"Christian compassion cannot be a cerebral, fleshless reality...."

Writing for The "Catholic" Free Press, official publication of the dissent-riddled Diocese of Worcester, Tony Magliano attempts to paint Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, as a convert to, and friend of, "liberation theology."

But such is a lie.  See here.

The liberation Romero preached was not a liberation from poverty.  It was liberation from sin which was his mission - a mission which reflected the same warning issued by Pope Benedict XVI, who fought against liberation theology, when the Pontiff said: "If people look only to their own interests, our world will certainly fall apart."


It was Saint Alphonsus de Liguori who said that, "The human heart is constantly seeking good things that will make it happy; but if it seeks them from creatures, it will never be satisfied, no matter how many it acquires. If it seeks God alone, God will satisfy all its desires. Who are the happiest people in this world, if not the saints? And why? Because they desire and seek only God."

Romero denounced many aspects of so-called liberation theology including the room it often made for violence to achieve its goals.

Romero saw the answer to structures of sin, institutionalized sin, in prudent education. He would have embraced the teaching of the Catechism wholeheartedly: "The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear, selfishness and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency, born of human weakness and faults. The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart." (CCC, 1784).

Oscar Romero insisted that, "The Church, like Jesus, has to go on denouncing sin in our own day. It has to denounce the selfishness that is hidden in everyone's heart, the sin that dehumanizes persons, destroys families, and turns money, possessions, profit, and power into the ultimate ends for which persons strive. And the church has also to denounce what has rightly been called 'structural sin:' those social, economic, cultural, and political structures that drive people onto the margins of society. When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to the misery from which the cry arises." (August 6, 1977.)

And: "To try to preach without referring to the history one preaches in is not to preach the gospel. Many would like a preaching so spiritualistic that it leaves sinners unbothered and does not term idolaters those who kneel before money and power. A preaching that says nothing of the sinful environment in which the gospel is reflected upon is not the gospel." (February 18, 1979)

Romero was not an advocate of the "Social Gospel."  He firmly believed that the primary mission of the Church is to save souls, not solve the problem of poverty.  But he came to realize that sin destroys not only our relationship with God but that it also undermines our relationships with family members, friends and others with whom we come into contact. Reconciliation refers to that precise effect of Christ's redemption of the human race by His sacrificial death on the Cross which restores our relationship with God and breaks down the barriers of sin which prevent us from engaging in authentic relationships with others.


In the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right, by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance." (1435).


In other words, our transformation in Christ, our daily conversion, is made manifest by such gestures of reconciliation by which we demonstrate our commitment toward the theological virtue of charity "by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God" (CCC, 1822). We are told in Sacred Scripture that a faith without works is dead (James 2:14-19). An authentic reconciliation, therefore, will show itself in a charity which embraces both God and neighbor.


As Jean Jaouen so eloquently puts it, "..Christian compassion cannot be a cerebral, fleshless reality. It is completely impossible for one who loves people coldly to dissociate eternal salvation from the temporal well-being of a human person. A person is a whole. Time is eternity already begun yet still not completely visible. The conflict will be resolved if Christian apostles learn to live with their people while remaining present to the Lady who, with her Son, weeps over both the death of souls and the death of little children. 'Lady of heaven, empress of earth.' Through the Virgin Mediator and Queen, apostles will find a balance between the demands of heaven and those of earth." (Jean Jaouen, m.s., "A Grace Called La Salette: a story for the world," pp. 327-328, grassroots publishing international, Enfield, New Hampshire, English edition 1991).

Related reading: Tony Magliano's dishonesty.  See here.

The Diocese of Worcester, Constructive Criticism and New Age Spirituality

In his Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis, No. 4, Pope John Paul II emphasized that the Church, “...should have a critical sense with regard to all that goes to make up her human character and activity and..should always be very demanding on herself.” Reminding the faithful that constructive criticism has a role within the Church, John Paul says in this same paragraph that such criticism “should have its just limits...otherwise it ceases to be constructive and does not reveal truth.”


But the critical sense called for by Pope John Paul II is not welcome within the Diocese of Worcester. Recently, Stacy Trasancos, a columnist for The “Catholic” Free Press, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Worcester, advanced an erroneous concept of loyalty to the Church’s hierarchy when she asserted that a Bishop should never be criticized . It’s not surprising that Trasancos’ view was published in The “Catholic” Free Press while my rebuttal was censored. For years, diocesan officials have promoted and tolerated dissent from the Magisterial teaching of the Church while welcoming those who advance New Age spirituality.

And these same officials obviously believe that they are “above criticism” or any need for a critical sense.

Pride goeth before a fall.

A few weeks ago, Sister Joyce Rupp, a Servite Sister who promotes New Age spirituality, was once again received by the Diocese with open arms. An article in The “Catholic” Free Press (October 5th edition, p. 8), makes mention of the fact that Joyce Rupp’s books are available at the diocesan book store at the Chancery. This is what happens without the critical sense. No one at the Chancery is concerned over Sister Rupp’s New Age background or the fact that respected Catholic personalities such as Johnette Benkovic have expressed concerns over her troubling views and New Age spirituality.

New Agers will freely admit that Jesus Christ is God but insist that He is no more God than anyone else. They believe that the “Christ” is a divine principle, a “Christ consciousness” attainable by all people. New Age guru Benjamin Creme, in his work entitled “The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom,” writes that, “Christ is not God, he is not coming as God. He is an embodiment of an aspect of God, the love aspect of God. He is the embodied soul of all creation. He embodies the energy which is a consciousness aspect of the Being we call God.” (P. 135).

Catholics and other Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, True God and True Man Who came to Redeem us from our sins and to deliver us from the prince of this world. New Agers hold that Christ is merely an energy force - the basic evolutionary force within creation.

The Bishop of Worcester, The Most Rev. Robert McManus, is deserving of criticism for his decision to carry Sister Rupp’s books at his Chancery. Her writings will only serve to confuse some of the faithful. Even if the specific books being carried by the Chancery bookstore are not objectionable, readers will nevertheless be introduced to a woman whose ideas regarding spirituality (not to mention her attitude toward the Church’s hierarchy) are gravely disturbing.

If only the Diocese of Worcester could learn to be more demanding of itself. Without the critical sense, this is unlikely. It’s far more easy to deflect any criticism, no matter how constructive it may be, and to embrace complacency and a smug, self-satisfied attitude. But just as individual Catholics are required to be honest with themselves when preparing for the Sacrament of Penance, so too it is necessary for the spiritual health of a diocese for its leaders to embrace honesty and the spirit of self-examination.

