Men who shop like women ... trans-gender-nonbinary-intersex-chimera fashions for trans-metrosexual-cisgender-lgbtq-friendly men...

"Maybe there's more to life than 

being really, really, really ridiculously good looking?"

- Derek Zoolander

Or something.

I ran across an article on the London menswear collection for spring/summer 2016: Men who 'shop like women' light up London catwalk.  It's all quite queer.  They don't just shop like women - they kind of dress like women.  Although the highly-fashioned  in Europe have been doing so for quite some time.

Gazing over the road at the crowds streaming into London's fashion week for men, construction worker Carl, dressed in a fluorescent safety bib, wondered: "What's going on? They all look weird."

For fashion lovers, buyers, journalists and bloggers, the four days of the London Collections Men SS16 are an opportunity to show off their finery -- the more eccentric the better.

Outside the venue, a huge long-haired man teetered in a pair of yellow high heels, carrying a school backpack.

Not to be outdone, his friend sported a polka-dot suit. Behind them, another impeccably-dressed guest paraded around in a hat resembling two cherries.

"I used to wear hoodies and T-shirts and jeans, not making any effort," said 35-year-old blogger Zokaya Kamara, looking slick in shorts, jacket and tie, with a camera slung over one shoulder. "But since making the effort, I get compliments every day." - Story here.

Michael Voris hair is still 'in'.

"It's that darn Voris – He's so hot right now!"

- Jacobim Mugatu

Biologists are studying to see if there may be some relationship to the monozygotic-dizygotic source as a determinate factor in personal style and taste in the evolved metrosexual.

I wonder if there is a biological basis for this phenomenon?  Involving some strange mutation in cellular division at conception?  The merger of multiple fertilized eggs.  As in Tetragametic chimerism - which is widely known and understood as congenital chimerism. The condition occurs through the fertilization of two separate eggs by two sperm, "followed by aggregation of the two at the blastocyst or zygote stages."  The organism develops - "they can be male, female, or have  mixed intersex characteristics."  Hence, when the individual matures, he finds in himself an overwhelming attraction to feminine fashions. Not dressing as a woman - but adopting styles which are more intersex, androgynous, albeit displaying attributes normally associated with female fashions:  Such as bright, trendy colors and prints for 'blouses' and Capri pants, as well as fitted clothing, body revealing necklines, waistlines, butt enhancement and so on. Likewise, men who shop like woman retain a distinct male identity, albeit they usually refine their looks through plastic surgery, makeup, hair styling and so on.

What?

"Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. 

Don't play their game!" - Derek Zoolander

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

"My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God."

Today Our Lady's feast is observed as an optional memorial with the feast of St. Anthony of Padua.

It would be appropriate to celebrate the Mass for the Immaculate Heart of Mary, since this is also the anniversary of the second apparition at Fatima in 1917.  It was in this apparition Our Lady revealed her Immaculate Heart surrounded by thorns which seemed to pierce it, Lucia explained the apparition saying: "We understood that it was the Immaculate Heart of Mary, insulted by the sins of humanity and which desires reparation."

FYI:  Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary is not about the veneration of 'body parts'.

I wonder if they're ordaining too many permanent deacons?

-source-

They're flooding the market.

Clericalizing the laity.

I read somewhere that a bishop in Ireland would like to see married priests and women deacons.  So they could reinstate all the guys who leave to get married, and after that, ordain the best permanent deacons; their wives could be deaconesses, and then when their daughters become deaconesses, they could demand to be ordained because it worked out so well for the married deacons who became married priests.  Sounds like more clericalism to me.

I'm against it.

Horrible Satanic She-Beast Statue Installed ...

The disturbing, clearly satanical, statue you see above* has been installed in London, where the Tyburn Tree used to be.

The satanic monster is, we are assured, “symbolic of female strength and a desire to care for the young”.

Words fail. The picture says it all. This, my dear reader, truly is feminism made statue. Utterly unfeminine, completely threatening, and through and through disquieting. I would call it some pagan cruelty deity, but actually the adjective “satanic” comes automatically to mind. - Finish reading here.

*Oops!  Technical error:  The photo above is Mary Tyler Moore statue outside Macy's, downtown Minneapolis.  Actual photo of the London beast is here.

What?

All really are welcome ...

Let whoever is thirsty, come to me, and drink ...

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you!

