Welcome to This Blog's Private Access: Copyright notice

Please feel free to mine this closed blog for public domain Church documents, public domain references, past official news items for your own blog, website or research / articles, etc...but otherwise your access is for viewing and reading only; it is not for copying whole posts, reposting anywhere in whole or in part, downloading (except for strictly personal purposes), quoting, forwarding to others, etc. Or I'll have to make this private access for myself only.

I'll keep it up as long as it is being used, else it will be time to retire it. There's plenty...far, far, far more than 'plenty'!...in this Hall of Mirrors called the Internet / "Web" to keep everyone amused (?) already, with ...no... end... in... sight... Hmm...

As perhaps you know, I am staving off doctrinal burn-out here, since there is nothing we laypeople can do about apostasy in the Church except cling with joy to our beloved Mass and offer ourselves for the whole Church and do penance for our own sins. I want to try to take refuge in the joy of St. Francis who entered no doctrinal disputes (though he was blessedly secure of his faith, to be sure) but made the whole Church and world blossom with the Real. I'll also be trying to make good on that promise to submit different kind of articles to two Catholic print publications. Pray for me and mine as I pray for you and yours.

Thanks for understanding,
Steve

Benedict asks U.N. to build a world of greater solidarity

Vatican City, Sep 16, 2008 / 10:21 am (CNA).- In an address sent for the opening of the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the participants to continue upholding the dignity of each human person and to build a world of “ever greater solidarity, freedom and peace.”

The message, sent by Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone S.D.B on behalf of the Holy Father, is addressed to participants of a prayer meeting being held for the opening of the General Assembly.

The message explains that the Pontiff, along with “the members of the diplomatic community and U.N. officials present,” join in “imploring from Almighty God the guidance and strength needed to carry out the urgent tasks facing the United Nations in the coming months.” The letter specifically called the General Assembly to pray for the “continuing implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, the NEPAD program (New Partnership for Africa's Development) and other initiatives aimed at ensuring that the whole human family shares in the benefits of globalization.

The Pope also gratefully recalled his visit to the General Assembly last April on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and renewed his appeal to international leaders to “re-appropriate the lofty moral vision and the transcendent principles of justice embodied in the United Nations' founding documents.”

Finally, the message says, “The Holy Father invokes upon all in attendance an abundance of divine blessings, trusting that these moments of reflection and prayer will strengthen them in their commitment to upholding the dignity of each human person and building a world of ever greater solidarity, freedom and peace.”

Note: It is astonishing to traditional and to very many conservative Catholics that Benedict XVI could speak of the "lofty moral vision and the transcendent principles" of the United Nations, that Masonically inspired baby-butchering, lying, population-controlling nest of every foul Thing---which is ineffective even when it comes to preventing wars, its alleged reason for being. Its founding document, while arguably a little more modest, in retrospect had the same globalist trajectory in line with the bloody secularist anti-catholic revolutions of 1776 and 1789. Few could see at the UN's founding while Europe was still smoking, as it were, from the Second World War what exactly was underway. As Father Denis Fahey put it, the UN from the beginning has been nothing less than a naturalistic, supra-national organization, promoted as a substitute for unification under the Kingship of Christ, which always protects and ensures the dignity of the human person from the cradle to natural death.

"...continue upholding the dignity of each person"

But we see now all too clearly. "He who sups with the Devil had better have a long spoon"; but no such spoon is in view as Benedict praises and encourages this secular-humanist Eye which I would think must be amused by his hymnal language of praise and servility when it threatens the sovereignty of nations, crushes diversity in the very name of diversity in it's ongoing agenda towards the homogenization of very non-catholic "values," establishes internationalist courts and norms of justice, etc. Benedict, instead of confronting this very non-Christian Thing and calling it to conversion, actually asks it to "build" a better world via a new principle of universality (catholica). In this he follows his conciliar predecessors (except that JPII, it seems to me, was somewhat more confrontational relative to (post)modern Western secularism). In so doing it appears Benedict exposes himself to the judgment of a restored Church realigned to Tradition after the Conciliarist project completes its demolitions, its transvaluing the Faith beyond recognition---until it, too, succumbs of its own principles.

--->For more on the UN agenda see Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute or (C-Fam)---Updated 4:30 PM EST

"Letter On Hospices" By Dorothy Day

from The Catholic Worker, Jan 1948, 2,8

Summary: (DOC #183) Describes how Catholic Worker houses are run and the struggles with living the ideal of Christian love. Reflects on reconciling freedom and order. Maintains the primarcy of the spiritual. Gives her positions on cooperation, house leadership, handling money, and the relation of the Catholic Worker to the hierarchy. Concludes by emphasizing the little way and voluntary poverty.

In answer to an inquiry about how to run a house of hospitality. During my recent trip there were many inquiries as to when we were going to open houses again through the west. I repeat, such centers must be opened by a local group who know what poverty and suffering mean, and who are willing to live in the house with those they serve. It can never be operated from the outside. Peter Maurin envisaged such houses as Houses of Catholic Action and that is the way he described them, using the phrase in its official term. That would mean of course the cooperation of the priests such as in Detroit and Rochester or Pittsburgh. It would mean also that the priest would influence others according to his own ideas on war, on politics, on labor, and the ideas motivating those who run the house will not be those of the editors of the Catholic Worker. But that happens again and again among the lay leaders of our houses. The important thing is that hospices, under Catholic auspices be started, no matter by whom, whether by Third Orders, Knights of Columbus, or oblates of St. Benedict. They do not have to be Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality. We are always being accused of biting off more than we can chew, and indeed we always have more to feed, and to house, and to clothe than we can humanly handle. Breadlines are a disgrace. Each house should handle only what it can handle, which means that religious houses should restore the medieval idea of the hospice for guests, and that poor parishes should run hostels, etc. And everyone would share what he had instead of turning people to the city municipal lodging houses and Salvation Army. Here is the letter written to an inquirer...Cont.

The Saints Show Us The Way Through Tough Times to Reality

--->In difficult times, when the "American Dream" is seen to have been an hallucination concocted by those blinded by greed, God's message for us today is to take up our cross and simplify, simplify, simplify. Dorothy Day said if you sleep on the floor you do not have to worry about falling off the bed. Voluntary poverty (simplicity) allows others to live, even as it strips us of our hyper-illusions. In possessing nothing the saints possessed all. Can we not at least simplify and become real again? He was born in an animal stable. The King of kings. St. Joseph led Mary, and Our Lord in her womb on a donkey into Egypt to escape the powers of greed. And it was on a simple donkey that the King of the Universe entered into Jerusalem to prepare for His Pascal sacrifice. Can't we see the sign which is there for us? It is time for us not to fear but to conform ourselves to Him, to His simplicity, to Reality, living simply so that others may simply live, and forsaking all the materialist lies and deceits, offering it all up in union with His Cross.

--->Jim Curley of Bethune Catholic writes, "I am not sure I have confidence that either major presidential candidate has a clue about the economy. Obama (vaguely) says he'll change everything for the better and McCain just doesn't talk about it. John Medaille gives us some advice if an economic collapse does come...Cont. - (See Labels below this post too)

I remember going to NYC once and being so surprised and delighted to see people in tenements growing food in little gardens on their tenement rooftops! "Bloom where you are planted." Now there is simplicity at work. Simplicity is creative, it is hopeful, it yields spiritual and temporal fruits in season and out. Do it.

--->Visit the Simple Living Page: Rule your stuff, Purge Your Stuff, Dejunk Your Home, Stop Incoming Junk, Manage the Flow, Take An Inventory, Organize Your Stuff, Protect Your Stuff, Buy Wisely

--->Have you noticed how (especially on Talk Radio) many are blaming the poor for our economic troubles now rippling across the globe? The good bankers and lending houses should never have given loans to people like that! Never mind that people were immorally enticed into easy credit (usury!) to prop up the house of cards built on carefully cultivated debt-addiction! No, the rich bankers and moguls are seldom blamed, much less jailed. They just reshuffle the deck and begin the game of greed again.

--->America's Addiction to Debt Finally Crashes the System

US a step closer to Iran blockade, Global Market Turmoil Continues ---Spiritual Helps From the Saints

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

The United States government has imposed new sanctions on Iran, this time targeting its shipping industry, by blacklisting the main shipping line and 18 subsidiaries, accusing the maritime carrier of being engaged in contraband nuclear material, a charge vehemently denied by Iran.

While the economic impact of the measures against Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) will be minimal in light of the near absence of any connection between the shipping company and US businesses, this latest US initiative against Iran sends a strong signal about the US's intention to escalate pressure on Iran, even unilaterally if need be. And, perhaps, it is a prelude for more serious and dangerous actions in the near future, above all a naval blockade of Iran to choke off its access to, among other things, imported fuel. ...Cont.

--->Global market turmoil continues

--->AIG struggles to survive financial tsunami

--->Asian stock markets tumble over fears of global financial crisis

--->The panic in world financial markets in facts and figures

--->DN: Steve Coll on “The Bin Ladens - An Arabian Family in the American Century” (DN Video)

--->Iran ex-president slams Ahmadinejad foreign policy

--->Telegraph UK: Neoconservatives plan Project Sarah Palin to shape future American foreign policy

--->Brussels Journal: From Magna Carta to Sharia Law – Britain’s Decline

'Catholic' University to Honor Justice Breyer Who Wrote Majority Opinion Supporting Partial-Birth Abortion

--->Soon-to-be Bishop of Sacramento Jaime Soto will give keynote address at National Association of 'Catholic' Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries convention

--->Catholics Arrested at Cathedral in Baltimore Handing Out Literature Questioning the Ethics for Obama (sic)

--->Robert Sungenis wrote: The USCCB has an obligation to teach, clearly and distinctly, that the Jews do not [any longer] possess any individual covenant with God...and it appears Sungenis made his important point; the USCCB yielded (Pardon the Post's obvious bitterness)...Here is Robert Sungenis' statement

---->Is apathy and ennui becoming the legacy of Vatican II?

2 Tim 2:11-13: "If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny Himself"

Benedict-Ratzinger at Lourdes and the "Thaumaturgical dimension"

Benedict XVI wrapped up his trip to France at the French shrine of Lourdes with an outdoor mass for the sick on Monday.

John Allen covered the event for the National Catholic Reporter. After reciting in his report the well-known evolution in Benedict's thinking towards a more pious conception of Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer, Allen describes a man who remains somewhat conflicted over traditional Catholic Mariology. As in everything he writes, the Benedict who succeeded John Paul II, fundamentally remains Joseph Ratzinger, the Tubingen academic whose approach to dogma and theology is above all critical, nuanced, updated; seemingly saying 'yes' and 'no' in most everything he says and writes, even in connection with her Son, Christ the Healer.

Allen writes first of Benedict's Marian devotion, "purified," in comparison to others (presumably all the popes, saints and Doctors before the Council)

"Benedict XVI remains a man of reason, so even in his most tender moments of longing for Mary’s maternal smile, his critical faculties never quite go off-line. While he has moved closer to popular devotion, it is nonetheless a “purified” devotion, one in which the thaumaturgical dimension is deliberately soft-pedaled.

"Lourdes attracts six million pilgrims annually for a variety of reasons, but the reputed wonder-working power of its springs is an enormous part of the appeal. While the church has officially recognized only 66 miracles at Lourdes (the most recent occurred in 1987), officials have discretely adopted the language of “phenomenal events” to refer to the thousands of reports of cures that pour in each year.

"It’s noteworthy, therefore, that Benedict repeatedly, though gently, insisted in Lourdes that miracles are not the heart of the matter. Speaking on Saturday, the pope indirectly cautioned against overheated expectations of divine intervention.

"“How many come here to see it with the hope – secretly perhaps – of receiving some miracle,” the pope said. “Then, on the return journey, having had a spiritual experience of life in the church, they change their outlook upon God, upon others and upon themselves.”

"Today, shortly before he administered the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, the pope returned to the point.

"First, he argued that the real significance of the waters that Mary revealed to Bernadette 150 years ago is metaphorical.

'From [Mary’s] womb, rivers of living water have poured forth to irrigate human history,” the pope said. “The spring that Mary pointed out to Bernadette here in Lourdes is the humble sign of this spiritual reality.'

"Later, Benedict reflected on what it means to regard Christ as a 'healer.'

'Christ is not a healer in the manner of the world,” the pope said – meaning that physical cure is not the point.

'In order to heal us, he does not remain outside the suffering that is experienced,” the pope said. “He eases it by coming to dwell with the one stricken by illness, to bear it and to live with him. Christ’s presence comes to break the isolation which pain induces. Man no longer bears his burden alone. As a suffering member of Christ, he is conformed to Christ in his self-offering to the father.'

"Benedict encouraged the sick and disabled to “turn to Mary,” not in the sense of seeking immediate cure, but rather for “the strength to fight against sickness in support of life,” as well as “the grace to accept without fear or bitterness to leave this world at the hour chosen by God.” [Source NCR]

None that I am aware of ever denied the spiritual dimensions of miracles, none at all; neither popes nor saints. Nor were any of the sick ever counseled to expect a miracle at Lourdes or anywhere, for the miraculous is by definition exceptional. Allen however seems to detect a caution not merely of the kind the Church always underlined, but a new "critical" dimension of the sort, it is suggested, posited by the Enlightenment and theological Modernism. And this in Ratzinger's long career has applied beyond matters of piety, reaching across the dogmatic spectrum (his recent questioning of the reality of Limbo---which touches on Original Sin--- being a more recent example).

