tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26804455084059595072024-03-13T07:49:16.590-07:00AND AMAZING GRACEJudeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.comBlogger1019125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-20609306819878489842022-10-26T19:02:00.000-07:002022-10-26T19:02:01.689-07:00Cardinal molar defies globalist LGBT agenda and bombshell interview<p> <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=MWQipy0yjHo&feature=share">https://youtube.com/watch?v=MWQipy0yjHo&feature=share</a></p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-71437871751560325322022-10-25T13:21:00.003-07:002022-10-25T13:21:42.975-07:00Democratic socialist mourn the loss of their sacrament of abortion<p> <a href="https://johnkassnews.com/democratic-socialists-mourn-the-loss-of-their-sacrament-of-abortion/">https://johnkassnews.com/democratic-socialists-mourn-the-loss-of-their-sacrament-of-abortion/</a></p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-42289395435389786722022-07-10T06:35:00.000-07:002022-07-10T06:35:36.537-07:00Eternal and Natural Law: The Foundation of Morals and Law<a href="https://www.tfp.org/eternal-and-natural-law-the-foundation-of-morals-and-law/#.YsrU_9J3XEo.blogger">Eternal and Natural Law: The Foundation of Morals and Law</a>: Eternal and Natural Law: The Foundation of Morals and Law - For moral order to exist, there must be an objective moral law easily perceived, common to all…Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-15791241968061003962022-07-06T14:53:00.002-07:002022-07-06T14:53:50.294-07:00Celebrating abnormal behavior. Homosexuality etc.<p> <a href="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/other-topics/celebrating-abnormal-behavior.html">https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/other-topics/celebrating-abnormal-behavior.html</a></p><p><br /></p><header style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; width: 320.671875px;"><h1 style="clear: both; color: #a30007; font-family: Lora, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 300; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 0px -3px; padding: 18px 0px 0px;">Celebrating Abnormal Behavior</h1><ul style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><li class="itemAuthor" style="color: #222222; float: left; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px; margin: 10px 0px 0px -2px;">ANTHONY ESOLEN</li></ul></header><div class="itemBody" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; clear: both; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif;"><div class="itemIntroText"><p style="color: #587b7c; font-family: lora; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0.025em; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;">Some years ago, in <em>Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity</em>, I wrote, as the ninth argument, that "to celebrate an abnormal behavior makes things worse, not better, for those inclined to engage in it."</p></div><div id="itemShareButtons"><div style="height: 32px; width: 330px;"><div style="display: inline; float: left;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholiceducation.org%2Fen%2Fcontroversy%2Fother-topics%2Fcelebrating-abnormal-behavior.html" style="color: #587b7c; transform: translateZ(0px); transition: color 0.2s linear 0s;" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/templates/gk_news/images/cerc/facebook.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto !important; max-width: 100%;" title="" /></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet/?text=Check%20out%20this%20article%20at%20the%20Catholic%20Education%20Resource%20Center&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholiceducation.org%2Fen%2Fcontroversy%2Fother-topics%2Fcelebrating-abnormal-behavior.html&via=CatholicEd&hashtags=Catholic,%20Education" style="color: #587b7c; 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font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute;"></span><span class="at-icon-wrapper" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; height: 32px; line-height: 32px; overflow: hidden; vertical-align: middle; width: 32px;"><svg aria-labelledby="at-svg-addthis-1" class="at-icon at-icon-addthis" role="img" style="fill: rgb(255, 255, 255); height: 32px; width: 32px;" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 32 32" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><path d="M18 14V8h-4v6H8v4h6v6h4v-6h6v-4h-6z" fill-rule="evenodd"></path></g></svg></span></a></div></div></div></div><div style="display: inline; float: left;"><a style="color: #587b7c; text-decoration: underline; transform: translateZ(0px); transition: color 0.2s linear 0s;"><img alt="" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/templates/gk_news/images/cerc/print.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto !important; max-width: 100%;" title="" /></a></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div></div><br /><div class="itemFullText"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><img alt="DragQueens" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/images/people/DragQueens.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: right; height: auto !important; max-width: 100%;" />I believe that that statement, right now, would be quite uncontroversial in any other area of human choice but the sexual; though it is precisely the sexual that illustrates its truth most clearly, <em>as we see in our midst, </em>so obviously that only our own moral compromises, or a kind of ideological idolatry, can prevent us from telling ourselves what we do see.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">For back in 2014, those halcyon days at what most people thought was the floor of a crater below which we could not continue to fall, no one thought that drag queens in see-through garb would be encouraging little children in public libraries to stick dollar bills in their underwear, or that a photo of a little Dutch girl surrounded by "bondage" men in black leather underwear would win an award for being "iconic" and "inclusive."</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><span class="dropcap" style="color: #587b7c; float: left; font-family: Lora, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 50px; line-height: 50px; margin-top: -6px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 0px;">T</span>ry, dear reader who may still be unwilling to follow a premise to its conclusion, try to imagine uttering the previous sentence to any but the most depraved human being on earth, anywhere, in 2010, or 2000, or, dear Lord, in 1990, when, if we are to judge by the mad accusations madmen make against the few remaining people in the West who do not parade along with the madness, the world was peopled by "theocrats" and knuckle-dragging, right-wing, snake-handling fundamentalist Christians, rather than ordinary people with some residual sense of shame and some guilty reservations about the sick world into which they were sending their children.</p><p class="aside" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; color: #587b7c; float: left; font-family: lora; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; margin: 10px 0px 25px; width: 320px;">Mere garden sins bring boredom. We must rouse the spirit to more and more outrageous wrongs.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">There is a good reason why things get worse and not better for them who <em>celebrate </em>the abnormal. It is, as I wrote, that "what compels is not merely the object, but the very <em>wrongness of the object. </em>Mere garden sins bring boredom. We must rouse the spirit to more and more outrageous wrongs." Homosexuals themselves, I said, "admit that they delight in being 'transgressive,' crossing the boundaries of what is decent or even mentionable. It follows that the nature of the transgressing behavior will depend upon where the society draws the line."</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Where is that line now? Oh, I hear, people will <em>never </em>go so far as to invite children into their sexual lives, by action rather than celebration. Do not believe it. It is a short step from seeing to touching. The very <em>publicity </em>of it will lend it some cover. And man, ever inventive in the illogic of evil, will find some way to distinguish a "good" kind of pederasty, the kind we see putting forth buds right in our midst, from the "bad" kind, the kind for which the Church's coffers were — justly — rifled.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Sins of intemperance still respect the created order, the order of nature. Wine does gladden the heart, though a man may drink too much of it, or in the wrong place, or at the wrong time. But in sins aimed precisely <em>against </em>the created order, we direct our strengthless swords against the very heart of God, and the more we fail, the more furiously we go on the attack.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><span class="dropcap" style="color: #587b7c; float: left; font-family: Lora, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 50px; line-height: 50px; margin-top: -6px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 0px;">Y</span>ou do not have to take my word for it though. Human history abounds in examples. Take St. Paul's word for it. "Claiming to be wise," he says of fallen man ever-falling, "they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles," and "for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error" (Romans 1:22, 26-27).</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">We are touching upon what an old colleague of mine, Rene Fortin, called "negative transcendence," an attempt to imitate God in an inverted way, hungering for evil upon evil, and setting the will up as a creator unto itself. "Whilst they adore me on the throne of hell," says Milton's Satan, when he is alone and the devils he deceived cannot hear him,</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em; padding-left: 120px;"><em>With diadem and scepter high advanced,<br /></em><em>The lower still I fall, only supreme<br /></em><em>In misery: such joy ambition finds.</em></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><span class="dropcap" style="color: #587b7c; float: left; font-family: Lora, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 50px; line-height: 50px; margin-top: -6px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 0px;">T</span>he crater of evil has, of itself, no floor because of itself it is <em>no thing at all</em>, it is an anti-creative turn toward nonexistence, masking itself as creativity and life; and Hell itself may be the lowest plain below which the merciful God will not permit His creature to fall.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Is it then an accident of history that just at this time we find people eagerly awaiting the day when man will become "transhuman," collapsing beneath the human, to enmesh himself in the toils and traces of the machine? It is as if, to use David Hart's apt jest, when these wild-eyed worshipers of technology were little boys, they dreamed of someday growing up to be robots.</p><p class="aside" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; color: #587b7c; float: left; font-family: lora; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; margin: 10px 0px 25px; width: 320px;">The alternative to the restlessness of those who seek God is the restlessness of those who reject God.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Or is it an accident of history that just at this time, hardly hidden at all beneath the desperate hope that "climate change" will render all the old modes of human life impossible, we find a self-righteous hatred of man, a wish, without Jonathan Swift's satirical irony, that there would be far fewer of "the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth"?</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Another accident of history, that some women, again without the slightest sense of irony, should splash themselves in garish red paint for blood, to protest against any retrenchment of their legal permission to splash their bodies and the sanitary towels and the stainless-steel forceps and clippers of the operating room with the real blood of their own children?</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Still another accident, that no nation in the cratering West can now replace the dying with the newly alive? That the richest of our urban neighborhoods should resemble Hell in this most significant respect, that people keep as far away from one another as possible, with fewer and fewer inhabitants per household, less and less likely to be married to a human being and more and more likely to be wedded or welded to a job, and a job, at that, less and less likely to promote or protect anything necessary or desirable for the common good?</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><span class="dropcap" style="color: #587b7c; float: left; font-family: Lora, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 50px; line-height: 50px; margin-top: -6px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 0px;">H</span>ell is a lonely place. And man, for whom it is not good to be alone, seeks to assuage his loneliness not by getting up and saying, "I will arise and go to my Father" (Luke 15:18), but by confirming the very evil that has made him lonely in the first place.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">But it does not work. The drink does not satisfy, the drug no longer gives the thrill, mere nudity is dull, the first slimy dandling of the unnatural feels commonplace and "natural," building a brutalist church seems but dry and unimaginative, the unspeakable obscenity now means little more than an ordinary adverbial intensifier, and the throne of Hell is not so glorious after all.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">We have been made by God, for God, in His image, and that is why, as St. Augustine says, "Our hearts will never rest until they rest in Thee." The alternative to the restlessness of those who seek God is the restlessness of those who reject God, pitched into a fury of restlessness because they wish to be gods unto themselves, and it is all in vain.</p></div></div><div id="itemShareButtons" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif;"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; font-size: 14px; height: 32px; width: 330px;"></div></div><p><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-11026817860331999552022-03-31T06:18:00.002-07:002022-03-31T06:20:13.421-07:00The Hidden Life of Mary Ann Long<p> </p><header class="post-entry-header" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: open-sans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><h1 class="post-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #0d0046; font-family: adobe-caslon-pro, serif; font-size: 42px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 39.599998474121094px; margin: 30px 0px 0.94rem;">The Hidden Life of Mary Ann Long</h1><div class="entry-meta meta-header" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="post-date" style="box-sizing: inherit;">March 29, 2022 | Norman Fulkerson </span></div></header><div class="clearfix" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); clear: both; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: open-sans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></div><div class="entry-content entry-content-single" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: inherit; color: #3c3c3c; font-family: adobe-caslon-pro, serif; font-size: 19px;"><div class="at-above-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.tfp.org/the-hidden-life-of-mary-ann-long/" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></div><div class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_72379" style="background-color: #e8e8e8; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(217, 217, 217); box-sizing: inherit; clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 20px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 10px !important; margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px 8px; width: 352px;"><a href="https://www.tfp.org/a-lesson-from-the-early-education-of-saint-aloysius-gonzaga/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0d0046; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="The Hidden Life of Mary Ann Long" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-72379" class="size-full wp-image-72379 ls-is-cached lazyloaded" height="216" id="NTI5OjUyMA==-1" nitro-lazy-empty="" nitro-lazy-src="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-Hidden-Life-of-Mary-Ann-Long.jpg" src="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-Hidden-Life-of-Mary-Ann-Long.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px 2px 5px 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(217, 217, 217); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px 2px 5px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; display: block; height: auto; margin: 5px auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="342" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-72379" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Arial, Gotham, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 5px 5px; text-align: center;">The Hidden Life of Mary Ann Long</p></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit;">Saintly souls often remain hidden from the eyes of the world and are only discovered by chance. In this way, Mary Ann Long is a source of inspiration in much the same way as <a href="https://www.tfp.org/the-little-known-st-therese/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: blue; text-decoration: none;">Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus</a>. Like the “Little Flower,” Mary Ann provides a valuable lesson that anyone can fully live a Catholic life and die a saintly death by simply accepting God’s will. This is especially true in our present world, where people’s lives are judged by the pleasures they enjoy and where “useless” lives are extinguished before birth or shortened in old age.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The only book about this unique little girl titled <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">A Memoir of Mary Ann<span class="easy-footnote-margin-adjust" id="easy-footnote-1-72366" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></span><span class="easy-footnote" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a aria-describedby="qtip-0" data-hasqtip="0" href="https://www.tfp.org/the-hidden-life-of-mary-ann-long/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-72366" oldtitle="<a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]T</a>he Dominican Nuns of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home Atlanta, Georgia, <em>Memoir of Mary Ann Long</em> (Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, Inc., 1961)" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0d0046; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 16.5px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">1</span></a></span> </span>was written by the Dominican Nuns who cared for her in Atlanta, Georgia. The only photo shows only the profile of Mary Ann sitting in a wheelchair. The reason why we only see part of her face is where the story of Mary Ann begins.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">Deformed Face</strong></p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1946. The <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Memoir</span> does not mention the day of her birth nor the names of her parents. We only know they were Dollie and George Long because she is buried beside them in Louisville’s St. Stephens Cemetery.</p><div class="wp-caption aligncenter nitro-offscreen" id="attachment_72382" style="background-color: #e8e8e8; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(217, 217, 217); box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 10px !important; margin: 10px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px 8px; width: 594px;"><a href="https://www.tfp.org/the-two-aspects-of-death-sordid-and-repulsive-v-august-and-epic/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0d0046; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="The Hidden Life of Mary Ann Long" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-72382" class="wp-image-72382 size-large ls-is-cached lazyloaded" height="779" id="NTM0OjgwNA==-1" nitro-lazy-empty="" nitro-lazy-src="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-768x1024.jpg" nitro-lazy-srcset="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-205x273.jpg 205w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-1536x2048.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px" src="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-768x1024.jpg" srcset="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-205x273.jpg 205w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave2-1536x2048.jpg 1536w" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px 2px 5px 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(217, 217, 217); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px 2px 5px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; display: block; height: auto; margin: 5px auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="584" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-72382" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Arial, Gotham, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 5px 5px; text-align: center;">St. Stephens Cemetery in Louisville, where Mary Ann Long is buried with her parents, Dollie and George Long.</p></div><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">At the age of three and a half, she was afflicted with a cancerous tumor on the left side of her face, which required the removal of her eye. The doctors gave her six months to live and told the parents they could do nothing more for their child. This was a particularly heavy blow for Mrs. Long, a mother of three, whose own health was not good. At the doctor’s recommendation, they decided to send Mary Ann to <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Our Lady of Perpetual Help Free Cancer Home</span> in Atlanta, Georgia.<span class="easy-footnote-margin-adjust" id="easy-footnote-2-72366" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></span><span class="easy-footnote" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a aria-describedby="qtip-1" data-hasqtip="1" href="https://www.tfp.org/the-hidden-life-of-mary-ann-long/#easy-footnote-bottom-2-72366" oldtitle="<a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a>This Home was founded by Rose Hawthorne, daughter of the famous author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Rose converted to Catholicism, joined the Dominican Order, and later founded this first Home in Atlanta to care for cancer patients." style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0d0046; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 16.5px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span></a></span> It was a painful decision for the parents, but they had no other solution.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Home in Atlanta received a letter from the Louisville hospital about the girl heading their way.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“This patient,” it explained, “is a very lovable little girl and one who touches the hearts of all who come into contact with her.”</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">Most Unique Religious Vocation</strong></p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">It is worth noting that neither of Mary’s parents had any religious affiliation. Although Mr. Long was baptized a <a href="https://www.tfp.org/catholic-politicians-and-non-admittance-to-holy-communion/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: blue; text-decoration: none;">Catholic</a>, his mother had fallen away from the Faith. This might have been the reason for their unease in sending their ailing daughter to a home run by Catholic Dominican Nuns. Mary Ann had no such fear.</p><h4 align="center" class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: 20.020000457763672px; margin: 24px auto; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.tfp.org/prophecies-of-our-lady-of-good-success-about-our-times/" rel="noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: blue; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img alt="Prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success About Our Times" class="aligncenter wp-image-44152 size-full ls-is-cached lazyloaded" height="96" id="NTQwOjc5Mw==-1" nitro-lazy-empty="" nitro-lazy-src="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Prophecies_Our_Lady_of_Good_Success.jpg" nitro-lazy-srcset="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Prophecies_Our_Lady_of_Good_Success.jpg 734w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Prophecies_Our_Lady_of_Good_Success-455x60.jpg 455w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Prophecies_Our_Lady_of_Good_Success-700x92.jpg 700w" sizes="(max-width: 734px) 100vw, 734px" src="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Prophecies_Our_Lady_of_Good_Success.jpg" srcset="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Prophecies_Our_Lady_of_Good_Success.jpg 734w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Prophecies_Our_Lady_of_Good_Success-455x60.jpg 455w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Prophecies_Our_Lady_of_Good_Success-700x92.jpg 700w" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px 2px 5px 0px; background-color: #e8e8e8; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(217, 217, 217); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px 2px 5px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 5px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 8px; width: auto;" width="734" /><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">Learn All About the Prophecies of Our Lady of Good Success About Our Times</strong></a></h4><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">When they arrived at the Home, Sister Veronica, who was the first to see the child, held out her motherly arms. Mary Ann instinctively flung herself into her maternal embrace. One sister wrote down a first impression of the child:</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">As I entered the ward, I saw just one side of the child’s face. A lustrous sparkling brown eye, clear, bright skin tending toward olive, with a faint flush high on her cheek, a delicate straight nose, all this framed by light brown wavy curling hair, made a symmetrical, clean-cut profile.</span></p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">She then describes the rest of her face with “a swollen left cheek and closed eye [socket],” but it did not repel her. Mary Ann showed no shyness about her affliction. “She expected to be accepted for herself.”</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Mary Ann quickly moved from one patient’s bed to another, spreading sunshine and comforting those with whom she shared the same illness. It was the beginning of a most unique religious vocation. Indeed, before her death at 13, she was admitted into the Third Order of <a href="https://www.tfp.org/the-rosary-and-saint-dominic-defeat-heresy/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: blue; text-decoration: none;">St. Dominic</a> as a Tertiary.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">Apostolic Efforts of The Child</strong></p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Over the next nine years—for a girl who only expected to live six months—Mary was a normal little Kentuckian in every respect. She had a dog named Snappy, loved Dagwood sandwiches, and played hide and seek with her sisters when they came to visit. She was also mischievous, but her pranks were not meant to harm but rather to uplift the spirits of those around her.</p><h4 align="center" class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: 27.299999237060547px; margin: 24px auto; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.tfp.org/10-razones-por-las-cuales-el-qmatrimonioq-homosexual-es-danino-y-tiene-que-ser-desaprobado/" rel="noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: blue; text-decoration: none;" target="_self"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">10 Razones Por las Cuales el “Matrimonio” Homosexual es Dañino y tiene que Ser Desaprobado</strong></a></h4><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Before long, Mary Ann began to ask questions about the Catholic Faith. When told about the True Presence, she longed to be included in the heavenly banquet and wept when she could not receive communion with the nuns. She loved to talk about the “baby Jesus” and was profoundly moved by Our Lord’s Passion and Death.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">When one nun first showed her the Stations of the Cross. Mary very closely examined the Second Fall of Our Lord. Moved with pity, she exclaimed, “Oh, poor Jesus!”</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">She was eventually baptized with the somewhat reluctant permission of her parents. They were bewildered by their daughter’s conversion but even more so with her apostolic fervor.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Mary Ann desired that her sisters convert, especially Sue, who showed openness to the Faith. Sue made frequent visits to the Home and was very impressed with Mary’s fervent devotion, especially for the Eucharist. She, too desired to receive Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Before long, Sue began religious instruction back in Louisville. She was eventually baptized and received her first Holy Communion in Atlanta, among the nuns, while kneeling next to Mary Ann. Winnie, the oldest of the sisters, was also at this ceremony and shortly afterward converted to <a href="https://www.tfp.org/a-muslims-remarkable-conversion-to-catholicism/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: blue; text-decoration: none;">Catholicism.</a></p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Finally, there is the story of a 20-year-old female patient named Charlie Mae. Her maladies were of such seriousness as to leave her bedridden. Mary would do little things like brush her hair and keep her company. One night our little apostle asked Charlie to join her in evening prayers.</p><h4 align="center" class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: 20.020000457763672px; margin: 24px auto; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.tfp.org/embracing-christ-and-the-cross/" rel="noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0d0046; text-decoration: none;" target="_self"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: blue;">Embracing Christ and the Cross</span></strong></a></h4><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“I don’t know how to pray,” said Charlie. Mary immediately offered to teach her, which led Charlie to ask questions about the Faith. Mary could not answer some of her inquiries and pointed her to the nuns. Charlie, too was eventually received into the Church.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">Accepting the Way God Made Her</strong></p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">People often tried to downplay her deformed face and hideous looks. Once, a nun, seeing Mary in a new dress, commented how pretty she was. “No, sister,” she gravely responded, “I’m not pretty.” On another occasion, a visitor asked the child why she did not pray to God for a cure. She gently smiled and said, “This is the way God wants me.”</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">This admirable acceptance of suffering was also manifested when her mother tried to take Mary to a plastic surgeon. Once again, the child insisted she was the way God wanted her to be. However, the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Memoir</span> astutely points out that Mary was intelligent enough to know that God might have wanted her to be “less than perfect,” but her family did not.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">A “self-styled faith healer” once found his way into Mary’s room.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“The Lord can heal you, Mary Ann!” he yelled. Not getting the response he expected, the healer repeated the same phrase three more times with ever greater insistence.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">“I know He can,” Mary sternly replied, “but it doesn’t make a bit of difference if He heals me or not. That’s His business.”</p><h4 align="center" class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: 20.020000457763672px; margin: 24px auto; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.tfp.org/christs-passion-in-our-days/" rel="noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0d0046; text-decoration: none;" target="_self"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: blue;">Christ’s Passion in Our Days</span></strong></a></h4><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Through all her suffering, Mary found great consolation with thoughts of heaven, the angels and the perfection of the glorified body. “When I get to <a href="https://www.tfp.org/heaven-the-hope-of-our-souls/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: blue; text-decoration: none;">heaven</a>,” she once said, “I’ll have two good eyes, and I’ll run around heaven and be able to see everybody there at once.”