Francis: There is no God of War and hope always comes through defeat

God, Francis assures us, "..does not like to be loved the way a warlord would like, dragging his people to victory, debasing them in the blood of his enemies....Our God is a dim flame that burns on a cold and windy day....Whoever reads the Bible will not find stories of easy heroism, blazing campaigns of conquest. True hope never comes cheap — it always comes through defeat.”

Really?  Revelation 19: 11-21:


Then I saw the heavens opened, and there was a white horse; its rider was [called] “Faithful and True.” He judges and wages war in righteousness. His eyes were [like] a fiery flame, and on his head were many diadems. He had a name inscribed that no one knows except himself. He wore a cloak that had been dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God. The armies of heaven followed him, mounted on white horses and wearing clean white linen. Out of his mouth came a sharp sword to strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod, and he himself will tread out in the wine press the wine of the fury and wrath of God the almighty. He has a name written on his cloak and on his thigh, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Then I saw an angel standing on the sun. He cried out [in] a loud voice to all the birds flying high overhead, “Come here. Gather for God’s great feast, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of military officers, and the flesh of warriors, the flesh of horses and of their riders, and the flesh of all, free and slave, small and great.” Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered to fight against the one riding the horse and against his army. The beast was caught and with it the false prophet who had performed in its sight the signs by which he led astray those who had accepted the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped its image. The two were thrown alive into the fiery pool burning with sulfur. The rest were killed by the sword that came out of the mouth of the one riding the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh."

This isn't the first time that Francis has advanced a distorted notion of Jesus as some sort of moronic hippy who is a pacifist.

Last Fall, Francis asserted that, "There is no god of war."

Wrong.


Exodus 15: 3-8:

"The Lord is a warrior, Lord is his name! Pharaoh’s chariots and army he hurled into the sea; the elite of his officers were drowned in the Red Sea. The flood waters covered them, they sank into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, magnificent in power, your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy. In your great majesty you overthrew your adversaries; you loosed your wrath to consume them like stubble. At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up, the flowing waters stood like a mound, the flood waters foamed in the midst of the sea."

Isaiah 42:13:

The Lord goes forth like a warrior,
like a man of war he stirs up his fury;
He shouts out his battle cry,
against his enemies he shows his might."

Deuteronomy 33:27:

The God of old is a refuge;
a support are the arms of the Everlasting. He drove the enemy out of your way and he said, “Destroy!”

In Matthew 10: 34-36, Jesus explains that He will be a cause of division, because not everyone is open to Him Who is Truth:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household.’"

"And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. But the one who restrains is to do so only for the present, until he is removed from the scene. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord (Jesus) will kill with the breath of his mouth and render powerless by the manifestation of his coming, the one whose coming springs from the power of Satan in every mighty deed and in signs and wonders that lie, and in every wicked deceit for those who are perishing because they have not accepted the love of truth so that they may be saved. Therefore, God is sending them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie, that all who have not believed the truth but have approved wrongdoing may be condemned." (2 Thessalonians 2: 6-12).


This scriptural passage is most important. For here Paul emphasizes that the power of the Antichrist is one of seduction. Antichrist is a seducer who seeks to draw people away from the truth. He will work from within religion to seduce people to abandon traditional Christianity and to worship him. How effective will he be? Father Livio Fanzaga, commenting on The Antichrist by Vladimir Soloviev, writes, "So great is the Antichrist's power of seduction over believers - and they never realize it - that he will openly pose as the savior and restorer of religion and universal peace. He will deceive many."


But a tiny remnant will remain faithful. As Pope Paul VI said, "It is enough if only a tiny flock, no matter how small, survives." These words are sobering and should speak loudly to us. Father Fanzaga continues, "In Soloviev, the remnant is defined by recognition of Jesus Christ, 'Himself and all that comes from Him. This is their total horizon and the inexhaustible meaning of life. The tiny flock is not made up of the avant guard intelligentsia - the intellectuals and the theologians have joined the emperor. Neither are they defined in terms of a moral code. Rather they are those who refuse to serve two masters.' I tend to regard them as ordinary people, the humble and those who remain faithful." (The Wrath of God, p. 33).


Pope Benedict XVI, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in an essay entitled, "A Final Reflection: Soloviev's vision of eschatological unity," reminds us that: "..the Antichrist has his followers, and always even among those occupying the highest spiritual offices.....Therefore, we should already, and always, be motivated by concern lest, with big Christian words and wrapped in a cloak of Christianity, we become servants of the Antichrist, who wants to set up his kingdom in this world and to render the future kingdom of Christ redundant."

The Antichrist will tell us that Jesus has failed to put an end to violence but that he alone can promise "universal peace."

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).

The False Prophet is doing his work.  Just as the Baptist paved the way for the God-Man Christ Jesus, so the Masonic False Prophet is paving the way for the man-god (John 5:43).

"For know that there are priests being trained and formed....to infiltrate the Church, to spread false teachings in order to corrupt and ruin the Church.."

