May Is The Best Month To Start The Rosary

Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.

May is the Month of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

What better occasion than to make a resolution to start to pray the Rosary every day, than the month of May!

Among the heavenly investments   I have mentioned in a past blog post, the Rosary is – after Mass attendance, of course – very probably the best. Padre Pio and countless other saints insisted on the Rosary. Praying the Rosary devoutly every day is a beautiful sign of predestination. I cannot imagine a better way to enrich your prayer life – nay, your life – than to pray the Rosary.

When I die, I want my last rosary to be not older than the day before. And I can die every day. Therefore…

If you should read this blog for years and take from it the habit of praying the Rosary, the benefit taken from this blog would be spectacular even if I have written rubbish for now almost three years and in more than 2,000 posts (which I do not think, at all; but I’m not you, either…). 

May is the month to start praying the Rosary every day.

If you use the search function you will find several posts your truly has written on the Rosary. It is not a coincidence that my “Catholic Vademecum” page has at the top not one, but seven posts all dealing with the Rosary.

The best spot on this blog (right upper hand side) is devoted to a link to the Rosary. I almost never click to it now as I pray the Rosary with other apps, but it is the best spot on this blog because the most important message of this blog is – apart from the commentaries on the facts of the day – to pray the Rosary.

Make of the rosary your priority. If you do not have time, take time away from this blog and pray the Rosary every day. I do write a lot, but praying the Rosary devoutly every day is infinitely more important and will do more for your salvation than countless hours spent reading my posts.

When you click here, think every time if your time would not be better employed praying the Rosary, unless you have already done so.

Don’t listen to me. Listen first to the Blessed Virgin, St. Dominic, Blessed Alan de la Roche, Padre Pio and countless others.

Again: after the Mass, I can’t see what better favour you can do to yourselves, and to those you love, than praying and encouraging them to pray the Rosary.

Let me say it in three short phrases.

Pray the Rosary.

Pray the Rosary.

Pray the Rosary.

Mundabor

Mrs Robinson

Fag in priestly rags: Gene Robinson

We all know homosexuals want a stage and revel in public attention, which is why so many of them become actors or politicians. Gene Robinson, the strange man – I hope he does not find the word “man” offensive; in which case, I will revert to “bitch” without any problem – who thinks he is a retired “bishop”, is clearly both.

In his endless goodness – or desire for a stage; one of the two – the probably best known man (oh, that name again… so…sexist! As if one were not, oh, free to oh, choose his own, oh, gender…) among the US so-called “Episcopalian” sect wants to instruct Pope Francis on how to run the Church properly. The suggestions aren't very Catholic, as you can expect from a scandalous inverted. Still, Mrs Robinson's suggestions aren't the reason why I write this blog post. The reason is that he dares to open his mouth in the first place.

Mr Robinson says many Catholics experience a “painful disconnect” between what the Church teaches and what they “feel in their heart”. So what, would a Catholic say, it's a clear sign those Catholic must stop “feeling” and start thinking… Not so for Robinson, who evidently thinks with his… well, certainly not with the brain.

It is not only that the concept of Truth, or even universal moral values, has gone entirely lost in one of the countless acts of sodomy the, ahem, man will have to answer for. It is that Robinson fails even at the standard that he has himself chosen.

If the faithful being “disconnected” is a sign of being wrong, how wrong must be one whose so-called “church” is dying fast, and of whose decline he is without any doubt one of the most evident causes? Seriously, how stupid is that? Where's the argument?

The inverted goes on saying many Catholics want (in their “hearts”, I suppose) abominations like so-called same sex marriage, and atrocities like abortion. This keeps, he goes on dreaming, many people outside of the Church.

Let us forget for a moment that one must really have no idea of what the Church is to even think she might change the Truth like Robinson changes sex of his “partner”. The point here is that he suggest that the Church adopt the same policies that are killing his own ridiculous Mickey Moise church so fast…

Therefore, dear Francis – says Robinson – you should listen to what I, the charitably self-appointed head of your marketing department, says and “embrace” all these perversions and atrocities. Then, you'll become like the Episcopalians.

Now, that is a road to success!

Mundabor

Episcopalians, On Their Deathbed, Appoint Loretta “Bishop”.

The Episcopalian Reblog

Mundabor's Blog

It appears very clear from the WSJ article that the parody of Christianity known as the “Episcopalians” are approaching death more rapidly than generally expected.

Last time I looked, they were supposed to still have around 2 million members. It appears now they might be reduced to around half that.

They did not start to die like flies, of course, though I suspect the average member age (do they say “member” over there? or is it chauvinistic?) must be rather comparable with the age of the typical UK altar “girl”. What has apparently happened is that not simply individual, but entire congregations, and delegates from whole States simply walk away.

Mind, this is not a great compliment for those who are involved, as they should be asked how they could stay until today in the first place; also, to leave an organisation that is not recognisable in any way as…

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“That’ll Be The Day”

“That’ll be the day”, indeed…

 

You can read here a beautiful article on “Crisis Magazine” on the attitude too often found among Catholics, and about which I have written on several occasions.

You will find the post instructive because it teaches once again how history repeats itself, in the sense that the same errors are made again and again, and with the same consequences.

You’ll find the Churchill quote particularly telling, and I think it fitting to report it in its entirety

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Still, I do suggest you read the article in its entirety, as it has pretty much everything: the extremely fitting imagined “cartoon” is hilarious but very reflective of today’s reality, and the world war reminiscences of the author’s grandpa are also very, very real, though a stupid generation has already managed to almost forget them.Even the John Wayne citation is beautiful (the movie was, I think, “The Searchers”. DVD purchase highly recommended…).

If there’s a kind of “Catholic” I can’t stand, is the one who think it is enough to “piously abandon post”, clearly out of lack of the will to fight but masquerading it as charitable “respect” for other people’s wishes. They think one can be a Christian without having any conflict with anyone else. Far too easy. Christ came with a sword. The day they die, the Appeasing Catholics will discover the conflicts they have avoided come all back to haunt them.

And no, such an inaction is not being pious. It’s the desire to avoid at all costs those awkward or outright unpleasant conversations, and renounce to speak one’s mind when challenged. (“Do you mean I will go to hell?” – asks the divorced and remarried dissenting cousin – “I mean you certainly are at risk”, you answer. Nuclear conflict follows. Good. You might have given a little contribution to the saving of one soul, besides yours) with relatives and close friends, and showing oneself oh so tolerant, and thus worthy of praise in this heathen world of ours. 

No one of us is required to die in the trenches (for now), though I’d say it’d be a life well spent. But what is required of us is that we speak frankly and do our best to influence the world around us; which doesn’t mean the waffle along the lines of  “look at my joy in being a Christian”. It means telling other people they are utterly and completely wrong, and accept the discussion (or quarrel) that goes with that.

If one is so “respectful” of other people’s “feelings” or “conscience” that he leaves it unchallenged, he is being an accomplice; and if one is not mightily enraged at where the West is heading, I frankly doubt his Christian credentials.

Mundabor

 

 

Looking For Alternatives To Google

Google has always been good to me, and besides bringing me the most traffic among the search engines (obviously) is the search engine that gives most relevance to my site when you, well, google me.

Still, Google actively supports perversion, so it will have to go from my life at least as far as it is practicable. 

Browsing around, it appears Duck Duck Go (yes, this is the name of the firm) is not compromised with an anti-Christian attitude at least for  now. They are also very good in that they do not store any information from your browser, other than Google and many others.

I am not entirely satisfied, though, as the image search isn’t as practical as Google’s to me. Still, one can live with a couple of clicks more to get to the images he wants. The image above was found through the bing engine, which again is Microsoft, which again isn’t good. 

