The Worcester Diocese welcomes a heretic....

 

An anonymous reader left the following at my last post:

On October 27 at 6 p.m., Dr. Thomas Groome will present “Passing on the Gift of Faith” at St. Rose of Lima Church, 244 W. Main Street (Rt. 20), Northboro. It will be preceded by Mass at 5 p.m. for all who would like to attend. This presentation, part of the parish’s Year of Faith efforts, will discuss how we can pass on our faith to children and other adults in challenging times. Professor Groome is chair of the Dept. of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College. All are welcome.


The following is taken from the Gospa Missions website:

The False Theology of Dr. Thomas Groome

Laicized priest, Boston College professor of theology and director of the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry and author of many books used in Catholic education

Introduction:

The purpose of this document is to present Dr. Groome’s views on a not insignificant number of topics that he has disseminated, in print or in lectures or in broadcast interviews, which are in serious conflict with the teachings of the Holy Father and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. It is by no means intended to be an exhaustive analysis of Groome’s dissent from the Doctrines of the Catholic Church as many additional examples can be found in his writings, interviews and lectures. But the examples included are more than sufficient to establish the fact that Dr. Groome’s theology is dangerously opposed to the consistent teaching of Catholic Scripture, the Holy Fathers and Doctors, Pope John Paul II and the loyal Magisterium of the Church.

The format of the document is to present a Dr. Groome’s views, in his own words, on a doctrine of the Catholic church followed by the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church through her Magisterium. I pray that all who read this document will subject Dr. Groome’s theology to a critical and discriminating analysis and will view them with the same “hermeneutic of suspicion” employed by him in his efforts to rewrite sacred scripture and to despoil Catholic Tradition.

Groome’s Position On the teaching authority of the Pope and the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church:

Groome argues that “Throughout his ministry, Jesus called together ‘an inclusive discipleship of equals’ to participate in his mission and to carry it on after him.” [Thomas Groome, Sharing Faith, A Comprehensive Approach to Religious Education & Pastoral Ministry, Harper, San Francisco, 1991, p. 301] op. cit. p. 444]

Expanding on this theme Groome insists that the Church “should be an egalitarian [i.e. Democratic] community.” [Ibid. p. 444]

In this same ‘the Church should be a democracy’ vein Groome insists, “If we remember that the Church is the whole community of the Body of Christ, including all baptized Christians and not just its leaders, then we recognize that the Church’s ‘teaching authority’ cannot be limited to the institutional Magisterium.” [Emphasis added]. [Thomas Groome, Educating For Life, op. cit. p. 241.]

(N.B: the Catholic Church defines “all Christians” as those who are validly baptized into the various Protestants sects as well as those validly baptized into the Catholic Church. In reading Groome it appears that his definition of “Christian” is anyone who is baptized into any persuasion, whether the baptism is judged valid or invalid by the Catholic Church).

· Vatican II emphatically rejected erroneous statements of this sort when it proclaimed: “But the task of giving an authentic interpretation to the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.” [Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, n. 25.]

Groome publicly chastised Pope John Paul II for the Holy Father’s teaching in his apostolic letter Ad Tuendam Fidem, whose stated purpose was “to protect the faith of the Catholic Church against errors from certain members of the Christian faithful, especially from among those dedicated to the various disciplines of sacred theology.” Groome attacked the letter calling it “a pretentious attempt by the present pope to stifle conversation and dialogue.” Groome lamented, “I read the blessed thing and without being too melodramatic, I was on the verge of tears. It is a very sad day.” [Thomas H. Groome, The Boston Globe, July 2, 1998.]

Totally misrepresenting the true definition of the Papal Magisterium Groome proclaims “In mainstream Catholic understanding of papal magisterium, however, the pope, as bishop of Rome, must teach in consultation and collegiality with the bishops of the world and represent the consensus faith of the whole Church, in fidelity to Scripture and Tradition.”[Emphasis added] [Thomas Groome, Educating for Life, Thomas More, Texas, 1998, p. 240]

· Vatican I definitively taught “ … that it is a divinely revealed dogma that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ‘ex cathedra’, i.e., when exercising his office as pastor and teacher of all Christians he defines, by his supreme apostolic authority, a doctrine of faith or morals which must be held by the universal Church, enjoys, through the divine assistance, that infallibility promised to him in blessed Peter and with which the divine Redeemer wanted His Church to be endowed in defining doctrine of faith and morals; and therefore that the definitions of the same Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves and not from the consent of the Church. If anyone should presume to contradict this definition of ours … anathema - sit." [Emphasis added] [Vatican I Pastor Aeturnus, Chapter IV].

· Vatican II emphatically affirmed that “The Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, namely, and as pastor of the entire Church, has full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.” [Emphasis added] [Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, n. 22; cf. Christus Dominus, n. 2]

· Speaking in regard to the supreme teaching authority of the Pope, Lumen Gentium added: “And therefore, his definitions [the Pope’s], of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, are justly styled irreformable … and therefore they need no approval of others, nor do they allow an appeal to any other judgment.” [Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, n. 25]

· Dei Verbum, the Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation teaches that Sacred Scripture must be viewed within the context of the Church’s Faith and that we cannot interpret Sacred Scripture such that it invalidates accepted Church teachings. The second principle that must be observed is that we cannot interpret Tradition that comes to us from the apostles in a manner that contradicts what the Magisterium has already ruled definitively to be the doctrine of the Church: “ … since Holy Scripture must be read and interpreted in the sacred spirit in which it was written, no less serious attention must be given to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture if the meaning of the sacred texts is to be correctly worked out. The living tradition of the whole Church must be taken into account along with the harmony which exists between elements of the faith. It is the task of exegetes to work according to these rules toward a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture, so that through preparatory study the judgment of the Church may mature. For all of what has been said about the way of interpreting Scripture is subject finally to the judgment of the Church, which carries out the divine commission and ministry of guarding and interpreting the word of God. [Emphasis added]. [Dei Verbum, n.12]
 

It is obvious that Dr. Groome’s theology in this area is seriously at odds with the teaching of Holy Mother Church and in some cases borders on the heretical. His pernicious attempt to destroy the firmly rooted Doctrine of the teaching responsibility and authority of the Pope and the Magisterium, which dates back to the 1^st century, must, in and of itself, disqualify him as a responsible teacher of, or lecturer on, the Catholic Faith.

Groome’s position On Papal succession and the Supremacy of the Successor of Peter:

In a not too subtle effort to disparage the doctrine of papal succession and, therefore the right of the popes, including Pope John Paul II, to teach in the name of Jesus, Groome declares, “The traditional Catholic assertion that there is a direct historical line of succession between the present Pope and Peter,presumed to be the first bishop of Rome, must also be nuanced [i.e. “questioned”].” [Emphasis added] [Thomas Groome, Sharing Faith, op. cit. p. 314.]

Groome continues, “in light of New Testament scholarship, we cannot presume a line of direct succession between pope and Peter...the function of bishop as we might recognize it today did not begin until the second century.” [Ibid. p. 314.]

Groome concludes: “In light of this, ‘the supposition that, when Peter did come to Rome (presumably in the 60’s), he took over and became the first bishop represents a retrojection of later church order’.” [Ibid.]

· The Catholic Church has unambiguously and consistently taught and declared that: “It is by the institution of Christ the Lord, that is, by divine right, that blessed Peter has endless successors in his primacy over the whole Church.” [Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, Denz. 3056.]

· “… the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Blessed Peter in the same primacy.” (i.e. Rome). [Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, Denz. 3058].

· Pope John Paul II has declared that this definition of papal succession“…binds the primacy of Peter and his successor to the See of Rome, which cannot be replaced by any other see.” [Pope John Paul II, The Bishop of Rome Is Peter’s Successor, General Audience, January 27, 1993].

· Vatican I solemnly teaches: “If, then, any one shall say that it is not by the institution of Christ the Lord, or by divine right, that Blessed Peter should have a perpetual line of successors in the primacy over the UniversalChurch; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of Blessed Peter in this primacy - anathema sit.”[Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, Denz. 3058.]

The doctrines of Papal supremacy and the infallible teaching authority of the Pope did not, of course, originate with the 1^st and 2^nd Vatican Councils. From the following citations it is abundantly clear that from the very first days of the Church it was Peter to whom the faithful, including the apostles, looked for leadership and it was the Pope, the Successor of Peter, to whom all faithful Christians turned for the definitive interpretation of Christ’s teachings. The Truth that all Christians must, as articles of faith, believe.