This made me laugh out loud: Fr. Z re-names the Fishwrap.

Let us build a house where love is found
In water, wine and wheat:
A banquet hall on holy ground,
Where peace and justice meet. - All Are Welcome

Maybe not ...

What?

From his post on his use of comment moderation:

Over the years I have had to apply stricter and stricter moderation values on the combox so that it doesn’t degenerate into the slime you see in the comboxes of sites like the National Sodomitical Reporter or Crux or Amerika, etc. - Note to readers

Now that's funny.

I never applied to comment on Father's posts - for fear I'd be rejected, I suppose.  Years ago I once asked him to link to me and he didn't and so I had a chip on my shoulder about that for a long time.  If I had something to say in response to a post he did, I pretty much just created my own posts on whatever I found interesting on his blog.  People think I don't like Fr. Z, but that's not true.  I may have been irritated by some stuff he or his commenters have said, and posted accordingly - but I don't do that very often these days.  I also discovered I can use Google sharing to highlight a post I like - and I can comment there.  [He's also a funny guy - he has a sense of humor - and sometimes I tried to play to that, clumsily of course - so people thought I was being mean spirited.]  Again - my apologies.

That said - Fr. Z has every right to censor his comments and to ban whomever he wants from his site.  Nothing wrong with that.   

He's a solid priest - opinionated of course - but he's trustworthy.  He's a faithful Catholic priest.   [And an excellent confessor.]

This is a must read: On gender dysphoria.

Honoré Sharre

Bruce Caitlyn Jenner may do more good than harm.

Unwittingly of course.  Though everyone claims to be sick of hearing about Jennner's 'sex-change' I still think Jenner has opened up a very important, public awareness of the reality of gender dysphoria, as well as other serious dysphoric obsessions which cry out for equal recognition in our day.  I'm not opposed to grappling with understanding what has caused such a disconnect between being and identity, but I do get bored with people who say they are sick of the Jenner story when really all they want to do is express their opinion pro or con and silence those who disagree.

It has taken on cult-like features.

That said, Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins has an insightful essay on the pathology of gender dysphoria.  I find it especially interesting as regards the possible motivation underlying Jenner's transition.

I have not met or examined Jenner, but his behavior resembles that of some of the transgender males we have studied over the years. These men wanted to display themselves in sexy ways, wearing provocative female garb. More often than not, while claiming to be a woman in a man’s body, they declared themselves to be “lesbians” (attracted to other women). The photograph of the posed, corseted, breast-boosted Bruce Jenner (a man in his mid-sixties, but flaunting himself as if a “pin-up” girl in her twenties or thirties) on the cover ofVanity Fair suggests that he may fit the behavioral mold that Ray Blanchard has dubbed an expression of “autogynephilia”—from gynephilia (attracted to women) and auto (in the form of oneself).

I am ever trying to be the boy among the bystanders who points to what’s real. I do so not only because truth matters, but also because overlooked amid the hoopla—enhanced now by Bruce Jenner’s celebrity and Annie Leibovitz’s photography—stand many victims. Think, for example, of the parents whom no one—not doctors, schools, nor even churches—will help to rescue their children from these strange notions of being transgendered and the problematic lives these notions herald. These youngsters now far outnumber the Bruce Jenner type of transgender. Although they may be encouraged by his public reception, these children generally come to their ideas about their sex not through erotic interests but through a variety of youthful psychosocial conflicts and concerns.

First, though, let us address the basic assumption of the contemporary parade: the idea that exchange of one’s sex is possible. It, like the storied Emperor, is starkly, nakedly false. Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men. - Finish reading here.

The idea that one’s sex is fluid and a matter open to choice runs unquestioned through our culture.

Perhaps the most important part of Dr. McHugh's essay concerns the growing phenomenon of boys and girls seeking sexual-reassignment surgery.  There is a huge push against any type of psychological treatment or so-called conversion therapy to help young people faced with these issues.  Many gay activists, including 'gay-Catholics' - be they Spiritual Friendship followers or part of New Ways Ministry are often vociferous opponents to any sort of counselling for young LGBTQ people.

Most young boys and girls who come seeking sex-reassignment are utterly different from Jenner. They have no erotic interest driving their quest. Rather, they come with psychosocial issues—conflicts over the prospects, expectations, and roles that they sense are attached to their given sex—and presume that sex-reassignment will ease or resolve them.

