The Worcester Diocese should have held onto this faithful priest

Some years ago, a faithful and dedicated priest decided to leave the Diocese of Worcester and become a Chaplain for the United States Army.  During a conversation back in 2000, this priest-friend told me that he had had enough of the nonsense within the diocese.  This was after he presided over a graveside service for my father.

This same faithful priest has a letter in this week's "Catholic" [when they feel like it] Free Press.  As usual, it is an excellent letter.  But then, this priest reads the life of Jesus Christ.  The letter is entitled  "Choose life and love, not moral decay."  Fr. Anthony Kazarnowicz writes:


"According to a survey (CFP, June 1), 83% of Catholics consider it 'morally acceptable' to use contraceptives to prevent pregnancy, 'despite church teachings to the contrary.'  The Church teaches that God designed sex for bonding between a husband and wife and for procreation.  In deciding for ourselves that it is 'morally acceptable' to unnaturally close sex to life, we have made ourselves (not God, or those whom Jesus placed in authority over us) the final arbiters of what is good and evil.  It's Satan's temptation to Adam and Eve all over again.

Next, we judged it 'morally acceptable' to separate sex from marriage.  So now, we have rampant sexual promiscuity, cohabitation before marriage and women treated as sex objects.  A pleasure-seeking 'Me Generation' was born.  Dads had live-in girlfriends; moms, live-in boyfriends.

With this denial of moral wrongdoing came the corresponding denial of sin and even a loss of a sense of sin.  Sacramental confessions dwindled.  However, divorces rose to 50% for first marriages, 65% for second marriages and higher for third marriages.

According to the survey, 53% of Catholics favor same-sex 'marriage.'  Heterosexuals who have lifeless sex are not likely to condemn lifeless homosexual sex.  Though homosexual sex is indeed unnatural, there is something even more unnatural - mothers killing their own babies by abortion - 'morally acceptable' to 35% of Catholics.

Before contraception, families were large.  But, children knew right from wrong, were disciplined, respected authority and learned sacrifice.  Families prayed together.  Confessions thrived; divorces were rare.  Most couples waited until marriage before having sex.  Parents accepted children as God's gift. Womanhood and motherhood were cherished.  Vocations to the priesthood and religious life flourished.

Contrasted are a culture of moral decay after contraception and a culture of life and love before contraception.  I pray all Catholics choose life and love."

Sadly, the Worcester Diocese has not always opted for a culture of life and love.  Back in March, I examined an article published in the dissent-friendly diocesan newspaper and written by Father John Catoir, a cleric who also has difficulty telling the truth.  This article was entitled "Birth Control Revisited."  And it was Father Catoir's assertion, while promoting a subjectivist conscience, that the Church's teaching regarding artificial contraception is "beyond the strength" of many Catholics. 

So much for the Worcester Diocese choosing a culture of life and love.

In a talk entitled "Legalism, Moral Truth and Pastoral Practice" given at a 1990 symposium in Philadelphia, Dr. Germain Grisez explained to those present that, "Theologians and pastors who dissent from received Catholic teaching think they are rejecting legalism because they set aside what they think are mere rules in favor of what they feel are more reasonable standards. Their views are thoroughly imbued with legalism, however. For dissenters think of valid moral norms as rules formulated to protect relevant values. Some even make their legalism explicit by denying that there is any necessary connection between moral goodness (which they restrict to the transcendental level of a love with no specific content) and right action (which they isolate at the categorical level of inner-worldly behavior). But whether their legalism is explicit or not, all the dissenters hold that specific moral norms admit exceptions whenever, all things considered, making an exception seems the best - or least bad - thing to do. Most dissenters also think that specific moral norms that were valid in times past can be inappropriate today, and so they regard the Church’s contested moral teachings as outdated rules that the Church should change."


Dr. Grisez reminded his listeners at the Philadelphia symposium, "During the twentieth century, pastoral treatment of repetitious sins through weakness - especially masturbation, homosexual behavior, premarital sex play and contraception within marriage - grew increasingly mild. Pastors correctly recognized that weakness and immaturity can lessen such sins’ malice. Thinking legalistically, they did not pay enough attention to the sins’ inherent badness and harmfulness, and they developed the idea that people can freely choose to do something that they regard as a grave matter without committing a mortal sin. This idea presupposes that in making choices people are not responsible precisely for choosing what they choose. That presupposition makes sense within a legalistic framework, because lawgivers can take into account mitigating factors and limit legal culpability. But it makes no sense for morality correctly understood, because moral responsibility in itself is not something attached to moral acts but simply is moral agents’ self-determination in making free choices.

Repetitious sinners through weakness also were handicapped by their own legalism. Not seeing the inherent badness of their sins, they felt that they were only violating inscrutable rules. When temptation grew strong, they had little motive to resist, especially because they could easily go to confession and have the violation fixed. Beginning on Saturday they were holy; by Friday they were again sinners. This cyclic sanctity robbed many people’s lives of Christian dynamism and contributed to the dry rot in the Church that became manifest in the 1960s, when the waves of sexual permissiveness battered her."


Dr. Grisez went on to explain that, "Pastors free of legalism will teach the faithful how sin makes moral requirements seem to be alien impositions, help them see through this illusion, and encourage them to look forward to and experience the freedom of God’s children, who rejoice in the fruit of the Spirit and no longer experience the constraint of law..They will explain that while one sometimes must choose contrary to positive laws and cannot always meet their requirements, one always can choose in truth and abide in love. They will acknowledge the paradox of freedom - that we seem unable to resist freely choosing to sin - the paradox that Saint Paul neatly formulates: ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’ (Romans 7:15). But they also will proclaim the liberating power of grace, and help the faithful learn by experience that when one comes to understand the inherent evil of sin and intrinsic beauty of goodness, enjoys the support of a community of faith whose members bear one another’s burdens, begs God for His help, and confidently expects it, then the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead raises him from his sins, and he discovers that with the Spirit’s grace one can consistently resist sin and choose life."

We would have more vocations to the priesthood in the Worcester Diocese if young men witnessed fidelity to the magisterial teaching of the Church from pastors [not to mention the diocesan newspaper] and if orthodox candidates were not excluded because of their commitment to the Church's authentic teaching, especially in the area of sexual morality.

I should know.  I'm one of the excluded.

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The Rosary of Our Lady's Tears...

The Rosary of Our Lady's Tears is a beautiful chaplet.  Its' origin and efficacy are explained here.


How the Rosary is said:



The chaplet is prayed with regular Rosary beads.  If you do not have the special chaplet beads, you pray seven decades.

Instead of the Creed pray:

Crucified Jesus! We fall at Your feet and offer You the tears of her who with deep compassionate love accompanied You on Your sorrowful Way of the Cross. Grant, O Good Master, that we take to heart the lessons which the tears of Your most holy Mother teach us, so that we may fulfill Your holy will on earth, that we may be worthy to praise and exalt You in Heaven for all eternity.


Instead of the Our Father pray:

V. O Jesus, look upon the tears of her who loved You most on earth

R. And loves You most ardently in Heaven.


Instead of the Hail Mary pray:


V. O Jesus, hear our prayers

R. For the sake of Your most holy Mother's tears.


At the end repeat three times on the small beads the invocations that replace the Our Father.

