"..a time of war."

 It begins. See here

"There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8.

Saintly perspectives on just war emphasize that while peace is the ultimate goal, force may be used as a last resort to defend justice and the common good. 

Saint Augustine of Hippo emphasized that war should be waged to achieve peace, not for violence or revenge.

Saint Thomas Aquinas outlined that a just war requires sovereign authority, a just cause, and a rightful intention.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: Suggested that while not ideal, sometimes it is necessary to stop persecution.

Saint Athanasius & St. Basil noted that killing in defense of the faithful and piety is not considered murder, but a necessary action.

Saint Isidore of Seville: Defined just wars as those waged only for defense or to stop an enemy.

It's time to prepare

 

For many years,  I've been warning of the economic chastisement which is coming upon the world in general and the United States in particular.   See here and here.

The time to prepare for this societal collapse is now.  See here.

Famine and war as chastisements for abandoning the Lord.  Here.

It's time for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the criminal homosexual network within the Church...

From Lifesite News:

"In October, news broke that, in two instances, the U.S. Justice Department has taken steps pertaining to the Church's abuse crisis. It has now issued a subpoena to multiple dioceses in Pennsylvania to release documents concerned with sex abuse, and it has also now contacted the Diocese of Buffalo (New York) with a similar request. Additionally, the federal government has sent to all U.S. bishops a letter directing them not to destroy any relevant files pertaining to sex abuse.

Several Catholic intellectuals have commented on this development for LifeSiteNews.

The reaction among Catholics to this likely widening of federal investigations into the Church's sex abuse crimes – to include a possible opening of RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigations – is varied, with some welcoming this development and others fearing it. LifeSiteNews reached out to three prominent and learned Catholics – Father Joseph Fessio, S.J, Philip Lawler, and Donna Bethell – asking them for comment. (Parts of the comments were initially used for an article in German, written for the Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost.)

For Father Fessio, the larger problem in addition to the abuse of minors is the homosexual culture which fosters such abuse. He says: “Horrible as the abuse of minors is, the greater problem is the much larger one of which minor abuse is a small subset: Homosexual relations between consenting clerics and seminarians. And that too, is a subset of a pro-homosexual culture whose origins are in the rejection of Humanae Vitae.” For him, the whole “culture of secrecy and cover-up” is an underlying phenomenon."

Catholic author Paul Likoudis, who has served as Editor of The Wanderer, writes: "The nurturing of a homosexual/pedophile network in the Catholic Church in modern times, which parallels similar networks in government, business and education circles, may, some suggest, date back to the late 1920s and early 30s when the 'Cambridge Apostles,' that elite clique of homosexual Marxists under the direction of Anthony Blunt ( and including such notorious spies as Kim Philby), determined to seize control of the major institutions, especially the churches, newspapers, cinema and radio (and, later, television), universities, museums and government cultural agencies.

If this strikes the reader as difficult to believe, all I can plead is that there is a tremendous aount of information that supports the theory. The late John Costello's masterful biography of Anthony Blunt, Mask of Treachery (William and Morrow, Co., 1988) provides copious documentation on how Blunt placed his friends, both Marxists and homosexuals, in some of the most important cultural agencies in the western world, and even gloated how many were totally unqualified for their positions. In addition, there is the Congressional testimony of former Communists in the United States, such as Manning Johnson and Bella Dodd, who told how they encouraged more than a thousand communists or fellow travelers to enter Catholic seminaries in the 1930s. Bella Dodd tesified: 'In the 1930s, we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to destroy the Church from within,' and the chief tactic devised, once these men came to power, was to label the Church 'of the past' as oppressive, authoritarian, full of prejudices, arrogant and closed to the world.'

If the problem of a homosexual network in the Church is viewed in this larger perspective, one can understand more fully the remarkable role of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin in creating an 'American Church' that has become a trusted ally of all those various social, political and cultural forces promoting sexual libertinism...Bernardin, it must be recalled, at least briefly, was sponsored, tutored and promoted by a number of dubious characters, not only his clerical godfather and mentor, Archbishop Paul Hallinan of Atlanta, who served as a bishop in Bernardin's hometown, Charleston. Bernardin's other 'godfather' was Archbishop (later Cardinal) John Dearden, who would be responsible for the appointment of such notorious pro-homosexual bishops as Detroit Auxiliary Tom Gumbleton, Ken Untener of Saginaw, Joseph Imesch, of Joliet, and Springfield's Daniel Ryan....His closest friend from his South Carolina days, Monsignor Frederick Hopwood, had been accused of abusing hundreds of boys dating back to the early 1950s, when he and Bernardin shared a residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Charleston - where some of the alleged abuse took place....

At the time the Hopwood allegations became public in late December 1993, Bernardin was having trouble on another front. A former seminarian from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Steven Cook, filed a $10 million lawsuit against Bernardin and Cincinnati priest Ellis Harsham. The suit accused Harsham, when he was a priest at St. Gregory seminary in Cincinnati in the mid-19702, of numerous coercive sexual acts against him, and then delivering him to Bernardin, then Archbishop of Cincinnati, for the same purposes.

Several months later, however, in February 1994, Cook dropped Bernardin from the suit, saying he couldn't trust his memory. Cook never retracted his charges; nor did he say they were inaccurate - contrary to the accepted party line that Bernardin had been exonerated, which persists to this day. Four months later, Cook's suit against Harsham was conveniently - at least for Bernardin - settled out of court...

While Bernardin went on to have a very public (and filmed) reconciliation with Cook, showing the world what a generous man he was in forgiving a man who had accused him of sexual crimes, Bernardin's lawyers were involved in hushing up another case in which seminarians in Winona, Minnesota, had accused Bernardin and three other Bishops of participating in sexual/satanic rituals at the seminary. Among the facts that the plaintiffs in that case marshaled for their suit: Bernardin was frequently accompanied by Steven Cook.." ( Paul Likoudis, Amchurch Comes Out, pp. 136-139).

It is time for the U.S. Justice Department to step in.  The powerful homosexual network within the Catholic Church here in the United States needs to be stopped.  This network will continue to foster the sexual abuse of minors while doing everything in its power to cover-up these crimes.