The grim fact is that most of these youngsters do not find therapists willing to assess and guide them in ways that permit them to work out their conflicts and correct their assumptions. Rather, they and their families find only “gender counselors” who encourage them in their sexual misassumptions.

There are several reasons for this absence of coherence in our mental health system. Important among them is the fact that both the state and federal governments are actively seeking to block any treatments that can be construed as challenging the assumptions and choices of transgendered youngsters. [...]

In two states, a doctor who would look into the psychological history of a transgendered boy or girl in search of a resolvable conflict could lose his or her license to practice medicine. By contrast, such a physician would not be penalized if he or she started such a patient on hormones that would block puberty and might stunt growth.

What is needed now is public clamor for coherent science—biological and therapeutic science—examining the real effects of these efforts to “support” transgendering. Although much is made of a rare “intersex” individual, no evidence supports the claim that people such as Bruce Jenner have a biological source for their transgender assumptions. Plenty of evidence demonstrates that with him and most others, transgendering is a psychological rather than a biological matter. - Continue here.

Gird your loins if you would confront this matter.

So there you have it.  That is why the Jenner conversation needs to take place - and go beyond the headlines.  As McHugh states:

The larger issue is the meme itself. The idea that one’s sex is fluid and a matter open to choice runs unquestioned through our culture and is reflected everywhere in the media, the theater, the classroom, and in many medical clinics. It has taken on cult-like features: its own special lingo, internet chat rooms providing slick answers to new recruits, and clubs for easy access to dresses and styles supporting the sex change. It is doing much damage to families, adolescents, and children and should be confronted as an opinion without biological foundation wherever it emerges. - ibid

Julie Heffernan

Sister of Charity Carol Keehan: "It has been my privilege ..."

"It has been my privilege to work with the president and his team over the past seven years," said Sister of Charity Carol Keehan, who leads the Catholic Health Association, a lobby that represents Church-affiliated health care institutions, as she introduced Obama to conference attendees. - NCRegister

The Pope cautioned against basing one’s faith solely on predicted visions or anything other than Christ himself.

YES!

In his June 9 daily Mass at the Vatican’s Saint Martha Guesthouse, Pope Francis cautioned against those who look for God “with these Christian spiritualties that are a little ethereal,” calling them “modern Gnostics.”

These people, he said, “tell you this or that: no, the last word of God is Jesus Christ, there is no other!” 

He also warned against those “who always need novelty of Christian identity. They’ve forgotten that they were chosen, anointed, that they have the guarantee of the Spirit, and they seek.” 

Francis observed that there are those who might ask, “But where are the seers who tell us today, ‘the letter that the Madonna will send us at four in the afternoon…’” 

He cited this type of predicted vision as an example of those who base their faith on novelties, explaining that these people “live from this.” 

However “this isn’t Christian identity. The ultimate word of God is named ‘Jesus,’ nothing more,” he said. - Finish reading here.

Works for me!

On a lighter note: Caitlyn Jenner again...

“But I like to imagine a day when moms and dads counsel their girls and boys: ‘Be more like Caitlyn Jenner,’” - Sally Kohn.


Really?

So anyway.  I read somewhere Clint Eastwood may be in trouble for a mild reference to 'Caitlyn somebody...' as a former star athlete.  Sounds fine to me.

I think the funniest punch-line I heard came shortly after Jenner announced his transition and ended up in a serious car accident.  A guy commented on the story saying something like, "Well he must be a woman, he sure drives like one."   Ba dum chhh!  

See, that's old fashioned stand up.

Inappropriate though it is.

I'm against it!  What?

However, the funniest thing I read on the Jenner transition is from Sally Kohn.

Kohn wrote on Jenner’s story – from a mom’s perspective. “As a mom, I worry about the real-life Barbie doll hyper-sexualization projected by the Kardashian women,” she wrote. “Please oh please don't let my little girl see Kim Kardashian's airbrush-enhanced image and believe that is the feminine ideal.”

“As a feminist,” Kohn wrote, “I'm encouraged by the prospect that a transwoman may be either accidentally or quite deliberately subverting that trend, for the benefit of all women.”

“She has embodied a model of femininity that departs from the more-is-more overtly sexy model embraced by the rest of her Kardashian klan,” Kohn wrote. “And for this we should also be thankful.” - Finish reading here.

