THE TENTH CRUSADE

Bishops Expose Six more Flaws

2012-02-14T06:37:00.002-05:00

Barack Hussein didnt even bother to institute the "compromise".

I wonder if they will blither on during the election about how important it is toweigh weigh welfare reforms against the genocide of the poor and uncatechized.

Think we are done with that?

Obama Pretends He Doesn't Know The Difference Between The Pope and the Dopes

2012-02-13T19:45:00.005-05:00

I can't believe this...but Maria was right.

Obama is pretending Carol Keehan's disobedience to religious law is equivocal to the authority of the Pope.

"I can't speak to differences within the Catholic Church,"

White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew said on Fox News Sunday when reminded that "the most powerful statement by the Catholic Church in this country" was a denunciation of Obama's att empt at accomodation. "I would point to the statement put out by the Catholic Health Association which knows a fair amount about what it requires to [provide] health care in this country," he added.

They don't know what the differences are within the Catholic Church and can't speak to them.

In their ignorance they knew exactly how to avoid getting the official answers on Catholic ethics and religious liberty. What a coincidence.

Wow. They're either really stupid or pathological liars.

Maybe they're both?

Obama says he's done negotiating with Catholics

2012-02-12T17:10:00.004-05:00

The compromise meets our concerns, he said.

Though the Catholic Church has told him it hasn't, and has made that public, Obama is making like a ventriloquist in speaking for the Catholic Church. A compromise has been reached, he says.

Aren't both sides usually involved in a compromise?

Nobody from the Catholic Church is involved in the compromise, so how can it be reached betwixt the parties?

Kinda creepy.

Like a dictator creepy.

Do you think the dictatorship has commenced?

What is going on in Syria?

2012-02-12T16:07:00.002-05:00

How sad is it when the world has become so chaotic that you can't keep up with the madness?

I kept reading headlines this week with the intention to catch up to the news and just saw this.

Of course that's what is happening. As if we didn't know.

What is going on in Syria is the same thing that is going on everywhere else. Obama's allies and friends are using terror and violence to take over another country.

Mighty nice of Doug Kmiec and Sr. Carol Keehan to coerce American women to line up and take their free pills to kill the Mystical Body of Christ and their children. It's an ugly job cleaning up the blood if Obama and company have to stoop to this level.

I think they'll come for us at some point. Right after they get the Jews would be my guess.

Wake up America. For the love of Christ, wake up.

Anne Fox of MCFL is the Massachusetts Doug Kmiec

2012-02-11T18:22:00.006-05:00

Anne Fox and MCFL is beginning to chalk up more of a history contradicting, rebutting and damaging the pro-life agenda than working for it.

Here's her latest.

C. J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, acknowledges that Romney did well to veto the bill, but was displeased by his decision to heed his lawyers’ advice and nullify the older conscience statute. “It was Governor Romney who effectively pulled the rug out from under Catholic hospitals by coming up with this rather novel, unheard-of interpretation of this pre-existing statute,” he says.
Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, reflects on the incident with more sympathy for Romney. “His lawyers came in and said, ‘This is the way it has to be,’” she says of the December 2005 incident. “I’m not sure how many people would have said, ‘Well, I don’t care.’ I don’t know what else he might have done.”
In January, the Romney campaign quoted Fox in an e-mail to supporters, saying, “Romney has had a consistent commitment to the culture of life” since he was elected as governor, without commenting on his other actions.
“The veto,” she says, “was a big thing.”

The veto was a dog and pony show. He knew they had the votes to trump the veto.

It wouldn't be so painful if she were simply making an ass out of herself, but she is making an ass out of the very logic we need to use on the exact same order Obama is now giving Catholic Hospitals. We had state and federal laws protecting Catholics in Catholic Hospitals and Romney chose to trump it with an order.

Anne doesn't seem to have her facts right. Romney has numerous lawyers on his staff. There might have been one that told him that federal and state laws didn't protect Catholics from being forced to give abortifacients but others whose only agenda is interpretation of the law told him the law does protect Catholics. We had numerous constitutional lawyers of our own sit down with Romney and point him to the laws.

He didn't make his decision based on the law. He made it because he said he did not hold the law protecting Catholic conscience protections in his heart of hearts. Romney said his deepest convictions, in his heart of hearts, was that giving abortofacients free of charge was more important than Catholic conscience protections. He is the author of obamacare, replete with taxpayer funded abortions.

Can anyone make sense out of her chicanery?

What could possibly be her gripe with Obama? Obamacare is the law and the lawyers are telling Obama that's just the way it is. How could he say "well I don't care?"

We are surrounded by useful idiots.

Rick did an op ed at Politico that nailed it:

"He said then that he believed 'in his heart of hearts' that receiving these contraceptives – free of charge – trumped employees' religious consciences. Now, a few years later and running for president, his heart is strategically aligned with religious voters opposing this federal mandate," wrote Santorum in Politico.

Here's Romney's exact quote:

"My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information," Romney said in 2005, according to Gitcho.

When it comes right down to it, as it stands now, Romney violations of the constitutional rights of Catholics was worse than Obama's. Why is she still shilling for Romney? Has she or MCFL come out to endorse, help, support Rick Santorum?

Anne. Put a sock in it. Please.

Immaculate Contraception - an "Accommodation" that Makes the Birth Control Mandate Worse

2012-02-11T09:48:00.002-05:00

Another Good Op Ed.

Romney Loses More Momentum at CPAC

2012-02-11T07:30:00.005-05:00

The Mittens used the word 'conservative' 29 times during his CPAC speech.

“Now ... is a time to reaffirm what it means to be conservative and why this must be our greatest hour as conservatives.” (Hey, that was a two-fer.)

“We conservatives aren't just proud to cling to our guns and to our religion.”

I know conservatism because I have lived conservatism.” (Ding-ding!)

He can say it all he wants. Saying it and being one are two different things.

As our colleague Karen says in the comments section below - we all need a good laugh.

The people I spoke with who were in attendance said the energy was around Santorum at the Conference. Meanwhile, Santorum is surging in the polls in Michigan.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!

Obama's Sham "Compromise" - Lay people don't have constitutional freedom of religion

2012-02-10T19:23:00.014-05:00

Have you notice that Obama's putanas are now claiming that contraception has proven to give women health benefits?

That's right ladies. They're so much better than vitamins and antioxidants, they're going to give them to you for free.

I'll tell you something, as a woman, I'm offended by the implication they think women are this stupid.

You want to give women something good for their health? Give them free groceries and Lancome. How about free eyeglasses for women who can't see without them?

Birth control pills and abortifacients give such enormous health benefits to women they need to be free?

Please. Tell me women are not this stupid.

I digress.

The mandate is law. The "compromise" is a policy. Even if it were a good compromise, which it isn't, it is a policy of a conniving liar. All that stands between the law and the policy is an election.

Let's talk about the creep factor of 'the compromise'. I can't help but to presume that Obama knows the history of American Bishops well and he is relying upon their long history of cowardice to hand their flock over for the slaughter.

What Obama is essentially doing, is putting an offer before the Bishops that creates and arms length from the transaction....for the Bishop. The Bishop will agree to enter into a nefarious contract with the insurance company that puts a layer of people between the Bishop and the the sin of commission to his employees.

The theological and ethical problem with that arrangement is, he is hiring people to commit his sins.

That's not even the worst of it. For the delusion that hiring people to commit his sins will leave him eligible for Heaven, he sacrifices a whopper. He compromises away the conscience protections of every American who doesn't work for him. None of the rest of us will have conscience protections.

I doesn't seem to have passed Dolan's sniff test. Keep praying.

Naturally, Carol Keehan is backing it, but it seems she and the two goons at Catholics United are the only people who are willing to sell their soul for this turd.

I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for Kmiec. What's your prediction?

ADDENDUM...

According to Whispers in the Loggia, the Bishops have issued a response. They didn't bite the apple.

“The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

UPDATE 2

Good analysis by Robby George.

This so-called “accommodation” changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy. It is certainly no compromise. The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services.

It is no answer to respond that the religious employers are not “paying” for this aspect of the insurance coverage. For one thing, it is unrealistic to suggest that insurance companies will not pass the costs of these additional services on to the purchasers. More importantly, abortion-drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives are a necessary feature of the policy purchased by the religious institution or believing individual. They will only be made available to those who are insured under such policy, by virtue of the terms of the policy.

Absolutely correct. The Catholic Church would have to adopt the policies that make birth control available. They would have to add this coverage to their existing policies. We can't do it. And, not only that, the 'accommodation' is adding another layer of sins as we would symbolically wash our hands of our own policy by hiring uncatechized people to commit them.

Furthermore, people who practice the Catholic religion, and need to abide by it's tenets for the purposes of their own salvation, are not afforded their rights in the Constitution to own a business and operate it without violating their own religion under this 'compromise'.

I am still flabbergasted that all this time, he had the power to tell drug companies to give people the pills they need for free if they can't afford them.

Wow. Think he'll extend his magical powers to seniors and the poor, sick and dying who are skimping on lifesaving meds because they can't afford them?

Put your accommodation where the sun doesn't shine, pal. Even the Bishops can finally smell the stink of your sulfur.

The Catholic fight with Obama is getting ugly

2012-02-09T20:00:00.002-05:00

A big fugatz on Capitol Hill, with support crumbling among the Democrats.

and EWTN and Priests for Life have filed federal lawsuits. Knowledgeable sources are quietly saying the Bishops' Conference is also revving up to file a federal lawsuit against the Obama Administration.

Cardinal-elect Dolan is saying he is 'skeptical' about the sincerity of the substance of any proposed 'compromise'.

"The president is very interested in finding the appropriate balance between religious beliefs and convictions -- and he takes those very seriously -- and his commitment to making sure that women of all faiths have access to these important health care preventive services," Carney said Feb. 7.

"We certainly don't want to abridge anyone's religious freedoms, so we are going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventive care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions," Axelrod said the same day.

The Bishop's Conference has lost hope in the Rope a Dope. Bishop Dolan says Kathleen Sebelius has terribly misguided judgment and the 'bishops are fighters'. Miracles can happen!

I know you're wondering how the Bishops, whose cowardice, inertia, dissent has caused this problem could deserves our credibility.

I think the short answer is, maybe some of them don't. But, I'm seeing Don Bosco's prophecy here. I've highlighted my thoughts about where we are with the Bishops.

On May 30, 1862 , Don Bosco recounted that in a dream he had seen an immense sea on which a great many ships were arranged for battle against a larger and taller ship. He also saw others which were defending the tall ship. Here are his words:
"In the midst of this endless sea, two solid columns, a short distance apart, soar high into the sky. One is surmounted by a statue of the Immaculate Virgin, at whose feet a large inscriptions reads:" 'Auxilium Christianorum' ('Help of Christians') . The other, far loftier and sturdier, supports a Host of proportionate size, and bears beneath it the inscription: 'Salus credentium' ('Salvation of believers').
"The flagship commander - the Roman Pontiff- standing at the helm, strains every muscle to steer his ship between the two columns, from whose summits hang many anchors and strong hooks linked to chains. The entire enemy fleet closes in to intercept and sink the flagship at all costs. They bombard it with everything they have: books and pamphlets, incendiary bombs, firearms, cannons. The battle rages ever more furious. Beaked prows ram the flagship again and again, but to no avail, as, unscathed and undaunted, it keeps on it course. At times, a formidable ram splinters a gaping hole in its hull, but immediately, a breeze from the two columns instantly seals the gash.
"Meanwhile, enemy cannons blow up; firearms and beaks fall to pieces; ships crack up and sink to the bottom. In blind fury, the enemy takes to hand-to-hand combat, cursing and blaspheming. Suddenly the Pope falls, seriously wounded. He is instantly helped up, but struck a second time, dies. A shout of victory rises from the enemy, and wild rejoicing seeps their ships. But no sooner is the Pope dead than another takes his place. The captains of the auxiliary ships elected him so quickly that the news of the Pope's death coincides with that of his successor's election. The enemy's self-assurance wanes.
"Breaking through all resistance, the new Pope steers his ship safely between the two columns; first, to the one surmounted by the Host, and then the other, topped by the statue of the Virgin. At this point, something unexpected happens. The enemy ships panic and disperse, colliding with and scuttling each other.
"Some auxiliary ships, which had gallantly fought alongside their flagship, are the first to tie up at the two columns. Many others, which had fearfully kept far away from the fight, stand still, cautiously waiting until the wrecked enemy ships vanish under the waves. Then they too head for the two columns, tie up at the swinging hooks and ride safe and tranquil beside their flagship. A great calm now covers the sea. " (memoirs, Vol. VII. Pages 107-108).

Big changes coming. Big.

Another Response from the Archdiocese on the HHS Mandate: Getting better, but we are not there yet.

2012-02-08T21:45:00.005-05:00

The good news is, the Cardinal released a nastygram criticizing 'the Administration' for casting aside the First Amendment, denying Catholics fundamental freedom, etc.

He goes on to say, we cannot simply accept the 'unjust law now proposed at the federal level' and he encourages Catholic lay people to stand up and fight. He asks for prayer and fasting and recommends people get behind the lobbying efforts at the USCCB.

This very positive development is slightly mitigated by a the revelation of the surrender. On the one hand, they say they cannot just accept this mandate. On the other hand, they say they are preparing to. It's a bit anticlimatic.

There's a third option which appears to have been taken off the table: Saying they will not comply with the law - because they cannot comply with the law. Complying with the law is actually more than a violation of conscience protections, it is forcing the sin of omission upon the Bishop.

Let's see if we can expose the ethical problem with a little parable.

The White House is saying everyone has to provide their employees with free crack pipes. Preparations are underway to either violate their consciences and give out the free crack pipes or outsource giving their employees free crack pipes to a vendor.

The bishop actually doesn't get to wash his hands of accountability on the commission of outsourcing the free crack pipes to their employees.

There's a show down coming gentlemen. You can't do it. What you need to prepare for is jail and you have the duty to tell the man ahead of time, so he knows what he has on his hands and he can make his decisions accordingly.

Go Santorum!

2012-02-08T20:45:00.004-05:00

Wow, eh?

I didn't even turn the television on. Climbed under a rock, afraid to see Romney's smirking face.

What a reprieve. We're back in the saddle baby!

Here's some good links...

On birth control, Romney mirrored Obama. Our friend CJ Doyle is speaking out about the author of violating Catholic Conscience protections.

C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, told Salon he didn’t want to “let Romney off the hook because the initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama administration but from Romney’s administration”; he explained that there was a preexisting exemption for religious institutions already in the Massachusetts law that was stripped out on the advice of Romney’s gubernatorial legal counsel. “President Obama’s plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics, but I’m not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.”
Doyle said Romney was “very consistent at working both sides of the street on the same issue,” but his record on this has been “one of cynical and tactical manipulation.”
He agreed that Romney’s old pro-choice agenda has been somewhat overlooked by his conservative religious brethren. Romney can only pray that they hold off, and they may do so just as long as he continues to kowtow to them. Coming out in favor of the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to pull the funding plug on Planned Parenthood covered his right flank this week, though evidently not well enough for conservative voters. Romney said, unequivocally, that the government should follow suit, but yesterday’s election results could complicate his well-documented problems motivating conservative voters.

Catholic Vote could pick the 2012 winner.

Romney won't get the Catholic Vote.

You've got that right.

Sweet baby Jesus, please..please keep the forked tongues at MCFL, MFI and other Romneybots tied into little knots.

Doug Kmiec's New Letter - Frankly my dear, we don't give a damn.

2012-02-06T20:22:00.007-05:00

It's funny, I was just asking around Christendom as to whether anyone had heard from or seen Doug Kmiec - and TA DA!!

Another shameless shill for and to Obama. We want him to succeed. We admire the many things he has done. But please sir, I ask no longer as an ambassador but as a friend, and friendship will not permit me to disregard duty to faith and country,why put the cold calculus of politics above faith and freedom?

..many individuals who stood as people of independent mind against those who sought to defeat your efforts to promote the common good.

There he was, an independent mind, in the midst of all the boogeymen who seek to defeat the common good.

What audacity he has to stand in the public square and say he admires Obama's agenda, wants him to be successful and paint the prolife grassroots as people who seek the defeat of good for their fellow countrymen and women.

This letter is all about him:

I asked you some months ago to explain why you remained silent when our international inter-faith efforts were wrongly assailed. You did not respond.... The Barack Obama I knew would never have asked me to make that choice.

Doug Kmiec put the cold calculus of politics above faith and freedom. The
'common good' agenda he shilled for has all been executed.

We don't know what happened in Malta. Frankly, my dear, we don't give a damn.

exercitus sine duce corpus est sine spiritu

2012-02-06T20:05:00.005-05:00

I've been trying to get into the habit of offering the reception of the Eucharist for the men and women in the service who have very limited ability to receive Christ - even on Christmas.

Please remember them this Lent - especially our daily Mass goers!

A Delayed Tip of the Hat to the "Archdiocese"

2012-02-05T18:33:00.004-05:00

Last week, a funeral Mass for former Mayor Kevin White was celebrated at the infamous St. Cecelia's, whose pastor is, the infamous Fr. Unni. TTC readers will remember Fr. Unni for scheduling a clapping fornicators Liturgy last June.

While no doubt Kevin White was a liberal Democrat, I don't ever recall an instance when he used his pulpit to take whacks at the Catholic Church or Catholic teaching. I would credit Mayor White for kicking off the redevelopment and transformation of the City of Boston,particularly our Waterfront, which had fallen into a state of disrepair. He suffered many years with Alzheimer's. May his soul and the soul of all the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Though Mayor White never caused a scandal with Catholic teaching, several Catholics raised concerns to the Archdiocese due to the combination of Fr. Unni's terrible discretion, unfaithfulness to salvation theology and the fact that several local politicians who have caused scandal were scheduled to hijack the funeral to give speeches at Mayor White's Funeral.

I am happy to report that our Rite of Christian Burial was celebrated with dignity, respect and protocol it deserves. It was clear that much went on behind the scenes to avoid a repeat of the disaster at Ted Kennedy's funeral.

Barney Frank and Mayor Tom Menino were permitted time to speak prior to the start of the Liturgy. I wasn't there, but to the best of knowledge and what is reported, other than telling a story using the word 'bleeping', the moments were not used to say something scandalous about Church teaching. They were real eulogies. I suppose you could gripe that they were given the time to do so, but I can truly see it as an act of pastoral compassion. I can't say for sure, but it is my guess, they were given guidelines about what could be said.

To the best of my knowledge, our the Rite of Christian Burial burial was respectfully executed. Bishop Hennessey filled in for the Cardinal who was...ah...you guess it, on a jet somewhere.

We've had a rough couple of years here in Boston. Ok, a rough decade. Catholics who have been robbed of their faith have taken, how shall I say this...unusual methods to expose the dishonesty, dysfunction and corruption that exists internally.

We have a new Vicar General with a kind heart and a no-nonsense reputation. The jury is still out but we are starting to see a few signs that are hopeful.

I thought it was important to salute the obvious efforts behind Mayor White's funeral Mass and to express our gratitude. Thanks to Monsignor Deeley, Bishop Hennessey and others who were behind the orchestration of our beautiful rite.

Pray for us.

More from the Passion

2012-02-05T17:43:00.003-05:00

First Obama Came for the Catholics

2012-02-05T11:24:00.006-05:00

Post of interest written by Michelle Malkin HERE.

She duly notes, as everyone else does, that Obama and and his religious bigots have awakened the sleeping giant.

Did you ever think in our lifetime, we would see Bishops Roger Mahoney and Robert Lynch threaten civil disobedience over a sanctity of life issue?

Truly incredulous when you think about it.

From time to time, I've spoken about my own journey of tapping into the mystical gifts of the Church. (Though, I shouldn't call it a journey because I was dragged there unwillingly.)

When you have made a visit to the mystical world, even when you are at a distance from it, you can feel its energy. As intensely as you can feel the wind of an unexpected and approaching tornado. 99.9% of the time, you don't know what it is, but you feel it. 0.01% of the time, whether angelic or demonic, it grabs enough of your attention, maybe even curiosity, to pursue further observation, processing.

I read enough, observed enough, felt enough to recognize the mystical in Blessed John Paul II. Nearing the end of his reign, I would hear him say that we are approaching the Springtime of the Church.

