Busted: Drug-Fueled Homos In the Vatican.

One Pentined-up senior member of the curia says it has "'never been worse.'"

As I said in the combox the other day: I'm not surprised. So many 'busts' and 'breaking news' stories may mean that the so called 'gay lobby' is in demolition mode.  Pope Benedict began removing the filth, and it appears Pope Francis is still working on the problem.  

According to reports in the mainstream media, Vatican police broke up a drug-fueled homosexual debauched party in an apartment of the Holy Office, but how true is it? 

The news first broke in a June 28 article in Il Fatto Quotidiano: the Vatican gendarmerie raided a flat in the same building as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith where they discovered hard drugs and a group of men engaged in homosexual activity. A number of prominent secular English-speaking media outlets have subsequently published extensive details of the Il Fatto Quotidiano report. 

The article claims the occupant of the apartment was the secretary to Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, the Church’s most important canon law office. 

The report further claims that the area of the building was reserved not just for monsignors but senior curial officials, suggesting that the secretary had influential friends in high places to secure such a prestigious apartment. 

Others residing in the Holy Office reportedly complained about a steady stream of young male visitors and of noisy parties in the secretary’s apartment — complaints that prompted the police raid. Further suspicions were also raised when others saw the secretary, a monsignor from the diocese of Prenestina near Rome, had access to a luxury car with Vatican plates which allegedly allowed him to bring drugs into the Vatican without ever being stopped by the Vatican police. - Finish reading here.

In 1049, St. Peter Damian's Liber Gomorrhianus condemned homosexual sodomy.  It was apparently rampant back then as well.  Part of the purification process is exposing the sin, as St Paul counselled: "Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them."  One does that without sensationalizing the sin.  It seems that could be what is going on in this Pontificate.  It is good to recall that St. Paul also admonished: "As for lewd conduct or ... lust of any sort, let them not even be mentioned among you; your holiness forbids this."  Therefore sensationalized stories and photos are not necessary for review.

Pentin's report is not sensationalized and is pretty much factual - although I hate 'unnamed but reliable' or 'highly placed' anonymous spokesmen.  But that is how these things go.

Having said that, I think it is important to reconsider the writing of Catherine of Siena, as Pentin does in his report.  Especially since hostility to Catholic teaching on homosexuality increases with every scandal such as this one.

Even demons are repulsed. 

In light of the latest scandal and the current situation, one former official urged readers to recall the warnings of the Lord on homosexual acts, especially between priests, as explained by St. Catherine of Siena in her Dialogues written as if dictated by God Himself. 

The medieval mystic, co-patron of Rome and Doctor of the Church, relayed the words at a time when a number of clergy had fallen into grave sin. 

Such priests, the Lord told St. Catherine, not only fail from resisting their fallen nature, “but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature [homosexual acts].”
“Like the blind and stupid having dimmed the light of the understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves,” the Lord continued, adding that it not only causes God “nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords.” 

He added that “this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgement of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them.” The Lord told St. Catherine that even the demons are “repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed.” - More here.

It seems to me the Lord is cleansing the Church first, and then the world.  More than five cities may be lost this time.

Fire will come down from heaven.  

The monastery bell at twilight ... too important to forget ...

July 6 - Father Neil Paquette

Our Father Neil passed away this morning, fifteen minutes after Fr. Mark administered the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. We will celebrate his funeral Mass and burial at 7am on Monday, July 10.

Father Neil Paquette was born in 1937 in Harrisburg, PA (USA). He entered New Melleray in 1975 and made his solemn profession in 1980. Fr. Neil was 80 years old and five days short of the 40th anniversary of his first profession of monastic vows when the Lord called him. He succumbed to a brief bout with an aggressive cancer after several years of living with the effects of a stroke.


New Melleray

"The true monk is he who perseveres in the monastery until death." - Dom Philip

Pray for us Fr. Neil.

Archbishop Chaput Reviews ...

Fr. Martin's book ...

In his recent book Building a Bridge (HarperOne), Father James Martin, S.J., calls the Church to a spirit of respect, compassion and sensitivity in dealing with persons with same-sex attraction. This is good advice. It makes obvious sense. He asks the same spirit from persons in the LGBT community when dealing with the Church. Father Martin is a man whose work I often admire. Building a Bridge, though brief, is written with skill and good will.

