Why Saint Mary's Church in Orange, Massachusetts is not attracting young people

Bishop Joseph F. Maguire, former Bishop of the Springfield Massachusetts Diocese, was known to be part of the cover-up of sexual abuse within the Diocese.  See here.

Saint Mary's Church in Orange, Massachusetts, the same Church that welcomed prayers for Keith Sullivan, a Youth Minister accused of sexual abuse - see here - (while offering no such prayers for the alleged victim) is now advertising a Memorial Mass for the now deceased Bishop Maguire.

This comes as no surprise as the Church, under Father Shaun O'Connor, has promoted the views of Father Jonathan Morris, a priest who distorted the Church's teaching regarding homosexuality, while banning me from its Facebook page for defending the Magisterial teaching of the Church.

And while Keith Sullivan, arrested by the Nashua Police Department for sexual abuse and kidnapping was welcome at Saint Mary's, apparently Catholics faithful to orthodoxy are not.  This explains why the Church is disintegrating.  One lay person, involved in parish ministry, was overheard saying (to a friend just prior to Mass), that there aren't many kids at CCD and that "young people aren't going to Mass."

Should this really come as a surprise?

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., in his classic work devoted to the interior life entitled Divine Intimacy, explains that, "Devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel indicates a strong call to the interior life, which, in a very special way, is Mary's life.  The Blessed Virgin wants us to resemble her in heart and mind much more than in externals.  If we penetrate into Mary's soul, we see that grace produced in her a very rich interior life: a life of recollection, prayer, uninterrupted giving of herself to God, and of constant contact and intimate union with Him.  Mary's soul is a sanctuary reserved for God alone where no creature has ever left an imprint; here reign love and zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of men.  Those who wish to live truly devoted to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, must follow Mary into the depths of the interior life...Every interior soul, even if living amid the tumult of the world, must strive to reach this peace, this interior silence, which alone makes continual contact with God possible.  It is our passions and attachments that make noise within us, that disturb our peace of mind and interrupt our intimate converse with God.  Only the soul that is wholly detached and in complete control of its passions can, like Mary, be a solitary, silent 'garden' where God will find His delights.  This is the grace we ask of Our Lady today when we choose her to be the Queen and mistress of our interior life." (Divine Intimacy, pp. 1147-1148).

When a soul is occupied with inordinate attachments to self or creatures or the vain and passing things of this world, it is unable to love God with all its strength and finds itself divided between God and self, between God and creatures, between God and the transitory things of this dying world.  But we are commanded, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength and with all thy mind." (Luke 10: 27).

It is these inordinate attachments to self or creatures which lead to dissent and ultimately polarization within the Church.  The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, tells us that, "The Church 'is like a sacrament, a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men' (Lumen Gentium, 1).  Consequently, to pursue concord and communion is to enhance the force of her witness and credibility.  To succumb to the temptation of dissent, on the other hand, is to allow the 'leaven of infidelity to the Holy Spirit' to start to work." (No. 40).

This leaven of infidelity has, for many years now, crippled many within the Church.  The dissent which has been embraced within the Church has led to polarization.  Why?  Because faithful Catholics who do not [and indeed cannot] accept the dissenting view are duty bound to resist it for the sake of the Church's authentic peace, a peace which Pope John XXIII said, "is not completely untroubled and serene; it is active, not calm and motionless.  In short, this is a peace that is ever at war.  It wars with every sort of error, including that which falsely wears the face of truth; it struggles against the enticements of vice, against those enemies of the soul, of whatever description, who can weaken, blemish, or destroy our innocence or Catholic faith." (Ad Petri cathedram).

There has been much dissent and subsequent polarization within the Diocese of Springfield (as in others) because the leadership (and here we are being most generous in our terms) of the local Church has failed to inspire the faithful (and its own priests first and foremost) to strip themselves of all that is not of God.  While St. John of the Cross assures us that, "The soul has only one will, and if it occupies itself or encumbers itself with anything, it will not remain free, solitary, and pure, as is required for divine transformation," the Springfield Diocese has encouraged an atmosphere of self-will, self-assertion, self-affirmation and self-promotion.  Forgotten is the warning of the Holy Spirit that "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (James 4: 6).