Living in the theological and political armpit of the universe, where the seeds of communism and persecution of the Catholic Church were planting themselves, I couldn't imagine what on earth the man was talking about.

I wanted to see the blossoming of the Church at the sermon on the mount, all seated peacefully, gathering multitudes. The easy way. But, as often as Blessed JPII talked about the springtime of the Church, he would say with a beaming grin, "Be Not Afraid". It took me a long time to figure out those two things were tied together.

Even as I see it all playing out before us, I am amazed. Absolutely amazed.

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich was really tapped into the mystical world.

Over the ten years of blogging, I've cited excerpts from her writings from time to time. They are worth spending some time reviewing.

Here's a few...

Among the sins of the world which Jesus took upon himself, I saw also my own; and a stream, in which I distinctly beheld each of my faults, appeared to flow towards me from out of the temptations with which he was encircled. During this time my eyes were fixed upon my Heavenly Spouse; with him I wept and prayed, and with him I turned towards the consoling angels. Ah, truly did our dear Lord writhe like a worm beneath the weight of his anguish and sufferings!

Whilst Satan was pouring forth his accusations against Jesus, it was with difficulty that I could restrain my indignation, but when he spoke of the sale of Magdalen’s property, I could no longer keep silence, and exclaimed: ‘How canst thou reproach him with the sale of this property as with a crime? Did I not myself see our Lord spend the sum which was given him by Lazarus in works of mercy, and deliver twenty-eight debtors imprisoned at Thirza?’

At first Jesus looked calm, as he kneeled down and prayed, but after a time his soul became terrified at the sight of the innumerable crimes of men, and of their ingratitude towards God, and his anguish was so great that he trembled and shuddered as he exclaimed: ‘Father, if is possible, let this chalice pass from me! Father, all things are possible to thee, remove this chalice from me!" But the next moment he added: ‘Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.’ His will and that of his Father were one, but now that his love had ordained that he should be left to all the weakness of his human nature, he trembled at the prospect of death.

...

and later she sees this...

When God had created the first Adam, he cast a deep sleep upon him, opened his side, and took one of his ribs, of which he made Eve, his wife and the mother of all the living. Then he brought her to Adam, who exclaimed: ‘This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh.’ That was the marriage of which it is written: ‘This is a great Sacrament. I speak in Christ and in the Church.’ Jesus Christ, the second Adam, was pleased also to let sleep come upon him—the sleep of death on the cross, and he was also pleased to let his side be opened, in order that the second Eve, his virgin Spouse, the Church, the mother of all the living, might be formed from it. It was his will to give her the blood of redemption, the water of purification, and his spirit—the three which render testimony on earth—and to bestow upon her also the holy Sacraments, in order that she might be pure, holy, and undefiled; he was to be her head, and we were to be her members, under submission to the head, the bone of his bones, and the flesh of his flesh. In taking human nature, that he might suffer death for us, he had also left his Eternal Father, to cleave to his Spouse, the Church, and he became one flesh with her, by feeding her with the Adorable Sacrament of the Altar, in which he unites himself unceasingly with us. He has been pleased to remain on earth with his Church, until we shall all be united together by him within her fold, and he has said: ‘The gates of hell shall never prevail against her.’ To satisfy his unspeakable love for sinners, our Lord had become man and a brother of these same sinners, that so he might take upon himself the punishment due to all their crimes. He had contemplated with deep sorrow the greatness of this debt and the unspeakable sufferings by which it was to be acquitted. Yet he had most joyfully given himself up to the will of his Heavenly Father as a victim of expiation. Now, however, he beheld all the future sufferings, combats, and wounds of his heavenly Spouse; in one word, he beheld the ingratitude of men.

The soul of Jesus beheld all the future sufferings of his Apostles, disciples, and friends; after which he saw the primitive Church, numbering but few souls in her fold at first, and then in proportion as her numbers increased, disturbed by heresies and schisms breaking out among her children, who repeated the sin of Adam by pride and disobedience. He saw the tepidity, malice, and corruption of an infinite number of Christians, the lies and deceptions of proud teachers, all the sacrileges of wicked priests, the fatal consequences of each sin, and the abomination of desolation in the kingdom of God, in the sanctuary of those ungrateful human beings whom he was about to redeem with his blood at the cost of unspeakable sufferings.

...

and this:

As there was nothing but darkness in the dwellings of these men, many among them, instead of directing their steps towards the Candle placed on the Candlestick in the House of the Spouse of Christ, wandered with closed eyes around the gardens of the Church, sustaining life only by inhaling the sweet odours which were diffused from them far and near, stretching forth their hands towards shadowy idols, and following wandering stars which led them to wells where there was no water. Even when on the very brink of the precipice, they refused to listen to the voice of the Spouse calling them, and, though dying with hunger, derided, insulted, and mocked at those servants and messengers who were sent to invite them to the Nuptial Feast. They obstinately refused to enter the garden, because they feared the thorns of the hedge, although they had neither wheat with which to satisfy their hunger nor wine to quench their thirst, but were simply intoxicated with pride and self-esteem, and being blinded by their own false lights, persisted in asserting that the Church of the Word made flesh was invisible. Jesus beheld them all, he wept over them, and was pleased to suffer for all those who do not see him and who will not carry their crosses after him in his City built upon a hill—his Church founded upon a rock, to which he has given himself in the Holy Eucharist, and against which the gates of Hell will never prevail.

Bearing a prominent place in these mournful visions which were beheld by the soul of Jesus, I saw Satan, who dragged away and strangled a multitude of men redeemed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by the unction of his Sacrament. Our Divine Saviour beheld with bitterest anguish the ingratitude and corruption of the Christians of the first and of all succeeding ages, even to the end of the world, and during the whole of this time the voice of the tempter was incessantly repeating: ‘Canst thou resolve to suffer for such ungrateful reprobates?’ while the various apparitions succeeded each other with intense rapidity, and so violently weighed down and crushed the soul of Jesus, that his sacred humanity was overwhelmed with unspeakable anguish.

...

and this...

Amid all these apparitions, Satan held a conspicuous place, under various forms, which represented different species of sins. Sometimes he appeared under the form of a gigantic black figure, sometimes under those of a tiger, a fox, a wolf, a dragon, or a serpent. Not, however, that he really took any of these shapes, but merely some one of their characteristics, joined with other hideous forms. None of these frightful apparitions entirely resembled any creature, but were symbols of abomination, discord, contradiction, and sin—in one word, were demoniacal to the fullest extent. These diabolical figures urged on, dragged, and tore to pieces, before the very eyes of Jesus, countless numbers of those men for whose redemption he was entering upon the painful way of the Cross. At first I but seldom saw the serpent; soon, however, it made its appearance, with a crown upon its head. This odious reptile was of gigantic size, apparently possessed of unbounded strength, and led forward countless legions of the enemies of Jesus in every age and of every nation. Being armed with all kinds of destructive weapons, they sometimes tore one another in pieces, and then renewed their attacks upon our Saviour with redoubled rage. It was indeed an awful sight; for they heaped upon him the most fearful outrages, cursing, striking, wounding, and tearing him in pieces. Their weapons, swords, and spears flew about in the air, crossing and recrossing continually in all directions, like the flails of threshers in an immense barn; and the rage of each of these fiends seemed exclusively directed against Jesus—that grain of heavenly wheat descended to the earth to die there, in order to feed men eternally with the Bread of Life.

Thus exposed to the fury of these hellish bands, some of which appeared to me wholly composed of blind men, Jesus was as much wounded and bruised as if their blows had been real. I saw him stagger from side to side, sometimes raising himself up, and sometimes falling again, while the serpent, in the midst of the crowds whom it was unceasingly leading forward against Jesus, struck the ground with its tail, and tore to pieces or swallowed all whom it thus knocked to the ground.

Be not....afraid?

That's a tall order.

I think You've made your point now. You've gone a bit to far to get the message home. Before it gets too frightening, we ought to call a halt. Could we start again please?

Barack Hussein Obama Issues Catholic Gag Order in the Military

2012-02-04T08:50:00.003-05:00

Wow. Obama seems to be escalating dictatorship and tyranny - he is now threatening sedition.

Catholic Chaplains reading guidance from the Bishops to Catholics is sedition against the commander-in-chief.

I don't know what to say, except to say this guy is a no good bum and I think it's going to get ugly.

One of my favorite chapters in the book In the Likeness of Christ, is a chapter called The Triumph of Failure.

A few excerpts:

There is a peculiar evenness and balance in Our Lord's life. He is not more wonderful in act than in repose - in speech and in silence. In itself, especially with Our Lord, Whose nature was so perfect, there must needs be an immeasurable distance between the intrinsic value of a word fallen from His lips, and the same word withheld. Something of much value would have been so lost to the world - a treasure never brought to light. Yet is is not so. Christ expressed Himself fully in His life. All His greatness sees to be in the perfection with which he endured each succeeding circumstance - whether that demanded the putting forth or the cessation from activity. The bending of Himself to things - His perfect pliability to things - His power of maintaining His disposition perfect in every conjecture seems to be the aim and purpose of His life, rather than something positive to achieve. He seems to have left achievement to us, taking endurance (or passion) to be His. He knows full well that it is thus he world is saved by Him, and that it is by following His example in this that each individual soul is to be forged to perfection. In the establishment of the Kingdom of God, He assumes to Himself the function of the Sower. He went through the world sowing in tears; others seemed to be regarded rather for what they effected outside of Himself. His life, in a word, intensely active as it was, was rather a perfect subjugation to things rather than a radical conquest of things. In this lies the sublimity of Our Lord's life, and it's grandeur.

Richly endowed by nature and by grace with every quality that could assure success in His dealings with men and with human affairs - majestic presence, charm of manner, persuasiveness of speech, profound insight, limpidity of soul, infinite wealth of grace -- His life, nevertheless, as men judge things, was a complete failure. "The pattern of all human perfection achieves His triumphs, His kingship in hearts by a pilgrimage of which failure and continued agonizing effort under failure, is the beginning, the middle and the end." Those He healed were ungrateful; those He taught remained ignorant; and the hearts which He labored to soften and convert remained obdurate. Neither His eloquence nor His kindness won for Him the loyalty of His people. The few whom He did win to His side abandoned Him in the crises of His life. We miss the real pathos of Our Lord's life when we read the Gospel, because we have the vague half-formed idea that in all He went through, He was buoyed up by the view He had of ultimate success. This would have taken from the absolute perfection of Our Lord's Fortitude. It did not take one whit from the sharpness and harshness of the trials of His life, that He foresaw the salvation of men would be ultimately effected through that life. Just as the Beatific Vision which He enjoyed did not detract in the least from the intensity of His sufferings, so that the salvation of the world ultimately achieved did not minimize the pain of the actual positive failure of the moment in which He lived. As the knowledge of the Resurrection that was to follow Calvary could not blunt the sharp sword of grief that transfixed the heart of Mary, so the vision of a world ultimately to be transformed by His Sacrifice did not minister any natural support to our Lord's fortitude.

Jesus' feelings were habitually determined by His experimental knowledge and He experienced daily scarcely anything but re3verses and disappointment. Our Lord had constantly to drink the dregs of he cup of bitter and abject failure. He knew He would succeed in practically nothing, regard being had to the immediate object of His personal action. And yet, He did not for all that put any less firmness, force and intensity into His acts. he labored with as much assiduity and heart as if He hoped to succeed, though with His vision of the immediate future, He knew He could not. And even if we abstract from the certitude of this foreknowledge, He read His failure in the signs of the times as they revealed themselves to His penetrating gaze. As he stood before the multitudes and set before them in gracious and eloquent, though simple and picturesque language, doctrines consoling as well as sublime, He could read the positive resistance to truth in the frozen glances of some, the dullness begotten of vice in the looks of others, and the absolute incomprehension in the eyes of most. He knew that He possessed Truth, and He knew, too, that He expressed it in the way best adapted to the human intelligence. He knew how these truths, if accepted, would, for His hearers, solve the riddle of existence, satisfy the restless yearnings of their souls, and banish all unhappiness, if not all pain from their lives. He knew what the acceptance of these thoughts of His mind, which He clothed in such persuasive language, would mean of happiness for his fello-men, what loss would be involved for them in their rejection, and He used all the vast resources of His mind and soul to succeed - and He failed.

Something to keep in your heart as we proceed.

Romney Stands with the Bishops?

2012-02-04T08:06:00.004-05:00

Romney is really starting to look like the profile of a pathological liar. It's actually a bit frightening.

I saw something EWTN was ramming down the throats of Catholics about Romney 'standing with the bishops'.

Are they serious?

You'd have to completely ignore history to advocate this as an honest conviction of Mitt Romney.

Just like Romney was the author of Obamacare, Romney was actually the author of taking away the conscience protections of Catholics in Massachusetts.

Honestly, I think I'd rather see Barack Hussein get another four years than to put this man in the White House. I'm not saying I'd vote for Barack Hussein. I never would. But, I will be looking to destroying the GOP and fracturing the prolife movement from participating in shining the credentials of a proabort.

I've had it with them using the village idiots to destroy real prolifers and then when their proabort candidate is left standing, telling us we have no choice but to vote for him.

If the Mittens turns out to be the nominee, hopefully a third-party candidate will give us another choice. If not, I'm going to be suggesting we all sit it out.

1. We know we are fighting an enemy.
2. More importantly, prolifers and Catholics would not be portraying the enemy as an ally.

I think number 2 has significant ramifications that could last decades. It could even damage what constitutes a prolife movement in perpetuity.

We can't do it.

Maybe we could convince Santorum to run third party?

Has Komen Reversed its Decision to Stop Funding Planned Parenthood?

2012-02-03T13:42:00.009-05:00

Not so fast, according to Jill Stanek.

It's a story that certainly bears watching.

Here's what has happened so far:

They finally decided to de-fund the distribution of what they know causes the breast cancer under the delusion that screens to keep tabs on the cancer was helpful in the fight against breast cancer. As the worms turned, Planned Parenthood was not even doing the screening, they were only passing out referrals.

Komen defunded them. Women who know the pill and abortion are among the major causes of breast cancer, the demoralization and exploitation of women, started funding them.

There was a public row. Pressure. Then an announcement from Komen they were reversing their decision.

Here's the spin:

Komen had initially funded 19 Planned Parenthood affiliates and, in the wake of new funding policies, will only continue funding three of those chapters. The three that will continue to receive funds are in Northern Colorado, Southern California and Waco, Tex., because “they are the only provider” of breast health services in the areas they serve, Brinker said.

I love Jill but I don't see the brilliance of Komen's spin.

They apologized. Said they are re-instating funding.

Might not be as much of a reversal as the Planned Parenthood claims it is.
But, is it good enough to let women continue to be in the dark about the connections between the pill, abortion and breast cancer when you are the most influential foundation in trying to prevent it?

Not in my book.

See ya later, alligator.

Good summary here.

Are the Bishops the problem?

2012-02-03T13:25:00.002-05:00

Pat Archbold asks the question.

Answer: You're darn tootin.

We can vow to oppose, protest, throw the bums out and do whatever it takes. At the end of the day, Obama does NOT have the power to make Catholics comply in the collaboration of murder.

When people try to get us to do stuff we know we cannot do, this is when martyrdom is supposed to kick in. The martyrdom I suspect will be dry.

Rather than say the Bishops are the problem, maybe it's more accurate to say the Bishops are the answer.

'From the Blood of the Martyrs come the seeds of Christianity'

The Catholic Church's Unfair Attack Upon Obama

2012-02-02T18:35:00.010-05:00

The Boston Globe published a doozey written by Joan Vennochi.

Here's the Reader's Digest: The Catholic Church is being unfair. The Bishops have hired people to carry out the mission of the Catholic Church who are not Catholic. Recent polls show Obama losing the support of Catholic voters. This hoo-ha could evolve into a big problem for Obama. Obama is not trying to undermine Catholicism. Oh no. Why, that would be preposterous. He's just trying to tell the Catholic Church they can't regulate the beliefs of other faiths. That is fitting in a world that admires religious freedom and values separation of church and state.

Dear Joan:

Let me start by sharing our common ground: I think it's safe to say that neither one of us would ever characterize Catholic Bishops as being the sharpest tools in the shed.

Hiring people to carry out the mission of the Catholic Church who are not Catholic is about as dumb as hiring a Spanish translator who only speaks English. But that's a subject for another day.

I read your piece and it came across to me as though you don't understand what a conscience protection is and why we write them into laws.

A democracy is a political system governed by the majority. Like your refrigerator, a political system is a thing without an intellect, ethics, morals, empathy. It's all based upon the majority of opinions. If the morality and ethics of the people in a political system are not good, things like slavery and murder can be written as legal rights of the people or the government.

In a democracy, if somebody could get enough people to like the idea that journalists should have lobotomies, they might be able to convince a politician to sponsor the bill. When it becomes law, a conscience protection written into immoral and unethical law protects your colleagues on Morrissey Boulevard from being forced to give you ride to get your lobotomy as part of their duties of their job.

Get it?

Conscience protections are about my right not to be forced by the government to do harm to you, even if you have a two-digit IQ or are compromised in some other way.

The government can decide to drop a bomb on Hiroshima. People who would never kill another human being under any circumstances have the freedom to serve their country in the military in other ways by registering as a conscientious objector.

For the 235 years of our country's history before Obama, conscience protections were our government's way of admitting that while we all realize that laws are written based upon a majority opinion and a thing cannot have an intellect or morals and ethics, the people who serve it do.

For the first time in our 235 year history, we have an imbalance in the powers. In spite of written national and state laws, a single justice, even in a lower court, can overrule the constitution and written law to decriminalize or feign they have the power to write laws that do not exist.

Catholics are getting, you know, concerned about the chaos.

Let's cut to the chase.

A Catholic Bishop has a credo similar to a physician. In fact, he and his priests are physicians of the soul and their credo is: DO NO HARM to the mystical composition of an immortal soul, either by omission or commission. They are actually responsible to carry out this credo under every mission they operate whether that be a chancery, a hospital, a school or any other charitable initiative. They are responsible to carry out that credo whether the people under their leadership are Catholic, non-Catholic or even atheists. They are not a CEO of a business.

Giving pills out to women to prohibit and kill their children does physical - and more importantly - spiritual harm.

Up until this point in time, helping to elect proabortion, immoral and unethical politicians didn't affect them. They were blissfully ignorant of the ramifications of a nurse and doctor who would have to carry out the orders of passing out abortifacients. They didn't give two turds that doctor and nurse in their Catholic Hospital was put in the position of losing their salvation or their income when they handed something to an uncatechized or distraught pregnant woman.

But God in his infinite Wisdom and Mercy has brought accountability of the loss of salvation directly to them. They are now holding the ball of accountability for every harm done to an immortal soul in the execution of Obama's absurd and illegal mandate.

They are not saying to hell with Obama. In their own pathetic selfishness, they are simply trying to save themselves from joining him there.

For those of us who have waited 40 years for this moment, we'll take it any way we can get it.

Cheers, Carol.

Readers - below is letter from CJ Doyle. (Ouch!)

February 2, 2012

Letters to the Editor
The Boston Globe
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819

To the Editor:

It is difficult to take seriously Joan Vennochi's criticism of Catholic bishops for their opposition to the Obama mandate for contraceptive coverage in health insurance (Catholic Church's unfair attack against Obama, 2/2/2012).

Vennochi flails at the Church, but carefully avoids a candid consideration of the key issue, which is, that Catholics understand abortion, including abortifacient contraception, to be a legalised form of mass murder. Whether it necessitates litigation, political mobilization, or civil disobedience, Catholics are not going to stand by and see their own institutions forced to subsidize the killing of the innocent.

As for Vennochi, it requires an egregious level of intellectual dishonesty to characterize the refusal to participate in murder as imposing one's religion on others, a threadbare argument which suggests a certain lack of originality among those who persist in using it.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
35 Montclair Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02132
Catholicactionleague@gmail.com

Quote of the Day

2012-02-01T18:21:00.016-05:00

"Carol, if you don't leave this post up, then you're nothing but a coward who values tribal allegiances more than the truth. "

Well, I'd be willing to bet the Chancery is filled to the rafters with people who'd like to get a crumb of my cowardice. They could use the rest. In fact, I could use the rest myself.

