Jesuit Rev. Patrick Conroy Denies Christ

St. Ignatius. Ask yourself in whose name he prayed......

Shocking affirmation of the newly appointed chaplain of the United States Congress; unsurprisingly, a Jesuit.

Rev. Patrick Conroy is on record saying:

I never pray in the name of Jesus — except when I’m doing something Catholic — saying Mass, for example.

This would look like a serious case of schizophrenia, if it wasn’t just a normal case of being a Jesuit. A Jesuit like the chap tolerating homo masses in Manhattan, or like the chaps leading universities with links to Planned Parenthood, or like the chap denying the existence of Hell.

Interviewed for the liberal Huffington Post and – being a Jesuit – wanting to accommodate everyone and the devil, our hero of the day basically says that he prays in the name of Jesus only when he really must because of his profession but otherwise, hey, he is far too inclusive for narrow-minded acts like……… praying in the name of Jesus.

Someone of his confreres should explain to him the origin of his order’s name. If anyone still remembers it, or was taught it in the first place.

So we have a Jesuit appointed to a prestigious and exposed position, saying that Jesus for him is confined to the realm of strict professional duty. When he prays alone, or when he talks to others, he will simply ignore Jesus and pray – who knows – some other non specified, politically correct, inclusive, huffington-post-approved deity instead.

What this Jesuit (who might or might not be a Christian, but I doubt it) is basically doing, is:

1) denying Jesus in a way which, he thinks, wouldn’t automatically cost him his habit; he might be, unfortunately, right on his assumption, though if the Jesuits were still Christians I think the matter would look entirely different.

2) making of Jesus an embarrassment that he is ready to push out of the way whenever halfway practicable; and

3) making a clear statement of Assisi-I-style religious syncretism, in which Jesus is nothing more than a badge to wear on certain occasions, a particular aspect of one way to pray; basically, an option.

Of course, one must hope that the usual clarification will now hit the computer screens, explaining to us what a horrible misunderstanding this is and how “white” has clearly being misunderstood as “white” when it is clear that it means “black” instead. Only, no one – not even one who has probably long begun to forget what Christianity is, as I bet most Jesuit are doing – could have possibly conceived such an utterance without having a very clear idea of what the implications are and without asking for the text to be modified or, failing that, issuing a clarification together with the interview.

This has not happened; which means that Rev. Conroy is either blissfully unaware of what he has said, or doesn’t care a straw.

Yep, he must be a Jesuit.

Mundabor

Friday Penance Is (Truly) Back!

Friday Fare

Some of you might remember my reflection on Abstinence of Fridays of some time ago, and on the slow movement toward a full restoration of the practice of some time later.

It is now with great pleasure that I can inform those who don’t know already that it has been now decided (for the UK) that Friday penance (actually never abolished, though its existence has been carefully hidden from your sight by the western Catholic clergy) is going to be reintriduced in full style, that is: by making clear that the standard way of making friday penance is by abstaining from meat.

The new rule will get in force starting with the 16th September. This basically means – if the new rules are made known and explained to the faithful – the return to the good old days in just a couple of years.

Also interesting are the motivation the bishops have given for this – semel in anno – very laudable initiative: 1) the recovery of Catholic identity and practice, and 2) the common celebration of friday penance.

As to 1), one thinks that the old sixty-eighter generation must be rather bewildered at the concept of Catholic practices being reintroduced because they are specifically Catholic. This really doesn’t square with the ecu-maniacal soup they have been eating for too many decades. I doubt that even a joint will be enough for them to forget the crude reality of the irresistible return of traditional Catholic practices. I do hope they’ll enjoy the salmon, though.

As to 2), this is interesting in its social relevance. If this practice is made known and the faithful regularly reminded about its observance, in just a few years you’ll have every biggish office, association etc. where Catholics are clearly recognisable. This is a bit like Ash Wednesday, where you see in the underground the people with the ashes on their forefront and you either know, or are curious…. In time, those standing out for this strange behaviour will become more and more, one question will lead to another and, no doubt, many a soul will be saved as a result.

I warmly welcome this development and didn’t want to miss one of the very rare occasions when our bishops act in a decisive, laudable and even slightly uncomfortable way.

Mundabor

Education: Anglicans and Catholics

Unashamedly Christian: Brompton Oratory.

I have written some time ago about the Anglican madness (not the initiative of some obscure hot head, but the brainchild of the board of education of what calls itself the church of England) of limiting the places reserved to the Anglicans in their own schools to ten percent. If you don’t believe it, please read here.

Thankfully, I now receive the news that, among the best Catholics, there are those who do things in a diametrically opposed way. The London Oratory School demands that the parents of the prospective pupils attend Mass at the Oratory in a demonstrable way ( I think that there are registers to sign; this must be atrocious for the 68-ers generations, but it actually makes a lot of sense). Already this shows the great difference in mentality between those who believe in God and those who believe in political correctness.

It would now appear that the rules of admission might go beyond that, extending to the participation of the parents to the parish life beyond Mass attendance. Whilst this may or may not be an efficient criterium, it is clear to me that we are in front of people to whom Christ is truly King; people who see their educational mission as directly linked to the Christian faith, and the Christian faith as the shaping element of the life of the family.

I can’t think of a better way to describe the distance now separating mainstream Anglicanism (once again: look at the source of the above mentioned Anglican proposal) and orthodox Catholicism.

Thank God for the London Oratorians.

Mundabor

“Know Your Mass”

Compulsory reading for the Tridentine Mass enthusiast.

Know Your Mass (that you can also buy at amazon, but I wanted to break a lance for the “Angelus Press”) is a beautiful “cartoon” explaining the Traditional Mass to children of a certain age (probably nine or ten, I would say).

The reasons why its reading is, in my eyes, beneficial to everyone are as follows:

1) this is not a children’s book. This is a book explaining a complicated thing like the Tridentine Mass in a way that can be followed by an alert child.

2) The cartoon form is extremely well suited to the explanation of the gestures and the rhythm of the Mass.

3) The book was published in 1954, in times above every suspicion.

4) It is fully illustrated, not partially illustrated. It doesn’t stop here and then to explain with images, it translates the entire Mass in images.

5) It reports every word of the liturgy. Nothing is left out or jumped out of convenience.

6) It has useful explanations as to the structure of the Mass, e.g. why certain parts of the Mass recur twice.

7) It can be read a bit at a time, and through the fiction of the “cartoon” allows a better explanation of every gesture of the priest than even a DVD would allow.

I also have “The most beautiful thing this side of heaven”, the DVD about the Tridentine Mass with the attached explanatory booklet. Trust me, this is better.

Through its format, accessible to young people as well as adults, this book is perfectly suited to unite the entire family around the Tridentine Mass. If you are interested in the liturgy (and you are, otherwise you’d be singing silly song in church instead of reading this) you cannot do better than to buy this.

Mundabor

Rosary and Salvation

Tireless Rosary-Machine: Padre Pio

Those who have read me for some times know that whilst my attitude toward salvation is probably – in line with my Mediterranean upbringing – more relaxed than the apocalyptic concept of some, particularly Northern European, hard-liners, I still do not indulge in complacency as far as salvation is concerned.

I obviously do not subscribe to any of the childish heresies of Medjugorje (not recognised by the Church as worthy of belief), but I am not a fan of the devotion of the Divine Mercy (recognised as worthy of belief) either. I love to think that the faciloneria of so much post V-II thinking (= the departed was such a fun chap, therefore God certainly called him to Himself to enjoy the jokes and it is well-known that in Hell Stalin, Hitler and Pol-Pot need Satan if they want to play a hand of poker) has not polluted me.

Still, in order to avoid you thinking me too harsh or tinged with unforgiving puritanism I’d like to spend some words about something that might be of interest for some reader: what I personally see the proper understanding of the Rosary in the economy of salvation in the light of the Marian promises. In doing so, I will remain (as far as I know) within the path of the strictest traditional (that is: pre-VII) understanding of them.

It is well-known that the Blessed Virgin appeared to St Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche giving (or confirming) the famous fifteen promises to those who faithfully and devoutly pray the rosary. It is not my intent to examine in detail the circumstances of such revelations, as the fact that they have been traditionally considered perfectly in line with Catholic teaching is sufficient to me. What is important to note here is that the Blessed Virgin clearly wanted to point out to the great advantages that faithful, devout, daily (as we know beyond doubt from the Fatima apparition) recitation of the Rosary carry with them.

I will here examine only those among the promises which I consider most strictly linked to the only real aim we have in life: salvation. I invite the reader to – if they feel so inclined – give their alternative interpretation and explain why they would give a more restrictive (or more lenient) interpretation than the one I give.

a) Promise #5:

The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.

This is very strong, and the presence of such a limited number of words in the phrase doesn’t leave much space for alternative interpretations: if you recommend yourself to the Blessed Virgin by your daily effort, you are going to make it. This clearly requires that the rosary is prayed well. This also requires a contrition and consciousness of one’s own sinfulness implicit in the perceived necessity of recommending one’s soul to the Blessed Virgin. Therefore, the promise doesn’t apply to people like:

1) those who pray a distracted, shallow, rushed Rosary, whose main aim is to “get done with it”.
2) those who are not faithful in their recitation (“oh well, I pray the rosary in principle every day, but in the last months I had (fill here excuse) to do and therefore it was perhaps three times a month” would, methinks, not qualify).
3) those who do not see that they are in need of any recommendation because they are so “inclusive”, “modern” and otherwise “tolerant” and “non violent”.

Still, promise #5 is a very powerful promise and I am very glad that it was given, and in such powerful terms.

b) Promise #6:

Whosoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of Eternal Life.

This I interpret in the sense that those who pray the Rosary well (you will notice the insistence on this point) will: 1) not be driven to despair and in the end to the ultimate blasphemy, suicide, by the difficulties and crosses of life, 2) nor will they, as the saying once went, be surprised by death by being caught by the Reaper in the state of mortal sin.

This obviously doesn’t mean that the one who prays the rosary will not sin mortally – as the “if” of the last sentence makes abundantly clear – . This merely means that the sincere intention to obtain a happy death will, in this case, be helped by the Blessed Virgin with such a powerful intercession, that she will obtain for the faithful who perseveres in devoutly praying the Rosary the grace of a happy death.

c) promise #7:

Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.

This echoes what has been said before. “Sacraments” here doesn’t mean “Last Rites”, and therefore the meaning is not that, a contrario, if one is knocked by a bus and dies instantly he hasn’t been praying the rosary faithfully. Confession and communion are, I think, rather meant here.

d) Promise #8:

Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary […….] at the moment of death […] shall participate in the Merits of the Saints in Paradise.

Note once again: 1) the Rosary must be recited faithfully, and 2) the promise only applies to the moment of death.

e) Promise #15:

Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

This is a bit complicated.

