CNN: Papal revolution calls for female Deacons in accord with the early Church

CNN is touting a papal revolution while arguing that there is a theological framework for ordaining women to the diaconate.  In an article which may be found here, Jay Parini writes,"...the early church had female deacons, and St. Paul put great trust in female leaders, such as Lydia and Phoebe (a deacon with whom he entrusted his famous Letter to the Romans)."

Wrong Jay. Gerhard Ludwig Muller, Professor of Dogmatic Theology in Munich, explains in his scholarly work entitled "Priesthood and Diaconate" (Ignatius Press) that the consecration of deaconesses in the early Church was not an ordination of women to the diaconate.  He writes:

"The institutionalization of charitable services performed by widows in the Christian community, of the assistance rendered by women during baptismal ceremonies, and of liturgical functions in a convent of consecrated virgins is apparent from the beginning of the third century in the ecclesiastical  neologism: diaconissa/diacona.  For Koine Greek, unlike Latin, could not construct the female form of 'servant' by a change of ending, but could only indicate it with the feminine article (cf. Rom 16:1).  Aside from that, we also encounter the title diaconissa (and, similarly, presbyterissa and episcopissa) as a designation for the wives of deacons - for example, in papal instructions or conciliar canons that admonish higher clerics to practice celibacy, in the sense of continence.

Although there are records of the liturgical installation of deaconesses dating back to the fourth century, one must not overlook the fact that the selfsame authors who testify to this practice also make clear that the consecration of deaconesses was not the ordination of women to the diaconal ministry; on the contrary, it was a question of a different ecclesiastical office.

To the early Church it was clear that, without prejudice to the various degrees of bishop, presbyter, and deacon, which assumed a definitive form in the transition to the postapostolic age, these ministries owe their existence to the historical initiative of the apostles and to the special presence of the Holy Spirit in the foundational phase of the Church; whereas the latter, so-called nonsacramental consecrations were introduced by ecclesiastical authorities and thus are not matters of divine law but only of Church law." (pp. 48-49).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches clearly that: "Deacons share in Christ's mission and grace in a special way. The sacrament of Holy Orders marks them with an imprint ('character') which cannot be removed and which configures them to Christ, who made himself the 'deacon' or servant of all. Among other tasks, it is the task of deacons to assist the bishop and priests in the celebration of the divine mysteries, above all the Eucharist, in the distribution of Holy Communion, in assisting at and blessing marriages, in the proclamation of the Gospel and preaching, in presiding over funerals, and in dedicating themselves to the various ministries of charity." (CCC, 1570).

And again: "Since the Second Vatican Council the Latin Church has restored the diaconate 'as a proper and permanent rank of the hierarchy,' while the Churches of the East had always maintained it. This permanent diaconate, which can be conferred on married men, constitutes an important enrichment for the Church's mission. Indeed it is appropriate and useful that men who carry out a truly diaconal ministry in the Church, whether in its liturgical and pastoral life or whether in its social and charitable works, should 'be strengthened by the imposition of hands which has come down from the apostles. They would be more closely bound to the altar and their ministry would be made more fruitful through the sacramental grace of the diaconate.'" (CCC, 1571).

Women cannot receive Holy Orders.  Period.  End of story.  The Sacrament of Holy Orders is conferred in the degrees of Bishop, Presbyter, and Deacon (See Lumen Gentium Nos. 18-29).  Tradition in its entirety has always firmly held that all degrees of ordination are essentially rooted in one sacrament, as being a repraesentatio Christi capitis [a representation of Christ the Head].

Once again, CNN has published a piece of drivel from a "journalist" who hasn't researched his subject.  This is what we've come to expect from the mainstream media: sheer nonsense.

And they do not fail to deliver.

Algerian muslim cleric engages in anti-Semitic invective, a commonplace feature of the Islamic cult

Arutz Sheba reports:

An Algerian cleric recently sought to explain the claims by some Muslims that Jews are descendants of apes and pigs. 

The cleric, Chemseddine el Djazairi, spoke on Ennahar TV on February 8. The clip was translated and uploaded to YouTube by the Middle East Media.

According to el Djazairi, contemporary Jews are not descendants of apes and pigs. However, he went on to say, some Jews may have been transformed to these animals in the past - but this line has been severed.

"Contemporary Jews are of the seed of Adam, not of the apes and pigs, because the line of those transformed into apes and pigs was severed," he explained.
"A Jew who rebelled so much against God that he was thus transformed – how is this the fault of his children or grandchildren? Perhaps their descendents will convert to Islam, and know that there is no god but Allah. This is in keeping with Islamic law as well as with logic. Those who were transformed are extinct. None exist anymore.

"This transformation is true. Some nations were transformed by Allah into apes and pigs. However, they have no descendents. Get it?" concluded el Djazairi.

The anti-Semitic invective connecting Jews with apes and pigs is regularly used by Muslim clerics. Just last week, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) exposed a sermon made by a Palestinian Arab cleric, in which he demonized Jews as "apes and pigs" in classic Muslim anti-Semitic trope, and likewise called them the "slaves of deities."

Likewise, the PA Mufti, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, has said Muslims are in a religious war against the Jews - calling them the "descendants of apes and pigs." 

In 2013, MEMRI exposed comments by then-Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, made before he was president, in which he rejected negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and referred to Jews as "apes and pigs".

When confronted about the comments, Morsi claimed they had been "taken out of context."

Does this sound familar? It should. For the Nazis insisted that the Jewish People were people of low morality and compared them with rats emerging from a sewer.

By way of example, one of Hitler's early followers - Hermann Esser - in his 1939 book entitled "The Jewish World Plague," had this to say: "Jewry undermines every people and every state that it infiltrates. It feeds as a parasite and a culture-killing worm in the host people. It grows and grows like weeds in the state, the community and the family and infests the blood of humanity everywhere.In brief, that is the pestilential nature of Jewry, against which every people, every state, every nation must, should and wants to defend itself if it does not want to be the victim of his bloody plague. Wherever Jewry has appeared, it has never built anything. It has always and everywhere destroyed or torn down, sucking others dry to fill itself. From the days of the Romans to our day, Jewry in every century, in every people, was and remained a foreign body, a destroyer of real and ideal values, a denier of any upward progress, a plague for body and soul. It sneaks in through deceit and treachery, trickery and slyness, murder and assault, understanding how to establish itself."

Pope Pius XII, in a broadcast of Vatican Radio to the people of France in June of 1943, said clearly that, "He who makes a distinction between Jews and other men is unfaithful to God and is in conflict with God's commands."

In order to justify killing others, Islam must first demonize them.  It must dehumanize them.  This we find in the Qu'ran.  This we find in the demonic rhetoric of fanatical and sociopathic followers of the Islamic cult.

The suicide of Belgium: America behold your future unless we act now

Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, wrote an interesting Op-Ed which I share here because it portends what is coming to America.  It's only a matter of time.  This because, like Belgium, America is committing spiritual and intellectual suicide.

Giulio Meotti:
Belgium is Committing Suicide

As the capital of the European Union goes, so goes Europe. And the details are worse than you can imagine.

Belgium has the highest per capita number of Islamic terrorists gone to fight in Syria and Iraq than any other European country. Brussels is the capital of the holy war, as well as of the European Union.

The first European citizen to die on the battlefields of jihad was Muriel Degauque, a Belgian Catholic girl. Originally from Charleroi, she converted to Islam, changed her name to Myriam and died near Baghdad as a human bomb.

Two days before September 11, two Tunisians recruited in Belgium managed to kill the Afghan commander Massoud, enemy of al Qaeda and the Taliban.
And the terror cell of Madrid's 2004 bombings came from the town of Maaseik.

How could Maaseik, the city of the Christian painter Van Eyck, become the center of Islamic terrorism in Europe?

They call it "Belgistan", it is the sad evolution of a wealthy, bored and skeptical country, a world of cafes, theaters, municipal clubs, wine, witty conversations, carillons, libraries, prosperous cooperatives.
Brussels was destined to become, like London, Paris or Athens, the place par excellence of Europe's national merger. Homo Belgicus should have been the highest example of synthesis of the European everyman. Yet, the country is sick.

Belgium doesn't only hold the record for jihadists in Europe, it is also the European country with the highest suicide rate. The most notorious suicide is the Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine, Christian de Duve, who, two years ago, killed himself in front of his four children.