But what the text regrettably lacks is an engagement with the substance of what divides faithful Christians from those who see no sin in active same-sex relationships. The Church is not simply about unity – as valuable as that is – but about unity in God’s love rooted in truth. If the Letter to the Romans is true, then persons in unchaste relationships (whether homosexual or heterosexual) need conversion, not merely affirmation. If the Letter to the Romans is false, then Christian teaching is not only wrong but a wicked lie. Dealing with this frankly is the only way an honest discussion can be had.

And that honesty is what makes another recent book – Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay by Daniel Mattson (Ignatius) – so extraordinarily moving and powerful. As Cardinal Robert Sarah writes in the Foreword, Mattson’s candor about his own homosexuality, his struggles and failures, and his gradual transformation in Jesus Christ “bears witness to the mercy and goodness of God, to the efficacy of his grace, and to the veracity of the teachings of his Church.”

In the words of Daniel Mattson himself:

We cannot remain reluctant to speak about the beauty of the Church’s teaching on sexuality and sexual identity for fear that it will appear “unloving,” “irrational,” or “unreal.” We need to love the world enough to speak about the Christian vision of sexual reality, confident that God’s creation of man as male and female is truly part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ we are called to proclaim to a lost and confused world. We need to be a light for the world and speak passionately about the richness of the Church’s understanding of human sexuality. We can’t place the Good News of the Church’s teaching on human sexuality under a bushel any longer, for the world desperately needs the truth we have (p. 123).

Spoken from experience. Spoken from the heart. No one could name the truth more clearly. - Archbishop Chaput

It bears repeating, over and over if necessary:

As the Catechism teaches: "Basing itself on sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved" - Catechism of the Catholic Church 2357

"'Fitting in' to a society of deeply dysfunctional sexuality results in the ruin that we see in so many other dying Christian communities." - Chaput

Poverty of spirit.

The convincing power of the Holy Spirit ...

Denuding, stripping away all that we cling to, making us even poorer -  is his gift.

A particularly important kind of denudation, through which the Holy Spirit prepares us for his 'decent,' is the process of stripping us of the false image we have of ourselves and freeing us from living a falsehood.  In the Gospel, St. John relates the promise of Christ to us that the Paraclete - the Holy Spirit - will convince the world about sin when he comes.  Thus one of the functions of the Holy Spirit is to convince us of our sin, therefore bestowing upon us the grace of humility.  This is the fundamental grace of the Holy Spirit. - Fr. Tadeuz Dajczer

Holy Spirit, inspire me.
Love of God consume me.
Along the true road, lead me.
Mary, my good mother, look down upon me.
With Jesus, bless me.
From all evil, all illusion, all danger, preserve me. 

- Bl. Mary of Jesus Crucified, OCD

Today's first reading at Mass ... Lot's wife.

Mrs. Lot looked back

because she loved fireworks.

July 4, 2017

Today's first reading from Genesis told the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and how Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back at the destruction of the Sodomites.  The reading, be it read for the Mass today or substituted with another, remains providential.  The Liturgy of the Word is Christ speaking to the Church.   I often think of this reading, and the Precautions of St. John of the Cross.

Perhaps Lot's wife was suffering from acedia?  

I was reading about acedia in this month's Magnificat.  Acedia is a sin against memory.  Fr. Cameron says 'it is therefore essential to be ever mindful and attentive - to recollect the particular marvels that God has accomplished in our personal history.'  Maybe it's a stretch, Mrs. Lot was maybe just curious.  But I think acedia may be epidemic these days.  I may be wrong.

Anyway - for my personal meditation, I returned to St. John of the Cross again.  No matter how often I read him, I continue to learn, and someday hope to put into practice.  I keep trying.

"Take Lot's wife as an example, because she was troubled at the destruction of the Sodomites and turned her head to watch what was happening, God punished her by converting her into a pillar of salt. You are thus to understand God's will: that even though you live among devils you should not turn the head of your thoughts to their affairs, but forget these things entirely and strive to keep your soul occupied purely and entirely in God, and not let the thought of this thing or that hinder you from doing so." - St. John of the Cross

Just remember, Catholic doctrine cannot change. 