Still, I would suggest to my reader that they consider giving it a try to see how they fare with it. I did, and again, whilst it does not work as well as Google for my purposes, I’d say it works well enough for most purposes of most people.

If any reader known of alternative search engines not compromised with the modern sodomadness and with which he is satisfied, I am grateful for a line explaining what they like in the search engine they are presenting.

I am not one of those “fight big Corporate” guys, but when I see that a position of absolute dominance is abused to fight against Christian values I say it is time to look for alternatives, and as I have already done for Boots (the perverted Chemist’s) , Google is now next on the line. 

Mundabor

Cardinals Kasper And Lehmann: A Portrait

Courtesy of si si no no, a well-thought and richly documented portrait of the mind of two of the red hats who participated to the 2013 Conclave.

It is worth your while to read this little expose’ in its entirety; firstly because it is very instructive in itself, and secondly because the part concerning allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to “receive” communion might well come handy in future, as the trendy troops try a new assault on the Vatican, hoping to find the gates open.

Cardinals Lehmann and Kasper have a very simple suggestion to this:

1) an “examination of conscience” (which they will, no doubt, find immaculate, if unjustly slandered by the Church), and

2) “a meeting with a prudent priest-expert” (which,besides being stupid in itself, means that many priests aren’t prudent, or expert of what Communion is).

These two shouldn’t be allowed to be altar boys, let alone priests.

To think they are Cardinals.

Mundabor

Wet Catholics

Sadly, no one had informed him about Christianity’s “strong streak of pacifism”…

I am not surprised anymore at what kind of nonsense gets published nowadays, but perhaps you still are.

One of the latest examples of dreamed-of Catholicism for the weak is this article published on the Catholic Herald. 

Its author seems to think Catholicism was born ca. 1960, and Martin Luther King was one of the founders. The idea that true Catholicism would not cause wars is not only too stupid for words, but it also shows an utterly appalling ignorance of the very basis of Catholicism.

If the thinking of the author of this rubbish is right, Catholicism hasn’t been “true Catholicism” for more than nineteen centuries. But truly, the article doesn’t show the will to be heretical, but rather an appallingly distorted view of Christianity.

Let us proceed in order.

Most Crusades have been offensive conflicts: the Church takes the initiative to gather armies with this or that military purpose, whilst not being under attack herself. Be it Jerusalem, or Southern France (or, ahem, Constantinople) none of the attacked were even planning – let alone executing – a major military operation against Christian Europe. This goes to show the Church is very well not only in the business of the defensive wars, but in the business of the purely aggressive wars, too. Unless, of course, the author does not want to tell us that true Catholics should not, well, take the Cross and try to bring the Holy Land in Christian hands, or at least try to make pilgrimages in the Holy Land possible, because hey, this isn’t very Catholic… 

The outlandish idea that “Christianity has a very strong streak of pacifism in it” (this isn’t a joke; it’s in the article, verbatim) can also only be born of profound ignorance of both Christianity and pacifism. What the confused author might have wanted to say is that Christianity tends (unless circumstances demand otherwise; see above) to be rather pacific, but it truly never entered anyone’s mind for almost twenty centuries that Christianity might be “pacifist” in any way, shape or form. The presence of a rather detailed “doctrine of war” should eliminate any doubt from the mind of any person accustomed to think; but again, this person must be accustomed to think. 

The “pacifist Jesus” is also something that would have astonished every theologian before the age of Modernism. Jesus was – as it is clearly evident in the Gospel – constantly accompanied and protected by armed men, and being God he certainly did not have any physical need for their protection, much less their armed protection. Still, armed they permanently were. During the last supper, he even asks those who do not have any to sell their garments and purchase a sword, and I can’t imagine any least “pacifist” statement than this. He is, shortly thereafter, satisfied with the two swords present; which is undoubtedly more swords than you and I have around when we dine among friends; and this, without being God.

When I hear of Jesus “the pacifist”, I cannot avoid thinking of the parable of the King’s war. In the Knox version:

 Or if a king is setting out to join battle with another king, does he not first sit down and deliberate, whether with his army of ten thousand he can meet the onset of one who has twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still at a distance, he despatches envoys to ask for conditions of peace.

There cannot be a clearer mockery of pacifism than this. Jesus doesn’t say a word about the morality of the King’s intent per se. He merely points out that if the King is going to wage war, then please properly, and considering all the consequences. If this can’t be done – again: He doesn’t say the King shouldn’t wage war because war is wrong per se; the problem here is merely that the other chap is going to defeat the King with his bigger army – then it’s better to think lucidly beforehand and try to negotiate a good peace.

There is no condemnation of war whatsoever, and here war is chosen as an example after another example has just been presented (the building of the tower) and when countless other examples could have been chosen instead. Let me say it once again: to make his point  – the necessity of reflecting on the consequences of taking up Christ’s cross – Jesus uses a comparison with war without attaching to His comparison any moral condemnation of it. What.more.does.one.want.

This isn’t Dalai Lama talk; this is Military Academy talk! This could have been Machiavelli or Sun Tzu, but it is Our Lord instead!

But no: in the XXI Century of widespread sloganeering and wet pacifism, suddenly a new Jesus emerges: one that doesn’t want the Crusades,  but has a “strong streak of pacifism” instead. One can vividly picture this new fantasy Jesus, eating granola bars with his Disciples with a raised little finger, speaking of peace in a rather high-pitched tone. A fantasy Jesus after their liking, for sure. 

It is very telling of our times that the biggest Catholic weekly in the UK serves his readers with such insipid, a-historical, unrealistic, utterly sugary fare.

Mundabor

Doctrine Of War Made Easy

Doctrine of War Reblog

Mundabor's Blog

I have found here an excerpt from an excellent Moral Theology course. The work has both imprimatur and nihil obstat and comes – crucially – from times largely not polluted from false theology and “new times/new men/new rules” illusions, the safest indication of the heresy of Modernism.

If you take the time to read the entire piece – which, if you ask me, you should do as these questions pop up again and again in international relationships, in the media, and even at the pub – you will understand both the reasonableness and orthodoxy of this script, and the scandal that it would cause to the modern generation of wannabe pacifists; many of them, alas, clergymen.

I will proceed to mention some of the points more in conflict with modern “peace worshiping” thinking. Again, I suggest that the piece is read and understood in its entirety.

1. There is just…

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The Purpose Driven Bullet

No, this is not a ticket to heaven.

Matthew Warren, the son of Rick Warren, has recently committed suicide shooting himself with an unregistered gun. For those of us who didn't know, Rick Warren is the author of the book The Purpose Driven Life, and the leader of a Protestant so-called mega church.

Matthew Warren apparently had a long history of severe depression, and it is not for yours truly – or anyone else, for that matter – to decide what has become of his immortal soul. We hope for him that he was not compos mentis when he took his life, and that a merciful God had mercy on him as we hope he will have mercy on us when our time comes. I invite all of you to sincerely pray for his soul, as I did. Depression is a horrible, horrible beast. Still, do not lull yourself into thinking the possibility of his damnation isn't a very real one.

What I would like to spend a word on today is something Matthew Warren apparently said to his father many years ago, after a particularly difficult time. It appears the then boy told his father he knew he was going to heaven anyway, so why not put an end to a life of misery and go there directly…

It seems to me that with just a few words the boy demolished the edifice of salvation through faith alone; an absurdity that a mentally ill boy can still perceive, but millions of sane adults apparently cannot.

Please remember this kind of Proddies don't “do” purgatory. To them, it's only up or down. The unavoidable consequence of this is exactly what the then boy has said: hey, I'll go to heaven anyway (because I have “accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour”, or so millions think….) and this heaven is supernatural joy inconceivable to the human mind. I am living now a life full of misery and ghosts, with the prospective of another seven or eight decades of this. Give me a pistol, and let's go to heaven….