The darkness spreads.  The Man of Sin approaches.

Do those who produce The Catholic Free Press really understand the gravity of child sexual abuse?

Just how serious is the sin of scandal when committed by a priest? St. Alphonsus De Liguori, a Doctor of the Church and a moral theologian, explains that, "The Lord ordained in Leviticus that for the sin of a single priest a calf should be offered, as well as for the sins of the entire people. From this Innocent III concludes that the sin of a priest is as grievous as the sins of the whole people. The reason is, says the Pontiff, that by his sin the priest leads the entire people into sin ('Unde conjicitur quod peccatum Sacerdotis totius multitudinis peccato coaequatur, quia Sacerdos in suo peccato totam fecit delinquere multitudinem' - In Consecr. Pont. s. I.)

And, long before, the Lord himself said the same: 'If the priest that is anointed shall sin, he maketh the people to offend.' Hence, St. Augustine, addressing priests, says, 'Do not close heaven: but this you do if you give to others a bad example to lead a wicked life.' Our Lord said one day to St. Bridget, that when sinners see the bad example of the priest, they are encouraged to commit sin, and even begin to glory in the vices of which they were before ashamed. Hence our Lord added that worse maledictions shall fall on the priest than on others, because by his sinful life he brings himself and others to perdition.'...says St. John Chrysostom, the life of the priest is the root from which the people, who are the branches, receive nutriment.

St. Ambrose also says that priests are the head from which virtue flows to the members, that is, to seculars. The whole head is sick, says the Prophet Isaias;...from the sole of the foot unto the top of the head there is no soundness therein. St. Isidore explains this passage in the following words: 'This languishing head is the priest that commits sin, and that communicates his sin to the whole body.' St. Leo weeps over this evil, saying, 'How can health be found in the body if the head be not sound?' Who, says St. Bernard, shall seek in a sink the limpid water of the spring? Shall I, adds the saint, seek counsel from the man that knows not how to give counsel to himself? Speaking of the bad example of princes, Plutarch says, that it poisons not a single cup, but the public fountain; and thus, because all draw from the fountain, all are poisoned. This may be said with greater truth of the bad example of priests; hence Eugene III has said that bad Superiors are the principal causes of the sins of inferiors...St. Bernardine of Sienna writes that many, seeing the bad example of the scandalous ecclesiastic, begin even to waver in faith, and thus abandon themselves to vice, despising the sacraments, hell, and heaven." (St. Alphonsus De Liguori, Dignity and Duties of the Priest, pp. 142-144, 149).


In recent posts, I have examined how Father Jonathan Joseph Slavinskas has had nothing but praise for the late Father Joseph Coonan, whose ministry was tarred with scandal.  Specifically, Father Slavinskas said that Fr. Coonan was a "great influence" who helped "nourish" his vocation.  This praise for a priest credibly accused of abusing children was published in The "Catholic" Free Press.  See my posts here and here.

What does this suggest about the Worcester Diocese and most especially its official newspaper?  Is there really an appreciation at the diocesan level as to the seriousness of child abuse?  Such would not appear to be the case.

Meanwhile, another of Fr. Slavinskas' sisters has left comments at this Blog singing the praises of Fr. Joseph Coonan, even though the Worcester Diocese removed him from ministry years ago because the accusations against him were found to be credible.  Beth Slavinskas left three comments.  In these comments, she asserts that, "Father Coonan was a great priest who revitalized a lot of youths faith in the Catholic Church."  And she adds, "I am saying that Fr. Coonan's time at Saint John's was positive."

Positive?  For whom?  As Dr. Germain Grisez reminds us, "In a loose sense, scandal refers to bad publicity; in the strict sense, it refers to leading others into sin (see CCC, 2284-2287).  Jesus warns: 'If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea' (Mk 9: 42; Mt 18: 6; Lk 17: 1-2). Since clerical sexual abuse not only injures its victims as sexual abuse always does but poses a threat and obstacle to their and others' faith, the Church is injured far more by its scandalousness in this strict sense than she is by bad publicity about it."


What do you think: Do those who produce the "Catholic" Free Press really understand the gravity of child sexual abuse?  If so, why would they publish comments praising a disgraced priest who was removed from ministry because the accusations that he abused children were found to be credible?  The photo below is that of Fr. Jonathan Joseph Slavinskas.

Deacon Jonathan Joseph Slavinskas: "Father Joseph Coonan was a great influence and helped nourish my vocation"

Deacon Jonathan Joseph Slavinskas, one of four deacons to be ordained for the Worcester Diocese on June 2nd at Saint Paul Cathedral, is featured in an article by Tanya Connor in this week's "Catholic" Free Press.  Deacon Slavinskas says that his vocation journey began with Bishop Timothy J. Harrington, who was known for being very dissent-friendly.  I wrote Bishop Harrington many times over the years about various issues, most especially the column of dissident priest Father Richard P. McBrien which appeared in the diocesan newspaper with his approval.  Bishop Harrington assured me in one letter that he didn't find anything wrong with Fr. McBrien's column.  This came as no surprise at the time.

In the same article, Deacon Slavinskas is quoted as having said that, "Father (Joseph) Coonan, of course, was such a great influence, and helped nourish my vocation." (CFP, May 25, 2012 edition, p. 7). 

It is troubling to hear that Fr. Joseph Coonan was "a great influence" on Deacon Slavinskas.  I say this because some fifteen men came forward to share very similar stories about abuse, many involving Joseph Coonan's fondness for watching boys urinate, defecate or masturbate.  According to an article in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette (August 9, 2002 edition), two Oxford natives came forward with details of alleged sexual misconduct against Fr. Coonan, who was then serving at St. John's Church in Worcester.  Both men said that Fr. Coonan had delved into sexual perversion and had urged them to urinate or defecate in his presence.  See here.  Fr. Coonan was also accused (twice) of assaulting his mother and sister while intoxicated.  See here.

My prayers are with Deacon Slavinskas.  Especially given some of the influences on his vocation.  I urge you to keep him in your prayers as well.  In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes, "Do not be led astray: 'Bad company corrupts good morals'." (1 Cor 15: 33). 

Related reading here.

Is it time for Margaret Russell, editor of the "Catholic" Free Press, to resign?

Vatican II, in its Decree on the Media of Social Communication (Inter Mirifica), has this to say:

"The principle moral responsibility for the proper use of the media of social communication falls on newsmen, writers, actors, designers, producers, displayers, distributors, operators and sellers, as well as critic and all others who play any part in the production and transmission of mass presentations. It is quite evident what gravely important responsibilities they have in the present day when they are in a position to lead the human race to good or to evil by informing or arousing mankind.