Such deadpan humor.

This is interesting: The errors of Russia...

"Error is synonymous with evil and evil is synonymous with sin." 

Dostoevsky said it best at the end of Demons,

“Tell me the story of the man at the land of the Gerasenes… that’s my Russia!

Full of devils!

But the Lord will come someday and drive the devils back and back into the sea!

And Russia will become good again, sit at His footstool, and relearn His Gospels.”

... Fulton Sheen liked to recite that quote, too.

But who were the devils of whom Dostoevsky spoke? Nihilism had ravaged 19th century Russia and left some strange characters. Helena Blavatsky, for instance, who travelled to Tibet to study the occult monks, and went to England to be with Alistair Crowley, and travelled the world spreading a false gospel that saw Jesus as an incarnation of an avatar christ that reincarnates. She even went to Germany to help the Thule Society with her false doctrines, and the Thule Society was the force that pushed Hitler into power.

Blavatsky had ideas about eugenics and secret bloodlines and an aryan race that would emerge to rule the world.

If we limit the errors of Russia to “marxist atheism” we’d never notice someone like her and her Theosophical Society that has influenced strangeness worldwide. We might think that the errors of Russia were a political system and not demon worship. - Bellarmine Report

Sounds crazy, huh?

A friend sent me the link to this article some time ago, and only today did I read it more closely, in light of what I have been discussing on the blog recently.  It makes more sense now.

According to the author at the Bellarmine Report, in the first years of the 20th century, this is what Holy Russia believed her errors to be:

Theosophists, who seek other wisdoms than Jesus Christ;
Freemasons, occultists, spiritualists, sorcerers, who honor the demons. - BR

It is worth considering, I think - especially when noting many of the novel spiritualities which have crept into religious communities, parishes and dioceses around the United States and elsewhere:  Post-modern neo-paganism.  That said, I still think Marxist-Communism was Russia's biggest export - Theosophical spirituality filled the void atheism created.

Something more to ponder.

Pope Francis: An atmosphere of war.

Some wish to incite and foment this atmosphere deliberately...

In his homily this weekend, the Holy Father repeated the view that we are in a sort of third world war:

“Peace is God’s dream, his plan for humanity, for history, for all creation. And it is a plan which always meets opposition from men and from the evil one,” the Pope added. “Even in our time, the desire for peace and the commitment to build peace collide against the reality of many armed conflicts presently affecting our world. They are a kind of third world war being fought piecemeal and, in the context of global communications, we sense an atmosphere of war.” 

“Some wish to incite and foment this atmosphere deliberately, mainly those who want conflict between different cultures and societies, and those who speculate on wars for the purpose of selling arms. But war means children, women and the elderly in refugee camps; it means forced displacement of peoples; it means destroyed houses, streets and factories; it means, above all, countless shattered lives. You know this well, having experienced it here: how much suffering, how much destruction, how much pain! Today, dear brothers and sisters, the cry of God’s people goes up once again from this city, the cry of all men and women of good will: war never again!” - Vatican Insider

Pope Francis has said it before - that we are in a sort of piecemeal third world war.  The atmosphere is ripe for it.  It's undeclared - but we hear of all the conflicts, the mass killings - and we know it is happening - it is indeed an atmosphere of war.

The spirit of the age.

For me, his statement coincides with my take on what I see as a culture dominated by a sort of 'post-modern' neo-paganism.  I've written about it regarding Caitlyn Jenner and gender ideology, as well as LGBTQ theory and the redefinition of marriage and family.  Attempting to identify the trend as a sort of idolatry, rooted, or steeped in neo-pagan spirituality.  The 'practioners' may not always be conscious of it, since it is what some might call the spirit of the age, or zeitgeist.  Nevertheless it is an atmosphere of paganism - God is rejected - supplanted by gods of our own making.  Re-shaping humanity through conscious evolutionary techniques, I suppose.  Too heady for me to discuss with any scholarship, but I believe the Holy Father has cited the exact same atmosphere since the beginning of his pontificate when he pointed out the evils of modern idolatry, false gods, as well as the reality of Satan - the demonic sources of the moral and cultural shift.

It's a vague notion of mine, but others more learned than myself have been talking about it rather seriously lately.  Archbishop Cordileone for one - and then of course, the Holy Father.  Previously we've often been told to watch the 'signs of the times'.  John Paul II and Benedict XVI often called our attention to it.  I think these 'signs' are much more obvious today.