Of course, some will reply that even the serious proponents of the sola fide heresy would not think quite so, and that a classic Calvinist would have seen in suicide – thinking out loud now, as I think Calvin was a fine thinker, at least as far as Proddies go – an eloquent sign of reprobation rather than of predestination.

But the fact is, I doubt there are many among those frequenting Rick Warren's mega church (or many other evangelical establishments, at the very least) who think in this way. To most of them, the matter must be very simple: Matthew Warren shot himself, and went to heaven. Which is, to all intents and purposes, the same as to say that Matthew Warren shot himself to heaven.

Therein lies, hidden beneath the usual wave of sentimentalism, the implicit suggestion of modern mega church evangelicalism to those faithful battling with depression and suicidal tendencies: a purpose driven bullet as the solution to their problems and the guaranteed ticket to eternal happiness. The young man shot himself! Praaise The Looord!

Hell and Satan play no role in all this; it's faith or no faith, personal saviour or no personal saviour, hell or heaven. One accepts The Lord As His Personal Saviour, and the way to the pistol is smoothly paved. I wonder how many have made their way to hell with a nonsense like this, and have used their “personal faith” as a hoped for “get out of jail” card for pretty much everything; bar the most atrocious deeds, for which mental insanity must come to the rescue, it being not really thinkable that one goes to hell through his faith in … faith alone.

In the tragic episode of Matthew Warren we see the absurdity of this bollocks of salvation through “accepting Jesus as one's Lord and Saviour”. An absurd thinking probably untenable for Protestant classic theology, but certainly widely spread among the modern “Billy Graham”, “born again”, “I found Jesus at 3:45 PM on the 13 February 2005” crowd.

Poor Matthew Warren had confusedly seen the absurdity of all this, though I very much doubt he had thought it to the end. His death (let me rephrase it: his suicide) should fill all of us with unspeakable dread at what the consequences of his action might be for his soul, and what might be in store for us if we did the same.

It goes without saying if Matthew Warren had been a properly instructed Catholic he would not have been able to even think that he is sure of heaven, and therefore a bullet is an acceptable solution. Whilst Satan can more easily wreak havoc in a fragile mind, the rigid responsibilities put by Catholicism on one's own works would have been a daily help for the poor man in his struggle, and the terrible warnings of sound Catholicism concerning the very probable fate of suicides would have greatly helped him to find a solution in faith and prayer, rather than in a pistol. As it is, the horrible prospect of the man willingly and lucidly putting a bullet in his head cannot be ruled out. Protestant thinking simply opens doors to Satan that a solid Catholic formation leaves firmly shut.

If you really want to live a purpose driven life, I suggest sound Catholicism.

Mundabor

 

Satan, Suicides, Sugar, Pranks.

The Suicide Reblog

Mundabor's Blog

In the last days of the 2008 US Presidential election, Sarah Palin was the victim of a prank. During a radio transmission heard in vast part of the country, the “French President Sarkozy” called to greet and congratulate her. The “French President” was, if memory serves, a professional actor, and Sarah Palin swallowed it hook, line and sinker. It made world news, and the big UK radio stations opened the news with it (gloating, of course) the morning after. Again, the prank happened in front of a big radio audience, just a few days before the US presidential election, when Mrs Palin was fighting for a place in history.

You may be pleased to know that Sarah Palin did not commit suicide.

Actually, she continued to be a very respected and influential politician and went on to become one of the two or three most important driving forces behind the…

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Radio Vaticana And The Pope

Not an easy job for people at the Radio Vaticana. They have been asked to publish the Pope's homilies in their entirety, but apparently the Pope tends to ramble, and they try to give structure to his more or less disordered or spontaneous words so that something coherent comes out of it.

The problem with this is that “ordering” isn't really so different from “editing”, and as the world basically reads and reports what it finds in the English version of the Radio Vaticana reports the risk of an “editorially adjusted Pope” is very real.

Once again, I must see in this an instance of poor standards from the Pontiff. If he wants to ramble he should give instruction that his homilies are not published or filmed at all: the message remains restricted to those present, the Pope sends out those well-thought and well-structured information he wants to send out, there are no misunderstandings and clumsy attempts at interpretation of spontaneous thoughts, and everyone is happy.

If, on the other hand, he wants to send regular messages through the medium of the homily, he should do what every organised person always does: think and write beforehand, and stick to the programme.

What we have now is, once again, a man who seems not to realise that his words and actions have consequences, and who appears to think about closing down banks with the same careless levity with which he commits liturgical abuses.

Can you imagine Pope Benedict XVI talking as he pleases at mass, microphones switched on, and expand on his thoughts of the moment with the world press listening? Is this prudent, or statesmanlike?

Pope Francis is not the parish priest, though he may like to think he still is. For example, he can actually close down his bank. What he says in the matter should be given careful consideration beforehand by him first.

Mundabor

 

The Right Stuff

Forget Simon & Garfunkel...

There are some interesting reflections on the stunningly beautiful Ars Orandi blog concerning the “reform of the reform”. In short, an outside blogger – fairly conservative liturgically, if very much V II – offered the suggestion a better Novus Ordo Mass is a very useful, possibly indispensable step towards the recovery of liturgical tradition, as the uneducated masses spoiled by the modern antics would not be able to properly “get” – and accept – the Traditional Mass without an intermediate and, so to speak, introductory step.

The blog author answered with the reflections that the “reform of the reform” has remained a limited phenomenon, proving itself unable to truly reform the liturgical life of the Church; that the parishes that have a conservative NO tend not to have a TLM; and that the slow but constant advance of the Traditionalist troops is fuelled by the latter, not the former.

As far as my anecdotal experience in concerned, I can only agree with the Ars Orandi blog: those who attend a reverent NO aren't, because of this, drawn to the Tridentine. Being educated to avoid the worst is not in itself an encouragement to yearn for the best.

I would make out of this a more general argument, as it was never my experience that encouraging people to do the wrong things properly will, ipso facto, motivate them to do the right things. Put in a slightly different way, a fan of Lady Gaga will not be introduced to Schubert by listening to Simon & Garfunkel. He or she will be introduced to Schubert by listening to… Schubert.

Consequently, I do not see any viable alternative in order to introduce the liturgically uneducated masses to the right stuff than introducing them to the right stuff. It might not be easy at the start, but this isn't bad at all, because it requires from the faithful that they make the choice to do things properly first. It is, in fact, a typical mistake of our times that everything should be made effortless or at least very easy. People must be told that there are choices to make. The idea that people need to be introduced by degree to everything because they are too lazy or too stupid to take responsibility for themselves is what gave us the horrible children's masses, and we have seen the results both on the children and on the understanding of liturgy.

People generally aren't stupid, and those who truly are can probably not be helped anyway, nor can idiocy be the inspiring liturgical criterion. The Faithful must be given the choice, and be plainly told the one is the Mass of the Sixty-Eighters and the other is the Mass of all generations before. Those who are able to think properly will be able to choose properly, and in time they will move other people to make the right choice; more and more so in fact, as the old Sixty-Eighters unavoidably start to fill the graves (or in their case, rather the urns).

Of course, ideally the Pope would announce a stepped but definitive return to the Traditional Mass and the abandonment of the Novus Ordo. God knows the present Pontiff is far from ideal – liturgically as well as in many other issues – so this is not going to happen either under Francis or – given the present Cardinals and those Pope Bergoglio will appoint – under his successor. Therefore, the best thing to do is to build on the limited strength that is there, insist on a vocal defence of Summorum Pontificum, and use the leverage we have to promote the best Mass we have.

