CNS reports:
A top official from the Vatican Secretariat of State acknowledged allegations made by a New York priest in 2000 concerning Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, according to a letter obtained by Catholic News Service.
Father Boniface Ramsey, pastor of St. Joseph's Church Yorkville in New York City, told CNS Sept. 7 that he received the letter dated Oct. 11, 2006, from then-Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the former Vatican substitute for general affairs, asking for information regarding a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark who studied at Immaculate Conception Seminary and was being vetted for a post at a Vatican office. He made the letter available to CNS.
Then-Archbishop Sandri wrote to Father Ramsey, "I ask with particular reference to the serious matters involving some of the students of the Immaculate Conception Seminary, which in November 2000 you were good enough to bring confidentially to the attention of the then Apostolic Nuncio in the United States, the late Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo."
Father Ramsey had been on the faculty of the seminary from 1986 to 1996 and had sent a letter in 2000 to Archbishop Montalvo informing him of complaints he heard from seminarians studying at the seminary, located in South Orange, New Jersey.
In the letter, Father Ramsey told CNS, "I complained about McCarrick's relationships with seminarians and the whole business with sleeping with seminarians and all of that; the whole business that everyone knows about," Father Ramsey said.
Father Ramsey said he assumed the reason the letter from then-Archbishop Sandri, who is now a cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, only mentioned "serious matters involving " seminarians and not Archbishop McCarrick's behavior was because accusations against the former cardinal were "too sensitive."
"My letter November 22, 2000, was about McCarrick and it wasn't accusing seminarians of anything; it was accusing McCarrick."
While Father Ramsey has said he never received a formal response to the letter he sent in 2000, he told CNS he was certain the letter had been received because of the note he got from then-Archbishop Sandri in 2006 acknowledging the allegations he had raised in 2000.
The 2006 letter not only confirms past remarks made by Father Ramsey, but also elements of a document written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who served as nuncio to the United States from 2011 to 2016.
In an 11-page statement, published Aug. 26, Archbishop Vigano accused church officials, including Pope Francis, of failing to act on accusations of sexual abuse, as well as abuse of conscience and power by now-Archbishop McCarrick.
Archbishop Vigano stated that the Vatican was informed as early as 2000 -- when he was an official at the Secretariat of State -- of allegations that Archbishop McCarrick "shared his bed with seminarians." Archbishop Vigano said the Vatican heard the allegation from the U.S. nuncios at the time: Archbishop Montalvo, who served from 1998 to 2005 and Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who served from 2005 to 2011.
In late June, then-Cardinal McCarrick, the 88-year-old retired archbishop of Washington, said he would no longer exercise any public ministry "in obedience" to the Vatican after an allegation he abused a teenager 47 years ago in the Archdiocese of New York was found credible. The then-cardinal has said he is innocent.
Since then, several former seminarians have claimed that the then-cardinal would invite groups of them to a beach house and insist individual members of the group share a bed with him.
Now we know with certainty why Francis refused to answer journalist's questions when pressed about Archbishop Vigano's 11 page letter. See here.
Francis rehabilitated McCarrick after Pope Benedict XVI placed censures on him.
As I noted nine years ago (see here):
In the sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church, those who dealt with the bishops have consistently remarked that the bishops never expressed outrage or righteous anger, even at the most horrendous cases of abuse and sacrilege. Bishops seem to think that anger at sin is un-Christian. Gilbert Kilman, a child psychiatrist, commented, 'What amazes me is the lack of outrage the church feels when its good work is being harmed. So, if there is anything the church needs to know, it needs to know how to be outraged.'
Mark Serrano confronted Bishop Frank Rodimer, asking why he had let his priest-friend Peter Osinski sleep with boys at Rodimer’s beach house while Rodimer was in the next bedroom: 'Where is your moral indignation?' Rodimer’s answer was, 'Then I don’t get it. What do you want?' What Serrano wanted Rodimer to do was to behave like a man with a heart, a heart that is outraged by evil. But Rodimer couldn’t; his inability to feel outrage was a quality that had helped make him a bishop. He would never get into fights, never rock the boat, never 'divide' but only 'unify.' Rodimer could not understand why he should feel deep anger at evil, at the violation of the innocent, at the oppression of the weak.