· Pope St.Leo the Great taught the doctrines of Papal succession and the supremacy of the Pope as head of the Apostolic See in the 5^thcentury, by which time it was already a “longstanding custom”: “The Lord . . . wanted His gifts to flow into the entire body from Peter himself, as if from the head, in such a way that anyone who had dared to separate himself from the solidarity of Peter would realize that he was himself no longer a sharer in the divine mystery . . The Apostolic See . . has on countless occasions been reported to in consultation by bishops . . . And through the appeal of various cases to this see, decisions already made have been either revoked or confirmed, as dictated by longstanding custom” [Emphasis added] [Pope St. Leo the Great (r. 440-461) in Letter to the Bishops of Vienne, July, 445 A.D., 10:1-2; in Jurgens, William A., ed. and tr., The Faith of the Early Fathers [FEF], 3 volumes, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970, vol. 3, 269]

· The Council of Lyons II (1274) affirmed that: … it is the teaching authority of the Church itself that determines what is orthodox (including the position of supremacy of the papacy) when it declared: “Also this same holy Roman Church holds the highest and complete primacy and spiritual power over the universal Catholic Church which she truly and humbly recognizes herself to have received with fullness of power from the Lord Himself in Blessed Peter, the chief or head of the Apostles whose successor is the Roman Pontiff. And just as to defend the truth of Faith she is held before all other things, so if any questions shall arise regarding faith they ought to be defined by her judgment . . . in all cases looking forward to an ecclesiastical examination, recourse can be had to her judgment, and all churches are subject to her; their prelates give obedience and reverence to her”. [Henry Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma; translated by Roy J. Deferrari, from the 13th edition of Enchiridion Symbolorum, 1955, Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, section 466, p. 185]

· From the Council of Florence (1438-1445), in its Decree for the Greeks, Laetentur coeli, July 6, 1439 we learn that: “We likewise define that the holy Apostolic See, and the Roman Pontiff, hold the primacy throughout the entire world; and that the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter, the chief of the Apostles, and the true vicar of Christ, and that he is the head of the entire Church, and the father and teacher of all Christians; and that full power was given to him in blessed Peter by our Lord Jesus Christ, to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church; just as is contained in the acts of the ecumenical Councils and in the sacred canons”. [Ibid., section 694, p. 220]

On the ordained Ministry, the Eucharist and the Apostolic Succession:

In Sharing Faith, Dr. Groome supports the notion that Jesus did not commission the apostles at the last supper. “… the many specific ministries in the New Testament church

seems to have emerged from the existential situations and needs of the first Christian communities. Some people were needed to preside at worship others to preach, to teach, … , to minister to people in need, and so on” [Emphasis added]. Groome concludes with the observation that “ … the communities began to designate people to fulfill functions of service … in the name of the church. They did not understand the commissioning to confer a sacral status [on those commissioned]. Designation called one to a function of service but not apart from the rest of the community. [Emphasis added] [ Thomas Groome, Sharing Faith, op. cit. p. 309]

Groome includes the sacral function of presiding at worship with all the other non-sacral functions, which certainly could have been conferred on a person by the community itself or even merely assumed by a person without any investiture, formal or informal, by the community thereby strongly inferring that the sacral ordination of priests was accomplished in the same manner. This is a classic example of Groome’s uncanny ability to interject a seemingly innocuous word or phrase to plant the seed of a heretical view. Employing the “hermeneutic of suspicion”, the cornerstone of his teaching philosophy, to first cast doubt on and then to totally deny, a well established, Traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. One must admit that, unfortunately, he is marvelously skillful at his craft.

Groome often attempts to validate his arguments by citing opinions proposed by well know dissident theologians. In Sharing Faith Groome eagerly embraces an assertion by the well known revisionist theologian Fr. Raymond E. Brown on the ministerial priesthood, which Groome claims is “now generally accepted”; in which Brown proclaims; “In spite of the long tradition of this view, contemporary scholars find no basis for such an interpretation. In other words, Jesus did not ordain the apostles at this final supper to be ‘priests,’ giving them thereby the power to celebrate the eucharist (sic).” [Emphasis added] [ Thomas Groome, Sharing Faith, op. cit. p. 314, 512n. 27.]

Groome’s repudiation of the Church’s teaching on the origin of the ministerial priesthood becomes manifestly evident as he expounds on Brown’s hypothesis. “ Brown is proposing, and his thesis now seems generally accepted, that the first Christians did not see the confecting of the Eucharist as a personal and ontological power invested in one person who rendered Eucharist for the community. Instead, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, the ‘sacramental powers’ resided in the whole community, ……, the community chose certain people to preside at divine worship for the sake of ‘holy order’. Usually … this designation fell to the community leader, not because of a sacral power, but by HER or his function of leadership[Emphasis added].

[Thomas Groome, Sharing Faith, op. cit. p. 310.]

Elsewhere, in his attempt to discredit the church’s consistent teaching on the Hierarchical structure of Holy Orders, Groome claims that “the function of bishop as we might recognize it today did not begin until the second century.” [Sharing Faith, op. cit. p. 314]

Again quoting Raymond Brown, Groome concurs with Brown’s denial of the church’s teaching on Apostolic succession: “There is simply no compelling evidence for the classic thesis that…there was a chain of ordination passing the power of presiding at the Eucharist from the Twelve to missionary apostles to presbyter-bishops. How one got the right to preside and whether it endured beyond a single instance we do not know.” [Emphasis added] [Sharing Faith, op. cit. p. 310]

Commenting on what Groome defines as the “Tridentine perspective” on the “ministry”, which emphasized the division of the Ordained Ministry into bishop, priest and deacon, Groome declares: “New Testament evidence suggests…the Tridentine perception of ministry is much more the product of history and of the socio-cultural contexts in which the church found herself than of any blueprint to be found in the New Testament communities.” [Ibid. p. 311-12.]

Groome concludes that “the notion that presiding at Eucharist is an exclusively priestly function did not become widespread until the beginning of the third century. The association of priesthood with Eucharist emerged as later Christians began to allegorize sacrifices of the Hebrew covenant, which were offered by priests. As Christianity became separated from Judaism and thus from Jewish priesthood, Eucharist was perceived as replacing the sacrifices no longer offered in the now destroyed temple, and thus requiring the sacerdotal function of the priest.” [Emphasis added].[Ibid.]

How many innocent young minds have read or heard these words of Dr. Groome pronounced by a teacher of religious education who is a disciple of Groome and have, to the destruction of their faith and possibly the loss of their immortal souls, concluded that the Eucharist has no more significance than the burnt offerings of the Old Testament priests? In stark contrast to the stated beliefs of Dr. Groome, the Catholic Church has definitively, emphatically and consistently taught:

· “It has always been the conviction of the Church of God …that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change in the whole substance of the bread into the whole substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood.” [Council of Trent, (DS 1642), cf. CCC, 1376]

· “ …. the Eucharist “is the principal and central raison d'être of the sacrament of priesthood, which effectively came into being at the moment of the institution of the Eucharist”. Apostolic Letter Dominicae Cenae(24 February 1980), 2: AAS 72 (1980), 115.]

· The Council of Trent affirmed the Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist and ministerial priesthood with the following words; “Sacrifice and priesthood are by the ordinance of God so united that both have existed in every law. Since therefore in the New Testament the Catholic Church has received from the institution of Christ the holy, visible sacrifice of the Eucharist, it must also be confessed that there is in that Church a new, visible and external priesthood, into which the old has been translated. That this was instituted by the same Lord our Savior, and that to the Apostles and their successors in the priesthood was given the power of consecrating, offering and administering His body and blood … is shown by the Sacred Scriptures and has always been taught by the tradition of the Catholic Church. [Emphasis [Council of Trent, Session 23, Chapter 1]

· Pope John Paul II in his 2003 encyclical on the Eucharist cautions: “At times one encounters an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery. Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet. Furthermore, the necessity of the ministerial priesthood, grounded in apostolic succession, is at times obscured and the sacramental nature of the Eucharist is reduced to its mere effectiveness as a form of proclamation”. [Emphasis added]. [ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA n.10]

· “The Eucharist too has its foundation in the Apostles … because it was entrusted by Jesus to the Apostles and has been handed down to us by them and by their successors. It is in continuity with the practice of the Apostles, in obedience to the Lord's command, that the Church has celebrated the Eucharist down the centuries” ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA n.10]

· Vatican Council II teaches that it is the ordained priest who: “acting in the person of Christ, brings about the Eucharistic Sacrifice and offers it to God in the name of all the people”. [Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 10.]

· “the Eucharist … is a gift which radically transcends the power of the assembly and is … essential for validly linking the Eucharistic consecration to the sacrifice of the Cross and to the Last Supper. The assembly gathered together for the celebration of the Eucharist … absolutely requires the presence of an ordained priest as its president. … the community is by itself incapable of providing an ordained minister. This minister is a gift which the assembly receives through episcopal succession going back to the Apostles. It is the Bishop who, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, makes a new presbyter by conferring upon him the power to consecrate the Eucharist.”[Emphasis added] [ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA n.29]

· “ …. the Eucharistic mystery cannot be celebrated in any community except by an ordained priest, as the Fourth Lateran Council expressly taught”. [Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter Sacerdotium Ministeriale (6 August 1983), III.4: AAS 75 (1983), 1006]

· The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “The Lord, having loved those who were his own, loved them to the end. Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love. In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return; ‘thereby he constituted them priests of the New Testament’." [CCC. n. 1337]

· The Council of Trent declared: “If anyone shall say that in the Catholic Church there is not instituted a hierarchy by divine ordinance, which consists of bishops, priests and ministers [i.e. Deacons] - anathema sit.” [Council of Trent, Canons on the Sacrament of Order, Denz. 1776.]