The Traditional Latin Mass is the best. Jesus deserves the best. Let us not promote half ways as if they were an introduction to the best, I at least have lost hope things will work that way.

We don't need half ways. We need the right stuff.

Mundabor

 

Why The Abdication Was Wise

The Abdication Reblog

Mundabor's Blog

 

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Kindle Problems

If birds poop on you from the tree it isn't really a good experience...

I hate kindle books without an interactive table of contents. They do not make sense to me. A good book is not something one reads once and forgets, but one that one loves to go back to, refreshing this or that part when the fancy takes him.

After a couple of bad experiences in the past, I have started to look “inside the book” on the Amazon site to see whether the table of contents is interactive.

Unfortunately, it turns out the ToC might be interactive from your PC, but not in the actual Kindle book once downloaded, at least from the tablet app. This is nothing more than a slight disappointment if the book is free, but is outright bad service – or, I dare say, a fault in the product – if the book was purchased.

If anyone can give any indication as to how securely ensure a book has an interactive Table of Content in the Kindle before purchasing, I would be grateful for a line or two.

I also wonder whether it would be appropriate to complain with Amazon. It seems to me they should ensure the e-book standard promoted by them complies with minimum requirements, without which the perception of the entire “kindle book” can easily be damaged. I should not be required to ask the publisher – who would not answer anyway – before every purchase.

I am grateful for your experiences on the matter.

Mundabor

 

Interfaith Services Must Stop Now

Cardinal O'Malley criticised Jesus' lack of charity and inclusiveness.

I am informed a Catholic Cardinal has participated to an interfaith service… No, wait: if I read it correctly, the service in Boston war held in the Cathedral, so Cardinal O'Malley did not, strictly speaking, “participated” in it, but he hosted it.

I have read many stupid arguments in favour of interfaith services, but the idea that a bomb or terrorist attack would make such exercises less unjustified seems to me a new height of stupidity. One gets the impression there are people on this planet who wake up in the morning with such an hysterical need for “unity” or “solidarity” that in their mind God's rules do not find application anymore. “Sorry Jesus, we just had a bomb, so can you please forget that you are the Way, the Truth and the Life and take place in the pews like everyone else? How do you say? Well yes of course, you will have to endure infidels basically preaching from Your house, but come on, there has been a bomb, can't you be tolerant and inclusive for one day? What? That man? Yes, he is President Obama. Why is he speaking from the pulpit? Well he is, yeah, like, sort of… preaching, really…”.

The simple fact is, ” interfaith services” are either wrong or… wrong. This being the case, there can be no contingent circumstances that make them right; it would be like saying that it is good to be blasphemous to show our separated atheist brethren that we are inclusive of their concerns.

More in general, I truly cannot understand this obsessive need to pray together. What is this, the kindergarten? Don't people know that there are Christians, Jews, Muslims and many others? Don't they know Muslims are infidels? Have they forgotten what “infidel” means? Have they forgotten what “prayer” is?

If people want to gather to show they don't like bombers, fine. Make a day of it and meet on some street on a fine April day. But why every tragic event should become the excuse for more rubbish is beyond me. What I begin to think is that for an awful lot of people a fuzzy feeling of “togetherness” has become vastly more important than prayer; nay, it has become the real motivation for prayer, so that many people (starting from disgraceful Cardinals) cannot even see the problem in common prayers in which Jesus is just a flavour among many others.

The traders have taken over the temple, and are using it to sell emotional rubbish.

I am sure O'Malley voted for Bergoglio. No, truly, I am.

Mundabor

 

Easy Words

Now promoted to great Pope.

We have in the meantime become somewhat accustomed to robust words from the Holy Father. The one with ending up praying the devil if one doesn't pray Christ was excellent, and the one about the necessity to preach the entire Truth rather than only the convenient parts was also very good. Several of those observations have graced the site of Radio Vaticana, and the easily contented are all in a flurry. “You see? Your fears were nonsense – they say to us -. Look at what he has said, again!”.

I am very sorry to disappoint, but I don't think a couple of words will wash. Pope are measured mainly by what they do. Talk is cheap. Even Pope Paul VI was good at talking.

Yesterday we had another example of this attitude. A Pope calling Paul VI “great” can only fill us with dread, as if Paul VI is the example of how Francis wants to be Pope we had better start to dig our trenches now.

Still, the easily satisfied will tell us that the Pope has also said that Jesus can only be found within the Church, so we are all fine.

Strangely, the Pope did not explain how he intends to square his beautiful words of the present with his embarrassing deeds of the past. I seem to remember he wrote a book together with a sodomy -loving Rabbi who is a pal of his, and exactly how much Jesus is to be found in such a one he hasn't explained yet.

Of course – and as I never tire to explain – we can't automatically attribute to the Pope all the mistakes he made as an Archbishop. Still, a situation where his books full of the past mistakes are going to be published worldwide is a dangerous enough situation, and should prompt him to at least make some observation concerning the new duties and responsibilities of a Pope, & Co.. This would warn the readers from the danger of reading the reprint as if they were reading “the Pope's book”.

I don't see any of this. Not only has this Pope been perfectly inactive in front of the veritable tsunami of homosexual legislation now sweeping the Western world, but he doesn't seem concerned in the least about giving a properly coherent message. Rather, it seems to me this Pope says what pleases him on the day, but doesn't care that his words are either followed by actions, or the strident contrast between them and his past behaviour is explained. This way, he probably thinks he will give some fodder to the conservative pigeons, whilst taking care the henhouse continues to be solidly in the hands of the V II foxes. Cue Pietro Marini's astonishing words about sodomitical “unions”, still unchecked by him as I write his.

Easy words. No action.

Yep, it's no surprise he thinks Paul VI was a great Pope.

Mundabor

 

Blessed Pius IX On “Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus”

“extra ecclesiam” Reblog

Mundabor's Blog

Pope Pius IX had, among his many gifts, the one of expressing himself in a simple, crystal clear terms. His language and way of presenting the Church’s case are beautiful and instructive reading to this day.

Emphases mine:

“Not without sorrow we have learned that another error, no less destructive, has taken possession of some parts of the Catholic world, and has taken up its abode in the souls of many Catholics who think that one should have good hope of the eternal salvation of all those who have never lived in the true Church of Christ. Therefore, they are wont to ask very often what will be the lot and condition of those who have not submitted in any way to the Catholic faith, and, by bringing forward most vain reasons, they make a response favorable to their false opinion. Far be it from Us, Venerable Brethren, to presume…

View original post 509 more words

The Big Drip

Hell as imagined by Hieronymus Bosch (detail).

In a world that seems now completely taken over by evil, it might be useful to make a small reflection that some might find encouraging, or at least consoling. If you have the impression – as I do – that a huge cesspool of perversion has now become the standard of morality, please reflect on this: the cesspool has a leak.

Granted, it is a very small leak, and the cesspool does not even notice its existence. Still, it is there, and from this leak many little drops slowly, but unceasingly, drip down; mainly to hell, where they deserve to be.

We live in the presence of the cesspool, and the mighty stink coming out of it distracts us from the tiny leak at the bottom; it seems to us the stink will go on irresistibly, and dominate the world; but we know the leak is there, as in the end everyone else does. The drip goes on silently, slowly, without cease.

