Chris Wallace: Propagandist

 

Lifesite News reports:

"While reviews for both President Donald Trump’s and former Vice President Joe Biden’s performances in Wednesday night’s first presidential debate are largely negative, much of conservatives’ ire was focused on the apparent pro-Biden bias of the moderator, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.

The debate was a raucous affair, with Wallace frequently interjecting to try to get the candidates to stop talking over each other. Amid it all, though, many identified numerous instances of Wallace going well beyond that.

After the debate, the Trump campaign accused Wallace of interrupting Trump 76 times, but Biden only 15. One of Wallace’s own Fox colleagues, Brian Kilmeade, complained about Wallace giving Biden a longer leash than Trump."

_______________________________

This should not surprise anyone.  For Chris Wallace is a propagandist who cares nothing for the demands of truth.  He is an ideologue, bent on cramming his ideas down the throats of his listeners.

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

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

We witness such a fanaticism in Rudolf Hess, who became deputy leader of the Third Reich, and who said: "It was granted to me for many years of my life to live and work under the greatest son whom my nation has produced in the thousand years of its history. Even if I could I would not expunge this period from my existence. I regret nothing. If I were standing once more at the beginning I should act once again as I did then, even if I knew that at the end I should be burnt at the stake. No matter what men do, I shall one day stand before the judgment seat of the Almighty. I shall answer to him, and I know that he will acquit me."

Many of those who produce our mainstream media have succumbed to satanic pride.  They look upon consumers of their publications or news broadcasts as "deplorable," the unwashed masses who need to be told what to believe.

Have nothing to do with their products.  Say no to their manipulation.

The leftist "mainstream media": Silencing the truth about the health hazards of homosexual sex

 

Mass Resistance reports:

The book-burning culture of the Left is continuing its march.

As everyone knows, Amazon has achieved a virtual monopoly on the book industry. It has vast powers to decide what books people can read – and what they can’t read.

After 3½  years of publishing our groundbreaking 600-page book, The Health Hazards of Homosexuality: What the Medical and Psychological Research Reveals, Amazon has suddenly notified us that it has banned it from being printed or sold on its site. Amazon is also refusing to allow us to print any more copies for our own use and has even blocked us from accessing our account records. The book was printed (and also posted as an eBook) through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing subsidiary.

Why this book is important

The mainstreaming and normalization of homosexuality has created a public health crisis affecting us all. This book documents in detail the enormous public health problems – both medical and psychological – associated with homosexual behavior.

The book took several years to compile. It brought together information from the federal Centers for Disease Control, major medical professional groups, and other mainstream medical sources, as well as LGBT medical and advocacy groups – all documented in 1,800 endnotes with up-to-date links. In today’s society, this is critical information everyone should know, especially given what’s being pushed on young children in schools across the country. Read more about it here, including reviews and excerpts from the book.

Although the scourge of political correctness has taken over much of the medical establishment, the book has gotten rave reviews from the conservative medical community. Some of those include:

Michelle A. Cretella, MD, Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians, called the book a "tour de force" and added: “This book is the single most comprehensive collection of scientific data from authoritative scientific sources on this topic. Our youth have the distinction of being among the most lied-to generation. For this reason alone, this book should be required reading for all health professionals, educators, legislators, graduate students, and parents."

Paul A. Church, MD, urologist, former Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School: “It is an excellent go-to reference for those seeking accurate, truthful information on the health risks of certain sexual behaviors. I recommend this book highly."

A prominent cardiologist: “I think this book should be on the shelves of medical school bookstores as it is one of the most comprehensive tomes on the subject that I have seen.”

The book has sold throughout the United States, Canada, the UK, and around the world. We have been approached by people in Hong Kong who want to re-publish it in Chinese and in Egypt who want to re-publish it in Arabic.

Mainstream media linked the book to Pres. Trump!

Of course, the national LGBT movement and their allies in the media despise this book – though they have never been able to claim that the information is incorrect.

In 2017, when we sold the book at our table at the Family Research Council’s national Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC (where President Trump spoke), the liberal mainstream media went ballistic. NBC News linked the book to Trump. USA Today, Yahoo News, and the Huffington Post fumed about it. In the UK, The Independent and The Guardian newspapers covered our book’s appearance! But at the Values Voter event itself, the book was a big hit!"

The health consequences of homosexual behavior here.

"The chief function of propaganda is to convince the masses, who slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on their mind.........the slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. The one will be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results that such a personal policy secures."