“Predestination” means, for a Catholic, that whilst every human being is perfectly free to make his own choices, God already knows what choices each and everyone of us will make. This, mind, does not limit our freedom more than the freedom of the football players is limited just because I happen to know, after the fact, how their match ended.

Therefore, God already knows whether each one of us is going to achieve salvation or not; but this doesn’t make us any less free in every decision we make. This promise is therefore there to give the faithful great comfort in the fact that his devotion makes it pretty likely (but not certain!) that he will, in fact, persevere in his faith, obtain a happy death and be among those whose salvation had been foreseen by God from all eternity.

These are the promises. Let us now try to put them into a practical, everyday context.

1) A person prays the rosary without devotion, just as a habit.

The promise of Mary doesn’t apply to him, because the point of praying devotedly, faithfully etc. is stressed on several occasions. Let’s not try to cheat here, as we’ll not get away with it.

2) A person prays the rosary every day, but is manifestly evil or a great sinner.

This is not in contradiction with the promises as they do not refer to saintliness in life, but to salvation at the end of it. Whilst the Rosary will be a great help (if recited properly) to one’s spiritual improvement, the recitation of the rosary is no automatic means to saintly behaviour in life.

Such a person will, therefore: a) stop praying the rosary, or b) stop praying it devoutly, thus losing the protection afforded by the heavenly promises, or c) insist in his devout recitation and in the end – and I am sorry here for you, puritan supporter of the fire and brimstone faction 😉 – still manage to get a happy death by the special intercession of Mary.

Notice here that the Blessed virgin doesn’t even promise that those who devoutly pray the rosary will refrain from evil doings. The rosary works slowly, imperceptibly as Pius XII says in his encyclical letter on the matter. It doesn’t create an immediate either/or situation; on the contrary, the either/or only applies at death.

Please also notice that this doesn’t mean that a person can plan on praying the rosary, so to speak, as one pays an insurance premium and think that he can, after paying his dues, willfully go on living an evil life with the certainty of final salvation. It is obvious that such an evil intention is not compatible with the devout and faithful recitation of the rosary.

3) A person prays the rosary every day as devoutly as he can, but he is assailed by recurring doubts as the whether he will be saved, and the fact that God already knows whether he will be saved or not is, to him, not in the least reassuring.

This person can greatly benefit by the recitation of the rosary because he will know that he can have a tangible sign of his working toward his salvation one day at a time. In other words, he knows a) that as long as he perseveres there is no cause for scruples, and b) that he only has to persevere to avoid the scruples assailing him. If you suffer from scrupulosity, I doubt that there is a better cure around than your daily medicine, the Rosary.

In my eyes, this is pretty much the interpretation of the effect of praying the rosary that would have been given to a quisque de populo in – as the Italians love to say – tempi non sospetti. It seems to me that it adheres strictly to the tenor of the promises without indulging in dangerous complacency, but without losing sight of the wonderful weapon that has been put in our hands.

I can’t stress enough (and will regularly insist on this point as long as I blog) how important the Rosary is in the life of the Catholic. So much so, that it seems to me that the faithful who willingly decides not to take the habit of the daily recitation of the rosary is like the stuntman offered helmet and body protection and refusing them on the ground that he believes himself to be professional enough to escape harm.

Mundabor

Anglican Madness: Dr Sentamu Says Premarital Sex Is OK

Clearly a cow expert: Dr John Sentamu

Truly, “Thou shall not” seem to be obsolete words in that mickey-mouse organisation calling itself “church of England” and once upon a time, at least, mindful of trying to protect Christian values. That this is obviously not the case anymore is proved, once again (I get tired of linking every time to the many posts on the matter, also because they are becoming more and more numerous), by their astonishing ability to throw overboard principles considered for two thousand years at the basis of Christianity (like, ahem, the Ten Commandments?) and say that it is fine to do, basically, whatever one pleases. The times one lives in, and if there is love, and all that. Strangely, both “love” and “times one lives in” were there in Jesus’ time, too; but don’t tell Dr Sentamu….

Sentamu now says that concubinage is OK, because what Christianity has said for two thousand years is not relevant anymore since his own daughter has said something about milk and cows (cows must recur frequently within the Sentamu family, we gather).

Dr Sentamu manages, in one interview, to make all of the following:

1) He gives his backing to a couple obviously living in sin and giving scandal by every Christian standard, even those of many Anglicans!

2) He reinforces this by saying that he has celebrating marriages for “many co-habiting couples”. This is – like Anglicanism itself – fully deprived of logic: Dr Sentamu might have celebrated marriages for many reformed prostitutes, but this doesn’t mean that prostitution is OK.

3) He makes the reference with the milk and the cow: as we are talking of sacraments I don’t offend you with repeating it. But no, really, we are talking of sacraments, sex, procreation, family. Dr Sentamu throws overboard the entire Christian conception of sexuality and marriage; but he feels very modern because he has the backing of his daughter.

4) He justifies the entire thing by saying that ““For some people that’s where their journeys are”. So Anglican. Can be said of prostitutes, homosexuals and pedophiles too. But wait, I doubt he has a problem with the first two anyway. I thought, anyway, that a bishop’s job (even of a heretic, non-existent, mickey-mouse one) was to say where the journey goes, not to justify people for wherever their journey is.

This man doesn’t care a straw for Christian values. What in his eyes validates people’s choice is: a) what his daughter says, b) where people are, and 3) how you buy cows.

Yep, he must an Anglican.

Mundabor

Blessed John Paul II, 1. May 2011

Blessed John Paul II, pray for us.

In view of tomorrow’s beatification, I re-post what I wrote in January.

——————————————————————-

And so it is out: the beatification of JP II will take place on the 1st May.

I am, as no reader of this blog can avoid noticing, no great fan of the man as a Pope. I think that his contribution to the fall of Communism is vastly, vastly exaggerated (the one who did it for communism was clearly the Gipper; George Walker Bush and Pope John Paul II only reaped the benefits afterwards and the liberal press would commit suicide rather than give Reagan his due) and I find it frankly extraordinary that a Pope should be praised for…. being opposed to Communism.

As far as his work as Pope is concerned, I personally think that the only redeeming feature of his too long Pontificate is the fact that he came (excluding the short weeks of what could have been a wonderful Pope, Albino Luciani) after Paul VI, the undisputed Jimmy Carter of the Church. JP II’s actions against the problems of his time (say: the Dutch Schism, Liberation Theology, the rampant “spirit of Vatican II”-mentality) can be considered in a halfway positive manner only in the light of Paul VI’s tragic impotence, but were slow and contributing to the confusion of Catholics by every other modern standard. In his appointment of Bishops, JP II will probably prove one of the most disastrous Popes of all times as he is the main responsible for the appointment of an entire generation of bad shepherds, who have almost completely given away Catholicism and will now continue to afflict the Church for a couple of decades to come.

A further problems of JP II’s pontificate is, in my eyes, the stubborn refusal to deal in an exemplary manner with people clearly responsible for grave misconduct. Cardinal Law’s treatment, or Cardinal Groer’s, are in my eyes great stains on his pontificate as they show an attitude towards grave problems by which the desire to avoid scandal and public admission of fault comes before the desire to send clear signals as to how the Church is led and what behaviour is expected from the men at the top.

And then there’s the media orgy. JP II’s pontificate can be remembered as the age of the dumbing down of everything Catholic, the search for popularity at all costs, the media circus, the desire to sink towards common people aspirations and conveniences instead of drawing them to aspire higher to Christ. From the unspeakable rock concerts (in which Catholicism had to witness the head of Catholicism being publicly scolded by rock singers; Pope Pius XII must have cried from Heaven), to the interconfessional/ecumenical/heretical events in Assisi, Fatima and elsewhere, to the in itself obviously heretical kissing of the Koran, to the relentless seeking for TV time in his pursuit to travel in the furthest corners of the globe whilst Vatican work was clearly neglected (cue the inefficiency and indecisiveness in tackling the problems of the Church, like the evident issue of rampant homosexuality in the seminaries), John Paul II’s years have diluted and banalised the Catholic message. The most dramatic example of this sad development was seen in his last days, with a huge media happening and a vast attention from a mass of individuals obviously not caring in the least for Catholicism and merely attracted by the next media-pumped collective hysteria in purest Lady Diana style. When he died, JP II had successfully transformed himself in the Che Guevara of our times, a man whose face is on millions of t-shirts carried by people who don’t even know who he was and what he wanted, but find the projected image someway cool. In the meantime, a generation of Catholics was raised without even the basis of proper Catholic instruction but hey, there were 500,000 people when he went out of the aeroplane so we are doing fine.

One of the least palatable aspects of this attitude was the late Pope’s desire to please the masses by sending ambiguous messages which, whilst not openly contradicting the Church’s teaching, were meant to give them a varnish of political correctness and make their distorted perception popular when the real ones clearly aren’t. He formally abolished the capital punishment in the Vatican, but conveniently forgot to remind the faithful that the legitimacy of capital punishment is integral part of Catholic doctrine and as such not modifiable and not negotiable. He asked for forgiveness for the atrocities committed during the Crusades, but conveniently forgot to remind the faithful of the saintliness of their cause and of the glorious page represented by the Crusades themselves. He was personally contrary to every conflict happening in his time, but conveniently forgot to remind the faithful that the Doctrine of War is also integral part of Catholic teaching. As a result of this, Pope John Paul was vastly perceived – particularly by poorly instructed Catholics, let alone by non-catholics – as a white-clothed pacifist opposed to capital punishment and ashamed for the Crusades. I am not aware of any effort he made to counter this widespread popular impression and no, this is not good.