There have been plenty of days when I read about the chicanery of bishops and say "Carol, what you need is some fear and inertia. Think of all the extra time you'll have on your hands. You could go to the gym. Read more. Take a bubble bath. Clean out the closets and the cellar. Clean your car. Take down your Christmas wreaths."

I've never been able to get anywhere near fear and inertia. It takes an army of angels, and a whole lot of prayer in a state of grace to just temper my reaction. That's as close as I have ever been to fear and inertia. Frankly, I think cowardice is afraid of me.

No pun intended.. but I'm afraid you've got the reason I keep deleting your comments, all wrong.

The reason I delete your comments is because you find a way to use the personal flaws of Catholic Bishops to mischaracterize true discipleship in Christ as outside of the Catholic Church and Christ's Sacraments. You are deluding and consoling yourself because you despaired and walked out on Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and the price of our salvation - the Sacraments.

I have exhausted every avenue. People spent a great deal of time in the comments section talking to you. I reached out privately to speak with you, encourage you to return to the Sacrament of Confession and spiritual guidance under the guardianship of a Catholic priest. When you continued to portray 2000 years of Sacraments, Saints, the Deposit of Faith and the spiritual and corporal works of mercy as non-existent - and in their stead, mischaracterize the Mystical Body of Christ as corruption to flee, I warned you about the intellectual and spiritual consequences of tailspin from blasphemy. I asked you to stop posting here because I am incapable of patronizing you as you delude yourself and I felt the matter was moving into the sinful waste of precious time. Everything had been tried and said. Asking you at least a dozen times to stop posting the fruit of your bitterness and confusion was an exercise in futility. Ergo, I resorted to deleting your posts. I have learned that by deleting posts of people wasting our time, they learn they are wasting their own time, and they eventually move on.

The contributions of hundreds of thousands of athletes are not caricatured by what happened at Penn State. There are millions of men who will gather around the television set to watch football. They will applaud the gifted men who have worked hard to develop their talents. You won't find anyone cruising football fan blogs saying football is about breeding pedophiles and corruption.

There are millions of people who play golf, in spite of Tiger Woods. You won't find anyone cruising golf blogs to caricature it as breeding violent adulterers. The talents of gifted golfers are respected and emulated.

Reporting misfeasance and malfeasance of a couple of hundred Bishops in our 2000 year history and seeking justice is one thing. Capitalizing on it to make excuses for one's abandonment of Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity is entirely another.

I'm not going to host people on a crusade to caricature Christ's Church the way you do. I'm sparing Christ. I'm sparing my readers. I'm sparing myself. The time we all would spend responding to your comments is much better spent saying a Divine Mercy Chaplet.

There comes a time when you hand something over to God. We are not called to be successful, we are called to be faithful.

This is why I am deleting your comments.

I repeat what I have been saying to you all along: It is my advice that you stop misleading Catholics and other Christians and return as a repentant son to seek the Mercy of Christ through Sacrament of Confession. There is no other venue for Mercy for a Baptized Catholic. Sincerely, sit yourself in front of the Eucharist in a state of grace. Immerse yourself in the writings of Catholic Saints.

I wish you the best and you have our prayers.

Boston Chancellor Steps Down

2012-02-01T06:34:00.007-05:00

...and there were triumphant cheers throughout Christendom.

As my sweet Irish grandmother used to say, here's your hat, what's your hurry. The polite way of saying "dont let the door hit you on the booty on the way out".

I am not going to dignify his train wreck with a gracious comment. Too much damage has been done. What I will say,for the record, this departure seriously impacts the group of political thugs in the chancery and is a huge win for the good guys.

Marco Rubio Introduces Bill to Overturn HHS Mandate

2012-01-31T22:55:00.003-05:00

This bill responds to the Department of Health and Human Services mandate that requires most religious groups to pay for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing drugs in their health insurance plans. The Becket Fund represents two religious schools—Belmont Abbey College and Colorado Christian University—in separate federal lawsuits challenging the abortion-drug mandate as a violation of a federal civil rights statute and the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“Senator Rubio’s bill answers the call from religious individuals and groups across the country who are tired of an imperious government imposing ‘mandates’ on the American people,” said Hannah Smith, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund. “Rubio’s bill is a balanced approach that will prevent the government from penalizing those who are simply being true to their religious faith.”

White House is slinging it good.

MR. CARNEY: Well, let me — let me — let me answer. The decision was made, as we have said in the past and Secretary Sebelius has said, after very careful consideration, and the administration believes that this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventive services. We will continue to work closely with religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concerns.

It’s important — to go to your point — that this approach does not signal any change at all in the administration’s policy on conscience protections. The President and this administration have previously expressed strong support for existing conscience protections, including those relating to health care providers. That support continues.

I also would just note that our robust partnerships with the Catholic Church and other communities of faith will continue. The administration has provided over $2 billion to Catholic organizations over the past three years in addition to numerous nonfinancial partnerships that promote healthy communities and serve the common good.

Q The bishops are saying just the opposite. They’re saying that basically if somebody is working in a Catholic hospital and they don’t cover contraception for their employees, that they’re in violation of federal law. So I don’t understand how you’re saying that there are still conscience protections. They would violate the law, wouldn’t they?

And so on. Read the rest yourself. It's going to happen because there are no ramifications. Bishops will still rub elbows with them at swanky events. Be thankful they were notified by phone.

Thankfully, there are Bishops who are saying they will refuse to comply. Our job is to get that number up.

BTW - this was my favorite part:

And I would just note that we will work with religious groups during a transitional period to discuss their concerns. But this decision was made after careful consideration by Secretary Sebelius, and we believe that the proposal strikes the appropriate balance between religious beliefs on the one hand and the need to increase access to important preventive services for women.

They're going to play rope a dope with the Bishops. Let them come in and express their concerns through the transition period. Then, they will be handed a broken bottle to scratch themselves with and a fond farewell.

There is nothing like using a Bishop's own game right back at them.

Do check out Carol Keehan's malarkey at the end of the Commonheal article. There is nothing more captivating than a bold faced liar.

The Bishops' Statements on the HHS Mandate

2012-01-30T21:34:00.006-05:00

CatholicVote is updating a list of Bishops 'speaking out' against the HHS Mandate. As of today, 93 of them have made statements that range from a dog and pony show to the legitimate leadership of a crusade.

You have a statements like O'Malley's that says he is disappointed and moves right along to his next blog item.

Then you have statements like Lynch's, that go a little bit further, saying we should delay implementation of killing children, spiritually abusing women and collaborating with the loss of their salvation until all legal avenues have been exhausted.

Are these people serious?

The statements of these two men, and those like them, are unacceptable. A crock of crap.

They are collaborators, and are either a coward or a liar. Their statements do not belong on a list of men of conviction any more than a link to Carol Keehnan's absurd remark that she is disappointed.

Let us not applaud the asinine. Talk is cheap.

Scroll the list. The only Bishops who are serious and sincernke, are the Bishops who are saying we can't and won't follow this law.

We can't cooperate with this.

We don't kill people because the government says we must. Moreover, it's less serious to carry out an execution,than to be the parties giving the tools to uncatechized and distraught women so they can harm themselves or their children. Any bishop who believes they are not the

These are men who should prefer execution rather than cooperate with this spiritual vortex.

At the end of the day, the onus is not on Catholic lay people to "oppose it". It isn't on Congress. The only people who can stop it are the bishops. Our crusade is to pin it on them. Hold them accountable.

Here is a statement with the conviction of a bishop

"We cannot and will not comply with this unjust decree. Like the martrys of old we must be prepared to accept suffering which could include heavy fines and imprisonment."

Amen to all that. Let it be done to us according to His Word.

Open up the book of revelation. Read where we are going. It is unraveling right before your eyes.

Obama's Catholic Church Birth Control and Sterilization Mandate

2012-01-28T08:58:00.007-05:00

It's amazing, when you think about it. After we exhaust ourselves for decades asking Bishops to discipline those teaching in Catholic settings and getting their tin ear, it took a President's mandate to get them on a horse to lead a crusade.

Though I searched and searched for outrage from Cardinal O'Malley and not surprisingly came up empty, all kinds of good things are happening.

Bishop Jenky has restored the prayer of St. Michael after Mass.

Archbishop Gomes is rallying Catholics to fight against it.

Cardinal-designate Dolan is calling for action.

I thank them. Pray for them. Pray more of them follow their lead.

But, what action do we really want them to take?

We're calling the people who spent decades positioning themselves to take away religious liberty to ask them to pretty please rescind it?

I don't have a crystal ball. All things are possible with Christ, but IMHO, I don't have a lot of hope Christ will see the wisdom of making the fix this easy for us.

So, we speak out, oppose it, make a lot of noise and the Obama Administration does nothing. Then what?

In case anyone out there is suffering from the same case of amnesia affecting the luminaries at the USCCB, it was the Catholic Bishops who suppressed teaching and manipulated uncatechized Catholics into voting for and electing Obama. They published hundreds of thousands of booklets that gave Catholics the nudge and the wink to elect Obama. They solicited Sr. Carol Keehan who was rewarded with a magical presidential pen. They crowned their american pope at Notre Dame.

It was all good.....right up until the time the Obama Administration cut out funding to the USCCB. When the Obama Administration stopped lining the wallets of the Bishops, a stampede of them came out riding horses named Outrage and Sob Stories.

It's got to smack. Forty years of paying Bishops to suppress the teachings of the Church to elect their american pope, and as soon as it's done, they stop the extortion. The money is going, going, gone. Cry me a river. It is the best thing that happened to us in 40 years.

I'm sure you'll find this rich: Top Bishop feels betrayed by Obama. But he said he would respect Catholic Conscience rights. I was bouyed. Bishops are pushing him to something more than keep going to the White House to be patronized. He doesn't know what to do.

Let us not lose sight of the right action item.

It's critical to talk about our religious liberties, for Bishops to stand up and be counted, to engage what is left of the faithful. It's a small crowd but we finally have the harmony of the Bishops and we should take full advantage of it.

Speaking out, isn't enough. We have a deadline approaching whereby these Bishops will have two choices. They can go along with the mandate or they can refuse to go along with the mandate, come what may. Come shutting down hospitals, schools. Come jail. Notify the President. Notify the lawyers. Notify the doctors, bankers. Notify the indian chiefs. That's the right action item.

Excluding Cardinal O'Malley, who would and does force Catholics to, you know, harm and even kill other people through contracting executioners and providing the victims a ride to their death, Catholic Bishops can't go along with it.

Send out notices to hospitals to plan on emptying their beds by the deadline date and handing out pink slips. Send out notices to schools, colleges and missions that every administrator is to refuse the cooperate in the execution of this mandate or they will be fired.

We are at an intersection of religious liberty in our country. Stand up and fight.

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

2012-01-28T08:28:00.003-05:00

I'll be keeping my relic close to my heart today, praying for his guidance, protection, a little piece of his wisdom, and all of your intentions.

O Lord my God, help me to be obedient without reserve, poor without
servility, chaste without compromise, humble without pretense, joyful
without depravity, serious without affectation, active without frivolty,
submissive without bitterness, truthful without duplicity, fruitful in good
works without presumption, quick to revive my neighbor without haughtiness, and quick to edify others by word and example without simulation.

Grant me, O Lord, an ever-watchful heart that no alien thought can lure away from You; a noble heart that no base love can sully; an upright heart that
no perverse intention can lead astray; an invincible heart that no distress
can overcome; an unfettered heart that no impetuous desires can enchain.

O Lord my God, also bestow upon me understanding to know You, zeal to seek You, wisdom to find You, a life that is pleasing to You, unshakable
perseverance, and a hope that will one day take hold of You.

May I do penance here below and patiently bear your chastisements. May I also receive the benefits of your grace, in order to taste your heavenly
joys and contemplate your glory. Amen.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Boston Parish Cluster Buster

2012-01-28T04:17:00.013-05:00

The wizards in the Boston Chancery have come up with another doozy.

On the one hand, you have the Archbishop painting a rosy picture for the future. There's enough money to pay for everything. The mass exodus out of the irreligious katholyc schools is down to tiptoeing out of dodge. The seminary is overflowing. They see progress in rebuilding and rejuvinating parish life. Parish collections are up.

It's all about hope.

Remember how that worked out for the rope-a-dopes who voted for Obama?

Simultaneously, we have the chancery chicken littles tweetingthe sky is falling.

Well, which is it?

Are the schools, seminaries and parishes growing and we have enough money to pay for everything or is it all collapsing?

Who knows. They are incapable of telling the truth.

Here's what they expect people to believe: Now that attendance is up, people are starting to put money in the basket and the seminary is full and they see some smooth sailing ahead, it's as good a time as any to muck it all up again.

Somebody has masterminded a new plan: Psts.

All over town people are having Pst meetings. It seems to be very succesful because everyone who attends a meeting gets pst when they hear the plans.

Here's the reader's digest of pst. Brace yourself.

Two or three parishes will become one uberparish. Nothing is closing just yet, just a centralized center of operations for two or three parishes. All the pastors will be forced to resign. There will be a big shuffle of priests. All the spiritual healing that is going on between a priest and parishioner will be ripped apart. One chancery crony will be appointed uberpastor over the uberparish.

I can't figure out what happens to the priests being demoted, but I do know one thing: They won't be saying the Masses they say now.

Masses are going to be cancelled. They say some of the priests are lonely. Christ isn't cutting it. Tending to thousands of souls is isolating them from human contact. They are encouraging them to all live in one rectory and shutter the others, so maybe these priests get to huddle or watch television together to cure their lonliness. Whatever they're doing, it's the Sacraments getting scratched off their calendar.

Here's some good news: You know the staff at your parish running CCD and other programs who have been shilling for dissent and liturgical madness? They're being let go. (The bad news is, these folks are not eligible for unemployment.) There will be an uberreligious ed director who will handle the programs for 5000 families. With that ratio, I suppose they'll be hiring magicians.

Oh...I forgot to tell you. Forty percent of these parishes can't pay their bills, so there is a Phase 2 of this roll-out.

I know what you're thinking. How can that be? The Chancellor and the Cardinal said they have enough money to pay for everything.

Well, they don't mean us. They're talking about the money being siphoned from every parish to pay the megasalaries of the cronies in the Chancery. It's all working. There's enough money. For them.

After all the infighting among the priests and lay people over who gets to be pastor, who has their job saved, Phase 2 will kick in. The Reality Show: While we're all sending enough money for the Chancery luminaries to cover their expenses, there isn't enough to pay the bills of two or three parishes. This is when the fun will begin.

Remember all the commotion and raging at the Cardinal over which parish will get closed? That was giving him headaches and agita. All that will now happen right at the parish level. Committees will form about which parish to close. The histrionics and fighting shall then commence. Good times will be had by all.

Do they really think the fighting to hold onto assets, parishes, jobs, positions of power will bring unity between parishioners? Will build on the momentum? The pst people will continue to put money in the basket so the Chancery can pay their high-salaried cronies and balance their budget?

It beats me how they could but 66 Brooks Road is the center of gravity on earth for delusions of grandeur.

You know what the role of a Bishop is supposed to be? Absorbing the blows that come from the culture and from within for the flock. Devoting themselves to do what it takes to offer the truth that drives us to Confession and Holy Communion so that our intellect can make the right choices in our lives. Keep us out of temptation and the effects of sin. It is a vocation that surrenders the pursuit of being popular, winning affection for oneself. A father, who accepts the anger that comes with making the hard decisions for your children or disciplining, knowing - maybe hoping is the right word - some day they will understand. And, even if they never do, it is all about pleasing God. If they are doing it right, the worldly hates them, just as it hated Christ.

Today's old testament readings remind us of the ramifications of sin.

'The sword shall never depart from your house,
because you have despised me
and have taken the wife of Uriah to be your wife.'
Thus says the LORD:
'I will bring evil upon you out of your own house.
I will take your wives while you live to see it,
and will give them to your neighbor.
He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight.
You have done this deed in secret,
but I will bring it about in the presence of all Israel,
and with the sun looking down.'"

Getting people to Church and keeping them there is about Sacramental grace. It has nothing at all to do with the popularity of a bishop.

When you have a bishop who lacks the spinal fortitude to carry the cross that comes with the role, who needs be adorned and adored to feel good about himself, he deflects the role of saying and doing what is necessary for the salvation of souls to sheep. The consequences of the stroking of his ego, id and superego, the divisions and rage, the spiritual starvation, the murders, among his people is the price worth paying. It isn't the ramifications of sin on the intellect that keeps people from Church, it's the self-worth and popularity of the Bishop.

I don't have the bandwith to embrace their ludicrous ideas. They are dividing and throwing the sheep to the lions to be torn apart. My heart breaks for Christ. I am pained for the souls they have abandoned. Good luck to them. Good luck fighting over the stuff.

Want my advice? Keep yourself in a state of Grace. Stay as far as possible away from the casting of lots for Christ's garments. As the fur is flying, plant yourself in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Adore. Praise. Love. Witness to the Reason for your hope. Christ is in the Stern. If they move Him, move with Him. The gates of hell do not prevail. Nothing else really matters.

And the World will be better for this

2012-01-27T19:48:00.001-05:00

Hate Crime Against Catholic Church Ignored by Attorney General

2012-01-26T06:34:00.007-05:00

Read it and weep.

January 25, 2012

The Honorable Martha Coakley Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General One Ashburton Place Boston, MA 02108 -1518

Dear Madam Attorney General:

Sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning, January 22nd, a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, located in front of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, at Saint Margaret's Church in Dorchester, was decapitated and knocked off its pedestal. This malevolent act of destruction was directed at an institution that has served the spiritual, charitable, and educational needs of the Dorchester and South Boston communities for more than a century.

It is unlikely that this vandalism was a mere juvenile prank. The damage done to the statue required considerable application of force, probably accompanied by some weapon or instrument. Nor was the statue in some obscure location frequented by delinquent teenagers. The statue was in public sight at one of the busiest intersections in the City of Boston, the corner of Columbia Road and Dorchester Avenue. The person or persons responsible undertook a significant risk of identification and apprehension to carry out their crime.

I urge you to treat this incident as a potential hate crime and use the resources of your office to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle *Executive Director * Catholic Action League of Massachusetts 35 Montclair Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02131 (781) 251-9739 Catholicactionleague@gmail.com

END

Imagine her reaction if this was a muslim mosque?

Imagine the sob stories in the press?

It's my recollection there are security cameras outside of St. Margaret's.

Pray with us...

O Sacred Heart of Jesus,animated with a desire to repair the outrages unceasingly offered to Thee, we prostrate before Thy throne of mercy, and in the name of all mankind, pledge our love and fidelity to Thee.

The more Thy mysteries are blasphemed, the more firmly we shall believe them, O Sacred Heart of Jesus!

The more impiety endeavors to extinguish our hope of immortality, the more we shall trust in Thy Heart, sole Hope of mankind!

The more hearts resist Thy Divine attractions, the more we shall love Thee, O infinitely amiable Heart of Jesus!

The more unbelief attacks Thy Divinity, the more humbly and profoundly we shall adore It, O Divine Heart of Jesus!

The more Thy holy laws are transgressed and ignored, the more we shall delight to observe them, O most holy Heart of Jesus!

The more Thy Sacraments are despised and abandoned, the more frequently we shall receive them with love and reverence, O most generous Heart of Jesus!

The more the imitation of Thy virtues is neglected and forgotten, the more we shall endeavor to practice them, O Heart, model of every virtue!

The more the devil labors to destroy souls, the more we shall be inflamed with desire to save them, O Heart of Jesus, zealous Lover of souls!

The more sin and impurity destroy the image of God in man, the more we shall try by purity of life to be a living temple of the Holy Spirit, O Heart of Jesus!

The more Thy Holy Church is despised, the more we shall endeavor to be her faithful children, O Sweet Heart of Jesus!

The more Thy Vicar on earth is persecuted, the more will we honor him as the infallible head of Thy Holy Church, show our fidelity and pray for him, O kingly Heart of Jesus!

O Sacred Heart, through Thy powerful grace, may we become Thy apostles in the midst of a corrupted world, and be Thy crown in the kingdom of Heaven. Amen.

