Pope Francis: Do you want to pray the Creed?

Dorothy Sayers, in her classic work Creed or Chaos, reminds us that, "The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man — and the dogma is the drama.

That drama is summarised quite clearly in the creeds of the Church, and if we think it dull it is because we either have never really read those amazing documents, or have recited them so often and so mechanically as to have lost all sense of their meaning.  The plot pivots upon a single character, and the whole action is the answer to a single central problem: What think ye of Christ?

The Church's answer is categorical and uncompromising, and it is this: That Jesus Bar-Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, was in fact and in truth, and in the most exact and literal sense of the words, the God "by Whom all things were made."  His body and brain were those of a common man; His personality was the personality of God, so far as that personality could be expressed in human terms.  He was not a kind of dæmon or fairy pretending to be human; He was in every respect a genuine living man.  He was not merely a man so good as to be "like God" — He was God…This is the dogma we find so dull — this terrifying drama of which God is the victim and hero.

If this is dull, then what, in Heaven's name, is worthy to be called exciting?  The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused Him of being a bore — on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe.  It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround Him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified Him "meek and mild," and recommended Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.  To those who knew Him, however, He in no way suggested a milk-and-water person; they objected to Him as a dangerous firebrand."

For authentic Christians then, the Creeds are essential.  They are our response to the question, "What think ye of Christ?"

But for Pope Francis, the Creed seems to be of little importance.  As related here, when challenged on some of his views (which many consider far to the left), Francis responded, "..if they want me to recite the Creed, I can!"

First of all, the Creed is a prayer.  It should be prayed and not simply recited.  Secondly, we should possess the desire to pray the Creed, and not simply recite it as some sort of formula to convince others that we really believe.

It was Archbishop Fulton Sheen who cautioned, "The modern man must decide for himself whether he is going to have a religion with thought or a religion without it. He already knows that thoughtless policies lead to the ruin of society, and he may begin to suspect that thoughtless religion ends in confusion worse confounded.

The problem is simple. The modern man has two maps before him: one the map of sentimental religion, the other the map of dogmatic religion. The first is very simple. It has been constructed only in the last few years by a topographer who has just gone into the business of map making and is extremely adverse to explicit directions. He believes that each man should find his own way and not have his liberty taken away by dogmatic directions. The other map is much more complicated and full of dogmatic detail. It has been made by topographers who have been over every inch of the road for centuries and know each detour and each pitfall. It has explicit directions and dogmas such as, 'Do not take this road - it is swampy,' or 'Follow this road; although rough and rocky at first, it leads to a smooth road on a mountaintop.'

The simple map is very easy to read, but those who are guided by it are generally lost in a swamp of mushy sentimentalism. The other map takes a little more scrutiny, but it is simpler in the end, for it takes you up through the rocky road of the world's scorn to the everlasting hills where is seated the original Map Maker, the only One who ever has associated rest with learning: 'Learn of Me...and you shall find rest for your souls.'

Every new coherent doctrine and dogma add to the pabulum for thought; it is an extra bit of garden upon which we can intellectually browse; it is new food into which we can put our teeth and thence absorb nourishment; it is the discovery of a new intellectual planet that adds fullness and spaciousness to our mental world. And simply because it is solid and weighty, because it is dogmatic and not gaseous and foggy like a sentiment, it is intellectually invigorating, for it is with weights that the best drill is done, and not with feathers.

It is the very nature of a man to generate children of his brain in the shape of thoughts, and as he piles up thought on thought, truth on truth, doctrine on doctrine, conviction on conviction, and dogma on dogma, a very coherent and orderly fashion, so as to produce a system complex as a body and yet one and harmonious, the more and more human he becomes. When, however, in response to false cries for progress, he lops off dogmas, breaks with the memory of his forefathers, denies intellectual parentage, pleads for a religion without dogmas, substitutes mistiness for mystery, mistakes sentiment for sediment, he is sinking back slowly, surely, and inevitably into the senselessness of stones and into the irresponsible unconsciousness of weeds. Grass is broad-minded. Cabbages have heads - but no dogmas."