Allow me here to also remind my readers of the Lefebvre affair. From the information I have found and read, it seems to me that a clash of egos (it happens among the saintliest men; it’s human nature) played a more than secondary role in the events but that at the root of the mess was JP II’s refusal to understand when things have gone too far and it is time to stop being stubborn and to start being reasonable. Hand on heart, I thank God for Lefebvre’s courage and determination on that occasion. To use an admittedly strong image, when the father is drunk the son who refuses to obey him is not going against the family and his father’s authority, but respecting and upholding them and the values they represent. The SSPX’s affair is, if you ask me, just another of the many avoidable blunders of John Paul II’s pontificate.

~~~

Still, behind the Pope there was the man. A deeply religious, pious, spiritual, sincere, kind man of God. A man whose mistakes were certainly never made in bad faith and whose first desire was to protect the Church and to win new souls to Christ. A man in front of whose deep spirituality and pious nature most of us (and certainly yours truly) must hang their head in shame. A man of whom you can criticise everything, but not the pure heart and the honesty of his intentions.

Whenever Catholics criticise the many mistakes of his pontificate (as they, if you ask me, should do far more often and much more vocally in order to avoid another pontificate like his to be ever repeated), they should remember – and should remind the enemies of the Church – of the purest of hearts behind those mistakes and of the example which John Paul II continues to give as a saintly man.

A saintly man is not necessarily a good Pope and a good Pope is not necessarily a saintly man. Much as we would like to see both qualities together, this is by far not always the case.

When we are blessed with a saintly Pope, I can’t see why we shouldn’t – whatever the shortcomings of his Pontificate – draw strength and inspiration from his saintliness.

Blessed John Paul II, pray for us.

Mundabor

“The Crisis Within The Crisis”: A Michael Voris Video

This – as always – excellent Michael Voris video* points out to a very important aspect of the current crisis: the fact that vast parts of the Church (among both the clergy and the laity) simply refuse to see it.

This is largely due, I think, to the increasing influence the media have on the easily impressionable. A Pope gathering extremely large crowds can give the impression that Catholicism is prospering, but this is only a very superficial impression. Catholicism is certainly on the increase, but in vast part of the West its shallowness – and in the worst cases a quiet abandonment of catholic orthodoxy – has been if not actively promoted, certainly tolerated through silence.

When 75% of Catholics don’t go to Mass and almost as big a percentage doesn’ t even believe in the Real Presence, the crisis is there irrespective of how many airports you may fill.

I disagree with Voris’ only in one point: that in this crisis the heresy is not a deliberate choice, but largely a matter of astonishing ignorance of the faithful, ignorance carefully built in 45 years of relentless dumbing down of everything Catholic.

My personal experience is that most non-churchgoing Catholics haven’t any meaningful idea of what offence it is to be a Catholic and not to go to Mass; and as they perfectly well know that many priests wouldn’t insist on it, they are not really going to change their mind when the occasional Mundabor explains the facts to them: when the rules conflict with the reality they see at work every day, a reality amply tolerated by the clergy, how can this be differently?

The same goes for abortion, contraception and the like. In a world where it is rather difficult to find priests who have the gut to say to the parishioners in their face that it is not about what they consider right, but what the Church says it’s right, how do you want to avoid even churchgoers going around picking and choosing? If their priest never tells them so much as a half uncomfortable word, and reduces everything to “celebrating” and “accepting” and being “tolerant”, how can we expect that this rubbish is not going to influence them in their daily lives?

And I am talking of the churchgoers here, let alone the lapsed Catholics.

In the last months I have taken the habit of asking those who say “I am a Christian, but….” (followed by a heresy of their choice) whether they can recite the ten commandments to me.
Of the supposed Catholics, no one can.

The “heresy” of our days is fed by people who don’t even know the ten commandments but have persuaded themselves that they can call themselves “Christians”; a concept that not more than two generations ago would have seemed absurd I do not say to every theologian, but to every child of ten years of age.

The consequence of this is, in my eyes, that one or two generations of committed instruction of Catholics through both the clergy and an aggressive work of propaganda through the media would let the heresy naturally recede; because in the crisis we are living the heresy is not due to a willed, deliberately chosen frontal conflict with the Church, but to the sheer ignorance of what being a Catholic implies.

The way to this goes, in my eyes, through the recovery:

1) of the Liturgy (how do you want people to believe in the Real presence, if you feed them the dumbed down, protestantised New Mass?);
2) of proper Catholic instruction; and
3) of an assertive mentality and media behaviour replacing “social justice” rhetoric with true evangelisation.

The crisis is vast, but it is not such a deep ideological hiatus as, say, the Heresies of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli were.

Bring proper instruction to the sheep, and they will naturally come back to the fold.

Mundabor

Why The New Mass Must Die

Novus Ordo Container, galvanised, choice of lids

Let me say beforehand – though those who have been reading me for some time, if any, know it already – that I do not have any problem with the sacramental validity of the Novus Ordo mass. None whatsoever.
I believe that there is only One Church and that Ubi Petrus, Ibi Ecclesia. It follows that I cannot believe that the consecration of this only Church has become a fraud.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I consider everything happening within this Only Church to be right. If we look at the past, we see various ages in which the Church has gravely failed to properly instruct the faithful and, in general, do a halfway decent job of things. The extreme corruption of pretty much everything regarding the Church in the IX and X Century is an example; the decadent, irreverent splendour of the Church of the XVI century is another; the rather laissez-faire style of the XVIII century another still. In spite of all that, we know that Communion, Confession & co were as valid during these dark times as they always were, and that the consecration effected by a priest remains valid even should the priest be in mortal sin.

Similarly, periods in which the Mass was ill-treated are clearly recognisable: the notorious fast masses – or the “bespoke” masses – of the XVI century (some of them done with in 15 minutes, it seems), with the priests deciding what is “in” and what is “out” of the traditional liturgy are a clear example, and one with many parallels to what happens today. The Tridentine Council adjusted things then, and we are waiting for a similar repair work today.

What has been happening in the last half century is, therefore, not new in itself. What is different today is that in the present situation the liturgical and theological corruption has reached the very heart of the Church, in a measure and with a virulence that we cannot find in the past.

Some Popes of the past knew how to be assassins, gluttons, womanizers or, in general, first-class greedy bastards. But they never even conceived of tampering with the liturgy. The private lusts of an Alexander VI didn’t impinge the daily spiritual life of millions of Catholics anywhere near as the experiments of a John XXIII, or the stupefying weakness of a Paul VI, did.

What we have today is, therefore, nothing new on one hand, but alarmingly novel on the other. The Smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God not through the private vices and weaknesses of his leaders, but through a direct attack to the very centre of Her life, the Liturgy.

This is why the New Mass must die.

When the “fast-food” masses of the XVI century were critically examined their sacramental validity was (apart from very extreme cases) not put into question, but it was nevertheless decided that such way of celebrating Mass had to be stopped. When a vast series of regional or local “usages” was deemed to be detrimental to Church life, the thus celebrated masses were not declared invalid, only it was wisely considered that only traditional usages should be allowed to survive. Every cleaning carries with himself the necessity of eliminating poor practice, irrespective of its sacramental validity.

A strong, universally applied “best practice” policy is what is needed, as it was – very wisely! – done in the past by similar cleaning-up operations. There can be no doubt that the best practice is the Mass of the Ages. There can be no doubt that the recovery of integrity in the Liturgy goes through the recovery of the Liturgy in its most traditional, purest form. This is what has been – very wisely – done in the past. It stands to reason that it is what must be done today.

Whilst this is – intellectually speaking – clear enough, it never fails to slap me in the face every time that I – as I do every now and then – go around assisting to some Novus Ordo Mass around London and its immediate vicinity. The return to the proper Mass is always – and I repeat this – like a slap in the face; every single time, it is impossible not to notice the sheer inadequacy of the Novus Ordo to convey the sacredness of the Mass.

It’s like going to a concert of some cretinous rapper and then go back to a Schubert piano recital. “What was they thinking” is the thought that always comes to my mind; a bit the same as when you look at those iron and concrete monsters of the Sixties and wonder what everyone (architects; city planners; citizens) were doing with their brains in those fateful years.

The Novus Ordo must die. It must end up in the same dustbin where the old fast masses, and the vast number of regional and local uses of the past, have ended up.

Not because it is invalid, but because once you have known the Tridentine Mass, the Novus ordo is so woefully inadequate that it is a sheer embarrassment to attend to.

Mundabor

Official: Anglican Bishop of Oxford Doesn’t Believe In God

Typical church of England gardener

Dear reader, I would expect that you are, like most of human beings, endowed with elementary logic. This elementary logic is the one that lets you understand that, say, water can’t be hot and cold at the same time, or that one cannot believe in the Christian God and not believe in Him at the same time. This is called, I believe, the principle of non-contradiction.

The Church of England is,though, exempt from such elementary principles of logic, or at least they would like us to believe so.

Let us take the matter of education. In the simple world in which I live (ordered according to some simple rules, like the one explained above) you either believe in the existence of the Trinity and in the Divinity of Christ, or you don’t.

If you do, you will unavoidably (because of the principle of non-contradiction) strive to help other people to reach the same conclusion and be raised with the same principle; this is not only the result of the most elementary logic, but also of a clear, explicit command of the One you claim to believe in.

If, on the other hand, you don’t believe in God and do not think that it is your duty to help pargulos venire ad Eum, Christianity will become a mere option, the customary and traditional embellishment of a Weltanschauung that can perfectly well do without it. This new religion will then be based on surrogate gods like social justice, environ-mentalism, veneration of niceness, cult of “non judging”, and the like. Within this framework, a symbolic, misunderstood, nay, long forgotten lip service Christianity will be nothing more than a nice shop window decoration.

Exactly this is the position of the so-called bishop of Oxford of the so-called church* of England. Mister Pritchard (whom you might excuse for looking like an idiot in the photo you can see in the link, photo which I cannot reproduce because copyrighted) is of the opinion that:

1) reserved places for members of the so-called church of England should be limited to ten percent. Yes, ten percent!. No, really, I am not joking!
2) This should be done even accepting a deterioration in the schools’ exam results.

One really doesn’t know what people like Mr Pritchard drink in the morning; or whether they have believed in God at one time, before losing the faith in such an obvious manner; or what drives them to give scandal in such an astonishing way during Holy Week.

What one knows, though, is that a so-called bishop of the so-called church of England is proposing to kick people of his own faith out of admission in his own faith schools. To him, Christianity – let alone the membership of the same shop which, heretic as it is, is the one that runs the show – is merely an option. More gravely, he can’t see Christianity as the unavoidable backbone of education in a Christian school. Most gravely, he can’t see the need of helping as many Christians as he can in being raised in a Christian way!

It is very clear that Mister Pritchard does not believe in the Christian God. He doesn’t care a straw for as many children as possible to come to Jesus. His God is political correctness, His credo is social engineering.