We (all of us) must become more Mary-like in heart and mind and not just in externals.  "In every deliberate sin," as Dr. Germain Grisez reminds us, such as dissent from Church teaching or deliberate non-assent, "freedom of self-determination is exercised contrary to what is known to be truly right and good.  In sinning, sinners tend to regard moral truths legalistically, as if they were mere rules blocking them from doing as they please.  Thus, deliberate sin seems to be self-affirming.  Affirming the self and rejecting the limits which deny some forbidden fruit, sinners try to be autonomous, as only God really can be."

Faith demands the renunciation of the sinful self which authentic devotion to Mary necessarily involves.  Pride must give way to humility.  Only then can one find the truth which sets one free (John 8: 32). 

Francis gets it wrong...The Church is without sin

The Herald Bulletin is reporting that Francis, speaking to youth about priests who have sexually abused minors, said that: "The weariness of hope comes from seeing a church wounded by her own sin..."

Francis is wrong.

In these times of scandal it is critical to remember that the Church remains spotless even when Her members sin. There is absolutely no doubt that the human history of the Church, like all of human history, has its dark pages. But if anyone cares to take an objective look at this history, one must quickly acknowledge that the doctrine of the Church has always implicitly condemned abuses introduced by Her members.

In the words of Dr. Dietrich Von Hildebrand, "There were sinners in the Church yesterday and there are sinners in the Church today. But the Church Herself, in her divine teaching, emerges gloriously unspotted in a history stained by human weaknesses, errors, imperfections, and sins."

In the words of the great Cardinal Journet:

"All contradictions are eliminated as soon as we understand that the members of the Church do indeed sin, but they do so by their betraying the Church. The Church is thus not without sinners, but She is without sin. The Church as person is responsible for penance. She is not responsible for sins....The members of the Church themselves - laity, clerics, priests, Bishops, and Popes - who disobey the Church are responsible for their sins, but the Church as person is not responsible...It is forgotten that the Church as person is the Bride of Christ, 'Whom He has purchased with His own blood.'" (Acts 20:28).

Purity requires modesty...some of our clerics have forgotten this!

At Fatima (1917), Our Lady said that, "Certain fashions will be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much."  Sadly, such fashions may be found even in Catholic parishes.  This is the direct result of a lack of reverence before sacred mysteries.  Dietrich von Hildebrand explains that, "..lack of reverence may have two roots...the first is to be found in pride.  The man who lacks reverence because of pride and arrogance approaches everything with conceit and presumption, imagines that he knows everything, that he sees through everything....The world holds no mystery for him.  He treats everything tactlessly, with easy familiarity...There is..another form of irreverence, one which is born of concupiscence.  The concupiscent man is interested in the world only as a means of procuring pleasure for himself...

The lack of reverence is a specific defect of our age.  On the one hand, the feeling of reverence is undermined by the increasing technicalization and instrumentalization of the world wherein everything is considered only as a means for the attainment of practical aims, and being is not allowed to be taken seriously.  On the other hand, the attitude of self-glorification is increased in man by progress in the knowledge of secondary causes and by the conquest of the physical world.  This makes us forget that 'He has made us and we have not made ourselves.'  It makes the shortsighted intoxicated with superficial knowledge so that they overlook the causa prima because of the causae secundae" (Liturgy and Personality, pp. 49, 51-52).

How important is modesty?  Saint John Chrysostom warned the immodest that:

"You carry your snare everywhere and spread your nets in all places. You allege that you never invited others to sin. You did not, indeed, by your words, but you have done so by your dress and your deportment, and much more effectively than you could by your voice. When you have made another sin in his heart, how can you be innocent? Tell me, whom does this world condemn? Whom do judges in court punish? Those who drink poison or those who prepare it and administer the fatal potion? You have prepared the abominable cup, you have given the death-dealing drink, and you are more criminal than are those who poison the body; you murder not the body, but the soul. And it is not to enemies that you do this, nor are you urged on by any imaginary necessity, nor provoked by injury, but out of foolish vanity and pride."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that, "Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance.  Modesty protects the intimate center of the person.  It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden.  It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness." (2521).  And, "..modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man.  It is born with the awakening consciousness of being a subject.  Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person." (2524).

