A corporal work of mercy.

A corporal work of mercy.
Click on photo for this corporal work of mercy!

Thursday 6 August 2015

Vatican's "Spin-Doctors" have left something out! - Father Lombardi, answer the question!

The world's media has been reporting on the Pope's comment from his Wednesday, August 5, 2014 Audience, wherein he spoke of divorced Catholics. The media has been pronouncing on the Pope's words and adding their spin to make the Church and its doctrine appear mean, nasty and uncharitable. The Pope was not wrong in what he said, however given the tension between last year's Synod and the upcoming one, stress is being created on both sides of the issue.   

In the original Italian comments, however; the Pope refers at the Audience, to Paragraph 84 of Familiaris Consortio. The statement by the Pope is included in the full Italian text as follows:
La Chiesa sa bene che una tale situazione contraddice il Sacramento cristiano. Tuttavia il suo sguardo di maestra attinge sempre da un cuore di madre; un cuore che, animato dallo Spirito Santo, cerca sempre il bene e la salvezza delle persone. Ecco perché sente il dovere, «per amore della verità», di «ben discernere le situazioni». Così si esprimeva san Giovanni Paolo II, nell’Esortazione apostolica Familiaris consortio (n. 84), portando ad esempio la differenza tra chi ha subito la separazione rispetto a chi l’ha provocata. Si deve fare questo discernimento.

The Church knows well that such a situation contradicts the Christian sacrament. However, his gaze teacher always draws from a mother's heart; a heart, animated by the Holy Spirit, always looks for the good and the salvation of people. That's why she feels the duty, "for the love of the truth", to "discern situations." He expressed himself as St. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (no. 84), for example, bringing the difference between those who have suffered the separation compared to those who caused it. You must do this discernment.
The fact is, the Pope has said nothing new. the media and the Vatican spin doctors want you and the world to think he has. St. John Paul II said himself in that document that the Church must "help the divorced" so that they "do not consider themselves separated" from the Church.

Mercy was not suddenly sent down to earth in March 2013 any more than papal humility or kindness to babies and the sick or taking the bus. 

What game is being played here by the Vatican and its communications experts? Firstly, no other language has this paragraph. Secondly, the referral is only relevant in its doctrinal soundness if one goes to Familiars Consortio and reads it. This is a profound paragraph and it has not been reported on. The Pope referred to it, did he mean just that sentence about the situational "discernment" or did he intend to endorse the whole paragraph? -- a paragraph which upholds the doctrine as given to the world be Our Lord Jesus Christ!

The mainstream media outside of Italy would not be expected to research what he actually said in Italian. For this, they cannot be blamed - the lingua franca of the world is English in which it does not appear. One can forgive the Pope for not speaking English, one cannot forgive the Vatican communication experts for not properly translating and reporting on what the Pope actually said.

There is a game being played here. The Pope made a statement on a matter which is being hotly debated and the world's media has lapped it up. Yet, he included reference to doctrinal orthodoxy that has been ignored because it has not been translated. 

Is the Pope himself playing this game with full knowledge that as long as he says it in Italian, he can't be accused of being unorthodox? Or is he an innocent bystander to a corrupt and agenda driven Communications Office which is out of control and bent on changing doctrine through pastoral initiatives?

Remember this quote
"Will this Pope re-write controversial Church doctrines? No. But that isn't how doctrine changes. Doctrine changes when pastoral contexts shift and new insights emerge such that particularly doctrinal formulations no longer mediate the saving message of God's transforming love. Doctrine changes when the Church has leaders and teachers who are not afraid to take note of new contexts and emerging insights. It changes when the Church has pastors who do what Francis has been insisting: leave the securities of your chanceries, of your rectories, of your safe places, of your episcopal residences go set aside the small minded rules that often keep you locked up and shielded from the world."
It originated as best as we can tell by Richard Gaillardetz in the National Catholic Reporter and used repeatedly in talks without attribution by Father Thomas J. Rosica, CSB, Executive Producer of Salt + Light Television and a high-profile Vatican official and English-language spokesman for the Holy See and he is a well-known member of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. The man in charge of all of this is Jesuit Father, Federico Lombardi as Director of the Vatican Press Office.

Who can answer the question and explain why the English speaking world is not getting the full story? Imagine, the Church of Christ on Earth engaged in media spin and obfuscation. Expect it to increase before October.

Familiars Consortio 84.

e) Divorced Persons Who Have Remarried

84. Daily experience unfortunately shows that people who have obtained a divorce usually intend to enter into a new union, obviously not with a Catholic religious ceremony. Since this is an evil that, like the others, is affecting more and more Catholics as well, the problem must be faced with resolution and without delay. The Synod Fathers studied it expressly. The Church, which was set up to lead to salvation all people and especially the baptized, cannot abandon to their own devices those who have been previously bound by sacramental marriage and who have attempted a second marriage. The Church will therefore make untiring efforts to put at their disposal her means of salvation.

Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children's upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid.

Together with the Synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and the whole community of the faithful to help the divorced, and with solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves as separated from the Church, for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must, share in her life. They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to community efforts in favor of justice, to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God's grace. Let the Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother, and thus sustain them in faith and hope.

However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.

Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples."[180]

Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the couples themselves and their families, and also to the community of the faithful, forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the celebration of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead people into error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage.

By acting in this way, the Church professes her own fidelity to Christ and to His truth. At the same time she shows motherly concern for these children of hers, especially those who, through no fault of their own, have been abandoned by their legitimate partner.

With firm confidence she believes that those who have rejected the Lord's command and are still living in this state will be able to obtain from God the grace of conversion and salvation, provided that they have persevered in prayer, penance and charity.

Tuesday 4 August 2015

"If we are able to obtain intact fetal cadavers, then we can make them part of the budget."

How big is this?

Really big and any judge or politician that fails to stop this now can only be benefitting and is corrupt and unworthy of office.