This religion of him is so strongly felt, that to its altar he is even ready to sacrifice the school results and the long-term competitiveness of the coE school system. This is one who obviously has chosen not to believe in Christian education and to dismantle it, whatever the price.

You will now think, dear reader, that this chap must be an obscure third-rank bishops seeking some notoriety during Holy Week. Wrong. This chap is the chairman of the so-called cofE’s board of education.

The so-called church of England appoints their goats as gardeners, and then their people are surprised that things go south. Perhaps they are not even officially surprised, because it wouldn’t be nice to notice it.

Please click the link as I cannot post the photo. Look attentively at the man.

His face will give you all the answers you need.

Mundabor

*note the small case.

Michael Voris Is Spot On About “Pagan Easter”.

Astonishingly, the Michael Voris video you see above has caused criticisms from, of all people, devout Catholics. This happens, I think, because – as so often – his words are taken emotionally, without even listening to what the man says.

Please watch the video above. Voris is not inviting anyone to any schism. He is not even inviting the faithful to throw out of the window mediocre, but still honestly Catholic priests.

What he is simply saying is that, if in your church things have gone so far that you realise that your allegedly Catholic priest is nothing more than a Pagan, you must draw the consequence and leave that parish. This point is so important that he managed to make the point repeatedly in a message only a handful of minutes long. I truly can’t see how this can be misunderstood without being either rather inattentive, or rather obtuse.

It is also astonishing that the reaction would focus on the simple truths Voris has the honesty to present, rather than on the scandalous fact that within the Catholic church, some very confused people would even think of abandoning themselves to the kind of feel-good pagan nonsense we have already seen in Protestant circles.

Michael Voris is spot on. The kind of Neo-pagan, environ-Mentalist so-called Catholicism we see here and there must be eradicated from the very roots, by encouraging sincere Catholics to understand when it is clear that their own priest is not a Catholic anymore.

Even if the vatican were as effective and courageous as, well, it isn’t, it would be impossible to prevent every insurgence of heretical thinking among the worst shepherds. But whilst some centuries ago the relative ignorance of the people in the pews made it more difficult to discern when the priest was becoming heretic, nowadays such a decision is easily possible for a much bigger number of people.

This without even considering that for around 98% of the history of Christianity, a priest devoting the homily to environmental issues on Good Friday, Easter Day or Divine Mercy Sunday (or call it dominica in albis if you are old-fashioned or if you are not a great fan of the Divine Mercy; I ain’t, either) would have been disposed of in a more or less environmentally friendly way in a very short time, without the need for any discussion.

It is time to call things as they are. The habit doesn’t make a heretic less heretic, nor a pagan less pagan.

Mundabor

“The Passion Of The Christ”

Forget the popcorn.....

They say that an image can say more than thousand words. This may not always be true, but in some cases I think that these words are very, very near to the mark.

Let us take the film, “The Passion of The Christ”.

This film is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it, I must hasten to add, for the faint of faith. If you subscribe to the “let’s celebrate” mantra so conveniently spread in these godless times, you won’t like this movie. Violent, you will call it. Insensitively focused on cruel details. Graphic in the extreme.

And in fact, this film is a truly shocking experience. Still, I can tell you that no reading of the Gospel, no homily and no personal reflection and prayer ever opened my eyes to the reality of the Passion so much as this shocking film did from the first viewing.

I could never see this movie without crying of sorrow and shame and I tell you, it doesn’t happen to me whilst listening to the homily. The reality is that the sheer violence of this film delivers the goods in a way the best homily could probably – for want of the necessary visual props – never achieve. And in fact it can – I think – easily said that if you found the violence of the film excessive, this is a clear indication that the reality of the Passion was never transmitted to you in all its crudeness in the first place.

This film is not dedicated to the message of Jesus. It doesn’t primarily intend to explain Christianity and, in this sense, it can only indirectly be considered a help to the conversion of non-Christians. What this film does, is to limit itself to the last twelve hours of Jesus’ human existence. This, the film does not by explaining, but by observing. The screenplay closely follows the Gospels and is here and there integrated with elements of Anne Catherine Emmerich’s “The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord” (an unjustly neglected book, since come back to vast popularity). There are no frills, no hollywood-like “enrichments”, no attempts to make the story palatable. It is undiluted, brutal truth.

For this reason, the language has been accurately considered. No English-speaking actors here. The Jews talks in an Aramaic dialect (as they did in reality), and the Romans speak Latin. Astonishingly for the fans of the theory that Catholic churchgoers be too stupid to ever cope with Latin (much less… Aramaic!) you can easily follow the plot at all times through subtitles (just as you would, in church, with a Latin-English missal or booklet; but I suppose this is too much to ask of our liberal geniuses).

I watch this movie again every year during the Holy Week, but I think of it countless times during the year as its highly impressive visual message is a great help in my Rosary meditations. Every time, the violence of the Passion strikes me anew, which again tells me how easy it is to slowly but constantly sanitise the message until the sheer evidence of it is put in front of our eyes again.

To watch this movie is, to me, something akin to going to confession: unpleasant in the very thought, but highly salutary in the end result. I don’t sit joyously in front of the TV screen thinking “how beautiful, I am going to see Jesus being horribly tortured and killed again” in the same way as I – my fault, no doubt – do not manage to joyously run to the confessional, or to proceed to my examination of conscience without a sense of shame, humiliation and sheer inadequacy. Still, the spiritual benefits we can reap from such unpleasant activities can never be underestimated; not in case of the sacrament of course, but also certainly not in the case of such a powerful help to truly understand the Passion as this film undoubtedly is.

In the beautiful world of ours, for most of us this powerful Christian message is only a click away (or click here if you use the US version). Notice how cheap (particularly in the UK) this film has now become.

I suggest that you make the investment now and look at the film during next week.

You won’t like it. But you won’t regret it, either.

Mundabor

Incense And The Catholic Mind.

More important than you think....

It sometimes happens that I attend the 12:30 mass instead of the 11:00 Mass. What always strikes me on those occasions is, on entering the church, a strong smell of incense. The fact is, that the 10:00 Mass doesn’t have the massive use of incense of the solemn mass at 11:00; therefore, coming in after the end of the 11:00 mass you immediately notice the difference.

Every time that this happens I can’t avoid noticing what the Protestants (most of them, at least) miss not only from a theological point of view (because they are heretics) but from a more practical, eminently human one.

Catholicism is so complete, so wise, so beautifully constructed in all its details. The little gestures and smells and rituals that are so closely identified with Catholic tradition are a help to the faithful rather than a show of pomp or an ungodly fondness for rituals. At the same time, they connect him with his deeper nature rather than creating a separation between what he thinks and what he is.

When you get into a Catholic church, you are supposed to enter a different world. A world which in its isolation from the outside environment wants to be a prefiguration of the world to come. Walls will be as thick as affordable. Doors will isolate you from the outside as much as practicable. Once inside, you will notice the smell of incense and this will immediately – in an automatic, unconscious reflex similar to the one of Pavlov’s dogs – tell you on a more profound level than the intellectual one that you are now in a sacred place. You look for the stoop and again something happens that is unique to the church: the contact of your forehead with the cold holy water. Around you, the environment is also unique: the building is more or less ornate, generally as much as economic possibilities allow. This is different from everything you see outside and not only does remind you of Christianity at every turn and in every inch (the paintings, the painted glass, the statues, the stations of the cross, the pulpit, the sanctuary with the altar and the Tabernacle, and so on), but it literally leads you to a world you won’t find anywhere else.

It goes on. Silence – a typical trait of every church not defiled by post Vatican-II madness and postmodern ignorance and rudeness – is your almost constant companion. Even tourists go around exchanging, if at all, merely short whispers. This is very natural to them, as the silence is overwhelming and everything they see and smell around them tells them that….. they are now in another world. If the church is not immersed in its solemn silence, an organ might be playing and here again, the assault on your senses is overwhelming.

You see here how a properly made Catholic church embraces all of you at an emotional, elementary level. Sight (the decoration), smell (the incense), hearing (the music, or the silence), touch (the holy water) are involved in a unique way, a way immediately predisposing you to prayer and meditation.

This may seem unnecessary frill and unholy complication to a Protestant mind, but in reality only shows one of the typical traits of Catholic mentality: their connection with the entire being as opposed to the cold cerebral approach so typical of many Protestants. In turn, this natural desire to let all their senses participate to their devotion is – and I can say this with full, first-hand knowledge, having extensively lived in both worlds – so typical of the mediterranean culture, which without any doubt is much more in touch with their inner being than the Peoples of the colder Protestant regions. And one would be tempted to wonder whether it is their connection with their emotions that makes of southern Europeans “natural Catholics”, or whether they are so well-connected to their emotions because they have been raised, for countless generations, as Catholics. If you look at the Germans – a people who, by all their differences and cultural nuances, still are pretty much identifiable as a cultural homogeneous region – you can’t avoid noticing the differences in the most minute details (up to the way they walk, talk, move their facial muscles, laugh!) between the Catholic regions (the Rhineland and, most notably, Bavaria) and the traditionally Protestant regions in the North and East.

When I first went to Munich, I felt like in Italy. When I first went to Berlin, I felt as if half the people around me were thinking about suicide.

Tutto si tiene, Cavour used to say and as an Italian abroad you see the way everything is tied together. Catholicism talks to your senses, and involves them; it does so with the same unspoiled, unadulterated naturalness and relaxedness Northern European Peoples invariably notice in Southern European ones (and yes: Southern Europeans invariably notice the underlying stiffness, the subtle “woodenness” of their North European counterparts).

Southern Europeans do not spend time asking whether incense has a place in church. They know it has, and that there’s no reason to be cerebral about it. The mere posing of the question would seem extraordinary to them. They are like Catholicism, probably because Catholicism made them that way: naturally embracing the truth rather than letting their own little neuroses and ego-driven exercises having the best of themselves. They naturally embrace their entire being (not only their mind, but their body and feelings) and let them participate of whatever they do (ever noticed how often Southern Europeans touch each other? Try that in Mecklemburg-Vorpommern!). And they are, in general, more at peace with themselves, which is what creates that sense of naturalness foreigners seem to love so much of us Italians (and that Italians invariably never notice in themselves, until they start living among Northern Europeans).

You see, then, how authentic Catholicism helps to create more – hoping not to be offensive, but using an expression that I have often heard from foreigners – “authentic” people. People more in touch with their own nature, instead of constantly wondering what is wrong with it or even trying to change it.

Next time you smell the incense in your church, breathe it fully and let yourself immerse in the beautifully spiritual atmosphere it creates; let the surrounding walls with their tales of faith and hope embrace you with the loving embrace of Christ; let the cold impact of the holy water on your forehead remind you – on a physical level – that you are now in a very special place; let all your senses participate of your experience; leave behind you all the puritan rigidity and coldness that you have so often experienced in your Anglo-Saxon climate; accept what the wisdom of countless generations has naturally accepted as a natural way of worship – the splendour of the decoration, the sacredness of the incense, the beauty of the organ or the solemnity of the silence – and let your heart and your entire being feel that you are in a sacred place.

