Cardinal Sarah- From Hollywood to Gender Ideology to ISIS

http://aleteia.org/2015/10/13/synod-fathers-from-hollywood-to-homosexuality-fantasy-games-to-fundamentalism/

http://www.courageouspriest.com/cardinal-sarah-hollywood-gender-ideology-isis

Synod Fathers: From Hollywood to Gender Ideology to ISIS

Cardinal Sarah and Archbishop Gomez trace the crisis of the family back to a loss in the sense of God's Presence and Truth

VATICAN CITY — Two newly released interventions by Synod Fathers offer insight into the gravest threats facing the family today, and unite in calling for a rediscovery of the beauty of Christian family life and the transforming power of the Gospel.

Expressing deep reservations over certain synodal procedures, Cardinal Robert Sarah advised the body to “help the Holy Father to enunciate clearly certain truths and useful guidance on a global level,” as “gender ideology and ISIS” spread across the globe assailing humanity from opposite poles: “On the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism.”

Cardinal Sarah serves as the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. On Monday he released jointly to Aleteia and the National Catholic Register the intervention he delivered at the opening general congregations of the Synod.

“What Nazi-Fascism and Communism were in the twentieth century, Western homosexual and abortion ideologies and Islamic fanaticism are today,” the Cardinal said in his strongly-worded intervention. “The church must promote a true “epiphany of the Family,” he added, “…for the marriage crisis is essentially a crisis of God, but also a crisis of faith…”

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, while citing the “virtual world” of Hollywood movies, television shows and fantasy sports as major contributing factors to the crisis in the family, wove a similarly threaded message: “Our culture has lost its sense of the meaning of the human person and creation. This loss is rooted in the loss of God.”

Counseling a renewed appreciation of the human person, Archbishop Gomez, in his intervention of October 10, recalled Pope Francis’ visit to the US and his reminder that “God entrusted his loving plan for creation to the family.”

“This divine Word is the authentic starting point for understanding the family’s vocation and mission,” he said.

The Los Angeles Archbishop voiced his belief that “we must proclaim the beauty of God’s plan of love for creation, for the human person, and for the human family.”

Also on October 10, Aleteia spoke with the Cardinal Sarah following a meeting of the bishops of Africa. The Guinean cardinal voiced his concern about three controversial paragraphs being included in the Instrumentum laboris, saying that by retaining the paragraphs which did not receive a two-thirds majority at last year’s meeting, he believes “there is an agenda they are trying to impose.”

He also expressed his opinion that the starting point of the synod’s working document was “somewhat mistaken” in beginning with modern difficulties rather than “God’s plan for the family.” But he added that, in the first week: “I saw that the Holy Spirit was guiding it well.”

The cardinal therefore encouraged the faithful to pray, especially as “the gravest and most serious point is the third part.”

“There are still bishops’ conferences — some, not all — in the West that want to open the doors [to everything], but they are few. The bishops of the East, Africa, and America are orthodox. But the few who are are insisting, with the help of the media.”

Here below we publish a translation of the full text of Cardinal Robert Sarah’s intervention, followed by the full text delivered by Archbishop Jose Gomez, preserving the emphases indicated in the original text.

Robert Cardinal Sarah
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship
and the Discipline of the Sacraments

Text for Synod on the Family, October 2015

Your Holiness, Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, participants of the Synod,
I propose these three thoughts:

1) More transparency and respect among us

I feel a strong need to invoke the Spirit of Truth and Love, the source of parresia in speaking and humility in listening, who alone is capable of creating true harmony in plurality.

I say frankly that in the previous Synod, on various issues one sensed the temptation to yield to the mentality of the secularized world and individualistic West. Recognizing the so-called “realities of life” as a locus theologicus means giving up hope in the transforming power of faith and the Gospel. The Gospel that once transformed cultures is now in danger of being transformed by them. Furthermore, some of the procedures used did not seem aimed at enriching discussion and communion as much as they did to promote a way of seeing typical of certain fringe groups of the wealthiest churches. This is contrary to a poor Church, a joyously evangelical and prophetic sign of contradiction to worldliness. Nor does one understand why some statements that are not shared by the qualified majority of the last Synod still ended up in the Relatio and then in the Lineamenta and the Instrumentum laboris when other pressing and very current issues (such as gender ideology) are instead ignored.

The first hope is therefore that, in our work, there by more freedom, transparency and objectivity. For this, it would be beneficial to publish the summaries of the interventions, to facilitate discussion and avoid any prejudice or discrimination in accepting the pronouncements of the synod Fathers.

2) Discernment of history and of spirits

A second hope: that the Synod honor its historic mission and not limit itself to speaking only about certain pastoral issues (such as the possible communion for divorced and remarried) but help the Holy Father to enunciate clearly certain truths and useful guidance on a global level. For there are new challenges with respect to the synod celebrated in 1980. A theological discernment enables us to see in our time two unexpected threats(almost like two “apocalyptic beasts”) located on opposite poles: on the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism. To use a slogan, we find ourselves between “gender ideology and ISIS”. Islamic massacres and libertarian demands regularly contend for the front page of the newspapers. (Let us remember what happened last June 26!). 

From these two radicalizations arise the two major threats to the family: its subjectivist disintegration in the secularized West through quick and easy divorce, abortion, homosexual unions, euthanasia etc. (cf. Gender theory, the ‘Femen’, the LGBT lobby, IPPF …). On the other hand, the pseudo-family of ideologized Islam which legitimizes polygamy, female subservience, sexual slavery, child marriage etc. (cf. Al Qaeda, Isis, Boko Haram ...)