· Pope Pius VI emphatically proclaimed that it is “heretical” to assert: “the power of the ministry and of ecclesial rule comes to the pastors from the community of the faithful.” [Pope Pius VI, Const. Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, Denz. 1502]

· St. Paul in his farewell discourse to the presbyters of Miletus admonishes: “Now be solicitous for yourselves and for the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as bishops to pasture the Church of God, which he purchased with his own blood” [Acts 20:28].

· Cardinal Ratzinger notes how Acts 20:28 illustrates “ … that the Holy Spirit places men in this office [i.e. the ordained ministry]: it is not a delegation on the part of the community…but the gift of the Lord, who gives personally what only he can give.” [Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1996, p. 122.]

· St. Paul, himself, left us testimony regarding the bestowal of the ordained ministry effected through the sacramental rite of “laying on of hands”, which transmits the special gift of the Holy Spirit, in his letters to Timothy: “I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands" (2 Tim 1:6), and "If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task" (1Tim 3:1).[64] To Titus he said: “This is why I left you in Crete, that you amend what was defective, and appoint presbyters in every town, as I directed you,” adding that “a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless…he must hold fast to the sure doctrine and also refute those who contradict it.” [Emphasis added] (Titus 1:5-9).

On the Ordination of Women Priests:

Dr. Groome has consistently and emphatically publicly proclaimed his unwavering commitment to the cause of the ordination of women.

As early as 1982, Groome accused the Church of using“false” reasons to justify excluding women from the ordained priesthood. He insisted that women must be admitted to the ministries of“deacon, priest, bishop and pontiff” in order to establish “a Church of mutuality and inclusiveness. [Thomas Groome, Signs of Hope, PACE 12, Direction A, St. Mary’s Press. Winona 1982, pp. 4,6]
 

Groome asserts that the Church’s doctrine regarding the reservation of the ordained priesthood to men alone “is the result of a patriarchal mind-set and culture and is not of Christian faith.” [Thomas Groome, Sharing Faith: A Comprehensive Approach to Religious Education &Pastoral Ministry, Harper, San Francisco, 1991, p. 328.]

Groome castigates the Church with his accusation that: “the injustice of excluding women from priesthood debilitates the church’s sacramentality in the world … it is a countersign to God’s reign." [Ibid.]

Groome alleges that the position of the Church is “ … doing spiritual and moral harm to society.” [Ibid. p. 518.n.114.]

In his program of study for use of inclusive language in the Church, Groome declares that: “the continued exclusion of women from ordained ministry in the Catholic Church is seen by fair-minded scholars as without theological or biblical warrant.” [Thomas Groome, Language for a ‘Catholic’ Church: A Program of Study (revised and updated edition), Sheed&Ward, Kansas City 1995, p. 31]

Dr. Groome is often a featured speaker at Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) affairs where he consistently seizes on the VOTF mantra that the Catholic Church must be restructured along democratic lines in order that: “…we reconstruct the Catholic priesthood” to facilitate the ordination of“ women as priests and bishops.” [Thomas Groome, Boston Globe, May 19, 2002]

In an interview with the Boston Globe in 2003 Dr. Groome made his position on priestly celibacy and the ordination of women to the priesthood perfectly clear by proclaiming: “The present church's legislation requires celibacy, and many of the bishops and the present pope would see that as close to being divinely inspired. That wouldn't be my sentiment at all. I think it's a human regulation that we should dispense with. It should be optional. I would have a similar sentiment on the ordination of women.” [Emphasis added]. [Thomas Groome, Boston Globe, June 26, 2003].

Here again, Dr. Groome skillfully employs the tactic of equating two issues, that of priestly celibacy and the ordination of woman, as being doctrinally equivalent when in fact they are not and cannot be treated as such. Although the Church, for very good reasons, requires and is committed to maintaining mandatory clerical celibacy in the Latin Rite, it does so in its capacity as administrator over God’s Church in which role it demands obedience from its priests. However, the Church’s doctrine on the male-only ministerial priesthood is instituted by Christ and therefore is not within the Church’s power to change. That fact is conveniently glossed over by Dr. Groome.

· “The Catholic Church has never felt that priestly or episcopal ordination can be validly conferred on women. A few heretical sects in the first centuries, especially Gnostic ones, entrusted the exercise of the priestly ministry to women: This innovation was immediately noted and condemned by the Fathers, who considered it as unacceptable in the Church”. [Inter Insigniores Declaration of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the question of admission of women to the ministerial priesthood, 1976.]

· “It should not be supposed that the issue of women’s orders is novel: it dates back to the Montanist heresy of the second and third centuries, and since then has surfaced intermittently in association with comparably gnostic and anti-historical interpretations of Christianity.” [Fr. Donald Keefe, S.J., Covenantal Theology: The Eucharistic Order of History, Presidio Press, Novato, California, 1996, p. 42]

· In 1994, Pope John Paul II published the apostolic letter In Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, stating the Church’s position on conferring priestly ordination on women. The Holy Father proclaims that this teaching is founded on the example of Christ, as recorded in the Gospels and on the universal Tradition of the Church. Therefore the Holy Father declared: “Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” [Emphasis added]. [Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, n. 4 ; cf. nn. 1, 2]


Source document may be found here.

As I said in a previous post, the Worcester Diocese has succumbed over the years to the tragic tendency to place unity above the truth. The company man who is willing to "go along" with sin and error "for the sake of friendship" is most welcome in this distorted notion of "community." But the man who puts the truth first is pushed to the margins and ostracized. 

Pope Francis: Shouldn't it be a welcoming Church for all?

It was the philosopher George Santayana who described Modernism thusly: "Modernism...is the love of all Christianity in those who perceive that it is all a fable. It is the historic attachment to his Church of a Catholic who has discovered that he is a pagan...The Modernists are men of the Renaissance, pagan, pantheistic in their profounder sentiment, to whom the hard and narrow realism of official Christianity is offensive just because it presupposes that Christianity is true...As for Modernism, it is suicide. It is the last of those concessions to the spirit of the world which half-believers and double-minded prophets have always been found making; but it is a mortal concession. It concedes everything; for it concedes that everything in Christianity, as Christians hold it, is an illusion." But because the Magisterium faithfully passes down the Tradition of Catholic Teaching received from the Apostles, Santayana, commenting on the modernists' opposition to Rome, notes, "The modernist feels himself full of love for everybody...except for the Pope."

And one might add: those Catholics who are faithful to the Tradition of Catholic teaching.

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. 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!

And because I insist upon preaching these hard truths, I am shunned at my own parish and not even permitted to apply for the diocesan priesthood!  Just recently, Pope Francis said that, "In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them."

It's good to see that the Holy Father is concerned for homosexual persons who have not always been treated with "respect, compassion, and sensitivity" as the Catechism calls for (2358).  But what about faithful Catholics whose vocation is rejected outright simply because they preach the hard truths - what Pope Benedict XVI referred to as "the entire plan of God" - and who also insist, along with the Catechism, that homosexual persons (like everyone else) "are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition"?

Not long ago, I was part of a group of Catholic bloggers accused by the Boston Archdiocese of "harming community" by opposing dissent from revealed Catholic teaching as well as a "Gay Pride" Mass.  See here.   How much longer must faithful Catholics tolerate such nonsense?

Bill O'Reilly: The Gospels are wrong but MY word is inspired by the Holy Spirit

Bill O'Reilly, in an interview with CBS, claims that the Holy Spirit inspired his book entitled 'Killing Jesus" even as he attempts to "correct the Gospels.  When confronted with such an arrogant approach to God's Word, the Fathers of the Church responded in no uncertain terms:

"They have not feared to lay hands upon the sacred Scriptures, saying that they have corrected them. Nor is it likely that they themselves are ignorant of how very bold their offense is. For either they do not believe that the sacred Scriptures were spoken by the Holy Spirit, in which case they are unbelievers, or if they regard themselves as being wiser than the Holy Spirit, what else can they be but demoniacs." (St. Hippolytus of Rome, "Fragment" in Eusebius, History of the Church, 5, ch. 28)

In his book, Bill advances the idea that Jesus could not have spoken the words, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" because the way he was hung on the cross would not have allowed enough air in His lungs to speak them audibly."  Bill also refers to Jesus as "the guy" in his interview with CBS.

The problem with Bill's argument should be immediately obvious to even the most unastute who spend even a modicum of time with Sacred Scripture.  In Matthew 27: 46-48, we read: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'  And some of the bystanders hearing it said, 'This man is calling Elijah.'  And one of them [because Jesus said "I thirst," Jn 19:28] at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink."