The Catholic enters his splendidly decorated church, and knows – without even thinking about it – that this is just right. The Protestant enters the very same church, and starts questioning why the money hasn’t been spent on social causes. The first is a whole person, the second a victim of his belaboring brain.

Mundabor

Episcopalian Madness

Then they complain they are nearing extinction…..

I have already written in the past about all the outrageous things happening among our Proddie brothers and sisters in , I hope, Christ.

You might remember the dog given Communion (I mean, theirs really isn’t; but it’s not about that), or the similarly brainless idea of giving communion to the unbaptised.

Today, I’d like to give you a further example of what happens when one belongs to a so-called Church the Holy Ghost (alreadyhaving His own Church, which is the Only One) doesn’t touch with a tadpole: Christianity mixes with political, or politically correct, ideas and what comes out of this mess is a tragic banalisation of the Christian message or, worse, outright disrespect for our Lord.

Take this, for example, from which the following words of wisdom reach us:

The Episcopal Church’s office of Economic and Environmental Affairs released a statement urging followers to stay mindful of global warming, recycling and reducing carbon dioxide emissions while celebrating the ancient Christian holiday in 2011.

[…]

“This year Earth Day falls within Holy Week, specifically on Good Friday, a profound coincidence,” said Mike Schut, a church spokesman. “To fully honor Earth Day, we need to reclaim the theology that knows Earth is ‘very good,’ is holy. When we fully recognize that, our actions just may begin to create a more sustainable, compassionate economy and way of life.”

[…]

“On Good Friday, the day we mark the crucifixion of Christ, God in the flesh, might we suggest that when Earth is degraded, when species go extinct, that another part of God’s body experiences yet another sort of crucifixion — that another way of seeing and experiencing God is diminished?”

From this, the unenlightened learn that:

1) The Episcopal Church, rapidly approaching self-extinction, has an “office of Economic and Environmental Affairs”. This is Episcopalian in so many ways: supposed religious people wanting to meddle in politics, the bold statement that economic and environmental affairs be clearly inseparable, and the smugness of the entire operation. It reminds one of “Yes, Prime Minister”, with Sir Humphrey reminding the premier that nowadays politicians talk like religious, and religious like politicians.

2) The desire to “honour Earth Day”. This is so very nuChristian.

3) The chaps are seriously worried that Good Friday well take some light from earth day. I kid you not. Read it again.

4) To make 3) more clear, Good Friday is called “ancient Christian tradition”. It is not said how infinitely more important Good Friday is, but there is simply a parallel: the new day “to be honoured” here, the old, “traditionally” honoured day there. Congratulations. You must be Episcopalians.

5) In the same spirit, earth day must be “christianised”. Never mind that for 2011 years Christianity never felt the need to have an “earth day”, instead concentrating on trifles like the Death and Resurrection of Our Lord. No, the earth as a whole must be made a new Christ, so that it may be worshipped.

6) Proof of this is the astonishing remark that when you (according to their metre of judgment, of course), neglect the environment, the earth experiences a sort of crucifixion. In no clearer way the complete loss of the meaning of the Crucifixion and its dumbing down to the level of the environmental protection could have been better expressed.

These people have simply lost their marbles or – more probably – have lost their faith. Were this not the case, such comparisons would instantly and instinctively sound deeply disturbing to them.

When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing— they believe in anything.

~ G. K. Chesterton

Mundabor

Blasphemy, Heresy And Effeminacy In Maynooth Seminary

Animal House..... er, no. Maynooth Seminary.

I thank Shane at Lux Occulta for this extremely useful – if extremely shocking – piece of information about what was happening at Maynooth.

This is an anonymous – You see? Anonymity is very good at times! – but very detailed report of what happened within the walls of Irish National Seminary. Whilst the beginning is shocking enough, it is followed by such a long series of abuses, outright blasphemies and clear – if not always open – rebellion to the Church that one wonders whether a seminary run by fans of Richard Dawkins would be run any worse. Unless one reflects, of course, that many of those involved must be fans of Richard Dawkins.

I would divide the problems in two big families: a) the heresy or outright blasphemy and b) the effeminacy. Picking just some of the complaints of the anonymous seminarians, they were taught the following:

1) that (and this is really, really hugely blasphemous) there is no difference in the various way of presence of Jesus in the world. Jesus be equally present in the people, in the world, in the priest and in the Eucharist.

I’ll leave this without comment. Let it sink in. This is what happens within the Church today.

2) that they do not have to kneel during consecration

This is the obvious consequence of 1). I see those idiots rather kneeling in front of a tree.

3) that the hierarchical structure of the Church is wrong.

That is, that the Church must “change”. One “facilitator” adds that he is always angry when he hears that the Church says that she will “not change” in this or that. Hey, everything changes! Obama for Pope!

4) that the absence of “female leadership” within the Church is wrong.

Nothing in the article allows to assume that such “criticism” was limited to the irreligious sisters present in the structure. This shows an astonishing degree of effeminacy within the structure, at all levels.

5) that the moral teaching of the Church is wrong.

Note that whenever dissent is mentioned by the seminarians, homosexuality always comes in the first place and this tells a lot.

6) that a “general chat” would be a good way to provide the seminarians with spiritual formation.

I think of a couple of priests I have met and yep, they must have come out from Maynooth.

7) that teaching can be based on non-Catholic texts, or on texts from catholic dissenters silenced by the Church.

8) that one must stress one’s emotions, and one’s emotions must drive one’s actions.

Besides being utterly un-Catholic in his total disregards or rules and a systematic and structured system of values, and besides basically allowing everyone to build his own theology and moral system, this emotion-driven thinking is a clear sign of effeminacy.
If I hear a man talking about his emo-o-tions in such a way and of how they oh drive his oh actions, I know what to think and no, it’s not I being homophobic; it’s you being blind.

All this, please note, in the National Seminary of one of the most Catholic nations on the planet.

Interesting throughout the contribution is the description of the modus operandi of these people. As open dissent would lead to consequences – see St. Poelkten in Austria – the habit was to continually criticise by feigning the role of “devil’s advocate”; for example, the feminist irreligious sisters would talk of how so many women out there feel hurt and oppressed by a male dominated Vatican, & Co. Obviously, that such irreligious sisters are allowed to run the classes – and to run them in such a way – in the first place is a clear indication of the general mentality within the leadership of the structure.

The most shocking element of this report is, in my eyes, how real and credible it sounds. This is not the fantasy of some old conspiracy theorists seeing the end of the world behind every street corner. This accurately reflects experiences we have all made at some point; the innuendos and “devil’s advocate” tricks are experiences we have witnessed already; we have heard the covert blasphemy during homilies in the church, how can it be that these people do not express themselves far more strongly when there is no congregation to listen to them?

Well then, this appears to be – and the accusations are here not only very accurate, but entirely credible – the tran tran within the Seminary. It is shocking that things were allowed to come to this point in the first place. One is, sadly, reminded once again that the Vatican seems to only recur to Apostolic Visitations when things have deteriorated beyond parody, a too long period of silence or toleration of disobedience followed by a very late, but generally very heavy steamroller. I’d prefer the Vatican to act sooner, so that it may be milder.

If only half of these allegations are true – again, from the look of them I’d say they are all true – I can’t see how Maynooth can deserve to survive. The fake priests and irreligious sisters responsible for its demise and for a generalised climate of blasphemy, rebellion and effeminacy deserve to be thrown on the street.

Hey, they think that Christ is present everywhere in the world in the same way, so they’ll be fine.

Mundabor

A Time For War: “Cristiada”

I have already pointed out in my last blog post about Assisi III that it would be high time to start talking a bit of the Catholic doctrine of war instead of indulging in the usual easy rhetoric of peace. It would appear that there is a good example at hand.

Above is the trailer of Cristiada, a film about the armed insurgence of mexican Christians (and obviously mainly: Catholics) between 1926 and 1929 in reaction to the strongly anti-Christian stance of the Mexican government of the time. When the persecution became open (closing of monasteries, religious schools and convents in the province of Chihuahua, for example; or possibility for the government to regulate the number of priests; or prohibition for priests to wear the clerical garb outside of the church) the rebellion became armed. Somehow, I feel that the movie will not be distributed in the United Kingdom…..

I do not doubt that even today – as, of course, then – there would be those among the Catholics happy to – if put in a similar situation – choose the easy and, most of all, safe role of the prayerful oppressed instead of realising that there is a time for war. Thankfully, in Mexico people who thought differently were enough to carry their fight to victory in the end.

We are, admittedly, not in such a dire situation here in Blighty or in the rest of Europe. But we are certainly nearer to the point of armed conflict now than we were ten or twenty years ago. In fact, a situation might well emerge in the next decades where a Catholic is obliged to choose, like Thomas More, between God and King.

Now don’t get me wrong, democracy is a beautiful thing and one appreciates its ability to achieve long periods of peace and prosperity. One of the most distinctive traits of western democracies is that they don’t go at war with each other; still,they might well go at war against Christianity.

A country in which a supremely stupid Prime Minister says that Christians must be “tolerant” and the Judiciary is right in imposing to them an anti-Christian behaviour is not very far away from the Mexican government of 1926. A country in which laws are proposed – though not passed – by which the selling of Bibles can be seen as “discriminatory” against all the pervert therein condemned is not far away from forfeiting its right to existence. A country unable to distinguish between a man and a woman and two perverts shows that it has squarely put itself in a position of conflict with Christianity a long time ago.

Democracy is, of course, a good thing. But democracy is not our religion. I believe in God, The Father Almighty, not in democracy. When the two come into frontal conflict , I know which side I’m on.

Don’t make of democracy an idol. Democracy is good – and justified in its existence – only as long as it doesn’t explicitly marches against a higher Order.

The Queen’s good servant, and all that……

Mundabor

Terry Jones Is Not A Genius But He Certainly Has a Point, Part I

Ashes to ashes after all....

One can safely say that Terry Jones is, well, not a genius. One is at a loss to understand how a man can decide:

1) to announce that he is going to burn a Koran
2) to announce that he will wait for signals from the Holy Ghost about what to do;
3) to announce a very broad palette of events which he would consider being the word of the Holy Ghost not to do it;
4) when no one of the events occurs, to  decide not to do it anyway;

I do understand that some of our erring Proddie brothers make a great deal of what they imagine the Holy Ghost is telling to them, but from the way Terry Jones acts the Holy Ghost would seem to be rather unstable; which leads us to the unavoidable conclusion that the unstable one is, well, Terry Jones himself.

The Terry Jones saga now has a new chapter written (er….. burnt?), as the man, probably on the look for some more attention or needing some money, decided that the Holy Ghost has evidently changed his mind once again and has organised a sort of trial of the Koran (these people complain about the Holy Inquisition, I am sure…) at the end of which they, well, decided to burn it.

Let me say what I think of this specific action:

1) It is perfectly within the right of Mr. Terry Jones, or of every Mr. Joe Average, to burn a Koran. Mr. Jones lives in the Land Of The Free (USA) instead of in the Land Of The Politically Correct Cowards (United Kingdom) and he therefore has all the rights to exercise his freedom as he thinks fit.