Steve Skoject watched it all and draws parallels with a future Nuremburg type of trial that will judge and sentence these fascist criminals. He also add's this:
"And then they go to look at “fresh specimens” to see their quality and “intactness.” I can’t recommend watching this part of the video unless you have the stomach for it. And maybe not even then. I moved beyond nausea into horror, and then just deep sadness. As they picked through a tray of eviscerated human remains, identifying each organ and part, I found that I had to stop the video when I saw them pull out a perfect little hand with the tweezers, a leg clearly visible in the bloody mess behind it. To be honest, I broke down for a moment and just started to cry. How could they? How could they?
It cannot be hidden any longer.


Canada's Development & Peace and Canadian Bishops feel "attacked"

It seems that when the going gets tough, hire a consultant. 

That is the case with the social justice arm of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops caught funding groups in other countries who were engaged in abortion. They actually blame bloggers and online journalists (must be LifeSiteNews) for for knocking them off their game. It seems that they are adopting the plan of CRS. Well, birds of a feather flock together. CRS, the social justice arm of the USCCB that was exposed by the Lepanto Insitute for its support of abortion services and other activiies not in conformity with the Church. CRS whose President earns $400,000.00 and whose Vice-President was paid out to leave because he "married" a man.

They'll give Canadians real good advice, I am sure. Good for bloggers and LifeSiteNews, I say. Let them have their protocols. If they think for a moment that we are going to stop fighting for the truth of Christ and His Church and the evil of abortion in all its gore, they are quite wrong.


The good folks at D&P seem not to care what happens when their social justice obsession goes awry. Perhaps they should mediate at this picture of a baby torn apart from its mother's womb for a while. Mething that the juxtaposition with the vultures and their carrion is quite apt. Yet, all we hear from Rome is that we speak too much on abortion and we're right-wingers if we don't buy into the unproven science of man-made climate change. The world is burning, babies are murdered, Christians are persecuted and the Bishop of Rome lectures us on science which is beyond his scope of understanding and authority. 

These folks never learn. They keep repeating the same thing and expect a different result. 

The CRS, D&P and the rest need to realise that we're not going away.

Not one penny friend, Not one penny to any of these.


Image result for catholic registerD&P, bishops developing protocol to deal with social media attacks

BY  
  • July 31, 2015
The Canadian Catholic Organizations for Development and Peace will model its statement of principles on the “CRS Guiding Principles” developed by the American Catholic aid agency Catholic Relief Services.
The idea for a Canadian version of the statement of principles came up at a joint meeting of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops standing committee on Development and Peace and Development and Peace’s own standing liaison committee for relations with the bishops.
Like Development and Peace, the CRS has been criticized by online journalists and bloggers accusing it of working with organizations that support abortion and contraception. In 2010 LifeSite News questioned Development and Peace’s funding of a Jesuit-founded human rights organization because the Mexican organization had been cited along with organizations that advocated for legal access to abortion in a joint NGO report to the United Nations. Despite denials of any involvement in pro-abortion activities or any formal relationship with pro-abortion organizations, the accusations spurred a formal investigation by the CCCB and caused a crisis for Development and Peace’s public image and its fundraising efforts.
Read the rest at The Catholic Register

Thursday 30 July 2015

CAUTION, EXTREMELY DISTURBING! Abortionist plays with baby after abortion!

On the day when RU-486 the up to 7 week abortion pill was approved in Canada, I have been sent this video link which was uploaded just a few weeks ago. It appears to be in Russian.

This is extremely disturbing. As I watched the first few seconds, I could only pray. You may not be able to stomach more. 

I thought for a moment, "should I post this?" 


General Dwight D. Eisenhower visited every Nazi death camp. He saw himself and demanded it be documented. He reputedly said that it had to be lest someone come along in the future to deny the reality of what happened. 

What is filmed here is living, breathing human being. The monsters at Planned Parenthood who would siphon the baby and dissect it to sell body parts are the epitome of evil. Yet, why is everyone so outraged now over this? The evil of abortion persists regardless. Yet, if this is what it take to make the news headlines and show the facts to people, the so be it.

Pray for us little child. Pray for the whole world.

WARNING:

The video is extremely disturbing, but the truth cannot be denied.

This is abortion.



Pushers of the Sodomy Synod will be stopped!

Get out the pitchforks and torches folks.

It's time!

http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/shadow-council-pushes-heresy

Church Militant - Serving Catholics

Shadow Council’ Pushes Heresy

Speakers spun rationalizations for contraception, sodomy and Communion for divorced adulterers

ROME, July 30, 2015 (ChurchMilitant.com) - Contraception, homosexual activity and Communion for divorced adulterers — all were endorsed and rationalized by speakers at a private conference held at a Jesuit university in Rome earlier this year. Presenters at the invitation-only conference, which suspicious critics are calling the "shadow council," or "shadow synod," also rejected the idea that any acts, such as artificial contraception or sodomy, should be called "intrinsically evil."

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/4064/shadow_council_speakers_push_acceptance_of_contraception_homosexuality.aspx

Catholic World Report

July 29, 2015
On July 17, nearly two months after the fact, the German bishops conference released the text of the meeting's interventions, in French, German, and Italian
Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany, gestures during a news conference in Rome in February 2012 (CNS photo/Max Rossi, Reuters); right: The Pontifical Gregorian University at night, in a 2007 photo (Wikipedia)
Rome, Italy, Jul 29, 2015 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Yes to contraception, homosexual acts, and Communion for the divorced and remarried – all considering the circumstances. No to understanding any acts as intrinsically evil.

These are the positions advocated by speakers at the May 25 “shadow council” which gathered prelates and theologians, led by the German bishops, at a Jesuit university in Rome.