Emotional Deformation
The emotions that are now suppressed are hatred and anger. Christians think that they ought not to feel these emotions, that it is un-Christian to feel them. They secretly suspect that Jesus was being un-Christian in his attitude to the scribes and Pharisees when he was angry at them, that he was un-Christian when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple or declared that millstones (not vacations in treatment centers) were the way to treat child abusers.
Conrad Baars noticed this emotional deformation in the clergy in the mid-twentieth century. He recognized that there had been distortions in 'traditional' Catholic spirituality. It had become too focused upon individual acts rather than on growth in virtue; it had emphasized sheer naked strength of will. In forgetting that growth in virtue was the goal of the Christian’s moral life, it forgot that the emotions, all emotions, including anger and hate, are part of human nature and must be integrated into a virtuous life.
Baars had been imprisoned by the Nazis. He knew iniquity firsthand and that there was something wrong with those who did not hate it:
A little reflection will make it clear that there is a big difference between the person who knows solely that something is evil and ought to be opposed, and the one who in addition also feels hate for that evil, is angry that it is corrupting or harming his fellow-men, and feels aroused to combat it courageously and vigorously.
Just Wrath
Wrath is a necessary and positive part of human nature: 'Wrath is the strength to attack the repugnant; the power of anger is actually the power of resistance in the soul,' wrote Josef Pieper. The lack of wrath against injustice, he continued, is a deficiency: 'One who does good with passion is more praiseworthy than one who is ‘not entirely’ afire for the good, even to the forces of the sensual realm.'
Aquinas, too, says that 'lack of the passion of anger is also a vice' because a man who truly and forcefully rejects evil will be angry at it. The lack of anger makes the movement of the will against evil 'lacking or weak.' He quotes John Chrysostom: 'He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong'..."
The spiritually mature Christian understands that not all anger is unjust. That there is such a thing as just or righteous anger. Such a Christian strives to control anger through prayer and by considering the example of Christ. Let's all pray for those in leadership positions in the Church. That they may come to a mature faith which is able to discern between just and unjust anger.
One shepherd [and he is that in every sense of the word] who possesses such a mature faith is The Most Rev. Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska. His Excellency has been quoted as having said, "No words that are printable, or even conceivable, are adequate to express my outrage, fury, and depression upon learning that anyone, much less a priest, would sexually molest any children. Such a thing is an unspeakable abomination. Upon hearing such things, I must confess that I am tempted to look for my shotgun and baseball bat, much sooner that I am tempted to give any consideration to a possible 'sickness' in a perpetrator. Molestation victims and their families are certainly entitled to anger. Sometimes their excessive anger and demands, while often becoming unacceptable and unreasonable, are still understandable to me." Read full statement here.
How much more just anger* should a shepherd demonstrate against those who would spiritually molest faithful Catholics.
* See here
Showing posts with label Just. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Just. Show all posts
Saturday, September 08, 2018
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Devout, Faithful Catholics are angry...and this is bad because....why?
Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons disects the asinine criticism of "anger" emanating from Rome and directed against faithful Catholics here.
Faithful Catholics have come under near constant criticism from a Vatican which is more sympathetic toward sexual deviants and dissident "Catholics" who are Hell bent on changing the perennial and immutable teachings of the Church founded by Christ Jesus than toward devout Catholics who adhere to those same teachings.
Those of us who refuse to roll dice every week to determine which teachings of Christ we will accept And which are to be shit-canned in the name of self-worship are accused of being "angry" for having the sheer, unmitigated fall to oppose the zeitgeist And the encroaching Moloch State, a haunt of demons.
And what of anger? Is anger always evil or unholy? The Vatican should know better. But many there have succumbed to evil and, like Salome who demanded the head of the Baptist (that scary and angry man), those who have embraced sin almost always mistake zeal for unholy anger or fanaticism).
Our age has succumbed to a cult of softness. It is fashionable to believe that any display of anger is due to a lack of charity or to some psychological problem. This cult of softness has, in turn, contributed much to an effeminate Christianity which is incapable of opposing the evils of our present epoch.
