Catholicism Without Compromise: The Norbertines Of St. Michael’s Abbey, CA

Vignette of the Norbertine Life at St. Michael’s Abbey from St. Michael’s Abbey on Vimeo.

I have written only some days ago about the shame some orders, like the Jesuits, are bringing on themselves and how this will – unless they change their tune, which seems improbable – lead to their well-deserved extinction. Stil, it is not all bad and it is fitting and encouraging to report about those who are making a very good job, even if they do not make national headlines with some hallucinated interview about not praying in the name of Christ.

The video above is from St. Michael’s Abbey, a Norbertine abbey in Orange County, Southern California. When I browsed around their internet presence, I thought I was transported into another era. Whilst every Norbertine Abbey has its own degree of authonomy – as is, I think, the case for many religious orders – these people truly take it seriously. Look at their liturgy, with all canonical hours of the office sung every day by every one, priest or seminarian. This is three hours of chant a day, more on feast days. Vocations are dealt with in detail, and already from the video you can see that this is a community that doesn’t have any vocation problem. If you don’t believe the video, look at the confreres portraits and see for yourself.

The blunt request for “at least average intelligence” to be accepted as seminarian is delightfully politically incorrect; the other rather blunt affirmation, that “those who suffer from chronic illnesses or who are handicapped cannot enter the priesthood” is another example that these people tell it very straight (“handicapped”? I haven’t heard the word in decades. How do they dare?!).

They also have a preparatory school and in this case too, you feel transported into another era: compulsory religious education, mass every day before breakfast, mandatory night prayers after dinner. Ranking is, unsurprisingly, very high. I wouldn’t be surprised if sincere vocations among the pupils were high, too.

It seems to me particularly relevant that this abbey is in Southern California, a region generally not known for religious conservatism, and I also found interesting that it was first founded by refugees from communist Hungary. How the Holy Spirit never ceases to create good out of evil!

Whilst the attention to gregorian chant seems extreme, it is not clear (to me at least) whether the mass is a Novus Ordo or a Tridentine; as to the attendance, their wikipedia site seems to indicate that their Mass is open to the public and the fact that they schedule Mass at 11am on a sunday instead of the usual 7am would seem to corroborate the fact.

They also run a couple of parish churches, and seem to offer the Tridentine Mass too.

If someone of those parts reads this blog, I’d be glad to read about their experience. After the tragic news reaching us from the Netherlands, it is good to know that not too far away from the world capital of liberal atheist propaganda, a community of brave friars gives a wonderful example of monastic life.

Mundabor

 

“What Would Jesus Cut”: Catholicism vs Welfare State

Jesus: never a word about "welfare state".

Brilliant, and brilliantly short, blog post of Tom Crowe on Catholic Vote.

Mr. Crow exposes in just a few lines the falseness and hypocrisy of Socialism (in one of his milder forms) masked as Catholicism. The socialist attitude betrays the mistrust in human charity, and the belief in the inherent evil of human nature, that is so typical of the ideology. The socialist believes that if it wasn’t for the public hand, people would starve on the streets. How very unchristian.

I have written about the matter in the past, but I am far away from possessing the admirable conciseness of Mr Crowe.

The rhetorical question is : “what anti-poverty programs would Jesus cut?” Now, you could read a 1000-words answer from me to this extremely cretinous statement or, more practically, you can read this:

one potential serious answer would be, “Well, none. Jesus wouldn’t cut a single program.” The rest of that answer is, “but, of course, Jesus didn’t advocate for the government dole in the first place; He advocated for mutual support born of charity.”

Charity isn’t charity if the money used to help the poor is taken against the will of the one who has the money originally. Even for programs that no one has a problem with at all, the money is still taken by the government through statutory taxation, i.e., coercively.

The parable of the Good Samaritan didn’t end with Medicare picking up the tab.

The multiplication of the loaves and fishes wasn’t a call for food stamps.

The healing of the paralytic lowered through the roof wasn’t followed by an impassioned plea for government-run healthcare.

Note that Mr Crowe makes very clear that this doesn’t mean that solidarity has no place in the life of a Catholic. In fact, the exact contrary is the case!

To make it even clearer, the author of this beautiful blog post concludes with these words:

I suggest that rather than ask ridiculous loaded questions, the people at Catholics United seek ways Catholics can unite in true charity to pick up the slack when the dole is cut (as it *must* be) to help those who may need to find alternate ways of financing needed health care.

It isn’t unchristian at all to believe that the private initiative can do pretty much everything more efficiently than the public hand. It is, on the contrary, very Christian to believe that charity must come from – as the word itself says – charity rather than from expropriation. Expropriation creates an entitlement mentality and fosters resentment among both the expropriated “has” and the demanding “has not”; charity creates a bond between them instead.

It goes without saying that private initiative also has inherent advantages of slim and efficient organisation the public hand will never have. If you were called to pick up the bill for the people in need of your small city, be assured that there would be no superfluous layers of administration, no suffocating bureaucracy, no countless committees and regulation against every perceived discrimination, and the like. In the end, by same expense there would be not one ounce less of help; more probably there would be better help, at lesser cost, and given out of love.

Socialism is nothing to do with Christian solidarity. Christians have been admirably helpful to each other from the beginning, with no need of socialism whatsoever. The entire construct of solidarity by way of forced expropriation is a fraud; an expensive one, and a very unchristian one.

Mundabor

Senectus Ipsa Est Morbus: Mr Rowan Williams

Mr Rowan Williams in an "inclusive" outfit

The so-called (this is important, “so-called”. He is an usurper. Never forget!) Archbishop of Canterbury clearly is more confused than we thought and I slowly wonder whether some professional help might not be of some use to him.

Believing to be talking in front of a North-Korean audience, our old man first decided that Shakespeare was a Catholic (I know that this has been rumoured for very long; but now that we have the confirmation from him I rather begin to doubt) and then proceeded to please the audience (he thought he was in North Korea, remember!) by saying that the fact that the old and well-off Bard was “hoarding grain and buying up property in Stratford” makes him, in the eyes of Comrade Williams, “not very attractive”. Which is rather easily said when one disposes of lodgings in places like Lambeth Palace, you might say; but we don’t want to be fussy, do we?

I wonder if someone has informed the old man that Joseph of Arimathea was so wealthy that he hoarded I do not say grain and houses, but even superfluities like …….. luxury tombs. And a very expensive one he had there, just in case…. pure capitalistic decadence! Remaining in Gospel times, Zacchaeus and Nicodemus were not entirely poor, either, but I was under the impression that Jesus seemed to find both of them attractive. How very strange…..

Clearly, Our Lord was not as socially advanced as Mr (note here: no holy orders for him I’m afraid) Williams, who just can’t like people who are doing very fine, as in: even better than he.

Possibly because no applause had ensued, he decided to reinforce the concept with the following pearl of wisdom:

“If he was a Christian, he wasn’t a saint.”

Well nor are you, old ….. boy. Nor am I, or most of us. But wait, Joseph of Arimathaea is a canonised saint!? Recognised even by most Anglicans?! How can it be, if he had so much grain on the side? And the rich Nicodemus? He is a Saint too? !You don’t say?! Who’d have thought it?! What is next, the canonisation of people who were rich enough as to have their own private zoo, like…. St. Thomas More? (Oh well, I assume Thomas More doesn’t count for the Anglicans, does he now….).

We need Mister Williams to start working seriously at the remaking of Christianity. We really do. These last two thousand years have clearly been a promising start, but without him we would still be thinking that it isn’t a sin to be rich, and that riches are a grace that must be used properly and administered like a good steward would. We would even think that the Church has been helped to carry her work by countless rich and saintly men and women, who have given generously not only to alleviate the suffering of the poor, but also to help the Church to grow and spread Christ’s word. We wouldn’t even understand that Jesus has clearly said that property is theft, so blind are we! And we would, perhaps, even be so mad as to be thankful to the countless generous donors who have allowed so many works of sacred art to be created ad maiorem dei gloriam!

Where would we be, without this old… boy.

Mundabor

Bishop Aquila And The Abortion Clinic

Bishop Aquila

There is only one abortion clinic in North Dakota. The American Papist now informs us that the local bishop, Samuel Aquila, has authorised the establishment of a chapel next door to the clinic.

The chapel is meant to

pray for women with an unexpected pregnancy, to pray in reparation for the sin of abortion and for the conversion of those who participate in abortion.

One cannot praise Bishop Aquila (which is Italian for eagle, and what a fitting name it is) enough for his open defiance of the Nazi mentality of our times. I hope that it will be possible to make the chapel not only a constant point of reference for those who gather to pray near the clinic, but also in some way visible to the women visiting the structure. The fact that it is on the third floor of a building would seem to speak against it, but if the chapel is conspicuously indicated from the street level, perhaps a certain degree of visibility will be achieved anyway.

Once again, the comparison with the bishops of England & Wales is rather depressing.

A prayer for this brave bishop is fully in order.

Mundabor

Malta And Divorce: What Happens now

Note that it doesn't say "defend us in submission"

The unpleasant news of the Catholic defeat in the Maltese divorce referendum moves me to some reflection as to what has happened, and what the future might bring.