Thus, they must adjust their economic, political or artistic and technical aspects so as never to oppose the common good. For the purpose of better achieving this goal, they are to be commended when they join professional associations, which-even under a code, if necessary, of sound moral practice-oblige their members to show respect for morality in the duties and tasks of their craft.

They ought always to be mindful, however, that a great many of their readers and audiences are young people, who need a press and entertainment that offer them decent amusement and cultural uplift. In addition, they should see to it that communications or presentations concerning religious matters are entrusted to worthy and experienced hands and are carried out with fitting reverence.

The public authority, in these matters, is bound by special responsibilities in view of the common good, to which these media are ordered. The same authority has, in virtue of its office, the duty of protecting and safeguarding true and just freedom of information, a freedom that is totally necessary for the welfare of contemporary society, especially when it is a question of freedom of the press. It ought also to encourage spiritual values, culture and the fine arts and guarantee the rights of those who wish to use the media. Moreover, public authority has the duty of helping those projects which, though they are certainly most beneficial for young people, cannot otherwise be undertaken.

Lastly, the same public authority, which legitimately concerns itself with the health of the citizenry, is obliged, through the promulgation and careful enforcement of laws, to exercise a fitting and careful watch lest grave damage befall public morals and the welfare of society through the base use of these media. Such vigilance in no wise restricts the freedom of individuals or groups, especially where there is a lack of adequate precaution on the part of those who are professionally engaged in using these media." (Nos 11-12).

And in No. 14, we read, ".....To instill a fully Christian spirit into readers, a truly Catholic press should be set up and encouraged. Such a press-whether immediately fostered and directed by ecclesiastical authorities or by Catholic laymen-should be edited with the clear purpose of forming, supporting and advancing public opinion in accord with natural law and Catholic teaching and precepts. It should disseminate and properly explain news concerning the life of the Church. Moreover, the faithful ought to be advised of the necessity both to spread and read the Catholic press to formulate Christian judgments for themselves on all events."

A Catholic press should be edited "with the clear purpose of forming, supporting and advancing public opinion in accord with natural law and Catholic teaching and precepts."  And this so that the Church's children may be "salt and light" to give "savor to the earth and brighten the world." (No. 24).  To this end, the same paragraph insists that "those who have charge of the media" must "strive to turn them solely to the good of society whose fate depends more and more on their proper use."

But time and again, The Catholic Free Press, official newspaper of the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts, has failed to live up to the demands of Inter Mirifica.  The newspaper has often given a place to dissent from Catholic teaching and precepts while promoting even those who advance New Age occultism.  See here and here and here and here for a few examples.

This is most unfortunate.  And an ongoing source of scandal to the faithful who possess a right to receive Catholic doctrine in its purity and integrity (Veritatis Splendor, No. 113).  The Catholic Free Press has done violence toward the faithful, assaulting that very right time and again with dissent from revealed truth and ideologies which are hardly consistent with Catholic teaching and precepts.  In the words of one Catholic layman, left as a comment at this Blog, "Dear Paul, I have written three letters over the past two years to complain to Bishop McManus about the 'Catholic-Free' Press giving print space to dissenting Catholics. I am glad to have discovered your blog. I am also glad I am not the only one who has noticed this trend. My courageous and faithful pastor has dumped the CFP from our parish.

I urge all faithfull men of the diocese to boycott CFP and dump into the trash this newspaper until Margaret Russell resigns and an independent editorial board can be set up so that anti-Catholic dissent cannot be surreptitiously published." - Michael F. Poulin.

I have received numerous other comments echoing this concern.

Perhaps it is time for  Margaret Russell to resign.  If she finds it too difficult to live up to the guidelines established by the Church and outlined in Inter Mirifica for the establishment and maintenance of a sound Catholic press, perhaps it is time for someone more qualified to fulfill the role of editor.

Catholic Free Press columnist Stacy Trasancos: Faithful to the Magisterium?

In a previous post, I noted how Catholic Free Press columnist Stacy Trasancos implied in a Blog post that the faithful can challenge the Church's Magisterial teaching.  Mrs. Trasancos became very angry and left a comment here in which she said, "My attitude toward the Magisterial teaching of the Church is one of complete assent."  I was prepared to take her at her word even though her post seemed to imply that the faithful can indeed challenge the Magisterium.

Now I really have my doubts about Stacy Trasancos' fidelity to the Church's teaching.  In a Blog post on the subject of women's ordination, Mrs. Trasancos writes, "We know that by the end of the first century the Roman Catholic Church was established and there can be little doubt that the cultural influences of that time and place affected the doctrine [that only men are called to the ministerial priesthood].  We do also know that the Church has evolved over time and that part of theology's goal is to communicate faith to changing cultures.  For these reasons, maybe the question of women in the priesthood will remain unsettled.  There isn't any hard logic to support the idea that the concrete forms of the ecclesiastical offices cannot be changed....Whether women should or will someday be priests, isn't for this single writer to say." (See here).

The Church's doctrine was affected by cultural influences?  Really?  The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (Inter Insigniores), which was approved for publication by Pope Paul VI on October 15, 1976, refutes this asinine thesis: "Jesus Christ did not call any woman to become part of the Twelve. If he acted in this way, it was not in order to conform to the customs of his time, for his attitude towards women was quite different from that of his milieu, and he deliberately and courageously broke with it.


For example, to the great astonishment of his own disciples, Jesus converses publicly with the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:27); he takes no notice of the state of legal impurity of the woman who had suffered from hemorrhages (cf. Mt 9:20-22), he allows a sinful woman to approach him in the house of Simon the Pharisee (cf. Lk 7:37 ff); and by pardoning the woman taken in adultery, he means to show that one must not be more severe towards the fault of a woman than that of a man (cf. Jn 8:11). He does not hesitate to depart from the Mosaic Law in order to affirm the equality of the rights and duties of men and women with regard to the marriage bond (cf. Mk 10:2-11; Mt 19:3-9).

In his itinerant ministry Jesus was accompanied not only by the Twelve but also by a group of women: "Mary, surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna and several others who provided for them out of their own resources" (Lk 8:2-3). Contrary to the Jewish mentality, which did not accord great value to the testimony of women, as Jewish law attests, it was nevertheless women who were the first to have the privilege of seeing the Risen Lord and it was they who were charged by Jesus to take the first paschal message to the Apostles themselves (cf. Mt 28:7-10; Lk 24:9-10; Jn 20:11-18), in order to prepare the latter to become the official witnesses to the Resurrection.