That day 50 specially chosen representatives of the the German, Swiss, and French bishops conferences gathered at the Pontifical Gregorian University for a closed-door meeting, with the aim of reflecting on the biblical and theological bases of the family, and of discussing their goals for the Synod on the Family which will be held at the Vatican this October.

Wednesday 29 July 2015

Latin Mass Community in London moving to St. Thomas, Ontario

There is a growing and vibrant community of Catholics in the Diocese of London, Ontario worshipping the Lord according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. The community is a combination of those who attended the Mass at St. Patrick's in Kinkora and various locations in London formerly served by a travelling priest from the FSSP.

For the last two years, the community has worshipped on Sundays at 2:00 PM in the chapel at Reginal Mundi College, just south of the City of London. The Chapel with a fine Casavant pipe organ in what is now a regular co-educational high school, was originally built as part of the College which was opened in the 1960's as a Minor Seminary. Similar to the School of Philosophy built in Toronto at St. Augustine's Seminary, it's mission collapsed in the wake of the chaos after the Second Vatican Council and the crisis of vocations. 

Beginning Sunday, August 2, the second of only two Traditional Latin Masses in the entire Diocese of London will move to Holy Angels Parish in St. Thomas, Ontario, 502 Talbot Street, St. Thomas, Ontario and is twenty minutes south of London. The Church, whilst renovated after the Council, is eminently suitable and dignified and the Pastor, extremely welcoming! The other Latin Mass community of St. Benedict recently had to move from the now closed Assumption Parish in Windsor, the oldest church in Canada west of Montreal and a national historic site.

The Mass in St. Thomas, Ontario will be at 1:30 P.M. with a potential change to an earlier time in the future. There are three diocesan priests from the Diocese of London providing pastoral care to this growing and vibrant community of Catholics.

Tuesday 28 July 2015

What is going on in Dolan's New York?

Iconoclasm, sodomite organists to "marry" another man, organists living with priests, luxury rectory renovations.

There are three churches in New York City where the liturgy has been properly celebrated, the music properly executed and the traditional Latin Mass offered. Holy Innocents has survived, for now, an attempted closure. Yet, Our Savior is under a new pastor who has spent like a drunken sailor on the rectory where he lives with the organist while creating havoc with the magnificent iconongraphy. Now we have a report that at St. Agnes, the organist and choir resigned due to the new priest's admonishment, the current organist, a man, is to "marry" another man and the pastor admonishes and harasses the attendees of the Latin Mass to the point of turning off the air-conditioning.

Where is Timothy Dolan in all of this?

http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/organist-at-nys-st.-agnes-church-to-marry-gay-partner

https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/mullarkey/2015/07/vandalism-with-intent

http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/12/what-clericalism-looks-like




Roof going on. Contribution matching!

Thursday 23 July 2015

Deodorant needed against Clericalist dis-odour


Basilian Father, Thomas J. Rosica, spoke recently at the annual assembly of the American Association of Priests, a rather dubious organisation of clerics without clericals still opining about their issues with the Third Edition of the Roman Missal correctly translated and helping the nuns on the bus, in between advocating for women deacons. The whole speech has been made available by this cleric at Zenit and here is this little gem as GloriaTV reports:
Wrong Smell: Father Thomas Rosica, the CEO of the liberal Canadian Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and English language Media Attaché to the Holy See Press Office has claimed in a keynote address delivered in St. Louis, Missouri on June 30th, that – quote – “the Church must smell like the world it penetrates.” In sharp contradiction to Rosica, Saint Paul writes in 2 Cor 2,14 of Christ who “through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.
The bolding of that quote above is also in the text as published by Zenit. Father Rosica must have clearly intended that quote to stand out. Well, let is stand, it says much. 

We've surely heard that we are to become like the Saints who exude the "odour of sanctity" and as St. Paul reminds us above, we are to become the "fragrance" of  Our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am quite sure that most faithful, practicing Catholics have no desire to smell like the world. Frankly, Father Rosica needs to stop telling us and the world what the Church needs to do, because he is wrong. 

What the Church needs to do is to preach that there is no salvation outside of the Church, that one must come to Jesus Christ in order to be saved lest one perish in Hell for all eternity. The Church must preach the Social Kingship of Christ, not the socialist, environmentalist and homosexualist/adulterist false gospel that has been shoved down our throats for decades.  The Church must re-catechise Its faithful, restore Her liturgy and speak the truth with clarity and charity. The Church must preach God's mercy but not apart from His justice. This generation, for the most part, of bishops and priests seem to have forgotten this. 

If Father Rosica or the Bishop of Rome himself wish to take on the smell of the world they are more than free to do so. They can take on any stench they like. However, the Church Herself, being the spotless Bride of Christ, has the odour of sanctity, perfumed with incense to adorn Her beauty. 

To say that the Church must take on the smell of the world is to corrupt Her with filth. It is to defile Her and they don't have the right to do that. 

Anymore. 

That is all.

Tuesday 21 July 2015

Archdiocese of Toronto: Televised Mass for Shut-Ins features Hymn to Earth goddess Gaia!

UPDATE: The Chancellor for the Archdiocese of Toronto has indicated that the matter will be discussed with Monsignor Brad Massman, age 76 and retired Rector of St. Paul's Basilica, to ensure that, "it does not happen again." Perhaps the good Monsignor Massman, who really should know better, might take a look at this article at the New Liturgical Movement on why we sing to God. 

For those of us that work to ensure that the music in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is focused on the true worship of God and with the dignity that befits the sacred liturgy, the introduction of hymns has been a challenging exercise. 