Several clues enable us to intuit the same demonic origin of these two movements. Unlike the Spirit of Truth that promotes communion in the distinction (perichoresis), these encourage confusion (homo-gamy) or subordination (poly-gamy). Furthermore, they demand a universal and totalitarian rule, are violently intolerant, destroyers of families, society and the Church, and are openly Christianophobic.

“We are not contending against creatures of flesh and blood ….” We need to be inclusive and welcoming to all that is human; but what comes from the Enemy cannot and must not be assimilated. You can not join Christ and Belial! What Nazi-Fascism and Communism were in the 20th century, Western homosexual and abortion Ideologies and Islamic Fanaticism are today.

3) Proclaim and serve the beauty of Monogamy and the Family

Faced with these two deadly and unprecedented challenges (“homo-gamy” and “poly-gamy”) the Church must promote a true “epiphany of the Family.” To this both the Pope (as spokesman of the Church) may contribute, and individual Bishops and Pastors of the Christian flock: that is, “the Church of God, which he has obtained with his own blood” (Acts: 20:28).

We must proclaim the truth without fear, i.e. the Plan of God, which is monogamy in conjugal love open to life. Bearing in mind the historical situation just recalled, it is urgent that the Church, at its summit, definitively declare the will of the Creator for marriage. How many people of good will and common sense would join in this luminous act of courage carried out by the Church!

Together with a strong and clear Word of the Supreme Magisterium, Pastors have the mission of helping our contemporaries to discover the beauty of the Christian family. To do this, it must first promote all that represents a true Christian Initiation of adults, for the marriage crisis is essentially a crisis of God, but also a crisis of faith, and this is an infantile Christian initiation. Then we must discern those realities that the Holy Spirit is already raising up to reveal the Truth of the Family as an intimate communion in diversity (man and woman) that is generous in the gift of life. We bishops have the urgent duty to recognize and promote the charisms, movements, and ecclesial realities in which the Family is truly revealed, this prodigy of harmony, love of life and hope in Eternity, this cradle of faith and school charity. And there are so many realities offered by Providence, together with the Second Vatican Council, in which this miracle is offered.

***

Archbishop Jose Gomez’s October 10 Intervention:

Holy Father, Synod Fathers, brothers and sisters,

The Word of God reveals our Creator’s plan for his creation and for human history. This divine Word is the authentic starting point for understanding the family’s vocation and mission.
As the Instrumentum Laboris (nos. 39, 44), recognizes, we can discern a “divine pedagogy” in the history of salvation that unfolds in the Sacred Scriptures.

To strengthen marriage and the family in our time, I believe the Church must recover the divine pedagogy found in the Scriptures. Just a few weeks ago, when he was in the United States Pope Francis reminded us again — that God entrusted his loving plan for creation to the family.

And as I see it, the crisis of the family in our time is, to some extent, a crisis of anthropology. Our culture has lost its sense of the meaning of the human person and creation. This loss is rooted in the loss of God.

My perspective is shaped by my experience as the Archbishop of Los Angeles. The family of God in Los Angeles is made up of people from every continent and nationality.

Los Angeles is also the home of Hollywood — the place where the “virtual world” of movies, television programs, fantasy sports and all kinds of media products are created. So Los Angeles has a great influence on the perception of the human person and the family in contemporary society.

I believe that the Church must present a new evangelical catechesis on creation, as an essential element of the new evangelization. We must proclaim the beauty of God’s plan of love for creation, for the human person, and for the human family. Our new evangelization must proclaim an integral human ecology that reveals the nature, vocation and teleology of the human person as created by God.

The Church needs to recover and reflect on the “family” images found in the Scriptures and most ancient Tradition, and in the universal Church’s liturgy and popular piety:

•     the human person as the imago Dei;
•     the Church as “family of God”;
•     the family as the “domestic Church”;
•     Divine filiation and the Christian life as spiritual childhood.

In the face of the widespread crisis of the family, I believe our society needs to hear once more the beautiful truth about the human person and God’s loving plan for creation and history, a plan that is centered in the family.

Counting on the intercession of the Holy Family we need to illuminate, by our pastoral priorities and practice, how the family is the crucial “way” for the Church and for God’s plan for human society

And in the words of our newest American saint, St. Junipero Serra, we will go, siempre adelante!

Thank you very much.

Diane Montagna is Rome correspondent for Aleteia’s English edition.

‘Don’t Judge’ — How to Respond When Your Relativistic Friend Quotes Jesus

It’s fascinating how some people who don’t regularly read the Bible are quick to quote one scriptural verse back to Christians: “Don’t judge” (Matthew 7:1).

This line is commonly used to silence us from speaking out on moral matters. “You shouldn’t tell others what is right or wrong! After all, Jesus said, ‘Don’t judge!’”

But the Bible speaks about judging in different ways. On the one hand, we should never judge a person’s soul. That’s what Jesus critiques when he says, “Don’t judge.”

Someone’s spiritual situation before God is between that person and God alone.

At the same time, Jesus isn’t telling us it’s evil to use our minds to make judgments about what is right and wrong. Indeed, the Bible calls us to make good, wise judgments about many things in life. St. Paul, for example, says “the spiritual man judges all things” (1 Corinthians 2:15).

Many people are afraid to say something is morally wrong because they don’t want to be “judgmental.” But we need to help them see there’s a big difference between making a moral judgment and judging someone’s soul. 

Is it okay for me to use my mind and simply make a judgment? If I notice it’s raining, I make a judgment: “I should bring my umbrella.” If it’s snowing, I make a judgment: “I should wear my winter coat.” Am I a mean, bigoted person if I do this? Of course not. God gave me a mind. He wants me to use it.