2) The idea of staging a “trial to the Koran” is very childish. It shows once again that the man is on the look for a publicity stunt, and that his followers are certainly not picked amongst the brightest minds of that great nation.

3) The idea of burning the Koran (instead of, say, pronouncing the Koran heretical, or blasphemous, or outright idiotic and leave it at that; it’s a book, for Heaven’s sake, and it’s not even a trial!) is further proof that the man will do whatever brings him some notoriety. I am still waiting for an explanation from him about why the Holy Ghost would change His mind so often on the matter, but perhaps I’m asking too much.

In conclusion, I think that we can safely say that the man shows all the worst traits of Protestantism and is, certainly – not because of the burning of the Koran in itself, mind; but because of the ridiculous “Holy Ghost circus” and “wannabe Inquisition” habits of his – not good publicity for Christianity.

Having said that, the man most certainly has a point.

Which will be the subject of the next blog post.

Mundabor

 

 

On The Father Corapi Affair.

I have already written about Father Corapi. I truly like the man. I think he is one of the finest preachers around. In my “The Quotable Catholic” section he is rather well represented, though probably much less than he deserves.

Father Corapi has now been put on administrative leave. At this point (and this is what makes it rather difficult to write about it) we don’t know much about the exact circumstances. What we know, though, from Father Corapi himself is that a former employee has written a letter to several bishops accusing him of misconduct on a vast series of accounts (drugs and women seem to be prominent, though) and that as a result he has been suspended pending investigation.

Just for the record, please note that:

1) No misconduct on minor is involved in any way and 2) no criminal offences are involved in any way (which sound strange to me, considering that drug use from the former drug addict Corapi would seem to be part of the accusations).

I would like to point out, here, a very important concept that, it seems to me, is too often lost when such events are discussed. A man is a good Catholic preacher when he succeeds in properly communicating the Catholic Truth and thus helps others on their way to God. Whether he is a saint or a sinner (better said: in what degree he is a sinner, as we all are) is something which will impact his own soul at the moment of death, but certainly does not impact the Truth he goes around preaching, nor the good he spreads around by doing it.

I don’t need to believe that a person is a saint to feel encouraged to do as he says. If he is able to encourage and motivate me, this is enough. If he is also a saint, good for him, but this doesn’t make the truths he says any more true.

Corapi is – as a preacher – a fine pearl of Catholicism. Besides his life being a beautiful witness of Catholic courage (a fact that, as I have said, is not in the first line here), his way of explaining the Catholic teaching is what makes him so rare and such an effective help to Catholic evangelisation.

We must always separate the Truths a preacher talks about, from the degree in which he is able to adhere to them. First of all no one will ever be able to completely adhere to them, and secondly the truths would become not one iota less true even if the preacher should, say, turn out to be a homosexual child rapist who earned a second income in a brothel whilst selling crack to fund his alcoholism.

If your excellent history teacher at school turned out to be an alcoholic, this didn’t make him any less good at teaching history, nor history any less true because he drank.

Having said that, we don’t know and pending an investigation, I think that even Father Corapi wouldn’t be angry at us for saying “I like you a lot but as I don’t know you personally, I can’t start screaming your innocence right now”.

Others have made a comparison with Maciel, but as I like Corapi a lot I prefer to make a comparison with Padre Pio, more or less horribly slandered (and certainly seriously damaged in his reputation) not for days or months, but for years. A famous episode concerned his being accused of profiting of his role as confessor to get sexual favours from a certain woman; it turned out that the accusation had been motivated by the jealousy of another lady, who subsequently confessed her grievous sin.

Frankly, I do see some parallels here, but again: I wasn’t there.

Corapi might be more Padre Pio or more Maciel (come on, we know the first hypothesis is by far the more probable and he is innocent until proven guilty anyway). Still, my admiration for Corapi (whose sincere inspiration I do not doubt for an instant, however little or however big his faults and private sins may be) as a fine preacher is undiminished whatever the outcome of this affair.

I didn’t want to write about Father Corapi as I don’t like to use this blog to speculate about things I don’t know, but I have read things whose general tone (and possibly general spirit) I didn’t like and thought it fitting to express my admiration for the man’s sincerity and ability once again.

Here is wishing him all the best; he is in my prayers and, I do hope, in yours.

I hope to see him roaring from the pulpit again very soon.

Mundabor

The Thing With The Crusades

I have often noticed in the past that when Christians hurry to help Muslims, the latter are generally appreciative of the matter only for as long as the emergency goes on; but as soon as Christians have taken them out of the shite, the help received is soon forgotten.

Take Bosnia, where a coalition of – in his absolutely vast majority – Christian countries risks lives and material to save muslims from indiscriminate carnage, without this having any long-lasting effect on the prejudice of too many Muslims towards Christianity.

Or take Iraq, when (again) the armies of Christian countries free a 28-million people from an extremely cruel dictator, from whose heel the Iraqi themselves had never had the gut to free themselves. Here too, within 48 hours the jubilations had left place to complaints because, hey, electricity has not come back yet. After six months, complaining about the Americans had become more fashionable than a drug addicted poof stylist. The simple fact  that just a handful of months before everyone would have died just for complaining had already been conveniently forgotten.

In the last days, we are assisting to a new episode of this new, three-tongued, arab-muslim little game. The intervention is good in principle, but of course the way it is being made has already been criticised by a very high ranking arab official with, oh what a coincidence, political ambitions in Egypt. Chap obviously says, one day after when the news has gone through the entire Arab world, that he has been misinterpreted, so he now has both sides hedged. Inevitably, he and the Arab countries in general will end up saying that no, they were certainly not for doing things as they have been done; it will be, as always, us being very bad, imperialists, & Co.; not before the backside of the inhabitants of Bengasi has been saved by the intervention of Christian countries, of course.

And now please raise his hand who believes that Muslim countries would have risked their men and material in a military operation meant to avoid Christians massacring each others.

Mundabor

“This needs to haunt us”. Really?

Haunted by the past? Archbishop Dolan

Archbishop Timothy Dolan* has given an interview about the homosexual priest abuse scandal. He is not particularly measured in his tone, calling the entire affaire “hideous” and “nauseating”. Up to here I do not have any problem as it seems to me that the homosexual priest scandal cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, called with softer tones than those.

Where I personally start to dissent with the Archbishop is when he goes one – or three- steps forward and goes as far as to say that the homosexual** paedophile priest scandal “needs to haunt” the Church. The expression is so strong in its self-flagellating intent that the cbs news link gave it both the headline and a very prominent place in the article. Can’t imagine that this was not what was wanted, and agreed beforehand.

Now, if you ask me one thing is a clear, honest admission of past faults; an entirely different one is the semi-permanent and professional self-harm about it. I have seen it happening in Germany countless times and I assure you, it is both sickeningly pathetic and with the effect of letting you lose every bit of esteem for the self-flagellating whino performing the act.

Whatever the faults of the past (and the Church has her own faults, but she fares rather stupendously compared with any other institution of comparable size you would care to mention, bar none), it seriously cannot be that high members of the Church decide to henceforward permanently apply the cat o’ nine tails to the Church that Christ founded for a bit of easy popularity, and to react to every accusation moved toward her with a further salvo of self-accusations and self-flagellations. As I said before it doesn’t even work, it really doesn’t.

Archbishop Dolan is certainly too expert in the ways of the world to seriously be surprised by the supervisor of a child abuser reassigning him, or otherwise attempting to cover up the scandal. As a career man, he knows perfectly well how strong the temptation to cover your institution is, particularly if you love that institution. He doesn’t say to the interviewer that in most cases, the bishop so covering did not count with further abuses; he doesn’t point out to him that by all the shame, priests still fare better than teachers, or fathers (you can find a wealth of information on this; I never save it on my computer because the matter makes me, well, sick). He doesn’t even say that the idea that a sex offender could easily be cured and rehabilitated was utterly normal in the Eighties, and shared by other religious communities.

He doesn’t point out to any of this. On the contrary he – as the Italians say – “shoots on the Red Cross”. A bit too easy, methinks, and certainly not his job.

Frankly, I slowly wonder whether this kind of behaviour is more motivated by a strange, but in hypothesis vaguely justifiable desire to “wash your dirty linen in public” (which, if you ask me, is wrong anyway) or by a desire to extol one’s own blamelessness by pointing out to the filth around one.

Slowly but surely, what makes one sick is the fact that almost no one of our bishops and cardinals (starting, alas, from the very top) has the gut to say that enough is enough and that it is time to look at things in a sensible way. A sensible way means that one doesn’t overlooks the mistakes, but can put them in the proper context. You don’t hear teachers constantly punishing themselves in such a way, do you now?”Ah, but they were simple teachers, you see; these are priests….”. I am rather surprised that those who are the first to deny to the priest his moral role and what he is and represents (namely: the Church that Christ Founded) are, of all people, those who expect from them a superhuman absence of every vice or weakness. Similarly, you won’t see many of those complaining about paedophile priests express their approval to the kicking out of the homosexual ones. Liberal logic, what a mystery…..

All the while, Dolan’s behaviour contributes to the widespread opinion among anti-Catholics that you should better not allow your child near a priest and slowly damages their reputation as public figures; which is no surprise, really, if this is the way the shepherds themselves defend the reputation of those entrusted to their care.

Archbishop Dolan has the questionable privilege of having, in the middle of his diocese, one of the most scandalous pro-homo soi-disant “Catholic group” of the entire Christianity (of the one who believes in Christ, at least). If he really wants to be haunted, he’d be better to be haunted by the scandals he continues to tolerate and of which he is directly co-responsible rather than from scandals of the past, and in which he was never involved.

Mundabor

* what is this thing Americans have with the middle initial? Do people really say “Timothy M. Dolan?” Do they really remember it two minutes after they’ve written it?

** well he doesn’t say “homosexual”, does he? I wonder why?

Stanford Nutting strikes again

I have already written about Stanford Nutting in the past (try here and here).

This time, we have an added fun factor as our Mr. Nutting debates against… GK Chesterton, who at least to these foreign ears has been even provided with an admirable, very posh English accent.

Mr. Nutting is, as always, pure Nutting and Mr. Chesterton is, well …… 100% authentic GK Chesterton.

Enjoy this short video and let us hope that others, hopefully on the GK theme, will follow.

Mundabor

On Making A Good Lenten Confession

 

 

She takes the Sacrament seriously....

Beautiful blog post from Domine, Da Mihi Hanc Aquam.

As Lent is the main “confession time” and the only time of the year many Catholics will approach the confessional (and they are already clearly in front of the very many who will not do it because they believe – possibly with the complicity or, worse, acquiescence of their priest – that they can be their own confessors), it is very fitting to lead your attention to this beautifully written, very open, very encouraging piece of sound catholic advice.

I found the one about the “excuse, explanation or decoration” rather funny (once at the Oratory there was an entire homily on the matter, it tells you who cares for the sacraments and who doesn’t) and the one about “thine own sins ans no one else’s” outright amusing, but the entire piece is enjoyable and edifying at the same time.