Conclude with this prayer:

O Mary, Mother of love, sorrow and mercy, we beg you to unite your prayers with ours so that Jesus, your Divine Son, to Whom we turn may hear our petitions in the name of your maternal tears and may give us in addition to the favors we ask, the crown of everlasting life. Amen.

For more on Our Lady's Tears see here.

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St. John Bosco in prophecy warned the Holy Father: "The enemy will sow discord among your consultors.."

There can be no doubt about it.  The Holy Father has been under siege.  This was not only foretold by little Jacinta of Fatima, but by Don Bosco, who prophesied that the time would come when the Devil would sow discord among those closest to the Holy Father and what the Holy Father must do:

"Now Heaven's voice is addressed to the Shepherd of shepherds. You are now in conference with your advisors. The enemy of the good does not stand idle one moment. He studies and practices all his arts against you. He will sow discord among your consultors; he will raise up enemies amongst my children. The powers of the world will belch forth fire, and they would that the words be suffocated in the throats of the custodians of my law. That will not happen, they will do no harm but to themselves. You must hurry. If you cannot untie the knots, cut them. If you find yourself hard pressed, do not give up but continue until the head of the hydra of error is cut off. This stroke will make the world and Hell beneath it tremble, but the world will be safe and all the good will rejoice. Keep your consultors always with you, even if only two. Wherever you go, continue and bring to an end the work entrusted to you. The days fly by, your years will reach the destined number; but the great Queen will ever be your help, as in times past, so in the future She will always be the exceeding great fortress of the Church. [Here St. Bosco refers to the Immaculata].


He continues:

"Ah, but you, Italy, land of blessings! Who has steeped you in desolation! Blame not your enemies, but rather your friends. Can you not hear your children asking for the bread of faith and finding only those who smash it to pieces? What shall I do? I shall strike the shepherds, I shall disperse the flock, until those sitting on the throne of Moses search for good pastures and the flock listens attentively and is fed.

Of the flock and over the shepherds My hand will weigh heavy. Famine, pestilence, and war will be such that mothers will have to cry on account of the blood of their sons and of their martyrs dead in a hostile country.

And to you, Rome, what will happen! Ungrateful Rome, effeminate Rome, proud Rome! You have reached such a height that you search no further. You admire nothing else in your Sovereign except luxury, forgetting that you and your glory stands upon Golgotha. Now he is old, defenseless, and despoiled; and yet at his word, the word of one who was in bondage, the whole world trembles.

Rome! To you I will come four times.

The first time, I shall strike your lands and the inhabitants thereof.

The second time, I shall bring the massacre and the slaughter even to your very walls. And will you not yet open your eyes?

I shall come a third time and I shall beat down to the ground your defenses and the defenders, and at the command of the Father, the reign of terror, of dreadful fear, and of desolation shall enter into your city.

But My wise men have now fled and My law is even now trampled underfoot. Therefore I will make a fourth visit. Woe to you if My law shall still be considered as empty words. There will be deceit and falsehood among both the learned and the ignorant. Your blood and that of your children will wash away your stains upon God's law. War, pestilence and famine are the rods to scourge men's pride and wickedness. O wealthy men, where is your glory now, your estates, your palaces? They are the rubble on the highways and byways.

And your priests, why have you not run to 'cry between the vestibule and the Altar,' begging God to end these scourges? Why have you not, with the shield of faith, gone upon the housetops, into the homes, along the highways and byways, into every accessible corner to carry the seed of My word? Know you that this is the terrible two-edged sword that cuts down My enemies and breaks the Anger of God and of men?"

In our own time, the germ ideas of a one-world religion are already being sowed. And this false humanitarian religion will burst into poisonous flower when enough hearts have grown cold and have abandoned the true religion. As Jane Le Royer explained in prophecy: "When the time of the Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which will be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known."

Can you not see the emerging signs? How do we find the Church today? The Mystical Body of the Crucified One - the Holy Catholic Church - is climbing Calvary, carrying a heavy cross. She is experiencing the hour of abandonment and betrayal. Her body is being tormented by the scourges of sin which strike at it and by numerous sacrileges which open up deep wounds in it. A Catholic priest in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts openly calls her "evil" just as the Pharisees suggested Our Lord was evil and demon possessed (Matthew 11:18; 12: 24). And his parishioners applaud.

Indeed, Our Lady told Father Gobbi,"The hour of Calvary has arrived for the Church, called to offer herself in holocaust and to be immolated on the cross of her bloody martyrdom. The hour of Calvary has arrived for this poor humanity, which is already beginning to live the painful hours of its chastisement..' (Rome, May 1, 1994).

But too many are proud. Their eyes blinded by sin and egoism. Like the Pharisees before them, they are incapable of reading the signs of the times because their spiritual eyes are closed. They cannot hear the Spirit because their ears are closed. They cannot feel the promptings of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus because their hearts are closed. Such people cannot endure sound teaching but have itching ears and will continue to accumulate teachers who suit their own likings, teachers who will cater to their lusts by providing them with myths (2 Timothy 4: 3, 4).

And still so many of our shepherds remain silent like mute dogs. They have not begged God to end these scourges. They have not wept between the vestibule and the altar. They have not taken up the shield of faith to protect their flocks. Their judgment will be all the more severe, for God expects more from His ministers (Luke 12: 48).

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St. Padre Pio: "prayer is the best weapon we have, a key that opens the heart of God"

Today is St. Padre Pio's birthday.  It is mine as well.  The following is a translation of the homily which Pope John Paul II delivered during the canonization ceremony of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968):



"For my yoke is easy, and my burden light" (Matthew 11:30).

"Jesus´ words to his disciples, which we have just heard, help us to understand the most important message of this solemn celebration. Indeed, in a certain sense, we can consider them as a magnificent summary of the whole life of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, today proclaimed a saint.

The evangelical image of the 'yoke' recalls the many trials that the humble Capuchin of San Giovanni Rotondo had to face. Today we contemplate in him how gentle the 'yoke' of Christ is, and how truly light is his burden when it is borne with faithful love. The life and mission of Padre Pio prove that difficulties and sorrows, if accepted out of love, are transformed into a privileged way of holiness, which opens to prospects of a greater good, known only to the Lord.

"But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14).

Is it not, precisely, the 'glory of the Cross' that shines above all in Padre Pio? How timely is the spirituality of the Cross lived by the humble Capuchin of Pietrelcina! Our times have need of rediscovering its value in order to open the heart to hope.

Throughout his life, he always sought greater conformity with the Crucified, being very conscious of having been called to collaborate in a special way in the work of redemption. His holiness cannot be understood without this constant reference to the Cross.

In God´s plan, the Cross constitutes the true instrument of salvation for the whole of humanity and the way explicitly proposed by the Lord to all those who wish to follow him (see Mark 16:24). The Holy Brother of Gargano understood this well who, on the feast of the Assumption in 1914, wrote: 'In order to succeed in reaching our ultimate end we must follow the divine Head, who does not wish to lead the chosen soul on any way other than the one he followed; by that, I say, of abnegation and the Cross' (Epistolario II, p. 155).

"I, the Lord, bring about kindness" (Jeremiah 9:23).

Padre Pio was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making himself available to all through hospitality, spiritual direction and especially the administration of the sacrament of penance. The ministry of the confessional, which is one of the distinctive traits of his apostolate, attracted numerous crowds of faithful to the monastery of San Giovanni Rotondo. Even when that singular confessor treated pilgrims with apparent severity, the latter, becoming conscious of the gravity of sin and sincerely repentant, almost always came back for the peaceful embrace of sacramental forgiveness.

