Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Will Fr. Emile Boutin now practice what he has preached?

Eight years ago Fr. Emile R. Boutin, who was then serving at Immaculate Conception parish in Stoughton, Massachusetts, joined 57 other Boston-area priests including the infamous Fr. Walter Cuenin in calling upon Bernard Cardinal Law to resign. This 2002 letter said:


Dear Cardinal Law:


It is with a heavy heart that we write to request your resignation as Archbishop of Boston. We have valued the good work you have done here in Boston, including, but not limited to: your advocacy for the homeless, your outreach to the Jewish community, your opposition to capital punishment, and your leadership in welcoming immigrant peoples. However, the events of recent months and, in particular, of these last few days, make it clear to us that your position as our bishop is so compromised that it is no longer possible for you to exercise the spiritual leadership required for the church of Boston.

As leaders of many parishes that make up this Archdiocese, we hear from the people their call for a change in leadership. The revelations that have come to light a few days ago challenge the credibility of your public statements. The people of this Archdiocese are angry, hurt, and in need of authentic spiritual leadership. We believe that despite your good work in the past you are no longer able to provide that leadership.

While this is obviously a difficult request, we believe in our hearts that this is a necessary step that must be taken if healing is to come to the Archdiocese. The priests and people of Boston have lost confidence in you as their spiritual leader. See here.

Now, Fr. Boutin finds himself charged with indecent assault and battery.

Will Fr. Boutin now resign?


A cult of ugliness born from an admission of defeat...


It was Professor Duncan Williams, in his book Trousered Apes, who wrote, "What shocks an audience today will be acceptable tomorrow and thus the contemporary dramatist is constantly impelled to seek further excesses to gratify a warped taste which he has himself implanted in the public mind....The whole modern cult of violence and animalism is in essence an admission of defeat. Since we cannot be men to any idealistic extent, let us lapse into barbaric animalism but, still clinging to vestiges of a past which we hate but cannot escape, let us clothe our defeat in high-sounding terms: 'alienation,' 'cult of unpleasure,' 'realism,' and similar jargon. Yet all this fashionable phraseology cannot conceal the fact that the Emperor has no clothes. The literature of today lacks certain essential qualities. It no longer satisfies man's need for beauty, order and elevation, and to this extent it is incomplete and stunted. It contains, as Trilling has observed, an anti-civilizing trend, and to this is closely linked a cult of ugliness, a morbid concentration on the baser elements of life, a clinical obsession with the bizarre and with the grossly sensual and degrading aspects of human nature...The contemporary playwright or producer might well take as his motto, Apres moi, la secheresse (After me, the drought), and congratulate himself that he is writing before a morbid public appetite demands scenes of such repellent realism that actors and actresses will have to be killed on stage in order to satisfy it."

In his book, Professor Williams argues (quite effectively) that because we have banished God from our society, "..the Western world and its culture is saturated with violence and animalism...We are teaching savagery and are naively appalled at the success of our instruction." He then proceeds to demonstrate how the literature of our times is a reflection of this savagery and provokes an escalating barbarism and defeatism which is creating a satanic society which will then be prepared to enthusiastically welcome the Antichrist.

The Twilight film series is aptly titled. For our troubled society is indeed in twilight. It was Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas who once commented on the way that oppression can subtly arise in our midst: "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."

Witness how far our culture has fallen. Remember films like Citizen Kane, It's a Wonderful Life, Lillies of the Field, and The Quiet Man? What did these films have in common? Each celebrated truth, goodness and beauty. And now we have films celebrating vampirism and the occult.

Darkened minds. Troubled minds.
Meditation: Matthew 12: 35.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Crushed by Simple Sandalled Maiden...



Our culture - and this includes large segments of the Church - has succumbed to satanic pride. As the sexual abuse crisis explodes throughout the Church, as errors cripple the Mystical Body of Christ, as the Culture of Sodomy continues to metastasize like a cancer, officials in the Church hold committee meetings and form panels and conduct studies. All in the vain hope of solving these problems themselves. Pride.

What then is the solution? It is right before our eyes. But it is so simple the proud of this world are not capable of seeing it:


Satan,
proud-winged!
Bold and brazen,
Crushed by
Simple
Sandalled Maiden!


It was Saint Louis de Montfort who explained that, "Mary must become as terrible as an army in battle array to the devil and his followers, especially in these latter times. For Satan, knowing that he has little time - even less now than ever - to destroy souls, intensifies his efforts and his onslaughts every day. He will not hesitate to stir up savage persecutions and set treacherous snares for Mary's faithful servants and children whom he finds more difficult to overcome than others.

It is chiefly in reference to these last wicked persecutions of the devil, daily increasing until the advent of the reign of anti- Christ, that we should understand that first and well-known prophecy and curse of God uttered against the serpent in the garden of paradise. It is opportune to explain it here for the glory of the Blessed Virgin, the salvation of her children and the confusion of the devil. "I will place enmities between you and the woman, between your race and her race; she will crush your head and you will lie in wait for her heel" (Gen. 3:15).

God has established only one enmity - but it is an irreconcilable one - which will last and even go on increasing to the end of time. That enmity is between Mary, his worthy Mother, and the devil, between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and followers of Lucifer.

Thus the most fearful enemy that God has set up against the devil is Mary, his holy Mother. From the time of the earthly paradise, although she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpent and such power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater than the Blessed Virgin's, since her attributes are limited. It simply means that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all their other torments.

What Lucifer lost by pride Mary won by humility. What Eve ruined and lost by disobedience Mary saved by obedience. By obeying the serpent, Eve ruined her children as well as herself and delivered them up to him. Mary by her perfect fidelity to God saved her children with herself and consecrated them to his divine majesty.

God has established not just one enmity but "enmities", and not only between Mary and Satan but between her race and his race. That is, God has put enmities, antipathies and hatreds between the true children and servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love and no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world, - for they are all one and the same - have always persecuted and will persecute more than ever in the future those who belong to the Blessed Virgin, just as Cain of old persecuted his brother Abel, and Esau his brother Jacob. These are the types of the wicked and of the just. But the humble Mary will always triumph over Satan, the proud one, and so great will be her victory that she will crush his head, the very seat of his pride. She will unmask his serpent's cunning and expose his wicked plots. She will scatter to the winds his devilish plans and to the end of time will keep her faithful servants safe from his cruel claws.
But Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him. In the eyes of the world they will be little and poor and, like the heel, lowly in the eyes of all, down-trodden and crushed as is the heel by the other parts of the body. But in compensation for this they will be rich in God's graces, which will be abundantly bestowed on them by Mary. They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ." (True Devotion to Mary, 50-54).

Pope John XXIII looked forward to a New Pentecost and Pope John Paul II spoke of a new Civilization of Love. And we shall have these. Even if they do not occur in the manner most people expect. In many places a cleansing, a purification is needed in individual temples before the Holy Spirit will enter with His Bride. We read in the Gospel of Matthew how, "Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those engaged in selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And he said to them, 'It is written: My house shall be a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves.'" (21: 12, 13).

And what is our soul but His temple? Have we made His house a house of prayer? Or have we succumbed to lust, materialism and pride and made His house a den of thieves who have no place there? We have to become Marian. We have to become Mary-like before Christ is reborn again in our modern world through the power of the Holy Spirit.