Rita Biesemans, in a comment left at this Blog dealing with masonic infiltration of the Catholic Church, had this to say: "When I was in 2nd year High School Latin-Greek Humanities in a nun-run boarding school in the 1950's, we had the 'Spekpater' (the "Bacon Priest") preaching during one of our yearly retreat weeks. One day he told us : 'For know that there are priests being trained and formed at the KRIM (Russia) to infiltrate the Church, to spread false teachings in order to corrupt and ruin the Church.' This made such an impact and impression on my soul that I will never forget it."

Anatoliy Golitsyn, the former KGB officer and counterintelligence agent, in his book entitled "The Perestroika Deception," warned that: "They [the Soviets] intend...to induce the Americans to adopt their own 'restructuring' and convergence of the Soviet and American systems using to this end the fear of nuclear conflict...Convergence will be accompanied by blood baths and political re-education camps in Western Europe and the United States. The Soviet Strategists are counting on an economic depression in the United States and intend to introduce their reformed model of socialism with a human face as an alternative to the American system during the depression." (Anatoliy Golitsyn, The Perestroika Deception, 1990).


Golitsyn defected to the West and spent many years attempting to warn the West of long-range Soviet plans.  In 1954, H. Rowan Gaither, who served as President of the Ford Foundation, told Norman Dodd of the Congressional Reese Commission that, "...all of us here at the policy-making level have had experience with directives...from the White House....The substance of them is that we shall use our grant-making power so as to alter our life in the United States that we can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union."

Now, some of you might be thinking: What is the connection?  There is a fundamental opposition of Communist principles to those of Freemasonry.  The Freemason believes in man but the Communist believes only in the Party, in the State.

Not so according to the Vatican.  Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Letter Humanum Genus, teaches that:

"In the sphere of politics, the Naturalists lay down that all men have the same rights and that all are equal and alike in every respect; that everyone is by nature free and independent; that no one has the right to exercise authority over another; that it is an act of violence to demand of men obedience to any authority not emanating from themselves.  All power is, therefore, in the free people.  Those who exercise authority do so either by the mandate or permission of the people, so that, when the popular will changes, rulers of State may lawfully be deposed even against their will.  The source of all rights and civic duties is held to reside either in the multitude or in the ruling power of the State, provided that it has been constituted according to the new principles.  They hold also that the State should not acknowledge God and that, out of the various forms of religion, there is no reason why one should be preferred to another.  According to them, all should be on the same level. [This is why the Creed will eventually have to go, see my last post]."

Pope Leo XIII continues:

"Now, that these views are held by the Freemasons also, and that they want to set up States constituted according to this ideal, is too well known to be in need of proof.   For a long time they have been openly striving with all their strength and with all the resources at their command to bring this about.  They thus prepare the way for those numerous and more reckless spirits who, in their mad desire to arrive at equality and common ownership of goods, are ready to hurl society into an even worse condition, by the destruction of all distinctions of rank and property....In thi mad and wicked design, the implacable hatred and thirst for vengeance with which Satan is animated against Our Lord Jesus Christ becomes almost visible to our bodily eyes."

Later on, in the same Encyclical Letter, Pope Leo XIII adds:

"From the anti-social character of the errors we have mentioned, it is clear that the greatest dangers are to be feared for States.  For once the fear of God and the reverence due to His laws have been taken away, the authority of rulers treated with contempt, free reign and approval given to sedition, popular passions recklessly fanned, and all restraining influences eliminated except the fear of punishment, then there will necessarily follow a revolutionary upheaval and a period of wholesale destruction of existing institutions...A complete change and upheaval of this kind is being carefully prepared by numerous associations of Communists and Socialists, in fact, it is their openly avowed aim; and Freemasonry is not only not opposed to their plans, but looks upon them with the greatest favour, as its leading principles are identical with theirs.  If the Freemasons do not immediately and everywhere proceed to realise the ultimate conclusions contained in these principles, this is not because they are restrained by the discipline of the organization or by lack of determination, but partly on account of the power and virtue of that divine religion which cannot be crushed out of existence, and partly because the more balanced part of mankind are unwilling to sink into slavery under the domination of secret societies, and offer vigorous resistance to their insane endeavours."

This is why ecclesiastical masonry has infiltrated the Church.  The Church cannot be destroyed from without.  External persecution only serves to make her stronger.  The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church as Tertullian reminded us.  Ecclesiastical masonry is Freemasonry which has infiltrated the Church with the goal of subverting her from within by questioning all traditional doctrines and remaking the Church into the image and likeness of man.

It was Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski who warned, back in June of 1963, that "It is not the Communists whom we fear.  What fills us with anguish is the spectacle of false brethren."  Here the great Cardinal was warning of those modern-day Judases who, instead of openly attacking the Church, seek to infiltrate and penetrate her in order to introduce and impose humanitarian, naturalistic and anti-traditional ideas.
And so, while Francis has indicated that he will not listen to or dialogue with Catholics loyal to the perennial teaching of the Church, that he won't "bow" to "ultra conservatives," we see who does have his ear: Sodomites and others committed to the Church's destruction.  Men of evil will who expect the teaching of Christ to conform to that of the world.

"..My sheep are scattered because there is no shepherd."

Demonic forces continue their push to homosexualize the Church and corrupt her from within.  As explained here, "On the heels of a historic victory in the United States for same-sex marriage, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics say it’s time for the church to make more history. Gay and transgender believers want the church to embrace their cause.