It is forgotten that sometimes anger is the proper response to value. In the words of Fr. Bede Jarrett, O.P., "Not only may I sin by being angry when I should not, but I may sin by not being angry when I should be. If my reason tells me that it is right to be angry, then I disobey God when I refuse to give place to wrath; for, as the New Testament teaches, it is possible to "be angry and sin not" (Ephesians 4:26). Our Lord Himself, when need arose, roped together a bundle of cords and drove from the Temple those who trafficked in the House of Prayer, and down the front steps He flung the tables of the money-changers. Perhaps for most of us, the fault is not that we are too angry, but that we are not angry enough. Think of the evils that are in the world, that are known to all, admitted to exist by public press and on public platform. Would they have survived thus far, had folk all shown the indignant anger of Christ? Hypocrisy, cant, and the whole blatant injustice that stalks naked and unashamed in national life - may not our own weakness and silence have helped to render impotent all efforts to reduce these terrible things?....I have got to make myself realize that anger is itself neither evil nor good, and that it can be either. Hence I must pledge myself to see how far I allow anger to rule me when it should not, and how far I overrule it when I should give it a free hand." (Classic Catholic Meditations, p. 168, Sophia Institute Press).
Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand (whom Pope Pius XII referred to as the "20th century Doctor of the Church"): "St. Paul says there always will be heresies and he adds that God permits them to test the faithful. The disunity that is based on the incompatibility of truth and falsehood cannot and should not be avoided...To deplore disunity as such, instead of deploring heresies, instead of condemning these and calling them by their name, implies first of all that one would keep unity even at the cost of truth. But, of course, true unity presupposes unity in truth. Error, falsehood, can never be the basis for true unity. That holy, supernatural unity of which our Lord speaks in the priestly prayer ut unum sint - that all may be one - can come to pass only in the profession of divine truth, in the membership of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is a unity which includes some but, by the same token, excludes others. As Father Werenfried van Straaten [the Bacon priest, my note] reminds us, 'Jesus' prayer that all may be one'...may not be separated from His other words: 'I say unto you that whoever does not enter by the door of the sheepfold is a thief and a robber...I am the door!' The same principle is expressed in the first encyclical of Pope Pius XI: Pax Christi in regno Christi, the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ. Even on the natural level, unity that is not grounded in truth is either a very silly or a very dangerous thing. That shallow comradeship so typical of modern society, for example, in which we approach everyone regardless of his relation to God in a spirit of 'tolerance' - the spirit incarnated in the words of Frederick II of Prussia: 'Let everyone attain beatitude in his own fashion' - that is a foolish pseudo-unity lacking any common principle to truly unite men. Such 'togetherness,' however, can be worse than foolish; it can be a sinister force when it is based not on a lack of principle, but on a common error - on an idol. The togetherness found in Nazism or in Communism is an amazing thing. Devotion to the common idol goes so far that the devotees are ready to die for it. So many young Germans gave their lives in the war while screaming, 'Heil Hitler!' They had given themselves in unity, to the devil." (The Charitable Anathema, pp. 3-4).
Under Francis, the Vatican does not deplore error and falsehood as much as it deplores disunity. This is a great tragedy. A Vatican which has succumbed to "gay" sex orgies has no business casting aspersions at those of us who understand that authentic unity is based in truth. Weak and effeminate "shepherds" in the Vatican may believe that Catholics who are firm in faith are guilty of "attitudes and practices" which do "irreparable damage to the communion of the Church." But faithful Catholics know that it is a false irenicism which really damages the communion of the Church.
Dissent in the Church leads to polarization and destroys peace within the Church. Faithful Catholics who refuse to accept a dissenting view must resist it for the sake of restoring an authentic peace, a peace which Pope John XXIII taught: "is not completely untroubled and serene; it is active, not calm and motionless. In short, this is a peace that is ever at war. It wars with every sort of error, including that which falsely wears the face of truth; it struggles against the enticements of vice, against those enemies of the soul, of whatever description, who can weaken, blemish, or destroy our innocence or Catholic faith." (Ad Petri cathedram, AAS 51 (1959) 517, PE, 263.93).
Pray for Our "shepherds" in Rome. That they may re-discover the Holy Spirit's Gift of Fortitude and return to fidelity.