Bearing this in mind, what must we think about the "Catholic" Youth Festival which was recently held in Australia?  See here.

A Cupich of nonsense...

Cardinal Blade Cupich is touting heretical priest Father James Martin, S.J., as a shining example of evangelization to youth.  See here.

In an essay on the meaning of evangelization, Father Vincent Miceli, S.J. wrote, "Being the work of God and man in cooperation, it must ever be a thrilling and awesome adventure.  We can say, however, that this sanctifying activity proclaims Christ to those who do not know Him, preaches the Gospel to them through catechesis and missionary sermons, confers Baptism and other sacraments and tirelessly exhorts converts to scale the heights of sanctity.  Jesus Christ, Himself, the Good News of God, was the very first and greatest evangelizer.  He proclaimed an absolute Kingdom of God, making everything else relative.  He proclaimed salvation, namely liberation from sin, Satan, death, a liberation that bestowed upon sinners returned to God grace, resurrection in immortality and glorification in the triune God.  He proclaimed the price man must pay for his salvation, namely that men must gain Heaven by violence, i.e., through a life of penance, toil, and suffering accepted in the spirit of the Suffering Servant of God.  And above all He proclaimed that man must undergo that interior renewal which the Gospel calls metanoia, that is the radical change of heart and mind which destroys 'the old man of sin' and creates 'the new man of grace.'"

Fr. Miceli then explains that there are obstacles to evangelization.  He writes, "St Thomas Aquinas teaches that three things are necessary for a soul to find, follow and embrace Christ.  First, a person must know what he ought to believe.  Second, he must know what he ought to desire.  Third, he must know what he ought to do.  Now ignorance is the first great obstacle to evangelization.  Catholics, therefore, should grow in a profound knowledge of their Faith through a constant reading and reflection on the Gospels and a faithful following of the teachings of the Magisterium.  Only thus will they come to appreciate the Catholic Faith as a gift of God that is true, good and beautiful.  They then will be moved by the Holy Spirit to bring non-Catholics to share this gift from God with them..."

Finally, surveying the Catholic Church in the United States, Fr. Miceli writes, "Unfortunately, the fact is that the Church in the United States, instead of being the crusading, courageous, evangelizing society Christ founded it to be, has become a cream-puff chaplaincy to the converted - and because of this attitude is failing to hold on even to these...How are we to stir up again the spirit of evangelization?  Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi gives us our marching orders:

'On us particularly, the pastors of the Church, rests the responsibility for reshaping with boldness and wisdom, but in complete fidelity to the content of evangelization, the means that are most suitable and effective for communicating the Gospel message to the men and women of our times.'" (Fr. Vincent P. Miceli, citing Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi, No. 40).

Note this passage.  What does Pope Paul VI mean by "complete fidelity to the content of evangelization"?  The Holy Father means that pastors of the Church must offer the men and women of our times what Pope Benedict XVI has said is the entire plan of God. See here.  That is to say, the full content of Catholic teaching - including, and especially, those hard truths which the world does not want to hear but which faithful Catholics must share with hurting souls who wander about without a shepherd.

This is what evangelization is all about!

Perhaps Cardinal Cupich would be so kind as to regale us with his stunning intellect and explain how Father James Martin offers the faithful an evangelization which reflects the entire plan of God?

I won't be holding my breath.  Liberals believe in slogans, not substance.

Francis exhorts youth to disorder, which is a mark of the Devil

Father Patrick McHugh explains that, "The angels, like ourselves, have free will. Some of them turned from God; we humans can also reject grace in our turn. The beginning of hell is to listen to the serpent who urges us to decide for ourselves what is good or evil with out reference to God. Satan knows, if we do not, that there is no goodness or beauty or truth or love that are not sparks cast off from the Pure Source of Goodness and Beauty and Love and Truth that God is. We can no more create moral goodness on our own than we can create the stars. The goodness of honesty or integrity or chastity exists outside and beyond anything we may elect, vote for or decide.