It is true that these facts do not make the matter immediately obvious. This is no surprise, for the questions that the Word of God brings before us go beyond the obvious. In order to reach the ultimate meaning of the mission of Jesus and the ultimate meaning of Scripture, a purely historical exegesis of the texts cannot suffice. But it must be recognized that we have here a number or convergent indications that make all the more remarkable the fact that Jesus did not entrust the apostolic charge to women. Even his Mother, who was so closely associated with the mystery of her Son, and whose incomparable role is emphasized by the Gospels of Luke and John, was not invested with the apostolic ministry. This fact was to lead the Fathers to present her as the example or Christ's will in this domain; as Pope Innocent III repeated later, at the beginning of the 13th century, "Although the Blessed Virgin Mary surpassed in dignity and in excellence all the Apostles, nevertheless it was not to her but to them that the Lord entrusted the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven."

III - THE PRACTICE OF THE APOSTLES

The apostolic community remained faithful to the attitude of Jesus towards women. Although Mary occupied a privileged place in the little circle of those gathered in the Upper Room after the Lord's Ascension (cf. Acts 1:14), it was not she who was called to enter the College of the Twelve at the time of the election that resulted in the choice of Matthias: those who were put forward were two disciples whom the Gospels do not even mention.

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled them all, men and women (cf. Acts 2:1; 1-14), yet the proclamation of the fulfillment of the prophecies in Jesus was made only by "Peter and the Eleven" (Acts 2:14).

When they and Paul went beyond the confines of the Jewish world, the preaching of the Gospel and the Christian life in the Greco-Roman civilization impelled them to break with Mosaic practices, sometimes regretfully. They could therefore have envisaged conferring ordination on women, if they had not been convinced that their duty of fidelity to the Lord on this point. In the Hellenistic world, the cult of a number of pagan divinities was entrusted to priestesses. In fact, the Greeks did not share the ideas of the Jews: although their philosophers taught the inferiority of women, historians nevertheless emphasize the existence of a certain movement for the advancement of women during the Imperial period. In fact, we know from the book of the Acts and from the Letters of Saint Paul that certain women worked with the Apostles for the Gospel (cf. Rom 16:3-12; Phil 4:3). Saint Paul lists their names with gratitude in the final salutations of the Letters. Some of them often exercised an important influence on conversions: Priscilla, Lydia and others; especially Priscilla, who took it on herself to complete the instruction of Apollos (cf. Acts 18:26); Phoebe, in the service of the Church of Cenchreae (cf. Rom 16:1). All these facts manifest within the apostolic Church a considerable evolution vis-a-vis the customs of Judaism. Nevertheless, at no time was there a question of conferring ordination on these women.

In the Pauline Letters, exegetes of authority have noted a difference between two formulas used by the Apostle: he writes indiscriminately "my fellow workers" (Rom 16:3; Phil 4:2-3) when referring to men and women helping him in his apostolate in one way or another; but he reserves the title "God's fellow workers" (1 Cor 3:9; cf. 1 Thes 3:1) to Apollos, Timothy and himself, thus designated because they are directly set apart for the apostolic ministry and the preaching of the Word of God. In spite of the so important role played by women on the day of the Resurrection, their collaboration was not extended by Saint Paul to the official and public proclamation of the message, since this proclamation belongs exclusively to the apostolic mission."

The Church is viewed by the egalitarians as archaic because it will not go against the Lord Jesus and ordain women to the ministerial priesthood. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was Pope Pius XII who recalled that, "The Church has no power over the substance of the sacraments, that is to say, over what Christ the Lord, as the sources of Revelation bear witness, determined should be maintained in the sacramental sign." (Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis).


This is the teaching of the Council of Trent: "In the Church there has always existed this power, that in the administration of the sacraments, provided that their substance remains unaltered, she can lay down or modify what she considers more fitting either for the benefit of those who receive them or for respect towards those same sacraments, according to varying circumstances, times or places." (Council of Trent, Session 21, chap. 2: Denziger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum 1728).

The practice of not ordaining women to the ministerial priesthood has a normative character. This norm is based upon the example of the Lord Jesus and has an unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church. Which is why Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, nos. 2-4, wrote: "In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: 'In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time.'


In fact the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan; Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood, the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing the twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rv 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13-16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers who would succeed them in their ministry. Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.

Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.

The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, 'the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church.'

The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as in total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. 'By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honor and gratitude for those women who-faithful to the Gospel-have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins and mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel.'

Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration Inter Insigniores recalls: 'the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints.'

Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

Got that?  The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and this judgment is to be definitively held by all of the Church's faithful.  But Stacy Trasancos believes otherwise.  She insists that "maybe the question of women in the ministerial priesthood will remain unsettled."  Mrs. Trasancos believes she knows better than Christ's Vicar and treats women's ordination as something which might still be possible.  For her, there is no "hard logic" to support the idea that women cannot be ordained.

Not even the Holy Father's definitive judgment, made in virtue of his supreme teaching ministry is enough for her.

This is fidelity to the Magisterium?  God preserve us from such nonsense.  Small wonder the Catholic Free Press gave her a weekly column.  Small wonder my views are censored.  I fully adhere to, defend and propagate the teaching of the Magisterium. 

Good Stewardship? How about priests setting an example?

Several years ago this article by Matt O'Brien appeared in the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise:

BRIDGEWATER -- Convicted sex offender William Lamontagne says he had a romantic relationship with a Fitchburg priest who allegedly funneled stolen money to him.

"He came before everybody in my life," Lamontagne told the Sentinel & Enterprise during an interview inside the Massachusetts Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous. "I told my family if they were going to accept me, they'd have to accept him, too. And then he did this."

Investigators have charged the Rev. Donald Ouellette, pastor of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Fitchburg, with stealing more than $250,000 from the church.

He faces 18 counts of larceny over $250 and is free on bail while awaiting trial.

Ouellette, 49, grew up in Leominster and has served in the Worcester Diocese since his 1990 ordination.

"I just hope that people in the Immaculate Conception parish know I know that they're hurting," Lamontagne said. "I really feel sorry for those people. I felt in some way that I was sharing their pain. But on the other side, I was sharing what he did to them."


After years of hearing about sexual abuse scandals and crimes of larceny by Catholic priests such as Fr. Donald Ouellette or this Connecticut priest, many lay people remain concerned about where their money is really going.  Can one blame them? 