It is clear that the Maltese society is still remarkably Catholic. That almost 48% of the voters have decided to upheld one of the strictest, most difficult to digest rules of Christianity (so much so, that the Protestants have already decided that they do not want to have anything to do with it) is a powerful witness to what proper instruction can do. That it was not enough in this instance does not negate the importance of properly taught, insisted, vocally defended Catholic values in the least.

The question arises now about what will the future generations of Maltese think. What has been decided yesterday is that a rather illusory quest for individual happiness is more important than a society founded on Catholic values. This is not a good sign, as once this “principle” has been accepted other mainstays of Maltese Catholic legislation will be attacked. It seems for example difficult to see how a country accepting divorce may continue to ban the sale of condoms, or the cremation of the dead. If the accepted principle is that what is convenient to the individual is paramount, the rest (from homosexual “partnerships” to abortion) might well, in time, follow.

On the other hand, the demolition of a Catholic society is something that can’t be done so easily; not even then, when the clergy utterly fails the faithful. As an Italian I can bring excellent examples of this: when the Italian clergy was awaken even most Communists insisted on marrying in the church, having their children baptised, and so on. What may smack of hypocrisy (and was certainly, from their perspective, contradiction) still shows the huge power a solid Catholic thinking exercised even in those who would have seemed most allergic to its teaching. Even after the Italian clergy went to sleep (from the middle of the Sixties, with slow signs of awakening showing only now, and only at times) the Italian society remained surprisingly resilient to the assault of the new paganism: not in the sense that modern abominations haven’t paved their way into the Italian society (we have many of them: abortion, though not on demand; divorce, though not on demand; a certain promiscuity, though not even remotely comparable to the mass sluttiness to be found in England), but that their impact has been, even in the almost total absence of serious opposition from the clergy, remarkably low. Last time I looked – and forty years after the introduction of divorce – the divorce rate was around ten percent outside of the big cities, and my foreign friends living in Italy never cease to be amazed at “how seriously Italians take relationships”. If we look at abortion, whilst the situation remains very serious the numbers are stable or decreasing and, most importantly, the opposition to abortion remains rather strong. Furthermore, Italy still has no legalised poofdom, no euthanasia laws, and even the attempt of chasing the crucifix away from schools and law courts has been defeated twice.
All this – let me stress it once again because it is important – after an almost total absence of fighting spirit from those who should be its very embodiment, the clergy.

I look at Italy as it is now – still deeply rooted in Catholicism after 50 years of neglect from the clergy – and wonder what would have happened if the Italian clergy had decided that the lost referendums on divorce (1974, if memory serves) and abortion (1978, ditto) were not the end of the battle, but its very beginning. Methinks, we would have now a certainly more polarised society, but also a more sanely Catholic one. One, most importantly, where the vast majority of people – decent, loving, honest people wanting to do good, and to live rightly – is constantly reminded that there can be no individual metre of what is right. I think it absolutely not improbable (though of course we’ll never have the answer) that if the work of Catholic reconstruction had been begun forty years ago and had been aggressively pursued we might now already have – after only one generation of reconstruction – a different country, where Catholic values are not left confined to the undercurrent moral fabric of the land, but are openly professed and bravely defended.

This is now the choice the Maltese clergy have: to consider defeat inevitable and the march of irreligious thinking unstoppable, or to start a very hard, very long fight to take the lost terrain again. If they do, chances are that in only one or two generations the situation will be under control again. If they don’t, we’ll probably see an Italian situation: certainly not the disintegration of family like in protestant/atheist/muslim England (for this, the Maltese society is still far too Catholic), but a slow descent into the slippery slope of secular thinking.

Best luck to the Maltese people. At least to those who have voted properly.

Mundabor

Narrow Defeat in Maltese Referendum Divorce

Unfortunately, the results of the Maltese divorce referendum weren’t as hoped, and the “yes” front won with more than 52% of the votes.

This is very disappointing of course, and I do agree with the worries expressed in the past days: that you start with divorce and then erode Catholic values one bit at a time.

I hope (and frankly, think) that the Maltese clergy will not take this result as an unavoidable “sign of the times”, but will in the next years and, probably, decades continue to press to have divorce banned again. The worst mistake that could be done now is to tone down the polemic in order to avoid “alienating” the sheep. The Church is not there to make marketing exercises, I have seen this happening in Italy and the results don’t speak for the cleverness of the proposer of such “low profile” policies……

Abortion shows us very clearly that the pendulum can and does swing on the other side, if the electorate wakes up to the consequences of liberal legislation.

Mundabor

Ratko Mladic, Don Camillo And Catholic Sense

Radko Mladic at the time of the Bosnian civil war

The capture of Ratko Mladic, the notorious bastard of the Bosnian War, once again reminded me of a similar Italian situation, how Italians dealt with it, and why.

The Italy of the post WW I years was extremely explosive, and during the “biennio rosso” (1919-1921) it seemed that an outright civil war was in the cards. As it is well-known, a de-facto alliance of liberals, landowners, industrialists, conservative Catholics and Fascists put an end to this danger.

When it was clear that the Fascists had got the upper hand, they had to deal with the opposition. But they weren’t Serbians, or Spanish commies. In the end, everyone wanted to live peacefully, and leave adversaries alone as much as this could be reasonably done. The most used device to “pacify” the country was typically Italian: castor oil.

In two words, a small troop of Fascist activist would present themselves to the home of the relevant chap (a socialist, or an anti-fascist liberal or Catholic) and invite him to drink the castor oil. The refusal to drink obviously meant open war, but the acceptance of the “medical aid”a sort of token: one would abstain from anti-fascist activity and would, henceforth, be left alone. No blood, no murders, no widows, no orphans. Not even physical violence. You can call this fascist oppression and I won’t say it was pleasant. But given the circumstances I call it absolutely genial, very Italian, and very Catholic.

This praxis, savagely criticised in the following decades, was in my eyes extremely civilised, and I don’t know any other country where such limitless hate was set aside in such a bloodless way. Humiliating as the drinking of the castor oil was, it was a humiliation meant to consolidate Fascism in power without tragedies, and keeping even one’s adversaries totally unscathed.

I must honestly say that, whilst the civil war phase at the end of WW II was much bloodier than the Fascists ever dreamt to be, most anti-Fascists were honest and decent enough to remember the wisdom of the treatment and, when their hour struck, caused many bottles of castor oil to go over the pharmacy counter and, from there, down different throats.  Again, I see in this the way of a country where even the strongest hatred very rarely causes people to forget a sense of humanity and Christian piety; not even then, when those now in the commanding position wouldn’t even define themselves as Christians. Such is the power of an all-pervading Catholic attitude.

——————————————————————————————–

The most humorous way to describe in very visual terms the difference between the Serbian and the Italian attitude can be seen in this fragment of a Don Camillo/Peppone film, so popular at the time because so adherent to the Italian reality.

Unfortunately there are no subtitles, but the story is easily told.

1) An old fascist (the great Paolo Stoppa, dressed as a Redskin) has profited from the Carnival to come back to his old village; but he has been recognised from Peppone’s commies and is now very afraid something truly bad may happen to him. He takes refuge by Don Camillo.

2) Don Camillo reminds him that he would feel “safer” if it wasn’t for the castor oil the other had made him drink many yeasr before. The other has the usual excuses: come on, we were mere boys then…

3) Don Peppone, the commie mayor, intervenes after having gone in from the window. He carries a bottle of…. castor oil.  Doctor’s orders, he says. “It will do you good”. An iron bar strenghtens the doctor’s advice considerably.

4) The Fascist chap makes a first attempt at escaping, but is stopped. He frees himself a second time, reaches for Don Camillo’s gun, threatens Peppone. “Don’t be stupid, it’s loaded”, says Don Camillo.

5) Now it’s iron bar against gun. Peppone must drink.

6) Triumphant, the fascist chap sends him away. “Now go and call your reds. Perhaps it will cost me my skin, but I won’t go to hell alone”.

7) Don Camillo smiles. He fills a glass. He remarks about how good the oil’s quality is. “You’ll like it”, he says. When the chap threatens him, he informs him that the gun is not loaded, and overcomes him with sheer physical strenght. “I’ll count up to three, then I’ll pulverise you by mere force of slaps”. The chap has no choice but to drink. He is then sent away with the advice of “dressing as a hare” before he is found by Peppone’s boys.

8) Everything seems fine, but Jesus now talks to Peppone: he has lied. “If I had told that the gun wasn’t loaded, Peppone would have massacred him”, tries Don Camillo. “You could have spoken when the redskin forced Peppone to drink the oil!”, says Jesus. “But then Peppone wouldn’t have drunk!”, answers the cheeky priest feigning indifference whilst lighting a cigar.

9) Jesus calls this “vengeance”, Camillo replies with “Justice”. When Jesus insists on him having a “profound sense of justice”, his words are clear: “justice demands that violence and lie be punished”.  Camillo’s eyes fall on the castor oil bottle. “Ah, you understood me well!”, says Jesus.

10) At this point, resistance is futile. Camillo tries to cheat, but then fills the glass properly. Before he drinks, he movingly says: “in the end, my Lord, this will remind me of my youth”.

I hope that this little, delightful sketch has added some sun to your Sunday, and that it has explained to you the difference between mad fanaticism, and a Catholic approach to the enemy.

Mundabor

Malta: High Turnout And Hopes Of Victory

Good luck!

