Penny Starr, writing for CNS News, notes how, "The U.S. State Department’s new envoy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons (LGBTI) spoke on Tuesday about the U.S. mission to put in place constitutional protections for homosexuals in countries around the globe and how that those protections make 'a more durable, healthier nation.'
Randy Berry’s remarks are particularly interesting when contrasted with the Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35, January 10, 1963 that list 'Current Communist Goals.' The list of 42 goals, entered into the record by Rep. A. S. Herlong Jr., a Democrat from Florida, is credited to the book 'The Naked Communist' by Cleon Skousen.
Although some critics – liberal and conservative -- have denounced Skousen’s ideology and his ties to the Mormon church, a number of the items on his list are striking when looked at through the lens of current cultural conditions, including his note about homosexuality.
No. 26 on the list states: Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as 'normal, natural, healthy.'
If the event where Berry spoke about global rights for homosexuals is any indication – the panel discussion was entitled 'Expanding Constitutional Rights to LGBTI Communities: International Activism and U.S. Diplomacy' and featuring the lesbian that led the movement to legalize same-sex marriage in Ireland – Skousen’s point seems like a prediction that is coming to fruition.
Also on the list are:
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a 'religious crutch.'
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of 'separation of church and state.'
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
n an interview with the The Latin Mass magazine, "Present at the Demolition," Dr. Alice von Hildebrand alluded to communist and masonic infiltration into the Church:
TLM: You realize, of course, Doctor, that as soon as you mention this idea of infiltration, there will be those who roll their eyes in exasperation and remark, “Not another conspiracy theory!”
AVH:: I can only tell you what I know. It is a matter of public record, for instance, that Bella Dodd, the ex-Communist who reconverted to the Church, openly spoke of the Communist Party’s deliberate infiltration of agents into the seminaries. She told my husband and me that when she was an active party member, she had dealt with no fewer than four cardinals within the Vatican “who were working for us.”
Many a time I have heard Americans say that Europeans “smell conspiracy wherever they go.” But from the beginning, the Evil One has “conspired” against the Church – and has always aimed in particular at destroying the Mass and sapping belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That some people are tempted to blow this undeniable fact out of proportion is no reason for denying its reality. On the other hand, I, European born, am tempted to say that many Americans are naïve; living in a country that has been blessed by peace, and knowing little about history, they are more likely than Europeans (whose history is a tumultuous one) to fall prey to illusions. Rousseau has had an enormous influence in the United States. When Christ said to His apostles at the Last Supper that “one of you will betray Me,” the apostles were stunned. Judas had played his hand so artfully that no one suspected him, for a cunning conspirator knows how to cover his tracks with a show of orthodoxy.
TLM: Do the two books by the Italian priest you mentioned before the interview contain documentation that would provide evidence of this infiltration?
AVH:: The two books I mentioned were published in 1998 and 2000 by an Italian priest, Don Luigi Villa of the diocese of Brescia, who at the request of Padre Pio has devoted many years of his life to the investigation of the possible infiltration of both Freemasons and Communists into the Church. My husband and I met Don Villa in the sixties. He claims that he does not make any statement that he cannot substantiate. When Paulo Sesto Beato? (1998) was published the book was sent to every single Italian bishop. None of them acknowledged receipt; none challenged any of Don Villa’s claims.
In this book, he relates something that no ecclesiastical authority has refuted or asked to be retracted – even though he names particular personalities in regard to the incident. It pertains to the rift between Pope Pius XII and the then Bishop Montini (the future Paul VI) who was his Undersecretary of State. Pius XII, conscious of the threat of Communism, which in the aftermath of World War II was dominating nearly half of Europe, had prohibited the Vatican staff from dealing with Moscow. To his dismay, he was informed one day through the Bishop of Upsala (Sweden) that his strict order had been contravened. The Pope resisted giving credence to this rumor until he was given incontrovertible evidence that Montini had been corresponding with various Soviet agencies. Meanwhile, Pope Pius XII (as had Pius XI) had been sending priests clandestinely into Russia to give comfort to Catholics behind the Iron Curtain. Every one of them had been systematically arrested, tortured, and either executed or sent to the gulag. Eventually a Vatican mole was discovered: Alighiero Tondi, S.J., who was a close advisor to Montini. Tondi was an agent working for Stalin whose mission was to keep Moscow informed about initiatives such as the sending of priests into the Soviet Union.
Source: http://www.latinmassmagazine.com/articles/articles_2001_SU_Hildebran.html
Our Lady told Fr. Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests:
"I am weeping because the Church is continuing along the road of division, of loss of the true faith, of apostasy and of errors which are being spread more and more without anyone offering opposition to them. Even now, that which I predicted at Fatima and that which I have revealed here in the third message confided to a little daughter of mine (i.e. Sister Lucia) is in the process of being accomplished. And so, even for the Church the moment of its great trial has come, because the man of iniquity will establish himself within it and the abomination of desolation will enter into the holy temple of God." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 362, September 15, 1987, p. 572.)
And again:
"The black beast like a leopard indicates Freemasonry; the beast with the two horns like a lamb indicates Freemasonry infiltrated into the interior of the Church, that is to say, ecclesiastical Masonry, which has spread especially among the members of the hierarchy. This Masonic infiltration, in the interior of the Church, was already foretold to you by me at Fatima, when I announced to you that Satan would enter in even to the summit of the Church. If the task of Masonry is to lead souls to perdition, bringing them to the worship of false divinities, the task of ecclesiastical Masonry on the other hand is that of destroying Christ and his Church, building a new idol, namely a false christ and a false church." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 406, June 13, 1989, p. 649)
The false church Our Lady refers to was also foretold by Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), a German Augustinian nun, stigmatist, and miracle-worker, who subsisted entirely on water and Holy Communion for many years. Venerable Emmerich received numerous visions of the future crisis in the Church and the infiltration of the Masons. In her visions, she describes men in aprons destroying the Church with a trowel, The Masons wear aprons and their symbol is the Mason's trowel. The following excerpts are from page 565 of the Life of Anne Catherine Emmerich, Vol. 1, by Rev. K.E. Schmöger, Tan Books, 1976:
"I saw St. Peter's. A great crowd of men was trying to pull it down whilst others constantly built it up again. Lines connected these men one with another and with others throughout the whole world. I was amazed at their perfect understanding.
"The demolishers, mostly apostates and members of different sects, broke off whole pieces and worked according to rules and instructions. They wore WHITE APRONS bound with blue riband. In them were pockets and they had TROWELS stuck in their belts. The costumes of the others were various.
"There were among the demolishers distinguished men wearing uniforms and crosses. They did not work themselves but they marked out on the wall with a TROWEL where and how it should be torn down. To my horror, I saw among them Catholic Priests. Whenever the workmen did not know how to go on, they went to a certain one in their party. He had a large book which seemed to contain the whole plan of the building and the way to destroy it. They marked out exactly with a TROWEL the parts to be attacked, and they soon came down. They worked quietly and confidently, but slyly, furtively and warily. I saw the Pope praying, surrounded by false friends who often did the very opposite to what he had ordered..."
Back in October of 2005, I exposed one of these Catholic priests, a priest of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, who is working under the banner of the New Ecclesiology while loudly proclaiming that man has come of age: http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2005/10/reading-from-prophecy-of-malachi.html
This is the religious deception of the Antichrist: "The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (CCC, 675).
We have witnessed the gradual emergence of this false church within Christ's Church. And that which this false church proposes is a new religion in which man, and not God, is the object of worship. And all will be accomplished in the name of humanitarianism. Through one of his characters in his prophetic book The Lord of the World, Fr. Robert Hugh Benson describes this humanitarian religion:
"Humanitarianism...is becoming an actual religion itself, though anti-supernatural. It is a pantheism. Pantheism deifies all nature, God is the world, but naturally, man above all is God since he is the highest expression of nature. It is a religion devoid of the 'super' natural, because since God is nature itself, there is no longer a distinction between Creator and creature. The creature is God* and hence arbitrator of his own destiny and establishes the moral law for himself. Nature, and man is its highest expression, has all the divine attributes. Humanitarianism is a religion devoid of the supernatural. It is developing a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, 'God is man'; and the rest. It has, therefore, a real food of a sort to offer religious cravings: it idealizes, and yet makes no demands upon the spiritual faculties. Then, they have the use of all the churches except ours, and of all the Cathedrals; and they are beginning at last to encourage sentiment. Then they may display their symbols and we may not: I think they will be establishedlegally in another ten years" (Introduction, p. xvii).
*Genesis 3:5.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Friday, May 29, 2015
The Diocese of Worcester and authentic charity
Not long ago, Bishop Robert McManus said that, "At the beginning of Lent, Pope Francis warned us that indifference to God and to neighbor is a real danger in the modern world. The Holy Father urged us to use Lent as a time of interior renewal to reject indifference toward others and to shun a dangerous withdrawal into ourselves. Love, he wrote, conquers indifference."
This is the same Bishop who ignores letters from faithful Catholics expressing concern over doctrinal dissent and liturgical abuse. The same Bishop who callously rescinded Robert Spencer's invitation to speak at the Catholic Men's Conference in Worcester. The same Bishop who has ignored my letters expressing interest in discerning a vocation to the ministerial priesthood. See here for example.
The same Bishop who laughed when I told him my "pastor" wouldn't allow me to have a Mass said for my departed father.
The same Bishop who had too much to drink one day, struck another vehicle, and simply took off- a hit and run as they call it- which resulted in his arrest.
Indifference to God and neighbor IS a real danger in the "modern world."
If only the Bishop could pay more than lip service to this truth. Maybe more of the clerics who serve under him would also catch on.
Oremus.
In his Encyclical Letter Caritas In Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI wrote, Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine. Every responsibility and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from charity which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the entire Law (cf. Mt 22:36- 40). It gives real substance to the personal relationship with God and with neighbour; it is the principle not only of micro-relationships (with friends, with family members or within small groups) but also of macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones). For the Church, instructed by the Gospel, charity is everything because, as Saint John teaches (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) and as I recalled in my first Encyclical Letter, “God is love” (Deus Caritas Est): everything has its origin in God's love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it. Love is God's greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope."
The Worcester Diocese is not thriving. In fact, it is gradually disintegrating. Parishes are closing. Many are deserting the Church. They sense the lack of commitment toward authentic charity. Many just don't feel welcome.
The Diocese of Worcester is betraying love. It operates as more of a private clique where a few individuals determine who is welcome at the table and who is not. Who gets the sacraments and who does not. Who gets to apply for the priesthood and who doesn't. Who may participate in the life of a parish and who may not.
Saint Gregory the Great said that, "The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist."
Related reading: A deacon who sows hatred.
This is the same Bishop who ignores letters from faithful Catholics expressing concern over doctrinal dissent and liturgical abuse. The same Bishop who callously rescinded Robert Spencer's invitation to speak at the Catholic Men's Conference in Worcester. The same Bishop who has ignored my letters expressing interest in discerning a vocation to the ministerial priesthood. See here for example.
The same Bishop who laughed when I told him my "pastor" wouldn't allow me to have a Mass said for my departed father.
The same Bishop who had too much to drink one day, struck another vehicle, and simply took off- a hit and run as they call it- which resulted in his arrest.
Indifference to God and neighbor IS a real danger in the "modern world."
If only the Bishop could pay more than lip service to this truth. Maybe more of the clerics who serve under him would also catch on.
Oremus.
In his Encyclical Letter Caritas In Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI wrote, Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine. Every responsibility and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from charity which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the entire Law (cf. Mt 22:36- 40). It gives real substance to the personal relationship with God and with neighbour; it is the principle not only of micro-relationships (with friends, with family members or within small groups) but also of macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones). For the Church, instructed by the Gospel, charity is everything because, as Saint John teaches (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) and as I recalled in my first Encyclical Letter, “God is love” (Deus Caritas Est): everything has its origin in God's love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it. Love is God's greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope."
The Worcester Diocese is not thriving. In fact, it is gradually disintegrating. Parishes are closing. Many are deserting the Church. They sense the lack of commitment toward authentic charity. Many just don't feel welcome.
The Diocese of Worcester is betraying love. It operates as more of a private clique where a few individuals determine who is welcome at the table and who is not. Who gets the sacraments and who does not. Who gets to apply for the priesthood and who doesn't. Who may participate in the life of a parish and who may not.
Saint Gregory the Great said that, "The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist."
Related reading: A deacon who sows hatred.
Labels:
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Pope Francis,
Vocations
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Pope Francis: True unity presupposes unity in truth
Over at Pewsitter, Frank Walker looks at the false irenicism of Pope Francis. The idea that unity is the most important thing, something which trumps even the demands of truth, is an asinine notion which was recently advanced by the "pastor" of Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol.
Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand (whom Pope Pius XII referred to as the "20th century Doctor of the Church," refutes this distorted idea of unity. He writes, "St. Paul says there always will be heresies and he adds that God permits them to test the faithful. The disunity that is based on the incompatibility of truth and falsehood cannot and should not be avoided...To deplore disunity as such, instead of deploring heresies, instead of condemning these and calling them by their name, implies first of all that one would keep unity even at the cost of truth. But, of course, true unity presupposes unity in truth. Error, falsehood, can never be the basis for true unity. That holy, supernatural unity of which our Lord speaks in the priestly prayer ut unum sint - that all may be one - can come to pass only in the profession of divine truth, in the membership of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is a unity which includes some but, by the same token, excludes others. As Father Werenfried van Straaten [the Bacon priest, my note] reminds us, 'Jesus' prayer that all may be one'...may not be separated from His other words: 'I say unto you that whoever does not enter by the door of the sheepfold is a thief and a robber...I am the door!' The same principle is expressed in the first encyclical of Pope Pius XI: Pax Christi in regno Christi, the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ. Even on the natural level, unity that is not grounded in truth is either a very silly or a very dangerous thing. That shallow comradeship so typical of modern society, for example, in which we approach everyone regardless of his relation to God in a spirit of 'tolerance' - the spirit incarnated in the words of Frederick II of Prussia: 'Let everyone attain beatitude in his own fashion' - that is a foolish pseudo-unity lacking any common principle to truly unite men. Such 'togetherness,' however, can be worse than foolish; it can be a sinister force when it is based not on a lack of principle, but on a common error - on an idol. The togetherness found in Nazism or in Communism is an amazing thing. Devotion to the common idol goes so far that the devotees are ready to die for it. So many young Germans gave their lives in the war while screaming, 'Heil Hitler!' They had given themselves in unity, to the devil." (The Charitable Anathema, pp. 3-4).
This false irenicism will play a significant role in this pontificate as the push for a one-world religion intensifies.
Pray.
Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand (whom Pope Pius XII referred to as the "20th century Doctor of the Church," refutes this distorted idea of unity. He writes, "St. Paul says there always will be heresies and he adds that God permits them to test the faithful. The disunity that is based on the incompatibility of truth and falsehood cannot and should not be avoided...To deplore disunity as such, instead of deploring heresies, instead of condemning these and calling them by their name, implies first of all that one would keep unity even at the cost of truth. But, of course, true unity presupposes unity in truth. Error, falsehood, can never be the basis for true unity. That holy, supernatural unity of which our Lord speaks in the priestly prayer ut unum sint - that all may be one - can come to pass only in the profession of divine truth, in the membership of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is a unity which includes some but, by the same token, excludes others. As Father Werenfried van Straaten [the Bacon priest, my note] reminds us, 'Jesus' prayer that all may be one'...may not be separated from His other words: 'I say unto you that whoever does not enter by the door of the sheepfold is a thief and a robber...I am the door!' The same principle is expressed in the first encyclical of Pope Pius XI: Pax Christi in regno Christi, the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ. Even on the natural level, unity that is not grounded in truth is either a very silly or a very dangerous thing. That shallow comradeship so typical of modern society, for example, in which we approach everyone regardless of his relation to God in a spirit of 'tolerance' - the spirit incarnated in the words of Frederick II of Prussia: 'Let everyone attain beatitude in his own fashion' - that is a foolish pseudo-unity lacking any common principle to truly unite men. Such 'togetherness,' however, can be worse than foolish; it can be a sinister force when it is based not on a lack of principle, but on a common error - on an idol. The togetherness found in Nazism or in Communism is an amazing thing. Devotion to the common idol goes so far that the devotees are ready to die for it. So many young Germans gave their lives in the war while screaming, 'Heil Hitler!' They had given themselves in unity, to the devil." (The Charitable Anathema, pp. 3-4).
This false irenicism will play a significant role in this pontificate as the push for a one-world religion intensifies.
Pray.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Pope Francis appointee endorses sacrilege
Father Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., who was recently appointed as a Consultor to the Vatican by the Pope, referring to homosexual acts, has said that: "We cannot begin with the question of whether it is permitted or forbidden! We must ask what it means, and how far it is Eucharistic. Certainly it can be generous, vulnerable, tender, mutual and non-violent. So in many ways, I would think that it can be expressive of Christ’s self-gift." See here.
The Holy Spirit, speaking to us through Saint Paul, tells us that sacrilege, which is adultery, when it comes in the form of betraying the marital union with Christ through unfaithful reception of the Eucharist, renders the faithless one, "guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord" (1 Cor 11:27).
In Chapter 3 of his classic work entitled, "Jesus, Our Eucharistic Love," Father Stefano Manelli writes, "Holy Communion must be received only when one is in the grace of God. Therefore, when one has committed a mortal sin, even if one has repented of it and has a great desire to receive Holy Communion, it is necessary and indispensable to go to Confession first before receiving Holy Communion. Otherwise one commits a most grave sin of sacrilege, for which Jesus said to St. Bridget, 'There does not exist on earth a penalty great enough to punish it sufficiently!'
St. Ambrose said that persons who commit this sacrilege 'come into church with a few sins, and leave it burdened with many.' St. Cyril wrote even more bluntly: 'They who make a sacrilegious Communion receive Satan and Jesus Christ into their hearts—Satan, that they may let him rule, and Jesus Christ, that they may offer Him in a sacrifice as a Victim to Satan.'
Thus the Catechism of the Council of Trent (De Euch., v.i.) declares, 'As of all the sacred mysteries . . . none can compare with the. . . Eucharist, so likewise for no crime is there heavier punishment to be feared from God than for the unholy or irreligious use by the faithful of that which. . . contains the very Author and Source of holiness.'"
Does Pope Francis believe this? If so, why the Radcliffe appointment?
The Holy Spirit, speaking to us through Saint Paul, tells us that sacrilege, which is adultery, when it comes in the form of betraying the marital union with Christ through unfaithful reception of the Eucharist, renders the faithless one, "guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord" (1 Cor 11:27).
In Chapter 3 of his classic work entitled, "Jesus, Our Eucharistic Love," Father Stefano Manelli writes, "Holy Communion must be received only when one is in the grace of God. Therefore, when one has committed a mortal sin, even if one has repented of it and has a great desire to receive Holy Communion, it is necessary and indispensable to go to Confession first before receiving Holy Communion. Otherwise one commits a most grave sin of sacrilege, for which Jesus said to St. Bridget, 'There does not exist on earth a penalty great enough to punish it sufficiently!'
St. Ambrose said that persons who commit this sacrilege 'come into church with a few sins, and leave it burdened with many.' St. Cyril wrote even more bluntly: 'They who make a sacrilegious Communion receive Satan and Jesus Christ into their hearts—Satan, that they may let him rule, and Jesus Christ, that they may offer Him in a sacrifice as a Victim to Satan.'
Thus the Catechism of the Council of Trent (De Euch., v.i.) declares, 'As of all the sacred mysteries . . . none can compare with the. . . Eucharist, so likewise for no crime is there heavier punishment to be feared from God than for the unholy or irreligious use by the faithful of that which. . . contains the very Author and Source of holiness.'"
Does Pope Francis believe this? If so, why the Radcliffe appointment?
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Saint Patrick's revelation regarding Ireland
A few years back I wrote a post detailing a revelation which Saint Patrick was given about the faith diminishing in his native Ireland. See here.
Revolution has come to Ireland. The demon has brought darkness back to what was once one of the most Catholic of nations. Now, homosexuality is being celebrated in the streets as the nation embraces same-sex "marriage" in its Constitution. See here.
The darkness spreads as the serpent wages his war against the Church.
Revolution has come to Ireland. The demon has brought darkness back to what was once one of the most Catholic of nations. Now, homosexuality is being celebrated in the streets as the nation embraces same-sex "marriage" in its Constitution. See here.
The darkness spreads as the serpent wages his war against the Church.
Friday, May 22, 2015
The Cult of Softness and its fruit: The Church in decline
Crux News reports: "...the total number of Catholics in the United States dropped by 3 million since 2007, now comprising about 20 percent – or one-fifth – of the total population.

And perhaps more troubling for the church, for every one Catholic convert, more than six Catholics leave the church. Taken a step further, Catholicism loses more members than it gains at a higher rate than any other denomination, with nearly 13 percent of all Americans describing themselves as 'former Catholics.'"
This should come as no surprise. Years of witnessing corruption of various kinds (material and moral), not to mention a lack of leadership and charity, have turned young people- and people of all ages- off of the Church.
In many parishes, orthodox Catholics are subjected to hatred and violence. For example, when I called for reverence in the liturgy and advanced the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI that applause has no place within the liturgy, I was threatened with violence by "leaders" at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol and banned from the parish's Facebook page. See here.
We've had enough of a preaching which leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. We've had enough of a Cotton-Candy Catholicism which offers Chicken-Soup Homilies and asinine theatrics rather than the solid meat of sound preaching and liturgical reverence. Sadly, so many of our priests haven't caught on to this. And so they continue to spoon-feed us the unsatisfying pablum.
The time for lying is over. I have been saying this for years. Back in 2009, Archbishop Charles Chaput noted that, "40 years of American Catholic complacency and poor formation are bearing exactly the fruit we should have expected...We can't talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we've allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other..."
The lying must stop. For this to happen, we need priests and Bishops who fear God more than they do men. Cowards will not lead us out of the valley of death. Neither will homosexuality or effeminate clerics who cannot relate to men. Only shepherds who have the spiritual strength, the Cardinal Gift of Fortitude, to brave the risk of worldly criticism, will be able to lead the American Catholic Church out of the valley of the Culture of Death and back on the road to the Civilization of Love which Pope John Paul II spoke of so often.
Why have so many priests succumbed to fear? Why is it that their preaching no longer points out sin? Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange provides us with an answer:
"The reason for this is not difficult to find. A sermon is the result of the combined effort of all the priest's powers; it reveals his entire person; it is his struggle against the vices of the surrounding world." In other words, if the preaching is unsound, it is because the priest's spiritual life is unsound. Fr. Lagrange continues, "Everything in the priest cooperates in his preaching - study, reflection, his powers to compose and revise, the activity of his intellect, his imagination, his memory, his feelings, his voice. Therefore, when he preaches, the priest stands exposed for all to study; some will be attracted, others will not. Some will accept what he says, others will simply criticize. So if the priest approaches his task from the human angle, he will say to himself: 'I cannot afford to lose my reputation; people of weight in the parish who take offense easily must be spared their feelings and not provoked; I must proceed warily so as not to incur criticism.' In that way Christian eloquence is invaded by a profane eloquence in which the preacher looks after his own interests, not the glory of God or the saving of souls." (The Priest In Union With Christ, p. 156).
Forty years of lying has wrought so much damage to the American Catholic Church. Archbishop Chaput is right, we are merely reaping the fruit of what we've planted. St. Paul tells us that, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.." (Galatians 5: 22). But what fruit have we witnessed in the American Catholic Church? The Church has been infected with dry-rot as so many Catholics have succumbed to the works of the flesh.
We need heroic shepherds. Men who, like Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J., are willing to give their very lives for the Catholic Church and her teaching.
Sissy clerics aren't getting the job done. And this Lavender Mafia will never acknowledge this. The Cult of Softness will not- IT CANNOT - examine itself. It is too fat, too lazy, too corrupt, too proud. It has become a haunt of demons where every manner of filth and immorality is welcome and faith and purity are treated with animus.
Large segments of the Church in America are simply lost.

And perhaps more troubling for the church, for every one Catholic convert, more than six Catholics leave the church. Taken a step further, Catholicism loses more members than it gains at a higher rate than any other denomination, with nearly 13 percent of all Americans describing themselves as 'former Catholics.'"
This should come as no surprise. Years of witnessing corruption of various kinds (material and moral), not to mention a lack of leadership and charity, have turned young people- and people of all ages- off of the Church.
In many parishes, orthodox Catholics are subjected to hatred and violence. For example, when I called for reverence in the liturgy and advanced the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI that applause has no place within the liturgy, I was threatened with violence by "leaders" at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol and banned from the parish's Facebook page. See here.
We've had enough of a preaching which leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. We've had enough of a Cotton-Candy Catholicism which offers Chicken-Soup Homilies and asinine theatrics rather than the solid meat of sound preaching and liturgical reverence. Sadly, so many of our priests haven't caught on to this. And so they continue to spoon-feed us the unsatisfying pablum.
The time for lying is over. I have been saying this for years. Back in 2009, Archbishop Charles Chaput noted that, "40 years of American Catholic complacency and poor formation are bearing exactly the fruit we should have expected...We can't talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we've allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other..."
The lying must stop. For this to happen, we need priests and Bishops who fear God more than they do men. Cowards will not lead us out of the valley of death. Neither will homosexuality or effeminate clerics who cannot relate to men. Only shepherds who have the spiritual strength, the Cardinal Gift of Fortitude, to brave the risk of worldly criticism, will be able to lead the American Catholic Church out of the valley of the Culture of Death and back on the road to the Civilization of Love which Pope John Paul II spoke of so often.
Why have so many priests succumbed to fear? Why is it that their preaching no longer points out sin? Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange provides us with an answer:
"The reason for this is not difficult to find. A sermon is the result of the combined effort of all the priest's powers; it reveals his entire person; it is his struggle against the vices of the surrounding world." In other words, if the preaching is unsound, it is because the priest's spiritual life is unsound. Fr. Lagrange continues, "Everything in the priest cooperates in his preaching - study, reflection, his powers to compose and revise, the activity of his intellect, his imagination, his memory, his feelings, his voice. Therefore, when he preaches, the priest stands exposed for all to study; some will be attracted, others will not. Some will accept what he says, others will simply criticize. So if the priest approaches his task from the human angle, he will say to himself: 'I cannot afford to lose my reputation; people of weight in the parish who take offense easily must be spared their feelings and not provoked; I must proceed warily so as not to incur criticism.' In that way Christian eloquence is invaded by a profane eloquence in which the preacher looks after his own interests, not the glory of God or the saving of souls." (The Priest In Union With Christ, p. 156).