</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">Final Months</strong></p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">In September 1958, the first death knell sounded for the valiant youngster. One nun entered her room to check and was shocked to find her bed soaked with blood. The little patient had suffered a severe hemorrhage and was weak from the loss of blood.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Over the next several months, she endured similar episodes until one proved fatal the following January. The Dominican Sisters then gathered around her bed as was their custom when one of their own was dying. They sang the Salve Regina. Mary looked up and was so enchanted that she asked them to repeat it.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">She slid into unconsciousness but, upon awaking, saw the lighted candle which the nuns had placed by her bed. Mary Ann reached over towards the soft glow of the taper and repeated again and again, “Dear Jesus, I love you!”</p><h4 align="center" class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 1.3rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: 27.299999237060547px; margin: 24px auto; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.tfp.org/science-confirms-angels-took-the-house-of-our-lady-of-nazareth-to-loreto/" rel="noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: blue; text-decoration: none;" target="_self"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">Science Confirms: Angels Took the House of Our Lady of Nazareth to Loreto</strong></a></h4><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">At 3:00 in the morning of January 20, 1959, Mary Ann asked for her <a href="https://www.tfp.org/the-rosary-has-saved-nations-in-the-past-can-it-save-america-now/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: blue; text-decoration: none;">rosary</a>. As she slipped the beads through her fingers, she dozed off and died a peaceful death.</p><div class="wp-caption aligncenter nitro-offscreen" id="attachment_72381" style="background-color: #e8e8e8; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(217, 217, 217); box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 10px !important; margin: 10px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px 8px; width: 594px;"><a href="https://www.tfp.org/the-two-aspects-of-death-sordid-and-repulsive-v-august-and-epic/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0d0046; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="The Hidden Life of Mary Ann Long" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-72381" class="wp-image-72381 size-large ls-is-cached lazyloaded" height="779" id="NTY5OjgwNA==-1" nitro-lazy-empty="" nitro-lazy-src="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-768x1024.jpg" nitro-lazy-srcset="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-205x273.jpg 205w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-1536x2048.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px" src="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-768x1024.jpg" srcset="https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-205x273.jpg 205w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn-damom.nitrocdn.com/InqYbjGeXdqgLaXFapkuaEJexFlZeJrn/assets/static/optimized/rev-f9ca94c/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mary-Long-Grave1-1536x2048.jpg 1536w" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px 2px 5px 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(217, 217, 217); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 1px 2px 5px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; display: block; height: auto; margin: 5px auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="584" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-72381" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Arial, Gotham, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 5px 5px; text-align: center;">Mary Ann Long’s tombstone.</p></div><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Today we do not appreciate lives like Mary Ann or value her sacrifices. We prefer the frenetic intemperance of a world without restraint.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;">We will only know in eternity the value of the sufferings Mary Ann Long so patiently endured during her short life. In a world that chases after celebrities and yearns for earthly recognition, this child lived a hidden life and now rests in anonymity. Yet her name and heroic feats are most certainly written in that marvelous Book of Life. Hidden from the eyes of man but precious in the eyes of God.</p><p class="nitro-offscreen" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://www.tfp.org/the-hidden-life-of-mary-ann-long/">https://www.tfp.org/the-hidden-life-of-mary-ann-long/</a></p></div>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-67191003293854222302022-02-28T05:46:00.004-08:002022-02-28T05:46:34.651-08:00OBEDIENCE. Magnificat. Feb. 28. 2022<p> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #c4014b; font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 31.104px; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-weight: bold;">Psalm 119</span></p><p class="PSE_PSE_N0_Title" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-width: 0px; color: #c4014b; font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 31.104px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.045; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="GREP_IMBRIQUES_Rouge_9_bold_N130" style="float: right; font-size: 22.464px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">1-8</span></p><p class="PSE_PSE_N5_Comment" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-width: 0px; color: #1a1818; font-family: "Minion Pro SmBd", serif; font-size: 22.464px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.056; margin: 6px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">If they obey and serve him,<span class="GREP_IMBRIQUES_Rouge_slash_N280" style="color: #c4014b; font-size: 22.464px;">/</span> they spend their days in prosperity,<span class="GREP_IMBRIQUES_Rouge_slash_N280" style="color: #c4014b; font-size: 22.464px;">/</span> their years in happiness. (Jb 36:11)</p><p class="PSE_PSE_N5_Comment" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-width: 0px; color: #1a1818; font-family: "Minion Pro SmBd", serif; font-size: 22.464px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.056; margin: 6px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">Obedience to God’s law seems an unlikely road to happiness. Indeed, at times it seems to bring us conflict, trial, and great loss. What we lose, though, is far less than what we gain if we do the will of the God who wills nothing less for us than the joy of life everlasting in his presence.</p><p class="PSE_PSE_N10_Lettrine" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-width: 0px; clear: both; color: #1a1818; font-family: "Minion Pro SmBd", serif; font-size: 25.919999999999998px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.045; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="GREP_IMBRIQUES_HY_PS_Lettrine_N290" lang="fr-FR" style="color: #c4014b; float: none; font-family: "Minion Pro Smbd", serif; font-size: 38.016px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; letter-spacing: 1.2px; line-height: 17px; margin-top: -8px;">T</span>hey are happy whose life is blameless,<br />who follow God’s law!<br />They are happy who do his will,<br />seeking him with all their hearts,<br />who never do anything evil<br />but walk in his ways.</p><p class="PSE_PSE_N25_Text" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-width: 0px; color: #1a1818; font-family: "Minion Pro SmBd", serif; font-size: 25.919999999999998px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.045; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">You have laid down your precepts<br />to be obeyed with care.<br />May my footsteps be firm<br />to obey your statutes.<br />Then I shall not be put to shame<br />as I heed your commands.</p><p class="PSE_PSE_N25_Text" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-width: 0px; color: #1a1818; font-family: "Minion Pro SmBd", serif; font-size: 25.919999999999998px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.045; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">I will thank you with an upright heart<br />as I learn your decrees.<br />I will obey your statutes:<br />do not forsake me.</p><p class="PSE_PSE_N25_Text" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-width: 0px; color: #1a1818; font-family: "Minion Pro SmBd", serif; font-size: 25.919999999999998px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.045; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">Glory to the Father….</p><p class="WGE_WGE_N0_Title" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c4014b; display: table; font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 27.648px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.045; margin: 18px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; width: 385.1875px;">Word of God <span class="GREP_IMBRIQUES_Rouge_9_bold_N130" style="float: right; font-size: 22.464px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">1 Peter 1:22-23</span></p><p class="WGE_WGE_N5_Lettrine" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-width: 0px; clear: both; float: none; font-family: "Minion Pro SmBd", serif; font-size: 25.919999999999998px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.045; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="GREP_IMBRIQUES_WG_Approche_Lettrine_N210" style="color: #b30040; font-size: 38.016px; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: -6px; margin-left: 115px;">S</span><span class="PetitesCAP2-N11-Rouge-slash-N280" style="font-size: 25.919999999999998px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; margin-left: 0px;">ince you have</span>purified yourselves by obedience to the truth for sincere mutual love, love one another intensely from a [pure] heart. You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God. </p><p class="WGE_WGE_N25_Repons" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-width: 0px; color: #1a1818; font-family: "Minion Pro SemiboldIt", serif; font-size: 25.919999999999998px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.045; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">All who inhabit the world shall understand<span class="GREP_IMBRIQUES_Rouge_slash_N280" style="color: #c4014b; font-size: 25.919999999999998px;">/</span> <br />That nothing is better than the fear of the <span class="Petites_CAP_N10" style="font-size: 25.919999999999998px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal;">Lord</span>,<span class="GREP_IMBRIQUES_Rouge_slash_N280" style="color: #c4014b; font-size: 25.919999999999998px;">/</span> <br />nothing more salutary than to obey his commandments. <br /><span class="GREP_IMBRIQUES_Ref_chiffres_9-5_N260" style="font-size: 25.919999999999998px;">(Sir 23:27)</span></p><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-6015906329966556912022-02-18T15:42:00.000-08:002022-02-18T15:42:51.441-08:00The Intentional and Malicious Infiltration of the Church by Fr. Robert Altier<p> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 30px; font-weight: bold;">The Intentional and Malicious Infiltration of the Church</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 23px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleEmphasizedItalicBody; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">By , Fr. Robert Altier </span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">St. Paul tells us that we have to make the most of our opportunity because the days are evil. We aren’t just simply living in days that are evil, we are living in the days that Isaiah spoke about, the days when they will call evil good and good evil. And we have been brainwashed into thinking that evil things are okay, they’re not.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">So, from this point forward, what I am about to relay is completely politically incorrect and if you have young ears that you don’t want to hear it, you may want to take a fifteen-minute walk.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">In the last couple of weeks, we have heard some pretty unfortunate things. A cardinal of the Church who abused children and young men, and now in Pennsylvania the grand Jury report 301 priests violated more than a thousand children. And on top of that we have the episcopal cover-up, the word episcopal means bishops, so the cover-up by the bishops. And, it’s not just simply a cover-up, it’s an agenda.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">If you’ve listened carefully, since 2002 when all this broke, the bishops keep on coming back to the same point, pedophilia, its pedophilia, it’s pedophilia, its pedophilia. No, it’s not. In fact, the John Jay institute, the group that the bishops themselves hired to look at what was going on, came back and said this is a homosexual problem. 86.6% (if I recall correctly) of all of the abuse cases were on post-pubescent males, and the bishops told them “no you go back, and you rewrite it and you say that it isn’t a homosexual problem.” So, they came back and said well 86.6% of this is all about post-pubescent males, but it’s not a homosexual problem; like really?</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">So, pedophilia is the violation of pre-pubescent children, less than 3% of all of these cases were pedophilia. Ephebophilia is the violation of post-pubescent children, pederasty particularly, post-pubescent males. That’s what we are dealing with here.</span></p><p class="p4" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 23px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 9px 0px 8px;"><span class="s4" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><img alt="PrideFlagSTPCathedral640.jpg" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/90a908ae-ec59-4c85-ac48-7aade20b207b" /></span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Now we need to make an important distinction, there are some very, very good people who struggle with a homosexual orientation. All of us struggle with different things, that doesn’t mean that we’re a bad person just because we have certain weaknesses. And the Church recognizes that that orientation is not evil, it is the activity which is evil. And so, for these men who want to live a good life and who are trying to fight against those temptations and the struggles, this is a cross. And it is a huge cross that they have to carry. In fact, you can think how much God loves these people if he allows them to carry a cross that is that big; its huge.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Now we need, as again we look at our own selves, we can say alright there are some for instance who struggle with alcohol or people who struggle with pornography, whatever. If they’re really trying to fight against those temptations these are good people with a weakness. That’s different for instance from the drug dealer, or from the guy who is making pornography, or the guy who is trafficking the women or something; those people are pigs. The guy who is struggling and trying to live a good life is a good person with a weakness. And that is the distinction that we need to keep in mind.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">And so, the Church is very clear that even for men with a deep-seated homosexual tendency, that they are not to go to the seminary. That’s not because the Church is being discriminatory or hates these people, but rather because the same principle if you look at it and say: would you take somebody who is struggling with an alcohol addiction to a bar? It’s a point of temptation. We don’t allow men into women’s convents because it’s not going to be long before somebody’s going to be having problems. And that’s what the Church is looking at to say this is not good.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Go back to when I was in college seminary. I was having a conversation with another seminarian, in the midst of the conversation he looked at me and said would you ever consider taking a shower in the women’s locker room? I said certainly not. He said well why not? I said well the temptations and the problems… and he said you’re right, now you know what I have to go through when I go into a men’s locker room. I thought oh my goodness…yuck. This is why the Church says even for these good men who are struggling and trying to overcome this, we don’t want to put them in a point of temptation.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">So those are not the people that we are having a problem with. The people that we are having a problem with come from two different groups and understand there is an intentional and malicious infiltration of the Church for the purpose of destroying her from within.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">This is what you need to understand.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">When I was in the seminary, it was one of the worst seminaries in the nation. 1983 is when our seminary was at its absolute worst; I started in ‘85. It was getting slightly better. But these people were so arrogant. I should point out when I was in the seminary if you were not homosexual or a radical feminist you were in big trouble. One of the professors actually was arrogant enough to stand up in front of the class and say “Martin Luther had the right idea, but he did it the wrong way – he left the Church. You can’t change the Church from the outside you can only change it from the inside, so we’re not leaving.”</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">So, these are people with an agenda. And what are the two groups? The two groups are: number one, a group of predatory homosexuals. They started their infiltration of the Church in 1924. You want to look it up? There is a book called The Homosexual Network written in 1982, so this is 20 years before all of this stuff hit. A man named Enrique Rueda looked at all of this, studied all of their own publications, (they were publishing every year the number of seminarians, priest and bishops they had), he traced it back to when they started, it began in 1924. And then five years later, in 1929, the communists began their infiltration of the priesthood and the two groups did exactly the same thing. You want to read about the communist one? There is a woman by the name of Bella Dodd who was a deep-seated communist who got out of communism and converted to the Faith. She testified before congress in 1953 and in that testimony she said that “we got the instructions from Kremlin in 1929 as to what we were to do,” and she said “we were to take the best and the brightest, the guys who were smart enough to live a double life, good looking guys who were sociable so that they would be noticed by their bishop, and they would get promoted, they would become vocation directors, they would become bishops, they would become rectors of seminaries, they would have influential positions” and she said “we were successful beyond our wildest imagination.” She said: “I am personally responsible for more than 1,200 seminarians, priests and bishops.” And in 1953 mind you, again, now they started in 1929, in 1953 she said: “we already have four cardinals in the Vatican.” That was 1953, it’s way worse today.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">So, we have these two groups. If you want to read about her, she wrote a book called School of Darkness, that was published in 1954. You want to understand why all of the promotion, the propaganda, the agenda? You can go back and read another book that was written in 1932 by a man named William Foster. William Foster ran for the president of the United States in 1924, 1928 and 1932 for the Communist Party USA. In 1932 he wrote a book called Toward Soviet America. And in that book, he said “we aren’t being able to get to the Americans because of three things, their morality, their family and their patriotism.” And he said: “so the way that we are going to attack these three things is through homosexuality and radical feminism.” They have been extraordinarily successful.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">So, what are we dealing with? We are dealing with a group of predatory homosexuals who became priests not to serve the Church but to destroy her from within. In this, they are at every level. There was – there is an article that just came out from the Catholic Register in which six priests from the Newark diocese were interviewed and they spoke about the homosexual network in their diocese. It’s in all of them, not just in Newark. They cover up for another, they share their victims with one another, they do all kinds of horrible things. It is so wide spread now that there is actually talk on the federal level of using the RICO laws against the Church because of this kind of nonsense that’s been going on.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">And people ask, why don’t the good priests speak up? I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, he looked at me and he said: “I’ve known about this for 50 years and you’ve known about it for 40 years.” Yep, it’s about time it’s coming out. So why didn’t somebody speak up? Number one if I would have stood here even a couple of years ago would you have believed what I am telling you? Number two, who were we supposed to go to? It was at every single level all the way to the top. You wanted to be ordained a priest, you couldn’t day a word. And even as a priest you can’t.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Again, these priests that were interviewed in the Catholic Register were interviewed only because of anonymity. It required anonymity because they were afraid of what was going to happen to them if the bishops and the people at the chancery found out who it was that spoke. These people have that much power. And so, we need to realize that. So, again just to tell you a quick story about how bad things were. When I was in the seminary, they would put up their communist propaganda, I would rip it down and every time I would do that there would be an announcement “Whoever is taking the notices off the bulletin board…” When I would put up a notice that says we were going to pray the Rosary, that would get torn down immediately and there was never anything said. Now having said that, thankfully the seminary today is way, way better than it was. These young guys are not having to deal with this trash, but that was the climate at the time.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Now if we just use the McCarrick situation, since that’s been in the news, everyone is disgusted with what this man did to boys and to young men, and rightly so. But anybody, by the way, who thinks that all of this is just great – they’re such nice people and they’re no different – look at what McCarrick did: that is what predatory homosexuality looks like.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">These are not nice people who are just like everybody else. But as disgusting as all that is, think about the fact that this man was in the pulpit for 50 years, he sat in the confessional, he was in the bishop’s office making decisions about priests’ lives, about diocesan finances, about the direction of the diocese and so on. He served on Vatican commissions, he was a consultant to the Vatican, he made lots of bishops. What kind of advice do you think somebody struggling with some sexual problem in the confessional would have gotten from somebody like this?</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">What kind of men do you think might have been elevated to be bishops by somebody like this?</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">You now understand why all that we get is fluff and stuff instead of good homilies? You understand why there are problems in the world that aren’t being addressed? That’s what it is about. Where is the doctrinal integrity? Where is the moral teaching? Someone that is not living it is not going to teach it. Now there are, after this grand jury report came out a few days ago from Pennsylvania, there are several more states already talking about doing their own grand jury investigation. It will probably go all over the place, so I say that to simply say there is going to be more in the news coming up.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">And as sad as this is we have to recognize that it is actually something very good. It is the purification of the Church and that is going to lead ultimately to her crucifixion Not many are going to remain faithful, unfortunately. But when we look at it and say: “well if this is what is going on in the Church what are we supposed to do?” We are supposed to look at Jesus and say exactly what St. Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Jesus founded one Church and that one Church is the only institution in the world for the salvation of souls. It was founded for that purpose and it will remain to the end of the world for that purpose.</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">I have spoken with a number of people in the last week or two about what’s going on, prayerful, holy people and they have all concurred on the same point – Our Lady’s work has finally begun. Praise God!</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">She gave the bishops 16 years to clean up this mess and they did nothing. Now we are hearing from the bishops.</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17.7px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"></span><br /></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Courageouspriest.com</span></p><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Fatheraltier.excerptsofinri.com</span></p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-75750846390276965462022-01-26T11:58:00.003-08:002022-07-12T10:03:45.044-07:00Pope Francis a Wolfe In Shepherd’s clothing?<p> </p><div class="et_post_meta_wrapper" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h1 class="entry-title" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 38px; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">‘Pope Francis’ – A Wolf in Shepherd’s Clothing?</h1><p class="post-meta" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 1px; margin: 0px 0px 6px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 15px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">BY <span class="author vcard" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://turningpointproject.com/author/williamkilpatrick/" rel="author" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Posts by William Kilpatrick">WILLIAM KILPATRICK</a></span> | <span class="published" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JAN 25, 2022</span></p><img alt="" class="" height="675" src="https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.185/a0z.10c.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Pope-Francis-blessing-1080x675.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="1080" /></div><div class="entry-content" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 30px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano sheds</span> a <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">disturbing light on the ‘Deep Church’</span>.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">“A non-Catholic Pope”? It sounds like a contradiction in terms. But those are the words used to describe Pope Francis by <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/vigano-deep-state-and-church-will-bring-new-world-religion-and-order/" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano</a>, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States. In fact, he rarely uses the term “Pope Francis.” He refers to him instead as “Bergoglio” and to his pontificate as the “Bergoglian papacy.”</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Vigano has a following in some Catholic circles but it’s likely that the vast majority of Catholics have never heard of him. Yet the questions he raises about Pope Francis are of great consequence, not just for Catholics but for non-Catholics as well.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Since there are about 1.3 billion Catholics in the world, whoever leads them can have a significant effect on a large segment of the global population. It’s widely thought, for instance, that Pope John Paul II did more to put an end to communism in Eastern Europe than any other individual with the exception of Ronald Reagan. For evidence of the close collaboration between the two men, read historian Paul Kengor’s revealing book, <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-pope-and-a-president-paul-kengor/1125157103?ean=9781610171526" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A Pope and a President</span></a>.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Now we have a new pope and a new president and neither of them seem terribly concerned about the revival of communist power throughout the world. In fact, both men have surrounded themselves with left-leaning advisors and appointees.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">In addition, both Francis and Biden have effectively rolled back the agendas of their immediate predecessors. This is obvious in the case of Biden because the reversal has been swift and abrupt. The reversal that Francis has engineered is less noticeable since it has been more gradual, but the resulting change in the Catholic Church has been every bit as radical as the one now taking place in American government and society.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Archbishop Vigano links the two together. He talks of a coup in America and other Western nations led by secular leftist ideologues, and a coup in the Catholic Church led by Bergoglio and the progressive Catholics who surround him.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">However, the coup in the Church has been a more silent one. Catholic writers who have studied Francis’s career describe him as a skillful–even Machiavellian–manipulator. According to them, all his actions are shrouded in a deliberate fog. Consequently, most Catholics remain unaware of the magnitude of the changes. It is only when a priest or prelate resists Francis that “the dictator pope” (the title of <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dictator-pope-marcantonio-colonna/1128075176?ean=9781621578321" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Henry Sire’s book about Francis</a>) reveals himself. Just as the Biden administration is seeking to purge conservatives from government and the military, Francis seeks to purge traditional Catholics from the Church. And since some of the strongest resistance to Francis comes from adherents of the Latin Mass, he has acted to suppress the Latin Mass. Meanwhile, some conservative prelates find themselves demoted to obscure outposts, and others live in fear that false charges of sex abuse could land them in jail (as happened to Australian Cardinal George Pell).</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Moreover, since Francis has been promoting progressive prelates to high posts for nine years, it looks likely that his “anti-Catholic” (Vigano’s term) brand of Catholicism will continue to dominate. Because Francis has carefully packed the College of Cardinals (who elect the next pope) with men made in his own image, we shouldn’t be surprised if the next Pope takes the name, Pope Francis II.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">You’ve heard of the “deep state;” Vigano maintains that there is also a “deep church”—a network of progressive prelates who, together with Francis, plan to change the face of the Church beyond recognition. Moreover, the deep state and the deep church <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/vigano-deep-state-and-church-will-bring-new-world-religion-and-order/" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">reinforce each other</a>: “The deep church and deep state are nothing other than two parallel tracks which run in the same direction and have as their final destination the New World Order, with its religion and its prophet.”</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Vigano points out that although Francis is “universally considered as the head of the Church,” he is at the same time a “<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/vigano-deep-state-and-church-will-bring-new-world-religion-and-order/" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">liquidator” of the Church</a>: “His dual role as pope and liquidator of the Catholic Church allows him on the one hand to demolish it with decrees and acts of governance, and on the other hand to use the prestige that his office entails to establish and spread the new religion over the rubble of the old one.”