I contend that the single worst problem with Catholic worship today as it relates to what is ridiculously considered to be sacred or liturgical music resides in the 1967 document, Musicam Sacram. For the first time in the history of the Church; hymns were used to supplant the antiphons, liturgical texts from Holy Scripture structured in the Mass for over 1,500 years. This was right out of Luther's Mass. How diabolical! More often than not, we see these sacred texts in the Ordinary Form of the Mass, the Entrance, Offertory (yes, it exists) and Communion antiphons, replaced by hymns of dubious quality and theology. Hymns replacing scripture. The whole premise seems counter to the increased reading of scripture in the Mass that the reformers (I prefer to call them what they were, revolutionaries) allegedly wanted; or was it?

Less control of course is given over the recessional hymn which is certainly not necessary as technically speaking, Mass has ended just before with the Ite. Yet, this is a time, should a hymn be chosen, for glorious singing of praise or thanksgiving to God or perhaps the Blessed Mother or Saint of the Day.

For those poor souls trapped inside and unable to attend the Holy Mass in Toronto, they often choose to be subjected to the liturgical banality of a televised Mass for Shut-Ins which does not substitute for the Sunday obligation.

Is that not bad enough?

No, it seems.

How about this hymn to the pagan earth goddess, gaia at the end of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You can listen to it yourself at 27:30.

This is a disgrace. How hard, some of us have worked for proper liturgy to the glory of God and the edification of his people. How disgusting it is to see this priest and these laymen and women and these musicians do such a disgrace. So unprofessional; so scandalous to the faithful held hostage by these liturgically incompetent musicians and priests who permit this right under their noses. Have they no faith? 

There is no excuse for this in Toronto, not with the presence of St. Michael's Choir School and the outstanding work done there for over eighty years. Msgr. Ronan would not be amused but I think, they all hated him anyway.


Let nobody tell you that the liturgy in the Archdiocese of Toronto, except for a few minor exceptions, is not impoverished, banal, self-serving and narcissistic. Those are harsh words, this is a condemnation and I am tired of preaching and working for something better when ecclesiastics really don't seem to give a damn. 

A few months ago, a bishop stopped to question me about the book, the Simple English Propers and his questioning of the existence of the Offertory Antiphon. I had to explain to a bishop, what it was. Who the hell am I to explain liturgy to a bishop?

I have over 25 years as a Cantor in the Ordinary Form. I find this liturgical bile reprehensible and insulting to Our Lord and to the work that those of us faithful have done. Frankly, I think there is simply no hope for the reformed liturgy. I am becoming more convinced than ever that the future of the Church is back to its past. 

Pagan gaia worship, and on the official Archdiocese of Toronto YouTube page!


Enough!
 

Cardinal Collins, you need to fix this!


For more on the composer.

http://www.carolynmcdademusic.com/bio.html


http://www.carolynmcdademusic.com/gaia-index.html

UPDATE:

I am pleased to see that this is making the rounds in Italian and the writer drew the parallel with the Bishop of Rome's environmental manifesto:

http://www.iltimone.org/33529,News.html

Gaia in Greek mythology is the goddess who personified the Earth generates divine races. Second born after Chaos and before Eros. He was revered, especially in Attica, as the goddess of the dead and the underworld. In late period it is to merge with the various figures of the Universal Mother and the Mother of the Gods. It was identified by the Romans with Tellus.

The global environmental movement has spread the name, and in some even the worship of Gaia, arguing that the earth is a sentient super-organism, which lives in the spirit of the ancient goddess worship and reverence it deserves.

The British chemist and environmentalist guru James Lovelock's book "Gaia: a new look at life" (Gaia: new ideas on ecology) writes that "all forms of life on the planet are a part of Gaia - part of the spirit the goddess that sustains life on earth. From the beginning of this transformation in a living system, the actions of Gaia have created diversity in evolution of living creatures on the planet earth. "

A hymn to Gaia was sung at the end of the Mass broadcast on Sunday by the television channel CTV Toronto, Mass and entrusted to the archdiocese Canadian television space (in the video above per minute 27:30).

The song is titled "Beautiful Gaia" and was written by American Carolyn McDade, feminist and composer of songs spiritualeggianti often used in the liturgies Protestant and Catholic unfortunately.

Sunday 19 July 2015

Fresh Fetal Livers - on sale this week!

This is where "choice" leads, as if we did not already know that it was happening. Ann Barnhardt reports on the selling of fetal livers and other parts on sale this week at Stem Express.  This information has come our way from PewSitter and as Mundabor also reminds us, this is nothing more than "Nazification!" What would the greatest generation think after spilling so much blood that we have become them? Mundabor also reminds us how important PewSitter is as a portal of unstoppable information that informs and educates Catholics in this dark age in which we are living. It is incredibly important.

When our governments approved research in "embryonic" stem-cell research, what did they expect was going to happen? Did anyone really think that money was not behind it all along? If you didn't then you were simply stupid or in denial. They were warned.


Abortion is a big business. The business of death is worth hundreds of millions of dollars as clearly told to all by this spiritual child of Mengele, Deborah Nucatola, neither of whom deserve the title "Doctor" before their names. Nucatola is not alone, she is one cog in an enormous wheel of evil and death.


Yet, the truth is; even if the fresh fetal liver cells were not on sale or aborted babies were not burned to heat buildings, abortion would be no less evil.


How much longer can this evil continue without some kind of divine intervention?


Not long, methinks.






Tuesday 14 July 2015

Changing doctrine IS on the agenda!

Do you remember this?
"Will this Pope re-write controversial Church doctrines? No. But that isn't how doctrine changes. Doctrine changes when pastoral contexts shift and new insights emerge such that particularly doctrinal formulations no longer mediate the saving message of God's transforming love. Doctrine changes when the Church has leaders and teachers who are not afraid to take note of new contexts and emerging insights. It changes when the Church has pastors who do what Francis has been insisting: leave the securities of your chanceries, of your rectories, of your safe places, of your episcopal residences go set aside the small minded rules that often keep you locked up and shielded from the world."
With that quote, (originating at the NCReporter) Father Thomas J. Rosica, on numerous occasions, laid out the plan of the upcoming Synod on the Family.