The U.S. Bishops have had more than 16 years since the abuse crisis exploded into the open in 2002.  They have demonstrated that they are unwilling to address the problem of  homosexuality and a homosexual criminal network.

This is where the Justice Department comes in.

Time to root out every single homosexual priest...

Another scandal involving homosexual clerics reported by Newsweek here.

Some years ago, Michael Brown over at Spirit Daily got it right when he wrote, "the crisis is homosexuality. In the United States there have been allegations of sexual misconduct against approximately one priest in fifty. Of the alleged victims of these assaults, about 10,000 were male, and about a thousand female.

In April 2002, Wilton Gregory, then bishop of Belleville and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, noted that 'there does exist within American seminaries a homosexual atmosphere or dynamic that makes heterosexuals think twice' about entering the priesthood, adding that 'it is an ongoing struggle to make sure the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men.'

It is a struggle that the Church must now decisively win.

This is not to judge those who are 'gay.' It is to judge the sin. Many are sensitive and talented people who like the rest of us have failings. Many of them yearn to be spiritual. They are skilled in many ways. They are anything but the picture of hardness and militancy we envision when we see radical 'gays' parading around Greenwich Village or San Francisco. Some of the most considerate, sensitive, and upstanding people are of this leaning -- good in other ways. We are to love them as we love anyone else. Nor can we judge them: how do we know how they got to where they are? And have we looked for the logs in our own eyes?

But we are also to hate the sin and acknowledge the truth and the truth is that those who are homosexual grapple with a disorder that requires deliverance. It is a spiritual issue. And while they struggle with that disorder they do not belong in a position of any spiritual authority.

It is better to suffer a severe priest shortage than to limp on with those who are too immersed in personal turmoil to tend to the flock -- and who in fact can pose (as has been startlingly seen) an actual danger.

Let's tell it like it is. The demonic is at work. How did the spirits invade? We note that much of the onset for this crisis was in the Sixties. During alleged messages at Akita, Japan (a partially Church-approved occurrence in which a statue wept), the Blessed Mother warned around that time that "the demon will be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God."

Priests are exceptional men on the front line and prone to horrific temptation and assault. We must sympathize with that.

But those who are homosexual must be rooted out.."

________________
Actually, they should have never been ordained. Before entering into any state of life, a divine vocation is necessary. This because without such a vocation, it is difficult if not impossible to fulfil the obligations which pertain to that state and to obtain salvation. This is particularly true for the ministerial priesthood or any other ecclesiastical state. After all, it was Our Lord Who said: "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber" (John 10:1).

Consequently, the man who takes holy orders without a call from God is convicted of theft in taking by force a dignity which God has not called him to and does not desire to bestow upon him. This is the teaching of Saint Paul:

"Neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was. So Christ also did not glorify Himself that He might be made a high priest; but he that said unto Him: Thou art My Son; this day I have begotten Thee." (Hebrews 5:4,5).

It matters not then how learned or prudent or holy a man may be. No man may place himself into the holy sanctuary unless he is first called and introduced to the same by Almighty God. Jesus Our Lord was certainly the most learned and holy among all men, full of grace and truth (John 1:14), the Son of Man in Whom were (and are) hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). And yet, Jesus required a divine call to assume the dignity of the priesthood.

This is the teaching of the Council of Trent. That the Church regards the man who assumes the priesthood without a vocation not as a minister but as a robber:

"Decernit sancta Synodus eos qui ea (ministeria) propria temeritate sibi sumunt, omnes, non Ecclesiae ministros, sed fures et latrones per ostium non ingressos habendos esse" (Session 23, cap. 4).

Those who seize the priesthood without a vocation may labor and toil exhaustively. But their labors will profit them very little before God. In fact, the very works which would be considered of much merit when performed by others will deserve chastisement for such souls. Because such men are not in conformity with the divine will, not having a vocation to the state of life which they have usurped, the Lord Jesus will not accept their toils:

"I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will not receive a gift of your hand" (Malachi 1:10).

Not only will God refuse the gifts of their hand, He will punish the works of the minister who has entered the sanctuary without being called; without a vocation:

"What stranger soever cometh to it (the Tabernacle) shall be slain." (Numbers 1:51).

Bearing all of this in mind, please read the following which first appeared in The Wanderer and may be found at the Faithfulvoice.com website:

On October 1, 1986, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published an instruction entitled, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Pastoral Service for Homosexual Persons, signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and approved by Pope John Paul II.

In this Instruction, Cardinal Ratzinger writes, "It is necessary to point out that the particular inclination of a homosexual person, though not a sin in itself, nevertheless constitutes a more or less strong tendency to an intrinsically evil behavior from the moral standpoint. For this reason, the very inclination should be considered as objectively disordered." (No. 3).

This would appear to be especially significant since Canon 1040 of the Code of Canon Law states that: "Persons who are affected by a perpetual impediment, which is called an irregularity, or a simple impediment, are prevented from receiving orders." Now, irregularities arise either from defect (ex defectu) or from crime (ex delicto). It seems clear to me that a homosexual inclination, which Cardinal Ratzinger has referred to as "objectively disordered," constitutes an irregularity ex defectu.

In fact, when asked by a Bishop if it is licit to confer priestly ordination to men with manifest homosexual tendencies, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments replied with a letter signed by Jorge Cardinal Medina Estevez which stated that, "Ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency is not, therefore, fit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders."

A demon-infested generation embraces satanic gender-confusion

Time magazine, in its cover story for the March 27, 2017 edition:

"This week’s TIME cover story, with exclusive data from GLAAD, explores a change taking hold in American culture. The piece explores how you-do-you young people are questioning the conventions that when it comes to gender and sexuality, there are only two options for each: male or female, gay or straight.


Those aspects of identity — how one sees themselves as a man or woman, for instance, and who they are drawn to physically and romantically — are distinct but undergoing similar sea changes, as teenagers and 20-somethings reject notions of what society has told them about who they are supposed to be.