A religion with thought or a religion without it.  Which do you think Francis advances?

Related reading here.

Peter Hitchens: Atheists want all the joys and advantages of Christianity but don't want to pay the dues...

Peter Hitchens writes:

"I called my book on the New Atheism, ‘The Rage Against God,’ because I was repeatedly struck by the fury and resentment shown by the enemies of Christianity. Of course, I know perfectly well there are plenty of reasonable, courteous atheists. I make a point of referring to one such, Professor Thomas Nagel, in my book.  But they are not typical of this strange and rather lucrative new wave as seen in Richard Dawkins and my late-brother Christopher​, who are full of mockery and spite. I argue with them mainly on my blog, where the most oblique mention of religion can bring them swarming like mosquitoes, often within a few minutes. It is actually tedious and disappointing to have to read their contributions. Even the learned ones contain the same arrogant assumption of perfect certainty, not coupled with any sense that their certainty might require proof. 

This puzzles me, because since returning hesitantly to faith from my days of atheism, I have been determined to keep my position within the strict bounds of reason, based upon a foundation of testable fact, not on emotion or superstition. This leaves many of my more conventionally Christian friends and acquaintances regarding my religious opinions as "feeble," and not much of an improvement from agnosticism. They are right in that facts and logic by themselves cannot take anyone past that point, everything else beyond requires faith. Yet, most of us feel it within ourselves to choose between theism and atheism, between existence and non-existence. Both are impossible to prove.

 

I concede to my atheist opponents that belief or unbelief is a choice. As a choice, it is based upon desire. I desire, and therefore choose to believe in, one kind of universe, one that has laws and purpose with justice woven into its very fabric. The unbeliever desires, and therefore chooses to believe in, a chaotic universe where the dead remain dead and actions have no effect beyond their immediately observable consequences.

 

I accept that atheists may be right in their summation of the universe, and I only ask they be prepared to allow me the same in return. A tolerant person would surely accept such concession from their opponent. ​

They do not.

The truth is that modern atheists have constructed their position very carefully so that they can never be asked why they hold it. Like the annoying Christian who declares he’s had a "special" religious experience that has wholly persuaded him of the Gospel’s absolute truth, the New Atheist declares that his entire life and education is an "anti" religious experience, which proves, without further discussion, that there is no God. Any evidence the believer suggests that there might be a God is dismissed by the New Atheists as not being evidence at all.

 

This close-minded attitude makes a rather dismal statement about where the debate stands: He who does not believe in the existence of God requires no evidence to reach his conclusion.

In their view, there is absolutely no equivalence between the person who, after much examination, prefers the theistic explanation of the universe, and the other person who, with exactly the same experience, prefers the atheistic explanation.

 

There are many ways in which this formula is unsatisfactory, but its one major strength is that it excludes any discussion of motive. As I point out in my book, Somerset Maugham beautifully encapsulates the atheist’s motive in his autobiographical novel ‘Of Human Bondage,’ where the hero, Philip Carey, counts himself freed from all kinds of restraints on his behavior when he decides to abandon his faith. My "liberated" feelings were nearly identical in my own atheistic mid-teens.

What Maugham wanted, and what I wanted in that hedonistic era, was personal autonomy, to be that common misunderstanding of J.S. Mill’s theory of liberty that I could live as I wish, provided I “thought” I was doing nobody harm.

 

The problem with this system is that it tends to define “harm” in a rather self-serving way. All non-theistic moral systems (and there are many) allow the individual to set his own weights and measures without an objective scale to gauge it on. This even applies to the Golden Rule, which some Christians unwisely forget that it begins, above all things, with loving God himself, before moving on to our neighbors. In a Godless universe, what is the difference between doing unto others that we would wish them to do unto us, and merely appearing to do unto others that we would wish them to do unto us? The answer, alas, is that if there is no God who knows the secrets of our hearts, it is all too easy to appear to be good, and even to do formally good deeds, all of which are empty of real goodness.

