Father Richard Perozich: Phil Robertson’s Comments Were Accurate

Homosexual Behavior Separates The Person From God!

Many people are familiar with the recent Duck Dynasty controversy – more specifically, what happened when the popular A&E show’s patriarch, Phil Robertson, made some politically incorrect (and admittedly coarse) remarks regarding homosexuality in a magazine interview. The gay activist groups had their proverbial hissy fit, and A&E announced that Robertson would be suspended from the show.

Well, a backlash ensued, and – lo and behold – A&E has reversed its decision to suspend Robertson. Basically, the whole thing has been poorly handled by the network.
I asked Father Richard Perozich, a priest of the Diocese of San Diego who has worked with those who struggle with same-sex attraction, to comment on the Duck Dynasty controversy.

Father responded:
“Phil Robertson’s biblical comments are accurate. In the spiritual realm, homosexual behavior continues to separate the person from God, Who always receives us back when we repent of our sins.

“People need to stop being homo-hysterical when this behavior is criticized. Biologically, it never has been proper to human creation. Psychologically, it shows compensatory behavior to try to attain masculinity or femininity or an attempt to belong to one’s own gender through sexual activity, which it can never accomplish. Behaviorally, one can only attain sexual integration when one abandons this type of behavior and expresses sexuality in a married relationship between one man and one woman.”

By:  Matt C. Abbott @ Renew.America.com

Clerical Whispers: 'Satan stepping up war for souls'

Clerical Whispers: 'Satan stepping up war for souls':

'Satan stepping up war for souls'

Forty years after The Exorcist scared the wits out of cinema audiences around the world, the Roman Catholic Church is training a new generation of priests to meet the growing demand for exorcism.

Dioceses across Italy and in other predominantly Catholic countries, such as Spain, are increasing the number of priests schooled in administering the rite of exorcism, intended to rid people of possession by the devil or his minions. 

The rise in demonic possession reports is a result of more people dabbling in black magic, paganism, Satanic rites and Ouija-board conjuring, often exploring "the dark arts" with the help of information readily found on the internet, the church said.

The increase in the number of priests being trained to tackle the phenomenon is also an effort by the church to sideline self-proclaimed exorcists, and is tacit recognition that belief in Satan, once regarded by progressives as an embarrassment, is still very much alive.

The Diocese of Milan recently nominated seven new exorcists, the bishop of Naples appointed three new ones a couple of years ago and the Catholic Church in Sardinia sent three priests for exorcism training in Rome, amid concern that the Mediterranean island, particularly its mountainous, tradition-bound interior, is a hotbed of occultism.

In Spain, Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, the Archbishop of Madrid, chose eight priests to undergo special training in May to confront what he described as "an unprecedented rise" in "demonic possession". 

The church in Spain was coming across many cases that "go beyond the competence of psychologists" and they were occurring with "a striking frequency", the archbishop said.

"Diabolical possessions are on the increase as a result of people subscribing to occultism," said Father Francesco Bamonte, president of the International Association for Exorcists.

"The few exorcists that we have in the dioceses are often not able to handle the enormous number of requests for help," he said.

The association was founded in 1993 by Father Gabriele Amorth, who served as the Vatican's chief exorcist. He said that during the papacy of Benedict XVI the sex abuse scandals that engulfed the Catholic Church were proof that the Antichrist was waging war on the Holy See.

The church insists that most of the people who claim to be possessed by the devil have a mental health problem, such as paranoia or depression. Priests generally advise them to seek medical help.

But in a few cases it is judged that the person really has been taken over by evil and an exorcism is required.

"Demonic" possession manifests itself in people babbling incomprehensibly and vomiting nails, pieces of metal and shards of glass, according to those who believe in the phenomenon.

They must undergo the official Catholic rite of exorcism, which involves a consecrated priest invoking the name of God.

Monsignor Bruno Forte, a theologian and the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, said the Church teaches that evil exists and that in extreme cases it can take possession of a person.

There has been a streak of popular superstition in the Catholic Church for centuries - and it lingers.

In November, Pope Francis said that, though "God created man to be incorruptible", the Devil entered the world and there are those "who belong to him".

http://www.courageouspriest.com/12-quotes-sodomy-catholic

12 Quotes Against Sodomy That Every Catholic Should Know

Offences Against Nature Call Down God’s Wrath!

At a time in church history when the majority of Catholics are in favor of “gay marriage.” Catholics would be well served to meditate on what some Saints and Doctors of the church have said in-regards to the sin of sodomy.  The court of public opinion is constantly changing, but the truth of God is unchangeable.

1. Athenagoras of Athens (2nd Century)

Athenagoras of Athens was a philosopher who converted to Christianity in the second century. He shows that the pagans, who were totally immoral, did not even refrain from sins against nature:

“But though such is our character (Oh! why should I speak of things unfit to be uttered?), the things said of us are an example of the proverb, ‘The harlot reproves the chaste.’ For those who have set up a market for fornication and established infamous resorts for the young for every kind of vile pleasure – who do not abstain even from males, males with males committing shocking abominations, outraging all the noblest and comeliest bodies in all sorts of ways, so dishonoring the fair workmanship of God.”

