart community are a bit nervous now, they have good reason to be; as many a Christian can attest, when Dees sics his dogs on you, you have got serious problems. He will never allow them to add on to their school - they can just forget that, but he won't likely stop there. Life as they know it may very well be over. Almost certainly Dees has a team of flinty-eyed Jew lawyers researching legal maneuvers in New Hampshire law libraries right now, and they have the new approach to eminent domain in their arsenal.
We doubt the Immaculate Heart community can afford to defend themselves from Dees in court. The community and their church and school have been in Richmond for over twenty years, and nobody ever heard a peep from there until the SPLC lashed out at them. Now, as Suzy gloats, they find themselves at the center of heated controversy, hysterical allegations, rumors amok, and the glare of the State. It is a given that Dees will file suit if he possibly can. This is too juicy a target. He has a local proxy lined up, the village communist Paul Anthony Melanson, to gain standing in New Hampshire court. That's all he needs - that and a legal excuse, and no one can doubt that Morris Dees can conjure such an excuse in his sleep. The future is bleak for the traditional Catholics of Richmond, New Hampshire. It's entirely possible that their church and school property will be taken from them and plowed over, at Dees' behest - within just a few short years."
Source: http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/splc-stirring-up-trouble-new-404930.html
And so now I am "the village communist." An anonymous individual who posted a comment at this Blog would disagree with the bright lights at Stormfront. This individual, who used the name "Summer Dog," accused me of being "an empty capitalist materialist" who is a "traitor to all Christianity...by going to these anti-Christ Jews and joining them in a kvetch session."
Actually, I have been exposing the flawed theology and anti-Semitism of the SBC for years now. If I am a "traitor to all Christianity" for opposing anti-Semitism, then the Roman Catholic Church is also guilty of betraying "all Christianity." For Holy Mother Church condemns anti-Semitism as incompatible with the Gospel.
The hatred is mounting. At SBC Watch, another individual going by the name Sander referred to me as a "Jew-loving sh..bag."
Is this what the SBC means by "Holy Hate?"
"SPLC stirring up trouble in New Hampshire
A small sect of traditionalist Catholics have lived peacefully in rural Richmond, New Hampshire for more than twenty years. The group, known as the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, established a retreat in the quiet town during the 1980's, which they call the Saint Benedict Center, building a convent, a monastery, a church, and a school, raising families, going about their business and committed to leading spiritual lives in the bucolic, out-of-the-way village.
All that is about to change. Morris Dees, the nation's most notorious and successful barrator, has set his sights on the group. Dees may not be the wealthiest ambulance-chaser in the country - that distinction probably belongs to the well-married Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry - but he is very good at what he does. Like many shysters who sue people for a living, Dees operates a front corporation as a cash repository and tax dodge; Dees calls his the Southern Poverty Law Center, and at last report, the SPLC disposed of more than $175 million in cash. Admittedly, do-gooder Dees salaries himself at a piddling $275 thousand a year. That kind of money wouldn't keep Kerry in cufflinks, but at roughly $750 a day, every day of the year, including shabbot and Halloween, not a bad second income. That's just his base salary - there's lots more to his cut in perks, like his personal bodyguards; and Dees' personal fortune, while not known to us, is no doubt considerable. Remember this operation is 501(c)(3) - tax exempt.http://www.splcenter.org/donate/fina.../financial.jsp
Dees' hostility and contempt for decent people in general and Christians in particular is well established. He and his merry band of licensed legal weasels have filed lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit against Christians, hassling Christian organizations, Christian political figures, and Christian projects at every opportunity, always with his hand out to the Jews for "donations" and featuring his latest attacks as his product, and he has a very successful track record, recently unseating an Alabama Supreme Court justice, Roy Moore. In a 2006 version of his perennial fundraising brochure, the Intelligence Report, Dees targeted the traditionalist Catholics, skilfully skewering these particular Christians, their churches, and their clergy as hate criminals and loony cultists.