Pope Francis in September will make his first visit to the United States, where a large group of LGBT parishioners will be pushing for a meeting with the pontiff, the New York Times reported. When the pope comes to Philadelphia Sept. 26-27 for the Pontifical Council for the Family, LGBT Catholics are expected to ask the pope to speak out on issues that are dividing the American branch of the church, such as same-sex marriage and transgender rights."

Thus far, Pope Francis has remained silent over the "Supreme Court's" decision legalizing same-sex "marriage." He also met this month with an active homosexual who rejects the Church's teaching while agitating for change in her doctrine.  See here.

Saint Peter Damian, a Doctor of the Church, in his classic treatise The Book of Gomorrah, says that, the vice of sodomy "surpasses the enormity of all others," because:

"Without fail, it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust. It leads to error, totally removes truth from the deluded mind ... It opens up hell and closes the gates of paradise ... It is this vice that violates temperance, slays modesty, strangles chastity, and slaughters virginity ... It defiles all things, sullies all things, pollutes all things ...
"This vice excludes a man from the assembled choir of the Church ... it separates the soul from God to associate it with demons. This utterly diseased queen of Sodom renders him who obeys the laws of her tyranny infamous to men and odious to God. She strips her knights of the armor of virtue, exposing them to be pierced by the spears of every vice ... She humiliates her slave in the church and condemns him in court; she defiles him in secret and dishonors him in public; she gnaws at his conscience like a worm and consumes his flesh like fire. ... this unfortunate man (he) is deprived of all moral sense, his memory fails, and the mind's vision is darkened. Unmindful of God, he also forgets his own identity. This disease erodes the foundation of faith, saps the vitality of hope, dissolves the bond of love. It makes way with justice, demolishes fortitude, removes temperance, and blunts the edge of prudence."

When Francis comes to America later this year, will he bring these truths or will he devilishly claim, "Who am I to judge" while retreating into silence and once more leaving the sheep without a Shepherd?

His predecessor, Saint Pope John Paul II The Great, in his book entitled "Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way," makes abundantly clear, "The responsibilities that weigh on a bishop's shoulders are many." (p. 93). He cites St. Augustine's long sermon "On the Shepherds" writing that, "With reference to the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, the bishop of Hippo strongly rebukes evil shepherds, who are concerned not for the sheep but only for themselves. 'Let us see how the word of God, that flatters no one, addresses the shepherds who are feeding themselves, not the sheep. You take the milk, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed my sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought; any strong one you have killed; and My sheep are scattered because there is no shepherd.'" (pp. 63,64).

Pope Francis: This is why there cannot be any authentic dialogue with Islam

In his Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam Suam, Pope Paul VI told us that, "The Church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it lives. It has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make." (No. 65).

The Holy Father goes on to say that, "Dialogue, therefore, is a recognized method of the apostolate. It is a way of making spiritual contact. It should however have the following characteristics:

1) Clarity before all else; the dialogue demands that what is said should be intelligible. We can think of it as a kind of thought transfusion. It is an invitation to the exercise and development of the highest spiritual and mental powers a man possesses. This fact alone would suffice to make such dialogue rank among the greatest manifestations of human activity and culture. In order to satisfy this first requirement, all of us who feel the spur of the apostolate should examine closely the kind of speech we use. Is it easy to understand? Can it be grasped by ordinary people? Is it current idiom?

2) Our dialogue must be accompanied by that meekness which Christ bade us learn from Himself: "Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart." It would indeed be a disgrace if our dialogue were marked by arrogance, the use of bared words or offensive bitterness. What gives it its authority is the fact that it affirms the truth, shares with others the gifts of charity, is itself an example of virtue, avoids peremptory language, makes no demands. It is peaceful, has no use for extreme methods, is patient under contradiction and inclines towards generosity. 

3) Confidence is also necessary; confidence not only in the power of one's own words, but also in the good will of both parties to the dialogue. Hence dialogue promotes intimacy and friendship on both sides. It unites them in a mutual adherence to the Good, and thus excludes all self-seeking.

4) Finally, the prudence of a teacher who is most careful to make allowances for the psychological and moral circumstances of his hearer, particularly if he is a child, unprepared, suspicious or hostile. The person who speaks is always at pains to learn the sensitivities of his audience, and if reason demands it, he adapts himself and the manner of his presentation to the susceptibilities and the degree of intelligence of his hearers....In a dialogue conducted with this kind of foresight, truth is wedded to charity and understanding to love." (Nos. 81, 82).

As faithful Catholics, we must recognize and embrace these characteristics of authentic dialogue, even when our partners in dialogue refuse to accept these principles. For we will often encounter those who have succumbed to relativism or who do not possess a love of objective truth. For such people, the purpose of dialogue is not to attain truth but rather to achieve personal victory and to triumph at any cost. As Dr. Montague Brown explains in his wonderful book "The One-Minute Philosopher" (Sophia Institute Books): "An argument (emotional, not rational) is a disorderly confrontation based on an unwillingness to learn from one another. Desire for victory takes precedence over love of truth, with the result that agreement becomes impossible....in an argument, I simply want my position to be the right one and you to agree with me. I am, indeed, looking for agreement, but on my terms, not in terms of objective truth." (p. 33). An authentic dialogue (which such people are not really interested in) is, "..an orderly confrontation based on a mutual willingness to learn from one another. It involves the presentation of evidence by each party and then a good-faith attempt of the participants in the discussion to come to agreement...In a discussion [or dialogue], I do not primarily want to disagree: I want to know the truth.." (The One-Minute Philosopher, p. 32).