2. Tertullian (160-225)

Tertullian was a great genius and apologist of the early Church. Unfortunately, after an initial period of fervor, he succumbed to resentment and pride, left the Church and adhered to the Montanist heresy. Because of works written while still in the Church, he is considered an Ecclesiastical Writer and, as such, is commonly quoted by Popes and theologians.  His treatise On Modesty is an apology of Christian chastity. He clearly shows the horror the Church has for sins against nature. After condemning adultery, he exclaims:

“But all the other frenzies of passions–impious both toward the bodies and toward the sexes–beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold, but from all shelter of the Church, because they are not sins, but monstrosities.”

3. Eusebius of Caesarea (260-341)

Eusebius Pamphili, Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine and the “Father of Church History,” writes in his book, Demonstratio Evangelica:

“[God in the Law given to Moses] having forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men.”

4. Saint Jerome (340-420)

Saint Jerome is both Father and Doctor of the Church. He was also a notable exegete and great polemicist. In his book Against Jovinianus, he explains how a sodomite needs repentance and penance to be saved:

“And Sodom and Gomorrah might have appeased it [God’s wrath], had they been willing to repent, and through the aid of fasting gain for themselves tears of repentance.”

5. Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)

Saint John Chrysostom is considered the greatest of the Greek Fathers and was proclaimed Doctor of the Church. He was Archbishop and Patriarch of Constantinople, and his revision of the Greek liturgy is used until today. In his sermons about Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, he dwells on the gravity of the sin of homosexuality:

“But if thou scoffest at hearing of hell and believest not that fire, remember Sodom. For we have seen, surely we have seen, even in this present life, a semblance of hell. For since many would utterly disbelieve the things to come after the resurrection, hearing now of an unquenchable fire, God brings them to a right mind by things present. For such is the burning of Sodom, and that conflagration!…

“Consider how great is that sin, to have forced hell to appear even before its time!… For that rain was unwonted, for the intercourse was contrary to nature, and it deluged the land, since lust had done so with their souls. Wherefore also the rain was the opposite of the customary rain. Now not only did it fail to stir up the womb of the earth to the production of fruits, but made it even useless for the reception of seed. For such was also the intercourse of the men, making a body of this sort more worthless than the very land of Sodom. And what is there more detestable than a man who hath pandered himself, or what more execrable?

6. Saint Augustine (354-430)

The greatest of the Fathers of the West and one of the great Doctors of the Church, Saint Augustine laid the foundations of Catholic theology. In his celebrated Confessions, he thus condemns homosexuality:

“Those offences which be contrary to nature are everywhere and at all times to be held in detestation and punished; such were those of the Sodomites, which should all nations commit, they should all be held guilty of the same crime by the divine law, which hath not so made men that they should in that way abuse one another. For even that fellowship which should be between God and us is violated, when that same nature of which He is author is polluted by the perversity of lust.”

7. Saint Gregory the Great (540-604)

Pope Saint Gregory I is called “the Great.” He is both Father and Doctor of the Church. He introduced Gregorian chant into the Church. He organized England’s conversion, sending Saint Augustine of Canterbury and many Benedictine monks there.

“Sacred Scripture itself confirms that sulfur evokes the stench of the flesh, as it speaks of the rain of fire and sulfur poured upon Sodom by the Lord. He had decided to punish Sodom for the crimes of the flesh, and the very type of punishment he chose emphasized the shame of that crime. For sulfur stinks, and fire burns. So it was just that Sodomites, burning with perverse desires arising from the flesh like stench, should perish by fire and sulfur so that through this just punishment they would realize the evil they had committed, led by a perverse desire.”

8. Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072)

Doctor of the Church, cardinal and a great reformer of the clergy, Saint Peter Damian wrote his famous Book of Gomorrah against the inroads made by homosexuality among the clergy. He describes not only the iniquity of homosexuality, but also its psychological and moral consequences:

“Truly, this vice is never to be compared with any other vice because it surpasses the enormity of all vices.… It defiles everything, stains everything, pollutes everything. And as for itself, it permits nothing pure, nothing clean, nothing other than filth.…

“The miserable flesh burns with the heat of lust; the cold mind trembles with the rancor of suspicion; and in the heart of the miserable man chaos boils like Tartarus [Hell]…. In fact, after this most poisonous serpent once sinks its fangs into the unhappy soul, sense is snatched away, memory is borne off, the sharpness of the mind is obscured. It becomes unmindful of God and even forgetful of itself. This plague undermines the foundation of faith, weakens the strength of hope, destroys the bond of charity; it takes away justice, subverts fortitude, banishes temperance, blunts the keenness of prudence.

“And what more should I say since it expels the whole host of the virtues from the chamber of the human heart and introduces every barbarous vice as if the bolts of the doors were pulled out.”

9.  Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Commenting upon Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (1:26-27), Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, explains why the sin of homosexuality is so grave:

“Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed…. I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil….

“If all the sins of the flesh are worthy of condemnation because by them man allows himself to be dominated by that which he has of the animal nature, much more deserving of condemnation are the sins against nature by which man degrades his own animal nature….

“Man can sin against nature in two ways. First, when he sins against his specific rational nature, acting contrary to reason. In this sense, we can say that every sin is a sin against man’s nature, because it is against man’s right reason….

“Secondly, man sins against nature when he goes against his generic nature, that is to say, his animal nature. Now, it is evident that, in accord with natural order, the union of the sexes among animals is ordered towards conception. From this it follows that every sexual intercourse that cannot lead to conception is opposed to man’s animal nature.”