Now the Catholic Free Press, a publication which has often strayed from Catholic truth while publishing dissent from Catholic teaching in its pages, is reporting that 230 area Catholics attended a stewardship conference at Our Lady of Mount Carmel-St. Ann Parish Center.  Those in attendance heard a priest ask, "What percent of their income should people give to God?"  To which the speaker replied, "Traditionally it's been 10 percent..but some should give 20 percent, some 50 percent...The Old Testament spoke of 10 percent.  But Jesus said, 'Give it all.'" (Giving it all to God means...", Catholic Free Press, October 22, 2010).

Actually, Jesus never told everyone to "give it all."  In the 19th chapter of Matthew, we are told that when a rich young man who had kept the commandments approached our Lord to ask Him what he must do to be perfect, "Jesus said to him, 'If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.'" (Mt. 19: 21). 

The laity who live and work in the real world cannot give all of their monies away and still support themselves and their families.  And the Lord Jesus does not expect this from them.  His words are addressed to those who "wish to be perfect," who after giving all away will follow Jesus more closely in the priesthood or religious life.

So the real question is: Will our priests provide us with such an example of good stewardship?  Will those who have responded to the call of Christ to follow Him more perfectly now renounce all of their possessions and lead by example?  Most priests are paid a stipend of more than $1,500 a month.  What an opportunity for our priests to actually walk the walk and not just talk the talk. 

Or is good stewardship only for the laity?

Pope Benedict XVI: We need conversion rather than structural change

And this is precisely what I said in a previous post with regard to VOTF's demand for "structural change":


What must change: the structure of the Church or that of the human heart?

In its document on change entitled "Discerning the Spirit: A Guide for Renewing and Restructuring the Church," Voice of the Faithful (VOTF), an organization established in the wake of the clerical abuse scandal, provides us with a glimpse of its loss of the sense of truth and of the sense of the Church.

In a desperate attempt to convince the faithful that the structure of the Church must change and become more democratic, this VOTF guide quotes the following passage from the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium: "Thus every layman, by virtue of the very gifts bestowed on him, is at the same time a witness and a living instrument of the mission of the Church herself." (LG, No. 33).

But the lay involvement referred to in this passage is a far different thing from the "democratic" Church envisaged by members of the flagging dissent group. If we read just a little further into the same Vatican II document, we are told that: "The laity should promptly accept in Christian obedience what is decided by the pastors who, as teachers and rulers of the Church, represent Christ." (LG, No. 37). Why doesn't the VOTF "guide" quote from that passage?

While it is true that some practices in the Church are similar to those of a representative democracy, for example, Bishops who are united with the Pope share authority with him, and their leadership is collegial (LG, No. 22), and the lay faithful have a right to make their needs and desires known while appropriately expressing their opinions (LG, No. 37), still, authority in the Church has a different foundation from authority in a representative democracy. Not to mention a different function. Leaders in a representative democracy govern in the name of the people. But within the Church, pastors govern in the name of the Lord Jesus. By appointment, mission and commission, Jesus has provided for the continuation of His royal office. The hierarchy of jurisdiction, therefore, is a divine institution (LG, No. 18). This hierarchy constitutes the external framework of that organism in which Jesus Himself lives and of which He is both the juridic and mystic Head, namely, His Mystical Body the Church.

Members of the primitive Church understood this as do faithful Catholics today. They knew that the Apostles had received from Jesus their power to teach, rule and sanctify. They understood that even Jesus’ teaching is not His own and that the Spirit does not speak on his own (Jn 7:16; 16:13). In short, they understood that everything comes from the Father (Jas 1:17-18).

Sadly, there are those who still insist that the structure of the Church must change. Father William J. Byron, SJ is one such individual. In an column written for the Catholic News Service and published in the October 26th edition of The Catholic Free Press, Fr. Byron refers to VOTF as "a reform movement." And speaking of the "structural change" which this dissent group calls for, he writes, "...faithful Catholic people want to have a voice in the selection of their parish priests and local bishops...It is worth noting that structural change never happens suddenly, but structural adjustments are happening all the time. Enlightened criticism from Voice of the Faithful will bring about structural adjustments, which eventually will lead to noticeable change. For this to happen, however, the movement needs staying power..."

VOTF is a reform movement which offers enlightened criticism? Far from it. Any authentic reform movement in the Church has its foundation in Magisterial truth and understands that it is not the Church which must change but the human heart. Writing to the Ephesians, St. Paul said, "Put off the old man who is corrupted according to the desire of error, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind: and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth" (Eph. 4:22-24).

And as Dr. Von Hildebrand explains, "These words of St. Paul are inscribed above the gate through which all must pass who want to reach the goal set us by God. They implicitly contain the quintessence of the process which baptized man must undergo before he attains the unfolding of the new supernatural life received in Baptism." (Transformation in Christ, p.3). Dr. Von Hildebrand goes on to explain in this work of critical importance that there is a certain type of man, "who, while not lacking a certain elan, refuses to take account of his limitations and is thus driven to magnify his stature artificially." He continues: "Suppose he is present at some discussion of spiritually relevant topics: he will take part in the debate as though he were fully equipped to do so; he will claim impressions as deep as the others; he will not yield to any other man as regards intellectual proficiency or even religious stature. Thus he works himself up, as it were, to a level which he has not reached in reality - and which he may not even be able to reach, so far as it is a matter of natural capacities. He is not without zeal; but that zeal is nourished at heart by pride. He misjudges the limitations of the natural talents which God has lent him, and consequently lapses into pretense. He is fond of speaking of things which far transcend the limits of his understanding; he behaves as though a mere mental or verbal reference to such subjects (however poorly implemented with actual knowledge and penetration) would by itself amount to their intellectual possession. This cramped attitude of sham spirituality is mostly underlain by an inferiority complex, or by a kind of infantile unconsciousness. Stupidity in its really oppressive form is traceable to this pretension to appear something different from what one is in fact, and by no means to a mere deficiency of intellectual gifts." (Transformation in Christ, pp.23-24).

Why am I relating all of this? Because, Dr. Von Hildebrand teaches us that such false self-appraisals actually hinder our readiness to change or to "put on the new man" as St. Paul instructs us to do. And what Dr. Von Hildebrand refers to as a "cramped attitude of sham spirituality" is part and parcel of the VOTF movement. Members of VOTF have their own thoughts as to what must change. But this is because they fail to listen to the Word of God as given to us by the Apostle to the Gentiles. Insisting that it is not they who must "put on the new man" in Christ Jesus but that it is the Church which must change, these intellectually and spiritually cramped characters evaluate the abuse crisis within the Church and issue an arrogant vestra culpa (your fault) while refusing to issue a humble mea culpa (my fault). These sophomoric souls, anxious to assign blame to the Church for the sins of some of Her members, forget 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)."