 

Reasonably high turnout in Malta for the divorce referendum.

It would appear, says Times Of Malta, that

a low turnout among younger voters was noted throughout the day, while the elderly and the religious community appeared to be out in numbers, thus potentially giving the ‘no’ vote the upper hand.

This is certainly a reaction to the appeal of the bishops, cleverly made en masse and in force on the last sunday before the vote, about which I have reported here.

I will probably not be able to report about the result of the referendum until tomorrow. What I notice is the fact that one of only two countries still banning divorce allows a referendum on it, and the result is uncertain to say the least. This seems to me a highly relevant result irrespective of the definitive outcome of the referendum. It means that it is possible, even in the middle of Europe, to build a society whose perception of real values is strong enough as to have a real grip on the population’s decisions.

This is not a coincidence of course. You have seen from the previous blog post mentioned above that the Maltese bishops are committed, outspoken shepherds. They show that if the shepherds are good, there will be enough sheep to give the goats a fight for their money. But this doesn’t happen overnight and is, surely, the result of constant work.

Picture now such a referendum in England, where the local hierarchy seems unable to talk about anything else than social and environmental issues and, when they really talk about embarrassing things like Jesus, they do everything possible to let you understand that they do it because they are supposed to, but you shouldn’t feel offended because they are oh so “inclusive”. Imagine what influence can such a cowardly stance have over a Catholic population already surrounded by a secular and protestant influence, and very often needing clear words to recognise the truth.

Whatever the outcome, this battle in Malta (and the one in Italy about euthanasia, I add) shows that if the Church leaders are committed to the fight, a Catholic army will, in time, be formed; disciplined and well-equipped enough to be a danger for every politicians wanting to stop its march.

Mundabor

ARCIC III: Breaking Up Is So Very Hard To do.

I hope the acoustics was good in the Italian Monastery of… Bose, Italy. If the acoustics wasn’t, accommodation and catering must certainly have been at rather high level, as the place has been chosen (as already anticipated by me when talking about Little Britain) for the latest episode of that expensive exercise in useless waffling, busy-bodying and bad theology, but at the same time in jolly good company and first-class entertainment, called Anglican – Roman Catholic International Commission, in short: ARCIC.

On this particular occasion, the talks went on for ten days, concluding in time for the return of the happy troop before the Champions League final. One can only admire such logistical skills.

There is, of course, no way any “ecumenical dialogue” made in the wrong way may ever lead to anything approaching acceptable results. The inherent ridicule of the situation by which Catholics and Protestants try to find a way by which they might be reconciled without the Protestants becoming Catholics (a very tiring exercise, I suppose; no doubt helped by ten days of healthy doses of good food and fortifying wine) was on this occasion made even clearer by the fact that a lady took part as Anglican “bishopess”, and another lady from I-don’t-care-where as “canoness”. It is clear that female presence was considered indispensable for a more pleasant conversation at table, it being unthinkable that a “bishopess” and/or “canoness” may ever, ever be of any use in any talk based on real ecumenism.

Real ecumenism can never be an exercise by which Catholics and Protestant try to talk their differences away. Nor can it be limited to inconsequential waffle about the desire to get along together, as the Truth should, in a sane world, not have any desire to get along with the lie beside the one to – as long as possible – avoid armed confrontation. Least of all can ecumenism become an effort to let it appear that it be not so important – in everyday life and in the economy of salvation – to be a Catholic or a Proddie. This last error only confuses the Catholics, helps the Protestants to remain in the dark, and is of any use only to the merry ARCIC troop, and to the catering firm.

Real ecumenism is you-come-to-me -ism; it is the talk with the clear intention to help the prodigal son to go back to the father’s house, and no other; it is the unashamed statement that one side is right, the other wrong and one tries to find ways to help those on the wrong side to get to the right one. If this kind of ecumenism is not liked from the other side, though.

The newly established Ordinariates for converted Anglicans are a clear example of ecumenism, because they build bridges for those on the wrong side whilst always making clear where the Truth lies, and where the bridge leads.

My impression is that these merry gatherings have become one of those expensive, but not entirely unpleasant occasions to which the participant do not want to put an end, even when the absurdity of such meetings has been made once and for all obvious by the presence of the “bishopess” and/or “canoness”. I can’t wait for the first transsexual Anglican bishopette. the Anglicans might not be there yet, but given time I’m sure they’ll manage to “catch up with society” as they have done so often (erm: always, really) in the past. I can’t imagine that this would be seen as an obstacle to any future ARCIC: if you can swallow a bishopette, there’ s truly no boundary to what else you could live with.

No. As long as food and wine are going to be good enough, breaking up will be so very hard to do.

Mundabor

Letter About Pedophile Priest Doesn’t Make It To Bishop

Fr Ratigan, the priest at the centre of the diocesan blunder

From the Deacon’s Bench, a barely believable story about a priest suspected of pedophile behaviour and, subsequently, the object of a letter written by the school’s principal to the bishop.

Apparently, Bishop Finn never read the letter. Instead, he appears to have received a “brief verbal summary” about it from his vicar general.

Following questions arise:

1) How can the vicar general have given the bishop a “brief verbal summary” without mentioning words related to the word a bishop must dread most: pedophilia. The details mentioned on the letters are from alarming to sickening (and certainly so in the big picture that emerges from all of them together) and would have put every sensible man, let alone a priest (or a bishop, see below) in a state of maximum alert.

2) Who is this vicar general: a priest (in this case, appointed by the bishop himself) or an auxiliary bishop (possibly not appointed by the bishop; at least not freely so). In the first case, bishop Finn must still be considered accountable in certain measure for the people he puts in position of great responsibility; in the second, we still have a bishop – though not bishop Finn – directly responsible for the blunder.

3) How can a clergyman (whether bishop, or not) not have all alarms bell ringing when he reads or hears something even remotely similar to the word mentioned above. We are in 2011, not 1951.

This seems to me a history of extraordinary incompetence, or laziness, or bad faith at some – not yet entirely clear – level. Which is a double pity, as bishop Finn seems to have his theology in order and not to be one of the progressive and cowardly shepherds. A short google search has given this, the like of which I have never read from any English bishop, (whether reading his letters or not) and will probably not read in my lifetime.

Still and as much as it pains me to say this, it beggars belief that in 2011 we must still read such stories of utter failure of most elementary control mechanisms.

Mundabor

French Priests Asks Card. Ouellet For Better Bishops

Bishop Fonlupt, another of the suit-and-tie fraction....

I know, this is in Italian. But what would be the use of your humble correspondent, if he wasn’t able to give a little help when needed…

It turns out that twenty-one French priests have written to the Head of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Ouellet, to ask him for… better shepherds. This after the latest appointment, the one of the apparently notorious bishop Fonlupt (see above a photo of his in unmistakable clerical garments….) , left once again much to be desired.

The letter has been signed, though Messa In Latino doesn’t report the names. Also noticeable is the decision not to allow any seminarian to sign, after a similar appeal from Milan seminarians to have Summorum Pontificum applied in their own diocese led to inordinate thundering and unpleasant consequences.

Messa in Latino puts it, as always, in a refreshingly blunt way:

La media dei vescovi di Germania, Austria, Svizzera, Francia, è da asilo per lunatici; in Italia e Spagna, dove non siamo caduti così in basso, la media è comunque mediocre e di desolante immobilismo.

The average of the bishops in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France is at madhouse level; in Italy and Spain, where we haven’t sunk so low, the average is still mediocre and marked by a depressing total absence of action”

Personally, I must say that one begins to see something vaguely approaching a harder stance. It hadn’t happened for very long, surely, that two bishops were kicked out in a matter of months, and three in less than a year. Still, what – I think – must end is the mentality by which an appointment is the result of a compromise between the diverging desires of the Pontiff (for an orthodox man) and of the local clergy (for a lunatic, or a heretic). In the end, there is no way protests from liberals can be avoided and appointing liberal bishops will not appease them (as if appeasement were a working strategy, ever), but only make them more vocal.

Summorum Pontificum is, I think, a point in case. A very lax enforcement of the clear dispositions of that historic motu proprio didn’t facilitate at all a prompt reception of its clear message; on the contrary, it encouraged a huge number of Western bishops into thinking that SP could be boycotted as long as necessary, and destroyed as soon as practicable. Only Universae Ecclesiae will put an end to this; and again, only if seriously enforced.

“Messa in Latino” puts the importance of the matter in such a beautiful way, that I can’t resist reporting and translating the entire concept:

La prima preoccupazione di questo sito è sempre stata per la scelta di buoni vescovi e per questo abbiamo cercato di seguirne le nomine, prima ancora che parlare di liturgia. Perché è dalle risorse umane che dipendono le sorti di un’azienda; e certo, se la Chiesa fosse un’azienda, sarebbe già fallita da molto tempo. Il fatto che la barca vada avanti nonostante certi rematori, è la prova storica dell’assistenza divina. Nondimeno, cerchi un po’ la Congregazione per i vescovi di facilitare il compito alla Provvidenza.

The most pressing care of this site has always been the choice of good bishops and this is why we have tried to follow their appointments, even before talking about liturgy. This, because it is from the human resources that the furtunes of a company depend; and certainly, if the Church had been a company she would have gone bankrupt a long time ago. The fact that the barque continues to go on notwithstanding such rowers is the historical proof of the Divine assistance. Still, the Congregation For Bishops should try to make the task of Providence easier”.