10.  Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

Saint Catherine, a great mystic and Doctor of the Church, lived in troubled times. The Papacy was in exile at Avignon, France. She was instrumental in bringing the Popes back to Rome. Her famous Dialogues are written as if dictated by God Himself:

“But they act in a contrary way, for they come full of impurity to this mystery, and not only of that impurity to which, through the fragility of your weak nature, you are all naturally inclined (although reason, when free will permits, can quiet the rebellion of nature), but these wretches not only do not bridle this fragility, but do worse, committing that accursed sin against nature, and as blind and fools, with the light of their intellect darkened, they do not know the stench and misery in which they are. It is not only that this sin stinks before me, who am the Supreme and Eternal Truth, it does indeed displease me so much and I hold it in such abomination that for it alone I buried five cities by a divine judgment, my divine justice being no longer able to endure it. This sin not only displeases me as I have said, but also the devils whom these wretches have made their masters. Not that the evil displeases them because they like anything good, but because their nature was originally angelic, and their angelic nature causes them to loathe the sight of the actual commission of this enormous sin.

11.  Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444)

Saint Bernardine of Siena was a famous preacher, celebrated for his doctrine and holiness. Regarding homosexuality, he stated:

“No sin in the world grips the soul as the accursed sodomy; this sin has always been detested by all those who live according to God.… Deviant passion is close to madness; this vice disturbs the intellect, destroys elevation and generosity of soul, brings the mind down from great thoughts to the lowliest, makes the person slothful, irascible, obstinate and obdurate, servile and soft and incapable of anything; furthermore, agitated by an insatiable craving for pleasure, the person follows not reason but frenzy.… They become blind and, when their thoughts should soar to high and great things, they are broken down and reduced to vile and useless and putrid things, which could never make them happy…. Just as people participate in the glory of God in different degrees, so also in hell some suffer more than others. He who lived with this vice of sodomy suffers more than another, for this is the greatest sin.”

Fr. Edward Hayes

12.  Saint Peter Canisius (1521-1597)

Saint Peter Canisius, Jesuit and Doctor of the Church, is responsible for helping one third of Germany abandon Lutheranism and return to the Church. To Scripture’s condemnation of homosexuality, he added his own:

“As the Sacred Scripture says, the Sodomites were wicked and exceedingly sinful. Saint Peter and Saint Paul condemn this nefarious and depraved sin. In fact, the Scripture denounces this enormous indecency thus: ‘The scandal of Sodomites and Gomorrhans has multiplied and their sins have become grave beyond measure.’ So the angels said to just Lot, who totally abhorred the depravity of the Sodomites: ‘Let us leave this city….’ Holy Scripture does not fail to mention the causes that led the Sodomites, and can also lead others, to this most grievous sin. In fact, in Ezechiel we read: ‘Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her, and of her daughters: and they did not put forth their hand to the needy, and the poor. And they were lifted up, and committed abominations before me; and I took them away as thou hast seen’ (Ezech. 16: 49-50). Those unashamed of violating divine and natural law are slaves of this never sufficiently execrated depravity.”

Taken from:  tfpstudentaction.org

St. Francis Converts Prostitute by Jumping Nude Into a Fire

St. Francis Converts Prostitute by Jumping Nude Into a Fire

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 02:48 PM PST

“…And with one companion he [St. Francis of Assisi] chose a certain district, and he went into an inn where he had to rest overnight. And there he found a certain woman who was very beautiful in face and body but very foul in mind and soul. That cursed woman solicited St. Francis to commit a most shameful act with her.

St. Francis answered: ‘If you wish me to do what you want, you must also do what I want.’

‘I agree,’ she said. ‘So let's go and prepare a bed.’ And she led him toward a room.

But St. Francis said to her: ‘Come with me, and I will show you a very beautiful bed.’

And he led her to a very large fire that was burning in that house at that time. And in fervor of spirit he stripped himself naked and threw himself down on the fire in the fireplace as on a bed. And he called to her, saying: ‘Undress and come quickly and enjoy this splendid, flowery, and wonderful bed, because you must be here if you wish to obey me.’ And he remained there for a long time with joyful face, resting on the fireplace as though on flowers, but the fire did not burn or singe him.

On seeing such a miracle that woman was terrified and felt remorse in her heart. And she not only repented of her sin and evil intention but also perfectly converted to the faith of Christ, and through the merits of the holy Father she became so holy in grace that she won many souls for the Lord in that region.”

Authors note: I love St. Francis of Assisi for many reasons: first of all, even though I must have offended him greatly when I performed just about every evil act in his patron city of San Francisco - yet, he always seemed quite near to me; secondly, I have continuously found it fascinating how pop-culture misinterprets him as a proto-flower child and libertine, when, in reality, he was a strident defender of the Faith and a stalwart apostle of Christian morality; lastly, he was never afraid to humble himself in order to win a convert for Christ. He never wrote any one off, or believed that a sinner was unredeemable. But, he understood what God demanded, never looked upon the teachings of Christ as a burden, and treasured his fellow Man so much that he would happily give his life to save just one more soul.

Man gives up everything, walks across U.S. making reparation for sins of abortion, family breakdown

Mark Byerly left a successful job as a manager of a private Spanish restaurant, then he gave away, sold, or threw out everything he owned, except for what he needed for his journey. And then he began walking.