Relative to dogmas and belief, however, Vatican I defined faith as follows:

"Faith, which is the beginning of man's salvation, is a supernatural virtue, whereby, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that the things which He has revealed are true; not because the intrinsic truth of the things is plainly perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself, Who reveals them, and Who can neither deceive nor be deceived" (Vat 1 "De Fide", Chapter 3).

Would Benedict accept this de fide definition of Vatican I wherein the intellect bends before the authority of God revealing? I suspect the answer would be 'yes' ... and... 'no'. ---Updated 10:40 PM EST

'Archbishop' of Canterbury Courageously Passes NWO Theological Exam --- And 'Black Monday'

Though Not Any Serious Student of Science, Church of England High Priest Rowan Williams Apologizes to, er, Charles Darwin for "Doubting". Now That He Has the New 'Faith' He Is Assured of Invitations to the Right Kind of Cocktail Parties.

Some say the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is making a monkey of himself with a half-baked apology to Charles Darwin for misunderstanding the author of "Origin of the Species" 126 years after his death.

Nevertheless, that's just what the Church of England plans to do today – make an act of contrition to the godfather of evolution.

Officials of the church said senior bishops wanted to atone for the vilification heaped on Darwin by their predecessors.

The church is also eager to counter the view that its teaching is incompatible with science and distance itself from fundamentalist Christians, who believe in the biblical account of the creation.

"Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth [in 1809], the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still," says the statement. "But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests." ...Cont.

No apologies, however, to Catholics for the brutal supression of Catholicism for centuries, the drawing and quartering of so many priests and lay persons, the pillaging of monasteries, the discrimination in law against British Catholics...

Update: Anglican Apology "Pointless" says Darwin Descendant

--->Greenspan: This Is The Worst Economy I've Ever Seen "Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan offered a woeful outlook of America's economic situation on Sunday, saying the crisis with the country's financial institutions was as dire as he had ever seen in his long career, and predicting that one or more of those institutions would likely collapse in the near future.

"Oh, by far," Greenspan said, when asked if the situation was the worst he had seen in his career. "There's no question that this is in the process of outstripping anything I've seen and it still is not resolved and still has a way to go and, indeed, it will continue to be a corrosive force until the price of homes in the United States stabilizes. That will induce a series of events around the globe which will stabilize the system." ...Cont.

--->NY Times: Prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers bankrupt.

It's being called Back Monday. And it's the secularists now who tell us the sky is falling. The whole tower of hubris and greed appears to be collapsing. But some spiritual bottom feeders use collapse as devious opportunity to gain and tighten control. Free peoples must beware.

--->World stock markets sink on Wall Street crisis

--->Lehman storm sparks global stock market purge

Wall Street Journal says the economy has been "shaken to its core"

---> More on debt addiction and the greed which encourages it

--->Conference tapes on “New World Order and Economic Collapse”

So much for the GOP economic party line / cliche about letting the market 'correct itself' (Fanne Mae and Freddie Mac!) and there being no need for government regulation and protection against greed and the uncertainty principle. Good night Milton Friedman, Newt Gingrich and All Ye Neocons!

--->Report: FOX News Used Oliver North as Its “Independent Journalist” to Help the U.S. Cover Up a Massacre in Herat

--->Iraq: Violence is down – but not because of America's 'surge'

Prolife Pharmacist Getting Substantial New Coverage

Mike Koelzer is graduate of Purdue University School of Pharmacy. He has been president of Kay Pharmacy since 1994. He speaks from a first person perspective on the abortifacient properties of birth control pills and what led him to stop selling them after 10 years in his third-generation, family-owned pharmacy.

Koelzer lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his wife and nine children.

...Cont.

--->BREAKING...

We've had so much comedy this political season (Hat Tip to the corporatocracy) it's time now for a serious look at what's going on...

...Click, sit tight, and click again

--->US drones bring fear and firepower to Qaeda war in Pakistan

--->What Europeans are Saying about Sarah Palin (ultimately "Obama may have met his match")

--->Israel 'annexes' West Bank areas


The perv's hate her...hmm...were it not for the imperial war machine I'd vote for her (oops...McCain) in a minute.

...Cont.

--->How feminism turned many, many Western colleges into (very expensive) protracted alcohol-soaked bacchanalia's, with virginity 'auctioned off' as early as Middle School (or earlier).

Speaking of bacchanalia's...

--->Conciliar-V2 church corruption: "It's just a mistake", Montreal archbishop says of one of his priests convicted of sexually assaulting 8 yr old girl; just made a mistake ---and so the church paid him 20-60K (! reports differ) to go to Law School ...more -- (Note: sexual 'education' for 'enlightened' priests has paid off, and paid out, well)

--->Ezek 34: Woe to the shepherds who feed not their flocks, who feed only themselves. A shepherd must both feed and protect the sheep. To do one but not the other is dereliction which could end in the death of the sheep.

--->Benedict is the pope, is he not? Who / What has presided over the ongoing demolition of our beloved doctrinal and spiritual edifice-tradition since 1962? Now witness 62 year old Heavy Metal Capuchin Friar Cesare Bonizzi from northern Italy allowed to wail like a demoniac (thanks to traditio and Reuters for the tip on this).

“I feel the same thing I feel when I'm at the altar or at the pulpit," he said.

I'll bet.

"And that is -- I feel the urge to communicate something meaningful to the people I have in front of me... in this case through high-energy music. One of the things Fratello Metallo tries to communicate to his audience is to stay away from drugs and alcohol".

Sober devils... ...more.


Note: One vision of him and his high energy would make me drink. Pray for the poor devil. If he has an "urge" to howl he must abandon his cowl. But for Catholics faith by grace overcomes the world (1 Jn 5:4) and "greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world" 1 Jn 4:4. Wear your Scapular. Take Holy Water. Poor Padre Pio!

"While Brother Cesare always wears his traditional brown robe and sandals as a reminder that he has chosen a life of devotion to God, he is keen to distinguish established religion from faith, and from proselytising". Ah, yes. [Source]

2 Thess 2:9-12: "The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness".

God is, therefore we are. God is the presupposition of every thought, even of thoughts which foolishly deny Him. His Word in the Church is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105; 1 Tim 3:15) in every era. God has given us the Map to navigate all dangers.

Benedict: Tridentine Mass motu proprio 'simply an act of tolerance'

Zenit.org via Rorate Caeli: In his first public comments on Summorum Pontificum since its publication, on July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI had the following to say on the motu proprio in an interview granted during his Rome-Paris flight earlier today:

"This 'motu proprio' is simply an act of tolerance, with a pastoral objective, for people who have been formed in this liturgy, who love it, know it and want to live with this liturgy. It is a small group, given that it presupposes a formation in Latin, a formation in a certain culture. But it seems to me a normal demand of faith and pastoral concern for a bishop of our Church to have love and tolerance for these people and permit them to live with this liturgy.

"There is no opposition whatsoever between the liturgy renewed by the Second Vatican Council and this liturgy. Each day, the Council fathers celebrated Mass according to this old rite and, at the same time, have conceived a natural development for the liturgy in all of this century, since the liturgy is a living reality that develops and that conserves its identity in its development.

"Therefore, there are certainly distinct accents, but a fundamental identity that excludes a contradiction, an opposition between the renewed liturgy and the preceding liturgy. I think that there is the possibility of mutual enrichment. It's clear that the renewed liturgy is the ordinary liturgy of our times." [Source Zenit 9.12. 2008]

Note: "...these people...them". Such language! Theater of the Absurd. Needless to say such a statement, classic doublespeak, framing the Motu Proprio in terms of simple 'tolerance,' is a profound disappointment. Even after seeing the Novus Ordo fruits after so many decades Benedict-Ratzinger says this. How different was the assessment of the head of the Holy Office at the time of the Council, Cardinal Ottaviani, who did not see the Novus Ordo liturgy as "development" but instead advised Paul VI it was rather a "radical departure" from the Catholic understanding of the Mass. It would appear it is a new pluralism and neo-modernist "tolerance" which is at the bottom of the thinking of Benedict XVI. Hans Kung remains priest. Novus Ordo remains the Council's liturgy. An ecumenical liturgy for an ecumenical theology, each diluted beyond recognition. The Church continues undergoing a crucifixion.

N.B. More and more Catholics are taking a second look at traditionalist criticism of a Council orientation which snapped the law of contradiction and made the fruitful Garden to (temporarily) wither on the vine. We are either part of the problem or part of the solution. A contaminated Council which has done so much damage cannot stand uncorrected when the Catholic people refuse it as a danger to their Faith. In his sermon against idols in Paris this week, Benedict included among the idols "The temptation to idolize a past that no longer exists, forgetting its shortcomings". But our 'today' in Catholic Faith is always issuing out of our yesterdays, and our today informs our tomorrows. Like Our Lord the Church is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb 13:8; 1 Timothy 3:15). Is it not Conciliarism which has fallen into amnesia? In Christ and His Faith we can never say our yesterday "no longer exists".

As Benedict himself admitted in the Motu Proprio, the traditional Mass was never abrogated and indeed cannot ever be abrogated. Nor do the faithful, he said, need permission from local bishops and pastors to assist at or to begin one. This is where traditional Catholics gather until the storms pass. If you do not have a traditional Mass in your area, start one. Priests are available. --Updated Sept 14, 2008

'Tis sad to see the sons of fashion
in everlasting restless crashing
while they that rest in Faith received
with saints and martyrs abide, believe

--->Opinion: SSPX Bishop Williamson -- 9/11 questions and a 'de-clawed' Catholicism. Step towards the Antichrist? "...can anybody deny that since 9/11 the police-state, for instance in the USA (but not only), has made giant advances, and always in the name of 9/11? And can anybody claim that the advancing police-states make the peoples more free? Are they not rather paving the way for global enslavement? But Our Lord says that the truth will make us free (Jn VIII, 32). Does that suggest to anybody what 9/11 was?" (SH: The question cannot be ignored whoever was responsible for 9/11. Clearly empire(s) sought at least to take advantage of the event and to exploit it to imperial ends)

--->Dr. Thomas Droleskey on Modern Subjectivism, Sarah Palin, and 'The Inconvenience of Truth': "Truth is a most inconvenient thing when one suffers from various of the errors of Modernity and Modernism. Truth is unforgiving as it confronts those steeped in errors with objective reality...Subjectivism and emotionalism and irrationality thus become paramount in the discourse of men with each other, reinforcing the erroneous view that it is "difficult" to know what is true and that it is "offensive" to others to insist that one's own subjective view of the truth should be the basis for how others should lead their lives, no less the basis of public policy."...Cont.

--->Israel in some cases refusing medical attention to Palestinians who refuse to become informants

--->Are Too Many People Going to College? Incomes for top people in a wide variety of jobs that do not need a BA are higher than average incomes for many jobs that do require one. ...Cont. Note: I believe public education from kindergarten through university should be free for students who can pass the entrance exams. Every government should see education as investing in its own future.

Christian Flight From the Middle East

Byzantine Catholic Culture: The purpose of this essay is to advise our readers of the causes of the Christian exodus from the Middle East. We shall not discuss absolute numbers and percentages, for they are covered in other Web sites and books referred to herein. Rather, we want to review the social and political environment of Muslim societies in which Christians constitute vanishing minorities in lands where their presence precedes the invasion of Islam and where the Gospel of Christ was preached to them two thousand years ago. The ancient communities of Christ's followers are now under unrelenting pressure to abandon the lands where they have been for 20 centuries.

We invite our readers to imagine living in a social and political environment as members of a religious minority, Christians, where the dominant majority, Muslims, are told by their "holy book" that they are the noblest of creatures and the former are the vilest of animals, where the majority constitutes the only portion of society which counts whereas those of the minority are outside of and subordinate to that society, where the official state religion is that of the majority and the religion of the minority is scorned if not actively persecuted...The Israelis regard Arab Christians as untrustworthy and the Muslims continue to treat them as despised infidels. Consequently the movement of Christians from the region of the former Mandate to the West accelerates. ...Cont.

--->Islam, Christianity, Judaism, all nations and peoples: the things that make for peace: Catholics of every stripe seek peace. Most Catholics the world over have urged the United States, even after 9/11, to cease all aggression against sovereign nations, and anything that could even be mistaken for hegemonic intentions anywhere, and to seek a world where respect and toleration for differences is not merely rhetorical but real. Catholics have also especially urged that nations commence working immediately for nuclear disarmament which threatens the entire planet and God's children everywhere. Is there anything in this world worth risking nuclear war over? The question answers itself.

Respect: Almost as important is the respect we need to show one another in the world media. It will ever be a moral crime to attack the Faith of another people, or to exploit their children for greed through media even when done under the pretext of "free speech" and / or "art" or "comedy". Insulting others, whether directly or indirectly, is not only wrong, it is also extremely dangerous for peace. Clearly the time is long past due to determine that in the media the first rule of civility must be to do no harm. Otherwise we all feel the need to defend what is most sacred to us, what makes us who we are---and this only sustains tensions.

We can do better. And for our children's sake we must. If we have had to answer what we perceive to be unfairness, persecution and hurt from any side, it need not be that way forever. People can change. Religious leaders can guide their people who work in the media to these better ends. By ensuring a new resolve for the future in these critical areas we can slowly build more trust and, in time, even cease our defensive tribal polemics, and seek rather to assist one another more completely and joyfully in our common humanity. Theological differences cannot be put aside, nor should they be. But stirring up hatred against other peoples is another matter altogether. ---Updated Sept 14, 2008.