In this breaking report by Sandro Magister, French Dominican theologian Thomas Michelet has written:  
This lack of clarity would also end up making the concluding proposals of the synod ambiguous, opening the way to pastoral practices so diversified as to undermine the unity of the doctrine concerning the indissolubility of marriage, even if in words it is reaffirmed as intact.
I was threatened with a lawsuit by Father Thomas Rosica for stating that he and others were attempting to change doctrine through pastoral practice. I quoted his own quote. 

Now, others are articulating that same thing -- and people much more educated and qualified than this simple layman.

The bishops and priests and theologians who are planning this scam will be held accountable by Our Blessed Lord. 

You and I, dear sister and brother, must proclaim that these men, these clerics, no matter what colour their fancy robes, will be challenged by the Catholic faithful no matter how small we become, no matter how ostracised we become, no matter how mocked we become -- we will challenge them, we will call them out, we will hold them accountable in the here and now and let Our Blessed Lord do it for all eternity. 

Read Magister's latest at http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351093?eng=y


Synod. The Preparatory Document’s Arabian Phoenix

Everybody says there is one, what it is nobody knows. It is the “penitential way” to communion for the divorced and remarried. The Dominican theologian Thomas Michelet lays bare the contradictions

by Sandro Magister


Chopped babies and their parts sold by a presumed Catholic - Deborah Nucatola - Repent lest you be judged

If it was good enough for you Deborah!

Deborah Nucatola!

You have many happy pictures on your Facebook; even with your smiling niece. Thank God she wasn't cut up and sold off as spare parts.


One can only presume you were baptised as a Catholic, given your name and obvious Italian heritage.


Shame on you.


You have achieved your 15 minutes of fame with a salad and a glass of wine.


May it bring you to repentance and God's mercy before you find His justice!


Postscript: To the many thousands that have found their way here from Michael Savage at WND, welcome and God bless you. Would you consider this so that some good might come out of such vile evil?




Monday 13 July 2015

The Change Manifesto

Below is the address by Jorge Bergoglio, Bishop of Rome to the people of Bolivia. The salutation, "Good afternoon" reminds us of another time when we did not hear "Praise to Jesus Christ" but instead, "good evening."

The Holy Name of Jesus appears four times. "Christ," not once. "Grace" is not to be found. The word "sin" appears four times, three in connection with an apology that the Europeans were so nasty, nothing about individual sin. "Conversion" appears once in the context of social structures. "Change" appears thirty-one times, where have we heard that word before?

Take a look at this one paragraph:
"Today I wish to reflect with you on the change we want and need. You know that recently I wrote about the problems of climate change. But now I would like to speak of change in another sense. Positive change, a change which is good for us, a change – we can say – which is redemptive. Because we need it. I know that you are looking for change, and not just you alone: in my different meetings, in my different travels, I have sensed an expectation, a longing, a yearning for change, in people throughout the world. Even within that ever smaller minority which believes that the present system is beneficial, there is a widespread sense of dissatisfaction and even despondency. Many people are hoping for a change capable of releasing them from the bondage of individualism and the despondency it spawns."
How can there be any change except that based on Our Lord Jesus Christ?

When has a Pope ever spoken in this manner? All that was missing was liberté, égalité, fraternité!

What is most concerning about this speech is that it was not just an off-the-cuff mess that we've become familiar with. It was written down and with footnotes.

The problems of Central and South America are well known. They are not the fault of Europeans who brought the saving news of Christ, the problems is political and economic corruption, criminal domination and a Church which has failed to preach the Truth as clearly seen in the vanishing numbers of faithful, an outright collapse as people leave for other congregations that actually preach about Jesus. Convert the people to Christ and His Church and you will convert the economic and political system.

The liberation theology inspired chickens of the 1970's have come home to roost. 

It was a heresy then and it is a heresy now no matter who proclaims it.

The Bishop of Rome's address follows, God help us.

***

Good afternoon!

Several months ago, we met in Rome, and I remember that first meeting. In the meantime I have kept you in my thoughts and prayers. I am happy to see you again, here, as you discuss the best ways to overcome the grave situations of injustice experienced by the excluded throughout our world. Thank you, President Evo Morales, for your efforts to make this meeting possible.

During our first meeting in Rome, I sensed something very beautiful: fraternity, determination, commitment, a thirst for justice. Today, in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, I sense it once again. I thank you for that. I also know, from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace headed by Cardinal Turkson, that many people in the Church feel very close to the popular movements. That makes me very happy! I am pleased to see the Church opening her doors to all of you, embracing you, accompanying you and establishing in each diocese, in every justice and peace commission, a genuine, ongoing and serious cooperation with popular movements. I ask everyone, bishops, priests and laity, as well as the social organizations of the urban and rural peripheries, to deepen this encounter.

Today God has granted that we meet again. The Bible tells us that God hears the cry of his people, and I wish to join my voice to yours in calling for land, lodging and labor for all our brothers and sisters. I said it and I repeat it: these are sacred rights. It is important, it is well worth fighting for them. May the cry of the excluded be heard in Latin America and throughout the world.

1. Let us begin by acknowledging that change is needed. Here I would clarify, lest there be any misunderstanding, that I am speaking about problems common to all Latin Americans and, more generally, to humanity as a whole. They are global problems which today no one state can resolve on its own. With this clarification, I now propose that we ask the following questions:

Do we realize that something is wrong in a world where there are so many farmworkers without land, so many families without a home, so many laborers without rights, so many persons whose dignity is not respected?

Do we realize that something is wrong where so many senseless wars are being fought and acts of fratricidal violence are taking place on our very doorstep? Do we realize something is wrong when the soil, water, air and living creatures of our world are under constant threat?

So let’s not be afraid to say it: we need change; we want change.