Six suicides a day. With a suicide rate estimated at more than 20 per 100,000 inhabitants, Belgium breaks all records in Western Europe. The world average is 14.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. Suicide is indeed the first cause of mortality among Belgians between 25-44 and the second leading cause, after vehicle accidents, between 15-24.

The tragic statistic would grow if we counted the thousands of deaths that occur under the law of euthanasia, with six deaths per day. Belgium is also the site of the first "supermarket of death." In Flémalle, a Belgian town not far from Liege. The tombstones? In the fourth row. The crowns? In the right corner. The coffins? To the left.

A country dominated by nihilism, where Islam is already the first religion. In the schools of the capital of Europe, the teaching of the Muslim religion has exceeded that of students of Catholic faith. A full 43 percent is studying Islam, and the same figure stood at 41.4 in high schools; 27.9 percent are following courses of "secular morality" (atheism), and only 23.3 percent opted for studies in the Catholic faith.

Already today, in Brussels, one in three people is Muslim, the most common name is Mohammed, and by 2035 it will be a city with a Muslim majority.

The great moments of life, such as baptisms, weddings and funerals in Belgium are no longer tied to Christianity, this in a country whose symbols have long been the cathedral of Antwerp, the dog of St. Hubert and the University of Leuven (founded by Pope Martin V).

In Brussels today only 7.2 percent of marriages are Catholic, only 14.8 percent of children are baptized, and there only 22.6 percent of funerals were Catholic. It is the end of Catholicism.

Recently, the Belgian authorities decided that the cornerstone holidays of European culture, such as All Saints' Day, Christmas and Easter, had to be replaced by the more neutral "Holiday Autumn", "Winter Holidays" and "Spring Break ". And two years ago, the new secularized Christmas tree made its debut, a symbol of a country which has become transparent, soulless. An Xmas Tree of steel, lights and video projections.

At the same time, Belgium adopted the most radical form of multiculturalism that Europe has ever known. In 1974, the Belgian government officially recognized the Islamic religion. The first result of this recognition was the adoption, in 1975, of the inclusion of the Islamic religion in the school curriculum. Muslims in Belgium are 75 percent fundamentalist.
"A  radicalized youth, which rejects Western values", writes the Flemish journalist Hind Fraihi: "In Brussels, there are islands such as Molenbeek, where it is hard to believe that it is Belgium."

Proselytism, meanwhile, flourishes. The total number of Belgians who converted to Islam is estimated at 20,000. In the courts, the sharia interferes insidiously in judgments of judges and in Antwerp the first court that legislates with Islamic law has been established. Public schools also distribute halal meals.
In recent years in many areas of Brussels women have disappeared and reappeared under their full veils. A stone's throw from the European institutions, the imams preach against Brussels, the "capital of the infidels."

The Jews are under attack everywhere.

Many churches remain the same outside. But inside many have become mosques, such as the Lady of Perpetual Help. In a church at Bruges the "Holy Blood" which a Count of Flanders brought from Palestine after the Crusades is kept. But the "miracle of the liquefaction", say the guides, doesn't take place anymore and hasn't for several centuries.

It has withered. The symbol of a dried and lost Europe.

_________________________

On June 17, 1989, in Milan, Father Stefano Gobbi was given an explanation regarding the number of the beast: 666. Our Lady said, "Lucifer, the ancient serpent, the devil or satan, the red dragon, becomes, in these last times, the antichrist. The Apostle John already affirmed that whoever denies Jesus Christ is God, that person is the antichrist. The statue or idol, built in honor of the beast to be adored by all men, is the antichrist.

"Calculate now its number 666, to understand how it indicates the name of man. The number, 333, indicates the divinity. Lucifer rebels against God through pride, because he wants to put himself above God. 333 is the number which indicates the mystery of God. He who wants to put himself above God bears the sign, 666, and consequently this number indicates the name of lucifer, satan, that is to say, of him who, sets himself against Christ, of the antichrist.  "333 indicated once, that is to say, for the first time, expresses the mystery of the unity of God. 333 indicated twice, that is to say, for the second time, indicates the two natures, that of the Divine Person of Jesus Christ. 333 indicated thrice, that is to say, for the third time, indicates the mystery of the Three Divine Persons, that is to say, it expresses they mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Thus the number, 333, expressed one, two and three times, expresses the principal mysteries of the Catholic faith, which are: (1) the Unity and the Trinity of God, (2) the incarnation, the passion and death, the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  If 333 is the number which indicates the Divinity, he who wants to put himself above God himself is referred to by the number 666. 666 indicated once, that is to say, for the first time, expresses the year 666, six hundred and sixty-six. In this period of history, the antichrist manifested through the phenomenon of Islam, which denies the mystery of the Divine Trinity and the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Islamism, with its military force, breaks loose everywhere, destroying all the ancient Christian communities, and invades Europe and it is only through my extraordinary motherly intervention, begged for powerfully by the Holy Father, that it does not succeed in destroying Christianity completely.

 "666 indicated twice, that is to say, for the second time, expresses the year 1332, thirteen hundred and thirty two in this period of history, the antichrist is manifested through a radical attack on the faith in the word (Parola) of God. Through the philosophers who begin to give exclusive value to science and then to reason, there is a gradual tendency to constitute human intelligence alone as the sole criterion of truth. There come to birth the great philosophical errors which continue through the centuries down to your days. The exaggerated importance given to reason, as an exclusive criterion of truth, necessarily leads to the destruction of faith in the Word (Parola) of God. Indeed, with the Protestant Reformation, Tradition is rejected as a source of Divine Revelation, and only Sacred Scripture accepted. But even this must be interpreted by means of the reason, and the authentic Magisterium of the herarchic Church, to which Christ has entrusted the guardianship of the deposit of faith, is obstinately rejected. Each one is free to read and to understand Sacred Scripture according to one's personal interpretation. In this way, faith in the Word (Parola) of God is destroyed. The work of the antichrist, in this period of history, is the division of the Church and the consequent formation of new and numerous Christian confessions which gradually become driven to a more and more extensive loss of the true faith in the Word (Parola) of God.

"666 indicated thrice, that is to say, for the third time, expresses the year 1998, nineteen hundred and ninety-eight. In this period of history, Freemasonry, assisted by its ecclesiastical form, will succeed in its great design; that of setting up an idol to put in the place of Christ and of His Church. A false christ and a false church. Consequently, the statue built in honor of the first beast, to be adored by all the inhabitants of the earth and which will seal with its mark all those who want to buy or sell, is that of the antichrist. You have thus arrived at the peak of the purification, of the great tribulation and of the apostasy. The apostasy will be, as of then, generalized because almost all will follow the false christ and false church. Then the door will be open for the appearance of the man or of the very person of the antichrist.   "That is why, beloved children, I have wanted to enlighten you concerning the pages of the Apocalypse which refer to the times you are living through. This is to prepare you with me, for the most painful and decisive part of the great struggle which is on the point of being fought out between your Heavenly Mother and all the forces of evil have been let loose.  "Take courage! Be strong, my little children. To you befalls the duty, in these difficult years, of remaining faithful to Christ and to His Church, putting up with hostility, struggle and persecution. But you are a precious part of the little flock, which has the task of fighting against, and in the end of conquering, the powerful force of the antichrist. I am forming you all, defending you and blessing you." (To The Priests: Our Lady's Beloved Sons, Message 407).

Whoever denies that Jesus is God is of Antichrist.  Bearing that in mind, let's look at what Dr. Mark Durie has to say about the Muslim "Jesus":

The Muslim ‘Isa (Jesus)
There are two main sources for ‘Isa, the Muslim Jesus. The Qur’an gives a history of his life, whilst the Hadith collections — recollections of Muhammad’s words and deeds — establish his place in the Muslim understanding of the future.