 

So what are we left with in such an world? One where our natural tendency to selfishness reigns supreme. Fundamentally, once our society has dispensed with the concept of God we are left with nothing. The modern atheists don't wish to discuss this because they are very well aware of the implications of what I'm saying for society in general. They know perfectly well that if everybody didn't believe in God, the comfortable lives they live in extremely agreeable suburbs, where they can trust people not to cheat them and rob them and mug them and rape them, would come to an end. They want to keep the secret to themselves. They want to have all the joys and all the advantages provided by Christianity, and not pay the dues. 

 

They are, in moral terms, children clamoring for their own desires, but children who have grown large and articulate in the years they might have learned true adulthood and full humanity. That is why they rage against God."

 

Indeed, atheism is rooted in immaturity.  In his work entitled "Trojan Horse in the City of God," Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand wrote that, "Incessantly we hear today the self-satisfied slogan, 'Man has finally come of age.' Yet there are so many features of the present epoch - the dethronement of truth by historical relativism, the fetishization of science, the devastation of our lives as a result of the laboratory view, and many others - that make it more than doubtful that modern man has really and truly come of age. There is, moreover, something inherently self-deceptive in the very idea. It is a characteristic symptom of immaturity to feel oneself more mature and independent than men of previous times, to forget what one owes the past, and, in a kind of adolescent self-assertion, to refuse any assistance. One need only recall Dostoyevsky's masterly description of the puberty crisis - Kolya Krassotkin in The Brothers Karamazov, Hypolit in The Idiot, the hero of The Adolescent - to grasp the special immaturity of the man who is convinced of his superior maturity, who thinks that in him humanity has in a unique way come of age, who is dominated by one preoccupation - to show his independence. His ludicrous smallness is manifest as he looks down on everything passed on through tradition, even the most timeless values. The illusion of an historic coming of age is not the exclusive possession of our epoch. In the period of the so-called Enlightenment, man also felt themselves to have come of age and looked down on former times as periods of darkness and immaturity. This illusion is a recurring phenomenon in social history and it bears a striking resemblance to the puberty crisis in the life of the individual person. But the contemporary assertion that whereas this perennial boast was never before justified, it is now really true makes its self-serving character all the more clear.One of the many indications of the intellectual and moral immaturity of the present age is the fact that the percentage of worthless books and articles that captivate the minds of intellectuals seems greater today than in any other time in history." (pp.143-144).

This illusion of man having "come of age" is a characteristic of psychological, spiritual and intellectual immaturity. It is also at the core of atheistic humanism. For atheistic humanism advances the notion, rooted in adolescent pride and rebellion, that the human race has reached a leap of advancement, a new stage of development and enlightenment in which man must abandon any notion of divine authority and rely only upon himself to build a utopia here on earth. A utopia where there are no dogmas, no permanent truths, no objective principles or fixed concepts. In the words of Harvey Cox, "Religion is in a sense the neurosis of culture; secularization corresponds to maturation, for it signifies the emancipation of man first from religion and then from metaphysical control." (The Secular City).

This is America's brand of atheism. It is represented in mythology by Prometheus challenging the old gods and stealing fiery power from them to bring man on earth a freedom from divine authority, liberation from childish beliefs and sexual taboos so that man come of age may create for himself a temporal utopia of plenty and a society of peace. This atheism was advanced in 1933 in The New Humanist magazine in a document entitled the "Humanist Manifesto I," by a group of 34 "liberal humanists." However, forty years later The Humanist magazine published "Humanist Manifesto II." This was necessary because the foolish optimism of the "liberal humanists" regarding the natural goodness of man was utterly demolished by the sheer brutality and horror of the Second World War. Not to mention the savage and evil systems of Nazism, Fascism and Communism.