In your letters and in our meetings, you have mentioned the many forms of exclusion and injustice which you experience in the workplace, in neighborhoods and throughout the land. They are many and diverse, just as many and diverse are the ways in which you confront them. Yet there is an invisible thread joining every one of those forms of exclusion: can we recognize it? These are not isolated issues. I wonder whether we can see that these destructive realities are part of a system which has become global. Do we realize that that system has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature?

If such is the case, I would insist, let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change, structural change. This system is by now intolerable: farmworkers find it intolerable, laborers find it intolerable, communities find it intolerable, peoples find it intolerable … The earth itself – our sister, Mother Earth, as Saint Francis would say – also finds it intolerable.

We want change in our lives, in our neighborhoods, in our everyday reality. We want a change which can affect the entire world, since global interdependence calls for global answers to local problems. The globalization of hope, a hope which springs up from peoples and takes root among the poor, must replace the globalization of exclusion and indifference!

Today I wish to reflect with you on the change we want and need. You know that recently I wrote about the problems of climate change. But now I would like to speak of change in another sense. Positive change, a change which is good for us, a change – we can say – which is redemptive. Because we need it. I know that you are looking for change, and not just you alone: in my different meetings, in my different travels, I have sensed an expectation, a longing, a yearning for change, in people throughout the world. Even within that ever smaller minority which believes that the present system is beneficial, there is a widespread sense of dissatisfaction and even despondency. Many people are hoping for a change capable of releasing them from the bondage of individualism and the despondency it spawns.

Time, my brothers and sisters, seems to be running out; we are not yet tearing one another apart, but we are tearing apart our common home. Today, the scientific community realizes what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil”. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.

I do not need to go on describing the evil effects of this subtle dictatorship: you are well aware of them. Nor is it enough to point to the structural causes of today’s social and environmental crisis. We are suffering from an excess of diagnosis, which at times leads us to multiply words and to revel in pessimism and negativity. Looking at the daily news we think that there is nothing to be done, except to take care of ourselves and the little circle of our family and friends.

What can I do, as collector of paper, old clothes or used metal, a recycler, about all these problems if I barely make enough money to put food on the table? What can I do as a craftsman, a street vendor, a trucker, a downtrodden worker, if I don’t even enjoy workers’ rights? What can I do, a farmwife, a native woman, a fisher who can hardly fight the domination of the big corporations? What can I do from my little home, my shanty, my hamlet, my settlement, when I daily meet with discrimination and marginalization? What can be done by those students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries who come to my neighborhood with their hearts full of hopes and dreams, but without any real solution for my problems? A lot! They can do a lot. You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands, through your ability to organize and carry out creative alternatives, through your daily efforts to ensure the three “L’s” (labor, lodging, land) and through your proactive participation in the great processes of change on the national, regional and global levels. Don’t lose heart!

2. You are sowers of change. Here in Bolivia I have heard a phrase which I like: “process of change”. Change seen not as something which will one day result from any one political decision or change in social structure. We know from painful experience that changes of structure which are not accompanied by a sincere conversion of mind and heart sooner or later end up in bureaucratization, corruption and failure. That is why I like the image of a “process”, where the drive to sow, to water seeds which others will see sprout, replaces the ambition to occupy every available position of power and to see immediate results. Each of us is just one part of a complex and differentiated whole, interacting in time: peoples who struggle to find meaning, a destiny, and to live with dignity, to “live well”.

As members of popular movements, you carry out your work inspired by fraternal love, which you show in opposing social injustice. When we look into the eyes of the suffering, when we see the faces of the endangered campesino, the poor laborer, the downtrodden native, the homeless family, the persecuted migrant, the unemployed young person, the exploited child, the mother who lost her child in a shootout because the barrio was occupied by drugdealers, the father who lost his daughter to enslavement…. when we think of all those names and faces, our hearts break because of so much sorrow and pain. And we are deeply moved…. We are moved because “we have seen and heard” not a cold statistic but the pain of a suffering humanity, our own pain, our own flesh. This is something quite different than abstract theorizing or eloquent indignation. It moves us; it makes us attentive to others in an effort to move forward together. That emotion which turns into community action is not something which can be understood by reason alone: it has a surplus of meaning which only peoples understand, and it gives a special feel to genuine popular movements.

Each day you are caught up in the storms of people’s lives. You have told me about their causes, you have shared your own struggles with me, and I thank you for that. You, dear brothers and sisters, often work on little things, in local situations, amid forms of injustice which you do not simply accept but actively resist, standing up to an idolatrous system which excludes, debases and kills. I have seen you work tirelessly for the soil and crops of campesinos, for their lands and communities, for a more dignified local economy, for the urbanization of their homes and settlements; you have helped them build their own homes and develop neighborhood infrastructures. You have also promoted any number of community activities aimed at reaffirming so elementary and undeniably necessary a right as that of the three “L’s”: land, lodging and labor.

This rootedness in the barrio, the land, the office, the labor union, this ability to see yourselves in the faces of others, this daily proximity to their share of troubles and their little acts of heroism: this is what enables you to practice the commandment of love, not on the basis of ideas or concepts, but rather on the basis of genuine interpersonal encounter. We do not love concepts or ideas; we love people... Commitment, true commitment, is born of the love of men and women, of children and the elderly, of peoples and communities… of names and faces which fill our hearts. From those seeds of hope patiently sown in the forgotten fringes of our planet, from those seedlings of a tenderness which struggles to grow amid the shadows of exclusion, great trees will spring up, great groves of hope to give oxygen to our world.

So I am pleased to see that you are working at close hand to care for those seedlings, but at the same time, with a broader perspective, to protect the entire forest. Your work is carried out against a horizon which, while concentrating on your own specific area, also aims to resolve at their root the more general problems of poverty, inequality and exclusion.

