"My Adversary will one day think that he is celebrating a complete victory..."

Everywhere we look today, signs of persecution against the Church are emerging.  Our Lady told Father Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests that, "My Adversary will one day think that he is celebrating a complete victory: over the world, over the Church, over souls.  It will be only then that I will intervene - terrible and victorious - that his defeat may be all the greater when he is certain in his conviction that he has conquered once for all...You, my sons, have been called to live through these events.  It is now the time for you to know this, that you may be consciously prepared for the battle.  This is now the time for me to begin disclosing part of my plan.  First of all, it is necessary that my Enemy have the impression of having conquered everything, of having everything now in his hands.  This is why he will be permitted to penetrate even into the interior of my Church, and he will succeed in plunging the sanctuary of God into darkness.  He will reap the greatest number of victims from among the ministers of the sanctuary.  This will in fact be a time of great falls on the part of my beloved sons, my priests.  Satan will seduce some of them by pride, others by love of the flesh, others by doubts, others by unbelief, and still others by discouragement and loneliness.." (October 18, 1975).

Our Lady, speaking to Barbara Reuss on April 25, 1946 at Marienfried, said that, "There are dark incomprehensible events.  In the place where the greatest confidence is found and where the people are taught I can do everything, I will make preparations for peace.  I am the sign of the living God.  I place my sign on the foreheads of my children.  The star (Lucifer) will persecute the sign.  But my sign will conquer the star."

While Our Lady is placing her sign on the foreheads of her children [those who are consecrated to her and who live out a true devotion to her], the Devil is also placing his mark on the foreheads of his children.  Our Lady explained to Father Gobbi that, "These are the times when the followers of him who opposes himself to Christ are being signed with his mark on the forehead and on the hand.  The mark on the forehead and on the hand is an expression of  a total dependency on the part of those who are designated by this sign.  The sign indicates him who is an enemy of Christ, that is to say, the sign of the Antichrist.  And this mark, which is stamped, signifies the complete belonging of the person thus marked to the army of him who is opposed to Christ and who fights against his divine and royal dominion.  The mark is imprinted on the forehead and on the hand.  The forehead indicates the intellect, because the mind is the seat of the human reason.  The hand expresses human activity, because it is with his hands that man acts and works.  Nevertheless, it is the person who is marked by the mark of the Antichrist in his intellect and in his will.  He who allows himself to be signed with the mark on his forehead is led to accept the doctrine of the denial of God, of the rejection of his Law, and of atheism which, in these times, is more and more diffused and advertised.  And thus he is driven to follow the ideologies in mode today and to make of himself a propagator of all the errors..."

I have been witnessing many signs of demonic activity, both within the Church as well as without.  We can expect to see more and more cases of demonic possession.  Last Saturday, while I was praying the Rosary just prior to Confession, the silence in the Church was punctuated by the piercing sound of a woman wailing and howling like a wild animal.  Our Lady doesn't want the ever thickening darkness and apostasy to frighten or discourage us.  But neither does she want us to be blind to it.  More than ever today, we are called to be prayer warriors, marching under the banner of the Mother of God.

We can expect, if we are consecrated to the Immaculata, to be hated even within the Church by those who pass themselves off as Catholic but who are only in the Church in a bodily manner while remaining external to her pale (see Lumen Gentium, No. 14).  Indeed St. Louis de Montfort tells us that, "Finally, sinners continually hate and persecute the elect, openly and secretly. The elect are a burden to them. They despise them, criticise them, ridicule them, insult them, rob them, deceive them, impoverish them, hunt them down and trample them into the dust; while they themselves are making fortunes, enjoying themselves, getting good positions for themselves, enriching themselves, rising to power and living in comfort."

I continue to experience this hatred personally.  It is very real and palpable.  But just as real - and far more powerful than this satanic hatred - is the love of Jesus and Mary.

Remain under the mantle of the Immaculata.  This is our sure refuge.  Now is the time of darkness and confusion.  A time of diabolical disorientation.  A time when devils are being loosed upon the world.  Pray without ceasing.  Pray and trust.

Why do so many Catholics no longer believe in Our Lord's True Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist?

Many Catholics, as this article explains, no longer believe in Our Lord's True Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist.  Why is this?  Largely because of false interpretations of Vatican II which encouraged the erroneous idea that devotion to Our Lady was "a thing of the past."  Theological opinions which sought to downplay the importance of such devotion.

This eclipse was foretold in Sacred Scripture.  We read in Revelation 12: 13-17:

"When the dragon saw that he had been cast down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the boy.  But the woman was given the wings of a gigantic eagle so that she could fly off to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent, she could be taken care of for a year and for two and a half years more.  The serpent, however, spewed a torrent of water out of his mouth to search out the woman and sweep her away.  The earth then came to the woman's rescue by opening its mouth and swallowing the flood which the dragon spewed out of his mouth.  Enraged at her escape, the dragon went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep God's commandments and give witness to Jesus.."

What else is this "torrent of water" from the serpent's mouth but false opinions which have sought to sweep away devotion to the Mother of God?  Our Lady made this clear when she told Father Gobbi, on June 14, 1980 - the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary - "What is this flood of water if not the ensemble of these new theological theories, by which an attempt is being made to bring your heavenly Mother down from that place where the Most Holy Trinity has put her?  Thus it has been possible to obscure me in the souls, in the life and in the piety of many of my children, even to the point of denying some of those privileges with which I have been adorned by the Lord."