There will indeed be a New Pentecost in the hearts of men and a Civilization of Love which will endure forever. But only after the Church has been purified through Calvary:


"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675).


Satan's goal is to make a physical and spiritual wreckage of all God's creation. To accomplish this, he enlists men through the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life. And isn't this what we've witnessed even in the Church? Priests - ministers of the Living God - who have become so arrogant, so puffed up with pride, that they came to view even innocent children as objects to be used for their own sexual gratification and a laity which has also [for the most part] lost the sense of sin and no longer feels a need to confess and live a truly sacramental life.


Pride has brought the Church to her present state. We must become more Mary-like. We don't need more committee meetings, panels, studies, seminars and countless "experts" - men and women with a string of letters after their names but lacking wisdom - to bring us back to sanity. They are not up to the task. If a blind man lead another blind man, both end up in a ditch.

We need holy men and women who are on fire for the Lord Jesus and who recognize their poverty, their smallness. What we need is children of Mary - the same children (despised by this proud world) whom Saint Louis de Montfort says, "..will become, in Mary's powerful hands, like sharp arrows, with which she will transfix her enemies." (True Devotion, No. 56), It is such prayer-warriors who "..will be like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God's word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God's word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God." (True Devotion, No. 57).


This isn't a time for hand-wringing. Neither is it a time to look to so-called "experts," intellectual frauds who rely on their own intelligence. Fools. Now is the time to have recourse to Mary. The victory has been promised to the simple sandalled maiden. This is something the proud cannot understand or accept. Our Lady will crush the Devil's head - the seat of his intellect - and she will accomplish this without an academic degree or countless meetings. She will accomplish what the proud cannot. And she will do this through her children, her heel, those little souls consecrated to her.


Archdiocese of Boston: Walpole Priest Accused of Assault on Adult Male

Rev. Emile Boutin is charged with indecent assault and battery.


"In the center of Hell I saw a dark and horrible-looking abyss, and into this Lucifer was cast, after being first strongly secured with chains; thick clouds of sulphurous black smoke arose from it's fearful depths and enveloped his fearful form in the dismal folds, thus effectually concealing him from every beholder. God Himself had decreed this; and I was likewise told, if I remember right, that he will be unchained for a time fifty or sixty years before the year of Christ 2000. The dates of many other events were pointed out to me which I do not now remember, but a certain number of demons are to be let loose much earlier than Lucifer, in order to tempt men, and to serve as instruments of divine vengence." (Anne Catherine Emmerich).

Related reading here.

Monday, June 28, 2010

A World Going Mad...


"There is no doubt that the world is "globalizing," there is no doubt that we are seeing a new world order coalesce before our eyes, and there is no doubt that this can be supremely (and spiritually) dangerous.

There is also no doubt that fear of being monitored by government agencies is a legitimate concern. There has been an explosion in fingerprint scanners, street police cameras, eye recognition devices, identification cards, airport tracking, passport technologies, satellite watchfulness, and highway speed cameras. There is also a strong push toward "micro-chipping" -- inserting devices that have private information about a person or allow for satellite tracking right under the skin of people (via that tiny microchip), a scenario that once seemed fanciful.

Monitoring the population means more governmental control which can mean loss of liberty and down the road could turn into loss of ability to worship freely under the leadership of a nefarious force." - Michael Brown, Catholic author.

Good Morning America does it again...


"To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful." - Edward R. Murrow.

The folks over at Good Morning America are at it again. Not long ago, anxious to discredit the Catholic Church with false accusations which had already been thoroughly refuted, GMA solicited the views of Father Richard P. McBrien regarding the sexual abuse scandal within the Church. See here. Before that, GMA's one-time host Diane Sawyer grilled John and Cindy McCain on abortion while Robin Roberts, who interviewed Barack and Michelle Obama, never broached the subject. See here.

But now that Senator Robert Byrd, the long-time Democratic Senator from West Virginia, has died, GMA has taken great pains to whitewash his past. This morning, while reviewing the Senator's life, hosts kept repeating - almost as a mantra - that his involvement with the Ku Klux Klan was "brief." As if to suggest his time with the Klan was merely a youthful indiscretion.

Hardly.

Senator Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1942 at the age of 24. He was elected top officer of his local chapter and would go on to hold the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops. If his involvement with the Klan was as "brief" as GMA asserts, then why is it that in 1944, a full two years after joining the Klan, Senator Byrd wrote a letter to Senator Theodore Bilbo saying that, "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side...Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this blessed land of ours degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

And, in a letter to a Grand Wizard written two or three years later (1946 or 1947), Senator Byrd wrote, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation." (See here). And yet, GMA assures us that his time with the Klan was "brief." If a Republican politician had such a history, and had expounded such views, GMA - and the rest of the liberal media - would engage in a sort of public crucifixion. But there was absolutely no mention of these comments. Instead, GMA downplayed the Senator's involvement with the hate group.

Of course, when Dan Quayle misspelled the word potato, GMA - and the same liberal media - were all over the incident. Although this incident occurred back in 1992, ABC News still has a post online detailing what happened. See here.

There you have it, Dan Quayle's misspelling of potato is a big deal to MSM liberals. But a Democrat who belonged to the Klan for years, referred to African-Americans as "mongrels," and who expressed his desire to see the rebirth of the hate group "in every state in the nation," is beyond criticism.

GMA is an embarassment to authentic journalism.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

"The potential for controlling the masses has never been so great..."

"The potential for controlling the masses has never been so great, as science unleashes the power of genetics, biometrics, surveillance, and new forms of modern eugenics; implemented by a scientific elite equipped with systems of psycho-social control (the use of psychology in controlling the masses)." (From the Global Research article which may be found here).

The Rev. P. Huchede, in his work entitled "History of Antichrist," explains the religious preparation, both intellectual and moral, for the Reign of Antichrist: "But how shall he deprive the world of Christianity and have himself adored as God? Alas, it is only too true that the minds and hearts of men are admirably disposed for revolution and consequently ready to accept and bear the cruel yoke of such a tyrant. Revolution as the word itself implies means a subversion, but a subversion of all that is true, good, beautiful, and grand in the universe. It is the subversion of religion, representing its dogmas as myths and its moral teachings as tyranical. It is the subversion of authority. Licentiousness under the name of liberty becomes the order of the day; each one is invested with the right to govern himself. It is the subversion of reason: and do we not find leading minds in some of the most enlightened nations denying the principle of contradiction and maintaining the absolute identity of all beings? Revolution is therefore essentially destructive, and it becomes cosmopolitan by the action of secret societies scattered throughout the world. Is it not true to say that the 'mystery of iniquity' is prepared in secret revolutionary dens? But it does not suffice to destroy; it is absolutely necessary to build up again. The world cannot subsist long in a vacuum. It must have a religion; it must have a philosophy; it must have an authority. Revolution will furnish all these. Instead of the reasonable and supernatural religion of Jesus Christ, Revolution will preach Pantheism. The God-humanity will impart the theurgic spirit and thus lead men to adore the demon as the author of universal emancipation...What frightful immorality must follow in the train of this shameless prostitution of religion! Never has the threefold concupiscence made greater ravage among mankind. And this is the religion sought and hoped for as the cherished boon of the aspirations of our modern free thinkers. To our Christian philosophy, the honor of humanity's revolution will substitute a babel of extravagant and absurd ideas. Instead of a mild and efficient authority consecrated alike by Church and state, despotism* and anarchy will rise up and contend for the shreds of religious liberty and human policy...if the state of perversion continue for a while longer, he [Antichrist] will find the world prepared to receive and serve him." (Rev. P. Huchede, History of Antichrist, pp. 13-14, Tan Books).