Adolf Hitler from "Mein Kampf"

As one website explains:

"Once they succeeded in ending democracy and turning Germany into a one-party dictatorship, the Nazis orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to win the loyalty and cooperation of Germans. The Nazi Propaganda Ministry, directed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, took control of all forms of communication in Germany: newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies, and radio. Viewpoints in any way threatening to Nazi beliefs or to the regime were censored or eliminated from all media.

During the spring of 1933, Nazi student organizations, professors, and librarians made up long lists of books they thought should not be read by Germans. Then, on the night of May 10, 1933, Nazis raided libraries and bookstores across Germany. They marched by torchlight in nighttime parades, sang chants, and threw books into huge bonfires. On that night more than 25,000 books were burned. Some were works of Jewish writers, including Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Most of the books were by non-Jewish writers, including such famous Americans as Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis, whose ideas the Nazis viewed as different from their own and therefore not to be read.

The Nazi censors also burned the books of Helen Keller, who had overcome her deafness and blindness to become a respected writer; told of the book burnings, she responded: "Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas." Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States protested the book burnings, a clear violation of freedom of speech, in public rallies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis.

Schools also played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas. While some books were removed from classrooms by censors, other textbooks, newly written, were brought in to teach students blind obedience to the party, love for Hitler, and antisemitism. After-school meetings of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls trained children to be faithful to the Nazi party. In school and out, young people celebrated such occasions as Adolf Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of his taking power."

Today, censorship is beginning to be used against Christians to silence moral opposition to abortion and homosexuality.  Today's censors do not have to gather up thousands of books, march by torchlight in nighttme parades and throw books into huge bonfires.  They have merely to strike a few keys from the comfort of their offices.

Inflated in their rebellion against the God-Man, the Sons of Satan, those committed toward the atheistic program of attacking the Church from without and undermining it from within in preparation for the Man-God, will continue to intensify their persecution of craftiness and subversion until it reaches its culmination in an explosion of hate-filled rage which will bear much blood and death. Father Livio Fanzaga, writing about the Antichrist, says that, "Catholicism alone will resist him. How then do we destroy this superstition which alone obstructs the world's self-revelation? How do we destroy this superstition which divides mankind and which prevents man from being truly brotherly and free? The true Antichrist is revealed in the replies to these questions. Here is perceived his profound being as the man of iniquity. He will not tolerate the idea of men who adore any god other than himself. His intolerance obliges him to make an exception to his pacifism and his philosophy of non-violence. He is the greatest pacifist in the history of the human race, but because peace and justice really reign on earth he will make an exception to kill and destroy the great superstition of Catholicism, once and for all time..." (Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist, p. 124).

On September 15, 1992, Our Lady told Father Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests that, "..It is the hour of my great sorrow for the Church, my dearly beloved Daughter.  How grievously the Church is suffering in these times, as she carries her great cross and climbs the bloodstained Calvary of her passion and her bloody immolation!  Never before, as today, has the Church been made so utterly like my Son Jesus.  She is like Him in solitude and abandonment; she is like Him in denial and betrayal; she is like Him in contempt and condemnation; she is like Him in her crucifixion and in her agony.  This is the hour of my great sorrow for the Church, because the hour of her redemptive passion has come.  It is the gour of my great sorrow for humanity, so ill and so reduced to slavery by the spirits of evil.  The diabolical powers are ruling the earth and producing everywhere the wicked fruits of their dark reign.  And thus this humanity has again become pagan, after almost two thousand years of its redemption and of the first announcement of the Gospel of salvation.  Faithlessness and impiety again cover it; sins wound it; evil poisons it; pride rules it; impurity seduces it; egoism and hatred enchain it; Satan reduces it more and more to slavery and reigns over you with his diabolical power...This is the hour of my great sorrow for all of you, my poor children, because the time of your great suffering has come.  Take refuge in me.  Hasten to the sure refuge of my Immaculate Heart, because we must live together through the hour of the greatest trial, which has now come for you, for the Church and for all humanity."

Selective outrage and hypocrisy from the Democrats and the liberal msm

The Washington Examiner is reporting that President Trump denies using vulgar language attributed to him.  See here.

Rolling Stone Magazine has listed examples of vulgarity employed by a host of presidents, vice-presidents and presidential candidates:

Abraham Lincoln: "There is nothing to make an Englishman shit quicker than the sight of General George Washington."

Barack Obama: “Obama really drew the ire of the pious, calling opponent Mitt Romney a ‘bullshitter.’ Sometimes the dirty word is the most precise.”

Joe Biden: "This is a big f**king deal."