You might ask: What does this have to do with belief in Our Lord's True Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist?  Father Andre Richard, writing in the January 31, 1985 edition of the Wanderer newspaper, explains: "The eviction of the Mother has cast a shadow on the holy humanity of Jesus, upon the truth of the Incarnation of the Word of God, upon the Real Presence in the Host.."  The Devil, knowing the consequences of false theological theories which seek to undermine devotion to Our Lady and to deny her privileges, has cast doubts upon the Immaculate Conception, the perpetual virginity and the divine and spiritual maternity of Mary.

St. Louis de Montfort, in his classic treatise True Devotion to Mary, reminds us that: "Our Lady's charity towards her faithful servants goes further. She provides them with everything they need for body and soul. We have just seen that she gives them double garments. She also nourishes them with the most delicious food from the banquet table of God. She gives them the Son she has borne, the Bread of Life, to be their food. "Dear children," she says in the words of divine Wisdom, "take your fill of my fruits," that is to say, of the Fruit of Life, Jesus, "whom I brought into the world for you." "Come," she repeats in another passage, "eat the bread which is Jesus. Drink the wine of his love which I have mixed" for you with the milk of my breasts.

As Mary is the treasurer and dispenser of the gifts and graces of the Most High God, she reserves a choice portion, indeed the choicest portion, to nourish and sustain her children and servants. They grow strong on the Bread of Life; they are made joyful with the wine that brings forth virgins. They are carried at her breast. They bear with ease the yoke of Christ scarcely feeling its weight because of the oil of devotion with which she has softened its wood." (True Devotion to Mary, 208).

Jesus is the fruit of His Mother's womb.  The enemies of Mary are the enemies of Jesus.  And the enemies of Jesus are the enemies of the Father.  Again, St. Louis de Montfort emphasizes the necessity of devotion to the Mother of God as he writes of her role in the Incarnation: "God the Father gave his only Son to the world only through Mary. Whatever desires the patriarchs may have cherished, whatever entreaties the prophets and saints of the Old Law may have had for 4,000 years to obtain that treasure, it was Mary alone who merited it and found grace before God by the power of her prayers and the perfection of her virtues. "The world being unworthy," said Saint Augustine, "to receive the Son of God directly from the hands of the Father, he gave his Son to Mary for the world to receive him from her."



The Son of God became man for our salvation but only in Mary and through Mary.

God the Holy Spirit formed Jesus Christ in Mary but only after having asked her consent through one of the chief ministers of his court.

God the Father imparted to Mary his fruitfulness as far as a mere creature was capable of receiving it, to enable her to bring forth his Son and all the members of his mystical body.

God the Son came into her virginal womb as a new Adam into his earthly paradise, to take his delight there and produce hidden wonders of grace. God-made-man found freedom in imprisoning himself in her womb. He displayed power in allowing himself to be borne by this young maiden. He found his glory and that of his Father in hiding his splendours from all creatures here below and revealing them only to Mary. He glorified his independence and his majesty in depending upon this lovable virgin in his conception, his birth, his presentation in the temple, and in the thirty years of his hidden life. Even at his death she had to be present so that he might be united with her in one sacrifice and be immolated with her consent to the eternal Father, just as formerly Isaac was offered in sacrifice by Abraham when he accepted the will of God. It was Mary who nursed him, fed him, cared for him, reared him, and sacrificed him for us.

The Holy Spirit could not leave such wonderful and inconceivable dependence of God unmentioned in the Gospel, though he concealed almost all the wonderful things that Wisdom Incarnate did during his hidden life in order to bring home to us its infinite value and glory. Jesus gave more glory to God his Father by submitting to his Mother for thirty years than he would have given him had he converted the whole world by working the greatest miracles. How highly then do we glorify God when to please him we submit ourselves to Mary, taking Jesus as our sole model." (True Devotion to Mary, Nos. 16-18).

Do we wish to see Eucharistic Adoration thrive once again in all of our parishes?  Ad Jesus per Mariam! - To Jesus through Mary!  Let this be our battle cry.

Encouraging news from the new director of Joseph House in Manchester, New Hampshire...

Colleen McCormick, the new director of Joseph House in Manchester, New Hampshire, an apostolate connected to Ste. Marie's Parish in the city, has left a comment at this Blog.  She writes:

"Today at Joseph House we have many active prayer and ministry groups. We have Celebration of the Holy Eucharist, Eucharistic Adoration, Lectio Divina, Intercessory Prayer, and Healing Prayer Ministry. If you have not visited us lately, or never stopped in, I would encourage you to join us the first Sunday of each month beginning this December 4th, as we pray a Holy Hour of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Holy Hour starts at 7pm and no reservations are necessary. It would be a wonderful way to introduce or reintroduce yourself to the Joseph House prayer community."

Blessings in JMJ,
Colleen McCormick


This is indeed encouraging news.  For years I have been warning of the dangers of Centering Prayer.  Back in 2005, I warned my readers that Joseph House was heavily promoting this method of contemplative prayer.  Now, thanks be to God, Joseph House has recognized its dangers.  See here.

I was ostracized by the pastor at the time - Father Marc Montminy.  But I hold no grudge.  Instead I have been praying for Ste. Marie's and for Joseph House.  And I consider this an answer to prayer.  Praise be Jesus Christ!

Mass attendance in the United States: A sign of the times

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  It is intrinsic to the Catholic religion, that before one can become a member, he must satisfy himself that the answers to all questions of faith or morals are contained in a Deposit of Faith which has been revealed by God and entrusted to a Custodian established by God Himself and endowed with infallible protection against any change or error. There are many who consider themselves to be "Catholic" even as they reject the Church's teaching while striving to erect a church in their own image and likeness.  According to a new survey published in the National "Catholic" Reporter, Mass attendance among the most devout, older Catholics has fallen from 64 percent in 1999 to just over 50 percent in 2011 and 86 percent of respondents stated they believe that a Catholic "can disagree with aspects of Church teachings and still remain loyal to the Church."