The Saints Proclaim and Show Jesus, Who Came to Save the Lost in Mercy and Love

St. Catherine born at Siena, 25 March, 1347; died at Rome, 29 April, 1380

Sister Jeanne Marie, M.I.C.M., Tert writes of St. Catherine of Sienna: Catherine always exhibited, even by nature, a very maternal care for anyone in need. While she performed all her chores at home during the night — the washing and mending of clothes, the scrubbing of floors — her day was spent hustling about the city performing all manner of good works. Soon, the poor and needy were flocking to the Benincasa door. The dyer's daughter gave them alms in abundance, never turning anyone away empty-handed. Many times, mirac­ulously, the provisions in the house were multiplied, so that they never became depleted. No matter how many times a day Catherine tapped the wine barrel to aid a beggar, it always seemed to remain full. And too, even when the saint was bedridden with a fever, she would suddenly be given strength, climb out of bed, and then she would be off carrying excessively heavy loads of necessities to some impoverished family. Sometimes Catherine would perform these charities at night so as not to embarrass the needy. Always she would find the door of the house to which she was going unlocked.

One day she was met by a poor man who was half-naked and suffering terribly from the cold. The holy virgin, having nothing with her except her own garments, hesitated not to give him her tunic. That night Jesus appeared to her wearing her tunic, but now it glittered in jewels. "Daughter," He said to her, "you clad My nakedness with this tunic, and now I will clothe you."

Our Lord took from His side a blood-red robe and gave it to His spouse. From that day on the saint never suffered from the cold, though she wore but one garment, even in the most bitter-cold weather.

Much of the young Mantellata's time was spent in the hospitals, caring for the sick. This good Samaritan never shirked the service owed to others because of their repulsive diseases. The holy virgin always sought out the most miserable and ungrateful invalids and waited on them cheerfully. Once she took care of a snarling leper woman, whose vile remarks were as loathsome as was her affliction. Daily the saint cleansed the terrible wounds with a smile, despite the ingrate's vicious invectives. Furthermore, her mother, Lapa, was furious at the prospect of the possible infection of her whole family through Catherine's excessive zeal. Soon the saint noticed the unmistakable signs of leprous infection on her own hands. Nevertheless, Catherine persisted in her duty, not willing to forsake the poor woman in her greatest need. The saint's kindness and generosity won out, and the woman died repentant in her benefactress arms. Then, all alone, Catherine washed and buried the disfigured corpse. After completing this mission to the very end, even unto death, she marvelled to see that her own hands were as white and beautiful as ever, with no trace of the incurable infection that had been there.

While the Sister of Penitence was spending herself in helping others, she would herself many times be stricken with strange, preternatural illnesses that no physician could even diagnose, let alone remedy. It was not un­common, either, for Catherine to go into an almost lifeless state of ecstasy in public, especially after receiving Holy Communion — at times from the hands of Jesus Himself. During these ecstasies her body would become extremely rigid and pale and would rise several inches off the ground, suspended in the air. These prodigies, and other accom­panying miracles, naturally led to much talk in Siena, and not all of it was complimentary. The proud began to spread insidious rumors about "a fraudulent woman who pretended holiness and enjoyed attention." Whether she received praise or reproach, the saint was indifferent to either. She bore all with patience, as she continued her missions of mercy.

Spiritual Works of Mercy

The wasted little mystic of Siena was responsible for the return of thousands of souls to the Catholic Faith. Hardened sinners could not withstand the charity in her exhortations, and many wretched and vile souls left her company with a firm purpose of amendment. Hundreds of people, including many persons of prominence, came to Catherine regularly for advice. Bishops, cardinals, and even popes, as we shall soon see, consulted her. Many of the Beata's converts, both men and women, remained among Catherine's growing circle of friends who had taken her for their spiritual mother. These Catarinati as they were called, accompanied their beloved "mamma" wherever she went, eagerly garnering from her the secrets of spiritual perfection.

To help her in her work for the salvation of souls, Catherine had been given the grace of reading hearts. She could see and even smell the beauty or ugliness of souls. Often too, Catherine would receive "messages" that someone had need of her, and she would hasten to a deathbed to help reconcile a needy soul to its Creator.

The story of two conversions we must relate. One day from her window Catherine saw two notorious robbers being led to their executions. So horrible were their crimes that their sentence prescribed torture first before death. Each of the men was chained to a stake and driven through the town in wagons, while the executioners pricked them with red-hot forks and plucked flesh from their limbs with burning tongs. The poor wretches shouted curses in defiance and blasphemed God. Catherine was torn with pity for the two, and begged her Bridegroom to help them as He had done for the Good Thief on the Cross, who also had at first blasphemed. Boldly she demanded it: "Save these two miserable men who were created in Your image and redeemed by Your Precious Blood-or will You permit that they shall first suffer these cruel tortures before they die, and then go to eternal agony in hell?"

Catherine followed the two men in spirit, as their wagons drew them to the place of execution. She could see in the air about them the demons swarming, confident of their prey, and urging them on to greater and more hateful blasphemies. Suddenly, the criminals saw Christ before them. He was crowned with thorns and bleeding from His scourging. Full of sorrow, Jesus looked into the eyes of the poor sinners. Their defiance broke; they called for a priest and confessed. The crowd was astonished at their change of heart. They now were weeping for their sins, singing hymns, and thanking God for their just punishment.

The saint's zeal for souls was insatiable when it came to her loved ones. At her father's death, she prayed that he might go straight to Heaven without passing through Purgatory. Her Spouse protested that that was not possible. Catherine insisted -even offering to suffer his lot herself. Suddenly she felt a violent pain in her side as she gazed upon the soul of Jacopo gloriously taking its flight to paradise. That pain remained with her until the day she died. Lapa, her mother, however, had much greater need of Catherine's powerful intercession. It seemed that the poor woman, for some unknown reason, grew obstinate as she was dying and refused to confess. In such a sad state of soul, she died. Her holy daughter threw herself over her body, pouring out her heart in sorrow, and complaining to her Spouse that he had promised her that no one in her family should pass out of this life unprepared. The saint then begged Our Lord to bring her back to life and spare her for a better time. Slowly life began to return to Lapa's corpse, and in a moment she was sitting up on her bed in good health. Ever afterwards, her mother stayed close to her side and became one of her most devoted disciples.

The Mystical Exchange

Another favor Catherine received from her Beloved Spouse about this time, a favor that any commentary would depreciate because of its simple and profound reality, is the mystical exchange of the Beata's heart for that of her Lord's. It happened in an ecstasy and the pain was intense... ---Sister Jeanne Marie, M.I.C.M., Tert. [ Source]

Only Those Are Lost Who Will To Be Lost

St. Catherine above all saw the love of Christ and all of Heaven in seeking to heal and save the lost, and only those are lost who choose to be lost.

As one man wrote: "Because there has been so much silence, or outright skepticism, in the Church in recent decades concerning heaven and hell, the horror of sin and the glory of heaven, it may be that confronting the vision of St. Catherine of Siena - which is absolutely scripturally based and firmly embedded in the Tradition of the Catholic Church - may cause us to struggle with issues of “fairness” or to ask the famous question “how could a good God send someone to hell?” It’s interesting to note how the Father shows Catherine that as each person dies he or she actually rushes to where they want to be. In a very real way each person chooses their own destiny over the course of their own lifetime and, at the moment of death, embraces what has truly become their choice:

"How great is the stupidity of those who make themselves weak in spite of my strengthening, and put themselves into the devil’s hands! I want you to know, then, that at the moment of death, because they have put themselves during life under the devil’s rule (not by force, because they cannot be forced, as I told you; but they put themselves voluntarily into his hands), and because they come to the point of death under this perverse rule, they can expect no other judgment but that of their own conscience. They come without hope to eternal damnation. In hate they grasp at hell in the moment of their death, and even before they possess it, they take hell as their prize along with their lords the demons".-----St. Catherine of Siena [Source]

The Saving Flood

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich saw that, consistent with Amos 4:6-13 every judgment God sends against sin is intended to be an atoning grace seeking our penance (Joel 2:12). The very word for both judgment and atonement in the Old testament (kippur) is the very same. Sister Emmerich says that it was precisely through the great deluge, the biblical Flood wherein God judged the whole world which was lost in wickedness, that many of the perishing souls were saved. She says:

"But the mercy of God is infinite. I have seen that at the time of the Deluge, many, very many were saved from eternal punishment. Fright and anguish converted them to God. They went to Purgatory, and Jesus freed them on his descent into Hell" ---(Anne Catherine Emmerich, Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical revelations)

Jesus has come into the world as Lord and Savior, "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to penance" (2 Pet 3:9; Jn 3:16). All we have to to do is "receive Him" who died for our sins (Jn 1:12) and follow Him in spiritual healing all the Way to the Kingdom.
_________

"The Jewish people as a whole will be its own Messiah. It will attain world domination by the dissolution of other races...and by the establishment of a world republic in which everywhere the Jews will exercise the privilege of citizenship. In this New World Order the Children of Israel...will furnish all the leaders without encountering opposition..." (Karl Marx in a letter to Baruch Levy, quoted in Review de Paris, June 1, 1928, p. 574)

---The Church against Adolph Hitler and his antichristic program of eugenicism which in another, just as insidious, form is resurgent today under the ideology of enlightened globalism / population 'control".

Abbe de Nantes: "A Theology for our Times--Kerygmatics"

Note: The following is an example of what has time and again drawn me to the creative traditionalism of the Abbe de Nantes. One need not agree with this great man in everything to appreciate his spiritual genius and prophetic courage in the face of such times as ours. What follows is chapter 10 of the history of his monastery's Catholic Counter-reformation vis a vis Vatican II wherein is traced how neo-modernist theology precisely in seeking renewal tragically lost its way. And he points the way to genuine faithful creative renewal beyond both a calcified clinging to the letter of the past which fears all new approaches to changeless Truth, and the heterodox rupture from the immutable dogmatic Deposit of Faith.---Stephen Hand

It was during his campaign "Tomorrow, Vatican III", in 1971, that the Abbé de Nantes began to give public effect to the task of renewing theology. To this end, he formulated certain propositions regarding the development of dogma by deducing more precise expressions of truth, allowing one to set aside Vatican II’s equivocations and exclude its errors.

Even from heresies: taking the wheat, leaving the chaff

"Heresies", the Abbé de Nantes will write, "are not entirely without profit, and doubtless this is what justifies Saint Paul’s famous words to the Corinthians: ‘Oportet hæreses esse’, it is necessary that heresies arise (1 Co 11.19)! Rarely if ever will heresy fail to make its own particular contribution and to suggest some progress in our understanding of the Mystery of God, even though it does so by casting an impudent and sacrilegious look at this mystery. The fact is that we are required to believe with all the strength of our intelligence. Christian theologians, moralists and philosophers have always had a recognised function within the Church: great heresies arise from time to time to shake them out of their apathy, often catching them unprepared and forcing them to define and explain more precisely the elements of Revelation and their interrelations."

Then, in magnificent fashion he will pursue the work of his earlier lectures at the Mutualité, in 1972-1973. He will in fact elaborate a theology that is both ancient and new, a theology termed "kerygmatic", one that is inspired by a concern to provide a true response to the enquiries of the men of our time.

"It is no longer", he will explain, "a matter of simply setting out what the Church teaches and what she obliges one to believe: dogmatic theology, which the modernists accuse of simply repeating formulas without providing any real ‘communication’. Nor is it a matter of deducing intellectual systems from these dogmas to provide them with a logical explanation: speculative theology, which stands accused of stating truths which are lifeless. Nor is it a matter of demonstrating the preambles of the faith to unbelievers or agnostics: rational apologetics which deals with supernatural facts independently of the faith which provides their real meaning. Nor again is it a matter of attempting to persuade the heart: the apologetics of immanence, which we accuse of surrendering the faith to the whim of human desires.

"However, we refuse to fall into the double trap of contemporary ‘fundamental theology’, which is wholly dependent on Kant and Hegel: a hermeneutic theology which claims to reinterpret Christian events by reference to their religious significance and in accordance with the mentality of modern man, in order to make them ‘credible’. Such ‘hermeneutics’ are the product of a shameful indecisiveness about the revealed faith and of an idolatrous attitude to modern man, the measure of all things. It is this type of critique that opens the way to the likes of Cardonnel.

Kerygmatic: Both Ancient and New

"The theology of our era must be kerygmatic. The preaching (Kérugma ) of the Word of God today should be the frank, unvarnished and paradoxical proclamation of evangelical salvation, without the rational, universal and timeless mediation of a philosophical system (1). Its locus should be in the particularity of human situations and in the questions raised by the listener who, whilst acting as the interrogator, will in his own turn find himself interrogated and pressed to reply to this Word which upsets his existence and his plans.

"Rather than the transcendental deduction of classical theology – which was surreptitiously enriched by a whole raft of human experiences via a series of individual inductions – here instead we have human induction, systematically directed, propelled and reoriented by the resonant appeals of evangelical preaching."