"Anyone who does not pray to the Lord prays to the devil." 

When we do not profess Jesus Christ, 

we profess the worldliness of the devil, 

a demonic worldliness. - Pope Francis

An 'occult' atmosphere.

I'm thinking it's all part of the spiritual cocktail contained in the cup the whore of Babylon offers to our generation.  Pop culture is a funny thing - we are all part of it - or at least touched and influenced by it, like it or not. Catherine of Genoa referred to it as "The contagion of the world's slow stain". John of the Cross was more explicit: "Where does this poisonous harm fail to reach? And who fails to drink little or much from the golden chalice of the Babylonian woman of the Apocalypse? ...There is hardly anyone of high rank or low, saint or sinner, who does not drink of her wine, subjecting his heart somewhat. For as pointed out in Revelation 17:2-4, all the kings of the earth were inebriated with the wine of her prostitution. She reaches out to all states, even the supreme and illustrious state of the priesthood, by setting her abominable cup in the holy place, as Daniel asserts [Dn. 9:27], and she hardly leaves a strong man who has not drunk a small or large quantity of wine from her chalice..." - Ascent III, 22:4

I think this atmosphere  can even extend to our attachment to prophecy, visions, and locutions so prevalent around the globe today - which is why discernment is so necessary when it comes to these things.  Today, extraordinary mystical phenomena frequently echoes private revelations from the 19th and 20th centuries.  I'm not convinced this makes for consistency of message or warnings - but rather could be a sign of autosuggestion or a bad spirit.  It seems to me these may sometimes be linked to an atmosphere which is susceptible to the influence of the 'elemental spirits' - especially the ancient pre-Christian superstitions and cults which pervaded certain areas or spaces where contemporary revelations have been alleged today.  Scripture refers to their pagan counterparts as the 'high places' - which for me sheds light on Christ's admonition to the Samaritan woman: "Believe me... the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem."  It is as if Christ is speaking to us today, "You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand ... But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him." - John 4

Some wish to incite and foment this atmosphere deliberately...

I might be wrong, but it seems to me the spirit of the age pervades even into the sanctuary - which for me explains what Bl. Paul VI meant when he spoke about the 'smoke of satan' entering through some fissure.

Many today, unwittingly trade their birthright for a meal - for temporary happiness - hoping to change the meaning of existence - as well as reshape God to suit their inclinations.  That notion is more akin to Wicca than Christianity.

We can condemn actions as much as we want, we can trace evil to its demonic source, but we cannot condemn persons, or demonize them - nor can we do this to whole groups of people.  I think we can agree many people are misled and living 'in sin' - but they are simply looking for happiness in a world that is now more permissive. We are all sinners. We have all gone astray. We all must be careful not to be swept away by the diabolic delusion which pervades our times.

What if the findings of the Commission on Medjugorje turn out to be 'inconclusive'?

Marpingen, Germany

"We are about to take some decisions and these will then be communicated." - Pope Francis

Catholic sites are lighting up with Pope Francis' comment to a journalist that decisions are forthcoming concerning Medjugorje.  But what if the decision turns out neither negative nor positive?  In other words, inconclusive.

In an earlier post I mentioned the apparitions in Northern Spain at Ezkioga.  They were never approved, in fact they were condemned.  I believe they are significant in so far as they occurred in the same region as Garabandal, and conveyed a similar message to Medjugore and Garabandal.  They also mirrored several other alleged apparitions in the region, as well as in Germany, from the 1870's apparitions at Marpingen, through the 1940's apparitions at Heede in the Nazi era. Heede was apparently approved, yet never became a center of pilgrimage. While up into the 1950's some of the devotees of Marpingen hoped the town would become a German Lourdes.  It didn't.

The plethora of claimed apparitions throughout the last century is astonishing - not to overlook the incredible number of locutionists - the messages are very similar as regards chastisements and so on.  What is different today - especially at Medjugorje, the seers have had great freedom, they haven't been censored, despite attempts by the local hierarchy, likewise, they take their message abroad - outside the confines of the region.  Nevertheless, the messages remains similar to that of more spurious apparitions in the last century.

Marpingen

[T]he sheer profusion of visions was rather unusual, and so was their variety; the visionaries ...