TEXAS, January 7, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – It can be a temptation living in these dark times to simply throw up one’s hands in despair as the world descends from one blackness into another. But accepting defeat has never been an option for Mark Byerly.

Instead of standing idly by witnessing western civilization become more and more corroded through abortion, the breakdown of marriage and family, and the loss of a sense of sin, the 49-year-old decided on a radical course of action: He would embark on a journey across America on foot, praying for the spiritual needs of his countrymen.

“Ultimately, I just couldn’t stand around and watch this happen anymore,” Byerly told LifeSiteNews.com by phone during his brief stop in Odessa, Texas for Christmas.

Byerly’s journey would be a pilgrimage of penance, prayer, and sacrifice to make amends for his own crimes and the crimes of others committed against God and neighbor. 

The word “pilgrim” conjures up images of someone from the Middle Ages dressed in tattered robes and traveling across Europe or Russia with a staff and a ragged bundle slung across his back. While Byerly is a modern pilgrim with modern tools, such as an iPad for communicating and for tracing out his route, he is driven by that same mysterious hunger felt by pilgrims of all ages, a hunger for God and for his Kingdom to come.

Byerly set out on his pilgrimage from his hometown of Newark, Delaware on July 25, 2013. Prior to this he had disentangled himself of his worldly responsibilities. He left a successful job as a manager of a private Spanish restaurant. Then he gave away, sold, or threw out everything he owned, except for what he needed for his journey.

Byerly will visit 150 Catholic shrines on his roughly 3,000 mile trek across the continent to California, one holy place for each “Hail Mary” prayer of the 15 traditional decades of the Rosary.

Byerly has a set of what he calls pilgrim “rules” that he follows religiously.

“I do not take busses, trains, or planes. I do not hitchhike or directly request rides from anyone, but I can accept rides from those who generously and freely offer them,” he said.

“I have no funds of my own but rely solely on God's providential help through alms. I never ask people for money, but will accept gifts of money freely offered. I can beg for food, water, and lodging only. I have a tent — and make as much use of it as possible — but many good souls have opened their homes to me.”

“While walking I pray—for the people I pass by, for the dioceses and their bishops and priests, for the towns and cities that I go through, for all the good souls that have helped me along my way, for the Catholic Church, for our Pope.”

As he walks Mark prays that God will raise up an army of men and women of the “most dramatic sanctity that our world has yet seen” who will courageously confront the prevailing evils of the culture, even to the point of martyrdom.

“Our world, being so very ill, cannot wait any longer,” he said.

Byerly said that his pilgrim prayer is directed especially towards priests and bishops who he said must become “humble and repent” if authentic renewal in the Church and world is to happen.

He says he experienced what he called a “gradual awakening” to the real state of the world after reading LifeSiteNews.com articles over a few years. He became deeply concerned by the reports about anti-life and anti-family actions that he read.

“It’s really hard to read all those things and not see that things are in a crazy down-spiral throughout the whole world morally and spiritually,” he said.

Byerly says that in a moment of epiphany it suddenly dawned on him that a massive spiritual battle was taking place, a battle between the forces of good and evil for the souls of every man, woman, and child.

“I realized that I stood in a world which, to my great dismay, despised the child and the innocent and pure, and that it despised them with sadistic violence.”

“I realized that the demons in the sky are blacking out the sun, that the enemies of Christ are strong and many, that His Kingdom is devastated, and that ‘My God! who will you send to help us?!’”

“Seeing over the last four to five years the dizzying speed with which all of the world is ingesting every known spiritual and moral disease with the apparent purpose of hateful self-annihilation, I could not stand and watch any more. The entire edifice is burning and few are shouting ‘fire’ with the necessary urgency of voice,” he said.

He decided to be that voice shouting “fire” through prayer, fasting, and walking on pilgrimage.

People passing Byerly as they drive along the highway will see a man in nondescript brown clothes wearing a backpack. They will notice a simple cross hanging from his neck. Many will write him off as a nutcase, as did one Texas police officer who offered to drive the pilgrim to the next county line.

"No disrespect, bu' don’t’cha think it's all kinduva lost cause? There’s jus' too much evil'n this world,” Byerly remembers the officer saying.

He generally agrees with this kind of an assessment, but always adds: “Yes, but many individual souls can still be saved.”

Byerly knows that the fruits of his pilgrimage will largely be hidden from the eyes of the world. They will be seen by God alone. Deep down he believes that his pilgrimage will help bring God's grace and mercy for the Church and for humanity. He hopes it will bring people a “vibrant and shimmering hope” that God has not forsaken his people. 

Screwtape’s Disciples | Catholic World Report - Global Church news and views

Screwtape’s Disciples | Catholic World Report - Global Church news and views

Screwtape’s Disciples

How can the many brave new worlders be defeated?

At first glance, the Jacobins, Marxists, Nazis, rapacious industrial and financial oligarchs, and modern jihadists have little in common. Weren’t the Jacobin revolutionaries democracy’s standard bearers? Weren’t they guided by reason and Enlightenment principles? Aren’t Marxists, past and present, social scientists opposed to oppression by the aristocracy and capitalist robber barons, striving to end class conflict? Weren’t the Nazis an inevitable product of oppressive WWI unconditional surrender terms? Aren’t industrial and financial oligarchs entrepreneurs and community builders? Aren’t modern jihadists seeking retributive justice for historically oppressed Muslims?