It was Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint, No. 36, who said, "There must be charity toward one's partner in dialogue, and humility with regard to the truth which comes to light and which might require a review of assertions and attitudes."

In order for dialogue to be authentic, all parties involved must be charitable toward others in the dialogue and possess humility with regard to the demands of truth.

As Franklin Graham just said on Facebook, "..followers of Islam are raping, butchering, and beheading Christians, Jews, and anyone who doesn't submit to their Sharia Islamic law." Clearly one cannot dialogue with such people.  Anyone who believes differently is simply not in touch with reality.

Those who attempt to argue, as Pope Francis has, that there is nothing inherently violent about Islam, are being dishonest.  As this website correctly notes, "The strangest and most untrue thing that can be said about Islam is that it is a Religion of Peace.  If every standard by which the West is judged and condemned (slavery, imperialism, intolerance, misogyny, sexual repression, warfare...) were applied equally to Islam, the verdict would be devastating.  Islam never gives up what it conquers, be it religion, culture, language or life.  Neither does it make apologies or any real effort at moral progress.  It is the least open to dialogue and the most self-absorbed.  It is convinced of its own perfection, yet brutally shuns self-examination and represses criticism.

This is what makes the Quran's verses of violence so dangerous.  They are given the weight of divine command.  While Muslim terrorists take them as literally as anything else in their holy book, and understand that Islam is incomplete without Jihad, moderates offer little to contradict them - outside of opinion.  Indeed, what do they have?  Speaking of peace and love may win over the ignorant, but when every twelfth verse of Islam's holiest book either speaks to Allah's hatred for non-Muslims or calls for their death, forced conversion, or subjugation, it's little wonder that sympathy for terrorism runs as deeply as it does in the broader community - even if most Muslims personally prefer not to interpret their religion in this way."

There are no obstacles we can't overcome in His Holy Name!

Brian Hudon, a faithful Catholic blogger loyal to the Church's Magisterium, notes that, "It's a given that the Catholic Church is in decline in the United States of America. The priesthood is aging, the average age of those who attend mass on a regular basis is rapidly increasing and there are nearly none to replace the members of either group. The Church in America is dying and no one will be left the remember it. How did this happen? You might think you know, or perhaps you think you don't, but the answers are more painfully obvious than anyone would believe and in many cases, will be more than unpopular.

A mess has been created in the Catholic Church in America. Note than I said the Catholic Church in America, not the Catholic Church of America or the American Catholic Church as there are no such things as those. But therein lies the problem. Catholics who are American have for too long attempted to put their trademark upon the Catholic Church in America, not realizing the Catholic Church is not only a foreign presence in the United States, but a foreign presence in the world. We here are exiles in the world.

Let us be clear, the Catholic Church is the one true visible presence of Jesus Christ's authority on earth. The Bible comes from the Catholic Church, Catholic meaning universal only, the one true Church founded by Christ. We do not believe in Jesus because of the Bible. We trust in the veracity of the Bible because of the authority of the Church. The Catholic Church, and the Church alone, through the authority of the Apostles of Christ's Church on earth decided what was in the Bible. We used to believe and profess this.

Unfortunately, we have now come to profess, as the lapsed Catholics we have become, that Catholicism is a faith rather than the faith. In a true syncretistic style, many believe all religions now, are more or less the same. Many foolishly and falsely believe we all worship the same God, if only differently. While even popes warn of the danger of "New Age" there is nothing more "new age" than radical ecumenism, if in fact there is ever any ecumenism that is not radical, or rather a type of veiled shame of being Catholic.

And so, we might have our children baptized, and as often have them receive first communion, and now seldom see them confirmed. Parents if they even attend mass from week to week and often don't, do not require their children to attend weekly mass as God requires them to. We allow our children to marry non-Catholics and often marry outside the Catholic faith, even while they continue to receive communion while never attending confession. And we think this all kosher because they are good people.

The marines may be looking for a few good men, but God is looking for valid Catholics, in all human persons, who live their lives in the sacraments of Holy Mother Church. Christ is right when he says the road to the kingdom of heaven is narrow and few there are who will find it. Very few we might fear. Should we believe otherwise is to call Jesus Christ a liar. But we often do that anyhow, even while desecrating and profaning the very sacraments we choose not to believe while making empty public professions.

The Creed of the Church is what we believe. It is not what what we wish for. It is not a menu. When we say "I believe" we must mean "I believe" even if we do not understand. All else that is contrary to this makes us enemies of the son of the living God, his Father in heaven and the Holy Spirit. God needs our opinions and personal beliefs no more than the earth requires our opinions of gravity when we trip and fall violently to the ground. The Creed is the physics of Catholic thinking and is not subject to opinion polls.