These sophomoric souls should reflect very carefully on the words of Pope Paul VI, in a discourse given to a general audience on September 1, 1971: "...He who thinks he can remain a Christian by his own efforts, deserting the institutional bonds of the visible and hierarchical Church, or who imagines he can remain faithful to the mind of Christ by fashioning for himself a Church conceived according to his own ideas, is on the wrong track, and deceives himself. He compromises and perhaps ruptures, and makes others rupture, real communion with the People of God, losing the pledge of its promises."

The Church is a communion of persons with the Living God, brought about by the Lord Jesus in the Holy Spirit. And, as Pope John Paul II teaches in Christifideles Laici, No. 64, "..an awareness of a commonly shared Christian dignity, an ecclesial consciousness brings a sense of belonging to the mystery of the Church as Communion. This is a basic and undeniable aspect of the life and mission of the Church. For one and all, the earnest prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, 'That all may be one' (Jn 17: 21), ought to become daily a required and undeniable program of life and action."

When we understand what is meant by the Church's communion, the words of Pope Benedict XVI make perfect sense: "..In order to remain in unity with the crucified and risen Lord, the practical sign of juridical unity, 'remaining in the teaching of the apostles' is indispensable." (Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion, p. 69, Ignatius Press). But the false prophets of the "new morality," which is neither new nor morality, continue to insist that we are now living in a new era in which men have "come of age." These mental and moral midgets, anxious to baptize abortion, homosexuality, contraception and a host of other evils, argue that there is now before us a new way, an easy way of following God which permits all things in the name of "love."

It was Fr. Vincent Miceli who warned that: "The West has divinized Security and Technocracy; the East, Science and Revolution. But in both camps atheistic humanism has become the State religion. And both of these systems of secular humanism eclipse the person, eliminate his freedom, deny his human-divine value and subject him to the tyranny of technological impersonalism. The alarming signs of the times testify to a fierce spirit of evil advancing everywhere. It is the spirit of rebellion against God and man. Hitherto the powers of government in each country, as yet relying on God and reason, were firm and vigorous eough to restrain this rebellion. But today many agnostic countries can barely contain that lawless spirit, while many others have actually legalized the principle of lawlessness itself, the principle of license masquerading as liberty.

We are reminded of St. Paul's warning to the Thessalonians. In the last days there will be an aweful, unparalleled outbreak of evil everywhere. This will be called the Great Apostasy. In the midst of this general falling away a certain Man of Sin, having the image of Satan and breathing hatred toward God and man, will appear. He will exercise frightening preternatural powers of destruction against the just. This Child of Perdition will be so special and singular an enemy of Christ that he will be called Antichrist. For just as types of Christ went before Jesus, heralding his coming, so shadows of Antichrist have already preceded him....

But compared to the final Antichrist all forerunners of him were so many mini-Antichrists. This Arch-Antichrist will orchestrate revolutions so expertly that the very framework of society will shatter into pieces under his wicked hand. In a stunningly evil way, he will knit together his totalitarian rule of heresy, sedition, revolution, schism, war - indeed of every evil movement - and hurl them effectively against the Church. Preceded by apostasy, conceived in apostasy, gestated in apostasy, born in apostasy, the Man of Sin will come to power through a General Apostasy. In other words, Antichrist could never have existed except for the decision of the majority of persons in East and West to apostatize from God and to join the forces of atheism.." (Essay entitled "Detente All Around: Prelude to Antichrist?").

Dangerous times.  Troubled times.  Continue to place yourself under Our Lady's mantle.  Frequent the sacraments as often as possible.  Confess your sins and be reconciled with God.  Pray the Rosary daily.  Adore Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist.  The effort to eradicate Christianity continues and will reach its zenith when the Man of Sin appears. As Romano Guardini said in The Lord, "One day the Antichrist will come: a human being who introduces an order of things in which rebellion against God will attain its ultimate power. He will be filled with enlightenment and strength. The ultimate aim of all aims will be to prove that existence witout Christ is possible - nay rather, that Christ is the enemy of existence, which can be fully realized only when all Christian values have been destroyed. His arguments will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost. Then it will be clear what the Christian essence really is: that which stems not from the world, but from the heart of God; victory of grace over the world; redemption of the world, for her true essence is not to be found in herself, but in God, from whom she has received it. When God becomes all in all, the world will finally burst into flower."


Anyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost!  We should meditate upon these words every day.  For they constitute a most grave warning!

I hope to return to blogging tomorrow evening....

Dear friends, I have not been blogging because my internet connection was sabotaged.  Additionally, Facebook has been cracking down it would seem on Catholics who adhere to magisterial teaching and most especially those bloggers who promote authentic marian devotion.

Please remember me in your prayers and pray for this apostolate as well.

God love you,
Paul M.

Steve Jobs: Secular Prophet for a Secular Age

Writing for the Wall Street Journal online, Andy Crouch says that, "Steve Jobs was extraordinary in countless ways—as a designer, an innovator, a (demanding and occasionally ruthless) leader. But his most singular quality was his ability to articulate a perfectly secular form of hope. Nothing exemplifies that ability more than Apple's early logo, which slapped a rainbow on the very archetype of human fallenness and failure—the bitten fruit—and turned it into a sign of promise and progress.