One by one, all of the immense number of drops forming the cesspool will have to go through the leak. A tiny number of them will have been purified by the intervention of a mighty Providence, prompting them to repent and avoid the final fall into the abyss. Still, it is very reasonable – nay, it is Christian teaching – to assume that most of the mightily stinking drops – those who in their sum total make the cesspool – will drip down to eternal damnation. Let the David Camerons and Maria Millers of the world think the Judge does not exist, or if He does he’ll surely understand a little bit of prostitution for the sake of political power. They will have to go through the leak one day, and with every day they are getting nearer to it. Some of the likes of Cameron and Miller will repent, but make no mistake, most of them will drip down to their doom, and experience true Justice after they have prostituted it – and themselves with it – for so long.

How will such people like Cameron and Miller hope to save themselves when the time comes? Isn’t the promotion and glorification of sexual perversion worse than the work of every thief and robber? Isn’t a woman – a woman! The sex of the Blessed Virgin! – promoting and encouraging sexual perversion for a Country of 60 million worse and more culpable than the most obdurate prostitute? Still, even the most obdurate prostitute will be met with extremely widespread reproach, and this might help her to repent one day. The likes of Maria Miller build their own monument on the public square instead, and have the effrontery of calling themselves just and caring. You can calculate her chances of salvation for yourselves. Whilst we never know about single individuals, clearly there are those with “reprobate” written all over them, and their aggressive pushing of a scandalous public agenda for their personal advancement makes of them prime candidate for Satan when their time comes.

We may think the wicked are winning big, but the cesspool does have a leak. God will not win only when the Day of Judgment comes. God wins every day, every hour, every moment. As you read these lines, a number of dark souls have experienced what Rex tremendae majestatis means. Not one single second that you have spent on these lines has seen God’s justice inactive. No, it has been incessantly at work, in nothing weakened or deterred from the wickedness of our times.

Too often we are simply told that “God is love”, literally a half truth wilfully used to smuggle a huge lie. God is love and mercy, but He is also justice, and His justice is as terrible as His love is tender. Forget God’s justice, and before you know you’ll have in front of your eyes an utter caricature of God; a caricature, in fact, so stupid I can distinctly remember when I was 5 years old and in kindergarten (and being told of God’s justice, a concept every child will immediately and unquestioningly grasp) no one of us would have swallowed such an obvious lie.

As more and more Western democracies openly betray God and transform themselves in officially sanctioned Sodoms the drip goes, unceasingly, on. It will be a great harvest for Satan, for sure; but the harvest of Satan does not diminish in any way God’s majesty and victory. God shows His Justice in every reprobate, exactly as He shows His mercy in everyone He saves through His grace. God wins every day, every second, every moment, and with every individual judgment. God’s perfect justice is among us already, it is merely administered in small instalments; instalments so little in fact, that the evildoers do not think of them, do not care for the leak, and do not waste time thinking of what happens to the drops slowly but unceasingly dripping from the bottom of the huge cesspool.

Still, we see the leak inexorably at work. Stalin and Hitler had to go through it; Vidal and Hitchens are rather recent drippings; the time of Stephen Fry and Peter Tatchell will surely come, and neither David Cameron nor Maria Miller can add one single hour to the time allotted to them.

In the meantime, we must pray, and act. We must stay near the sacraments and do our best that we may never fall into the cesspool and become part of it; we must use the pungent stink coming out of it to draw new energy and courage to fight our battle to the end, enduring the ridicule and scorn – when it’s not worse than that – of a world slowly thinking the cesspool is the epitome of everything that is “cool”, “tolerant” and “inclusive”. We must pray and fight, fight and pray. We will be belittled and ridiculed, or worse. So be it.

When the day comes, we will have our rewards, and will look – if we have been good enough, which with God’s grace we all want to be – on those whose impious arrogance and defiance of God’s law has deserved the horrible punishments inflicted on them forever. We do not wish hell to anyone, but we know all those will get hell who deserve it.

We will have to live through years of abomination without precedent since the West was first conquered to Christianity. We have to be strong and never lose faith, and we must at all times be aware that at the bottom of the huge cesspool of the Millers and Camerons a leak is causing a slow, relentless dripping. I personally often remember in my prayers the words from the Dies Irae:

Confutatis maledictis

Flammis acribus addictis:

Voca me cum benedictis

This I hope for myself and for all of us.

Let us not lose courage. God is winning as you read.

Mundabor

Popes Have Many Friends

Jezebel at the time of her meeting with the bishop.

The old slut who seduced an Argentinian bishop (certainly not the best of them, either; in the end, it takes two to tango) up to the point of him leaving the habit is the last one of those who claim vicinity to Pope Francis. The female (please let us not call these people “ladies”, or “women”; ask your grand-grandmother how she would call the female, and know she is right) is now well in her Eighties and on a wheelchair (we know the Pontiff loves wheelchairs), but it does not look like age had any improving effect on her. At her ripe age, the female now claims not only she is thickest friends with the Pope (phone call once a week, like yours truly with his parents), but also that the Pope might now move towards the abolition of priest celibacy. Well, she must know something of celibacy…

One understand at what the old female is aiming: if priests are allowed to marry, she will not be a slut anymore, but a love heroine ahead of the times. Like a suffragette with the suffrage, or Martin Luther King without the racial discrimination. Or so she thinks, and it's a pity no one informed her that celibacy for bishops is de fide, and not even an extremely ill-instructed Pope like Francis (see his utterances concerning capital punishment, if confirmed) will ever be able to do anything for her reputation in this or, I am afraid, any other respect.

Popes have many friends, but I would very much warn from taking the words of self-appointed friends at face value. There was the Anglican chap saying the then Archbishop had told him “the Church needs them as Anglicans”, and this female is now basically saying the Pope thinks the Church needs her as slut. I would discount the second as heavily as I discounted the first, unless and until the Pope says something in the matter of priest celibacy as Pope.

As to the many embarrassing statement apparently contained in his equally embarrassing book written together with his pro-faggotry Jewish pal, it's for him to put a patch on his stupidities as well as he can, but the PC statements of an ill-thinking, ill-instructed Cardinal (make no mistake, many of those: search this blog for Policarpo, Woelki, or Meisner to mention only three; unless it's worse of course) can on no account be automatically considered the programme and platform of the now Pope Bergoglio.

Pope Francis was, so much is clear, the wrong type of Cardinal on many issues (including his book-writing pals, his liturgical brainlessness and his ecu-maniacal attitude). His past sons are now causing a run to him from the side of people who want to highjack him for their own purposes, like the mad nuns. All of them aiming at creating a new image for themselves (the Anglican chap, and now this old pathetic vecchia malvissuta) or to push their cause.

I do not think the mad nuns will be the only ones to get disappointed.

Mundabor

 

Boots, The Porn Chemist’s

Boots, the Porn Chemist’s

And it came to pass that your humble correspondent, afflicted by cough and catarrh, walked to what is for most the standard purveyor of medicinal products in the land: Boot’s.

Randomly searching for my chosen product, I see a big section called “Sexual Wellbeing”. It’s not in a corner, or where it will only be noticed by those who already know what they want. No, it’s truly, as they say, “in your face”.

A small selection of vibrators is on display.

I don’t think I am particularly innocent, but frankly it was a shock. It was the same as if I had discovered that Waitrose sells porn in the DVD section. Please understand Boot’s in this country is the standard choice, where every mother would go with her little daughter without thinking twice. As I write, I can’t even tell you the name of one competitor, at least for medicines you don’t find at the grocery store.

We are in a bad shape. We truly are.

Dear British readers, can you please tell me more about the alternatives to Boot’s in the London area, or about online pharmacies who offer a good service. Actually, this could be good to see whether here are any Christian pharmacies or chemists around, on or offline.

Frankly, this is another of those occasions where I must think “I never thought I’d see the day”, and the day has arrived and stares me in the face like the big sign, “Sexual Wellbeing”.

I will complain with Boot’s after I have a credible alternative, so they know the client has gone for good, and I will complain around.