If Jesus couldn't speak audibly to pronounce the words "Father forgive them...," how could He speak these other words audibly?  The words "I thirst" were among His last spoken words from the cross.  Apparently Bill would reject the authoritative teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well:

"When the hour had come for him to fulfill the Father's plan of love, Jesus allows a glimpse of the boundless depth of his filial prayer, not only before he freely delivered himself up ("Abba . . . not my will, but yours."), but even in his last words on the Cross, where prayer and the gift of self are but one: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"; "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise", "Woman, behold your son" - "Behold your mother"; "I thirst."; "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"; "It is finished"; "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!"until the "loud cry" as he expires, giving up his spirit." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2605).

Perhaps Bill should retitle his book "Killing Common Sense"?

Deacon Scott Colley of Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol bans me for defending reverence in the liturgy

Albert Drexel, in Ein Neuer Prophet? (Stein am Rhein: Christiana, 1971) explains that: "The modernism or neo-modernism within Christianity, and especially within the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council, is above all characterized by a turning away from the supernatural and an exclusive predilection for this world, the Aggiornamento of Pope John XXIII interpreted one-sidedly and hence misapplied. Teilhard's ideology was was a definitive precondition for this. Inasmuch as he turned his back to the past, fused God and the supernatural with the process of a universal evolutionism, and proclaimed religion to be an active participation in a progressive development ending in Point Omega, the basis was given for a humanist cult of the secular." (p. 115).

In the New World Order, man will no longer believe in a God whom he cannot control. Man will worship himself and his new leader who will, like Hitler, be deified: the man spoken of by Saint Paul as the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition.

The new worship which is emerging is man-centered. And it is reflected in various liturgical actions such as banal pop-style music "concerts" and spontaneous applause over human achievement. Pope [Emeritus] Benedict XVI - while still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger - wrote a book entitled "The Spirit of the Liturgy," in which he warned that, "Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attractiveness fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation...Liturgy can only attract people when it looks, not at itself, but at God, when it allows him to enter and act. Then something truly unique happens, beyond competition, and people have a sense that more has taken place than a recreational activity." (The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, pp. 198-199).

Since Vatican II, we have entered the time of wretched idolatry prophesied by the Fathers of the Church - for they emphasized the corruption of the liturgy which would prevail just prior to Antichrist during the last days. The Holy Mass is valid in her essence. But years of reckless tinkering with sacred realities has produced a mediocrity-ridden liturgy, a shallow show which has distracted from the holy while driving the faithful out the doors or so weakening their faith that they find themselves paralyzed before the current zeitgeist. Emptied churches, convents and seminaries does not a reform make.

On many occasions during the liturgy at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol, Massachusetts [Diocese of Worcester],the entire atmosphere has been more akin to a circus than a solemn liturgy. I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist:

"Why, God, have you cast us off forever? Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your people, whom you acquired of old, the tribe you redeemed as your own heritage, Mount Zion where you dwell. Direct your steps toward the utter destruction, everything the enemy laid waste in the sanctuary.Your foes roared triumphantly in the place of your assembly; they set up their own tokens of victory. They hacked away like a forester gathering boughs, swinging his ax in a thicket of trees. They smashed all its engraved work, struck it with ax and pick. They set your sanctuary on fire, profaned your name’s abode by razing it to the ground. They said in their hearts, “We will destroy them all! Burn all the assembly-places of God in the land!” Even so we have seen no signs for us, there is no prophet any more, no one among us who knows for how long. How long, O God, will the enemy jeer? Will the enemy revile your name forever? Why draw back your hand, why hold back your right hand within your bosom? Yet you, God, are my king from of old, winning victories throughout the earth. You stirred up the sea by your might; you smashed the heads of the dragons on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan, gave him as food to the sharks.You opened up springs and torrents, brought dry land out of the primeval waters. Yours the day and yours the night too; you set the moon and sun in place. You fixed all the limits of the earth; summer and winter you made. Remember how the enemy has jeered, LORD, how a foolish people has reviled your name. Do not surrender to wild animals those who praise you; do not forget forever the life of your afflicted. Look to your covenant, for the recesses of the land are full of the haunts of violence. Let not the oppressed turn back in shame; may the poor and needy praise your name. Arise, God, defend your cause; remember the constant jeering of the fools. Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the unceasing uproar of your enemies." (Psalm 74)

After leaving the above quotation from then Cardinal Ratzinger's book The Spirit of the Liturgy at the Facebook page of the North Quabbin Catholic Community, Deacon Scott Colley, who manages the Facebook page, blocked me from participation.  And this as he preaches on the importance of being a "welcoming parish."  Welcoming apparently to anyone except those devout Catholics who hold onto tradition and a spirit of reverence in the liturgy.

This comes as no surprise.  For not once have I witnessed a spirit of prayer in Deacon Colley.  He usually arrives at the last moment before Mass and may be seen conversing with friends rather than preparing for Mass.  Reverence is the basis of all true personality.  Dr. Hildebrand explains: "The significance of reverence for the full personality can easily be grasped. The greatest natural endowment, the greatest latitude of talents and capacities can never lead to true personality if reverence is lacking. For the latter is the basis of the second essential component of personality, the perceiving of values, an organic contact with the world of values, and - most ultimate of all - the dying to oneself, the preparation of inner room for Christ. The man without reverence is necessarily flat and limited. This lack is an essential mark of stupidity. Even he whose mind is obdurate and helpless, but who possesses reverence, does not manifest that offensive, tactlessly persistent stupidity of which it is said that 'even the gods struggle against it in vain.'" (Liturgy and Personality, pp. 50-51).

Because lack of reverence may have two roots, Dr. Hildebrand notes that, "..there are two different types of men who lack reverence: the arrogant person and the senseless, blunt one. The root of 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. He is interested in the world only insofar as it serves his self-glorification, insofar as it enhances his own importance...He thinks himself always greater than that which is not himself. The world holds no mystery for him. He treats everything tactlessly, with easy familiarity, and everything seems to him to be at his disposal. To his insolent, conceited gaze, to his despotic approach, the world is sealed, silent, stripped of all mystery, deprived of all depth, flat and limited to one dimension. He stands in desolate emptiness, blind to all the values and secrets of being, circling endlessly around himself...

There is however 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. His is a dominating position in the face of being - not because he wills domination as such but because he wants to use being for his pleasure. He, too, circles around in the narrowness of his own self. He does not face the world with arrogance and conceit but with a blunt stupidity. Stubbornly imprisoned in his own self, he violates being, and seeing it only from the outside, he thus misses its true meaning. To this type of irreverent man the world also refuses to disclose its breadth, height, and depth, its richness of values and mysteries." (Liturgy and Personality, pp. 49-50).

Rather then engaging in knee-jerk hatred against my person for insisting upon reverence in the liturgy, perhaps Deacon Colley should examine his own attitude toward the Holy Mass and his motivations in banning me from participation in the life of the parish?

Catholic prophecies regarding an Anti-Pope...

Catholic prophecies without comment:

Frederick William Faber (died 1863): Antichrist…Many believe in a demonical incarnation—this will not be so—but he will be utterly possessed…His doctrine as apparent contradiction of no religion, yet a new religion…He has an attending pontiff, so separating regal and prophetic office (Edward. Prophecy for Today. Imprimatur + A.J. Willinger, Bishop of Monterey-Fresno; Reprint: Tan Books and Publishers, Rockford (IL), 1984, p. 87).

Anna-Katarina Emmerick(19th century): The Church is in great danger…The Protestant doctrine and that of the schismatic Greeks are to spread everywhere. I now see that in this place (Rome) the (Catholic) Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for the destruction, even the clergy. A great destruction is now at hand…I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church. They were building a great, strange, and extravagant Church. Everyone was admitted in it in order to be united and to have equal rights: Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description. Such was to be the new Church…I saw again a new and odd-looking Church which they were trying to build. There was nothing holy about it… (Dupont Y. Catholic Prophecy: The Coming Chastisement. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 1973, pp. 66, 71, 116)

Yves Dupont {writer interpreting A. Emmerick}: They wanted to make a new Church, a Church of human manufacture, but God had other designs…An anti-pope shall be set up in Rome (Dupont, p. 116).

Oba Prophecy: It will come when the Church authorities issue directives to support a new cult, when priests are forbidden to celebrate in any other, when the highest positions in the Church are given to perjurers and hypocrites, when only the renegades are admitted to occupy those positions. (Dupont, p. 115)

Ted and Maureen Flynn (20th century): Catholic prophecy warns us of severe problems facing the papacy in these end times…chaos will be within our midst. An Antipope will seize papal authority…It will be those who hold fast to the truths of the faith who will be labeled as the perpetrators of this horrible schism, according to some visionaries. (Flynn Ted and Maureen. The Thunder of Justice. MaxKol Communications, Inc. Sterling (VA), 1993, p. 255)

Jeanne le Royer (d. 1798): I see that when the Second Coming of Christ approaches a bad priest will do much harm to the Church (Culligan E. The Last World War and the End of Time. The book was blessed by Pope Paul VI, 1966. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), p. 128).