That bitten apple was just one of Steve Jobs's many touches of genius, capturing the promise of technology in a single glance. The philosopher Albert Borgmann has observed that technology promises to relieve us of the burden of being merely human, of being finite creatures in a harsh and unyielding world. The biblical story of the Fall pronounced a curse upon human work—"cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." All technology implicitly promises to reverse the curse, easing the burden of creaturely existence. And technology is most celebrated when it is most invisible—when the machinery is completely hidden, combining godlike effortlessness with blissful ignorance about the mechanisms that deliver our disburdened lives....Steve Jobs was the evangelist of this particular kind of progress - and he was the perfect evangelist because he had no competing source of hope.  He believed so sincerely in the "magical, revolutionary" promise of Apple precisely because he believed in no higher power." (See here).

Steve Jobs was indeed a secular prophet for many.  Having converted to Buddhism, which is essentially atheistic*, and believing blindly in the promise of technology, which he referred to as "magical" and "revolutionary," he was indeed the perfect evangelist for the modern fairy tale that man has come of age and technology will save him.

It comes as no surprise that Jobs would be heralded by so many in this country as a secular prophet preaching salvation through technology.  For, as Father Vincent Miceli has explained, "Atheistic humanism is America's brand of atheism.  It teaches that the human race has reached a leap of advancement, a progressive mutation, not in the organic or bodily sense, but psychologically, a mutation of such high caliber that it can no longer count on any outside forces to solve its problems.  Man must only count on himself if he is to achieve the challenge of creating a cosmos of plenty and a utopia of temporal glory.  He may no longer flee for refuge 'under the umbrella' of divine authority.  The state of the world is no longer compatible with 'the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient and all-benevolent God.'  There are no dogmas, no 'static,' permanent truths, no objective principles or fixed concepts that can help explain the mystery of existence in general or the mystery of the spirit in particular.  'Objective truth is rather a function of developing mind and is always marked by historicity,'...'All we can do,' says Sir Julian Huxley, 'is to truly accept facts.'  After all, the old philosophy which held that truth is so objective that it can exist apart from anyone's possession of it, with 'ideas  always up there in Heaven,' was nothing more than a disguised theology.  And for this reason in such a superstition there was no place for a historical dimension of truth, no space for development, no life for growth.  Harvey Cox could write in his Secular City: 'Religion is in a sense the neurosis of culture; secularization corresponds to maturation, for it signifies the emancipation of man first from religion and then from metaphysical control.'  All that we have and all that we need is given to us in technopolis, even if technopolis is not an easy cup to drink..." (Atheistic Humanism in the U.S.A.).

The new humanitarian religion of Antichrist will embrace technology's amazing achievements, achievements which "..have so divinized man's Ego that man's early attitude toward and dependence on God is now regarded to have been an ignorant, superstitious, magico-religious reaction to the wonderful, the unknown - a response normal enough for mankind in its infancy and puberty stage of social-scientific development...The feat of Prometheus challenging and defying the old gods in snatching fiery power and bringing down to man on earth the arts and freedom is still a thrilling and popular scene.  This titan represents 'man come of age,'man emancipated from childish beliefs, liberated from sexual taboos, able to create for himself a world of plenty, a society of peace." (Father Miceli, Atheistic Humanism in the U.S.A.).

Once again man is being tempted by an apple.  Tempted to eat of the "fruit" which will, according to the Evil One, transform us so that we will be like "gods who know what is good and what is bad." (Genesis 3:5).  When the Evil One makes his appearance in the flesh as the Man-God, as Archbishop Fulton Sheen warned us,  "..when the great conflict between the forces of good and evil takes place," he will "appear without the Cross, as the Great Philanthropist and Social Reformer to become the final temptation of mankind."

Ye shall be as gods.  Ye shall build a utopia without Christ.  And I myself will show you the way.

Meditation: John 5:43.

* "Buddhism is in large measure an 'atheistic' system." (Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, p. 82).

Janusz Palikot: "We want to remove religion from the public spaces."

Janusz Palikot, the 46 year old leader of the extremist Modern Poland movement, says that if his movement wins a good showing in Parliament, his first order of business will be to push for the removal of a Christian cross that hangs in the assembly hall of the Sejm, Poland's lower house.  Palikot believes the Church is "absolutely too powerful" and  his Modern Poland movement would legalize aborton on demand, provide free condoms and seek to crush the Catholic Church. (See here).

Speaking to a crowd of 4,000 cheering supporters, Palikot was heard saying that, "The Modern Poland movement demands the removal of religious instruction from schools, liquidation of the clergy (pension fund) and state ceremonies at which we do not have to view the fat bellies of bishops."

As the Apostasy continues to spread through all corners of the globe, I am reminded of what Our Lady had to say about Poland as she spoke to Fr. Gobbi on the Feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa on August 26, 1983: "In your lives you carry the sufferings of the peoples reduced to slavery by those who reject God and use every means to spread atheism.  Poland, of whom I have been officially proclaimed Queen, is a symbol of this unending and bloody persecution...For so many years the Red Dragon has extended his dominion over these peoples and persecuted my children by the most subtle and refined means..The apostasy has now been spread into every part of a Church betrayed even by some of her bishops, abandoned by many of her priests, deserted by so very many of her children, and violated by my Adversary."

Satan is intensifying his efforts in Poland precisely because she officially proclaimed Our Lady as Queen.  We are locked in a spiritual war. 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).

According to Montfort, the greatest of the Marian Saints, 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.

Those who serve the world are enamored with themselves.  But the world, and everything in it, is destined for fire (2 Peter 3: 7-10).  And those who hate God love death.

Father Antonio Spadaro, Editor of Civilta Cattolica, says that Steve Jobs understood the value of communication

In a Catholic News Service article published in this week's Catholic Free Press, Jesuit priest Father Antonio Spadaro, the new editor of the influential Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica, is quoted as having said that, "Steve Jobs had something in common with Pius XI and that is that he understood that communication is the greatest value we have at our disposal today and we must make it bear fruit."  See here.


Really?