Is there really any doubt that we are now on the verge of a One World Government which will be eventually led by the Son of Perdition? Men are ready to worship and adore the demon. Those whose names are not written in the Book of Life, that is, who are not consecrated to the Immaculata.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Archdiocese of Boston: Priest Arrested in Prostitution Sting

Bishop George Michael Wittman's prophecy: "Woe is me! Sad days are at hand for the Holy Church of Jesus Christ. The Passion of Jesus will be renewed in the most dolorous manner in the Church and in her Supreme Head. In all parts of the world there will be wars and revolutions, and much blood will be spilled. Distress, disasters, and poverty will everywhere be great, since pestilential maladies, scarcity, and other misfortunes will follow one another. Violent hands will be laid on the Supreme Head of the Catholic Church; bishops and priests will be persecuted, and schisms will be provoked, and confusion reign amid all classes. Times will come, so pre-eminently bad, that it will seem as if the enemies of Christ and of His Holy Church, which He founded with His blood, were about to triumph over her. But the priesthood will remain firm and resolute, and good people will adhere faithfully to that body. A general separation will be made. The wheat shall be winnowed, and the floor swept. Secret societies will work great ruin, and exercise a marvellous monetary power, and through that many will be blinded, and infected with most horrible errors; however, all this shall avail naught. Christ says, He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who gathereth not with Me, scattereth. Scandals will be but too rife, and woe to those by whom they come! Although the tempest will be terrible, and will turn many in their passage, nevertheless they cannot shake the rock whereon Christ has founded His Church: 'Portae inferi non prevalebunt.'.. The faithful sheep will gather together, and in unions of prayer will offer potent resistance to the enemies of the Catholic Church. Yes, yes, the flock will become small..."


Falling stars.

850 Orthodox Rabbis: Elena Kagan will "homosexualize every segment of society"


Pope Saint Pius X, in his 1903 encyclical, E Supremi, "On the Restoration of All Things in Christ," had this to say, "When all this is considered there is good reason to fear lest this great perversity may be as it were a foretaste, and perhaps the beginning of those evils which are reserved for the last days; and that there may be already in the world the “Son of Perdition” of whom the Apostle speaks (2 Thess 2: 3). Such, in truth, is the audacity and the wrath employed everywhere in persecuting religion, in combating the dogmas of the faith, in brazen effort to uproot and destroy all relations between man and the Divinity! While, on the other hand, and this according to the same apostle is the distinguishing mark of Antichrist, man has with infinite temerity put himself in the place of God, raising himself above all that is called God; in such a way that although he cannot utterly extinguish in himself all knowledge of God, he has despised God’s majesty and, as it were, made of the universe a temple wherein he himself is to be adored. “He seats himself in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God” (2 Thess 2:4).

Friday, June 25, 2010

G20 Toronto: New World Order Police State




"I foretold to you the great chastisement which would strike this poor humanity which has become pagan and built a new civilization without God, and which is threatened by violence, by hatred, by war, and which is running the risk of destroying itself by its own hands....I also foretold to you the great crisis which would take place in the Church, because of the great apostasy which has entered into her, caused by an ever wider diffusion of errors, by her interior division, by opposition to the Pope and by the rejection of his Magisterium. This most beloved Daughter of mine must live the hours of her agony and of her sorrowful passion. She will be abandoned by many of her children. The impetuous wind of persecution will blow against her, and much blood will be shed, even by my beloved sons...Tell everyone to enter the ark of my Immaculate Heart, in order to be protected and saved by me....Because of the generous response which I am receiving everywhere from my littlest children, I promise to intervene to save you in the hour of the great trial.." (Our Lady to Father Gobbi, Spiritual Exercises in the Form of a Cenacle with the Bishops and Priests of the M.M.P. from the United States and Canada, October 13, 1994).
The new civilization Our Lady spoke of will be a totalitarian Police State. This New Order is already beginning to emerge.

In the words of Dr. J. Coleman, who served as an Intelligence Officer, “The One-World Government is going to consist of hereditary oligarchs who will divide the power between themselves. There is going to be only one legal religion and only one state church. Only Satanism and Luciferism will be the legal religious subjects in state schools. No other schools (private, Catholic, etc.) will be allowed. All present Christian education systems are going to be destroyed (and the fact is — they are destroyed in the most part) from inside, and become extinct. Satanism is already considered to be a 'true and legal religion'. In fact, in some U.S. military bases, they already celebrate black masses and worship Satan.

There will not be any sort of personal freedom, nor sovereignty of nations, and no human rights at all. We will all become slaves. Every man who does not belong to the elite will have his own number which is going to be recorded in the main computer (the "BEAST 666" in Brussels, Belgium). For control purposes, such numbers will be easily accessible for any government agency. Data regarding children and their mothers will be kept in local government computers.

The number of children will be limited and controlled by abortion and sterilization. There will be mind-controlling drugs, and people will be forced to take them. Euthanasia for elder people and the incurably sick will be obligatory. A minimum of four billion 'unusable bread eaters' will be terminated by planned and controlled wars, by planned mass hunger for some regions of the world (at present, Africa, South America, and Asia), and by widespread disease, causing fast death.

In the New World Order, there will be no money for any transaction to 'buy and sell'. All sales and purchases will be done by electronic money transferred by means of biochips implanted under the skin. Any violation of a Government provision will be punished by a suspension of the usage of the biochip for a period of time. Individuals whose biochips are put on the "black list of offenders" will not be able to buy, sale, nor get any kind of service or employment. They will be outlaws with a very slim or no chance to survive."

Related reading here.

For when I am weak it is then that I am strong...


"As soon as souls give themselves completely to God, God Himself causes or permits others to despise and persecute them." - Saint Alphonsus de Liguori.

I am something of a pariah in my own diocese. I am treated with nothing but contempt because I have the audacity to stand with the Church's Magisterium and to promote and defend the teaching of the same. I am hated so much that when I wrote my Bishop a letter expressing my interest in pursuing a vocation to the priesthood, I received absolutely no response. By contrast, the late Senator Edward Kennedy was treated with the utmost respect and referred to by high-ranking Church officials as "our brother and friend." This even though the Senator dissented from Church teaching and promoted the killing of the unborn. Many of our local priests have engaged in dissent from the Church's teaching and they are welcome within the diocese. One that I know of has gone so far as to promote fornication. Others were in support of homosexual "marriage."

Why do I relate all of this? Because I am envious? Not at all. Because I am feeling sorry for myself? Again, no. I'm not that self-involved. I know I am nothing. A blade of grass. A puff of smoke. Here today and gone tomorrow. Of no special importance. I actually rejoice in being small. My very name means "little one." That's all I am and all I will ever be. Praise the Lord Jesus. For when I am weak, it is then that I am strong.