VOTF members will no doubt continue to live in denial while loudly proclaiming the need for "structural change" within the Church even while remaining unsure as to what this actually means. This is why their movement is destined to fail. But there is another and no less important reason for their movement's decay. And it is this: most Catholics in this country understand what they themselves do not: namely, that the Church founded by Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word is a perfect society which is immutable. They know and understand this because such is the teaching of the Church. It was Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical letter Mystici Corporis, who taught that:"..The Church, which should be considered a perfect society in its own right, is not made up of merely moral and juridical elements and principles. It is far superior to all other human societies; it surpasses them as grace surpasses nature, as things immortal are above all those that perish...The juridical principles, on which also the Church rests and is established, derive from the divine constitution given it by Christ.."

Such authentic Catholics accept the teaching of Vatican I that, "...the pastors and the faithful of whatever rite and dignity, both as separate individuals and all together, are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church which is spread over the whole world, so that the Church of Christ, protected not only by the Roman Pontiff, but by the unity of communion as well as of the profession of the same faith is one flock under the one highest shepherd. This is the doctrine of Catholic truth from which no one can deviate and keep his faith and salvation." (Dogmatic Constitution I on the Church of Christ, Session IV).

VOTF rejects this clear and unambiguous teaching of Holy Mother Church. This is why the movement is held in "low esteem" by most Catholics in this country and beyond. With all due respect for Fr. Byron, it is not the structure of the Church which must change. It is the structure of the human heart which must change. Until our hearts are conformed to that of the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, our criticism will never be constructive or enlightened. It will only be bitter.

Let us all pray: Sacred Heart of Jesus, make my heart like unto Thine. Amen.

Father John Dietzen gets it wrong...

Father John Dietzen, in a Catholic News Service article entitled "Can Jews, Muslims be saved"* (the answer, of course, is yes), writes, "..we pray constantly in our liturgy that all people will be saved...It is possible, therefore, and something we hope for and desire."

But will everyone be saved? Sacred Scripture, which is interpreted authoritatively by the Church's teaching (a teaching which Fr. Dietzen is obviously unfamiliar with) tells us that not all will be saved. For example, Vatican II teaches that, "Indeed, since we know neither the day nor the hour, it is necessary, as the Lord has warned, to keep watch constantly, so that, having completed the one course of our earthly life (see Heb 9: 27), we may merit to enter the marriage banquet with him and be counted among the blessed (see Mt 25: 31-46) and not be ordered, as bad and lazy servants (see Mt 25: 26), to go down into eternal fire (see Mt 25: 41), into the exterior darkness where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Mt 22: 13; 25: 30). For, before we reign gloriously with Christ, all of us will appear "before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil" (2 Cor 5: 10), and at the end of the world "those who have done good will go to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil will go to the resurrection of condemnation" (Jn 5: 29; cf. Mt 25: 46)." (Lumen Gentium, No. 48).

In a bit of sarcasm, Fr. Dietzen - responding to Catholics who would object to his idiotic assertion that we may rightfully hope that all are saved by pointing to the private revelation of Fatima where Our Lady showed the children souls suffering in Hell - writes, "Some Catholics point to certain private revelations, such as the apparitions at Fatima, to 'prove' that many people are in hell. That must be right, they claim, because the Church has approved many such revelations. When the Church sanctions private revelations, it is simply saying that there is nothing heretical in them...this does not, however, anoint the content of the revelations as Catholic teaching or doctrine."

This betrays a poor attitude toward private revelation. When it comes to approved private revelation, Pope Benedict XVI said, "..they help us to understand the signs of the times and to respond to them rightly in faith." (Message of Fatima, Theological Commentary, http://www.vatican.va/.)

Our Lady told the children at Fatima, "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace..." Although strictly speaking, we are not bound as Catholics to accept private revelation (even when the Church has approved of it, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 67), still, it would be foolish to reject what the Church has approved. But if Fr. Dietzen cannot bring himself to accept this private revelation, then let him accept the Public Revelation of Sacred Scripture and the Church's authoritative interpretation of that Revelation.

The task of authentically interpreting the Word of God belongs exclusively to the Magisterium of the Church. Not Fr. John Dietzen. Perhaps Father should pray for a little more humility?


* This article may be found on page 5 of The Catholic Free Press.

Pax Christi: Preparation for a New Age

Pax Christi, which is now being introduced to parishes throughout the Worcester Diocese, has long been a vessel for promoting dissent from Church teaching and New Age occultism. As explained by the Wanderer Forum Foundation:

"Pax Christi has been a conduit for New Age for some time, featuring its messengers and filtering its message via its publications and annual meetings. In 1983, the year Mary Lou Kownacki, O.S.B., wrote about the meditation expert Eknath Easwaran (see above) she edited for Pax Christi a Reflection Guide on the U. S. Bishops ' Pastoral, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response. Still available and quoted frequently in Pax Christi pamphlets, it is related to this evaluation on two points: 1) it offers as a source for "reflection" a poem The Hundredth Monkey about nuclear disarmament with a notation: "(Vision books) - no copyright. Author wants everyone to read and distribute freely." It is written by Ken Keyes, Jr., without further identification. But who is he? - briefly, Keyes is the founder of Ken Keyes College, Coos Bay, Ore., that specializes in New Age workshops on the "Science of Happiness." His "Living Love Books," and they are numerous and best-sellers in New Age bookstores, are based on transformation and higher consciousness. And, 2) it recommends Global Education Associates for anyone "working for a new world order."

In 1985, Global Education Associates' co-founder Patricia Mische delivered the keynote address, "Disarming the Heart/Disarming the Nations" at the Pax Christi national assembly. She and her husband, Gerald, are GEA cofounders and also co-authors of the book, Toward a Human World Order, Beyond the National Security' Straitjacket, which advances the whys and wherefores for a new world order. The Misches are endorsers of the Planetary Initiative for the World We Choose and their GEA is listed as a participatory organization.