Now that we are in the midst of Lent, perhaps this will help the one or the other “undecided” or lapsed catholic on the brink of coming back to sacramental life to take the plunge.

To my knowledge, people don’t die on the confessional and if they do, well I suppose it is because of a heart attack; but even so, I’d rather die of a heart attack just after the absolution than discover after death that I really, really needed one.

Mundabor

Christian Victory In Maryland

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As you can read here, there was a notable victory for the Christian front in maryland, where a legilsative initative supposed to allow so-called homosexual marriages has been unexpectedly defeated.

If you read the article and look at the video, you’ll notice the many elements that make one rather hopeful for the future: the prevalence of young people (this is a student organisation after all), the great quantity of people honking in support of the Christians, the very use of the word “crusade” (when have you heard that last time in Europe?), and the fact that the homos’ defeat was unexpected.

If you look at the video you’ll also see an interesting episode: a man (evidently a doctor) stating that at medical school everyone knew homosexuality is a pathology. One listens and wonder to what extent facts always considered obvious have now been abandoned in favour of a politically correct “nuMedicine”.

Anyway, let us enjoy this victory and let us hope that many others will follow.

Mundabor

The Madness of Our Times: Communion For Unbaptised

Canadian Anglicans prepare for communion

You would think that the Anglicans, even if progressively forgetting what Christianity is, would still retain a minimum of decency and at least defend a very simple concept, that one first is accepted into the Christian community through his baptism and then receives communion.

Well, you would be wrong. Apparently, somewhere in the world (a very “liberal” place, no doubt; Canada comes to mind) someone has decided that to require one to be baptised before giving him communion is not “inclusive” enough.

If you don’t believe me (and I don’t blame you if you don’t) read here.

The argument brought against the hineous discrimination of non-Christians is that Jesus “did not discriminate” (note the magic word) about whom he invited. The fact that Jesus insisted on being baptised Himself is elegantly avoided, because obviously not “inclusive”.

Similarly, the fact that the twelve were, to all intents and purposes, bishops and as such full members of the nascent Church already founded on Peter when He instituted the Eucharist is also conveniently ignored.

Thirdly, two thousand years of Christianity is utterly ignored.

Instead, we are informed that Christianity – Catholics as well as the wrong versions – has been discriminating against non-Christians these last 2011 years, which poses the interesting question as to why would Jesus allow this to happen and why would he wait for some Canadian nutcase 2011 years after the fact to correct this – we are informed – clearly un-Christian practice.

The state of utter oblivion of everything Christian within the Canadian Anglicans is clearly visible in the use of the words, with some of their so-called priests feeling strongly about this, that is: thinking that Christianity had done such fundamental, absolutely basic things since inception in a seriously wrong way and that this must stop now. No doubt, these individuals dream of “common tables” when Hindus, Muslims, Sikh and, why not, atheists with a liking for bread (we want to be “inclusive”, remember?) participate to such an “inclusive communion” and this would be called by them, possibly, Christianity. Or perhaps not, as it is clear that in this case to want to impose a label on such a ceremony would be clearly a discrimination towards non-Christians and therefore also to be felt strongly about.

It is no surprise than this should come from the same community (the Canadian Anglicans) already well-known for giving communion to a dog. These people just haven’t a clue of what communion is, and of what Christanity is. Political correcteness and inclusiveness is all they know and all they preach.

You really couldn’t make this up. I have known Muslims far more Christian than these people, and they weren’t Christian at all.

Mundabor

David Cameron Now Openly Against Christianity

Two aspiring foster parents are denied the possibility because they are Christians.

The simple fact that they said to the officials that they would teach their children that homosexuality is sinful disqualifies them, says the judge, from adoption. This is a country with officially more than 30 million Christians.

The Prime Minister agrees with the decision.

I have already pointed out many times to the hypocrisy of the Prime Minister, an atheist cretin trying to disguise himself as a Christian when convenient.

Cameron has now officially thrown away the mask, and this will do him no good. No doubt, in the next days he’ll come out with some slogan invented by some of his sleek, probably homosexual PR-“cuties” to try to repair the damage. The other hypothesis is that the man is so ignorant of Christianity that he doesn’t even understand what he is saying.

Cameron is an enemy of Christianity. He is an enemy of everyone of us. To support him in any way, shape or form is to help the enemies of Christ.

Mundabor

Syncretism in 2011 England

And so there is this chauffeur having to drive me home from the airport. The chap has serious problems with the language of Shakespeare (and no, I may be a foreigner but I have no big problems with it) and therefore the conversation is very, very restrained.

Still, once in his car several objects attract the passenger’s attention:
a) a strange Hindu deity in the form of an elephant (have heard of him; forgive me but I can’t be bothered to look for the name now);
b) what seems to be a small medal of the Blessed Virgin, and
c) a cross hangling from the rear view mirror that at closer inspection appears to be, in fact, a small crucifix.

Under normal circumstances I’d have politely enquired as to the religious persuasion of the man and, if the opportunity had arisen, I’d have started with my little “sales pitch”. The circumstances being what they were I – exceptionally – decided to just shut up.

This forced me to think, and there were only two possibilities coming to mind:

1) chap is a bit of a “belt and braces” type and, whilst still superstitious, decides to enlarge his small pantheon to Christian characters, in order to hedge his bets.
2) chap is slowly coming to see the truth of Christianity and whilst he can’t still get rid of cherished figures that have accompanied him all his life, he has got the Christian message all right.

As I have said, I’ll probably never know the truth. Still, it was very interesting for me to remark that the brand of Christianity either embraced or “hedged” by the chap was very clearly Catholicism (this in a country with at least six Anglicans for every Catholic). Be it as it may, I couldn’t avoid playing with the idea that, in that chauffeur car, the Holy Ghost was silently but constantly at work.

A Hail Mary for the chap is certainly in order and let us hope that one day he will – if he hasn’t done it already – come to see the strange elephant only as a souvenir of his childhood.

Mundabor

The Feast Of The Chair Of St. Peter

Perugino: Delivery of the keys to St. Peter

Tomorrow 22nd February is the feast of the Chair of St. Peter. Whilst St. Peter’s feast day is the 29th June, the feast of the 22nd February is more directly aimed at celebrating the Petrine Office. This feast is, therefore, as Catholic as they come.

This feast day might be an occasion to explain to some non-Catholic in your circle of acquaintances why you are Catholic. When requested, I proceed more or less in this way:

1) And I say to thee: that Thou are Peter…. Jesus doesn’t say to Simon that he is a nice chap; or that he is very perceptive; or that he himself is surprised that among the apostles Simon was the only one to give the right answer to his question “Who do people say that I am?”. No, he changes his name and calls him a rock.

2) and upon this rock I will build my Church…. Jesus doesn’t say “I will build my first church”, nor does he say “I will build my provisional church”. Jesus picks a rock, and builds upon him One (1, Una, Eine, Une) Church.

3) and the gates of Hell shall not previal against it….. It, that is: the very same Church built on Peter, the “rock”. That one, and no other. Jesus doesn’t say “the Gates of hell shall, in around fifteen centuries, prevail against the Church I built on you”, nor does he say “the Gates of Hell shall prevail against the Church built on you but hey, let us be happy with a generic term of “church” so it can work even when yours goes astray”. He is very specific: he builds one Church upon one man and gives his promise of indefectibility to this – and no other – organisation.

4) And I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven….. This is also dumb-proof: keys are a very obvious symbol of power and authority and it is clear here that Jesus is speaking with extreme solemnity. He doesn’t say to Peter: “Peter, you keep the key for the moment” or “look mate, gotta go; keep the keys until I find you or yours unworthy, will ya?”. No, this is a solemn promise evidently made for all times, as his just pronounced promise about indefectibility must make clear to the dumbest intellect.

5)  ….and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. For those who should at this point still not have gotten what is going on, Jesus becomes even more explicit: Peter has the keys, and the keys mean authority upon the faithful now and forever; an authority given in the most emphatic terms possible. 

The meaning of these phrases; the clear solemnity Jesus gives to his words; the crescendo of emphatic declarations of such a broad and clear scope do not leave room for any possible doubt and as a result, Protestants have nowhere to hide. Whoever reads Jesus’ words with a minimum of intellectual honesty cannot avoid to recognise that the Only Church of Peter’s time (and of the following fifteen centuries) is the Only Church of today and that as a result whatever grievance against the men who run the Church does not change a iota concerning the position of authority of the Church. As to the complaint that some Popes were oh-so-bad (not much worse than many a tv-preacher I’d say, but laissons tomber….), Peter wasn’t immaculate either, but his shortcomings didn’t prevent Jesus from promoting him to rock of His Church.

To believe anything different from the fact that the Only Church founded by Jesus is.. the Only Church means to believe one or more of the following:

1) that Jesus made a mistake in founding His Church on Peter;

2) that Jesus was mistakenly persuaded that Peter’s successors would be good chaps, but  had his toy ruined by the baddies who  succeeded Peter;

3) that Jesus couldn’t count;

4) that Jesus’ words had a sell-by date, or

5) that Jesus made his promise of indefectibility without taking it seriously.

Or perhaps one could decide to read and understand the only possible meaning of such emphatically worded statements, as Jesus repeatedly made.

There is only One Church, folks. It’s the only one founded by Jesus. Simple, really.

Mundabor

The Monsignor And The Arrested Development

I have already written about Msgr. Charles Pope (the “Monsignor with no uncertain trumpet” and the Monsignor dealing with “the lock and the key”). He has the rare gift of expressing himself in a highly imaginative and entertaining manner and is always a pleasure to read.

This time, Monsignor Pope (what a name, by the way…) deals with, so to speak, medical issues. In his experience (and in that of many of us, I am afraid), the spiritual development of many Catholics stops at age seven or eight and doesn’t progress much further as he goes through life; on the contrary, the risk of regression to first spiritual infancy and utter Catholic illiteracy is rather big and frequently observed.

Still, Monsignor Pope doesn’t fail to notice that whilst arrested development in every other aspect of life would not fail to greatly worry the parents, in the case of spiritual formation to remain at the level of a seven-year-old is considered nothing worrying at all. His example is in my eyes a bit extreme for a churchgoer, but it applies wonderfully to the army of lapsed Catholics out there whose theology is restricted to easy and convenient platitudes a’ la “God is Love” and “do not judge”; platitudes taken out of every context, uttered whenever convenient and generally very apt to persuade the spiritual child that there is no need to make any homework, let alone any penance, let alone any effort to be a better child.

I would give the main responsibility of this disastrous state of things to the Catholic clergy (yes, I do “judge” when I see a scandal, but he who criticises me is “judging” me too) who are, even more than the parents, those primarily in charge of the propagation of the Catholic message.

If here in the West we had courageous priests ready to risk their popularity instead of cuddling their audience with easy slogans and insipid common places, the message would get outside and reach, more or less indirectly, those who do not attend. You’d have an army of churchgoers properly instructed and ready to go out and spread the message with reasonable accuracy. Most of all, you’d have the end of the simplistic “celebration” mentality – utterly devoid of any obligation and only concerned with its own shallowness – now slowly infecting Catholic life. I was well in my Forties when I first heard people talking of “celebrating” instead of “mourning”, or before the astonishing meaning given to the words “do not judge” by the ignorants and the liberals became clear to me. I assure you these things didn’t happen in the Countries where I had been living up to then and I started to wonder what strange of Christianity this is, where people call themselves Christian but know more of Ghandi than Christ. Also here in Blighty was my first case of a person candidly reporting of being sure of being Christian, but not being sure of having ever been baptised. “I assume I was”, she said, “though my mother never mentioned it”. Church of England apparently, so a baptism should definitively have occurred. Words fail me.