May his example encourage priests to carry out this ministry with joy and assiduousness, so important today, as I wished to confirm in the Letter to Priests on the occasion of last Holy Thursday.


"Lord, you are my only good."

This is what we sang in the Responsorial Psalm. Through these words, the new saint invites us to place God above all, and to consider him our sole and highest good.

In fact, the ultimate reason for Padre Pio´s apostolic efficacy, the profound root of so much spiritual fruitfulness, is found in that intimate and constant union with God, of which his long hours spent in prayer were eloquent testimonies. He loved to repeat: 'I am a poor Brother who prays,' convinced that 'prayer is the best weapon we have, a key that opens the heart of God.' This fundamental characteristic of his spirituality continues in the Prayer Groups that he founded, which offer to the Church and society the wonderful contribution of incessant and confident prayer. To prayer, Padre Pio joined an intense charitable activity, of which the House for the Relief of Suffering is an extraordinary expression. Prayer and charity, this is the most concrete synthesis of Padre Pio´s teaching, which is proposed again today to everyone.

"I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike" (Matthew 11:25).

How appropriate these words of Jesus seem, when applied to you, humble and beloved, Padre Pio.

Teach us also, we pray, humility of heart, in order to be numbered among the little ones of the Gospel, to whom the Father has promised to reveal the mysteries of his Kingdom.

Help us to pray tirelessly, certain that God knows what we need, even before we ask him.

Obtain for us eyes of faith capable of recognizing immediately in the poor and suffering the very face of Jesus.

Sustain us in the hour of battle and trial and, if we fall, make us experience the joy of the sacrament of forgiveness.

Transmit to us your tender devotion to Mary, Mother of Jesus and our Mother.

Accompany us on our earthly pilgrimage toward the blessed homeland, which we also hope to reach, to contemplate forever the Glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!"


I know full well that I am not welcome in my own diocese.  I know that I am hated for defending the Church's authoritative teaching, especially in the area of human sexuality, as well as for opposing New Age occultism.  But it matters not.  Because I have a vocation which cannot be taken from me: a vocation to prayer which is, as Pio reminded us, the best weapon we have.

As one who is excluded from the life of the local Church, even as dissenters are welcomed with open arms, I know that the Lord Jesus does not exclude me.  And I continue to pray for a diocese which has lost its way.  I continue to pray for all the needs of the Church.  I continue to defend the teaching of the Magisterium.  If I am to be hated for doing so, then so be it.  John the Baptist was excluded from public life, his head severed from his body.  Stephen was stoned to death.  The Apostles were martyred.

They knew what it was like to be excluded from "polite society."  So too did St. Pio, falsely accused and censured for so very many years.  But in the end truth triumphs.  And those who give themselves to hatred will reap what they have sown.

Related video here.

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"Men imitate the gods whom they adore.."

President Obama has now publically stated his support for same-sex "marriage."  Nancy Pelosi has asserted that her Catholic Faith compels her to support sodomy.  A radical homosexual activist who serves as an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist in England proudly proclaims that a majority of Catholics now support same-sex "marriage."

I have been warning for years that just prior to the Man of Sin revealing himself to the world, there would be a tremendous push for societal acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex "marriage."  Back in 2009, I warned that: "President Obama wants all Americans to accept and embrace homosexuality....And this really shouldn't surprise us. Those who abandon Divine Revelation and the Natural Law will no longer seek God and His precepts and Commandments but will instead pursue their own lusts and fantasies. Such people will create and adore their own gods which are almost always a mythical projection of their own vices. They attribute a religious dimension to these vices to 'baptize' them, to justify them in their own darkened minds*.


It was Saint Cyprian of Carthage, writing against the Greco-Roman pagan world and its vices, who said: 'That Jupiter of theirs is not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed with earthly love in the midst of his own thunders...now breaking forth by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put the question: Can he who looks upon such things be healthy-minded or modest? Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become their religion.' (Letters 1:8).

In a series of letters written from 1969-1970, Sister Lucia [of the Fatima apparition] wrote: 'It is indeed sad that so many people let themselves be dominated by the diabolical wave that is sweeping the world, and that they are blinded to the point of being incapable of seeing error! Their principal fault is they have abandoned prayer; in this way they have become estranged from God, and without God everything fails. The devil is very cunning and looks for our weak points in order to attack us. If we are not diligent and careful to obtain strength from God, we shall fall, for our age is very wicked and we are weak. Only the strength of God can keep us on our feet.'

There is a retreat from truth. Those of us who refuse to abandon our Christian faith must be demonized. We must be placed in a ghetto. Isolated. Portrayed as 'backward' and 'archaic.' And eventually placed in internment camps or simply eliminated altogether should we refuse to accept the New Order."

* Have I been wrong so far?  President Obama has attempted to use the Scriptures to justify his decision.  Speaker Pelosi asserts that her Catholic Faith "compels" her to support sodomy.

Benjamin Wiker notes that, "Making [homosexuality] monogamous does not make it any better, any more than a man promising to have sex with only one child would make it any less a reprehensible act of pedophilia."  Why then the push for "gay marriage"?  Because, as Wiker explains, this desire makes sense to "a materialist still nagged by subliminal, vestigial Christian moral habits" or the Christian "who has sold nearly everything in his universe to the materialist."  Or, as I've put it so many times before here at La Salette Journey, the Christian who has lost his faith but who hasn't steeled himself or herself to admit of this. 

Wiker wisely asserts that, "The notion of sanctifying homosexual unions by demanding that they be monogamous will soon enough go the way of limiting abortions to the first trimester.  Furthermore, the push for pedophilia is now the 'extreme' which will push homosexuality out of the spotlight of public debate and into full normality.  That pedophilia is even being debated, rather than simply rejected as unimaginably vile, means that it is likely the next item of sexual liberation due for normalization." ( Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D, Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists, p. 312).

During the Reign of Antichrist, which is almost upon us, every sin, every vile act will be celebrated with abandon.  And every Commandment of God, every principle of morality will not only be laughed to scorn but will be outlawed.

Pray and watch.

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Terence Weldon: False prophet pointing the way to animalism and barbarism...

Dr. Antonio Pardo has explained that in animals, "..the interaction of other instincts (particularly dominance) can result in behavior that appears to be homosexual. Such behavior cannot be equated with an animal homosexuality. All it means is that animal sexual behavior encompasses aspects beyond that of reproduction."

This scientific fact upsets radical homosexual activists who believe that homosexual behavior is observable in animals and that since homosexuality is in accordance with animal nature it must also be in accordance with human nature since man is also animal. This is their reasoning.

Radical homosexual activist and dissenter Terence Weldon, who serves as an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist as well as a member of the Soho Masses Pastoral Council, is one such individual.  At his website "Queering the Church," this angry dissident Catholic has referred to me as "deranged" for defending the Church's teaching that the homosexual inclination is "intrinsically disordered."

But there is another reason Weldon's premise fails.  And it is this: The strong desire animals, including the human animal, feel for sex gratification is nature's means of alluring them to breed. To seek the satisfaction while at the same time defrauding nature is what is meant by perversion. Other animals, having no free will and guided only by instinct, cannot abuse their faculties and there are no unnatural vices found among them. Man alone is able to act unnaturally, but is bound not to do so by the natural moral law.