</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">The “<a href="https://catholicfamilynews.com/blog/2021/12/07/interview-abp-vigano-denounces-hellish-project-of-transhumanism-and-great-reset-discusses-vatican-ii-and-infiltration-plan/" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">new religion</a>” which Francis hopes to usher in is, according to Vigano, a humanist and progressive one— “the religion of Mankind, an ecumenical and ecological one.” This new religion will also result in “the legitimization of Evil,” and the persecution of good people.”</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">If all of this—this notion of a non-Catholic pope who seeks to liquidate the Church—seems outlandish and inconceivable, consider that only a short time ago, the notion of a communist-ruled USA also seemed inconceivable. It seemed inconceivable that Americans would elect as president a man who would immediately set about to demolish American history, values, and institutions. But that is what seems to be happening.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">As far as I know, Vigano has never actually said that Francis is not the pope, but he has implied as much. The evidence that he and others present can be divided into four categories:</p><ol style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: inside; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 23px; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Evidence that Pope Benedict’s resignation was invalid</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Evidence that the election of Francis was rigged</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Evidenced of widespread corruption in the Francis papacy.</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Evidence that Francis embraces heresy.</li></ol><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Whether or not Vigano makes the case is a subject for another time. The point I want to make here is that, despite the gravity of the charges against Francis, the response has been muted. Neither Francis nor the Vatican has ever responded to Vigano’s explosive “<a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=11936" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">testimony</a>” in 2018 accusing Francis and other prelates of covering up Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s long history of sex abuse. Francis said that he would trust the media to come to the proper conclusion; and the media obliged by ignoring Vigano’s charges altogether.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Likewise, the Francis-friendly media has had little to say about Vigano’s claim that Francis is not a legitimate pope. As a result, the average Catholic is unaware that there is a problem. Most Catholics would be surprised to learn that although Francis has frequently promised to put an end to clerical sex-abuse, he surrounds himself with abusers and enablers and promotes them to high office. Likewise, most Catholics would be surprised to discover that although Francis verbally condemns abortion, he sees to it that prominent advocates of abortion are invited to Vatican conferences, and he sometimes showers them with praise.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Moreover, although he states that abortion is murder, he intervened to prevent the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) from voting to deny communion to President Biden because of Biden’s flagrant pro-abortion policy. According to Vigano, Francis is a master of duplicity whose <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">modus operandi</span> is to say one thing to please the pew-sitters, and to do the opposite in order to please the worldly elites.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">It should be noted that Vigano has recently been a bit more in the public eye because of two letters he wrote to Donald Trump, and because of Trump’s positive response to them. As a result, some in the liberal Catholic press have mounted a vigorous campaign to discredit him. For example, the Jesuit-run magazine <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/06/12/archbishop-vigano-aligning-trump-stay-spotlight-pay-him-no-attention" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">America</span>dismisses him as just another right-wing conspiracy theorist</a> who ought to be wearing a MAGA hat instead of a bishop’s cap.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">The foundation for the conspiracy-theorist charge is that Vigano says what a growing number of Americans believe about a deep state increasingly controlled by global elites intent on reducing average people to the status of worker bees. He speaks disparagingly of the New World Order, and the machinations of the Rockefeller Foundation, The World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, and Bill Gates. Furthermore, in contrast to Francis, he sees the Covid pandemic as an invented crisis which is intended to create a more docile population. Finally, Vigano often talks in apocalyptic terms. He speaks of death and judgement, heaven and hell, Satan’s war against heaven, the Second Coming of Christ, and the “Mark of the Beast.” To the modern ear and to many modern Christians such talk is embarrassing, but through the ages most Christians have regarded such signs and prophesies not as the ravings of extremists, but as the revealed word of God.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Vigano has a good grip on science, finance, and politics, yet he does sometimes sound more like a 19<span style="border: 0px; bottom: 0.8em; box-sizing: border-box; height: 0px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span>century pope than a 21<span style="border: 0px; bottom: 0.8em; box-sizing: border-box; height: 0px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">st</span> century prelate. This is actually quite refreshing because many modern clergymen have learned to talk in a corporate-therapeutic lingo that is devoid of any depth. Take <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/250070/usccb-bishops-synod-tweet-twitter" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">this tweet</a> sent out by the USCCB to prepare Catholics for the upcoming “Synod on Synodality:”</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">“Here are seven attitudes we can all adopt as we continue our synodal journey together. Which one inspires you the most?”</p><ul style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 23px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Innovative Outlook</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Inclusivity</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Open-mindedness</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Listening</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Accompaniment</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Co-responsibility</li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dialogue</li></ul><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">“Which one inspires you the most?” But these psychobabble buzzwords aren’t meant to inspire, they’re meant to put to sleep—to distract people from the crucial issues that face the Church today such as the issue of “<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/vigano-deep-state-and-church-will-bring-new-world-religion-and-order/" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2559a8; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a pope who does not behave like a pope</a> and does not speak like a pope.”</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Vigano wants to wake up the sheep and so it seems quite fitting that he uses the strong language of the Bible to arouse people from their slumber. While other bishops babble on about “inclusivity,” “dialogue,” and “open-mindedness,” it’s somehow reassuring that at least one bishop points to the very disturbing signs of the time.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s easy enough to dismiss Vigano as a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but let’s not forget that the Bible contains many admonitions to be alert to the signs of the time, and many warnings about “spiritual” leaders who are not what they seem. One of the warnings goes like this: “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Mt. 7: 15.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Of course, it’s not easy to discern a false prophet when he is dressed in sheep’s clothing. It would be more difficult still if he were dressed as a shepherd.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">This article originally appeared in the January 25, 2022 edition of Front Page.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Pictured above: Pope Francis</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">Photo credit: Pixabay</p></div>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-4779763115888086592022-01-24T17:05:00.005-08:002022-01-24T17:10:05.043-08:00Opinions of a man, not the Church: Cardinal Burke criticizes Pope Francis praise for LGBT group leader <p> </p><div class="entry-header" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; grid-column-end: articleheader; grid-column-start: articleheader; grid-row-end: articleheader; grid-row-start: articleheader; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 810px;"><header class="entry-info" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: center;"><h1 class="entry-title page-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; font-family: Oswald, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 46px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.67em;">‘Opinions of a man,’ not the Church: Cardinal Burke criticizes Pope Francis’ praise for LGBT group leader</h1><hr class="single-header" style="background-color: #cccccc; border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; height: 1px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; overflow: visible; width: 159.1875px;" /><div class="entry-excerpt" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 1.15em; line-height: 1.75; margin: 1em 0px;">The cardinal discussed his 'miraculous' recovery from COVID-19, the attacks launched against the Traditional Latin Mass, and the Pope’s letters of gratitude to pro-LGBT advocate Sister Jeannine Gramick of the controversial New Ways Ministry.</div></header><div class="entry-thumb" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><img alt="Featured Image" class="featured-image is-news no-lazy-load wp-post-image" data-cfsrc="https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Screenshot-2022-01-21-at-15.41.49-810x500.png" loading="lazy" src="https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Screenshot-2022-01-21-at-15.41.49-810x500.png" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: inherit; height: auto; max-width: 100%; min-height: 200px;" /><figcaption style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #666666; display: flex; font-family: Poppins, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; justify-content: space-between;"><span class="caption" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Cardinal Burke interviews on EWTN's The World Over, January 20, 2022</span><span class="credit" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12.600000381469727px; margin-left: 8px;">The World Over Screenshot</span></figcaption></div><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></div><div class="entry-content" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; grid-column-end: articlebody; grid-column-start: articlebody; grid-row-end: articlebody; grid-row-start: articlebody; margin: 1.5em 0px 0px; min-width: 0px;"><div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="author-comments hide-desktop" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: flex; justify-content: space-between; margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><div class="author-name" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><hr class="blue-line fifty" style="background-color: #00a3df; border: none; box-sizing: content-box; color: #00a3df; height: 3px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; overflow: visible; width: 61.0625px;" /><div class="byline" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Poppins, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;"><span class="author vcard" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a class="author-url" data-author-id="42014" href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/author/david-mcloone/" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #00a3df; text-decoration: none;">David McLoone</a></span></div></div><div class="comment-link view-comment" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: inherit; display: flex; position: relative;"><a class="comments pl" data-identifier="758066" data-url="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cdl-burke-defends-latin-mass-and-the-right-to-refuse-covid-shots-in-new-ewtn-interview/" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: inherit; display: flex;" title="Comment on this article">Comments <span class="share-icon icon-comment" face="lsnicons !important" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 40px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; height: 40px; line-height: 40px; max-width: 40px; opacity: 0.55; overflow: hidden; width: 40px;"></span></a><div class="badge-icon" style="background-color: #f1f1f1; border-bottom-left-radius: 10px; border-bottom-right-radius: 10px; border-top-left-radius: 10px; border-top-right-radius: 10px; border: 1px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-table; font-size: 11px; height: 19px; line-height: 20px; padding: 0px 7px; position: absolute; right: -3px; text-align: center; top: -2px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap;"><span class="disqus-comment-count" data-disqus-identifier="758066" data-disqus-number="y" style="box-sizing: inherit;">2</span></div></div></div><div class="date-info" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="posted-on main-article" face="Poppins, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 12px;"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2022-01-21T11:59:02-05:00" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Fri Jan 21, 2022 - 11:59 am EST</time></span></div></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">(<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #00a3df; text-decoration: none; word-break: break-word;">LifeSiteNews</a>) — Cardinal Raymond Burke has openly criticized Pope Francis for his <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-once-again-praises-dissident-nun-for-years-of-lgbt-activism/" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #00a3df; text-decoration: none; word-break: break-word;">recent endorsement</a> of the pro-LGBT group New Ways Ministry, clarifying that his words are merely the “opinions of a man” and have “nothing to do with the Magisterium of the Church.”</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">In a wide-ranging interview Thursday on EWTN’s <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">The World Over</span>, the American cardinal discussed his “miraculous” recovery from COVID-19, the attacks launched against the Traditional Latin Mass from the Vatican and high-ranking prelates, and the Pope’s <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-praises-pro-lgbt-group-for-their-shepherd-attitude-and-neighborly-work/" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #00a3df; text-decoration: none; word-break: break-word;">letters of gratitude</a> to pro-LGBT advocate Sr. Jeannine Gramick of the controversial New Ways Ministry.</p><div class="ad-block ad-content ad-pos-top ad-inserted" style="background-image: url("/wp-content/plugins/lsn-ads/assets/css/ad-placeholder.png"); background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; min-height: 250px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"></p><div class="responsive-video auto-video" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 223.875px; position: relative; width: 398px;"><iframe class="" data-lazy-loaded="1" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/gTOpRal7_j4?feature=oembed&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&autohide=1&playsinline=0&autoplay=1" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; height: 223.875px; left: 0px; max-width: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 398px;"></iframe></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">Alongside his criticisms of Francis’ personal musings, Burke has defended the right of Catholics not to receive the COVID jabs, citing “Catholic teaching” as the basis for rejecting shot mandates while criticizing Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin for <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-parolin-denies-covid-jab-exemptions-in-the-vatican-claims-shots-are-not-tainted-by-abortion/" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #00a3df; text-decoration: none; word-break: break-word;">implementing</a> a jab requirement.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">He added that “forced vaccination is a violation of human rights.”</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">The former head of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s highest court, also defended the Latin Mass, explaining that its use has “absolutely not” been a cause of disunity in the Church, and that there is nothing “in the documents of the Second Vatican Council that would lead to a banning of the traditional way, of the traditional posture or position of the priest during the celebration of the Mass.”</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">Regarding the Pope’s praise of the work of New Ways Ministry, Burke maintained that the position taken by previous popes and entered into the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Acta Apostolicae Sedis</span> in 1999 still stands, that Gramick’s teaching on homosexuality does “not faithfully convey the clear and constant teaching of the Catholic Church.”</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">Burke added that Pope Francis’ personal opinions on the matter have “have nothing to do with the Church’s teaching.”</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Below follows a full transcript of the interview:</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Raymond Arroyo</span>: First of all, how are you feeling? And are you having any lingering effects from the COVID recovery?</span></p><p class="subscribe-form-inserted" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Cardinal Raymond Burke</span>: In general I’m feeling very well and I’m returning more or less to a normal pace of life. The lingering effect has been on my lungs. The virus attacked in a very vicious way my lungs and so there’s some healing yet that has to take place and the doctors tell me that they don’t know a lot about this; how long it takes, but that it could take upwards of a year or so. I’m getting stronger all the time, but that’s the one lingering effect. Of course I was on a ventilator for nine days which were nine days lost for me – I don’t have any recollection at all of that –and so when I came out from the from that intubation I couldn’t even stand up and I had to regain all of my ability to stand, to walk, to negotiate stairs, and thanks be to God that has gone well, and that was part of the reason for the long recovery. And then as people who’ve had this will tell you that there was this terrible fatigue that I had. I left the hospital on September 3rd and for about a month I was just tired all the time: it didn’t matter how many hours I slept at night, I would wake up in the morning tired. It’s a terrible thing but that passed too, thanks be to God and yeah, I’m tired a little earlier in the day than I used to but during the day I’m quite fine.</p><div style="box-sizing: inherit;"><form class="lsn-subscribe" id="lsn-subscribe-9210" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; padding: 30px 0px;"><input autocomplete="off" id="lsn-subscribe-other-name-9210" name="lsn-subscribe-other-name" style="background-position: 0px 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #666666; font-family: Poppins, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; left: -99999em; line-height: 1.5; margin: -1px 0px 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 7px 10px; position: absolute; width: 428px;" type="text" value="" /><input autocomplete="off" class="lsn-subscribe-timecode" id="lsn-subscribe-timecode-9210" name="lsn-subscribe-timecode" style="background-position: 0px 0px; 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I have to say that when they took the tubing out and I was conscious again, that I had an immediate sense that our Blessed Mother had been taking care of me all the time, and I say this very sincerely. The doctors had informed my good sister Mary that there was really not any hope that I was going to survive this, and that she should put my things in order, and I have no question in my mind that it was all these prayers that were raised up to Our Lord and the prayers that He heard, and saved me for some work now that He has for me to do. But I had immediately that very strong sense and it has remained with me; it really was miraculous, and we should never doubt the power of prayer. But in this instance, I have experienced it in a remarkable way because I knew I was dying and I really wasn’t at all certain that I would survive. When I then gained my consciousness again, I learned about all these prayers that were offered, I understood what had happened.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">In many reports of your illness you were portrayed, Your Eminence, as a vaccine denier and skeptic. Even the pope made reference to you as a denier on the papal plane returning on his trip from Slovakia in September. He said: “Even in the college of cardinals there are some deniers and one of those, poor guy, is hospitalized with the virus: the irony of life.” What did you think when you heard those comments that you were a denier and a skeptic of vaccines? Are you?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">Well, no, I have never said to anyone that he or she should not be vaccinated. I have insisted that the question of having the vaccination is a personal decision, it’s an exercise of a fundamental human right, and that I’m absolutely opposed to forced vaccination, to these mandates. But I have not taken a position of being against the vaccine. On the other hand, we have only one Savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ: we put ourselves in His hands, and vaccinating the whole world is not going to save the world. and that there is this kind of rhetoric today where people think that if that if everyone were vaccinated everything would be just fine; that isn’t correct thinking for a Christian.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">And scientifically invalid I might add as events have proven particularly with this omicron variant. The Vatican however, Your Eminence, is currently mandating vaccines for all employees. It’s been encouraging that everyone, including children, be vaccinated. Several members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard have lost their jobs for not receiving the jab. There are no numbers of reporting on other jobs that have been lost so far, we just don’t know.</span> Y<span style="box-sizing: inherit;">our reaction to the Vatican’s vaccine mandate especially now, when as we mentioned it’s been widely reported the vaccine’s not effective against omicron, and several European countries have now – namely England and Spain – have lifted their vaccine mandates?</span></p><div class="ad-block ad-content ad-pos-mid ad-inserted" style="background-image: url("/wp-content/plugins/lsn-ads/assets/css/ad-placeholder.png"); background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; min-height: 250px; text-align: center;"><ins data-revive-id="f046842b221f24c6a533c0729d3c49c8" data-revive-loaded="1" data-revive-seq="1" data-revive-zoneid="8558" id="revive-0-1" style="background-color: #fff9c0; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none;"><a href="https://servedby.lifeserver.net/cl.php?bannerid=78065&zoneid=8558&sig=26b4a25031f1f0e84f226009bf1117ebb19928f6579e2d027d7e32ca5477b39f&oadest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifesitenews.com%2Fpodcasts%2Fmother-miriam-live%3Futm_source%3Dwebad" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #00a3df; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" height="250" src="https://static.lifeserver.net/042cd76b8c0734d29cbf72d33c921733.png" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: inherit; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" title="" width="300" /></a><div id="beacon_8f3b76360b" style="box-sizing: inherit; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><img alt="" height="0" src="https://servedby.lifeserver.net/lg.php?bannerid=78065&campaignid=13316&zoneid=8558&loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifesitenews.com%2Fnews%2Fcdl-burke-defends-latin-mass-and-the-right-to-refuse-covid-shots-in-new-ewtn-interview%2F&cb=8f3b76360b" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: inherit; height: 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom; width: 0px;" width="0" /></div></ins></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">The Vatican’s position on this is very severe, there’s no question about it. You cannot enter for instance the apostolic palace or other offices of the Vatican unless you can demonstrate that that you are vaccinated and this is a very severe policy. I understand – I don’t know personally but I understand – that that there are a number of people who cannot come to work because they’re not vaccinated, and of course their absence from work is classified as unjustified and therefore they aren’t paid: and also, I have heard that a number of the Swiss Guards had to leave the service of the Guards because they chose not to be vaccinated. As I said before I believe that the forced vaccination is a violation of human rights, and also there are normal precautions which can be taken with regard to the spreading of any kind of illness and those precautions should be taken; but it’s correct: there are a lot of people who have been vaccinated who now have contracted seemingly this omicron variation. To me the bottom line is that the vaccination, as it is, is an experiment. We don’t have the necessary experience with the vaccine, and so people who take the vaccine are accepting to be part of an experiment.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Yes, and as you mentioned there have even been Vatican officials who’ve now contracted COVID, many of them triple vaxxed in some cases. Tell me how this squares though with Catholic teaching because the CDF document of last year, of last December, said you can in good conscience and as a good Catholic decide not to take these vaccines, and that’s perfectly licit, but now we seem to be getting a different message, at least in word, from the Vatican, to say nothing of these mandates they’ve dropped on employees.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">What the Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith said is Catholic teaching. A forced vaccination of people is no part of Catholic teaching and that’s all I can say: this has never been in the Church’s teaching, in the document of the Congregation. The CDF was clear about that and I thought that it was understood. But then the Vatican itself has taken this position which really doesn’t square with that teaching and it’s causing a great deal of suffering.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Your Eminence, I want to move on to another topic: the continued support of and attacks upon the traditional Latin Mass since Pope Francis’ motu proprio “Guardians of Tradition” that was released in July. In the archdiocese of Chicago where the Latin Mass has practically been banned – Cardinal Blase Cupich issued rules last month on Christmas day that banned the use of the traditional liturgy on Christmas, Easter Sunday, and the first Sunday of each month and other holy days; now Cardinal Cupich explains his reasoning for these new rules is the following: “To foster and make manifest the unity of this local church as well as to provide all Catholics in the archdiocese an opportunity to offer a concrete manifestation of the acceptance of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and its liturgical books.” Cardinal Burke, what is the fear of the Old Rite based upon, and is the ongoing celebration of the Latin Mass a challenge in your mind to the Second Vatican Council or the liturgical books that came out of it?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">Absolutely not. In many dioceses now for many years, some of the faithful have been assisting at the celebration of the Holy Mass, especially on feast days, according to the more ancient usage, the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">usus antiquior</span>, the extraordinary form as it’s called today. That hasn’t been any cause of disunity. In fact I served in two dioceses and it was a great blessing to have these communities who were following those ancient rites as they’ve been handed down to us from the time of pope Gregory the Great and even before, and I don’t want to talk about them as if they’re simply antiquities, not at all! The sacred liturgy is a living reality: it’s Christ himself acting in our midst to sanctify us, and the Holy Mass in the most wonderful way possible by His renewing His sacrifice on calvary sacramentally, and then nourishing us with His own Body and Blood. And this remains the reality, so that the form of the Mass as it was set forth after the Council of Trent but as it had existed for centuries before is a living reality, and you can’t deny that. With regard to the Second Vatican Council many things that happened after the Council with regard to the sacred liturgy have no foundation whatsoever in the in the documents on the sacred liturgy, and intelligent people who have studied these matters know well that there were many abuses following the Council – the so-called spirit of the council, and the whole way in which the liturgy was reformed, the rites were reformed. So there are legitimate questions. Some of them have been addressed, some need yet to be addressed. But Pope Saint John Paul II for instance, in the last years of his pontificate, was continually insisting on the need to address the sacred liturgy and to restore the transcendence of the liturgical action: namely that it’s Jesus Christ Himself who acts in our midst, comes into our midst through the sacred liturgy. And, of course, Pope Benedict XVI was a wonderful teacher in that regard, and<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;"> Summorum Pontificum</span>, his motu proprio by which he made more accessible the celebration of the extraordinary form, as he called it, was a great gift and was proceeding in the exercise of that gift. The use of that gift was a great gift in the church. I don’t understand this. I have a lot of contact with the oratories and parishes that celebrate the extraordinary form, and with priests, and it’s all positive. They don’t think of themselves as being the real Church or better Catholics than anyone else: they simply find a tremendous spiritual nourishment through these ancient rites, the traditional form of the mass. And why should that be denied to them?</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Your Eminence, a priest in the Chicago diocese asked to be allowed to use the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">ad orientem</span>posture, facing the East during mass: he was denied. When he protested, he was charged with inciting disobedience against the diocesan bishop. Has the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">ad orientem</span> posture been abrogated, forbidden by the Council or the Church and what does the all of that have to do with the Latin Mass?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">Any mass can be celebrated facing the Lord or facing the east <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">ad orientem</span> <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">versus Dominum</span>, and in fact many people tell me, and it makes perfect sense, that it’s a very beautiful thing to have the priest at the head of the congregation offering the Mass when everyone is facing Our Lord, so this makes it clear that the sacrifice is Our Lord’s sacrifice. We worship in spirit and truth in Our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s true that that the more ancient usage was certainly to celebrate Mass facing the Lord, facing the east, but I don’t find anything in the documents of the Second Vatican Council that would lead to a banning of the traditional way, of the traditional posture or position of the priest during the celebration of the Mass; and why this is now being brought forward I don’t understand.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Your Eminence, the practical effect of this, I think people haven’t given due consideration in Rome, what I’m hearing is so many of these Catholic communities – and again these are small groups of Catholics but they’re fervent, the church is packed for these traditional Latin Masses – many of them are now going over to these Society of Saint Pius X chapels. Is the intention here on the part of some in Rome to drive those Catholics attached to this rite to the Society of Saint Pius X and then declare them all schismatics at some later date? Why create this division while talking of accompaniment</span>?