Here in the West we have a massive epidemy of spiritual arrested developments and the problem continues to spread because many priests are (nothwithstanding the long years of theology studies, by which one wonders whether anything sensible has been learned at all) either astonishingly untrained or, more probably, predictably cowardly.

Proper Catholic instruction starts from the priest and the pulpit. If the priest does his job, more and more parents will send their children to be properly instructed; more and more adults will have intelligent answers to give to their friends; more and more of Catholic patrimony will start spreading around and become again, in time, part of the cultural patrimony of the country.

It must all start by the priest and the pulpit.

Mundabor

Hell And Christ Or: Time To Face Reality.

Fatima's vision of hell. Ignore at your peril.

Interesting article on Catholic Culture about Hell. It is a pleasure to see that the invasion of the blogosphere from intelligent Catholics is slowly but surely bringing to the attention of discerning Catholic readers what a disgraceful clergy wanted them to forget or ignore. In this case the article is certainly not new (1995), but the internet is the way to make it better known.

Mr. Young doesn’t try to sweeten the pill; he is very clear on the unpleasant part, the one that in these days – when it is considered rude to say unpleasant things – is so often ignored. But at the same time – and with that mixture of common sense and good-natured optimism that is so typical of the best Catholic attitude – he sends a clear message of hope to those who may either be prone to scruples or thinking that if there is a Hell they are hopeless anyway.

In fact, negation of Hell (which in itself might well send one there) is rather common among those who don’t know the Gospels and prefer to fantasise about alleged Church  conspiracies rather than to examine the facts. Jesus himself talks of Hell in a very clear manner, insistently, and nowhere more than in the Gospels do we see Hell mentioned. If one is able to read the Gospel without getting this message loud and clear he must simply re-learn to read.

Secondly and regarding the “conspiracy theorists”, it would appear rather extraordinary that the “conspirators” would be ready to die for Christ in such big numbers (and very often in such atrocious ways) because bent on creating – a couple of centuries after their horrible, humiliating death – some big organisation able to forbid one to eat meat on a Friday, & Co.
I have never seen conspirators so ready to die in order that their lie may triumph a couple of hundreds year later. I bet you never did, either.

Thirdly, Jesus’ clear insistence on Hell should make clear to everyone that Hell has not been created to allow Satan to play poker with Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin. Hell is a clear, concrete possibility, a fundamental choice every one of us can make, a choice about which Jesus reminds us constantly.

“Oh Well” – you might say – “they aren’t three then, and perhaps not even three hundred; but compared to the world population…….. very few, surely?”

“The gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

These words come from the alleged First Conspirator Himself and frankly, the idea that his words might have been wilfully distorted in a gigantic effort to cheat God Himself of the message he wanted to send is more than blasphemous, it is outright stupid. Rather a few people, then, “find the hard way that leads to life”. It doesn’t mean that only those few will be saved, but it certainly means that there is no ground whatsoever for complacency.

But this the problem of modern times: people talking of Christianity without knowing the first thing of Christ, or talking of an alleged “betrayal” of Christ’s message without stopping to think of the absurdity of the concept.

Aut Deus, aut homo malus. Excluding the obviously absurd hypothesis of clinical insanity (that you never hear espoused by any critic of Hell’s existence anyway), Jesus was either a fraudster and a con man, or he was God. No intelligent, thoughtful reading of the Gospel allows any other possibility. How people who claim a vague belief in Jesus may reconcile their belief with the extraordinary denial of what he said strikes me as so arrogantly stupid as to not even deserve a serious conversation.

Jesus couldn’t have possibly been ” a nice chap”, or ” a man of God” duped by scheming apostles, or “the Son of God who was conned in the end by scheming martyrs”. It just doesn’t square, because this nice chap did say that He is God in thousand different ways and nice men don’t go around making such claims. Therefore, every DIY Christian and every Christian by hearsay must simply face the fact that unless He was God, He was not nice and not a man of God, but the most tragically cruel liar Himself; a man whose schemes not only led to His own death, but who preferred to continue the lie up to the cross, thus causing countless others to be killed because of His lie.

It-just-does-not-square.

If one does as much as to believe that Jesus was not positively insane and not a scheming fraudster, then he must deal with the clear intellectual evidence of His being God. One of the first consequences of this actually rather easy to achieve conclusion is that Jesus has given us so many warnings about Hell for a reason. Or is there anyone ready to believe that God Himself would need to lie to us about Hell in order to save us from it?

It is time to face reality. Atheism may be logically linked to the absence of belief in the existence of Hell, but any form of credit given to Christ is utterly incompatible with it.

Therefore, Jesus is God and Hell exists, but where does this leave us in our matter? To put it with the author’s robust common sense,

“I think we should say it is not unlikely that many are lost. We should definitely not hold the opinion that few are lost.”

At the same time,

we must avoid generating a morbid fear of hell or an obsession with it. It is not a fate that can overwhelm us against our will; any who go there have chosen evil deliberately.

Hell is therefore very real and certainly not very sparsely inhabited; but it is avoidable all right if one as much as takes care that he does not embrace it.

To close with the powerful statement closing the article (emphases mine),

The doctrine should be seen in the light of God’s greatness and our dignity as free beings. He is so great that hell is a just punishment for rebelling against him; our dignity as responsible beings is so great that we can deserve that fate.

Mundabor

 

Micheal Voris On “The State Of Catholicism”

Better than every Beeb journalist: Michael Coren

It is hard to believe, but countries like Canada have TV programs that can deal with Catholicism for three-quarters of an hour and being seen nationwide. If the BBC were to do something comparable, the program would obligatorily include a parade of sexual perverts explaining to us why the Church is evil; all interspersed with seemingly sympathetic comments from seemingly unbiased journalists aiming at pushing their secular agenda under the cloak of “tolerance” and “diversity”, which means approving pretty much everything under the sun.

Well, not so in Canada, where the Michael Coren show* deals with Catholicism for very long and in a serious fashion, inviting Michael Voris (well-known to the followers of this blog) to talk about it.

From this (longish) programme, several facts emerge:

1) Michael Voris has already been downloaded 5.5 million times in the last around two years. That’s some 7,500 downloads a day, give or take and with the trend going up (350,000 in January 2011; do your math). Very admirably, Voris says they don’t work “for” downloads, but can’t avoid noticing their growing number.

2) Criticism of Voris tends to come from people who think him “not charitable” (usual liberal excuse to attack those who are Catholics).

3) Voris makes clear that his role is to teach Catholicism. By a trend to 4+ million downloads a year, this gives all the scale of the failing of the Catholic clergy regarding their first duty: teaching the faith.

4) Voris makes an excellent job in explaining to the his viewers (composed of many non_Catholic, I can easily imagine) that to criticise what Church men do doesn’t mean that the Church is not infallible. The Church is doctrinally infallible, the people who compose her are prone to all sorts of errors. This is very important and must be explained again and again to your friends and colleagues when they are (naturally, seeing that they are not properly instructed) confused. This is also a huge source of prejudice against the Church, so it is very good that it was addressed.

5) Coren says it very clearly: Catholics schools teach people to be good citizen, but not to be good Catholics and in fact, even when they go out of school they can’t even define what their being Catholics is all about. I’d say these reflections can be shared by most people; they are the strongest indictment against the Catholic hierarchy in the West.

6) Voris is very clear: the problems started when Vatican II became a conduit for heterodox tendencies already contained in the conciliar documents. It is not the documents themselves that were heterodox, but they were so bad that they could be interpreted so and in the cultural climate of those years they predictably did.

Voris also cites the recent appeal of Bishop Schneider of a new “Syllabus of Error” regarding V II: this must be surprising and at the same time refreshing for non-Catholic viewers: seeing that the Church has not really ever changed, but has merely done her work badly for a handful of decades.

7) Coren is very perceptive: he notices that the liberal voices are the most intolerant ones and that “liberals” are only “tolerant” with those who “behave the way they want them to behave”. You’ll never hear that from the Beeb. Hat off to Mr. Coren.

8) “A lot of liberalism is about sex”, says Coren in another brilliant statement. He understands that liberalism is about doing what you please, and being Catholic is about trying to do as Jesus asks. The man is disarming in that he says things that in England would cause calls of hate speech as if he was saying the simplest facts on Earth. Refreshing.

9) Coren says it again in a very communicative way: he understands that “the teaching from Rome is perfect”, but that the problems lie in the provinces of the Empire. Voris has no problems in explaining the scale of the problems coming from the clergy. This must be, again, both shocking and refreshing for the viewers, who have the opportunity to see an organism sacred in her essence, but fallible in her workings.

10) Even Coren notices that younger priests and bishops tend to be much more orthodox than older one. He is 52, and a convert. I think he is spot on. Again, this is rather known among Catholics but it must be most interesting for non-Catholics viewers. An extremely instructive programme for them.

11) “Judas is the Saint of Social justice”. This Fulton Sheen line criticising the “militant social stance” of many priests is another statement you’ll never hear on the BBC.

12) The hard arguments come out around 27:00: the losing of the West’ soul, the hard truths about Catholic “unpleasant” messages, the necessity to hammer the hard messages to the people, the fact that your moral view will influence the entire society in which your children live. Coren reacts to Voris’ hard statements with grace and humour, his clear Catholicism never becoming obnoxious to those who don’t share his persuasion but clearly showing where his preferences lie. Again, I think that a non-Catholic can see this programme and be pleasantly instructed and entertained.

13) Moving details are revealed: Voris’ mother asking for a cross so that their children may come back to the faith, and dying of cancer in a prayerful way. Looks a bit like “Brideshead revisited”, but in real life. Voris avoids the emotional outburst, but one clearly understands that the event touched him profoundly.

14) Coren deals with the main criticism liberals move to orthodox people: being not charitable. Voris has the chance to explain what true charity is, and what false charity leads to.
No interruptions whilst he explains. Simply good journalism.

15) “It is not the role of the Church to blend in with society”. Another strikingly relevant statement from Voris. No English bishop I know would have ever the guts to say it so strikingly.

16) Some bishops apparently said to Voris something on the lines of “keep on saying what you say, because I can’t”. Sorry, but these are bad bishops. It can’t be that Voris may have the guts, and the bishop can’t afford to. Voris is there because they just don’t do their job. See point 15).

There are some other interesting points, but I’d like not to go beyond 1000 words. This is an excellent example of good, informative journalism, though clearly coming from a Catholic journalist. Coren respectfully listens to his guest allowing his viewers to get 45 minutes of solid formation in Catholicism. I can easily imagine that whilst Coren is clearly Catholic himself, his journalistic style may appeal to many non-Catholics and help them to get nearer to the Catholic truth. The chap has the warmth, the graceful ways and the smoothness of tone of an Italian in a good mood.

I so wish the BBC could learn a bit from him instead of being the miserable hotbed of secular anti-Catholic propaganda it is.

Mundabor

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