Faithful Catholics have come under near constant criticism from a Vatican which is more sympathetic toward sexual deviants and dissident "Catholics" who are Hell bent on changing the perennial and immutable teachings of the Church founded by Christ Jesus than toward devout Catholics who adhere to those same teachings.
Those of us who refuse to roll dice every week to determine which teachings of Christ we will accept And which are to be shit-canned in the name of self-worship are accused of being "angry" for having the sheer, unmitigated fall to oppose the zeitgeist And the encroaching Moloch State, a haunt of demons.
And what of anger? Is anger always evil or unholy? The Vatican should know better. But many there have succumbed to evil and, like Salome who demanded the head of the Baptist (that scary and angry man), those who have embraced sin almost always mistake zeal for unholy anger or fanaticism).
Our age has succumbed to a cult of softness. It is fashionable to believe that any display of anger is due to a lack of charity or to some psychological problem. This cult of softness has, in turn, contributed much to an effeminate Christianity which is incapable of opposing the evils of our present epoch.
It is forgotten that sometimes anger is the proper response to value. In the words of Fr. Bede Jarrett, O.P., "Not only may I sin by being angry when I should not, but I may sin by not being angry when I should be. If my reason tells me that it is right to be angry, then I disobey God when I refuse to give place to wrath; for, as the New Testament teaches, it is possible to "be angry and sin not" (Ephesians 4:26). Our Lord Himself, when need arose, roped together a bundle of cords and drove from the Temple those who trafficked in the House of Prayer, and down the front steps He flung the tables of the money-changers. Perhaps for most of us, the fault is not that we are too angry, but that we are not angry enough. Think of the evils that are in the world, that are known to all, admitted to exist by public press and on public platform. Would they have survived thus far, had folk all shown the indignant anger of Christ? Hypocrisy, cant, and the whole blatant injustice that stalks naked and unashamed in national life - may not our own weakness and silence have helped to render impotent all efforts to reduce these terrible things?....I have got to make myself realize that anger is itself neither evil nor good, and that it can be either. Hence I must pledge myself to see how far I allow anger to rule me when it should not, and how far I overrule it when I should give it a free hand." (Classic Catholic Meditations, p. 168, Sophia Institute Press).
Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand (whom Pope Pius XII referred to as the "20th century Doctor of the Church"): "St. Paul says there always will be heresies and he adds that God permits them to test the faithful. The disunity that is based on the incompatibility of truth and falsehood cannot and should not be avoided...To deplore disunity as such, instead of deploring heresies, instead of condemning these and calling them by their name, implies first of all that one would keep unity even at the cost of truth. But, of course, true unity presupposes unity in truth. Error, falsehood, can never be the basis for true unity. That holy, supernatural unity of which our Lord speaks in the priestly prayer ut unum sint - that all may be one - can come to pass only in the profession of divine truth, in the membership of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is a unity which includes some but, by the same token, excludes others. As Father Werenfried van Straaten [the Bacon priest, my note] reminds us, 'Jesus' prayer that all may be one'...may not be separated from His other words: 'I say unto you that whoever does not enter by the door of the sheepfold is a thief and a robber...I am the door!' The same principle is expressed in the first encyclical of Pope Pius XI: Pax Christi in regno Christi, the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ. Even on the natural level, unity that is not grounded in truth is either a very silly or a very dangerous thing. That shallow comradeship so typical of modern society, for example, in which we approach everyone regardless of his relation to God in a spirit of 'tolerance' - the spirit incarnated in the words of Frederick II of Prussia: 'Let everyone attain beatitude in his own fashion' - that is a foolish pseudo-unity lacking any common principle to truly unite men. Such 'togetherness,' however, can be worse than foolish; it can be a sinister force when it is based not on a lack of principle, but on a common error - on an idol. The togetherness found in Nazism or in Communism is an amazing thing. Devotion to the common idol goes so far that the devotees are ready to die for it. So many young Germans gave their lives in the war while screaming, 'Heil Hitler!' They had given themselves in unity, to the devil." (The Charitable Anathema, pp. 3-4).