In the most recent update to his brochure, aimed at the Richmond church, Dees cleverly adds the charge of terrorist. When Dees' lackeys descended on Richmond a few months ago, the brothers and sisters of the Immaculate Heart church were wise enough to have nothing to do with them, but that didn't stop the SPLC hit team from engaging with the local busybodies and stirring up rumors of midnight machine gun practice and martial arts training at the "cultist compound". Dees raises the spectre of Waco and hints that another massacre at the hands of federal gunmen just might be in order for this church, too.
It appears that Dees' longtime hatchet-hag Heidi Beirich has a worthy understudy, one Suzy Buchanan, and Suzy ominously reports that the locals live in fear of the church members, who are "taking over the town". As proof, Suzy reports that three church members have been elected to local posts, and attributes a "hostile church voting bloc" imposed upon the townsfolk. Get a load of Suzy's hit piece right here:http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intel...e.jsp?pid=1384 Kosher to the rotten core. Need I remind anyone that the Jews literally buy into this thinly veiled bushwacking, and they send Dees millions in cash every year, stoked by the SLPC's constant race-baiting drumbeat and stories of nazis under every bed. Dees' operation is in fact essentially a Jew operation, which he co-founded with a Jew, Joe Levin.
The president of his legal front is a Jew, one Richard Cohen; the "Director of Research" Heidi Beirich is a Jewess; his right hand hit-man, Mark Potok, is a Jew; his chief jackal's-bitch-at-law, Rhonda Brownstein, is a Jewess - a rancid bunch of Shylocks indeed, lousy with Jews from top to bottom. Are we surprised? Not at Stormfront we're not. (There is hardly a negro to be found at the Poverty Palace, by the way, excepting the cleaning staff, and of course Julian Bond's hallowed name on the letterhead.)
If the members of the Immaculate Heart community are a bit nervous now, they have good reason to be; as many a Christian can attest, when Dees sics his dogs on you, you have got serious problems. He will never allow them to add on to their school - they can just forget that, but he won't likely stop there. Life as they know it may very well be over. Almost certainly Dees has a team of flinty-eyed Jew lawyers researching legal maneuvers in New Hampshire law libraries right now, and they have the new approach to eminent domain in their arsenal.
We doubt the Immaculate Heart community can afford to defend themselves from Dees in court. The community and their church and school have been in Richmond for over twenty years, and nobody ever heard a peep from there until the SPLC lashed out at them. Now, as Suzy gloats, they find themselves at the center of heated controversy, hysterical allegations, rumors amok, and the glare of the State. It is a given that Dees will file suit if he possibly can. This is too juicy a target. He has a local proxy lined up, the village communist Paul Anthony Melanson, to gain standing in New Hampshire court. That's all he needs - that and a legal excuse, and no one can doubt that Morris Dees can conjure such an excuse in his sleep. The future is bleak for the traditional Catholics of Richmond, New Hampshire. It's entirely possible that their church and school property will be taken from them and plowed over, at Dees' behest - within just a few short years."
Source: http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/splc-stirring-up-trouble-new-404930.html
And so now I am "the village communist." An anonymous individual who posted a comment at this Blog would disagree with the bright lights at Stormfront. This individual, who used the name "Summer Dog," accused me of being "an empty capitalist materialist" who is a "traitor to all Christianity...by going to these anti-Christ Jews and joining them in a kvetch session."
Actually, I have been exposing the flawed theology and anti-Semitism of the SBC for years now. If I am a "traitor to all Christianity" for opposing anti-Semitism, then the Roman Catholic Church is also guilty of betraying "all Christianity." For Holy Mother Church condemns anti-Semitism as incompatible with the Gospel.
The hatred is mounting. At SBC Watch, another individual going by the name Sander referred to me as a "Jew-loving sh..bag."
Is this what the SBC means by "Holy Hate?"