Forty years of lying has wrought so much damage to the American Catholic Church. Archbishop Chaput is right, we are merely reaping the fruit of what we've planted. St. Paul tells us that, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.." (Galatians 5: 22). But what fruit have we witnessed in the American Catholic Church? The Church has been infected with dry-rot as so many Catholics have succumbed to the works of the flesh.
We need heroic shepherds. Men who, like Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J., are willing to give their very lives for the Catholic Church and her teaching.
Sissy clerics aren't getting the job done. And this Lavender Mafia will never acknowledge this. The Cult of Softness will not- IT CANNOT - examine itself. It is too fat, too lazy, too corrupt, too proud. It has become a haunt of demons where every manner of filth and immorality is welcome and faith and purity are treated with animus.
Large segments of the Church in America are simply lost.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Pope Francis, what about a Bishop's vocation to safeguard truth?
Pope Francis just told his brothers in the episcopate that,"Our vocation is to listen to what the Lord is asking us: 'Comfort, comfort my people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1)'" See here.
What Francis doesn't mention, and this is most significant, is that a Bishop's vocation is primarily one of witnessing to the truth, without which authentic joy is impossible, for joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5).
Pope John Paul II, in his book entitled "Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way," in a chapter entitled simply "The Shepherd," writes, "Christian tradition has adopted the biblical image of the shepherd in three forms: as the one who carries the lost sheep on his shoulders, as the one who leads his flocks to green pastures, and as the one who gathers his sheep with his staff and protects them from danger.
In all three images there is a recurring theme: The shepherd is for the sheep, not the sheep for the shepherd. He is bound so closely to them, if he is a real shepherd, that he is ready to lay down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). Every year during the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth week of Ordinary Time, the Liturgy of the Hours presents Saint Augustine's long sermon 'On the Shepherds.' With reference to the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, the bishop of Hippo strongly rebukes evil shepherds, who are concerned not for the sheep but only for themselves. 'Let us see how the word of God, that flatters no one, addresses the shepherds who are feeding themselves, not the sheep. 'You take the milk, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed my sheep. The weak you have not strenghtened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought; any strong one you have killed; and my sheep are scattered because there is no shepherd.'" (pp. 63-64).
And in the chapter entitled "Courageous in Faith," the Holy Father, citing Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, writes, "'The bishop has the duty to serve not only through his words and through the liturgy, but also through offering up his sufferings.' Cardinal Wyszynski returned to these thoughts again on another occasion: 'Lack of courage in a bishop is the beginning of disaster. Can he still be an apostle? Witnessing to the Truth is essential for an apostle. And this always demands courage.' These words are also his: 'The greatest weakness in an apostle is fear. What gives rise to fear is lack of confidence in the power of the Lord; this is what oppresses the heart and tightens the throat. The apostle then ceases to offer witness. Does he remain an apostle? The disciples who abandoned the Master increased the courage of the executioners. Silence in the presence of the enemies of a cause encourages them. Fear in an apostle is the principal ally of the enemies of the cause'...Truly, there can be no turning one's back upon the truth, ceasing to proclaim it, hiding it, even if it is a hard truth that can only be revealed at the cost of great suffering. 'You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free' (John 8:32): this is our duty and our source of strength! Here there is no room for compromise nor for an opportunistic recourse to human diplomacy. We have to bear witness to the truth, even at the cost of persecutions, even to the shedding of our blood, like Christ Himself..." (pp. 190-191).
A Bishop has a vocation to discern between good and evil, truth and falsehood, and to judge what is evil and false and to denounce it. The Bishop's vocation is not to sit back out of laziness or fear or both, letting his flock be torn to pieces by rapacious wolves why saying, "Who am I to judge."
What Francis doesn't mention, and this is most significant, is that a Bishop's vocation is primarily one of witnessing to the truth, without which authentic joy is impossible, for joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5).
Pope John Paul II, in his book entitled "Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way," in a chapter entitled simply "The Shepherd," writes, "Christian tradition has adopted the biblical image of the shepherd in three forms: as the one who carries the lost sheep on his shoulders, as the one who leads his flocks to green pastures, and as the one who gathers his sheep with his staff and protects them from danger.
In all three images there is a recurring theme: The shepherd is for the sheep, not the sheep for the shepherd. He is bound so closely to them, if he is a real shepherd, that he is ready to lay down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). Every year during the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth week of Ordinary Time, the Liturgy of the Hours presents Saint Augustine's long sermon 'On the Shepherds.' With reference to the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, the bishop of Hippo strongly rebukes evil shepherds, who are concerned not for the sheep but only for themselves. 'Let us see how the word of God, that flatters no one, addresses the shepherds who are feeding themselves, not the sheep. 'You take the milk, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed my sheep. The weak you have not strenghtened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought; any strong one you have killed; and my sheep are scattered because there is no shepherd.'" (pp. 63-64).
And in the chapter entitled "Courageous in Faith," the Holy Father, citing Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, writes, "'The bishop has the duty to serve not only through his words and through the liturgy, but also through offering up his sufferings.' Cardinal Wyszynski returned to these thoughts again on another occasion: 'Lack of courage in a bishop is the beginning of disaster. Can he still be an apostle? Witnessing to the Truth is essential for an apostle. And this always demands courage.' These words are also his: 'The greatest weakness in an apostle is fear. What gives rise to fear is lack of confidence in the power of the Lord; this is what oppresses the heart and tightens the throat. The apostle then ceases to offer witness. Does he remain an apostle? The disciples who abandoned the Master increased the courage of the executioners. Silence in the presence of the enemies of a cause encourages them. Fear in an apostle is the principal ally of the enemies of the cause'...Truly, there can be no turning one's back upon the truth, ceasing to proclaim it, hiding it, even if it is a hard truth that can only be revealed at the cost of great suffering. 'You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free' (John 8:32): this is our duty and our source of strength! Here there is no room for compromise nor for an opportunistic recourse to human diplomacy. We have to bear witness to the truth, even at the cost of persecutions, even to the shedding of our blood, like Christ Himself..." (pp. 190-191).
A Bishop has a vocation to discern between good and evil, truth and falsehood, and to judge what is evil and false and to denounce it. The Bishop's vocation is not to sit back out of laziness or fear or both, letting his flock be torn to pieces by rapacious wolves why saying, "Who am I to judge."
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
The New America: Moloch State which demands obedience
J. Matt Barber, writing about the emerging totalitarian state in what used to be the American Republic, writes:
While actions speak louder than words, words often predict future actions. Secular progressives' words and actions rarely align. This is because the pseudo-utopian, wholly dystopian perch from which they view the world is so detached from reality that, from a cultural and public policy standpoint, they must disguise their intended actions in flowery and euphemistic language, or face near universal rejection.
When they don't like the terms, liberals redefine the terms to mean something they do not, never have and never can mean. Consider, for instance, the once meaningful words "marriage" and "equality."
Other "progressive" doublespeak includes words like "invest" (meaning socialist redistribution of wealth), "tolerance" (meaning embrace immorality or face total ruin), "diversity" (meaning Christians and conservatives need not apply), "hate" (meaning truth) or "The Affordable Care Act" (meaning unaffordable, unsustainable and utterly inferior socialized medicine).
Even so, it's during those rare moments of candor that our cultural Marxist friends' rhetoric actually aligns with their intended actions. In other words, every so often, and usually by accident, they tell the truth.
Take this recent declaration by President Obama at Georgetown University. He was discussing his contempt for conservative new media in general and Fox News in particular:
"[W]e're going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we're going to have to change how the media reports on these issues," he said.
How Kim Jong-un of him. In sum: Goal 1) Control thought by, Goal 2) Controlling the media.
This is an idea older than – and as well preserved as – Vladimir Lenin himself. How Dear Leader intends to reconcile his scheme to "change how the media reports on these issues" with the First Amendment's Free Press Clause, namely, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the press," is abundantly clear.
He doesn't.
Our emperor-in-chief will force feed his once-free subjects yet another unconstitutional executive decree – a Net Neutrality sandwich with a side of Fairness Doctrine.
Or take would-be President Hillary Clinton's comments last month on the "rite" of abortion vs. the right of religious freedom.
Reports LifeNews:
"The comment has Hillary Clinton essentially saying that Christians must be forced to change their religious views to accommodate abortions.
"'Far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth. All the laws we've passed don't count for much if they're not enforced,' Clinton said, using the euphemism for abortion.
"'Rights have to exist in practice – not just on paper,' Clinton argued. 'Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.'"
That's a lot of "have tos." See the pattern here? Whether it's Obama saying government will "have to change how the media reports," or Hillary saying "deep-seated religious beliefs have to be changed," such despotic demands should spike the neck hair of every freedom-loving American.
And then there are those left-wing extremists whose designs on despotism require that Christians "must be made" to obey. Homosexual practitioner and New York Times columnist Frank Bruni is one such extremist. In his April 3 column titled, "Bigotry: The Bible and the Lessons of Indiana," Bruni quotes homosexual militant Mitchell Gold, a prominent anti-Christian activist: "Gold told me that church leaders must be made 'to take homosexuality off the sin list,'" he writes. "His commandment is worthy – and warranted," he adds.
Of course, if homosexual behavior, something denounced as both "vile affections" and "an abomination" throughout both the Old and New Testaments, is no longer sexual sin, then there can be no sexual sin whatsoever. To coerce, through the power of the police state, faithful Christians to abandon the millennia-old biblical sexual ethic and embrace the sin of Sodom would likewise require that Christians sign-off on fornication, adultery, incest and bestiality. Such is the unnatural nature of government-mandated moral relativism.
"But this isn't free speech, it's hate speech!" come the mournful cries of the ill-informed and the ill-prepared, desperately afraid to debate the issues on the merits. "Hate speech is excluded from protection," opines CNN anchor Chris Cuomo in a recent tweet on the topic. "But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment," replies UCLA law professor Eugene Volohk in a Washington Post op-ed. "Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas."
Of course this matters not to those to whom the First Amendment is meaningless.
Indeed, one man's "hate speech" is another man's truth, and as I've often said, truth is hate to those who hate truth.
And boy do they hate it.
And so they mean to muzzle it.
The time of which many of us have long warned is no longer on the horizon. The left's full-on assault against freedom, most especially religious freedom, is at hand. Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, it's at once the secular left and orthodox Muslims who lead the charge. These strange bedfellows share a common enemy. He is Truth in the person of Jesus Christ. In order to silence Him, they must silence His faithful followers.
Which brings us to this modern age of American lawlessness. We're fast moving from a soft tyranny to hard tyranny, and "progressive" leaders like those mentioned above are, chillingly enough, emboldened to the degree that they will openly call for it.
Like our brothers and sisters around the world, American Christians must prepare for suffering.
But, like them, we mustn't despair.
For there are different kinds of suffering.
Suffering through cancer, for instance, can, and often does, lead to death. Without Christ, who is mankind's only hope, such suffering is hopeless indeed.
Yet when a young mother suffers through child birth, and while she may experience the same level of pain as the cancer sufferer, her crying out elicits an entirely different response, and her pain serves an entirely different purpose. While one type of suffering leads to death, the other leads to life. While one attends sorrow, the other attends joy.
Similarly, there is a kind of suffering, suffering in sin, which leads to spiritual death, and a kind suffering, suffering in grace, which leads to spiritual life. Anti-Christian persecution, be it efforts to force Christians into disobedience to God, attempts to silence them outright or, worse, the torture, enslavement and even execution of Christ followers – now widespread in both Muslim and Marxist nations across the globe – signifies "the beginning of birth pains" (see Matthew 24:8).
And birth pains lead to new life.
In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus annus, No. 47, Pope John Paul II reminded us that: "Following the collapse of Communist totalitarianism and of many other totalitarian and 'national security' regimes, today we are witnessing a predominance, not without signs of opposition, of the democratic ideal, together with lively attention to and concern for human rights. But for this very reason it is necessary for peoples in the process of reforming their systems to give democracy an authentic and solid foundation through the explicit recognition of those rights. Among the most important of these rights, mention must be made of the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother's womb from the moment of conception; the right to live in a united family and in a moral environment conducive to the growth of the child's personality; the right to develop one's intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth; the right to share in the work which makes wise use of the earth's material resources, and to derive from that work the means to support oneself and one's dependents; and the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through the responsible exercise of one's sexuality. In a certain sense, the source and synthesis of these rights is religious freedom, understood as the right to live in the truth of one's faith and in conformity with one's transcendent dignity as a person.
Even in countries with democratic forms of government, these rights are not always fully respected. Here we are referring not only to the scandal of abortion, but also to different aspects of a crisis within democracies themselves, which seem at times to have lost the ability to make decisions aimed at the common good. Certain demands which arise within society are sometimes not examined in accordance with criteria of justice and morality, but rather on the basis of the electoral or financial power of the groups promoting them. With time, such distortions of political conduct create distrust and apathy, with a subsequent decline in the political participation and civic spirit of the general population, which feels abused and disillusioned. As a result, there is a growing inability to situate particular interests within the framework of a coherent vision of the common good. The latter is not simply the sum total of particular interests; rather it involves an assessment and integration of those interests on the basis of a balanced hierarchy of values; ultimately, it demands a correct understanding of the dignity and the rights of the person."