Under Francis, the Vatican does not deplore error and falsehood as much as it deplores disunity. This is a great tragedy. A Vatican which has succumbed to "gay" sex orgies has no business casting aspersions at those of us who understand that authentic unity is based in truth. Weak and effeminate "shepherds" in the Vatican may believe that Catholics who are firm in faith are guilty of "attitudes and practices" which do "irreparable damage to the communion of the Church." But faithful Catholics know that it is a false irenicism which really damages the communion of the Church.
Dissent in the Church leads to polarization and destroys peace within the Church. Faithful Catholics who refuse to accept a dissenting view must resist it for the sake of restoring an authentic peace, a peace which Pope John XXIII taught: "is not completely untroubled and serene; it is active, not calm and motionless. In short, this is a peace that is ever at war. It wars with every sort of error, including that which falsely wears the face of truth; it struggles against the enticements of vice, against those enemies of the soul, of whatever description, who can weaken, blemish, or destroy our innocence or Catholic faith." (Ad Petri cathedram, AAS 51 (1959) 517, PE, 263.93).
Pray for Our "shepherds" in Rome. That they may re-discover the Holy Spirit's Gift of Fortitude and return to fidelity.
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
"Before I come as a just Judge....."
Like so many others today, Reverend Frank Schaefer has lost his faith in Christ Jesus and expects the Lord to conform to men rather than the other way around. See here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/24/frank-schaefer-sirius-xm_n_4331938.html
Just this morning, while at Eucharistic Adoration, a woman approached me and assured me that I was wrong to accept the Church's teaching that women may not be ordained to the priesthood and that dissent from teachings which are definitive places one outside of communion with the Church. This woman was arguing for a right to dissent from the mind of Christ IN AN ADORATION CHAPEL!
Sad times! This woman also had high praise for Father Andre Dargis*
Those who, like Rev. Schaefer, promote "gay marriage" and other societal evils always like to remind us of God's Mercy. And indeed His Mercy is like an ocean. But these deluded souls have forgotten that God's Justice must be infinite too, and that sooner or later [I believe very soon based upon Our Lady's messages and Our Lord's warning] it must be exercised to preserve His honor and integrity, to save the innocent, to confirm the good and to justify the martyrs.
Sin brings destruction and death, and a terrible eternal death for the unrepentant, those who flaunt their pride and their resistance in the face of a Loving and Merciful God, those who are a continuous scandal to others. The souls who have been slain for the Word of God are heard crying out from under the altar: "How long, O Lord, dost Thou not judge and revenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth. And it was said to them that they should rest for a little time till their fellow servants and their brethren, who are to be slain even as they, should be filled up." (Revelation 6: 10, 11).
Mankind is facing so many problems today. Sin has been enshrined as a good. As Father Albert Hebert, S.M., once said, even the "great pagan juridical systems admitted the fact of wrong-doing and their legal systems prescribed punishment for it. It is only in our day that there is such a widespread denial of the existence of sin and moral laws. This makes God appear as the Creator of evil, and God hates this blasphemy, pride and hypocrisy on the part of His creature man....Today, persons great and lowly commit sin, deny it and even blasphemously call it virtue. For example, active homosexuals and lesbians call their practices 'love' and demand the legal status of normal married man and wife.."
It is because sin has been enshrined as a good, because so many people have turned away from the Merciful Heart of Jesus, that there is no peace today. Many will argue that I'm being "too simplistic," or that there are other reasons for the breakdown of peace we are experiencing across our culture and throughout the world.
But when Faustina Kowalska's confessor told her to ask Jesus the meaning of the two rays in the image which she had previously been shown, Jesus spoke to her while she was in prayer:
"The two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls...These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross. These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father. Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him. I desire that the first Sunday after Easter be the Feast of Mercy...
Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy..." (Divine Mercy in My Soul, Notebook I, 299, 300).
If we want peace, we will only obtain it through Our Jesus of Mercy. We must confess our sins regularly and dwell in the shelter of the two rays which emanate from His Merciful Heart. There is no peace in attempting to legitimize sin. There is no peace apart from Our Jesus of Mercy.
The choice is ours. But not for much longer. "...before I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice.." (Notebook III, 1146); "My daughter, Speak to the world about My mercy; let all mankind recognize My unfathomable mercy. It is a sign for the end times; after it will come the day of justice. While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fount of My mercy; let them profit from the Blood and Water which gushed forth for them." (Notebook II, 848).