... began to claim apparitions in other parts of the village – in their homes, in barns and stables, in the school, in the graveyard and the church. The visions they described became more luxuriant. The Virgin appeared with and without the Christ-child, sometimes accompanied by angels. She was dressed now in white, now in gold and azure. the apparitions also took on darker tones. On one occasion the girls reported seeing the Virgin clad in black, on another they described a celestial procession passing over the graveyard. The devil also appeared. - Marpingen

Interestingly, in the Marpingen case, the Virgin identified herself as the "Immaculately Conceived" after on adult prompted the seers to ask if she was the "Immaculate Conception".  One of the seers said the whole thing was one big lie which the maintained because of the enthusiasm of the pious villagers.  Another experience related by the seer is that the Blessed Virgin played with children and even rolled with them down the hill.  Just as in our own day, others reported seeing the face of the Virgin in nature - most notably in a mushroom.  The stories almost sound like fairy tale accounts from German mythology.

In the neighbouring parish of Dirmingen, moreover, yet another purportedly miraculous event took place in May 1876, just five weeks before the vision in the Härtelwald. As Blackbourn explains, this latter incident was apparently "talked up" into something much more significant than it at first appeared to be, yet it opens up a tantalising window on a world in which miraculous events apparently occurred quite frequently. More importantly, there can be little doubt that the story, in its more advanced form, soon reached Marpingen, and strongly suggested that the BVM was capable of appearing in the vicinity.

The incident arose out of a seemingly unspectacular event: Father Schwaab of Urexweiler was walking his dog in Dirmingen woods with a schoolteacher friend when the dog was alarmed by a falling spruce tree. The spot in the woods was already associated in folk memory with magical events; a forester had supposedly been beaten by an unknown hand, and someone else claimed to have seen thousands of cats there. Popular sentiment proceeded to turn the incident into a form of apparition. Rumour had it that Father Schwaab had seen a woman whose sudden disappearance was followed by a whirlwind that toppled the spruce. The priest denied any supernatural occurrence, but according to the forester Louis Bruch the affair caused 'great excitement' throughout the district. The tree became known as 'the spruce and the spirits': some avoided it, others carved crosses into the wood and stripped the tree and its neighbours of their bark, which they cooked and ate or fed to their cattle. The mysterious woman was believed to be the Virgin Mary ascending to heaven. - Marpingen

Heede, Germany

The events at Heede are reportedly 'approved' though nothing seems to have been made official by the Holy See. In 1959:  After examination of the facts, the Vicariate of Osnabrueck, a circular letter to the clergy of the diocese, confirmed the validity of the apparitions and their supernatural origin. However, there is still no formal recognition.

The reported apparitions of Heede, Germany took place between November 1, 1937 and November 3, 1940. There were four children seers involved whose names and known but little else. Here are their names: Margaret Gansferth, Greta Gansferth, Anna Schulte, Susanna Bruns. Mary appeared to the children near their homes, in a meadow, and at other places. She didn't use a special title, but was holding the Divine Child in her arms when she first appeared. Mary appeared to the children an undetermined number of times of which only three were recorded. After the children were forbidden by the Gestapo (and briefly arrested) to go to the place of the original apparition, Mary appeared to them in secret. Prayer, conversion, and the rosary (which "has immeasurable power") are to be considered as primary messages. It is reported that Our Lady herself became the teacher of the children.

The Heede apparition appears to be a follow up on the Fatima event and promotes its message (it is deplored that mankind had ignored the Fatima messages). Apparitions of other holy persons are reported (Jesus himself and the "angel of justice"). There is talk about secrets given to the seers separately but never revealed. The seers were reportedly told of a coming "minor judgment." It was only after wonderful cures occurred that the parish priests and other clergy supported the seers (e.g. forbidding a public dance announced for October 21, 1945). The details of the various healings are not reported. The bishop of Osnabrück at the time the apparitions commenced, appointed a new parish priest who declared that there are "undeniable proofs of the seriousness and authenticity of these manifestations." No other Church action has been reported. - Source

The conflict between hierarchy and the faithful.

Secular, academic authors suggest the conflict between hierarchy and seers is linked to maintaining control by a patriarchal Church, while those devoted to the apparitions and the surrounding cult, earnestly seek Church approval verifying the messages.  The upshot being that if the events receive a negative judgement, the faithful continue to believe and sometimes go 'underground' or claim the authorities are in error or even heretics.

