The Bella Dodd Conspiracies are back.

I noted that McCarrick is now thought to be a Bella Dodd plant.  

Beyond his horrendous evil of homosexual predation for decades, Church Militant has learned exclusively that McCarrick may also have been clandestinely trained by Soviet Communists here in Europe during his younger years, making him effectively a Communist plant in the heart of the Church. 

Through a back channel, Church Militant has obtained information from former Communist personnel who were instrumental in setting up a secret network of indoctrination and training centers throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II, and their information directly implicates the involvement of Theodore McCarrick. 

A little history to set the stage first: When Stalin gained control of the former Soviet Union in the early 1920s, he set about plans to cripple the influence of the Catholic Church in the West, if not completely destroy the Church — all part of communism's plan for world domination and warned about by Our Lady in Fatima in 1917. 

A key component of the plans involved infiltrating seminaries with young men who would work to undermine the Church's teaching in the area of morality. 

This was testified to on multiple occasions by Bella Dodd, a high-ranking member of the U.S. Communist Party. She herself claims to have orchestrated the placement of 1,100 men into U.S. seminaries. - CM

I've read a couple of posts by a priest or two elsewhere agreeing with this theory.

Everything is based on hearsay and gossip, no proof such as names are ever provided to back up these claims.

I have no doubt Communist ideology has greatly influenced academia and culture, and even infiltrated the Church, but the Bella Dodd claims have always troubled me.  The reason being, if the claims are true, more people other than Bella Dodd would have known.  How is it that Dodd is the only defector?  No matter how secret, who were all of the agents who infiltrated?  Where are they now? 

Bella Dodd Seminary

St. Peter Damian

 I hope he influences the Sexual Abuse of Minors Summit in the Vatican.

“Just as Saint Basil establishes that those who incur sins [against nature] … should be subjected not only to a hard penance but a public one, and Pope Siricius prohibits penitents from entering clerical orders, one can clearly deduce that he who corrupts himself with a man through the ignominious squalor of a filthy union does not deserve to exercise ecclesiastical functions, since those who were formerly given to vices … become unfit to administer the Sacraments.” - St. Peter Damian

Just as in the days of Noah.

Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark,

and he sent out a raven...

Just a thought.

This morning's reading at Mass reminded me of those photos of the dove being attacked by a crow or raven in St. Peter's Square after the Pope would release them from the papal apartment window.  It always seemed like an omen.

At the end of forty days Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark,
and he sent out a raven,
to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.
It flew back and forth until the waters dried off from the earth.
Then he sent out a dove,
to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.
But the dove could find no place to alight and perch,
and it returned to him in the ark,
for there was water all over the earth.
Putting out his hand, he caught the dove
and drew it back to him inside the ark.
He waited seven days more and again sent the dove out from the ark.
In the evening the dove came back to him,
and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf!
So Noah knew that the waters had lessened on the earth.
He waited still another seven days
and then released the dove once more;
and this time it did not come back. - GN 8:6-13

It's probably just me.

Today is the feast of St.s Jacinta and Francisco Marto as well.  I'm praying they will guide the Holy Father and bishops assembled for summit on sexual abuse this weekend.   Pope Francis noted how those who are actively criticizing and hurling accusations may be guided by a bad spirit.

One cannot live a whole life accusing, accusing, accusing the Church. 

Whom does the office of the accuser belong to? Who is he that the Bible calls the great accuser - the devil! And those who spend their lives accusing are - I won't say children, because the devil doesn't have any - but they the friends, cousins and relatives of the devil. 

Well, when things are not right, one has to report the defects to correct, but when you report the defects, you make known the defects, you love the Church. Without love is something from the devil. - VR

St. Jacinta devoted herself to prayer and suffering for the Pope, may she intercede for him in these times of crisis.  St. Francisco was deeply contemplative and hidden, praying to console the 'Hidden Jesus' and making reparation for sins.  Both Jacinta and Francisco prayed earnestly and constantly for the conversion of sinners.  May these little saints, who have now reached full stature and maturity in Christ, intercede for all of us.

After the Fall.

McCarrick with young clerics.

Scandal.

Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. - CCC

I've wasted hours on Facebook posting stupid commentary and emotional soundbites while trying to avoid the reality of former Cardinal McCarrick's fall from grace and final laicization.  Why should it bother me?  What difference does it make to me?  He's so far removed from my way of life.  He's a retired, former prelate and we would never have anything in common.

Except I've been a Catholic all of my life, dependent upon the Church and her ministers.  The sense of betrayal, the temptation to skepticism and cynicism, assails my spirit.  It's a struggle many Catholics may be contending with.

Yesterday at Mass I couldn't even look at the priest.  I could barely stand his homiletic performance - which is what it seemed like.  In an older interview, Cardinal Muller described the sexual abuse by clergy as an anti-clerical act in itself.  I felt the temptation to anti-clericalism.  The only way I could deal with it was to recollect myself as best I could, and not look at anyone.

It is part of the crisis that one does not wish to see the true causes and covers them up with the help of propaganda phrases of the homosexual lobby. Fornication with teenagers and adults is a mortal sin which no power on earth can declare to be morally neutral. That is the work of the devil – against whom Pope Francis often warns – that he declares sin to be good. “Some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared.” (1 Tim 4:1f) It is indeed absurd that, suddenly, ecclesial authorities utilize the Jacobin, Nazi, and Communist anti-Church combat slogans against sacramentally ordained priests. The priests have the authority to proclaim the Gospels and to administer the Sacraments of Grace. If someone abuses his jurisdiction in order to reach selfish goals, he himself is not clerical in an exaggerated form, but, rather, he himself is anti-clerical, because he denies Christ Who wishes to work through him. Sexual abuse by clergymen is then, at most, to be called anti-clerical. But it is obvious – and can only be denied by someone who wishes to be blind – that sins against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue stem from disordered inclinations and thus are sins of fornication which exclude one from the Kingdom of God, at least as long as one has not repented and made atonement, and as long as there does not exist the firm resolve to avoid such sin in the future. This whole attempt at obfuscating things is a bad sign of the secularization of the Church. One thinks like the world, but not as God wills it. - Muller, Lifesite Interview Nov. 21, 2018

In the '70's while in Italy I ran into

cinema posters very much like this one,

but for x-rated films about priests, monks and nuns.

I was horrified by it and prayed

in reparation.  Now, today ...

Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!

 It's striking that Muller says: "ecclesial authorities utilize the Jacobin, Nazi, and Communist anti-Church combat slogans against sacramentally ordained priests."  Since I have often thought the chatter online from Catholic sources pretty much emulates the Jacobin-Nazi-Communist anti-clerical propaganda of an earlier age.  It also echoes the Protestant anti clericalism of the early 20th century and before, in colonial times and England.

What has happened today - so it seems - the terrible anti-clerical propaganda has become a reality.  Priests raping nuns, nuns raping novices, priests sleeping with seminarian, molesting altar boys.  All of that used to be anti-Catholic propaganda, and now it is being revealed as true, scandal after scandal coming to light.

I couldn't locate the quote, but elsewhere Cardinal Muller mentioned something to the effect that because of guys like McCarrick instituting policy, this may explain why prohibitions against admitting gay men to seminaries were ignored.  Likewise, he points to the general accpetance of LGBTQ ideology as a worldliness infecting the Church and her ministers.

So.  Be on guard.  Be humble.  Pray for the Pope and especially the conference this week in Rome on sexual abuse.

Pope Francis has asked Catholics to pray for the upcoming anti-abuse summit at the Vatican.

I'm praying. Significantly the conference begins on the feast of S. Peter Damian, the great reformer saint who knew all about these things way back when. The eve of the conference is the feast of St. Jacinta Marto, whose devotion to the Pope was well known, and as a child saint, along with her brother St. Francisco, they are perhaps great intercessors for those who were abused. Then the conference takes place during the monthly novena to the Infant Jesus, which I do in union with the Carmelites, and my intentions are for the conference and the Holy Father. 

Prayer is good, but suffering is better. A saintly Carmelite once said that, so I am offering what little I have - otherwise life makes no sense.

I will also remember what St. John of the Cross taught: "Never take a man for your example - however holy he may be - for the devil will show you his faults."

France Anticlerical caricature at the time of the 

separation of church and state. 1905

Those who want the state to conduct investigations

into Church records, as well as laity

to oversee these matters, ought to 

be careful what they wish for.