Terence Weldon would reduce man to the purely animal, denying his free will while abolishing the natural moral law.  In their wonderful book entitled "Our Moral Life in Christ: A Basic Course on Moral Theology," Aurelio Fernandez and James Socias explain that, "Every man is a moral being, capable of doing good and evil, of being just or unjust, honorable or dishonorable.  Moral good and evil cannot be attributed to the animals, only physical good and evil.  Thus, for example, an animal is either healthy or sick, or an animal may be able to skillfully accomplish its proper end which is instinctively ingrained in its genes.  A horse is said to be good or bad in a horse race; a dog can have a better or worse nose for hunting; but neither the horse nor the dog can sin or practice virtue, nor can they be just or unjust.  In no way are they morally responsible...

Man, on the other hand, is morally responsible for his actions.  He acts with thought and deliberation.  The reason is that he alone has knowledge and a will.  Intelligence gives meaning to things and free will allows for the fulfillment or omission of actions the intellect has determined to be good or bad.

The human person, therefore, can lead an exemplary existence, striving for sanctity, or committing the most evil actions.  This reality is often evident, and was noted by Aristotle:

'For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends.  Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony.  But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.' (Aristotle, Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 2).

With these two options, the good that perfects and the evil that degrades, human existence is lived out.  Morality is the science that teaches man how to choose good and avoid evil and offers him the means, so that, besides living with the dignity proper to him, he may accomplish his end, eternal salvation." (Our Moral Life in Christ, pp. 51-52).

This is the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. 'God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.'" (CCC, 1730).

And again: "The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes.  There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just.  The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to the slavery of sin." (CCC, 1733).

But for Mr. Weldon, false prophet pointing the way to animalism and barbarism, God and His Commandments must be banished from society in preparation for the emerging satanic society which is based on defeatist ideology.  In his book Trousered Apes, professor Duncan Williams explains that, "The whole modern cult of violence and animalism is in essence an admission of defeat.  Since we cannot be men to any idealistic extent, let us lapse into barbaric animalism but, still clinging to vestiges of a past which we hate but cannot escape, let us clothe our defeat in high-sounding terms: 'Alienation,' 'cult of unpleasure,' 'realism,' and similar jargon.  Yet all this fashionable phraseology cannot conceal the fact that the Emperor has no clothes.."

Saint Bernardine of Siena explained just how animalistic homosexual acts are.  He said, "No sin in the world grips the soul as the accursed sodomy; this sin has always been detested by all those who live according to God...Deviant passion is close to madness; this vice disturbs the intellect, destroys elevation and generosity of soul, brings the mind down from great thoughts to the lowliest, makes the person slothful, irascible, obstinate and obdurate, servile and soft and incapable of anything; furthermore, agitated by an insatiable craving for pleasure, the person follows not reason but frenzy...They become blind and, when their thoughts should soar to high and great things, they are broken down and reduced to vile and useless and putrid things, which could never make them happy...Just as people participate in the glory of God in different degrees, so also in hell some suffer more than others.  He who lived with this vice of sodomy suffers more than another, for this is the greatest sin." (Sermon XXXIX in Prediche volgari, pp. 896-897, 915).

This is the sound doctrine men need to hear.  Instead, Archbishop Vincent Nichols continues to tolerate Terence Weldon's dissent from the Church's teaching and his promotion of an animalistic ideology which is rooted in defeatism and the demonic.

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Who has really gone "well over the line," Rick Santorum or Barack Obama?

Former White House Press Secretary and current campaign adviser Robert Gibbs is alleging that GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum went "well over the line" when he questioned Obama's Christian values.  Gibbs told ABC's "This Week" that it's time to get rid of this mindset in our politics that, if we disagree, we have to question character and faith."  See here.

If Robert Gibbs really believes that Rick Santorum went "well over the line" by merely questioning Obama's so-called "Christian virtues," he must then concede that Barack Obama obliterated that line when he said that Christians, Jews, Muslims and others who are opposed to homosexuality on moral grounds are clinging to "worn arguments and old attitudes." See here.

Where was Mr. Gibbs when Barack Obama said, "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them.."  If we are not supposed to question character or faith, why was Mr. Obama questioning the character and faith of average Americans who live in "a lot of small towns in the Midwest"?

I've noted before at this Blog that Barack Obama imposes a standard on others which he refuses to live up to himself.  See here.  And it would seem that Robert Gibbs would also hold others to a higher standard than he expects from his boss.  Mr. Gibbs should reflect very carefully on what the philosopher Plato had to say in Book I of his Laws (635a): "We invite you to criticize our institutions without reserve. One is not insulted by being informed of something amiss, but rather gets an opportunity for amendment, if the information is taken in good part, without resentment."

In the meantime, I would like an explanation as to how Barack Obama may be considered a Christian when he has rejected the teaching of Sacred Scripture.  I would really like to hear Mr. Gibbs' explain that one.  I just love creative fiction.

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The slow whining death of Johann Hari's credibility...and that of attorney/theologian Daniel Shea

Catholic News Service is reporting that, "A high-profile federal lawsuit accusing Pope Benedict XVI of covering up sexual abuse has been withdrawn.


Lawyers for the plaintiff in John Doe 16 v. Holy See filed a notice of voluntary dismissal Feb. 10, bringing the case effectively to an end.

The lawsuit was filed in April 2010 in the U.S. District Court in Milwaukee by an unnamed Illinois man who claimed he had been molested by Father Lawrence Murphy during the latter's time on the staff of Milwaukee's St. John's School for the Deaf.

The lawsuit claimed that the Vatican "has known about the widespread problem of childhood sexual abuse committed by its clergy for centuries, but has covered up that abuse and thereby perpetuated the abuse."

The lawsuit also sought to prove that the Vatican is a global business empire, engaging in "commercial activity" in Wisconsin and across the United States, and holding "unqualified power" over each diocese, parish and follower.

Jeffrey S. Lena, an American attorney for the Holy See, welcomed the withdrawal of "fallacious allegations of Holy See responsibility and liability for John Doe 16's abuse."

"A case like this one against the Holy See, which was held together by no more than a mendacious web of allegations of international conspiracy, amounted to a misuse of judicial process and a waste of judicial resources," Lena said in a statement..." (Full article here).

A couple of years ago I challenged homosexual journalist and mental midget Johann Hari to back up his assertion that, "There is now overwhelming evidence that Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope, was involved for over twenty years in an international criminal conspiracy to cover up the rape of children by priests in his Church." See here for full article.

Mr. Hari never did provide us with his "overwhelming evidence."  Back in 2005, I challenged attorney Daniel Shea when he said essentially the same thing. Mr. Shea asserted that "Ratzinger and company" were engaged in an "international conspiracy to obstruct justice." And after seven years, attorney Shea, who has been described by one publication as a theologian, still hasn't produced the slightest shred of evidence to corroborate his reckless and irresponsible claims.  I still have an email written by this "theologian" falsely asserting that the Vatican's website doesn't even carry the documents of the Second Vatican Council.  Actually it does.  And when I replied to his email and told him where to find them he never responded.  It took me all of 30 seconds to look them up.