Mundabor

The Amused Reader

Jay Leno's way of reading the Readings was not universally appreciated...

Some weeks ago I was at a Novus Ordo Mass in a well-known London neighbourhood, and an oldish woman started with the readings.

She probably had heard too much about they “joy” filling the heart of every Catholic, because she started reading with such a diverted tone you would have thought she was telling a joke. “Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin sit near each other in an aeroplane….”. Exactly that tone, only it was the Old Testament she was reading.

I was not the only one noticing the incongruence, because looking around I saw some ironic smirking. The good woman was doing her best, no doubt; and as for her feeling oh so very special, she was certainly not worse than every other indulging in such post-V II exercises.

Still, I thought this was another reason to leave something as important as the Mass as far as possible in the hands of the professionals. Involuntary comedy is still rather too comedic for something as serious as the Mass.

Mundabor

 

“Catholic Answers” Has Lost The Plot

Catholic…. What?

Catholic Answers decidedly goes from weakness to weakness. As I have already written in the past – but repetita iuvant – they are a mixture of a forum where people attempt to make Catholic doctrine as they go along, and an “ask an Apologist” question where at times a theologian attempts to make Catholic doctrine as he/she goes along; things like “good suicides to go heaven” and the like.

Today, out of sheer boredom, I clicked the page once again, to see what’s going on. I use “predestination” as search item and find a couple of threads that make your blood curl, with the usual sensitive posters (they are generally women; further proof God is rightly spoken of in the masculine) clumsily trying to avoid hard truths and tapping in the dark about what they “feel”, or “imagine” rather than doing what sensible people would do, that is: read a couple of sensible books first, and in case find a very good (means: not a wishy-washy V II one) priest later.

Still, this is a difficult issue: predestination is probably the most inextricable mystery of Christianity, up there with the Trinity, and a degree of confusion is normal, though once again a good book or a good theologian is vastly better than trying to concoct a solution among blog commenters.

Then I went on the “ask an apologist” section, where in the past I generally – but not always – found sound “Catholic answers”. The first (and only) post I read was this one.

In short, a woman has a perverted sister who “married” (not!) and her husband – one is glad there are true men around still – says to her wife the perverted woman is not to set foot in the house again. Not when he himself is there – obviously – and not when he is not there too – also obviously; then it’s a matter of principle, not of presence -.

The wife writes to “dear Abby”, and what do you think the “apologist” answers? Something along the lines of “he has no right to give you orders, you are his accomplice with your submissive behaviour, I suggest you speak to a marriage counsellor; with your husband if you can but alone if you must”.

What is this, a Catholic Forum or Cosmopolitan’s letters to the editor? To suggest that a third person be put between man and wife? After the head of the family (read my lips: head-of-the-family) has taken a perfectly reasonable decision about the scandalous reprobate he does not want to have in the house he (read my lips again: he) has the duty to lead? Really? What do these people think a marriage is, a democracy? There are Christian rules about how a marriage works; Christians have applied them for 2000 years with great success; it appears for “women’s liberation theologians” isn’t good enough.

For heaven’s sake, it’s not like the husband is alcoholic, or violent, or a lazy good-for-nothing married in a moment of Samaritan excesses (some women have that; though I think low self-esteem plays a far bigger role). This is a perfectly sensible, reasonable man confronted with the smoke of Satan wanting to enter his home, and he takes a perfectly reasonable decision about how he, the person responsible for the spiritual welfare of the family, is to deal with that.

Or do you think the feminist “apologist” would remind the wife that the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the husband? A wife with the blessing of a man who knows he will have to answer to Jesus about the way he led his wife, and takes responsibility for it, has been graced with a good husband indeed! But that third parties would come to the extent of suggesting another person is put in the middle is really beyond belief.

Tra moglie e marito non mettere il dito (“do not put your finger between a husband and a wife”), says the wise Italian. The Catholic Answers apologist puts an entire counsellor. What a feminist nutcase.

This so-called “apologist” needs a very good rapping before she is kicked out, and I truly hope she is never allowed to instruct Catholic women preparing for marriage. She should also be informed that even today, even today such an outlandish “answer” (all, but a Catholic one) would be considered the answer of a feminist bitch by every sensible woman living in traditional Catholic countries, where – I can assure you from endless, and continued experience – this “let’s put a third person in our controversy” mentality is just not there, and would be considered the result of an acute bitchiness attack and controlling mania.

I do not need to mention here – because every woman with some brains knows it; apparently not the case by some female “apologists” – that women perfectly well know how to deal with disagreements within the family; and have far more effective (as in: smartly feminine) ways to influence their men, insofar as it can be done, or the intelligence to let it be, when it’s clear it cannot.

I am truly stunned. Where I come from, the answer to disagreements is never “put a counsellor in the middle”, but along the lines of “he is the man you wanted to marry: now let it work” or “try to change his mind if you can, with sweetness and prayer and patience; and accept his decision if you can’t, because this the way it goes”. Apparently, it’s now the counsellors who run Catholic families. Pathetic, and so stupid.

I really must say it, but if this flippin’ American mentality has infiltrated the minds to the point where such rubbish is even suggested in a Catholic Forum, by a so-called apologist, you in the old U S of A are in a very, very bad shape indeed.

Catholic Answers might well be the most clicked Catholic site on the planet. The damage they make with their blasted “American Feminist” mentality can hardly be overestimated. These people do not even know what makes a real woman, but they spread their rubbish on the Internet on how to run – or to break – a marriage.

I was always surprised when I left Italy and these colleague in Germany told me “Italian women are so feminine!”. Why, of course they are, thought I. They’re women, aren’t they…

I began to understand, later, what was meant by it, and it seems to me the problem is not limited to Germany.

Fight against feminism and bitchiness, even when it is in disguise of “Catholicism”. If you want to see real women in their environment, try to spend some months in a traditional Catholic country and see how those among them who have been properly raised – still the vast majority, even today! – live, embrace and enjoy their womanhood.

They live far happier lives, too.

Mundabor

Is Cardinal Schoenborn Homosexual?

Is it fair to say this is a Duck? Read on…

PLEASE ALSO FOLLOW THE EDITS HERE AND AT THE END.

First an appeal to the SSPX, if they were ever to read this: can you please stop referring to homosexuals, lesbians, & Co. as “gay”? If even the SSPX starts using this sloppy language, where will it end?

Quit saying “gay”.

——————————————————–

On the matter: once again, Cardinal Schoenborn (a man recently considered as papabile, which tells you something about the present state of things within the Church) shows himself a rather extreme aider and abettor of homosexual perversion.

The SSPX goes in detail on this, also giving a rather comprehensive account of a small part of the antics of this satanic Cardinal in the last years. 

In this specific instance, the Cardinal is on record with the following:

There can be same-sex partnerships and they need respect, and even civil law protection. Yes, but please keep it away from the notion of marriage. Because the definition of marriage is the stable union between a man and a woman open to life.

(EDIT: The Cardinal’s Secretary denies these were the words or the intention of the Cardinal: see below).

The Cardinal thinks that sexual perversion: 1) needs respect, and 2) needs civil law protection. Spoken like a true sodomite.

If a Cardinal would publicly declare that bestiality needs respect and civil law protection, but just please don’t call it marriage, wouldn’t you think he has that very perversion? Well, then.. 

Therefore, the suspicion is more than justified that the Cardinal is a homosexual himself, because such a level of defiance of God’s laws – in every priest, but particularly in a Cardinal – is probably rooted in an inner disobedience born of one’s own perversion.  In these cases, some might still have the gut to do their job even if they themselves do not comply with the required standard – Cardinal O’Brien comes to mind – but it is fair to say it is far more likely that perverted clergymen will rather try to subvert the standard instead. In doing so, they will use the usual code words employed by homosexual priests during the past decades: the need to be pastoral, the “charitee”, and such like; proving that most perverts have no idea of what being pastoral, or being charitable, means in the first place.

