We have hope because of the empty grave

The earth is a giant graveyard.  But we have hope because one of these graves is empty.  Christ Jesus came to save us from sin and its consequence: death (Romans 6: 23).  And as Dr. Peter Kreeft once said, "The Resurrection also sharply distinguishes Jesus from all the other religious founders.  The bones of Abraham and Muhammad and Buddha and Confucius and Lao-tzu and Zoroaster are still here on earth.  Jesus' tomb is empty.  The existential consequences of the resurrection are incomparable.  It is the concrete, factual, empirical proof that: life has hope and meaning; 'love is stronger than death'; goodness and power are ultimately allies, not enemies; life wins in the end; God has touched us right where we are and has defeated our last enemy; we are not cosmic orphans, as our modern secular worldview would make us.."

In his poem entitled "The Convert," Gilbert Keith Chesterton so eloquently presents this truth:

After one moment when I bowed my head

And the whole world turned over and came upright,

And I came out where the old road shone white,

I walked the ways and heard what all men said,

Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,

Being not unlovable but strange and light;

Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite

But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give

That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,

They rattle reason out through many a sieve

That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:

And all these things are less than dust to me

Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (Jn 1:5).  And it never will.  Not even that supreme darkness and deception which is fast-approaching (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675).  Our sad broken world is dying.  Heaven and earth will pass away.  But not the word of the Living God.

America continues on the road toward totalitarianism

 How close are we to an authoritarian police state?  See here. For years I've been warning that America was in twilight.   See here for example.

We cannot say we haven't been warned.  See here.

A Satanic Earth Charter for a New Age.  See here.

The Termite Nations have dispensed with God and His Commandments in their quest for unbridled hedonism. We are being prepared for the Reign of Antichrist. The Rev. P. Huchede, in his work entitled "History of Antichrist," explains the religious preparation, both intellectual and moral, for the Reign of Antichrist which will arrive after economic collapse: "But how shall he deprive the world of Christianity and have himself adored as God? Alas, it is only too true that the minds and hearts of men are admirably disposed for revolution and consequently ready to accept and bear the cruel yoke of such a tyrant. Revolution as the word itself implies means a subversion, but a subversion of all that is true, good, beautiful, and grand in the universe. It is the subversion of religion, representing its dogmas as myths and its moral teachings as tyranical. It is the subversion of authority. Licentiousness under the name of liberty becomes the order of the day; each one is invested with the right to govern himself. It is the subversion of reason: and do we not find leading minds in some of the most enlightened nations denying the principle of contradiction and maintaining the absolute identity of all beings? Revolution is therefore essentially destructive, and it becomes cosmopolitan by the action of secret societies scattered throughout the world. Is it not true to say that the 'mystery of iniquity' is prepared in secret revolutionary dens? But it does not suffice to destroy; it is absolutely necessary to build up again. The world cannot subsist long in a vacuum. It must have a religion; it must have a philosophy; it must have an authority. Revolution will furnish all these. Instead of the reasonable and supernatural religion of Jesus Christ, Revolution will preach Pantheism. The God-humanity will impart the theurgic spirit and thus lead men to adore the demon as the author of universal emancipation...

What frightful immorality must follow in the train of this shameless prostitution of religion! Never has the threefold concupiscence made greater ravage among mankind. And this is the religion sought and hoped for as the cherished boon of the aspirations of our modern free thinkers. To our Christian philosophy, the honor of humanity's revolution will substitute a babel of extravagant and absurd ideas. Instead of a mild and efficient authority consecrated alike by Church and state, despotism and anarchy will rise up and contend for the shreds of religious liberty and human policy...if the state of perversion continue for a while longer, he [Antichrist] will find the world prepared to receive and serve him." (Rev. P. Huchede, History of Antichrist, pp. 13-14, Tan Books).

The spirit of Antichrist is intensifying and hostility toward Christians (and the Catholic Church in particular) is spreading like a cancer.  Father Bernard Maria Clausi. O.F.M. (d. 1849), speaking of the coming chastisement, says that before the Triumph of the Church, "terrible will be the persecution of the wicked against the just.."  

And this persecution will soon become bloody. For the Lucifer State will not tolerate dissent.  Already preparation is underway for killing those who refuse to accept the Satanic programme.