We have two ways before us: Love and mercy which produce peace and tranquility or hatred, sin and unforgiveness which lead to despair, violence and war. The choice, as always, is ours to make. A way of life and a way of death as the Didache teaches.
Choose wisely
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Martial Law just around the corner?
As this article explains, "Leading GOP candidate Ron Paul has warned in recent interviews that the amendments passed in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) are not only dangerous, but authorize the establishment of total martial law inside the United States. Not only does the bill, in sections 1031 and 1032, declare the unconstitutional right to detain Americans indefinitely without trial, but it authorizes an Internet offensive and online Pentagon takeover under the pretext of cybersecurity and stopping online piracy."
People are being gradually desensitized and lulled into a false sense of security. Most simply aren't aware of the dangers which are advancing steadily; dangers which I have been warning about for years. William Parker, in an article entitled "Your fourth amendment rights under attack by Obama, DOJ," writes: "There is no talk of 'the slippery slope' anymore, which so many people used as an argument against many policies enacted by the Bush administration. Yet, now more than ever, it seems the slippery slope has given way to the sheer drop from the cliffs of sanity. There are intentional actions already in progress to simply take from us the rights we have apparently taken for granted. The Dept. of Justice apparently believes that U.S. citizens do not enjoy a "reasonable expectation of privacy" with respect to cell phone use, and have been attempting to acquire the ability to simply demand user information from the cell phone companies without going through standard procedures to obtain a warrant for specific information on specific individuals for use in specific prosecutions. They are assaulting the fourth amendment in yet another case, asserting that "email over 181 days old should not be protected from warrantless search and seizure."
Where is the outrage? These are not things that are occurring as a consequence of, or as a by-product of, some other action being taken for some otherwise lofty purpose. The government means to take these freedoms, piece by piece, with the hopes that nobody will care until it's too late."
People are being gradually desensitized and lulled into a false sense of security. Most simply aren't aware of the dangers which are advancing steadily; dangers which I have been warning about for years. William Parker, in an article entitled "Your fourth amendment rights under attack by Obama, DOJ," writes: "There is no talk of 'the slippery slope' anymore, which so many people used as an argument against many policies enacted by the Bush administration. Yet, now more than ever, it seems the slippery slope has given way to the sheer drop from the cliffs of sanity. There are intentional actions already in progress to simply take from us the rights we have apparently taken for granted. The Dept. of Justice apparently believes that U.S. citizens do not enjoy a "reasonable expectation of privacy" with respect to cell phone use, and have been attempting to acquire the ability to simply demand user information from the cell phone companies without going through standard procedures to obtain a warrant for specific information on specific individuals for use in specific prosecutions. They are assaulting the fourth amendment in yet another case, asserting that "email over 181 days old should not be protected from warrantless search and seizure."
Where is the outrage? These are not things that are occurring as a consequence of, or as a by-product of, some other action being taken for some otherwise lofty purpose. The government means to take these freedoms, piece by piece, with the hopes that nobody will care until it's too late."
Saturday, July 16, 2011
"Terrible will be the persecution of the wicked against the just.."
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).
The spirit of Antichrist is intensifying and hostility toward Christians (and the Catholic Church in particular) is spreading like a cancer. Father Bernard Maria Clausi. O.F.M. (d. 1849), speaking of the coming chastisement, says that before the Triumph of the Church, "terrible will be the persecution of the wicked against the just.."
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And this persecution has already begun. Governor Andrew Cuomo is saying that those who refuse to recognize "gay marriages" shouldn't be town clerks. Meanwhile, Ireland is attacking the confessional.
Prayer To The Most Holy Crucified:
"Worshipful God, Who mounted the gallows of the Cross to save the world, have mercy on me and on all the souls which cost you so great a price. I pray to You: in the hour of my death, say to Your Father: Father, forgive him; say to Your Mother: Here's your son; say to my soul: Today you will be in Heaven with Me.
My God, my God, don't leave me! I'm thirsty for You, Spring of running water. My life passes as a shadow and soon everything will be consumed.
O my adorable Redeemer, now and forever, I commit my soul into Your hands."
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be...