In his monthly lectures on "kerygmatics", the Abbé de Nantes would always devote the first part to studying the doctrine of one of the most audacious heretics of the twentieth century, men like Cardonnel, Xavier Léon-Dufour and Teilhard. He would assimilate their thought, going almost so far as to make it his own, and explaining it sympathetically in all its vigour, often in a manner that was clearer than the author himself had expressed it. In the second part he would counter the novelty with the traditional point of view, at the same time remarking on the weak and narrow reactions of individual integrists or conventional conservatives. Then he would propose a fully Catholic solution, in the form of a synthesis integrating the original intuition of the heretic and revealing, in the freshness of the apostolic kerygma, the totality of the Christian mystery in all its immensity and truth, on offer to every soul searching for the truth.

From Clash to Breakthrough (not breakdown)

With this kerygmatic theology, one could make excellent theological progress and at the same time return to the Church's origins. From the clash of contradictory theses in the Church, there resulted a fusion effected by a synthesis of a wholly new dialectical style, a fusion which in reality was nothing but the initial evangelical and apostolic revelation, better examined, better defined, and therefore better stated.

Furthermore, it is notable that his wholly original metaphysical thesis on The person and his relations proved itself to be extremely fruitful. It allowed him to resolve certain theological difficulties which until then had proved insurmountable and to compose a renewed body of Catholic doctrine. But let us not jump ahead to the teachings that the Abbé de Nantes will present later on, in the 80’s.

In 1977 he devoted himself to a systematic and in-depth study of each of the sacraments to "gain a serene appreciation of the precise value, or non-value, of the postconciliar innovations11. Sapientis est ordinare: wisdom involves putting each thing in its proper place and appreciating everything according to its true worth, without defect or excess." At the end of this study, he was able to confide: "I believe I have learned much in the course of this study and that I have also taught my audience and my readers a good many things: about the tradition, which for the most part they had never suspected of being so rich and varied; also about the considerable work undertaken by a whole host of contemporary liturgical scholars; and finally about the solid foundations and excellent reasons for certain conciliar and postconciliar reforms or innovations.

"We are conscious of having assisted, in our own minimal way, in the distant preparation for that necessary and reconciling synthesis which will be the work of Vatican III. It will be then that the routines of the past will be definitively restored and corrected in the light of today’s novelties, which in their turn will be amended and purged of their disfiguring errors. Does that complicate the strategy of the opposing parties, by breaking the manichean dualism from whence they draw their militant strength? No more than it reinforces the only party to which we adhere, which is that of the Church. It is only by following this unique path that I can see any solution or light ahead."

Through his doctrinal labours the Abbé de Nantes was continuing the Church’s age-old struggle to explain her dogmas, develop her liturgy and preach her mysteries, convinced that the advances he was accomplishing – for example in teaching a new theology of the Eucharist – would make an effective contribution to the restoration of Catholic institutions and to a marvellous renewal of devotion, when the hour of the Renaissance should finally sound in the Church.

"In the future it will be seen", he wrote, "that, by the grace of God, the pioneers of the Counter-Reformation were, during those times of struggle, the true reformers and the bold creators of tomorrow’s Church. Not that they sought this. But simply because of their vibrant fidelity. So it was with the greatest saints of the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century, who paved the way for the wonderful and wholly new Catholic Reformation of the seventeenth century." (2)

More on the work of the Abbe de Nantes

(1) Notice he is speaking of preaching here, not scholastic theology-philosophy per se.

(2) Oftentimes when one affirms the strengths of a great traditional theologian (as in this case the Abbe de Nantes who saw the deviances of Vatican II and sought their correction), other traditionalists will object to the system, pointing to the strengths of their faction. The Abbe has done it too. I refuse this path. Making ultimate judgments is "above my pay grade," as they say, even though I have my own opinions. And so until we experience the Catholic Renaissance when the Church, realigned anew to her own tradition, will judge all these questions, I believe most of the reputable traditional theologians, bishops and priests are all part of the conversation towards restoration, however much they differ in approach to the same problems, which they all rightly perceive; and so I don't take mere bickering too seriously. Charity for all who believe the traditional Catholic Faith.

--->Dr. Thomas Droleskey: Modernism's Eternal Foe, Our Eternal Friend

--->Historian Demands Action on Powerful Jewish and Protestant Doomsday Cults; even concerns about US gov't officials. (The author of this article, Henry Makow, is himself Jewish)

Prayer Walking

Prayer Walking is on-site intercessory prayer that involves praying as you walk. God is using prayerwalkers to prepare the way for the gospel to teach into the dark corners of the world.

In this essential guide, Dan Crawford and Calvin Miller take you on an overseas journey of prayer walking. You will see beggars by the side of the road, catch glimpses of crumbling buildings, and attest to the poverty - material and spiritual. Read about God-encounters with Islamic and Hindu followers. See God at work in the villages and cities of India. Experience the power of God as these men walk, pray and observe God answering their prayers.

Prayer Walking is more than just a book to inspire and excite you about what God is doing in our world today. It is also a practical book that is filled with:

* Ideas and helps to prepare for a prayer walk
* Detailed stories of the triumphs and traumas of prayer walking
* And lists of prayer concerns

...a beautiful way to pray

--->How do you pray continually?

--->Walking the Bible Trilogy (video)



Clinging to the Faith...judging no one...rebuking only evils and lies...rejoicing in every sign of grace wherever found... encouraging the good in all which, like beads on a rosary, lead to the fullness of God if followed to the End... feeding the hungry both bread and spiritual bread...

New World Order Setback: A Year Later, Global “Safe Abortion” Campaign Yields Little Support

But note what the United Nations has been trying to do: make abortion a human "right"

By Samantha Singson

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) After nearly a year of soliciting signatures as part of a campaign for global “safe abortion,” Marie Stopes International has little to show for it. Less than 500 people have signed an online petition which calls for “full access to legal, voluntary, safe and affordable abortions as part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care” around the world.

The campaign, which was co-sponsored by the pro-abortion groups Ipas and the UK-based group Abortion Rights, was launched at the International Global Safe Abortion Conference that took place in October 2007 in London, an event that was held in conjunction with the UN and UNICEF sponsored Women Deliver conference. Both the conference and the campaign seek to bolster international commitment to abortion and call “for women’s access to legal, safe abortion to be recognized as a fundamental human right.”

A detailed look at the list of campaign supporters reveal that nearly 20% of the signatures are from employees of the three sponsoring organizations. Of the 498 signatures on the campaign website, 77 are from Marie Stopes employees, 16 from Ipas employees and 3 from those who work at Abortion Rights.

The campaign says that it is “intolerable” that restrictive laws, lack of resources and “politically and ideologically-motivated interference” remain obstacles for women to access “contraceptive and abortion technologies to save women’s lives.”

The campaign disparages government programs which focus on Millennium Development Goal 5 to improve maternal health but “neglect the 13 percent of maternal deaths caused by unsafe abortion globally and fail to support the full range of preventive actions required.”

Abortion proponents often link unsafe abortion and maternal mortality to push for legal, so-called “safe” abortion. Critics of the Marie Stopes argument are quick to point out that the 13 percent figure is highly suspect, as few countries even record the sex of an individual at time of death, let alone keep records on cause of death.

Critics also challenge the assertion that legal abortion would result in fewer maternal deaths. In Poland, after abortion was severely restricted in 1993, the country showed a sharp decline in both the abortion rate and in maternal deaths. Ireland, where abortion remains illegal, reports one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world.

Marie Stopes boasts that last year alone it provided over five million people in 40 countries with sexual health and family planning counseling, “safe abortion” and post-abortive care, as well as training health professionals. Around the world, Maries Stopes has become a major player in the national health care systems of developing nations. In 2006, Marie Stopes, a registered charity, reported “amounts receivable for the provision of services” totalling almost 56 million pounds sterling, or roughly, $100 million US.

Ipas is also a giant in the abortion industry. Ipas works to “expand the availability and accessibility of medical equipment and supplies that health professionals need to deliver high-quality reproductive health services.” Ipas’ manual vacuum aspiration instruments, suction devices used to perform early abortions and “menstrual extractions,” are used and distributed worldwide.

Maries Stopes plans to present the collected signatures to world leaders at the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on International Human Rights Day on December 10, 2008.

Cardinal Archbishop of Montréal: "I Am Returning my Order of Canada Insignia"

MONTREAL, September 11, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Archbishop of Montreal, Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, has just announced that he is returning his Order of Canada Insignia in protest over the Morgentaler decision.

Cardinal Turcotte's statement is as follows:

"On May 9th 1996, the office of the Governor-General of the time, Mr. Roméo Leblanc, announced that I had been named to the Order of Canada. I had accepted this honour on behalf of all those who, because of their faith in Jesus Christ, work in the social domain to serve the most disadvantaged of our society.

"I have the greatest respect for the Order of Canada. It is meant to recognize the contribution of persons who help to bring about the progress of our society and who are concerned about the future of our world. Until recently, I sincerely believed that the Order of Canada was bestowed upon persons about whom there was a consensus.

"I was away when the Governor-General, Madame Michaelle Jean, announced the nomination of Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada. This announcement generated a great deal of criticism on the part of those who do not share Dr. Morgentaler's views regarding the respect for human life.

"I must admit that I had hoped that, in light of the large number of protests, the Consultative Council for the Order of Canada would revise its decision. Because it has not done so up to now and because silence on my part might be misinterpreted, I feel obliged in conscience to reaffirm my convictions regarding the respect for human life, from conception to death. We are not the masters of human life; it rests in the hands of God.

"As a result, I wish to declare that I am renouncing the title of Officer of the Order of Canada, bestowed upon me in 1996, and that I am returning the insignia that was given to me."

To contact the Cardinal and thank him for his courageous statement, write: infos@diocesemontreal.org


Some women had 'back alley' abortions once, and some women and men strangled their babies in bathrooms. But when societies take over the task of murdering children we have returned to pagan savagery, sanctioned barbarism, however antiseptic it is made to appear. The abortion holocaust strikes at the root of the matter of the sacredness of human existence. No one is safe in a world of legalized abortion where human persons are reduced to disposable meat.


--->International Planned Parenthood Abortion Primer Distorts International Law

--->Michael Brown: Politics and Religion Converge in Rare Boiling Fashion

--->Criticism but no action: 26 US Bishops Have Rebuked Pelosi…So Far (words...but no warning of excommunication. How can this be?)

--->Sarah Palin Defends Experience, Takes Hard Line Approach on National Security / War Effort

--->Rush Limbaugh to Obama: 'You are no Jesus Christ'. "Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus," Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn, said during a one-minute speech on the floor of the U.S. House yesterday. "Pontius Pilate was a governor."

St. Bridget and the popes: warning they must govern

In the 14th century many people, including some popes, felt that the Church was in urgent need of reform. If the Church did not embody the ideals and values of the gospel, the blame was placed on the popes, since they had been entrusted with the task of watching over the Christians. As many felt that very little was accomplished in the field of reform, the popes as persons (not the institution, of course) quickly became the object of criticism. The very fact that the popes, the bishops of Rome, resided at Avignon was an affront, and many Christians felt that the pope's return to Rome was a prerequisite for reform. Since the popes were themselves the arbiters of reform and reformers had to have papal approval to gain official status, the only alternative left to those who wanted to carry out reforms was to try to influence the popes and goad them into taking action.

One of these concerned Christians was St. Bridget of Sweden. She had revelations in which God, Christ or St. Mary appeared, deploring the state of the Church in general and condemning a number of abuses and bad practices. In several revelations, the popes too are treated harshly. A famous example is book I, ch. 41. This revelation is a message from the Creator to the ca-put Ecclesie mee, viz. Pope Clement VI (1342-1352). God reminds him of the fact that he sits on His throne as successor to St. Peter and has been entrusted with the task of binding and loosening the souls from sin, but he is performing miserably. Instead of saving souls, he disperses and kills them; he is even 'worse than Lucifer':

# tu, qui deberes soluere animas et ad me presentare, tu vere es animarum interfector … Tu … es dispersor et lacerator earum, tu … peior es Lucifero. Ipse enim habebat ad me inuidiam et nullum concupiuit occidere nisi me, ut pro me dominaretur. Tu autem tanto deterior est, quod non solum occidis me remouendo te a me per mala opera tua, sed et animas occidis per malum exemplum tuum.

There is another revelation too, VI: 63, in which Christ condemns Pope Clement for his sins and offences and exhorts him to make amends and take action. A new rubric was written to this revelation when re-published (see below rev. I) and from this we learn that Bridget received the message two years before the Jubilee year, that is in 1348, and that it was communicated to the pope in Avignon by two friends of Bridget's, Bishop Hemming of Åbo and Prior Peter of Alvastra.

Bridget herself went to Rome for the Jubilee year, never to return to Sweden. In her revelations, she paints a very gloomy picture of conditions in contemporary Rome. In IV: 33, a letter to an unknown addressee, there is a long list of complaints: e. g., that churches are abandoned and converted into latrines for people, dogs and wild animals, that people eat meat in Lent, that the property of the Church is given to laymen, who do not marry because they hold the position of canons, but impudently have concubines in their houses in the day and in their beds at night, saying audaciously: 'We cannot marry, because we are canons'.

To judge from Rev III: 27, for example, Bridget seems to put the blame for this corruption on Pope Boniface VIII, whose pontificate had proved so disastrous for the Church; according to her, there had been many confessors and martyrs in the period from St. Peter to Boniface's predecessor Celestine V, but after that, development took a turn for the worse. St. Bridget thinks that the root of the problem lies in the popes' absence from Rome (in the above-mentioned revelation IV: 33 she finishes by saying that the priests are like orphans because of the pope's absence). In this perspective it is natural that she is a determined advocate of the popes' return to Rome, as is witnessed by a number of revelations [Source--Medieval Sourcebook]. Another site on St. Bridget.