Dick Cheney: “Cheney reportedly told Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy to ‘go f**k [himself]’”

George W. Bush: “Commented on the presence of New York Times reporter Adam Clymer. Believing he had an audience of one, Bush called Clymer a ‘major-league asshole.’”

Barack Obama: "I don't think I should take any sh*t from anybody on that, do you?"

Richard Nixon: “The Watergate tapes put the phrase ‘expletive deleted’ on the map.”

Lyndon Johnson: "I do know the difference between chicken sh*t and chicken salad,"

John F. Kennedy: "This is obviously a f**k-up."

Harry Truman: “In Truman's eyes, General Douglas MacArthur was a "dumb son of a bitch," and Nixon was ‘a shifty-eyed goddamned liar.’”

So why is  President Trump being singled out for describing certain governments (not the people) as "shit-holes"?

I think we all know.

And while the liberal "mainstream media" are busying themselves with bashing the President over his language, their outrage is most selective.  Where is the concern over well-documented comments made by Nancy Pelosi?  See here.

Or what about President Obama's disparaging remarks regarding white middle-class voters in old industrial towns?  See here.

Hypocrisy is the pretension to qualities which one does not possess. Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, in a sermon delivered in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI on March 11, 2007, explained the gravity of hypocrisy: "Hypocrisy is the sin that is most powerfully denounced by God in the Bible and the reason for this is clear. With his hypocrisy, man demotes God, he puts him in second place, putting the creature, the public, in first place. "Man sees the appearance, the Lord sees the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7): Cultivating our appearance more than our heart means giving greater importance to man than to God.


Hypocrisy is thus essentially a lack of faith; but it is also a lack of charity for our neighbor in the sense that it tends to reduce persons to admirers. It does not recognize their proper dignity, but sees them only in function of one's own image.

Christ's judgment on hypocrisy is without appeal: "Receperunt mercedem suam" (They have already received their reward)! A reward that is, above all, illusory, even on a human level because we know that glory flees from those that seek it, and seeks those who flee from it.

Jesus' invectives against the scribes and the Pharisees also help us understand the meaning of purity of heart. Jesus' criticisms focus on the opposition between the "inside" and the "outside," the interior and the exterior of man. 'Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and filth. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity' (Matthew 23:27-28).

The revolution which Jesus brings about here is of incalculable significance. Before him, except for some rare hint in the prophets and the Psalms — 'Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord? Those whose hands are innocent and whose hearts are pure' (Psalm 24:3) — purity was understood in a ritual and cultural way; it consisted in keeping one's distance from things, animals, persons or places that were understood to contaminate one and separate one from God's holiness. Above all, these were things associated with birth, death, food and sexuality. In different forms and with different presuppositions, other religions outside the Bible shared these ideas.

Jesus makes a clean sweep of all these taboos and does so first of all by certain gestures: He eats with sinners, touches lepers, mixes with pagans. All of these were taken to be highly unsanitary things. He also sweeps away these taboos with his teachings. The solemnity with which he introduces his discourse on the pure and the impure makes apparent how conscious he was of the novelty of his doctrine. "And he called the people to him again and said to them: 'Hear me all of you and understand; there is nothing outside a man that by going into him can defile him. It is the things that come out of a man that can defile him.... For from within, out of the heart of a man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man'" (Mark 7:14-17,21-23)."

Jesus knew that the pharisees often preached a good game but that they failed to live up to what they preached. Which is why He told His listeners, "Do as they say, not as they do." Might not the same be said of the Democrats and the liberal mainstream media with its selective outrage?

Related reading here and here.

There was government surveillance of Trump and his team...

As noted here:

"Members of the Donald Trump transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under U.S. government surveillance following November’s presidential election, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday."

The so-called "mainstream media" is nothing more than a network of propagandists and manipulators who have succumbed to fanaticism.  In their zeal to manipulate the citizenry, they have abandoned any semblance of fairness and objectivity.  See here.

Then candidate and now President Donald Trump and his team were surveilled by the Obama administration.  See here.

But don't expect an apology from the propagandists and manipulators.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Why the mainstream media will not tell the truth about the homosexual movement

It should come as no surprise that The New YorkTimes published a 1,225-word obituary entitled "Harry Hay, Early Proponent of Gay Rights, Dies at 90."  For, as Dudley Clendinen wrote in this long eulogy, Hay was the founder of the Mattachine Society which, "proved to be the catalyst for the American gay rights movement." (Dudley Clendinen, "Harry Hay, Early Proponent of Gay Rights, Dies at 90," The New York Times, October 25, 2002).