Bl. Anna-Maria Taigi (19th century): At the end, he will have the gift of miracles (Birch DA. Trial, Tribulation & Triumph: Before During and After Antichrist. Queenship Publishing Company, Goleta (CA), 1996, pp. 362-363).

Saint Zenobius (died 285): Antichrist will work a thousand prodigies on earth. (Connor, p. 73)

Priest O’Connor (20th century?): This final false prophet will be a bishop of the church and will lead all religions into becoming one. (The False Prophet. Living in the Final Generation. http://www.geocities.com/rebornempowered/ApparitionsofMary.htm 10/12/07)

Priest Paul Kramer (21st century): The errors of Orthodoxy and of Protestantism will be embraced by that false church, it will be an ecumenical church because the Anti-Pope will be recognized by the world—not by the faithful, but by the world—by the secular world and the secular governments. (Kramer P. The Imminent Chastisement for Not Fulfilling Our Lady’s Request. An edited transcript of a speech given at the Ambassadors of Jesus and Mary Seminar in Glendale, California.

Blessed Joachim (died 1202): Towards the end of the world Antichrist will overthrow the Pope and usurp his See (Connor, p. 76).

St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226): There will be an uncanonically elected pope who will cause a great Schism, there will be divers thoughts preached which will cause many, even those in the different orders, to doubt, yea even agree with those heretics which will cause My order to divide, then will there be such universal dissentions and persecutions that if these days were not shortened even the elect would be lost (Culleton, p. 130).

Gregory the Great, Pope (d. 604): In those days, near the end…an army of priests and two-thirds of the Christians will join the Schism. (Culleton, R. Gerald. The Reign of Antichrist, p. 122)

Yves Dupont {reader and collector of Catholic prophecies}: “prophecies are quite explicit about the election of an anti-pope…Many prophecies predict an anti-pope and a schism” (Dupont, pp. 34,60-61)

G. Rossi (1873): We must observe that St. Malachy does not mention the last Pope as a distinct person from the preceding one, whom he styles Glory of the Olive. He merely says, “During the last persecution of the Church, Peter II, a Roman, shall reign. He shall feed the flock in many tribulations, at the end of which the City of the Seven Hills (Rome) will be destroyed, and the awful Judge shall judge his people.” According to St. Malachy, then, only ten, or at most eleven, popes remain to be in future more or less legitimately elected. We say more or less legitimately elected, because out of those future popes it is to be feared that one or two will be unlawfully elected as anti-popes. (Rossi, p. 139)

Priest E. Sylvester Berry (20th century) As indicated by the resemblance to a lamb, the prophet will probably set himself up in Rome as a sort of antipope during the vacancy of the papal throne . . .(Berry E.S. The Apocalypse of St. John. First published 1921. http://journals.aol.com/langosh5/Father_E_Sylvester_Berry/ 10/12/07)

Priest Herman Kramer (20th century): In accord with the text this is unmistakably a PAPAL ELECTION . . . But at this time the great powers may take a menacing attitude to hinder the election of the logical and expected candidate by threats of a general apostasy, assassination or imprisonment of this candidate if elected. This would suppose an extremely hostile mind in the governments of Europe towards the Church, because an extended interregnum in the papacy is always disastrous and more so in a time of universal persecution. If Satan would contrive to hinder a papal election, the Church would suffer great travail … one…destined for the papacy at the time will institute the needed reforms. A general council may decree the reforms…The lax clergy at the time will extol the conditions then existing…The dragon is a symbolic term for the evil world powers…They will try to make the Church a “state church” everywhere. This is only possible if they can subject the pope to their wills and compel him to teach and rule as they direct. That would be literally devouring the papacy. (Kramer H.B. L. The Book of Destiny, pp. 278,285).

Bishop Malachy (12th century): During the persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit upon the throne, Peter the Roman…the City of Seven Hills (Rome) will be utterly destroyed (Culleton, R. Gerald. The Prophets and Our Times. Nihil Obstat: L. Arvin. Imprimatur: Philip G. Scher, Bishop of Monterey-Fresno, November 15, 1941. Reprint 1974, TAN Books, Rockford (IL), p. 138).

As the Apostasy continues to spread, hatred for the Ten Commandments will intensify.  See here and here.

Pope Francis: Catholic Church will fall like a house of cards if it focuses on doctrinal truth

The shock waves are reverberating throughout the Church and around the globe.  Pope Francis has insisted that the Church founded by Jesus Christ must focus beyond "small-minded rules" or it may very well "fall like a house of cards."  Translation: Doctrinal truths which the world finds offensive must be watered-down or pretty much ignored to accommodate the zeitgeist.

Doctrinal truths constitute "small-minded rules"?

Dr. Germain Grisez, in a talk entitled "Legalism, Moral Truth and Pastoral Practice" given at a 1990 symposium held in Philadelphia, had this to say: "Theologians and pastors who dissent from received Catholic teaching think they are rejecting legalism because they set aside what they think are mere rules in favor of what they feel are more reasonable standards. Their views are thoroughly imbued with legalism, however. For dissenters think of valid moral norms as rules formulated to protect relevant values. Some even make their legalism explicit by denying that there is any necessary connection between moral goodness (which they restrict to the transcendental level of a love with no specific content) and right action (which they isolate at the categorical level of inner-worldly behavior). But whether their legalism is explicit or not, all the dissenters hold that specific moral norms admit exceptions whenever, all things considered, making an exception seems the best - or least bad - thing to do. Most dissenters also think that specific moral norms that were valid in times past can be inappropriate today, and so they regard the Church's contested moral teachings as outdated rules that the Church should change."

Dr. Grisez reminded his listeners at the Philadelphia symposium that, "During the twentieth century, pastoral treatment of repetitious sins through weakness - especially masturbation, homosexual behavior, premarital sex play and contraception within marriage - grew increasingly mild. Pastors correctly recognized that weakness and immaturity can lessen such sins’ malice. Thinking legalistically, they did not pay enough attention to the sins’ inherent badness and harmfulness, and they developed the idea that people can freely choose to do something that they regard as a grave matter without committing a mortal sin. This idea presupposes that in making choices people are not responsible precisely for choosing what they choose. That presupposition makes sense within a legalistic framework, because lawgivers can take into account mitigating factors and limit legal culpability. But it makes no sense for morality correctly understood, because moral responsibility in itself is not something attached to moral acts but simply is moral agents’ self-determination in making free choices. Repetitious sinners through weakness also were handicapped by their own legalism. Not seeing the inherent badness of their sins, they felt that they were only violating inscrutable rules. When temptation grew strong, they had little motive to resist, especially because they could easily go to confession and have the violation fixed. Beginning on Saturday they were holy; by Friday they were again sinners. This cyclic sanctity robbed many people’s lives of Christian dynamism and contributed to the dry rot in the Church that became manifest in the 1960s, when the waves of sexual permissiveness battered her."

Dr. Grisez then went on to explain that, "Pastors free of legalism will teach the faithful how sin makes moral requirements seem to be alien impositions, help them see through this illusion, and encourage them to look forward to and experience the freedom of God’s children, who rejoice in the fruit of the Spirit and no longer experience the constraint of law..They will explain that while one sometimes must choose contrary to positive laws and cannot always meet their requirements, one always can choose in truth and abide in love. They will acknowledge the paradox of freedom - that we seem unable to resist freely choosing to sin - the paradox that Saint Paul neatly formulates: ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Romans 7:15). But they also will proclaim the liberating power of grace, and help the faithful learn by experience that when one comes to understand the inherent evil of sin and intrinsic beauty of goodness, enjoys the support of a community of faith whose members bear one another’s burdens, begs God for His help, and confidently expects it, then the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead raises him from his sins, and he discovers that with the Spirit’s grace one can consistently resist sin and choose life."

When the Church opposes abortion and homosexual acts, she is not focusing on "small-minded rules."  She is defending the Commandments of God.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1867) lists these as "sins which cry to Heaven for vengeance":

"The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are 'sins that cry to heaven': the blood of Abel, the sin of the Sodomites, the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt, the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner.^" 



A year before he died, Pope Paul VI said, "There is a great uneasiness, at this time, in the world and in the Church, and that which is in question is the faith.  It so happens now that I repeat to myself the obscure phrase of Jesus in the Gospel of St. Luke: 'When the Son of Man returns, will He still find faith on the earth?'....We must always hold ourselves in readiness...What strikes me, when I think of the Catholic world, is that within Catholicism, there seems sometimes to pre-dominate a non-Catholic way of thinking, and it can happen that this non-Catholic thought within Catholicism, will tomorrow become the stronger.  But it will never represent the thought of the Church.  It is necessary that a small flock subsist, no matter how small it might be." (The Secret Paul VI, by Jean Guitton).