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Web of hate
Stormfront, a well-known White Supremacist hate group published this anti-Semitic article some time back: http://www4.stormfront.org/posterity/ci/curseofcain.html
Now it would appear that Stormfront is defending the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire while attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center:http://sbcwatch.blogspot.com/2007/07/stormfrontorg-defends-sbc-attacks-splc.html
Readers of this Blog will recall how Stormfront quoted from Douglas Bersaw ["Brother" Anthony Mary, former SBC "Prefect"] at its website in the past.
Now it would appear that Stormfront is defending the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire while attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center:http://sbcwatch.blogspot.com/2007/07/stormfrontorg-defends-sbc-attacks-splc.html
Readers of this Blog will recall how Stormfront quoted from Douglas Bersaw ["Brother" Anthony Mary, former SBC "Prefect"] at its website in the past.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Saturday, July 14, 2007
The Central challenge of our time
In his book entitled "Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had this to say: "Perhaps the finest and most succinct expression of this new Christian synthesis is to be found in a confession in the First Letter of Saint John: ‘we know and believe the love’ (1 Jn 4:16). Christ had become for these people the discovery of creative love; the rational principle of the universe had revealed itself as love - as that greater reason which accepts into itself even darkness and irrationality and heals them...Reason and mystery had met together; the very fact that the whole had been brought together in one person had opened the door for everyone: through the one God, all could become brothers and sisters...Can this evident truth, which at that time struck the ancient world to its depths and transformed it, be reinstated? Or is it irrevocably lost? What is standing in its way? There are many reasons for the current collapse, but I would say that the most important consists of the self-limitation of reason, which is paradoxically resting upon its laurels: the laws of method that brought it success have, through being generalized, become its prison. Natural science, which has built a new world, rests upon a philosophical foundation whose origin must be sought in Plato. Copernicus, Galileo, and even Newton were Platonists. Their basic assumption was that the world is mathematically and rationally structured and that, starting from this assumption, we can decipher it and by experiment can make it equally comprehensible and useful. The innovation consisted in associating Platonism and an empirical approach, ideal and experiment. The experiment is based on an existing interpretative concept, which is then tried out in a practical test, corrected, and opened up to further questions. This mathematical anticipation alone can permit subsequent generalization, the recognition of laws, which then make possible appropriate action. All our ideas about natural science and all practical applications are based on the assumption that the world is ordered according to rational, spiritual laws, is imbued with rationality that can be traced out and copied by our reason. At the same time, however, our perception of it is associated with the test of experience.
Any thinking that goes beyond this connection, that tries to look at reason in itself or to see it as preceding the present world, is contrary to the discipline of scientific method and is therefore utterly rejected as being a prescientific or unscientific way of thinking. The Logos, Wisdom, about which the Greeks spoke, on the one hand, and the Israelites, on the other, has been taken back into the material world and cannot be addressed outside of it. Within the specific path followed by natural science, this limitation is necessary and right. If, however, it is declared to be the absolute and unsurpassable form of human thought, then the basis of science itself becomes contradictory: for it is both proclaiming and denying the power of reason. But above all, a self-limiting reason of that kind is an amputated reason. If man cannot use his reason to ask about the essential things in his life, where he comes from and where he is going, about what he should do and may do, about living and dying, but has to leave these decisive questions to feeling, divorced from reason, then he is not elevating reason but dishonoring it. The disintegration of man, thus brought about, results equally in a pathological form of religion and a pathological form of science. It is quite obvious today that with the detachment of religion from its responsibility to reason, pathological forms of religion are constantly increasing. But when we think of scientific projects that set no real value on man, such as cloning, the production of fetuses - that is, of people - simply in order to use their organs for developing pharmaceutical products, or indeed for any economic exploitation, or if we think of the way science is made use of to produce ever more frightful means for the destruction of men and of the world, then it is obvious that there is such a thing as science that has taken a pathological form: science becomes pathological and a threat to life when it takes leave of the moral order of human life, becomes autonomous, and no longer recognizes any standard but its own capabilities.