Prayer on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

2012-01-25T21:08:00.001-05:00

O glorious St. Paul, after persecuting the Church you became, by God's grace, Her most zealous Apostle. To carry the knowledge of Jesus, our Divine Savior, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

You joyfully endured prison, scourgings, stonings, and a shipwreck, as well as all manner of persecutions, culminating in the shedding of the last drop of your blood for Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Obtain for us the grace to labor strenuously to bring the Faith to others and to accept any trials and tribulations that may come our way. Help us to be inspired by your Epistles and to partake of your indomitable love for Jesus, so that after we have finished our course we may join you in praising Him in heaven for all eternity.

Amen.

Newt SuperPAC Commercials

2012-01-25T08:52:00.001-05:00

Meet the man who gave us Obamacare!

Pop goes the weasel?

I am what I am.

2012-01-25T08:16:00.002-05:00

Last of all, as to One born abnormally, Christ, appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of Christ. But by the grace of God, I am what I am,and His grace to me has not been ineffective. Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them; not I however, but the grace of God that is with me.

Patrick Dineen: From the Frying Pan into the Fire

2012-01-24T22:54:00.003-05:00

Dear Patrick,

Don't unpack your suitcase.

Not to worry though, He'll be back before we run out of places.

Boston Goalie Tim Thomas Snubs Obama's Rubbing Elbow's With Celebrities Event

2012-01-24T18:43:00.004-05:00

"I believe the federal government has grown out of control, threatening the rights, liberties, and property of the people," Thomas said.

Thomas, described as a political conservative and talk show enthusiast, said his action was not directed at President Obama himself, saying all of government is abusing its power.

"This is being done at the executive, legislative, and judicial level," Thomas said. "This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the federal government."

Thomas added:

"Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a free citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an individual."

I love this:

Bruins General Manager Peter Chiarelli said Thomas' position does not reflect the views of the team, but he will not suspend Thomas.

Isn't that nice of them?

Having an unfavorable opinion of the Obama Administration won't cause anybody to be disciplined at their job.

There are two of us in Massachusetts that are very relieved about this!

It's almost as if the country still has a Constitution?

NYT says Gingrich has 84% Chance of Winning Florida

2012-01-23T21:09:00.003-05:00

Rapid shift in Florida. Romney is tanking. And, the national polls have Gingrich tied with the Mittens.

Romney is looking desperate.

During an appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America," he referred to Romney as "somebody who has released none of his business records, who has decided to make a stand on transparency without being transparent. After initially balking, Romney is set to release personal tax records on Tuesday"

Can't wait to see what's in those, but his taxes are not his business records. If you're asking other candidates to disclose their business records and contracts to be transparent - you've got some chutzpah not to release your own business records.

I think we'll soon be seeing Romney's forced self-deportation (huh?) from the race.

Peculiar News on the Peculiar News on NeoCats (Liturgy was NOT approved)

2012-01-22T19:39:00.004-05:00

Phew!

Vatican approval for Neo-Catechumenal Way only applies to non-liturgical catechesis

Vatican City, Jan 21, 2012 / 05:15 pm (CNA).- The Vatican’s approval of the Neo-Catechumenal Way’s forms of “celebration” only applies to non-liturgical prayers within their catechesis and not to the Mass or other liturgies of the Church.

“With respect to the celebrations of the Holy Mass and the other liturgies of the Church,” communities of the Neo-Catechumenal Way must “follow the norms of the Church as indicated in the liturgical books – to do otherwise must be understood to be a liturgical abuse,” a Vatican official told CNA on Jan. 21.

In this process, “the Neocatechumenal Way obtained no new permissions whatsoever,” said the official, who is familiar with the approval process for prayers and liturgies.

“Essentially, the Pontifical Council is only approving these things that are found in the Catechetical Directory of the Neocatechumenal Way, and in no way touches those things contained in the liturgical books.

(Ok, I'll admit it...I am relieved! I did NOT want these liturgical abuses coming to a parish near us.)

Be sure to read through the comments at Fr. Z's. There are still many problems with the Catechesis, etc., and directives from 2008 about the Liturgy that do not leave me edified.

I do repeat, the Pope seemed to leave several clues in his statement which seem to indicate he's trying to reign this this thing in.

What Will Romney Re-Invent Himself as Post South Carolina?

2012-01-22T11:49:00.003-05:00

There's one thing Massachusetts Catholics can say with 100% certainty. Well actually, now that I think about it. Two things.

1. When Romney's convictions have not won over grassroots voters, he will get new ones.

“Republican voters have sent the message that they want to vote for an adulterous scumbag and I have heard them loud and clear,” he said. “I promise that I will engage in a world-class extramarital affair that will make all of us proud again.”

According to one senior advisor, the Romney campaign was already holding focus groups and conducting special polling to determine the best person with whom Mr. Romney should conduct his extracurricular dalliance.

And in a sign that Mr. Romney is taking precipitous action to find an object for his adulterous intentions, today his campaign launched a new dating site, SexyTimeWithMitt.com.

Go ahead and laugh. But I'm telling you, it is not far-fetched!

2. Anne Fox of Mass Citizens for Life will send out a press release with a lot of exclamations points saying "It is PRO-LIFE".

Dictatorial Religious Bigots Storm and Terrorize Santorum and Supporters

2012-01-22T08:02:00.011-05:00

In his victory speech, one of the first things Gingrich talked about was the insurgence of dictatorial religious bigots in this country. Incredibly, as he was saying it, they showed up to terrorize Rick Santorum and his supporters.

As Santorum finished his speech, a group of Charleston occupiers began to shout, "Santorum, Santorum, you bigot, goodbye". The chants quickly turned into a protest where occupiers were pushing and shoving throughout the crowd.

One Occupy protester threw red glitter at Santorum and ran out of the room.

To the frustration of supporters in attendance, the occupy protesters made no friends as more entered the room and threw green and purple glitter into the air as they chanted obscenities.

Some Santorum supporters fought back, pushing an occupier's head and shouting "Get them out of here!" as protesters were forced outside of the watch party.

A source with the Occupy movement said the attack was planned at the very last minute saying they "couldn't resist."

Their plan was to chant "Santorum, Santorum, You Bigot, Goodbye." In the tune of the song 'Na Na Na Goodbye.'

Yeah? Well don't count on it pal. On exit polling, seven out of ten Gingrich voters said religious freedom drove them to the polls. The margin of votes, the counties historically won. I think something just happened.

Gingrich is the only one with the audacity to talk about these Philistines in the public square. To name it, say we're not going to take what you're doing to our country sitting down.

He's got the slingshot loaded and he is firing, hitting them right between the eyes. Stunning them. He is exactly what we need for this time in our country's history.

Somewhere in his past, he's slept around. Ok. But since that time, he's converted to the Catholic Church. He has access to the Sacraments of the Catholic Church. And, it's as clear as the nose on your face that the Holy Spirit is manifesting Himself through him.

Did the Democrats let that stop Ted Kennedy, even when he drove a woman off of a bridge and swam away rather than try to save her life?

Of course not. They loved him. Believed in redemption. Knew the power they needed him for, and he his career went on.

Fifty-four million babies are dead. Our country is stewing in the sour fruit. Anarchy and religious bigotry is being characterized as political heroism.

There are many blacks here in Boston who sympathized with the "occupy" message, tried to join.

You know what happened? It became clear the 'occupy' movement was loaded with racial bigots. Many black leaders spoke out about it here in Boston. Next time they show up, check it out. All mad whiteys. And, I mean 'mad' in every conceivable way. This anarchist movement has nasty underpinnings.

Coming home from work the other day,something red caught my eye on the periphery of my vision above a store window. It was a confederate flag. People are putting symbols of ethnic cleansing in their windows under the guise the citizens of this country will protect it as freedom.

And, the scary thing is, if we don't pounce on this chance to stop the anarchy, maybe they will.

Romney was an enemy of religious freedom in his tenure in Massachusetts. He is the author of Obamacare. He is the author of forcing Catholics to pay for abortions and hand out abortifacients. He is the author of gay marriage. We cannot vote for Romney, come what may. Because what we would be doing is endorsing 40 years of the GOP paying off people like Anne Fox of MCFL to say this IS the prolife agenda. (Shame on her!)

Paul is crazy.

Rick Santorum is a good guy. I would love to see him politically flourish. It is despicable the prolife movement didn't get behind him. But it is what it is and he is too meek to fight this kind of battle. We need a warrior.

It's time for Rick and Ron to bow out and for all of us to get behind Gingrich.

Yes...Carol is Happy!!

2012-01-21T19:17:00.003-05:00

7:02 seems a bit early to call the race, but I'm too excited about gumming up the Mittens and crew not to buy into it!

The exit polls project Newtie is going to win big.

7/10 who voted for Newt said it was important for candidates to share their religious beliefs.

I'm guessing the other 3/10 said it was important for candidates to share their tax returns?

8/10 said debates are important. Sending Obama and the press home from debates with their tails between their legs has got to be the game plan if we want the White House back.

"As an American I am not so shocked that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his name, because America gave him the White House based on the same credentials." ~Newt Gingrich

Whoot-whoot.

Father de Caussade Meditation

2012-01-21T11:51:00.002-05:00

The whole of spirituality can be expressed in an abridged form in this maxim: we should abandon ourselves purely and entirely to God's design, and thus, with a complete self-forgetfulness, be eternally busied with loving and obeying him, without all these fears, reflections, twistings and turnings and disquietudes which sometimes result from the care of our own salvation and perfection. Since God offers to manage our affairs for us, let us once and for all hand them over to His infinite wisdom in order to occupy ourselves only with Himself and what belongs to Him.

Come, my soul, let us pass with head erect over all that happens within us or outside us, remaining always content with God, content with what He does with us and with what He makes us do. Let us be very careful not to engage imprudently in that multitude of restless reflections which like so many paths leading nowhere present themselves to our mind to make it wander and stray endlessly to our sheer loss: let us pass this labyrinth of our own self-love by vaulting over it and not by following it out in all its interminable details.

Come, my soul, let us pass beyond our languors, our illnesses, our aridities, our inequalities of humor, our weaknesses of mind, the snares of the devil and of men with their suspicions, jealousies, sinister ideas and prejudices. Let us fly like the eagle above all these clouds, our gaze ever fixed on the sun and on its rays, which are our duties. We fell all these miseries, and it is not in our power to be insensible to them, but let us remember that our life is not a life of feeling. Let us live in that higher region of the soul where the will of God produces his eternal operation, ever equal, ever uniform, ever immutable. in that spiritual home where the uncreated, the formless, the ineffable, keeps the soul infinitely removed from the shadows and dust of earth, we remain clam even when our senses are prey of the temptest. We have become independent of the senses; their agitations and disquietudes, their comings and goings and the hundreds of metamorphoses they pass through do not trouble us any more than the clouds that darken the sky for a moment and disappear.

One more word about Gingrich

2012-01-21T11:13:00.003-05:00

What we really need right now, is somebody who is a true patriot, prolifer who is not afraid to kick the butt out of the media. A mouthpiece that says, we see what you are doing to our country, God sees what you are doing and it's time to take you to the shed.

The last thing we need is a prochoice liar whom the GOP has groomed because they all need him to protect the money they have invested in the Caymans.

n.b. Marianne Gingrich gave Newt the best soundbite of the campaign.

(Hearty har-har, lady. You stole him from the wife before you. Nobody cares about your sob stories.)

Peculiar News of the Day: Neocatechumenal Rite Gets Approved...NOT!

2012-01-21T07:22:00.019-05:00

UPDATE - Fr. Z. The Liturgy was NOT approved. (Phew!)

I don't know what to make of it.

Just when one culture of cult goes down the tubes, another rears its ugly head.

The only thing I can think of is, they figured the cult has grown so big they are better off trying to reign it in under the authority of the Pope? I think that's where he's going with it.

Begging the pardon of His Holiness...how'd that work out for us with the Legion?

The statutes of the way, not regulated by the Church but the Kiko way.

Say WHAT?

If you have not been following the story, the saga intensified last year when the Japanese Bishops tried to kick the thing out of town.

I came across the neocats about ten years ago when I went to a lecture of an orthodox theologian in Boston with a Mass scheduled at the end of the lecture. I never heard of them, didn't know they were sponsoring the lecture.

At the end of the lecture, out they came with some kind of a...pep rally. Guitars. Tambourines. Dancing.

I've been blogging now for ten years. It will come as no surprise to long-time readers that that the cynic in me met this moment with...Heh....What the hell is this? But, honest, I really work on approaching things with an open mind!

I spoke to the cynic. "Pipe down there girl and let's just check this out." Stuck around for about a half hour to experience it with and through genuine spiritual intuition.

"Cynic...you may be right about this one. Let's get out of here."

I remember standing there trying to figure out how I was going to get myself out of the jam without spoiling any momentum for the people I came with who may be responding to it. You don't really know where people are at on their journey. I never want to be an impediment to grace.

I looked at my watch and whispered to my friends. "This is running later than I thought. I've got to run. I'm afraid the pot roast in the crock pot may be drying up. Catch ya later."

What's that you ask? What's the matter with the NeoCats?

Look, it's indisputable that devout Catholics who practice the mystical prayers of the Sacred Liturgy and transport their soul to the things happening 2000 years ago need dignity and solitude to complete that transport. You can't get to mystical prayer unless there is quiet and concentration. Period.

There's a lot of ways to pray. There really is.

The lowest form of prayer are gimme prayers. Gimme this, gimme that. We see God as the Santa Claus who rewards people serving in soup kitchens and picking up litter. When life is sailing along smoothly, God doesn't hear anything from us. If we come to Church, it's a visit to get something or someone we are smitten with or a shot in the arm for our wounded self-esteem.

I ran with these dogs in my early 20s. They...WE were hanging on to God by a thread.

If you're living on the surface of your prayer life, you are attracted to the hoopla to lift you out of your complacency. The tambourines. The Wwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!. You are in need of the Healer, the Physician, the Comforter.

The Healer and Physician rocks. We all need Him from time to time. But if you find yourself needing to tap into only that Power, it is a red flag that something in your spiritual life or personal life needs your attention and you better away from the noise and set yourself before the Eucharist to listen to God.

Don't get me wrong, the hoopla can be about praising, adoring, venerating, opening your soul. I enjoy a praise and worship service once in a while. But, not at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because it is impossible to enter the chamber of your soul to listen to God. To be with Him mystically on His journey through the Passion, Death and Resurrection.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the highest form of Mystical Prayer and mystical prayer needs concentration and solitude. The music can compliment this journey but only if it maintains the dignity of the silence necessary to enter the Holy Sacrifice mystically.

The focus of hoopla in a Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ends in an hour. As soon as you walk out the doors of the Church, you return to your spiritual desert. You are not learning the practice of intimate communication with Christ. You're not learning how to live touching Christ's Perpetual Presence in your soul. Tapping into His Graces throughout your day. A real relationship.

We are the light of the world.
Let our light shine before all.
That they may see the good that we do...

We come to tell our story.
We come to break the bread.

Oh..wait a minute!

Have you ever had a friend that did all the talking? Every meeting is about seeking advice from you on their little dramas? They call you every day to give you an update on how the dramas are playing out and get more advice? One day years later, you realize, Hey, wait a minute, this person has no idea who I am or what has gone on in my life all these years. There has never been a moment to share myself. No listening. These relationships don't last because it is not a mutual relationship.

If you're not entering the Mystical with your soul in a state of grace, you are robbing yourself of Christ in your relationship with Him. There is way too much going on in the Neocatechumenal liturgies to enter into mystical prayer and a mystical relationship with Christ. It divides the flock from the obedience of Rome to the obedience of a Kiko, whoever he is. It's a cooking cult. Like the Legion, it is swallowing people up.My gut tells me the Pope knows this and is trying to bring it closer so that people can hop off as they mature.

The celebrations are a kind of steppingstone to the parish Mass as a way to help form and reintroduce lapsed or ill-prepared Catholics into "the richness of sacramental life," the pope said....But during the neocatechumenate's journey of formation "it's important not to be separated from the parish community, precisely in the eucharistic celebration, which is the true place of unity for everyone, where the Lord embraces us in our different stages of spiritual maturity and unites us in the one bread that makes us one body."

The Liturgy is a mess. If your parish is a Liturgical mess and you haven't experienced this one..you ain't seen nothing yet. But, these are sincere, orthodox, loving people who bring many gifts to the table. If they come to your parish, put on your tin foil hat and cast the net.

A smoldering wick can turn into a flame. In fact, I'm living proof it can turn into an inferno.

Let's pray for them and for our Pope.

Praying for Rick, Newt

2012-01-21T06:38:00.002-05:00

...and praying that whoever winneth, Romney loseth. Amen.

BTW, did you catch his I'm a regular schmoe pitch the other night?

That's right. He's schlepping to work with his lunch in his backpack every day. Just like you and me. Of course, unlike you and me, he shelters his millions in the Caymens to avoid paying the taxes we pay, but he is the regular guy in the crows of frau-fraus.

The Romneybots seem to be lowering their expectations in South Carolina.

You know, this is really about putting GOP's predetermination of the wealthy, proabort nominee, honing in on a handful of farmers in Iowa and New Hampshire and giving a couple of handfuls of cash to initiatives like MCFL and MFI to sabotage prolifer candidates and twist the history and positions of a liar and a proabort into the prolife agenda, out of it's misery.

It turns out Rick won Iowa. Gingrich is now ahead of the Mittens in the polls in SC. I don't hear the fat lady.

We'll see what happens today in the land of evangelicals.

Gingrich Mops the Floor With John King

2012-01-19T21:13:00.001-05:00

Marianne Gingrich "Shocker"

2012-01-19T19:48:00.002-05:00

Alleges Newt asked her for an "open marriage".

Seeing as she was Newt's mistress and accepted Newt's marriage proposal while he was still married to the wife before her, the sob story is falling on deaf ears.

I'll tell you what I was shocked about...How do you say this nicely...It could never be said she had a face that launched 1000 ships.

Saint for the day

2012-01-19T06:35:00.002-05:00

O eternal Father, in the Name of Jesus I ask for perseverance, and the grace to love you with my whole heart, and to fulfill perfectly henceforth your holy will. St. Launomar

Boston Globe Cover Up of Occupy Sex Offender

2012-01-18T21:11:00.003-05:00

This is sweet:

After all the indignation from the Boston Globe about the Catholic Church codding sex offenders, The Boston Globe did a puff piece on the "archetype of an occupy couple".

“Holding hands outside the food tent before the encampment disbanded,” read the accompanying story, “they were the archetype of an Occupy couple: he, a red-headed Mainer with tattoos on his arms; she, a petite upstate New York girl with a heart-shaped face and a boyish haircut, wearing a knit grandmother sweater three sizes too big.”

Turns out the petite girl was actually a teenager, 18, and the ginger with the tats was a 25-year-old level-three sex offender who served 18 months for sexual assault and battery on a child over 14.

The 18 year old he shacked up with at Occupy must have seemed like a piece of cake compared to the struggles with the 14 year old, eh?

She knows he's a sex offender and is cool with it.

In an email to the Herald, Karasik wrote: “Yes, I am aware of this. Yes, I am perfectly fine with it.”

n the Globe photo, Stitham is pictured shirtless, kissing and clutching Karasik. “She misses sleeping beside him in a tent,” the Globe article says, “picking up trash together on Dewey Square, sitting on his lap in the camp with nothing and everything to do.”

Shoot for the moon girl. Shoot for the moon.

I couldn't help wondering where this young girl's mother is - what happened to her, to them.

Praying.

Who said it?

2012-01-18T18:53:00.002-05:00

My Lady, my Maiden, I presented your message to the Bishop but it seems he does not think it is the truth. For this reason I beg you to entrust your message to someone more illustrious, who might convey it in order that they may believe it, for I am only an insignificant man.

Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound

2012-01-17T19:21:00.002-05:00

Cardinal-elect Dolan Homily on Sexual Immorality

2012-01-16T13:32:00.001-05:00

Does anyone who thought he would be no better than Kicanass have any more questions?

After the dogs and gadflies

2012-01-16T11:31:00.002-05:00

No matter how good food is, if poison is mixed with it, it may cause the death of him who eats it. Fr. John Bosco

I needed this.