Harry Hay, who deserted the Catholic Church after having homosexual relations at the age of 14 (with a sailor ten years his senior), was himself a proponent of man-boy sex and gave a speech at an October 7, 1984 conference of NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) in San Francisco.  See here.

Harry Hay spoke frequently at NAMBLA events and periodically came to the defense of the organization when other homosexual groups attempted to prevent it from partipating in "Gay Pride" parades.  See here.

So, one of the founders - some would say the founder - of the American "gay rights" movement, was a proponent of sexual relations between men and boys.  Why doesn't this trouble those in the mainstream media?  Because the mainstream media has bought fully into the radical homosexual agenda and is incapable of any objectivity whatsoever with regard to the subject of homosexuality.

This point is illustrated most eloquently in Phil Valentine's book entitled "The Conservative's Handbook."  Mr. Valentine notes that, "On September 26, 1999, thirteen-year-old Jesse Dirkhising was lured to the apartment of two gay men where he was repeatedly raped and then strangled to death, some reports say with his own underwear.  Where was the national outrage?  Here was a child  who was sodomized and murdered by two adult men and the mainstream media ignored it."  Mr. Valentine adds that the murder of Matthew Shepherd "sparked outrage across the country" because the mainstream media which virtually ignored the brutal rape and murder of little Jesse Dirkhising, "played up the crime and the subsequent call from the Left for federal hate-crime legislation to protect gays."

Then Mr. Valentine notes, "Unfortunately for little Jesse Dirkhising and his family, he doesn't fall into any protected group.  The crime against him wasn't based on race or religion or sexual orientation.  It was merely two deranged, perverted monsters who preyed upon an innocent little boy.  Was he any less dead than Matthew Shepherd?  There's no question that his death was more tragic - a young boy, repeatedly raped then killed.  Why did the media ignore it?  Because it didn't fit their definition of a politically correct story." (The Conservative's Handbook, p. 98).

But also because the mainstream media has its own agenda: to manipulate news to advance a liberal, pro-homosexualist ideology.  If two Catholic priests had sodomized and murdered little Jesse Dirkhising, the mainstream media would have covered the story for weeks if not months on end.  But because the perverted homosexual killers in question had no connection to the Church, the story was buried.

If a Catholic priest were to propagandize in favor of man-boy sex, the mainstream media would be "outraged" and would crucify the cleric without hesitation in countless editorials.  But because Harry Hay was a founder of the "gay rights" movement, his promotion of man-boy sex gets a "free pass."  Instead of rightly describing this pervert as a dangerous monster, he is celebrated by the mainstream media and eulogized as a champion of freedom and human rights.

The mainstream media doesn't want the American people to be fully informed about the homosexual movement.  For if they were, they would be rightly alarmed.

Sex between men and boys has long been a component of the sodomite culture.  See here.

Gardasil may not cause mental retardation but listening to mainstream media propaganda just might

By now most of you have heard how Michelle Bachmann, in criticizing Texas Governor Rick Perry for mandating that sixth grade girls in his state be vaccinated against HPV - a sexually transmitted disease that has been linked to the development of cervical cancer - implied that Gardasil could lead to mental retardation.  Granted that was a stupid thing to say.  But equally troubling is the response of the mainstream media to this fiasco.  In their zeal to denounce Bachmann, certain media types have ignored the fact that vaccination with Gardasil can have disastrous consequences.

According to Dr. Mercalo, "There have been a total of 47 deaths linked to Gardasil since it was brought to market in 2006, according to a press release issued by Judicial Watch, which says it has obtained records from the FDA. In 2008 alone 28 women and girls died after receiving Gardasil injections (up from 19 deaths in 2007). In all the FDA documented 6,723 adverse events related to Gardasil in 2008, of which 1,061 were considered "serious," and 142 considered "life threatening,” the group reported. Further, as Barbara Loe Fisher reported, by the summer of 2009 Gardasil had already caused more than 15,000 reports of vaccine reactions, including more than 3,000 injuries and 48 deaths.

However, it’s estimated that only between 1 percent and 10 percent of vaccine adverse events are ever reported, which means there could actually be anywhere from 150,000 to 1.5 million vaccine injuries related to Gardasil." (See here).

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has said that, "With cervical cancer causing about one percent of all cancer deaths in American women due to routine pap screening, it was inappropriate for the FDA to fast track Gardasil.  It is way too early to direct all young girls to get three doses of a vaccine that has not been proven safe or effective in their age group."
Reliable sources have reported that Governor Rick Perry has received $21,000 from Merck's political action committee.  See here.