Similarly, can I use my mind to make a judgment about someone else’s actions? If I see my toddler about to run into the street, can I make the judgment, “That’s not good for her. She might get hit by a car”? If I do this, I’m not saying she’s a horrible person or condemning her to hell. I’m just observing that she is about to do something that will cause her great harm.

Let’s take this a step further. Can I use my mind and make a judgment about someone else’s moral actions? Let’s say there’s a young female college student who is sleeping around with one man after another. Can I use my mind and make the judgment, “That’s not good for her”? Can I make the judgment, “She’s not going to be happy living this way. She’s never going to find the lasting love she longs for. She’s made for something better”? Of course.

But let’s be clear: I’m not judging her soul if I do that. She may be doing something objectively wrong, but I don’t know her personal situation before God. I don’t know her background, her situation or her wounds. “Who am I to judge?” Pope Francis would say. A soul’s status before God is something between that person and God alone.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes how various factors in people’s lives may impair their free choices in such a way that limits their culpability or moral guilt. As Pope Francis explains, “Each person’s situation before God and their life in grace are mysteries which no one can fully know from without.”

Only God sees the whole picture. Perhaps this young woman comes from a dysfunctional family and has never experienced authentic love. Maybe she was abused. Maybe she has always been taught that this is what it means to be a liberated woman. Such a woman doesn’t need me condemning her soul. She needs to know God’s love, mercy and plan for her life.

At the same time — and this is absolutely crucial — if I care about her at all, should I say something to her about what she’s doing? If she is a close friend or family member, for example, should I talk to her about it?

I wouldn’t be judging her soul — that’s between her and God alone. But to love is to will the good of another, to seek what’s best for the other person. And if I truly love this person, then it’s the loving thing to show her the better way.

Certainly, I should do this prudently, in the right time and in the right way, and with great gentleness, humility and compassion.

But it is simply not loving to sit back and never desire to share the truth with her.

Imagine if I see my 2-year-old daughter about to touch the hot stove and I say, “I wouldn’t do that. But I don’t want to be judgmental. Whatever makes you happy.”

Or imagine if my non-swimming toddler is about to jump into a swimming pool, and I say, “Oh well … if that works for you! … I personally wouldn’t do that, but I don’t want to impose my views on you. It’s your life.” Would that be a loving thing to do? Absolutely not.

This gets to another tragedy of moral relativism: Relativism hinders us from loving people.

We can become indifferent to the needs of the people God has placed in our lives.

Instead of responding with love and compassion when we notice our brother stumbling in life, we can become apathetic and unresponsive. We can become like Cain, who said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That’s not love.

Let’s rise above the culture of relativism and show more love for the people in our lives by sharing the truth with them.  

Edward Sri is a professor of theology at the Augustine Institute. This article is based on his newest book and eight-part DVD small- group study, Who Am I to Judge? Responding to Relativism With Logic and Love (Ignatius Press). Part V:  “Why Relativism Is Not Neutral.”

Read: Parts 1, 2 & 3.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/dont-judge-how-to-respond-when-your-relativistic-friend-quotes-jesus

The Interior Life is Everything

It Might Not Look Like Much, but the Interior Life is Everything

Denise Renner

I thought life was too short not to do it all, so I was willing to try anything once. I was always up to something new: apartments, jobs, travel plans, degrees, beliefs. I had long lists of things I wanted to try and places I wanted to visit. But then I converted to the Catholic Faith, had my first baby, and became a stay-at-home mom. I don’t really do a whole lot anymore.

No one calls my parents to say, “You’ll never guess what she did now!” about the soup I made for dinner. No one cheers from the sidelines: “Do it now, while you still can!” when I seize some free time to read. And I don’t send postcards from my adventures in the Land of Croup.

There is still movement aplenty in the form of toddler mischief, blocks flying past my head, and children standing on things they shouldn’t be standing on.

But for the most part, any changes, any “movement,” comes not from doing something exciting in the greater world but from an interior movement of the heart, mind, and will. I’m not crossing borders, but experiencing the slow and often painful movement of the soul toward God.

Our culture is all about the externals. We cultivate bodies and bucket lists as if there will be a crown in heaven for those who looked the best while trekking at Machu Picchu. But in heaven, joy will be found in those quiet fruits of practicing the faith: contemplation, prayer, and adoration.

The inner life isn’t flashy, it’s not exciting, and no one is going to be jealous of the time spent on your knees in prayer. But it’s the real stuff, the good stuff. The hard stuff.

More determination is required to subdue the interior man than to mortify the body; and to break one’s will than to break one’s bones. — St. Ignatius of Loyola

In seizing freedom and making lists there was little bending of the will, little in the way of sacrifice beyond saving money for the next adventure. And very little stillness.

Now I live on a much smaller, more intimate scale. There are no big trips planned, no promotions, nothing exciting—only the day-to-day attempt at joyful sacrifice and surrender of self. This is harder than the worst of flights, bedbugs, and food poisoning all in one. It doesn’t sparkle with novelty either: the battle against the flesh is an old one.

But this interior movement is everything, even when I am perfectly still, kneeling—not even “standing on my own two feet.” As the spiritual life has grown, the bucket list has shrunk. Sometimes that feels good and right, other times a backpack and a one-way ticket sound pretty appealing.
And those times I remind myself that the real destination sells no postcards, and no one’s clamoring that you should go now before it’s discovered. The crown offered there is sought in the smallest of moments, in privacy and prayer, in the constant and quiet pursuit of what is good and holy and true—and in the denial of self.