Pope John Paul II has brilliantly analyzed this objectivity of moral goodness in his Encyclical, The Splendor of Truth (Veritatis splendor). What he insists on, if not in these exact words, is that the the moral law, like the law of gravitation, does not come from our consensus. It does not come from earth but from heaven. We are free to accept or reject it but we are not free to accept or reject the consequences. If we turn from the goodness of honesty or fidelity or compassion or responsibility or truth or love, if we turn from God deliberately and with malice, we enter into the realm of disorder, alienation and hate. We carry our personalities with us into eternity. We ratify what we have chosen to become. If we leave this world locked into ego, our choice of self apart from God becomes final, irrevocable and complete. This is known as hell."

The realm of disorder.  Another word for disorder is chaos.  Is this where Francis wants to take us?  At World Youth Day in Krakow, Francis exhorted youth to create chaos.  See here.

 Fr. Vincent P. Miceli, in an essay entitled "The Taproot of Violence," explains: "...violence entered creation from the rebellion of Lucifer. This rebellion arose from the heart of pride. But the sin of pride is the offspring of the vice known as hatred of truth. Hatred of truth is the result of the creature's attempt to rearrange God's hierarchy of beings and values into an order which the creature prefers to the plan of God. This attempt immediately produces the violence of disorder, the chaos of falsity and immorality. For hatred of truth is really hatred of God who creates all things wisely and governs them lovingly. Lucifer, the Morning Star, was instantly deformed into the Prince of Darkness because he attempted to live a lie. He wanted to dethrone God and become God himself..."

We live in an environment where there is a "violence of disorder" because we have abandoned truth.  And hatred of truth leads to violence.  It is the very root of violence.

Dorothy Sayers warned that the choice before us is Creed (read Christ) or chaos.  Francis has obviously chosen the latter and wants the youth to follow him.

The Boy Scouts will now expose their youth to homosexual predators

OneNewsNow reports:

"A traditional values leader finds it ironic that the largest pro-LGBT lobbying group in the U.S. criticized Scott Walker for voicing support for a Boy Scouts policy the Wisconsin governor said protected children.

Last week the BSA voted to drop its longtime ban on openly homosexual leaders. Prior to that vote, Walker – an Eagle Scout and GOP presidential hopeful – was asked how he felt about the proposed policy change.

'I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values,' he told the Independent Journal Review.

In response, the Human Rights Campaign called for an apology from the governor. '[His] suggestion [that the Scouts' policy] somehow 'protects' children from gay adults is offensive, outrageous, and absolutely unacceptable,' HRC president Chad Griffin offered in a statement. 'His comments imply that we represent a threat to the safety and well-being of young people.'

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality takes issue with Griffin's reaction, reminding HRC of its own history – and particularly that of one of its major contributors and co-founders.

'Terry Bean himself is being prosecuted for having homosexual sex with an underage boy – and now it's come out that he had sex with another underage boy,' LaBarbera explains. 'And so for the Human Rights Campaign to condemn Scott Walker for wanting to protect Boy Scouts from homosexual predators is just the height of irony.'"

Harry Hay, the founder of the Mattachine Society which, "proved to be the catalyst for the American gay rights movement." (Dudley Clendinen, "Harry Hay, Early Proponent of Gay Rights, Dies at 90," The New York Times, October 25, 2002), deserted the Catholic Church after having homosexual relations at the age of 14 (with a sailor ten years his senior), and was himself a proponent of man-boy sex, giving a speech at an October 7, 1984 conference of NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) in San Francisco.

Harry Hay spoke frequently at NAMBLA events and periodically came to the defense of the organization.

So, one of the founders - some would say the founder - of the American "gay rights" movement, was a proponent of sexual relations between men and boys. Why doesn't this trouble those in the mainstream media?  Because the mainstream media has bought fully into the radical homosexual agenda and is incapable of any objectivity whatsoever with regard to the subject of homosexuality.

This point is illustrated most eloquently in Phil Valentine's book entitled "The Conservative's Handbook."  Mr. Valentine notes that, "On September 26, 1999, thirteen-year-old Jesse Dirkhising was lured to the apartment of two gay men where he was repeatedly raped and then strangled to death, some reports say with his own underwear. Where was the national outrage?  Here was a child  who was sodomized and murdered by two adult men and the mainstream media ignored it."