And these words were spoken thirty-six years ago.  Can anyone honestly say that the non-Catholic way of thinking hasn't become the stronger?  Our Lady warned Father Stefano Gobbi that, "Never as in your days has peace been so threatened, because the struggle of my Adversary against God is becoming stronger and stronger, more insidious, continual and universal.  You have thus entered into the time of the great trial....The hour of its great trial has above all come for the Church, because it will be shaken by the lack of faith, obscured by apostasy, wounded by betrayal, abandoned by its children, divided by schisms, possessed and dominated by Freemasonry, turned into fertile soil from which will spring up the wicked tree of the man of iniquity, the Antichrist, who will bring his kingdom into its interior." (January 1, 1993).

On the anniversary of the La Salette apparition: Is prophecy being fulfilled in our own day?

A New York Times article is reporting that, "Pope Francis, in the first extensive interview of his six-month-old papacy, said that the Roman Catholic Church had grown 'obsessed' with preaching about abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he has chosen not to speak of those issues despite recriminations from some critics." See here.

This is nothing less than bizarre and an insult to Pope Benedict XVI who said, not long ago at Fatima, that abortion and same-sex "marriage" are among the most "insidious and dangerous" threats facing the world today. See here.

Dr. Jeff Mirus gets it. He wrote: "The writing is on the wall. Gay marriage is the lie that will create the next Gulag. Indeed, gay marriage is the perfect totalitarian wedge, not least in a country like the United States, which has been capable of believing itself uniquely dedicated to liberty even in the midst of slavery and abortion. We Americans, it seems, will be quite willing to sing the praises of our liberty no matter how many of us lose it. It is our national myth, something we worship. But the cause of gay marriage fits the myth better than most issues because it really does seem that those who oppose it are denying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to others. This denial can be accepted for the unborn, in the name of the liberty of their mothers, as it once was accepted for African Americans, who shared judicial non-personhood with the unborn. But gays are well-educated, wealthy and—above all—a logically favored projection of our moral culture. To inhibit their happiness, for any reason, seems just plain wrong.

Why should this be? First, it is necessary to note that the word “gay” refers not to those with homosexual inclinations but to those who champion behavior based on these inclinations as good. In fact, homosexuals who are not gay are a sign of contradiction to the gay world. They are scorned accordingly, in ways that even straights are not. The key to understanding the whole matter is that to be gay or to support the gay lifestyle is to approve and promote sterile sex.

The Western world in general has been hard at work promoting sterile sex for nearly a century now. We began by sanctioning the break-up of families through ever-easier divorce. Divorce is a kind of pretense that the marital covenant is ultimately sterile, in the sense that children do not matter. Next we embraced contraception so that our sexual pleasures could not be diminished through responsibility. Promiscuity inevitably followed, and with it abortion, which is simply fruitfulness in denial. We’ve covered our eyes and stopped our ears. “Nyah, nyah, nyah, I can’t SEE you! I can’t HEAR you!”

A culture like this, a culture which embraces these values, has no argument against homosexual sex, no case against homosexual marriage. A huge percentage of our marriages are deliberately and totally sterile; most of the rest are deliberately sterile much of the time. Huge numbers of marriages, by deliberate design, result neither in children to preserve the race nor in future citizens to enhance and develop the social order. There is no conceivable public interest in such unions, and no significant personal interest in them either, apart from the fuel they temporarily provide for the couple’s doomed egoism à deux.

Far from having a natural revulsion against homosexual intimacy, modern Western culture can hardly help seeing it as the jewel which crowns and protects its own warped vision of sex. We recognize and defend a right of men and women to engage in sexual intimacy without fruit. It follows that rank prejudice must be the only reason anyone could possibly oppose the same freedom between men and men or women and women.

No group is more hateful to modern society than the perceived moralistic prigs who, out of what most perceive as religiously-motivated prejudice, seek to diminish the personal sexual liberty of others. Nothing could be more obvious in our current culture than that such people must be silenced and, if necessary, restrained. Moreover, it seems only right and just that their denunciation of the gay lifestyle and their opposition to gay marriage should be criminalized. In fact, it should be criminalized in the name of liberty. That is why gay marriage is the lie that will create the next Gulag.

The insistence on ignoring vice is the hallmark of a debased culture, but the insistence that a lie be publicly affirmed as true is the hallmark of ideological totalitarianism." (See here).

Archbishop Dolan gets it now. Shocked over recent editorials demanding the restriction of religious freedom and calls to coerce religious believers to accept same-sex "marriage," the Archbishop wrote, "We do worry indeed about this freedom of religion. Editorials already call for the removal of guarantees of religious liberty, with crusaders calling for people of faith to be coerced to acceptance of this redefinition. If the experience of those few other states and countries where this is already law is any indication, the churches, and believers, will soon be harassed, threatened, and hauled into court for their conviction that marriage is between one man, one woman, forever, bringing children into the world …"


I have been warning that this was coming since the 1990s. I have been laughed at and ridiculed for revealing the totalitarian nature of the radical homosexual movement. Back in June of 2005 I posted the following here at La Salette Journey:


Those who are promoting the homosexual agenda are using time-proven tactics which have been employed by secular humanists for some time now. In the words of Ralph Martin, "First, a plea is issued for a dominantly Christian society to 'tolerate' what appears to be a deviant behavior. Then pressure is applied to place the deviant behavior on an equal footing with traditional Christian values. Secular humanists argue that a pluralist society cannot do otherwise. They then try to make the deviant behavior seem normal and behavior governed by Christian values seem abnormal - a threat to a pluralist society. The last step is often to use the legal system to protect immorality and to undermine what Christians have always considered righteous behavior." (A Crisis of Truth, pp. 101-102).

Professor James Hitchcock, in his excellent work entitled "Catholicism and Modernity" (New York:Seabury Press, 1979, p. 86), explains the role of the media in this entire process: "The media's alleged commitment to 'pluralism' is at base a kind of hoax. The banner of pluralism is raised in order to win toleration for new ideas as yet unacceptable to the majority. Once toleration has been achieved, public opinion is systematically manipulated first to enforce a status of equality between the old and the new, then to assert the superiority of the new over the old. A final stage is often the total discrediting, even sometimes the banning, of what had previously been orthodox." (See here).

Truthfully, isn't that what we're witnessing in Canada and even in the United States (albeit to a still lesser degree)? Already there has been much talk in Canada about passing legislation which would make it a "hate crime" for churches - or individual priests and ministers - to refer to homosexuality as being sinful. The Gospel itself would constitute "hate literature" under legislation which is proposed by homosexual militants who have many friends in the government it would appear.

The United States isn't far behind. Soon, Christians who hold firm to what Sacred Scripture has to say about sodomy will be labelled 'dangerous' and in need of 're-education' or forced internment in a special 'camp.'  See here.  Perhaps those of us who remain "obstinate" in accepting God's Word will be dealt with in another 'final solution' offered by a society which has succumbed to the 'Dictatorship of Relativism.'

Let's hope and pray that the rest of the Church's hierarchy will awaken to the reality of our present situation and speak out as Archbishop Dolan now has.

But for now we have a Pope who seems indifferent to the threat before us.  Or perhaps he has his own designs?  Today is the anniversary of the La Salette apparition.  My father, who went to be with the Lord on this day during the Jubilee Year of 2,000, believed, as I do, that the Man of Sin will very soon make his appearance.  Is the La Salette prophecy being fulfilled in our own day?  See here.

"Public and private atheism is exalted in such a way that God and His law are being abolished..."

"This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved." (Lumen Gentium, No. 14).

In his Encyclical Letter Dominum et Vivificantem, No. 38, Pope John Paul II says, "The analysis of sin in its original dimension indicates that, through the influence of the 'father of lies,'* throughout the history of humanity there will be a constant pressure on man to reject God, even to the point of hating him: 'Love of self to the point of contempt for God,' as Saint Augustine puts it. Man will be inclined to see in God primarily a limitation of himself, and not the source of his own freedom and the fullness of good. We see this confirmed in the modern age, when the atheistic ideologies seek to root out religion on the grounds that religion causes the radical 'alienation' of man, as if man were dispossessed of his own humanity when, accepting the idea of God, he attributes to God what belongs to man, and exclusively to man! Hence a process of thought and historico-sociological practice in which the rejection of God has reached the point of declaring his 'death.' An absurdity, both in concept and expression! But the ideology of the 'death of God' is more a threat to man, as the Second Vatican Council indicates when it analyzes the question of the 'independence of earthly affairs' and writes: 'For without the Creator the creature would disappear...when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible.' The ideology of the 'death of God' easily demonstrates in its effects that on the 'theoretical and practical' levels it is the ideology of the 'death of man.'" (Citing Gaudium et Spes, No. 36). 

"That which seems to Us not only the greatest evil but the root of all evil is this: often the lie is substituted for the truth, and is then used as an instrument of dispute. On the part of not a few religion is passed by as a thing of no importance, and elsewhere absolutely prohibited in family and social life as a remnant of ancient superstitions; public and private atheism is exalted in such a way that God and His law are being abolished, and morals no longer have any foundation. The Press also too often vulgarly reviles religious feeling, while it does not hesitate to spread the most shameful obscenities, agitating and with incalculable harm leading into vice tender childhood and betrayed youth.