In a new survey from LGBTQ advocacy organization GLAAD, conducted by Harris Poll, those open minds are reflected in the numbers: 20% of millennials say they are something other that strictly straight and cisgender, compared to 7% of boomers. The people in that group may be be a little sexually curious about people of their own gender or may reject the notion that they have a gender in the first place."


A demon-infested generation, ignorant of God's Holy Word thanks to a lack of sound catechesis and influenced by the poor example of a significant portion of the clergy who have succumbed to darkness and sin, have not been shaped by Our Lord's Teaching: "“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female" (Matthew 19:4).

No doubt radical homosexual activists are rejoicing over this lost generation and its embrace of the demonic.  For the desire to mix male and female into a new androgynous gender lies at the very heart of homosexual ideology.

Harry Hay, the founder of the homosexual movement, began his manifesto for the Mattachine Society with these words: "We, the androgynes of the world.."

Homosexual writer and activist Paul Varnell explains how Hay gave androgyny vital importance in the homosexual movement: "Hay's 'idealism' had three components: a) gays are qualitatively different from heterosexuals, mentally, psychologically, spiritually, not just in 'what they do in bed;' b) the core difference lies in the natural androgyny of homosexuals, that they embody both male and female elements; and c) in order to help promote their acceptance gays need to explain the contribution this difference makes to society." (Paul Varnell, "Harry Hay: One Big Idea).

Pope Benedict XVI, in a Christmas Address given in 2008, denounced the contemporary notion that gender is a malleable definition and said, "The Church speaks of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this order is respected."  But our sin-sick culture, in its hatred for God and His Commandments, has another agenda.  God's order is rejected.  And this is most significant.  Because, as Father Vincent Miceli, S.J., has noted, "It has been a special scar on the worst pagan cultures and the worst idolatrous religions that they openly attacked the gender identities of the sexes. They celebrated sexual indulgence, sexual experimentation, sexual symbols, fertility rites, temple prostitution, seasonal sex orgies, sexual abuse and enslavement of young women, girls and boys....But sex is not an accidental characteristic of man and woman. A human person without sex is a monstrous abstraction. Sex entails the very identity of each person; sex plunges to the deepest mystery of each person. Hence the sexes and the vocations pertaining thereto are not interchangeable. Each person is called to serve God and his fellowman, accepting gladly the sex with which one is endowed and the vocation attached to that sex." (The Antichrist, P. 231).

In the comments section of a previous post, one reader

noted how, "Homosexuals, lesbians and transsexuals are often afflicted by evil spirits. Gender confusion is often a sign of demonic possession. Fr. Malachi Martin recounts the story of a possessed transsexual in his bestselling book 'Hostage to the Devil.' In the chapter titled 'The Virgin and the Girl-Fixer,' he writes, 'At one moment, Father Gerald, the exorcist, was bending over the possessed, Richard/Rita, who had sunk his teeth into his own instep. In the next instant, the glaze in Richard/Rita's eyes broke, melting into a lurid gleam of mockery. Greenish. The teeth loosened their grip on the instep. The mouth opened, baring gums and throat, the tongue protruded, quivering on a stream of gray foam bubbles. The whole face was furrowed in irregular lines, as Richard/Rita broke into peals of laughter. Great buffeting gusts of mocking, jeering, Schadenfreude laughter. Laugter pouring from a belly of amused scorn and contemptuous hate.'"

How quickly we forget this. Gender confusion represents something more than a cultural revolution. It is often the result of demonic possession. The more a culture rejects the Living God and His Commandments, the more it sinks into an abyss of depravity.  Gender is not a human construct.  Sacred Scripture - God's Holy Word - tells us that, "God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27).

Now that Trump is President-Elect, Francis wants us to practice "fraternal cooperation"

Time is reporting:


Pope Francis has called for “dialogue, mutual acceptance and fraternal cooperation” the morning after Donald Trump’s election to the U.S. Presidency.

Taking to Twitter on Wednesday for one of his near daily messages to the faithful, the Pontiff implored for the world to share more of god’s “merciful love”:

Dialogue, mutual acceptance and fraternal cooperation?  

What would Francis know of these things?  While referring to Trump as being "Non-Christiano," Francis practically campaigned for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.  See here.

Francis has not been a bridge builder or a champion of dialogue.  He has created an atmosphere of division and discord within the Church.  Francis is an ideologue who sows chaos and hostility.  He wouldn't recognize fraternal cooperation if it were stapled to his forehead.

In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be desolated and burn...

I believe a chastisement is approaching Rome.  An article here warns of this.

"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).

Watch and pray!

It's time to get rid of effeminacy in the Church...

I am viewed as "strange" or as somehow "fringe" by liberal counterfeit Catholic wreckovators within my local Church

because I promote and defend the perennial teaching of the Church regarding the "Last Things," or what theologians refer to as "eschatology."

Our "modern world" hates to be reminded of death, judgement, heaven, hell, purgatory and the end of the world.  And anyone today who speaks or writes about these things must be demonized and cast as a freak because the "New Church" Catholics are uncomfortable with these realities.

Pope John XXIII would not have understood this spiritual sickness.  He used as a motto for his whole life the following, entitled "Four Future Things":

Death, than which nothing is more certain;

Judgement, than which nothing is more strict;

Hell, than which nothing is more dreadfull ;

Paradise, than which nothing is more delightful.

(Journal of a Soul, Appendix 6).


Because I preach the hard truths men need to hear, I am sometimes accused of having "little mercy."  And I am not entirely surprised.  So many Catholics have been fed on chaff rather than wheat for so long that authentic Catholic teaching seems to them as something evil or hard-hearted.  Years of consuming a diet of false compassion has wrought much havoc in the souls of certain people who are content with remaining mental and moral midgets.

Father Albert, a Dominican priest, writes, "If Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical on the Holy Rosary could speak (over a century ago) of the forgetfulness of man concerning future goods, what would he say today!  The future goods and the future evils that await all of us after death are buried in total oblivion!  The present life seems to be the BE-ALL and END-ALL of all things.  Even in the Church, since Vatican II, all one hears about from the pulpit is social justice. To speak of Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Death and Judgement is considered strangely bizarre.  Meditation on the Glorious mysteries of the Holy Rosary brings us back to reality!" (Dedicated Decades, Winter 2013, pp. 32, 33).