“Lord what wilt Thou have me do? Behold the true sign of a totally perfect soul: when one has reached the point of giving up his will so completely that he no longer seeks, expects or desires to do ought but that which God wills.”
—St. Bernard of Clairvaux

http://catholicexchange.com/might-not-look-like-much-interior-life-everything

image: Mikhail Markovskiy / Shutterstock.com

By Denise Renner

Denise is a wife, mother, and Catholic convert who writes at The Motherlands. She lives in Oregon with her husband and two children. Denise was raised Lutheran, earned a masters in theology from Southern Baptists, and, finally, was lead to the Catholic faith by her husband.

Martyrs suffer for our sins - homosexuality is one

Jan. 11, 1993

Each week, Fr. Rutler writes a column to which you can subscribe on the parish web site. In this week's column, he writes:

I do not like most jargon, as it diminishes the creative power of the noble English language rightly used. For instance, I do not like to be told by bureaucratic sorts to “prioritize.” (Apparently, the first recorded instance of its use was in the 1972 presidential campaign.) As with all things, Christ the Living Word put it better when he said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). God and his promise of eternal life should have priority over every other desire or concern. Recently, many television viewers complained about a news bulletin covering the beheading of the journalist and devout Catholic, James Foley. Their objection was not to the horror of the news, but that it had interrupted the broadcast of a soap opera. We are learning quickly that people with that defective kind of priority will soon find out the hard way that life is not a soap opera. We are now engaged in a war, whether or not some politicians hesitate to call it that, and it must have priority over all other interests. The war is being fought by enemies of God, deluded by the conceit that they are fighting for God. 

This is so hard for an indulged and selfish culture to accept, inasmuch as it means acknowledging that good and evil exist, though many would prefer to ignore the latter. Christians are being martyred in the Middle East, and public officials still find it hard to mention that those who are being crucified, beheaded, and driven from their homes are suffering because they are Christians. 

The auxiliary bishop of Baghdad, Shlemon Warduni, said on Vatican radio: “We have to ask the world: Why are you silent? Why do not you speak out? Do human rights exist, or not? And if they exist, where are they? There are many, many cases that should arouse the conscience of the whole world: Where is Europe? Where is America?” The genocide of Christians, who have been in Iraq since shortly after the Resurrection, does not seem to have priority in the attention of many in our country. 

As this suffering continues, many in the United States are willing to tolerate heresy and moral decadence in a vain attempt to “get along” with others. While Christians must “love the sinner and hate the sin,” there are an increasing number of people who are intimidated into enabling the sinner to advertise his sin. In 1992, Cardinal O’Connor said that compromising Catholic truth for the sake of political correctness “was not worth one comma in the Apostles' Creed.”

The holy martyrs in the Middle East honor the Church and atone for our degeneracy. Their bishops are willing to struggle and die with them. They must be amazed that bishops and people in other places have their priorities so wrong. 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3203866/posts
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Fortune Telling, Ouija boards - are evil - by Fr. John Hollowell

This is Super Serious: Fortune Telling, Ouija Boards, Tarot Cards . . .

Ouija Boards and Demonic Oppression 

By Fr. John Hollowell, On This Rock:

I spoke with a young man who was battling authentic demonic oppression for over twenty years after being in a room where a Ouija Board was being used when this young man was in seventh grade.

He shared that he felt something come into him and that from that point on in his life, he knew he was battling a Demon that had considerable ability to harm him (head aches and weariness) and to suggest things to him denigrating himself, his family, discouraging him from going to Church, discouraging him from confession and priests, and much more.

Stay away from fortune telling, Ouija boards, Tarot Cards, and all that other garbage.  EVIL IS REAL.  

“All forms of divination are to be rejected:  recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future.  Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers.  They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone”
– Catechism 2116

Note that Deuteronomy compares all these evil consultations with killing children: “Let there not be found among you anyone who immolates his son or daughter in the fire, nor a fortuneteller, soothsayer, charmer, diviner, or caster of spells, nor one who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks oracles from the dead.”
– Deuteronomy 18: 10-11

St. Paul and Deuteronomy note that those who engage in these types of acts commit mortal sins.  It is SUPER SERIOUS

As noted from this particular young man’s story, even those AROUND this type of activity can be harmed in serious ways.

Cardinal Sarah - God or Nothing

For some in the Church today, Catholic doctrine is subject to rewriting, liturgical worship of God is primarily a chance for people to assemble and express themselves, Catholic moral teaching is now to be considered an example of outmoded rigorism, and pastoral care of the faithful means telling them to do whatever they want as long as it makes them “happy.”

But are we really happy when we reject Our Lord’s teachings and try to convince ourselves that that is what Our Lord would want us to do? Is it not rather the case that any such manipulation of the truth of Christ produces a spirit of anxiety and bitterness that inexorably manifests itself in a frenzied attempt to tear down the rest of Catholic teaching and practice?

It really does come down to God or Nothing.

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2017/04/19/cardinal-sarah-and-the-innovators/

In God's Company 2: Medjugorje - Veneration

In God's Company 2: Medjugorje - Veneration: Good Friday-Veneration of the Cross

The Keys to Getting Your Prayers Answered “Praying Like You Mean It!”

The Keys to Getting Your Prayers Answered

“Praying Like You Mean It!”

By Fr. Richard Heilman, Roman Catholic Man:

Fervent Prayer: Praying Like You Mean It.

Whenever I am offering spiritual direction, and the directee laments about a situation, wondering why God has not answered their prayer … I always ask, “How are you praying?” Nine times out of ten the answer comes back with something that sounds like, “I don’t know … I guess I add a petition to my rosary or something.” It is then that I speak to them about “Praying like you mean it!”