The Qur’an
‘Isa, was a prophet of Islam
Jesus’ true name, according to the Qur’an, was ‘Isa. His message was pure Islam, surrender to Allah. (Âl 'Imran 3:84) Like all the Muslim prophets before him, and like Muhammad after him, ‘Isa was a lawgiver, and Christians should submit to his law. (Âl 'Imran 3:50; Al-Ma’idah 5:48) ‘Isa’s original disciples were also true Muslims, for they said ‘We believe. Bear witness that we have surrendered. We are Muslims.’ (Al-Ma’idah 5:111)

‘The Books’
Like other messengers of Islam before him, ‘Isa received his revelation of Islam in the form of a book. (Al-An’am 6:90) ‘Isa’s book is called the Injil or ‘gospel’. (Al-Ma’idah 5:46) The Torah was Moses’ book, and the Zabur (Psalms) were David’s book. So Jews and Christians are ‘people of the Book’. The one religion revealed in these books was Islam. (Âl 'Imran 3:18)

As with previous prophets, ‘Isa’s revelation verified previous prophets’ revelations. (Âl 'Imran 3:49,84; Al-Ma’idah 5:46; As-Saff 61:6) Muhammad himself verified all previous revelations, including the revelation to ‘Isa (An-Nisa’ 4:47), and so Muslims must believe in the revelation which ‘Isa received. (Al-Baqarah 2:136) However, after ‘Isa the Injil was lost in its original form. Today the Qur’an is the only sure guide to ‘Isa’s teaching.

The biography of ‘Isa
According to the Qur’an, ‘Isa was the Messiah. He was supported by the ‘Holy Spirit’. (Al-Baqarah 2:87; Al-Ma’idah 5:110) He is also referred to as the ‘Word of Allah’. (An-Nisa’ 4:171)

‘Isa’s mother Mariam was the daughter of ‘Imran, (Âl 'Imran 3:34,35) — cf the Amram of Exodus 6:20 — and the sister of Aaron (and Moses). (Maryam 19:28) She was fostered by Zachariah (father of John the Baptist). (Âl 'Imran 3:36) While still a virgin (Al-An’am 6:12; Maryam 19:19-21) Mariam gave birth to ‘Isa alone in a desolate place under a date palm tree. (Maryam 19:22ff) (Not in Bethlehem).

‘Isa spoke whilst still a baby in his cradle. (Âl 'Imran 3:46; Al-Ma’idah 5:110; Maryam 19:30) He performed various other miracles, including breathing life into clay birds, healing the blind and lepers, and raising the dead. (Âl 'Imran 3:49; Al-Ma’idah 5:111) He also foretold the coming of Muhammad. (As-Saff 61:6)

‘Isa did not die on a cross
Christians and Jews have corrupted their scriptures. (Âl 'Imran 3:74-77, 113) Although Christians believe ‘Isa died on a cross, and Jews claim they killed him, in reality he was not killed or crucified, and those who said he was crucified lied (An-Nisa’ 4:157). ‘Isa did not die, but ascended to Allah. (An-Nisa’ 4:158) On the day of Resurrection ‘Isa himself will be a witness against Jews and Christians for believing in his death. (An-Nisa’ 4:159)

Christians should accept Islam, and all true Christians will

Christians (and Jews) could not be freed from their ignorance until Muhammad came bringing the Qur’an as clear evidence (Al-Bayyinah 98:1). Muhammad was Allah’s gift to Christians to correct misunderstandings. They should accept Muhammad as Allah’s Messenger, and the Qur’an as his final revelation. (Al-Ma’idah 5:15; Al-Hadid 57:28; An-Nisa’ 4:47)

Some Christians and Jews are faithful and believe truly. (Âl 'Imran 3:113,114) Any such true believers will submit to Allah by accepting Muhammad as the prophet of Islam, i.e. they will become Muslims. (Âl 'Imran 3:198)

Although Jews and pagans will have the greatest enmity against Muslims, it is the Christians who will be ‘nearest in love to the believers’, i.e. to Muslims. (Al-Ma’idah 5:82) True Christians will not love Muhammad’s enemies. (Al-Mujadilah 58:22) In other words, anyone who opposes Muhammad is not a true Christian.

Christians who accept Islam or refuse it

Some Jews and Christians are true believers, accepting Islam: most are transgressors. (Âl 'Imran 3:109)
Many monks and rabbis are greedy for wealth and prevent people from coming to Allah. (At-Taubah 9:34,35)
Christians and Jews who disbelieve in Muhammad will go to hell. (Al-Bayyinah 98:6)

Muslims should not take Christians or Jews for friends. (Al-Ma’idah 5:51) They must fight against Christians and Jews who refuse Islam until they surrender, pay the poll-tax and are humiliated. (At-Taubah 9:29) To this may be added hundreds of Qur’anic verses on the subject of jihad in the path of Allah, as well as the ‘Book of Jihad’ found in all Hadith collections.

Christian beliefs

Christians are commanded not to believe that ‘Isa is the son of God: ‘It is far removed from his transcendent majesty that he should have a son’. (An-Nisa’ 4:171; Al-Furqan 25:2) ‘Isa was simply a created human being, and a slave of Allah. (An-Nisa’ 4:172; Âl 'Imran 3:59)
Christians are claimed by the Qur’an to believe in a family of gods — Father God, mother Mary and ‘Isa the son — but ‘Isa rejected this teaching. (Al-Ma’idah 5:116) The doctrine of the Trinity is disbelief and a painful doom awaits those who believe it. (Al-Ma’idah 5:73)

‘Isa (Jesus) in the Hadith
‘Isa the destroyer of Christianity

The prophet ‘Isa will have an important role in the end times, establishing Islam and making war until he destroys all religions save Islam. He shall kill the Evil One (Dajjal), an apocalyptic anti-Christ figure.

In one tradition of Muhammad we read that no further prophets will come to earth until ‘Isa returns as ‘a man of medium height, or reddish complexion, wearing two light garments, looking as if drops were falling down from his head although it will not be wet. He will fight for the cause of Islam. He will break the cross, kill pigs, and abolish the poll-tax. Allah will destroy all religions except Islam. He (‘Isa) will destroy the Evil One and will live on the earth for forty years and then he will die’. (Sunan Abu Dawud, 37:4310) The Sahih Muslim has a variant of this tradition: ‘The son of Mary ... will soon descend among you as a just judge. He will ... abolish the poll-tax, and the wealth will pour forth to such an extent that no one will accept charitable gifts.’ (Sahih Muslim 287)

What do these sayings mean? The cross is a symbol of Christianity. Breaking crosses means abolishing Christianity. Pigs are associated with Christians. Killing them is another way of speaking of the destruction of Christianity. Under Islamic law the poll-tax buys the protection of the lives and property of conquered ‘people of the Book’. (At-Taubah 9:29) The abolition of the poll-tax means jihad is restarted against Christians (and Jews) living under Islam, who should convert to Islam, or else be killed or enslaved. The abundance of wealth refers to booty flowing to the Muslims from this conquest. This is what the Muslim ‘Isa will do when he returns in the last days.
Muslim jurists confirm these interpretations: consider, for example, the ruling of Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 1368).

"... the time and the place for [the poll tax] is before the final descent of Jesus (upon whom be peace). After his final coming, nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for taking the poll tax is only effective until Jesus' descent (upon him and our Prophet be peace) ..." (The Reliance of the Traveller. Trans. Nuh Ha Mim Keller, p. 603).
Ibn Naqib goes on to state that when Jesus returns, he will rule ‘as a follower’ of Muhammad.

This is Islam.  Unless we have the will to oppose this manifestation of Antichrist, America is finished.  Just like Belgium. Don't think for one minute that it cannot happen here.  Even as Islam expresses its desire to conquer Rome, many Catholics, such as Bishop Robert McManus of the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts, believes that "interreligious dialogue" is not only possible with the Islamic cult, but that such dialogue has produced good fruit.

The Big Lie: America is in the midst of an economic recovery

Gateway Pundit notes that:

"Jim Clifton, the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, an iconic U.S. company dating back to 1935, told CNBC that he was worried he might 'suddenly disappear' and not make it home that evening if he disputed the accuracy of what the U.S. government is reporting as unemployed Americans.

The CNBC interview came one day after Clifton had penned a gutsy opinion piece on Gallup’s web site, defiantly calling the government’s 5.6 percent unemployment figure 'The Big Lie' in the article’s headline. His appearance on CNBC was apparently to walk back the 'lie' part of the title and reframe the jobs data as just hopelessly deceptive.

Clifton stated the following on CNBC:

'I think that the number that comes out of BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] and the Department of Labor is very, very accurate. I need to make that very, very clear so that I don’t suddenly disappear. I need to make it home tonight.'

After getting that out of the way, Clifton went on to eviscerate the legitimacy of the cheerful spin given to the unemployment data, telling CNBC viewers that the percent of full time jobs in this country as a percent of the adult population 'is the worst it’s been in 30 years.'"