But then, most clerics (be they priest or deacon) no longer pray the Holy Rosary. They prefer worldly things to the Holy Rosary.  Once prayer is abandoned, doctrine follows.

Today the Catholic Church is infested with many effeminate priests and deacons who are spiritually unable to offer the faithful the sound doctrine, the hard truths which they need to hear. And parishes are emptying.

The priest who not only does not encourage the involvement of masculine men but actively discourages the same is contributing to the demise of his parish.  Strong masculine men set an example for the entire parish.  When masculine men are encouraged and not relegated to the fringe, whole families will return to Church.

The Cult of Softness must go. Effeminate clerics who discourage masculine men must go.

Some years ago, I informed my parish priest that he shouldn't be promoting CCHD.  See here.  And although the priest in question thanked me in an email for informing him that CCHD was giving monies to groups which promote sodomy, abortion and contraception, I became persona non grata.  Even though I volunteered to serve the parish in some capacity, I never heard from the parish.  After all, we can't have a masculine male involved in the parish who might actually provide others with a good example of fidelity and courage.

Where is the effeminacy coming from?  From the vice of luxuria.  See here.

It's time to fashion a whip and drive the disease of effeminacy from the Church. One priest, in a comment left at this Blog, wrote:

I was the pastor of a large suburban parish of 2100 families for almost a decade. The effeminization of the parish was disastrous.

I immediately ended the feel-good, feminine expressions in the liturgy, ended the awful practices in the school masses which neutered boys and drove them away from the Church.

I preached constantly about the need to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, to serve him in battle, and invited men back to Church. The results were amazing. Men came back and stayed. Boys in 7th and 8th grades were invited to become Masters of Ceremony at mass, and were given cassocks and surplices to wear at mass. They loved it! They rose to the occasion. A visiting priest told me that he had never seen so many "normal men" at mass.

We junked liturgical dance, wispy, wimpy hymns, and hand-holding and all the rest of the emasculating practices. We promoted Confession endlessly, and saw a gradual return to the sacrament by many young men seeking to live a life of purity - and these are mostly men in their 20s.

We promoted Marian devotion by men and women, and saw a huge response.

I was asked to take on another assignment and had to leave the parish, but I left a solid young priest who will continue the good work The parish has grown in numbers and participation and collections.

The Lord has given us all the spiritual tools we need to draw people into the life of Christ: the sacraments, the Word of God, preaching and teaching the Truth, and the good work and example of good holy priests who are healthy and real men, as well as deacons who believe the Word and preach it and live it. The results are fantastic!

God is good.

Amen....let's get to work!

The Synod on the Family and the retreat from truth

Matthew Karmel writes, "Despite the tremendously destructive threat posed by the Synod on the Family, it has accomplished – even before its completion – something of real value: it has given the entire world a front-row seat in the Modernist operating theater as they attempt to empty a well-established Church teaching of its authentic meaning and replace it with what can only be described as a diabolical lie. Day by day, more faithful Catholics are waking up to the fact that the Church’s hierarchy has become infested with an intellectual and moral corruption of truly biblical proportions.."

Philip Johnson, in his book "Objections Sustained: Subversive Essays on Evolution, Law & and Culture, tells a story which is both amusing and frightening at the same time. He writes: "I am convinced that conscious dishonesty is much less important in intellectual matters than self-deception...The German biologist Bruno Muller-Hill tells a memorable story to illustrate his thesis that 'self-deception plays an astonishing role in science in spite of all the scientists' worship of truth':

When I was a student in a German gymnasium and thirteen years old, I learned a lesson that I have not forgotten...One early morning our physics teacher placed a telescope in the school yard to show us a certain planet and its moons. So we stood in a long line, about forty of us. I was standing at the end of the line, since I was one of the smallest students. The teacher asked the first student whether he could see the planet. No, he had difficulties, because he was nearsighted. The teacher showed him how to adjust the focus, and that student could finally see the planet and the moons. Others had no difficulty; they saw them right away. The students saw, after a while, what they were supposed to see. Then the student standing just before me - his name was Harter - announced that he could not see anything. 'You idiot,' shouted the teacher, 'you have to adjust the lenses.' The student did that and said after a while, 'I do not see anything, it is all black.' The teacher then looked through the telescope himself. After some seconds he looked up with a strange expression on his face. And then my comrades and I also saw that the telescope was nonfunctioning; it was closed by a cover over the lens. Indeed, no one could see anything through it.'

Muller-Hill reports that one of the docile students became a professor of philosophy and director of a German TV station. 'This might be expected,' he wickedly comments. But another became a professor of physics, and a third a professor of botany. The honest Harter had to leave school and go to work in a factory. If in later life he was ever tempted to question any of the pronouncements of his more illustrious classmates, I am sure he was firmly told not to meddle in matters beyond his understanding.'" (pp. 156-157).

Do we honestly believe that this herd mentality is not to be found throughout our society and even in the Church? If so, we deceive ourselves. Pope Benedict XVI has warned of a liberal notion of conscience which is nothing less than a retreat from truth. In a keynote address of the Tenth Bishops' Workshop of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, on "Catholic Conscience: Foundation and Formation," he says that liberalism's idea of conscience is that: "Conscience does not open the way to the redemptive road to truth - which either does not exist or, if it does, is too demanding. It is the faculty that dispenses with truth. It thereby becomes the justification for subjectivity, which would not like to have itself called into question. Similarly, it becomes the justification for social conformity. As mediating value between the different subjectivities, social conformity is intended to make living together possible. The obligation to seek the truth terminates, as do any doubts about the general inclination of society and what it has become accustomed to. Being convinced of oneself, as well as conforming to others, is sufficient. Man is reduced to his superficial conviction, and the less depth he has, the better for him."

Is there really any difference between Harter's classmates, who insisted that they could see a planet and its moons when such was impossible, and those who succumb to social conformity and insist that an unborn baby is not really a human being when all the scientific evidence suggests otherwise?