I am confident that Cardinal Ouellet will make Providence’s task somewhat easier; though episodes like Fonlupt’s appointment show that the process will not be as speedy as we would wish.

Mundabor

Lesbian Scorned Tries To Kill Baby In The Womb

I have written some time ago about the great potential for trouble coming from perverted “relationships” and the utter failure to deliver on their promises of “normality”.

This here – (taken from the excellent site of John Smeaton, though the real link is from a disgusting “poof & lesbian” site) may be only an isolated case, but I think it is rather indicative of a mentality. A drunk lesbian punched her pregnant ex-girlfriend with a view – as she, according to the site, herself admits – to kill the baby. She was drunk, apparently (what a lady, btw); but as they say, in vino veritas.

I might be biased or naive here, but I can scarcely imagine a concluded heterosexual relationship in which the man punches her ex-girlfriend in her stomach with an aim to kill the baby she is now having from another man. I also cannot remember ever reading of a thing like that.

It seems to me that here the extreme selfishness so typical of these perverted relationships plays a role; that the hugely inflated “me”-attitude that persuades one that whatever he does – and is – is right, even if it is perverted to the extreme, is the same mentality which then considers utterly consequential to strike in order to kill whatever would come between one’s ego and the attainment of one’s desires. The drunkenness is here, I would say, rather what let the woman forget the legal implications of her act, that what formed her evil intention in the first place. Rather, the evil intention must be the obvious consequence of the extreme self-centredness of people with such behaviour.

It is no less than astonishing that the woman’s treatment has been so mild. In my book, this is an attempted homicide. I also wonder whether a man would have been treated, in the same situation, with the same mildness.

Thankfully, we are informed that the lesbian in question wants to “put this matter behind her”. How very kind of her.

I should now quote the one with the hell and the woman scorned; but I’m afraid lesbians go beyond that.

Mundabor

Michael Voris On Truth And Unity

If you live in England, you may occasionally wonder when it was the last time that you heard a bishop say that Protestantism is a heresy.

You would also be very much embarrassed at having to answer to the question of when has your bishop last told that every effort to minimise major differences with the Protestants is like unleashing a wrecking ball against the edifice of the Catholic faith.

I also can’t remember any English bishop ever saying that the difference between Catholicism and protestant is huge, that no other religion was founded by Christ, and that Catholicism is the only way to salvation.

Finally, I do not recall ever knowing of an English Bishop posing Catholic Truth as the basis of every exercise in ecumenism, and that this truth will, like it or not, forcibly require sacrifices in matters of unity.  

Obvious concepts, all of them. You just don’t hear them. Instead, you hear the usual convenient social(ist) waffle about social justice, or the even more populist bollocks about global warming.

This is why it is always good to listen to Michael Voris.

Mundabor

Liberal Clerical Fashion Explained

I have written in the last weeks (and before) rather often about strange liberal creatures with clear difficulties in reconciling themselves with Catholicism.

Their problem seems apparent – I would say, it is made by them very apparent – by the inability of these chaps to dress like ordained people. If they have an obligation to dress like clerics, they seem blissfully unaware of it. Let us see some example of this “liberal fashion”.

This is bishop Nourrichard, he of the Thiberville scandal

Exhibit 1: bishop Nourrichard

You can note from this photo that the man likes yellow, and green; that he doesn’t look particularly sober ( an impression of mine, for sure; pastis is not very strong after all…..) and that he has not been blessed with a familiar environment stressing the value of elegance or, at least, basic decency. Congratulations to bishop Nourrichard for the “country bumpkin” prize.

The next one is bishop William Morris, he of Toowoomba

Exhibit 2: bishop Morris

This man was clearly raised up in a more tasteful environment. The shirt is well pressed, the tie well matched, the colours are elegant and dignified. Particularly so, because the sign of the Vatican boot on his backside is not visible on this picture.

The problem is that by looking at the photo you’d never say that he is, of all things, a Catholic bishop; which is, clearly, what he himself wants.
Don’t worry, though: having being kicked out by the Holy Father he is now a retired bishop anyway. If he is defrocked – as he should – he’ll have even more scope for his well-pressed, tasteful shirts. Or perhaps he will then decide to follow his vocation and will dress like a Morris dancer.

Next in line is our “priestesses subito” soi-disant Catholic theologian, Hans Kueng.

Exhibit 3: Hans Kueng

Herr Kueng prefers a sober, traditional style, with a white shirt complemented by a regimental-type tie and a sober London smoke jacket. This would be very fine, if said Herr Kueng were not a religious. The problem with the way he dresses is that he is clearly trying to let you forget that he is a Catholic priest. A circumstance which he has, very probably, long forgotten himself.

Dulcis in fundo, the hero of the hour; the idol of worldwide pedophiles; the staunch defender of sodomy with children; the -apparently – former Dutch Salesian Superior Herman Spronk.

Exhibit 4: Herman Spronk

Note the inquisitive, attentive, piercingly liquid eye. This is a typical expression that once would have been defined “tired and emotional” but we today, unaccustomed to the niceties of the past, simply call drunk. These expressive facial traits – you see in them a clear sympathy for the tragedy of good men, cruelly separated from the children they love by a ruthless Vatican hierarchy and oppressive superiors in Rome – are aptly matched to a factory-worker casual jacket and a dark blue, probably rather coarse, shirt. We all know how much children love blue, and the casual dress is also clearly meant to avoid being intimidating. Sinite pargulos venire ad me is the extremely creepy message here.

—————————–

These are all examples of liberals of various kind previously dealt with on this blog, the last three in the past couple of weeks.

Once again, it is clear that symbols have power, and that the way one chooses to follow regarding his exterior appearance often accurately reflects his interior world.

The religious habit has a powerful symbolic force. It is not surprising that those who betray the Church start by betraying the habit.

Mundabor

Christian Flashmobs

I must confess to not having known, until today, what a Flashmob is. I might not be the only one, though…

In a flashmob, people gather in a place and start, one after the other, to do something unexpected, or witty, or meant to amuse and entertain the public.

What you see here is a Christian flashmob, and this is a spectacular one. What is clearly a group of a couple of dozen choristers (the text says more than 100, but it includes those who decided to sing along) start to sing the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s “Messiah”. You can clearly see in the video how the process starts and how the people react: when the first girl (with the mobile phone) starts singing out of the blue, the reaction is rather the puzzled, “what’s going on” one; but then another chorister starts to sing, and then another two, and it goes on and on; at that point everyone just relaxes and enjoys the show.

The red poppies clearly tell you that the scene takes place in the United Kingdom, which is encouraging. Also encouraging is that there seems to have been no attempt of disruption from angry atheists, of which there must be much less around than the atheists would want us to believe.

This video has become a Youtube favourite and has been seen more than 30 million times. It has inspired a second one, this one in Lebanon, as reported on The Hermeneutic of Continuity.

You’ll see that the technique is the same, and that here, too, after the first reaction mobile phones and compact cameras pop out everywhere to record the event.

I found both videos particularly nice, and the second almost moving given the past and not-so-past troubles of Christians in Lebanon.

This is, I must say, a kind of mob I like.

Mundabor

Andrew Klavan And Islam

This is not really new anymore, but in my eyes it touches themes and a way of seeing religion that is at the same time still actual and very well argued. The comparison with the “gigantic german mouse” is powerful, the one with the carmelite nuns even more so.

Enjoy this brilliant video of Andrew Klavan.

Mundabor

Sonogram Now Mandatory In Texas

Try to call this baby a lump of cells now!

Following on the Pro-Life Final Weapon blog post, it is now official that in Texas a sonogram will be mandatory before an abortion.

There are still unpleasant limitations to the measure. The mother is not obliged to see the sonogram or to hear to the heartbeat, but she will have to hear to the doctor’s description of how the baby looks like. Also, the baby result of rape does not have the same right and in this case, the mother will not even have to listen to the doctor (unless I am mistaken, expect an increase in cases of rape).

See above an example of the image generated by the sonogram. Truly impressive. The possibility of hearing the baby’s heartbeat will add to the experience.

Astonishingly, though, there are people who are against the measure because (please sit before you read this)

the law interferes in the doctor-patient relationship by adding a government requirement for a procedure that could be traumatizing to women going through an already difficult situation.

So, the mother should not be traumatised by …… letting her know that she is killing her own baby.

What sensitive Nazis we have there.

Kudos to the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who put the measure on a legislative fast track as “emergency legislative priority”, and to the heavily pro-life majority in the state legislative which made the bill possible in the first place.

Mundabor

Catholic Blogging In 17.5 Easy Steps

"Deus le volt" without the blood.

I don’t like talking about my blog, which is the reason why I never write blog posts like “this is my 300th post” and the like.

Still, I have been blogging for almost one year now and have, I think, learned one thing or two about what – at least in my case – goes and what not.

As I have written a couple of times in the recent past about Catholic blogging, I thought that I may write here a couple of suggestions that might be obvious to the already experienced blogger, but not so obvious to the person thinking of starting a Catholic blog for the first time.