I congratulate you on this. It is essential that, along with the defense of their legitimate rights, peoples and their social organizations be able to construct a humane alternative to a globalization which excludes. You are sowers of change. May God grant you the courage, joy, perseverance and passion to continue sowing. Be assured that sooner or later we will see its fruits. Of the leadership I ask this: be creative and never stop being rooted in local realities, since the father of lies is able to usurp noble words, to promote intellectual fads and to adopt ideological stances. But if you build on solid foundations, on real needs and on the lived experience of your brothers and sisters, of campesinos and natives, of excluded workers and marginalized families, you will surely be on the right path.

The Church cannot and must not remain aloof from this process in her proclamation of the Gospel. Many priests and pastoral workers carry out an enormous work of accompanying and promoting the excluded throughout the world, alongside cooperatives, favouring businesses, providing housing, working generously in the fields of health, sports and education. I am convinced that respectful cooperation with the popular movements can revitalize these efforts and strengthen processes of change.

Let us always have at heart the Virgin Mary, a humble girl from small people lost on the fringes of a great empire, a homeless mother who could turn a stable for beasts into a home for Jesus with just a few swaddling clothes and much tenderness. Mary is a sign of hope for peoples suffering the birth pangs of justice. I pray that Our Lady of Mount Carmel, patroness of Bolivia, will allow this meeting of ours to be a leaven of change.

3. Lastly, I would like us all to consider some important tasks for the present historical moment, since we desire a positive change for the benefit of all our brothers and sisters. We know this. We desire change enriched by the collaboration of governments, popular movements and other social forces. This too we know. But it is not so easy to define the content of change – in other words, a social program which can embody this project of fraternity and justice which we are seeking. So don’t expect a recipe from this Pope. Neither the Pope nor the Church have a monopoly on the interpretation of social reality or the proposal of solutions to contemporary issues. I dare say that no recipe exists. History is made by each generation as it follows in the footsteps of those preceding it, as it seeks its own path and respects the values which God has placed in the human heart.

I would like, all the same, to propose three great tasks which demand a decisive and shared contribution from popular movements:

3.1 The first task is to put the economy at the service of peoples. Human beings and nature must not be at the service of money. Let us say NO to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth.

The economy should not be a mechanism for accumulating goods, but rather the proper administration of our common home. This entails a commitment to care for that home and to the fitting distribution of its goods among all. It is not only about ensuring a supply of food or “decent sustenance”. Nor, although this is already a great step forward, is it to guarantee the three “L’s” of land, lodging and labor for which you are working. A truly communitarian economy, one might say an economy of Christian inspiration, must ensure peoples’ dignity and their “general, temporal welfare and prosperity”.[1] This includes the three “L’s”, but also access to education, health care, new technologies, artistic and cultural manifestations, communications, sports and recreation. A just economy must create the conditions for everyone to be able to enjoy a childhood without want, to develop their talents when young, to work with full rights during their active years and to enjoy a dignified retirement as they grow older. It is an economy where human beings, in harmony with nature, structure the entire system of production and distribution in such a way that the abilities and needs of each individual find suitable expression in social life. You, and other peoples as well, sum up this desire in a simple and beautiful expression: “to live well”.

Such an economy is not only desirable and necessary, but also possible. It is no utopia or chimera. It is an extremely realistic prospect. We can achieve it. The available resources in our world, the fruit of the intergenerational labors of peoples and the gifts of creation, more than suffice for the integral development of “each man and the whole man”.[2] The problem is of another kind. There exists a system with different aims. A system which, while irresponsibly accelerating the pace of production, while using industrial and agricultural methods which damage Mother Earth in the name of “productivity”, continues to deny many millions of our brothers and sisters their most elementary economic, social and cultural rights. This system runs counter to the plan of Jesus.

Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: it is a commandment. It is about giving to the poor and to peoples what is theirs by right. The universal destination of goods is not a figure of speech found in the Church’s social teaching. It is a reality prior to private property. Property, especially when it affects natural resources, must always serve the needs of peoples. And those needs are not restricted to consumption. It is not enough to let a few drops fall whenever the poor shake a cup which never runs over by itself. Welfare programs geared to certain emergencies can only be considered temporary responses. They will never be able to replace true inclusion, an inclusion which provides worthy, free, creative, participatory and solidary work.

Along this path, popular movements play an essential role, not only by making demands and lodging protests, but even more basically by being creative. You are social poets: creators of work, builders of housing, producers of food, above all for people left behind by the world market.

I have seen at first hand a variety of experiences where workers united in cooperatives and other forms of community organization were able to create work where there were only crumbs of an idolatrous economy. Recuperated businesses, local fairs and cooperatives of paper collectors are examples of that popular economy which is born of exclusion and which, slowly, patiently and resolutely adopts solidary forms which dignify it. How different this is than the situation which results when those left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves!

Governments which make it their responsibility to put the economy at the service of peoples must promote the strengthening, improvement, coordination and expansion of these forms of popular economy and communitarian production. This entails bettering the processes of work, providing adequate infrastructures and guaranteeing workers their full rights in this alternative sector. When the state and social organizations join in working for the three “L’s”, the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity come into play; and these allow the common good to be achieved in a full and participatory democracy.

3.2. The second task is to unite our peoples on the path of peace and justice.

The world’s peoples want to be artisans of their own destiny. They want to advance peacefully towards justice. They do not want forms of tutelage or interference by which those with greater power subordinate those with less. They want their culture, their language, their social processes and their religious traditions to be respected. No actual or established power has the right to deprive peoples of the full exercise of their sovereignty. Whenever they do so, we see the rise of new forms of colonialism which seriously prejudice the possibility of peace and justice. For “peace is founded not only on respect for human rights but also on respect for the rights of peoples, in particular the right to independence”.[3]

The peoples of Latin America fought to gain their political independence and for almost two centuries their history has been dramatic and filled with contradictions, as they have striven to achieve full independence.