Where will radical subjectivism ultimately lead us? It was Romano Guardini [in his classic The Lord, p. 513] who reminded us 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 witout Christ is possible - nay rather, that Christ is the enemy of existence, which can be fully realized only when all Christian values have been destroyed. His arguments will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost. Then it will be clear what the Christian essence really is: that which stems not from the world, but from the heart of God; victory of grace over the world; redemption of the world, for her true essence is not to be found in herself, but in God, from whom she has received it. When God becomes all in all, the world will finally burst into flower."

"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.

Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser's prophecy being fulfilled in our time

The persecution is intensifying.  Now a homosexual hate group is calling for the government to shut down churches which teach that homosexual acts are sinful.  See here.

Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser, back in the 1600's, foresaw that many of the Church's oldest and most venerable teachings would be challenged prior to a great chastisement:

'These are evil times, a century full of dangers and calamities. Heresy is everywhere, and the followers of heresy are in power almost everywhere. Bishops, prelates, and priests say that they are doing their duty, that they are vigilant, and that they live as befits their state in life. In like manner, therefore, they all seek excuses. But God will permit a great evil against His Church: Heretics and tyrants will come suddenly and unexpectedly; they will break into the Church while bishops, prelates, and priests are asleep. They will enter Italy and lay Rome waste; they will burn down the churches and destroy everything." (Apocalypsis, Bartholomew Holzhauser, 1850).

They will seek excuses...

Bishop McManus, wouldn't this be an opportune time to apologize to Mr. Robert Spencer and extend him a warm invitation to speak at next year's Catholic Men's Conference?

In an article which may be found here: http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Pontifical-Council-for-Interreligious-Dialogue-slams-Islamic-Caliphate-crimes-and-barbarism-31876.html, we read:

"The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue deplores in no uncertain terms the acts of violence by the militants of the Islamic caliphate in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria.


The Vatican body calls on the members of all religions and on the international community to join in the condemnation. It also calls on Islamic religious leaders to condemn the use of religion as a false justification for terrorism and to make the culture of coexistence and dialogue that has developed in the past few years more real and credible."

The full translation of the statement issued by the Pontifical Council is presented below.

"The whole world has witnessed with incredulity what is now called the "Restoration of the Caliphate," which had been abolished on October 29, 1923 by Kamal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey. Opposition to this "restoration" by the majority of religious institutions and Muslim politicians has not prevented the "Islamic State" jihadists from committing and continuing to commit unspeakable criminal acts.

This Pontifical Council, together with all those engaged in interreligious dialogue, followers of all religions, and all men and women of good will, can only unambiguously denounce and condemn these practices which bring shame on humanity:

-the massacre of people on the sole basis of their religious affiliation;

-the despicable practice of beheading, crucifying and hanging bodies in public places;

-the choice imposed on Christians and Yezidis between conversion to Islam, payment of a tax (jizya) or forced exile;

-the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of people, including children, elderly, pregnant women and the sick;

-the abduction of girls and women belonging to the Yezidis and Christian communities as spoils of war (sabaya);

-the imposition of the barbaric practice of infibulation;

-the destruction of places of worship and Christian and Muslim burial places;

-the forced occupation or desecration of churches and monasteries;

-the removal of crucifixes and other Christian religious symbols as well as those of other religious communities;

-the destruction of a priceless Christian religious and cultural heritage;

-indiscriminate violence aimed at terrorizing people to force them to surrender or flee.

No cause, and certainly no religion, can justify such barbarity. This constitutes an extremely serious offense to humanity and to God who is the Creator, as Pope Francis has often reminded us. We cannot forget, however, that Christians and Muslims have lived together - it is true with ups and downs - over the centuries, building a culture of peaceful coexistence and civilization of which they are proud. Moreover, it is on this basis that, in recent years, dialogue between Christians and Muslims has continued and intensified.

The dramatic plight of Christians, Yezidis and other religious communities and ethnic minorities in Iraq requires a clear and courageous stance on the part of religious leaders, especially Muslims, as well as those engaged in interreligious dialogue and all people of good will. All must be unanimous in condemning unequivocally these crimes and in denouncing the use of religion to justify them. If not, what credibility will religions, their followers and their leaders have? What credibility can the interreligious dialogue that we have patiently pursued over recent years have?

Religious leaders are also called to exercise their influence with the authorities to end these crimes, to punish those who commit them and to re-establish the rule of law throughout the land, ensuring the return home of those who have been displaced. While recalling the need for an ethical management of human societies, these same religious leaders must not fail to stress that the support, funding and arming of terrorism is morally reprehensible.

That said, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue is grateful to all those who have already raised their voices to denounce terrorism, especially that which uses religion to justify it."

As I noted last year (see here: http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2013/02/what-is-real-reason-for-bishop-robert.html):

"In a statement which was published in The Catholic Free Press...Bishop Robert McManus explained his decision to rescind the invitation to Mr. Robert Spencer to speak at the Diocese of Worcester's Catholic Men's Conference which is to be held next month.


Bishop McManus writes, 'In light of my recent decision to rescind the invitation to Mr. Robert Spencer to speak at the Catholic Men's Conference next month on the topic of Islam in its relation to Christianity, I should like to reflect briefly on the conciliar document entitled, The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), specifically on paragraph 16 of Chapter 2 which speaks about the special relationship that Christianity has to Islam. The paragraph states, "But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place among these are the Muslims who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind."

As a result of such a theologically salient statement, the Catholic Church has engaged herself in inter-religious dialogue with Muslims. This dialogue has produced a harvest of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation throughout the world and here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. My decision to ask Mr. Spencer not to speak at the Men's Conference resulted from a concern voiced by members of the Islamic community in Massachusetts, a concern I came to share. That concern was that Mr. Spencer's talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inner-religious dialogue with devout Muslims and possibly generate suspicion and even fear of people who practice piously the religion of Islam...I based my decision solely on the concern that Mr. Spencer's talk would impact negatively on the Church's increasingly constructive dialogue with Muslims.' (Bishop shares concerns about conference speaker, Catholic Free Press, February 8, 2013 edition).

