War is always unfortunate, but is it always a defeat?

 As explained at EWTN, 

"To say that Christendom was in dire straights would be an understatement.

In the late 16th century, Christian Europe was weak and splintered. Politically, Europe was just a collection of small, warring kingdoms.

Their fragile unity in the Catholic faith had just been broken by the Protestant Reformation, which was now in full swing across the continent.

The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, was strong and growing, having not lost a significant naval battle in a hundred years. Its forces had already conquered the remains of the eastern half of the Roman Empire, including “New Rome” Constantinople.

Now, their seemingly unstoppable forces set their sights on conquering Rome, and from there, the rest of Europe and the New World.

Desperate for survival, Pope Pius V convinced as many Catholic rulers of the Mediterranean as possible to band together to stop the Ottomans, forming what they called the Holy League.

It was originally formed to save a Venetian colony on Cyprus that was under Ottoman attack, but the colony fell before they arrived.

The Ottoman commander captured the Venetian leader, had him flayed alive, and hung up his corpse along with the corpses of other Venetian leaders. So the Holy League sailed to meet the Ottoman navy at their naval station Lepanto in Greece instead.

The odds were against the Holy League: Despite the fact that many nations banded together in the Holy League, the Ottoman forces still had more boats and were practiced in fighting together, rather than being cobbled together just for the occasion.

The stakes were high: if the Holy League failed, the Ottomans would appear to have a clear way to the heart of Europe in Rome.

Knowing the desperate circumstances, Pope Pius V did the only thing those back at home could do: pray.

On the day of the battle, he organized a public procession in Rome to pray the Rosary.

Then a miracle happened: they received word that against all odds, the Holy League won!

Overjoyed and convinced that their prayers were decisive, the Pope created the new Feast of Our Lady of Victory.

A few years later, it was changed to the Feast of the Holy Rosary, and finally to the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary in the 20th century, which it remains today. The Church celebrates this feast on Oct. 7.

Historians say that the battle truly was decisive in world history: it once and for all stopped the advancement of Ottoman forces deeper into Europe, preserving the independence of the western half of Christendom."

As explained here:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2310), explains that, "Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace." 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2302, teaches us that, "By recalling the commandment, 'You shall not kill,' our Lord asked for peace of heart and denounced murderous anger and hatred as immoral."

And this is true. The Lord God has commanded us, "You shall not kill." But there are nine words in Hebrew for taking a life. The word used in Exodus 20: 13 for "Thou shalt not kill" is ratsach, a strong verb used to indicate an intentional and unjustified act of murder, such as the murder of innocent unborn. It does not refer to killing in war ( unless such killing is directed against civilian non-combatants or prisoners of war).

Sometimes war is necessary.  Yes, war is always most unfortunate.  But is it always a defeat as asserted here? Was it a defeat at Lepanto? Was is it a defeat when the Nazis were stopped from their evil designs of world domination?

Of course not.

There are some who understand that Iran cannot possess a nuclear weapon. And there are some who, like Neville Chamberlain,  prefer appeasement. 

History shows us who was right. And who was wrong.

Meditation: Exodus 17: 8-16

The LORD has a war against Amalek through the ages! Indeed!

Violent far-left insurrection in Los Angeles

Make no mistake about it, what's happening in Los Angeles is a far-left insurrection. See here.

I have written before that Revolution is coming. But it will only come when the social order has been sufficiently destabilized, and then, the opportunity for a new political order is possible. 

That destabilization is the goal of the radical left. Far from a speculation, several popes have been warning for decades that such a revolution has been the intention all along of secret societies working parallel to governments...Leftists know that with the collapse of the United States, the door will be open for a new super-power—or super-world government—to assert a mode of governance that does not place the intrinsic freedom and dignity of the human person at its center, but instead profitability, efficiency, ecology, the environment, and technology as its primary goal."

Make no mistake about it, these people hate America.  They hate what she stands for. These socialists are waiting for the most opportune moment to overthrow this government and to install a tyrannical regime. 