Another Gadfly Priest Boohoos About the Roman Missal

2012-01-16T09:51:00.009-05:00

Our friends at BCI recount yet another incident of Fr. Austin Fleming's 'pastoral' approach to lead his sheep into conflict with Christ's Church.

Fr. Fleming wrote about new text included in the Eucharistic Prayer for Masses for the Dead which he found difficult and thus changed slightly. Then he said:

“That I consciously made a change in the text leads me to wonder what changes other priests are making and where that will lead us.”

This prompted one reader to respond, “I would hope that priests do have the ‘freedom; to change wording particularly in the example you just showed us in your funeral liturgy,” and then other priests who had issues with the new translations further piled on the discussion.

Fr. Fleming's original post here.

Conversion is an intersection of life when one has the epiphany that our own intellect and understanding is limited. We experience enough of life to know that God's ways are not our ways and the Holy Spirit is leading Christ's Church in the Deposit of Faith.

We come to the realization that all the excuses we made to contracept our own children, to have use the Divine gift of human sexuality outside of the Sacrament of Marriage was sinful. Simultaneously, we're enlightened that to want giddy in our Liturgies, to want to perform the Sacred act of Communicating the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ to the faithful, etc., are disordered desires. We have been pursuing chicken nuggets when all along Christ has been beckoning us to Abe and Louis.

We realize prancing around the Sanctuary to give consolation to the imagination that the Church disrespects women is limiting Christ's ability to lavish us with the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit for the hour we give Him to do it. We look over our lives and think about conversations we may have had in our past that inspired agitation and conflict, emotions that created obstacles to reaching these epiphanies and we are aghast at the damage we may have contributed to souls and Christ.

It all comes together: God does not give what is holy to the dogs. So many years wasted being a dog. Lying with the dogs and getting up with the fleas. Using my dog whistle to call other people to the dogs. Thinking I was outsmarting the Holy See and having quality of life.

Stupid is as stupid does.

When I see a priest who inspires his flock to rebel against teachings, wisdom of the Church so that he can be a hero to those who need a priest to give them excuses, I am appalled.

I am appalled that he misuses his vocation to lead his flock into misunderstanding and rebellion so he can relish in the adoration it brings from those he is misleading. I am appalled his bishop is too busy creating puff pieces about himself to spiritually father and mentor his priests so that the flock is fed the sweet grapes of the Vine. I am appalled because they are starving to death.

Mostly, I am shocked by his lack of faith.

How is it a man can hand himself over to Christ, to literally be the conduit through which Christ's Divinity, Body and Blood passes, and yet be so deaf, dumb and blind?

My God, what a tragedy.

Huffington Post's Latest AntiCatholic Rant is Bigoted and Bizzare

2012-01-15T10:23:00.009-05:00

Wayne Beson has his panties in a twist over statements made by the Catholic Pope on gay marriage.

It's antigay. It's bigoted. It's bizzare. The Pope is a joke. His reign is an abject failure. It's outrageous. It's secrecy. Rejecting gay marriage means you are a liar and a lunatic, so which is it: Is the Pope a liar or a lunatic. It's arrogant. Just look at the crusades and the pedophiles. Enablers of child abuse. The pathological homophobia is being fed down the food chain. Pathetic "prayers". Blowing holy smoke where the sun don't shine. Attacks on innocent GLBT families.

Feeling the love yet?

Somebody around this place is insensitive, indecent, intolerant, reprehensible and out of touch.

Here's an epiphany pal, that would be you.

Let us cut to the chase. You don't want to see same sex sex on the list of sins that impedes your redemption. I don't blame you. It hurts to think something we are doing is rejected by God. We all know it in some form or fashion somewhere along our lives in big things and in little things. In ways that we use our tongue or our libido harms others and hurts God.

In my CCD teaching days, I used to liken premarital sex to robbing a bank.
Their first reaction was indignant. God doesn't see teenagers who have sex like the terrible people who rob banks!

I would express my shock at their thoughts that God sees people who rob banks as terrible people. I would invite them to see that God sees robbers as poor people who do something desperate to feed, house and clothe their family. People who need money. God never sees anyone as a terrible person - just people with needs, desires and wants.

I would continue the story. A man who loses his job or gets caught up in the web of substance abuse and has no way to feed his family. His children are hungry and he decides to rob a bank. He gets a gun. He needs somebody to drive the getaway car. He asks around. One of his friends agrees to drive him to the bank. This person then becomes an accomplice to breaking the commandment Thou Shalt Not Steal. If anyone gets hurt or killed, an accomplice to Thou Shalt Not Kill.

When we have desires to sin, we can very rarely pull it off by ourselves. We invite accomplices to assist us in fulfilling our needs and desires. If we carry out our own lustful desires, we invite a victim into sin. We hold out the apple and if they bite, you are both thrown out of paradise. Naked. With nothing.

The object of your desire is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Inviting them to partner in your sinful wants, needs, desires is leading them into temptation. An accomplice to Thou Shalt not Commit Adultery.

The state is not in the business of the salvation of souls. Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it isn't harmful to you or your neighbor. Want to live with your lover? Knock yourselves out. Give to Caesar what it Caesar's. But if you die before you give what is God's to God - you're in for an eternity of suffering in a place with some unsavory characters. The Catholic Church is going to stand in that same public square and call out to the sheep. There is nothing hateful or unconstitutional about it and we will do it - come what may.

Let us face it. The John Unnis of this world are the worst enemies of Christ's Church. Inside of His Sanctuary, he becomes his own hero and a hero of the Chancery bean counters by fueling contempt for remorse and the redemption of the Catholic Church and the fruit is Wayne Beson.

Can you feel the love?

Can Christ?

Winning!

My Post-Game Tebow Thoughts

2012-01-15T08:40:00.007-05:00

I have a lot of nerve to make them since I only tuned in for one minute in the second quarter to see the score but the whole phenomenon is so fascinating, it's worthy of continued observation.

The New York Times kicks off the passive/aggressive gloating piece HERE.

Here's the reader's digest: Tebow may have a huge fan base that knows nothing about foozball, but his God isn't all that powerful because Tebow may not even have a future in foozball. It also mentions the embarrassing taunting chants of the New England pagans and drunks:

“What stung the worst Saturday night was the sarcasm as thick as New England chowder when fans derisively chanted the name of Tim Tebow.”

When I tuned in to catch the score, I confess there was a brief moment of prayerful intimacy with Christ and Our Blessed Mother trying to talk them into giving glory to God through this young man's talents with a win.

Ok. I had a weak moment. But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt foolish. Not to mention repentant.

Isn't it captivating though, that the spirit of mockery of God two thousand years ago manifests itself in exactly the same way today. Where is your God now.

I know where He is and I know how He manifests His Glory. In everything, we are a witness to the Reason for our hope and our joy.

I saw His Glory in a pregame interview with Mark Whalberg who gracefully witnessed to what drives him in his life, in all he is and does: His faith in Christ and the treasures of Catholic religion. He had the opportunity to say that he starts his day off, everyday, with a visit to Church. He tries to make daily Mass but even if he can't, he makes a visit to Church every day. Wow, was I impressed with his conversion story.

I saw His Glory in Tim's post-game remarks:

“They had a great scheme. They came out and they played well and they executed well. You’ve got to give them a lot of credit.
I just want to thank my lord and savior Jesus Christ and thank my teammates for the effort they put forth not only tonight but the entire season. I also want to thank the Broncos fans for all their support this season and it definitely meant a lot.”

Amen.

The Pope had a beautiful reminder of God's glory this week in a reflection during the Angelus.

“I’d like to stress the decisive role played by the spiritual guide in the journey of faith, in particular in the response to the vocation of special consecration in the service of God and his people. The Christian faith, in and of itself, posits the proclamation and witness. In fact, it consists in participating in the Good News for which Jesus of Nazareth died and rose, namely that he is God. And thus, the calling to follow Jesus more closely, giving up one’s family to dedicate oneself to the great family of the Church, normally requires the witness and proposal of an ‘older brother’, usually a priest. This does not mean however forgetting the fundamental role played by parents, who, through their genuine and joyful faith and conjugal love show their children that building a life on God’s love is beautiful and possible.”

Thank you Lord for the love that sustains us through our talents, flaws, challenges, victories and defeats. Thank you for our Popes, our priests and the many people who are witnesses to Your love and your Church ever day. We wouldn't mind ponying up on the victories and miracles but we love You and we trust in You. Lead us. Thank you for inspiring us through the fire of this young man's love and faith.

Priest Dressing His Dogs Up in Vestments to Assist the Sacred Liturgy

2012-01-14T10:49:00.003-05:00

Scroll through the eight pictures of the dogs in vestments HERE.

Can you imagine being a priest, knowing the mystical things that happen to the souls who can be led to travel back to the moment and place of Christ's Last Supper, the communion of angels and saints in that Sanctuary...and bringing DOGS to take the focus away from the poor uncatechized slobs sitting in the pews?

The moment when a soul can be physically embraced in this intimate and sacramental union and this moron is bringing dogs with vestments into the Sanctuary.

The painful story HERE.

Monsignor Pope's Treatise on "Obedience"

2012-01-14T07:01:00.003-05:00

There seems to be some confusion.

It is a priest's evocation is to be obedient to his bishop. It is not the evocation of a lay person to be obedient to a bishop, because we have children and families. It is our evocation and duty to get to Heaven and bring as many people with us as we can.

Many priests confuse these evocations.

The instruction to lay people that Christ warned us about false shepherds with the intention that we are to be obedient to them is spiritually disordered.

I'm here to remind all who read here that Christ warned us about false shepherds and advised us to test everything. His instructions were clear. We are to shake the dust from our feet as a witness to the uncatechized, to our children, our neighbors and to the priest and Bishop himself so that he may know God sees what he is doing. Never, ever, sit in false witness or in silence when a shepherd is leading the flock astray. He is on the road to Gehanna and is not to be followed under the guise these are the instructions from Christ on 'obedience' to His Church.

The call for obedience can be the last refuge for the wicked. Many Bishops used obedience to cover up their crimes against children. Test everything and always choose obedience to Christ's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church when your Bishop is not.

Most of these Bishops are simply weak rather than disobedient. They choose obedience for themselves but hand out poison to the flock. The road to hell is paved with their skulls. Let us pray for priests advising the faithful to follow them there, towing their children, family, friends and community.

Let those who have ears hear, in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Emergency call for prayers - the bitches are circling Tebow on their brooms in Massachusetts

2012-01-13T21:12:00.006-05:00

It couldn't happen in any other place.

Please...pray for this young man's protection from the spiritual forces at play here in Massachusetts.

I have said for years, we are infested.

I am dead serious. The guy is walking into Dante's Inferno.

ADDENDUM - please take a few minutes and pray the following prayer for the protection of Tim Tebow against the curses and hexes. These poor victims of the devil have no idea what the power they are unleashing. Once these demons are empowered, they will find a host. Let's circle their wagons and send them back to their master in hell with the tails between their legs.

Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Most glorious Prince of the Celestial Host, Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in the conflict which we have to sustain against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Eph. 6.12). Come to the rescue of men whom God has created to His image and likeness, and whom He has redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil. It is thou whom Holy Church venerates as her guardian and protector; thou whom the Lord has charged to conduct redeemed souls into Heaven. Pray, therefore, the God of Peace to subdue Satan beneath our feet, that he may no longer retain men captive nor do injury to the Church. Present our prayers to the most High, that without delay they may draw His mercy down upon us. Seize the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, bind him and cast him into the bottomless pit, that he may no more seduce the nations (Apoc. 20.2-3).

Exorcism

In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, strengthened by the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of Blessed Michael the Archangel, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the Saints, [and powerful in the holy authority of our ministry]*, we confidently undertake to repulse the attacks and deceits of the devil.

*Lay people omit this text

Psalm 67

Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered: and let them that hate Him flee from before His face.

As smoke vanishes, so let them vanish away: as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.

V. Behold the Cross of the Lord! Flee, bands of enemies.
R. The Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Offspring of David has conquered.
V. May Thy mercy descend upon us.
R. As great as our hope in Thee.

(The crosses (+) below indicate a blessing to be given if a priest recites the Exorcism; if a lay person recites it, they indicate the Sign of the Cross to be made by that person.)

We drive you from us, whoever you may be, unclean spirits, Satanic powers, infernal invaders, wicked legions, assemblies, and sects. In the name and by the virtue of Our Lord Jesus Christ +. May you be snatched away and driven from the Church of God and from the souls redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Divine Lamb +.

Cease by your audacity, cunning serpent, to deceive the human race, to persecute the Church, to torment God's elect, and to sift them as wheat +. This is the command made to you by the Most High God +, with Whom in your haughty insolence you still pretend to be equal +. The God Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2.4). God the Father commands you +. God the Son commands you +. God the Holy Ghost commands you +. Christ, the Eternal Word of God made Flesh, commands you +. He Who to save our race, outdone through your malice, humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death (Phil. 2.8). He Who has built His Church on the firm rock and declared that the gates of hell shall not prevail against Her, because He dwells with Her all days, even to the consummation of the world (Matt. 28.20). The hidden virtue of the Cross requires it of you, as does the power of the mysteries of the Christian Faith +. The glorious Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, commands you +. She who by Her humility and from the first moment of Her Immaculate Conception crushed your proud head. The faith of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and of the other Apostles commands you +. The blood of the Martyrs and the pious intercession of all the Saints command you +.

Thus, cursed dragon, and you, wicked legions, we adjure you by the living God +, by the true God +, by the holy God +, by the God Who so loved the world, as to give up His only-begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him may not perish but may have life everlasting (St. John 3.16). Cease deceiving human creatures and pouring out to them the poison of eternal perdition. Cease harming the Church and hindering her liberty. Retreat, Satan, inventor and master of all deceit, enemy of man's salvation. Cede the place to Christ in Whom you have found none of your works. Cede the place to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church acquired by Christ at the price of His Blood. Stoop beneath the all-powerful Hand of God. Tremble and flee at the evocation of the Holy and terrible name of Jesus; this Name which causes hell to tremble; this Name to which the Virtues, Powers and Dominations of Heaven are humbly submissive; this Name which the Cherubim and Seraphim praise unceasingly, repeating: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the God of Hosts.

V. O Lord hear my prayer.
R. And let my cry come unto Thee.
V. May the Lord be with thee.
R. And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

God of Heaven, God of earth, God of Angels, God of Archangels, God of Patriarchs, God of Prophets, God of Apostles, God of Martyrs, God of Confessors, God of Virgins, God who has power to give life after death and rest after work, because there is no other God than Thee and there can be no other, for Thou art the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, of Whose reign there shall be no end. We humbly prostrate ourselves before Thy glorious Majesty and we supplicate Thee to deliver us from all the tyranny of the infernal spirits, from their snares, their lies, and their furious wickedness. Deign, O Lord, to protect us by Thy power and to preserve us safe and sound. We beseech Thee through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

V. From the snares of the devil,
R. Deliver us, O Lord.

V. That Thy Church may serve Thee in peace and liberty,
R. We beseech Thee to hear us.

V. That Thou would crush down all enemies of Thy Church,
R. We beseech Thee to hear us.

(Holy water is sprinkled in the place where we may be.)

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the Divine Power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

*Indulgence of 300 days, plenary under the usual conditions, if this invocation is recited daily during a month.

n.b. I sprinkled holy water where I am and also opened the door and sprinkled a good dose into the stratosphere, praying for it to reach these unseen and unleashed powers. No home should be without holy water. Frankly, at this point in time, we should all be carrying it with us. I've been carrying it with me for years. Every Church has a font. Bring something with you to Mass this week and fill 'er up.

"Shocking act against Taliban"

2012-01-13T06:32:00.001-05:00

Cry me a river

Add Another Bigot to the List: Charles Barkley

2012-01-12T21:05:00.003-05:00

Barkley thinks an athlete who prays is a national nightmare.

That's the national nightmare.

You know what the readings were today? The big fat ugly Philistines who try to destroy Israel.

And, we all know how that story ended...

Hemorrhoids and boils.

Last Night with the Mittens

2012-01-11T19:10:00.002-05:00

His gloating face on a big-screen tv was macabre!

Get with the Novenas, will ya?

Let's Join the Hysteria: Mandatory Chastity Belts for Anyone Voting Democrat!

2012-01-08T10:35:00.003-05:00

Bill Donohue is a very funny man.

It seems everyone agrees Stephanopolis and Sawyer lifted the curtain on their bigotry.

I Didn't Realize George Stephanopolis Was Such a Weenie.

2012-01-08T05:37:00.015-05:00

Chastity Bono is saving up for 'penis surgery' and George Stephanopolis thinks people who marry the people they sleep with and don't use contraception strange?

Got to love the audacity of the beautiful people running to Whole Foods to avoid estrogen and progesterone in their meat and dairy products while brainwashing women to be promiscuous and take pills loaded up with carcinogens for sex.

These folks are worried about Mountain Dew?

This is captivating!

Salon has issued a call for the sex therapists to examine the strange phenomenon of the people who refuse to lower cultural standards on morality and virtue to theirs.

We ask political historians and sex therapists alike to explain ramping-up GOP anti-sex rhetoric...

Anti-sex rhetoric is hardly new to the Republican Party, of course, which has routinely campaigned to increase the dangers and consequences of sex by restricting access to contraceptives and abortion. But the GOP war on sex also comes at a time when the party’s presidential candidates have perhaps never been more out of step with the sexual beliefs and practices of most Americans.

“The private sexual behavior of all ages, of all political persuasions is getting more liberal,” says Marty Klein, a sex therapist and author of “America’s War on Sex.” “It’s going toward more variety, more partners, more kinky sex, more experimentation and, as the age of first marriage goes up, by definition the amount of premarital sex is going up.” Indeed, “the vast majority of Americans have sex before marriage,” according to a Guttmacher study, and most believe that out-of-wedlock nookie is morally a-OK.

Even as we increasingly disown notions of procreative marital sex as the only legitimate form of sexual experience, “the public policy around sexuality is getting more conservative, more draconian,” aside from tremendous progress within the gay rights movement, says Klein. “That schizophrenia has been in evidence since the day that George Bush took office — you could even say since the day that Bill Clinton was impeached.”

Wait. I don't get it...Was the revelry for the sexual freedom of women the day Bill Clinton put cigars where the sun doesn't shine?

There's a sucker born every minute. I have always had the morbid curiousity to know whether it was lit. I cannot imagine how low a woman's self-esteem has to be to turn the powerful gift of her sexuality into a receptacle for semen, much less for cigars, cigarettes, bondage and 'kinky sex'.

Knock yourselves out.

But there are and always will be men and women who accept the standards of the Divine gift of sexuality and will use it within the limitations of that gift. Most of us go through the some gauntlet of misuse of that gift before the witness of men and women reserving and preserving the sanctity of human sexuality teaches us its beauty and power. If a George Stephanoplis or Diane Sawyer asks questions, they're going to get the answers. You don't want to hear it, don't ask and we won't tell.

But let us have the decency and the courage to call them out on their anti-Catholic bigotry, as Newt did last night. I would love to see a Gingrich/Santorum ticket.

If George and Diane are willing to go along with the charade of calling a woman growing a beard and having a penis sewn onto herself a 'man', refer to her as 'he' and 'him', we can insist on having boundaries set on respecting people who reserve their sexuality in virtues and gratitude and respect for the Giver of that precious and powerful gift.

We don't have to put up with religious bigotry and really, we shouldn't. It's unconstitutional. This is our country. We live here. Our children and grandchildren live here. We owe it to them and to God to speak up, whether convenient or inconvenient. Whether its liked or its lumped.

Blessed Feast of the Epiphany.

Hey George, put this in your pipe and smoke it...

2012-01-07T22:28:00.001-05:00

Gabino's Bambinos

2012-01-06T20:42:00.004-05:00

Over the past few weeks, there was a lot of puff pieces in the Catholic media about how much progress the Bishops have made on sex scandals in the past ten years. I suppose the puff pieces were convince the regular pewsitter coming and going once a week and the people who alienated themselves from the Sacraments because they were so scandalized that the fix is in. But, from the standpoint of the catechized Catholics who tied themselves to the Arc with the Sacraments to ride out the storm and whom have repeatedly run up against the same flaw, it the Mr. Fix It media blitz was more than an empty gesture that gives us a queasy feeling on our stomach.