The spirit of Antichrist is intensifying and hostility toward Christians (and the Catholic Church in particular) is spreading like a cancer. Father Bernard Maria Clausi. O.F.M. (d. 1849), speaking of the coming chastisement, says that before the Triumph of the Church, "terrible will be the persecution of the wicked against the just.."
And this persecution has already begun. Governor Andrew Cuomo is saying that those who refuse to recognize "gay marriages" shouldn't be town clerks. Meanwhile, Ireland is attacking the confessional.
Prayer To The Most Holy Crucified:
"Worshipful God, Who mounted the gallows of the Cross to save the world, have mercy on me and on all the souls which cost you so great a price. I pray to You: in the hour of my death, say to Your Father: Father, forgive him; say to Your Mother: Here's your son; say to my soul: Today you will be in Heaven with Me.
My God, my God, don't leave me! I'm thirsty for You, Spring of running water. My life passes as a shadow and soon everything will be consumed.
O my adorable Redeemer, now and forever, I commit my soul into Your hands."
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be...
Friday, September 04, 2009
"He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins.."
In my previous post, I noted how it is possible to "be angry and sin not" (Ephesians 4: 26), something which Cardinal Sean O'Malley obviously does not understand. And he is not alone. Writing for Touchstone Magazine, Dr. Leon J. Podles explains that, "..many Christians have a false understanding of the nature and role of anger. It is seen as something negative, something that a Christian should not feel.
In the sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church, those who dealt with the bishops have consistently remarked that the bishops never expressed outrage or righteous anger, even at the most horrendous cases of abuse and sacrilege. Bishops seem to think that anger at sin is un-Christian. Gilbert Kilman, a child psychiatrist, commented, 'What amazes me is the lack of outrage the church feels when its good work is being harmed. So, if there is anything the church needs to know, it needs to know how to be outraged.'
Mark Serrano confronted Bishop Frank Rodimer, asking why he had let his priest-friend Peter Osinski sleep with boys at Rodimer’s beach house while Rodimer was in the next bedroom: 'Where is your moral indignation?' Rodimer’s answer was, 'Then I don’t get it. What do you want?' What Serrano wanted Rodimer to do was to behave like a man with a heart, a heart that is outraged by evil. But Rodimer couldn’t; his inability to feel outrage was a quality that had helped make him a bishop. He would never get into fights, never rock the boat, never 'divide' but only 'unify.' Rodimer could not understand why he should feel deep anger at evil, at the violation of the innocent, at the oppression of the weak.
Emotional Deformation
The emotions that are now suppressed are hatred and anger. Christians think that they ought not to feel these emotions, that it is un-Christian to feel them. They secretly suspect that Jesus was being un-Christian in his attitude to the scribes and Pharisees when he was angry at them, that he was un-Christian when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple or declared that millstones (not vacations in treatment centers) were the way to treat child abusers.
Conrad Baars noticed this emotional deformation in the clergy in the mid-twentieth century. He recognized that there had been distortions in 'traditional' Catholic spirituality. It had become too focused upon individual acts rather than on growth in virtue; it had emphasized sheer naked strength of will. In forgetting that growth in virtue was the goal of the Christian’s moral life, it forgot that the emotions, all emotions, including anger and hate, are part of human nature and must be integrated into a virtuous life.
Baars had been imprisoned by the Nazis. He knew iniquity firsthand and that there was something wrong with those who did not hate it:
A little reflection will make it clear that there is a big difference between the person who knows solely that something is evil and ought to be opposed, and the one who in addition also feels hate for that evil, is angry that it is corrupting or harming his fellow-men, and feels aroused to combat it courageously and vigorously.
Just Wrath
Wrath is a necessary and positive part of human nature: 'Wrath is the strength to attack the repugnant; the power of anger is actually the power of resistance in the soul,' wrote Josef Pieper. The lack of wrath against injustice, he continued, is a deficiency: 'One who does good with passion is more praiseworthy than one who is ‘not entirely’ afire for the good, even to the forces of the sensual realm.'
Aquinas, too, says that 'lack of the passion of anger is also a vice' because a man who truly and forcefully rejects evil will be angry at it. The lack of anger makes the movement of the will against evil 'lacking or weak.' He quotes John Chrysostom: 'He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong'..." (Full article here).