You can put it in another way: it is difficult to think a normal person can arrive to such level of complicity with perverts, unless he is a pervert himself. Life is a very simple thing, and what would have caused alarm bells to toll in every sensible person only two generations ago is now more difficult to detect, because the aggressive (actually: passive-aggressive) clericalism engendered by Vatican II makes it far more difficult for sound thinking people to pose the obvious question, “is the Cardinal a poof?”, without being accusing of being “uncharitable”.

Also please think this: there has been a widespread talk about the homosexual infiltration within the Church, up to the highest echelons. The effeminacy of the V II Church is more than evident to anyone who can compare the pre-V II and post-V II attitude. The takeover of entire seminaries through perverted priests, in turn co-opting perverted seminarians, is well documented (Maynooth was rather extreme; St. Poelten was even worse), and it is simply not possible that this is turn did not create a net of homosexual bishops, helping each other to positions of power.

This is universally known, and the problem of homosexual infiltration is widely acknowledged. Still, it would seem these homosexual prelates exist only in an abstract sphere, or are acknowledged only a posteriori,  when they get officially exposed (“Miami Vice” is a prime example; see also here for more information on what happened over there). In daily life, it seems most people think these homosexual prelates are just non-existent.

It’s just like Fascists in Italy in May 1945: everyone knew they were there, only no one was supposed to be a Fascist…

You know what? It just can’t be. The net of homosexual bishops is working for Satan as we speak. They further the infiltration of the church through both homosexual clergy and homosexual ideas; they pollute Catholicism every day with their sugary talk about “pastoral care”; they want their sheep to forget the very bases of Christianity; they are creating a new religion in which their own perversion is fully accepted through the simple trick of not calling it “marriage”; they pervert the mind of their sheep by inoculating in them concepts of “love” and “commitment” that can only exist in the mind of perverts. They exploit their position of authority to smuggle ideas that would never be accepted by simple – and gullible – Catholics if they did not come from bishops or Cardinals. They are a cancer that is going into metastasis, working hand in hand with the civil authorities of many Western Countries. 

Do you think these people exist only in theory? No, they exist in practice. We see them at work. Look at Cardinal Schoenborn, and you’ll see a prime example.

Aristotle famously said that if an animal looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

Cardinal Schoenborn thinks like a poof, acts like a poof and quacks like a poof.

These people must be stopped, and I do not think giving First Holy Communion to children in Roman parishes is what is going to stop them.

Mundabor

EDIT: Cardinal Schoenborn’s secretary has written to the Tablet stating the Tablet has “grossly misinterpreted” the Cardinal’s words. Strangely, though, what he does is simply rephrase the words, which in the original text were clearly attributable to him.

My comment: the Cardinal wanted his words to be “non attributable” ( a common trick when one wants to throw the stone and hide the hand). The Tablet was too weak with their expression “leading Cardinal”, which clearly referred to Schoenborn, instead of using the usual expressions like “highly placed officials have expressed to the Tablet the opinion that…”. As it was, everyone, starting from the SSPX and the Vatican, understood who is the culprit. At this point Schoenborn had to backpedal with another common excuse (“gross misunderstanding”), which to me is code for “I said “non attributable”, morons”.

I gladly link to the letter from Mr Prueller, but I do think the excuse does not wash. In my eyes, Schoenborn still quacks like the duck above. As to Schoenborn’s record in matters of homosexuality, it is clear enough without any need for unwanted attributions, and doesn’t change anything substantial in the matter, apart from showing one of these days Schoenborn will, if he does not pay attention, put himself in huge trouble. Please also note the SSPX article, which reports several scandalous episodes concerning the Cardinal’s attitude towards homos, is still online as I write, if without the Tablet quote.

I suspect Schoenborn got some unexpected flak from the Vatican, and decided to discover orthodoxy – for the time being – through his secretary.

As far as I am concerned the post, the duck, and the suspicions stay.

M

Dies Natalis Romae Invictae

Today is the 21 April, Dies Natalis Romae Invictae.

Sensible Italians remember today the birth of the second most astonishing phenomenon ever appeared under the Sky (after Jesus and His Church, of course).

The Catholics among the sensible Italians will also know that the First Rome was the instrument chosen by God for the development and spreading of the Second Rome.

As a born Roman, Civis Romanus, I allow myself to feel particularly proud today. Not my merit, I know. But proud nevertheless.

As image for this blog post I have chosen a most impressive symbol of Roman might: the Fasces. As you can see from the image, it was made out of many small rods, all bundled together to form a thick cylinder. This cylinder was then so strong it could be used as support for a weapon, generally an axe.

The first and most cited symbolic meaning of the Fasces is brutally evident: each one as an individual is small; but when put together in close collaboration, the group will be an indestructible, lethal weapon.

Most of my readers are, of course, not born Romans.

How will they celebrate today, then?

I suggest a beautiful way how we can, simple rods as we are, unite in this Spring Sunday in a powerful Catholic Fasces:

Dump Starbucks.

Mundabor

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Homosexual Priests* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)

The Homosexual Priest Reblog

Mundabor's Blog

Hat tip to Rorate Caeli for this beautiful, beautiful article about the liturgical impact of homosexuality in the priesthood appeared in the CNA.

Some quotations:

[…] more and more Catholics are coming to the unavoidable conclusion (contrary to “official findings”) that the overwhelming majority of abuse cases were directly related to homosexuality

One may further deduce that the historical spike in such incidents also likely coincided with an increase in the relative number of homosexual men in the priesthood – a proposition too unsavory (not to mention too politically incorrect) for many to acknowledge

Those who are willing to look at the situation with eyes opened wide are left to ponder, not just the aforementioned abuse crisis, but also the broader implications of homosexuality in the priesthood.

It follows an exam of the various way in which a homosexual priest is, ipso facto, unfit for the habit from the liturgical

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Scriptural Obsession

One of the clearest influences of Protestant thinking in northern Catholics is their exaggerated attention for the Scriptures. I think it depends from the fact that even when they are cradle Catholics, they grew up in an environment where Protestant relatives and neighbours threw verses at them like grenades, and they must have thought the weapon is a fearful one indeed.

Well, it isn't.

Proddies have been throwing such grenades at each other with remarkable zeal for several centuries now, and I do not think there have been many who thought the hand-picked verses of their opponents were better than those hand-picked by themselves. The procedure is also questionable in itself, then either the quotation is rather long or very often the context is lost, and as no one – not even a bible-verse-shooting Protestant – can put every Biblical quotation in its entire context by heart, the argument loses much in efficacy. The more so, when the citation becomes so short as to be thrown around at one's convenience, like the “do not judge” curiously so well mastered by those clearly worthy of the harshest judgment.

Scriptural quotations do not work, because the Bible does not have the Truth. The Church has.

Put in a different way, first I believe what the Church says, and then I believe where I find it in the Bible. As a result, no quote from the Bible can be taken authoritatively, unless it is clear that the quote is meant and interpreted in accordance to what the Church teaches; but if this is the case, then it is much better to make the point arguing from what the Church believes, than from what the Bible says.

This endless Bible-quoting also plays in the hands of the Proddies, because it reinforces them in their erroneous opinion that the Bible, not the Church, has the Truth. As a result, they will react to every barrage of biblical verses with another barrage of biblical verses, and the discussion will end absolutely nowhere as, again, abundantly demonstrated by the astonishing proliferation of Protestant sects.