That means that the scope of reason must be enlarged once more. We have to come out of the prison we have built for ourselves and recognize other forms of ascertaining things, forms in which the whole of man comes into play. What we need is something like what we find in Socrates: a patient readiness, opened up and looking beyond itself. This readiness to look at things, in its time, brought together the two eyes of reason, Athens and Jerusalem, and made possible a new stage in history. We need a new readiness to seek the truth and also the humility to let ourselves be found. The strict application of methodical discipline should not mean just the pursuit of success; it should mean the pursuit of truth and the readiness to find it." (Truth and Tolerance, pp. 155-159, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2004).
This is the central challenge of our time: To restore the older, traditional, and larger notion of reason. We need to return to the simple truth that faith precedes understanding and that understanding is greatly aided by faith, an idea which was expressed so beautifully by the medieval formulas credo ut intelligam (I believe in order that I may understand) and fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding).
In the words of Pope John Paul II, "What is distinctive in the biblical text is the conviction that there is a profound and indissoluble unity between the knowledge of reason and the knowledge of faith. The world and all that happens within it, including history and the fate of peoples, are realities to be observed, analyzed and assessed with all the resources of reason, but without faith ever being foreign to the process. Faith intervenes not to abolish reason’s autonomy nor to reduce its scope for action, but solely to bring the human being to understand that in these events it is the God of Israel who acts. Thus the world and the events of history cannot be understood in depth without professing faith in the God who is at work in them. Faith sharpens the inner eye, opening the mind to discover in the flux of events the workings of Providence. Here the words of the Book of Proverbs are pertinent: ‘The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps’ (16:9). This is to say that with the light of reason human beings can know which path to take, but they can follow that path to its end, quickly and unhindered, only if with a rightly tuned spirit they search for it within the horizon of faith. Therefore, reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing the capacity of men and women to know themselves, the world and God in an appropriate way. There is thus no reason for competition of any kind between reason and faith: each contains the other, and each has its own scope for action.." (Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio, On the Relationship between Faith and Reason, Nos. 16, 17).
Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) hit the nail on the head when he said that we have to come out of the prison we have built for ourselves and recognize other forms of ascertaining things. Our age is enslaved by the perverse illusion that reason alone is sufficient without faith and that mankind possesses unlimited possibilities of achieving everything and knowing everything through its own strength and through the use of reason alone.
Where will this illusion lead us? Again, in the words of Pope John Paul II: "...the Chosen People understood that, if reason were to be fully true to itself, then it must respect certain basic rules. The first of these is that reason must realize that human knowledge is a journey which allows no rest; the second stems from the awareness that such a path is not for the proud who think that everything is the fruit of personal conquest; a third rule is grounded in the ‘fear of God’ whose transcendent sovereignty and provident love in the governance of the world reason must recognize. In abandoning these rules, the human being runs the risk of failure and ends up in the condition of ‘the fool.’ For the Bible, in this foolishness there lies a threat to life. The fool thinks that he knows many things, but really he is incapable of fixing his gaze on the things that truly matter. Therefore, he can neither order his mind (Prov 1:7) nor assume a correct attitude to himself or to the world around him. And so when he claims that ‘God does not exist’ (cf. Ps 14:1), he shows with absolute clarity just how deficient his knowledge is and just how far he is from the full truth of things, their origin and their destiny." (Fides et Ratio, No. 18).
Already we see the symptoms of a society which has become spiritually sick because it has abandoned these rules. We are witnessing the fruits of suppression of truth as outlined by St. Paul in Romans 1: 18-32:
"The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper. They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."