In an article entitled "Conservative Christians blast Apple decision to discontinue app," written by Dan Gilgoff for CNN, we read:

"A coalition of conservative Christian leaders [read orthodox, my note] blasted Apple on Wednesday for discontinuing an app the group had created because the technology giant said the app was offensive. The Christian leaders had created the app to promote a document that urges opposition to abortion and gay marriage and support for religious liberty, among other positions. An Apple spokeswoman confirmed the company had removed the app, which was called the Manhattan Declaration after the document it was meant to promote, from Apple's online iTunes and iPhone stores. 'It violates our developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people,' said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris, who said the app was removed last week.

The Manhattan Declaration app allowed users to sign and share the the declaration and included a four-question quiz that featured questions like 'Do you support same-sex relationships?' and 'Do you support the right of choice regarding abortion?' The app computes a score for the quiz depending on how many 'correct' answers a user gave.

Kerris said that Apple had heard from 'large groups of people' about the app but declined to answer questions about who complained about the app and about which part or parts were deemed offensive, saying 'I'd rather not go into further detail.' Prominent gay bloggers had criticized the app, focusing on the quiz.

Chuck Colson, a former aide to President Richard Nixon turned evangelical leader, said Wednesday that he was disappointed in the decision and because Apple had declined to respond to his requests for an explanation. 'If you have a public communications company, you have a responsibility to see that certain views are not suppressed,' he said. 'This is a dangerous thing to do in a free society.'

Colson helped draft the Manhattan Declaration last year, which promoters say has garnered more than 478,000 signatures. A spokeswoman for the declaration said Wednesday that Apple had approved and posted its app in October and that it had received a 4 plus rating for 'no objectionable content.'

'...Numerous attempts to have a dialogue via phone have been ignored,' the spokeswoman, Michelle Farmer, said of the leaders' attempts to reach out to Apple. 'Now leaders with the Manhattan Declaration are asking its supporters to get involved and pressure Jobs and Apple to reinstate the Christian app.'

Colson and two other declaration drafters sent a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Monday asking that the app be reinstated. In an interview, Colson said that if the quiz was considered offensive, he would have it removed.

Asked whether Apple had any plans to reinstate the app, Kerris said Wednesday that she had 'no further comment.'"

Apple censored the views of orthodox Christians who oppose abortion and same-sex "marriage."  And wouldn't even dialogue with leaders of the Manhattan Declaration to explain why it had removed the app even after previously allowing it.  And Father Spadaro commends Steve Jobs for understanding the value of communication?

In his Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam Suam, Pope Paul VI told us that, "The Church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it lives. It has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make." (No. 65).  But Steve Jobs apparently rejected this truth.


The Holy Father goes on to say that, "Dialogue, therefore, is a recognized method of the apostolate. It is a way of making spiritual contact. It should however have the following characteristics:

1) Clarity before all else; the dialogue demands that what is said should be intelligible. We can think of it as a kind of thought transfusion. It is an invitation to the exercise and development of the highest spiritual and mental powers a man possesses. This fact alone would suffice to make such dialogue rank among the greatest manifestations of human activity and culture. In order to satisfy this first requirement, all of us who feel the spur of the apostolate should examine closely the kind of speech we use. Is it easy to understand? Can it be grasped by ordinary people? Is it current idiom?

2) Our dialogue must be accompanied by that meekness which Christ bade us learn from Himself: "Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart." It would indeed be a disgrace if our dialogue were marked by arrogance, the use of bared words or offensive bitterness. What gives it its authority is the fact that it affirms the truth, shares with others the gifts of charity, is itself an example of virtue, avoids peremptory language, makes no demands. It is peaceful, has no use for extreme methods, is patient under contradiction and inclines towards generosity.

3) Confidence is also necessary; confidence not only in the power of one's own words, but also in the good will of both parties to the dialogue. Hence dialogue promotes intimacy and friendship on both sides. It unites them in a mutual adherence to the Good, and thus excludes all self-seeking.

4) Finally, the prudence of a teacher who is most careful to make allowances for the psychological and moral circumstances of his hearer, particularly if he is a child, unprepared, suspicious or hostile. The person who speaks is always at pains to learn the sensitivities of his audience, and if reason demands it, he adapts himself and the manner of his presentation to the susceptibilities and the degree of intelligence of his hearers....In a dialogue conducted with this kind of foresight, truth is wedded to charity and understanding to love." (Nos. 81, 82).

The leaders of the Manhattan Declaration didn't violate these principles of authentic dialogue.  Steve Jobs and Apple did.

Shame on them.  And shame on Father Spadaro for praising a man whose commitment toward dialogue and communication was, at best, questionable.


Related reading here.

Steve Jobs on dogma...

Our Lady told Father Gobbi on July 4, 1986 that, "In the darkness which has come down upon the world and is spreading throughout the Church, how many minds are becoming obscured by errors and dried up by the ever widening spread of doubts; how many intellects are being contaminated with error which leads many to become lost and to stray from the way of the true faith....If you look to my Immaculate Heart and allow yourselves to be penetrated by the ray of my light, your minds will obtain the gift of divine wisdom and will be drawn by the beauty of the truth which Jesus has revealed to you."

I am struck by how many people - Catholics included - are eulogizing Steve Jobs at the moment.  Many revere the inventor and innovator as some sort of "Tech God."  There are endless testimonials for this man.  Many of my friends on Facebook have been singing his praises.

I don't pretend to know everything about Steve Jobs.  And I have no interest in speaking ill of him.  But there is something which concerns me about his thought.  And it is this: Mr. Jobs has been widely quoted as having said: "Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."  See here. These words have received much play in the liberal mainstream media. 