It was Pope John Paul II who reminded us that, "..the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socioeconomic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property. A person who is deprived of something he can call 'his own,' and of the possibility of earning a living through his own initiative, comes to depend on the social machine and on those who control it. This makes it much more difficult for him to recognize his dignity as a person, and hinders progress toward the building up of an authentic human community." (Centesimus Annus, No. 13).

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill.

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." - Alexis de Tocqueville.

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it." - Thomas Sowell.

Related reading here

Will the U.K. follow Los Angeles on the road to insurrection? See here

Torrents of iniquity

Our own time is a fulfillment of the prophecy issued by St. Louis de Montfort in his Prayer for Missionaries: "Tempus faciendi, Domine, dissipaverunt legem tuam: it is time to act, O Lord, they have rejected your law. It is indeed time to fulfill your promise. Your divine commandments are broken, your Gospel is thrown aside, torrents of iniquity flood the whole earth carrying away even your servants. The whole land is desolate, ungodliness reigns supreme, your sanctuary is desecrated and the abomination of desolation has even contaminated the holy place.." (PM, 5)

See here.

Rousas Rushdoony exposes the nature of the demonic Moloch State which so many now willingly serve:

"The Moloch state simply represents the supreme effort of man to command the future, to predestine the world, and to be as God.  Lesser efforts, divination, spirit-questing, magic and witchcraft are equally anathema to God.  All represent efforts to have the future on other than God's terms, to have a future apart from and in defiance of God.  They are assertions that the world is not of God but of brute factuality, and that men can somehow master the world and the future by going directly to the raw materials thereof."

The Devil seduces men through the deceitful tactics of pseudo-saviors.  And ours is a perverse age in which many pseudo-saviors pretend to offer liberation through sex without love, violence and drug abuse as well as the occult.  As Fr. Miceli, S.J., warned: "In the name of its new secular gods, Progress and Liberty, titles that are false fronts for Rebellion and Licentiousness, many formerly Christian nations are driving their sons and daughters through the demonic fires of sacrificial murder.  Thus..so-called Christian nations, having legalized abortion and while preparing to to legalize euthanasia, have become Moloch states."

Pope Leo XIV corrects Francis

In an article which may be found here, we read:

"There is breaking news today from Rome where Pope Leo is correcting the Francis record on cohabitation. Pope Francis created worldwide scandal when on June 16, 2016, he said cohabitation is 'real marriage' and has the grace of real marriage...today at the Vatican, Pope Leo addressed the issue of cohabitation with these words: “Perhaps many young people today, who choose cohabitation instead of Christian marriage, actually need someone who, in a concrete and understandable way—especially by the example of their life—shows them what the gift of sacramental grace is and what strength it brings; someone who helps them understand ‘the beauty and greatness of the vocation to love and to the service of life’ that God gives to spouses (St. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 1).” 

Out of love and concern for His creatures, God has taught us that marriage is a necessary prerequisite for sexual relations. The Catechism #2353 teaches: 

“Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.”

___________________________________________

Commentary

The Sons of Hell, the Children of Belial as St. Louis de Montfort refers to them, are spreading their errors everywhere. The confusion of our own time has become general. And this too was prophesied by the great Jesuit priest Father Nectou, who said that before the triumph of the Church, "The confusion will be so general that mankind will not be able to aright, as if God had entirely withheld His providence from mankind, and during the worst crisis the best thing that can be done will be to remain where God has placed us, and persevere in fervent prayer."

Signs are multiplying everywhere. Today, all across society, people are committing grievous sins and even blasphemously calling these sins virtue. Sin is justified. It is even celebrated. Active homosexuals and lesbians have the audacity to call their perverse practices "love" (practices for which God destroyed the five cities of the plain: Sodom and Gomorrah) and agitate for - demand - the legal status of marriage. As a girl in the Ukraine is reported as hearing from the Blessed Mother: "The present times are worse than at the time of Noah. Then the world was scourged by a deluge of water; now the world is going to be scourged by a deluge of fire." (Firs apparition to Anna at Seredne, December 20, 1954).