So why do I even mention all of this. Because as Christians who strive to live a holy and authentic life in the Lord Jesus, there is something which becomes immediately apparent as we survey this broken world. And it is this: while as disciples of the Lord we receive the power of God and His gifts which include wisdom and fortitude (courage), often we are hesitant or slow to do good or when we do choose to do good we meet almost constant opposition. By contrast, those who receive the power of the devil appear to be tireless in their activities as they work frenetically to discover new ways of doing evil or deceiving others and everything seems to come to them very easily.

There is an important spiritual lesson here. The world we live in is under the dominion of Satan, the "Prince of this world." When we witness an individual achieve outstanding success without any real setbacks, opposition or persecution, there is a very real possibility that such a person is an adept of the Prince of this world and is receiving his "gifts": "All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me." By contrast, often lack of success and persecution are sure signs that one really stands for God.

Father Joseph Esper explains, "Why does the Lord allow failure? According to St. Paul of the Cross, 'The works of God always meet with opposition so that the Divine Magnificence may shine forth. It is when things appear to be crashing to the ground that you will see them even more be raised on high.' Just as 'God is able to write straight with crooked lines,' so His servants, with the help of His grace, are able to grow in holiness in spite of their setbacks. St. John Vianney reminds us, 'The saints did not become saints without many a sacrifice and many a struggle,' and St. John of the Cross offers these reassuring words: 'The Lord measures our perfection neither by the multitude nor the magnitude of our deeds, but by the manner in which we perform them.' Talented and productive hands count for much less in God's eyes than a loving heart; we are therefore advised by Bl. Zeferino Agostini, 'Do not be dismayed by toil or suffering, nor by the meager fruit of your labors. Remember that God rewards not according to results but according to efforts.' By Heaven's standards, faithfulness equals success, especially when serving the Lord involves something contrary to our own preferences. As St. Vincent de Paul notes, 'One act of resignation to the divine will, when it ordains what is repugnant to us, is worth more than a hundred thousand successes according to our own will and pleasure.'.....Once we've overcome our human desire for popularity and success, the world is no longer able to ensnare us or to lead us astray - and on that day we will truly become successful in God's sight." (Saintly Solutions, pp. 108-109, Sophia Institute Press).

And so, as anonymous commenters continually inform me how stupid I am; how ignorant, backward and useless I am; as I continue to be ostracized even within my own diocese, I meditate on the words of Our Lord Himself:

"Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you" (Mt 5: 11, 12)...Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets." (Lk 6: 26).

The world has a far different measure of success. God's ways are different. On the Day of Judgment, we will be judged primarily on how we have loved.

Perhaps this is why the Day of Judgment is referred to as the Dies Irae - Day of Wrath. Because there is so little love.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Spiritual War Against Children in Massachusetts

Free condoms will be made available to all children, including first-graders, in Provincetown, Massachusetts beginning this Fall. The new policy does not require the school to contact parents. Additionally, the condoms will be distributed even if parents object. This represents not only an act of violence against children, but a usurpation of parental rights.

The Pontifical Council for the Family, in its document entitled The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, had this to say:


"Today parents should be attentive to ways in which an immoral education can be passed on to their children through various methods promoted by groups with positions and interests contrary to Christian morality. It would be impossible to indicate all unacceptable methods. Here are presented only some of the more widely diffused methods that threaten the rights of parents and the moral life of their children.

In the first place, parents must reject secularized and anti-natalist sex education, which puts God at the margin of life and regards the birth of a child as a threat. This sex education is spread by large organizations and international associations that promote abortion, sterilization and contraception. These organizations want to impose a false lifestyle against the truth of human sexuality. Working at national or state levels, these organizations try to arouse the fear of the "threat of over-population" among children and young people to promote the contraceptive mentality, that is, the "anti- life" mentality. They spread false ideas about the "reproductive health" and "sexual and reproductive rights" of young people. Furthermore, some antinatalist organizations maintain those clinics which, violating the rights of parents, provide abortion and contraception for young people, thus promoting promiscuity and consequently an increase in teenage pregnancies. "As we look towards the year 2000, how can we fail to think of the young? What is being held up to them? A society of ?things' and not of ?persons'. The right to do as they will from their earliest years, without any constraint, provided it is ?safe'. The unreserved gift of self, mastery of one's instincts, the sense of responsibility — these are notions considered as belonging to another age." (Nos. 135, 136).

The Provincetown school board's decision represents an act of violence against the child's right to live his or her own sexuality in conformity with Christian principles: "Since each child or young person must be able to live his or her own sexuality in conformity with Christian principles, and hence be able to exercise the virtue of chastity, no educator — not even parents — can interfere with this right to chastity (cf. Matthew 18: 4-7)." (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, No. 118).

The decision of the Provincetown School Board also represents an attack on on parental rights. Vatican II teaches us that, in raising children, the responsibility of parents is primary: "Since parents have given life to their children, they have a very grave duty to educate them, and so are to be recognized as their primary and principal educators" (GE, No. 3). And Pope John Paul II, explaining the conciliar teaching more fully in Familiaris consortio No. 36, says that: "The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others."

Canon Law is also very clear on this matter. Canon 793, 1., states that: "Parents as well as those who take their place are obliged and enjoy the right to educate their offspring; Catholic parents also have the duty and the right to select those means and institutions through which they can provide more suitably for the Catholic education of the children according to local circumstances" and Canon 1136 says that: "Parents have the most serious duty and the primary right to do all in their power to see to the physical, social, cultural, moral and religious upbringing of their children."

This inalienable right of parents has been recognized by the United States Supreme Court. In 1922, the State of Oregon attempted to enact legislation that would have forced all children to attend the public schools within that state. But the Supreme Court overturned that decision and established that "The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations."

Increasingly, the rights of Christian children and their parents are coming under attack. Why? No one has ever put it more eloquently than Randy Engel:

"Is it any wonder that the state must wage war against the family? For the state requires not individuals who dream, and think, and pray, but rather what has come to be called 'the mass man' - rootless, unaffirmed, a reactor - a mere reed blowing in the wind - a thing to be manipulated, to be used, to be disposed of, but never, never, to be loved, for the giant has no heart. And since the modern state has no heart, that which men previously have done out of love, must now be done out of fear, and hatred, and brute force." (The Family Under Siege, The Wanderer, March 6, 1980).

This is a satanic war against the family. The state wants to impose immoral sex education and to usurp parental rights. The state wants to educate children for the Reign of Antichrist, the Moloch State where vices will be turned into gods and perversion will be celebrated as a sort of ersatz sacrament in the unholy church of the Man of Sin.

Related reading: Vices must be turned into gods in preparation for the Reign of Antichrist.

More related reading here.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Plenty of immaturity to go around....




The White House is now questioning General Stanley McChrystal's judgment and maturity because of comments which he made to a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. See here. But perhaps we should also be questioning the judgment and maturity of President Barack Obama. When he was still just a Senator from Illinois campaigning for the presidency, Mr. Obama painted religious belief as a sort of crutch saying that, "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and a like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them....And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them.."

And speaking of antipathy toward people who are different, as President, Barack Obama described the thinking of millions of Americans as backward, saying that those who are morally opposed to homosexuality because of their belief in Divine Revelation and or Natural Law are clinging to "worn arguments and old attitudes." See here.