The idea that the Church authorities are out to maintain power and control is a distortion of their role as teachers and protectors of the Faith, the Church.  The pastoral concern is for the faithful not to be led astray or deluded by false teaching and religious practice, and to protect them from the evil spirit.

The history of the last century demonstrates that the false apparitions and locutions more or less fade into obscurity, while approved visions and messages from heaven remain stable and relevant to the times.

It always goes back to the Church. Not this cardinal or that bishop, (except of course, the local ordinary of the place in question) or this priest or that spiritual director of a lone locutionist. It is the Church: The Pope and the bishops in communion with him, the Holy See or Magisterium of the Church, or the local Ordinary, has the authority to determine whether or not an apparition or private revelation is worthy of belief.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, the Wehmeyer Case, and the Archbishop.

Front page news in Minneapolis - St. Paul this weekend.

With knowledge of Wehmeyer's past, Archbishop Nienstedt later promoted him to pastor. 

"Are you aware of my past? Are you aware of my record?" Wehmeyer said he asked Nienstedt at the time. Nienstedt brushed it off, the documents said. - CNN

Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia has an objective rundown on the story here.


We are in the midst of an Archdiocesan wide novena to the Sacred Heart, although, to my knowledge, nothing was mentioned about it in my parish.  Nothing was mentioned about anything related to this story in fact.


Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi, but it seemed like an ordinary Sunday at my parish... no ceremony or devotion.


It feels like a punch to the gut ...

Sheep without a shepherd.

The Holy Father in Bosnia: Medjugorje

Pope Francis enthusiastically received.


He came calling for peace, proclaiming "No more war!"

The Pope also met members of the Muslim, Orthodox Christian and Jewish communities during his one-day trip.

Bosnia remains divided along religious and ethnic lines, 20 years after the fighting. 

"War means children, women and the elderly in refugee camps; it means forced displacement, destroyed houses, streets and factories. Above all countless shattered lives," the Pope Francis said in his homily at Sarajevo's Kosevo stadium. 

"You know this well having experienced it here," he added in reference to the 1992-95 conflict, which left some 100,000 dead and two million displaced. - BBC

Mir.

I recall seeing "Mir" on the front of a supermarket tabloid years ago, as I stood in the check out line at the grocery store.  The story explained "Mir" - which means "peace" - was seen written in the sky above Medjugorje - that was in 1981.  It was the first time I had heard that Our Lady was supposed to have appeared in Medjugorje.  I soon learned more about the apparitions and the messages - especially the call to prayer and fasting.  Over the years a great deal of controversy surrounded the site, and so I decided to await the judgement of the Church on the authenticity of the events.

Turns out, a journalist asked Pope Francis about the apparitions and the status of the investigation, or study made by the Holy See, on this weekend's trip to Sarajevo.

Question: There is a big interest surrounding the phenomenon of the Medjugorje apparitions. What can you tell us about this?

“When Benedict XVI was Pope, he set up a commission on Medjugorje that was headed by Cardinal Ruini and composed of other cardinals and theologians. They prepared a study and Ruini delivered it to me after a few years of work. They did a good job. Cardinal Müller (Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ed.) told me that he was going to hold a dicastery meeting on this; I think it was held on the last Wednesday of the month. We are about to take some decisions and these will then be communicated. For now, bishops are just being given some guidelines.” - Source

Group apparitions in the 1930's.

In the 1930's there were similar events in the Basque, at Ezkioga in the diocese of San Sebastian - near Garabandal - and amazingly similar in content to both Garabandal and Medjugorje.  Interestingly in the case of Ezkioga, on 15 September, 1933, Bishop Múgica denied the supernatural character of the visions and forbade seers to go to site.  Months later, the Holy Office issued a decree against the visions of Ezkioga dated 18 June 1934.  The cult then went underground.

The month of June is significant in the history of Medjugorje as well.

I mention Ezkioga because the phenomena there was so similar to claims of contemporary apparitions and seers, such as at Medjugorje and Garabandal.  If the decision by the Holy See on Medjugorje is in the negative, the events at Ezkioga demonstrate the Church comes through these things with the faith intact.  Today most people have never heard of Ezkioga, nor do they know about the flury of apparitions which took place in the region at that time.