Granted, Michelle Bachmann is not a scientist.  Her suggestion that Gardasil may be linked to mental retardation was simply wrong.  But far more disturbing is the attitude of the mainstream media to a vaccine which has been linked to serious injury and even death.

Disastrous consequences indeed!

Why the liberal mainstream media have more respect for Islam than Catholicism

David Quinn, writing for The Independent, notes how, "Criticisms of Catholicism, no matter how extreme, are now treated as mainstream and acceptable, but criticisms of Islam are seen as indications of bigotry."

This is all the more strange since, as Hilaire Belloc wrote in The Great Heresies, "Mohammedanism...began as a heresy, not as a new religion. It was not a pagan contrast with the Church; it was not an alien enemy. It was a perversion of Christian doctrine. It vitality and endurance soon gave it the appearance of a new religion, but those who were contemporary with its rise saw it for what it was not a denial, but an adaptation and a misuse, of the Christian thing. It differed from most (not from all) heresies in this, that it did not arise within the bounds of the Christian Church. The chief heresiarch, Mohammed himself, was not, like most heresiarchs, a man of Catholic birth and doctrine to begin with. He sprang from pagans. But that which he taught was in the main Catholic doctrine, oversimplified. It was the great Catholic world on the frontiers of which he lived, whose influence was all around him and whose territories he had known by travel_which inspired his convictions. He came of, and mixed with, the degraded idolaters of the Arabian wilderness, the conquest of which had never seemed worth the Romans' while.

He took over very few of those old pagan ideas which might have been native to him from his descent. On the contrary, he preached and insisted upon a whole group of ideas which were peculiar to the Catholic Church and distinguished it from the paganism which it had conquered in the Greek and Roman civilization. Thus the very foundation of his teaching was that prime Catholic doctrine, the unity and omnipotence of God. The attributes of God he also took over in the main from Catholic doctrine: the personal nature, the all-goodness, the timelessness, the providence of God, His creative power as the origin of all things, and His sustenance of
all things by His power alone. The world of good spirits and angels and of evil spirits in rebellion against God was a part of the teaching, with a chief evil spirit, such as Christendom had recognized. Mohammed preached with insistence that prime Catholic doctrine, on the human side the immortality of the soul and its responsibility for actions in this life, coupled with the consequent doctrine of punishment and reward after death.

If anyone sets down those points that orthodox Catholicism has in common with Mohammedanism, and those points only, one might imagine if one went no further that there should have been no cause of quarrel. Mohammed would almost seem in this aspect to be a sort of missionary, preaching and spreading by the energy of his character the chief and fundamental
doctrines of the Catholic Church among those who had hitherto been degraded pagans of the Desert. He gave to Our Lord the highest reverence, and to Our Lady also, for that matter. On the day of judgment (another Catholic idea which he taught) it was Our Lord, according to Mohammed, who would be the judge of mankind, not he, Mohammed. The Mother of Christ, Our Lady, "the Lady Miriam" was ever for him the first of womankind. His followers even got from the early fathers some vague hint of her Immaculate Conception.

But the central point where this new heresy struck home with a mortal blow against Catholic tradition was a full denial of the Incarnation. Mohammed did not merely take the first steps toward that denial, as the Arians and their followers had done; he advanced a clear affirmation, full and complete, against the whole doctrine of an incarnate God. He taught that Our Lord was the greatest of all the prophets, but still only a prophet: a man like other men. He eliminated the Trinity altogether.

With that denial of the Incarnation went the whole sacramental structure. He refused to know anything of the Eucharist, with its Real Presence; he stopped the sacrifice of the Mass, and therefore the institution of a special priesthood. In other words, he, like so many
other lesser heresiarchs, founded his heresy on simplification.

Catholic doctrine was true (he seemed to say), but it had become encumbered with false accretions; it had become complicated by needless man-made additions, including the idea that its founder was Divine, and the growth of a parasitical caste of priests who battened on a late, imagined, system of Sacraments which they alone could administer. All those corrupt accretions must be swept away.

There is thus a very great deal in common between the enthusiasm with which Mohammed's teaching attacked the priesthood, the Mass and the sacraments, and the enthusiasm with which Calvinism, the central motive force of the Reformation, did the same. As we all know, the new teaching relaxed the marriage laws but in practice this did not affect the mass of
his followers who still remained monogamous. It made divorce as easy as possible, for the sacramental idea of marriage disappeared. It insisted upon the equality of men, and it necessarily had that further factor in which it resembled Calvinism the sense of predestination, the sense of fate; of what the followers of John Knox were always calling 'the
immutable decrees of God.' Mohammed's teaching never developed among the mass of his
followers, or in his own mind, a detailed theology. He was content to accept all that appealed to him in the Catholic scheme and to reject all that seemed to him, and to so many others of his time, too complicated or mysterious to be true."