St. John of the Cross wrote several precautions on how to be a good religious.  Though they are directed more or less to cloistered religious, the 'spirit' of his doctrine may be helpful for ordinary Catholics to consider.  Especially for those of us who can be distracted by sensationalized stories regarding the Pope and what he purportedly said in public or private conversations.  The following precaution pertains to the attitude the subject should have towards his superior.

The second precaution

12. Let the second precaution be that you always look on the superior as though on God, no matter who he happens to be, for he takes God's place. And note that the devil, humility's enemy, is a great and crafty meddler in this area. Much profit and gain come from considering the superior in this light, but serious loss and harm lie in not doing so. Watch, therefore, with singular care that you not dwell on your superior's character, mode of behavior, ability, or any other methods of procedure, for you will so harm yourself as to change your obedience from divine to human, being motivated only by the visible traits of the superior, and not by the invisible God whom you serve through him.

Your obedience is vain and all the more fruitless in the measure that you allow the superior's unpleasant character to annoy you or his good and pleasing manners to make you happy. For I tell you that by inducing religious to consider these modes of conduct, the devil has ruined a vast number of them in their journey toward perfection. Their acts of obedience are worth little in God's sight, since they allow these considerations to interfere with obedience.

If you do not strive, with respect to your personal feelings, to be unconcerned about whether this one or another be superior, you will by no means be a spiritual person, nor will you keep your vows well. - Collected Works

"Never be scandalized or astonished at anything you happen to see or learn of, endeavoring to preserve your soul in forgetfulness of all of that. For should you desire to pay heed to things, many will seem wrong, even though you live amongst angels, because of your not understanding the nature of them." - St. John of the Cross

4th of July apocalypse bonus ...

Though late for the launch,

Mrs. Wallace survived the Flood

by surfing to the ark 

only to be picked out of

the water by a giraffe.

Many explosions in the city tonight, but so far we are safe.

A saint for July 4th.

July 4 is the feast day of Bl. Pier Giorgio, shown above partying with his friends.

[Pier Giorgio is the one wearing the paper hat.]

“To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living, but existing.” - Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.  April 6, 1901 - July 4, 1925

Strive for peace with everyone, and for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 

 

See to it that no one be deprived of the grace of God,

that no bitter root spring up and cause trouble, 

through which many may become defiled,  

that no one be an immoral or profane person like Esau, 

who sold his birthright for a single meal.  

For you know that later, when he wanted to inherit his father’s blessing, 

he was rejected because he found no opportunity to change his mind, 

even though he sought the blessing with tears. - Hebrews 12

"He who praises you deceives you." -John of the Cross quoting Isaiah.

Does Anyone Know For Sure?

Are contemplative nuns becoming embroiled in Vatican controversies?

I read a comment by a priest who happens to be a chaplain to Carmelite nuns.  A Carmel in the hinterlands.  I have to wonder ... Are contemplative nuns (and monks for that matter) obsessed and distracted by all of this anti-Papist garbage spewed online, especially from 1P5 where said priest, Fr. RP* is a contributor?  Do these communities listen to all the garbage said against the pope, the cardinals, the dicasteries?  Are chaplains who claim the laity is stupefied by all that is going on really advising contemplative nuns?

I hope not.

 It seems to me sites like Canon 212 and 1P5 are the ones which literally stupefy and confuse online Catholics.  The Catholic League wastes its time and donor money by going after petty 'anti-Catholic' films and pop-culture MSM.  The anti-Catholics are all over Catholic social media, influenced by anti-Vatican II and anti-papist Catholics who are on the precipice of sedevacantistism.

I exaggerate a bit there, but I can't imagine a monastic community would involve themselves in all the gossip and calumny which absorbs online Catholics these days - or even listen to reports about it.  I hope it is not true - talk about the smoke of Satan infiltrating the Church.

Although St. Teresa of Avila was certainly aware of those awful Lutherans, depriving souls of sacred images and the real presence of Christ and so on.  So I guess enclosed religious know a great deal more of what is going on in the Church and the world than one might expect.

Just thinking out loud here.

Although, separation from the world is why monasteries are built - over time, some have even resembled fortifications - traditionally iron grills were set in place, with spikes.  Today, big priories and abbeys are under construction for souls to flee the world and enclose themselves in hermitages, only to let the world in, opening to the internet and those who fill in the blanks at the turn or in the parlour with the latest gossip on what prelate said this, or what the pope didn't say by way of correction for something the media claimed he said.