Mr. Valentine adds that the murder of Matthew Shepherd "sparked outrage across the country" because the mainstream media which virtually ignored the brutal rape and murder of little Jesse Dirkhising, "played up the crime and the subsequent call from the Left for federal hate-crime legislation to protect gays."

Then Mr. Valentine notes, "Unfortunately for little Jesse Dirkhising and his family, he doesn't fall into any protected group.  The crime against him wasn't based on race or religion or sexual orientation.  It was merely two deranged, perverted monsters who preyed upon an innocent little boy. Was he any less dead than Matthew Shepherd?  There's no question that his death was more tragic - a young boy, repeatedly raped then killed.  Why did the media ignore it?  Because it didn't fit their definition of a politically correct story." (The Conservative's Handbook, p. 98).

Sex between men and boys has long been a part of homosexual culture and history as documented by openly homosexual history professor William Armstrong Percy III in his book entitled "Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece." See here.  Of course, propagandists for the Homosexual Hate Movement will never admit to this.

Tricia Wittmann-Todd would deny youth who are questioning their sexual identity an authentic understanding of joy

In Galatians 5: 22-23, the Holy Spirit tells us through Saint Paul that, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."  Tricia Wittmann-Todd, Pastoral Life Coordinator at Saint Mary's Parish in the Central Area of Seattle, Washington, would deny the youth of her parish an authentic understanding of joy.

Ms. Wittmann-Todd, having succumbed to the erroneous idea that Catholic moral teaching would in some way harm the youth of her parish, has refused to circulate petitions in support of Referendum 74, the ballot measure to roll back Washington's recently passed same-sex "marriage" law.  Her reasoning?  Wittmann-Todd asserts that she is, "particularly concerned about our youth who may be questioning their own sexual identity and need our support at this time in their lives."  See here.

Ms. Wittmann-Todd is so concerned about the youth of Saint Mary's Parish that she has decided to set an example for them on how to be disobedient to the Church's Pastors.  She has also decided to deny these youth an authentic understanding as to what constitutes joy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that, "By the power of the Spirit, God's children can bear much fruit.  He who has grafted us onto the true vine will make us bear 'the fruit of the Spirit:...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.'  'We live by the Spirit'; the more we renounce ourselves, the more we 'walk by the Spirit.'.." (CCC, 736).  And again: "The fruits of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory.  The tradition of the Church lists twelve of them: 'Charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity.'" (CCC, 1832).

You see, we live in the Spirit when we renounce ourselves.  We are not living in the spirit if we engage in sinful behaviors such as homosexual acts.  Those who do live such a lifestyle will not have joy.  The Lord Jesus promises heavenly joy to those who suffer the consequences of following Him [and this demands picking up our cross and following Him daily] and calls for its anticipation saying, "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven" (Matthew 5: 12).  Dr. Germain Grisez explains that, "St. Paul teaches that Christians always should call on God's help by constant prayer, rejoice in hope, be patient, and not be anxious (see Rom 12: 12; Phil 4: 4-6).  Since Christian joy presupposes hope, Jesus' and Paul's injunctions to rejoice can be fulfilled only by nurturing hope.  But hope grows in a kind of virtuous circle: joy amid suffering helps faithful Christians endure what they must, this endurance conforms their character to that of Jesus, and likeness to Jesus increases their confidence and further intensifies their hope (see Rom 5: 3-4; cf. Phil 3: 8-21)."

Dr. Grisez goes on to explain that the fear of Hell is essential for Christian hope (and remember, Christian joy presupposes hope).  He reminds us that, "..if one becomes forgetful of the possibility of hell and loses all fear of it, heaven seems a sure thing, with the bad result that it no longer is possible to have Christian hope for it or live a life shaped by that hope.  Christian hope is the intention of the kingdom as one's end, and some good can be intended as an end only if one's action is expected to help bring about that good.  Thus, someone confident of sharing in the kingdom no matter what, simply cannot intend it as an end and live for it, although such a person still may think about heaven for solace when loved ones die and during other times of suffering.  In consequence, someone who forgets the possibility of hell ignores the kingdom when deliberating and making choices.  Unable any longer to order his or her life to the kingdom, that person becomes motivated by other interests and desires, and these alien ends, pursued independently of faith and hope, make their own incompatible demands.  Thus, the life of a Christian forgetful of hell becomes indistinguishable from the life of a nonbeliever.  Consequently, while properly Christian fear depends on hope, hope also depends on fear.  And while hope for the kingdom always should dominate, fear of hell never should be entirely excluded.  Thus, meditation on the last things, which appropriately begins from Sacred Scripture, should reflect the balanced approach of the New Testament, which focuses on heaven but never entirely loses sight of hell."