If you were to ask me for advice about how to start a conservative Catholic blog, I would – based exclusively on my personal experience; your mileage may vary – suggest the following steps. Others will, no doubt, have different opinions. Still, here we are:

1) anonymity. It is pure illusion to think that future employers – or people relevant to one’s business – will not trace all your activity whether you want it or not; and this without you having any control about the matter and without you ever knowing what damage this has done to you. If you are like me you’ll seek wisdom, not martyrdom.

2) No public stat counter. To have a public stat counter means to make an emotional investment in how many page views you get, in front of all your readers. This can easily lead – human nature being what it is – to a perversion of the scope of the blog and you might end up writing what you think might bring more page views, rather than what you think is more deserving of a blog post. Do your own thing. It’s not an exercise in popularity.

3) Activate comments. People like to comment and yes, you will like to answer to them. It doesn’t take much time. Only a very tiny minority of readers comments, but many more enjoy to read the comments. Comments also help to clarify and expand the blog post material. In time, you’ll receive many useful hints about further posts, too.

4) Moderate comments before they are posted. It is astonishing how every blog is visited by people whose only apparent scope in life is to annoy others. Don’t be a Pollyanna, it’s full of rubbish-spitting trolls out there.  You will have a “trash” button. Use it.

5) Variety. Blog about a mixture of news and general issues. A blog is very useful for themes of general Catholicism because, contrarily to what you may think, your blog posts do not get buried. See below about this, point 7). Use your blog to propagate Catholic devotions. Particularly the Rosary. And Fatima. Ah, and Padre Pio. Oh, and Pius XII. You get the drift……. 😉

6) Post just a few blog links. Too many links is the same as no links. Have just a limited number of links that work as a real endorsement and whose profile well complements your own blog. Escape the temptation of the “I link to you if you link to me”-mentality. It doesn’t even work, because being buried among 200 links against your burying others among your 200 links is, I think, not going to help much. I would also opine that Google is, very probably, smarter than that. Ah, and don’t be an ass: link to the right blogs even if they don’t link to you. You are trying to give a service to your readers, not to wage a link war….

7) Be patient. A blog must grow like a tree, with the slow accumulation of concentric circles of blog posts. The accumulation of good, serious content is at least as important as the issue of the day. A blog slowly builds on the foundation of a growing number of posts your readers will love to browse around. I see this on my own (hidden to you 😉 ) statistics, with a surprising percentage of page views daily devoted to old posts. This I hadn’t expected. A blog doesn’t work – as I thought initially – like a pile of magazines, with the older ones being buried under a ton of newer material; rather, it works more like an electronic archive always accessible – and continuously accessed – through individual clicking and search engines. You’ll do well to link to older posts within new ones anyway, as it shows to your new readers that there is a lot to read around.

8 ) Method. A blog can’t eat your life, because if you do you’ll soon abandon the effort after the first enthusiasms. Rather, the decision to devote so and so much time to the blog every week – something reasonable, but “visible” and half way constant – will help you to make of this a long-term project. Those who start a blog for the stat counter – and those who think that the world has been waiting for what they have to say – will be disappointed and will soon stop blogging.

9) Honesty. Make every blog post something uniquely yours. If you link to external material, write your own thoughts about it. If you take the habit of merely posting external documents that hey can easily google you don’t give anything unique to the reader. Readers don’t visit your blog for the text of, say, “Universae Ecclesiae”, but for your take on it. The first can be had everywhere, the second from you only.

10) Images. Post images whenever you have time. Make the image relevant and striking; or use it to bring some irony, or a joke, or even to administer some cod liver oil when appropriate. Pay attention that you do not infringe about other people’s copyrights. Still, don’t be a slave to the pleasant layout: if there’s no time, it’s better to post good content with a simple layout than no content at all.

11) Tags. Post all tags you think relevant to the post. Don’t neglect this part because tags are an important part of your ability to be reached through internet searches. Whenever I saw a sudden decrease of pageviews the reason was, without a single exception, my forgetting to write the tags.

12) Technology. Make your readers as comfortable as your technical savvy allows. Post on twitter and facebook, allow internal post search, etc. Similarly, use the technology available to you. The “timer” function – allowing you to write when you have time, and to publish when you think it’s right – is a very useful tool.

13) Bite. Make your blog unique, not just another “let us get along” product. Give it assertiveness, substance, chuzpah. Write an opinion, not merely a fact. Tell clearly what you want to say. Don’t be afraid of being harsh with people who deserve to be treated harshly. You are blogging, not having afternoon tea, so stop being so English 😉 and take inspiration from the chap in the photo above 😉

13b) Bite part II, or political incorrectness. Don’t be afraid of exercising your rights. Tell it as it is. For example, don’t say “gay” unless you mean “happy”. Use “homosexual” or “sodomite” instead. You may want to sprinkle with “faggot” and “poof” whenever a harsher reproach sounds appropriate, but that’s up to you. Don’t be pussyfooting around. You have an agenda that must be said loud and clear, not whispered. Show your readers that you eat meat, not tofu. Ridicule the enemy, as this has always been an extremely effective weapon. Una risata li seppellira’ (“a laugh will bury them”).

14) Blog profile. Do your own thing. Don’t ask your readers how they’d like your blog to be, and don’t try to fathom how they would best like it. This is nonsensical; tot capita, tot sententiae. Write your blog as you like it, and other people will like it too. There’s no blog which, when properly cared for and written from the heart, doesn’t attract the readership congenial to it. Even sedevacantist sites, when properly made, attract readers! It is better to have a product with a real, individualised character, that one which tries to be all things to all people. The first gives a very good service to a limited few, but the second no added value to anyone.

15) Keep your ego outside as much as practicable. Blog anonymously and if you can (no spouse around, say) don’t tell anyone you’re blogging. Train yourself to think that you write to fight the good fight, not for human recognition. Your service is twofold: a) to God, who sees you even if no one else knows, and b) to your readers, to whom you give a service if you give a unique and instructive product instead of a copycat, or a collection of common places. This is also useful for point 1) above.

16) Accuracy. Write your blog posts in correct, proper English. If you don’t know the difference between “their”, “there” and “they’re”, “its” and “it’s”, “Popes” and “Pope’s” and the like, do not expect to be taken seriously. If you are, like me, a foreigner, do make an extra effort. “He who [writes] badly, thinks badly” (Nanni Moretti).

17) Seek remuneration. The thing with the free meal, and all that. You put a lot of work in your blog and give your readers a service which some of them will find valuable. Don’t be a wimp, and ask for your readers’ prayers (I suggest the “about the author” page for that; we don’t want to be a nuisance; or perhaps we should be a nuisance?). With the years, think of how many they might become. One day, this will be a very useful currency, and certainly worth every minute of your time, and the best compensation for your effort you may desire. Most people are honest folks: when they see added value, they are glad to give back for it; and don’t think you don’t need prayers because, if you are any similar to me, you most certainly do.

Mundabor

Salesian Herman Spronck Apparently Suspended, Possibly Defrocked.

Herman Spronck

I have written here about the unspeakable Herman Spronck, the Dutch Salesian Superior being on record with saying that sex with a child of twelve is fine with him.

It would now appear that this evil man has been suspended, and that a decision of the Pope is pending whether he should be defrocked.

The source of this is, says here, the Dutch journalist Roland Strijker.

If this news is confirmed (and the source seems to be credible, if even Messa In Latino doesn’t hesitate to echo it) this would show, semel in anno, a remarkable speed from both the Salesians and the Holy Father in reacting to the events.

It is true that the declarations of the Spronck man were openly evil. Still, it is a pleasure to see that a new praxis is paving its way in the corridors at least of the Vatican, that grave scandals are now punished without the slowness traditionally abused by bastards and heretics of all kinds.

If it can be of interest, the pedophile organisation called Martijn, of which the suspended Salesian at the origin of Spronck’s interview was a member, complains with the Pope and the Vatican and showers lauds on the Spronck man. Nothing else to say, really.

Mundabor

Three Cheers For Mario Grech And The Maltese Bishops

Small island, great bishops: Malta.

Malta is a Catholic fortress.

No divorce, no abortion, no cremation, no condoms in grocery stores.

This tiny country in the middle of the Mediterranean is now voting about divorce. It is one of only two countries which still get it right.

The vote seemed to assure victory to the divorce faction; but in the last days, the Catholic front has been advancing. The three Maltese bishops are – God bless them – firing from all cannons. Of the three, the most warly seems to be Mario Grech.

Try this:

Beware of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. And the wolf is now saying he is Catholic. This is a falsity, this is deceit

You cannot not be loyal to Christ and say you are a Christian or a Catholic

If you are not in communion with Christ’s teachings, you are not in communion with the Church and you cannot receive communion

to be politically correct and not tell things as they are will lead us to be sorry. There are the brigands among us who are utilizing every means possible to lead the flock astray. They are going after marriage and then other things will follow.

The vote is now too close to call. But if the catholic side loses it will certainly not have been for lack of action of these bishops, fighting with such energy in the last days before the vote.

Oh for English bishops with one tenth of the faith of these brave men!

Mundabor

Michael Voris And The “Nice” Bloggers

I cannot say that I always agree with Michael Voris. I remember an extremely questionable “vortex” about homosexuality, another about the best form of government for a Catholic country, a third (very recent) holding a rather extreme (though by no means isolated) view about how many people are saved; and if I must say it all, I also confess to a strong dislike of his post-68 style of dressing; things like jacket without tie, or jacket over casual trousers…but I digress.