</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">I don’t know. I’ve been told that too, that the thinking of some is that that anyone who is attracted to the more ancient usage should simply go over to the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, but that’s absolutely wrong because the more ancient usage is an integral part of the life of the Church it has been along all the centuries. Even after the introduction of the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Novus Ordo</span>, as it’s called in the more recent usage, the Church has always permitted to individuals and to groups the possibility of the use of following the more ancient usage. And so this idea that somehow if you are attracted to the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">usus antiquior</span> you’re a schismatic, I mean this is simply wrong and it’s wrong to drive people in that direction. But Our Lord is with us in the Church: He told us he would remain with us always in the Church, and so we have to stay in the Church and fight to preserve and to promote and cultivate the liturgical life of the Church, also through the extraordinary form. And so I tell people we don’t have a choice. Saint Athanasius was exiled, he was excommunicated, he suffered so many humiliations for defending the truth of the faith, but he never left the Church. Padre Pio is another example more recent: he suffered a great deal at the hands of the Vatican and yet he remained faithfully in the Church, and this is what we have to do. Our lord isn’t going to permit – I know this – Our Lord is not going to permit that this beautiful gift of the more ancient usage, the beautiful gift of these rites will be lost. It’s clear that He hasn’t permitted it and since the time of the Council there’s been a continual growth and interest in the more ancient usage. I know so many lay faithful and also priests who have told me that being able to assist at the Holy Mass according to the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">usus antiquior</span> has so helped them to deepen their understanding and their appreciation and their participation in the Holy Mass.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">I’ve had a number of priests tell me it wasn’t until they either assisted or celebrated the old rite that they fully understood and then brought a new sacrality and devotion to the new one, because one feeds the other, it stands on the back of the other. But it is as you mentioned, Your Eminence – and I would add Mother Angelica’s name to that list of martyrs for the faith fighting and being abused by authorities at times over the liturgy, let’s face it – it is curious and bizarre to me that at the same time that the Vatican is inviting protestants and Anglicans to walk with the Roman Catholic Church in this synod, we are basically treating very faithful Catholics of a living beautiful tradition of the church as if they’re lepers and saying there’s no room for you at the inn. George Weigel called <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Traditionis custodes</span> “theologically incoherent, pastorally divisive and unnecessary.” Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence is calling on the Church to support those attached to the old rite. Do you think this is going to be an ongoing struggle here, and how best to fight it?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">It will be, and my counsel to people is: continue to do what you’ve been doing. This is nurturing your faith, this is nurturing your closeness to your bishop and your closeness to the whole Church, and that is the way that we can best fight this battle, and then to vindicate our rights in the Church, to make recourses when injustices are done to legitimate communities of the faithful. And, of course, there are also institutes of the consecrated life or societies of apostolic life whose particular charism is the celebration of the liturgy according to the roman rite according to the more ancient usage, and to promote that. It’s their right to do that. So I believe that there will continue to be a very strong response to the situation and God willing – and I’m sure that Our Lord will bless it – that we will return to a regular free usage of the more ancient usage of the Roman rite.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">In the meantime, it’s going to be very difficult when many of these priests are not allowed to celebrate the Latin Mass in a parish setting, so I guess this goes underground like as it was in days gone by and in Communist China, I guess that’s where the whole world is now.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Your Eminence, in December pope Francis wrote a letter praising the work of sister Jeannine Gramick, the head of the very controversial New Ways Ministry, a group condemned by the Bishops’ Conference in the US and two previous pontificates. The Pope praised her work for her outreach to LGBTQ Catholics. His letter fully contradicts John Paul II and Ratzinger’s 1999 admonition against her work. What are your thoughts on this letter and the message it sends to the Church and the wider world?</span></p><div class="ad-block ad-content ad-pos-bot ad-inserted" style="background-image: url("/wp-content/plugins/lsn-ads/assets/css/ad-placeholder.png"); background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; min-height: 250px; text-align: center;"><ins data-revive-id="f046842b221f24c6a533c0729d3c49c8" data-revive-loaded="1" data-revive-seq="2" data-revive-zoneid="8556" id="revive-0-2" style="background-color: #fff9c0; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: none;"><a href="https://servedby.lifeserver.net/cl.php?bannerid=80856&zoneid=8556&sig=771f0e2e1b95fb6269f2a9b548247ccf611b4e313c98244a34a3eebc6e456c5e&oadest=https%3A%2F%2Flifesitenews.bamboohr.com%2Fjobs%2Fview.php%3Fid%3D66%26source%3Dother" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #00a3df; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" height="250" src="https://static.lifeserver.net/9efdba5f7fd57a6cb3879544cacc873e.png" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: inherit; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" title="" width="300" /></a><div id="beacon_836baa12e8" style="box-sizing: inherit; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><img alt="" height="0" src="https://servedby.lifeserver.net/lg.php?bannerid=80856&campaignid=14369&zoneid=8556&loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifesitenews.com%2Fnews%2Fcdl-burke-defends-latin-mass-and-the-right-to-refuse-covid-shots-in-new-ewtn-interview%2F&cb=836baa12e8" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: inherit; height: 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom; width: 0px;" width="0" /></div></ins></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em;">Well, the church’s response to the New Ways Ministry, and at that time he was still alive, father Nugent, and sister Jeanine Gramick is found in a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that was published in the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Acta Apostolicae Sedis</span>, the official organ of communication of the of the Church, in 1999, and you can read it there, and what’s written there is as true today as when it was written. What these personal acts of the pope are, are exactly that: these are acts that he is taking on personally, but they have nothing to do with the Church’s teaching as far as I’m concerned. What I read that was quoted in the media of the letter – or letters, I’m not sure – which is written to Sister Jeanine, these are simply the opinions of a man, but they have nothing to do with the Magisterium of the Church. That’s found very carefully set forth in that document: when a document is published in the <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Acta Apostolicae Sedis</span> this is very significant: it indicates to us that it is in a particular way an expression of the Church’s doctrine and discipline.</p></div>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-24596397254272552012022-01-08T07:29:00.000-08:002022-01-08T07:29:03.153-08:00Constant Battle for your soul<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 0px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 560px; text-align: center;"><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 340px;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; direction: ltr; font-size: 0px; padding: 20px 0px; text-align: center;"><div class="mj-column-per-100 mj-outlook-group-fix" style="direction: ltr; display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 340px;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; vertical-align: top; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><div style="font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;"><h1 style="color: #db982e; font-family: mr-eaves-sans, sans-serif; font-size: 36px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px;">Today's Meditation</h1><p style="margin: 13px 0px;">“The life of prayer calls for continuous battles. It is the most important and the longest effort in a life dedicated to God. This effort has been given a beautiful name: it is called the guard of the heart. The human heart is a city; it was meant to be a stronghold. Sin surrendered it. Henceforth it is an open city, the walls of which have to be built up again. The enemy never ceases to do all he can to prevent this. He does this with his accustomed cleverness and strength, with stratagem and fury … he succeeds all along the line to distract us and entice us away from the divine presence. We must always be starting again. These continual recoveries, this endless beginning again, tires and disheartens us far more than the actual fighting. We would much prefer a real battle, fierce and decisive. But God, as a rule, thinks otherwise. He would rather we were in a constant state of war.”<br />— Dom Augustin Guillerand, p. 57</p></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 0px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 560px; text-align: center;"><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 340px;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; direction: ltr; font-size: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><div class="mj-column-per-20 mj-outlook-group-fix" style="direction: ltr; display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 340px;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; vertical-align: top; width: 100%px;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 112px;"><a href="http://enews.morningoffering.com/q/tgHcWY-4YcAr0XN8X-l5QERXqsYK7bTJUJuZcOJanVkaXRoYTIwMTFAZ21haWwuY29tw4gwBMx62pdcrALSjrH13ftfVcETNQ" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank"><img alt="The Prayer of the Presence of God, p57 " data-unique-identifier="" height="auto" src="https://static.trinityroad.com/prod/250/1043038.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-size: 16px; height: auto; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 5px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; width: 112px;" width="112" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-59432904510066376502021-09-23T18:28:00.001-07:002021-09-23T18:28:20.999-07:00H.O.P.E. What You Eat Matters (2018) - Full Documentary (Subs: AR/CZ/ES/...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/J0YHjPHm-Sc" frameborder="0"></iframe>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-11015352042268014062021-06-26T07:41:00.002-07:002021-06-26T07:41:20.412-07:00Our Increasingly Unrecognizable Civilization<div style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 19.200000762939453px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px; padding-top: 20px;"><img alt="Imprimis" src="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/photo766.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" /></div><article class="post-51604 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-elections category-foreign-policy category-government category-immigration category-law last-post" id="post-51604" style="border-bottom-style: none; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 19.200000762939453px; margin: 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px 0px 2em;"><header class="entry-header"><h1 class="entry-title" style="border: 0px; font-family: "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 2em !important; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1em; list-style: none; margin: 1em 0px 0.3em; padding: 0px;">Our Increasingly Unrecognizable Civilization</h1></header><footer class="entry-meta" style="color: #555555; font-size: 0.8em;"><a href="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/increasingly-unrecognizable-civilization/" rel="bookmark" style="border: 0px; color: #d90000; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="April/May 2021 • Volume 50, Number 4/5"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2021-05-26T10:18:46-04:00">April/May 2021</time> • Volume 50, Number 4/5</a><span class="byline"> • <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/author/marksteyn/" rel="author" style="border: 0px; color: #d90000; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="View all posts by Mark Steyn">Mark Steyn</a></span></span></footer><div class="entry-content" style="overflow: auto; width: 680.390625px;"><div id="author"><p style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><strong>Mark Steyn</strong><br />Host, <em>The Mark Steyn Show</em></p><div class="author-bio-image"><hr /><p class="auth_bio_desc" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><img alt="" class="avatar pp-user-avatar avatar-144wp-user-avatar wp-user-avatar-144 photo " data-del="avatar" height="144" src="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Steyn-e1622035938993-150x150.jpg" style="background-clip: content-box; background-color: white; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: left; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 2px; vertical-align: middle;" width="144" /><strong>Mark Steyn</strong>, host of <em>The Mark Steyn Show</em>, writes regularly at steynonline.com and has contributed to numerous publications, including the <em>Daily Telegraph</em>, <em>The Irish Times</em>, <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>, and <em>The Jerusalem Post</em>. He is the author of several books, including <em>Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech, and The Twilight of the West</em>, <em>America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It</em>, and <em>The [Un]documented Mark Steyn</em>. A frequent guest host of <em>Tucker Carlson Tonight</em>, he was for 15 years a guest host of <em>The Rush Limbaugh Show</em>. His albums include <em>Making Spirits Bright</em>, with Jessica Martin, and <em>Feline Groovy: Songs for Swingin’ Cats</em>. From 2008 to 2013, he was a Eugene C. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Journalism at Hillsdale College.</p></div><hr /></div><div class="essb_links essb_displayed_shortcode essb_share essb_template_deluxe-retina essb_1779154853 essb_links_center print-no" data-essb-button-style="button" data-essb-counter-pos="hidden" data-essb-fullurl="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/increasingly-unrecognizable-civilization/" data-essb-instance="1779154853" data-essb-position="shortcode" data-essb-postid="51604" data-essb-template="deluxe-retina" data-essb-url="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/increasingly-unrecognizable-civilization/" id="essb_displayed_shortcode_1779154853" style="clear: both; display: inline; margin: 1em 0px; text-align: center; word-wrap: normal !important;"><ul class="essb_links_list" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline; line-height: 1em; list-style: none !important; margin: 0px !important; outline: 0px; padding: 0px !important; 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background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); background-image: none; background-position: center center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px; border-top-left-radius: 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px; border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; height: 32px; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; transform: translate3d(0px, 0px, 0px); vertical-align: middle; width: 32px;"></span><span class="essb_network_name" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; display: inline-block; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px 15px 0px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; transform: translate3d(0px, 0px, 0px); vertical-align: middle;">Download Issue</span></a></li></ul></div><br style="clear: both;" /><p class="p1" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><i>The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 26, 2021, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Franklin, Tennessee.</i></p><p class="p1" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">I live about 20 minutes south of the Canadian border, which used to be called the longest undefended frontier in the world. People moved freely back and forth across it all day every day. But now it’s been closed for over a year. At one point my daughter asked me to drive her up there, because there was a 30-minute opportunity for people on one side to talk to their friends on the other. “Sad!” as President Trump would say. It was like Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin during the Cold War, except that <i>both</i> sides are now like East Berlin. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">I don’t know how this happened, but it is just one indication that America, and the West in general, have become almost unrecognizable from what they were not that long ago.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Look at just three things we have lost. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">One is equality before the law, something absolutely essential to a free society. In its place, we now have politicized law. If a policeman fatally shoots someone, whether his name is released to the public depends on whether the shooting is consistent with the preferred narrative of the ruling class. A policeman recently took down a young woman who was threatening the life of another young woman with a knife, and that policeman was immediately identified—indeed, his photo was posted and he was threatened by NBA superstar LeBron James on Twitter. On the other hand, we know nothing of the policeman who shot dead an unarmed woman in the U.S. Capitol on January 6. His name will apparently never be released to the public.</p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Second, border control. Functioning societies, at least since the Peace of Westphalia three centuries ago, have borders. America has no southern border and no plans to get one. The official position of our government seems to be that any of the seven billion persons on this planet has a right to come and stay in the U.S. for three years, until his or her assigned court date comes up. As the number of people with pending cases continues to grow, that three years will extend out to five or seven or 15 years. If we get all seven billion people to come here, the court system will break down entirely and maybe we can go back to having a functioning border.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">And third, dare I bring up the fact that it is a real question whether we can go back to agreeing to have open and honest elections? And if we don’t have open and honest elections, control of our borders, and equality before the law, then we don’t have the conditions for politics or free government. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">And here’s the thing. It is not at all clear to me that many of America’s conservative politicians understand the seriousness of all this. You can see it in the fact that they go around trying to scare people with the specter of a “radical socialist agenda.” For well over a year now, we have been living in a world in which it’s accepted as normal that the state has essentially unlimited power—and in which our freedom to decide for ourselves has been diminished almost to invisibility. Why do these conservative politicians think the words “radical socialist agenda” still scare anyone in a time when the state can tell us whether we can have Aunt Mabel over for Christmas? They are completely out of touch.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Over the same period as the pandemic lockdowns, we have seen an escalation of so-called wokeness. And if you look at one of the most startling manifestations of this, transgender fanaticism—which involves, after all, the abolition of biological sex and, I’m sorry to have to say it, the physical mutilation of children—one notices that America is farther down this road than any other country in the Western world. In other words, at this moment of crisis for Western Civilization, or for what we used to call Christendom, the leading country of the free world is pulling the wrong way.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Think of it. Your daughter has been training since she was a little girl to run in school sports. Now at 17, she’s in the state high school track championships, and you are forbidden even to notice that she’s competing against a woman who is 6’2” with thighs like tugboats, a great touch of five o’clock shadow on her face, and the most muscular bosom you’ve ever seen. You’re not supposed to notice the craziness of this, and the craziness is at its craziest right here in America.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">We traditionally think of France as being a bit screwy, but today there are French intellectuals who regard themselves as hardcore leftists and yet who think America has gone bonkers on this transgender issue. President Macron himself has said that American wokeness is an existential threat to the French Republic, and he even found bureaucrats in France’s education bureaucracy who agreed. There is not a single bureaucrat in the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., who would agree, but there are apparently a few in Paris.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">If you look further east in Europe to the lands that were once behind the Iron Curtain—to Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, which still function as conventional nation-states calculating their best interests—you find tremendous fear of the threat of wokeness that is being exported, sometimes aggressively, from America. So it is here in the U.S. where we have to put the stake through these ideas. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">But again, even most of our conservative leaders and institutions seem oblivious. School districts in America are talking about revising their curricula to cover transgender issues from grade school on. Now, I went to an English boys’ school, and we were expected to pick up sexuality on our own time. In those days people would have looked puzzled if you had said, “We’re going to have to cancel geography or Latin, because we need to put gay studies in there.” These days, instead of going off behind the bike shed during recess to learn about sex, kids need to sneak behind the bike shed to do a little bit of closeted geography or closeted Latin. It’s completely backwards. And yet what do we hear from most conservative politicians? That it would be nice to offer people a tax cut! </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">We are way beyond tax cuts. We’re broke. We’re just a smidgen away from $30 trillion in federal debt—something with no historical precedent. Talking about tax cuts today is like talking about VAT tax refunds on the Titanic. It’s not actually what’s necessary at the moment.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Another big issue that should take our minds off tax cuts is China. I can’t get over the way we in the U.S. have been ordered by our governors and the CDC to punish ourselves by living small, shrunken lives, while the people in China who loosed this pandemic on the world have paid no price for it. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Dr. Fauci has been a federal government bureaucrat since 1968. He’s the J. Edgar Hoover of public health. He talks about the COVID virus as if we’re at war. But he seems to think a country wins a war by taking it out on its own population rather than the enemy, which is what we’ve done.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Which do you think was the only major economy to grow in 2020? It’s not a hard question. America’s economy shrank 3.5 percent last year. The economies of Germany and Japan shrank almost five percent. France’s, Italy’s, and India’s economies all shrank over eight percent, and the economy of the United Kingdom was down ten percent. China’s economy, on the other hand, grew 2.3 percent in 2020, and first quarter growth for 2021 in China set a new world record—it was up over 18.3 percent. The COVID pandemic has been hugely profitable for China. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">U.S. policy towards China since the 1990s represents perhaps the biggest strategic miscalculation by any great power in human history. Just as communism was wobbling and beginning to fall everywhere else, we helped Beijing come up with the first economically viable form of communism.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">At first we were told it was only our manufacturing that we would ship to China. After all, we were told, it wasn’t economically viable for Americans to make widgets. Remember the talk in the ’90s? We were going to be the “knowledge economy.” All the clever people told us this. We weren’t going to have mills and factories, but we were going to be the knowledge economy. Well, in case you haven’t noticed, China’s got the entire knowledge economy for itself now. It makes our laptops and our smartphones and it’s out front with Huawei and 5G. It also makes the batteries that power our gizmos and the chips that run our cars. When COVID struck, we found out fast that the Chinese not only make our viruses, they also make the personal protective equipment that protects us against the viruses—and all of our medicines to boot! Those wily Chinese get you both coming and going.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">China is now the number one global power. You can define this militarily, where it now has the largest surface fleet on the planet. You can define it economically. But the way I define it is to look at who gets its way in the world. New Zealand has just effectively pulled out of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement—an arrangement between the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the oldest such arrangement on the planet. New Zealand has pulled out with respect to China because it doesn’t want to offend China. I would think Canada might be the next to go. Or look at the World Health Organization. America pays for it, but Chairman Xi in Beijing calls the shots. China gets its way now, and the U.S. doesn’t.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">We need politicians with a sense of urgency about these problems, but all they seem to have is urgency about things that aren’t urgent. Look at climate change. People say we need to take action over climate change or else rising sea levels are going to overwhelm the Maldives in the Indian Ocean in the 22nd century. That’s the century after this one, which is still quite young. These same people say about the immediate crisis on the southern border that it’s “a natural phenomenon beyond the control of politicians.” But changing the weather in order to lower the sea levels that will threaten the Maldives in the Indian Ocean in the next century is within the power of politicians? In general, our leaders are urgent about nothing that matters and not in the least bit urgent about things that matter very much. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">The things our news media talks about incessantly, whether it’s transgender bathrooms or Confederate statues being toppled or the totally dishonest national conversation on race—nothing like this is heard in China as it goes along steadily strengthening its position as the world’s leading power. The Chinese don’t find themselves stuck in these sterile, drain-circling, dishonest public conversations about identity politics. These conversations are a waste of time. And one thing we should demand of our politicians is that they talk about things that <i>aren’t</i> a waste of time. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">At the root of our problems is that we have seen the emergence of a true ruling class, like Grand Dukes in medieval Europe. Its members intermarry. They send their kids to the same schools. They circulate back and forth between government and the private sector. And over time it has become increasingly easy to identify members of this class.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">John Kerry gave a commencement address a couple of years ago in which he told the students, “You are going to be the first generation to live in a borderless world.” And for the elite, the idea of a borderless world rings true. A typical member of the ruling class will get a job with a firm like Goldman Sachs, work for a couple of years in Hong Kong, then move on for a couple of years in Geneva, and then maybe come back to America. What are borders to such a person? Meanwhile, for the common American, COVID has literally ended, to a large degree, any freedom of movement. They live in the farthest thing from a borderless world. Oftentimes they’re trapped in a town that is dying because of the open-border, cheap-labor policies advocated by people like John Kerry. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Our political division in America today is a class division, and we need to expose it as such whenever we see it. The ruling class tries to keep racial and other forms of division stirred up in our politics so that we don’t notice the class protection racket they are running. Look at that guy from Twitter, Jack Dorsey, who wears a beard like he’s playing the hobo in a Charlie Chaplin silent film. I wouldn’t mind betting that when he’s called to testify in Congress, he has his valet hook on the beard and lower him into the clothes that make him look like he’s been sleeping in a dumpster. Then at night after the cameras are off he’s like Lord Grantham in <i>Downton Abbey</i>, spending an hour being dressed for dinner. Our elites have become incredibly good at theater.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Getting back to the southern border, it perfectly symbolizes the bifurcation of our society. We’re told there’s a health emergency. We’re told we can’t open our businesses or attend weddings or funerals. Yet at the same time, every day, thousands of people pour across the southern border, test positive for COVID, and are then driven to a nice hotel and put up there at taxpayers’ expense. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">It’s also interesting to compare the southern border with the northern. Prior to the pandemic, when the border with Canada was open, my kids had their Kinder Eggs confiscated by the Department of Homeland Security when we would cross the border going south into Vermont. Kinder Eggs are chocolate eggs with a kid’s toy inside. They are sold in Canada, but they are banned in the U.S. because the Food and Drug Administration calls the toy a “non-nutritive embed”—and that’s good enough to send Homeland Security agents swinging into action! There is always a big crackdown before Easter on Kinder Eggs. So at the northern border there are lots of things, down to Kinder Eggs, that are illegal. But at the southern border you can come in with pretty much anything you want, including COVID. Why is that? It is because some groups serve the needs of the ruling class and others don’t. License is extended to the former and not the latter. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">People ask me, “Why are you going on about Kinder Eggs? They’re not important. It’s more important that <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>so-and-so is up two points in Iowa and three points in New Hampshire. That could be a real game changer.” To which I answer no, that’s not how it works. If they take the small freedoms away from you, whether it’s the freedom to eat Kinder Eggs or to enjoy a high pressure shower, you will lose all the larger freedoms, which is the world we’re in now. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">I used to get occasional pushback when I’d talk about rights. “Rights are abstract things,” people would say—“they don’t have anything to do with our real lives.” Well, after the last year, we know they have everything to do with our real lives. When you’re told you can’t open your hair salon, when you’re told you can’t have family or friends over for dinner, when you’re told you must wear a mask in your own garden, there’s nothing abstract about it. This is where all the stupid Kinder Egg laws have been trending for years. And it’s why we need to push back.