The spiritually mature Christian understands that not all anger is unjust. That there is such a thing as just or righteous anger. Such a Christian strives to control anger through prayer and by considering the example of Christ. Let's all pray for those in leadership positions in the Church. That they may come to a mature faith which is able to discern between just and unjust anger.
In the sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church, those who dealt with the bishops have consistently remarked that the bishops never expressed outrage or righteous anger, even at the most horrendous cases of abuse and sacrilege. Bishops seem to think that anger at sin is un-Christian. Gilbert Kilman, a child psychiatrist, commented, 'What amazes me is the lack of outrage the church feels when its good work is being harmed. So, if there is anything the church needs to know, it needs to know how to be outraged.'
Mark Serrano confronted Bishop Frank Rodimer, asking why he had let his priest-friend Peter Osinski sleep with boys at Rodimer’s beach house while Rodimer was in the next bedroom: 'Where is your moral indignation?' Rodimer’s answer was, 'Then I don’t get it. What do you want?' What Serrano wanted Rodimer to do was to behave like a man with a heart, a heart that is outraged by evil. But Rodimer couldn’t; his inability to feel outrage was a quality that had helped make him a bishop. He would never get into fights, never rock the boat, never 'divide' but only 'unify.' Rodimer could not understand why he should feel deep anger at evil, at the violation of the innocent, at the oppression of the weak.
Emotional Deformation
The emotions that are now suppressed are hatred and anger. Christians think that they ought not to feel these emotions, that it is un-Christian to feel them. They secretly suspect that Jesus was being un-Christian in his attitude to the scribes and Pharisees when he was angry at them, that he was un-Christian when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple or declared that millstones (not vacations in treatment centers) were the way to treat child abusers.
Conrad Baars noticed this emotional deformation in the clergy in the mid-twentieth century. He recognized that there had been distortions in 'traditional' Catholic spirituality. It had become too focused upon individual acts rather than on growth in virtue; it had emphasized sheer naked strength of will. In forgetting that growth in virtue was the goal of the Christian’s moral life, it forgot that the emotions, all emotions, including anger and hate, are part of human nature and must be integrated into a virtuous life.
Baars had been imprisoned by the Nazis. He knew iniquity firsthand and that there was something wrong with those who did not hate it:
A little reflection will make it clear that there is a big difference between the person who knows solely that something is evil and ought to be opposed, and the one who in addition also feels hate for that evil, is angry that it is corrupting or harming his fellow-men, and feels aroused to combat it courageously and vigorously.
Just Wrath
Wrath is a necessary and positive part of human nature: 'Wrath is the strength to attack the repugnant; the power of anger is actually the power of resistance in the soul,' wrote Josef Pieper. The lack of wrath against injustice, he continued, is a deficiency: 'One who does good with passion is more praiseworthy than one who is ‘not entirely’ afire for the good, even to the forces of the sensual realm.'
Aquinas, too, says that 'lack of the passion of anger is also a vice' because a man who truly and forcefully rejects evil will be angry at it. The lack of anger makes the movement of the will against evil 'lacking or weak.' He quotes John Chrysostom: 'He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong'..." (Full article here).
The spiritually mature Christian understands that not all anger is unjust. That there is such a thing as just or righteous anger. Such a Christian strives to control anger through prayer and by considering the example of Christ. Let's all pray for those in leadership positions in the Church. That they may come to a mature faith which is able to discern between just and unjust anger.
One shepherd [and he is that in every sense of the word] who possesses such a mature faith is The Most Rev. Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska. His Excellency has been quoted as having said, "No words that are printable, or even conceivable, are adequate to express my outrage, fury, and depression upon learning that anyone, much less a priest, would sexually molest any children. Such a thing is an unspeakable abomination. Upon hearing such things, I must confess that I am tempted to look for my shotgun and baseball bat, much sooner that I am tempted to give any consideration to a possible 'sickness' in a perpetrator. Molestation victims and their families are certainly entitled to anger. Sometimes their excessive anger and demands, while often becoming unacceptable and unreasonable, are still understandable to me." Read full statement here.
How much more just anger should a shepherd demonstrate against those who would spiritually molest faithful Catholics.
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