Facts are inconvenient to some.  Especially anti-Catholic conspiracy theorists.  But don't expect an apology from Johann Hari or attorney/theologian Daniel Shea.  One thing is certain.  We are witnessing the slow, whining death of their credibility.

Related reading here.

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Catholic Free Press columnist Stacy Trasancos: Faithful to the Magisterium?

In a previous post, I noted how Catholic Free Press columnist Stacy Trasancos implied in a Blog post that the faithful can challenge the Church's Magisterial teaching.  Mrs. Trasancos became very angry and left a comment here in which she said, "My attitude toward the Magisterial teaching of the Church is one of complete assent."  I was prepared to take her at her word even though her post seemed to imply that the faithful can indeed challenge the Magisterium.

Now I really have my doubts about Stacy Trasancos' fidelity to the Church's teaching.  In a Blog post on the subject of women's ordination, Mrs. Trasancos writes, "We know that by the end of the first century the Roman Catholic Church was established and there can be little doubt that the cultural influences of that time and place affected the doctrine [that only men are called to the ministerial priesthood].  We do also know that the Church has evolved over time and that part of theology's goal is to communicate faith to changing cultures.  For these reasons, maybe the question of women in the priesthood will remain unsettled.  There isn't any hard logic to support the idea that the concrete forms of the ecclesiastical offices cannot be changed....Whether women should or will someday be priests, isn't for this single writer to say." (See here).

The Church's doctrine was affected by cultural influences?  Really?  The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (Inter Insigniores), which was approved for publication by Pope Paul VI on October 15, 1976, refutes this asinine thesis: "Jesus Christ did not call any woman to become part of the Twelve. If he acted in this way, it was not in order to conform to the customs of his time, for his attitude towards women was quite different from that of his milieu, and he deliberately and courageously broke with it.


For example, to the great astonishment of his own disciples, Jesus converses publicly with the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:27); he takes no notice of the state of legal impurity of the woman who had suffered from hemorrhages (cf. Mt 9:20-22), he allows a sinful woman to approach him in the house of Simon the Pharisee (cf. Lk 7:37 ff); and by pardoning the woman taken in adultery, he means to show that one must not be more severe towards the fault of a woman than that of a man (cf. Jn 8:11). He does not hesitate to depart from the Mosaic Law in order to affirm the equality of the rights and duties of men and women with regard to the marriage bond (cf. Mk 10:2-11; Mt 19:3-9).

In his itinerant ministry Jesus was accompanied not only by the Twelve but also by a group of women: "Mary, surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna and several others who provided for them out of their own resources" (Lk 8:2-3). Contrary to the Jewish mentality, which did not accord great value to the testimony of women, as Jewish law attests, it was nevertheless women who were the first to have the privilege of seeing the Risen Lord and it was they who were charged by Jesus to take the first paschal message to the Apostles themselves (cf. Mt 28:7-10; Lk 24:9-10; Jn 20:11-18), in order to prepare the latter to become the official witnesses to the Resurrection.

It is true that these facts do not make the matter immediately obvious. This is no surprise, for the questions that the Word of God brings before us go beyond the obvious. In order to reach the ultimate meaning of the mission of Jesus and the ultimate meaning of Scripture, a purely historical exegesis of the texts cannot suffice. But it must be recognized that we have here a number or convergent indications that make all the more remarkable the fact that Jesus did not entrust the apostolic charge to women. Even his Mother, who was so closely associated with the mystery of her Son, and whose incomparable role is emphasized by the Gospels of Luke and John, was not invested with the apostolic ministry. This fact was to lead the Fathers to present her as the example or Christ's will in this domain; as Pope Innocent III repeated later, at the beginning of the 13th century, "Although the Blessed Virgin Mary surpassed in dignity and in excellence all the Apostles, nevertheless it was not to her but to them that the Lord entrusted the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven."

III - THE PRACTICE OF THE APOSTLES

The apostolic community remained faithful to the attitude of Jesus towards women. Although Mary occupied a privileged place in the little circle of those gathered in the Upper Room after the Lord's Ascension (cf. Acts 1:14), it was not she who was called to enter the College of the Twelve at the time of the election that resulted in the choice of Matthias: those who were put forward were two disciples whom the Gospels do not even mention.

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled them all, men and women (cf. Acts 2:1; 1-14), yet the proclamation of the fulfillment of the prophecies in Jesus was made only by "Peter and the Eleven" (Acts 2:14).

When they and Paul went beyond the confines of the Jewish world, the preaching of the Gospel and the Christian life in the Greco-Roman civilization impelled them to break with Mosaic practices, sometimes regretfully. They could therefore have envisaged conferring ordination on women, if they had not been convinced that their duty of fidelity to the Lord on this point. In the Hellenistic world, the cult of a number of pagan divinities was entrusted to priestesses. In fact, the Greeks did not share the ideas of the Jews: although their philosophers taught the inferiority of women, historians nevertheless emphasize the existence of a certain movement for the advancement of women during the Imperial period. In fact, we know from the book of the Acts and from the Letters of Saint Paul that certain women worked with the Apostles for the Gospel (cf. Rom 16:3-12; Phil 4:3). Saint Paul lists their names with gratitude in the final salutations of the Letters. Some of them often exercised an important influence on conversions: Priscilla, Lydia and others; especially Priscilla, who took it on herself to complete the instruction of Apollos (cf. Acts 18:26); Phoebe, in the service of the Church of Cenchreae (cf. Rom 16:1). All these facts manifest within the apostolic Church a considerable evolution vis-a-vis the customs of Judaism. Nevertheless, at no time was there a question of conferring ordination on these women.

In the Pauline Letters, exegetes of authority have noted a difference between two formulas used by the Apostle: he writes indiscriminately "my fellow workers" (Rom 16:3; Phil 4:2-3) when referring to men and women helping him in his apostolate in one way or another; but he reserves the title "God's fellow workers" (1 Cor 3:9; cf. 1 Thes 3:1) to Apollos, Timothy and himself, thus designated because they are directly set apart for the apostolic ministry and the preaching of the Word of God. In spite of the so important role played by women on the day of the Resurrection, their collaboration was not extended by Saint Paul to the official and public proclamation of the message, since this proclamation belongs exclusively to the apostolic mission."

The Church is viewed by the egalitarians as archaic because it will not go against the Lord Jesus and ordain women to the ministerial priesthood. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was Pope Pius XII who recalled that, "The Church has no power over the substance of the sacraments, that is to say, over what Christ the Lord, as the sources of Revelation bear witness, determined should be maintained in the sacramental sign." (Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis).


This is the teaching of the Council of Trent: "In the Church there has always existed this power, that in the administration of the sacraments, provided that their substance remains unaltered, she can lay down or modify what she considers more fitting either for the benefit of those who receive them or for respect towards those same sacraments, according to varying circumstances, times or places." (Council of Trent, Session 21, chap. 2: Denziger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum 1728).

The practice of not ordaining women to the ministerial priesthood has a normative character. This norm is based upon the example of the Lord Jesus and has an unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church. Which is why Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, nos. 2-4, wrote: "In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: 'In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time.'


In fact the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan; Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood, the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing the twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rv 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13-16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers who would succeed them in their ministry. Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.

Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.

The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, 'the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church.'

The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as in total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. 'By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honor and gratitude for those women who-faithful to the Gospel-have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins and mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel.'

Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration Inter Insigniores recalls: 'the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints.'

Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

Got that?  The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and this judgment is to be definitively held by all of the Church's faithful.  But Stacy Trasancos believes otherwise.  She insists that "maybe the question of women in the ministerial priesthood will remain unsettled."  Mrs. Trasancos believes she knows better than Christ's Vicar and treats women's ordination as something which might still be possible.  For her, there is no "hard logic" to support the idea that women cannot be ordained.

Not even the Holy Father's definitive judgment, made in virtue of his supreme teaching ministry is enough for her.

This is fidelity to the Magisterium?  God preserve us from such nonsense.  Small wonder the Catholic Free Press gave her a weekly column.  Small wonder my views are censored.  I fully adhere to, defend and propagate the teaching of the Magisterium. 

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Pope Benedict XVI: "...the first step towards salvation.."

A few days ago, before giving the traditional Christmas blessing to the City of Rome and the world ("urbi et orbi"), Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the Child of Bethlehem as Savior.  His Holiness said (in part): "He was sent by God the Father to save us above all from the evil deeply rooted in man and in history: the evil of separation from God, the prideful presumption of being self-sufficient, of trying to compete with God and to take his place, to decide what is good and evil, to be the master of life and death.."


The Holy Father said that human beings cannot save themselves from this sin, "unless we rely on God's help, unless we cry out to him: 'Veni ad salvandum nos! -- Come to save us!'"

He affirmed, though, that "the very fact that we cry to heaven in this way already sets us aright; it makes us true to ourselves: We are in fact those who cried out to God and were saved."

The Bishop of Rome spoke of God as the physician, while we are the infirm. And to realize this, he said, "is the first step towards salvation, towards emerging from the maze in which we have been locked by our pride. To lift our eyes to heaven, to stretch out our hands and call for help is our means of escape, provided that there is Someone who hears us and can come to our assistance."

"Jesus Christ is the proof that God has heard our cry," the Pope declared. "And not only this! God's love for us is so strong that he cannot remain aloof; he comes out of himself to enter into our midst and to share fully in our human condition. The answer to our cry which God gave in Jesus infinitely transcends our expectations, achieving a solidarity which cannot be human alone, but divine. Only the God who is love, and the love which is God, could choose to save us in this way, which is certainly the lengthiest way, yet the way which respects the truth about him and about us: the way of reconciliation, dialogue and cooperation." (See here).

There is a famous hymn written by Martin Luther which begins, "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.." For all too many people today (including sadly, many Catholics) the conscience has become a "mighty fortress" built so as to shelter one from the exacting demands of truth. In the words of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "In the Psalms we meet from time to time the prayer that God should free man from his hidden sins. The Psalmist sees as his greatest danger the fact that he no longer recognizes them as sins and thus falls into them in apparently good conscience. Not being able to have a guilty conscience is a sickness...And thus one cannot aprove the maxim that everyone may always do what his conscience allows him to do: In that case the person without a conscience would be permitted to do anything. In truth it is his fault that his conscience is so broken that he no longer sees what he as a man should see. In other words, included in the concept of conscience is an obligation, namely, the obligation to care for it, to form it and educate it. Conscience has a right to respect and obedience in the measure in which the person himself respects it and gives it the care which its dignity deserves. The right of conscience is the obligation of the formation of conscience. Just as we try to develop our use of language and we try to rule our use of rules, so must we also seek the true measure of conscience so that finally the inner word of conscience can arrive at its validity.


For us this means that the Church's magisterium bears the responsibility for correct formation. It makes an appeal, one can say, to the inner vibrations its word causes in the process of the maturing of conscience. It is thus an oversimplification to put a statement of the magisterium in opposition to conscience. In such a case I must ask myself much more. What is it in me that contradicts this word of the magisterium? Is it perhaps only my comfort? My obstinacy? Or is it an estrangement through some way of life that allows me something which the magisterium forbids and that appears to me to be better motivated or more suitable simply because society considers it reasonable? It is only in the context of this kind of struggle that the conscience can be trained, and the magisterium has the right to expect that the conscience will be open to it in a manner befitting the seriousness of the matter. If I believe that the Church has its origins in the Lord, then the teaching office in the Church has a right to expect that it, as it authentically develops, will be accepted as a priority factor in the formation of conscience." (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Keynote Address of the Fourth Bishops' Workshop of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, on "Moral Theology Today: Certitudes and Doubts," February 1984).

In the same address, Cardinal Ratzinger explains that, "Conscience is understood by many as a sort of deification of subjectivity, a rock of bronze on which even the magisterium is shattered....Conscience appears finally as subjectivity raised to the ultimate standard."

A broken conscience, an ill-formed conscience, becomes a mighty fortress which shuts the truth out. Have we built an interior castle, as did St. Teresa of Avila, which remains open to the demands of truth and the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Or has our conscience become a mighty fortress built to prevent our encounter with truth?

Related reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 1783-1785.

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The Coming Persecution...

Cardinal Raymond Burke told the Catholic News Agency that he can envision a time when the Catholic Church in the United States "even by announcing her own teaching" will be accused of "engagin in illegal activity, for instance, in its teaching on human sexuality."  When asked if he could even see American Catholics being arrested for their faith he replied, "I can see it happening, yes."  See here.  This is news?

Back in June of 2005 I posted the following here at La Salette Journey:


"Those who are promoting the homosexual agenda are using time-proven tactics which have been employed by secular humanists for some time now. In the words of Ralph Martin, 'First, a plea is issued for a dominantly Christian society to 'tolerate' what appears to be a deviant behavior. Then pressure is applied to place the deviant behavior on an equal footing with traditional Christian values. Secular humanists argue that a pluralist society cannot do otherwise. They then try to make the deviant behavior seem normal and behavior governed by Christian values seem abnormal - a threat to a pluralist society. The last step is often to use the legal system to protect immorality and to undermine what Christians have always considered righteous behavior.' (A Crisis of Truth, pp. 101-102).

Professor James Hitchcock, in his excellent work entitled 'Catholicism and Modernity' (New York:Seabury Press, 1979, p. 86), explains the role of the media in this entire process: 'The media's alleged commitment to 'pluralism' is at base a kind of hoax. The banner of pluralism is raised in order to win toleration for new ideas as yet unacceptable to the majority. Once toleration has been achieved, public opinion is systematically manipulated first to enforce a status of equality between the old and the new, then to assert the superiority of the new over the old. A final stage is often the total discrediting, even sometimes the banning, of what had previously been orthodox.'

Dr. Jeff Mirus gets it. He writes, "The writing is on the wall. Gay marriage is the lie that will create the next Gulag. Indeed, gay marriage is the perfect totalitarian wedge, not least in a country like the United States, which has been capable of believing itself uniquely dedicated to liberty even in the midst of slavery and abortion. We Americans, it seems, will be quite willing to sing the praises of our liberty no matter how many of us lose it. It is our national myth, something we worship. But the cause of gay marriage fits the myth better than most issues because it really does seem that those who oppose it are denying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to others. This denial can be accepted for the unborn, in the name of the liberty of their mothers, as it once was accepted for African Americans, who shared judicial non-personhood with the unborn. But gays are well-educated, wealthy and—above all—a logically favored projection of our moral culture. To inhibit their happiness, for any reason, seems just plain wrong.