This is what it was like before:

Catholics who called the Chancery to report corruption, crimes, were 'listened to'.

When the listening was over, that was the end of their actions on the matter. Naive people who are 'listened to' inside of the Catholic Church feel a tremendous sense of relief. They did the right thing. It is implied in the listening that the people they told will then 'do something' about it.

But, they don't. They only veil it or shuffle it.

Some whistleblowers returned to a Chancery to insist something be done about it.

That's when they did something.

They used money, 'obedience', a sob story, to get people of good will to be silent.

If the whisteblower wasn't satisfied with those offers, they would circle the wagons to slander him or her as a whackadoo. They were bullied, threatened, shunned.

The priest being reported was protected. Some of them honored with public statements from the Archdiocese saying what a swell guy he was. Sometimes, they roasted them with honors.

You know what has changed from the above?

Not a thing.

In my opinion, the whole dynamic is worse than it ever was.

Everyone in the Chancery and Episcopal Conference is shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn this week Gabino Zavala had a cookie shacked up somewhere and fathered numerous children.

Tell me something, do you suppose there are signs and red flags when a married man is living a double life with a family in another state?

Weird behavior.
Phone calls.
Absences.
Money starts to disappear.

Here's another question for you. If he had a bunch of children holed up in a house somewhere, he could have been getting away with it all these years, right?

A woman, a man or a bunch of children. To this day, they can still shack them up somewhere and have a go at it.

Everyone looks the other way. Pretends they don't see. When they are close enough to see and know, they cover up for them.

That was the problem.

It remains the problem.

Happy 10th Sex Scandal Anniversary.

Support Santorum (75% do NOT Support Romney!)

2012-01-05T19:35:00.008-05:00

Nobody has a crystal ball in who the nominee will be, but judging from the support on the level of the grassroots voters, I wholeheartedly agree with Gingrich that the Mittens will NOT be the nominee.

When there are legitimate prolifers in a political race and it looks like they could actually win, why, in the Name of Christ, would a group get together to go out of their way to endorse a proabort?

Massachusetts Prolife Advocates say Romney is Prolife

Look, of course they have to 'say' it, because when we all look at Romneys record, it isn't 'prolife' at all. They've got to take the same positions they oppose with Obama and then claim they believe those positions to be 'prolife'.

This is political suicide.

If those positions are 'prolife' when Romney takes them, they are 'prolife' when Obama takes them.

This is the reason why prochoice candidates keep defeating prolifers.

They've taken a couple of things and given them a good spin, but here's everything you need to know about whether Romney is 'prolife'.

1. Romney said that he does not favor a federal constitutional amendment banning abortion, but instead favors each state deciding for itself whether to allow abortion or not. (Suppose Lincoln had taken that approach on the slavery issue. )

2. Gov. Romney signed into law a universal health insurance plan that (a) includes increased state-funded abortions, and (b) names Planned Parenthood in the law as an overseer. Romney never challenged any of that.

3. Romney said he would disagree with governmental intervention in the Terri Schiavo forced starvation case, adding "I think it's probably best to leave these kinds of matters in the hands of the courts."

4. Gov. Romney forced Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts to dispense the "morning after" pill.

5. Romney said he does not object to stem cell research using left over human embryos.

6. Although Romney vetoed pro-abortion legislation after his "conversion", it always appeared to be for political effect. The Legislature always overrode the vetoes. We never saw Romney exert any substantial effort to get his vetoes
sustained

Romney's current view on abortion appears to be based more on a procedural stance than a moral view and is not necessarily a pro-life view.

Instead of focusing on the moral case against abortion, Romney has repeatedly stated he wants the people to vote on this issue, which, in of in itself is not a pro-life position unless you also agree to use your position to pass pro-life legislation. But when pressed on whether he would support a constitutional amendment banning abortion, he refuses to answer this question. The National Journal (February 10, 2007) pressed him on this point:

Question:

You would favor a constitutional amendment banning abortion with exceptions for the life of the mother, rape and incest. Is that correct?

Romney:

What I've indicated is that I am pro-life, and that my hope is that the Supreme Court will give to the states over time or give to the states soon or give to the states their own ability to make their own decision with regard to their abortion law.

Question:

If a state wanted unlimited abortion?

Romney:

The state would fall into restrictions that had been imposed at the federal level, so they couldn't be more expansive in abortion than currently exists under the law, but they could become more restrictive in abortion provisions. So states like Massachusetts could stay like they are if they so desire, and states that have a different view could take that course. And it would be up to the citizens of the individual states. My view is not to impose a single federal rule on the entire nation -- a one-size-fits-all approach -- but instead allow states to make their own decisions in this regard.

On February 28, 2005 - also after his conversion - Romney said:

I am personally pro-life. However, as governor I would not change the laws of the commonwealth relating to abortion.

Anne Fox from 'Mass Citizens for Life' somehow didn't make it on the list of prolife usual suspects who endorse proaborts but, she sent out her own email endorsing the proabortion, author of obamacare and unconstitutional mandates. She's very fond of Santorum, but she wishes Romney would see his failings in prolife positions and doesn't want to fault them:

Last night a good chunk of the country joined us to watch the results of the Iowa caucuses. Of course, pro-lifers are very fond of Rick Santorum!

We in Massachusetts wish Governor Romney would recognize the failings of state-controlled health care and come up with a better way to accomplish his laudable goals but we do not fault his pro-life position.....In the last few days we have had calls at the MCFL office from operatives of other campaigns trying to get us to criticize Romney's positions on life. The governor's positions are pro-life and we feel confident that they will stay that way.

With 'prolife' operatives like this, who needs prochoice operatives?

There's a prolifer gaining momentum but we don't want him to get the nomination so let's issue a press release for the flip-floping proabort whom 75% of Repulican's won't support.

If 75% of the Republicans want anyone but Romney and the Democrats are going to vote Democrat, math and common sense should enlighten your intellect that Romney would be defeated against Obama.

Frankly, if it comes to a race where the prolifers defeat the prolifer by endorsing the proabort while the prolifers were gaining momentum -and we get stuck with Romney, my efforts are going toward getting the grassroots to sit out the election. We've got to stop feeding the beast and we are better off having everyone know Obama is a proabort. Having our own prolifers pretend Romney's position are prolife is catastrophic to our mission in the longterm.

Santorum is a real prolifer and is gaining momentum. This is the time to get behind him and put a sock in initiatives endorsing candidates whose positions are prochoice. (n.b. The hubris that Rick is against gay marriage and therefore is extreme - coming from our own voting block is blockhead. Obama is against gay marriage)

Latest news out of Iowa is saying there was a counting error and Santorum may have actually WON.

I'm praying for Santorum and I'm going to do and say all I can to support his momentum. That is what all of us should be doing until we see how the cards play out.

Iowa Caucus

2012-01-03T21:39:00.004-05:00

It's about 10pm and I'm watching the results come in. Here's my soundbyte: We dodged a bullet. It's a close race with Romney scraping by with the momentum going to Santorum. He's actually beating Romney as I write. Given the money and venom Romney has spent, that's actually an amazing feat.

The prolife grassroots will not get behind Romney. (Yes, I saw the MaryAnn Glendon press release and I repeat, the grassroots will not get behind Romney. MaryAnn et al is NOT the grassroots!) The grassroots has a memory like an elephant and they remember Santorum throwing a prolifer under the bus for Spector. I wouldn't say there's a lot of rah-rah enthusiasm but at the end of the day, they'll get behind him because they know he is prolifer with a blemish on his record. And, they'll get behind him enthusiastically to avoid the train wreck of Mittens.

I'm surprised with Gingrich's showing but pleased with Santorum's.

Praying for Mercy.

Questions for Archdiocese Official Appearing with Barney Frank

2012-01-03T21:36:00.004-05:00

From Catholic Advocate.

Questions for Archdiocese of Boston Official Appearing with Rep. Barney Frank
Contact: Matt Smith, Catholic Advocate, 202-521-9828

NEWTON, Mass., Jan. 3, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- Catholic Advocate Vice President Matt Smith today issued the following statement regarding the panel discussion "Truth, Lies and Politics" being held this evening, Jan. 3, in Newton, Massachusetts at the Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center. The event has been promoted in the Boston Globe as "Truth, Lies and Politics, a panel discussion featuring [Congressman Barney] Frank, journalist Robert Kuttner, and Father J. Bryan Hehir [Archdiocese of Boston Secretary for Health Care and Social Services]. Author Leonard Fein moderates the program exploring the relationship (or lack thereof) between politicians and truth-telling."

"Father Hehir has an opportunity this evening to represent the teachings of our Church. The question is: will Father Hehir himself speak the Truth tonight?" asked Smith. "Will he speak the Truth to Congressman Frank about marriage being between one man and one woman? Or address Congressman Frank's 100% pro-abortion voting record? These are pressing issues of 'truth-telling' between politicians."

According to Freedom to Marry, a pro-same sex marriage organization: "We need more Barney Franks in public life, not fewer, and fortunately we will always have his indelible example to work from." From their own website, "Freedom to Marry is leading the campaign to overturn DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] and is working across the country to win marriage in more states and educate the public about why marriage matters to same-sex couples and their families."

Smith added, "With Congressman Frank's retirement at the end of this year, will Father Hehir take the opportunity tonight to publicly speak the Truth that faithful Catholics do not need more representatives voting like Barney Frank in Washington if we are going to make progress on the settled issues of life and marriage?"

UPDATE

Here is how the story panned out

With Hehir sitting beside him, Frank bitterly explained how his career was poisioned with lies political competitors can buy with money.

The truth teller would have politely found the words to convey the message "Cry me a river", but what did Hehir say?

Hehir told the audience it was important to talk about moral truth in campaigns.

The conclusion: Poor Frank. His stellar career was victimized by people who use money money to tell immoral lies about honest politicians.

Hehir is a master at positioning himself and using just the right sentence to stamp the imprimatur of the Catholuc Church on immorality and sin, with the full support of the Cardinal.

A fellow Catholic disclosed to bloggers that when he called the Chancery to express his concerns, he was told the Archdiocese is unconditionally loving Hehir and Frank.

Carol called the Chancery and politely told them to put a muzzle on the moonbattery. To their credit, there was an apology. Boston bloggers had hoped Monsignor Deeley, the new Vicar General would bring sanity and honesty, and affirmation of the Deposit of Faith.

Though we are not yet ready to sing Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss, he is not getting off on the right foot.

Bryan Hehir and Barney Frank Meeting to Discuss Their Expertise in Lying Politicians

2012-01-02T22:57:00.005-05:00

Tuesday, January 3 at 7:30.

Well, they certainly assembled two of the highest ranking members of that legion. I'm guessing Eric Holder, Blago and Pelosi were busy?

Does anyone imagine for a second that Bryan Hehir’s going to use this as an opportunity to try and catechize Barney Frank and Mr. Kuttner and put forward Catholic teachings?.

Of course not. What is a Catholic priest doing discussing lying politicians with Barney Frank?

What's next? A Bryan Hehir panel with Muslim Brotherhood to talk about respect for women?

Give us a break.

What do you suppose Hehir will say about Barney Frank's entire career of leading his constituents to oppose truth? Nothing, like he always does.

Where does the Archdiocese draw the line at legitimizing politicians who scandalize souls, demoralizes our country and work on legislation that kills other people?

Please take a moment and call the Chancery and explain to them that these kinds of events have got to stop. Ask for the Vicar General. He is a reasonable man and there is hope in the pews that he will step up to the plate and reign in the spiritual abuse. It's time to pull the plug on this rogue of a priest. #617-254-0100

Michelle Obama's Padunkadunk Redux

2012-01-02T10:28:00.000-05:00

Oh MY!

Has Abortion Caused 300,000 Breast Cancer deaths?

2012-01-02T08:45:00.013-05:00

Professor Joel Brind, an endocrinologist at Baruch College in New York, worked with several scientists on a 1996 paper published in the Journal of Epidemiol Community Health showing a “30% greater chance of developing breast cancer” for women who have induced abortions. He recently commented on how many women have become victims.

“If we take the overall risk of breast cancer among women to be about 10% (not counting abortion), and raise it by 30%, we get 13% lifetime risk,” Brind explains. Using the 50 million abortions since Roe v. Wade figure, we get 1.5 million excess cases of breast cancer. At an average mortality of 20% since 1973, that would mean that legal abortion has resulted in some 300,000 additional deaths due to breast cancer since Roe v. Wade."

More HERE

Add the number of women who develop breast cancer after taking estrogen/progesterone, wearing patches, having widgets inserted to avoid getting pregnant, and it becomes a mind-boggling number.

Once upon a time, when women reserved sexuality for a monogamous man, love, marriage and having children, there was no concern about the diseases he may have contracted sleeping around with promiscuous women. She would get up before her husband to make him breakfast and coffee and hand him a lunch in her pajamas, give him a kiss and wave goodbye. She stayed home and raised her own children, took care of her home. Her pleasure and joy was teaching her own children. She enjoyed being present for the magnificent moments when they spoke their first word and every one after it, when they took their first step, being there to hear how their day went when they came off of the school bus - advise or comfort them in their challenges and plan how to overcome them, take pleasure in their victories, build their self-esteem. She enjoyed showing them the beauty of nature - the ocean, mountains. Every day was an adventure with friends, relatives, other mothers raising their children. She knew the fruit of laboring in love to put a delicious home-cooked meal on the table for her family. She taught them how to love. Real love and intimacy.

The women's liberation movement has really reached some important milestones.

Women with a vocation for fidelity to love and family and God who won't sleep around, are single.

Liberated women taught each other how to protect themselves from getting diseases from men who use them for loveless sex and then move on to someone else. This is important. After all, if aspirations of women are to become legalized prostitution, one needs to know how to protect themselves from the diseases they may carry from the women they slept with before them.

Around my house, I call it "How not to recognize a jerk." and "Safe sex with a jerk."

When they do find a man to commit to them, most of them don't want to marry them. They want to be able to walk out the door without paying a divorce lawyer. It's all about partnership. LOL.

I call that one "Playing house with a jerk". He gets her to pay half of his living expenses and can leave his suitcases packed for the emergency exit.

The children of liberated women are a burden and a nuisance. They prevent children, kill them, so they can get up and go to work for 12 hours a day to prove they are not inferior to men. The risk of getting breast cancer is more appealing to them than the degrading job of teaching and watching your own children roll over, crawl, talk, walk, live, love. There's a competition out there in corporate America and by gum, they need to get into it. They drop their children off to lay or sit in a room with dozens of other children in places with cribs, gates and playpens lined up against the wall.

The milestones their children reach, learning and speaking new words, crawling, walking are not witnessed or acknowledged by anyone. They are lined up to be fed. Lined up in big carriages that hold 8 or 10 children and one woman at the back pushes them for a ride. They point to the amazing things they see on the ride, but there is no mother to watch them - teach. As they point, the 8 month old beside them is asleep and the woman pushing the big carriage can't even see them - much less pay attention to each of them. Their children get off the bus after a harrowing day and there is nobody to tell it to, nobody to advise or comfort and heal their self-esteem. Mommy is proving herself at work.

By the time they pay the people at the daycare centers, the money for professional outfits, the extra car, insurance, commuter rail, lunches, coffees, she's got to make about 80 grand to profit a couple of hundred dollars a month. She is exhausted, distracted, the house is always in disarray. Time off is spent picking up the house, yard work, grocery shopping and if the family is lucky, cooking - but they're all eating a lot of crap thrown together in a half hour or take-out. She's too pooped for sex. The intimacy suffers because that is where men are affirmed. A good percentage of men find their intimacy some place else. Others put that sexual energy into golf or some other outlet. Problems develop between them. The children suffer. Then comes divorce and single parenting.

The quid pro quo is facing the chemotherapy and radiation from the abortions, birthcontrol, crappy food you ate while showing men you were as good as they are, without his support.

The wisdom of Christ - the hand that rocks the bedroom and the cradle rules the world - was given up for this end?

WINNING!

Yeah, you've come a long way baby.

Fr. Corapi's BlackSheepdog Website Vanishes

2011-12-31T21:55:00.029-05:00

BlackSheepdog.

Inquiries regarding TheBlackSheepDog.US can be made to:
450 Corporate Dr. Suite 107
Kalispell, MT 59901

I couldn't find the facebook account he set up, but did check out one lay Catholics set up and it appears he hasn't been heard from in a while.

We've all taken the choo-choo of sin. The ride is fun. Decadent. Delicious. But when you get to the destination of The Gig is Up, it's an ugly place. A good taste of hell is what it is. Nobody in their right mind wants to stay there too long. If you're lucky enough to get there with humility and sanctifying grace still smoldering, you still have the ability to process how you got there and how to get out of town.

The people who take up residence at The Gig is Up are experts at putting the shinola on dung. Everybody who comes to The Gig is Up can smell dung upon arrival but it doesn't take long to lose your sense of smell. When that happens, you are toast because you can no longer tell dung from shinola, light from darkness. You look for an encampment of residents enjoying whatever sin you rode into town on, and you settle in.

Bound to unbelievers frolicking and partying in the dung, you don't even realize there isn't any light in The Gig is Up. It's dark 24/7. Dark and cold. The residents convinced you the darkness is the light. They even have statues of Christ there. Priests whose souls also reside in The Gig is Up rename sin as virtue and salvation. Bishops and Cardinals carry croziers to bless the manifesto of the town. It's a hell of a place.

The residents from The Gig is Up occasionally come to my town for a visit dressed as a child of the light. They know exactly where I live. They know where we all live.

I've taken the choo-choo. More than once. But, I have never stepped my foot onto the platform. While we're all having a good time on the ride, I whine all the way there to the other commuters.

"Phew. Something stinks in here. I can't breathe. Open the windows."

"Hey, it's getting cold on this train! Where are the blankets? "

"Can somebody turn on a light on this thing? I can't see."

The conductor and other passengers have had just about enough of me well before we get into town and I usually get thrown off the train. I never thought of this before, but maybe being a whiner is God's way of spraying mace around me!

After umpteen times on the train, I finally gestured to my guardian angel.

"Excuse me, but I don't like this train. I want to get off. How do I keep getting here?!"

"It's about time you asked!, he said and pointed to my two companions. "They keep sending pride along with a sucker with a sob story. You think you can rescue them on your own. You become their hero. Eventually your ego overshadows God and your emotions take over your brain. You get yourself into all kinds of mischief from there. Let's get out of here."

We get off the train and hightail it to the Sacraments. I confess the sins against the First Commandment and whatever sins that grew out of it and run to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in my soul in a state of grace. I am safe for another while. I think I've actually learned how to push myself out of the way in these situations and let the light of Christ shine through pastoral translucence. I'm trying to keep on my toes as when one closes a door, they are experts at finding a weak window to climb into to nurture another flaw!

In spite of all this, I have actually made it all the way to The Gig is Up. Hundreds of times. Never even once even got out of my seat. The stench and the view from the window is enough for me.

I pray fervently for the people who formed my conscience in my early years. Family, friends, priests, nuns who put their duty and love for God and salvation above all else. They save us from ourselves. Sometimes, we don't like them very much for it because we are having too much fun, but boy, are we ever in their debt. They carried Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, The Savoir, the King of Salvation to us and for us.

Fr. Corapi did this for many years for so many people. These days, the conductor of the train to The Gig is Up is gunning for people like him.

Here's to hoping/praying Fr. Corapi has boarded the train out of The Gig is Up and he is on his way back to Christ.

Lord of the World

2011-12-30T14:53:00.009-05:00

This book, which Fr. McCloskey reviews HERE, has been in my queu for a few months. I am really looking forward to reading it. I've actually been surprised by the many manifestations of the antichrist in the evolution of disordered thought. I find myself wondering at times if something I am hearing or seeing could be a new twist or if it us something I am just now discovering that has been there all along. I could use a brush up.

Lord of the World is a novel about the Antichrist, who will tempt Christians to apostasy before Christ’s Second Coming. It describes the final battle in the supernatural war for souls that has been fought continually both in heaven and on earth from the time of the Fall and will conclude with the general judgment; thereupon will follow the creation of a new heaven and a new earth

Earlier this week after sending The Kisses of the Enemy are Profuse to a correspondent, I had an epiphany when the response came back.