In his book entitled "Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had this to say: "Perhaps the finest and most succinct expression of this new Christian synthesis is to be found in a confession in the First Letter of Saint John: ‘we know and believe the love’ (1 Jn 4:16). Christ had become for these people the discovery of creative love; the rational principle of the universe had revealed itself as love - as that greater reason which accepts into itself even darkness and irrationality and heals them...Reason and mystery had met together; the very fact that the whole had been brought together in one person had opened the door for everyone: through the one God, all could become brothers and sisters...Can this evident truth, which at that time struck the ancient world to its depths and transformed it, be reinstated? Or is it irrevocably lost? What is standing in its way? There are many reasons for the current collapse, but I would say that the most important consists of the self-limitation of reason, which is paradoxically resting upon its laurels: the laws of method that brought it success have, through being generalized, become its prison. Natural science, which has built a new world, rests upon a philosophical foundation whose origin must be sought in Plato. Copernicus, Galileo, and even Newton were Platonists. Their basic assumption was that the world is mathematically and rationally structured and that, starting from this assumption, we can decipher it and by experiment can make it equally comprehensible and useful. The innovation consisted in associating Platonism and an empirical approach, ideal and experiment. The experiment is based on an existing interpretative concept, which is then tried out in a practical test, corrected, and opened up to further questions. This mathematical anticipation alone can permit subsequent generalization, the recognition of laws, which then make possible appropriate action. All our ideas about natural science and all practical applications are based on the assumption that the world is ordered according to rational, spiritual laws, is imbued with rationality that can be traced out and copied by our reason. At the same time, however, our perception of it is associated with the test of experience.
Any thinking that goes beyond this connection, that tries to look at reason in itself or to see it as preceding the present world, is contrary to the discipline of scientific method and is therefore utterly rejected as being a prescientific or unscientific way of thinking. The Logos, Wisdom, about which the Greeks spoke, on the one hand, and the Israelites, on the other, has been taken back into the material world and cannot be addressed outside of it. Within the specific path followed by natural science, this limitation is necessary and right. If, however, it is declared to be the absolute and unsurpassable form of human thought, then the basis of science itself becomes contradictory: for it is both proclaiming and denying the power of reason. But above all, a self-limiting reason of that kind is an amputated reason. If man cannot use his reason to ask about the essential things in his life, where he comes from and where he is going, about what he should do and may do, about living and dying, but has to leave these decisive questions to feeling, divorced from reason, then he is not elevating reason but dishonoring it. The disintegration of man, thus brought about, results equally in a pathological form of religion and a pathological form of science. It is quite obvious today that with the detachment of religion from its responsibility to reason, pathological forms of religion are constantly increasing. But when we think of scientific projects that set no real value on man, such as cloning, the production of fetuses - that is, of people - simply in order to use their organs for developing pharmaceutical products, or indeed for any economic exploitation, or if we think of the way science is made use of to produce ever more frightful means for the destruction of men and of the world, then it is obvious that there is such a thing as science that has taken a pathological form: science becomes pathological and a threat to life when it takes leave of the moral order of human life, becomes autonomous, and no longer recognizes any standard but its own capabilities.
That means that the scope of reason must be enlarged once more. We have to come out of the prison we have built for ourselves and recognize other forms of ascertaining things, forms in which the whole of man comes into play. What we need is something like what we find in Socrates: a patient readiness, opened up and looking beyond itself. This readiness to look at things, in its time, brought together the two eyes of reason, Athens and Jerusalem, and made possible a new stage in history. We need a new readiness to seek the truth and also the humility to let ourselves be found. The strict application of methodical discipline should not mean just the pursuit of success; it should mean the pursuit of truth and the readiness to find it." (Truth and Tolerance, pp. 155-159, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2004).
This is the central challenge of our time: To restore the older, traditional, and larger notion of reason. We need to return to the simple truth that faith precedes understanding and that understanding is greatly aided by faith, an idea which was expressed so beautifully by the medieval formulas credo ut intelligam (I believe in order that I may understand) and fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding).