Their book, endorsed by New Agers Robert Muller and the late Rene Dubos along with several other Planetary Citizens including Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, discloses the strategic role "consciousness raising" plays in developing a receptiveness to interdependence in contradistinction to national sovereignty. And, it discloses the role of Religious orders, especially of women in "catalyzing a consciousness of world-order priorities." These women, from many different congregations, "constitute a national network of networks as members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious." The LCWR "recognizing the planetary dimensions of today's world . . . established a Justice and Peace Commission as a step toward raising the consciousness of the 130,000 women thev represent ' ' (emphasis added). The LCWR officials." the Misches continue, "are active in many international programs, including Vatican-based operations - a strategic position from which to influence also the thinking of other Church networks around the world" (pp. 307-308).

The influence Pax Christi exercises in this consciousness raising network should not be underestimated. Its 1990 Annual Report lists 359 Religious communities as corporate sponsors. (Additional references are found in our documentation, "Consciousness Raising and the Erosion of Religious Life," $2.50 single copies.) In 1986 Patricia Mische's name appeared on the slate of candidates Pax Christi was recommending for a position on its National Council.
An interview with the New Ager Robert Muller on "Peace in Our Day" was a feature in the December, 1985 issue of Pax Christi magazine. And the 1988 spring issue carried an interview with New Ager Elise Boulding on "Imagining a World at Peace." She is an endorser of both Planetary Citizens and Planetary Initiative, and that same year was one of the keynoters at the Pax Christi national assembly devoted to "New Genesis: World Without Violence." New Genesis is the title of Robert Muller's book (see above). And in 1989s summer issue. Pax Christi included an interview with Fr. Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., on centering prayer titled, "Transforming Daily Life." Fr. Keating, as documented above was the president of "Temple of Understanding," a New Age project, in 1984.

The guidelines he offers are of the same pattern as the Eastern meditation techniques suggested by Dolores Leckey and Mary Lou Kownacki: In a straight chair with your back erect and supported, gently close your eyes and use a simple prayer, hymn or musical selection "to center yourself," then "turn your attention to the God present within." Choose a sacred word and repeat it a few times. This, he writes, is a "receptive method of prayer" that "refreshes even if it seems to be trying, or painful or boring." That is a strange admission. And his "God present within" is centered on self rather than "the love of God" which the Vatican letter to all the bishops instructs is the "sole object of Christian contemplation" (31).

Pax Christi, during its 1989 assembly on "Food for the Journey, Spiritually for the Long Haul," for the first time publicly introduced New Age spirituality practices. This assembly held at Jesuit Seattle University opened with a blessing of the four corners of the earth given by an American Indian shaman and followed by a "Sanctification of Our Space" ritual-style dance. The next day's sessions began with a "Sacred Circle Dance" in which all participated. This was presented as an ancient dance learned at a Dance Camp in Scotland "dedicated to enabling new creative patterns of evolution in consciousness." (Complete documentation is available in our report, Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.) Sr. Kathleen Pruitt, C.S.J.P. (Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace), from the Seattle Archdiocese and then chairman of Pax Christ's National Council, was the principal coordinator of this assembly In 1990 she was elected vice-president of Pax Christi International, which in 1983 was listed among the original endorsers of Planetary Initiative.

For the full text of the Wanderer article, go here.

In this week's edition of The Catholic Free Press - page 7, Sue Malone and Charlotte Stanley (who serve as co-chairpersons of Pax Christi Central Mass), describe the dissenting organization - which has deep ties to Call To Action - as merely a "peace and justice" organization: "The nonviolent work of Pax Christi is done through a process of prayer, study and action at the personal, local, national and international levels with an emphasis on addressing the root causes of violence." Sounds innocuous enough. Until you dig a little deeper:

As explained here, Pax Christi is both a leftist organization and nationally-recognized dissent group. Pax Christi has strong ties to another well-recognized dissent group - Call to Action. As explained here, Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, has described the Call to Action movement [of which Pax Christi is part and parcel] as one which is, "..often disguised as a sincere effort to 'renew' the Catholic Church" but which masks "a hidden agenda and poison fruit which the noisier dissenters never tire of offering to their unsuspecting victims."

And as Elizabeth Drennan notes in her excellent article:"The CTA [Call to Action]/lesbian pro-abortion Feminist's Prayer to the Four Great Spirits is also part of RENEW 2000 materials (Called to Lead, book 2). In this prayer/exercise, participants stand in a circle, arms outstretched, and pray to the "Great Spirits of the Four Directions, North, South, East, and West" and "to the Great Spirit of All That Is Below" — which is actually in the text of RENEW 2000, along with its author's name: Diann Neu, the lesbian-feminist CTA speaker. Alarmingly, the idea of prayer to the "four directions" which Neu teaches RENEW 2000 participants is also an intrinsic part of WICCA (witchcraft) worship of the goddess, Gaia, according to WICCA web sites."

More than a hundred years ago, John Henry Cardinal Newman predicted the desolation of our time: "Surely there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it. Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist or whether he is still to be delayed we cannot know; but at any rate this evil apostasy and all its tokens and instruments are of the Evil One and savour of death." (John Henry Cardinal Newman, Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects, London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1888, p. 60).

Richard Bennett has said that, "The goal of the New Age Movement has consistently been to bring in the Age of Aquarius when all will recognize 'the God within themselves'. A major step towards this in the words of the New Age prophetess Alice Bailey, is 'the regeneration of the churches.' Her vision was that… 'The Christian church in its many branches can serve as a St. John the Baptist, as a voice crying in the wilderness, and as a nucleus through which world illumination may be accomplished.' In a word, she desired the time when the 'Christian churches' would embrace the New Age concepts of illumination and self-realization. The New Age plan to bring in world peace cannot fully establish the Golden Age of Aquarius until Biblical Christianity is outlawed or destroyed.

Why is it suddenly so important for Pax Christi, a dissent group which is immersed in New Age spirituality. to be introduced to parishes throughout the Worcester Diocese?

What do you think?

"...a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged..."

In this week's edition of The Catholic Free Press, Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D, who serves as Director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, writes, "..His [President Obama's] stem cell decision also manifests a troubling shift toward a more widespread and systemic form of oppression within our society. The President is offering Americans the prospect of using the powers of science to oppress, or more accurately, to suppress the youngest members of the human family to serve the interests of older and more wealthy members. He is offering Americans the prospect of reducing fellow human beings to cogs and commodities in the assembly line of the medico-business industrial complex. Many Americans, however, seem only vaguely aware of what has transpired in the President's decision. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas once commented on the way that oppression can subtly arise in our midst: 'As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.' Some would suggest that perhaps the darkness is already upon us. But a few moments of twilight may still remain, in which Americans can turn back the moral darkness that threatens our society and our future." (The Obama stem cell darkness, CFP, April 10, 2009 edition, p. 5).