Our Lady told Fr. Stephano Gobbi on November 15, 1990, at Malvern Pennsylvania: "I announce to you that the hour of the great trial is on the point of arriving. The great trial has arrived for your country. How many times, as a concerned and sorrowing mother, have I endeavored to urge my children to follow the path of conversion and of return to the Lord. I have not been listened to. You have continued to walk along the way of rejection of God, and of His law of love. Sins of impurity have become ever more widespread, and immorality has spread like a sea which has submerged all things. Homosexuality, a sin of impurity which is against nature, has been justified; recourse to the means of preventing life have become commonplace, while abortions - these killings of innocent children, that cry for vengeance before the face of God - have spread and are performed in every part of your homeland.The moment of divine justice and of great mercy has now arrived.

You will know the hour of weakness and of poverty; the hour of suffering and defeat; the purifying hour of the great chastisement. The great trial has arrived for your Church. How great is your responsibility, O Pastors of the Holy Church of God! You continue along the path of division from the Pope and of the rejection of his Magisterium; indeed, in a hidden way, there is in preparation a true schism which could soon become open and proclaimed...And then, there will remain only a small faithful remnant, over which I will keep watch in the garden of my Immaculate Heart.

The great trial has arrived for all humanity. The chastisement, predicted by me at Fatima and contained in that part of the secret which has not yet been revealed, is about to take place. The great moment of divine justice and of mercy has come upon the world."

Many simply refuse to see this.  For such people, the lie of an economic "recovery" is much preferred to the harsh reality of economic chastisement.

Michael Snyder has warned: "Sometimes I think that I sound like a broken record.  I am constantly using phrases such as 'get prepared while you still can' and 'time is running out'.  In fact, I use them so often that people are starting to criticize me for it.  But the truth is that only a small percentage of people out there are actively taking steps to get ready for what is coming.  Most of the country is not prepared at all.  In many ways, it is just like 2007 all over again.  There were many people that could see what was about to happen and were doing all they could to warn people, but most did not listen.  And then the great financial crisis of 2008 struck and millions of people lost their jobs and their homes.  Unfortunately, the next great wave of the economic collapse is going to be even more painful than the last one.  It is imperative that people get prepared for what is on the horizon, but for the most part it is just not happening.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that we have such short memories and such short attention spans in America today.  Thanks to years of television and endless hours on the Internet, I find myself having a really hard time focusing on anything for more than just a few moments.  And we are accustomed to living in an 'instant society' where we don't have to wait for anything.  In such a society, we are used to 'news cycles' that only last for 24 hours and very few people take a 'long-term view' of anything.

And another one of the big problems that we are facing is something called "normalcy bias".  The following is how Wikipedia defines it...
The normalcy bias, or normality bias, refers to a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
Over the past several years, the U.S. economy has been relatively stable.

And that is a good thing.  But it has also lulled millions upon millions of people into a false sense of security and complacency.  At this point, most Americans consider 2008 to be a temporary bump in the road, and most assume that the U.S. economy will always be strong.

Unfortunately, that is not the truth.  As I have written about previously, the long-term trends that are destroying our economy have continued to get worse since 2008, and none of the problems that caused the last financial crisis have been fixed.

We are steamrolling toward the edge of an economic cliff, and most people in our entertainment-addicted society are totally oblivious to what is going on.  So they are not doing anything to get ready for the immense economic pain that is coming."

Our Lady's warning has gone unheeded. Men prefer to place their hope not in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary but in a government which has become a Moloch State and the mainstream media which is just as thoroughly corrupt.

The people must be distracted with bread and circuses.  This was Rome's solution to its demise.  America too is living a lie.

The people of Nineveh repented of their sins and their city was spared from disaster. The spirit of penance which saved them from chastisement was expressed through the sackcloth and ashes. We are told in Sacred Scripture that, "The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you. So Jonah set out for Nineveh, in accord with the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an awesomely great city; it took three days to walk through it. Jonah began his journey through the city, and when he had gone only a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh: 'By decree of the king and his nobles, no man or beast, no cattle or sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. Man and beast alike must be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; they all must turn from their evil way and from the violence of their hands. Who knows? God may again repent and turn from his blazing wrath, so that we will not perish.' When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out." (Jonah 3: 1-10).

Where is the fast in the United States? Where is the penance? America goes from bad to worse, mired in filth and immorality, and we expect continued blessing?

The big lie.  But soon the Whore of Babylon will weep.  In one hour her wealth will be gone.

A vain hope for safety is the horse.....or Wall Street!

You have a vocation from God: No more excuses

"It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.” - Pope John Paul II.

In an essay entitled One Solitary Life which was adapted from a sermon by Dr. James Allan Francis, we are reminded about certain aspects of Jesus' life:


Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat. I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. (Phil 4:13).  These words are engraved on a bracelet which I wear.  Do we really believe this?  Or do we let others define who we are?

Issue the battle cry! Let's take back our cities!

Those who walk in the Spirit know no fear. What are we waiting for? The Lord Jesus waits. He grows tired of our excuses:


I’m not holy enough:
Is 6:1-9; Lk 5:1-11

I’m afraid I will fail:
Ex 14:10-31; Lk 15

I’ve made mistakes and I’m a sinner:
Jn 21:15-23; Mt 9:9-13; Lk 7:36-50

I’m too young:
1 Sam 3:1-18; Jer 1:4-10; Lk 1:26-38

I’m not talented enough:
1 Sam 17:32-51; Lk 1:26-38

I want to have a family:
Gn 12:1-3; Mt 12:46-50; Mk 10:28-30

I’m afraid of making a permanent commitment:
Ruth 1:15-17; Mt 28:16-20

I’m afraid of public speaking:
Ex 4:10-17; Jer 1:4-10

I’m not smart enough:
2 Cor 4:7-18; Ex 4:10-17

I’m afraid of being alone:
Ex 3:4-22; Lk 1:28-38

I want to be happy:
Ps 37:4; Mt 5:1-12; Jn 10:10; Mk 10:28-31

I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. There are no obstacles we can't overcome in His holy name.  Even while others attempt to label us and dismiss us as useless, as having no worth.  I knew a young man with developmental disabilities whose father told him he was "worthless."  He was told by his father that the best thing for him would be a bullet in the head. When he asked me one day if he was worthless, I reminded him of his many gifts: his sense of humor, his ability to love others, his ability to pray to God and a litany of other gifts.  And I assured him that he is not "worthless."

We live in a sad, broken world.  There are many people who are heavily burdened with sin who are hurting. And because they are hurting, they want to hurt others.  If you could read some of the comments which have been left at this Blog you would cringe.  Sad time.  Hurting time. And we pray for such people.

But we cannot let others define who we are.  We are children of God who have access to the Holy Spirit's Gifts just by asking for them.

The Son of God loves us.  What does that suggest about those who hate us?

Brian Williams and Hillary Clinton have demonstrated their contempt for the American people

The New Orleans Advocate reports:

"NBC News anchor Brian Williams, who apologized on the air Wednesday night for lying about an experience covering the Iraq War, is now facing scrutiny over his gripping accounts of Hurricane Katrina, the disaster that burnished his nightly news bona fides almost a decade ago.

Williams’ account of seeing a body float by in the French Quarter — which remained largely dry — and even a claim of catching dysentery from drinking Katrina floodwaters have raised eyebrows among bloggers and elsewhere since he took it on the chin this week over a claim that he rode in a helicopter that was downed by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq."

Jesse Walker, at his Hit and Run Blog, recalls a story which some of us conservatives remember all too well. He notes that, "Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on [March 25, 2008, that] she made a mistake when she claimed she had come under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996 while she was first lady.

In a speech in Washington and in several interviews last week Clinton described how she and her daughter, Chelsea, ran for cover under hostile fire shortly after her plane landed in Tuzla, Bosnia.

Several news outlets disputed the claim, and a video of the trip showed Clinton walking from the plane, accompanied by her daughter. They were greeted by a young girl in a small ceremony on the tarmac and there was no sign of tension or any danger.

"I did make a mistake in talking about it, you know, the last time and recently," Clinton told reporters in Pennsylvania where she was campaigning before the state's April 22 primary. She said she had a "different memory" about the landing.

In her speech, Clinton had claimed: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Lying to promote one's own image and to manipulate others.  And this from two individuals who spend their lives in the pursuit of influencing public opinion.