Why should this be? First, it is necessary to note that the word “gay” refers not to those with homosexual inclinations but to those who champion behavior based on these inclinations as good. In fact, homosexuals who are not gay are a sign of contradiction to the gay world. They are scorned accordingly, in ways that even straights are not. The key to understanding the whole matter is that to be gay or to support the gay lifestyle is to approve and promote sterile sex.

The Western world in general has been hard at work promoting sterile sex for nearly a century now. We began by sanctioning the break-up of families through ever-easier divorce. Divorce is a kind of pretense that the marital covenant is ultimately sterile, in the sense that children do not matter. Next we embraced contraception so that our sexual pleasures could not be diminished through responsibility. Promiscuity inevitably followed, and with it abortion, which is simply fruitfulness in denial. We’ve covered our eyes and stopped our ears. “Nyah, nyah, nyah, I can’t SEE you! I can’t HEAR you!”

A culture like this, a culture which embraces these values, has no argument against homosexual sex, no case against homosexual marriage. A huge percentage of our marriages are deliberately and totally sterile; most of the rest are deliberately sterile much of the time. Huge numbers of marriages, by deliberate design, result neither in children to preserve the race nor in future citizens to enhance and develop the social order. There is no conceivable public interest in such unions, and no significant personal interest in them either, apart from the fuel they temporarily provide for the couple’s doomed egoism à deux.

Far from having a natural revulsion against homosexual intimacy, modern Western culture can hardly help seeing it as the jewel which crowns and protects its own warped vision of sex. We recognize and defend a right of men and women to engage in sexual intimacy without fruit. It follows that rank prejudice must be the only reason anyone could possibly oppose the same freedom between men and men or women and women.

No group is more hateful to modern society than the perceived moralistic prigs who, out of what most perceive as religiously-motivated prejudice, seek to diminish the personal sexual liberty of others. Nothing could be more obvious in our current culture than that such people must be silenced and, if necessary, restrained. Moreover, it seems only right and just that their denunciation of the gay lifestyle and their opposition to gay marriage should be criminalized. In fact, it should be criminalized in the name of liberty. That is why gay marriage is the lie that will create the next Gulag.

The insistence on ignoring vice is the hallmark of a debased culture, but the insistence that a lie be publicly affirmed as true is the hallmark of ideological totalitarianism."

Archbishop Dolan gets it now. Shocked over recent editorials demanding the restriction of religious freedom and calls to coerce religious believers to accept same-sex "marriage," the Archbishop wrote, "We do worry indeed about this freedom of religion. Editorials already call for the removal of guarantees of religious liberty, with crusaders calling for people of faith to be coerced to acceptance of this redefinition. If the experience of those few other states and countries where this is already law is any indication, the churches, and believers, will soon be harassed, threatened, and hauled into court for their conviction that marriage is between one man, one woman, forever, bringing children into the world …"

I have been warning that this was coming since the early 1990s. I have been laughed at and ridiculed for revealing the totalitarian nature of the radical homosexual movement.

Why are so many Catholics surprised that persecution is now raising its ugly head against them?  Because they have been asleep.  Didn't Pope John Paul II already warn us in Centesimus Annus that, "Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person. It requires that the necessary conditions be present for the advancement both of the individual through education and formation in true ideals, and of the 'subjectivity' of society through the creation of structures of participation and shared responsibility. Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and sceptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism."

As Catholics, we need to stand up courageously for our faith.  No matter the cost.  Now more than ever as we have entered a time of unprecedented darkness.  Father Pascal Huchede explains the religious preparation, both intellectual and moral, for the time of Antichrist:


"But how shall he deprive the world of Christianity and have himself adored as God? Alas, it is only too true that the minds and hearts of men are admirably disposed for revolution and consequently ready to accept and bear the cruel yoke of such a tyrant.

Revolution as the word itself implies means a subversion, but a subversion of all that is true, good, beautiful, and grand in the universe. It is the subversion of religion, representing its dogmas as myths and its moral teachings as tyranical. It is the subversion of authority. Licentiousness under the name of liberty becomes the order of the day; each one is invested with the right to govern himself.

It is the subversion of reason: and do we not find leading minds in some of the most enlightened nations denying the principle of contradiction and maintaining the absolute identity of all beings?

Revolution is therefore essentially destructive, and it becomes cosmopolitan by the action of secret societies scattered throughout the world. Is it not true to say that the 'mystery of iniquity' is prepared in secret revolutionary dens?

But it does not suffice to destroy; it is absolutely necessary to build up again. The world cannot subsist long in a vacuum. It must have a religion; it must have a philosophy; it must have an authority. Revolution will furnish all these.

Instead of the reasonable and supernatural religion of Jesus Christ, Revolution will preach Pantheism. The God-humanity will impart the theurgic spirit and thus lead men to adore the demon as the author of universal emancipation...

What frightful immorality must follow in the train of this shameless prostitution of religion! Never has the threefold concupiscence made greater ravage among mankind. And this is the religion sought and hoped for as the cherished boon of the aspirations of our modern free thinkers.

To our Christian philosophy, the honor of humanity's revolution will substitute a babel of extravagant and absurd ideas. Instead of a mild and efficient authority consecrated alike by Church and state, despotism and anarchy will rise up and contend for the shreds of religious liberty and human policy...if the state of perversion continue for a while longer, he [Antichrist] will find the world prepared to receive and serve him." (Rev. P. Huchede, History of Antichrist, pp. 13-14, Tan Books).

Is there any Catholic [who is sane and awake] who cannot see that such preparation is well underway?

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What the Penn State scandal shows....

In a post published back in April of 2010, and which may be found here, I asked the question, "When will the media acknowledge the fact that the sexual abuse of children is not a 'Catholic problem'?"  This post highlighted the fact that the sexual abuse of children is a far greater problem outside the Church than within it and that children are in fact much safer with a Catholic priest than with males in the general population where the rate of sexual abuse is much higher.  Statistics do not lie.

Many in the media who have largely ignored this fact are deeply shocked over the Penn State scandal.  But why is this so?  Why are so many Americans outraged over what happened at Penn State when they have been (for the most part) uninterested in the sexual abuse which has occured in the public schools?  As I said in my post last year: In her report prepared for the U.S. Department of Education entitled "Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature," Charol Shakeshaft explains that, "This analysis indicates that 9.6 percent of all students in grades 8 to 11 report contact and/or noncontact educator sexual misconduct that was unwanted." (p. 25). And then Ms. Shakeshaft puts this percentage in a proper perspective: "To get a sense of the extent of the number of students who have been targets of educator sexual misconduct, I applied the percent of students who report experiencing educator sexual misconduct to the population of all K-12 students. Based on the assumption that the AAUW surveys accurately represent the experiences of all K-12 students, more than 4.5 million students are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. Possible limitations of the study would all suggest that the findings reported here under-estimate educator sexual misconduct in schools." (p. 26).

Full Shakeshaft report may be found here.