And speaking of poor judgment, remember when the President said he was bowling as if he were in the Special Olympics? Isn't it true that such a statement also reflects immaturity? At least the President apologized for that comment. But then, the General has apologized for his comments.

Yes the General works for the President - the Commander-in-Chief. But the President works for the American people. And some of his remarks have been nothing less than immature, insensitive and even cruel. And they too demonstrate a lack of good judgment and even common sense.
Compare President Obama's attitude toward religion and the American people with that of our first President, George Washington. In his Farewell Address given on September 19, 1796, President Washington said in part that, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them..."
But President Obama hasn't respected the great pillars of religion and morality. Instead, he views these as a sort of crutch. And while Mr. Obama doesn't hesitate to insult the American people - the same people he is supposed to be working for - President Washington's attitude was markedly different. In the same address, he said, "Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence..."
There is plenty of immaturity to go around these days. If the White House is really concerned about the problem of immaturity, it should first look within.
Evidence of poor judgment and immaturity here and here.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

John H. Garvey and a Corroding and Ambiguous Pluralism...


Responding to my posts on John H. Garvey, Nancy Danielson reminded me that we live in a pluralistic society. Indeed. However, as Ralph Martin said in his wonderful book entitled "A Crisis of Truth: The Attack on Faith, Morality, and Mission in the Catholic Church," "...pluralism in the Church can be a very good thing. The life of the Church is enriched by a certain kind of diversity in cultural expression, pastoral approach, and even theological and philosophical expression of the faith. Yet pluralism is legitimate only if it involves diverse expressions of the one faith as definitively interpreted by the teaching authority of the Church over the centuries..

Today, calls for 'pluralism' are often pleas to abandon the one faith. Many of those who work for the 'pluralistic' Church of the future, in contrast to the 'monolithic' Church of the past, are actually working for the destruction of the Church and any meaningful measure of unity of faith. Pope Paul VI called this kind of indiscriminate pluralism, the kind that lacks any clear criteria, as 'corroding and ambiguous.' It is indeed at work in the Church today.." (p. 176).

It was Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand who said, "False irenicism is motivated by a misconceived charity at the service of a meaningless unity. It places unity above truth. Having severed the essential link between charity and defense of the truth, irenicism is more concerned with reaching a unity with all men than with leading them to Christ and His eternal truth. It ignores the fact that real unity can be reached only in truth. Our Lord’s prayer ‘that they may be one’ implies being one in Him and must not be separated from His words in John: ‘And other sheep I have that are not of this fold. Them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice. And there shall be one fold and one shepherd.’"

The Church must always be a scandal to the world. The cross is folly to those who are perishing. Progressives who have lost their faith have decided not to leave the Mystical Body of Christ but instead to "reform" it. Such people are so enamored with the spirit of the world that they have succumbed to false norms.
Related reading here and here.

Monday, June 21, 2010

"Every sin of a priest is a sin of malice..."

A Boston priest has just been accused of adult sexual misconduct and a Connecticut priest of stealing one million dollars. Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, in his book entitled Dignity and Duties of the Priest, says that, "Every sin of a priest is a sin of malice; it is like the sin of the angels that sinned in view of the light, says St. Bernard, speaking of a priest; hence he adds, 'He has become an angel of the Lord, and sinning as a priest he sins in heaven.' He sins in the midst of light, and therefore his sin, as has been said, is a sin of malice: he cannot allege ignorance, for he knows the great evil of mortal sin: he cannot plead weakness, because he knows the means by which, if he wishes, he can acquire strength; if he is unwilling to adopt the means, the fault is entirely his own...Our Saviour prayed on the cross for his persecutors, saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. But for bad priests this prayer was a source rather of condemnation than of salvation: for they know what they do.." (Dignity and Duties of the Priest, pp. 71-72).

Isn't it refreshing to hear the truth from this Doctor of the Church? There have been many scandals throughout the Church and just as many cheap attempts to offer poor excuses for misconduct, sexual and otherwise. But Our Lord Himself has said that, "Much more will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more." (Luke 12: 48).

A holy Bishop prophesied long ago that a time would come when scandals would be rife in the Church. Woe to those from whom they come.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

John H. Garvey: Falsifying the Very Essence of the Family




Diogenes, over at The Catholic World Report, writes: "When he introduced John Garvey as the new president of Catholic University, Archbishop Allen Vigneron, the chairman of the board of trustees, told the Washington Post that he expected Garvey to continue the work begun by his predecessor “to reclaim a Catholic identity” for the school. That sounds good.

But what does it mean, in concrete terms? A school named the Catholic University of America has a degree of “Catholic identity” by default; everyone knows that the university is affiliated with the Catholic Church. That’s obviously not what the archbishop has in mind. He is thinking, one assumes, of a school whose faculty members are proud to hold and teach the Catholic faith, and unafraid to bring the principles of Catholic teaching into the public square.

Just last fall, one bold faculty member at a Catholic institution of higher learning did just that. Scott Fitzgibbon, a professor at Boston College Law School, went to Maine to record a television commercial making the argument against legal recognition of same-sex marriage. Regrettably, Fitzgibbon drew very little support from his faculty colleagues at the Jesuit-run school. While the most strident extremists charged that Fitzgibbon was a 'homophobe,' a group of 76 professors at BC law school signed a statement affirming their 'commitment to making our institution a welcome and safe place for all students, including LGBT students.' The dean of the law school—who was one of the 76 signatories on that statement—made a point of telling reporters that Fitzgibbon was only speaking for himself, and BC Law was happy to have faculty members who would argue strenuously in support of homosexual marriage. In short, the professor who stood up for Catholic moral teaching found himself isolated. Not much 'Catholic identity' at that school.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention: At the time that incident occurred on the BC Law campus, the dean was John Garvey.

Now let me raise the question again. How do Archbishop Vigneron and his colleagues on the board of Catholic University expect the new president to promote a Catholic identity? (See here).


Homosexuality undermines the family which is the basis of society. In his February 20, 1994 Angelus Address in which he protested a special resolution of the European Parliament which encouraged the nations of Europe to approve homosexual "marriage," Pope John Paul II said that, "What is not morally acceptable, however, is the legalization of homosexual acts. To show understanding towards the person who sins, towards the person who is not in the process of freeing himself from this tendency, does not at all mean to diminish the demands of the moral norm (cf. Veritatis Splendor, No. 95)...


But we must say that what was intended with the European Parliament's resolution was the legitimization of a moral disorder. Parliament improperly conferred an institutional value to a conduct that is deviant and not in accordance with God's plan...Forgetting the words of Christ 'The truth shall set you free' (John 8: 32), an attempt was made to show the people of our continent a moral evil, a deviance, a certain slavery, as a form of liberation, falsifying the very essence of the family." (See here).


The push for homosexual "marriage" falsifies the very essence of the family. And yet, John Garvey was happy to have faculty members at Boston College Law School who would argue strenuously in support of this moral evil, this deviance.


The right choice for Catholic University of America?


What do you think?