In Man Against Mass Society, Gabriel Marcel writes, "In spite of everything that can be said to the contrary, is not the real and deep purpose of propaganda after all that of reducing men to a condition in which they lose all capacity for individual reaction? In other words, whether the men in control of propaganda intend this or not, is it not of the very nature of propaganda to degrade those whose attitudes it seeks to shape? And is it possible to be unaware of the fact that propaganda presupposes, in these men in control, a fundamental contempt for the rest of the human race? If we really attach any value at all to what a man is in himself, to his authentic nature, how can we assume the responsibility of passing him through the flattening-out machinery of propaganda?

What we ought to enquire into, however, is the nature of this contempt. There are, of course, fine shades of distinction that analysis ought to bring out: but is there any essential difference between the attitude of someone like Goebbels, for instance, and that of a chief of Communist propaganda? In both cases we are faced with a radical and cynical refusal to recognize the competence of individual judgment, an impatience with what appears, from this point of view, the intolerable presumptuousness of the individual. It is also broadly noteworthy that even the sense of truth cannot fail gradually and unconsciously to be destroyed in those who assume the task of manipulating opinion. It would require a very uncommon degree of simple-mindedness in a professional propagandist for him to remain very long convinced that his truth was the whole truth. Such simple-mindedness is only conceivable in a fanatic." (pp. 50-51).

But fanaticism is precisely what we find in the Democratic Party and those liberals who pretty much dominate every corner of the mainstream media which long ago buried any remains of journalistic integrity and objectivity.

This is nothing less than a moral tragedy. When communicating with others, we all have certain responsibilities.  For example, we all have a responsibility to submit ourselves to truth when communicating.  Dr. Germain Grisez explains that, “As creatures, human persons are utterly dependent on God.  Their freedom and action presuppose realities whose meaning and value cannot be changed.  Therefore, human fulfillment requires knowing and conforming to the truth, and especially to the truth about what is good.  But since genuine community is cooperation in seeking common fulfillment, it depends on submission to truth. Consequently, since all parties to communication should be open to genuine community, they should submit themselves to truth.  The alternative is pursuing what they want regardless of truth, caring about no common good beyond themselves, and so, while using means of communication, failing to promote genuine community.”

This is exactly what Brian Williams and Hillary Clinton have shown.  They care not so much for the common good as they do for their own good and their desire to control and manipulate others.

President Barack Obama is concerned about violence "in the name of Christ"

 President Barack Obama assures us that, "In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.

Militant atheists are fond of reminding us that there have been people who committed acts of violence "in the name of religion." And of course this is true. But the Church always condemned such abuses in her teaching.

But what Barack Obama doesn't mention (and this should come as no surprise, counterfeit Christian that he is), is that far more violence has been committed under the banner of atheism.  See here. As historian Paul Johnson put it, "Certainly, mankind without Christianity conjures up a dismal prospect. The record of mankind with Christianity is daunting enough....The dynamism it has unleashed has brought masacre and torture, intolerance and destructive pride on a huge scale, for there is a cruel and pitiless nature in man which is sometimes impervious to Christian restraints and encouragements. But without these restraints, bereft of these encouragements, how much more horrific the history of these last 2,000 years must have been!....In the last generation, with public Christianity in headlong retreat, we have caught our first, distant view of a de-Christianized world, and it is not encouraging." (A History of Christianity, p. 517).

Yes, there have been men who were "impervious to Christian restraints." But the Church may not be held responsible for this. Christianity is not the failure here. Rather those who failed to live up to the demands of the Gospel are to blame. But to the extent that such men committed acts of violence "in the name of religion," may we not justly conclude that such men were really atheists?

Atheism can be either speculative or practical. The practical atheist is one whose words and actions suggest that he does not really believe in God or following His holy will.

But nothing can match the barbaric record of violence under atheistic humanism. Which is what Mr. Johnson means when he writes, "In the last generation, with public Christianity in headlong retreat, we have caught our first, distant view of a de-Christianized world, and it is not encouraging.."

It is critical to remember (even if mental midgets such as Barack Obama would have us believe otherwise) 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).

Related reading here.

Pope Francis: Men shouldn't be so macho and should listen more to women

As noted here, Pope Francis, who once boasted of having been a bouncer,"has called for more women in the International Theological Commission, even after tripling the number of women on the team this past September. 'In the ever more diverse makeup of the Commission,' he said, 'I want to see a higher presence of women.'

The Pope also said recently that it is chiefly women who pass on the faith, and urged men to listen to women more and not be so 'macho.' He said that men often don’t allow enough room for women while 'women are capable of seeing things with a different angle from us, with a different eye.'

Got that?  You men who are discerning a vocation to the priesthood must come to view masculinity as a sort of disease which leads to men ignoring women and ultimately excluding them.  Men must be ashamed of their masculinity and learn to identify more with women.
We don't listen enough to women?  I think the problem, at least in the West, is that we cater too much to women.  One could certainly argue that women in Islamic nations are suppressed and relegated to the status of furniture.  But not in the West.  Throughout the Church in the United States, women outnumber men in virtually every Church ministry. Everyone knows this. The absence of laymen participating in Church ministries to any appreciable degree is the result of the effeminization of the Church, the Cult of Softness.

Several years ago, in a piece entitled "Priestly Identity: Crisis and Renewal," Annamarie Adkins interviewed Father David Toups, Associate Director of the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations of the U.S. episcopal conference.  Annamarie Adkins wrote, "A general crisis of authentic masculinity in society has also affected the priesthood as only 'real men' can adequately fulfill the role of priest and pastor, says Father David Toups. Father Toups, the associate director of the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations of the U.S. episcopal conference, is the author of 'Reclaiming Our Priestly Character.'

It was Jacques Maritain who said, “Christianity must inform or, rather, transpenetrate the world; not that this is its principal aim (although it is an indispensable secondary end), and not in order that the world become right now the kingdom of God, but in order that grace may be more and more effective in it, and in order that man may better live there his temporal life.”

If grace is to be more and more effective in the world, if a new Christendom is to arise from the ashes of our morally-bankrupt, sin-sick society which subjects mankind to constant and ever-growing threats of degradation and destruction, then saints will have to arise in the midst of our broken world. These saints will be, according to St. Louis de Montfort in his classic treatise True Devotion to Mary, “..like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God’s word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God’s word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God.” (True Devotion, 57).

Such disciples will not be “part-time Catholics” or “Chicken-Catholics,” devoting only one hour a week to their Creator and Redeemer while retreating in fear from any and all conflict during the spiritual battles ahead. St. Montfort insists that, “..we know they will be true disciples of Jesus Christ, imitating his poverty, his humility, his contempt of the world and his love. They will point out the narrow way to God in pure truth according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world. Their hearts will not be troubled, nor will they show favor to anyone; they will not spare or heed or fear any man, however powerful he may be. They will have the two-edged sword of the Word of God in their mouths and the blood-stained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart. The simplicity and self-sacrifice of Jesus will be reflected in their whole behavior.” (True Devotion, 59).

George Weigel, weighing in on the supreme crisis which faces the Catholic Church in the United States in the wake of President Obama’s re-election, asserts (correctly) that: “..the opportunity embedded in this crisis..is nothing less than to be the Church of the New Evangelization, full-throttle. Shallow, tribal, institutional-maintenance Catholicism is utterly incapable of meeting the challenges that will now come at the Catholic Church from the most aggressively secular administration in American history. Only a robustly, unapologetically evangelical Catholicism, winsomely proposing and nobly living the truths about the human condition the Church teaches, will see us through the next four years. Radically converted Christian disciples, not one-hour-a-week Catholics whipsawed by an ever more toxic culture, are what this hour of crisis..demands.” (The crisis of a second Obama administration).

Sadly, the militant evangelical Catholicism described by George Weigel is not encouraged - or even tolerated - in some corners of the Catholic Church here in the United States. In some dioceses, the Cult of Softness has all but crippled an authentic, militant evangelization and replaced it with a sacharrin-spirituality which sugar-coats sin while leaving Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death.  As part of the Ecclesia Militans, I am persona non grata in my own diocese - the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts.  New Age advocates, dissidents who rail against the Magisterium and those who engage in radical homosexual agitprop are welcome.  But an orthodox Catholic who vigorously promotes and defends the teaching of the Magisterium is deemed "rigid" and "too pre-Vatican II." And, because of my military background, I am held in contempt.

This is our moment as Catholics: We can choose to take a courageous stand for the Faith of our Fathers, witnessing to Gospel truths with the whole of our lives and even unto death; or we can fall back into the shadows and thereby cooperate in the spiritual destruction of a once-great nation.