Our sin-sick world, puffed up with satanic pride, has become too blind to see its own miserable state. Today our great cities have become new Sodom and Gomorrahs. And at a time when so many confused people look to their priests for moral and spiritual guidance, often they receive chaff instead of wheat.

What a blessing to have a Shepherd in Rome who cares for souls. Let us pray for Pope Leo XIV.

See here.

Bishop Michael Martin considers himself wiser than Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI

The National Catholic Register is reporting that:

"Controversy in a North Carolina diocese has broadened beyond traditional Latin Mass restrictions after it was revealed that the local bishop had also planned to ban the use of Latin, altar rails, and other traditional practices in all diocesan liturgies — a development with implications far beyond the Tar Heel State.

Bishop Michael Martin of Charlotte proposed the restrictions in a leaked draft of new liturgical norms, which was first made public by the blog Rorate Caeli on May 28 and confirmed by the Register. Bishop Martin wrote that the purpose of the new norms, which also included barring ad orientem worship and traditional prayers at the foot of the altar, including the St. Michael Prayer, were made with the intention of “purifying and unifying the celebration of the Mass” in the diocese. 

The bishop also wrote that the proposed norms are called for by Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution on the liturgy, a perspective that has been widely challenged in reactions to the document."

Bishop Martin is either supremely ignorant on this matter or he is a contemptible liar. Readers of this Blog know full well that I do not sugar coat the facts. This in keeping with the teaching of Saint Francis de Sales that the wolf is always called the wolf.

Now with regard to the Bishop's nonsense:

In his Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei, Pope John Paul II said that, "Respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition...for the use of the Roman Missal according to the 1962 edition."

And, in his book "Salt of the Earth," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger said, "I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it. It's impossible to see what could be dangerous or unacceptable about that. A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent."

To be sure, Vatican II called for an extended use of the vernacular. But nowhere did Vatican II call for the Latin language to be abolished from the liturgy. And anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant of the facts or a liar. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium) No. 36 states clearly that, "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites."

Number 54 of this same Vatican II document teaches that, "In Masses which are celebrated with the people, a suitable place may be allotted to their mother tongue. This is to apply in the first place to the readings and "the common prayer," but also, as local conditions may warrant, to those parts which pertain to the people, according to the norm laid down in Art. 36 of this Constitution.

Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."

This is the teaching of Vatican II and the mind of the Church on the use of Latin and the attitude Catholics should have toward those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition.

Perhaps instead of appealing to some vague bullshit "spirit of Vatican II," Bishop Martin should sit down and actually READ the Conciliar documents.

Is that really too much to ask? If the Bishop cannot do his one job, perhaps it's time for him to step down.

Pope Leo XIV: We are called to be human."

Pope Leo XIV just reminded us who our neighbor is, drawing from the parable of the good Samaritan. See

here.

Against this, we often encounter a sort of Pharisaism in the Church and across society. This Pharisaism is  often associated with a strong emphasis on religious rules and rituals, where outward adherence to religious practices overshadows inner faith and genuine spiritual connection. This can manifest as a self-righteous and judgmental attitude, where individuals focus on upholding religious standards while neglecting compassion and empathy.

Note how in His parable, Jesus has the priestly class walk right by the man in need without demonstrating any concern for his well being whatsoever. 

Do we not see this attitude today? There are those who attend Mass regularly (some even daily) who wouldn't (please excuse my informal language) piss on a man who is on fire to put out the flames. 

Such people exhibit a religiosity devoid of compassion and empathy.  And Our Lord reminds us that such people are much more deserving...of Hell.

As Pope Leo XIV explains,"..the practice of worship does not automatically lead to being compassionate. Indeed, before being a religious matter, compassion is a question of humanity! Before being believers, we are called to be human."

In his Urbi et Orbi address (Christmas 1978) Pope Saint John Paul II taught us that, "A human being lives, works, creates, suffers, fights, loves, hates, doubts, falls, and recovers in fellowship with others." This is what our Holy Father is telling us. We are called to have a cool head (with regard to doctrine) and a warm heart (with regard to our neighbor). Let us take up his challenge and do our best to re-evangelize our culture. In the early Church, people weren't converted by intellectual arguments,  they were converted by the love which they witnessed amongst those early Christians. May our love reach such heights of witness.