Islam is useful to those who wish to promote a humanitarian religion in which Christ is regarded merely as a man. The Incarnation must be rejected, the God-Man must be replaced by the man-God. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen warned:

"A common spirit will eventually bind all atheists together to produce the man-god, as there is a common spirit which unites those who live by Christ....The mere denial of God is not emptiness and a negation but the affirmation of man as God. It does not take a gift of prophecy to see that humanity is presently polarizing and that all men are beginning to fall into the ranks of accepting either the man-god or the God-Man." Much of the liberal mainstream media has a real hatred for the Catholic Church and Christianity in general. They view Christianity as no longer fit for "modern man," as a religion which must be purged of its dogmas and made to fit with a new order.

The Holy Spirit teaches us through the Apostle John that, "This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist that, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world." (1 John 4: 2-3).

Vatican II, in its Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) stated clearly that, "The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself, merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth....Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well a peace and freedom." (Nos 2-3).

The Church has shown herself willing to work with Moslems to promote peace. But increasingly people are coming to understand that the notion of a peaceful Islam is a chimera.

Related reading here.

Veiled threat from Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf?

Additional reading here.

Good Morning America does it again...

"To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful." - Edward R. Murrow.

The folks over at Good Morning America are at it again. Not long ago, anxious to discredit the Catholic Church with false accusations which had already been thoroughly refuted, GMA solicited the views of Father Richard P. McBrien regarding the sexual abuse scandal within the Church. See here. Before that, GMA's one-time host Diane Sawyer grilled John and Cindy McCain on abortion while Robin Roberts, who interviewed Barack and Michelle Obama, never broached the subject. See here.

But now that Senator Robert Byrd, the long-time Democratic Senator from West Virginia, has died, GMA has taken great pains to whitewash his past. This morning, while reviewing the Senator's life, hosts kept repeating - almost as a mantra - that his involvement with the Ku Klux Klan was "brief." As if to suggest his time with the Klan was merely a youthful indiscretion.

Hardly.

Senator Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1942 at the age of 24. He was elected top officer of his local chapter and would go on to hold the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops. If his involvement with the Klan was as "brief" as GMA asserts, then why is it that in 1944, a full two years after joining the Klan, Senator Byrd wrote a letter to Senator Theodore Bilbo saying that, "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side...Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this blessed land of ours degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

And, in a letter to a Grand Wizard written two or three years later (1946 or 1947), Senator Byrd wrote, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation." (See here). And yet, GMA assures us that his time with the Klan was "brief." If a Republican politician had such a history, and had expounded such views, GMA - and the rest of the liberal media - would engage in a sort of public crucifixion. But there was absolutely no mention of these comments. Instead, GMA downplayed the Senator's involvement with the hate group.

Of course, when Dan Quayle misspelled the word potato, GMA - and the same liberal media - were all over the incident. Although this incident occurred back in 1992, ABC News still has a post online detailing what happened. See here.

There you have it, Dan Quayle's misspelling of potato is a big deal to MSM liberals. But a Democrat who belonged to the Klan for years, referred to African-Americans as "mongrels," and who expressed his desire to see the rebirth of the hate group "in every state in the nation," is beyond criticism.

GMA is an embarassment to authentic journalism.

Washington Post: Pope did not impede defrocking of priest...

No kidding. Other MSM outlets need to apologize for their rush to judgment. Their credibility is now in crisis.


"To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful."

"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."

- Edward R. Murrow.

A Dominican puts things in perspective...

From The Tablet:

Should I stay or should I go?
Clerical-abuse scandal
Timothy Radcliffe


As the scandal of child sexual abuse and its cover-up swirls around the Church, some Catholics are considering their options as regards their very membership of the institution. Here a former Master of the Dominicans explains why the Church is stuck with him, whatever happens

Fresh revelations of sexual abuse by priests in Germany and Italy have provoked a tide of anger and disgust. I have received emails from people all around Europe asking how can they possibly remain in the Church? I was even sent a form with which to renounce my membership of the Church. Why stay?

First of all, why go? Some people feel that they can no longer remain associated with an institution that is so corrupt and dangerous for children. The suffering of so many children is indeed horrific. They must be our first concern. Nothing that I will write is intended in any way to lessen our horror at the evil of sexual abuse. But the statistics for the US, from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2004, suggest that Catholic clergy do not offend more than the married clergy of other Churches.