Among the worst forms of offense against God and the Church are in matters of sexual morality. The first directive of God in all of human history was to be fruitful. We are not however fruitful. Far from it, we are quite barren, a situation that has led directly to the current crisis in the Church. We as a Catholic people are largely producing chaff, the very chaff that the threshers will burn in unquenchable fire. Man commits few offenses so grave as impurity and contraception which produce no heirs for the Gospel.

The Church with regularity prays for vocations as it should, but it does not ask why the garden of Catholic living does not produce bountiful harvests.* Why are the fields dry and the produce so little? Why? Illegitimate births, birth control, pre-marital sex, abortion, divorce and perhaps the thing most deadly to the Church, the loveless marriage that finds no conjugal unity and procreative love in marriage which finds strength and nourishment in the sacraments of the Church. And what of this? Marriage dies without God.

A Church without sons is a Church without priests. A Church without sons is a Church without priests and a Church without sacraments. Before all things Jesus Christ, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, was a son. A Church without sons, dies. He was a son before all things in his last words, made his most faithful disciple at the Cross a son of his own mother, Mary and made her a mother again. Be fruitful God says to the first man and woman and we have not been and the Church thus withers gravely.

I had the opportunity to deliver a much abbreviated version of these concerns to the Bishop of my own diocese this past July. A Church without sons, a Church without family, has no future I told him and a room of some 70 people. Now that has come to fruition as we have been formally informed to expect changes in the Church. The fear is a logical and likely one and inevitable. There are going to be fewer priests and as a result, fewer masses. The end result will be unmistakable, even less mass attendance.

The template here is clear. The destruction of the Catholic family leads to the destruction of the Catholic Church. Like water in the hot sun the faithful will gather into ever fewer and smaller pools to face the world alone under the brutal hot sun of faithlessness, relativism, ecumenism, and sterility. Some, lukewarm, may be soaked up by the protestant residual, but many will simply resume life without God. Hardcore faith rooted in the Tradition and sacraments of the Church will become ever more the exception, than the rule.

Consider the attacks of the world upon faith, public mockery of Catholicism, false claims of science and reason, the propaganda of the culture of death including forms of artificial forms of conception, euthanasia, radical feminism, the homosexual movement, alternate forms of so-called marriage, pornography and near legal and state sanctioned forms of religious discrimination against Catholics by a rogue American state and the road to the kingdom of heaven becomes all the more narrow and difficult to navigate.

I am not proposing solutions. I am not making wild unsubstantiated suppositions. I am simply telling you the time of the day. 50 years of post-Vatican II dissolution of the Liturgy and sacramental life, of rampant birth control, cohabitation, divorce, abortion and timid ecumenism have eviscerated the Catholic faith. Lump on top of this weak and absent catechesis, rote and thoughtless reception of our Lord in Eucharistic communion without repentance in the sacrament of confession and you have a recipe for spiritual disaster."

 

Brian Hudon is doing what Vatican II instructs us to do as Catholics.  For the Council reminded us that we have a duty to clean up every environment where sin and injustice have found a home.  And this includes the local Church.  The Council said, "...the faithful must strive, as much as they can, to clean up the world's institutions and environments, if in some manner they incite to sin, in such a way that they come to conform to the principles of justice, and favour more than they impede the practice of the virtues."

 

Why does the evil in our midst continue to grow unchecked?  Because good men and women have become afraid.  It was Sir Edmund Burke who said that, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

But excessive conformism has led to the passive acceptance of evils which are fatal for the life of the Church and which fearful and timid Catholics now view as unavoidable.  The challenge, as I see it, is for Christians to once again pray for the Cardinal Virtue of Fortitude. Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat. I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. (Phil 4:13). These words are engraved on a bracelet which I wear. Do we really believe this? Or do we let others define who we are?


Issue the battle cry! Let's take back our cities!  Let's say "enough" to the "Culture of Death," the "Cult of Softness," the radical homosexual agenda, New Age Gnosticism, and all the other myriad evils which have infected Holy Mother Church.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Spirit within us is NOT a spirit of fear!  Now is the time to act if we want to imprint the Christian character on every environment we encounter.  If we fail to rise up to this challenge, the tears of the next generation will be the fruit of our complacency and cowardice.

Is this what we want for the next generation?

*  See here. 

"..there is in preparation a true schism which could soon become open and proclaimed.."

Gary Gutting, who teaches philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has declared in the New York Times that the faithful "decide the nature and extent of episcopal authority" and what is moral or immoral.  He writes, "...haven’t the members of the Catholic Church recognized their bishops as having full and sole authority to determine the teachings of the Church? By no means. There was, perhaps, a time when the vast majority of Catholics accepted the bishops as having an absolute right to define theological and ethical doctrines. Those days, if they ever existed, are long gone. Most Catholics — meaning, to be more precise, people who were raised Catholic or converted as adults and continue to take church teachings and practices seriously — now reserve the right to reject doctrines insisted on by their bishops and to interpret in their own way the doctrines that they do accept. This is above all true in matters of sexual morality, especially birth control, where the majority of Catholics have concluded that the teachings of the bishops do not apply to them. Such “reservations” are an essential constraint on the authority of the bishops.