Christian joy presupposes hope.  And the fear of Hell is essential for Christian hope.  How quickly some forget this.  We hear much nonsense today from those within the "homosexual community" about "the joys of gay sex."  But there is no authentic joy apart from living in obedience to God's Commandments.  Joy is a fruit of living in the Spirit, not of living in the flesh.

One would think Ms. Wittmann-Todd would want to impart this truth to the youth of St. Mary's Parish.  But apparently she would rather sow confusion in this area.  And we wonder why Our Lady weeps?

Tricia Wittmann-Todd believes she knows what's best for "her" Catholic Parish

As this article notes, even though Archbishop J. Peter Sartain has asked parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Seattle, Washington to circulate petitions in support of Referendum 74, the ballot measure to roll back Washington's recently passed same-sex "marriage" law, several parishes have refused to do so.  One of these parishes, St. Mary's Parish in the Central Area, issued a statement through its "pastoral life coordinator" Tricia Wittmann-Todd.

In her "weekly message," Ms. Wittmann-Todd writes:

"Dear People of St Mary's,


I am writing to share with you my decision regarding collection of signatures at St Mary's for Referendum 74, to repeal the redefinition of marriage. This is a very sensitive issue, impacting people at the very core of our lives. Archbishop Sartain has sent a letter to all Catholics. I have attached the letter. He has given permission to parishes to collect signatures for the Referendum and encouraged us to do so. He has also expressed that each parish leader must decide how best to proceed, given the pastoral considerations within the parish. After much prayer and reflection, I have decided we will not collect signatures at the parish. I am certain you will find ample opportunity elsewhere to sign whatever petitions you choose.

This decision is based on two primary considerations. St Mary's mission is "House of God, Home for Everyone". One of our highest values is inclusion and welcome. I fear that the collection of signatures would be hurtful and divisive to our parish. I am particularly concerned about our youth who may be questioning their own sexual identity and need our support at this time in their lives.

The second consideration is that as Catholics, each of us is asked to form our conscience and decide how to vote on this and other issues, ie tax policies, services to the poor, environmental laws, capital punishment, etc. We form our conscience through studying the Word of God in the Bible, listening carefully to the teachings of the church from our Tradition and the discernment of the Spirit within our own experience. Many of our parishioners have not had sufficient opportunity to form their consciences and those who have represent a wide variety of beliefs. Some believe the church should marry all committed couples, others that the state should marry all but not the church, others that the term "marriage" should be preserved for a man and a woman, while other relationships are "domestic partnerships", and there are those who believe only heterosexuals should have partners. Our Archbishop is trying to help us in the process of conscience formation by articulating the reasons he believes we should support Referendum 74. I ask you to prayerfully read his letter, hearing all that is being said. In addition, read the Bible, particularly those passages cited by the church on marriage. (you can find these documents at the USCCB website.) Finally, pray and reflect on your own experience of marriage and listen to what God is telling you. Sometimes I think when God is speaking to us, we respond-"call the Bishop, I don't have time to listen. " But as Archbishop Sartain writes "The church calls everyone to holiness."

I hope to have a gathering soon where we can learn more about how to form one's conscience in general and particularly on the question of marriage. In this, as in all things, I pray we will treat one another with love and respect, building up our community of faith.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and questions with me.

Blessings on this Easter Season,

Tricia"

Well, you asked us to share our thoughts Tricia.   Here are mine.  Vatican II, which you obviously have little or no respect for, teaches quite clearly that, "In forming their consciences, the Christian faithful ought to give heed to the sacred and certain doctrine doctrine of the Church.  For the Catholic Church is, by the will of Christ, the teacher of the truth.  It is her duty to give utterance to, and authoritatively to teach, that truth which is Christ, and also to declare and confirm by her authority principles of the moral order flowing from human nature itself." (Dignitatis Humanae, No. 14).