Some surveys even give a lower level of offence for Catholic priests. They are less likely to offend than lay school teachers, and perhaps half as likely as the general population. Celibacy does not push people to abuse children. It is simply untrue to imagine that leaving the Church for another denomination would make one’s children safer. We must face the terrible fact that the abuse of children is widespread in every part of society. To make the Church the scapegoat would be a cover-up.

But what about the cover-up within the Church? Have not our bishops been shockingly irresponsible in moving offenders around, not reporting them to the police and so perpetuating the abuse? Yes, sometimes. But the great majority of these cases go back to the 1960s and 1970s, when bishops often regarded sexual abuse as a sin rather than also a pathological condition, and when lawyers and psychologists often reassured them that it was safe to reassign priests after treatment. It is unjust to project backwards an awareness of the nature and seriousness of sexual abuse which simply did not exist then. It was only the rise of feminism in the late 1970s which, by shedding light on the violence of some men against women, alerted us to the terrible damage done to vulnerable children.

But what about the Vatican? Pope Benedict has taken a strong line in tackling this issue as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and since becoming Pope. Now the finger is pointed at him. It appears that some cases reported to the CDF under his watch were not dealt with. Isn’t the Pope’s credibility undermined? There are demonstrators in front of St Peter’s calling for his resignation. I am morally certain that he bears no blame here.

It is generally imagined that the Vatican is a vast and efficient organisation. In fact it is tiny. The CDF only employs 45 people, dealing with doctrinal and disciplinary issues for a Church which has 1.3 billion members, 17 per cent of the world’s population, and some 400,000 priests. When I dealt with the CDF as Master of the Dominican Order, it was obvious that they were struggling to cope. Documents slipped through the cracks. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger lamented to me that the staff was simply too small for the job.

People are furious with the Vatican’s failure to open up its files and offer a clear explanation of what happened. Why is it so secretive? Angry and hurt Catholics feel a right to transparent government. I agree. But we must, in justice, understand why the Vatican is so self-protective. There were more martyrs in the twentieth century than in all the previous centuries combined. Bishops and priests, Religious and laity were assassinated in Western Europe, in Soviet countries, in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Many Catholics still suffer imprisonment and death for their faith. Of course, the Vatican tends to stress confidentiality; this has been necessary to protect the Church from people who wish to destroy her. So it is understandable that the Vatican reacts aggressively to demands for transparency and will read legitimate requests for openness as a form of persecution. And some people in the media do, without any doubt, wish to damage the credibility of the Church.*

But we owe a debt of gratitude to the press for its insistence that the Church face its failures. If it had not been for the media, then this shameful abuse might have remained unaddressed.

Confidentiality is also a consequence of the Church’s insistence on the right of everyone accused to keep their good name until they are proved to be guilty. This is very hard for our society to understand, whose media destroy people’s reputations without a thought.

Why go? If it is to find a safer haven, a less corrupt Church, then I think that you will be disappointed. I too long for more transparent government, more open debate, but the Church’s secrecy is understandable, and sometimes necessary. To understand is not always to condone, but necessary if we are to act justly.

Why stay? I must lay my cards on the table; even if the Church were obviously worse than other Churches, I still would not go. I am not a Catholic because our Church is the best, or even because I like Catholicism. I do love much about my Church but there are aspects of it which I dislike. I am not a Catholic because of a consumer option for an ecclesiastical Waitrose rather than Tesco, but because I believe that it embodies something which is essential to the Christian witness to the Resurrection, visible unity.

When Jesus died, his community fell apart. He had been betrayed, denied, and most of his disciples fled. It was chiefly the women who accompanied him to the end. On Easter Day, he appeared to the disciples. This was more than the physical resuscitation of a dead corpse.

In him God triumphed over all that destroys community: sin, cowardice, lies, misunderstanding, suffering and death. The Resurrection was made visible to the world in the astonishing sight of a community reborn. These cowards and deniers were gathered together again. They were not a reputable bunch, and shamefaced at what they had done, but once again they were one. The unity of the Church is a sign that all the forces that fragment and scatter are defeated in Christ.

All Christians are one in the Body of Christ. I have deepest respect and affection for Christians from other Churches who nurture and inspire me. But this unity in Christ needs some visible embodiment. Christianity is not a vague spirituality but a religion of incarnation, in which the deepest truths take the physical and sometimes institutional form. Historically this unity has found its focus in Peter, the Rock in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the shepherd of the flock in John’s gospel.