“An attractive end justifies messy means.”

This end? A brave new world, requiring destruction for re-construction, requiring the elimination of an ethos of self-donation, self-sacrifice, and self-identification with the Jesus of the Gospels, all so that man can progress.

J.R.R. Tolkien depicts angels who are fair-seeming, compelling in speech, and reasonable, so much so that many men are lured into their orbit, and eventually enslaved. Sauron and Saruman weren’t created to be the tyrants they later become. Nonetheless, angels they were and angels they remain, though fallen.

“The Lord of The Rings” is just a story isn’t it: adventure, fantasy, fiction, mythology? Actually, The Lord of The Rings, along with C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters describes how man is tempted, and sometimes corrupted, by fallen angels…devils.

Consider human history. Think about attractive ideals that are twisted and rendered ugly. Think about glorious movements that end in the subjugation, de-humanization of millions, and even mass murder. Think about people within the Church herself who have succumbed to temptation and depravity.

The pitch isn’t all that complicated, and the pitch is infinitely adaptable: “An attractive end justifies messy means.”

The means? This brave new world trumps individual rights and human dignity; societies can be molded by all necessary means. How many of us have succumbed to the lure of this diabolical lie at work, in our schools, even in our homes? There is no right behavior, only “attractive ends” to be pursued. Contrast this with Tolkien’s faithful angel, Gandalf, for whom the means are the essential thing: mercy toward Gollum when it would be useful to eliminate the creature, sacrificing himself when conventional wisdom suggests his companions are more expendable, seeking the Ring’s destruction instead of using it to combat Sauron. Or the human target, “The Patient”, in The Screwtape Letters who, as the chronicle progresses, and with the help of Divine agents, begins to see past the superficiality and banality that come from pursuing “attractive ends” at the expense of virtue. It can be said that Pope Benedict XVI employed prayer and utter reliance on the Holy Spirit as the holy means to relinquish the papacy, an absurdity to some, but preparing the way for Pope Francis and his plea to the modern world.

As I was working on this article, I read a Wall Street Journal article by Joseph Epstein, reminding me that not everyone who succumbs to the “messy means-attractive ends” ideology has nefarious intentions. For many, as Epstein says, it is what Saul Bellow and others have referred to as the attraction of The Good Intentions Paving Co., derived from the proverb “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Many of us, in big or small matters, are attracted by one Good Intentions Paving Co. project or another.

As for the dirty little secret many of these brave new world proponents would prefer we not know: those obsessed with power for power’s sake use these messy means to grab power and privilege: Robespierre, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, the North Korean Kims, Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, millionaires and billionaires who choose to forge their commercial empires at the expense of human dignity.…the list is long.

How can these brave new worlders be defeated? In a worldly sense, they can’t. Even the destruction of an arch-villain like Hitler did not usher in an era of grace. One can even argue that the Nazi’s splattered the rest of the world with the residue of their evil, helping to produce the excesses and moral pathologies of the 1950s and 60s. Soviet communism fell and, after a brief period of jubilation, the pitch was re-constituted and the lure was renewed. If Chinese communism falls, or the Kim regime, Screwtape’s disciples will rush to fill those voids too.

Forget about conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism, and socialism. Voices on TV, the Internet, radio, and in print deluge us every day with the reasons why one of these political persuasions is superior to the rest, and why all the others are infantile, or vile.

The Gospel is the only remedy. Martyrs, bloody and bloodless, are what’s necessary. Jesus reigned from the Cross. We either reign with Jesus from our crosses, as witnesses to generosity, compassion, and faith, or we fail. This is the paradoxical sword that batters the “messy means-attractive ends” shield: “Unless a grain of wheat fails to the ground and dies, it shall not bear fruit.” Our fallen human nature resists, objects, and pleads for comfort, but we must not give in.

Edith Stein, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and many like them, did more to liberate humanity than General Eisenhower and all the Western armies; the same holds true today. Screwtape, Wormwood, Sauron, Saruman, and their disciples are busy in the world, promising us rings of power, accolades, wealth, influence, sexual gratification. We have a choice, and this choice makes all the difference.

Miraculous Healing in Jesus Stuns Israelis

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24348/Default.aspx?hp=readmore

Sunday, January 05, 2014 |  David Lazarus 

When Therese Daoud arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital with a huge cancerous tumor, doctors said her only chance of survival would be to amputate the leg. What happened during the following months has left the medical staff and the nation speechless.

“If someone had told me the story of what happened to Therese, I would have said they are crazy and sent them to a mental hospital,” said Professor Yaakov Bickels, head of the Orthopedic- Oncology Department at the hospital. “But I was there. I saw it with my own eyes.”

What the professor saw he described as a malignant tumor “the size of an orange.” The biopsy showed a sarcoma. “This is one of the most aggressive and terrifying of all cancerous tumors,” Bickels explained. “With a tumor developed to this degree, the only treatment we could offer Therese was to amputate her leg.”

“I was in shock when the doctors told me,” said Therese, a junior high school science teacher. “I thought he was talking about someone else. But I had no choice. I began to prepare myself for life with one leg.”

Therese sent lab tests and x-rays to the USA to double check, but they came back with the same prognosis. The leg must be amputated to save her life.