Men have succeeded in using the courts to attain legal approval for many types of immoral conduct, including abortion and homosexuality, without any consideration for the common good. And this is precisely why America is deteriorating, it has succumbed to a moral cancer which will ruin it from within. In the words of English correspondent Ian Brodie: "The keys to this personality change [from God-fearing nation to pagan society] are a number of Supreme Court decisions which virtually outlaw censorship and decree that obscenity is not illegal...It is a curious irony that the Supreme Court, dedicated to preserving the freedom which is the foundation of American life, has confused it with license. In doing so it has given its seal of approval to the sick society which will undermine the United States from within." (Sir Arnold Lunn and Garth Lean, Christian Counter-Attack, London: Blandford Press, 1969, pp. 50-51).
Or as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn so eloquently warned: "Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. This is considered to be part of freedom, and theoretically counterbalanced by the young peoples' right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil." ("A World Split Apart," Commencement Address at Harvard University, June 8, 1978, reprinted in National Review, July 7, 1978).
Where is all of this leading? Initially to a thinly disguised and then an eventually open totalitarianism. When man becomes God, as Gabriel Marcel noted, society becomes a termite colony and collapses from within. Enter the Man of Sin and the concentration camp. - for this is where atheistic humanism will lead us. To absolute despotism.
While actions speak louder than words, words often predict future actions. Secular progressives' words and actions rarely align. This is because the pseudo-utopian, wholly dystopian perch from which they view the world is so detached from reality that, from a cultural and public policy standpoint, they must disguise their intended actions in flowery and euphemistic language, or face near universal rejection.
When they don't like the terms, liberals redefine the terms to mean something they do not, never have and never can mean. Consider, for instance, the once meaningful words "marriage" and "equality."
Other "progressive" doublespeak includes words like "invest" (meaning socialist redistribution of wealth), "tolerance" (meaning embrace immorality or face total ruin), "diversity" (meaning Christians and conservatives need not apply), "hate" (meaning truth) or "The Affordable Care Act" (meaning unaffordable, unsustainable and utterly inferior socialized medicine).
Even so, it's during those rare moments of candor that our cultural Marxist friends' rhetoric actually aligns with their intended actions. In other words, every so often, and usually by accident, they tell the truth.
Take this recent declaration by President Obama at Georgetown University. He was discussing his contempt for conservative new media in general and Fox News in particular:
"[W]e're going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we're going to have to change how the media reports on these issues," he said.
How Kim Jong-un of him. In sum: Goal 1) Control thought by, Goal 2) Controlling the media.
This is an idea older than – and as well preserved as – Vladimir Lenin himself. How Dear Leader intends to reconcile his scheme to "change how the media reports on these issues" with the First Amendment's Free Press Clause, namely, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the press," is abundantly clear.
He doesn't.
Our emperor-in-chief will force feed his once-free subjects yet another unconstitutional executive decree – a Net Neutrality sandwich with a side of Fairness Doctrine.
Or take would-be President Hillary Clinton's comments last month on the "rite" of abortion vs. the right of religious freedom.
Reports LifeNews:
"The comment has Hillary Clinton essentially saying that Christians must be forced to change their religious views to accommodate abortions.
"'Far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth. All the laws we've passed don't count for much if they're not enforced,' Clinton said, using the euphemism for abortion.
"'Rights have to exist in practice – not just on paper,' Clinton argued. 'Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.'"
That's a lot of "have tos." See the pattern here? Whether it's Obama saying government will "have to change how the media reports," or Hillary saying "deep-seated religious beliefs have to be changed," such despotic demands should spike the neck hair of every freedom-loving American.
And then there are those left-wing extremists whose designs on despotism require that Christians "must be made" to obey. Homosexual practitioner and New York Times columnist Frank Bruni is one such extremist. In his April 3 column titled, "Bigotry: The Bible and the Lessons of Indiana," Bruni quotes homosexual militant Mitchell Gold, a prominent anti-Christian activist: "Gold told me that church leaders must be made 'to take homosexuality off the sin list,'" he writes. "His commandment is worthy – and warranted," he adds.
Of course, if homosexual behavior, something denounced as both "vile affections" and "an abomination" throughout both the Old and New Testaments, is no longer sexual sin, then there can be no sexual sin whatsoever. To coerce, through the power of the police state, faithful Christians to abandon the millennia-old biblical sexual ethic and embrace the sin of Sodom would likewise require that Christians sign-off on fornication, adultery, incest and bestiality. Such is the unnatural nature of government-mandated moral relativism.
"But this isn't free speech, it's hate speech!" come the mournful cries of the ill-informed and the ill-prepared, desperately afraid to debate the issues on the merits. "Hate speech is excluded from protection," opines CNN anchor Chris Cuomo in a recent tweet on the topic. "But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment," replies UCLA law professor Eugene Volohk in a Washington Post op-ed. "Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas."
Of course this matters not to those to whom the First Amendment is meaningless.
Indeed, one man's "hate speech" is another man's truth, and as I've often said, truth is hate to those who hate truth.
And boy do they hate it.
And so they mean to muzzle it.
The time of which many of us have long warned is no longer on the horizon. The left's full-on assault against freedom, most especially religious freedom, is at hand. Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, it's at once the secular left and orthodox Muslims who lead the charge. These strange bedfellows share a common enemy. He is Truth in the person of Jesus Christ. In order to silence Him, they must silence His faithful followers.
Which brings us to this modern age of American lawlessness. We're fast moving from a soft tyranny to hard tyranny, and "progressive" leaders like those mentioned above are, chillingly enough, emboldened to the degree that they will openly call for it.
Like our brothers and sisters around the world, American Christians must prepare for suffering.
But, like them, we mustn't despair.
For there are different kinds of suffering.
Suffering through cancer, for instance, can, and often does, lead to death. Without Christ, who is mankind's only hope, such suffering is hopeless indeed.
Yet when a young mother suffers through child birth, and while she may experience the same level of pain as the cancer sufferer, her crying out elicits an entirely different response, and her pain serves an entirely different purpose. While one type of suffering leads to death, the other leads to life. While one attends sorrow, the other attends joy.
Similarly, there is a kind of suffering, suffering in sin, which leads to spiritual death, and a kind suffering, suffering in grace, which leads to spiritual life. Anti-Christian persecution, be it efforts to force Christians into disobedience to God, attempts to silence them outright or, worse, the torture, enslavement and even execution of Christ followers – now widespread in both Muslim and Marxist nations across the globe – signifies "the beginning of birth pains" (see Matthew 24:8).
And birth pains lead to new life.
In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus annus, No. 47, Pope John Paul II reminded us that: "Following the collapse of Communist totalitarianism and of many other totalitarian and 'national security' regimes, today we are witnessing a predominance, not without signs of opposition, of the democratic ideal, together with lively attention to and concern for human rights. But for this very reason it is necessary for peoples in the process of reforming their systems to give democracy an authentic and solid foundation through the explicit recognition of those rights. Among the most important of these rights, mention must be made of the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother's womb from the moment of conception; the right to live in a united family and in a moral environment conducive to the growth of the child's personality; the right to develop one's intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth; the right to share in the work which makes wise use of the earth's material resources, and to derive from that work the means to support oneself and one's dependents; and the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through the responsible exercise of one's sexuality. In a certain sense, the source and synthesis of these rights is religious freedom, understood as the right to live in the truth of one's faith and in conformity with one's transcendent dignity as a person.
Even in countries with democratic forms of government, these rights are not always fully respected. Here we are referring not only to the scandal of abortion, but also to different aspects of a crisis within democracies themselves, which seem at times to have lost the ability to make decisions aimed at the common good. Certain demands which arise within society are sometimes not examined in accordance with criteria of justice and morality, but rather on the basis of the electoral or financial power of the groups promoting them. With time, such distortions of political conduct create distrust and apathy, with a subsequent decline in the political participation and civic spirit of the general population, which feels abused and disillusioned. As a result, there is a growing inability to situate particular interests within the framework of a coherent vision of the common good. The latter is not simply the sum total of particular interests; rather it involves an assessment and integration of those interests on the basis of a balanced hierarchy of values; ultimately, it demands a correct understanding of the dignity and the rights of the person."
Men have succeeded in using the courts to attain legal approval for many types of immoral conduct, including abortion and homosexuality, without any consideration for the common good. And this is precisely why America is deteriorating, it has succumbed to a moral cancer which will ruin it from within. In the words of English correspondent Ian Brodie: "The keys to this personality change [from God-fearing nation to pagan society] are a number of Supreme Court decisions which virtually outlaw censorship and decree that obscenity is not illegal...It is a curious irony that the Supreme Court, dedicated to preserving the freedom which is the foundation of American life, has confused it with license. In doing so it has given its seal of approval to the sick society which will undermine the United States from within." (Sir Arnold Lunn and Garth Lean, Christian Counter-Attack, London: Blandford Press, 1969, pp. 50-51).
Or as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn so eloquently warned: "Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. This is considered to be part of freedom, and theoretically counterbalanced by the young peoples' right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil." ("A World Split Apart," Commencement Address at Harvard University, June 8, 1978, reprinted in National Review, July 7, 1978).
Where is all of this leading? Initially to a thinly disguised and then an eventually open totalitarianism. When man becomes God, as Gabriel Marcel noted, society becomes a termite colony and collapses from within. Enter the Man of Sin and the concentration camp. - for this is where atheistic humanism will lead us. To absolute despotism.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Third Secret of Fatima fully revealed?
Third Secret of Fatima fully revealed?
Text in Portuguese:
January 4, 1944
Agora vou revelar o terceiro fragmento do segredo;
Esta parte é a apostasia na Igreja!
Nossa Senhora mostrou-nos uma vista do um indivi-
duo que eu descrevo como o ' Santo Padre ', em frente de uma multidão
que estava louvando-o.
Mas havia uma diferença com um verdadeiro Santo Padre, o olhar
do demonio, êste tinha os olhos do mal.
Então depois de alguns momentos vimos o mesmo Papa entrando
a uma igreja, mas esta igreja era a igreja do inferno, não há modo
para descrever a fealdade dêsse lugar, parecia como uma fortaleza feita
de cimento cinzento, com ângulos quebrados e janelas semelhantes a olhos,
tinha un bico no telhado do edificio.
Em seguida levantamos a vista para Nossa Senhora que nos
disse Vistes a apostasia na Igreja, esta carta pode ser aberta por O Santo
Padre, mas deve ser anunciada depois de Piu XII e antes de 1960.
No reinado de Juan Pablo II a pedra angular da tumba de Pedro
deve ser removida e transferida para Fatima.
Porque o Dogma da fé não é conservado em Roma, sua autori-
dade será removida e entregada a Fatima.
A catedral de Roma deve ser destruida e uma nova construida
em Fatima.
Se 69 semanas depois de que esta ordem é anunciada, Roma continua sua abom-
inação, a cidade será destruida.
Nossa Senhora disse-nos que êsto está escrito, Daniel 9 24-25 e Mateus 21 42-44
Translation to English:
January 4, 1944
Now iIwill reveal the third part of the secret;
This part is the apostasy in the Church!
Our Lady showed us a vision of some-
one who I describe as the ' Pope ', standing in front of a praising
multitude.
But there was a difference with a real Pope, the evil
look, this one had eyes of evil.
Then after a few moments we saw the same Pope entering
a church, but this church was like the church of hell, there is no
way to describe the ugliness of this place, it seemed like a fortress made
of gray cement, with broken angles and windows like eyes, there was a beak on top of the building.
We then looked up at Our Lady who said to us
you have seen the apostasy in the Church, this message can be opened by The Holy
Father, but must be announced after Pius XII and before 1960.
During the pontificate of John Paul II the cornerstone from Peter's tomb
must be removed and transferred to Fatima.
Because the Dogma of faith is not preserved in Rome, her
authority will be removed and given to Portugal.
The cathedral of Rome must be destroyed and a new one built in
Fatima.
If 69 weeks after this command is announced Rome continues it's abomi-
nation, the city will be destroyed.
Our Lady told us this is written, Daniel 9 24-25 and Mathew 21 42-44
This dovetails with other significant Catholic prophecies.
Our Lady told Fr. Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests:
"I am weeping because the Church is continuing along the road of division, of loss of the true faith, of apostasy and of errors which are being spread more and more without anyone offering opposition to them. Even now, that which I predicted at Fatima and that which I have revealed here in the third message confided to a little daughter of mine (i.e. Sister Lucia) is in the process of being accomplished. And so, even for the Church the moment of its great trial has come, because the man of iniquity will establish himself within it and the abomination of desolation will enter into the holy temple of God." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 362, September 15, 1987, p. 572.)