From the beginning and throughout history, Peter has often been a wobbly rock, a source of scandal, corrupt, and yet this is the one – and his successors – whose task is to hold us together so that we may witness to Christ’s defeat on Easter Day of sin’s power to divide. And so the Church is stuck with me whatever happens. We may be embarrassed to admit that we are Catholics, but Jesus kept shameful company from the beginning.

* Such as The New York Times.

Many people are using this scandal as an excuse to attack Christ's Church. There is indeed a cleansing taking place within the Church. But those who would gloat should instead be offering prayer and reparation. For "the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if the righteous man is scarcely saved, where will the impious and sinner appear?" (2 Peter 4: 17, 18).

Indeed in our time impious men have condoned the worst form of child abuse: abortion, the killing of these innocents. What will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Our Lady told Sister Agnes Sasagawa on October 13, 1973, the actual anniversary of the final visions and miracle of Fatima, "As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day, recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and the priests. The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, and bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their Confreres. The Church and altars will be vandalized. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord."

Judgment has begun with the household of God. Let him who has ears heed what the Spirit is saying.

Sign the Letter of Support for Pope Benedict XVI

For background on the controversy, read Fr. Euteneuer's excellent response here. And the Holy Father's statement on condoms here.

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


"Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection." (Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae, No. 17).


* See here for example.

"All these I shall give to you..."

"Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, 'All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.' At this, Jesus said to him, 'Get away, Satan! It is written: 'The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.'" (Matthew 4: 8-10).

"Matthew and Luke recount three temptations of Jesus that reflect the inner struggle over his own particular mission and, at the same time, address the question as to what truly matters in human life. At the heart of all temptations, as we see here, is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives. Constructing a world by our own lights*, without reference to God, building on our own foundation; refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and material, while setting God aside as an illusion - that is the temptation that threatens us in many varied forms." (Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 28).

As Christians who strive to live a holy and authentic life in the Lord Jesus, there is something which becomes immediately apparent as we survey this broken world. And it is this: while as disciples of the Lord we receive the power of God and His gifts which include wisdom and fortitude (courage), often we are hesitant or slow to do good or when we do choose to do good we meet almost constant opposition. By contrast, those who receive the power of the devil appear to be tireless in their activities as they work frenetically to discover new ways of doing evil or deceiving others and everything seems to come to them very easily.**

There is an important spiritual lesson here. The world we live in is under the dominion of Satan, the "Prince of this world." When we witness an individual achieve outstanding success without any real setbacks, opposition or persecution, there is a very real possibility that such a person is an adept of the Prince of this world and is receiving his "gifts": "All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me." By contrast, often lack of success and persecution are sure signs that one really stands for God.

Soloviev, in his Tale of the Antichrist, describes all of the worldly success of the Antichrist and describes this outstanding success as being driven by some superhuman force. This is most interesting since Daily Kos has described Senator Obama's success thusly: "Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all," and one individual who left a comment at this Blog wrote, "There are unseen forces behind Obama's meteoric rise to fame and prominence. How else can we explain his rise to world fame from nowhere? Most of us never even heard of this man until a couple of years ago. And 458 million raised in campaign monies? This is nothing short of startling. Now people all over are heralding him as a new "Christ" and a new Messiah."

And, in an article written before the third presidential debate and entitled "Analysis Shows Mainstream Media Silent on Barack Obama's Pro-Abortion Views," Rich Noyes wrote: "Two of the three presidential debates have now passed without either candidate being asked about abortion, an issue that nearly four out of ten voters said was 'very important' to them, according to an August Pew survey. What makes the abortion issue especially salient this campaign year is Barack Obama’s extremely liberal record — which may also explain why the big broadcast networks have practically avoided the subject. TV reporters barely mentioned Obama’s pro-abortion stance during the primaries — from the launch of his candidacy in January 2007 through the end of the primaries in June 2008, just six out of 1,289 network evening news stories about Obama (0.46%) mentioned his position on abortion; none discussed it in any detail."

The Mainstream Media has done its best to propagandize for the Obama campaign (read here for example), while ignoring critical issues which reflect on Senator Obama's character and that of his running mate Senator Joseph Biden. Read here and here and here for example.

What does all of this indicate to us? What does it mean? What do you think?

* "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." - Senator Barack Obama.

** This should not, of course, lead us to envy (which St. Augustine calls the diabolical sin). Instead we should reflect prayerfully on the words of Jesus as given in the eighth chapter of Mark verse 36: "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?"

Related reading: http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2008/10/secular-messiah.html