On the day of surgery, after waiting in the hospital for three days, Therese was informed that because of “technical difficulties” the operation must be rescheduled. When she went back for the rescheduled surgery, just as she was about to be wheeled into the operating theater, Therese was told again, “the amputation must be postponed.” This time the surgical units were unavailable due to a number of emergency cases. By the time Therese got another date for surgery, her mother had become very sick, and Therese decided to herself postpone the operation in order to take care of her mother.

For most of us, postponing a life saving surgery would have been overwhelming. Not for Therese. “Three times the surgery was delayed,” she said. “This was a clear sign to me from heaven that I should not have the surgery.” Israeli TV showed images of Therese praying in a church in the north of the country.

“When she told me that she had decided not to have the leg amputated, it was clear to me. She would soon die,” contemplated Prof. Bickels. “I was sorry about her decision.”

Three months later, a huge smile on her face, Therese walked unaided into Bickels’ office. “What happened to you?” he asked. “I prayed,” she responded.

Stunned, Bickels immediately sent Therese for an MRI, but the results were undeniable. The killer growth had receded dramatically. “This just does not happen,” stammered the professor. “A growth of this kind cannot not recede like this.”

Doctors and nurses could not believe the results, so they sent for another biopsy. But to no avail. There was no cancer. It had completely left her body. “We kept checking her records over and over,” said an astonished Bickels. “We just could not accept that the cancer had gone without any treatment.”

Israeli news stations have been reporting on the miracle and all admit that it is impossible to explain what happened to Therese, other than the power of her faith.

Hospital staff and reporters even traveled to Therese’s home to look for some other explanation. They tasted the food she eats and checked the water she drinks, but there was no physical explanation. They left contemplating one undeniable, unavoidable and very uncomfortable option – that prayer in Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel, still heals today.

When Government Fails

http://catholicism.org/when-government-fails.html

In 1906, my home town of San Francisco, then the largest city in the United States west of Chicago, was destroyed by earthquake and fire. When I was a kid there were still a lot of folks around who had adult memories of the disaster and I often heard their stories. What I now remember most is the pride of those persons. They had every right to it.

Of what were they proud? Quite simply it was of how they had rebuilt the city bigger and better than ever by the time I heard their stories, and rebuild it they, the survivors who stayed, did.

Of course in those days there was nobody else to do it – or to blame if it wasn’t done, or done fast enough to satisfy the “victims”. It wasn’t like Hurricane Katrina a few years ago. There was no FEMA, the huge government agency that is supposed to justify its existence by meeting immediate needs in the early aftermath of a disaster but which was so slow in New Orleans some called it criminal. No one in 1906 thought to direct howls of outrage at President Theodore Roosevelt as were hurled at George W. Bush for not immediately turning his attention to the plight of the “poor” who were making the interior of the Superdome more dangerous than the flooded streets outside. Congress would not appropriate vast sums of money for reconstruction as after Katrina or Superstorm Sandy, or even for the financial relief of millionaires who build luxury homes where homes don’t belong, like on Atlantic coast beachfronts or in Southern California canyons where wildfires are inevitable.

No such government “help” existed in 1906. Today it is expected. Indeed, we are perilously close to expecting government not simply to clean up and rebuild after a disaster, but to do just about everything else for us. Then we are somehow surprised, and resentful, if it fails.

Let me define “everything” as relieving us from the trouble of: 1) being alive, and 2) living as free men, and not merely free in the political sense but as God made us: the only one of His creatures resembling Him insofar as we possess will and intellect.

My remarks here are occasioned by the latest government failure, to wit its inability to get going in a smooth and efficient way a program, Obamacare, that is supposed to keep everybody “affordably” healthy.

There has been something missing amid all the complaints about this latest failure of government to fulfill its promises and people’s expectations. It is an expression of the Christian view that life is a series of troubles until, finally, we run into some that are bad enough they kill us. This fatal trouble may not be a disease. Nowadays it is almost as apt to be visited on us by a neighbor or breakdown of a machine. Whatever, no number of police, no amount of surveillance or regulation, no surgery, drug or preventive care, affordable or otherwise, can make life serenely trouble-free.

There is another truth parallel to that one: Whether fatal or merely irksome, trouble having its own way of finding us, it makes no sense to look for it. Yet isn’t that, in effect, what we’re doing when we expect government to be ready to keep us healthy; or to provide “affordable” or even free education through college so we can land a well-paying job after graduation; to ensure a well-paying job will exist; that we will have “affordable” housing with all the modern conveniences; or to make sure in a thousand different other ways that everybody has an equal opportunity to lead as trouble-free a life as possible? That government may accomplish this – do more and more for us – we ignore it that we do less for ourselves and thereby become less and less free.

Let me relate this thought to one I expressed on the SBC website a couple of months ago: that when we allow intermediary institutions like family, church, and community to become as weak as they are in America today, there is nothing left standing between the individual and the state with all its power, a power which does not diminish when it is exercised inefficiently, let alone enforced coercively – as when a law requires the individual to purchase health insurance whether or not he wants it. The flip-side is that when an individual does need help, and sooner or later everyone will, it may not be available from anywhere except the government.

No wonder, then, that people are resentful when government is inefficient, or even become suspicious, given the power of the state, that the apparent inefficiency or other negative consequence of government action may actually be intended.