The adolescent rebellion from God which is atheistic humanism continues. It has not learned anything from the harsh realities of history. It refuses to. And this refusal will only lead to more such disasters in the future for mankind. For as George Santayana reminded us, "Those who will not learn from history are condemned to repeat it." Already we are witnessing the brutality of an atheistic humanism which declares its "love for humankind" even as it approves of the worst form of child abuse - abortion - as well as euthanasia and all varieties of sexual experimentation and immoral "lifestyles" such as fornication and homosexuality. And when those who believe in objective truth and morality object, as did those who opposed same-sex "marriage" in California, Churches were attacked and Christians and Mormons were subjected to violence and intimidation - all in the name of "love" and "freedom."

The atheistic humanists who promise us a utopia of "freedom" and "love" will lead us all back to the Gulag and the concentration camp.

This will be their legacy.

  

 

Facebook doesn't want Americans to see abortion...

At the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, there are many photographs such as this one documenting the brutality of the Nazi regime and its use of excessive violence against the Jewish People and others who were deemed "unfit" by the National Socialists.  The USHHM describes itself as, "A living memorial to the Holocaust" which "inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity."

Yesterday, on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, while President Barack Obama was hailing the day and telling the news media that he remains "committed to protecting a woman's right to choose," I posted a photograph of an aborted baby on Facebook.  The photograph was almost immediately removed by Facebook and I received this notice:

"One of Your Photos Was Removed. One of your photos was recently removed because it was found to violate Facebook policies. As a reminder, the following types of photos are not permitted:


* Content that is pornographic or contains nudity, or is inappropriately sexual

* Attacks on an individual or a group of people

* Depictions of self harm, excessive violence or drug use

Please keep this in mind before uploading new photos."


The message is clear: Facebook doesn't want Americans to see what an abortion really is. It's socially acceptable to kill a child in the womb. But Facebook doesn't consider it socially acceptable for another person to show the result of an abortion through a photograph.  Facebook knows that Father Frank Pavone is right when he says that, "America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion."  And they are obviously intent on ensuring that Americans will not see the result of an abortion on Facebook.  At least Facebook freely acknowledges that President Obama supports what amounts to "excessive violence."

As this article 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.  And this at a time some university campuses are attempting to demonize moral opposition toward homosexuality.  See here.

The USDOJ and Christianophobia: See here.

Janusz Palikot: "We want to remove religion from the public spaces."

Janusz Palikot, the 46 year old leader of the extremist Modern Poland movement, says that if his movement wins a good showing in Parliament, his first order of business will be to push for the removal of a Christian cross that hangs in the assembly hall of the Sejm, Poland's lower house.  Palikot believes the Church is "absolutely too powerful" and  his Modern Poland movement would legalize aborton on demand, provide free condoms and seek to crush the Catholic Church. (See here).

Speaking to a crowd of 4,000 cheering supporters, Palikot was heard saying that, "The Modern Poland movement demands the removal of religious instruction from schools, liquidation of the clergy (pension fund) and state ceremonies at which we do not have to view the fat bellies of bishops."

As the Apostasy continues to spread through all corners of the globe, I am reminded of what Our Lady had to say about Poland as she spoke to Fr. Gobbi on the Feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa on August 26, 1983: "In your lives you carry the sufferings of the peoples reduced to slavery by those who reject God and use every means to spread atheism.  Poland, of whom I have been officially proclaimed Queen, is a symbol of this unending and bloody persecution...For so many years the Red Dragon has extended his dominion over these peoples and persecuted my children by the most subtle and refined means..The apostasy has now been spread into every part of a Church betrayed even by some of her bishops, abandoned by many of her priests, deserted by so very many of her children, and violated by my Adversary."

Satan is intensifying his efforts in Poland precisely because she officially proclaimed Our Lady as Queen.  We are locked in a spiritual war. It was St. Louis Marie de Montfort who explained in his classic work True Devotion to Mary that: "..Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him...They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ." (TD, No. 54).