The bishops and the minority of Catholics who support their full authority have tried to marginalize Catholics who do not accept the bishops as absolute arbiters of doctrine. They speak of 'cafeteria Catholics' or merely 'cultural Catholics,' and imply that the only 'real Catholics' are those who accept their teachings entirely. But this marginalization begs the question I’m raising about the proper source of the judgment that the bishops have divine authority. Since, as I’ve argued, members of the church are themselves this source, it is not for the bishops but for the faithful to decide the nature and extent of episcopal authority. The bishops truly are, as they so often say, 'servants of the servants of the Lord.'

It may be objected that, regardless of what individual Catholics think, the bishops in fact exercise effective control over the church. This is true in many respects, but only to the extent that members of the church accept their authority. Stalin’s alleged query about papal authority ('How many divisions does the Pope have?') expresses more than just cynical realpolitik. The authority of the Catholic bishops is enforceable morally but not militarily or politically. It resides entirely in the fact that people freely accept it." (See here).

In his Encyclical Letter Humanum Genus (on Freemasonry), Pope Leo XIII warned that: "Wickedly, also, but at the same time quite consistently, do those act who do away with the expectation of the joys of heaven, and bring down all happiness to the level of mortality, and, as it were, sink it in the earth. Of what We have said the following fact, astonishing not so much in itself as in its open expression, may serve as a confirmation. For, since generally no one is accustomed to obey crafty and clever men so submissively as those whose soul is weakened and broken down by the domination of the passions, there have been in the sect of the Freemasons some who have plainly determined and proposed that, artfully and of set purpose, the multitude should be satiated with a boundless license of vice, as, when this had been done, it would easily come under their power and authority for any acts of daring.


What refers to domestic life in the teaching of the naturalists is almost all contained in the following declarations: that marriage belongs to the genus of commercial contracts, which can rightly be revoked by the will of those who made them, and that the civil rulers of the State have power over the matrimonial bond; that in the education of youth nothing is to be taught in the matter of religion as of certain and fixed opinion; and each one must be left at liberty to follow, when he comes of age, whatever he may prefer. To these things the Freemasons fully assent; and not only assent, but have long endeavoured to make them into a law and institution. For in many countries, and those nominally Catholic, it is enacted that no marriages shall be considered lawful except those contracted by the civil rite; in other places the law permits divorce; and in others every effort is used to make it lawful as soon as may be. Thus, the time is quickly coming when marriages will be turned into another kind of contract-that is into changeable and uncertain unions which fancy may join together, and which the same when changed may disunite....With the greatest unanimity the sect of the Freemasons also endeavours to take to itself the education of youth. They think that they can easily mold to their opinions that soft and pliant age, and bend it whither they will; and that nothing can be more fitted than this to enable them to bring up the youth of the State after their own plan. Therefore, in the education and instruction of children they allow no share, either of teaching or of discipline, to the ministers of the Church; and in many places they have procured that the education of youth shall be exclusively in the hands of laymen, and that nothing which treats of the most important and most holy duties of men to God shall be introduced into the instructions on morals.

What, therefore, sect of the Freemasons is, and what course it pursues, appears sufficiently from the summary We have briefly given. Their chief dogmas are so greatly and manifestly at variance with reason that nothing can be more perverse. To wish to destroy the religion and the Church which God Himself has established, and whose perpetuity He insures by His protection, and to bring back after a lapse of eighteen centuries the manners and customs of the pagans, is signal folly and audacious impiety. Neither is it less horrible nor more tolerable that they should repudiate the benefits which Jesus Christ so mercifully obtained, not only for individuals, but also for the family and for civil society, benefits which, even according to the judgment and testimony of enemies of Christianity, are very great. In this insane and wicked endeavor we may almost see the implacable hatred and spirit of revenge with which Satan himself is inflamed against Jesus Christ.


So also the studious endeavour of the Freemasons to destroy the chief foundations of justice and honesty, and to co-operate with those who would wish, as if they were mere animals, to do what they please, tends only to the ignominious and disgraceful ruin of the human race. The evil, too, is increased by the dangers which threaten both domestic and civil society. As We have elsewhere shown, in marriage, according to the belief of almost every nation, there is something sacred and religious; and the law of God has determined that marriages shall not be dissolved. If they are deprived of their sacred character, and made dissoluble, trouble and confusion in the family will be the result, the wife being deprived of her dignity and the children left without protection as to their interests and well being.

To have in public matters no care for religion, and in the arrangement and administration of civil affairs to have no more regard for God than if He did not exist, is a rashness unknown to the very pagans; for in their heart and soul the notion of a divinity and the need of public religion were so firmly fixed that they would have thought it easier to have city without foundation than a city without God. Human society, indeed for which by nature we are formed, has been constituted by God the Author of nature; and from Him, as from their principle and source, flow in all their strength and permanence the countless benefits with which society abounds. As we are each of us admonished by the very voice of nature to worship God in piety and holiness, as the Giver unto us of life and of all that is good therein, so also and for the same reason, nations and States are bound to worship Him; and therefore it is clear that those who would absolve society from all religious duty act not only unjustly but also with ignorance and folly."