And again:"The black beast like a leopard indicates Freemasonry; the beast with the two horns like a lamb indicates Freemasonry infiltrated into the interior of the Church, that is to say, ecclesiastical Masonry, which has spread especially among the members of the hierarchy. This Masonic infiltration, in the interior of the Church, was already foretold to you by me at Fatima, when I announced to you that Satan would enter in even to the summit of the Church. If the task of Masonry is to lead souls to perdition, bringing them to the worship of false divinities, the task of ecclesiastical Masonry on the other hand is that of destroying Christ and his Church, building a new idol, namely a false christ and a false church." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 406, June 13, 1989, p. 649)
The false church Our Lady refers to was also foretold by Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), a German Augustinian nun, stigmatist, and miracle-worker, who subsisted entirely on water and Holy Communion for many years. Venerable Emmerich received numerous visions of the future crisis in the Church and the infiltration of the Masons. In her visions, she describes men in aprons destroying the Church with a trowel, The Masons wear aprons and their symbol is the Mason's trowel. The following excerpts are from page 565 of the Life of Anne Catherine Emmerich, Vol. 1, by Rev. K.E. Schmöger, Tan Books, 1976:
"I saw St. Peter's. A great crowd of men was trying to pull it down whilst others constantly built it up again. Lines connected these men one with another and with others throughout the whole world. I was amazed at their perfect understanding." The demolishers, mostly apostates and members of different sects, broke off whole pieces and worked according to rules and instructions. They wore WHITE APRONS bound with blue riband. In them were pockets and they had TROWELS stuck in their belts. The costumes of the others were various."There were among the demolishers distinguished men wearing uniforms and crosses. They did not work themselves but they marked out on the wall with a TROWEL where and how it should be torn down. To my horror, I saw among them Catholic Priests. Whenever the workmen did not know how to go on, they went to a certain one in their party. He had a large book which seemed to contain the whole plan of the building and the way to destroy it. They marked out exactly with a TROWEL the parts to be attacked, and they soon came down. They worked quietly and confidently, but slyly, furtively and warily. I saw the Pope praying, surrounded by false friends who often did the very opposite to what he had ordered..."
We have witnessed the gradual emergence of this false church within Christ's Church. And that which this false church proposes is a new religion in which man, and not God, is the object of worship. And all will be accomplished in the name of humanitarianism. Through one of his characters in his prophetic book The Lord of the World, Fr. Robert Hugh Benson describes this humanitarian religion:
"Humanitarianism...is becoming an actual religion itself, though anti-supernatural. It is a pantheism. Pantheism deifies all nature, God is the world, but naturally, man above all is God since he is the highest expression of nature. It is a religion devoid of the 'super' natural, because since God is nature itself, there is no longer a distinction between Creator and creature. The creature is God* and hence arbitrator of his own destiny and establishes the moral law for himself. Nature, and man is its highest expression, has all the divine attributes. Humanitarianism is a religion devoid of the supernatural. It is developing a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, 'God is man'; and the rest. It has, therefore, a real food of a sort to offer religious cravings: it idealizes, and yet makes no demands upon the spiritual faculties. Then, they have the use of all the churches except ours, and of all the Cathedrals; and they are beginning at last to encourage sentiment. Then they may display their symbols and we may not: I think they will be established legally in another ten years" (Introduction, p. xvii).
*Genesis 3:5.
We must watch and pray. Prayer [and especially Holy Mass and the Rosary] is the most fundamental weapon for the great battle of the end times. In the words of Fr. Livio Fanzaga, "When man will glorify himself and proclaim the Antichrist as God made man, the supernatural principle will be preserved only by those who cling to the divine presence in prayer....In the time of Antichrist, the power of suggestion will cloud reason. Only those who intimately experience the supernatural in prayer will have the strength to acknowledge God's existence, despite the apparent evidence to the contrary."
Text in Portuguese:
January 4, 1944
Agora vou revelar o terceiro fragmento do segredo;
Esta parte é a apostasia na Igreja!
Nossa Senhora mostrou-nos uma vista do um indivi-
duo que eu descrevo como o ' Santo Padre ', em frente de uma multidão
que estava louvando-o.
Mas havia uma diferença com um verdadeiro Santo Padre, o olhar
do demonio, êste tinha os olhos do mal.
Então depois de alguns momentos vimos o mesmo Papa entrando
a uma igreja, mas esta igreja era a igreja do inferno, não há modo
para descrever a fealdade dêsse lugar, parecia como uma fortaleza feita
de cimento cinzento, com ângulos quebrados e janelas semelhantes a olhos,
tinha un bico no telhado do edificio.
Em seguida levantamos a vista para Nossa Senhora que nos
disse Vistes a apostasia na Igreja, esta carta pode ser aberta por O Santo
Padre, mas deve ser anunciada depois de Piu XII e antes de 1960.
No reinado de Juan Pablo II a pedra angular da tumba de Pedro
deve ser removida e transferida para Fatima.
Porque o Dogma da fé não é conservado em Roma, sua autori-
dade será removida e entregada a Fatima.
A catedral de Roma deve ser destruida e uma nova construida
em Fatima.
Se 69 semanas depois de que esta ordem é anunciada, Roma continua sua abom-
inação, a cidade será destruida.
Nossa Senhora disse-nos que êsto está escrito, Daniel 9 24-25 e Mateus 21 42-44
Translation to English:
January 4, 1944
Now iIwill reveal the third part of the secret;
This part is the apostasy in the Church!
Our Lady showed us a vision of some-
one who I describe as the ' Pope ', standing in front of a praising
multitude.
But there was a difference with a real Pope, the evil
look, this one had eyes of evil.
Then after a few moments we saw the same Pope entering
a church, but this church was like the church of hell, there is no
way to describe the ugliness of this place, it seemed like a fortress made
of gray cement, with broken angles and windows like eyes, there was a beak on top of the building.
We then looked up at Our Lady who said to us
you have seen the apostasy in the Church, this message can be opened by The Holy
Father, but must be announced after Pius XII and before 1960.
During the pontificate of John Paul II the cornerstone from Peter's tomb
must be removed and transferred to Fatima.
Because the Dogma of faith is not preserved in Rome, her
authority will be removed and given to Portugal.
The cathedral of Rome must be destroyed and a new one built in
Fatima.
If 69 weeks after this command is announced Rome continues it's abomi-
nation, the city will be destroyed.
Our Lady told us this is written, Daniel 9 24-25 and Mathew 21 42-44
This dovetails with other significant Catholic prophecies.
Our Lady told Fr. Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests:
"I am weeping because the Church is continuing along the road of division, of loss of the true faith, of apostasy and of errors which are being spread more and more without anyone offering opposition to them. Even now, that which I predicted at Fatima and that which I have revealed here in the third message confided to a little daughter of mine (i.e. Sister Lucia) is in the process of being accomplished. And so, even for the Church the moment of its great trial has come, because the man of iniquity will establish himself within it and the abomination of desolation will enter into the holy temple of God." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 362, September 15, 1987, p. 572.)
And again:"The black beast like a leopard indicates Freemasonry; the beast with the two horns like a lamb indicates Freemasonry infiltrated into the interior of the Church, that is to say, ecclesiastical Masonry, which has spread especially among the members of the hierarchy. This Masonic infiltration, in the interior of the Church, was already foretold to you by me at Fatima, when I announced to you that Satan would enter in even to the summit of the Church. If the task of Masonry is to lead souls to perdition, bringing them to the worship of false divinities, the task of ecclesiastical Masonry on the other hand is that of destroying Christ and his Church, building a new idol, namely a false christ and a false church." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 406, June 13, 1989, p. 649)
The false church Our Lady refers to was also foretold by Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), a German Augustinian nun, stigmatist, and miracle-worker, who subsisted entirely on water and Holy Communion for many years. Venerable Emmerich received numerous visions of the future crisis in the Church and the infiltration of the Masons. In her visions, she describes men in aprons destroying the Church with a trowel, The Masons wear aprons and their symbol is the Mason's trowel. The following excerpts are from page 565 of the Life of Anne Catherine Emmerich, Vol. 1, by Rev. K.E. Schmöger, Tan Books, 1976:
"I saw St. Peter's. A great crowd of men was trying to pull it down whilst others constantly built it up again. Lines connected these men one with another and with others throughout the whole world. I was amazed at their perfect understanding." The demolishers, mostly apostates and members of different sects, broke off whole pieces and worked according to rules and instructions. They wore WHITE APRONS bound with blue riband. In them were pockets and they had TROWELS stuck in their belts. The costumes of the others were various."There were among the demolishers distinguished men wearing uniforms and crosses. They did not work themselves but they marked out on the wall with a TROWEL where and how it should be torn down. To my horror, I saw among them Catholic Priests. Whenever the workmen did not know how to go on, they went to a certain one in their party. He had a large book which seemed to contain the whole plan of the building and the way to destroy it. They marked out exactly with a TROWEL the parts to be attacked, and they soon came down. They worked quietly and confidently, but slyly, furtively and warily. I saw the Pope praying, surrounded by false friends who often did the very opposite to what he had ordered..."
We have witnessed the gradual emergence of this false church within Christ's Church. And that which this false church proposes is a new religion in which man, and not God, is the object of worship. And all will be accomplished in the name of humanitarianism. Through one of his characters in his prophetic book The Lord of the World, Fr. Robert Hugh Benson describes this humanitarian religion:
"Humanitarianism...is becoming an actual religion itself, though anti-supernatural. It is a pantheism. Pantheism deifies all nature, God is the world, but naturally, man above all is God since he is the highest expression of nature. It is a religion devoid of the 'super' natural, because since God is nature itself, there is no longer a distinction between Creator and creature. The creature is God* and hence arbitrator of his own destiny and establishes the moral law for himself. Nature, and man is its highest expression, has all the divine attributes. Humanitarianism is a religion devoid of the supernatural. It is developing a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, 'God is man'; and the rest. It has, therefore, a real food of a sort to offer religious cravings: it idealizes, and yet makes no demands upon the spiritual faculties. Then, they have the use of all the churches except ours, and of all the Cathedrals; and they are beginning at last to encourage sentiment. Then they may display their symbols and we may not: I think they will be established legally in another ten years" (Introduction, p. xvii).
*Genesis 3:5.
We must watch and pray. Prayer [and especially Holy Mass and the Rosary] is the most fundamental weapon for the great battle of the end times. In the words of Fr. Livio Fanzaga, "When man will glorify himself and proclaim the Antichrist as God made man, the supernatural principle will be preserved only by those who cling to the divine presence in prayer....In the time of Antichrist, the power of suggestion will cloud reason. Only those who intimately experience the supernatural in prayer will have the strength to acknowledge God's existence, despite the apparent evidence to the contrary."
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Bishop Juan Vincente Cordoba: God's Word does not explicitly reject homosexuality
Bishop Juan Vincente Córdoba, another cleric who has succumbed to diabolical disorientation, is reported to have said that in the Bible there’s no explicit rejection of homosexuality, suggesting there’s no basis for making a condemnation of homosexuality a Church doctrine. See here.
Homosexuality and lesbianism are both on the increase. This fact is highly significant. Dr. Abram Kardiner, distinguished physician, psychoanalyst and anthropologist, states that homosexuality reaches pestilential and plague proportions in morally rotting societies during the final stages of total collapse.
According to Catholic doctrine, any disorderly tendency, above all to a vice contrary to nature, cannot have a right to citizenship in a person's thoughts. If someone in his mind makes a concession to this tendency, he sins. This is why in the Confiteor one asks forgiveness for thoughts, words and deeds.
As for the act of sodomy, it constitutes a sin that cries out to Heaven and clamors to God for vengeance (See Gn 18:20; Gn 19:12-13; Lv 18:22; Lv 18"24-28; Lv 20:13; 1 Cor 6: 9-10; Rm 1: 24-27; 2 Pt 2:4-9; Jd 7:8).
It is an ominous fact that the "gay" movement is having its way of life (more accurately its way of death) redefined as a simple variant of normal sexuality and woven into the fabric of society. The movement to legitimize homosexuality runs contrary to the constant teaching of the Church. In fact, Saint Thomas Aquinas, writing about sins against nature, explains: "..they are called passions of ignominy because they are not worthy of being named, according to that passage in Ephesians (5:12): 'For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.' For if the sins of the flesh are commonly censurable because they lead man to that which is bestial in him, much more so is the sin against nature, by which man debases himself lower than even his animal nature." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistulas Sancti Pauli Ad Romanum, I, 26, pp. 27f).
Saint Catherine of Sienna, a religious mystic of the 14th century, relays words of Our Lord Jesus Christ about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referring to sacre ministers, He says: "They not only fail from resisting this frailty (of fallen human nature)...but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My divine justice, which could no longer bear them...It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves." (St. Catherine of Sienna, El dialogo, in Obras de Santa Catarina de Siena, Madrid: BAC, 1991, p. 292).
Tertullian, the great apologist of the Church in the second century, writes: 'We condemn all those who give themselves over to the excesses of luxury contrary to natural law...and expel them from the bosom of the Church, for such acts are greater monstrosities than sins." (Tertullian, De pudicitia, IV, in J. McNeill, La Iglesia ante la homosexualidad, p. 134).
Saint Augustine is just as frank in his condemnation of sodomy and similar vices: "Sins against nature, therefore, like the sin of Sodom, are abominable and deserve punishment whenever and wherever they are committed...for our Maker did not prescribe that we should use each other in this way. In fact, the relationship that we ought to have with God is itself violated when our nature, of which He is Author, is desecrated by perverted lust." (St. Augustine, Confessions, New York: Penguin, 1967; Book III. Chap 8, p.65).
If the events of September 11th are a warning, and I believe that they are, then the clergy sex scandal is a judgment. For years, members of the Church's hierarchy have been ignoring the warnings of Our Lady that toleration (and even promotion of) false teaching would lead to a time of crisis.
Many so-called "scripture scholars" and "moral theologians" have destroyed the faith and morality of millions. Many priests and religious "educators" in turn, influenced by these "scholars" and "theologians" have sown doubt about the scriptures and morality, thereby destroying the faith and morality of countless lay persons.