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">I made a little joke earlier about studying transgenderism in grade school, but it’s not a laughing matter. Education is the biggest structural defect in our society. We have an almost entirely corrupt and abusive education establishment. And in one corner of Governor Whitmer’s Michigan, of all places, Hillsdale College stands against this. Hillsdale’s literature, I’ve noted through the years, talks a lot about the College’s 177 years of being rooted in the soil of Michigan. And this reminds me of the fact that if you do not have roots, you are not a functioning society. You can’t just be flotsam and jetsam, bobbing around on the currents of the age, wheresoever they tend. If you do that, you’re cut off from your roots.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">This is what’s so frightening about the trends in education today. Cromwell told his portrait painter, “Paint me, warts and all.” That’s not what is happening in America, where the trend in education is to paint only America’s warts. So even the great Kate Smith, who sang “God Bless America” for years, is having her statue taken down because she made a racially insensitive record in 1931. Well you know who really had a racially insensitive record in 1931? The Democratic Party. But unlike Kate Smith’s statue, it’s still around. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">President Macron of France is not my favorite chap—he’s a sinister globalist for one thing. But he made an admirable stand when he announced that not one French statue would be taken down and not a single French street name would be changed, because they are all part of French history. And “Bingo!” as Peter Navarro likes to say, the statue toppling and street-name changing in France went away. Why can’t American conservatives show that kind of strength? The Senate Minority Leader says he personally would not be bothered if the historical names of U.S. military bases are changed. The editor of <i>National Review</i> says that he wouldn’t be bothered about taking down Confederate statues. But of course it doesn’t stop there—now they’re going for all the statues. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, McKinley, and on and on. The point conservatives need to grasp is, unless you’re prepared to surrender everything, don’t surrender anything.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">I’ll end by pointing out that the Left wins because it seizes language. Take the policy of letting people vote who are not U.S. citizens and shouldn’t be voting. The Left calls this policy “counting every vote.” Therefore someone who wants to make sure voters are citizens is <i>opposed</i> to “counting every vote.” If we don’t take back the language, we will lose the truth. Even on FOX News, I have noticed, news anchors now talk about “gender assigned at birth,” as if that’s something different from one’s biological sex. There may be 57 genders, but there are only two biological sexes. </span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1">Don’t surrender the language. Reclaim the language. It’s the first step to recovering our civilization.</span></p><p class="p2" style="border: 0px; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="s1"><a href="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/increasingly-unrecognizable-civilization/">https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/increasingly-unrecognizable-civilization/</a><br /></span></p></div></article>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-4406865725137754372021-06-17T22:15:00.008-07:002021-06-17T22:15:57.615-07:00Brave nun warns people away from COVID jab, cites numerous deaths, severe injuries<h1 class="art-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: 38px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 9px 0px;">Brave nun warns people away from COVID jab, cites numerous deaths, severe injuries</h1><div class="art-subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7a7a7a; font-size: 19px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-top: 7px; min-height: 27px;">‘Since January, I’ve been asked to pray for 50 people who have died,’ following the COVID injection. ‘In the end, what this crisis is about, is the battle between good and evil and what is at stake are souls.’</div><div class="art-subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7a7a7a; font-size: 19px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-top: 7px; min-height: 27px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></div><div class="art-subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7a7a7a; font-size: 19px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 9px; margin-top: 7px; min-height: 27px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px;">LONDON, June 2, 2021 (</span><a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #007eac; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; text-decoration: none;">LifeSiteNews</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px;">) — Last weekend, anti-lockdown protestors in London, U.K., were welcomed by Catholic nuns from the historic Tyburn convent, one of whom revealed that she had been asked to pray for “50 people who have died” following the reception of COVID-19 experimental vaccines. The brave nun later gave a powerful email interview to LifeSiteNews, providing shocking details of the incidents which had been entrusted to the convent’s prayers, urging people to have hope, and to strengthen their prayer life in the face of a what is ultimately a “battle between good and evil.”</span></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">In London, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheFreds/status/1398722567637176322" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">Unite for Freedom marchers</a> protesting coronavirus restrictions and vaccine passports were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsKRss5WwCk" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">greeted by a group</a> of <a href="https://www.newsflare.com/video/431363/cheerful-london-nuns-hug-anti-lockdown-protesters-during-unite-for-freedom-rally" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">cheering nuns</a> as they made their way past Marble Arch.<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/brave-nun-warns-people-away-from-covid-jab-cites-numerous-deaths-severe-injuries"><span style="color: #333333;">One of the sisters, Mother Marilla, the Mother General,</span><span style="color: #333333;"> </span></a><a href="https://twitter.com/TheFreds/status/1399002930213236744" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">addressed</a> the protestors, encouraging them as they marched through the streets of the capital.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">“You were made in the image and likeness of God. You were born free,” she said. “Don’t let them take your freedoms away from you.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">She also warned against the much-hyped experimental coronavirus injections. “Protect the children, and under no conditions let them have that vaccine, it kills people,” she stated.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">“Since January, I’ve been asked to pray for 50 people who have died. I’ve been a nun for 28 years, and all my life I’ve never been asked for anybody, to pray for anybody who’s died or even been injured by a vaccine. Only once in 2015, a young girl, but since January this year, 2021, 50 people we’ve been asked to pray for who have died from the vaccine.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">Her warning is not without supporting data. In the U.S., data <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/vaers-data-reports-injuries-12-to-17-year-olds-more-than-triple/?itm_term=home" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">show</a> that “between Dec. 14, 2020 and May 21, a total of <a href="https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=CAT&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">262,521 total adverse events</a> were reported to Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), including <a href="https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19&DIED=Yes" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">4,406 deaths</a> — an increase of 205 over the previous week — and <a href="https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19&SERIOUS=ON" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">21,537 serious injuries</a>, up 3,009 since last week.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Defender </em>noted that of those deaths, “23% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination, 16% occurred within 24 hours and <a href="https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19&DIED=Yes&V2OCHECKED=ON&V2OLOW=0&V2OHIGH=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">38% occurred</a> in people who became ill <a href="https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19&DIED=Yes&V2OCHECKED=ON&V2OLOW=0&V2OHIGH=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">within 48 hours</a> of being vaccinated.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">There were also “527 reports of <a href="https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=ON&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Aborted+pregnancy+%2810000209%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Abortion+%2810000210%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Abortion+spontaneous+%2810000234%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Abortion+spontaneous+complete+%2810061616%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Abortion+spontaneous+incomplete+%2810061617%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Abortion+threatened+%2810000242%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal-maternal+haemorrhage+%2810016871%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+cardiac+disorder+%2810052088%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+damage+%2810016852%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+death+%2810055690%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+disorder+%2810061157%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+distress+syndrome+%2810016855%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+heart+rate+abnormal+%2810051139%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+heart+rate+deceleration+%2810058322%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+heart+rate+deceleration+abnormality+%2810074636%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+heart+rate+decreased+%2810051136%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+heart+rate+disorder+%2810061158%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+heart+rate+increased+%2810051138%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+hypokinesia+%2810068461%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+malformation+%2810060919%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+malpresentation+%2810058013%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+monitoring+abnormal+%2810071507%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+movement+disorder+%2810077576%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+movements+decreased+%2810016866%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Foetal+non-stress+test+abnormal+%2810071516%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Placental+disorder+%2810035132%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Pregnancy+induced+hypertension+%2810036563%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Premature+baby+%2810036590%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Premature+baby+death+%2810076700%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Premature+delivery+%2810036595%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Premature+labour+%2810036600%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Premature+rupture+of+membranes+%2810036603%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Premature+separation+of+placenta+%2810036608%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Stillbirth+%2810042062%29&SYMPTOMS%5B%5D=Ultrasound+foetal+abnormal+%2810077578%29&VAX=COVID19" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">miscarriage or premature birth</a>,” out of the 1,641 pregnant mothers who voluntarily reported adverse reactions to the injection to VAERS.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">weekly data</a> released by the government in the U.K. <a href="https://dailyexpose.co.uk/2021/05/27/terrifying-17th-update-on-adverse-reactions-to-the-covid-vaccines-released-by-uk-government-mhra/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">records</a> over 851,000 adverse reactions following the coronavirus injections, including 1,213 deaths.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">147 mothers have <a href="https://dailyexpose.co.uk/2021/05/31/stop-this-madness-920-women-have-reported-the-loss-of-their-unborn-baby-after-having-the-covid-vaccine/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">reported</a> miscarriages or stillbirths following the injection, and despite this, the U.K.’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JVCI) advised that pregnant mothers can take the COVID injections. Both the U.K. and the U.S. data is collated based on voluntary reports, and is estimated by the official bodies themselves, to account for between 1% to 10% of the actual adverse effects.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">Mother Marilla revealed in the video that people had contacted the convent asking for prayers for those who had died, not only in London and England, but in Ireland, and further overseas also.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">The marchers, who numbered in the hundreds of thousands, <a href="https://dailyexpose.co.uk/2021/05/29/the-silence-from-bbc-news-and-sky-news-is-deafening-after-up-to-1-million-people-marched-for-your-freedom-on-may-29th/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">up to a million</a>, greeted the nuns warmly, with many hugging and thanking the religious sisters for their encouragement and prayers.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">“Have courage, we’re praying for you. Have courage,” said Mother.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">The nuns are from London’s Tyburn convent, and are part of the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre, an order which has been based in Tyburn since 1901. Their life is centered around Eucharistic adoration, and as such, there is always at least <a href="https://vimeo.com/74656346" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">one nun praying</a> in the chapel before the exposed Blessed Sacrament. The day is further punctuated with communal chanting of the Divine Office seven times a day, and daily Mass.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">Tyburn itself is the site of <a href="https://www.tyburnconvent.org.uk/tyburn-tree" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">infamous Tyburn Tree</a>, the gallows on which criminals were hung. During the era of Catholic persecution, <a href="https://www.tyburnconvent.org.uk/martyrs-martyrs" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">many Catholic martyrs</a> were hung, drawn, and quartered at the site – the penalty given for committing treason by being a Catholic.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">In the crypt of the convent are many <a href="https://www.tyburnconvent.org.uk/martyrs-relics" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #007eac; text-decoration: none;">relics</a> of some of the more well-known martyrs of the persecution, including Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, St. Oliver Plunkett, who was the last Tyburn martyr.</p><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 11px; margin-top: 11px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mother Marilla speaks to LifeSite</span></h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">LifeSiteNews contacted the convent and spoke with Mother Marilla via email, who generously shed further light on the brief comments she made to protestors at the weekend. She stated first of all that she could not allow herself to remain silent on the issue of the COVID-19 injections: “This is a subject that my conscience will not allow me to remain silent about.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;">Before proceeding, Mother asked for prayers for the convent, anticipating backlash after her public witness, especially given that footage of her discussions with the protestors has already been rapidly spread across social media channels worldwide.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">“I ask your prayers that our congregation may be protected,” she wrote. “The sisters are with me and are encouraging me to give this witness. We are desperate to save lives.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/brave-nun-warns-people-away-from-covid-jab-cites-numerous-deaths-severe-injuries" style="display: inline !important;">https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/brave-nun-warns-people-away-from-covid-jab-cites-numerous-deaths-severe-injuries</a></p><div class="date-share" style="align-items: center; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; justify-content: space-between; min-height: 44px;"><a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/brave-nun-warns-people-away-from-covid-jab-cites-numerous-deaths-severe-injuries"><br /></a><br /></div>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-91572867491460436922021-06-17T22:00:00.001-07:002021-06-17T22:00:45.838-07:00Straight Talk About Gays<p>Straight Talk About Gays</p><p>Rev. John H. Hampsch, C.M.F.</p><p> Among the many letters of inquiry that cross my desk almost daily <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">was an angry letter I received recently from the mother of a gay young man. </span>She had grieved over the discovery of her son's sexual orientation, but through a self-help group for parents of gays, she finally accepted the situation, and went even further to vent her resentment against what she mistakenly thought was "the Church'sattitude toward homosexuals." Besides her son, she had met many truly good persons who, she said were "born with this God-given sexual preference." Reminding me that "God doesn't make junk," she asked why such sexual orientation was associated with sin and the devil in many Christian sermons and articles dealing with this subject. If homosexuality is God's design for these persons, she reasoned, why should they be told to regard it as something wrong, abnormal, or sinful? And why should they be told to substitute a heterosexual preference-if that is possible at all?</p><p> Her letter, though full of anger, seemed well-reasoned. It deserved an answer more satisfying than a mere statement of platitudes or a naked reaffirmation of traditional Christian teaching on this matter, or an "obey-and-don't-ask-why" response. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">But since discussion of the morality of homosexuality, like that of abortion, birth control, etc., is often cluttered with emotional arguments and much ignorance about what the Church really teaches,</span> I realized that my answer would probably be unavailing, no matter how well documented Scripturally , ecclesiastically or rationally. In discussion of this matter, reason and God's revelation are often forced to take a back seat. </p><p> Many TV talk shows, for instance, Or support groups for parents of gays that could and should provide helpful "moral" support, often provide only "immoral" support by ignoring or distorting God's laws, his holy word, and the God-supported teaching of his Church. Even some well-intentioned clergy, in their pastoral efforts to be compassionate, often unfortunately compromise God's revealed truth.</p><p> The Church would certainly agree that "God doesn't make junk." <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">The Church would also agree that most gays are born with same-sex orientation. Jesus seems to agree with that assertion in referring to "eunuchs born that way" (Matt. 19:12). In fact, two recent but debatable researches seem to indicate that there are brain structures unique to homosexuals; this may suggest a genetic cause (if the brain variants do not prove to be an effect) of homosexual thought and behavior .</span></p><p> It amazes me that there are still so many who do not yet know that the Church has stated in countless documents (both from the Holy See and the various councils of bishops, etc.), <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">that homosexuality as a sexual orientation, in itself, is not a sin. It is the sexual acting out of this tendency by the act of sodomy or other forms of unnatural sex that is sinful in itself.</span> <span style="background-color: #01ffff;">There is nothing to keep a homosexual from becoming eminently holy. Undoubtedly, of the thousands of saints, many were homosexuals, but they were either chaste or repentant homosexuals.</span></p><p> <span style="background-color: #cccccc;"> The Church would also agree that God's love for the sinner is unconditional, but the application of his merciful love in granting forgiveness is not unconditional when actual sin has been committed, for God's word insists on a condition: "They should repent and turn to God and do things that would show they had repented" (Acts 26:20).</span></p><p> The Church would not agree that we should downplay emphasis on sin--once it is established that the homosexual act is a sin in itself-for "everyone who sins breaks the law" (I John 3:4). Nor would the Church agree that the devil's frequent involvement in sin should be downplayed, because <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">"the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him"</span> (IPet. 5:8-9). <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">To disregard the devil's involvement in human life would be to disregard the counter involvement of Christ himself, since "the very reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's works" (I John 3:8).</span></p><p>The Church has not only condemned "gay-bashing," but has also <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">consistently affirmed that gays have the same human and civil rights as others. However, these sacred rights may be curtailed when the common welfare or the rights or safety of others is imperiled, just as anyone's civil rights may be curtailed under the same conditions.</span></p><p>Thus, a dangerous psychotic or one under drug influence, or anyone with a contagious disease may be justly confined, limiting the exercise of their rights.<span style="background-color: #fcff01;"> Likewise, homosexual couples may be justly prevented from adopting a child, for they would thus deprive the child of a normal family life. Gays who openly advocate or encourage a gay lifestyle should be prevented from teaching school children that pernicious evil, and prevented from exerting such influence on scout troops, etc. Thus, gay rights are as all-embracing as anyone's rights, but also are to be restricted-as anyone's rights-when they endanger the rights of others.</span></p><p> The Church follows Paul's biblical command to "be prepared in season and out of season to correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction, for the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires (lusts ) they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from truth" (II Tim. 4:2-4). <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">This was Mary's lament in her Medjugorje apparitions, and in other of her many recent apparitions where it is claimed that she said that the three types of sin that most offend God today are abortion, child abuse and the practice (not inclination) of homosexuality.</span></p><p> Are there truly "good" gay people? Of course. I know many of them. Many are heroically living a chaste life of prayerful celibacy, many living alone, and a few in prayerful and chaste companionship. I also know many sincere gay people living asexually active gay lifestyle while ignorant of, or unconvinced of, the objective sin involved.</p><p> This brings up another distinction that the inquiring letter neglected to take notice of (one that I explain in my book, "Glad You Asked)." As St. Thomas Aquinas and other great theologians teach, there is a distinction between the objective moral norm (God's law) and the subjective norm (conscience).<span style="background-color: #fcff01;"> A person may be sinning objectively, violating God's law, and yet be innocent subjectively by reason of an unformed or malformed but sincere conscience.</span></p><p> This objectively sinful but subjectively innocent state is found among some homosexuals, abortionists, euthanasianists, cannibals, artificial birth-controllers, etc. Even many prostitutes sincerely regard their lifestyle as good, because they support their children by prostitution.<span style="background-color: #ea9999;"> Through ignorance of morality or of God's law, such persons have a retarded or unrefined conscience. St. Paul says the conscience of such persons (depending on the presence or absence of malice), can either "accuse them or excuse them. ..God will judge men's secret thoughts" in this regard" (Rom. 2:15-16).</span></p><p> Meanwhile, the Church's task of evangelization includes its obligation of enlightening people by moral teachings, so that the subjective non--conscience-will conform to the objective non-God's law: "Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that others may take warning" (I Tim. 5:20). <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">"Rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith" (Titus 1:13).</span></p><p> <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Notice how Paul presents objective moral truth to homosexuals to correct their subjective moral blindness ("their foolish hearts were darkened"): "In sexual impurity they degraded their bodies with one another. ..exchanging natural relations for unnatural ones. ..Men abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves (in their bodies) the due penalty for their perversion" (Rom. 1:21-27). (Some might conjecture that this "due penalty" in their bodies hints at threatened venereal disease; today that is mainly AIDS, which originated among gays and, through bisexuals, infected straight people-abetted by another sin, drug abuse with infected needles.)</span></p><p> Among the many scriptural condemnations of the practice (not orientation) of homosexuality, the book of Leviticus calls it a detestable "abomination" (18:22), for which God required Moses to apply the death penalty (20:13) to teach the Israelites effectively that homosexual acts such as sodomy entail objective (intrinsic) evil.</p><p> The Church keeps reminding us of the distinction between the homosexual orientation and the homosexual practice or act. The abnormal sexual orientation is itself not sinful, just as the abnormal disorder of an allergy or asthma is not sinful. <span style="background-color: #01ffff;">Homosexual orientation may be regarded morally as simply a form of deep-seated and persistent temptation, not a sin, just as a heterosexual inclination to adultery or fornication is a temptation, not a sin-unless the person succumbs to the temptation. Just as a heterosexual person must avoid sins of fornication and adultery, so also a homosexual must avoid the sin of sodomy.</span></p><p> This comparison, however, may seem to be weak. Many homosexuals (not bisexuals) regard a normal marriage relationship as repulsive, or at least totally unfulfilling. This means that to remain chaste, a gay person must remain sexually non-active, obliged to endure life-long sexual deprivation, possibly feeling "cheated" of sexual fulfillment in a kind of "forced" celibacy (unlike the voluntary celibacy of a priest or religious who finds fulfillment living a consecrated celibate life).</p><p> But is involuntary celibacy or chastity always an unjust imposition by God or by the Church? <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Countless straight people are subject to the same involuntary ("forced") and often life-long sexual deprivation that is morally required of every gay person. For instance, there are many paraplegics or sexually impotent persons or low sex-drive individuals who feel "cheated" of sexual fulfillment in life. Even many married persons suffer the same "forced" sexual deprivation because their spouse is frigid or impotent, or sexually uncooperative, or chronically ill, or drunk, or emotionally repulsive, or venereally infected, etc. Also sexually deprived are countless prisoners, hostages, institutionalized inmates or patients, family-separated military personnel, refugees, etc.-not to mention the millions of single persons who have never found a suitable spouse. If unhealed, a celibate, chaste gay person requires no more sexual self-control than is required of these countless millions of variously deprived straight persons.</span></p><p> Of the many kinds of deprivation of normal sex, Jesus spoke of only three: "eunuchs (homosexuals) born that way," those castrated, and those choosing celibacy "for the sake of the kingdom" (Matt.19:12).</p><p><span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">A life of freely chosen celibacy (see I Cor. 7:38.) has its special reward from God (Luke 18:29). But even involuntary celibacy is a cross that if accepted as God's will (1 Pet. 4:2 and 19), is rewarded by God. "It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good (e.g. obeying God's sex laws) than to suffer (punishment) for doing evil" (3:17).</span></p><p> But what about the possibility of reversing this sexual preference? In my book, "Healing Your Family Tree," <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">I point out that homosexuals can be cured of this "ego-distonic personality disorder ," even if it is proven to be genetic in origin.</span> There are books on curing gays, retreat forms of therapy, psychiatric specialists in the field of orientation reversal, and at least 25 organizations, like "Exodus International," etc. founded by ex-gays, that have lead countless gays to" a new identity through Jesus. " The Catholic group of gays called COURAGE (not to be confused with morally unacceptable group of Catholics called DIGNITY ) offers tremendous help and support for Catholic homosexuals. In my own pastoral experience, almost all of those I have seen cured were ones who submitted with great humility to a deliverance prayer (not full-blown exorcism), in order to be delivered from a spirit of homosexuality. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;"><u>The book explains the scriptural basis for what is often an "inherited" bondage derived from ancestral sin that sometimes leaves one open to demonic intervention (not possession), which is often at the root of this disorder .</u></span></p><p> But with or without the use of a deliverance ministry, <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">no homosexual can be cured of this disorder without three pre-conditions:</span> First, he or she must admit that the homosexual act is a perversion and totally "unnatural," as Paul explicitly states in several places in the first chapter of Romans. The act may seem "natural" to the individual but it must be recognized as "unnatural," i.e. not according to nature, in itself. To most people this is obvious from the most elementary study of male/female anatomy and physiology.<span style="background-color: #fcff01;"> But amazingly, the "denial syndrome" leads many gays to deny this element of unnaturalness in the homosexual act itself.</span></p><p> Second, the gay person must admit that any homosexual act in itself is intrinsically immoral. There are several forms of unnatural sexual sin among gays and lesbians (Rom. 1 :26), the most common form of which is the sin of sodomy, detestable to God. In the Bible, this sin is often condemned, and is described as "the sexual immorality and perversion of Sodom and Gomorrah punished by God" (Jude, verse 7). The immorality of the act, just as its unnaturalness, is obstinately denied by many gays, so "God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done II (Rom.1 :28). </p><p><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">At this point the devil freezes the person's thinking in this distorted understanding of sexual morality. "To suit their own lusts. ..they will turn their ears away from the truth" (II Tim. 4: Thus, the second obstacle to healing is lodged in place.</span></p><p> Thirdly-and this is the biggest obstacle to a cure of the disorder-the gay person must want to become heterosexual-a nessrarity among gays. With no sincere desire for normalcy, healing of the sexual preference is impossible. However, even in the cases where this third condition (desire for normalcy) is not fulfilled, still the gay person is always free to practice chastity. (Almost every diocese has pastoral resources to support gays in this endeavor.) .Chastity is not impossible, if one is careful to avoid "proximate occasions of sin II of thought, word or deed, and exercises a prayerful reliance on Jesus for the supportive grace of God. Any gay person that cooperates with God's grace will know the truth of Paul's words: "I can do everything in him who gives me strength" (Phil. 4:13).