At first, Bishop McManus cites a document of the Second Vatican Council - Lumen Gentium - to make it appear as if there is a theological basis for rescinding Mr. Spencer's invitation to speak at the Catholic Men's Conference. Then he later acknowledges that his decision was really entirely subjective, admitting that his decision was based "solely" on his concern that Mr. Spencer's talk would have negative consequences with regard to Catholic-Muslim inter-religious dialogue.

While it's certainly true that Vatican II insists, 'The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems' and that Christians and Moslems should 'forget the past and..work sincerely for mutual understanding..' (Nostra Aetate, No. 3), dialogue, if it is to be authentic, always means taking the other seriously and approaching him with reverence and love. And this can only be accomplished by communicating with the other in truth.

In his book entitled Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, Pope Benedict XVI makes a few observations which Bishop McManus would apparently find problematic. The Holy Father writes, 'To what extent the new surge forward of the Islamic world is fuelled by truly religious forces is..open to question. In many places, as we can see, there is the danger of a pathological development of the autonomy of feeling.."' (p. 104).

Which is why Mr. Spencer's talk would have been most beneficial.


On page 204 of the same book, Pope Benedict XVI writes, '...even with Islam, with all the greatness it represents, is always in danger of losing balance, letting violence have a place and letting religion slide away into mere outward observance and ritualism.'

Wasn't this to be the point of Mr. Spencer's talk? Would Bishop McManus accuse the Holy Father of undercutting the positive achievements which Catholics have attained with regard to inter-religious dialogue with Moslems? Why is it acceptable for Pope Benedict XVI to speak of the danger of Islam 'letting violence have a place' but unacceptable for Mr. Spencer to talk about 'extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally'?

Bishop McManus insists that Mr. Spencer's presentation would not be 'suitable' for the Men's Conference because its focus 'would be on the danger of militant Islamist jihad.' But jihad is not just an aspect of 'militant Islam.' Jihad is the duty to engage in holy war against unbelievers or enemies of Islam if called upon to do so. It is one of the basic tenets and requirements of Muslim faith. Which is why Pope Benedict XVI has warned that Islam 'is always in danger of losing balance' and succumbing to violence."

Now that the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has called on Islamic religious leaders to condemn
to condemn "the use of religion as a false justification for terrorism and to make the culture of coexistence and dialogue that has developed in the past few years more real and credible," perhaps now would be a good time for Bishop Robert McManus to apologize to Mr. Robert Spencer and to invite him to next year's Catholic Men's Conference?


Related reading here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/13/isis-beheadings-and-the-success-of-horrifying-violence/

The time has come for faithful Catholics to speak up.....

The times are growing dark.  Increasingly, Catholics faithful to the Magisterial Tradition of the Church are finding themselves alarmed over the silence of fellow Catholics - including those who Blog - with regard to developments within the Church.  See here.


The time is fast approaching when sound Catholic doctrine will not only not be tolerated, it will be criminalized.  As Catholics, we have a moral duty to preach the hard truths in season and out of season.  And doing so represents an act of charity.  See here.


Socialism is gaining ground as many even within the Church call for economic redistribution.  But Pope Leo XIII, in Quod Apostolici Muneris (On Socialism) called this what it is: "..while the socialists would destroy the 'right' of property, alleging it to be a human invention altogether opposed to the inborn equality of man, and, claiming a community of goods, argue that poverty should not be peaceably endured, and that the property and privileges of the rich may be rightly invaded, the Church, with much greater wisdom and good sense, recognizes the inequality among men, who are born with different powers of body and mind, inequality in actual possession, also, and holds that the right of property and of ownership, which springs from nature itself, must not be touched and stands inviolate. For she knows that stealing and robbery were forbidden in so special a manner by God, the Author and Defender of right, that He would not allow man even to desire what belonged to another, and that thieves and despoilers, no less than adulterers and idolaters, are shut out from the Kingdom of Heaven."

We are now on the verge of totalitarianism

 

 

For many years I have been warning [in articles and even at this Blog] that this country is heading for totalitarianism. See here and here for example. I have even compared the Democratic Party with the National Socialist Workers Party of 1930s Germany.

 

Henry Lamb apparently agrees. Mr. Lamb, author of "The Rise of Global Governance," writes that, "As the modern-day freedom fighters begin to organize and strategize, the government chooses not to reform, but to entrench and expand its control over the people. The similarity is remarkable, between the rise of the Democratic Socialist Party now in control of Washington and the rise of the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany in the 1930s. Read his full article here.

In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II warned us that, "....totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another. If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others. People are then respected only to the extent that they can be exploited for selfish ends. Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.." (No. 44).

We ignore this at our own peril. So many are asleep as this country races toward tyranny. Now is the time to rise up and be heard. If we love this country, we will fight for it. We will fight for what so many died to protect. It was Abraham Lincoln, in a speech given on January 27, 1837, who forewarned: "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

 

 

It's time for the CDF to investigate the Worcester Diocese

In an article for The American Catholic which may be found here, The Motley Monk writes:


"It’s pretty easy to tell that the folks over at the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) aren’t happy campers these days. Some of their heroes fighting on the front lines for women’s ordination are being “disciplined.”
According to a recent NCR article:

A longtime peace and human rights activist arrested countless times, Franciscan Fr. Jerry Zawada has been removed from public ministry for concelebrating Mass with a woman priest in 2011.

Poor Fr. Zawada! After all he’s done over the decades to promote the cause of social justice. He’s been jailed numerous times and now at the age of 76, one would think the Vatican would overlook Fr. Zawada’s minor infelicity for merely concelebrating “Mass” with the Roman Catholic “WomanPriest,” the Rev. Ms. Janice Sevre-Duszynska.

The enemy in the NCR’s narrative is the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which reviewed documentation related to the November 22, 2011 “Mass.” NCR obtained a copy of the CDF’s private letter which stated:

Having carefully examined the acts of the case, and the vota of the former Minister General and the Rev. Zawada’s Provincial Superior, this Dicastery has decided to impose on Rev. Jerome Zawada, OFM, a life of prayer and penance to be lived within the Queen of Peace Friary in Burlington, Wisconsin.