Matt the Magic Dragon and Sarah Palin's Experience

Movie Star Matt Damon says the thought of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as VP is positively frightening because if you do the actuary tables, he says, there is a one in three chance, "or more," McCain won't survive his first term. Too old. And she's too inexperienced.

So far so good. He keeps within reasonable bounds. However Damon this week also took his biggest smack at Palin on the grounds of her alleged understanding of scripture, saying that he believes it is 'insane' to think we could elect a woman who "believed dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago".

Interestingly, I have been reading the sublime stigmatist venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich's Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations, the first volume of which deals with the beginnings of history, or what we might call pre-history (i.e., prior to many historical records) in the most surprisingly sober and impressive manner. And she has something to say about prehistorical animals, for example:

"At that period savage animals were very numerous, and they committed fearful ravages. The hunting expeditions fitted out against them were as grand as military expeditions. They who slew these wild animals were honored..." (Vol 1. P53, emphasis added)

Before that, of course, there is the biblical account of the Flood which believing scientists say would have wiped out the dinosaurs in a catastrophic manner, at once, consistent with the fossil record of sudden death for the giant beasts. Damon, great student of science that he is (not), would no doubt laugh at the biblical account, but that doesn't tell us a thing relative to the question of whether there is evidence supporting it.

Human beings and civilizations begin to appear in the historical record in the thousands, not in the millions of years ago, Lucy hype notwithstanding. The fact is when it comes to pre-history everybody is left to either conjecture (however much 'scientists' don't like to admit that) or to accept revelation; and if one accepts the biblical revelation one is of necessity forced in humility to accept what little God has revealed about all that. Thus there is reason for all of us to be humble, even if the Darwinist myth-makers find that very hard.

So Matt Damon, who is we agree not a scientist of any sort, and evidently no believer either (it would not settle well in Hollywood), should stick to rejecting Palin for political, not theological and 'scientific' reasons where he stands on his own ill-informed shaky and very conjectural ground. Meanwhile establishment 'scientists' who speak of pre-history with all the posturing affect of cocksure certainty are out-and-out bluffing. We human beings can hardly agree on what happened yesterday, as any newspaper or history book will show; never mind what happened in their posited and extravagant millions and millions of years ago. Everyone must learn the difference between the real, hard sciences and scientism (see Label below), even if some notorious 'scientists' dread, gnash their teeth, and nastily suppress all these epistemological differences which expose so many of them as wishful thinkers.

--->Sandro Magister on Silvio Berlusconi, and the observation that serious Catholics consequent to his election have practically disappeared from the country's government...leaving Italy with a "Church of the people" who are "irregular" in practice and morals. An exclusive analysis by Professor Pietro De Marco

--->A reader writes, "If Benedict, having failed to convert, say, Hans Kung (or someone like him), excommunicated him and others for heresies, what would you make of it?"

Reply: I would conclude that Benedict is indeed a Pope concerned about the Deposit of Faith and protecting the faithful and that he is likely moving in his own time to restore the Church. I'm not holding my breath but the hope, though a flicker, remains. Grace could ignite him.

--->Emperor Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan, Pakistan army chief and President say they will not tolerate such incursions.

--->Joe Biden Slams Sarah Palin on Down Syndrome Son, Stem Cell Research

--->Beating Cold War Drums? Israel Warns Russia to Halt Arms Sales to Iran, Syria

--->Buchanan Stars on Rachel Maddow Show? "Note from Linda: So let me get this straight. MSNBC fires Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann from their jobs as news anchors covering the 2008 presidential race because they are biased toward Obama. Then they give Rachel Maddow, the most left wing broadcaster on Air America Radio, her own show on MSNBC. And who is the star guest for her first show? Who else but Pat Buchanan. The only reason anyone tunes in to MSNBC is in hopes of catching a glimpse of Buchanan. Maddow gets a show? All I can say is we want Pat!" Cont.

--->Ecuadorans encouraged to vote for life in referendum on Constitution

How many nations, like the USA, interpret their interests and history as salvation history, the Beacon and Hope of all mankind?

E = Not So Fast

"The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa."--Werner Heisenberg

"That God would choose to play dice with the world is something I cannot believe."--Albert Einstein

"Nothing exists until it is measured."--Neils Bohr

"The remarkable story of a startling scientific idea that ignited a battle among the greatest minds of the twentieth century and profoundly influenced intellectual inquiry in fields ranging from physics to literary criticism, anthropology and journalism. In 1927, the young German physicist Werner Heisenberg challenged centuries of scientific understanding when he introduced what came to be known as "the uncertainty principle." Building on his own radical innovations in quantum theory, Heisenberg proved that in many physical measurements, you can obtain one bit of information only at the price of losing another. Heisenberg's principle implied that scientific quantities/concepts do not have absolute, independent meaning, but acquire meaning only in terms of the experiments used to measure them. This proposition, undermining the cherished belief that science could reveal the physical world with limitless detail and precision, placed Heisenberg in direct opposition to the revered Albert Einstein. The eminent scientist Niels Bohr, Heisenberg's mentor and Einstein's long-time friend, found himself caught between the two.

"Uncertainty chronicles the birth and evolution of one of the most significant findings in the history of science, and portrays the clash of ideas and personalities it provoked. Einstein was emotionally as well as intellectually determined to prove the uncertainty principle false. Heisenberg represented a new generation of physicists who believed that quantum theory overthrew the old certainties; confident of his reasoning, Heisenberg dismissed Einstein's objections. Bohr understood that Heisenberg was correct, but he also recognized the vital necessity of gaining Einstein's support as the world faced the shocking implications of Heisenberg's principle.---Mobipocket book description

Werner Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” challenged centuries of scientific understanding, placed him in direct opposition to Albert Einstein, and put Niels Bohr in the middle of one of the most heated debates in scientific history. Heisenberg’s theorem stated that there were physical limits to what we could know about sub-atomic particles; this “uncertainty” would have shocking implications. In a riveting account, David Lindley captures this critical episode and explains one of the most important scientific discoveries in history, which has since transcended the boundaries of science and influenced everything from literary theory to television.---Amazon

--->Note: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, based on scientific observation, a posteriori, and the limits imposed by facts in the quest for objective knowledge, should NOT be confused with, or abused like a priori postmodern literary theories based on philosophical prejudice about the unknowability of any truth in itself (ala Kant), political correctness, etc. The terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" are used in philosophy to distinguish two different types of knowledge, justification, or argument: a priori knowledge is gained independently of experience, and a posteriori knowledge is based on experience. Heisenberg analysis is based on the latter.

"Lindley brilliantly captures the personalities and the science surrounding the most revolutionary principle in modern physics. At stake are our deepest philosophical beliefs about reality. This book is so lucid that the issues are not merely understandable but truly thrilling."--Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Einstein: His Life and Universe

"In this always smart, and often beautiful, book, David Lindley illuminates some of the most intriguing theories in physics. The ideas themselves take their shape through the equally complicated lives and hopes of scientists determined to make sense of a seemingly impossible universe. In illuminating both--the elusive and elegant laws of physics, the scientists who struggled to decipher them--Uncertainty rightfully reminds us that the most difficult puzzles in the world around us are solved by both our minds--and our hearts."--Deborah Blum, author of Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death

"Lindley's description of one of the most dramatic revolutions in scientific thinking is truly fascinating. The ideas, and the lives of the originators of these ideas, become masterfully intertwined."--Mario Livio, senior astrophysicist, Space Telescope Science Institute, and author of The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number

--->See also, Albert Einstein The Incorrigible Plagarist (Partisans try to smear the book which speaks for itself)

--->Super collider a smash

--->Have Brains and Heart, Will Travel. Can you help this man in a bad economy?

--->Dr. John Rao: Black Legends Versus Complex Truth

--->God help us, Paul VI’s contribution ("priceless heritage of teaching and virtue") to the Church becoming increasingly evident, Benedict says. He gave his Shepherds Staff to the UN, pawned off his papal Tiara, abolished the Papal Oath never to change Catholic doctrine, abolished Oath against Modernism (or was that John 23?), gave us a Novus (new) "Mass" for the first time in history and ceased excommunicating priest-theologians for heresy, wolves now evidently considered to be OK. The fruits of his 'reforms' speak very eloquently and it breaks our hearts (see label Paul VI, also Humane Vitae below for details). See the Abbe de Nantes indictment which has served all traditional Catholics well and never been answered in Rome, only suppressed.

It Is Not Oppression

Despite the cynical propaganda of the powerful elites in our time, it is not oppression

to want to work to take back nations which for over a thousand years sustained all of Europe reflecting Christian values and the Faith

to want our children to be protected from so many lecherous moguls and bankers who profit from exposing them to moral filth and corruption.

to want women and daughters to be protected from the defilers who would use them as "entertainment" objects for the purposes of lust and exploitation. It is not oppression to want to ensure that these and all of us have the freedom for truly good and Catholic education, the freedom for women to work or to stay at home and not be dogged into the workplace, and that their husbands are paid a living wage which allows this freedom for the family

to expect marriage to conform to the God-given natural law, nature's complementarities, boundaries and biological teleology / limitations. Creation alone is meaning itself, the very condition and ground of all meaning. It is impossible, even reason alone tells us, that everything that is came from nothing at all.

to want public morals to align with the natural law to prevent lethal diseases which accost the innocent as well as the transgressors, and to prevent the public cultivation of decadent narcissism which assaults the family---the basic unit of every whole society--- and family morals

to want all to ask once again what would happen if everyone acted as they do?

to want our elders and elderly to be revered again as natural leaders in the hierarchy of order, for their wisdom, their sacrifices, their sufferings borne for us

to want our children's classrooms to reflect the purity and natural structure and discipline which has guided all cultures everywhere through millenia according to the natural law

to want true entertainment to be clean and wholesome, inspiring what is noblest in man, not what is depraved (a wide range of art fits within these boundaries here, from Europe's wonderful classical composers heritage to many forms of modern music, creative independent movies...)

to want all human life protected from conception to natural death and to outlaw those "options" which, if the truth be told, are economic at bottom and which would legalize abortion, suicide, euthanasia

to want our protected guests and minorities, Christian or not, to whom we give loving sanctuary in their times of persecutions and disasters, to respect our traditional Catholic laws and ways or else face deportation.

to refuse to engage in unjust aggression against other nations and to maintain both police and military for strictly defensive purposes only, against any and all invasions

to assist the poor, the weak and the ill as God's most beloved, and to see in them, Christian or not, the face of Jesus Christ.

It was Jesus who taught us to pray 'Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven'

Pope St. Pius X said:

...by ignoring the laws governing human nature and by breaking the bounds within which they operate, the human person is lead, not toward progress, but towards death. This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker; the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City.

It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo ---Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910

Almost everybody alive today in the West and beyond has breathed from birth the air of a poisoned 'humanism' so-called which violates a culture of life; a culture of life which protects human beings from conception to natural death. Catholic-Christian humanism by contrast is Christic, it takes its values from the life, teachings, redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as mediated throughout Western history and beyond by His Church (Matt 18:17; 1 Tim 3:15).

It is not oppression but freedom (Jn 8:32) to live consistently with the natural law and life-giving (not death-dealing) political principles, though these can be applied in different ways so long as authority is seen as coming ultimately from God, not from a 51% majority. Catholic principles have been realized, however inconsistently, in principle throughout history under various models of government. Moreover modern papal teaching from modern popes (especially from Leo XIII and onwards) hardly reject either monarchy or democratic models and means (which are not inconsistent with monarchy by the way; cf St. Robert Bellarmine, 16th cent) when that principle of the derivation of authority is upheld. A combination of both is considered ideal and exists in Britain to this day.

It is the human person which Catholic teaching seeks to protect from the grave implications of an inhuman nihilism which today marches in the name of a pseudo-liberty and a pseudo-humanism corrupting true freedom. ---Stephen Hand

The Ecology of Morals and Christian Optimism

How Peace? It is Ancient Wisdom Often Forgotten: See to it that kings and presidents are never above the law (based on natural law and Magna Carta, not whim), that they answer in agreed measure to elected bodies which, with the leaders of the nation, represent the true spiritual and material interests of the people and uphold the laws; always ensuring that all laws are just and consistent with Christian truth. Respect and be ready to answer enemies, never provoke or aggress upon them. Allow measured toleration for reasonable, prudential diversity without compromising the faith, laws and ancient traditions of a nation. Keep secure borders against infiltrations of world views which threaten the peace of a people; "never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate," toward a world where "the weak are safe and the strong are just" (JFK).

Why is monopoly and mass marketing viewed as being more in keeping with a "free" market? Does it not oppress and crush the small businessman and truly local economy?

How Christ is "United to Each Person"

Contrary to neo-modernist theology which in the practical sense suggests the missions are over, the Church with sacred scripture and tradition has always taught that Christ is united to each person through baptism. Jesus our Lord taught that we are all on the broad road of sin that leads to perdition until His grace frees us from the power of sin and death when we hear and respond to His Word and are immersed in the waters of salvation.