I believe the answer is that, for many, sports has become a religion.  Dr. Leon Podles, in his book "The Church Impotent," explains that, "Because sports provide an initiation into masculinity, they can easily become a religion.  Sports are often the way the boy puts away the soft, sheltering world of the mother and her femininity and enters the world of challenge and danger that makes him a man...For modern men, team sports are more transforming than religion because they provide a greater escape from the self.  Paul Jones, a Dulwich boy who was killed in World War I, claimed that in the attempts to develop team spirit, 'Religion has failed, intellect has failed, art has failed, science has failed.  It is clear why: because each of these has laid emphasis on man's selfish side; the saving of his own soul, the cultivation of his own mind, the pleasing of his own senses.  But your sportsman joins the Colours because in his games he has felt the real spirit of unselfishness, and has become accustomed to give all for a body to whose service he is sworn.'  Sports on this view are a better school of charity than religion, for the ultimate test of charity is the willingness to die in war...Although most players and spectators would not seriously call sports a religion, it nevertheless functions as one for them.  It is 'a secular means for tapping transcendental sources and powers, or restoring some fleeting contact with the sacred, or testing whether the gods are on your side or not.'  Michael Novak regards sports as a natural religion.  Charles Prebish also thinks "sports is religion for growing numbers of Americans.'  Religion enables man to transcend the secular, ordinary world; sports are the way that many men attain this transcendence, whether directly as an athlete or vicariously as a spectator.." (The Church Impotent, pp. 168-169).

Many men no longer go to Church because they regard any involvement in religion to be unmasculine and even effeminate.  And normal, healthy men want to be masculine.  Many of these have embraced sports as a substitute religion.  The Penn State scandal is, therefore, all the more shocking to those who have distanced themselves from churches which have been dominated from feminism and homosexual propaganda and which have been largely effeminized.  The idea of a football coach showering with boys and performing oral sex on them cannot be reconciled with the masculine ideals which are an intrinsic part of sports.

Dr. Podles notes in his book that, "Christianity revealed that the masculine identity was open to all: in Christ there was no longer male or female all could become sons of the Father by the grace of adoption.  In the first millennium the masculine character of Christianity was clear.  The church of the martyrs gave way to the church of the monks, but it remained clear that to be Christian involved a profound and heroic struggle, which was perhaps more natural to men, but which was also opened up to women.  Men have a natural understanding of the process of and the need for conversion.  They know from their childhood experiences and their inculcation in the ideology of masculinity the importance of dying to the old self and being reborn as a new self....Conversion can lead men into the Church, but the Church they enter must also have a spirituality that allows them to be both men and Christians - they cannot be real Christians unless they become real men.."

The Christian churches must offer men a spirituality which allows them to be men.  Until they do, many men will continue to pursue masculine ideals elsewhere.  But what the Penn State scandal has shown us is that even the "religion" of sports - the natural "religion" which so many men hold dear - is not immune to the problems which have surfaced within certain segments of the Church.

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The choice is ours: The way of penance or the way of selfishness...

In an excellent article on the way of penance in the life of Saint Francis, Father Vincenzo Cherubino Bigi, OFM explains that, "The way of penance is putting God as the center of all we value so that neither profit, nor personal success direct our lives in this world. What matters now is living in God's Presence, and allowing Christ center place in our lives. To be attentive to Christ as my Model and to try in some way to integrate Him in my life is the point of departure and the continual renewal of the true sense of penance: a continuous conversion which is profoundly internalized. It is not the mortification of the body but the conversion of one's spirit.


To live in the presence of Christ, to live in the presence of God is to assume in oneself the law of love which was expressed by Christ in His life. Beginning from this point, we will seek to discover the essential moments of the penitential life of Francis. The fundamental point already described is that of putting God at the center of our daily life, to refer to God in the continual horizon of our daily choices.


In our daily activities, we can find ourselves in a fortunate condition: we can do, good in our actions. The conversion of Francis is to be found right here: in referring the good we do back to God.

This is the interior poverty of man as against the boast of the Pharisee who attributes to himself the possibility of doing good, of saving himself by means of the observance of the law in his good works.

St. Francis always has this concern at the core: all the good that I perform by my actions is not mine, but is God's work. From here flows the centrality of God in my life. It is not my possessions, not my riches, my prosperity but everything good that I am able to do is a gift from God and so I refer it back to God in thanksgiving and in self- emptying.

The heart of one who does penance is a heart empty of self ... which recognizes that the journey of this world is a gift of God. All the good things one does in the course of daily living are not his riches, his possessions but rather come from the God Who is the Giver of every good gift and so must be referred to, and brought back to Him. Hence, the first characteristic of the penance of St. Francis is purity of spirit, of interiority, is a poverty of the heart.

Referring things back to God implies yet something else, it implies not seeking our reward in this world. "You have received your reward." Many times in life after doing something good we expect to receive the reward for this good act and, when we don't receive it, we complain to God: I chose the good and still I have this sickness, etc.. To be converted means not looking for a reward in this world. Here is the deep reality of the Spirit, namely that if I do good in order to receive a reward, it means that I wish to possess, I wish to enrich myself, I wish to have a lasting place in this world. Often St. Francis in his writings admonishes us on this very point. The gift of yourself must be free just as the gift of God is free. The reference back to God means not seeking in this world one's reward: this is what it means to be free.

When Christ multiplied the bread and when they would have made him king, He hid himself, because if He had agreed to be King then, it would have been this miracle which ruled men. Jesus would be manipulating them through persuading them by satisfying their physical needs. The reward of bread as a promise for meeting Christ would have taken away their liberty.

I am free when I am able to give, not when my conduct is influenced by selfishness. even when it is a spiritual selfishness, which always seeks to be rewarded and gratified. One who acts in this way is not yet converted.

Penance is above all this deep freedom from one's selfish demands in order to be perfectly free for God and our neighbor. It is a profound guiding concept which interiorizes the notion of changing one's mind. Generally our mind is concentrated on ourselves, our power, our benefits, our possessions, our success. We really become the center of our life. Conversion means to put God at the center and myself to the side." (See here).

Note the very important point Father Bigi makes here: "I am free when I am able to give, not when my conduct is influenced by selfishness."   Dissent from received Catholic teaching is the result of selfishness. As Pope Benedict XVI explained back in 2009: "Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world. Selfishness, both individual and collective, makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another. Awake, the Gospel tells us. Step outside, so as to enter the great communal truth, the communion of the one God. To awake, then, means to develop a receptivity for God: for the silent promptings with which he chooses to guide us; for the many indications of his presence..." (Christmas homily 2009).


It is in the Sacrament of Penance that frees us from selfishness.  That teaches us to develop a receptivity to God and to place Him at the center and ourselves to the side.  Because most within the Church have lost the spirit of penance, a spirit of aggression and self-assertion has taken its place.  A spirit of selfishness and pride.  It is this spirit of selfishness which is crippling the Church.  The spirit which demands women's ordination even though the Church has said that such is not possible.  The spirit which demands that the Church change her teaching and conform herself to the "modern world."

The way of penance is the way of peace.  Which is why there is so little peace today.  And so, on the anniversary of the La Salette apparition, let us pray:


Remember, dear Lady of La Salette, true Mother of Sorrows, the tears which thou didst shed for me on Calvary; be mindful also of the unceasing care which thou dost exercise to shield me from the justice of God; and consider whether thou canst now abandon thy child, for whom thou hast done so much. Inspired by this consoling thought, I come to cast myself at thy feet, in spite of my infidelity and ingratitude. Reject not my prayer, O Virgin of reconciliation, convert me, obtain for me the grace to love Jesus Christ above all things and to console thee too by living a holy life, in order that one day I may be able to see thee in Heaven. Amen.

 
Related reading here.

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