The letter also forbids Fr. Zawada from presenting himself in public as a priest or celebrating the sacraments publicly. However, Fr. Zawada is allowed to concelebrate Mass with other friars at the friary and in private.

Zawada isn’t too pleased. He told the NCR:

I don’t mind the prayer part, but when they called, when they say that I need to be spending time in penance, well, I’m not going to do penance for my convictions and the convictions of so many others, too.

Apparently, CDF isn’t going to wink and ignore any priest who concelebrates “Mass” with so-called “WomenPriests.”

• Strike #1 involved the former Maryknoll priest, Ray Bourgeois, who was excommunicated in November 2012 for doing so.
• Strike #2 involved the Jesuit priest, Bill Brennen, who was relieved of his priestly ministry in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for concelebrating “Mass” with a “WomanPriest” one month later.
• Strike #3 is Fr. Zawada.

And that’s only the cases that the priests involved have made public.
“You’re out!” the umpire yells after a batter takes three strikes.
And, by the way, the baseball season opens today.
Perhaps those priests who support the cause for the ordination of women should place their money on the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series this year. Both have about an equal chance of happening anytime soon."


To read the NCR article, click on the following link:
http://ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/longtime-peace-activist-removed-ministry-after-concelebrating-mass-woman-priest

- See more at: http://the-american-catholic.com/2014/03/31/womenpriests-and-their-supporters-strike-three-and-youre-out/#sthash.bxKgcPW8.dpuf

For years I have fought dissent within the Worcester Diocese.  And part of that dissent has been the push for women's ordination.  Although my articles and letters to the editor of The "Catholic" Free Press have been regularly censored, Stacy Trasancos has been given space in that publication for a regular column.  This most likely because she has advanced the idea that women's ordination might be a possibility.  A while back I exposed how Trasancos had written: "We know that by the end of the first century the Roman Catholic Church was established and there can be little doubt that the cultural influences of that time and place affected the doctrine [that only men are called to the ministerial priesthood].  We do also know that the Church has evolved over time and that part of theology's goal is to communicate faith to changing cultures.  For these reasons, maybe the question of women in the priesthood will remain unsettled.  There isn't any hard logic to support the idea that the concrete forms of the ecclesiastical offices cannot be changed....Whether women should or will someday be priests, isn't for this single writer to say."

See here for my response.

Of course, because I have stood against such nonsense, I have been ostracized from this diocese.  But not dissidents such as Mary Donovan of the Worcester "Commission for Women."  Writing for The Catholic Free Press back in 1992, Ms. Donovan implied that women are not "active participants in the worship of God" and that women should be able to "dispute interpretation" of Church doctrine. In an article entitled "Save the women for the Church," she wrote: "Most of us on the Commission are diehards, women who decided long ago that women should have a place in the Church and that the Church needed women...What we want is simple.  We want to be considered active participants in the worship of God.  We want to move from the passive role where men study the Word of God, interpret it and relay the message to us.  We want to share the study, to discuss, refine, enlarge, enhance, dispute interpretation if necessary, and deliver the good news with equal stature and credibility.  We know that structure that exists today has no stairway for women that go to the top floor.  We know what problems exist in renovating..." (May 22, 1992 edition of The Catholic Free Press).

It's not renovation that Ms. Donovan stood for but wreckovation.  Her ideology was rooted in pride and falsehood.

In another article published in the diocesan newspaper, Ms. Donovan insisted that there are, "..women who sense the same gifts within themselves as men who feel called to the service of God." (Women walk a Tightrope, January 29, 1992 edition of The Catholic Free Press).

While Mary Donovan and her cohorts were demanding women's ordination and the right to "dispute interpretation" of the Church's teaching, the Second Vatican Council had already taught authoritatively that, "...the task of authentically interpreting the Word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ." (Dei Verbum, No. 10).
Mary Donovan and other sophomoric souls throughout the Worcester Diocese have openly rejected the teaching of Vatican II and the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church, as exemplified in the post conciliar document entitled "The Ministerial Priesthood in the Light of the Mystery of Christ" that, "..we can never ignore the fact that Christ is a man.  Therefore, unless one is to disregard the importance of this symbolism for the economy of Revelation, it must be admitted that, in actions which demand the character of ordination and in which Christ Himself, the Author of the Covenant, the Bridegroom and Head of the Church, is represented, exercising His ministry of salvation - which is in the highest degree the case of the Eucharist - His role must be taken by a man."
But those who shout Non Serviam along with Lucifer will not be silent.  No amount of truth will produce the slightest crack in their wall of conviction.  The time has come to discipline them.  If necessary, with excommunication.

Such an anathema would amount to an expression of supreme charity.


Related reading here and here.

It's time for Deborah Dwork, Clark University's historical revisionist in residence, to apologize

In several past Blog posts I've documented how Deborah Dwork, Director of Clark University's Strassler Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, has engaged in anti-Catholic historical revisionism, falsely accusing Pope Pius XII of happy memory as having "failed Europe's Jews miserably, unconscionably."  See here for example.

Now, Zenit is reporting that:

After six years of untiring research that has uncovered 76,000 pages of original material, plus multiple eyewitness accounts and testimonies from prominent international scholars, Gary Krupp is confident the besmirching of Pope Pius XII's reputation is coming to an end.


"We're definitely winning, absolutely no question," Krupp tells me on a visit to Rome this week. "Every time we do more research, we find a diamond. It's incredible, but there's nothing on the other side because there's no documented foundation for any of their accusations."

Krupp, the founder of the Pave The Way Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to bridging the gap between world religions, is well known for being one of the most passionate defenders of Pius XII's reputation for heroism in his relations with the Jewish people.

As a Jew from New York who grew up, like many others of his generation, with an indoctrinated hatred of the wartime Pope for his alleged anti-Semitism and unwillingness to help Jews during the Holocaust, his anger at realizing this was all a lie, and his willingness to reveal the truth, is both heartfelt and compelling.

Now he and his team of researchers have uncovered more documented evidence that Pave the Way believes should act as incontrovertible proof to any serious historian that Pius XII did all he could to protect and defend Jews before, during and after the Second World War. All the documentation can be viewed on the organization's Web site: www.ptwf.org

Some of these documents show that Pius XII favored the creation of a Jewish state as far back as 1917. In further recent discoveries, Pave the Way has come across a letter written by Cardinal Pacelli in 1939 in which he attempted to obtain visas for 200,000 Jews who remained in Germany after Kristallnacht.