The Conciliar church at various times affirms the need for evangelization, and yet at crucial points undermines this urgent necessity in many ways. Here I sketch but a few: 1. By continually affirming against the scriptures, the pre-conciliar popes and fathers the widest possible "ecumenism" whereby men and women in other religions, it is said, do not need to hear the Gospel or be baptized in order to be saved; 2. that those who tragically broke off in schism need not "return" to the Catholic Church if they are to respond to the grace of their baptism; 3. by expanding the notion of 'invincible ignorance' of the true Faith beyond anything pre-conciliar popes conceived; 4. by the novel teaching that most denominations are "means of salvation" in themselves; 5. by the prohibition against 'proselytizing,' etc., etc.

Baptisms and Conversions

How is Christ united to every person? Not, Tradition assures us, in the way understood since the Council (Gaudium et Spes). Otherwise we are impaled on possible contradictions.

In John chapters 1-3 the progression is from the "light who enlightens every man" through grace (1:4), so that all persons have sufficient graces to "receive Him" and His Word (vs 12) by their own free choice. This then leads us to baptism which grafts us into the true Vine, Jesus Christ, to the saving of our souls (Jn 3:5; ch 15), freeing us wonderfully from the dominion of sin and spiritual death. According to all the fathers prior to 1965 there has never been any other ordinary way to be united to Christ unto salvation.

It is a sad and astonishing thing to realize that since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)---which even Paul VI said was not infallible, unlike all other Councils in history---we have seen our beloved shepherds go all but silent regarding the urgent need to aggressively seek conversions to Christ, through incorporation into the Church and sure salvation; preferring instead to speak of "other ways," "human solidarity," globalist aims, and the like. Do our shepherds still believe the Gospel in the same sense as our father before 1962 did? It seems impudent, even audacious to have to ask.

Tragically (since souls are at stake) what we have seen so often since the Council is a Church leadership which does not warn of the dangers of heresies much anymore, if at all, nor false religions, but instead speaks of "the great faith traditions" as "means of salvation" in themselves. All of this appears a grave break with sacred tradition and scriptural truths:

For "all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens and the earth" (1 Chronicles 16:25-26; Psalm 96:5; 1 Cor 12:2; 1Thes 1:9)

'Man' Predestined?

John Paul II's first encyclical, Redemptor hominis, in step with his "own spiritual father," Paul VI, is practically a hymn of praise to Man who is mentioned almost always in the same breath as the Redeemer Himself, even going so far as to say that it is "man" who is predestined unto salvation. This cannot be explained simply by Cold War realities and the Polish context. The scope and breadth of the encyclical is philosophical and theological, not merely geopolitical. In the light of this weren't the traditionalists right to be alarmed to see the sacred “pro multis” in the canon of the Mass translated as "for all," instead of its literal, scriptural and traditional meaning, "for many," since it seemed to imply, along with everything else, more implicit universalism which sees no reason to seek conversions anymore since all religions are merely human traditions?

Such a universalism (as evidenced also, one fears, with Benedict's denial of Limbo, also in JPII's saying Hell and Purgatory are "not places," etc) would be completely in sync with neo-modernist theology and objectives---and a sign of something gone terribly awry and needing correction. Meanwhile the real Gospel is not---or is barely---heard.

It is a marvelous thing to see the traditional Mass allowed back in Catholic churches today when they are not impeded and compromised by bishops. But now altar is set against altar and traditional Catholic theology set against a diluted, polluted ecumenical theology often in the same archdioceses / parishes. Only traditional Catholic theology and its traditional Mass of all ages can "win". What has weakened and compromised the Faith must fade and die.

The Practical Consequences

Bad theology has consequences: the failure of the Conciliar popes to govern the Church has resulted in the collapse of vocations, the gutting of Catholic dogmatics as well as the Catholic character of seminaries, universities and schools, to say nothing of the embarrassing servility towards globalist humanist institutions, the unbelievable number of churches closed or closing, Confessionals shut, sex scandals beyond belief, the Vagina Monologues, etc, etc.

Near Fatal

But such a syndrome, however we understand it, is already near fatal for the Church and must have a cause, as it does: namely the uncritical and uncatholic adoption of heretical forms of biblical criticism based on philosophical biases, and the departure from that second fount of revelation, sacred tradition. I say near fatal, because we know that as dark as the Light can seem at the Cross, resurrection follows ---in God's time. The gates of Hell, which the fathers understood to mean heresies, will never prevail, according to the promise of Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

The Church, however, can count on God's blessings only within the parameters of sacred tradition, all the fathers attested, lest she depart from it and lose the Way---the Holy Spirit---in proportion as apostasy arises. Surely the traditionalists have many things right and point to what can and must be corrected?

--->N.B. Proposal---since in traditional Catholic theology 'ecumenism" can only mean the seeking to help those who in history broke off into schisms return to the Church, let's call every other effort short of this simple fraternal cooperation in works of peace and mercy or whatever. Surely there can be good efforts which do not result in theological obfuscations and misleading hopes. We can and should do better.---SH

See also The "Magisterium" of Vatican II by Rev. Curzio Nitoglia (These matters raised by Nitoglia cannot simply be brushed aside as if they were not real problems. Let the problems rather be corrected and the Church will begin to flourish again.)

Yet we know God is always calling all the peoples of the earth home. This is a Condemned Proposition: "Pagans, Jews, heretics, and others of this kind do not receive in any way any influence from Jesus Christ...in them is a bare and weak will without any sufficient grace." (DZ, 1295). When we follow graces like beads on a rosary, they lead us to the Cross and Church.



Clinging to the Faith...judging no one...rebuking only evils and lies...rejoicing in every sign of grace wherever found... encouraging the good in all which, like beads on a rosary, lead to the fullness of God if followed to the End... feeding the hungry both bread and spiritual bread...

No, that's not my wife...

It's my lovely sister, Kathy, last month at the annual memorial we have for her beloved late son, Matt (my godson, whose picture I do not have on this particular computer) who passed away two years ago, age 19 after a brief (9 month) battle with Burkitt's lymphoma. It is a wonderful testimony to how much he was loved and is missed by so many that the event is always packed and the money raised donated to the Cancer society.

Matt was a strapping, handsome young man who was never sick 'a day in his life' as they say, until one night he felt a stomach cramp. A few days later he was diagnosed and the cancer was very rapidly multiplying within. If you could occasionally remember him at Mass Kathy, her husband Jeff and I would be very grateful. May perpetual Light shine upon him and all the faithfully departed. We miss him very much.

--->Now even the hearth is chilly: the federal government has effectively become the nation's mortgage lender too...owns your home.

+ What it's supposed to mean for you

The Catholic Life: A life of Dialog And Witness, Rightly Understood

...and how it applies to the Vatican II crisis

Vatican II and it's abuses need not prejudice us against the need for dialog with others. In the Lucan account of the life and ministry of Jesus (ch. 9 ) we see a remarkable early tension between Jesus and His disciples as the latter struggled toward spiritual maturity and vision:

Who Will Be the Greatest?

"An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.
Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him.
Then he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all--he is the greatest."

"Master," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us."
"Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."

Samaritan Opposition

"As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them[3]?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, "You do not know what spirit you are made of. The Son of man came not to destroy but to save them;" and they went to another village. "Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."

There is something in human nature, a certain covetousness or stinginess, which even intrudes itself into spiritual areas. Like the Pelagians of old, we want to think we became spiritual by our own wits and intellectual lights---and too bad for the other fellow.

It pleases our vanity, feeds our egos, and, if not checked, issues in what the Church fathers called "spiritual gluttony" and pride which is a contradiction of the heart of the Gospel itself, and indeed becomes a mockery of it. And just as a fish is said to rot from the head down, we end up like the Pharisees of old who thank God that they are not like all the other sinners. The Kingdom then becomes a private pass, a membership stamp for the Exclusive. ...Cont..

Too Outrageous to Ignore: A
Postmodern Primer

by Steven Menashi and Barrett Thornhill
Dartmouth Review

“This course offers an overview of male homoerotic narratives in literature and film. We will examine a number of texts from different historical and cultural sources to discuss the literary and cinematic construction of desire between men. . . Attendence at weekly film screenings is required.”

Thus reads the Cornell University course guide under English 377: Gay Fiction. Under the guise of “multiculturalism,” a new brand of academics, who more closely resemble televangelists than scholars, are transforming the modern academy.

Their agenda does not, however, call for a scholarly analysis of other cultures, but a harsh indictment of Western civilization. Columbia offers courses entitled, “Sex, Discrimination, and the Division of Labor” and “Gendered Controversies: Women’s Bodies and Global Contestations.” Yale instructs its students in “Sexual Diversity and Social Change.”

Perhaps most telling, however, is Amherst College’s Women’s Studies 14: “Ingrate Books: Chartering and Unchartering the Patriarchy,” which unmasks the Western canon as dubious. “We shall examine,” reads the course description, “how the subordination of female to male supports other ranked categories: mind/body, rational/irrational, public/private, heaven/earth, order/disorder. How do these hierarchies justify violence (rape, intra-familial murder, human sacrifice, silencing) in founding and maintaining the cultural order? How does the emergence of (homo) sexualities, ancient and modern, undermine the authority of this orderly, androcentric ‘nature’?”

Indeed, a new brand of “scholars” has emerged to assault Western culture and its achievements under the rubric of “postmodern skepticism.”

The entire premise of knowledge, in fact, is under assault or, in the popular phrase, being “deconstructed,” by a group of postmodern critics whose writing has proved infectious. Ideological postmodernism contains a broad assertion that the ideological system rooted in the Western tradition is inherently flawed.

Dangling from this theory is deconstructionism, a rather intangible philosophy loosely rooted in relativism. Deconstructionism’s central premise holds that literary criticism is entirely subjective — that all texts are relative to one’s personal interpretation, and what is important is whatever any individual reader thinks is important.

The most direct outgrowth of relativist theory has been “cultural constructivism,” which dictates that knowledge is inherently specialized to its particular culture and time. According to this view, moreover, no general science exists; social and political forces must be considered in every particular case. ...Cont.

A Young Woman, A Husband: And a Letter

My dear Timothy,

My beloved spouse and one flesh. As we celebrate our first year of Holy Matrimony, I want to thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, for waiting for me. You made a decision before you even met me to save this most precious part of yourself for your future bride, and for that I am so honored!

When I think of the challenges that you must have faced and overcome to remain chaste, especially in this culture that says being a man means being sexually active, I am so proud of you and so grateful to you for choosing a higher standard. Thank you for the hundreds of "no's" that you said to temptation, and the thousands of small and big "yes's" you said to purity. Thank you for having the courage and faith to be a real and godly man.

Thank you for training your eyes not to dwell on lustful images. When we go to the mall and you ask to walk on the opposite side of the larger than life Victoria's Secret posters, or we're watching TV and you instinctively change channels if an immodest woman is on the screen, or when we're walking and you turn your eyes down if a scantily clad chick is passing by, I know that your eyes are faithful to me and me alone. I feel so respected and treasured as your wife.

I know that because you saved yourself for me, there is no comparing with someone from the past. You have no haunting memories of mistakes to weigh you down from giving of yourself totally to me. And we now have a Holy language to communicate our love for each other that only we two share... and it often brings me to tears when I think... this is how God intended it to be!

I love you now more than ever. And I am so grateful that you loved me even before you ever met me by waiting for me.

Your adoring wife,

Michele...[Source]

On Forgiveness and Penance

"To those who confess their sins Christ is not a judge but an advocate and protector...Through the absolution [in the Sacrament of Penance] the debt of eternal punishment is changed into a temporal debt...Holy scripture furnishes many examples in which God imposed a penalty for sin forgiven. He forgave Adam, yet He cast him out of paradise and laid severe penances on him. Moses, who offended God by not believing His word, was pardoned, but not permitted to enter the Land of Promise (Numbers 20:12). The Jews who murmured in the wilderness were forgiven upon Moses' intercession, but were condemned to die in the desert (Numb 14). David was forgiven when he had committed two mortal sins, but the child that was born to him died (2 Kings XII, 14).

No sin is left unpunished; either we punish ourselves by doing penance, or God lays chastisements upon us. For every sin [though forgiven] satisfaction must be made either in this world or in purgatory; the more we have sinned here, the more we shall suffer hereafter [if we have not expiated on earth, accepting life's trials in a spirit of penance]. Our transgressions are rightly called debts' as debts must be paid, so sins must be blotted out." ---The Catechism Explained, Spirago and Clarke, Benzinger Brothers, Printers to the Holy See, 1921

St. Augustine: "God in His wisdom never leaves sin wholly unpunished, lest we should think lightly of it" (ibid., p.612) De profundis...Out of the depths I have cried unto thee...

But the gift...is greater

When we offer up our sufferings here on earth, uniting them to the cross of Jesus, we not only expiate the temporal debt for our own sin but sharing in the sufferings of Christ for the redemption of the world (col 1:24). St. Paul called himself the chief of sinners:

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief". (1 Tim 1:15)

And yet he also wrote the most sublime words about sharing in the sufferings of the cross of Jesus for the redemption:

"If so ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and immoveable from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, which is preached in all the creation that is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister. 24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are lacking in the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church (Col 1:23, 24, emphasis added).

Sharing in the sufferings of Christ: 1 Pet 4:1:13; 2 Cor 4:10; 2 Cor 1:5-7; 1 Jn 3:16;Mt 20:22; 2 Tim 4:6; Phil 1:18, 19, 30; 3:10, 11; ;2:17; 1 Pet 2:19, etc.