Bishop Córdoba is one such devil. Like so many other clerics today, he has opted to corrupt souls to prepare them for an eternity in Hell.
Their Destroyer is awake and waiting for them.
Homosexuality and lesbianism are both on the increase. This fact is highly significant. Dr. Abram Kardiner, distinguished physician, psychoanalyst and anthropologist, states that homosexuality reaches pestilential and plague proportions in morally rotting societies during the final stages of total collapse.
According to Catholic doctrine, any disorderly tendency, above all to a vice contrary to nature, cannot have a right to citizenship in a person's thoughts. If someone in his mind makes a concession to this tendency, he sins. This is why in the Confiteor one asks forgiveness for thoughts, words and deeds.
As for the act of sodomy, it constitutes a sin that cries out to Heaven and clamors to God for vengeance (See Gn 18:20; Gn 19:12-13; Lv 18:22; Lv 18"24-28; Lv 20:13; 1 Cor 6: 9-10; Rm 1: 24-27; 2 Pt 2:4-9; Jd 7:8).
It is an ominous fact that the "gay" movement is having its way of life (more accurately its way of death) redefined as a simple variant of normal sexuality and woven into the fabric of society. The movement to legitimize homosexuality runs contrary to the constant teaching of the Church. In fact, Saint Thomas Aquinas, writing about sins against nature, explains: "..they are called passions of ignominy because they are not worthy of being named, according to that passage in Ephesians (5:12): 'For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.' For if the sins of the flesh are commonly censurable because they lead man to that which is bestial in him, much more so is the sin against nature, by which man debases himself lower than even his animal nature." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistulas Sancti Pauli Ad Romanum, I, 26, pp. 27f).
Saint Catherine of Sienna, a religious mystic of the 14th century, relays words of Our Lord Jesus Christ about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referring to sacre ministers, He says: "They not only fail from resisting this frailty (of fallen human nature)...but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My divine justice, which could no longer bear them...It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves." (St. Catherine of Sienna, El dialogo, in Obras de Santa Catarina de Siena, Madrid: BAC, 1991, p. 292).
Tertullian, the great apologist of the Church in the second century, writes: 'We condemn all those who give themselves over to the excesses of luxury contrary to natural law...and expel them from the bosom of the Church, for such acts are greater monstrosities than sins." (Tertullian, De pudicitia, IV, in J. McNeill, La Iglesia ante la homosexualidad, p. 134).
Saint Augustine is just as frank in his condemnation of sodomy and similar vices: "Sins against nature, therefore, like the sin of Sodom, are abominable and deserve punishment whenever and wherever they are committed...for our Maker did not prescribe that we should use each other in this way. In fact, the relationship that we ought to have with God is itself violated when our nature, of which He is Author, is desecrated by perverted lust." (St. Augustine, Confessions, New York: Penguin, 1967; Book III. Chap 8, p.65).
If the events of September 11th are a warning, and I believe that they are, then the clergy sex scandal is a judgment. For years, members of the Church's hierarchy have been ignoring the warnings of Our Lady that toleration (and even promotion of) false teaching would lead to a time of crisis.
Many so-called "scripture scholars" and "moral theologians" have destroyed the faith and morality of millions. Many priests and religious "educators" in turn, influenced by these "scholars" and "theologians" have sown doubt about the scriptures and morality, thereby destroying the faith and morality of countless lay persons.
Bishop Córdoba is one such devil. Like so many other clerics today, he has opted to corrupt souls to prepare them for an eternity in Hell.
Their Destroyer is awake and waiting for them.
Friday, May 15, 2015
"When the time of the Antichrist is near..."
Father Linus Clovis makes the point that,“Obedience is owed to the pope, but the pope owes obedience to the word and the apostolic tradition. We have to obey the pope, but the pope himself must obey the written word. He must obey the tradition. He must respond to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Obedience is owed to the pope, but it is the duty of the pope to give the character of possibility to this obedience. The pope has to facilitate our obeying him, by himself being obedient to the Word of God. Pope Felix III told us, ‘an error that is not resisted is approved. A truth that is not defended is suppressed.’ So we have an obligation to resist error, and we must do everything that we can to promote the truth.” Father Clovis made this remark in response to the crisis in the Church and the role of Pope Francis in this crisis. See here.
"The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ and its destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts very new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians of greatest repute. First Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarrez, Bellarmine and Bosius that Rome shall apostatize from the Faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ and return to its ancient paganism. ...Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible; hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were from the face of the earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early Church.”- Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, The Present Crisis of the Holy See, 1861, London: Burns and Lambert, pp. 88-90)
Cardinal Manning delivered a series of lectures in 1861 under the title “The Present Crises of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy” in which Manning he foresaw a future crises in the Roman Catholic Church initiated by a false ecumenism and progressivist theology that many orthodox Catholics have loathed following the Second Vatican Council. Manning believed that this progressivist current would undermine the authority of the Church and ultimately result in a departure from the true faith by the nations together with the displacement of the true pope by a false prophet, thus ushering in the Antichrist and global apostasy. Manning also believed secret societies like the Freemasons were part of this conspiracy. “The secret societies have long ago undermined and honeycombed the Christian society of Europe, and are at this moment struggling onward towards Rome, the center of all Christian order in the world,”he wrote. But when he looked at the prophecy in Revelation 18 concerning the end-time destruction of Mystery Babylon, Manning saw it was the hand of God in judgment of worldwide apostasy emanating from Rome:
"We read in the Book Apocalypse, of the city of Rome, that she said in the pride of her heart, “I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and sorrow I shall not see. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day: death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be burned with fire, because God is strong who shall judge her.” Some of the greatest writers of the Church tell us that…the great City of Seven Hills…the city of Rome will probably become apostate…and that Rome will again be punished, for he will depart from it; and the judgment of God will fall…"
Manning explained how many of Catholicism’s greatest theologians agreed with this point of view:
"The apostasy of the city of Rome…and its destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts so new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians, of greatest repute. First, Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Viegas, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Bosius, that Rome shall apostatize from the faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ, and return to its ancient paganism. Malvenda’s words are:
'But Rome itself in the last times of the world will return to its ancient idolatry, power, and imperial greatness. It will cast out its Pontiff, altogether apostatize from the Christian faith, terribly persecute the Church, shed the blood of martyrs more cruelly than ever, and will recover its former state of abundant wealth, or even greater than it had under its first rulers.'
Lessius says: 'In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be destroyed, as we see openly from the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse;' and again: 'The woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which hath kingdom over the kings of the earth, in which is signified Rome in its impiety, such as it was in the time of St. John, and shall be again at the end of the world.'
And Bellarmine: 'In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be desolated and burnt, as we learn from the sixteenth verse of the seventeenth chapter of the Apocalypse.' On which words the Jesuit Erbermann comments as follows: 'We all confess with Bellarmine that the Roman people, a little before the end of the world, will return to paganism, and drive out the Roman Pontiff.'
Viegas, on the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse says: 'Rome, in the last age of the world, after it has apostatized from the faith, will attain great power and splendor of wealth, and its sway will be widely spread throughout the world, and flourish greatly. Living in luxury and the abundance of all things, it will worship idols, and be steeped in all kinds of superstition, and will pay honor to false gods. And because of the vast effusion of the blood of martyrs which was shed under the emperors, God will most severely and justly avenge them, and it shall be utterly destroyed, and burned by a most terrible and afflicting conflagration.'"
It was Saint John Bosco who prophesied, "And to you, Rome, what will happen! Ungrateful Rome, effeminate Rome, proud Rome! You have reached such a height that you search no further. You admire nothing else in your Sovereign except luxury, forgetting that you and your glory stands upon Golgotha. Now he is old, defenseless, and despoiled; and yet at his word, the word of one who was in bondage, the whole world trembles.
Rome! To you I will come four times.
The first time, I shall strike your lands and the inhabitants thereof.
The second time, I shall bring the massacre and the slaughter even to your very walls. And will you not yet open your eyes?
I shall come a third time and I shall beat down to the ground your defenses and the defenders, and at the command of the Father, the reign of terror, of dreadful fear, and of desolation shall enter into your city.
But My wise men have now fled and My law is even now trampled underfoot. Therefore I will make a fourth visit. Woe to you if My law shall still be considered as empty words. There will be deceit and falsehood among both the learned and the ignorant. Your blood and that of your children will wash away your stains upon God's law. War, pestilence and famine are the rods to scourge men's pride and wickedness. O wealthy men, where is your glory now, your estates, your palaces? They are the rubble on the highways and byways.
And your priests, why have you not run to 'cry between the vestibule and the Altar,' begging God to end these scourges? Why have you not, with the shield of faith, gone upon the housetops, into the homes, along the highways and byways, into every accessible corner to carry the seed of My word? Know you that this is the terrible two-edged sword that cuts down My enemies and breaks the Anger of God and of men?"
In our own time, the germ ideas of a one-world religion are already being sowed. And this false humanitarian religion will burst into poisonous flower when enough hearts have grown cold and have abandoned the true religion. As Jane Le Royer explained in prophecy: "When the time of the Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which will be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known."
Can you not see the emerging signs? How do we find the Church today? The Mystical Body of the Crucified One - the Holy Catholic Church - is climbing Calvary, carrying a heavy cross. She is experiencing the hour of abandonment and betrayal. Her body is being tormented by the scourges of sin which strike at it and by numerous sacrileges which open up deep wounds in it. A Catholic priest in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts openly calls her "evil" just as the Pharisees suggested Our Lord was evil and demon possessed (Matthew 11:18; 12: 24). And his parishioners applaud.
Indeed, Our Lady told Father Gobbi,"The hour of Calvary has arrived for the Church, called to offer herself in holocaust and to be immolated on the cross of her bloody martyrdom. The hour of Calvary has arrived for this poor humanity, which is already beginning to live the painful hours of its chastisement..' (Rome, May 1, 1994).
But too many are proud. Their eyes blinded by sin and egoism. Like the Pharisees before them, they are incapable of reading the signs of the times because their spiritual eyes are closed. They cannot hear the Spirit because their ears are closed. They cannot feel the promptings of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus because their hearts are closed. Such people cannot endure sound teaching but have itching ears and will continue to accumulate teachers who suit their own likings, teachers who will cater to their lusts by providing them with myths (2 Timothy 4: 3, 4).
And still so many of our shepherds remain silent like mute dogs. They have not begged God to end these scourges. They have not wept between the vestibule and the altar. They have not taken up the shield of faith to protect their flocks. Their judgment will be all the more severe, for God expects more from His ministers (Luke 12: 48).
Francis Effect.
"The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ and its destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts very new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians of greatest repute. First Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarrez, Bellarmine and Bosius that Rome shall apostatize from the Faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ and return to its ancient paganism. ...Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible; hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were from the face of the earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early Church.”- Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, The Present Crisis of the Holy See, 1861, London: Burns and Lambert, pp. 88-90)
Cardinal Manning delivered a series of lectures in 1861 under the title “The Present Crises of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy” in which Manning he foresaw a future crises in the Roman Catholic Church initiated by a false ecumenism and progressivist theology that many orthodox Catholics have loathed following the Second Vatican Council. Manning believed that this progressivist current would undermine the authority of the Church and ultimately result in a departure from the true faith by the nations together with the displacement of the true pope by a false prophet, thus ushering in the Antichrist and global apostasy. Manning also believed secret societies like the Freemasons were part of this conspiracy. “The secret societies have long ago undermined and honeycombed the Christian society of Europe, and are at this moment struggling onward towards Rome, the center of all Christian order in the world,”he wrote. But when he looked at the prophecy in Revelation 18 concerning the end-time destruction of Mystery Babylon, Manning saw it was the hand of God in judgment of worldwide apostasy emanating from Rome:
"We read in the Book Apocalypse, of the city of Rome, that she said in the pride of her heart, “I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and sorrow I shall not see. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day: death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be burned with fire, because God is strong who shall judge her.” Some of the greatest writers of the Church tell us that…the great City of Seven Hills…the city of Rome will probably become apostate…and that Rome will again be punished, for he will depart from it; and the judgment of God will fall…"
Manning explained how many of Catholicism’s greatest theologians agreed with this point of view:
"The apostasy of the city of Rome…and its destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts so new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians, of greatest repute. First, Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Viegas, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Bosius, that Rome shall apostatize from the faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ, and return to its ancient paganism. Malvenda’s words are:
'But Rome itself in the last times of the world will return to its ancient idolatry, power, and imperial greatness. It will cast out its Pontiff, altogether apostatize from the Christian faith, terribly persecute the Church, shed the blood of martyrs more cruelly than ever, and will recover its former state of abundant wealth, or even greater than it had under its first rulers.'
Lessius says: 'In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be destroyed, as we see openly from the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse;' and again: 'The woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which hath kingdom over the kings of the earth, in which is signified Rome in its impiety, such as it was in the time of St. John, and shall be again at the end of the world.'
And Bellarmine: 'In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be desolated and burnt, as we learn from the sixteenth verse of the seventeenth chapter of the Apocalypse.' On which words the Jesuit Erbermann comments as follows: 'We all confess with Bellarmine that the Roman people, a little before the end of the world, will return to paganism, and drive out the Roman Pontiff.'
