La Salette Journey: Years

Showing posts with label Years. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Quod erat demonstrandum...

On June 8, 1991, Our Lady warned Father Stefano Gobbi that the Church had, "..strayed from the spirit of Christ and has allowed itself to be seduced by the spirit of the world, which has penetrated it deeply and has pervaded it entirely."

Our Lady warned as well that, "..the proud force of the great and the learned..seduced by a false science and by vainglory, have torn to pieces the Gospel of Jesus, by pronouncing an interpretation of it which is rationalistic, humanistic, and entirely erroneous."

As a result, the Queen of Heaven said, "The times foretold by Saint Paul have come, times when many announce false and strange doctrines, and thus they go running after these fables and stray away from the truth of the Gospel."

Years ago, I was virtually alone in echoing this message. I was called an "alarmist" and routinely mocked in comments left at this Blog.

What a difference a few years make. See here.

Eleven years ago, I noted that:

"In the 1820's, Sister Emmerick had visions of the Church in the future. On September 12, 1820, Sister Emmerick said:

"I saw a strange church being built against every rule....No angels were supervising the building operations. In that church nothing came from high above....There was only division and chaos. It's probably a church of human creation, following the latest fashion, as well as the new heterodox church of Rome, which seems of the same kind....I saw again the strange big church that was being built there [in Rome]. There was nothing holy in it....Everything was being done according to human reason. I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions. There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed to be very successful. I did not see a single angel nor a single saint helping in the work. But far away in the background, I saw the seat of a cruel people armed with spears, and I saw a laughing figure which said: 'Do build it as solid as you can; we will pull it to the ground.'"

Is this "future church" a preparation for the Man of Sin, the Antichrist? From August to October of 1820, Sister Emmerick says: "I see more martyrs, not now but in the future....I saw the secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church. Near them I saw a horrible beast coming up from the sea....When the Church had been for the most past destroyed [by the secret sect], and when only the sanctuary and altar were still standing, I saw the wreckers enter the Church with the Beast. There they met a Woman of noble carriage who seemed to be with child because she walked slowly. At this sight, the enemies were terrorized, and the Beast could not take but another step forward. It projected its neck towards the Woman as if to devour her, but the Woman turned about and bowed down [towards the altar], her head touching the ground. Thereupon, I saw the Beast taking flight towards the sea again, and the enemies were fleeing in the greatest confusion....Then I saw that the Church was being promptly rebuilt, and she was more magnificent than ever before."

The armies are poised for battle. On the one side, Satan and his cohort (which includes many priests and religious as well as lay people) who are building a church in their own image and likeness, a "FutureChurch" where sin is not confessed but celebrated and where lying and homicide serve as ersatz "sacraments." On the other, the Immaculata and her little children who are humble and despised by the world.

Satan and his followers have their tactics which revolve around the false idols of money, power, lust, and greed all clothed in the mantle of pride. The Immaculata and her cohort have their own tactics: prayer, fasting, penance, reconciliation, humility and a smallness which is clothed in the mantle of love."

The camps have formed. The battle has begun. Laudetur Jesus Christe!

Monday, May 12, 2014

A 7 year old girl is raped by Muslims but Bishop Robert McManus insists that the Church's dialogue with Muslims has been "increasingly constructive."

According to the Sri Lanka Guardian:

Sara, a seven year old Christian girl, was gang raped by 4 Muslims in Mally ki Village of Daska Sialkot Pakistan. The minor was immediately sent to the DHQ ( District Head Quarters) Hospital Sialkot in critical condition. She is in the ICU in an unstable / critical condition.

The locals, with the help from police, abducted the minor's father Iqbal Masih,in an effort to pressurize the family not to file a case, to come to an agreement with the culprits and to avoid religious issue.

The Christian community tried to talk to the police, but the police seem helpless in recovering Masih from the local land lord. Despite several attempts, the police refused to comment or talk about the hideous incident.

The family contacted a human rights organization to step forward and take a stand in this matter. Life For All Pakistan has brought the matter in the notice of the district administration and filed a writ / appeal at the court seeking immediate action against the culprits and Iqbal Masih's recovery. As a result of the pressure the police registered a FIR and arrested 2 rapists, but Masih still illegally remains in police custody and a protest has been scheduled at the Sialkot press club against the incident.

According to the reports, the incidents of gang rape in the central Punjab have drastically increased, the law enforcing agencies are acting as silent observers.

Life For All Pakistan has issued a statement, “this is truly heart breaking that a minor has been gang rapped and her father was abducted to pressurize the family not to pursue the case, this is a barbaric incident. We demand the immediate release of Iqbal Masih and action against the culprits of this inhuman incident. The girl is in a trauma, we demand for the best medical treatment for the minor. The silence from the society on the incident is tormenting, a daughter of the nation was brutally rapped and the authorities remain silent."