Hello Carol,

I am moved by your search for safety in the Faith. My heart aches for you and the pain you may have endured in this life. I hear in your piece a struggle with passion and a discipline and commitment to a virtuous life. You are a good person, a deeply caring person. That is quite admirable and attractive. I trust you because you are steadfast in your love of being and your respect for the Christ.

I am quite moved by this piece and by you.

I read his sincere reply, but truth be told, even after I read his response several times, it was still a brainteaser.

Safety in the Faith. He read my piece and his heart ached for pain I may have endured in this life? I am steadfast in my love of being? My respect for the Christ?

It's almost as if he sees life as a journey of steadfast love and masturbation of the self. Whatever floats your boat. Moved with pity for the people who meet boogeymen on the way to finding themselves and run to the safety of the delusion of religion, he sees the discipline and commitment to living a virtuous life, but doesn't have the faintest idea the purpose or Beneficiary of that commitment.

I thought to myself, "Where have I read this before?"

Oh wait...it's Homer's Odyssey!!

Seriously, when I'm puzzled by a comment on something I've written, I try to figure out a couple of things before I respond.

1. What the heck did I write? (and if it is syntax or error, correct it)
2. What's the source of the intellectual/spiritual poverty.

In previous conversations with this correspondent, he embraces divinity as the worship of human deeds, including sin. The Catholic Church just doesn't get the grand scheme of the Christ: Jumping your neighbor's bones on the way home from serving soup at the homeless shelter is loving your neighbor as yourself. Baiting your neighbor into satisfying to your own sinful desires is the fulfillment of Christ's maxims about love and therefore leads to salvation. The god he knows doesn't have a litmus test on good and evil, sin and virtue.

People who hold these convictions will quickly contradict themselves when you try to get clarification about why god doesn't have a litmus test on stealing,racial profiling, beating, rape, murder, waterboarding, war...but I digress!

Most of my readers are no doubt more sophisticated in seeing these things, but I really wanted to understand, because I have experienced it before and wanted to know how we respond as Catholic evangelists.

This gentleman has helped me to see something I never saw before. I finally see what's missing.

Real love.

Genuine love.

I doubt my answer really reflected the precious gift of Christ's love. There are no mortal words that could ever do it justice - but this was my reply:

It wouldn't be fair to the blessings God has brought to my life not to tell you that though I have had death, challenge and other storms through my life -- it has been actually, an extraordinarily happy one. My passion for Christ came totally from conversion - from rebellion to the truths of Christ Church to learning I had been hurting Christ and opening myself to the truth, the Sacraments, the Saints. I can't think of a time in my life that I would define as 'pain'. Maybe because "pain" is a word people use when they are trying to describe 'despair' - something I have have seldom - if ever - surrendered to.

My struggle to live a virtuous life is totally borne out of love. Like one would love a lover and not want to hurt them. Like one loves their children and devotes their whole being to not hurting them. So is my devotion to Christ - even more so - driven by deeply loving Him, wanting to offer Him my best.

As one would sacrifice personal things we want to give to our children because of love, this is what drives people who are living to purify themselves by staying away from sin. It is the highest fiat one can give to Christ - to reserve His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in an immortal soul that is pure and full of sanctifying grace.

Fr. McCloskey quote from Fr. Newman on the spirit of the antichrist says it much better than I:

An attempt to supersede Religion altogether, as far as it is external or objective, as far as it is displayed in ordinances, or can be expressed by written words — to confine it to our inward feelings, and thus, considering how variable, how evanescent our feelings are, an attempt, in fact, to destroy Religion? Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general Apostasy from it. Whether this very Apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, as he has already been delayed so long, we cannot know; but at any rate this Apostasy, and all its tokens and instruments, are of the Evil One, and savior of death… He promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution that reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his.

Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

When you want it the most, there's no easy way out.

When you're ready to go and you're heart's left in doubt

Don't give up on your Faith,

Love comes to those who believe it

And that's the way it is.

Bonum Novum Annum tibi exopto et beatam solemnitatem Circumcisionis et
Mariae Dei Genetricis! (I wish you a Happy New Year and blessed feast
of the solemnity of the Circumcision and of Mary the Mother of God)

Tip of the hat to Jack O!

Sinead

2011-12-28T20:18:00.002-05:00

I was out of touch with the details of this poor soul's spiral.

She apparently put out a plea for a man on her blog, saying she was in the prime of her sex life and didn't want to live like a nun. Surprisingly, that relationship didn't work out after a wild wedding night of looking for a drug dealer.

I was fascinated by her tats. Interesting she chose one of the most powerful spiritual tools out there, the Cross of St. Benedict and the Face of Christ across her chest. Who could really try to process it all... but I cannot imagine doing anything profane with Christ staring up at me like that!

She came out today to talk to reporters...naked with a towel wrapped around her. I suspect she found the weed?

Come on lady. Pull yourself together.

The Archdiocese of Boston Creates a Solemnity of the Pedophiles

2011-12-26T15:37:00.021-05:00

Our colleagues and friends at BCI have brilliantly exercised the inanity HERE.

Let me explain to you the reasons why this feels like a shameless exploitation of the victims of sexual abuse to put a shine on the the Cardinal's image.

An anniversary of a Boston Globe spotlight series is a non-event. It is not material to the crimes that took place.

Let's use Penn State an example: Sandusky stands accused of raping a child at Penn State and numerous others elsewhere. There was a young man who admits to, literally watching it happen at Penn State. He went home and called his father and the coach. The coach called the athletic director. A University Vice President was told. Nobody called the police.

The newspaper story is not the "anniversary" of the disturbing events.

That make sense? The newspaper story has nothing to do with it.

Making a pedophile solemnity out of a newspaper story is contrived.

Making up a reason to tee up the Cardinal with a group of victims and a kleenex is a non sequitur that gives the appearance of a publicity stunt to benefit the Cardinal.

Several sources have told me that this idea came from Terry Donilon, the Cardinal's publicity guy, which confirms my suspicions. I will be asking Terry to confirm or deny if this birdbrained idea is running out of the Chancery publicity office and will update when I have further information.

Evidently there still isn't anyone in the Chancery who can say "This is a stupid idea".

Using victims to improve the public image of the Cardinal is spiritually abusive. Victims have obsessive thoughts about their crimes. There was value to disclosing the crimes and cover up, letting the victims open up all of the things they have buried inside of them, getting them help, exposing the dysfunction, profusely apologize, try to compensate them for the magnitude of their loss. After going above and beyond the call of duty, you then have to allow the doctors the space and time to heal the wounds professionally. You do all you can spiritually. It is destructive to interrupt the healing process to take them back to their obssesive thoughts and pain and emotions. Part of the penance is living and dealing with your guilt without burdening the people you hurt.

The last thing you do while trying to build is to once again paint all priests and the Catholic Church as the institution that coddles pedophiles. It is time for all of us to move forward. We never forget, but we must move forward.

For all concerned, public relations must now focus on the love, the gifts our precious Church has available, the goodness of our priests.

The Cardinal has spent close to a decade now on the subterfuge of sexual abuse that happened in the 60s.
For the love of Christ, we,must stop the madness of forever tarring us as pedophiles. These publicity stunts are serving nobody but the Cardinal. Stop sabotaging healing by perpetually parading morbidity, dysfunction and crimes of a handful of people in our 2000 year history. We are much more than these despicable events.

Find another way to polish the image of the Cardinal.

Give it a rest. Let us all heal.

The Kisses of the Enemy are Profuse

2011-12-26T08:24:00.014-05:00

Catholics intimately following the life of Christ in His Mystical Body wake up on December 26th with a stark reminder of how fleeting the wordly admire perfect, salvific love and charity. The joy of Christ's birth in a manger in Bethlehem is interrupted on the second day of the Octave of Christmas with the feast of the first martyr, St. Stephen.

We kiss Him yesterday and kill Him today.

Gazing and immersing myself at the Nativity, my joy is a little more tempered this year. For the first time in my life the Crucifix and Corpus of Christ on the periphery of my vision at Church and at home kept calling my attention. Reminding me of how the wordly respond to the love of this precious child who offers us truth and salvation. It took discipline to return to the manger in Bethlehem.

My two youngest enjoy a Christmas Eve Mass where the children do a live nativity at the homily. I sit in the back and every year as they set up in the Narthax, I watch the majority of people turn their backs to the altar as we pray the Confeteor and prepare our souls for the reception of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. They are watching the commotion, grinning and enjoying the innocence, the gifts and witness these young children will offer our sweet Lord on this holy night.

Usually, I am ripping my hair out over the commotion and distractions as they set up, taking the attention from the prayer of our Sacred Liturgy on this Sacred day when Salvation was made Flesh. This year, I found myself praying to and for their guardian angels. Praying that the display of love the families of these children offered Christ would grab some of them. Enlighten them to the purpose of Christ's Life. His loving gift that offers us salvation in return for sincere repentance of sin, the amendment of our lives and the Sacraments of His Church that enlightens and strengthens us.

I watched the little boys walking down the aisle dressed as the Magi and shepherd, carrying their gifts of innocence and love, the little girls dressed as angels and thought about what happened in Bethlehem on that night. In a sleepy village teaming with guardian angels of so many and all the angels and archangels who accompany the King of kings bringing salvation and the Queen of Angels, yet only a handful heard them, saw, understood.

How frustrated our guardian angels must be as they speak to us, try to guide us to perfect love and protect us from evil and sin. We are our own worst enemy.

As I watched the magi, I thought about troubling conversations over the past year. Conversations with priests like Unni, those who are poor in spirit duped into the inanity that the love of God can be found in promiscuity, adultery, impurity and sin. I couldn't escape the symbolism of the lust, pornography, impurity, leading people they claim to love into the abyss of sin and the many who carrying them to the manger as their offering of wisdom and love to the Christ Child.

The words of St. Paul ring out "The sensual man perceiveth not the things that are of God."

We are a people who are born with attractions to sin. We are attracted like moths to the flame to sin because there is pleasure to be found in them. In the first stages of temptation, we see the pain they cause to God and our neighbor. There is a period of making excuses. We invent the excuses and seek out those whose definition of love is blessing our excuses to sin. We have reached the stage in the Archdiocese of Boston where there are priests like Fr. Unni who will stage the Sacrament of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to bless our sins. I never thought I would live to see such profound perversity of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but the day has arrived.

Imagine how deep perversity is buried when a priest blesses it with a Sacrament?
People who live in the spirit see a man who comes to the physician for healing and they watch the physician put his body in a casket and bury him alive. Over the deafening sounds of tambourines celebrating the malpractice, we cry out 'MY GOD, how will this man get himself out of this grave?"

Incredulously, the Archbishop of Boston announced he is using Fr. Unni as O'Malley's Manifesto to build 'the church'. It is harder to look upon the Holy Face of the Christ Child and feel the joy without also feeling it through a heavy heart.

Though God speaks to you incessantly through nature, there is a more intimate communication going on between you and your God that is just as incessant. Down deep in you is what mystics speak of as "the high point of the soul". It is really the ground of your substantial self. There the God who made you sustains you. There, it may well be imagined, that gift named sanctifying grace inheres. There the Trinity make its abode as Christ promised. It is there those assurances arise that all is well, those stirrings of the nobler part of you, those promptings to be and to do better than you have ever been or done. It is there that many believe God speaks incessantly to each and every human being, whether each listens or not. For one can turn the inner ear away from God. One can become harder and harder of hearing, until one is totally deaf. On the other hand you can make your ear so keen that God need never more than whisper to you. Then not only will you see God everywhere, but you will hear His voice in everything and most especially in those ever tone-true stirrings of your conscience. That is what carries God's messages to you no matter where be the place of His dwelling within you and the point of converse.

There is only one posture in which to receive the Word and that is on your knees. Let David speak to you before his Son does. Let the Shepherd-King give wise advice before the Lamb of God and the King of kings utters a sound. Let this one who was called a "man after God's own Heart" look at you with burningly serious eyes and say: "Today, if you hear His Voice, harden not your heart".

The first thing the Word says to you is: "kindly remember I am Wisdom".

Love Does Such Things, Rev Fr. Raymond, OCSO

I harbor no delusions about the exhausting vocation of my own guardian angel. I am attracted to my own flames. Some of them are on display 24/7. It is a discipline for me to suffer fools gladly. Of late, I hear my guardian angel's simple message: "Avoid the near occasion of sin." Sometimes I hear the whisper. Other times, he has to speak a little louder before I hear it. Occasionally, I will hear his panicky voice "AVOID THE NEAR OCCASION OF SIN....OH NO..NO! NOoooooooo!! THAR SHE BLOWS!"

"Listen Buster, go back to our Master and tell him how about we avoid the near occasion of sin with the ancient maxim "Promoveatur ut amoveatur"? That way he avoids the near occasion of sin; Unni and his kindred priests avoid the near occasion of sin; the people they led into sin avoid the near occasion of sin - along with me? How about that? Because this is just not working out for us!"

But Carol is not wisdom. God is Wisdom.

Perhaps my New Year's Resolution should be paying closer attention to the panicky voice of my guardian angel. Pray for him - the poor thing tethered to this wild stallion - and pray for me.

The Pope and Obama

2011-12-25T22:13:00.000-05:00

The Pope and Obama are on the same stage in Yankee Stadium in front of a huge crowd.

The Pope leans towards Mr. Obama and said, "Do you know that with one little wave of my hand I can make every person in this crowd go wild with joy? This joy will not be a momentary display, but will go deep into their hearts and they'll forever speak of this day and rejoice!"

Obama replied, "I seriously doubt that! With one little wave of your hand....Show me!"

So the Pope backhanded him and knocked him off the stage!

AND THE CROWD ROARED & CHEERED WILDLY and there was happiness throughout the land!

All is Calm, All is Bright...

2011-12-25T20:52:00.002-05:00

Love Gives. True love is never satisfied until it has given its very self; God, the Perfect Lover, was not satisfied until He had given Himself. He did not rest until the Divine and Human were locked in such an embrace that we say "the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us". The God of Heeaven was so deeply in love with us that He became Emmanuel - one with us" (Love Does Such Things-Fr. Raymond, OCSO)

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas. You were all in my prayers at Christmas Mass.

Archbishop Vigneron's Manipulative Use of Canon Law 216

2011-12-24T08:44:00.004-05:00

The Bishops have sunk to a new low.

Catholic parents have been trying now for decades to have our concerns addressed. Bur rather than correcting the errors, apostasies, heresies, crackpot theology being taught to our children, our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, Catholics have been slandered, threatened, bullied and now, told not to use the word 'catholic'.

Meanwhile, back at the good old boy ranch, the Kennedy's, Kerrys, Pelosis, Catholics for Free Choice, National Catholic Reporter, America Magazine, the Jesuits and all other kinds of heretics and apostates - and even the pedophiles they ordained - are permitted to use the word "Catholic". Moreover, they are given the funerals of a saint in the public square.

It is not the time to say much more about these things, but I will have more to say after our return from Bethlehem.

Meanwhile, I sent the below to Michael and cc'd the bishop and his cronies. We're not done with this one fellas - we'll be back! Have yourselves a blessed Christmas.

To: michaelvoris
Cc: infodesk ; NuntiusUSA ;
Sent: Fri, Dec 23, 2011 5:16 am
Subject: Archbishop Vigneron's Application of Canon 216 to Real Catholic TV

December 23, 2011

+
IHS

Dear Michael,

I have read with dismay Archbishop Vigneron's attempt to apply Canon 216 to Real Catholic TV. The situation and all involved will be in my prayers.

I write to you as a Catholic mother to express my deep concerns in the battle for the soul of Christ's Church in this situation, and to encourage you to give careful consideration to the message to the faithful when responding to Archbishop Vigneron.

Those who promote heresy and dissent have robbed a generation of truth and our faith while using the name Catholic and they have done so without any intervention from Archbishop Vigernon (and in fact most Bishops).

Now that we are rising to feed the truth the sheep they have abandoned to the wolves, they are applying Canon 216 to an apostolate that faithfully adheres to doctrine? It pains me to say it, but with this act, it is faithful adherence to the deposit of faith Archbishop Vigneron is caricaturing as fringe which the faithful are not to believe.

I prayerfully urge you to consider the consequences of any public reaction that would witness the silencing truth as obedience "to Christ" and His Church. It is not. It never has been in all the history of Christendom.

I would ask you to prayerfully consider using the situation to bolster Canon 216 by pointing out Archbishop Vigneron's omissions in its proper use and ask him to apply Canon 216 as it is intended to be applied.

Before responding, I would invite you to take a month to prepare an "Exhibit A" to your response, which would enumerate dissent which has operated in Detroit - Catholics for Free Choice and other formal gatherings of apostates for which he has not used Canon 216. Index problems with speakers brought into parishes, promiscuity the children in Catholics schools are being indoctrinated into from kindergarten through college, public activities and facilities misleading faithful Catholics, which Archbishop Vigneron's does not apply Canon 216. Obtain the number of subscriptions to the National Catholic Reporter in the Archdiocese of Detroit, go through a year's worth of articles, indexing the glaring doctrinal errors and include it in Exhibit A.

After a robust list has been put together, I would then send the canonical response respectfully pointing out how the name Catholic is being used to teach doctrinal errors to hundreds of thousands of Catholics under his guardianship without his intervention and appropriate use of Canon 216. I would explain to Bishop Vigneron how his refusal to use Canon 216 appropriately, grants constructive permission and confuses the faithful and how this has led to the impairment of their judgment, to sin and a loss of sanctifying grace. I would point out how this affects their salvation and his accountability to the loss of the salvation of the souls in his charge.

Given the grave consequences of the loss of immortal souls to Christ for which he does not use Canon 216 to cure, his use of Canon 216 in an apostolate doctrinally faithful to the Magisterium gives the appearance of manipulative use of religious law to impair and impede an apostolate which has risen to relieve the sheep of the consequences of episcopal misfeasance and malfeasance (including his own).

To avert any scandal to be brought to the faithful as a result of the situation and still respectfully obey the Canon, one could add an 's' and an apostrophe to the name - ie "Real Catholics' TV". This changes the context of the use to of the name Catholic to the people involved in the project and those whom you target as an audience. Any Catholic faithful to doctrine who is fully participating in the life of the Sacraments of the Catholic have the canonical right to use the name Catholic. It is the Canonical check mate to the situation.

This would put the onus on the Bishop to attempt to prove the people involved in the apostolate are not Catholics in good standing. At the end of the day, this is really what he attempting to accomplish. He needs to be called to the table of accountability for it. Pin it on him. Let him wear it as a badge for the sake of his own soul, for I am sure that he does not recognize the intellectual dishonesty of applying Canon 216 when he ought not and not applying it when he ought.

I will be posting this the content of my letter on my blog and circulating it to other bloggers. I want the Bishop to know that I and others see what he is doing and moreover, Christ sees what he is doing. Worthy is the lamb.

A very blessed and Merry Christmas to all.

Obama Says He's the Fourth Bestest President Evah!

2011-12-22T22:08:00.006-05:00

You can't make this stuff up.

Bill Clinton is a vestal virgin.

Our friend Janet Baker from Restore DC Catholicism said she's the queen of England.

Since it's clear blogging has all gone to my head, my story is I'm a blogocelebrity with paparazzi following me 24/7.

Mark Shea could be St. John Vianney and Elizabeth Scalia could be St. Therese of the Little Flower.

Cardinal O'Malley can be Cardinal Burke. Cardinal Burke could be the Pope. Bryan Hehir is Arnold Schwartznegger. James McDonough isn't a sheister. Joan Chittister is wearing a skirt and stilettos and the Jesuits wear pants, There is testosterone at 66 Brooks Drive.

When you put a magical hat on your snowman, they really do dance around.

If you're going to have a delusion, it should be a good one.

Please Don't Turn America into Massachusetts!

2011-12-22T21:06:00.003-05:00

I actually enjoy listening to Newt. I find myself agreeing with him on which battles to choose. I like how he recognizes sensible ideas even when they come from the democrats! He says what needs to be said.

The payroll tax thing was a no-brainer. After all the give-aways, the low-interest loans to irresponsible dead beats, you're going to fight giving a 20 dollar a week tax break to working people?