</p><p> <span style="background-color: #fcff01;"> I'm sure that God has a special love for gays and lesbians that sincerely struggle with their disorder; their heroic efforts are most pleasing to him. Those sincere efforts probably carry a great intercessory power to draw down grace from God, not just for themselves but also for their fellow gays struggling to live a chaste life. When they experience the special reward God has reserved for those who faithfully strive to avoid sin and live chastely, these precious ones will praise God for all eternity, aware that their struggle was worth the eternal reward-a thousand million times over!</span></p><p><br /></p><p>~~-</p><p>Learning can do much good, it is true; but however much it may accomplish, experience teaches us, in the present as in the past, that moral evils never yield to any other force than the grace of God. A learned man may enlighten the minds of his fellow men, and expel their darkness and errors, but unless the grace of God touch their hearts, they will not embrace the truth.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-72233148686054367312021-06-17T17:07:00.006-07:002021-06-17T17:07:39.530-07:00Demise of DOMA: Pathway to ‘Gay Marriage’<p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><b>Demise of DOMA: Pathway to ‘Gay Marriage’</b></p><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b></b><br /></div><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was signed into law by President William Clinton on September 21, 1996. DOMA was a response to the State of Hawaii’s near attempt to legalize gay marriage in 1993. In order to stop this unpopular and threatening trend, DOMA clearly defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Moreover, the law defended traditional marriage by asserting that each state had the right to refuse to recognize same sex marriage by any other state, and affirmed that the federal government would NOT recognize gay marriage, even if individual states choose to do so.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>As just noted, the movement toward the legalization of gay marriage was markedly unpopular when DOMA was signed into law. This was evident by how quickly and overwhelmingly DOMA became the law of the land. DOMA was presented to the House of Representatives as H.R. 3396 on May 7, 1996. Two months later, on July 12 of this same year, DOMA passed through the House, 342 for and 67 against it (eighty percent of the House opposed gay marriage). On September 10, the Senate overwhelmingly supported DOMA, with 85 yeas and 14 nays opposing it (Eighty four percent of the Senate opposed gay marriage). Only eleven days later, the Act was signed into law by President Clinton.</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>While DOMA temporarily curbed the gay marriage movement, much has changed since then. The most recent figures show a thunderously increasing support for the legalization of gay marriage. According to the March 20, 2013 Pew Research report (Gay Marriage: Key Points from Pew Research), 49% of the population are now in favor of gay marriage and 48% are opposed to it. These results show a significant reversal over the past decade. In 2001, the data showed that 57% opposed gay marriage and only 35% supported it! Moreover, in 2001 none of the States had legalized same sex marriage. Massachusetts was the first state to break this barrier, legalizing same sex marriage on May 17, 2004, only nine years ago. Since this time, eight other States plus the District of Columbia have followed Massachusetts in granting gay couples the “right” to marry (Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Washington).</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>Further fuel to the fire was added by the Obama Administration (February 2011) when they declared that they believed that DOMA was unconstitutional. In light of this, the Administration refused to defend the law in court. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Moreover, President Obama publicly declared his support for the legalization of gay marriage on May 9, 2012. This is without precedent. </span>In 2008, Obama opposed gay marriage. He claimed that his thinking has “evolved” since then and he now views gay marriage differently. Sadly, his political cohorts, such as Bill Clinton who initially supported and signed DOMA into law, have also “evolved” and become more enlightened over the past decade and a half. DOMA’s life on this planet could be a short one. In fact, oral arguments on the constitutionality of DOMA, as of March 26 of this year, are now being argued before the Supreme Court.</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">One thing is for sure. The legalization of gay marriage will have lethal consequences for us and the generations to come.</span> Gay marriage strikes at the heart of the primary purpose of marriage, which is the generation, nurturing, and education of children. The begetting of offspring by a married man and a woman, as God intended, is the foundation upon which family life is built and the bedrock of a healthy, vibrant, and productive society. Legislation which weakens rather than strengthens traditional marriage will eventually lead, not only to the desolation of families, <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">but to the destruction of society itself. God will not be mocked. Those great nations who have ignored His teachings have crumbled throughout the course of human history. </span>The point of the preceding is that marriage between a man and woman is what God intended. This is why they were created with anatomical differences, complementing each other, and this is why He elevated marriage to the sacramental state, providing special graces to those who chose this vocation. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">God never taught that marriage between same sex couples was permissible. In fact, He specifically condemned sodomy and homosexual acts as “sins that cry to heaven for vengeance” — sins of impurity against nature that could NEVER be approved of by His Church </span>(Corinthians 6: 9-10; </b><b>Genesis19:1-29; Romans1:24-27; Cf. </b><a href="http://www.saintaquinas.com/mortal_sin.html"><span style="color: #000087;"><b>http://www.saintaquinas.com/mortal_sin.html</b></span></a><b>). </b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>Obviously our Lord would not have supported legislation permitting gay marriage or same sex civil unions. In fact, He would have vociferously condemned the notion that gay marriage was a civil right and those who supported this.</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">In order to get sympathy for their position, gays will trumpet the message that their same sex attraction is genetically caused.</span> Like those who inherit brown or blue eyes, gays will contend that homosexuality is a fixed trait. In other words, they “were born that way” and there is nothing that can be done to change this. However, the evidence indicates otherwise. There is no gay gene or common grouping of such that are responsible for one’s sexual orientation. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Rather, a combination of environmental, psychological, social, and cultural factors have been identified as potential causes of homosexuality.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>Even though no specific homosexual gene or genetic combination has been discovered, many gays contend that they have inherited a “genetic predisposition,” causing them to be attracted to same sex persons. Again, they will insist that they “were born that way“ and their homosexuality is a natural outgrowth of this inherited predisposition. However, a fixed genetic trait such as eye, hair, or skin color is not the same as an inherited genetic predisposition. We have no control over the former. The latter, on the other hand, differs in this regard. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">An individual, who is attracted to same sex persons, can stay away from persons and situations, which are “ occasions of sin.” Moreover, he can learn to control his thoughts and behavior when the temptation to engage in homosexual activity arises. </span>This does not mean that exercising such control will be easy, especially if this problem is of a long standing nature. However, with much effort, prayer, and perseverance change is possible. The “genetically predisposed” sufferer can choose to avoid engaging in homosexual thoughts and activity. He or she can seek spiritual and professional help in order to change and better cope with their same sex attraction. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Choice, not predetermination, is the critical point here. </span>The genetically predisposed person can choose to act in such a way that he or she does not become the victim of a sensual attraction, leading to mortally sinful behavior. (See the note at the end of this piece for more on the “genetic predisposition.”)</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b style="background-color: #fcff01;">In conclusion, those who support gay marriage will contend that this is a civil rights rather than a moral issue. However, natural law and the laws of God’s Church would dictate otherwise. If gay marriage becomes the law of the land, it will lead to the perversion of this sacrament and the loss of those graces attached to the marital state, given to us by Jesus Christ. This will eventually lead to the weakening of the family and the destruction of the society upon which it is founded.</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>The politicians will pretend that they have agonized over this issue and claim that they have become more enlightened, leading to a change in their thinking. They will insist that they want to do the right thing. But as we have observed, this is hardly the case.</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>Rather, they waffle from one position to the other depending upon on the way that the political wind is blowing. The most recent poll Pew Research data (March 13-17, 2013) on Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters’ response to the question: should same sex couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples? would support this contention. The current figures show that 74% of the Democrats, 49% of the Republicans, and 74% of the Independent voters agreed that gay and heterosexual couples should have the same rights. As noted previously the House and Senate overwhelmingly (80+ %) opposed gay marriage when DOMA was signed into law seventeen years ago. What a difference one decade has made!</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>The current crop of politicians, particularly our Catholic politicians who should know better, are a sad lot. For them, getting elected is what is important. If this means violating natural law and God’s commandments, so be it. Deep down inside, <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">I suspect that the over-riding majority of our politicians and legislators know that gay marriage is an abomination and makes no sense from both a moral and practical perspective. Common sense would dictate that. Unfortunately common sense is not so common, especially when it comes to politics.</span> With the guillotining of DOMA, the legalization of gay marriage is not only likely to accelerate, but it could soon become the law of the land. Those who refuse to comply with it and openly oppose such a law may be persecuted more vehemently than ever. God give us the grace to face such adversity, should it arise. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph — the Holy Family upon which society is founded — pray for us and provide us with the strength to follow Your example.</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b> * * * * * * * * * * * *</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b><br />Note on “Genetic Predisposition”: In this article, I used the term “genetic predisposition” toward homosexuality. For the purpose of clarification, I would like to explain what I meant by this term. Let me preface my remarks by stating that I am not a geneticist. However, in my perusal of the literature, two points were evident. First, the various theories that posit a genetic (or epigenetic) predetermination toward homosexuality are scientifically unproven. And secondly, these theories are not in conformity with the fundamental truths of human nature. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">In light of the preceding, I rejected the notion that a specific gene or combination of genes were responsible for “fixing” one’s homosexual orientation at conception and compelling him or her to engage in a gay lifestyle thereafter. As a psychologist, my operative theory in this area is that certain men and women have a predisposition (a “potency” in philosophical terms) toward homosexuality. This potency might or might not be activated depending upon those environmental circumstances to which the individual becomes exposed.</span></b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>The “genetic predisposition” of which I speak is a person’s inclination to engage in morally disordered actions when the potency, which I previously mentioned, becomes aroused or activated. <span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">For example, Michael is a young man whose family members are afflicted with obesity. This runs in Michael’s family. With such an inherited predisposition, Michael is strongly attracted to food and its consumption. He is constantly fixated on food and experiences gluttonous inclinations, which are most tempting indeed. Monitoring and controlling his food intake will be an ongoing problem for Michael, given his “genetic predisposition.”</span> <span style="background-color: #ffe599;">Raymond, on the other hand, has no difficulty with controlling his food intake or with gluttony. However, the members of Raymond’s family tend to behave violently when stressed. Raymond, like his family members, has a low frustration tolerance. As a result, he can quickly become so violent that he poses a danger to others and could inflict injury or even death upon them. Raymond’s inclination to act violently and the control of his temper may be an ongoing problem, throughout the course of his life, given his “genetic predisposition.”</span></b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b style="background-color: #fcff01;">It is important to note that people and the vices to which they become attracted differ. The old saying that “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” applies here. If someone lacks the particular “predisposition” for a certain vice, it will hold little or no attraction to him. However, if he inherits this predisposition, he could — as if by temperament — easily fall into that sin.</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><b>There is also the related question as to what occurs when someone’s predisposition becomes “set off” so to speak. The person’s inclination, which was previously latent and now triggered, will first come to the forefront in the form of temptations. <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">If these temptations are then consented to, they become actual sins. We are all born heterosexual, since God gave us a certain complement of male and female biological traits at conception. If one has a predisposition toward homosexuality, this potency could become activated by one’s own sins against purity, in which he freely chooses to engage</span>. It should be noted that suffering from some sort of trauma: mental or physical abuse, premature exposure to sexual matters, pornography, rape, etc., might also trigger someone’s “predisposition.” In my opinion, even bad parenting habits and parental role dysfunction (all too common today) can have a profound influence in leading predisposed young men to embrace homosexuality. Again, if the temptations are freely consented to, the behavior and thoughts become actual sins. The repetition of these becomes more habitual and deeply integrated into one’s personality.</b></p><p style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;"><b>The theory that I accept does not reject the culpability for sin, nor does it deny the freedom of the human will. Still less does it advance the notion that homosexuals are </b><a href="http://catholicism.org/ad-rem-no-206.html/"><span style="color: #000087;"><b>“born this way.”</b></span></a></span></p><p><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-23658759167239676002021-06-13T15:21:00.002-07:002021-06-13T15:24:03.367-07:00Two kinds of Liberalism <p> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #bfbf97; caret-color: rgb(26, 26, 46); color: #1a1a2e; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 21pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 1.1px;">CHAPTER 9</span></p><span class="head2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #bfbf97; caret-color: rgb(26, 26, 46); color: #1a1a2e; font-family: verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><p align="center">TWO KINDS OF LIBERALISM</p></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #bfbf97; caret-color: rgb(26, 26, 46); color: #1a1a2e; font-family: verdana; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"></span><span class="body2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #bfbf97; caret-color: rgb(26, 26, 46); color: #1a1a2e; font-family: verdana; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 36px; margin-left: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px;">Philosophy and theology teach that there are two kinds of atheism, doctrinal or speculative, and practical. The first consists in an open and direct denial of the existence of God; the second consists in acting and living without denying the existence of (50) God, but yet as if He did not really exist. Those who profess the first are called theoretical or doctrinal atheists; those who live according to the second, practical atheists: the latter are the more numerous. <p></p><p>It is the same with Liberalism and Liberals. There are theoretical and practical Liberals. The first are the dogmatizers of the sect philosophers, the professors, the controversialists, the journalists. They teach Liberalism in books, in discourses, in articles, by argument or by authority, in conformity with a rationalistic criterion in disguised or open opposition to the criterion of the divine and supernatural revelation of Jesus Christ. </p><p>Practical Liberalists are by far in the greater majority. Like a flock of sheep, with closed eyes, they follow their leaders. They know nothing in truth of principles and systems, and, did they perceive the perversity of their instructors, would perhaps detest them. But, deceived by a false cry or shibboleth, they troop docilely after their false guides. They are none the less the hands that act, while the theorists are the heads that direct. Without them, Liberalism would never pass beyond the narrow bounds of speculation. It is the practical Liberalists that give it life and exterior movement. They constitute the first (51) matter of Liberalism, disposed to take any form, ready for any folly or absurdity proposed by the leaders. </p><p><b><u>Amongst Catholic Liberals many of them go to Mass, even make novenas, and yet when they come in contact with the world lead the lives of practical Liberals. They make it a rule "to live up to the times," as they call it. The Church they believe to be somewhat outofdate, an old fogy; that she is held back by a certain set of reactionaries, Ultramontane; but they have hopes that she will in the course of time catch up with the modern spirit of progress, of which they are the van. The barnacles of medievalism still encumber the bark of Peter, but time, they believe, will remedy this. The straw of medieval philosophy and theology they hope before long to thrash out by the introduction of the modern spirit into her schools. Then will a new theology be developed more in conformity with the needs of the times, more in harmony with the modern spirit which makes such large demands upon our "intellectual liberty." So they believe (or imagine they believe) that all is well. Is their responsibility before God, therefore, lessened? Assuredly not. They sin directly in the light of faith. They are less excusable than those Liberals who have never been within the pale of the Church. In short they sin with their eyes open.</u></b> </p><p>Amongst Liberals we must not forget to include those who manage to evade any direct exposition or expression of the Liberal theory, but who never the less obliquely sustain it in their daily practice by writing and orating after the Liberal method, but recommending Liberal books and men, measuring and appreciating everything according to the Liberal criterion, and manifesting on every occasion that offers, an intense hatred for anything that tends to discredit or weaken their beloved Liberalism. Such is the conduct of those prudent journalists, whom it is difficult to apprehend in the flagrant advocacy of any proposition concretely Liberal, but who nevertheless in what they say and in what they do not say, never cease to labor for the propagation of this cunning heresy. <b>Of all Liberal reptiles, these are the most venomous.</b></p><p><a href="http://www.liberalismisasin.com/chapter9.htm">http://www.liberalismisasin.com/chapter9.htm</a></p></span>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-74095754289127944462021-06-04T09:41:00.003-07:002021-06-04T09:43:09.957-07:00Magisterial Irresonsibilty<p> <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/10/magisterial-irresponsibility">https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/10/magisterial-irresponsibility</a></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">Luis Francisco Cardinal Ladaria Ferrer of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has announced to the bishops Pope Francis’s approval of new material addressing capital punishment in the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/180802a.html" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #990100; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.3s, 0.3s, 0.3s, 0.3s; transition-property: color, background-color, top, left; transition: color 0.3s, background-color 0.3s, top 0.3s, left 0.3s;" target="_blank">Catechism of the Catholic Church</a></em> (number 2267). The inserted passage notes “an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes,” “a new understanding . . . of the significance of penal sanctions,” and “more effective systems of detention.” It concludes, “Consequently, <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that </em>‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person’, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.” This addition to the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em>is widely either heralded or attacked as a major doctrinal departure, an abrogation of the Church’s teaching of two millennia that the death penalty is an essentially just penalty. Yet this claim of essential doctrinal change is gravely misleading.<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" /></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">First, it is an absolute norm of Catholic doctrinal interpretation that magisterial documents be read in a collegial fashion. It is assumed that the document belongs to the Church and that the entirety of the Church’s prior teaching and tradition enters into its proper understanding. For this reason alone, the recent statement cannot be a doctrinal “break” or “rupture.” The word for doctrinal breaks is <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">heresy</em>. The Church has taught for two millennia that the death penalty is essentially valid. This is taught in Sacred Scripture, and has been affirmed by popes, numerous catechisms, the consensus of the Fathers of the Church, and the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. If this teaching is erroneous, then the whole of the ordinary universal magisterium of the Church—especially its moral magisterium—is merely a contingent effect of ecclesial will. The nihilistic voluntarism of such a view is incompatible with Catholic faith.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">Second, the new teaching about “inadmissibility” is expressly predicated on a composite prudential antecedent judgment (indeed, “inadmissibility” is a legal and prudential term). Two of the three considerations offered as supporting the conclusion of inadmissibility are in the prudential order (judgments about the significance of penal sanctions and about the effectiveness of criminal detention systems). Accordingly, the conclusion is predicated on prudential judgments that are susceptible to falsification. <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Thus, however strong the language of the conclusion, it can specify only prudentially. </em>The conclusion about the inadmissibility of capital punishment in today’s circumstances is an instance of the fourth (and weakest) form of church teaching, prudential admonitions that command the attention of the faithful, but for which believers who conscientiously disagree are never denied communion with the Church.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">A third reason why the recently inserted matter does not constitute a break with the prior tradition is that nothing in the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em> is elevated in authority merely by being included in the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em>. In this instance, the authority of the insertion arises from the traditional teaching of the essential legitimacy of the penalty and the qualifying, prudential admonitions of Pope John Paul II in <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #990100; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.3s, 0.3s, 0.3s, 0.3s; transition-property: color, background-color, top, left; transition: color 0.3s, background-color 0.3s, top 0.3s, left 0.3s;" target="_blank">Evangelium Vitae</a>. </em>Indeed, John Paul II refused ever to teach that the death penalty is essentially evil, offering only prudential grounds for its restricted use. In the list of intrinsically evil acts in <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Evangelium Vitae, </em>the death penalty is not to be found. If, as Cardinal Ladaria suggests in his August 1, 2018, letter to the bishops announcing the addition to the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em>, the new teaching is a development of John Paul II’s actual magisterial teaching—“following the footsteps of the teaching of John Paul II” (cf. paragraph 7)—it must be a prudential development; otherwise, it would contradict, not develop, this teaching. The stronger rhetoric regarding the application of the penalty cannot remove this teaching from the realm of prudential admonition susceptible to falsification.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">For these reasons, the inserted material in number 2267 of the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em> is not and cannot constitute a doctrinal rupture. However, this does not mean one ought to be unreservedly happy about it. There are four reasons for viewing this revision critically and with measured dismay.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span class="drop-cap" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; float: left; font-size: 4em; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px -0.2em; padding: 0px 0.2em 0px 0px;">T</span>he first concerns the “dignitarian” premise: the assertion that we now understand human dignity better than did earlier epochs of the Church, especially insofar as we now know that felons retain human dignity despite their crimes. But the Church has always affirmed, and has never denied, that the felon executed for a grave crime possesses human dignity, the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">imago dei</em> ordered to, and specified by, noble goods in nature and grace. The Church has stipulated only that those engaging in gravely sinful action do not enjoy the further dignity of actual virtue and grace (the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">imago gratiae </em>or <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">imago Christi</em>), which of course also obtains for others whose grave transgressions in the moral order do not rise to the level of legal felony. Nevertheless, the possibility of repentance—a possibility rooted in the dignity of the felon—has always been affirmed. In fact, the possibility of repentance is rooted in the first human dignity: the spiritual nature of the rational soul shared by all. This spiritual nature makes it possible for a felon to suffer the penalty in a way meritorious of salvation, just as any sinner can enter into suffering in a fashion that purifies his soul.<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" /></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">The Church sends a priest to the condemned felon, not merely a gravedigger, precisely because the felon possesses human dignity and remains a potential subject of sanctifying grace. Further, human dignity has long served as the ground for justifying the penalty. In the tradition, capital punishment is understood as one of the penalties that may be due to a rational agent who uses his freedom to commit the severest crimes. The Church has also held that the human dignity of the innocent merits the most rigorous defense, potentially including punishment by death for those who wrongfully assail the human dignity of others.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">Given these considerations, the inserted claim about “increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes” seems both parochial and condescending with respect to prior Catholic teaching. <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">There is no evidence that the Church ever has denied the dignity that felons possess by reason of being created in the image and likeness of God. </em>Some read Thomas’s analysis of felons falling into the servitude of the beasts as a denial of human dignity, but this is a misreading. Thomas refers to the further dignity in virtue and grace toward which the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">imago dei</em> is ordered. When we fall from this dignity (as do all who gravely sin), we lose the higher dignity to which we are called, as distinct from the inceptive dignity of nature with which we are born. In this sense, criminals, like other sinners, fall into the servitude of the beasts and become worse than beasts: because beasts, lacking the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">imago dei</em>, are not capable of sin.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">Thus it is untrue that the Church has not properly understood human dignity until the modern period. At various times individuals have adopted dehumanizing views of murderers and perpetrators of other grave crimes, but it is both historically and doctrinally false to suggest that the Church has in the past failed to understand that unrepentant felons retain their natural human dignity.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">The truth of the matter is that there are differences in sentiment regarding criminal penalties in different historical epochs, differences that have little to do with essential church teaching. We see this in the refinement of sentiment that limits vulgar display of civil penalties today. We rightly no longer approve of treating the public aspect of punishment as though it were a species of “carnival event” or merely a public spectacle. But this is not itself a ground, nor has the Church ever taught it to be one, for denying the essential validity of grave penalties, including the death penalty. Nor are modern times bereft of public indulgence in obscene spectacles.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">It is far from obvious that our times are characterized by moral progress in affirming human dignity. Widespread complacence characterizes social attitudes toward the tragedy of abortion. We live in an age not quite sure that children deserve a mother and a father. Meanwhile, secular contemporaries are liable to claim superior sensitivity by reason of sentimental postures, including that of opposing the punishment of the guilty. That we today enjoy a sensibility more averse to vulgar displays of severe penalty does not imply that the Church did not understand human dignity in the past, any more than the tendency of some professed Catholics today to be indifferent to grave sins means that the Church does not understand their gravity. The Church must cope with the sensibilities of epochs, and frames her teachings with due regard for cultural conditions. But these considerations must not be misconstrued as foundational. Indeed, between the previous error of vulgar display of penalty and the modern error of incomprehension of its moral necessity, prior centuries arguably hold the advantage over our own.