Along with the Church’s other martyrs, St. Thomas More was confronted with the same choice. While remaining a loyal servant of the King, he chose to be God’s servant first. Will we?

The Church needs men if there is to be a militant evangelization.  Real men who are ready to join the battle.  Not sissies who identify more with women than men, frustrated and psychologically cramped characters who have gender identity issues or latent homosexual tendencies.

I wrote my Bishop expressing interest in discerning a vocation to the priesthood.  I never did get a response.

But then, I am probably considered "too macho."

Recommended meditation: 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10:

"Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God."

Appeal to the Holy Father

Holy Father,

In view of the Synod on the family to be held in October 2015, we filially address Your Holiness to express our fears and hopes regarding the future of the family.

Our fears arise from witnessing a decades-long sexual revolution promoted by an alliance of powerful organizations, political forces and the mass media that consistently work against the very existence of the family as the basic unit of society. Ever since the so-called May 1968 Sorbonne Revolution, a morality opposed to both Divine and natural law has been gradually and systematically imposed on us so implacably as to make it possible, for example, to teach the abhorrent “gender theory” to young children in many countries.

Catholic teaching on the Sixth Commandment of the Law of God shines like a beacon in face of this ominous ideological objective. This beacon attracts many people—overwhelmed by this hedonistic propaganda—to the chaste and fecund family model taught by the Gospel and in accordance with natural law.

Your Holiness, in light of information published on the last Synod, we note with anguish that, for millions of faithful Catholics, the beacon seems to have dimmed in face of the onslaught of lifestyles spread by anti-Christian lobbies. In fact we see widespread confusion arising from the possibility that a breach has been opened within the Church that would accept adultery—by permitting divorced and then civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion—and would virtually accept even homosexual unions when such practices are categorically condemned as being contrary to Divine and natural law.

Paradoxically, our hope stems from this confusion.

Truly, in these circumstances, a word from Your Holiness is the only way to clarify the growing confusion amongst the faithful. It would prevent the very teaching of Jesus Christ from being watered-down and would dispel the darkness looming over our children’s future should that beacon no longer light their way.

Holy Father, we implore You to say this word. We do so with a heart devoted to all that You are and represent. We do so with the certainty that Your word will never disassociate pastoral practice from the teaching bequeathed by Jesus Christ and his vicars—as this would only add to the confusion. Indeed Jesus taught us very clearly that there must be coherence between life and truth (cf. John 14:6-7); and He also warned us that the only way not to fall is to practice His doctrine. (cf. Matt. 7:24-27)

Asking for Your apostolic blessing, we assure You of our prayers to the Holy Family—Jesus, Mary and Joseph—to enlighten Your Holiness in these crucially important circumstances.

Sign the appeal here.

Pope Francis and his "worldwide hug to transgender people"

From The National "Catholic" Reporter :

"Gay Catholic leaders have expressed their pleasure following reports that Pope Francis, in an unprecedented move, met last week with a transgender Spaniard at the Vatican.

While the Vatican has yet to confirm the meeting, it has been widely reported in the press, and there has been no Vatican denial.

'I think that his meeting with the transgender man was a gesture not only of pastoral care, but of genuine interest in learning about the transgender experience from a firsthand source,' Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, told NCR in an email.

Said New Ways Ministry's co-founder Sr. Jeannine Gramick: 'Jorge Mario Bergoglio's devotion to Mary, Untier of Knots, found expression in Pope Francis' embrace of the transgender Spaniard.'

'This was a worldwide hug that has reverberated to transgender people across the globe,' she told NCR, referring to reports that Francis hugged Diego Neria Lejarraga, a 48-year-old transgender man, when the two met at the Vatican.

The meeting, which took place Jan. 24, was first reported Monday by Spanish daily Hoy. According Hoy, Lejarraga wrote to the pope last year, saying he had been 'marginalized' by church officials in the city of Plasencia in the Estremadura region. A practicing Catholic, he said local clergy had rebuffed him and said one parish priest had called him 'the devil's daughter.'

It was then Lejarraga reportedly wrote to Francis, hoping he could explain to the pope transgender issues and even possibly receive a papal blessing.

'After hearing him on many occasions, I felt that he would listen to me,' Lejarraga told Hoy.

Hoy reported Francis phoned Lejarraga twice in December, and during the second phone call, invited him to come visit at the Vatican. A date was arranged for the meeting.

According to Hoy, Francis told Lejarraga in an initial phone call that God loves all his children 'as they are.' He went on: 'You are a son of God and the Church loves you and accepts you as you are.'"

While it is true that everything must be done to help sinners, this cannot include helping them to sin or to remain in sin. Because of human frailty, every sinner deserves both pity and compassion. However, vice and sin must be excluded from this compassion. This because sin can never be the proper object of compassion. (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.1, ad 1).

It is a false compassion which supplies the sinner with the means to remain attached to sin. Such 'compassion' provides an assistance (whether material or moral) which actually enables the sinner to remain firmly attached to his evil ways. By contrast, true compassion leads the sinner away from vice and back to virtue. As Thomas Aquinas explains:

"We love sinners out of charity, not so as to will what they will, or to rejoice in what gives them joy, but so as to make them will what we will, and rejoice in what rejoices us. Hence it is written: 'They shall be turned to thee, and thou shalt not be turned to them.'" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 25, a.6, ad 4, citing Jeremiah 15:19).

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that the sentiment of compassion only becomes a virtue when it is guided by reason, since "it is essential to human virtue that the movements of the soul should be regulated by reason." (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, c.3). Without such regulation, compassion is merely a passion. A false compassion is a compassion not regulated and tempered by reason and is, therefore, a potentially dangerous inclination. This because it is subject to favoring not only that which is good but also that which is evil (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.1, ad 3).

An authentic compassion always stems from charity. True compassion is an effect of charity (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.3, ad 3). But it must be remembered that the object of this virtue is God, whose love extends to His creatures. (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 25, a.3). Therefore, the virtue of compassion seeks to bring God to the one who suffers so that he may thereby participate in the infinite love of God. As St. Augustine explains:

"'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Now, you love yourself suitably when you love God better than yourself. What, then, you aim at in yourself you must aim at in your neighbor, namely, that he may love God with a perfect affection." (St. Augustine, Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, No. 49).

Catholic teaching condemns the sort of mutilation and self-deception involved in so-called sex reassignment. Apparently Pope Francis didn't have anything to say about doctrine.  He could have cited 2297 of the Catechism which teaches authoritatively that, "Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law."

Francis had a unique opportunity to embrace a troubled and confused soul and to set him on the right path toward healing and reconciliation with God.

And he didn't take it apparently.

Related reading: Pushing the transgendered agenda, see here.

The SPLC and the Homosexual Hate Movement

Just returned from a very productive evangelization project in the Monadnock area.

In the news, Patrick Vaughn, Legal Counsel for the American Family Association, correctly observes that, "The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls the American Family Association (AFA) a 'hate group' because AFA promotes traditional Biblical views on homosexuality and marriage. SPLC does not have a standard for who they label as a 'hate group.' They apply the label to whomever they want to dehumanize and attack." See here.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has even included Mass Resistance in its list of hate groups because of the organization's opposition to homosexuality, an opposition which is rooted in both Divine Revelation and Natural Law. This is ridiculous on so many different levels. What is particularly ironic, however, is that Mass Resistance doesn't even meet the SPLC's definition of a hate group: "All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics." (Source: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp).

And what is the definition of "immutable"? The word itself comes from the Latin: in - not and mutabilis - mutable (changeable). The American Heritage Dictionary provides us with an excellent definition: "Not subject or susceptible to change." But can one honestly suggest that homosexuality is immutable? Not according to the hard science:

http://www.narth.com/docs/innate.html

What then has motivated the Southern Poverty Law Center to include Mass Resistance in its listing of hate groups? Is the SPLC driven by politics or science? Tolerance or relativism? Open-mindedness or indiscrimination?

And where is the hate really coming from?  See here and here.

The mainstream media would have us believe that the homosexual movement has nothing to do with hate. Tell that to the Catholics, Protestants and Mormons who came under both verbal and physical attack in California after the Prop 8 controversy.  Nobody wants to persecute us? That must be why I have received numerous threats and hate mail, not to mention hateful comments at this Blog directed against my person. There is no hatred from the "gay" community? This must be why a homosexual activist called The Mothertown News in Massachusetts to tell them he objected to an article I wrote for that publication - explaining the Church's authentic teaching regarding homosexuality which includes respect for the homosexual person - and that he was going to kill me with his high-powered rifle.