St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote,

“Timid prayer does not pierce heaven, because immoderate fear binds the soul so that prayer, far from flying upward, can not even come out. Being lukewarm, it grows weak in its flight and falls because it has no strength. Prayer that is faithful, humble, and fervent will undoubtedly pierce heaven and it will certainly not return fruitless.”

I have witnessed countless miracles. In each case, we offered “intense prayer campaigns” … we were “begging God.” St. Bernard is correct, as we offered faithful, humble and *fervent* prayer that sought to pierce heaven. This was much more than *just* adding a petition here or there.

Here are some of the more notable miracles we’ve witnessed …

My uncle, a priest, was confirmed by two experts, that he was brain dead. After praying for him in the Holy Land, and bringing him a stone from the Pool of Bethesda, he completely recovered.

 I prayed in the Holy Land for another woman who was filled with cancer, and brought her a stone too. She completely recovered.

 My brother-in-law’s nephew was filled with cancer, and several of us prayed with the intercession of Padre Pio (we actually added oil blessed with intercession of Padre Pio), and he completely recovered.

 My nephew was moments away from dying from pneumonia and excessive internal bleeding. We asked tens of thousands on social media to pray with the intercession of Pope Pius XII. He miraculously recovered.

 A friend’s dad suffered a nine centimeter ruptured aneurysm (I’m told there is no record of anyone surviving one this size). We asked for prayer just as we did with my nephew. He miraculously recovered.

 In Madison, WI, UW Clinics were threatening to implement late term abortions. We got over 200 people to pray the Stations of the Cross in front of the clinic, and ten days later they announced they are withdrawing there plans to go forward with this.

 Religious freedom was suddenly under great attack, notably with the Hobby Lobby case. We got 100s of people to pray every Thursday evening in the Summer in front of the State Capitol for two years. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby.

 Tens of thousands joined together with the Novena for Our Nation in the lead up to the 2016 Presidential election. The freight train of secular hedonism was stopped in its tracks.

And, here is the story of what happened just on the Western edge of Madison, WI, in the tiny town of Pine Bluff …

PINE BLUFF VS. PORNOGRAPHY

“As long as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage” (Exodus 17:11).

In the summer of 2004, I was assigned as pastor of two parishes, one of which was St. Mary’s of Pine Bluff, a Catholic parish in a small unincorporated town in southern Wisconsin, just west from Madison. The little town of Pine Bluff has one church, two bars, and a handful of homes. It is surrounded by fields and idyllic rolling hills and countryside. It’s the kind of town where people dream of raising their kids.

So it was that just months after I arrived in Pine Bluff, one of the bar owners decided to rent out his cozy establishment to a strip club owner. Neighbors were appalled, and the little town was stunned. But there was not much, it seemed, that anyone could do.

The folks in Pine Bluff, however, didn’t yet understand my resolve and my absolute trust in God’s miracle power. Lying in bed one night, I found myself in my prayer … “What in the world did you have in mind, God, by allowing this strip club across the street of my new parish?” Then one word came to me, “Mile.” It was then that I envisioned the trek from the front of our church to the end of the block, then back to the church and concluding in the cemetery behind our church. Then two words came to me, “Miracle Mile.”

These words and that image came so strong that I got out of bed at 3:00 AM in the morning and put on my sweat suit and went out in my car. I reset the odometer down to zero, and drove the path I envisioned in mind.  When I reached the end of that path (up in the cemetery), the odometer rolled to exactly one mile. I knew then that God was speaking to me.

That following week, I gathered together some of the faith-filled people I had met since my arrival, and we began to make plans. Surprisingly, they did not think I had lost my rocker when I told them about my 3:00 AM drive through Pine Bluff. They, too, believed there was something to this.

We discerned that we were called to pray the Stations of the Cross along that one mile route. Some people designed little 3 foot high crosses, and we placed a roman numeral on each one, signifying each of the 14 Stations. All the neighbors allowed us to plant these crosses in their yards, near to the sidewalk. We then chose Palm Sunday to hold this Stations of the Cross. We asked people to come, and over 200 people joined us.

Participants carried their prayer sheets and a white ribbon (a symbol of purity and anti-pornography). The twelfth station found them at the entrance to the beautiful parish cemetery on a bluff with a life-size crucifix of our Lord and a one-hundred-year-old stone kneeler in front (pictured here). The participants tied their white ribbons to this kneeler as a prayer form, much like lighting a vigil candle in church.

After that first prayer walk, a container holding prayer sheets and ribbons was placed at the first station on the walk. All were invited to come, pick up a prayer sheet and white ribbon, and pray at anytime of the day or night, as they wished. Over the next seven months, prayer warriors walked the path and prayed the Stations. The white crosses on residents’ lawns served as a very tangible reminder to pray the Stations and to pray for God’s mercy.

Father Does the “Moses Thing”

While I walked and prayed that mile many times, my primary way of praying during those days of intense spiritual warfare was to wake up before dawn every morning and drive up to Blue Mounds State Park (When one looks west at my church, from a distance, they can see Blue Mounds  in the background … it looks like a mighty mountain). On top of Blue Mounds (Blue? Mary’s color? 😉 ) is a lookout tower (Fire tower?). It was 64 steps to rise to the top. I brought my Bernese Mountain dog, Angel, and I would leash her to the bottom of the tower while I ascended to the top. On top, I would look east and see much of Madison from the high point. And, of course, I was looking out over my entire two parishes. I made sure I was there before the sun would rise, so I was praying as the sun rose. At some point, I found a straight branch that I used, much like Moses’ staff, to hold up and pray … recalling the scripture passage when Moses prayed this way … “As long as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage” (Exodus 17:11). After I had prayed on the tower, Angel and I would walk the paths on Blue Mounds as I prayed various prayers, such as the rosary. I only missed four days on top of Blue Mounds from April through October of that year.