By means of false promises a people is deceived and provoked to hatred, rivalry and rebellion, especially when the hereditary faith, the only relief in this earthly exile, is successfully torn from its heart. Disturbances, riots and revolts are organized and fomented in continuing series, which prepare for the ruin of the economy and cause irreparable harm to the common good.

We must above all deplore with overwhelming sadness that in not a few nations the rights of God, Church and human nature itself are outraged and trampled upon" (Pope Pius XII, Anni Sacri, Nos. 3-5).

* John 8:44

Pope Francis: God will forgive atheists who obey their conscience

Pope Francis, referring to atheists who refuse to believe in God, His Commandments and His Church, recently said, "God forgives those who obey their conscience."  See here.

 Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, explains that: "Conscience, as the judgment of an act, is not exempt from the possibility of error. As the Council [Vatican II] puts it, 'not infrequently conscience can be mistaken as a result of invincible ignorance, although it does not on that account forfeit its dignity; but this cannot be said when a man shows little concern for seeking what is true and good, and conscience gradually becomes almost blind from being accustomed to sin.'" (Veritatis Splendor, No. 62, citing Gaudium et Spes, 16).

Pope John Paul II continues: "Conscience is not an infallible judge; it can make mistakes....Conscience, as the ultimate concrete judgment, compromises its dignity when it is culpably erroneous, that is to say, 'when man shows little concern for seeking what is true and good.." (VS, Nos. 62, 63, citing Gaudium et Spes, 16).

How then can Pope Francis issue a blanket statement declaring that God will forgive all atheists who obey their conscience?

Some years ago, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, during his Keynote Address of the Fourth Bishops' Workshop of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, on "Moral Theology Today: Certitudes and Doubts," which was delivered in February of 1984, had this to say: "In the Psalms we meet from time to time the prayer that God should free man from his hidden sins. The Psalmist sees as his greatest danger the fact that he no longer recognizes them as sins and thus falls into them in apparently good conscience. Not being able to have a guilty conscience is a sickness...And thus one cannot aprove the maxim that everyone may always do what his conscience allows him to do: In that case the person without a conscience would be permitted to do anything. In truth it is his fault that his conscience is so broken that he no longer sees what he as a man should see. In other words, included in the concept of conscience is an obligation, namely, the obligation to care for it, to form it and educate it. Conscience has a right to respect and obedience in the measure in which the person himself respects it and gives it the care which its dignity deserves. The right of conscience is the obligation of the formation of conscience. Just as we try to develop our use of language and we try to rule our use of rules, so must we also seek the true measure of conscience so that finally the inner word of conscience can arrive at its validity. For us this means that the Church's magisterium bears the responsibility for correct formation. It makes an appeal, one can say, to the inner vibrations its word causes in the process of the maturing of conscience. It is thus an oversimplification to put a statement of the magisterium in opposition to conscience. In such a case I must ask myself much more. What is it in me that contradicts this word of the magisterium? Is it perhaps only my comfort? My obstinacy? Or is it an estrangement through some way of life that allows me something which the magisterium forbids and that appears to me to be better motivated or more suitable simply because society considers it reasonable? It is only in the context of this kind of struggle that the conscience can be trained, and the magisterium has the right to expect that the conscience will be open to it in a manner befitting the seriousness of the matter. If I believe that the Church has its origins in the Lord, then the teaching office in the Church has a right to expect that it, as it authentically develops, will be accepted as a priority factor in the formation of conscience."

In the same address, Cardinal Ratzinger explains that, "Conscience is understood by many as a sort of deification of subjectivity, a rock of bronze on which even the magisterium is shattered....Conscience appears finally as subjectivity raised to the ultimate standard."

If forgiveness will be extended to all who reject the Gospel in favor of their own erroneous conscience, how then do we explain the words of Our Lord in Matthew 10: 14: "Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city."

Cardinal Timothy Dolan: Sinful clergy behavior one of the main reasons for defections from the Church

In an article published in The Christian Post, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan is quoted as having said that, said that "sinful" clergy behavior is one of the main reasons people are leaving Roman Catholicism and called on believers to hold on to the Church despite its flaws, during a speaking engagement in Milwaukee, Wis., on Thursday.

The Cardinal said that, "It's not a bad idea to fess up to the sinful side of the church...In her human side, the church can be imperfect, sloppy and corrupt. We admit her flaws, but we love her all the more because she is Christ on the cross."  See here:

http://www.christianpost.com/news/cardinal-dolan-admits-sinful-clergy-pushing-people-away-from-catholic-church-103942/print.html

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).

There are those priests who wish to assign the blame elsewhere.  During a recent homily given at the 10 AM Mass at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol, Massachusetts, Fr. Krzysztof Korcz noted how churches are emptying and closing everywhere and laid the blame almost entirely on parents for not imparting Gospel values to their children.

This does not square with the words of Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi.  The humble Italian priest, who received interior locutions from the Mother of God, was told that, "The cause of such a vast diffusion of errors and of this great apostasy rests with unfaithful pastors. They remain silent when they should speak with courage to condemn error and to defend the truth. They do not intervene when they should be unmasking the rapacious wolves who, hidden beneath the clothing of lambs, have insinuated themselves into the flock of Christ. They are mute dogs who allow their flocks to be torn to pieces...."


Which is why some priests dismiss the messages of Our Lady to Father Gobbi.  The message is not one they want to hear.
To whom much has been given, much will be required (Luke 12:48). How quickly some priests forget this as they attempt to shift the blame for virtually everything that goes wrong in the Church to the laity, and especially parents. This is not, of course, to excuse those parents who have in fact neglected to pass along the faith to their children or who have been poor examples of what it means to be Christian. But we have had more than our share of priests who have failed miserably to sanctify others and to provide a model of holiness.

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., whom many consider to have been one of the finest theologians of the 20th century, a Dominican who was a master of the spiritual life, explains in his book "The Priest In Union With Christ, that "St. Thomas writes: 'They who belong to the divine ministry assume a royal dignity and ought to be perfect in virtue' (cf. IV Sent., dist. 24, q. 2); this is also repeated in the Pontifical (Cf. Suppl. Summae Theol., q. 35, a. 1,2, de Ordine). And thus priestly Ordination is certainly superior to religious profession. This sacramental grace of Holy Orders is a modal reality added to habitual grace, which gives the priest a right to receive all the actual graces he needs for an increasingly holier celebration of the Mass. See the Imitation of Christ, Bk. iv, c. 5: 'Thou art made a priest and art consecrated to celebrate; see now that faithfully and devoutly, in due time, thou offer up the sacrifice to God, and that thou show thyself blameless. Thou hast not lightened thy burden, but art now bound by a stricter bond of discipline and obliged to greater perfection of sanctity. A priest ought to be adorned with all virtues and set the example to others of a good life.'...the priest's special obligation to tend to perfection is confirmed by his duties toward the Mystical Body of Christ. He is called upon to sanctify others by preaching the word and by spiritual direction both inside and outside the confessional." (The Priest In Union With Christ, pp. 54-55).

But many priests today are not preaching the word. They are not instructing the faithful. Many have abandoned prayer. And this has led to a satanic pride which resulted in priests abusing innocent and vulnerable children. We read in Galatians 5: 22-23 that: "..the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." But as Fr. Lagrange notes, "In contrast to the spirit of God, the spirit of the Devil at first lifts the soul to the heights of pride and then plunges it down into turmoil and despair, just as the Devil himself sinned through pride and is now condemned to an eternity of despair and hatred of God...humility is never encouraged by this spirit, for it gradually distorts the soul's vision to see itself greater than anyone else. Almost unconsciously it makes the prayer of the Pharisee its own: 'O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men...as also this publican" (Luke 18: 11). (The Priest In Union With Christ, pp. 238, 239).

It is this spirit of pride which has infected much of the clergy in our time. And it is pride which goes before a fall. Although the priesthood "has been instituted for the good of men and the communion of the Church" and "The Lord said clearly that concern for his flock was proof of love for him" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1551), so many of the clergy have not shown any concern for Christ's flock. They have not preached the hard truths which the People of God need to hear. One Worcester-area priest was actually encouraging some of his parishioners to remain in a sinful lifestyle while another gave a homily, broadcast over Gardner, Massachusetts radio, actually denigrating Our Lady.

The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." But corruption of dogma and the works of the flesh are the work of the evil spirit.