The resentment, suspicion, or plain fear is reflected in the popular culture, especially in movies and television programs from The X-Files to Homeland. These programs and movies like the Bourne franchise or The Hunger Games always feature men or women who pit themselves against bureaucratic incompetence, presidential subterfuge or power-crazy law enforcement officials, and sometimes, as in The Hunger Games, they even spark popular revolt. Then the audience sitting at home or in a theater will cheer.

In actuality such heroes seldom exist. (Edward Snowden could be nominated as one, although we haven’t seen the end of his story. What happens if President Putin is eventually obliged to withdraw his protection?)

Aside from the exceptional hero, then, what we have in the actual world is the great majority who are nothing like the survivors of 1906 who rebuilt a great city by their own efforts. Once the government’s computers are reprogrammed and the President makes a couple of concessions to critics, they will soon depend on Obamacare the way they do FEMA after a disaster. That is unless they manage to become rich and ignore it the way a wealthy Englishman can his country’s wretched National Health Service. They will hardly be able to do otherwise.

They will also continue to live full of resentment, suspicion, fear and even anger, but finding emotional relief in their movies and television programs the way an ancient Roman could when it was thumbs-up for some gladiator in the Coliseum.

In the actual world, the only real exceptions will be Christians who continue to depend on God, accepting their limitations, instead of an agency of government promising the impossible. Perhaps only He can judge if that will be enough to make them heroes, but they will have the satisfaction of at least remaining men.

Billy Graham’s son Franklin: Homosexuality is ‘a sin,’ and ‘I want to warn people’

Billy Graham’s son Franklin: Homosexuality is ‘a sin,’ and ‘I want to warn people’

THE GREAT AWAKENING

WASHINGTON, DC, December 31, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a Meet the Press interview Sunday, Franklin Graham, the son of famed preacher Billy Graham, refused to back down from his Biblical stance against homosexuality.  “It’s sin,” he said, and added that he wanted to warn people about it because they will have to stand before God who will judge.

The younger Graham was speaking in the NBC interview about his father’s legacy, as the elder Graham, 95, is ‘very weak’ and eating little. He described how he helped to arrange afinal sermon for his father that aired in November. He felt it was God’s will that he help his father “finish well.”

In the context of about Pope Francis’ “who am I to judge” comment, Franklin Graham was asked if he would shift his position on “gays.”

“God would have to shift, and God doesn't,” Graham replied. “God's word is the same yesterday and today and a million years from now, that it's sin.”

“To wink at sin, and to tell somebody that it's okay, I know the consequences of what will happen one day when they have to stand before God,” Graham continued. “I want to warn people.” 

But, he added, “I think the Pope is right when he says he is not the judge. He is not the judge. God is the judge.”

Graham’s stance is the same as that of the Catholic Church.  A Vatican document on the pastoral care of homosexual persons notes that, “There can be no doubt of the moral judgement made there against homosexual relations.” The document, written under John-Paul II and signed by Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict), notes that the Bible “in the course of describing the conditions necessary for belonging to the Chosen People, the author excludes from the People of God those who behave in a homosexual fashion.” 

That 1986 Vatican document also encourages speaking out on the immorality of homosexual activity as the younger Graham has done.  “No authentic pastoral programme will include organizations in which homosexual persons associate with each other without clearly stating that homosexual activity is immoral,” it says.

The document stresses, “we wish to make it clear that departure from the Church's teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral.” It adds: “Only what is true can ultimately be pastoral. The neglect of the Church's position prevents homosexual men and women from receiving the care they need and deserve.” 

For Graham, it’s also a matter of truth. “I've never really been one to try to be politically correct,” he said. “I just feel truth is truth, and sometimes I probably offend some people.”

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Gisella Barreto: „After coming to Medjugorje, I felt as if my world began to change”

http://www.medjugorje.hr/en/news/gisella-barreto-„after-coming-to-medjugorje-i-felt-as-if-my-world-began-to-change”,5273.html

A pilgrim from Argentina, Gisella Barreto came to Medjugorje. Gisella is a very famous person in Argentina and in the other countries of Latin America as well. She won several times at the beauty contests, became TV hostess, and even though she lived in the world of glamour, none of that ever made her happy. She came to Medjugorje in 2010 as a result of her mother’s desire and that is when her world started to change. She does not work in media anymore, she does not live in the world of glamour, but she witnesses instead of that and teaches religion in schools and she said how only now she feels happy and blessed in her life after so many years. Gisella told us that she came here to thank Gospa in Medjugorje. She said that her mother was always a pillar of faith in their family and that she raised her four children in the faith. She had beautiful childhood but it all changed in the time of adolescence. That is when she was attracted to the world with all of its challenges. Gisella was very pretty and that is when she entered the world of glamour. She won at several contests and was a semi-finalist at the contest for Miss Argentina. “That life was seemingly nice and attractive, it was actually a true trap of the world. I always looked unhappy and my mom used to tell me to surrender all to God. She was in Medjugorje on three occasions and showed me Our Lady from Medjugorje and told me to thank Her for all. It was after that visit to Medjugorje that my life began to change. This is where I understood that it is not enough just to be a good person, but our soul needs to be filled with God. It was through the emptiness in the heart that the world starts to enter within us.”  