Very often, though, I agree with what he says. Take the video above for example, a passionate defence of Truth over convenience, and proper instruction over “niceness”.

False charity doesn’t work and whilst most priests still don’t get the message, most bloggers do. Blogging is – in most cases – not their profession and the reason they blog is that – be they clergy or laity – they want a message to be spread, that they see not sufficiently talked about. Their blogging is the reaction to the utter failure of the professional clergy – collectively seen, and with the usual exceptions – to do a proper job.

This mentality has, in the last half century, sent countless faithful to their grave with a gospel of “niceness” at all costs and “celebration” as absolute centre of their spiritual life whose usefulness in the economy of their salvation can only be described as tragically inadequate.

No, blogs don’t have to “be nice” and come to that, priests don’t have to be it either.  What they must be is truthful, crystal clear, assertive, uncompromising. It is not a surprise that the call to more “niceness” would apparently come from the same “establishment” (to use Voris’ words) that has, through its lack of truthfulness and love for harmony at all costs, caused the explosion of Catholic blogging  in the first place. By calling for a non-divisive approach, they show that they still haven’t got the message that the Church is divisive, because the Church is in opposition to the world.

There is, I am afraid, no escape from this. The very moment you open your mouth and say that you’re a Catholic, you must know that you have no other choice but fight or appeasement. It must be so, because human nature is so. Being a Catholic – and saying it – means being unpopular among many, being vilified at times, being considered “uncharitable” by those who have made of niceness a religion, being considered “divisive” by those for whom inclusiveness comes before Truth. But it also means doing your duty, being a small but willing soldier of Christ, helping others to know the Truth, and avoiding becoming accessory to other people’s sins. Whoever has told you that to “fight the good fight” meant to “celebrate the inclusive celebration” was wrong.

Most bloggers will continue not to be very “nice” I am afraid. At least until the clergy will continue to be it.

Mundabor

Dutch Salesian Superior Is Fine With Sex At Twelve

St. Giovanni Bosco, pray for us!

I really do not know what has become of these people, the post V II “progressive” religious. It would seem that if you aren’t a pervert, or a bastard, or both you can’t make any career or be given any serious responsibility in one of those orders that have embraced V II so enthusiastically. I have posted just a few days ago of the Jesuit for whom praying in the name of Christ is an optional, and now this……

When one reads such people (notice, here, the huge effort I am making not to say anything worse than that; I leave it to your imagination) one truly thinks that the scale of naivety – particularly during the years of JP II – in having allowed these people to stay among children must have been immense. I say naivety, because to think otherwise is to me utterly impossible.

We have now from Rorate Caeli the translation of an interview to the Dutch Salesian Superior, a man called Spronck. A chap who has  tolerated and allowed to operate a confrere of whom he knew, (let us say this again: of whom he knew) that he was a pedophile. A chap who keeps a pedophile priest in contact with children after the man has been caught twice flashing because hey, “this is not a serious offence”. A chap with such a diabolical mind, that he dares to make to the interviewer the example of a boy who “suffered” because his pedophile priest was taken away from him. A chap who says that things between his own Salesian and children can become sexual as if this was something natural, and normal. A chap who says that if he had his way, sex with children of 12 would be legal.

This is pure evil, this is Satan himself talking out loud in defiance of every Christian rule. The man was probably not even aware of the trouble he would get in, so deeply evil, so entirely corrupt is he.

The text of the interview is the most open admissions of diabolic agenda I have ever read as an official declaration of a religious.

The stunning revelations concern here three families of abominations:

1) that the superior knew, and did nothing besides giving some warning that one must abide by the law, when in front of a clear case of pedophilia. He prides himself that he always stood by the pedophile priest. Unbelievable.

2) that the man abandons himself to shocking affirmation as to sex with minor, up to saying that sex between a boy of 12 and an adult would, if he had the choice, not be forbidden. This is, purely and simply, satanic. I wonder how one can read such things and not suspect that the man is a pedophile, or a homosexual, or both himself. Again, this is pure evil.

3) that the man seems to consider premarital relationships (irrespective of their circumstances) something he has nothing to say against. Now we all live in the same planet and we are all aware of the temptations of the flesh; but this is different, this is just putting God’s law out of the equation. Towards the end of the interview, he even “explains” how these things happen: hey, there were no women around…….. .

Our chap has in the meantime said that he was misrepresented, but frankly I am sick and tired of such sickos hiding behind one finger. If you read the entire interview (if you can, and I understand you if you don’t) you’ll see that the one or other word might have been mistranslated, but the tone and mentality behind the entire interview cannot have been misconstrued entirely.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this man were soon to be arrested himself, as it seems to me that here a diabolical intent is at work, a scale of evil thinking that clearly reveals the darkness of the soul behind it.

After the interview, you’ll find an update of the Salesians with the clarification that the Salesians never condone pedophile behaviour, which is exactly the contrary of what transpires from the interview. Well of course they would say it, wouldn’t they? But this is the Dutch Superior, not a quisque de populo.

I truly hope that there will be further consequences than a press release. This Spronck is pure evil.

Below, just some of the stunning answers given by Mr Spronk. I am very sorry, but whatever “clarification” would now come is rather too late.

Please keep this post away from children and if you can, say a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel.

Mundabor

————————————

What do you think of Father Van B., who was twice convicted [for indecent exposure], did he obey the law?

I repeatedly told him what he should do. He was warned several times for flashing, which is, of course, not a serious offense.

But to a pedophile priest to work in churches where he comes into contact with children, without their knowing it, is that really a good idea?

I have always told Father Van B. that he had to obey the law and nothing has ever really happened. So I saw no reason to doubt Father Van B..

Father Van B. says himself that it is necessary to watch him near children. If not, then the pressure increases and he is afraid that things go wrong. What do you say?

I have never seen a reason why he could not work with children. Only in 2007 – after the incident when he worked in the parish of St Luke in Amsterdam – I decided it was sensible that he no longer work with children. I got him sent to Nijmegen. He takes care to older brothers.

How do you feel about sexual relations between adults and children?

Of course there are certain social norms that everyone has to comply with. But one wonders if that is not going too far. Formally, I always say that everyone must obey the law strictly. But these relationships are not necessarily harmful.

You believe that relationships between adults and children are not necessarily harmful?

I have an example. I was once approached by a 14-year-old boy who had a relationship with an older priest. He was sent away, and this boy suffered immensely, he suffered because [the priest] had been sent away. He told me, “Father Herman, why did you send him away?” And, now, what should I say to a boy like this?

So, then, relationships between adults and children are fine?

Personally, I believe that relationships between adults and children are not necessarily wrong [Persoonlijk wijs ik relaties tussen volwassenen en kinderen niet per definitie af.] Do you know Foucault? The philosopher. Do you know his writings? No, you should read that once again, especially the introduction to Part 4. It does depend on the child. You should not look so inflexibly at age. You should never enter into the personal space of a child if the child does not want it, but that depends on the child himself. There are children who themselves indicate that it is admissible. Then, sexual contact is possible.
At what age do you think that sexual relationships are possible?
Saying the age of 18 years is, I think, too inflexible.

Do you think that from the age of 12 years then is fine for sexual relationships with adults?

If it were up to me, they should be.

Will there be in the Salesian Order any more relationships between older people and children?

Just imagine that in the 50s/60s all lived together in ‘s Heerenberg. We were all away from our family and had only each other. Adults and boys – there was no woman to see – then lived together and some things bloom.

The Great Protestant Rapture Show Goes On

Francisco Goya, "The Madhouse"

You’d have thought even Protestants would, at some point, open their eyes as to the utter madness of their own guides. But in fact, if you look at things more carefully, you easily discover that this simply can’t be.

What is Protestantism? In its essence, it is the desire to sit in front of a Bible and make one’s own theology. No more Only Church, no more immutable rules, no more unpleasant obligations. Granted, there are a lot of Protestant who are very sincere Christians, but the initial planning mistake is forcibly present in their own edifice, too.

Protestants will, then, basically decide what they want to believe and then look for a congregation more or less in line with what they have already decided is the Only Truth. Until, of course, they change their mind (because inspired by the Holy Spirit to a New And Better Truth, one assumes) and move somewhere else, or their own congregation changes the “policy” but they themselves don’t agree with that so their line with the Holy Ghost must be disturbed.

You want divorce? Hey presto, let us have one and who cares what Luther & Co. would have said of that. You want several wives? Easy, just find a suitable quotation in the Bible and found your own church on it and failing that, let us recur to …… the Holy Ghost inspiring us. You want priestesses? Same. You want lesbian priestesses? Ditto. The list is very long.

But what happens if you want…. rapture? Will you find people so clearly disturbed as to agree with you? Yes of course you will! Hey, in Protestant lala-land common sense is only an option, just make some calculation and come up with something you wanted to think in the first place!  Isn’t it just what every other Protestant “church” is doing?

This is, you see, the perverse beauty of Protestantism. Even nutcases tired of living but clearly not allowed to think of suicide, frustrated losers dreaming of some “revenge” against the world considering them nuts and idiots, and people who simply enjoy scaring others and being scared themselves can find their own church. How wonderfully inclusive. The only think the rapture nutcases must do is to find a deranged (or clever and greedy) individual whom they can accept as a guide; then, they have everything: the “church”, the “pastor”, the infallible “prophecy” and the excitement whilst waiting for the great event to happen. Wouldn’t want to be one of their relatives, though.