Remember when Bishop Robert McManus explained why he rescinded the invitation for Mr. Robert Spencer to speak at the 2013 "Catholic" Men's Conference in Worcester? The Bishop said, "My decision to ask Mr. Spencer not to speak at the Men's Conference resulted from a concern voiced by members of the Islamic community in Massachusetts, a concern I came to share. That concern was that Mr. Spencer's talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inner-religious dialogue with devout Muslims and possibly generate suspicion and even fear of people who practice piously the religion of Islam...I based my decision solely on the concern that Mr. Spencer's talk would impact negatively on the Church's increasingly constructive dialogue with Muslims." (Bishop shares concerns about conference speaker, Catholic Free Press, February 8, 2013 edition).

Meanwhile CNN is reporting that:

A Boko Haram video emerged Monday purportedly showing some of the kidnapped Nigerian girls in Muslim headdresses and the terror group's leader declaring they have converted to Islam.

The video, released by French news agency Agence France-Presse, was shot in a nondescript bush area and showed about 100 girls.

In the 27-minute footage, the terror group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, says he is willing to exchange the schoolgirls for Boko Haram prisoners.

It shows girls dressed in black and gray hijabs, and reciting the Quran as they make Islamic declarations of faith. Shekau appears in a separate part of the video, but never with the girls.

"Praise be to Allah, the lord of the world," the girls in the video chant.

Bishop McManus asserts that the Church has had "increasingly constructive dialogue with Muslims." Tell that to the parents of Sara.

Gotta love that constructive dialogue: See here.

Monday, November 19, 2012

"Only a robustly, unapologetically evangelical Catholicism..."

It was Jacques Maritain who said, “Christianity must inform or, rather, transpenetrate the world; not that this is its principal aim (although it is an indispensable secondary end), and not in order that the world become right now the kingdom of God, but in order that grace may be more and more effective in it, and in order that man may better live there his temporal life.”

If grace is to be more and more effective in the world, if a new Christendom is to arise from the ashes of our morally-bankrupt, sin-sick society which subjects mankind to constant and ever-growing threats of degradation and destruction, then saints will have to arise in the midst of our broken world. These saints will be, according to St. Louis de Montfort in his classic treatise True Devotion to Mary, “..like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God’s word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God’s word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God.” (True Devotion, 57).

Such disciples will not be “part-time Catholics” or “Chicken-Catholics,” devoting only one hour a week to their Creator and Redeemer while retreating in fear from any and all conflict during the spiritual battles ahead. St. Montfort insists that, “..we know they will be true disciples of Jesus Christ, imitating his poverty, his humility, his contempt of the world and his love. They will point out the narrow way to God in pure truth according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world. Their hearts will not be troubled, nor will they show favor to anyone; they will not spare or heed or fear any man, however powerful he may be. They will have the two-edged sword of the Word of God in their mouths and the blood-stained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart. The simplicity and self-sacrifice of Jesus will be reflected in their whole behavior.” (True Devotion, 59).

George Weigel, weighing in on the supreme crisis which faces the Catholic Church in the United States in the wake of President Obama’s re-election, asserts (correctly) that: “..the opportunity embedded in this crisis..is nothing less than to be the Church of the New Evangelization, full-throttle. Shallow, tribal, institutional-maintenance Catholicism is utterly incapable of meeting the challenges that will now come at the Catholic Church from the most aggressively secular administration in American history. Only a robustly, unapologetically evangelical Catholicism, winsomely proposing and nobly living the truths about the human condition the Church teaches, will see us through the next four years. Radically converted Christian disciples, not one-hour-a-week Catholics whipsawed by an ever more toxic culture, are what this hour of crisis..demands.” (The crisis of a second Obama administration).

Sadly, the militant evangelical Catholicism described by George Weigel is not encouraged - or even tolerated - in some corners of the Catholic Church here in the United States. In some dioceses, the Cult of Softness has all but crippled an authentic, militant evangelization and replaced it with a sacharrin-spirituality which sugar-coats sin while leaving Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. As part of the Ecclesia Militans, I am persona non grata in my own diocese - the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts. New Age advocates, dissidents who rail against the Magisterium and those who engage in radical homosexual agitprop are welcome. But an orthodox Catholic who vigorously promotes and defends the teaching of the Magisterium is deemed "rigid" and "too pre-Vatican II."

This is our moment as Catholics: We can choose to take a courageous stand for the Faith of our Fathers, witnessing to Gospel truths with the whole of our lives and even unto death; or we can fall back into the shadows and thereby cooperate in the spiritual destruction of a once-great nation.

Along with the Church’s other martyrs, St. Thomas More was confronted with the same choice. While remaining a loyal servant of the King, he chose to be God’s servant first. Will we?

La Salette Journey