CATHOLICS MUST MOVE TO AFFECT CULTURE OR FACE A REAL CHANCE OF FUTURE SUPPRESSION

 _____________________________________

THE VIEW FROM HERE: CATHOLICS MUST MOVE TO AFFECT CULTURE OR FACE A REAL CHANCE OF FUTURE SUPPRESSION

At a recent lecture, Francis Cardinal George of Chicago noted the importance of culture to Catholicism: that when our great religion has an ingrained place in local, regional, and national culture, customs, and ethnicity, it survives despite the efforts of governments to suppress or even extinguish it. He pointed out the example of Poland -- where Catholic ways remained vibrant no matter what the Communists tried to do. One could also cite Mexico and the image of Guadalupe. Culture, the cardinal told a group of us, is influenced on one side by faith (religions, moral teaching, spirituality) and on the other by secular society by way, among a number of means, of the laws it entrains (legalism). Once laws are passed, they influence how a culture views morality and soon religion. Here we see the danger of legislation that allows such things as abortion, prostitution, drug use, and homosexual marriage. They change the culture in a way that is frighteningly negative. It's important for Catholicism to adjust to cultures ("acculturate") at the same time that it does not compromise its teachings ("acculturate" also means to affect: we must adjust to cultures but also affect them). It wasn't exactly clear, at Cardinal George's lecture, how this can be done -- though the cardinal mentioned the role of a freedom in the Spirit that bequeaths to us the power to evangelize. He mentioned Pope Francis.

The solution, we deduce, must be supernatural.

It must be based in faith.

It's an urgent issue because in places like Canada and the United States, we are losing ground in the war of acculturation. There is the Utah judge who strikes down bans on homosexual wedlock. There is the Canadian legislation that basically legalizes prostitution.  There's same-sex marriage in New Mexico. There's the secularization of our Christian children at school and in front of the television and computer; in the public square, there is the removal of Christmas symbols. One can get no more religio-cultural than Christmas.

These things matter in the framework of "culture." If Christianity does not have a strong, noticeable cultural presence, it is in danger (Cardinal George noted) of suppression.

Thus the nervousness over homosexual "rights." We have arrived at the incredible cultural point, if we may expand upon some of the cardinal's points, where something that for centuries (actually, millennia) has been considered a grave sin against nature, was even illegal in the United States until a few short decades ago, is now nearly illegal to criticize. Everything, including our language, has been turned upside-down. There is the term "homophobia," which makes no more sense than the word "gay." Right is wrong and wrong is right. Sinners have become "victims." Few are afraid of homosexuals (phobic). They are afraid of the societal fruit. It is wrong to hate anyone. But words are being turned against those who follow Jesus. Suddenly, the righteous have become oppressors. Citing the Bible, meantime, verges on a "hate crime."

This is a very sobering point: quoting the Bible could be deemed as illegal, or at least culturally reprehensible, even if the large majority of the public agrees with a biblical point of view. As Cardinal George pointed out, only two to eight percent of the public has had a homosexual or bisexual experience, yet, if we may again expand on his remarks, adopting the tactics of the (legitimate) Civil Rights Movement, they have cowed governments, corporations, and the "opinion-makers." Recently, the controversy over a reality show star, Phil Robertson, of Duck Dynasty, has shown how swiftly the current secular zeitgeist will sweep away or attempt to sweep away even an overwhelmingly popular television personality who dares oppose homosexual behavior. We are yet to see how this will turn out; there certainly has been a backlash; will it finally be a last "straw" that causes us to awaken? Or is it another nail in the cultural coffin?

It is not to defend everything this gentleman said, but phenomenal is this thought: If the angels who saved Lot at Sodom were around today, they too would be ostracized for what they said. We are nearly to the point where, culturally, we'd "arrest" angels! Even without outright persecution, there are the results already. To see how secular society affects the faith takes only a glance at a recent Harris survey: belief in God fell from 82 percent in 2009 to 74 percent in 2012 (if the polling is accurate); the belief in miracles fell from 70 percent to 65 percent; belief in an afterlife fell from 69 percent to 64 percent; while belief in Darwin's theory of evolution rose from 42 percent to 47 percent. Nearly a quarter of Americans (23 percent) identify themselves as "not at all" religious.

What caused this sudden drop (the figures for belief had held steady from 2005 to 2009) is not clear; the "not-religious" White House surely has some effect, as do the tremendous pushes for things like gay marriage and the unpopularity, during that period, for various reasons, of Rome and mainstream Protestant denominations. Our Church has been intellectualized to such a point that it lost its ability to communicate with the masses. Evangelicals also are now missing some of their flavor. Are the young, who have taken to Pope Francis, showing indications that they will return? If so, what can we do to further that culturally?

One underused and potent tool: contacting the advertisers of shows that are anti-Catholic (see especially "comedian" Bill Maher), "heterophobic," or culturally oppressive. Another: communicating clearly to the pews, without theological circumlocution (straight talk, a bit like that "Duck" fellow). It is a war that -- urgently, at this juncture -- must be won. Cardinal George made famous remarks some years back on how, if current trends continue, a Cardinal in Chicago may be arrested in the not-so-distant future. A remark made rhetorically or prophetically, we're not sure. “I will die in bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die as a martyr in the public square," the cardinal told a group of priests. "His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.”

-- Michael H. Brown