Victory!!  Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!!

The miracle mile was, indeed, miraculous. Even though many say that the porn industry is more protected (under First Amendment rights) than are the babies in our mothers’ wombs, within seven months the strip club was chased out of town. Little Pine Bluff was overjoyed, and a victory was won for Our Lord. We estimated that over 700 ribbons were tied to that 100 year old kneeler, represented 700 miles walked in prayer.

http://www.courageouspriest.com/keys-prayers-answered

PRAY LIKE YOU MEAN IT!

Today’s drug crisis desperately needs solutions. Could this be one?

An Italian nun may have an answer for opioid addiction.

It’s a story that, unfortunately, is becoming more and more familiar. “Kevin” had a degree from a university in Florida and a good job at a logistics company when he suffered a back injury. He got prescription painkillers but eventually found that he couldn’t live without them. And then he started using harder stuff.

“I was working at a good job and had the money to support my habit for a while, so it wasn’t evident in my family I was using pills and using heroin,” he said. “I drank a lot and used drugs in college and it caused problems in my life and relationships, but it wasn’t until I started using heroin that I really started to develop a true drug addiction where I would wake up and have to use drugs every day to go about my daily life or to feel normal or just to operate.”

Kevin ended up in prison for armed robbery. After all, he had a $400-a-day addiction to subsidize. A priest who visited him regularly suggested that he might be a candidate for “Comunità Cenacolo” (Community of the Cenacle), which was founded by an Italian nun to help young men and women struggling with alcohol and drug addiction. Granted probation in late 2013, Kevin entered the Community house Birmingham, Alabama. It’s one of four houses in the United States that is part of the international Comunità Cenacolo, founded in Italy by Mother Elvira Petrozzi in 1983. Houses operate in 18 countries around the world. A new one is about to open in Costa Rica, according to Albino Aragno, who oversees the communities in North America.

Leaders of the organization requested that family names of those interviewed not be used in this article.

Drug abuse has been a problem for a long time, and it knows no national borders. But the United States seems to be undergoing a particularly sharp rise in the number of people addicted to opioids right now, both legal and illegal.

As Christopher Caldwell noted in a recent article in First Things, 52,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2015—“about four times as many as died from gun homicides and half again as many as died in car accidents.”

Comunità Cenacolo doesn’t deal exclusively with drug addicts but has its fair share.

“Almost all of us are drug addicts,” said Kevin, 35, “but some have life struggles, or they need to get their spiritual life back in order.”

And Cenacle doesn’t have medical professionals or counselors on staff to lead addicts and alcoholics through a particular method of treatment. Mother Elvira refers to it as a “school of life,” focusing on work, prayer and interpersonal sharing.

“We propose a simple, disciplined, family style of life, based on the rediscovery of the essential gifts of prayer and work (‘’ora et labora’‘), true friendship, sacrifice, and faith in Jesus,” explains the organization’s website. “The spirituality of the Community is centered on the Eucharist and the Blessed Mother. The day is structured around times of prayer (Eucharistic Adoration, the Liturgy of the Hours, the Rosary), work, deep sharing about one’s own life in the light of the Word of God, recreation, and times of celebration. We believe that the Christian life in its simplicity and fullness is the true answer to every restlessness in the human heart and that, in the living encounter with God’s Mercy, man is reborn into hope and is freed from the chains that have enslaved him, thus discovering the joy of being loved and of loving others.”

Each house for men has about 20-25 residents, usually between the ages of 18-39. The daily routine begins with a wakeup call at 6am and follows a rigorous structure that includes time in chapel, workshop and garden.

“We do everything here: gardening, we take care of the grounds, we do building. All the benches you see, all the porches,” Kevin explained as he gave a tour of the 10-acre Our Lady of Hope men’s community in St. Augustine, which he now co-directs. “This time last year we redid the whole roof. We pray, we work and we share—the three things we do in community. And we eat good as well.”

That last, he added, is important for morale.

In addition to regular household chores, including cooking, growing crops and raising hogs (which gives someone a daily, though not entirely pleasant, task of cleaning out the sty), the community is engaged in woodwork, making anything from furniture to the crosses for rosary beads (which a nearby women’s community finishes off). There’s a church across the state highway where the men recently refinished the pews.

The prayer aspect of the life here includes Mass two or three times a week, recitation of three rosaries each day, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and Gospel sharing.

If it sounds like a quasi-religious community, here’s something else: there’s a strong emphasis on living a communal life and limiting material possessions.

“When I entered, my initial challenge was detaching from the world,” said Samantha, who joined three and a half years ago. “I come from a family that’s pretty well off, so I was spoiled and taken care of my whole life.”

Samantha, 30, who was addicted to painkillers and anxiety medication and started using heroin, said the initial adjustment to the community was hard: “working all day long and not having everything at your fingertips, waiting for things, not always hearing the word ‘Yes,’ detaching from material things. We live a really simple life here,” she said.

“We have no money, no wallets, no cell phones, so we can focus on … what we need to focus on, to recognize the things we need to change, the things we need to grow,” Kevin added. “When I used drugs I covered up everything. I didn’t want to deal with my emotions so I got high instead.”