Saturday, June 19, 2010

A dissent rooted in utilitarian philosophy

Theologians, pastors and others who deny there is a necessary connection between moral goodness and right action are dissenting. And this dissent has its roots in utilitarian philosophy. In his Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II teaches that, "The morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the 'object' rationally chosen by the deliberate will, as is borne out by the insightful analysis, still valid today, made by Saint Thomas. In order to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person. The object of the act of willing is in fact a freely chosen kind of behavior. To the extent that it is in conformity with the order of reason, it is the cause of the goodness of the will; it perfects us morally, and disposes us to recognize our ultimate end in the perfect good, primordial love. By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world. Rather, that object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person. Consequently, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches*, 'there are certain specific kinds of behavior that are always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.'" (No. 78).

In the same encyclical, the Holy Father teaches that the teleological ethical theories (proportionalism and consequentialism), "while acknowledging that moral values are indicated by reason and by revelation, maintain that it is never possible to formulate an absolute prohibition of particular kinds of behavior which would be in conflict, in every circumstance and in every culture, with those values." (No. 75) and goes on to explain that, "Such theories..are not faithful to the Church's teaching, when they believe they can justify, as morally good, deliberate choices of kinds of behavior contrary to the commandments of the divine and natural law. These theories cannot claim to be grounded in the Catholic moral tradition....The faithful are obliged to acknowledge and respect the specific moral precepts declared and taught by the Church in the name of God, the Creator and Lord." (No. 76).

Certain acts (such as abortion, contraception, and homosexual acts) are intrinsically evil and are always and everywhere wrong by reason of their object, "Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature 'incapable of being ordered' to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed 'intrinsically evil' (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances. Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that 'there exists acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object." (No. 80).

* CCC, 1761: "There are concrete acts that it is always wrong to choose, because their choice entails a disorder of the will, i.e., a moral evil. One may not do evil so that good may result from it."



"Historically, utilitarianism has been the best-known form of consequentialism. Utilitarianism assesses acts and/or character traits, practices, and institutions solely in terms of overall net benefit, which is often referred to as well-being or welfare. Overall welfare is calculated by counting a benefit or harm to any one individual the same as the same size benefit or harm to any other individual, and then adding all the benefits and harms together to reach an aggregate sum. There is considerable dispute among consequentialists about what the best account of welfare is." (See here).

Friday, June 18, 2010

John H. Garvey and John Stuart Mill...A Way Forward?


John H. Garvey, as this article notes, has "heartily" endorsed John Stuart Mill's argument about liberty of thought and discussion as a way forward. This is most unfortunate since in Mill, utilitarianism reached its full development. Utilitarianism, a school of thought founded by Jeremy Bentham, a leader of political and legislative reform in England, holds that the goal of our aspirations is pleasure. This school of thought historically grew out of hedonism.

In Memory and Identity, Pope John Paul II explains how utilitarianism ignores (and therefore betrays) the bonum honestum - the just good. His Holiness writes, "...European traditions, especially those of the Enlightenment period, have recognized the need for a criterion to regulate the use of freedom. Yet the criterion adopted has not been so much that of the just good (bonum honestum) as that of utility or pleasure. Here we are faced with a most important element in the tradition of European thought, one to which we must now devote a little more attention. In human action, the different spiritual faculties tend toward a synthesis in which the leading role is played by the will. The subject thus imprints his own rationality upon his actions. Human acts are free and, as such, they engage the responsibility of the subject. Man wants a particular good and he chooses it: he is consequently responsible for his choice.

Against the background of this vision of good, which is both metaphysical and anthropological, there arises a distinction of properly ethical character. It is the distinction between the just good (bonum honestum), the useful good (bonum utile), and the pleasurable good (bonum delectabile). These three types of good are intimately bound up with human action. When he acts, man chooses a certain good, which becomes the goal of his action. If the subject chooses a bonum honestum, his goal is conformed to the very essence of the object of his action and is therefore a just goal. When on the other hand the object of his choice is a bonum utile, the goal is the advantage to be gained from it for the subject. The question of the morality of the action remains open: only when the action bringing the advantage is just and the means used are just, can the subject's goal also be said to be just. It is precisely on this issue that a rift begins to emerge between the Aristotelian-Thomistic ethical tradition and modern utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism ignores the first and fundamental dimension of good, that of the bonum honestum. Utilitarian anthropology and the ethic derived from it set out from the conviction that man tends essentially toward his own interest or that of the group to which he belongs. Ultimately, the aim of human action is personal or corporate advantage. As for the bonum delectabile, it is of course taken into account in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition. The great exponents of this current of thought, in their ethical reflection, are fully aware that the accomplishment of a just good is always accompanied by an interior joy - the joy of the good. In utilitarian thought, however, the dimension of good and the dimension of joy have been displaced by the search for advantage or pleasure. In this scheme, the bonum delectabile of Thomistic thought has been somehow emancipated, becoming both a good and an end in itself. In the utilitarian vision, man in acting seeks pleasure above all else, not the honestum.

Admittedly, utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill emphasize that the goal is not simply pleasure at sense level: spiritual pleasures also come into play. They say that these too must be considered in making the so-called 'calculation of pleasures.' It is this calculation which, to their way of thinking, constitutes the 'normative' expression of the utilitarian ethic: the greatest happiness of the greatest number. All human action, individually and jointly, has to conform to this principle." (Memory and Identity, pp. 34-36).

John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism, as Pope John Paul II explained so eloquently, is not a way forward. Mill was a tragic figure himself. An atheist who took great pains to hide his atheism and to keep it out of his philosophical works. In a letter to Auguste Comte dated December 18, 1841, Mill wrote, "Doubtless you are not unaware of the fact that here in England the writer who would openly profess anti-religious, nay more, anti-Christian opinions would compromise not only his social position, which I believe I could sacrifice for a sufficiently noble cause, but also and more seriously, his chances of being read. Already I am risking much by carefully putting aside, from the very outset of my work, any religious viewpoint, abstaining from declamatory praises of providential wisdom, usually employed by the philosophers of my country, even by the unbelievers. I rarely make allusions to this order of ideas, endeavoring, above all, not to arouse in the ordinary reader any religious antipathies. I believe I have written in such a manner that no thinker, Christian or unbeliever, can be mistaken about the genuine character of my opinions. I rely somewhat, I admit it, on a worldy prudence which here in England prevents religious writers in general from proclaiming unnecessarily the irreligion of the scientific spirit of any value."

Reflect very carefully on these words: "I believe I have written in such a manner that no thinker, Christian or unbeliever, can be mistaken about the genuine character of my opinions." Surely this includes one who has served as dean of Boston College Law School. And yet, Mr. Garvey holds the thought of John Stuart Mill as "a way forward."

God save Catholic University of America. God save the Catholic Church in the United States.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Is John H. Garvey wiser than Cardinal Newman?


Catholic University of America announced Tuesday that John H. Garvey, dean of Boston College Law School, has been hired to serve as its 15th president. Mr. Garvey's appointment is sowing controversy for obvious reasons. In the past, he has argued that, "No school that regulates ideas can justly call itself a university." See here.