In recent years, after any number of misunderstandings, many Latin American countries have seen the growth of fraternity between their peoples. The governments of the region have pooled forces in order to ensure respect for the sovereignty of their own countries and the entire region, which our forebears so beautifully called the “greater country”. I ask you, my brothers and sisters of the popular movements, to foster and increase this unity. It is necessary to maintain unity in the face of every effort to divide, if the region is to grow in peace and justice.

Despite the progress made, there are factors which still threaten this equitable human development and restrict the sovereignty of the countries of the “greater country” and other areas of our planet. The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain “free trade” treaties, and the imposition of measures of “austerity” which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor. The bishops of Latin America denounce this with utter clarity in the Aparecida Document, stating that “financial institutions and transnational companies are becoming stronger to the point that local economies are subordinated, especially weakening the local states, which seem ever more powerless to carry out development projects in the service of their populations”.[4] At other times, under the noble guise of battling corruption, the narcotics trade and terrorism – grave evils of our time which call for coordinated international action – we see states being saddled with measures which have little to do with the resolution of these problems and which not infrequently worsen matters.

Similarly, the monopolizing of the communications media, which would impose alienating examples of consumerism and a certain cultural uniformity, is another one of the forms taken by the new colonialism. It is ideological colonialism. As the African bishops have observed, poor countries are often treated like “parts of a machine, cogs on a gigantic wheel”.[5]

It must be acknowledged that none of the grave problems of humanity can be resolved without interaction between states and peoples at the international level. Every significant action carried out in one part of the planet has universal, ecological, social and cultural repercussions. Even crime and violence have become globalized. Consequently, no government can act independently of a common responsibility. If we truly desire positive change, we have to humbly accept our interdependence. Interaction, however, is not the same as imposition; it is not the subordination of some to serve the interests of others. Colonialism, both old and new, which reduces poor countries to mere providers of raw material and cheap labor, engenders violence, poverty, forced migrations and all the evils which go hand in hand with these, precisely because, by placing the periphery at the service of the center, it denies those countries the right to an integral development. That is inequality, and inequality generates a violence which no police, military, or intelligence resources can control.

Let us say NO to forms of colonialism old and new. Let us say YES to the encounter between peoples and cultures. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Here I wish to bring up an important issue. Some may rightly say, “When the Pope speaks of colonialism, he overlooks certain actions of the Church”. I say this to you with regret: many grave sins were committed against the native peoples of America in the name of God. My predecessors acknowledged this, CELAM has said it, and I too wish to say it. Like Saint John Paul II, I ask that the Church “kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters”.[6] I would also say, and here I wish to be quite clear, as was Saint John Paul II: I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offenses of the Church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.

I also ask everyone, believers and nonbelievers alike, to think of those many bishops, priests and laity who preached and continue to preach the Good News of Jesus with courage and meekness, respectfully and pacifically; who left behind them impressive works of human promotion and of love, often standing alongside the native peoples or accompanying their popular movements even to the point of martyrdom. The Church, her sons and daughters, are part of the identity of the peoples of Latin America. An identity which here, as in other countries, some powers are committed to erasing, at times because our faith is revolutionary, because our faith challenges the tyranny of mammon. Today we are dismayed to see how in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world many of our brothers and sisters are persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus. This too needs to be denounced: in this third world war, waged peacemeal, which we are now experiencing, a form of genocide is taking place, and it must end.

To our brothers and sisters in the Latin American indigenous movement, allow me to express my deep affection and appreciation of their efforts to bring peoples and cultures together in a form of coexistence which I would call polyhedric, where each group preserves its own identity by building together a plurality which does not threaten but rather reinforces unity. Your quest for an interculturalism, which combines the defense of the rights of the native peoples with respect for the territorial integrity of states, is for all of us a source of enrichment and encouragement.

3.3. The third task, perhaps the most important facing us today, is to defend Mother Earth.

Our common home is being pillaged, laid waste and harmed with impunity. Cowardice in defending it is a grave sin. We see with growing disappointment how one international summit after another takes place without any significant result. There exists a clear, definite and pressing ethical imperative to implement what has not yet been done. We cannot allow certain interests – interests which are global but not universal – to take over, to dominate states and international organizations, and to continue destroying creation. People and their movements are called to cry out, to mobilize and to demand – peacefully, but firmly – that appropriate and urgently-needed measures be taken. I ask you, in the name of God, to defend Mother Earth. I have duly addressed this issue in my Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’.

4. In conclusion, I would like to repeat: the future of humanity does not lie solely in the hands of great leaders, the great powers and the elites. It is fundamentally in the hands of peoples and in their ability to organize. It is in their hands, which can guide with humility and conviction this process of change. I am with you. Let us together say from the heart: no family without lodging, no rural worker without land, no laborer without rights, no people without sovereignty, no individual without dignity, no child without childhood, no young person without a future, no elderly person without a venerable old age. Keep up your struggle and, please, take great care of Mother Earth. I pray for you and with you, and I ask God our Father to accompany you and to bless you, to fill you with his love and defend you on your way by granting you in abundance that strength which keeps us on our feet: that strength is hope, the hope which does not disappoint. Thank you and I ask you, please, to pray for me.

FOOTNOTES
[1] JOHN XXIII, Encyclical Mater et Magistra (15 May 1961), 3: AAS 53 (1961), 402.
[2] PAUL VI, Encyclical Populorum Progressio (26 March 1967), 14: AAS 59 (1967), 264.
[3] PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 157.
[4] FIFTH GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN BISHOPS, Aparecida Document (29 June 2007), 66.
[5] JOHN PAUL II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa (14 September 1995), 52: AAS 88 (1996), 32-22; ID., Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (30 December 1987), 22: AAS 80 (1988), 539.

[6] Bull of Indiction of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 Incarnationis Mysterium (29 November 1998),11: AAS 91 (1999), 139-141.