In the words of Pope John Paul II, "What is distinctive in the biblical text is the conviction that there is a profound and indissoluble unity between the knowledge of reason and the knowledge of faith. The world and all that happens within it, including history and the fate of peoples, are realities to be observed, analyzed and assessed with all the resources of reason, but without faith ever being foreign to the process. Faith intervenes not to abolish reason’s autonomy nor to reduce its scope for action, but solely to bring the human being to understand that in these events it is the God of Israel who acts. Thus the world and the events of history cannot be understood in depth without professing faith in the God who is at work in them. Faith sharpens the inner eye, opening the mind to discover in the flux of events the workings of Providence. Here the words of the Book of Proverbs are pertinent: ‘The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps’ (16:9). This is to say that with the light of reason human beings can know which path to take, but they can follow that path to its end, quickly and unhindered, only if with a rightly tuned spirit they search for it within the horizon of faith. Therefore, reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing the capacity of men and women to know themselves, the world and God in an appropriate way. There is thus no reason for competition of any kind between reason and faith: each contains the other, and each has its own scope for action.." (Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio, On the Relationship between Faith and Reason, Nos. 16, 17).
Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) hit the nail on the head when he said that we have to come out of the prison we have built for ourselves and recognize other forms of ascertaining things. Our age is enslaved by the perverse illusion that reason alone is sufficient without faith and that mankind possesses unlimited possibilities of achieving everything and knowing everything through its own strength and through the use of reason alone.
Where will this illusion lead us? Again, in the words of Pope John Paul II: "...the Chosen People understood that, if reason were to be fully true to itself, then it must respect certain basic rules. The first of these is that reason must realize that human knowledge is a journey which allows no rest; the second stems from the awareness that such a path is not for the proud who think that everything is the fruit of personal conquest; a third rule is grounded in the ‘fear of God’ whose transcendent sovereignty and provident love in the governance of the world reason must recognize. In abandoning these rules, the human being runs the risk of failure and ends up in the condition of ‘the fool.’ For the Bible, in this foolishness there lies a threat to life. The fool thinks that he knows many things, but really he is incapable of fixing his gaze on the things that truly matter. Therefore, he can neither order his mind (Prov 1:7) nor assume a correct attitude to himself or to the world around him. And so when he claims that ‘God does not exist’ (cf. Ps 14:1), he shows with absolute clarity just how deficient his knowledge is and just how far he is from the full truth of things, their origin and their destiny." (Fides et Ratio, No. 18).
Already we see the symptoms of a society which has become spiritually sick because it has abandoned these rules. We are witnessing the fruits of suppression of truth as outlined by St. Paul in Romans 1: 18-32:
"The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper. They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."
Friday, July 13, 2007
But if anyone is inclined to be argumentative....
"But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife, and God the head of Christ. Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered brings shame upon his head. But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved. For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil....Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him, whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given her for a covering? But if anyone is inclined to be argumentative, we do not have such a custom, nor do the churches of God." (1 Corinthians 11: 3-6; 13-16).
Suggested reading:
http://web2.airmail.net/carlsch/MaterDei/Library/the_veil.htm
http://www.lumengentleman.com/content.asp?id=228
http://www.lumengentleman.com/content.asp?id=220
Suggested reading:
http://web2.airmail.net/carlsch/MaterDei/Library/the_veil.htm
http://www.lumengentleman.com/content.asp?id=228
http://www.lumengentleman.com/content.asp?id=220
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Pope Pius XII of happy memory: Hero of World War II
I was defending His Holiness from the slanderous and unjust attacks against his person in the 1980's. I know the Rev. Albert J. Nevins was doing so during this time as well. At the time, I was ridiculed for doing so. Then a spate of scholarly works began to emerge in the 1990's which decimated the historical revisionism and outright lies of certain unhappy individuals who were determined (because of their own poor scholarship or a perverse agenda) to discredit this great Pontiff.