Viegas, on the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse says: 'Rome, in the last age of the world, after it has apostatized from the faith, will attain great power and splendor of wealth, and its sway will be widely spread throughout the world, and flourish greatly. Living in luxury and the abundance of all things, it will worship idols, and be steeped in all kinds of superstition, and will pay honor to false gods. And because of the vast effusion of the blood of martyrs which was shed under the emperors, God will most severely and justly avenge them, and it shall be utterly destroyed, and burned by a most terrible and afflicting conflagration.'"
It was Saint John Bosco who prophesied, "And to you, Rome, what will happen! Ungrateful Rome, effeminate Rome, proud Rome! You have reached such a height that you search no further. You admire nothing else in your Sovereign except luxury, forgetting that you and your glory stands upon Golgotha. Now he is old, defenseless, and despoiled; and yet at his word, the word of one who was in bondage, the whole world trembles.
Rome! To you I will come four times.
The first time, I shall strike your lands and the inhabitants thereof.
The second time, I shall bring the massacre and the slaughter even to your very walls. And will you not yet open your eyes?
I shall come a third time and I shall beat down to the ground your defenses and the defenders, and at the command of the Father, the reign of terror, of dreadful fear, and of desolation shall enter into your city.
But My wise men have now fled and My law is even now trampled underfoot. Therefore I will make a fourth visit. Woe to you if My law shall still be considered as empty words. There will be deceit and falsehood among both the learned and the ignorant. Your blood and that of your children will wash away your stains upon God's law. War, pestilence and famine are the rods to scourge men's pride and wickedness. O wealthy men, where is your glory now, your estates, your palaces? They are the rubble on the highways and byways.
And your priests, why have you not run to 'cry between the vestibule and the Altar,' begging God to end these scourges? Why have you not, with the shield of faith, gone upon the housetops, into the homes, along the highways and byways, into every accessible corner to carry the seed of My word? Know you that this is the terrible two-edged sword that cuts down My enemies and breaks the Anger of God and of men?"
In our own time, the germ ideas of a one-world religion are already being sowed. And this false humanitarian religion will burst into poisonous flower when enough hearts have grown cold and have abandoned the true religion. As Jane Le Royer explained in prophecy: "When the time of the Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which will be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known."
Can you not see the emerging signs? How do we find the Church today? The Mystical Body of the Crucified One - the Holy Catholic Church - is climbing Calvary, carrying a heavy cross. She is experiencing the hour of abandonment and betrayal. Her body is being tormented by the scourges of sin which strike at it and by numerous sacrileges which open up deep wounds in it. A Catholic priest in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts openly calls her "evil" just as the Pharisees suggested Our Lord was evil and demon possessed (Matthew 11:18; 12: 24). And his parishioners applaud.
Indeed, Our Lady told Father Gobbi,"The hour of Calvary has arrived for the Church, called to offer herself in holocaust and to be immolated on the cross of her bloody martyrdom. The hour of Calvary has arrived for this poor humanity, which is already beginning to live the painful hours of its chastisement..' (Rome, May 1, 1994).
But too many are proud. Their eyes blinded by sin and egoism. Like the Pharisees before them, they are incapable of reading the signs of the times because their spiritual eyes are closed. They cannot hear the Spirit because their ears are closed. They cannot feel the promptings of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus because their hearts are closed. Such people cannot endure sound teaching but have itching ears and will continue to accumulate teachers who suit their own likings, teachers who will cater to their lusts by providing them with myths (2 Timothy 4: 3, 4).
And still so many of our shepherds remain silent like mute dogs. They have not begged God to end these scourges. They have not wept between the vestibule and the altar. They have not taken up the shield of faith to protect their flocks. Their judgment will be all the more severe, for God expects more from His ministers (Luke 12: 48).
Francis Effect.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Pope Francis welcomes a sociopath at the Vatican
Not many people, including Catholics, are aware of Raúl Castro's background. The brother of Fidel is in fact a sociopath who served as an executioner during the revolution as well as after his brother took power.
Raúl was known for his ruthlessness and brutality. Years after the revolution, the homicidal maniac, who quite possibly is demon possessed, suggested that his nickname should be "Raúl the Terrible" for his role in hundreds of killings. He even executed a close friend, Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, on orders from Fidel in 1989.
Cubans who dare to criticize the government or the policies of this psychopath, have much to fear. See here.
But the murderous psychopath found himself entirely welcome at the Vatican. As this article explains:
"Cuban President Raul Castro paid a call Sunday on Pope Francis at the Vatican to thank him for working for Cuban-U.S. detente — and said he was so impressed by the pontiff he is considering a return to the Catholic church’s fold.
“Bienvenido (welcome)!” Francis said in his native Spanish, welcoming Castro to his studio near the Vatican public audience hall. The Cuban president, bowing his head, gripped Francis’ hand with both of his, and the two men began private talks. The meeting lasted nearly an hour, as the Argentine-born Francis and Castro spoke in Spanish."
Is there any doubt where Francis is taking the Church? I'm a devout Catholic, a loyal son of the Church, a cradle Catholic who accepts and defends the Magisterial teaching of the Church. I live a chaste (celibate) life. I feel called to the ministerial priesthood. When I left several comments at the Pope's Facebook page highlighting the fact that my Diocese won't even acknowledge my requests to APPLY for the priesthood and to initiate a DISCERNMENT process, I received no welcome, no assistance, not even a bienvenido- a welcome.
So, a Socialist psychopath who has executed so many people that he himself wanted to be nicknamed "The Terrible" finds a hearty welcome and a personal one hour audience.
And Catholics like myself who embrace the Church's Tradition or who (God forbid), have a devotion to the Latin Mass, get....well....relegated to the ghetto.
FrancisChurch: Loyal sons of Tradition need not apply. Sociopaths welcome.
Got it....must pray many more Rosaries for the Church and her leadership.
Raúl was known for his ruthlessness and brutality. Years after the revolution, the homicidal maniac, who quite possibly is demon possessed, suggested that his nickname should be "Raúl the Terrible" for his role in hundreds of killings. He even executed a close friend, Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, on orders from Fidel in 1989.
Cubans who dare to criticize the government or the policies of this psychopath, have much to fear. See here.
But the murderous psychopath found himself entirely welcome at the Vatican. As this article explains:
"Cuban President Raul Castro paid a call Sunday on Pope Francis at the Vatican to thank him for working for Cuban-U.S. detente — and said he was so impressed by the pontiff he is considering a return to the Catholic church’s fold.
“Bienvenido (welcome)!” Francis said in his native Spanish, welcoming Castro to his studio near the Vatican public audience hall. The Cuban president, bowing his head, gripped Francis’ hand with both of his, and the two men began private talks. The meeting lasted nearly an hour, as the Argentine-born Francis and Castro spoke in Spanish."
Is there any doubt where Francis is taking the Church? I'm a devout Catholic, a loyal son of the Church, a cradle Catholic who accepts and defends the Magisterial teaching of the Church. I live a chaste (celibate) life. I feel called to the ministerial priesthood. When I left several comments at the Pope's Facebook page highlighting the fact that my Diocese won't even acknowledge my requests to APPLY for the priesthood and to initiate a DISCERNMENT process, I received no welcome, no assistance, not even a bienvenido- a welcome.
So, a Socialist psychopath who has executed so many people that he himself wanted to be nicknamed "The Terrible" finds a hearty welcome and a personal one hour audience.
And Catholics like myself who embrace the Church's Tradition or who (God forbid), have a devotion to the Latin Mass, get....well....relegated to the ghetto.
FrancisChurch: Loyal sons of Tradition need not apply. Sociopaths welcome.
Got it....must pray many more Rosaries for the Church and her leadership.
Saturday, May 09, 2015
"...everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost..."
The homosexual agenda, aided by ecclesiastical masonry, continues to spread throughout the Church like a cancer. These are times of diabolical disorientation during which satanic forces seek to change Catholic moral teaching relative to homosexuality. See here.
The Church is being tempted by a new paganism. See here. Many are those within the Church who have abandoned prayer, especially the Holy Rosary, and who are therefore more susceptible to falsehood. Those who follow this path will almost inevitably desert the Barque of Peter and the Tradition of the Church.
It was Romano Guardini who warned that:
"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 without 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."
- The Lord, p. 513
Our Lady's promises to those who pray the Rosary here.
The Church is being tempted by a new paganism. See here. Many are those within the Church who have abandoned prayer, especially the Holy Rosary, and who are therefore more susceptible to falsehood. Those who follow this path will almost inevitably desert the Barque of Peter and the Tradition of the Church.
It was Romano Guardini who warned that:
"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 without 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."
- The Lord, p. 513
Our Lady's promises to those who pray the Rosary here.
Friday, May 08, 2015
Monsignor Charles Pope on Fraternal Correction
Pondering Pruning – A Meditation on This Necessary Work of God in Our Lives
By: Msgr. Charles Pope
The gospel from Sunday (John 15:1-8) presents us with an important meditation on the difference between love and kindness. Perhaps some further reflections from this gospel are in order today.
There is an unfortunate tendency in our times to reduce love to kindness. Kindness is an aspect of love, but so is rebuke. It is an immature notion of love that reduces it merely to affirming, or that refers to proper correction as a form of “hate.”
We saw in yesterday’s gospel that proper care involves the Lord “pruning” us so that we bear more fruit. But in soft times like these, many would not consider pruning, which is painful, to be proper care. Any reasonable, mature, balanced assessment yields the truth that pruning is necessary and is part of proper care.
Though I am less familiar with grape vines, I know my roses. And while I feed and water them, treat their common diseases, and pull the weeds that seek to choke them, I also prune them—sometimes quite severely. At this time of year, my fall pruning vindicates itself as proper care—the first rosebuds and the luxuriant foliage are in glorious evidence! Through the year I will continue all my care, including pruning, cutting away diseased branches, and shaping the plants. Who of you will question me for what I do to my beautiful roses?
It is no less the case with us that the Lord must prune us. And who would question the Lord for this necessary work? Yet many in our times do question Him and His Body, the Church, for doing just this.
First of all, He does this by proclaiming His Word: You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you (Jn 15:3). In this proclamation is a kind of pruning of the intellect; our worldly thinking and priorities are pruned away by the truth of God’s wisdom and His Word, which is like a scalpel or pruning hook.
Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account (Heb 4:12-13).
The Word of God prunes away our error by shining the light of truth on our foolishness and worldliness; it exposes our sinfulness and silly preoccupations. It lays bare our inordinate self-esteem and all the sinful drives that flow from it: pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. A steady diet of God’s Word prunes and purifies our mind, reordering it gradually.
Yet for many of us, the Word of God alone (while sufficient in itself) is not enough due to our stubbornness and tendency to rationalize our bad behavior and “stinking thinking.” Too easily we call good or “no big deal” what God calls sin and surround ourselves with teachers and “experts” who tell us what our itching ears want to hear (cf 2 Tim 4:3).
And thus further pruning is needed. Such further pruning can be accomplished in two ways: active and passive purification. Active purifications are things that we undertake ourselves such as fasting or other mortifications. These help to prune away what stunts healthy growth and the fruits of righteousness.
But honestly, none of us will ever really do enough active purification to accomplish what is really needed—not even close. Consider an analogy I have used before: could you perform an appendectomy on yourself? Of course not! First, you could not really see enough to be able do it properly. Second, you would never be able to inflict that much pain on yourself. Such things must be accomplished for us by others.
Therefore, since active purifications are not enough to prune us properly, we must also accept passive purifications. Passive purifications are those things that God does or allows in order to prune us. And frankly some of them are quite painful: serious losses or setbacks, struggles with our health, difficulties in marriage or other vocations, the death of loved ones, the end of relationships, humiliating occurrences, accidents, and so forth. Other passive purifications are less painful, involving minor irritations, disappointments, or discomforts.
And when these occur we cry out in pain. Pruning hurts. But it may well be just what we need. The honest truth is that we human beings are so gifted, talented, and capable that if we didn’t have a few things to keep us humble, we’d be so proud we’d just go to Hell.
So God prunes. And whether we like to admit it or not, it is a form of care. We need these passive purifications; we need the pruning that keeps us bearing the fruit of holiness and righteousness.
In soft times like these, when the application of limits or the use of the word “no” is deemed “unloving” or “hateful,” we who would be Christians and light to the world must become clearer ourselves about the need for pruning. Even in the Church there is a hesitancy to speak of this need or of anything considered “negative” or “challenging.” To all this we can only reply that it is necessary at times for the surgeon to wield the scalpel, the vinedresser to apply the pruning sheers, the Lord to use passive purifications. It is hard and painful at times, but there is no other way given our stubborn and sin-prone souls.
There is also a communal dimension to this that was mentioned in yesterday’s gospel: He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit (Jn 15:2). This is not the pruning of a single branch; it is the cutting away of any branches that do not bear fruit and thus sap energy from the others.
In these highly individualistic times it is harder for people to grasp the common good and why it is sometimes necessary for the Lord to wholly remove from His Body (the Church) those who refuse to bear fruit. But the common good really is the answer.
And now back to my roses: one of my rose bushes tends to go wild. In the last two years it has become gnarly, losing its shape. Its roses have lost their wedged-tulip shape and are becoming small and rounded. I have taken to pruning it severely in the hopes of saving it. So far this has yielded limited success. This year, if it does not respond and return from the wild side, I will have to remove it. This is not only due to my preferences; I am concerned that the other bushes will cross-pollinate with it and also lose their dignity and form. One wild rose bush tends to exert its influence on others. Who of you will question me for what I do to protect my roses?