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">In the Catholic tradition, it is the dignity of the human person—not its denial—that undergirds the legitimacy of capital punishment. Only a free, spiritual creature can merit penalty when guilty of grave offense. Only a free, spiritual creature is capable of suffering the death penalty without failing of his final end, because the human spirit is susceptible of conversion. It is this dignity of the human person that guarantees that no earthly suffering, including the need to suffer death as a penalty for grave crime, can of itself prevent anyone from attaining the highest good of union with God. Human dignity also <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">merits </em>the sternest protective legal sanctions, potentially including the death penalty. Genesis 9:6 identifies the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">imago dei </em>as the very reason for the penalty: “Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed: for man was made to the image of God.”</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span class="drop-cap" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; float: left; font-size: 4em; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px -0.2em; padding: 0px 0.2em 0px 0px;">A</span> second, ecclesial reason why a lover of the Church cannot simply celebrate this revision of the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em> is that it is being presented and publicized in a misleading way. Given its widespread reception as abrogating prior teaching, the prudential character of this small insertion in the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em> ought to be made clear. Failure to do so invites, and causes, confusion and error. The lowest level of doctrine—prudential admonition—lacks the central and defining nature of the higher tiers of Catholic teaching. Not to make clear the prudential character of the insertion escalates the gravity of the question, and the danger of needless division, beyond the immediate matter of the death penalty.<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" /></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">A third reason why this revision of the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em> is objectively problematic is that the language of the conclusion about the death penalty appears violent and excessive. Taken by itself, it suggests that the penalty is essentially unjust. I have constructed the argument showing that the prudential antecedents make this conclusion impossible. But this nuanced characterization of the teaching is easily overwhelmed by the excessive force of the concluding language of the statement. To speak of the death penalty as an “attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”—taken in itself and apart from its prudential antecedents—suggests a wholesale break with tradition. There is an <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">ultra vires </em>excess in this formulation that is likely to be misunderstood and assimilated wholly to secular humanitarianism. The rhetoric of the conclusion, if predicated on the prudential reasons given, ought to be prudential. But the language used does not sound prudential and is inordinate. This exacerbates the confusion and is a grave defect. It ought to be corrected.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">A fourth and final reservation regarding the catechetical insert is that in all frankness, the prudential counsel it asserts seems at best equivocal. The claim that new discoveries about the nature of penal sanctions and new methods of detention do away with further questions concerning the protection of society from the wicked, or the deterrence of crime (to say nothing of changing the essential justice of the death penalty itself), is false. There are many murders performed in prison by murderers who have been given life sentences. Clearly, the claim that the method of their detention—even in North America—renders this impossible is empirically false. The issue of deterrence is also complex and not one-sided. The Catholic tradition is not Kantian: There may be several penalties that are proportionately and essentially just, and further questions of their relation to the common good may make one preferable over others. Both rehabilitation and deterrence are such medicinal considerations beyond just retributive proportion. Finally, it is not clear that dignity is invariably better served by withholding the death penalty. A rational creature may merit a penalty that accordingly honors rather than impugns his rational dignity, and the foreknown proximity of death is not infrequently an occasion for the grace of conversion.<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" /></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">These are reasons why many believing Catholics could not and did not concur with John Paul II’s prudence on this matter when he spelled it out in <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Evangelium Vitae </em>and in the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism of the Catholic Church</em>. For his part, John Paul II understood that they had every right as Catholics to their judgment in this matter. The revision to the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em> more forcefully asserts this prudential counsel and thus does not break with tradition. Nevertheless, as a universal proposition, it does not seem to be unequivocally good counsel.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">For secularized populations in the West, the death penalty may appear to encourage final acts of despair rather than repentance. For a society that has no living belief in the immortal soul, capital punishment may seem a pitiless assault on the only hope we have, which is earthly life. Yet the sentimentalism lurking behind this reasoning invites perverse conclusions. Why shouldn’t today’s “increasing awareness” of human dignity lead to the conclusion that all should be given greater control over our deaths so that we suffer from less fear and despair at the end? If death, rather than sin and the rejection of God, becomes the greatest threat to human dignity, then someone might judge there to be a prudential need to permit euthanasia, the benevolent subjugation of death to human autonomy. No matter how much better this might make someone feel about approaching death, it would not be just. Similarly, it is not just to derogate the common good by excluding capital punishment in circumstances where the legitimate ends of criminal penalty are not otherwise prudentially achievable.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">The presence of better technologies of detention, along with other concerns, doubtless provides reasons for a more sparing use of the death penalty. But it does not seem sufficient to ground the contingently universal prudential proposition now urged on us. Further, it is legislatures and courts who must judge prudential factors. A one-size-fits-all prudence is simultaneously subversive of prudence and indifferent to the real grace of state bestowed by providence on those called to assess the prudential factors.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span class="drop-cap" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; float: left; font-size: 4em; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px -0.2em; padding: 0px 0.2em 0px 0px;">T</span>he universality implied in the rhetoric of the catechetical revision is not and cannot be essential and normative; it can only be prudential and contingent. In my judgment, the evidence is not unequivocally supportive even of the claim to contingent universality. The argument for it does not seem intellectually credible. However, a normative, necessary, and essential claim—the kind suggested by the inordinate concluding language of the catechetical insert—is more hazardous than questionable counsel. Taken by itself (apart from its prudential grounds), it leads to conclusions contrary to Scripture, contrary to tradition, contrary to the teachings of all the popes until the present, and contrary to the unanimous consensus of the Fathers, whose profound Christian aversion to bloody punishment—<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">man was not created for death!</em>—did not keep them from affirming the essential justice of the penalty.<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" /></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">If a pontiff were to claim an independent authority to suppress Scripture, tradition, and defined doctrine—as though one did not need to be a Catholic believer in order to be pope, and Christ founded the papacy to undo his teaching—we would be faced with an antipope controversy arising from papal schism and heresy. That this situation is possible in a pope is proven by the example of Honorius. He may not have been a formal heretic, but there is no doubt that he issued heretical judgments and was condemned for it. I do not believe that the present pontiff intends to claim that the papacy has a power of doctrinal abrogation, which would be an utterly strange claim. Can God be a trinity one day, and not a trinity the next, or adultery a sin one day, and a good act the next, because a pope has decided to abrogate teaching? The thing is absurd on its face. The papacy serves Scripture and tradition.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">In the matter of capital punishment, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith clearly evinces concern with continuity. The new matter added to the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Catechism</em> is a prudential admonition expressed more strongly than has been done before, but still at the lowest level of doctrine, that of prudential admonition. Nonetheless, concern for continuity is not necessarily achievement of continuity. The needless impugning of the Church’s past understanding of punishment and human dignity, the failure of the CDF to correct the widespread misportrayal of the statement as a condemnation of the penalty as such, and the excessive force and violence in the language of the conclusion—all this is unsettling and ominous. These aspects of the statement and its promulgation are worrisome insofar as they indicate the ease with which the constant teaching of the Church may come to be viewed not as a source of intelligible richness, but as a dead weight of history from which somehow, through a great inversion, the Church is supposed to “liberate” us.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span class="drop-cap" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; float: left; font-size: 4em; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px -0.2em; padding: 0px 0.2em 0px 0px;">T</span>oday, many outside the Church seem at ease with the subordination of the Catholic tradition in the service of wholly secularist categories. It does not aid the pastoral mission of the Church when those responsible for handing on this tradition seem to join in the dismantling of their own theological heritage. Presenting a prudential inflection of teaching as a species of major “doctrinal development” (as though it were indeed abrogation) foments needless division inside the Church. For the earnest believer, the derogation of the doctrinal patrimony of the Church on this matter—as though Scripture, tradition, the consensus of the Fathers, the teaching of Aquinas, and the teaching of all papacies up to the present had been swept away—is in its way as saddening as is the derogation of spiritual and moral integrity in the case of Theodore McCarrick.<br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;" /></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;">Indeed, the losses of doctrinal and moral light are essentially linked: “But if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matt. 6:23). The “eye” of the soul is the mind. To illustrate: Many contemporary clerics seem incapable even of naming the genera of the sins recently addressed by the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report detailing its investigation of priestly abuse. These are preponderantly but not exclusively sins of sacrilegious homosexual vice (performed by consecrated persons), of vicious and primarily homosexual rape, and in some cases adding to the evil of rape a horrifically inverted use of Catholic sacramentals to harm the innocent. The protection of such grave evil is not “clericalism,” but vicious contempt for justice and for the absolute norms of Catholic life. In a time of widespread blindness toward the truth—extending far beyond the abuse crisis—even the most marginal or accidental suggestion of abrogating the Church’s two-millennia-old moral doctrine in an ecclesial document is genuinely saddening. Calling things by their right names finally requires an understanding of the natural law and of revelation: Everything is what it is and not another thing. </p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(77, 78, 78); color: #4d4e4e; font-family: "Sorts Mill Goudy", Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Steven A. Long is professor of theology at Ave Maria University.</em></p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-50091370417629595062021-05-27T12:01:00.002-07:002021-05-27T12:03:27.607-07:00Voter fraud proof 2020 Election. Trump Won. <p> This is all you need to know: </p><p>On the morning of Election Day, there were officially 213.8 million registered voters in the US. </p><p> </p><p>The Washington Post stated that 66.2% of all the voters actually voted in the 2020 election, an all time record. This gives you a total of 141,535,600 registered voters that could cast a legal ballot. Trump won 74,111,419 votes (official total)</p><p> </p><p>If you take the total of all registered voters that voted, (141,535,600) and deduct Trump's total of 74,111,419 voters, it leaves you only 67,424,181 remaining.</p><p> </p><p>Even if there was ’0’ voter fraud and biden got every single remaining vote, it is impossible that he got more than 67,424,181 voters.</p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-17495038818799060992021-05-23T11:44:00.004-07:002021-05-23T11:57:51.614-07:00Funding the Resistance. <p> </p><h1 class="entry-title fusion-post-title fusion-responsive-typography-calculated" data-fontsize="30" data-lineheight="39px" style="--fontsize: 30; --maxviewportsize: var(--content_break_point) !important; --minfontsize: calc(var(--typography_factor) * var(--base-font-size)); --minviewportsize: 360; --side_header_width-int: 0; --side_header_width: 0; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Arapey, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.33; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Funding the Resistance</span></span></h1><div class="fusion-meta-info" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;"><div class="fusion-meta-info-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;">By <span class="vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="fn" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/author/david-deavel" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d69004; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;" title="Posts by David Deavel">David Deavel</a></span></span><span class="fusion-inline-sep" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 5px;">|</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">May 16th, 2021</span><span class="fusion-inline-sep" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 5px;">|</span>Categories: <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/category/conservatism" rel="category tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d69004; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;">Conservatism</a>, <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/category/culture" rel="category tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d69004; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;">Culture</a>, <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/category/senior-contributors/david-deavel" rel="category tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d69004; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;">David Deavel</a>, <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/category/politics" rel="category tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d69004; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;">Politics</a>, <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/category/senior-contributors" rel="category tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #d69004; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;">Senior Contributors</a> <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2021/05/funding-resistance-david-deavel.html">https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2021/05/funding-resistance-david-deavel.html</a></div><div class="post-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"><div class="pf-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><blockquote style="background-color: #f6f3f3; border-color: rgb(233, 168, 37); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 4px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Montserrat, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-top: 2em; padding: 15px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; text-align: justify;">We need a resistance in these dark days to fight those whose bumper stickers say “resist” but whose voices and actions tell us to “submit.” For those who cannot be in the frontlines, funding the campaign is an honorable and necessary task. And one that might just bear fruit.</p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><span style="float: right; margin-left: 15px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: top;"><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-152252 jetpack-lazy-image jetpack-lazy-image--handled" data-lazy-loaded="1" data-recalc-dims="1" height="170" loading="eager" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?resize=300%2C170&ssl=1" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?resize=200%2C113&ssl=1 200w, https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?resize=300%2C170&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?resize=400%2C227&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?resize=600%2C340&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?fit=750%2C425&ssl=1 750w" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; float: right; height: auto; margin-left: 15px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: top;" width="300" /></span>If you are on the side of big tech, the major media, Hollywood, the academy, local, state, and federal bureaucracies, and the entrenched party in power, you have no right to say you are part of the “resistance.” You are on the side of the establishment. When people talk about “the man,” you can look in your mirror to figure out to whom any sticking should be done. Who then are the true resistance?</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><b>The true resistance in this country consists of those who are fighting against the imposition of Critical Race Theory in schools, universities, corporations, and everywhere else. The true resistance fights against the use of racial categories in the distribution of COVID relief funds and the opportunity to apply for jobs. The true resistance believes that people are to be judged not by the color of their skin or by their sex but by the content of their character. The true resistance demands that people not be fired or accused of racism because of the use of the “OK” sign since that hand gesture is not racist but a gesture that everybody uses.<span id="more-152240" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span></b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;">T</span><a data-caption="" href="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?ssl=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;">he true resistance fights for the rights of churches, synagogues, and religious educational institutions to follow the same COVID rules as Walmart, liquor stores, and BLM protesters when it comes to allowing people into their buildings or holding events. The true resistance fights against those who would punish churches, synagogues, and religious educational institutions for firing people who do not believe in or live according to the beliefs that these institutions hold.</a></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><a data-caption="" href="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?ssl=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="color: black;">The true resistance fights against the erasure of the categories of “man” and “woman” in favor of invented categories of gender that have no objective markers and are solely at the discretion of the individual. The true resistance fights against the demand that they acquiesce to those who say that they are something other than their biological sex.</span></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><b>The true resistance demands to know why the government’s video records of the supposed “insurrection” of January 6 are being kept from the public. The true resistance demands to know why first-time nonviolent suspects in that event have been held without bail, often in solitary confinement, when the Department of Justice seems to have no interest in finding out who bombed the Democratic and Republican headquarters. The true resistance wants to know who killed the only person—unarmed—who actually was killed on January 6. Say her name: Ashli Babbitt.</b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><a data-caption="" href="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?ssl=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="color: black;">The true resistance consists of those who want to get to the bottom of the election shenanigans of 2020 and find out what actually happened. The true resistance wants elections that are free, fair, and untainted by irregularities that cause large sections of the public, Republican, Independent, and even Democratic to think that 2020 election was indeed rigged. The true resistance wants to know why saying the 2016 election was rigged was and is a perfectly fine view to have while saying the 2020 election was rigged is like unto Nazism.</span></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><a data-caption="" href="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?ssl=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="color: black;">The true resistance consists of the ones who are being banned by big tech and losing their jobs for saying things that do not comport with the big tech/media/left-wing’s views, whether it be about COVID policies, controversial court cases, or any other subject. I want the true resistance supported. And there are two things that need to be done to support it.</span></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">If the first rule of holes is to stop digging, the first rule of supporting the resistance is to stop supporting businesses and institutions that are trying to crush it. Some conservatives want to retreat to a world in which we could make decisions about products and services based almost entirely on how good a product or service is. That would be nice if we lived in a world in which corporations and businesses stuck to providing goods and services. But that is not our world. When Coke forsakes “teaching the world to sing” for telling employees to “be less white,” it’s time to skip Coke even if it’s the only soft drink on the menu. When Major League Baseball decides to insert itself into state laws about elections even though it knows nothing about these laws, it is time to watch college or amateur baseball. When Disney decides to stop making it a small world after all and goes all-in on race-segregated affinity groups in its corporate structure, you need to skip Disneyland and find a different vacation. When Amazon’s “community standards” allow the sales of the works of <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">der Führer</em> but demand the suppression of the works of Ryan Anderson and Heather MacDonald, it’s time to order from the companies themselves and forego the pleasures of next-day delivery.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><a data-caption="" href="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?ssl=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="color: black;"><b>Stop giving money to people and institutions that hate you.</b></span></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><a data-caption="" href="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?ssl=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="color: black;"><b>The second rule of supporting the resistance is to support <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">it</em> financially. That means supporting the businesses and individuals that have been attacked unjustly. That means buying from those companies that have been attacked by other companies. It also means giving money to those who are supporting them. There are a number of good organizations doing important work in legal defense of those whose rights are being violated. Alliance Defending Freedom, Becket Fund, and the Thomas More Society are several that come to mind as ardent defenders of religious liberty. There is also a new Alliance for Academic Freedom, started to defend canceled professors. Such groups are great. But keep your eye out for those GoFundMe and similar campaigns that are fighting back for particular people, too.</b></span></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;"><b>A couple weeks ago I gave to a campaign for Nate Silvester, the Idaho police officer suspended by his employer for a TikTok video mocking Lebron James for his public statements about controversial police shootings. The campaign caught fire and has raised over a half-million dollars, the proceeds of which will not only cover Officer Silvester’s loss of income but also help other officers similarly disciplined. By fighting for Officer Silvester, donors found that they could help other officers being unjustly punished for speaking out as well as send a message to those institutions determined to do the punishing.</b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;"><b>We need a resistance in these dark days to fight those whose bumper stickers say “resist” but whose voices and actions tell us to “submit.” For those who cannot be in the frontlines, funding the campaign is an honorable and necessary task. And one that might just bear fruit.</b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><a data-caption="" href="https://i0.wp.com/theimaginativeconservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fist-crop.jpg?ssl=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;">The Imaginative Conservative<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider </em></a><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd%3D_s-xclick%26hosted_button_id%3D5XB3QPV5AHZ98&source=gmail&ust=1492205256203000&usg=AFQjCNEAj1llAMCkldTbeEzYxmOrjANMoA" href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=5XB3QPV5AHZ98" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: color, background-color, border-color; transition-timing-function: linear;" target="_blank">donating now</a>.</em></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><br /></p><div class="awac-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444;"><div class="awac widget text-7" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="textwidget" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-color: rgb(234, 233, 233); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 20px; position: relative;"><div class="fusion-builder-row fusion-row" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 1170px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; position: relative; width: 275px; z-index: 10; zoom: 1;"><div class="fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; float: none; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; position: relative; width: 275px;"><div class="fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy" style="-webkit-background-size: cover; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; box-sizing: border-box; min-height: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="fusion-text fusion-text-1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-26106576989315331992021-05-23T11:36:00.001-07:002021-05-23T11:36:36.302-07:00Subscribers Following by Email going away. <p> <img height="606.3333333333334" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/60727714-dbc4-4653-a73b-0a04c3466e5c" width="375" /></p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-65803873378803151302021-04-10T18:33:00.004-07:002021-06-13T15:40:02.095-07:00Money. It might kill you. <p> <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AmericaNeedsFatima/~3/XLJSoGs1jnI/money-it-might-kill-you.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email" name="1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #000099; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Money - it might kill you </a></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #555555; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px; margin: 9px 0px 3px;"><br /></p><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px; margin: 0px;"> Earthly riches are like the reed. Its roots are sunk in the swamp, and its exterior is fair to behold; but inside it is hollow. If a man leans on such a reed, it will snap off and pierce his soul. </div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px; margin: 0px;">St. Anthony of Padua<img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AmericaNeedsFatima/~4/XLJSoGs1jnI?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email" style="border: none;" width="1" /></div>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-19270198974508252702021-04-09T13:26:00.001-07:002021-04-09T13:26:12.750-07:00Purgatory <p> <a href="https://www.hprweb.com/2021/04/early-theologies-of-purgatory/">https://www.hprweb.com/2021/04/early-theologies-of-purgatory/</a></p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-27611320625727492492021-03-23T18:12:00.004-07:002021-06-13T15:38:00.699-07:00What Covers a Multitude of Sins?<p> </p><header style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; width: 276.421875px;"><h1 style="clear: both; color: #a30007; font-family: Lora, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 300; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 0px -3px; padding: 18px 0px 0px;">What Covers a Multitude of Sins?</h1><ul style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><li class="itemAuthor" style="color: #222222; float: left; line-height: 16px; margin: 10px 0px 0px -2px;">STEPHEN P. WHITE</li></ul></header><div class="itemBody" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; clear: both; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="itemIntroText"><p style="color: #587b7c; font-family: lora; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0.025em; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;">There is no such thing as a private sin.</p></div><div id="itemShareButtons"><div style="height: 32px; width: 330px;"><div style="display: inline; float: left;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholiceducation.org%2Fen%2Ffaith-and-character%2Ffaith-and-character%2Fwhat-covers-a-multitude-of-sins.html" style="color: #587b7c; transform: translateZ(0px);" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/templates/gk_news/images/cerc/facebook.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" title="" /></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet/?text=Check%20out%20this%20article%20at%20the%20Catholic%20Education%20Resource%20Center&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholiceducation.org%2Fen%2Ffaith-and-character%2Ffaith-and-character%2Fwhat-covers-a-multitude-of-sins.html&via=CatholicEd&hashtags=Catholic,%20Education" style="color: #587b7c; transform: translateZ(0px);" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/templates/gk_news/images/cerc/twitter.