The truth has a power of its own. In the end, every lie will crumble before the truth. A lie may seem to triumph for a time just as tyrants seem invincible for a time. But in the end, tyrants and lies face the same end. The truth will always prevail....always.
The truth has a power of its own. In the end, every lie will crumble before the truth. A lie may seem to triumph for a time just as tyrants seem invincible for a time. But in the end, tyrants and lies face the same end. The truth will always prevail....always.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Saturday, July 07, 2007
The heel which will crush Satan's head
Mr. Michael Brown has written a wonderful article on the heel which will crush Satan's head:
http://www.spiritdaily.com/GenesisHeshe.htm.
It was St. Louis Marie de Montfort who explained in his classic work True Devotion to Mary that:
"..Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him...They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ." (TD, No. 54).
This passage in Mr. Brown's article is most significant: "The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the earliest translations of the sentence in question was most widely translated as "it": "And I will put enmity between you and the woman [widely perceived to be the Virgin Mary], and between your offspring and hers; it will crush your head"
According to Montfort, the greatest of the Marian Saints, this "it" is the faithful remnant, consecrated to the Virgin, who will crush the Devil's head (the head representing the intellect and therefore Satan's pride). The heel by contrast represents the lowest part of the body. In other words, those of us who are consecrated to the Immaculata and who are despised by the world because of our lack of wordly "sophistication" and "intelligence." But the wisdom of this world is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1: 18-25). In time, Satan's cohort will come to understand this.
For me it is significant that the Apostle John, in his first vision as described in the book of Revelation, saw "..one like a son of man, wearing an ankle-length robe, with a gold sash around his chest. The hair of his head was as white as white wool or as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame. His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace." (Revelation 1: 13-15)
The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. That the Apostle John saw Our Lord's feet as burnished bronze seems rather significant to me. Why is this? Because, as the Apostle Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12: 21-21-25 that, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I do not need you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I do not need you.' Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.."
The faithful remnant consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary represent, in the thinking of Montfort, the heel which will defeat the Adversary. This burnished bronze which is refined in a furnace (1 Corinthians 3: 10-15) will produce a quality of work which is deserving of a wage. But this only because it was accomplished through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and because it rests on the only foundation which is Christ Jesus.
God love you,
Paul.
http://www.spiritdaily.com/GenesisHeshe.htm.
It was St. Louis Marie de Montfort who explained in his classic work True Devotion to Mary that:
"..Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him...They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ." (TD, No. 54).
This passage in Mr. Brown's article is most significant: "The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the earliest translations of the sentence in question was most widely translated as "it": "And I will put enmity between you and the woman [widely perceived to be the Virgin Mary], and between your offspring and hers; it will crush your head"
According to Montfort, the greatest of the Marian Saints, this "it" is the faithful remnant, consecrated to the Virgin, who will crush the Devil's head (the head representing the intellect and therefore Satan's pride). The heel by contrast represents the lowest part of the body. In other words, those of us who are consecrated to the Immaculata and who are despised by the world because of our lack of wordly "sophistication" and "intelligence." But the wisdom of this world is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1: 18-25). In time, Satan's cohort will come to understand this.
For me it is significant that the Apostle John, in his first vision as described in the book of Revelation, saw "..one like a son of man, wearing an ankle-length robe, with a gold sash around his chest. The hair of his head was as white as white wool or as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame. His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace." (Revelation 1: 13-15)
The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. That the Apostle John saw Our Lord's feet as burnished bronze seems rather significant to me. Why is this? Because, as the Apostle Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12: 21-21-25 that, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I do not need you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I do not need you.' Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.."
The faithful remnant consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary represent, in the thinking of Montfort, the heel which will defeat the Adversary. This burnished bronze which is refined in a furnace (1 Corinthians 3: 10-15) will produce a quality of work which is deserving of a wage. But this only because it was accomplished through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and because it rests on the only foundation which is Christ Jesus.
God love you,
Paul.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
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