Readers of this Blog know that I have been warning of the encroaching darkness for some time. Some have dismissed my warnings as "alarmist." No doubt others will also accuse Fr. Pacholczyk of being an alarmist. Many Americans have been desensitized to the darkness and have come to accept new values without even realizing it. Such people believe that we still live in a democracy. But we do not.

In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II reminded us that:

"Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person. It requires that the necessary conditions be present for the advancement both of the individual through education and formation in true ideals, and of the "subjectivity" of society through the creation of structures of participation and shared responsibility. Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and sceptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.

Nor does the Church close her eyes to the danger of fanaticism or fundamentalism among those who, in the name of an ideology which purports to be scientific or religious, claim the right to impose on others their own concept of what is true and good. Christian truth is not of this kind. Since it is not an ideology, the Christian faith does not presume to imprison changing socio-political realities in a rigid schema, and it recognizes that human life is realized in history in conditions that are diverse and imperfect. Furthermore, in constantly reaffirming the transcendent dignity of the person, the Church's method is always that of respect for freedom.

But freedom attains its full development only by accepting the truth. In a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation and man is exposed to the violence of passion and to manipulation, both open and hidden. The Christian upholds freedom and serves it, constantly offering to others the truth which he has known (cf. Jn 8:31-32), in accordance with the missionary nature of his vocation. While paying heed to every fragment of truth which he encounters in the life experience and in the culture of individuals and of nations, he will not fail to affirm in dialogue with others all that his faith and the correct use of reason have enabled him to understand." (No. 46).

The English psychiatrist William Sargent explained that, "It is not the mentally ill but ordinary normal people who are most susceptible to 'brainwashing.'" And in her book The Nazis and the Occult, Dusty Sklar notes how, "Hitler's early speeches were so mesmerizing that even people who were repelled by his ideas felt themselves being swept along. The playwright Eugene Ionesco mentions in his autobiography that he received the inspiration for Rhinoceros when he felt himself pulled into the Nazi orbit at a mass rally and had to struggle to keep from developing 'rhinoceritis.' We 'catch' ideas, too, because we want to be like others, particularly when we want not to be our despised selves. If we're satisfied, we don't need to conform, but if we're not, we imitate people whom we admire for having greater judgment, taste, or good fortune than we do....Through conformity, the person who feels inferior is in no danger of being exposed. He's indistinguishable from the others. No one can single him out and examine his unique being. Conformity, in turn, sets him up to be further canceled out as an individual, to have no life apart from his collective purpose. This gives a movement tremendous power over the individual. Even intelligent people are not immune from the desire to conform. Heinrich Hildebrandt, a schoolteacher who was anxious to hide his liberal past, joined the Nazi party, and to his own disgust, found himself 'proud to be wearing the insignia. It showed I belonged, and the pleasure of belonging, so soon after feeling excluded, isolated, is very great...I belonged to the new nobility..'" (The Nazis and the Occult, pp. 157, 158).

The desire to conform and not to be perceived as being "different" or "countercultural," can be a very powerful force. Many Catholics (and other Christians) voted for President Barack Obama knowing full well that he supports abortion through all nine months of pregnancy right up to so-called partial-birth abortion - which is actually infanticide - as well as his support for Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR) and the radical homosexual agenda.

A democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism. Prophetic words indeed. It's twilight. Darkness is falling. Will we pray and work to turn back the darkness? Or will we give into it?

The choice is ours. But perhaps not for much longer.

Related reading here.

Deadened to the horror of abortion...

Archbishop Charles Chaput recently told Lifesite News, "It seems that we have become deadened to the horror of abortion." Full article here. Too many Catholics (and other Christians) have been too apathetic for too long. Evil has become institutionalized. In this week's Catholic Free Press, Joan Fenno Grammel of Fitchburg (a former correspondent for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette) wrote, "I have to begin this letter with my feelings of dismay at seeing so much being made in The Catholic Free Press of a person who is promoting the murder of unborn babies and yes, even born babies. When Obama, who is that person, was in the Senate did he not vote in favor of partial birth abortion? Another name for this is infanticide, the murder of a baby...When I found out that fifty percent of all Catholics voted for Obama in the November election I cringed to think that the faith that I have always lived by and love was ignored by the Catholics who don't have the 'guts' to stand up for the gift of life that Almighty God has chosen to give all of us..." Well said. I called Ms. Grammel to thank her for her letter to the editor witnessing to the sacredness of life and the apathy which is only serving to accelerate the moral death of our once-great nation.

It was Dr. James Brendan Smith, in an article published by The Maryfaithful, who said that, "Unless the overwhelming majority of our citizens have a change of heart, and the courage and strength to implement it, our once-Christian country will sccumb to the final agony of moral death in which we find ourselves today. The greatest evil of our time is not in the vocal and widely publicized minority who openly defy the laws of God as well as those of our country, but the silent millions who, by their silence, permit these evils to be perpetrated....Our goals are comfort, convenience and pleasure. Let someone else shoulder the responsibility [of opposing these evils], and let principles be damned. We have allowed ourselves to be so hopelessly misled that we now condemn, ridicule, and penalize virtue, while rewarding evil. We have decided that our plan for the universe is better than God's so, while priding ourselves on the scientific achievements which prolong life, we suppress the natural forces that produce life. In our pitiable self-righteousness we abolish capital punishment for the arch-criminal convicted of horrible atrocities but we murder innocent, defenseless infants in their mother's wombs. We consigned the principles given to us by Almighty God Himself, on which our Church and our country were founded, to the most remote recesses of our minds.."

Ours is a termite society being prepared today for the control and direction of the coming Antichrist. Gone is the Cardinal Virtue of Fortitude which resists the difficulties of mind and body while seeking, defending and promoting the truth and holiness of the Gospel. Am I being an alarmist here? Is Archbishop Chaput? Hardly. Many years ago (when times were much, much better than they are today), Pope St. Pius X said, "In our time more than ever before the greatest asset of the evilly disposed is the cowardice and weakness of good men, and all the vigor of Satan's reign is due to the easygoing weakness of Catholics. Oh! If I might ask the divine Redeemer, as the prophet Zachary did in spirit: 'What are those wounds in the midst of Your hands?' the answer would not be doubtful. 'With these I was wounded in the house of those who did nothing to defend Me and who, on every occasion, made themselves the accomplices of My adversaries.' And this reproach can be levelled at the weak and timid Catholics of all countries." (Beatification of Joan of Arc, December 13, 1908).

Reflect on this. And when you are brought to tears, do penance and pray for the Holy Spirit's Gift of Fortitude.