The event will, obviously, not happen as predicted. Never, ever. Why is that? Simply because – as every Catholic knows – we know neither the day nor the hour. But this being simple logic based on a coherent, rational interpretation of Scripture it has the great defect of not saying to the nutcases what they want the Bible to say. No problem, let’s find (or found) a church.

But what happens when the event does not happen? Do you think they’ll open their eyes? Nonsense! If they had had eyes to see, they would have opened them long ago! What they will do is simply… continue to do what they have always done! A mistake in the calculation, say. Or Jesus having really come back in 1941 as foreseen, but no one having noticing it* (I think he was seen drinking a coffee, though). Failing everything you can even say that the Holy Ghost has given you extra time. The possibilities are endless…..

Therefore, the amused world is now informed that the rapture is going to happen not on the 21st of May, but on the 21st October.
Slight mistake in the calculation, apparently. Apologies. Regular millenarianism to be resumed shortly.

I can’t wait for the 21st october, I would almost say. But no, really, what will happen on that day is the same that has happened this time. Sorry mate, calculation had a slight glitch. Keep believing.

Mundabor

* That will be the Jehova’s witnesses, I believe.

“An Incalculable Error”: Excerpts From The “Ottaviani Intervention”

Cardinal Ottaviani, Praefect-Emeritus of the CDF at the time of the "Intervention"

This is given without commentary, as truly no commentary is necessary.

Please say a prayer for these brave souls, who fought from the very heart of the Church to try to avoid the biggest damage, in what was certainly the darkest hour of the post-V II madness.

The entire document – also giving background information and making clear that the translation may seem strange in order not to compromise a strict adherence to the Italian original – may be found here.

You will note that Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci made entirely theirs the conclusion and tone of a study of a group of Catholic theologians, led by Marcel Lefebvre. The fact that Lefebvre could have his position so fully approved by Cardinals in such high standing within the Vatican tells you everything you need to know about the dramatic events of those years.

Ottaviani and Bacci signed the letter accompanying the study. They did not mince words. They are a luminous example of Catholic steadfastness in the midst of deafening rhetoric and rampant heterodoxy.

The first two quotations are from the letter, the others from the study. They are so lucidly prophetic as to make any excuse on the lines of “we couldn’t have imagined” utterly ridiculous.

Read, and cry.

Mundabor

————————————————————————————————————————————–

The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place, if it subsists at all, could well turn into a certainty the suspicion, already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people, can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound for ever.

Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith. Amongst the best of the clergy the practical result is an agonizing crisis of conscience of which innumerable instances come to our notice daily.

…..the emphasis is obsessively placed upon the supper and the memorial instead of upon the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary

The priest’s position is minimized, changed and falsified. Firstly in relation to the people for whom he is, for the most part, a mere president, or brother, instead of the consecrated minister celebrating in persona Christi. Secondly in relation to the Church, as a “quidam de populo.”

In the Confiteor which has now become collective, he is no longer judge, witness and intercessor with God; so it is logical that he is no longer empowered to give the absolution, which has been suppressed. He is integrated with the fratres

Desacralizing omissions everywhere debase the mystery of the Church. She is not presented above all as a sacred hierarchy: Angels and Saints are reduced to anonymity in the second part of the collective Confiteor: they have disappeared, as witnesses and judges, in the person of St. Michael, from the first.

The unity of the Church is gravely compromised by the wholly intolerable omission from the entire Ordo, including the three new Eucharistic Prayers, of the names of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Founders of the Church of Rome, and the names of the other Apostles, foundation and mark of the one and universal Church, the only remaining mention being in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon.
A clear attack upon the dogma of the Communion of Saints is the omission, when the priest is celebrating without a server, of all the salutations, and the final blessing, not to speak of the Ite missa est now not even said in Masses celebrated with a server.

A complete evaluation of all the pitfalls, the dangers, the spiritually and psychologically destructive elements contained in the document—whether in text, rubrics or instructions—would be a vast undertaking

….. the new Liturgy will be the delight of the various groups who, hovering on the verge of apostasy, are wreaking havoc in the Church of God, poisoning her organism and undermining her unity of doctrine, worship, morals and discipline in a spiritual crisis without precedent.

St. Pius V had the Roman Missal drawn up (as the present Apostolic Constitution itself recalls) so that it might he an instrument of unity among Catholics. In conformity with the injunctions of the Council of Trent it was to exclude all danger, in liturgical worship of errors against the Faith, then threatened by the Protestant Reformation. The gravity of the situation fully justified, and even rendered prophetic, the saintly Pontiff’s solemn warning given at the end of the bull promulgating his missal: “Should anyone presume to tamper with this, let him know that he shall incur the wrath of God Almighty and of his Blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul” (Quo Primum. July 13, 1570).

It was precisely in order to ward off the dangers which in every century threaten the purity of the deposit of faith (“depositum custodi, devitans profanas vocum novitates.”—I Tim. VI, ) that the Church has had to erect under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost the defenses of her dogmatic definitions and doctrinal pronouncements. These were immediately reflected in her worship, which became the most complete monument of her faith. To try and bring the Church’s worship back at all cost to the ancient practice by refashioning, artificially and with that “unhealthy archeologism” so roundly condemned by Pius XII, what in earlier times had the grace of original spontaneity means—as we see today only too clearly—to dismantle all the theological ramparts erected for the protection of the Rite and to take away all the beauty by which it was enriched over the centuries.

To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries was both the sign and the pledge of unity of worship (and to replace it with another which cannot but be a sign of division by virtue of the countless liberties implicitly authorized, and which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic religion) is, we feel in conscience bound to proclaim, an incalculable error.

Bishop Fuerst of Stuttgart-Rottenburg Openly Promotes Heresy

Stuttgart: excellent cars, heretical bishops.

It is obviously very good that a heretical bishop (William Morris, of the Diocese of Toowoomba) is removed from office, albeit one can certainly lament the slowness of the process, with the chap given more than four years time to retract and not even managing to do it.

Still, the occasional punishment will remain ineffective, if the same standard (or preferably a harder one, without waiting another four years) is not used when other bishops do exactly the same as our Morris dancer.

Read here (linked to from the German site Summorum Pontificum, and kudos to wk1999 for pointing out to it) the interview of the German bishop Gebhard Fuerst, of Stuttgart and Rottenburg, given to a local newspaper, the Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung. This is a good instruction in the workings of a heretical bishop.

Already the headline (“There will be no women priests for the time being”) tells you a lot about where the interview is headed. The interview proper starts on a very anti-Catholic note, claiming that no one wants to become a Catholic priest anymore, Catholics leave Church en masse, etc. Thus, the ground for the readership (probably Protestant oriented, as the region around Stuttgart is prevalently Proddie) is prepared. This is all bollocks of course, as vocations have been on the increase for many years now (though this will very probably not be the case where heretical geniuses like bishop Fuerst are allowed to damage the Only Church) and for “Austritt” they mean the refusal of more and more people to pay the “Kirchensteuer”; which, as the name says, is a tax that is nothing to do with Catholic baptism and also nothing to do with Catholic charity, but allows German priests to be very probably the best paid Catholic priests of the planet. I also think the phenomenon is much stronger among Protestants. But I digress.

What is relevant here is that Bishop Fuerst plays Vincent Nichols, in that as Nichols considers it thinkable to have homosexual marriages, this chap considers it thinkable to have Catholic priestesses. Firstly, he justifies the Church position from a purely sociological point, by mentioning the “understanding of reality of the first Christians”. This way, he has already attacked the Christian doctrine about male priesthood. Following, he proceeds to say that priestesses are “thinkable in advanced countries like the USA and Germany”. Note here that after he has posed male priesthood as a purely sociologically based position, he moves on to consider “advanced” to want to remove it.

His heretical engine now brutally revved, the bishop goes on to say that he has “understanding” that the women would feel “excluded”. He adds, though, that they should be good and put up with the abuse, in order not to compromise the “unity of the Catholics” (of which, we have already been informed, many live in backward countries and are, well, not as “advanced” as the German “Ueberkatholiken”, the product of the superior German Catholic breeding….). Still, he gives the thus “excluded” wymmyn some hope, in that he says that “he cannot totally exclude that one day there will be women priests”; but hey, this will not be in his lifetime…….

The only possible, partial, barely believable excuses for such serial heresy and open defiance of the teaching of the Church can lie in the following:

1) This newspaper is a “Kreiszeitung”, that is, a “district newspaper”. These are the local newspapers where young journalists pay their dues before trying to land a serious job by a regional or national newspapers. It might have happened that here not everything has gone the right way, particularly because:

2) the utterances of the bishop are all given in the third person, though with inverted commas; this cause further room for confusion and/or misrepresentation.

Still, when a bishop talks even with a 19-years-old boy (and it is questionable whether the interview with the bishop would be given to such an inexperienced boy) he should ask to receive the text before and check that nothing has gone wrong, even if it is only an interview for the district newspaper. He has either clearly failed to do so, or has done it and was pleased with the result. He must, therefore, be held responsible for what the newspaper reports until he issues a strong dementi.