According to Montfort, the greatest of the Marian Saints, it is the faithful remnant, consecrated to the Virgin, who will crush the Devil's head (the head representing the intellect and therefore Satan's pride). The heel by contrast represents the lowest part of the body. In other words, those of us who are consecrated to the Immaculata and who are despised by the world because of our lack of wordly "sophistication" and "intelligence." But the wisdom of this world is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1: 18-25). In time, Satan's cohort will come to understand this.

Those who serve the world are enamored with themselves.  But the world, and everything in it, is destined for fire (2 Peter 3: 7-10).  And those who hate God love death.

What the anti-Catholic protesters in Madrid don't want you to know: World Youth Day was an economic boon for Madrid

As this article notes, anti-Catholic protesters took to the streets of Madrid and clashed with police, complaining about the 73 million dollare price tag of the Holy Father's visit and World Youth Day celebrations.  Of course, the same anti-Catholic bigots have nothing to say about the 230 million that WYD has brought into Madrid. 

I view that as a net of 157 million for Madrid.

It is easy to see what drives such complaints.  Protesters in Madrid were overheard chanting, "We are not the Pope's youth," "I am a sinner, sinner, sinner" and "Nazi, nazi," a hateful reference to Pope Benedict XVI having been an unwilling participant in the Hitler Youth movement.

Anti-Catholic protesters may not be honest.  But they are at least consistent in their tactics.  Remember the Holy Father's visit to England last year?  Anti-Catholic bigots there were suddenly concerned about the British taxpayer.

If you doubt that hatred is what drove the protests in Madrid, view these pictures and then we'll talk.

Plano Independent School District wants to ban First Amendment rights of elementary students who want to reference Jesus or God

An article from World Net Daily is reporting that, "A hearing is scheduled Monday before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans that could determine if students in elementary schools have the protections of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The case arose in the Plano Independent School District in Texas where Thomas Elementary School Principal Lynn Swanson and Rasor Elementary School Principal Jackie Bomchill were sued for restricting student speech when it referenced 'God' or 'Jesus.'

According to the Liberty Institute, in the first incident, officials banned 8-year-old Jonathan Morgan from handing out candy canes with Jesus' name on them to classmates at a school party.

'Then they confiscated a little girl's pencils after school because they mentioned 'God,'' the Institute reported.

But that's not all, the group said.

'They even banned an entire classroom from writing 'Merry Christmas' on cards to our troops serving in Iraq.'

The dispute went to district court then to a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit where school officials' efforts to have the complaint rejected because of their 'immunity' failed.

Now the appeals court has agreed to an en banc hearing in which 17 judges will listen to arguments and decide the dispute.

The school officials are arguing 'that the First Amendment does not apply to elementary school students,' explains the appeal brief submitted by Liberty Institute."

Well then, Plano Independent School District officials are wrong.  The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, that, "Under our Constitution, free speech is not a right that is given only to be so circumscribed that it exists in principle but not in fact...The Constitution says that Congress (and the States) may not abridge the right to free speech.  This provision means what it says.  We properly read it to permit reasonable regulation of speech-connected activities in carefully restricted circumstances.  But we do not confine the permissible exercise of First Amendment rights to a telephone booth or the four corners of a pamphlet, or to supervised and ordained discussion in a school classroom."

What the Supreme Court said in Tinker is that free speech rights of students can only be "carefully restricted" or "reasonably regulated" by school administrators.  And only if these school administrators can show that such free speech rights would cause a substantial disruption of the school's educational mission. Is there anyone out there - who is sane - who can argue that a pencil which mentions God or a candy cane with Jesus' name on it constitutes a substantial disruption of a school's educational mission?

It is my firm belief that the Plano Independent School District officials in question could benefit greatly from a mental-health checkup.  Not to mention a brief primer in constitutional law.