“We don’t have TV, newspaper, phone or internet, no computer. So we learn how to have a conversation with somebody,” said 22-year-old Eileen. Those things can keep community members from communion with one another. Without them, a member isn’t able to escape from difficult confrontations.

“We have two girls who do housecleaning together every morning, and whether you got in a fight with that girl or you get along, you’re still working together,” she said. “So you learn to be consistent in a friendship. And it’s hard.”

In the life they left behind, she added, addicts were constantly running away from difficulties. “We changed jobs or changed schools, we unfriended the person on Facebook—you get rid of people you don’t get along with,” Eileen said. “We think we’re here because we use drugs, but it’s a lot deeper than that. Why did we resort to that? It was maybe because we never learned to communicate ourselves. Maybe we felt hurt or maybe we felt forgotten, maybe we ran and ran and ran and felt like nobody ever truly knew us. All these underlying things are the reasons why we started to abuse.”

Now, in the daily situations of life, she said, “you build your character so that you’re able to say no in all kinds of situations.” That will be helpful when community members leave and return to the world, where there will surely be temptations.

“Drugs and alcohol are always going to be there—and even more accessible than in my times, cheaper,” said Aragno, who came to Cenacolo some 40 years ago as a drug addict himself. “For them, the challenge is to sustain the life they have learned in community and be able to keep the faith and stay away from the old environment. And in a time when everything is global it’s much more difficult. You used to be able to move away from bad influences, but now everyone can too easily be found on the internet.”

At Cenacolo, there are times built into the schedule for sharing and “fraternal correction.” In a session called “revision of life,” community members gather every two weeks in groups of four or five. One at a time, each person shares about his feelings, his prayer, his work, his relationships with the other members, his struggles, and his behavior since the last revision of life. He also tells how well he maintained the particular “commitment” he was given at the last session.

“Then one at a time, everyone else tells you what they see in you, corrects you or encourages you,” said Aragno. “You are not allowed to respond, not allowed to explain why you are acting like that…. They give you a commitment. If you are lazy, never on time, you have to be first in every activity in the community, or if you are struggling, closed in on yourself, they give you the commitment to talk to a different guy every day, open up, come out of your shyness.”

As Samantha said, “There’s no distracting or disappearing or hiding or escaping anything. You deal with yourself here, and that’s that. There’s no running. You deal with stuff here.”

http://aleteia.org/2017/03/23/todays-drug-crisis-desperately-needs-solutions-could-this-be-one/

Islam is fastest growing religion, Pew study says

The faith of Muhammad may overtake Christianity by the year 2100.

Christianity is the largest religion in the world today, but if trends persist, Islam will overtake it by the end of the 21st century.

So predicts the Pew Research Center, which identified two factors in Islam’s current status as the world’s fastest growing faith: Muslim women are having more children, on average, than women of other religions, and adherents to Islam, on average, are younger than devotees of other religious groups.

“Around the world, each Muslim woman has an average of 3.1 children, compared with 2.3 for all other groups combined,” said the report, “Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world.”

Muslims are also the youngest (median age of 23 years old in 2010) of all major religious groups, seven years younger than the median age of non-Muslims. As a result, a larger share of Muslims already are, or will soon be, at the point in their lives when they begin having children. This, combined with high fertility rates, will fuel Muslim population growth.

The study estimates that by mid-century, Muslims will have increased across the world by 73 percent over numbers in 2010. Christians are projected to grow only by 35 percent during the same time period.

The news might  resonate particularly with Europeans. Muslims in Europe are projected to expand to 10 percent of the population by 2100. On the one hand, it might give fuel to those whose fear of a “Muslim invasion” or “Muslim takeover” of the continent was no doubt made worse by recent comments made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Have not just three but five children,” Erdogan told his “brothers and sisters in Europe” while addressing a rally in central Turkey. “The place in which you are living and working is now your homeland and new motherland. Stake a claim to it. Open more businesses, enroll your children in better schools, make your family live in better neighborhoods, drive the best cars, live in the most beautiful houses.”

In addition, the recent terrorist attack outside the houses of the British Parliament, which was carried out by a Muslim with ties to Birmingham, refocused attention on that central English city, where 20 percent of the population is Muslim.

The Pew study also noted that while migration doesn’t affect the overall growth of Islam worldwide, it does increase the religion’s profile in certain areas. Europeans can certainly attest to that, as most of the recent migrants and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa are Muslim.

In the United States, Pew projects that Muslims will double by 2050, from about 1 percent of the general population currently to 2.1 percent. One of the most public manifestations of this growth, of course, is the construction of buildings for worship and the study of Islam. Though the furor over the building of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” in Manhattan has largely been forgotten, not everyone is open to seeing new Islamic Centers spring up throughout the country. Last year, as Muslims were having trouble getting a building permit for a mosque from Bernards Township, New Jersey, several Christian organizations offered them legal support, on the grounds that religious freedom is for all, not only Christians. Some members of the Southern Baptist Convention balked, however.

“If we defend the rights of people to construct places of false worship, are we not helping them speed down the highway to hell?” said Tennessee megachurch pastor Dean Haun, explaining why he resigned from the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention over its support for the mosque. “I want no part in supporting a false religion, even if it is in the name of religious freedom.”

Haun’s 2,800-member church also voted to withhold funds that were earmarked for the SBC’s Cooperative Program, which finances state and national missions, SBC seminaries and other projects, reported Christianity Today.

The question of how a growing Muslim population can integrate into American society is worth reflecting on so that the United States might avoid the kinds of problems experienced by, say, French society, where alienation of Muslim populations has led to civil unrest at times, says Anouar Majid, author of Islam and America: Building a Future without Prejudice.