Maybe that doesn't happen?  Maybe.

Some remedies and reminders.

Religious controllers, correctors, and castigators are not found only in the cloister. Very often they lurk in sacristies, piously fussing about, and, like the devil, "seeking someone to devour." - Vultus Christi 

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.- St. Teresa of Avila

A story from the life of St. Therese.

"The thought that there were some religious communities who were submitting to unjust laws against the Church promulgated by the anti-Catholic secular power, filled me (Celine) with indignation. One day in Therese's presence I exclaimed, 'My entire being rises up in in rebellion when I witness such a spirit of cowardice. I would be cut into a thousand pieces rather than belong to any of these communities or to assist them in any way.'

The Saint answered: 

'We should not be concerned about such matters at all. It is true that I would be of your opinion and act perhaps in the same way had I any responsibility in the matter. But I have no obligation whatsoever. Moreover, our only duty is to become united to God. Even if we were members of those communities which are being publicly criticized for their defections, we would be greatly at fault in becoming disquieted on that account.'" - "My Sister, St. Therese" - Sr. Genevieve of the Holy Face

Catherine of Siena was a lay-woman, contemplative in the world, but even she counseled against gossip.

"What the devil can't do himself he does by using other people. He takes up his position on the tongues and in the hearts of his servants and before their mind's eye. He makes them see what doesn't exist. So they conceive within their hearts all sorts of evil thoughts and resentments regarding their neighbors - often regarding those they most love." - S. Catherine of Siena

Remember Lot's wife:

Take warning from the example of Lot's wife who, because she was disturbed at the destruction of Sodom, turned back to look at it. God punished her for this, and she was 'turned into a pillar of salt' (Genesis 19.26). This teaches you that it is the will of God, even if you were living among devils, you should so live as not to turn back in thought to consider what they are doing, but forget them utterly. You are to keep your soul wholly to God, and not to suffer the thought of this or that to disturb you. - John of the Cross

"Gru's Minions are nothing but gateway

images to get kids hooked on

prescription drugs

and contraceptives.

It's anti-Catholic.  

I'm against it."

*Father RP

Father RP is the Pastor of two small town Catholic Parishes in the hinterland. He has served in parish ministry since ordination, and also as a priest confessor/spiritual director for a Carmelite Monastery for seven years. Prior to answering the call to the priesthood of Jesus Christ he did all kinds of things, including turning away from atheism and agnosticism.  - Profile from 1P5

Note: He's not from here - that is, part of the Archdiocese of St.P/MPLS.

Madonna Della Strada - The Jesuit Madonna

The late medieval mural of Santa Maria della Strada was on an external wall of the small chapel of Our Lady of the Way in Rome. It was here that Ignatius prayed and eventually set up the headquarters of his new Society. Ignatius would have known the image well and, throughout his life, had a particular devotion to Our Lady under whose patronage he placed the Society of Jesus.

The small chapel of Santa Maria della Strada was demolished to make way for the Church of the Gesù, begun in 1568 and consecrated in 1584. The image was preserved and is today in the north chapel, having recently undergone restoration. - Source

Lord, holy Father,
you revealed to us the way, the truth, and the life
in your belove Son.
Grant that by faithfully following his example and teaching,
and through the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
we may be led in safety to you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope.

 In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue.

- Sirach 24

Blessed and immaculate Mother Mary,

Be for me an example of surrender and engagement.

Create within me

a heart that is honest and pure,

a heart that offers a haven to others,

a heart that is generous and resolute, ever able to overcome difficulties,

always ready to begin again

a humble heart

that expects everything from Jesus

your Son and our Lord. Amen

Ignatius at Montserrat.

Why I love the Jesuits, and even the 'bad' ones ...

St. Teresa of Avila had great respect for the Jesuits.  Someplace in her writings, I forgot where, she mentions she had a vision about a certain order (of priests) who would endure until the end of the world, and be most effective at that time.  She never revealed which order she thought it might be.  I have often wondered if it would be the Jesuits, because they have been so maligned throughout their existence, even suppressed, yet the Jesuits endure and they turn out great martyrs and saints, even in our day.  Imagine how much Our Lady loves her sons!