Most people today have become so desensitized that they are incapable of seeing just how far this masonic agenda has advanced. The movement to eradicate Christianity is accelerating. Masonry, if it is to prepare the way for the Man of Sin, must concentrate its attacks on the one institution which stands in its way: the Holy Roman Catholic Church. After more than two thousand years of Christian history, the charge levelled against Christians by the pagan historian Tacitus is being revived: The Christians are the enemies of the human race. (Annals, XV, 44).

The new humanitarian religion of Antichrist must institute its own cult, ministers and temples which will be filled with its own faithful who have replaced the hope for Heaven with the idols of humanity, fertility, maternity and virility as surely as the Greco-Romans worshiped the statues of Venus and Apollo. Already we are witnessing an increasing hatred for the Crucifix. As Romano Guardini warned so long ago: "One day the Antichrist will come: a human being who introduces an order of things in which rebellion against God will attain its ultimate power. He will be filled with enlightenment and strength. The ultimate aim of all aims will be to prove that existence witout Christ is possible - nay rather, that Christ is the enemy of existence, which can be fully realized only when all Christian values have been destroyed. His arguments will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost. Then it will be clear what the Christian essence really is: that which stems not from the world, but from the heart of God; victory of grace over the world; redemption of the world, for her true essence is not to be found in herself, but in God, from whom she has received it. When God becomes all in all, the world will finally burst into flower."

Our Lady warned us on November 15, 1990 that, "The great trial has arrived for your Church.  Thse errors which have brought people to the loss of the true faith have continued to spread.  Many pastors have been neither attentive nor vigilant and have allowed many rapacious wolves, clothed as lambs, to insinuate themselves into the flock in order to bring disorder and destruction.  How great is your responsibility, O pastors of the holy Church of God!  You continue along the path of division from the Pope and of the rejection of his Magisterium; indeed, in a hidden way, there is in preparation a true schism which could soon become open and proclaimed.  And then, there will remain only a small faithful remnant, over which I will keep watch in the garden of my Immaculate Heart." (To Father Gobbi).

The schism Our Lady spoke of is indeed beginning to emerge.  A new humanitarian religion and a new Future Church are being constructed.  The new religion will be devoid of the supernatural.  It will be man-centered.  Men will decide for themselves what is moral and immoral.  They will build this new Church in their own image and likeness.  Those who still adhere to Christ and His teaching will be declared enemies of progress and the new Moloch State.

An Advent Reflection: There is still no room at the inn...

There was no room in the inn


In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered...All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilea to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of david. he went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child...And she gave birth to her forst-born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:1-7)


Archbishop Fulton John Sheen writes, "Mary is now with child, awaiting birth, and Joseph is full of expectancy as he enters the city of his own family. He searched for a place for the birth of Him to Whom heaven and earth belonged. Could it be that the Creator would not find room in His own creation?

Certainly, thought Joseph, there would be room in the village inn. There was room for the rich; there was room for those who were clothed in soft garments...But when finally the scrolls of history are completed down to the last word of time, the saddest lines of all will be: "There was no room in the inn". No room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. The inn was the gathering place of public opinion, the focal point of the world's moods, the rendezvous of the worldy, the rallying place of the popular and the successful. But there's no room for outcasts, the ignored, and the forgotten. The world might have expected the Son of God to be born in an inn; a stable would certainly be the last place in the world where one would look for Him. The lesson is: divinity is always where you least expect to find it. So the Son of God-Made-Man is invited to enter into His own world through a back door." (Bishop Sheen Catechism)

There was no room for the Incarnate Word - no room for Him Who is Truth.  In many parishes today, there is no room for truth.  And this shouldn't surprise us.  Our Lord assured us that, "They will harry you as they harried me.  They will respect your words as much as they respected mine.  All this they will do to you because of my name, for they know nothing of him who sent me." (John 15: 20-21).

Again, it was Archbishop Fulton John Sheen who once said, "The acceptance of the fullness of Truth will have the unfortunate quality of making you hated by the world. Forget for a moment the history of Christianity, and the fact that Christ existed. Suppose there appeared in this world today a man who claimed to be Divine Truth; and who did not say, 'I will teach you Truth,' but 'I am the Truth.' Suppose he gave evidence by his works of the truth of his statement. Knowing ourselves as we do, with our tendency to relativism, to indifference, and to the fusing of right and wrong, how do you suppose we would react to that Divine Truth? With hatred, with obloquy, with defiance; with charges of intolerance, narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and crucifixion. That is what happened to Christ. That is what our Lord said would happen to those who accept His Truth."



Have you ever noticed how worldly people achieve great fame and success and are entirely welcomed by others but that those who give themselves entirely to God meet with only resistance and persecution? St. Alphonsus de Liguori said that, "As soon as souls give themselves completely to God, God Himself causes or permits others to despise and persecute them." And Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, reminded us that: "A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good so that they become entrenched in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call. A preaching that does not discomfit sinners but lulls them in their sin leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens -- as when a light turned on awakens and of course annoys a sleeper -- that is the preaching of Christ, calling, "wake up! Be converted!" this is the church's authentic preaching. Naturally, such preaching must meet conflict, must spoil what is miscalled prestige, must disturb, must be persecuted. It cannot get along with the powers of darkness and sin."