Related reading here.

"..He belongs to posterity.."

"...the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefields many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world's noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.

His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy's breast.

But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements." - General Douglas MacArthur.

In honor of Arthur Melanson,  killed over the Pacific,  WWII.

The priorities of a nation

Here's a difficult question: Which of these two groups is celebrated for the entire month of June and which is largely forgotten except for about 30 seconds while people grill a hamburger or a hot dog?

"The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge 

"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them." —Franklin D. Roosevelt

Duty, Honor, Country. The first as his guide,  the second he applied, for the third he died.

Related reading here

Habemus Papam

See here

What's in a name?

The significance of Pope Leo XII provides us with a clue. See here.

On the Feast of the Apparition of Saint Michael:

St. Michael the Archangel, 

defend us in battle. 

Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. 

May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, 

and do thou, 

O Prince of the heavenly hosts, 

by the power of God, 

thrust into hell Satan, 

and all the evil spirits, 

who prowl about the world 

seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. .

O glorious prince St. Michael, 

chief and commander of the heavenly hosts, 

guardian of souls, vanquisher of rebel spirits, 

servant in the house of the Divine King

and our admirable conductor, 

you who shine with excellence

and superhuman virtue deliver us from all evil,

who turn to you with confidence

and enable us by your gracious protection

to serve God more and more faithfully every day.

A balanced perspective here

The U.K. descends into anti-Christian hatred

 

As shown here, simply preaching the Gospel can get you arrested for engaging in "hate crimes" in a country descending into madness and Satanism. 

The Termite Nations have dispensed with God and His Commandments in their quest for unbridled hedonism.  We are being prepared for the Reign of Antichrist. The Rev. P. Huchede, in his work entitled "History of Antichrist," explains the religious preparation, both intellectual and moral, for the Reign of Antichrist which will arrive after economic collapse:

"But how shall he deprive the world of Christianity and have himself adored as God? Alas, it is only too true that the minds and hearts of men are admirably disposed for revolution and consequently ready to accept and bear the cruel yoke of such a tyrant. Revolution as the word itself implies means a subversion, but a subversion of all that is true, good, beautiful, and grand in the universe. It is the subversion of religion, representing its dogmas as myths and its moral teachings as tyranical. It is the subversion of authority. Licentiousness under the name of liberty becomes the order of the day; each one is invested with the right to govern himself. It is the subversion of reason: and do we not find leading minds in some of the most enlightened nations denying the principle of contradiction and maintaining the absolute identity of all beings? Revolution is therefore essentially destructive, and it becomes cosmopolitan by the action of secret societies scattered throughout the world. Is it not true to say that the 'mystery of iniquity' is prepared in secret revolutionary dens? But it does not suffice to destroy; it is absolutely necessary to build up again. The world cannot subsist long in a vacuum. It must have a religion; it must have a philosophy; it must have an authority. Revolution will furnish all these. Instead of the reasonable and supernatural religion of Jesus Christ, Revolution will preach Pantheism. The God-humanity will impart the theurgic spirit and thus lead men to adore the demon as the author of universal emancipation...What frightful immorality must follow in the train of this shameless prostitution of religion! Never has the threefold concupiscence made greater ravage among mankind. And this is the religion sought and hoped for as the cherished boon of the aspirations of our modern free thinkers. To our Christian philosophy, the honor of humanity's revolution will substitute a babel of extravagant and absurd ideas. Instead of a mild and efficient authority consecrated alike by Church and state, despotism* and anarchy will rise up and contend for the shreds of religious liberty and human policy...if the state of perversion continue for a while longer, he [Antichrist] will find the world prepared to receive and serve him." (Rev. P. Huchede, History of Antichrist, pp. 13-14, Tan Books).

Much of England has become a demon-infested whore, a haunt of demons. This represents a real prayer need.

Related reading here.