The faithful have a responsibility, a duty, to assent to the Church's teachings and to obey the Church's pastoral leaders just as the Lord Jesus obeyed the Father.  The duty of the faithful to obey the Holy Father and one's own Bishop is analogous to the responsibility which the faithful have to give religious assent to their teachings which call for such assent.  Canon Law makes this clear: "The Christian faithful, conscious of their own responsibility, are bound by Christian obedience to follow what the sacred pastors, as representatives of Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or determine as leaders of the Church." (Can. 212).

In your arrogance, you have decided that St. Mary's Parish will not collect signatures in an effort to oppose homosexual unions even though your Archbishop has asked the faithful under his care to do so.  As a result, you are not only being disobedient to your Archbishop but you have set yourself against the teaching of the Church.  The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its document entitled "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons," makes it clear that the homosexual movement takes advantage of legal tolerance to promote its idoelogy and to place people at risk, particularly youth.  The very youth you claim you are concerned about.  And this authoritative document warns that "the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil." (No. 5).  And even where homosexual unions have been legalized, "clear and emphatic opposition is a duty." (No. 5). 

What do the words "clear and emphatic opposition is a duty" mean to you Tricia?  Jesus is Our Lord.  And the Church's Pastors govern in His name. And yet you have chosen to reject the clear and unambiguous teaching of the Church's Pastors. Reflect on these words of Pope John Paul II Tricia: "Being of sacramental origin, this authority is exclusively of divine origin, and remains such; it has no need, therefore, of ratification by anyone else." (Address to the Bishops of Brazil, February 26, 1990).

You have succumbed to pride Tricia.  You are opposing the Church's Pastors.  This means you are opposing the will of Christ.

I am praying for you.

World Youth Conference 2010: Corrupting the young and experimenting with immortal souls

“They promise..freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption…” (2 Peter 2:19).


Satan does not want us to live in peace and harmony. His intention is to make a physical and spiritual wreckage of all God’s creation. To this end he enlists men in that attempt by their lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life. He is especially anxious to seduce the young and to corrupt them so thoroughly that they come to resemble more and more the devils they then follow.

The Catholic Church teaches that, “Educating children for chastity strives to achieve three objectives: (a) to maintain in the family a positive atmosphere of love, virtue, and respect for the gifts of God, in particular the gift of life; (b) to help children to understand the value of sexuality and chastity in stages, sustaining their growth through enlightening word, example, and prayer; (c) to help them understand and discover their own vocation to marriage or to consecrated virginity for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven in harmony with and respecting their attitudes and inclinations and the gifts of the Spirit.” (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality (Guidelines for Education Within the Family), issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, No. 3).

This requires self-control, which is why chastity is so important: “One cannot give what one does not possess. If the person is not master of self – through the virtues and, in a concrete way, through chastity – he or she lacks that self-possession which makes self-giving possible. Chastity is the spiritual power which frees love from selfishness and aggression.” (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, No. 16).

Satan knows this. And so he wages a battle against chastity through sex-education which radically separates sex from the very idea of the covenanted love of man and woman, a sex education and propaganda which the group POPE (Parents for Orthodoxy in Parochial Education) referred to as, “the spiritual, emotional rape of our children through various and devious methods of mind manipulation” (“Do Sex-Education Programs Corrupt Youth? The Wanderer, April 17, 1969).

Just as Pope John Paul II created a World Youth Day to instill Gospel values in our young people, the Evil One has enlisted men to create a World Youth Conference in which Gospel values are subverted. As Terrence McKeegan, J.D., is reporting, “Last week at the World Youth Conference, organized primarily by the Mexican government and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the main event for most of [the] estimated 5,000 ‘participants’ was the Interactive Global Forum, a massive expo with hundreds of booths and exhibits. A tour of the booths revealed what passes for ‘age-appropriate’ sexual education in some UN circles. Because the venue for the World Youth Conference had considerably more exhibit space than most UN conferences, it was a unique opportunity for organizations focusing on youth to put their best face forward. In the expo hall, there were dozens of booths with pornographic or sexually explicit materials or presentations.