Now here we encounter a problem.  If Mr. Jobs had simply said, "Don't be trapped by other people's ideology," or "Think outside the box," or "Don't let others define who you are or what your goals are," I wouln't be concerned.  But he specifically used the word "dogma," which primarily refers to religious doctrine. In his book entitled The Electronic Christian, Archbishop Fulton John Sheen so eloquently warned that, "The modern man must decide for himself whether he is going to have a religion with thought or a religion without it. He already knows that thoughtless policies lead to the ruin of society, and he may begin to suspect that thoughtless religion ends in confusion worse confounded.

The problem is simple. The modern man has two maps before him: one the map of sentimental religion, the other the map of dogmatic religion. The first is very simple. It has been constructed only in the last few years by a topographer who has just gone into the business of map making and is extremely adverse to explicit directions. He believes that each man should find his own way and not have his liberty taken away by dogmatic directions. The other map is much more complicated and full of dogmatic detail. It has been made by topographers who have been over every inch of the road for centuries and know each detour and each pitfall. It has explicit directions and dogmas such as, 'Do not take this road - it is swampy,' or 'Follow this road; although rough and rocky at first, it leads to a smooth road on a mountaintop.'


The simple map is very easy to read, but those who are guided by it are generally lost in a swamp of mushy sentimentalism. The other map takes a little more scrutiny, but it is simpler in the end, for it takes you up through the rocky road of the world's scorn to the everlasting hills where is seated the original Map Maker, the only One who ever has associated rest with learning: 'Learn of Me...and you shall find rest for your souls.'

Every new coherent doctrine and dogma add to the pabulum for thought; it is an extra bit of garden upon which we can intellectually browse; it is new food into which we can put our teeth and thence absorb nourishment; it is the discovery of a new intellectual planet that adds fullness and spaciousness to our mental world. And simply because it is solid and weighty, because it is dogmatic and not gaseous and foggy like a sentiment, it is intellectually invigorating, for it is with weights that the best drill is done, and not with feathers.

It is the very nature of a man to generate children of his brain in the shape of thoughts, and as he piles up thought on thought, truth on truth, doctrine on doctrine, conviction on conviction, and dogma on dogma, a very coherent and orderly fashion, so as to produce a system complex as a body and yet one and harmonious, the more and more human he becomes. When, however, in response to false cries for progress, he lops off dogmas, breaks with the memory of his forefathers, denies intellectual parentage, pleads for a religion without dogmas, substitutes mistiness for mystery, mistakes sentiment for sediment, he is sinking back slowly, surely, and inevitably into the senselessness of stones and into the irresponsible unconsciousness of weeds. Grass is broad-minded. Cabbages have heads - but no dogmas." (pp. 74-75).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that, "The Church's Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these." (CCC, 88).

How critical is dogma to one's faith life? Again the Catechism explains, "There is an organic connection between our spiritual life and the dogmas. Dogmas are lights along the path of faith; they illuminate it and make it secure. Conversely, if our life is upright, our intellect and heart will be open to welcome the light shed by the dogmas of faith." (CCC, 89).

There are many voices out there which seek to paint the Church as "rigid," "reactionary," "tradition-bound," "out-of-date," and "archaic" because she refuses to abandon divine Revelation in order to accommodate "modern man."  But the words of the Catechism are our sure guide: "if our life is upright, our intellect and heart will be open to welcome the light shed by the dogmas of faith."  And if our lives are not upright...

Obama Justice Department wants to eliminate the ministerial exception...

The Becket Fund explains that, "Next week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC. The case involves the scope of the ministerial exception from federal employment discrimination laws, or so we thought until the Obama administration’s Justice Department filed a brief contending that the ministerial exception ought not exist. The ministerial exception is rooted in the nation’s constitutional commitment to religious liberty, in the form of permitting religious institutions to select their clergy and govern themselves internally free of governmental edicts. See, e.g., Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevic, 426 U.S. 696 (1976). The case involves the discharge of a teacher at a religious school who taught a full secular curriculum, but was also a minister (employed as a 'called teacher' — one who has committed to the faith), regularly held prayer and worship services for students, and taught religion classes daily. The Sixth Circuit ruled that the teacher was not a ministerial employee and thus the ministerial exception was inapplicable. The issue presented to the Supreme Court was limited to the scope of the exception, but that has not deterred the DOJ from contending that the exception ought to be junked. The DOJ’s brief is here. In essence the DOJ thinks that the ministerial exception is not constitutionally required or, if it is, it should be limited to people who perform “exclusively religious functions and whose claims concern their entitlement to occupy or retain their ecclesiastical office.


If the ministerial exception were to be scrapped altogether, the Roman Catholic church could not limit its priesthood to men, the Jewish rabbinate must be opened to women, Islamic clerics could not be limited by sex or ethnicity, and, presumably, non-Catholics could become priests, Anglicans could become rabbis, born-again Christians could become imams, or at least have a legal right to seek the job free of religious discrimination. Perhaps because the DOJ knows, at bottom, that this is nonsense (and contrary to the First Amendment) it offers its fallback position. But even that shrinkage of the ministerial exception would have a profound impact on employment by religious organizations of people — like the teacher at issue in Hosanna-Tabor — who combine secular and religious duties as a profession of the faith. The DOJ brief is an indication of an underlying hostility to religious autonomy on the part of the Obama administration." (See here).

This is nothing less than a satanic attack on the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.  As Fr. Vincent Miceli explained in his essay entitled "Woman and the Priesthood,": "Applying a priori concepts to the Church - like democracy, civil rights, equality, power-structure, etc. - is an attack on her very essence.  Such ideas mutilate her sacramental nature, her power, glory, beauty.  They destroy her supernatural truth; they dissolve her transcendence before men's eyes, for they politicize her.  Yet the truth is that the Church, in her essence, sacraments and structure, depends upon God's eternal Will, not on man's capricious desires."