"He wasn't able to obtain the visas, but he tried," says Krupp. "The point is, he didn't do it from the safety of Washington DC or London. He did it while surrounded by hostile forces, and infiltrated by spies, and yet he still managed to save more Jews than all the other world leaders combined."

Further letters reveal how, through his nephew Carlo Pacelli, Pius XII helped prevent the arrest of Roman Jews in 1943, giving an estimated 12,000 of them the chance to seek refuge in Church monasteries, convents, and the homes of Italian Catholics. "All these archival records show how he personally helped save Jewish people," says Krupp, adding emphatically in his broad New York accent: "Anti-Semites don't do that!"

Other ground-breaking discoveries show how the Pope was not just a target for assassination by Hitler (Pave the Way has a copy of a letter Pius wrote to cardinals expecting to be killed and giving them instructions to form a government in exile), but that he and his secretary were also named in a German report as co-conspirators in the Valkyre assassination attempt on the Fuhrer in July 1944.

Pave the Way has combed through copies of the New York Times and Palestine Post from 1939 to 1958 to find any evidence of animosity toward the Jews. "There's not one negative article. Not one," Krupp says, adding that a French friend of theirs also went through French Communist and Socialist papers from that time, and similarly came up with nothing negative.

Krupp points out a "fantastic letter" from the American ambassador to Germany, reporting on 3rd March 1939 on the new Pope's election on 2nd March. The ambassador recalls in the letter meeting Cardinal Pacelli in 1937, and wanting to visit the Sistine Chapel, but he wasn't able to as the Cardinal had kept him in his office for three solid hours, talking about National Socialism and Hitler. "In the letter it says: "While his views against Hitler were well known to me, I had no idea of the extremity of his views,'" Krupp recounts.

Like many, Krupp is convinced the smearing of Pius's reputation was due to an elaborate misinformation campaign by the Soviets and, in particular, the film "The Deputy," which was widely performed after the Pontiff's death. The play, which spread what's become known as the "Black Legend" of Pius XII, is still being performed today, currently in Munich and even in an American university – something that greatly irritates Krupp given the dean of the university is allowing it on grounds of "academic freedom."

What makes him so unstinting in his desire to uncover the truth is his firm belief that history must be accurate. "People die with history," Krupp says, "so it's absolutely essential people realize that history is a sacred thing – you must get it right because people kill one another on perceived history." He says anti-Pius historians are "historical revisionists," and makes no apology for calling them "liars" instead of scholars.

He is particularly indignant with Rome's Jewish community and those who persistently propagate the Black Legend in the face of the contrary evidence. "All of Rome's Jewish community despises Pius XII, when a few short few years ago they erected a monument in his honor because he saved all of their lives," says Krupp (the monument, erected in 1946, is no longer there). "You have air in your lungs today because he saved your lives," he says in pointed words directed at them, "and yet you despise him? This is a sin. This is a Jewish sin." Krupp frequently stresses that one of the worst character flaws a Jew can have is ingratitude, and notes that the Hebrew word for Jew is actually based on the word gratitude.

He believes if any of the community were willing to look at the documents, they would change their minds. "Anyone who refuses to look at documents and the proof is a fool," he says. "This is especially obnoxious to me, as this community is alive because of his actions, very provably alive – everyone from the era said so," Krupps argues.

He also says he has come to discover the enemies of Pope Pius XII tend to be "ultra-left wing Jews and Catholics" with an agenda to destroy the Pope's reputation because he "typified the conservative, traditional Church."

But what about the regular accusations one hears made against Pius? Krupp bats away each of them away with ease.

On why Pius didn't lay down his life as a martyr: "Why didn't General Patten do the same thing? Why didn't Roosevelt do the same thing? Don't forget the Vatican is two entities, head of the Catholic Church and also a government. It would be the worst thing one can do, especially when he could do the good that he did alive. Being dead would be no good at all."

On the claim no Nazis were excommunicated: "They were -- I love this one. The German bishops said anyone who joined the 'Hitler Party,' who wore the uniform or flew the flag were excommunicated and a priest couldn't attend their funeral if any of them died."

On the accusation that Pius XII helped Nazi war criminals flee to South America after the war: "No, it was exactly the opposite according to Bishop Hudal himself [Hudal was a Nazi collaborator in Rome]; just read his [Hudal's] autobiography."

On the claim that Pius authorized forced baptisms of Jewish infants: "Nonsense. In fact he forbade it. There were some … You had some overzealous nuns and others who did this, but he forbade it. He forbade it because he had a great love and respect for Judaism, starting from his childhood. His closest friend was a Jewish orthodox boy, Guido Mendes."

Krupp recognizes "Nostra Aetate," the Second Vatican Council declaration considered by many to have transformed Jewish-Catholic relations, as "one of the most important events in Jewish-Christian relations." It's arguable whether his invaluable efforts to clear Pius XII's name would have taken place had it not been for that document, but Krupp began working on the Pius issue after receiving a papal knighthood, seeing it would "open things up to do wonderful things between Jews and Catholics."

I'm interested to know if he himself ever considered becoming a Catholic? "No, never," he says. "If someone gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't. This is the way I am supposed to be. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do as a Jew not as a Catholic."

He says he has a "huge love and respect for the Church" because he "looks at the bottom line" and sees there's "no greater provider in the world for health care, education or charity." Indeed, he was delighted and honored to be invited this year to receive an honorary doctorate and deliver the commencement address at St. Thomas Aquinas College, Orangeburg, New York.

"I feel my brothers and sisters are in the Church, but I would never consider converting," he says. "I'm very proud to be Jewish, and I think this is the path God meant for me to take."


The time has come for Deborah Dwork to issue an apology for her anti-Catholic historical revisionism.  Her failure to do so will reflect poorly on an institution which is already suspect because of its Christianophobia and commitment to radical homosexual agitprop.  See here and here.