As Catholics faithful to the Lord Jesus, Who teaches us through the Magisterium of His Church, we can expect to be shunned, harried, slandered and persecuted in so many different ways by those who remain in the Church but only in a bodily manner - because they have abandoned charity:

"They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a "bodily" manner and not "in his heart." (Lumen Gentium, No. 14).

And it is impossible for a person to claim that they are persevering in charity when they refuse to remain fully incorporated in the society of the Church by remaining obedient to her hierarchical structure.  Our Lord Jesus told His Apostles, "He who hears you hears Me."  And obviously, those who refuse to hear the Church are refusing to hear the Lord Jesus.  Such people must constantly strain to convince themselves that they are in communion with the Church.  But they remain within the Church only in a bodily manner. 

The smoke of Satan has entered into Christ's Church.  Some priests and deacons are serving not the Lord Jesus but the Father of Lies.  Such have given themselves up to various lusts.  Including the lust for power - especially for power over others. Our Lady has warned of this already.  The Immaculate One told Father Gobbi: "I also foretold to you the great crisis which would take place in the Church, because of the great apostasy which has entered into her, caused by an ever wider diffusion of errors, by her interior division, by opposition to the Pope and by the rejection of his Magisterium.  This most beloved Daughter of mine must live the hours of her agony and of her sorrowful passion.  She will be abandoned by many of her children.  The impetuous wind of persecution will blow against her, and much blood will be shed, even by my beloved sons." (October 13, 1994, Anniversary of the Last Apparition at Fatima).

Our troubled world, blinded and wounded by sin, still cannot find room for Truth.  Which is why those who follow the Lord Jesus (in more than a bodily manner but with true obedience), can expect to be persecuted.  All the more so as the Man of Sin makes his approach.

"Immediately preceding Antichrist there will be starvation and earthquakes..."

"The Son of Corruption and Ruin will appear and reign only for a short time, towards the end of the days of the world's duration...He shall come in the last days of the world. He shall not be Satan himself, but a human being equaling and resembling him in atrocious hideousness. His mother, a depraved woman, possessed by the devil, will live as a prostitute...He will say I am the Savior of the world...especially will he try to convince the Jews that he is the Messiah sent by God, and the Jews will accept him as such...yet by his moral laws he will try to reverse all order on earth. Therefore he is called in Holy Writ the 'Lawless One'...He will discard all laws, morals, and religious principles, to draw the world to himself. He will grant entire freedom from the commandments of God and the Church and permit everyone to live as his passion dictates...Religion he will endeavor to make convenient. He will say that you need not fast and embitter your life by renunciation...It will suffice to love God...He will preach free love and tear asunder family ties...maintain sin and vice are not sin and vice...Immediately preceding Antichrist there will be starvation and earthquakes." - Saint Hildegard.

Visit the seismic monitor to see for yourself just how many earthquakes have been occuring around the globe in recent years and especially in recent months.

The White House shook.

Many will scoff and say that these eventa are purely natural in origin.  But God created nature.  And He can shake nature to its foundations.  In a vision to the stigmatist Martha Robin, Jesus said: "I play with the plans of men. My right hand prepares miracles and My Name shall be glorified in all the world. I shall be pleased to break the pride of the wicked much more when the world will be most hostile to all that is supernatural. And much more admirable and extraordinary will be the event that will come out of our encounter. In place of the throne of the Beast two glorious thrones will arise, one of My Sacred Heart and the other of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Then it will be understood that neither human power nor demons nor the genius of industry will end the conflict, but that will end only when reparation has been consummated. Be courageous! The Kingdom of God is near. It will begin with something that will come so suddenly as to be entirely unexpected."

Where there is no vision, the people perish

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." (Proverbs 29:18).

"The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require, particularly today, that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner, and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone. All things considered, this is also required by 'economic logic'. Through the systemic increase of social inequality, both within a single country and between the populations of different countries (i.e. the massive increase in relative poverty), not only does social cohesion suffer, thereby placing democracy at risk, but so too does the economy, through the progressive erosion of 'social capital': the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil coexistence." (Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, No. 32).

President Obama is not up to the task of authentic leadership. The foolish man cannot lead because he relies on his own intelligence.  Our Lord told St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church, that "You cannot imagine how foolish people are.  They have no sense of discernment, having lost it by hoping in themselves and putting their trust in their own knowledge.  O stupid people, do you not see that you are not the source of your own knowledge?  It is my goodness, providing for your needs, that has given it to you."

Our Lord has told us that we can do nothing without Him.  President Obama has not believed this.  And we've all witnessed the fruits.  He has turned his back on Almighty God and His Commandments, promoting abortion and homosexuality, evils which threaten to undermine society.  Several years ago, President Obama said that President Lincoln possessed a wisdom and humility in his approach to government. And I couldn't agree more. Let's listen then to what he had to say on March 30, 1863, when he issued a historic Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day:


"...it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord: And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.."All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessing no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace..."

While you're relaxing on yet another vacation Mr. President, why not prayerfully meditate on these words?