That's a looser. In an election year, it's dumber than dirt. Working people are the bulk of the voting block. Why must they shoot themselves in the foot?

In other 2012 campaign news:

I didn't closely follow Gingrich's foul-play gripes against Romney but I did hear him basically say Romney was lying - which is absolutely consistent with Romney's character - and I see that Romney declined the invitation to debate the things he's alleging directly with Gingrich.

When it comes to consistency, there's only two things you can rely upon with Romney: He's a liar and he's craven.

I like Santorum. The Toomey/Spector bondoogle still bothers me, but I am praying for him.

The Paul surge continues to frighten me, particularly in light of the racist rants. His explanation that an underling wrote it are possible, but I'm not totally buying it. I really don't want this scary dude in the White House but I continue to believe, it's anybody but Mitt and Obama.

BTW, it seems Michelle Bachman has changed her makeup and hair people over the last month or so. I'm not liking it. Her hair looks underdone, unnatural and plastered and her make-up was overdone. My guess is, it's a guy. (Is that sexist?)

I hope they all have the courtesy to keep their zippers zipped and the drama down over the next few days. I'm ready for the cavern.

Michelle Obama's Padunkadunk

2011-12-22T08:45:00.006-05:00

This is fun

It has always struck me as peculiar that Michelle Obama picked a fight against fat kids as her 'first lady' crusade considering the deck o' gluttony she is stacking in her own hindquarters.

If the government is going to tell children what to eat and how much of it to eat, what is not acceptable to look like, you don't pick the fatso in the White House as your spokesperson.

Obama's Twelve Days of Christmas

2011-12-22T07:29:00.003-05:00

And, a four million dollar Christmas vacation courtesy of taxpayers.

Fr. Kenneth Smits' Skullduggery on the New Translation of the Roman Missal

2011-12-21T18:37:00.008-05:00

Grab yourself a nice glass of wine, put your feet up on the couch. You've going to really love this former seminary professor skullduggery new translations of the Roman Missal. It's even better than NoNoMen's It's Looming Like a Root Canal.

As a former professor of liturgy at St. Francis Seminary who trained many of the priests of Milwaukee Archdiocese, I deplore the English translation of the Roman Missal that has been foisted upon American Catholics.

By a very slavish translation of Latin, these texts have brought us as close as possible to the way Romans prayed between 500 and 1000 A.D., together with the social and cultural baggage of that time. The spiritual universe of those Roman times is there, along with an almost groveling approach to God and an overriding preoccupation with getting to heaven, rather than the Gospel emphasis upon discipleship, loving our neighbor and service.

Only antiquarians and Latin scholars (the people who made these changes) could love this turn of events. I would advise Catholic people to turn for spiritual nourishment to the hymns we sing, where they shall find the scriptures and contemporary spirituality more readily available.

The new texts are cumbersome, wordy and difficult to pray publicly. They shall not wear well, but look increasingly archaic with time, fostering the search for alternate prayers. Unfortunately, the silk purse of our expensive new Roman Missal contains, when opened up, alas, a sow's ear.

Father Kenneth Smits, Capuchin
Fond du Lac

That's right. There is a God and you're not it. After 40 years of listening to your drivel, sinful and sorrowful, we're groveling back on our knees with a preoccupation of getting into Heaven.

You have no idea how good it feels to finally see the shoe on the other foot. Boohoo in your Dewars, baby. You're going down!

Hot Buttered Rum

2011-12-20T22:16:00.002-05:00

Ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 cups light brown sugar (can use splenda brown sugar mixture)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
Pinch ground cloves
Pinch salt
Bottle dark rum
Boiling water

Directions
In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Refrigerate until almost firm. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the butter mixture into 12 small mugs. Pour about 3 ounces of rum into each mug (filling about halfway). Top with boiling water (to fill the remaining half), stir well, and serve immediately. Top with a little whipped cream with a dash of nutmeg.

For Yonder Breaks a New and Glorious Morn

2011-12-20T20:52:00.002-05:00

Is that all you get for your money?

2011-12-18T20:04:00.011-05:00

I thought you'd enjoy some thoughts an earnest individual shared with me over the last week or so. When someone approaches me and it becomes clear they have fallen into a pit, I want to walk away from that conversation knowing I have said and done everything humanly and spiritually possible in service to Christ. But time is a precious gift and it takes prayerful discernment to know when it has doctrinally exhausted itself. It took time, maturity, wisdom to develop the discipline not to be attached to seeing a light go on in somebody's head. Sometimes, I realize that the person is too entrenched to intellectually process doctrine without turning it into a little,human parable that touches them personally. I go a little beyond overboard and watch for repetition of their error after explaining before I am satisfied I have given my all for Christ.

This conversation began with this poor soul telling me he left the Catholic Church because he couldn't get a conversation going about taking care of the poor with liberation theology.

I explained to him that liberation theology isn't theology at all, it is a political science that incorporates demoralization of souls. I explained why the Catholic Church could never involve itself in a political science that demoralized souls. I called his bluff on his phony indignation that Catholics don't serve the poor by pointing out apostolates and statistics on our 2000 year history on serving the poor and tried to get to the bottom of which teachings he rejected so we could restore him to truth, get him to acknowledge the reason why he abandoned God.

He was never able to have that honest discussion and below are citations from how he danced around it. I should say for the record that it is impossible to love your neighbor as yourself if you bait them into immortality and sin.

Here we go:

I do not think that god is in the litmus test business, if anything, He is completely
open to anyone coming to Him by any path. The God I know is a very
relaxed and open being. His position is "what ever works for you. works
for Me, as long as you love your neighbor as you love yourself. That
is, as long as you are good to your neighbor and yourself...

He hates war, and killing of any kind, and cheating and oppression of any kind and rivalry. And in some cases, He
hates the trappings of organized religion. This latter piece you can
find in Isaiah. The God I know is open and not dogmatic....

Many writers have debunked the Adam and Eve story within the writings of Genesis itself. In the best light, it places God in the position of insecure jester. There was no need to test Adam and Eve. It served no purpose since God made them both and Satan and He knew what was to happen or did He? The writers attack this point with logic and reason, not religion. The issue of sin is not at issue since it is God Himself that appears to be committing the first sin by tempting all three of his creations with power. The brilliant psychoanalyst and philosopher Jung writes a very compelling essay on this point in his "Answer to Job." There Jung argues that God allows the bet with Satan to make up for His insecurity about His role and that of Man. Jung also points out that God loses to Job since Job retains his humanity in spite of the meanness and cruelty of god and Satan. Job in this sense is the first messiah. Humanity wins over the gods. One can go further and argue that tempting Satan and Adam and Eve with power is also about God's insecurities about Himself...

I like you and respect your strength and intellect but I am pained by your insistence that your beliefs are supported by reason. They are not. They are supported by your personal experiences with God beliefs and the comfort that brings you. I respect that and you make room for me without the dogmatism or the litmus test. I, like Job, am human and will resist that thundering hoofs of gods with things to prove to themselves...

I reject the Catholic Church as an institution of greed and deception and racism and sexism...

You are not interested in seeing ideas... This troubles me for you. The Christ was
not dogmatic. He entertained ideas and sought discussion within a people beset by Roman and Orthodox Jewish oppression. The Christ was
political...

*****

And it seems such a waste of time.
If that's what you're all about.
Honey, good luck moving up cuz I'm ........moving out.

Is the Pope Pooped?

2011-12-18T08:51:00.003-05:00

The secular press just loves to put the energy of Catholic Pope's under the microscope, eh?

People who have spent time with him recently say they found him weaker than they'd ever seen him, seemingly too tired to engage with what they were saying. He no longer meets individually with visiting bishops. A few weeks ago he started using a moving platform to spare him the long walk down St. Peter's Basilica.

Benedict turns 85 in the new year, so a slowdown is only natural. Expected. And given his age and continued rigorous work schedule, it's remarkable he does as much as he does and is in such good health overall: Just this past week he confirmed he would travel to Mexico and Cuba next spring.

But a decline has been noted as Benedict prepares for next weekend's grueling Christmas celebrations, which kick off two weeks of intense public appearances. And that raises questions about the future of the papacy given that Benedict himself has said popes should resign if they can't do the job.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/pope-benedict-xvi-losing-energy-85th-birthday-approaches-article-1.993292#ixzz1gtWBso6L

They're still pining to elect a moonbat.

Seems ok to me:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gq96T5rZe4aDA4D21chjVi9NvdyQ?docId=fb825a2e26934fafa9fe83d32df8468b

Prayers for the Pope!

Christopher Hitchens is dead

2011-12-17T06:38:00.038-05:00

It is sad and troubling that Hitchens chose to spend his life leading a crusade against God.

He went to his day of judgment publicly affirming his contempt for God with the final witness for those he shepherded that any recantation is to be perceived as the fruit of metastasis of cancer to the brain.

I never knew his mother killed herself in the storm of the erratic emotions and sin from an extramarital affair with an Anglican priest. It is hard enough losing a parent at a young age through natural death. Adding suicide and an extramarital affair with a priest sheds a little more light upon his life of bitterness, rage and contempt.

Let us not have any delusions of grandeur about a life spent leading others into his pit of despising God. Hitchens paid a heavy price for the sins of another. But the onus belonged to his mother and her lover. God didn't play any part in it.

Hitchens is a posterchild for the destruction a life brings with misdirected anger against God. God is blameless in the devastation sin brings to our lives and the lives of others.

We wallow in our own muck. We are forced to wallow in the muck of others. God is not the creator of the muck, we are. God stands on the shores beckoning us to come out of it. We accept or reject His hand.

Hitchens rejected it. He thrashed about in the muck until it swallowed him up. From the depths of his spiritual suicide, he sucked others into the quagmire of his mother's sins.

You would think we would understand the theology of sin with the story of Adam and Eve, but we don't. We don't see what we do to others when we sin. The ramifications that could swallow others for generations. Next time you face temptation, fix your eyes on the whopper from Hitchen's mother and her lover. Sin is a "gift" that keeps on giving.

I have read the postmortems of Hitchens in Catholic Blogosphere with dismay and frustration.

The Tenth Crusade Corncob Crackpipe goes to the Anchoress - "A singular voice silenced"

"The only thing I disagree with, there — because I hope it is not true — is that he “may have been most famous for his outspoken atheism.”

He may have been. Perhaps. But there was more to the man than his atheism. He was fearless; he understood political arcana, especially as it applied to those mysterious Middle Eastern and Eastern European theaters, better than almost anyone. And he could write about it so even a dummy like me could understand.

By God, truly, the man could write! Even in this last year of difficult, as the Vanity Fair piece demonstrates, the man was still managing to write timely and topical pieces with a voice so fresh, so focused and detached that it was possible to forget that one might be reading his last or nearly last piece of work, and simple get caught up in his intelligent narrative and singular prose-style."

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2011/12/16/christopher-hitchens-a-singular-voice-silenced/

Say WHAT?

As a Catholic journalist, we are to overlook his atheism? He understood political arcana? Fresh, focused, detached? A singular voice silenced?

I hope you're not going to remember Oswald for the murder Mrs. Kennedy. There was more to Oswald than being a murderer. He was fresh and detached, understood political arcana and had a terrific gift for prose and let us face it, he was smart enough to outwit the secret service.

Oh wait...

As one Catholic woman to another, it is truly a suffering - on top of this tragedy - to have to endure a woman who uses irrational emotions to undermine salvation in the public square.

Given his mother's suicide and matters of the soul we have no way of knowing - whether he repented in his final moments with sincerity - we do not know Hitchen's ultimate destination. We appeal to Christ for mercy in prayer under these circumstances. Quietly. If the lack of discipline in our emotions compels us to produce a piece of sap, the context of what we say under these circumstances bears the duty to guard the theology of salvation.

On it's face, Hitchen's life stands on its own merits as the road that leads to hell. Period. We have no other information. We do not invent other information or throw conjecture to mitigate his life's work of robbing others of the Divinity and inexhaustible goodness of the Heart of Christ.

It is irresponsible to undermine this tragedy by implying his day of judgment with Christ overlooks Hitchen's vineyard to find merits in his grammar. To cry 'peace, peace' when there is no peace.

Christ did not say something sappy to the unrepentant thief who hung beside Him on Golgotha. As the unrepentant thief mocks repentance in front of a crowd, Christ greets him with silence. For the sake of the lambs watching it all, Christ only 'RIP' and talk of paradise and mercy is to the thief who is repenting.

"There is little in common, in reality, between the shepherd and the beast he tends; the gulf that lies between the rational and irrational can never be bridged. There may be devotedness and care on the part of the guardian of the flock to the animals committed to his charge. But there cannot be love where there is not community in nature. But in the Lord's sheepfold, this gulf is not impassible. He has given us that Divine Life which makes us partakers in His Own Diving Nature and by putting us through a process of purification. He can gradually cause us to case living according to that sensual animal nature that is at first so strong within us, and to replace it by one that is more spiritual and more akin to His own." (Fr. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)

Of course Christ loves us even when we fail to return His Love. But Divine Love actually operates quite similar to human love.

All of us have, at one time or another, experienced a relationship where love only grew on one side of it. We have all been on both sides of the endings of love. In close and intimate friendships and relationships where only one person is laboring and giving intimacy and love and all of its gifts, major problems develop. There is hurt and pain. When it is recognized and both people work to rekindle love, the relationship survives. Only then is the gulf between love crossed. If one party does not wish to or is unable to return love, love self-destructs.

With maturity, we can let go of these relationships with sadness but tenderness, perhaps even while still feeling the love that exists on our side of it. This is always how God handles the rejection of His invitation to Love.

With less maturity, letting go of the love can get ugly. Regrettably, there are many who have let the bitterness take over their animus, sometimes through their entire life.

The unraveling of love for Christopher Hitchens was a very public one. He never bridged the gulf. There is nothing to admire. Only sadness and the duty to tend to the sheep this shepherd has left to the wiles of bitterness and hatred as his final witness.

Love Does Such Things

2011-12-16T07:43:00.002-05:00

More about this book written byFr. Raymond OSCO, but wanted to share this quote...

The Lamb of God, His Christmas gift to you, was to be had in a manger which stood in a cave that had been hallowed out of one of the chalk hills near Bethlehem. That cave and manger are really the center of your world. Almighty God was the sculptor. Year after slow year, with wind and rain, He sculptured. Only in the fullness of time did He consider his work finished. It took Him centuries to arch the roof to that span which would allow the blest of the Lamb to sound down all future centuries so that no one born of woman might ever say he was without a perfect Christmas gift. He worked aeons to make the entrance wide enough for all mankind. And during all this time, he had you in mind! It is not often you think of the wind and rain as instruments in the hands of God who is working for you. But now that you have been reminded how the cave was fashioned, every storm of wind and every shower of rain will be the Voice of God speaking lovingly to you. And when you find yourself in the midst of spiritual storms, you will know that God is hallowing out a befitting birthplace for His Son, sculpturing a cave where His Christ may be born anew within you. Never forget that your soul is a capacity for God and nothing else. Since he labored so long and lovingly over the cave which Jesus was to stay for but a few hours, how, think you, will he labor over that soul of yours which is to hold Jesus all the days of your life? Every day is Christmas Day--for Christ is born anew.

National Review Online = The Political National Enquirer

2011-12-15T20:57:00.007-05:00

I literally haven't read a thing written at NRO for about five years, but a reader sent me this link today and I thought to myself - Whoah, baby, it's turned into the political National Enquirer! Peggy Noonan eat your heart out!

They're still giddy for Romney, eh?

I'll tell you something frustrating about the NRO crowd. Over the years, I've rubbed elbows with people what could be deemed as important people. Humble people with astounding accomplishments on their credentials.

The egos of the NRO people are blown way, way out of proportion. Even if they didn't stink.

When they discover the center of the universe, the NRO people are going to very disappointed to find out, it isn't them.

I didn't know Iowa was a moonbat state...

2011-12-15T20:21:00.002-05:00

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

I don't care! Anyone but Romney and Obama!

The Prodigal's Father

2011-12-12T22:11:00.005-05:00

Don't let the door hit you in the booty on the way out.

The Father never compomises on truth to appease His wayward children. The pleasure of our company isn't paramount in His matrix for salvation. For the sake of the straying soul, he confronts our errors and sins and invites us to truth and amending our lives. He never silences truth, even if it means we will mosey on down the road so we don't have to hear it, face our shame, ask for forgiveness and amend our lives.

In His wisdom, He knows we will lose sound judgement in the distance we put between us and Him. In the darknesss of the gutter, His Light becomes more visible. We are given the chance to see the error of our ways and return home to seek His forgiveness.

Silencing truth to retain those rebelling against it deprives others in the house from hearing it. Leaving them ignorant puts them at risk for losing their intimacy with Christ.

Priests and Bishops have lost a generation of Christ's souls following the buffoonery that opposes the Father's wisdom and design. They are late to the party but better late than never.

Things not to say in a debate during a recession...

2011-12-10T22:54:00.005-05:00

I'll betcha $10,000.

Talk about a tin ear!

Furthermore, Romney owes Perry ten grand. Romneycare has a mandate. Romney was for the mandate before he was against it.

Prayer Request for Boston Police

2011-12-09T07:05:00.004-05:00

Our police could use your prayers today as they attempt to persuade the occupy thugs to vacate the land they seized here in Boston. The judge finally lifted the restraining order and opined that freedom of speech does not include seizing and occupying land. They're working to gently appeal to reason to as many as they possibly can but I suspect will be facing a showdown with the village idiots and animals at some point.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of the Angels, counsel, guide and protect these men and women as they restore peace and order to Obama's civil war.

Oh come, oh come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel.

Bishop Gomez and the Sphere

2011-12-09T06:33:00.003-05:00

Should we check his pockets for a crack pipe?

Does it say merry x-mas above it?

Why would you replace the most magnificent event in history with a symbolic spherical hunk of artistic trash?

There is no symbol that should ever replace the Christ Child in the nativity.

I love Bishop Gomez but this idea is a dud.

Doctors Unfazed by Blot Clotting with Birth Control Pill

2011-12-09T06:08:00.002-05:00

Why would they give a crap? Knock yourselves out with blood clots and breast cancer.

You can explain things to people but you can't make them understand.

Blessed Feast of the Immaculate Conception

2011-12-08T09:31:00.003-05:00

I know many of you know this story, but to give glory to our Blessed Mother, I tell it every year.

My Mom and Dad had been married and trying to start a family for eight years when she was told she was infertile. They did the Immaculate Conception Novena and I was born the following year on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

My sweet Mother of God, Thank you for the magnificent gift of life and all of its enrichment in these 55 years and for always watching my back. I am always at Cana asking for your intercession and pray you never grow weary of my petitions. I love you, need you and ask you to continue to be present in my life and the lives of those I love, keeping us on the path that leads to your Son.

Sore Loser Mittens Going for the Jugular

2011-12-08T09:03:00.002-05:00

With the likes of Mitt Romney and his campaign thugs, the democrats can sit back, relax and enjoy the circular firing squad

The Romney campaign also signaled today that they are ready to get negative and personal – preparing to send out surrogates to attack Newt Gingrich’s private life in a desperate attempt to block his path to victory.

The problem for Mitt Romney is his latest reinvention is no more likely to be successful than the last, or the one before that …

The Catholic prolife vote has the capacity and power to make or break a candidate's chances of getting elected. So long as prolifers have a pulse, Mittens is never going to get elected as POTUS.

One of the things that makes Mittens and his team so despicable, is while his delusions of grandeur are circling the drain, instead of doing the right thing for our country, they set out on a path to destroy the competitors who have the momentum.

It's all about Mittens and it always has been. He is a man without convictions, who says whatever is politically expedient at the time to get what Mittens wants. When push comes to shove, even if it means destroying the chance to beat Obama, that's what he is going to do.

It's over dude. You never had a chance and you never will. You're an empty suit. Take your loss like a man. Be gracious. For once in your life, do the right thing for your country. Sit down and shut up.

Mittens' donors are getting nervous

2011-12-06T20:10:00.002-05:00

Goodie!s

This is the group of the prochoice uber rich in the RNC that have destroyed our country. I hate to say it, but I'm delighted they are coming to the realization they are flushing money down the toilet.