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto; margin-left: 1px; max-width: 100%;" title="" /></a></div><div style="display: inline; float: left; margin-left: 5px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_isn3" data-description="There is no such thing as a private sin. Our moral failings — whatever they may be — have consequences that extend out far beyond our own personal gui..." data-title="What Covers a Multitude of Sins?" data-url="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/faith-and-character/faith-and-character/what-covers-a-multitude-of-sins.html" style="clear: both;"><div aria-labelledby="at-33433e19-d2f0-4d39-a283-765df39bbd7c" class="at-share-tbx-element addthis-smartlayers addthis-animated at4-show" id="atstbx" role="region" style="animation-duration: 0.3s; animation-fill-mode: both; animation-timing-function: ease-out; color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><span class="at4-visually-hidden" face=""Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif" id="at-33433e19-d2f0-4d39-a283-765df39bbd7c" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute;"></span><div class="at-share-btn-elements" style="font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif;"><a class="at-icon-wrapper at-share-btn at-svc-compact" role="button" style="background-color: #666666; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 0px; color: inherit; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 0; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; transform: translateZ(0px); vertical-align: middle;" tabindex="0"><span class="at4-visually-hidden" face=""Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute;"></span><span class="at-icon-wrapper" face=""Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; height: 32px; line-height: 32px; overflow: hidden; vertical-align: middle; width: 32px;"><svg aria-labelledby="at-svg-addthis-1" class="at-icon at-icon-addthis" role="img" style="fill: rgb(255, 255, 255); height: 32px; width: 32px;" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 32 32" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><path d="M18 14V8h-4v6H8v4h6v6h4v-6h6v-4h-6z" fill-rule="evenodd"></path></g></svg></span></a></div></div></div></div><div style="display: inline; float: left;"><a style="color: #587b7c; text-decoration: underline; transform: translateZ(0px);"><img alt="" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/templates/gk_news/images/cerc/print.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" title="" /></a></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div></div><br /><div class="itemFullText"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><img alt="RichYoungMan" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/images/aaart/RichYoungMan.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: right; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" />Our moral failings — whatever they may be — have consequences that extend out far beyond our own personal guilt or innocence. My own moral failings have consequences for my wife and children, for my friends, and so on. My failings cause others to suffer, often in invisible ways. My sin breeds sin and stymies virtue, in myself and in others. How much better off would those around me be if I were a saint?</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Sometimes, we are only just able to glimpse the moral filaments that connect our actions to the lives of those arounds us. At other times, the consequences of our sins are all too apparent. Every father who has caught his own uncharitable words in the mouth of one of his children knows the power of his own bad example. Sometimes sins we foolishly hoped would remain secret are drawn into the light for all to see, to our own horror and humiliation.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Such moments of recognition can be occasions for grace to stir the conscience — like the cock crow that brought Peter to bitter tears. But such occasions, in which we are put on the spot by our own consciences, do not always result in repentance and conversion. At least not immediately.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">In Mark's Gospel, a rich man comes to Jesus eager to do what he must do to inherit eternal life. The man is at first pleased to hear that he has done all that is required, but his pleasure turns to disappointment when Our Lord asks for more. We all know the story:</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em; padding-left: 30px;"><em>"You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."</em></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em; padding-left: 30px;"><em>At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.</em></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">The rich man was so close; he was lacking only one thing. But he would not give up his attachment. And Christ, who "looking at him, loved him," let him go.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><span class="dropcap" face="Lora, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #587b7c; float: left; font-size: 50px; line-height: 50px; margin-top: -6px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 0px;">I</span>was reminded of this passage this week by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's response (<a href="https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2021/03/15/210315b.html" style="color: #587b7c; transform: translateZ(0px);">here</a>) to a question about "blessings for unions of persons of the same sex." The CDF's ruling, backed by Pope Francis, is that same-sex unions cannot be blessed: "[God] does not and cannot bless sin." This has caused anguish among those who have long hoped that the Church would find a way around Scripture and Tradition to embrace same-sex unions.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><span color="inherit" style="font-family: inherit;">That this comes from Pope Francis — the pope of "Who am I to judge," the pope who offered measured support for same-sex civil unions, the pope in whom so many had placed their hopes for a sweeping change in doctrine — has made this an even more bitter pill to swallow.</span></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">The German bishops, who many expected to openly embrace such blessings through their Binding Synodal Process, are "not happy." Hundreds of German priests are openly defiant. Many other Catholics are outraged. Some are simply walking away.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Which brings me back to the story of the rich man.</p><p class="aside" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; color: #587b7c; float: left; font-family: lora; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; margin: 10px 0px 25px; width: 320px;">God offers mercy to all, but His offer of mercy does not spare us difficult choices.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">For those of us who see the CDF's clarification as necessary and welcome, as I do, it might be tempting to dismiss this anger and dissent with, "Good! If they will cling to what is dear rather than follow the truth, then let them go!"</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">It may come to that. Some may leave, but it would not be happy thing. The Church is for sinners.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">No. To jeer at the defeat of others in the face of hard truths is hubris. We are all of us in need of mercy; knowing that ought to humble us.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">I was reminded of the story of the rich man, not by those who are walking away from Christ and His Church on account of a hard teaching, but because it is so easy to see myself in the place of the rich man: proud, content, and unwilling to let go of what prevents me growing closer to God.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">What the Church asks of Catholics with same sex-attraction may be unambiguous and simple chastity — but that does not make it easy. God offers mercy to all, but His offer of mercy does not spare us difficult choices. In a sense, God's greatest mercy <em>is</em> that choice: he offers us a way out, narrow though it may be, rather than leaving us as we are. And though He looks at us and loves us, as he did the rich man, he leaves it to us to accept the offer. Or not.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">That thought should make us all tremble.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">In the weeks and months ahead, there will be much discussion of the CDF's statement. There will be many hard truths to defend and arguments to be made. The issue will undoubtedly get dragged into our political debates: think of the Equality Act currently before Congress. And it is likely to continue generating acrimony between and among Catholics.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">But if sin breeds sin and stymies virtue, then love accomplishes the opposite. As welcome as the clarity of the CDF statement may be, that clarity does not absolve any of us from the work of loving our enemies, let alone our brothers and sisters in Christ.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">We pass up the opportunity to love at our own peril.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><br /></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><a href="https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2021/03/18/what-covers-a-multitude-of-sins/">https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2021/03/18/what-covers-a-multitude-of-sins/</a></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><br /></p></div></div><div id="itemShareButtons" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div style="height: 32px; width: 330px;"><div style="display: inline; float: left;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholiceducation.org%2Fen%2Ffaith-and-character%2Ffaith-and-character%2Fwhat-covers-a-multitude-of-sins.html" style="color: #587b7c; transform: translateZ(0px);" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/templates/gk_news/images/cerc/facebook.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" title="" /></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet/?text=Check%20out%20this%20article%20at%20the%20Catholic%20Education%20Resource%20Center&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholiceducation.org%2Fen%2Ffaith-and-character%2Ffaith-and-character%2Fwhat-covers-a-multitude-of-sins.html&via=CatholicEd&hashtags=Catholic,%20Education" style="color: #587b7c; transform: translateZ(0px);" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/templates/gk_news/images/cerc/twitter.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto; margin-left: 1px; max-width: 100%;" title="" /></a></div><div style="display: inline; float: left; margin-left: 5px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_isn3" data-description="There is no such thing as a private sin. Our moral failings — whatever they may be — have consequences that extend out far beyond our own personal gui..." data-title="What Covers a Multitude of Sins?" data-url="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/faith-and-character/faith-and-character/what-covers-a-multitude-of-sins.html" style="clear: both;"><div aria-labelledby="at-056136af-3b55-4cd4-922c-823cd604b7a5" class="at-share-tbx-element addthis-smartlayers addthis-animated at4-show" id="atstbx2" role="region" style="animation-duration: 0.3s; animation-fill-mode: both; animation-timing-function: ease-out; color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><span class="at4-visually-hidden" face=""Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif" id="at-056136af-3b55-4cd4-922c-823cd604b7a5" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute;"></span><div class="at-share-btn-elements" style="font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif;"><a class="at-icon-wrapper at-share-btn at-svc-compact" role="button" style="background-color: #666666; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 0px; color: inherit; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 0; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; transform: translateZ(0px); vertical-align: middle;" tabindex="0"><span class="at4-visually-hidden" face=""Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute;"></span><span class="at-icon-wrapper" face=""Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; height: 32px; line-height: 32px; overflow: hidden; vertical-align: middle; width: 32px;"><svg aria-labelledby="at-svg-addthis-2" class="at-icon at-icon-addthis" role="img" style="fill: rgb(255, 255, 255); height: 32px; width: 32px;" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 32 32" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><path d="M18 14V8h-4v6H8v4h6v6h4v-6h6v-4h-6z" fill-rule="evenodd"></path></g></svg></span></a></div></div></div></div><div style="display: inline; float: left;"><a style="color: #587b7c; text-decoration: underline; transform: translateZ(0px);"><img alt="" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/templates/gk_news/images/cerc/print.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" title="" /></a></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div></div><img alt="dividertop" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/images/template/misc/dividertop.png" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; clear: both; float: left; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; height: auto; margin-bottom: 25px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 40px; max-width: 100%; width: 276.421875px;" /><h3 style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border-bottom-style: none; color: #587b7c; font-family: lora; font-size: 22px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 0px;">Acknowledgement</h3><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><img alt="whitestephen" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/images/1interiorsaints/whitestephen.jpeg" style="border: 0px; float: right; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" />Stephen P. White, "What Covers a Multitude of Sins?" <em>The Catholic Thing</em> (March 18, 2021).</p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;">Reprinted with permission from <em>The Catholic Thing</em>. Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hoffman-ChristAndTheRichYoungRuler.jpg" style="color: #587b7c; transform: translateZ(0px);">Heinrich Hofmann</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.</p><h3 style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border-bottom-style: none; color: #587b7c; font-family: lora; font-size: 22px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 0px;">The Author</h3><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1.5em;"><img alt="whitesm" src="https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/images/aabooksm/whitesm.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: right; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" />Stephen P. White is a fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. White's work focuses on the application of Catholic social teaching to a broad spectrum of contemporary political and cultural issues. His is the author of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076482645X/ref=nosim/catholiceduca-20" style="color: #587b7c; transform: translateZ(0px);">Red, White, Blue, and Catholic</a></em>.</p>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-46190714341174009122021-03-19T07:10:00.002-07:002021-03-19T07:12:11.975-07:00Admonish the sinner. A work of Mercy. <p> <a href="http://blog.adw.org/2015/04/admonish-the-sinner-a-reflection-on-the-first-spiritual-work-of-mercy/">http://blog.adw.org/2015/04/admonish-the-sinner-a-reflection-on-the-first-spiritual-work-of-mercy/</a></p><p><br /></p><div class="single-featured-image-header" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #fafafa; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; box-sizing: inherit;"></div><div class="site-content-contain" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="site-content" id="content" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding: 2.5em 0px 0px;"><div class="wrap" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 700px; padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2em;"><div class="content-area" id="primary" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><main class="site-main" id="main" role="main" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><article class="post-26472 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-uncategorized tag-spiritual-works-of-mercy" id="post-26472" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 0px 0px 1em;"><div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #767676; font-size: 0.6875rem; font-weight: 800; letter-spacing: 0.1818em; padding-bottom: 0.25em; text-transform: uppercase;"><span class="posted-on" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span class="screen-reader-text" style="box-sizing: inherit; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); height: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; width: 1px; word-wrap: normal !important;">POSTED ON</span><a href="http://blog.adw.org/2015/04/admonish-the-sinner-a-reflection-on-the-first-spiritual-work-of-mercy/" rel="bookmark" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-sizing: inherit; color: #767676; text-decoration-skip: objects; text-decoration: none; transition: color 80ms ease-in, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out;"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2015-04-20T21:48:52-04:00" style="box-sizing: inherit;">APRIL 20, 2015</time><span class="byline" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline;"> BY <span class="author vcard" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></span></span></a><a class="url fn n" href="http://blog.adw.org/author/cpope/" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-sizing: inherit; color: #767676; text-decoration-skip: objects; text-decoration: none; transition: color 80ms ease-in, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out;">MSGR. CHARLES POPE</a></span></div><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; font-size: 1.5rem; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;">Admonish the Sinner – A Reflection on the First Spiritual Work of Mercy</h1></header><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><div class="lr_horizontal_share" data-counter-url="http://blog.adw.org/2015/04/admonish-the-sinner-a-reflection-on-the-first-spiritual-work-of-mercy/" data-share-url="http://blog.adw.org/2015/04/admonish-the-sinner-a-reflection-on-the-first-spiritual-work-of-mercy/" style="box-sizing: inherit;"></div><figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-26941" class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_26941" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #666666; display: inline; float: right; font-size: 0.8125rem; font-style: italic; margin: 1em 0px 1.5em 1.5em; max-width: 100%; width: 360px;"><a href="http://blog.adw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/042015.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; text-decoration-skip: objects; text-decoration: none; transition: color 80ms ease-in, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out;"><img alt="042015" class="wp-image-26941" height="240" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px" src="http://blog.adw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/042015-300x200.jpg" srcset="http://blog.adw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/042015-300x200.jpg 300w, http://blog.adw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/042015-1024x683.jpg 1024w" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 0px 0px 8px; border-style: none; box-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 0px 0px 8px; box-sizing: inherit; display: block; height: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%;" width="360" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-26941" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0.8075em 0px;">“CautionTape” by Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine – Own work. Licensed under<a href="http://blog.adw.org/2015/04/admonish-the-sinner-a-reflection-on-the-first-spiritual-work-of-mercy/%22" media="" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; text-decoration-skip: objects; text-decoration: none; transition: color 80ms ease-in, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out;" target="“_blank”"> CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.</a></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">I wrote last week asking, <a href="http://blog.adw.org/2015/04/what-ever-happened-to-the-spiritual-works-of-mercy/" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; text-decoration-skip: objects; text-decoration: none; transition: color 80ms ease-in, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out;">Whatever happened to the spiritual works of mercy?</a> I also indicated an intent to write on each of them. Here is the first installment: Admonishing the Sinner.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">The word “admonish” comes from the Latin verb <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">monere</span> meaning to warn, advise, or alert someone to a threat or danger. As such, its purpose is the good of another; it is an act of love and concern. To admonish the sinner is not to belittle or humiliate him, but rather to alert him to the danger of a sinful course of action. It is rooted in love, not pride. And thus St. Thomas enumerates fraternal correction among the acts of charity.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">In our culture, sadly, admonishing the sinner has fallen out of favor</span> for numerous reasons. Philosophically and sociologically, many have relegated much of morality to the realm of private opinion. Admonishing is seen by many as an attempt by the admonisher to impose his or her values on others, or as some sort of unfair or arbitrary judgment.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">From a psychological standpoint, we live in times of heightened sensitivity, times in which many take critiques of their behavior very personally</span> and have difficulty distinguishing between concerns for behavior and disrespect for the person. The emergence of identity politics has done a lot to further this blurring of distinctions.</p><ol style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;">If one voices concerns about single motherhood, it is often declared that this is giving personal offense to the poor, minority groups, women, etc. Never mind that many grave social ills come from children not living in a home with both their father and mother. Today, any critique of this obviously problematic behavior is taken very personally by many.</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;">The same is largely true with abortion. Those who warn against it are often said to offend women.</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;">And we need hardly describe the anger and outrage generated when one admonishes against homosexual behavior. So deep is identity politics with this behavior that in some countries it is illegal to speak of homosexual acts as sinful let alone admonish those who engage in or approve of them.</li></ol><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">These are only the more obvious examples of a problem that has become deeply rooted in our culture.</span> People do not like being corrected (and probably never have), but today they often take correction very, very personally. Over at <a href="http://thedivinemercy.org/library/article.php?NID=3482" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; text-decoration-skip: objects; text-decoration: none; transition: color 80ms ease-in, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out;">The Divine Mercy site</a>Dr. Robert Stackpole observes: <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">The problem is that we live in a society dominated by people who have not made any real psychological or moral progress since they reached adolescence. Thus, they stumble through life with an adolescent understanding of love. To be “loved,” to them, means to be affirmed in everything they want to do…</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">Still, the obligation remains for us believers both to admonish sinners and to accept admonishment ourselves. We must remember</span> that the goal is not to tell others how terrible they are; this is, after all, a work of mercy. Neither is the goal to win an argument or to feel superior. Rather, the goal is to win the sinner back from a destructive path, to announce the forgiveness of sins available to all who repent. The goal is salvation. As such, to admonish sinners is to call lovingly to those in danger and draw them back from the edge of the abyss.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">Admonishing the sinner is not simply a nice thing to get around to if we have time. It is an essential work of grace and love, and it is commanded of us. Here are some relevant passages from Scripture:</p><ol style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Jesus said, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”</span> </span>(Matt 18:15-18). <span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">Jesus instructs us to speak to a sinning brother or sister and summon him or her to repentance. If private rebuke does not work, others who are trustworthy should be summoned to the task (assuming the matter is serious). Finally, the Church should be informed. If the person will not listen even to the Church, then he or she should be excommunicated (treated as a tax collector or Gentile). Hence in serious matters, excommunication should be considered as a kind of “medicine” that will inform the sinner of the gravity of the situation. Sadly, this medicine is seldom used today even though Jesus clearly prescribes it (at least in serious matters).</span></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any sin, you who are spiritual should recall him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ</span></span> (Gal 6:1-2).<span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;"> Notice that we are called to recognize when a person has been overtaken by sin and to correct him. Note, too, that the text cautions us to do so in a spirit of gentleness; otherwise we may sin in the very process of correcting the sinner. Perhaps we are prideful or unnecessarily harsh in our words of correction; this is no way to correct; gentle and humble, but clear, seems to be the instruction here. It also seems that patience is called for, since we must bear the burdens of one another’s sin. We bear this burden in two ways. First, we accept the fact that others have imperfections and faults that trouble us. Second, we bear the obligation of helping others to know their sin and to repent.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins</span></span> (James 5:19). <span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">The text is ambiguous as to whose soul is actually saved, but that is good, since it seems that both the corrected and the corrector are beneficiaries of well-executed fraternal correction.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">You shall not hate your brother in your heart: you shall in any case rebuke your neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him</span></span> (Lev 19:17). <span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">The text instructs us that to refuse to correct a sinning neighbor is a form of hatred. Instead, we are instructed to love our neighbors by not wanting sin to overtake them.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">If any one refuses to obey what we say in this letter, note that man, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not look on him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother</span></span> (2 Thess 3:14). <span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">Notice again that the medicine of rebuke, even to the point of refusing fellowship, is commanded (in serious matters). But note, too, that even a sinner does not lose his dignity; he is still to be regarded as a brother, not an enemy. </span></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">A similar text (2 Thess 3:6) says, </span> <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">We instruct you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to shun any brother who walks in a disorderly way and not according to the tradition they received from us</span>.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"> <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom</span></span> (Col 3:16). <span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">Again, to admonish means to warn. Hence, if the word of Christ is rich within us, we will warn when that becomes necessary.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">A similar text (2 Tim 3:16) says, </span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work</span></span>. <span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">Reproof and correction is thus part of what is necessary to equip us for every good work.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all</span> </span>(1 Thess 5:14). <span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">Here, fraternal correction is described as admonishing, encouraging, and helpful. We are also exhorted to patience in these works.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. … I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral men; not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But rather I wrote to you not to associate with any one who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Drive out the wicked person from among you</span></span>. <span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: red;">So the Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul, commands that we “judge” the evildoer. In this case the matter is very serious (incest). Notice that the text says he should be excommunicated (handed over to Satan). Here, too, the purpose is medicinal. It is hoped that Satan will “beat him up” enough that he will come to his senses and repent before the day of judgment. It is also medicinal in the sense that the community is protected from bad example, scandal, and the presence of evil. The text also requires us to be able to size people up. There <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">are</span>immoral and unrepentant people with whom it is harmful for us to associate. We are instructed to discern this and not keep friendly company with people who can mislead us or tempt us to sin. This requires a judgment on our part. Some judgments <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">are</span>required of us.</span></li></ol><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">With all this in mind, how can we say we love others if we see them running toward the edge of a moral and eschatological cliff and fail to cry out in warning?</span> And <span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-style: italic;">why</span> do we fail to cry out? Usually because we want our own lives to be more pleasant; we cannot bear the backlash that sometimes comes when we warn people who do not want to be warned. But if we yield to this fear, we are showing that we love ourselves too much and do not love God and others enough. I want to take this opportunity to say how grateful I am to my parents and others who endured my backtalk, admonishing me anyway.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;">Lord, give me the courage and humility to admonish sinners and the grace to do it in love. As well, help me to have the courage and humility to accept correction myself, and grant me the grace to see it as an act of love, even if it is not always artfully done.</p></div></article></main></div></div></div></div>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2680445508405959507.post-65593971787657960472021-03-07T07:13:00.004-08:002021-03-07T07:14:44.162-08:00Fasting and Spiritual Warfare <p> </p><table style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: none; color: #3d4242; font-family: "Avant Garde", Avantgarde, "Century Gothic", CenturyGothic, AppleGothic, texgyreadventor, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; width: 600px;"><tbody><tr><td style="font-size: 1.3em; padding: 1em; text-align: left;"><div class="rcontent"><div class="maintext">"Throughout Sacred Scripture, we find that when God's people fast, the power of their prayers is increased, especially when they are engaged in spiritual warfare. In the Old Testament, the Lord told Isaiah that a fast properly undertaken would 'loose the bonds of wickedness ... undo the thongs of the yoke ... let the oppressed go free' (Is. 58:6) ... In the New Testament, we find that Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the wilderness in preparation for His battle with Satan, who came to tempt Him (see Lk 4:1-2) ... If prayer is a spiritual weapon, fasting is the spiritual whetstone on which it is sharpened. It's the spiritual muscle that, when exercised regularly, strengthens the thrust of that weapon to pierce the Enemy and drive him away."</div><div class="attribution" style="margin-top: 0.5em;">— Paul Thigpen, p. 42</div></div></td></tr><tr style="padding: 15px 0px;"><td style="padding: 0px;"><h3 style="font-size: 1.7em; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 15px; text-transform: uppercase;">AN EXCERPT FROM</h3></td></tr><tr style="padding: 0px;"><td style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"><h4 style="font-size: 1.4em;">Manual for Spiritual Warfare</h4><a href="http://enews.trinityroad.com/q/x5z7ry34-7n90X7EDmZX04Sh2GtBiqAeLsxZcOJanVkaXRoYTIwMTFAZ21haWwuY29tw4gujd93FGoeooLEvcQ8mphljbw_fA"><img alt="placeholder" src="http://static.trinityroad.com/prod/250/1043105.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 2em; width: 225px;" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table>Judeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01132067297418281679noreply@blogger.com0