The Church is viewed by the egalitarians as archaic because it will not go against the Lord Jesus and ordain women to the ministerial priesthood.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It was Pope Pius XII who recalled that, "The Church has no power over the substance of the sacraments, that is to say, over what Christ the Lord, as the sources of Revelation bear witness, determined should be maintained in the sacramental sign." (Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis). 

This is the teaching of the Council of Trent: "In the Church there has always existed this power, that in the administration of the sacraments, provided that their substance remains unaltered, she can lay down or modify what she considers more fitting either for the benefit of those who receive them or for respect towards those same sacraments, according to varying circumstances, times or places." (Council of Trent, Session 21, chap. 2: Denziger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum 1728).

The practice of not ordaining women to the ministerial priesthood has a normative character.  This norm is based upon the example of the Lord Jesus and has an unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church.  Which is why Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, nos. 2-4, wrote: "In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: 'In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time.'


In fact the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan; Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood,(6) the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing the twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rv 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13-16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers who would succeed them in their ministry. Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.

Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.

The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, 'the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church.'

The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as in total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. 'By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honor and gratitude for those women who-faithful to the Gospel-have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins and mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel.'

Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration Inter Insigniores recalls: 'the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints.'

Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

The Church has no authority to ordain women.  But the egalitarians, in their hatred for God's plan, want to use the State to force the Church to conform to their view of "equality."  And this with Barack Obama's blessing.

Advancing the New World Order through propaganda and censorship...

"The chief function of propaganda is to convince the masses, who slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on their mind.........the slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. The one will be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results that such a personal policy secures."


Adolf Hitler from "Mein Kampf"

As this website explains:

"Once they succeeded in ending democracy and turning Germany into a one-party dictatorship, the Nazis orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to win the loyalty and cooperation of Germans. The Nazi Propaganda Ministry, directed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, took control of all forms of communication in Germany: newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies, and radio. Viewpoints in any way threatening to Nazi beliefs or to the regime were censored or eliminated from all media.


During the spring of 1933, Nazi student organizations, professors, and librarians made up long lists of books they thought should not be read by Germans. Then, on the night of May 10, 1933, Nazis raided libraries and bookstores across Germany. They marched by torchlight in nighttime parades, sang chants, and threw books into huge bonfires. On that night more than 25,000 books were burned. Some were works of Jewish writers, including Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Most of the books were by non-Jewish writers, including such famous Americans as Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis, whose ideas the Nazis viewed as different from their own and therefore not to be read.

The Nazi censors also burned the books of Helen Keller, who had overcome her deafness and blindness to become a respected writer; told of the book burnings, she responded: "Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas." Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States protested the book burnings, a clear violation of freedom of speech, in public rallies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis.

Schools also played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas. While some books were removed from classrooms by censors, other textbooks, newly written, were brought in to teach students blind obedience to the party, love for Hitler, and antisemitism. After-school meetings of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls trained children to be faithful to the Nazi party. In school and out, young people celebrated such occasions as Adolf Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of his taking power."

Today, censorship is beginning to be used against Christians to silence moral opposition to abortion and homosexuality.  Today's censors do not have to gather up thousands of books, march by torchlight in nighttme parades and throw books into huge bonfires.  They have merely to strike a few keys from the comfort of their offices.

Inflated in their rebellion against the God-Man, the Sons of Satan, those committed toward the atheistic program of attacking the Church from without and undermining it from within in preparation for the Man-God, will continue to intensify their persecution of craftiness and subversion until it reaches its culmination in an explosion of hate-filled rage which will bear much blood and death. Father Livio Fanzaga, writing about the Antichrist, says that, "Catholicism alone will resist him. How then do we destroy this superstition which alone obstructs the world's self-revelation? How do we destroy this superstition which divides mankind and which prevents man from being truly brotherly and free? The true Antichrist is revealed in the replies to these questions. Here is perceived his profound being as the man of iniquity. He will not tolerate the idea of men who adore any god other than himself. His intolerance obliges him to make an exception to his pacifism and his philosophy of non-violence. He is the greatest pacifist in the history of the human race, but because peace and justice really reign on earth he will make an exception to kill and destroy the great superstition of Catholicism, once and for all time..." (Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist, p. 124).

On September 15, 1992, Our Lady told Father Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests that, "..It is the hour of my great sorrow for the Church, my dearly beloved Daughter.  How grievously the Church is suffering in these times, as she carries her great cross and climbs the bloodstained Calvary of her passion and her bloody immolation!  Never before, as today, has the Church been made so utterly like my Son Jesus.  She is like Him in solitude and abandonment; she is like Him in denial and betrayal; she is like Him in contempt and condemnation; she is like Him in her crucifixion and in her agony.  This is the hour of my great sorrow for the Church, because the hour of her redemptive passion has come.  It is the gour of my great sorrow for humanity, so ill and so reduced to slavery by the spirits of evil.  The diabolical powers are ruling the earth and producing everywhere the wicked fruits of their dark reign.  And thus this humanity has again become pagan, after almost two thousand years of its redemption and of the first announcement of the Gospel of salvation.  Faithlessness and impiety again cover it; sins wound it; evil poisons it; pride rules it; impurity seduces it; egoism and hatred enchain it; Satan reduces it more and more to slavery and reigns over you with his diabolical power...This is the hour of my great sorrow for all of you, my poor children, because the time of your great suffering has come.  Take refuge in me.  Hasten to the sure refuge of my Immaculate Heart, because we must live together through the hour of the greatest trial, which has now come for you, for the Church and for all humanity."