Radical homosexual activists do not view themselves as fanatics.  This comes as no surprise.  It was the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, a man whose thought so greatly influenced my own, who said that, "Fanaticism is essentially opinion; opinion pushed to paroxysm; with everything that the notion of opinion may imply of blinded ignorance as to its own nature...whatever ends the fanatic is aiming at or thinks he is aiming at, even if he wishes to gather men together, he can only in fact separate them; but as his own interests cannot lie in effecting this separation, his is led...to wish to wipe his opponents out. And when he is thinking of these opponents, he takes care to form the most degrading images of them possible - they are 'lubricious vipers' or 'hyenas and jackals with typewriters' - and the ones that reduce them to most grossly material terms. In fact, he no longer thinks of these opponents except as material obstacles to be overturned or smashed down. Having abandoned the behaviour of a thinking being, he has lost even the feeblest notion of what a thinking being, outside himself, could be. It is understandable therefore that he should make very effort to deny in advance the rights and qualifications of those whom he wishes to eliminate; and that he should regard all means to this end as fair. We are back here again at the techniques of degradation...fanaticism is, of its very nature, incompatible with any regard for truth; and as truth itself is not really seperable from our regard for it, we need not hesitate to say that the fanatic is the enemy of truth..." (Man Against Mass Society, pp. 149-150).

Which is why Catholics faithful to the Church, faithful to the Lord Jesus, must be painted as "loony" and "deranged." We must be made to be seen as being somehow "dangerous."  We must be demonized and eventually criminalized.  And then we can be disposed of in the gulag or in front of a firing squad.

My challenge to Pope Francis: One which will, of course, go unanswered

Most of you are aware of Pope Francis' concern over the size of Catholic families.  The pontiff suggested the use of Natural Family Planning while quipping that married couples do not have to "breed like rabbits."

As I said on Facebook: "It's true that married people do not have to "breed like rabbits." But then, priests don't have to float around the altar like Liberace around his Steinway or resemble Judy Garland."

Where is the Holy Father's concern over homosexual priests?  At the onset of his pontificate, when asked about the Vatican's alleged "gay lobby" [read Lavender Mafia] the Pope asserted that while a lobby might be an issue, he doesn't have any problem with the inclination to homosexuality itself: "Who am I to judge them if they're seeking the Lord in good faith?" he said.

Now obviously this comment includes priests who suffer from a homosexual inclination.

The problem?

Before entering into any state of life, a divine vocation is necessary. This because without such a vocation, it is difficult if not impossible to fulfil the obligations which pertain to that state and to obtain salvation. This is particularly true for the ministerial priesthood or any other ecclesiastical state. After all, it was Our Lord Who said: "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber" (John 10:1).

Consequently, the man who takes holy orders without a call from God is convicted of theft in taking by force a dignity which God has not called him to and does not desire to bestow upon him. This is the teaching of Saint Paul:"Neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was. So Christ also did not glorify Himself that He might be made a high priest; but he that said unto Him: Thou art My Son; this day I have begotten Thee." (Hebrews 5:4,5).

It matters not then how learned or prudent or holy a man may be. No man may place himself into the holy sanctuary unless he is first called and introduced to the same by Almighty God. Jesus Our Lord was certainly the most learned and holy among all men, full of grace and truth (John 1:14), the Son of Man in Whom were (and are) hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). And yet, Jesus required a divine call to assume the dignity of the priesthood. This is the teaching of the Council of Trent. That the Church regards the man who assumes the priesthood without a vocation not as a minister but as a robber: "Decernit sancta Synodus eos qui ea (ministeria) propria temeritate sibi sumunt, omnes, non Ecclesiae ministros, sed fures et latrones per ostium non ingressos habendos esse" (Session 23, cap. 4).

Those who seize the priesthood without a vocation may labor and toil exhaustively. But their labors will profit them very little before God. In fact, the very works which would be considered of much merit when performed by others will deserve chastisement for such souls. Because such men are not in conformity with the divine will, not having a vocation to the state of life which they have usurped, the Lord Jesus will not accept their toils: "I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will not receive a gift of your hand" (Malachi 1:10).

Not only will God refuse the gifts of their hand, He will punish the works of the minister who has entered the sanctuary without being called; without a vocation:"What stranger soever cometh to it (the Tabernacle) shall be slain." (Numbers 1:51).

Bearing all of this in mind, please read the following which first appeared in The Wanderer [I submitted it back in 2001] and may be found at the Faithfulvoice.com website:

On October 1, 1986, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published an instruction entitled, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Pastoral Service for Homosexual Persons, signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and approved by Pope John Paul II. In this Instruction, Cardinal Ratzinger writes, "It is necessary to point out that the particular inclination of a homosexual person, though not a sin in itself, nevertheless constitutes a more or less strong tendency to an intrinsically evil behavior from the moral standpoint. For this reason, the very inclination should be considered as objectively disordered." (No. 3).

This would appear to be especially significant since Canon 1040 of the Code of Canon Law states that: "Persons who are affected by a perpetual impediment, which is called an irregularity, or a simple impediment, are prevented from receiving orders."

Now, irregularities arise either from defect (ex defectu) or from crime (ex delicto). It seems clear to me that a homosexual inclination, which Cardinal Ratzinger has referred to as "objectively disordered," constitutes an irregularity ex defectu. In fact, when asked by a Bishop if it is licit to confer priestly ordination to men with manifest homosexual tendencies, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments replied with a letter signed by Jorge Cardinal Medina Estevez which stated that, "Ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency is not, therefore, fit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders."

What say you Pope Francis? We have seen that you are most adept with the slogan.  Perhaps Your Holiness would be so kind as to explain to the rest of us why the homosexual inclination would not constitute an irregularity ex defectu?

Holy Father?

The Diocese of Baton Rouge and the attack on the priest-penitent privilege

Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2015 / 05:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a petition from a Louisiana Catholic diocese that fears a civil lawsuit could force a priest to violate the seal of confession or go to jail.

The Diocese of Baton Rouge and diocesan priest Father Jeff Bayhi were disappointed by the decision, which the diocese said has “significant ramifications for religious freedom in Louisiana and beyond.”

“The diocese and Fr. Bayhi will continue their efforts to protect the guarantees of religious freedom set forth in our state and federal constitutions, and are confident that those efforts will, in due course, be successful,” the diocese said in a Jan. 20 statement.

The diocese and the priest are considering “a number of options” for other constitutional challenges in the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand the Louisiana Supreme Court’s May 2014 ruling that a court hearing is necessary to determine whether state law protects a priest’s conversation during confession with a minor about an alleged sexual abuser in the parish.

Catholic priests are bound to observe the seal of confession and cannot not reveal to anyone the contents of a confession or whether a confession took place. Priests who violate the seal are automatically excommunicated.

At issue is a civil lawsuit involving a woman who said that in 2008, when she was a minor, she told Fr. Bayhi that she was being abused by a parishioner. The alleged conversation with the priest took place during the Sacrament of Confession. The woman is now in her early 20s.

The young woman's family is now suing the priest and the diocese for damages, saying they were negligent in allowing the abuse to continue, The Times-Picayune newspaper reports. The estate of the man who allegedly molested the woman is also named in the suit. The accused man died in 2009.

A trial court had denied the diocese's motion to prevent any plaintiffs from testifying about any confessions that may have taken place between the then-minor and the priest. However, a state appeals court had ruled that the alleged confession was legally confidential and that the priest was not a mandatory reporter.

Later, the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned the appeals court. It said that a fact finding hearing should determine whether the priest had the duty to report alleged abuse under the state's mandatory reporting law. It noted that Louisiana law requires any mandatory reporter to report suspected abuse “notwithstanding any claim of privileged communication.”

The Louisiana Supreme Court also ruled that under state law the priest-penitent privilege belongs to the penitent, not to the priest, and if the penitent waives the privilege then the priest “cannot raise it to protect himself.”

In September 2014, the diocese characterized the legal issue as something that “attacks the seal of confession” and an “attempt by the plaintiffs to have the court compel testimony from the priest.”
Thomas McKenna, the president of the San Diego-based group Catholic Action for Faith and Family, also expressed disappointment that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to give a hearing to the question.