"Pope" Francis on violence or physician heal thyself

 “When we resort to violence, we show that we no longer know anything about God, who is our Father, or even about others, who are our brothers and sisters.  We lose sight of why we are in the world and even end up committing senseless acts of cruelty..." - Francis.  See here.

Does this mean Francis is acknowledging that he no longer knows anything about God?  Was this not an example of violence?

Damian Thompson in The Spectator: "..plenty of Vatican employees will testify to his [Bergoglio’s]outbursts of temper, rudeness towards subordinates and vulgar language."

Is it not fair to say that "outbursts of temper," "rudeness towards subordinates" and "vulgar language" constitutes "resorting to violence"?

St. Jean Vianney:

THE SEWER OF HELL

"There is yet another form of wrongdoing which is all the more deplorable in that it is more common, and that is licentious talk. There is nothing more abominable, my dear brethren, nothing more horrible than such talk. Indeed, my children, what could be more out of keeping with the holiness of our religion than impure language? It outrages God, it scandalises our neighbour. To put it even more clearly, loose talk releases all the passions. Very often it requires only one immodest or unseemly word to start a thousand evil thoughts, a thousand shameful desires, perhaps even to cause a fall into an infinite number of other sins and to bring to innocent souls evil of which they had been happily ignorant.

Can the Christian really afford to occupy his mind with such horrible images, a Christian who is the temple of the Holy Ghost, a Christian who has been sanctified by contact with the most adorable Body and precious Blood of Jesus Christ? Oh, Lord, if we had but some small idea of what we do when we commit sin! If our Lord has taught us that we may judge the tree by its fruit, you may judge after listening to the talk of certain people what must be the corruption of their hearts; and yet such corruption is very commonly encountered.

What sort of conversation do you hear among young people?

Is there anything in their mouths but this kind of loose talk?

Go -- I dare to say it with St. John Chrysostom -- go into these cabarets, into these haunts of impurity! What does the conversation turn upon, even among elderly people? Are they not trying to make a name for themselves by seeing who can be the most outrageous? Their mouths are like some sewer that Hell makes use of to spew its filth and its impurities over the earth and drag souls down to its depths. What are these bad Christians -- or rather these envoys from the nether regions -- doing?

Instead of singing the praises of God, their songs are shameful and hideous; they are songs which ought to make a Christian die of horror. Oh, great God, who would not tremble at the thought of what God's judgment of all this will be! If, as Jesus Christ Himself tells us, not a single idle word will be unpunished, alas! What will be the punishment for these licentious conversations, these indecent topics, these shameful and horrible images, which make the hair stand on end? If you would imagine how blind these poor unhappy people are, just listen to them talking after this fashion: "I had no bad intention," they will tell you, "it was just for a laugh; these things are only trifles, little stupid things, that mean nothing at all."

Is that so, my dear brethren? A sin so horrible in God's eyes that sacrilege alone surpasses it in evil! This is a trifle to you?

No, it is your hearts which are destroyed and corrupted! No! No! No one can afford to laugh or joke about something from which we should fly in horror, as we would from some pursuing beast which wanted to devour us. Besides, my dear brethren, what a crime it is to like something which God wants us to detest with all our hearts! You may tell me that you had no bad intentions, but tell me this, too, miserable and wretched tool of Hell, what about those who are listening to you -- do they have less bad thoughts and criminal desires after they have heard you? Will your harmless intention stay the workings of their imaginations and their hearts? Be honest and tell me that you are, in fact, the cause of the loss and eternal damnation of their souls! How many souls are hurled into Hell because of this sin?

The Holy Ghost tells us that this ugly sin of impurity has covered the whole surface of the earth.

I will say no more now on this subject, my children. I will return to it in an instruction when I shall do my best to depict it for you again with even more horror."

No doubt Francis would dismiss Saint John Vianney as "rigid."  That's what Pharisees do. They strain at a gnat while swallowing a camel.

Nativity School of Worcester needs to abide by the prescripts of Bishop Robert McManus

 Can. 806 §1. The diocesan bishop has the right to watch over and visit the Catholic schools in his territory, even those which members of religious institutes have founded or direct. He also issues prescripts which pertain to the general regulation of Catholic schools; these prescripts are valid also for schools which these religious direct, without prejudice, however, to their autonomy regarding the internal direction of their schools.