Some will accuse me of playing the prophet of "doom and gloom."  But what happened to Fr. Donat Gionet when he spoke out against homosexuality?  How about Fr. Michael Rodriguez? 

Related reading here and here.

Major study shows that changing sexual orientation is possible...Will homosexual propagandists now admit their veritaphobia?

LifeSiteNews is reporting:

"Therapists who favor normalizing homosexuality say that it is impossible to change sexual orientation, and that the attempt to change is inherently harmful. However, the final results of a long-term study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy has joined hundreds of other studies in concluding that such therapy is both possible and potentially well-indicated for many individuals.

Psychologists Stanton L. Jones of Wheaton College and Mark A. Yarhouse of Regent University are the authors of the longitudinal study, which tracked individuals who sought sexual orientation change through involvement in a variety of Christian ministries affiliated with Exodus International.

The authors note that the study overcomes a primary criticism of same-sex attraction (SSA) therapy data - that the results are not adequately documented over a period of time - by assessing its 98 candidates over a period of six to seven years after therapy concluded.

Jones and Yarhouse’s results show the majority of candidates were successful in their goal of changing sexual orientation, and that the attempt was not harmful on average..." (See here).

Which is why, as this article explains, Dr. Francis Collins, one of the world's leading scientists who works on the cutting edge of DNA, has said that, "Homosexality is not hardwired...whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations" and "..there is an inescapable component of heritability to many human behavioral traits.  For virtually none of them is heredity ever close to predictive."

Translation: while genes might predispose a person toward homosexuality, they do not predetermine the behavior.  A person still has free will.  Which is why homosexual persons can change their sexual orientation as the longitudinal study proves.

Homosexual propagandists such as Dr. Jerry Maneker, an anti-Catholic bigot who frequently rails against the Catholic Church at his Blog, would have you believe that homosexual persons are born that way and that science validates homosexuality.  But the Catholic Medical Association, in Homosexuality and Hope, summarizes the reality:

"A number of researchers have sought to find a biological cause for same-sexual attraction.  The media have promoted the idea that a 'gay gene' has already been discovered...but, in spite of several attempts, none of the much-publicized studies...has been scientifically replicated.  A number of authors have carefully reviewed these studies and found that not only do the studies not prove a genetic basis for same-sex attraction; the reports do not even contain such claims...If same-sex attraction were genetically determined, then one would expect identical twins to be identical in their sexual attractions.  There are, however, numerous reports of identical twins who are not identical in their sexual attractions." (Homosexuality and Hope, Catholic Medical Association, p. 2).

Homosexual propagandists need to reflect very carefully on the hard science which disproves the notion that "gay" people are "born that way."  If they don't, it will become increasingly obvious to thinking people that they suffer from veritaphobia.

The Diocese of Bathurst, New Brunswick does a disservice to Canadian youth

In its 2003 document entitled Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, the CDF had this to say: "There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to to God's plan for marriage and family.  Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law.  Homosexual acts 'close the sexual act to the gift of life.  They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.  Under no circumstances can they be approved.'  Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts 'as a serious depravity...This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.'  This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries 'and is unanimously accepted by Catholic tradition.'" (No. 4).

Because so many within the Catholic Church today no longer accept this authoritative teaching of Holy Mother Church, Fr. Donat Gionet told Catholics in a homily that, "Today, it is we Catholics who are destroying our Catholic Church. We need only look at the number of abortions among Catholics, look at the homosexuals, and ourselves."

Fr. Gionet told a local newspaper, "That's when I pointed at my chest - through that action I wanted to say, we the priests) and I continued saying: 'We are destroying our Church ourselves.' And that's when I said that those were the words expressed by Pope John Paul II. At that point, in the St-Léolin church only, I added: 'We can add to that the practice of watching gay parades, we are encouraging this evil' ... What would you think of someone who seeing what was happening on (Sept.) 11, 2001, the crumbling of the towers, had begun clapping? We must not encourage evil, whatever form it takes.'"

For this Fr. Gionet was suspended by the Diocese of Bathurst, New Brunswick.  Because he had the audacity to speak out against "Gay Pride" parades and to suggest that Catholics "must not encourage evil," he was denounced as "homophobic" by parishioners.

Father Gionet's suspension is not only unfortunate, but it cannot be reconciled with the teaching of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.  In a document entitled, "Pastoral Ministry to Young People with Same-Sex Attraction," the Episcopal Commission for Doctrine of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops had this to say:

"In the catechesis of young adults, it is imperative to present in a firm but charitable way the true nature and purpose of human sexuality in all its dimensions.  Encourage them in the practice of chastity, especially since society often misunderstands and scorns this virtue.  Avoidance of difficult questions or watering down the Church's teaching is always a disservice.  Such attitudes could lead young people into grave moral danger.  Moral conscience requires that, in every occasion, Christians give witness to the whole moral truth, which is contradicted both by approval of homosexual acts and unjust discrimination against homosexual persons." (No. 16).

Now Fr. Gionet was not engaging in "unjust discrimination" against homosexual persons.  In fact, later on in his homily he spoke on the Sacrament of  Reconciliation and how forgiveness is available to all within the Church.  He did not condemn homosexual persons.  But he did speak out against encouraging evil or celebrating vice.  If the Diocese of Bathurst condemns such an attitude as "pastorally insensitive," then it must also condemn the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops as being "pastorally insensitive."

The Diocese of Bathurst will also have to condemn the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as being "pastorally insensitive."  For in the same 2003 document cited above, the CDF said that, "..the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil" and that even where homosexual unions have been legalized, "clear and emphatic opposition is a duty." (No. 5).

That's not "homophobia."  That's not insensitivity.  That's Catholic teaching.