Christ's suffering lacks nothing in itself, only the fullness of completion through time, the fathers tell us, through His extended suffering and persecutions in His Mystical Body the Church, which is why when Saul the persecutor of the Church, who later became Paul the apostle, was stunned on the road to Damascus by a vision of Christ he heard Jesus say, "Saul, Saul why do you persecute Me?"

"Yet even now," declares the LORD, "return to Me with all your heart-- with fasting, weeping and mourning (Joel 2:12). The LORD is slow to anger and great in power" (Nahum 1:3)

Pope Pius XII wrote just before the Council: "On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers...Holiness begins from Christ; and Christ is its cause. For no act conducive to salvation can be performed unless it proceeds from Him as from its supernatural source. "Without me," He says, "you can do nothing."

"If we grieve and do penance for our sins, if, with filial fear and hope, we turn again to God, it is because He is leading us. Grace and glory flow from His inexhaustible fullness. Our Savior is continually pouring out His gifts of counsel, fortitude, fear and piety, especially on the leading members of His Body, so that the whole Body may grow ever more and more in holiness and in integrity of life. When the Sacraments of the Church are administered by external rite, it is He who produces their effect in souls...

"Because Christ the Head holds such an eminent position, one must not think that he does not require the help of the Body. What Paul said of the human organism is to be applied likewise to the mystical Body: "The head cannot say to the feet: I have no need of you." It is manifestly clear that the faithful need the help of the Divine Redeemer, for He has said: "Without me you can do nothing," and according to the teaching of the Apostle every advance of this Mystical Body towards its perfection derives from Christ the Head. Yet this, also, must be held, marvelous though it may seem: Christ has need of His members. First, because the person of Jesus Christ is represented by the Supreme Pontiff, who in turn must call on others to share much of his solicitude lest he be overwhelmed by the burden of his pastoral office, and must be helped daily by the prayers of the Church.

The "deep mystery" of Christ and His Body

"Moreover as our Savior does not rule the Church directly in a visible manner, He wills to be helped by the members of His Body in carrying out the work of redemption. This is not because He is indigent and weak, but rather because He has so willed it for the greater glory of His spotless Spouse. Dying on the Cross He left to His Church the immense treasury of the Redemption, towards which she contributed nothing. But when those graces come to be distributed, not only does He share this work of sanctification with His Church, but He wills that in some way it be due to her action.

"This is a deep mystery, and an inexhaustible subject of meditation, that the salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary penances which the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ offer for this intention and on the cooperation of pastors of souls and of the faithful, especially of fathers and mothers of families, a cooperation which they must offer to our Divine Savior as though they were His associates.

"He nourishes the redeemed with His own flesh and blood and thus calms the turbulent passions of the soul; He gives increase of grace and prepares future glory for souls and bodies. All these treasures of His divine goodness He is said to bestow on the members of His Mystical Body, not merely because He, as the Eucharistic Victim on earth and the glorified Victim in heaven, through His wounds and His prayers pleads our cause before the Eternal Father, but because He selects, He determines, He distributes every single grace to every single person "according to the measure of the giving of Christ."---Pius XII, On the Mystical Body of Christ #30, 44, 51

What Protestants generally did not see was that as the Passover Lamb was consumed by all, so must the Son of Man's Self-same sacrifice be consumed by all in the Eucharist. The miracle of multiplying the Loaves and Fishes and the feeding of the multitudes from One single Heavenly Source was a sign.

Ryan Sorba Lecturing on the "Born Gay Hoax" at Cal State, and Swamped by the Possessed at Smith

Because "scientism" has replaced science in our time, it is, as bishop Richard Williamson has said, considered more interesting and creative that 2+2="5" than that 2+2="4". It is the same with "Gay psychology" which prefers to ignore the objective truth and teleology of the human body, its parts and role in the complementarity of creation, in favor of 'gay' 'reality,' thus showing a tragic contempt for the world as it is created, given.

As the homosexual-priest scandal in the Catholic church and the AIDS crisis shows, homosexuals (and all who indulge promiscuous sex) pose grave risks to any society. Thus our concerns. (It has ever been the same from the ancient epicurean deviants to Oscar Wilde to our out-of-all-control contemporaries. Of Wilde Wikipedia writes, "Soon, Wilde entered a world of regular sex with youths such as servants and newsboys, in their mid to late teens [SH: probably younger too], whom he would meet in homosexual bars or brothels. In Wilde's words, the relations were akin to "feasting with panthers", and he revelled in the risk: "the danger was half the excitement." Updated 9.9.08)

The unveiling of the demonic

In the following lecture at Cal State Ryan Sorba, author of The Born Gay Hoax, dismantles the idea that human beings are "born gay." See the Sorba lecture. But go back to that important lecture later. First, in April, 'Lesbian' activists at Smith College rioted, shutting down Ryan Sorba's lecture on “The Born Gay Hoax” as police watch. Listen to and behold these witches. (Was there not even one exorcist in the house?) Possessed by an Idea, the Thing... See the exclusive horrifying videos.

Some 'education' at that Gadarene swamp called Smith College... Pray some will seek healing and penance in Christ.

--->Ryan Sorba's blog

--->Epicureanism and Modern America--One Mind: "Philosophy was described by Epicurus as "the art of making life happy", and he says that "prudence is the noblest part of philosophy". His natural philosophy and epistemology seem to have been adopted for the sake of his theory of life. It is, therefore, proper that his ethics should first be explained. The purpose of life, according to Epicurus, is personal happiness; and by happiness he means not that state of well-being and perfection of which the consciousness is accompanied by pleasure, but pleasure itself. Moreover, this pleasure is sensuous, for it is such only as is attainable in this life. This pleasure is the immediate purpose of every action. "Habituate yourself", he says,

'to think that death is nothing to us; for all good and evil is in [nothing more than] feeling; now death is the privation of feeling. Hence, the right knowledge that death is nothing to us makes us enjoy what there is in this life, not adding to it an indefinite duration, but eradicating the desire of immortality".---from Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909

Very Interesting and Insightful Article by Brian McCall on the "Dialogue Mass" Question

"...the altar boy is not the model of the function of the laity...does not represent the action of the laity"

"...there is a great difference between the role of those who hold a sacred office and those who do not. For those not holding or exercising such an office, the Liturgy is not something we “do” but rather something that we experience, something outside of us that overshadows us and toward which we need to be properly disposed to receive worthily.

"The ritual requires distinctions to be made between clerical and lay roles. As the Instruction itself says “By its very nature, the Mass requires that all present take part in it, each having a particular function.” (emphasis added)

"What is the particular function of the laity not exercising clerical offices? To answer the question we need to remember that the altar servers are liturgical offices of clerics, the minor order of acolyte. Due to the practical necessities of parochial life, lay boys are permitted to exercise their office out of necessity. Although in the lay state, these boys are by indult exercising these clerical functions, but the office remains clerical.

"Thus, the altar boy is not the model of the function of the laity. He does not represent the action of the laity which has somehow been usurped by the altar boy. When the laity join the acolytes in the responses at Low Mass this distinction between clerical and lay is blurred. Where the option offered by the Instruction of having the laity join the priest in praying certain prayers (such as the full Pater Noster) the distinction between the mediating priest himself and the laity is diminished."

(This I did not know---SH) Read the full Remnant article

--->Italy needs new wave of Catholic politicians---Benedict XVI (...and preferably with a deeper understanding of where so-called religious "liberty" leads than Vatican II cared to look)

--->Obama's Joe Biden: there is a “debate” in the Church over when life begins. Since when?!

Then there are WWIII fears...

Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,

St. Teresa of Avila's Dove Metaphor

by Teresa Polk

There are several reasons for pausing to write about self-knowledge.

First, it is important to notice that her [St. Teresa's] dove and butterfly metaphors do not encourage the flight of contemplation without proper preparation. The butterfly emerges only after it has built a cocoon and has undergone a metamorphosis within it. The dove can only soar after growing, watching the flight of other birds, and learning in stages how to fly.

Second, it is important to mention that the preparation she mentions, and the self-knowledge that she has in mind, are concepts of prayer that are often misunderstood.

Lastly, it is important to notice that her own reason for mentioning self-knowledge in this context is that people often over-estimate the state of their own spirituality, thinking that they have advanced to a greater level than they really have.

In pride, there is a tendency to want to skip the foundational levels of basic prayer, thinking that one has already advanced beyond that point. Not so, warns St. Teresa, but rather the only way to advance in prayer is by way of humility, and not by trying to skip ahead to contemplation. ...Cont.
_______

She Called Herself Judy Blume

She changed her name to Judy Blume and went after our children for money. Her books, it is said of the Jewish-American writer Judy Blume (actually Judy Sussman), are generally "built around two themes: sex for young people and anti-Christian behavior.” Blume, who has had several husbands, made a lot of money by politically and psychically deconstructing the traditional family through initiating children into the dark realms of biblically forbidden sex---her work was to kids what other cultural lechers like Howard Stern and Sarah Silverman---to name but two---have been for "adults". Cheap and well connected to the moguls. She also wrote what some would describe as adultery smut for 'bored' married suburbanites too ("Wifey" for one)

Rationalization? "Looking back at her work and the frank way in which she discussed sexuality, Blume seems pleased. 'From what my early readers, now in their 20s and 30s, tell me, I guess I should be pleased," she says. "They say I helped them develop a healthy attitude toward their own sexuality at a time when no one was talking to them about their feelings or answering their questions. If my books have helped them become sexually responsible adults, good. If my books have given young women permission to celebrate their sexuality in a healthy way, better yet!"---CNN.com (If you lech and 'celebrate' with Judy Sussman, you see, you are 'healthy' and 'responsible'. Poor Moses! Sussman would do well to donate all her ill-gotten money to true HIV prevention-abstinence movements as penance before she meets her Maker. Only Jesus, Israel's Messiah, can free one from this kind of sin and death, and He will willing do so for all who ask).

Political correctness is often a sin against honesty

--->YouTube reported to censor prolife videos

Books: Modernity's Abuse of an Art
by Donald Goodman

Having read lately the words of the great Hilaire Belloc on modernity's ignorance of books and their importance (I'd encourage readers who aren't familiar with the work to read through it themselves, at Belloc Speaks: On the Decline of the Book), I thought I'd extend that to the decline of the mechanical art of the book---that is, to the simple make-up of a good, sturdy book. Like most crafts, that of bookbinding has suffered a vast decline in the modern age; but once, the make-up of a book was a piece of great artistry and talent. ...Cont.

Evangelism and the Great Regathering

When after the resurrection Our Lord sent his disciples into all the world to proclaim the Good News of liberty and salvation to the captives it was hardly intended as the intrusion of one culture or worldview into others, but rather the great regathering of all of God's people who are one in Adam (from creation) even before they are one in Christ. God was calling His people back who had dispersed into the world. It was also the rescuing from the harsh and erroneous idolatries, corruptions, partial truths, lost memories and superstitions (some with more noble remnants or echos of the truth than others) into which peoples fell as they dispersed throughout the world after the Flood.

Evangelism is the great Word of God's forgiveness, Love and reconciliation in and through Christ's saving deeds, the great re-coming, the call back Home to that Relationship which once belonged to all peoples; for there is only one universe, one faith, one God and father of all.

Choose to be poor?
by Peter Maurin

Saint Francis of Assisi thought
that to choose to be poor
is just as good
as if one should marry
the most beautiful girl in the world.

We seem to think
that poor people
are social nuisances
and not the Ambassadors of God.

We seem to think
that Lady Poverty
is an ugly girl
and not the beautiful girl
that Saint Francis of Assisi
says that she is.

And because we think so,
we refuse to feed the poor
with our superfluous goods
and let the politicians
feed the poor
by going around
like pickpockets,
robbing Peter
to pay Paul,
and feeding the poor
by soaking the rich.

Apropos...John the Baptist was poor because he didn't expect great sinners to pay him for calling on them to repent! Activists must often embrace poverty in our time where only Mammon is god.

--->Traditional Bishop Robert McKenna, O.P: sermon on Our Lord's admonition to judge not others in terms of condemning them. Judge ideas and programs, but not the eternal fate of persons. That only God can judge.

--->Russia has conditionally agreed to remove its forces from Georgian land - excluding Abkhazia and South Ossetia - by the second week of October
_____

"Mass-production is the prostitution of the man to economic or other material motives and is spiritually contraceptive. To eliminate the person and say it does not greatly matter what the work may be is degrading and absurd, and provides an opening for all manner of injustice and oppression." ---George Maxwell, distributist

Patrick J. Buchanan: Distant Drums at Sarah’s Party

September 5, 2008

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The American Right has just died and gone to heaven.

[Thursday's] convention address by Sarah Palin here in St. Paul has confirmed the bold decision of John McCain to choose the Alaska governor as his co-pilot and united the Republican Party as it has not been since the second term of Ronald Reagan.

A wild enthusiasm for Sarah Palin has brought conservatives home to John McCain, and GOP leaders of all hues — from Fred Thompson to Mitt Romney to Mike Huckabee to Rudy Giuliani — to the rostrum to lacerate the liberal media for their five days of feral assaults on Sister Sarah.

The war the right lives for, against the people the right truly loathes — the liberal media elite who savagely “Bork” every true conservative who gets on the path to national power — has been reignited.