And who of us should protest against God for what He does to keep His vine strong and Heaven pure?
Pruning is needed both to help us bear fruit and to save us. It falls to us, like a faithful remnant, to recover this notion and teach it without apology or embarrassment. God knows what He is doing. He knows what makes for good disciples and perfect souls. It is hard, though, and it’s OK to ask God to be gentle with us. But in the end, may God never do anything less than is necessary to prepare heavenly glories for us.
Find his article here
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I've been saying this for years. But in our sacharrin society, medicinal rebuke is often mistaken for a "lack of charity" (see here, for example) when in actuality such constructive criticism aids in healing. In his excellent work entitled "Liberalism is a sin," Fr. Felix Sarda Y Salvany writes:
"If the propagation of good and the necessity of combating evil require the employment of terms somewhat harsh against error and its supporters, this usage is certainly not against charity. This is a corollary or consequence of the principle we have just demonstrated. We must render evil odious and detestable. We cannot attain this result without pointing out the dangers of evil, without showing how and why it is odious, detestable and contemptible. Christian oratory of all ages has ever employed the most vigorous and emphatic rhetoric in the arsenal of human speech against impiety. In the writings of the great athletes of Christianity the usage of irony, imprecation, execration and of the most crushing epithets is continual. Hence the only law is the opportunity and the truth.
But there is another justification for such an usage. Popular propagation and apologetics cannot preserve elegant and constrained academic forms. In order to convince the people we must speak to their heart and their imagination which can only be touched by ardent, brilliant, and impassioned language. To be impassioned is not to be reprehensible----when our heat is the holy ardor of truth. The supposed violence of modern Ultramontane journalism not only falls short of Liberal journalism, but is amply justified by every page of the works of our great Catholic polemicists of other epochs.
This is easily verified. St. John the Baptist calls the Pharisees "race of vipers," Jesus Christ, our Divine Savior, hurls at them the epithets "hypocrites, whitened sepulchers, a perverse and adulterous generation" without thinking for this reason that He sullies the sanctity of His benevolent speech. St. Paul criticizes the schismatic Cretins as "always liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies." The same apostle calls Elymas the magician a "seducer, full of guile and deceit, child of the Devil, enemy of all justice."
If we open the Fathers we find the same vigorous castigation of heresy and heretics. St. Jerome arguing against Vigilantius casts in his face his former occupation of saloonkeeper: "From your infancy," he says to him, "you have learned other things than theology and betaken yourself to other pursuits. To verify at the same time the value of your money accounts and the value of Scriptural texts, to sample wines and grasp the meaning of the prophets and apostles are certainly not occupations which the same man can accomplish with credit." On another occasion attacking the same Vigilantius, who denied the excellence of virginity and of fasting, St. Jerome, with his usual sprightliness, asks him if he spoke thus "in order not to diminish the receipts of his saloon?" Heavens! What an outcry would be raised if one of our Ultramontane controversialists were to write against a Liberal critic or heretic of our own day in this fashion!
What shall we say of St. John Chrysostom? His famous invective against Eutropius is not comparable, in its personal and aggressive character, to the cruel invectives of Cicero against Catiline and against Verres! The gentle St. Bernard did not honey his words when he attacked the enemies of the faith. Addressing Arnold of Brescia, the great Liberal agitator of his times, he calls him in all his letters "seducer, vase of injuries, scorpion, cruel wolf."
The pacific St. Thomas of Acquinas forgets the calm of his cold syllogisms when he hurls his violent apostrophe against William of St. Amour and his disciples: "Enemies of God," he cries out, "ministers of the Devil, members of antiChrist, ignorami, perverts, reprobates!" Never did the illustrious Louis Veuillot speak so boldly. The seraphic St. Bonaventure, so full of sweetness, overwhelms his adversary Gerard with such epithets as "impudent, calumniator, spirit of malice, impious, shameless, ignorant, impostor, malefactor, perfidious, ingrate!" Did St. Francis de Sales, so delicately exquisite and tender, ever purr softly over the heretics of his age and country? He pardoned their injuries, heaped benefits on them even to the point of saving the lives of those who sought to take his, but with the enemies of the faith he preserved neither moderation nor consideration.
Asked by a Catholic, who desired to know if it were permissible to speak evil of a heretic who propagated false doctrines, he replied: "Yes, you can, on the condition that you adhere to the exact truth, to what you know of his bad conduct, presenting that which is doubtful as doubtful according to the degree of doubt which you may have in this regard."
In his Introduction to a Devout Life, that precious and popular work, he expresses himself again: "If the declared enemies of God and of the Church ought to be blamed and censured with all possible vigor, charity obliges us to cry 'wolf' when the wolf slips into the midst of the flock, and in every way and place we may meet him."
This is real meat for real Catholics. It was Sir Edmund Burke who said that, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is for good people to do nothing." When we witness another Catholic (and yes, even a priest) promoting homosexuality, abortion, contraception, New Age, witchcraft, or dissent in general, we have an obligation (in charity) to speak the truth and to show others how that individual's words, ideas or actions fail to hold up when placed in the Lumen Christi - when held up to the Magisterial teaching of the Church.
If someone wants to accuse us of "having an axe to grind," simply because we speak the truth, that's their affair. But such people should recall what St. Catherine had to say about medicinal rebuke and should meditate upon these passages from Sacred Scripture:"Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." (Galatians 6:7-8).
"Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark SHALL BE HEARD IN THE LIGHT, and what you have whispered in private rooms SHALL BE PROCLAIMED FROM THE HOUSETOPS." (Luke 12:2-3).
The Word of the Lord.
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Sofia Vergara admits that the traditional family is needed
Sofia Vergara of "Modern Family" fame, recently shared her parenting philosophy, insisting that, "A child needs a mother and a loving relationship with parents...A kid needs parents. I wouldn’t want to bring kids to the world where it’s already against them. It would be so selfish." See here.
Witness the irony here. An actress who stars in a television series which has favorably portrayed a same-sex couple "marrying" on network TV publically acknowledges, during a candid interview, that a child needs two parents- a mother and a father.
Vatican II's Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum Educationis) teaches us that: "Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered. Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs. It is particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor. Here, too, they find their first experience of a wholesome human society and of the Church. Finally, it is through the family that they are gradually led to a companionship with their fellowmen and with the people of God. Let parents, then, recognize the inestimable importance a truly Christian family has for the life and progress of God's own people." (No. 3).
There is an old proverb which says, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." And there is much truth to that axiom. This is precisely why adoptions by same-sex "couples" are so alarming. If the hand that rocks the cradle belongs to an individual with a warped personality whose sexual orientation is "intrinsically disordered" (CCC, 2357), then, as Fr. Vincent P. Miceli has noted, "the world will not be ruled but ruined."
Do we really believe what Vatican II teaches? Do we really believe that "the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs"? Or are we willing to abandon innocent children to the corrosive atmosphere and negative influence of a psychopathology? Do we really believe that, as Vatican II teaches, it is "particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor"?
Are we prepared to deny innocent children their fundamental right to experience both a "wholesome human society" as well as the domestic church within a normal family with a mother and a father? Or will we sacrifice these innocent children to the perverse influence of crippled personalities who lack the grace which comes from the sacrament of marriage and which enables parents to fulfill their very great responsibility?
Only time will tell.
Witness the irony here. An actress who stars in a television series which has favorably portrayed a same-sex couple "marrying" on network TV publically acknowledges, during a candid interview, that a child needs two parents- a mother and a father.
Vatican II's Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum Educationis) teaches us that: "Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered. Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs. It is particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor. Here, too, they find their first experience of a wholesome human society and of the Church. Finally, it is through the family that they are gradually led to a companionship with their fellowmen and with the people of God. Let parents, then, recognize the inestimable importance a truly Christian family has for the life and progress of God's own people." (No. 3).
There is an old proverb which says, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." And there is much truth to that axiom. This is precisely why adoptions by same-sex "couples" are so alarming. If the hand that rocks the cradle belongs to an individual with a warped personality whose sexual orientation is "intrinsically disordered" (CCC, 2357), then, as Fr. Vincent P. Miceli has noted, "the world will not be ruled but ruined."
Do we really believe what Vatican II teaches? Do we really believe that "the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs"? Or are we willing to abandon innocent children to the corrosive atmosphere and negative influence of a psychopathology? Do we really believe that, as Vatican II teaches, it is "particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor"?
Are we prepared to deny innocent children their fundamental right to experience both a "wholesome human society" as well as the domestic church within a normal family with a mother and a father? Or will we sacrifice these innocent children to the perverse influence of crippled personalities who lack the grace which comes from the sacrament of marriage and which enables parents to fulfill their very great responsibility?
Only time will tell.
Saturday, May 02, 2015
Opponents of religious freedom are driven by satanic rage
Charlie Butts and Jody Brown, in an article written for OneNewsNow, note that, "The opponents of religious freedom aren't stopping at trying to redefine marriage. In the words of one attorney, recent events indicate they also want to 'ruin every aspect' of the lives of those who stand for natural marriage."
I've been warning for years that the same radical homosexual activists who continually cry for more "tolerance" are anything but tolerant. This is a spiritual war. The homosexual movement is not a civil rights movement. It is an attempt at moral revolution. An attempt to change people's view of homosexuality.
Writing in the Chicago Free Press, even homosexual activist Paul Varnell admitted this. He wrote, "The fundamental controverted issue about homosexuality is not discrimination, hate crimes or domestic partnerships, but the morality of homosexuality. Even if gays obtain non-discrimination laws, hate crimes law and domestic partnership benefits, those can do little to counter the underlying moral condemnation which will continue to fester beneath the law and generate hostility, fuel hate crimes, support conversion therapies, encourage gay youth suicide and inhibit the full social acceptance that is our goal. On the other hand, if we convince people that homosexuality is fully moral, then all their inclination to discriminate, engage in gay-bashing or oppose gay marriage disappears. Gay youths and adults could readily accept themselves. So the gay movement, whether we acknowledge it or not, is not a civil rights movement, not even a sexual liberation movement, but a moral revolution aimed at changing people's view of homosexuality." (Paul Varnell, "Defending Our Morality," Chicago Free Press, Aug 16, 2000, http://indegayforum.org/authors/varnell/varnell37.html).
In a previous post, I mentioned how Professor James Hitchcock, in his excellent work entitled "Catholicism and Modernity" (New York: Seabury Press, 1979, p. 86), explains the role of the media in this entire process:"The media's alleged commitment to 'pluralism' is at base a kind of hoax. The banner of pluralism is raised in order to win toleration for new ideas as yet unacceptable to the majority. Once toleration has been achieved, public opinion is systematically manipulated first to enforce a status of equality between the old and the new, then to assert the superiority of the new over the old. A final stage is often the total discrediting, even sometimes the banning, of what had previously been orthodox."
We have entered that final stage. Christianity will now be criminalized because of evil forces without the Church and cowardly Christians within her who cannot even muster enough fortitude to stand with Jesus in defense of His truth.
Blessed are they who are not ashamed of the Lord Jesus. What does that suggest about those who are?
Recommended meditation: Rev 3:16.
I've been warning for years that the same radical homosexual activists who continually cry for more "tolerance" are anything but tolerant. This is a spiritual war. The homosexual movement is not a civil rights movement. It is an attempt at moral revolution. An attempt to change people's view of homosexuality.
Writing in the Chicago Free Press, even homosexual activist Paul Varnell admitted this. He wrote, "The fundamental controverted issue about homosexuality is not discrimination, hate crimes or domestic partnerships, but the morality of homosexuality. Even if gays obtain non-discrimination laws, hate crimes law and domestic partnership benefits, those can do little to counter the underlying moral condemnation which will continue to fester beneath the law and generate hostility, fuel hate crimes, support conversion therapies, encourage gay youth suicide and inhibit the full social acceptance that is our goal. On the other hand, if we convince people that homosexuality is fully moral, then all their inclination to discriminate, engage in gay-bashing or oppose gay marriage disappears. Gay youths and adults could readily accept themselves. So the gay movement, whether we acknowledge it or not, is not a civil rights movement, not even a sexual liberation movement, but a moral revolution aimed at changing people's view of homosexuality." (Paul Varnell, "Defending Our Morality," Chicago Free Press, Aug 16, 2000, http://indegayforum.org/authors/varnell/varnell37.html).
In a previous post, I mentioned how Professor James Hitchcock, in his excellent work entitled "Catholicism and Modernity" (New York: Seabury Press, 1979, p. 86), explains the role of the media in this entire process:"The media's alleged commitment to 'pluralism' is at base a kind of hoax. The banner of pluralism is raised in order to win toleration for new ideas as yet unacceptable to the majority. Once toleration has been achieved, public opinion is systematically manipulated first to enforce a status of equality between the old and the new, then to assert the superiority of the new over the old. A final stage is often the total discrediting, even sometimes the banning, of what had previously been orthodox."
We have entered that final stage. Christianity will now be criminalized because of evil forces without the Church and cowardly Christians within her who cannot even muster enough fortitude to stand with Jesus in defense of His truth.
Blessed are they who are not ashamed of the Lord Jesus. What does that suggest about those who are?
Recommended meditation: Rev 3:16.
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