POWERFUL EXORCISM PRAYER 

 

      Kyrie eleison. God, our Lord, King of ages, All-powerful and Almighty, You Who made everything and Who transforms everything simply by Your will. You Who in Babylon changed into dew the flames of the "seven-times hotter" furnace and protected and saved the three holy children. You are the doctor and the physician of our souls. You are the salvation of those who turn to You. We beseech You to make powerless, banish, and drive out every diabolic power, presence and machination; every evil influence, malefice, or evil eye and all evil actions aimed against your servant. . . Where there is envy and malice, give us an abundance of goodness, endurance, victory, and charity. O Lord, You who love man, we beg You to reach out Your powerful hands and Your most high and mighty arms and come to our aid. Help us, who are made in Your image, send the angel of peace over us, to protect us body and soul. May he keep at bay and vanquish every evil power, every poison or malice invoked against us by corrupt and envious people. Then, under the protection of Your authority may we sing, in gratitude, "The Lord is my salvation; whom should I fear?" I will not fear evil because You are with me, my God, my strength, my powerful Lord, Lord of peace, Father of all ages. Yes, Lord our God, be merciful to us, Your image, and save your servant . . . from every threat or harm from the evil one, and protect him by raising him above all evil. We ask you this through the intercession of our Most Blessed, Glorious Lady, Mary ever Virgin, Mother of God, of the most splendid archangels and all yours saints. Amen."

ANIMA CHRISTI

     Soul of Christ, sanctify me; Body of Christ, save me; Blood of Christ, inebriate me; Water from the side of Christ, wash me; Passion of Christ, strengthen me;
O good Jesus, hear me; within Your wounds, hide me; let me never be separated from You; from the evil one, protect me; at the hour of my death, call me; and bid me come to You; that with Your saints, I may praise You forever and ever. Amen.

PRAYER AGAINST EVERY EVIL

    Spirit of our God, Father, Son , and Holy Spirit, Most Holy Trinity, Immaculate Virgin Mary, angels, archangels, and saints of Heaven, descend upon me.  Please purify me, Lord, mold me, fill me with Yourself, use me.  Banish all the forces of evil from me, destroy them, vanquish them, so that I can be healthy and do good deeds. Banish from me all spells, witchcraft, black magic, malefice, ties, maledictions, and the evil eye; diabolic infestations, oppressions, possessions; all that is evil and sinful, jealousy, perfidy, envy; physical, psychological, moral, spiritual, diabolical ailments. Burn all these evils in hell, that they may never again touch me or any other creature in the entire world. I command and bid all the powers who molest me -- by the power of God all powerful, in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary -- to leave me forever, and to be consigned into the everlasting hell, where they will be bound by Saint Michael the archangel, Saint Gabriel, Saint Raphael, our guardian angels, and where they will be crushed under the heel of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

PRAYER FOR INNER HEALING

    Lord Jesus, You came to heal our wounded and troubled hearts. I beg You to heal the torments that cause anxiety in my heart; I beg You, in a particular way, to heal all who are the cause of sin. I beg You to come into my life and heal me of the psychological harms that struck me in my early years and form the injuries that they caused throughout my life. Lord Jesus, You know my burdens. I lay them all on Your Good Shepherd's Heart. I beseech You -- by the merits of the great, open wound in Your heart -- to heal the small wounds that are in mine. Heal the pain of my  memories, so that nothing that has happened to me will cause me to remain in pain and anguish, filled with anxiety.
    Heal, O Lord, all those wounds that have been the cause of all the evil that is rooted in my life. I want to forgive all those who have offended me. Look to those inner sores that make me unable to forgive. You Who came to forgive the afflicted of heart, please, heal my own heart.
    Heal, my Lord Jesus, those intimate wounds that cause me physical illness. I offer You my heart. Accept it, Lord, purify it, and give me the sentiments of Your Divine Heart. Help me to be meek and humble.
    Heal me, O Lord, from the pain caused by the death of my loved ones, which is oppressing me. Grant me to regain peace and joy in the knowledge that You are the Resurrection and the Life. Make me an authentic witness to Your Resurrection, Your victory over sin and death, Your living presence among us. Amen."

PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE     
    My Lord, You are all powerful, You are God, You are Father. We beg You through the intercession and help of the archangels Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, for the deliverance of our brothers and sisters who are enslaved by the evil one. All saints of heaven, come to our aid.
    From anxiety, sadness, and obsessions, We beg You: Free us, O Lord. From hatred, fornication, envy, We beg You: Free us, O Lord. From thoughts of jealousy, rage, and death. We beg You: Free us, O Lord. From every thought of suicide and abortion. We beg You: Free us, O Lord. From every form of sinful sexuality. We beg You: Free us, O Lord. From every division in our family, and every harmful friendship. We beg You: Free us, O Lord. From every sort of spell, malefice, witchcraft, and every form of the occult. We beg You: Free us, O Lord.

    Lord, You Who said, "I leave you peace, my peace I give you," grant that, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, we may be liberated from every evil spell and enjoy Your peace always. In the Name of Christ, our Lord. Amen."  

Prayer intentions for Fatima?  Email: cleghornboy@juno.com

 

Michael Brown on authentic reform within the Church....

Michael Brown over at Spirit Daily has an excllent article on authentic reform within the Church.  He writes, "As our Church gets a new bearing, we have two strong directives in recent days. One was given by Pope Francis during his remarkable visit to Brazil, where in an impromptu meeting at the Cathedral of San Sebastian, and then elsewhere, he said, 'What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses! . . . I want to see the Church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools, or structures. Because these need to get out! We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel! It's not enough simply to open the door in welcome, but we must go out through that door to seek and meet the people.'

It was a fascinating, sobering, and at the same time electrifying call to change the way dioceses function at their most basic level -- calling them to dismantle the bureaucratic barriers, the focus on secular structure and social stature. Clericalism is used to denote the divisions between ordained clergy and laymen in a closed-in world. Here is his true message to our bishops, to our pastors, to us all: don't become entwined with the worldly. Live the Gospel message (not the Gospel of the local eleven o'clock news). It was a very necessary admonition in a Church where aloofness in the clergy has caused it to be seen as distant, ceremonial, and in need of less starch. (A diocese does itself no favor when it resembles a school board.) The Pope called on the flock to make its concerns known, 'even at the expense of confrontation with their bishops and priests.' It was a call to shake things up -- but in a right, respectful way, to let local hierarchy know of the needs, to send the Church into every 'nook and cranny.' But always: there must be respect. There must be obedience. Bishops and pastors must be approached with new persistence and vigor but with no less respect, for their hands are consecrated; their mission is anointed. We are not to focus on their personalities, which are human ones. Instead, a direct but prayerful approach to any diocese where clericalism prevails is what the Pope requests -- a prayerful and yet energetic one, that we may all be involved in the process of reform."

 In her own day, St. Catherine of Sienna found much corruption within the Holy Church. Homosexuality and many other deeply rooted problems were found among the clergy and Our Lord spoke to this Doctor of the Church about these problems (pride, loss of sacred identity, loss of faith, worldliness, and sensuality). These conversations were laid out in St. Catherine's book entitled "Dialogue," and most especially in that portion of the book labelled "The Mystical Body of Holy Church."


While St. Catherine cautions her readers not to engage in blanket condemnations aimed at the clergy in general (using scandals as an excuse to denigrate priests in general), and refers to such people as "irreverent persecutors" of the clergy, still, she was told by Our Lord that those who will not receive correction and those who will not give it are like the limbs of a body beginning to rot.

How quickly some forget this.  In the Diocese of Worcester, constructive criticism is rejected outright.  So much so that I am not even allowed to APPLY for the diocesan priesthood because I refuse to place community above truth.  See here:

http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2012/05/you-dont-have-vocation-in-worcester.html

Very often haughtiness is a factor in the rejection of constructive criticism. The haughty person (or the group which believes itself to be "above any criticism" - sometimes even a local church) will, in the words of Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, "find it intolerable to feel dependent on other persons, to serve others, to subordinate himself to an alien will, and above all, to suffer ever so slight a humiliation. He is unable to admit before others of having been in the wrong, even if he knows it in his heart; much less could he prevail on himself to ask anybody's forgiveness. He is stricken with a crabbed anxiousness about preserving his dignity..."

Haughtiness gets in the way of authentic reform.  This is true for individuals, organizations and even nations.

The assault at Camp Lennox in Otis, Massachusetts: Why is the media downplaying the male-on-male component?

By now most of you have heard about the rapes which took place at an athletic camp in Western Massachusetts.  The Associated Press reports that, "Prosecutors say the assaults occurred Aug. 25 at Camp Lenox in Otis, where Somerville High School was holding an annual team-building retreat. Authorities say the three juniors assaulted the freshmen in a cabin.

Massachusetts state police detectives arrested 17-year-old Galileo Mondol and two 16-year-old boys Friday. Mondol faces numerous charges, including aggravated rape of a child, assault with intent to rape a child, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. The juveniles face similar charges. Their names were not released."

Interestingly, almost every newspaper and television account have neglected to mention that this was a case of male-on-male sexual assault.  Now why is that? Because the same liberal mainstream media which has bought into the radical homosexual agenda will often do everything possible to suppress inconvenient facts which would prove harmful to their agenda.  See here for example.  I discussed this in a recent post.

This explains why the mainstream media has no problem exposing incidents of heterosexual rape in the military but virtually ignores the fact that the number of homosexual assaults in the military has been three times greater.  See here.

Read the statistical data which I have provided here and ask yourself why the mainstream media refuses to consider the evidence.