Apparently this truth has been forgotten by some.  As noted here, "A Worcester Jesuit middle school and the Diocese of Worcester are at odds over Black Lives Matter and gay pride flags flying on the school’s campus.

Diocese Bishop Robert J. McManus said the flags symbolize messages that conflict with Catholic teaching, and suggested the Nativity School of Worcester could risk losing its Catholic identity if administrators don’t take the flags down.

In response, the Nativity School said the flags are meant to show that all students 'do matter and deserve to be respected as Christian values teach us.' Although the school said it operates within the diocese, officials made the distinction that it’s not a diocesan school. The Nativity School is an accredited tuition-free, all-boys school mainly serving students of color from low-income communities.

School administrators said they’ve been flying the Black Lives Matter and gay pride flags since January 2021. School President Thomas McKenney declined to elaborate what the bishop's threat could mean for the school.

'The Black Lives Matter and Pride flags fly below the American flag at our school to remind our young men, their families and Nativity Worcester staff that all are welcome here and that they are valued and safe in this place,' the school said in a statement."

In Ontario, a group calling itself "Parents as First Educators" (a name which reflects solid Catholic teaching), circulated a petition titled “Lift high the Cross and not the Pride flag.”

In this petition. The group said that: "Parents exercise their choice when they send their children to Catholic schools, and they expect them to receive an education with Catholic moral teaching. Catholic schools need to be clear about the messages they give to children, and consistently teach students the truth about the faith,” the group said...Raising the Pride flag suggests approval of sexual activity of which the Catholic Church disapproves and violates Catholic teaching on chastity for all young people. Activists are using the Pride Flag motion to enforce their ideological agenda."

That's the problem in a nutshell. The Nativity School in Worcester doesn't have a leg to stand on.  Legally or morally.

Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, Zeppo and Reinhardo

 As noted here, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx said in an interview published on Thursday that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is “not set in stone” and “one is also allowed to doubt what it says.”

While Reinhard Marx is anxious to build a Queer Church, where homosexual and lesbian sex are sacramentalized, the teaching of the Church is most clear. The First Vatican Council:

"For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles."

In his Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, Pope John Paul II said that, "The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the faith. May it serve the renewal to which the Holy Spirit ceaselessly calls the Church of God, the Body of Christ, on her pilgrimage to the undiminished light of the kingdom!"

A sure norm for teaching the faith!  But Cardinal Marx the clown believes himself wiser than all those who worked on this Catechism. And just who was that?

Again, Pope (Saint) John Paul II:

"It can be said that this catechism is the result of the collaboration of the whole Episcopate of the Catholic Church, who generously accepted my invitation to share responsibility for an enterprise which directly concerns the life of the Church. This response elicits in me a deep feeling of joy, because the harmony of so many voices truly expresses what could be called the symphony of the faith. The achievement of this catechism thus reflects the collegial nature of the Episcopate: it testifies to the Church's catholicity."

What this Marx brother forgets is that it is intrinsic to the Catholic religion, that before one can become a member, he must satisfy himself that the answers to all questions of faith or morals are contained in a Deposit of Faith which has been revealed by God and entrusted to a Custodian established by God Himself and endowed with infallible protection against any change or error. 

There are many who consider themselves to be "Catholic" even as they reject the Church's teaching while striving to erect a church in their own image and likeness. Such confused souls will willingly embrace the Man of Sin when he enters the Church to rule her.

Francis and his continued crusade against orthodoxy

 Once again. Bergoglio is ranting about perceived "rigidity" - read fidelity - in the Church.  See here.

Way back in the 1970's, I purchased an excellent book written by my hero and good friend Fulton J. Sheen entitled "The Electronic Christian" and published by the Macmillan Publishing Company. In this important book (indeed every book written By Sheen could be labelled as important), the saintly Archbishop who thoroughly intrigued his audience throughout the 1950's as "Uncle Fultie" - a Catholic counterpart if you will to Milton Berle's "Uncle Miltie," explains the importance and indeed the necessity of a religion with Dogma. Here is his essay:

The modern man must decide for himself whether he is going to have a religion with thought or a religion without it. He already knows that thoughtless policies lead to the ruin of society, and he may begin to suspect that thoughtless religion ends in confusion worse confounded.

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

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

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

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

Apparently Francis prefers a Cabbage Catholicism.