The late Fr. Vincent P. Miceli, who was a classically-educated Jesuit scholar and a brilliant philosopher, would have disagreed. For he explained that, "The trouble with this understanding of academic freedom is that it takes for granted as a truth what is a falsity, indeed a complete illusion, namely, that academic freedom is absolutely immune from any reasonable bounds, limitations or restrictions. No human freedom is absolutely immune to restriction. Freedom is no longer freedom when it is reduced to being the unhindered pursuit of one’s whims and desires. This is especially true of freedom exercised in the field of philosophy where conflict with the authentic and infallible teachings of the Church is foreseeable. A true understanding of academic freedom, therefore, is in order so as to distinguish it clearly from academic license.

Academic freedom derives from the rational nature of man. It is rooted in the intellectual activity of man whereby he is called to a dominion and stewardship of the universe through a conquest of truth. Positively, then, academic freedom is a generous guarantee to the unimpeded access to the evidence of truth in any given science. Thus, academic freedom is always bounded by the canons and axiomatic truths of each discipline of learning. Thus, again positively, academic freedom is both purposive and responsible. It has its own built-in rules; its requirements are conditioned by pre-defined directions towards the truth of its particular science. The moral right to academic freedom arises from the inviolability of the proper action necessary to its scientific achievements of truth, founded on man’s connatural inner dynamism of the human intelligence’s hunger for truth. Negatively, academic freedom means at the very least the immunity from unreasonable restrictions, both from within and from outside the academic community, of the right to communicate the results of one’s researches through lectures and publications, and the right to be immune from unreasonable restriction in the pursuit of the teaching profession.

We are now in the position to ask, ‘How is academic freedom violated?’ Scholars, scientists and philosophers hold that whenever one of their members ventures consciously and freely to teach as truths doctrines that contradict the clearly established dogmas or unconditional truths of their disciplines, then such a member of the university is abusing his academic freedom, putting it at the service of stupidities or known falsehoods instead of using it to advance the horizons of truth. Now every science has its dogmas, theology, philosophy and all the natural sciences. Dogmas are not only the ultimate answers to some fundamental questions; they also prompt further questioning and research, leading thus to enlarged, more profound truth....a Catholic university that allows professors and lecturers to attack the authentic teachings of the Church, whether they are infallibly defined or not, is not faithful to the best canons of scholarship, nor to the Church or its own students who have a right in justice to receive the divinely revealed truths in their pristine purity." (The Antichrist, pp. 166-167).

Many Catholic institutions have devaluated the faith and have become enslaved to a narrow (and conceptually flawed) notion of academic freedom. And why have these institutions sold out to secularism? Again, Fr. Miceli, S.J., explains: "Gradually, over the years the essential purpose of the Catholic university has been radically changed. Lusting after secular academic excellence, huge student bodies, expensive science complexes, notoriety, publicity, political clout and financial power, the leaders of Catholic universities somehow lost sight of the unearthly purpose and spirit of the Catholic university. Thus, in today’s Catholic university, intellectualism is preferred to Catholicism; scientism to faith, relativism to truth, immanentism to transcendence, subjectivism to reality, situationism to moral integrity and anarchism to authority. The essential purpose of the Catholic university has de facto been changed, despite the lip service that is still paid to the original Catholic ideal. Conduct flows from convictions and when the conduct is consistently depraved [Such as allowing controversial plays like the Vagina Monologues, my note] it is because the convictions have been corrupted. For example, Judas, forerunner of the Antichrist, had radically changed his deepest convictions about the person and mission of Christ before he sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. No virtuosity at contorted rationalization can mask the massive turning away from the Catholic ideal that has taken place in the Catholic universities of the United States. The light and love of the world have made tragic advances against the light and love of Christ." (The Antichrist, p. 161).

Mr. Garvey, who seems to have succumbed to such contorted rationalization, may believe that there is no conflict between a university’s Catholic identity and having professors and speakers on campus whose views and positions are in conflict with Catholic teaching. But Cardinal Newman would have disagreed: "It is no sufficient security for the Catholicity of a university, even that the whole of Catholic theology should be professed in it, unless the Church breathes her own pure and unearthly spirit in it, and fashions and moulds its organization, and watches over its teaching, and knits together its pupils, and superintends its actions....It cannot but be that if left to themselves, they will, in spite of their profession of Catholic truth, work out results more or less prejudicial to its interests. Nor is this all: such institutions may become hostile to the revealed truth in consequence of the circumstances of their teaching as well as of their end. They are employed in the pursuit of liberal knowledge, and liberal knowledge has a special tendency, not necessary or rightful, but a tendency in fact, when cultivated by beings such as we are, to impress us with a mere philosophical theory of life and conduct, in the place of Revelation....It is not that you will at once reject Catholicism, but you will measure and proportion it by an earthly standard. You will throw its highest and most momentous disclosures into the background; you will deny its principles [such as the authentic meaning of academic freedom, my note], explain away its doctrines, rearrange its precepts, and make light of its practices, even while you profess it....This intellectualism first and chiefly comes into collision with precept, then with doctrine, then with the very principle of dogmatism.." (John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea of a University, Image Books, N.Y., 1959, pp. 223-225).


How prophetic Cardinal Newman was. In its Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, No. 40, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith tells us that, "The Church ‘is like a sacrament, a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men’ (LG, 1). Consequently, to pursue concord and communion is to enhance the force of her witness and credibility. To succumb to the temptation of dissent, on the other hand, is to allow the ‘leaven of infidelity to the Holy Spirit’ to start to work." Faithful Catholics understand this. And they understand what Pope John Paul II meant when he said (in his Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, No. 113) that: "While exchanges and conflicts of opinion may constitute normal expressions of public life in a representative democracy, moral teaching certainly cannot depend simply upon respect for a process: indeed, it is no way established by following the rules and deliberative procedures typical of a democracy. Dissent, in the form of carefully orchestrated protests and polemics carried on in the media, is opposed to ecclesial communion and to a correct understanding of the hierarchical constitution of the People of God. Opposition to the teaching of the Church’s Pastors cannot be seen as a legitimate expression either of Christian freedom or of the diversity of the Spirit’s gifts."

Dissent in the Church leads to polarization and destroys peace within the Church. Faithful Catholics who refuse to accept a dissenting view must resist it for the sake of restoring an authentic peace, a peace which Pope John XXIII taught: "is not completely untroubled and serene; it is active, not calm and motionless. In short, this is a peace that is ever at war. It wars with every sort of error, including that which falsely wears the face of truth; it struggles against the enticements of vice, against those enemies of the soul, of whatever description, who can weaken, blemish, or destroy our innocence or Catholic faith." (Ad Petri cathedram, AAS 51 (1959) 517, PE, 263.93).

The darkness continues to spread. But there will always remain a remnant. For "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5).

Senate Bill would grant the President far-reaching emergency powers over the internet....


"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."

- Justice William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court (1939-75)



"This is more than a war against terrorism. This is a war against the citizens of all countries. The current elites are creating so much fear that people don't know how to respond. But they must remember. This is a move to implement a world dictatorship within the next five years. There may not be another chance."

- Dr. Johannes Koeppl, a former German defense ministry official and NATO advisor


Related reading here.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Paulist Center Boston: Respect for Homosexual Persons or a "Gospel" of Violence?


“If one has the spirit of God, chastity is not a troublesome and humiliating burden, but a joyful affirmation.” -Josemaria Escriva de la Balaguer.