Positive polarization has been achieved. The Republican Party has been united and invigorated. The enthusiasm gap with the Democratic ticket has been closed. And the issues upon which the base loves to fight — the Culture War and Right to Life — are back on the table.

Palin’s beautifully crafted and delivered acceptance speech, after Rudy’s gleeful excoriations of the pretensions of Obama, will rank as a night to remember in convention history.

Yet, as the familiar battle lines form up for the delicious eight-week war that lies ahead, one hears a distant thunder. And the seriousness of the hour we are in comes home.

U.S. troops have crossed into Pakistan to attack Taliban and al-Qaida units in the privileged sanctuary of the tribal areas just across the border from Afghanistan. Have we just thrown a rock into the biggest hornet’s nest on earth?

How will the Pakistani government and people react to this U.S. incursion into their country to fight a war their own army has been reluctant to wage? How will the tribal peoples react? Will the weak new democratic regime, united only in its hatred of deposed President Musharraf, fall?

What is the future of this Islamic nation of 170 million, with its five-dozen nuclear weapons, that was once America’s great ally in South Asia, but is now seething with anti-Americanism?

In Afghanistan, the Taliban move closer to the capital Kabul as hardly a day goes by without U.S. armed forces being charged with the accidental killing of Afghan women and children. Is this even a winnable war, after seven years of fighting? And, if so, at what cost?

While the convention hears claims of victory in Iraq and an early return of U.S. troops, there are reports the Nouri al-Maliki regime, in collusion with Iran, wants the Americans out to settle accounts with the U.S.-sponsored Sunni militias and the Kurds over who rules in Baghdad and Kirkut.

Is the end of America’s long and costly war in Mesopotamia to be an Iraq incorporated into a Shia crescent led by Tehran?

Arnaud de Borchgrave reports that Israel, having supplied Mikheil Saakashvili’s army with weapons and training prior to his invasion of South Ossetia, had hoped to use Georgian airfields to fly strikes against Iran. The Russians are said to be furious and considering new military aid to Syria.

Now one reads of Dutch intelligence agents, who had infiltrated Iran’s nuclear program to sabotage it, being withdrawn, as the Dutch believe a U.S. strike on Iran may be imminent.

Vice President Cheney is in Tbilisi promising $1 billion in new aid, as Prime Minister Putin of Russia is asking why, if this aid is humanitarian, it is being brought into the Black Sea in U.S. warships.

In Moscow, President Medvedev and his foreign minister are talking of a Russian sphere of influence like the one the United States has demanded for two centuries with its Monroe Doctrine — a sphere from which all foreign military blocs and foreign troops are to be excluded.

This is a direct challenge to administration and neocon plans to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. John McCain may declare, “We are all Georgians now!” — but, are Americans, or Europeans, truly willing to go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia to keep Joseph Stalin’s birthplace under a regime led by an erratic hothead who launched what may be the dumbest war in history, which he lost within 24 hours?

In June of 1914, a powerful flotilla of the Royal Navy was anchored in the German port of Kiel on a friendly visit where British naval officers visited German warships on the invitation of Adm. Von Tirpitz, and the Kaiser himself inspected the great new British battleship George V, in the uniform of a British admiral.

The festive occasion was interrupted and ended by news of the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo in the Balkans, where neither British nor Germans had vital interests.

Six weeks later, the two nations had plunged into the bloodiest war in history. Today, as Republicans celebrate the last hours of a hugely successful convention, and Democrats seethe at the hiding they took, are we as a nation drifting inexorably for new confrontations and larger and wider wars?

Who is minding the store, as we party in St. Paul? [Source PJB website]
_______

--->Veteran Hockey Mom Sarah Palin goes straight after Russia (and WWIII?)

--->Obama---2009 Pakistan war

--->The September 3 Attack on Pakistan

--->Sarkozy: Israeli Attack Inevitable

--->Government Takes Over Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac

--->US Jobless rate climbs to 6.1 pct., a five-year high. 84,000 jobs were lost in August.

--->None (but this guy) dare call it, egads, conspiracy

--->Popular Propaganda Technique: 1. 'A' proposes an extreme position 2. 'B' opposes 'A' with an equally extreme position 3. 'C' proposes a 'reasonable' middle position (what 'A' and 'B' wanted all along).

The Catholic Life: A life of Dialog And Witness, Rightly Understood

...and how it applies to the Vatican II crisis

Vatican II and it's abuses need not prejudice us against the need for dialog with others. In the Lucan account of the life and ministry of Jesus (ch. 9 ) we see a remarkable early tension between Jesus and His disciples as the latter struggled toward spiritual maturity and vision:

Who Will Be the Greatest?

"An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.
Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him.
Then he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all--he is the greatest."

"Master," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us."
"Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."

Samaritan Opposition

"As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them[3]?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, "You do not know what spirit you are made of. The Son of man came not to destroy but to save them;" and they went to another village. "Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."

There is something in human nature, a certain covetousness or stinginess, which even intrudes itself into spiritual areas. Like the Pelagians of old, we want to think we became spiritual by our own wits and intellectual lights---and too bad for the other fellow.

It pleases our vanity, feeds our egos, and, if not checked, issues in what the Church fathers called "spiritual gluttony" and pride which is a contradiction of the heart of the Gospel itself, and indeed becomes a mockery of it. And just as a fish is said to rot from the head down, we end up like the Pharisees of old who thank God that they are not like all the other sinners. The Kingdom then becomes a private pass, a membership stamp for the Exclusive.

Such is spiritual blindness.

And worst of all, we then forget the incredible bounty of God's generosity:

Mark 2:16: When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

The Church has always reminded Catholics that the Gospel message is both witness and dialogue and that both are part of the Church's missionary endeavor. To proclaim the Kingdom with any degree of credibility we must first reflect the heart of the Kingdom ourselves. We must strive to become meek, peacemakers, reconcilers, consolers, heralds of real social justice, generous toward sinners---knowing full well that we too are sinners---inclined to forgive more and more, not less and less, willing to serve and take the least position of power as children of the Church Christ gifted to mankind.

The Place of Dialog

Dialog is important in witnessing to the Kingdom because it shows a generous understanding of the complex baggage---intellectual, cultural, and religious---which almost all persons are heir to in our time. When one is not born Catholic / Christian, one can hardly be expected to understand the many things Catholics believe all at once. Goodness, I know very many Catholics who do not know much of their catechism themselves. So in dialog we share with one another (whether one to one or institutionally) and shun all mean-spirited polemics (i.e., an argumentative, warring spirit). Only with those within the faith who should know better and who obstinately teach false doctrines is argument sometimes appropriate, the Apostles said. Even here discernment is required however.

I realize that I have always practiced dialog, even when the concept seemed confusing and threatening to me. I never wanted to bash someone on the head with my Catholicism when in personal discussions, so, innumerable times, when spiritual things came up with people who did not share my faith, I would listen, applaud the things they shared with the Church (theism, belief in Christ sometimes, hope for world peace, all values of the Kingdom) and be grateful for that.

The fathers taught that the "seeds of the logos" [upon which grace builds] are in all religions and philosophies, and that even the pagan writings of old were in part "forerunners" or preparation for the Gospel. When the three wise men from the East knelt at the Nativity Cave of Our Lord's birth, they were not prepared for a full theological exam. They were prepared to adore and offer gifts. They followed the light they had. And it led to the Light of the world! People are often on their way to Catholic truth, following grace, or on the descent away from it, by abusing grace. We must meet them where they are. Anne Catherine Emmerich in her Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations shows how wonderfully, beautifully Our Lord Himself did this with people, looking often to the heart more than to the head.

Following the Light We Have

Few of us can possibly process all doctrinal truths (or errors) at once. It takes time, if we ever arrive at all. The beginning of study is not the end of study. Especially considering the long cumbersome and often sorry histories which have led us all to the different places we are at today. Dialog respects the need for processing truths in time. Sometimes the greatest doubters become the greatest believers, but seldom overnight. Sometimes we must put up with argumentative spirits who in a certain defensiveness against their own doubts, perhaps, must display vehemence and make us the objects of their fury, even as they ponder things more calmly---or at least more quietly---when they lay their heads on their pillows at night. We can offer such sufferings for them, knowing what struggles they have been cast into.

The hardest thing to do is change, because pride can cause suffering and embarrassment. Yet only dead things do not change. And even those who do not worry about pride can suffer in the process of changing since transition is often accompanied by a certain anxiety. We Catholics are not immune from (existential, as opposed to cynical) doubts, which make us suffer since all propositions may be doubted and this is part of intellectual and spiritual growth, prodding us to study to learn; and God sometimes wills to take us off the milk of His spiritual delights in order that we may begin to walk by faith and not by an abundance of feelings. In such a time we are called to grow by groping after Him, like a deer that pines for still waters.

Even the greatest Saints needed a special grace to intuit Truth beyond words. How much more do people in our day need time to ponder the complexities and seeming conundrums of history and thought as they encounter new ways of looking at spiritual things.

I worked until very recently in a mental health facility / shelter for homeless persons, some with severe addictions, some with mental illnesses, some just down on their luck, very talented and smart. One man there who was suffering said to me that no one could say what happens after death since no one ever came back to tell about it. I reminded him of the Empty Tomb. He said to me that he could not believe in the Resurrection. It just seemed like a fairy tale to him. "Too good to be true?" I asked. He pondered and said, "maybe". Then he looked at me. "It's that good," I said, meaning the Good News.

Another person told me she could believe Jesus was a prophet or 'Great Teacher' maybe, but not the Son of God. To this educated, philosophically inclined, woman that notion was difficult to understand. I asked, "you can accept Him as a prophet because of his teachings?" She nodded yes. "Then stay with that," I said, "until you can see more. 'Drink from your own well'. If you can't see more in time but live the light you do see, God will reward you with more graces for living up to the light you do see" (Rom 2:12-16). Follow Jesus the prophet, I said, as you see Him. Who knows what you will see later?" We discussed human suffering in the teachings of various religions and how in the Cross, according to Catholic theology, God assumed the burden and consequences of man's sin, without thereby assuming the guilt, at the same time bridging the distance between God and man vis a vis human suffering. I told her the Cross made it possible for me to love God despite the enormity of human suffering, because He has come to us, the culmination of all progressive revelation.

Then there was the time recently when a Fundamentalist came in and pronounced confidently that Mother Teresa was now receiving her just deserts in the "fires of Hell" for having followed the "works theology of the Roman Church". It was no easy thing to hold my Irish temper against such haughty judgements, but that would have done no good. So, instead, we began, at my suggestion, to talk about the relationship between Holy Scripture and Tradition which I knew would be productive eventually toward an understanding of how the early Church interpreted the words of St. Paul on justification, faith, works, etc. This man was not interested in ecumenical dialogue as such, so I would lead him into it gently, despite his prejudices. I told him it is no easy thing to know who is and who is not in Hell for in Matthew 25 it is all surprises, those who thought themselves saved were lost and those who thought themselves lost were saved. It all seems to have revolved around Self--ishness and the readiness---or not---to receive the grace of God unto penance.

Grace

Light leads to greater light, leading to even greater Lights, Actual graces to Actual graces, like beads on a rosary, until, if God so chooses, one ends up kneeling and adoring at His Nativity Cave and seeing the fullness of Catholic Truth. Faith is an encounter with the crucified and risen Lord, bound up with the inscrutable mysteries of divine providence and our own free will. And it leads us to the Church which Christ gifted to mankind.

The liberal error is to think the Light has no terminus, no goal which can be expressed through revelation and inspiration, that dialogue can come to no conclusion, no 'aye' or 'nay'. They reject the End, preferring the vanities of the search. The traditionalist error is to act like they alone deserve the End, the goal, and spend endless hours anxiously debating and arguing and seeking out victims to prove that they are right. All of this is very sad and a kind of spiritual darkness. For before God humility is everything.

Theology is "faith seeking understanding." We "believe in order to understand," St. Anselm said. If we encounter Him in His Church it is not through any goodness or superior intellectual comprehension on our parts. It is His inscrutable grace. If one lives up to the light one has, even if its grasp is short of that ultimate revelation of the Word made Flesh (Jn 1:1-14) then one becomes one of the little flowers in God's garden, on the way, which St. Therese spoke of:

"JESUS DEIGNED TO teach me this mystery. He set before me the book of nature; I understood how all the flowers He has created are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the Lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers. And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus' garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to Lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God's glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be.

"JUST AS THE sun shines simultaneously on the tall cedars and on each little flower as though it were alone on the earth, so Our Lord is occupied particularly with each soul as though there were no others like it. And just as in nature all the seasons are arranged in such a way as to make the humblest daisy bloom on a set day, in the same way, everything works out for the good of each soul".

We need to be tender with people, tough only on ideas and bad or harmful agendas. We need to give people the space, the time, as we need(ed) it ourselves. True Catholic 'ecumenism' is not compromise or bartering doctrine, and much less is it syncretism. It is love giving thanks for Love. What a joy to reflect on that. And sometimes (often) all we can do is speak the Truth (Jn 8:32) and trust the Holy Spirit to do the rest over time. He does not fail to follow through.

How does all of this apply to the Vatican II crisis?

This is a Condemned Proposition: "Pagans, Jews, heretics, and others of this kind do not receive in any way any influence from Jesus Christ...in them is a bare and weak will without any sufficient grace." (DZ, 1295)

First of all, almost everyone has admitted (at least quietly) for some four decades that there is a crisis...