“It’s an issue worth reflecting on because Islam in the abstract and Western values in the abstract are bound to clash. In Islam, the notion of secularism and democracy are disturbing. In addition, pious Muslims stay away from many Western dietary norms and aspects of social life. Many of these are kind of frowned upon, in fact damned, at least theoretically, by Islamic doctrines and Islamic thinking,” said Majid, director of the Center for Global Humanities at the University of New England and the founding director of the Tangier Global Forum in Morocco. “So when these Muslims come into these societies, they experience a kind of dislocation, a trauma, because now they’re forced to negotiate, they have to acclimate to a system that, according to their preachers, negates their belief system, or clashes with their ethics. All kinds of violence erupts at times, and that is a problem. The challenge is how do you take a population that has been educated to believe in a certain way of life, a certain way of being, and integrate it into a world, a society that sees culture and politics through very different lenses.”

While the upward trend in Islam is largely due to the higher birthrate, there is also a significant amount of conversion to the religion. Gabriel Said Reynolds, professor of Islamic studies and theology at the University of Notre Dame, pointed out in an April 2016 article that Islam is appealing to an increasing number of Americans.

“This is the issue which should concern the American Church,” Reynolds wrote in Church Life Journal. “Pew research estimates (in a 2007 survey) that 23 percent of Muslim Americans identify themselves as converts from another religion. In other words, about 759,000 Americans are converts to Islam. Most of these conversions are among African-Americans but an increasing number of whites and Latinos are also converting to Islam (about 67 percent of Muslim converts are former Protestants and 10 percent former Catholics).”

Reynolds wrote:

While some Christians convert to Islam for the sake of marriage (according to Islamic law a Christian man may not marry a Muslim woman), many Christians convert to Islam after Muslims invite them to do so. Muslims have a remarkable zeal for proselytism or “da’wah” (the Arabic term commonly used by Muslims now in English). Most American mosques welcome visitors regularly and pass out literature, or tracts, to them written specifically for Christian audiences (literature which often emphasizes that Islam has a high regard for Jesus as a prophet). The internet is buzzing with Islamic da’wah sites inviting visitors to “convert to Islam” and featuring options to chat or call a Muslim with any questions. Da’wah is also increasingly taking place on the street or on billboards in American cities with slogans such as “Muhammad Believed in Peace, Social Justice, Women’s Rights,” or “Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad: One Family, One Message.”  The large annual conferences of Muslim American organizations—the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) —include sessions of da’wah training. Videos of famous Muslim da’wah activists such as the South African Ahmed Deedat (now deceased) or the Indian Zakir Naik—including their debates with Christians—have millions of hits on YouTube. On many American campuses “Muslim Student Associations” host “Islam Awareness Weeks” which seem to combine da’wah with the fight against Islamophobia.

In this light, Russell Shaw, author of American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America, said the new Pew study is a “real rebuke to Christianity.”

“Jesus tells us to preach the gospel to the whole world. After 2000 years, Christians haven’t responded nearly as well as they (we) should—and in the last half-century, i.e., since Vatican II, the steam seems to have gone out of the Catholic missionary enterprise,” Shaw said. “We are still up to our eyeballs in self-congratulating happy talk. The new books by Archbishop Chaput, [Rod] Dreher, and [Anthony] Esolen—saying things I’ve been saying for quite some time—should be a wakeup call. I hope and pray they have that effect.”

http://aleteia.org/2017/03/28/islam-is-fastest-growing-religion-pew-study-says/

Muslim professor insists Jesus wasn’t crucified, Christian student suspended after disagreeing

March 28, 2017  

Rob Shimshock, DCNF

A Christian college student has been suspended after allegedly challenging his Muslim professor’s claims that Jesus wasn’t crucified and that his disciples did not think he was God.

Marshall Polston, a sophomore at Rollins College in Florida, was suspended after disagreeing with these assertions made by his professor, Areej Zufari, in his Middle Eastern humanities class, as reported by The College Fix.

“Honestly, it reminded me of some of the more radical groups I researched when abroad,” Polston told the Central Florida Post. “Whether religious or not, I believe even those with limited knowledge of Christianity can agree that according to the text, Jesus was crucified and his followers did believe he was divine… that he was ‘God.’”

After Polston challenged Zufari on this point, he received a 52 percent on an essay and says the professor refused to explain why. He was later reportedly suspended.

“I was upset, understandably,” stated Polston. “I’ve never gotten anything less than straight A’s, so I was really interested in figuring out how to possibly improve or at least understand the grade.”

Zufari reported the student to Rollins’s “Dean of Safety” and canceled class, alleging Polston made her feel “unsafe.”

When the class met again, Zufari brought up Sharia law and a male Muslim student suggested that adulterers, gays, and thieves should be decapitated, according to Polston. Multiple students thought the teacher should report the statement and one anonymous student told the FBI, but Zufari purportedly took no action beyond playfully telling the Muslim student something similar to that he was “in time-out” and should remain quiet for a bit.

Along with his suspension, Polston was ordered not to contact Zufari. The professor submitted a police report alleging that Polston disobeyed the order and had shown up outside of the classroom, but both a restaurant receipt and video surveillance stills indicate that the student was buying food at an Orlando restaurant during the class period.

Rollins College previously booted a Christian student group from campus because the organization required members to be Christian and endorse some conservative views, which violated the school’s anti-discrimination policy.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Rollins College for comment, but received no reply in time for publication.

Follow Rob Shimshock on Twitter

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2017/03/28/muslim-professor-insists-jesus-wasnt-crucified-christian-student-suspended-disagreeing-464408