At the International Planned Parenthood Federation (the largest provider of abortion services in the world) booth, their table featured the sexually explicit brochure: "Healthy, Happy, and Hot", which garnered headlines last March due to its distribution at a Girl Scouts side event at the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
At a booth by an organization named “RECREA,” there was a table with a bowl of condoms and a wooden phallus. The walls of the exhibit booth were covered with pornographic and sexually suggestive photos. Nearby there were two glass cases featuring rubber models of male and female genitalia, as well as a bright assortment of condoms.



At the Fundacion Collectivo de Mujeres Jovenes booth,which was staffed by two middle-aged men, the presentation largely consisted of a collection of thong underwear hung up around the booth, as well as a “snakes and ladders” floor game with puffy dice." (Full article here).

Did you catch the name of that "game"? Who is the serpent?

Our Lady told Father Gobbi on June 30, 1994: "Take by the hand those children who have been set on the road to precocious experiences of evil. Support the youth who have been ensnared and seduced by false values which have been proposed to them and who are succumbing under the weight of sins, of impurity and of drugs....Thus you become instruments of salvation for all, in these last times, when everything which I foretold to you must be accomplished. In this way, by means of you, my Immaculate Heart will, in the end, triumph."

Will we respond to Our Lady's call?

Related: A sign photographed in Boston. Our sad time.

Strange parallels

In an article posted at World Net Daily (see here) we are told: "The official website of President-Elect Barack Obama, Change.gov, originally announced that Obama would 'require' all middle school through college students to participate in community service programs; but after a flurry of blogs protested children being drafted into Obama's proposed youth corps, the website's wording was softened."

Interestingly, as Dusty Sklar notes in her book "The Nazis and the Occult," "German youth had always been highly organized. In the Weimar Republic some 4.5 million boys and girls under twenty-one were members of organizations connected with the National Board of German Youth Associations. Under Hitler, the youth movement became a holy crusade. By the end of 1934, the Hitler Youth included 6 million members, ranging in age from ten to eighteen...Parents and church groups were in jeopardy if they failed actively to support the Hitler Youth, so that eventually all the young in Germany, according to the contemporary observer, Stephen H. Roberts, were 'stamped into the same mould' and emerged 'as unquestioning automata, physically fit and mental sponges for the official Hitler hero-worship,' with the slogan 'Command and we follow...the standard is more than death'...The brainwashing actually began in the cradle. Even the fairy tales read to babies instilled the propaganda that the Fuhrer had been sent from heaven to kill the wicked enemy who was eager to devour little children...The system of indoctrination was perfect. At ten, each boy joined the Young Folk: and each girl, the Union of German Maidens. They received uniforms and took a pledge to devote their lives to the Fuhrer. His will was to be their will. Hitler knew well how to accomplish this:

"This youth learns nothing else than to think German, to act German, and if these boys enter our organization at the age of 10,...then 4 years later they come from the Jungfolk into the Hitler Youth, and we keep them there for another 4 years, and then we certainly don't give them back into the hands of the originators of our old classes and estates, but take them straight into the party, into the Labour Front, the SA or the SS, the NSKK, and so on. And if they are there for another 2 years or a year and a half and still haven't become complete National Socialists, then they go into the Labour Service and are polished for another 6 or 7 months, all with a symbol, the German spade. And any class consciousness or pride of status that may be left here and there is taken over by the Wehrmacht for further treatment for 2 years, and when they come back after 2, 3, or 4 years, we take them straight into the SA, SS, and so on again, so that they shall in no case suffer a relapse, and they don't feel free again as long as they live...'" (The Nazis and the Occult,pp. 109-110).

"...we get a much more dangerous situation when propaganda moves out of its original orbit; when it ceases to be exercised on behalf of a number of competing movements and parties within the State, and instead is taken over by the State itself; when the State, in short, begins to behave as if it were itself a movement or a party. Contemporary history shows us clearly enough that the scourge called 'the single party' paves the way for that other scourge, State propaganda. The single party is always the root from which modern dictatorships spring and from which they draw their strength.." (Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society, p. 50).

Related reading here.