I do not know what the history of this man is. Being a German bishop certainly doesn’t inspire confidence, and having been appointed eleven years ago adds to the problem.

I do have a suspicion, though, that he wasn’t born with a brilliant mind, much less a solid faith.

Mundabor

Failure Of Same-Sex Concubinage Exposed

I am rather sure that you have wondered, like me, about how the hysterical screaming of perverts of both sexes for “marriage” (ha!) and “adoption” (ha!) contrasts with the stability of such “unions” (ha!) in real life.

I would have thought (being of gentle disposition; and much less chauvinist than I may sound ; and generally well disposed toward the other sex, and ready to attribute to it all the advantages and accomplishments my own sex hasn’t) that whilst the co-habitation of two sodomites must be hell on earth – with a drama queen factor barely endurable by human nature, and a compound bitchiness rate higher than even perverted natures can live with – the concubinage of two inverted women must be, in its own way, stable; as if the abomination of same sex attraction would not be able to cancel the natural attitude of the gentle sex to cling to one’s companion, to look for stability in a relationship and to exercise those virtues of forgiveness and understanding for the faults of the beloved person that are so rightly considered its natural traits.

It turns out that, whilst the easy prediction about the “marriage” (ha!) behaviour of poofs are confirmed, I clearly overestimated the lesbian part of the equation.

It would appear from here (and please look at the notes for some original sources, further sources will very probably follow) that the exam of perverted “couples” (ha!) in countries where such abominations have a sort of “tradition” (we are talking, of course, of the fortresses of European secularism: Netherlands, Danemark, Norway and Sweden) shows pretty constant results as follows:

1) Marriages between people of opposite sexes (erm: marriages) are the most stable.

2) “Unions” (ha!) between homos have a far higher probability of dissolution than heterosexual ones. This alone should – if common sense were not enough already – put an end to every discussion about “adoption”; but no, it is better for our politicians to utterly wretch young lives, than to risk some votes. Hell awaits, I suppose…

3) “Unions” (ha!) among lesbians are actually – with the only exception of the Netherlands, where readily available pot might be of some help – even less stable than the faggoty ones, with the “ladies” (ha!) actually parting ways like there’s no tomorrow.

This, mind you, in a context of societies where promiscuity is ripe and divorce a common occurrence even among heterosexually oriented people.

What transpires is the extreme childishness, selfishness and utter ridicule of a small bunch of perverts who play with “marriage” and “adoption” as if they were toys seen in a shop window and obtained through senseless and ceaseless crying, but soon discarded after having obtained them. This, note again, not from limited anecdotal evidence, but at collective, multinational level across a couple of decades.

The utterly criminal concept of allowing such small children to even adopt small children has been already examined, and doesn’t need any further explanation.

In their collective behaviour, our perverts’ population shows all the traits the popular wisdom – now branded as “homophobic” but, in fact, purely factual – has always attributed to them.

It is time to throw in the bin of the political correct madness every concept of homosexual “couple” (ha!), let alone “adoption” (ha!).

Mundabor

Fulton Sheen’s Beatification Cause To Start Again

Towards Beatification: Archbishop Fulton Sheen

The cause for the beatification of Fulton Sheen, a great man of God this blog has written about on several occasions (try here and here, or perhaps here), is now to be started again after a strange interruption due, in its essence, to a controversy about where his mortal spoils should rest (with New York having allegedly verbally promised to allow the tomb to be transferred to Peoria,then allegedly not delivering on the promise and so endangering the shrine project therein conceived, with the result that Peoria’s diocese stopped the procedure altogether).

It is a pleasure to read that a man who was almost forgotten when he died, and considered a part of an old church not worth wasting time about, is now not only safely marching toward beatification, but even the object of a tomb controversy like we have in Italy for our Divino Poeta, Dante Alighieri. This clearly shows not only that his message is now – after the dust of the Vatican II madness has clearly settled – properly read and listened to again (just make a google video search, or go on youtube, and stun; or visit Amazon for vast choice of re-printed books) but that it is clearly anticipated that his remains will become a mass attraction and source of great prestige; a prestige that evidently both Peoria and New York claim as their own.

Personally, I am unlikely to ever land in Peoria, whilst I will (God pleasing) probably have further occasions to visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. Having said that, the idea of a national shrine attracting people from all the country – and, surely, from abroad – to kneel and say a prayer in front of the tomb of this great man is sweet even from the distance.

I allow myself to see in this a further sign of the times, and ask myself the rhetorical question whether, say, twenty-five years ago a shrine to his memory – and attendant tomb controversy – would have been very likely. How was that? Oh yeah….

The times they are a’ changing…

Mundabor

Pope Pius XII And The Allies: New Revelations From “Pave The Way”

Slandered, and victorious in the end: Pope Pius XII, "Pastor Angelicus"

I have already written about Pave The Way, a meritorious Jewish foundation making an excellent work of rehabilitating the unjustly slandered Pastor Angelicus among Jews and non-Jews alike.

Unfortunately, the massive material gathered by them now requires subscription. But Pave The Way – an organisation with extensive access to the Vatican archives – has now released an additional document, revealing that the Allies themselves had asked Pope Pius XII to stay silent about the german deportations of Jewish from Hungary, to avoid the Pope denouncing, whilst doing so, the massacres perpetrated by the Russians.

Notice that whilst the Germans were deporting, the Russians were raping and the Allies were politicking, the Vatican was saving 25,000 Jews from Budapest alone through their vast net of religious institutions and brave helpers.

This documents reveals a typical Pius XII: a shrewd diplomatician forced to move in extremely difficult times; doing all he can to help the oppressed whilst at the same time paying attention not to do anything which might be of damage to the oppressed themselves – one can easily imagine what would have happened in France, in Poland, perhaps in occupied Italy if he had openly and frontally attacked the Nazi regime on the holocaust – and to his Catholic fold alike.

What once more emerges, is a Pope admirably mixing courage, intelligence, prudence and diplomacy.

What a splendid Pope we had, and how fitting that this great man be, in the mad decades that followed his death, be slandered from the anti-Catholic and anti-Christian wolves.

We already know that the beatification prayer for his beatification mass has been already approved. This makes his beatification, to all practical purposes, only a matter of when. But I do think that another cry is here appropriate:

Santo subito!!

Mundabor

“Allahu Akbar”, Say The Episcopalians

This is not a joke; just, I am afraid, the last idea of some idiot Episcopalian who has completely forgotten what he should stand for.

Read here about this lates Episcopalian exploit. Cupio dissolvi at its best.

And if you happen to be one of those misled souls, do yourself a favour and convert to some Christian organisation (I would suggest the Only Church; the only one founded by Christ) before it’s too late.

Mundabor

Ascension, Pentecost And The Christian Nation

Italy: a typical "infiorata" (street decoration with flowers) on the feast of Corpus Domini.

Soon the Feast of Ascension will be upon us; it will be followed, soon after, by Pentecost.

When I used to live in Germany, these were both public feast days. Actually, at Pentecost the festivity was the following day.

I never can understand when even people who consider themselves religious manage to separate the calendar from their religious convictions. Religion is not a private matter, something that you remember only when you are closed in your own bedroom and pray. Religion is very much a public matter, and Christianity, with its inherent claim to evangelisation and expansion, is the most public matter of them all.

It is true that Christians would celebrate Christmas even if it wasn’t a public festivity; but it is also true that when a Christian festivity is a feast day the following happens:

1) the Christian character of a country is reaffirmed;

2) Christianity is forcefully put to the attention of non-Christians;

3) the Christian calendar moulds collective identity, even for non-churchgoers.

The idea that it be all right for Christians to celebrate, say, Labour Day or those insipid, utterly stupid, PC-stinking “bank holidays” we have here in the UK without pushing for their substitution with Christian holidays is, in my eyes, not very Christian. In my opinion, public feast days on, at the very least,  Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Domini and Assumption should be in the private list of grievances of every UK Catholic, and the first two in that of every Christian. The Catholic – and not only Catholic – hierarchy should  push for the recognition of at least the first two in lieu of those stupid, politically correct, tofu-like “bank holidays” or, in case and when necessary, through the reduction of statutory holiday rights. They might, admittedly, not succeed in this generation, but their assertiveness would put Christianity high on the agenda and force the country to think about what it want to be, and what price it would pay if the wrong decision is taken.

These days, middle ways are difficult to maintain and – as I have heard saying – he who stays in the middle of the road risks ending up under a truck. Cue the calls for the abolition of Christmas as a festivity, or the renaming of Christmas markets as “winter lights” – or such bollocks – already seen all over England.

Christianity can’t be protected by half, and neutrality is of no use. You either fight for the Christian values of your country, or you will be forced in a rearguard battle by the ever complaining, now more and more aggressive atheists.

In countries like Italy – where the situation is not ideal, either – every city has a feast day on the day of his patron saint. Think of what this means: that the city puts itself under the protection of a saint, and that this is made clearly visible as a social, and not merely religious, event. 

Feast days alone will, admittedly, not cause a country to become more Christian. But by clearly marking the Christian ground, they will at least make it more difficult for it to become less Christian, and will be a public call to conversion in times of licence and unbelief.

Christianity is not a private matter.

Mundabor