The Church’s teaching concerning sexual morality is not a mere set of rules created and imposed by the Church. Those who have adopted a legalistic attitude toward the Church’s teaching have already been answered by Saint Paul, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honour, not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”

Notice the wording from Saint Paul, “that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter.” Chastity is the virtue which regulates one’s sexual thoughts, desires and actions. Primarily a natural virtue, chastity helps us to see the dignity of other persons as children of God created in the Imago Dei and not as sexual objects. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2337, explains that, “Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman. The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.”

The same Catechism teaches clearly that homosexual acts are among the sins gravely contrary to chastity, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved” (2357). See also 2396 of the Catechism. Now Saint Paul teaches that the unchaste will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, “Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” (Ephesians 5: 5, 6).


Let no one deceive you with empty words. Now this is precisely what some are attempting to do as they lead others to believe that homosexual acts are not illicit and even that they represent a positive good. This even though the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has stated clearly that such an attitude represents an act of violence against those with homosexual tendencies, "The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to considerations of homosexual unions.” ( Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, No. 11, July 31, 2003). This because, “Homosexual persons [like everyone else] are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.” (Catechism, 2359). If we truly respect homosexual persons, we will not affirm acts which are gravely contrary to chastity but will challenge such persons to live out that chastity which leads to inner freedom and Christian perfection. We will also remind such persons that those who engage in sexual acts outside of marriage [and this includes heterosexual persons as well] inevitably harm themselves and others.

The Paulist Center in Boston, as this article details, is not committed toward assisting homosexual persons to live chaste lives. Instead, the Center is engaged in violence toward homosexual persons.
Related reading here.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

New World Order: European Union to gather data on citizens who voice or share "radical" political opinions



"The most common characteristic of all police states is intimidation by surveillance. Citizens know they are being watched and overheard. Their mail is being examined. Their homes can be invaded." - Vance Packard, American journalist, social critic and author


Will Christians who refuse to accept abortion and homosexuality now be defined as "domestic terrorists"? It was Pope John Paul II who warned, "It was a regularly elected parliament that consented to Hitler's rise to power in Germany in the 1930s. And the same Reichstag, by delegating full powers to Hitler (Ermachtigungsgesetz), paved the way for his policy of invading Europe, for the establishment of concentration camps, and for the implementation of the so-called 'final solution' to the Jewish question, that is to say, the elimination of millions of the sons and daughters of Israel. Suffice it to recall these events, so close to us in time, in order to see clearly that law established by man has definite limits, which it must not overstep. They are the limits determined by the law of nature, through which God himself safeguards man's fundamental good. Hitler's crimes had their Nuremberg, where those responsible were judged and punished by human justice. In many cases, however, this element is lacking, even if there always remains the supreme judgment of the Divine Legislator....as we enter a new century and a new millennium, we must question certain legislative choices made by the parliaments of today's democratic regimes." (Memory and Identity, Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium," pp. 134-135).

Already, elements of the New World Order Police State are taking shape here in the United States. But most citizens are not concerned because they are asleep. See here.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Homosexuality must be normalized and Christianity demonized

Dianne Williamson: Annihilator of Common Sense


Five years ago this month, I explained in detail how the media would first plea for "tolerance" of aberrant sexuality and eventually would come to the point of legitimizing homosexuality and lesbianism and demonizing Christianity. See here. And increasingly such is taking place. Dianne Williamson, an anti-Catholic columnist for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette with a long history of attacking the Church and her teaching*, is now accusing Professor Michael Pakaluk of spewing "anti-homosexual blather disguised as intellectual morality" because of his recent column in The Pilot [ official newspaper of the Boston Archdiocese] addressing the recent controversy in Hingham, Massachusetts over the child of lesbian parents being denied admission to a Catholic school.

Williamson, annihilator of common sense that she is, writes, "Pakaluk's screed should come as no shock to anyone familiar with the intolerance of the Catholic Church, even as it's written on the heels of a well-publicized, 25 year study showing that the children of lesbian parents are less likely to have behavioral problems and 'rated higher in social, academic and total competence.'" See here.

Dutch psychologist Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg, Ph.D., a specialist on homosexuality [unlike Ms. Williamson] says that the claim that homosexuality is normal is one of those statements that are "so foolish that only intellectuals could believe them." It is like saying that anorexia nervosa is healthy. See here. Dr. Aardweg notes that, "The term neurotic describes such relationships well. It suggests the ego-centeredness of the relationship; the attention-seeking instead of loving...Neurotic, in short, suggests all kinds of dramas and childish conflicts as well as the basic disinterestedness in the partner, notwithstanding the shallow pretensions of 'love.' Nowhere is there more self-deception in the homosexual than in his representation of himself as a lover. One partner is important to the other only insofar as he satisfies that other's needs. Real, unselfish love for a desired partner would, in fact, end up destroying homosexual 'love'!" (Dr. Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg, The Battle for Normality, Ignatius Press, 1997, pp. 62-63).

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has warned that the adoption of children by homosexuals "would actually mean doing violence to these children" whose situation of dependence would place them "in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development" which this study has shown.


Dianne Williamson is blinded by her hatred for the Catholic Church. As a result, she is incapable of anything even remotely approaching objectivity when she writes on the Church. The irony here is that Ms. Williamson is guilty of the very thing she accuses Professor Pakaluk and the Catholic Church of: intolerance. Tolerance is for external conduct; it is not for the mind. The mind cannot tolerate error for even an instant. To do so would be to declare truth and error equally good. Which is why the Church so zealously protects and guards the truth even while showing love for those in error. The Church says with Saint Augustine: Kill the error, love the one who errs. She proposes while the world imposes.

But Ms. Williamson has demonstrated her intolerance toward the Church time and again.


Related reading: The health risks of homosexual sex here. And Homosexuality and mental health problems here.


* See here, here, here and here for example.

Proximate Sign of Antichrist....


"After the birth of Antichrist and shortly before the rise of the Great Monarch, the false doctrines were to multiply and spread to such an extent that even Catholics would doubt many of the articles of faith, resulting in their perversion, this to apply not only to the laity but even to many priests and some of the hierarchy. The zeal of these latter will be greatly affected by this lack of faith. There will be dissensions among the clergy. Many will be proud, selfish, unjust, covetous, and even forgetful of vows made at ordination regarding chastity. Many will even offer Mass and confer the Sacraments sacrilegiously. When the zeal of the clergy fails they will see the faithful leaving the churches and turning to the world. The House of God will be deserted, singing of hymns will cease, and the observance of festivals abandoned. The relics of saints will be considered powerless and any contributions the laity will make to the Church will be made grudgingly. In many religious houses humility and poverty will be forgotten, pride and desire for worldly luxuries will characterize the inmates instead of the spirit of simplicity which is the mark of a true religious. Because of these defections Catholics will be severely punished, for only by chastisements can God bring back to the minds of His people, a realization of their dependence upon Him. As a consequence, widespread persecution of priests and people will come upon the Church in order that faith and love of God may be revived, for as surely as night follows day, so will civilization crumble and the world become steeped in the darkness of ignorance, hatred, misery and vice when God, who is the Light of the World, will no longer rule in the hearts of His people....In these days fiction will be preferred to truth because the people of the world will wish to be seduced....The prophets say also that evil and falsehood will increase as the world grows weaker with age.." (Rev. R. Gerald Culleton).
Saint Augustine's thought here.
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