“We had hoped that the Supreme Court would clarify the issue once and for all,” said McKenna, whose organization joined several other groups in filing legal briefs in support of the Baton Rouge diocese and the priest.

He suggested that the plaintiff attorneys modified their position in response to the briefs and began to voice uncertainty about whether they would call the priest to testify about anything he allegedly heard in confession.

“That’s a success,” McKenna said. “Because all these briefs were filed, they changed their tone, and that’s probably why the Supreme Court didn’t accept hearing the case right now.”

If the plaintiff attorneys do call the priest to testify, he said, “we would revisit the case again.”

However, McKenna warned that the case threatens to advance a significant change in American culture when respect for religious freedom is already on the wane.

“This is unprecedented in the history of our country,” he said, saying that a state supreme court has never before ruled that a priest would have to violate the seal of confession.

“We have a civil court calling a priest and disregarding his religious perspective, saying that this is a civil matter and we don’t care what your religion says. You have to tell us.”

“The state has no right to demand from him that he break his vow. That’s what’s very concerning and scary,” McKenna continued. “What you have is the state telling the religion that they have to re-structure and re-order its religion.”

McKenna encouraged Catholics to pray for Fr. Bayhi.

__________________

This is extremely disturbing and has implications across the country.  The priest-penitent privilege has a long history in American jurisprudence, stretching back more than 200 years.

The earliest and most influential case acknowledging the priest-penitent privilege was People v. Phillips, where the Court of General Sessions of the City of New York refused to compel a priest to testify or face criminal punishment.

The Court rightfully asserted that, "It is essential to the free exercise of a religion, that its ordinances should be administered - that its ceremonies as well as its essentials should be protected. Secrecy is of the essence of penance. The sinner will not confess, nor will the priest receive his confession, if the veil of secrecy is removed: To decide that the minister shall promulgate what he receives in confession, is to declare that there shall be no penance..."

Attacks against the priest-penitent privilege have multiplied in recent years as the State seeks to encroach on religious freedom.  The Termite Nations seek to punish clerics who refuse to commit the crime of violating the seal of the confessional.

Canon 983: "The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore, it is a crime for a confessor in any way to betray a penitent by word or in any other manner or for any reason."

Any law which seeks to violate the seal of confession is no law at all.  The doctrine on the necessary conformity of civil law with the moral law is in continuity with the whole tradition of the Church. This is clear for example from the teaching of Pope John XXIII who said that,  "Authority is a postulate of the moral order and derives from God. Consequently, laws and decrees enacted in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience...; indeed, the passing of such laws undermines the very nature of authority and results in shameful abuse".

This is the clear teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who writes that "human law is law inasmuch as it is in conformity with right reason and thus derives from the eternal law. But when a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; but in this case it ceases to be a law and becomes instead an act of violence". And again: "Every law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law. But if it is somehow opposed to the natural law, then it is not really a law but rather a corruption of the law".

American Sniper and bloodlust

General Douglas MacArthur, in his farewell speech given to the Corps of Cadets at West Point on May 12, 1962, spoke of duty, honor and country and what these words entail for the professional soldier.

General MacArthur spoke of the bloody battles and the heroic sacrifices made by the soldier on countless battlefields. But he added, "This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."

This point is not understood by everyone.  It is least understood by those who have never served in the Armed Forces.  In a post on Facebook, Mr. Deal Hudson writes, ""American Sniper,' in my opinion is NOT TO BE MISSED. The 500 persons in the theater walked out in absolute silence. I've never witnessed that kind of a reaction to a film before, ever. Bradley Cooper is wonderful and Clint Eastwood's direction is masterful."

Various people chimed in fully agreeing.  One woman wrote, "I agree, it is a great movie!!! Thank God for Chris Kyle & others who serve our nation, their wives, children & families.

Another wrote, "Amen Mary. He saved the lives of a lot of Marines." And another, "Saw it Friday, took my very breath away!"

One woman added, "My husband (marine who served in Iraq and Afg) took our 17 year-old son last night. The entire audience reacted the exact same way - complete silence."

One individual wrote, "Heard this movie has lefty heads exploding, so naturally I must see this soon!"

Marcus Grodi, of EWTN's The Journey Home, wrote: "Couldn't agree more. Deeply moving. But a subtle point of the story: why the demands of some Callings require or should require celibacy. Celibacy allows a person the complete freedom to risk all for the good of his task—as it does or should for a priest. Marriage makes some Callings difficult—as it did for Chris when he was in the process of looking for threats to 'take out' to protect the troops while on his cellphone with his wife who was challenging his Calling. There are married men like Chris in harms way every day — like unappreciated policemen — protecting our lives: they need our prayers and support."

Only one individual, Stephen Hand, expressed concern over the film and it's glorification of a man some might consider sociopathic.  He wrote, "Er, the Church opposed that war. We opened up the gates of hell (ISIS). Read John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who at the time warned us," and included this link with his comment:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/real-american-sniper-hate-filled-killer-why-patriots-calling-hero-chris-kyle

And then added: "The real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer. Why are simplistic patriots treating him as a...[hero]?

Deal Hudson responded, "Stephan [Stephen], I don't agree with but I'm not going to argue it out in public in a thread that honors the memory of a man and his comrades who fought for our nation."

Stephen Hand replied, "I don't want to do an injustice to anyone. But his officers had a duty to remove him from combat. Or remove themselves if they were the ones who exhibited psychopathic tendencies. That was always military code and honor."

Deal Hudson answered, "Like I said, Stephen, I understand the point you want to make but this is not the place."

But it is the place to honor a man [sniper Chris Kyle] who publically quipped, "The enemy are savages and despicably evil,” and that his “only regret is that I didn’t kill more.” Kyle made these statements in his best-selling book, “American Sniper,” on which the film is based.

This is not what General MacArthur had in mind when he spoke of Duty, Honor and Country.  And what a tragedy that a man who came to enjoy killing so much that he actually wanted to kill more and regretted not being able to do so should be glorified in the cinema.

In his excellent and prophetic book Trousered Apes, Professor Duncan Williams documented extensively the banishment of God from society in the West and said that as a result, "the Western world and its culture is saturated with violence and animalism....We are teaching savagery and are naively appalled at the success of our instruction."

Professor Williams continues, "What shocks an audience today will be acceptable tomorrow and thus the contemporary dramatist [or reality show producer, my note] is constantly impelled to seek further excesses to gratify a warped taste which he has himself implanted in the public mind....The whole modern cult of violence and animalism is in essence an admission of defeat.  Since we cannot be men to any idealistic extent, let us lapse into barbaric animalism but, still clinging to vestiges of a past which we hate but cannot escape, let us clothe our defeat in high-sounding terms: 'alienation,' 'cult of unpleasure,' 'realism,' and similar jargon.  Yet all this fashionable phraseology cannot conceal the fact that the Emperor has no clothes....The contemporary playwright or producer might well take as his motto, Apres moi, la secheresse (After me, the drought), and congratulate himself that he is writing before a morbid public appetite demands scenes of such repellent realism that actors and actresses will have to be killed on stage in order to satisfy it."

Welcome to the Theater of Lust, the Theater of Violence, the Theater of Antichrist.

God help us all!

Pray for the success of this endeavor....

Charlie Butts, writing for One News Now, notes that: "State lawmakers in Mississippi are gathering endorsements to make the Bible the state book.

Representatives Tom Miles and Michael Evans note that Mississippi has state symbols ranging from a state flower to a state toy, and after hearing from people they represent, they decided to approach the subject of creating a new state symbol – the Bible as the state book.


“It seems like the world is just in such bad turmoil, and every time you turn on the TV something just awful is happening,” Miles tells OneNewsNow. “And some constituents suggested to us that maybe as legislators we ought to try and do something different to make people think about the world in a different way.”

He suggests that making the Bible the state book could be one way of encouraging people to read the Bible and practice its tenets such as love, kindness, compassion and understanding. He adds that it would not force residents of the state who are Muslim, Buddhists, Jews or of any other religious preference to read or be influenced by the Bible.

“I think we are a Christian state and a Christian nation, but we're not trying to force religion on anyone and this doesn't require anyone to read the Bible,” he says. “This doesn't require a person to go out and purchase a Bible. This is just a symbolic gesture such as having a state flower or state tree or any other state symbol.”

The proposed bill already has 20 bipartisan sponsors, and Miles and Evans are looking for even more encouragement from constituents as they pursue making the Bible the state book of Mississippi."