On the contrary, every Protestant should be confronted with a paradigm shift (whether he accepts it is another cup of tea, of course) and be told in no uncertain term the Scriptures can only be the reflection of a Truth existing before them and outside of them. Therefore, the reflection is only correct insofar as it correctly transmits the Truth reflected, failing which the reflection will be in nothing more authentic than the one provided by those deforming mirrors you look at if you want to have a laugh.

I hear, here and there, that Catholics should have a better knowledge of Scriptures. Maybe so; but given the abysmal ignorance of our times, the risk of getting the meaning wrong or even tragically wrong (“do not judge” is my absolute favourite), and the sheer complexity of Catholic teaching I suggest the effort should be directed towards a better knowledge of the teaching itself. If you ask me, for most people and in most circumstances the rediscovery of old Catechisms and the reading of books of Catholic apologetics or theology is far more fruitful than hours spent in reading the Scriptures without adequate instruments for their proper understanding.

Granted, it will sound less impressive than having one or two dozen citations learned by heart and ready for use; but one will know he is right.

Mundabor

 

Savita’s Death: Now Please Stop The Rubbish

 

 

We are now informed Savita Halappanavar’s death was caused by a rare infection and was nothing to do with any kind of “denied abortion”.

This is a strange of piece of information even to get, because if you click elsewhere, like for example at the usual BBC, the fact the whiners were wrong is merely mentioned en passant. You read the article and barely know what is all about, and what the findings might have been.

Not better is, predictably, the Huffington Post. We knew already that systemic failures were in place, and it is obvious there would be recommendations. Strangely, the evidence that the fact she was “refused” to get an abortion (I think it’s because it would have been murder in the circumstances; but these are too fine details for the HuffPo) did not play any role in her death is not, how should I say it, adequately conveyed. 

I truly hope that all pro-abortion fans now do the one thing that must be done, and shut up.

Just as an aside, I want to say that where I come from, a husband saying “my wife should not have been denied an abortion” would have been looked at as a strange mixture between a freak show and a criminal not later than one generation ago, and many would do it even today. You see, there was a time where elementary concepts like the protection of an unborn baby – as opposed to murdering him at the first sign of complication in the pregnancy because hey, this might be good for the mother – were so universally understood that even BBC journalists got them.

I understand Mr Halappanavar is an Indian citizen. I trust he will now leave Ireland and go back to India. A Christian country is clearly too much for him. 

Mundabor

Jesuit Magazine Openly Pro-Homos

Reblog of the day

Mundabor's Blog

You would think that the Jesuits had some sense of shame. Perhaps, a few have. The impression is, however, that most of them don’t. I can’t explain otherwise how a group old sixty-eighters (several of them, no doubt, homosexuals; some of them, very probably, sodomites) continue to march towards extinction as if this were a valuable end, and one worthy of pursuing.

Take this article from a magazine called – with unwanted humour – National Catholic Weekly. The author of this article wants you to absolutely know that if he is not an homosexual himself, he would so much like to be one.

Let us examine the forma mentis of our man from his way of writing:

1) He receives a letter from a reader. The reader points out to Pedro Arrupe, the former Superior General of the Jesuits, he who got the boot in 1981. (” a move that…

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SSPX Begs Pope Francis Not To Allow Souls To Perish

Latin: FSSPX.
English: SSPX.
Italian: GRAZIE!

From the very long – and very fitting – letter #80 of Bishop Fellay to Friends and Benefactors: (emphases mine)

We beg Heaven and the authorities of the Church, in particular the new Supreme Pontiff, Pope Francis, Vicar of Christ, Successor of Peter, not to allow souls to perish because they no longer learn sound doctrine, the revealed deposit of the faith, without which no one can be saved, no one can please God.

What good is it to devote oneself to serving people if one hides from them what is essential, the purpose and the meaning of their life, and the seriousness of sin that turns them away from it? Works of charity done for the poor, the needy, the infirm, and the sick have always been a true concern for the Church, and we must not excuse ourselves from it, but if it becomes merely man-centered philanthropy, then the Church is no longer carrying out her mission, she is no longer leading souls to God, which can really be done only by supernatural means: faith, hope, charity and grace. And therefore by denouncing anything that is opposed to them: errors against faith and morality. Because if people sin, for want of that denunciation, they are damned for eternity. The Church’s reason for being is to save them and to help them avoid the misfortune of their eternal perdition.

“Mundabor”, the teacher would have said at school, “what does the author want to say”?

I am not at school anymore, but I think I know what I would answer: the author wants to say that there has been enough talk of simplicity, black shoes, iron crosses, and Argentinian newsagents, whilst the real issues continue to be happily ignored.

One month on, the silence of the new Pope concerning the new, exploding phenomenon of pro-homosexual legislation is deafening; but Heavens, we know everything about how he doesn’t like Papal Apartments, red shoes, mozzettas, or Roman cobblers.

The SSPX has certainly been prudent for a while, waiting to see how they can picture this Pontiff before speaking publicly.

Their decision to move to an open appeal clearly means they consider his silence as scandalous. Please read Bishop Fellay’s words again. They are clear enough.

Pope Francis has not justified the worst fears (up to now, at least), and has moved rather well on a couple of occasions (the LCWR comes to mind; actually nothing else of consequence comes to mind… one good homily here, one good idea there, things like that); but he has also lived dramatic weeks for world Christianity whilst doing basically nothing, or whilst letting us know how sensitive he is to his newsagent down in Buenos Aires.

God knows how much the French Catholics would have appreciated strong words of the Pontiff concerning the abomination of sodomy; it would have given – and would still give – the movement great strenght for the years of fight in front of them.

Instead, we haven’t heard one word. Not one.

I am sick and tired already to try to see Francis through Benedict. I see that Benedict was indecisive enough, and Francis can talk rather refreshingly if he wants, but he avoids to do it when it means grating the masses whose approval he is so sedulously seeking. Whilst the French members of parliament send the country’s soul to hell, he entertains us with the evil of gossiping.

Mozzetta or no Mozzetta, this is not good enough; this is no longer carrying on the Church’s mission, and allowing souls to perish.

It is a paradox that we had a Pope who saw the necessity of war but didn’t have the nerve to lead us into it; and we now have a Pope who probably has the strenght of character to lead us into any war he chooses, but seems not to think the unprecedented disintegration of the Christian fabric of the West is worth a war in the first place. 

But hey, we know all about his cobbler.

Mundabor

“Gli Uomini Non Guardano Il Cielo”: The Only Film About St. Pius X

I receive from reader “Papapiusdecimus” (whom I thank from the heart for the kind words) an extremely interesting link, published above. 

This appears to be the only film ever made about the great pope St. Pius X. Googling around, the year of production appears to be 1951. De Gasperi was Prime Minister, and Pius XII was Pope. A dream team by any standard of today, and probably of any day.

The names involved in the production of this movie make clear, even before seeing it , this is a quality production.

Unfortunately, this is youtube format, and no subtitles.

It appears the movie was also dubbed in English, title “The Secret Conclave”.

Those of you who have Netflix might be able to see it, says here. Please can someone of my readers with Netflix subscription let me know if this is available.

If any reader can indicate where they might be found this would be wonderful, but of course I understand this must be nearly impossible. I will try to discover whether the film was dubbed in other languages (French perhaps? Or maybe Spanish? They were Christian countries back then… ).

I will try to have the thing downloaded on a USB key and put on my TV. I doubt very much the quality will be satisfying, but I want to say it after I have tried.

Those of you who don’t understand the language will, I am sure, at least enjoy its beautiful sound.. 😉

Please do not forget three Hail Mary for our good reader Papapiusdecimus, who – I think – deserves them entirely. 

Mundabor