Friday, August 16, 2019

With deep anxiety and growing surprise ...



The Letter of Pius XI to the Bishops of Germany in 1937 should maybe be read again.

It seems to me we live in similar conditions.  This is not to  call any leader a Hitler or a Stalin, nor cite any political party Nazi or Communist, because corruption and a general lack of morality is widespread and pervasive, crossing party lines, so to speak.  I thought the following section especially timely for anyone confused by the various ideologies which infect our culture.

Moral and natural law.

To hand over the moral law to man’s subjective opinion, which changes with the times, instead of anchoring it in the holy will of the eternal God and His commandments, is to open wide every door to the forces of destruction. The resulting dereliction of the eternal principles of an objective morality, which educates conscience and ennobles every department and organization of life, is a sin against the destiny of a nation, a sin whose bitter fruit will poison future generations.
30. Such is the rush of present-day life that it severs from the divine foundation of Revelation, not only morality, but also the theoretical and practical rights. We are especially referring to what is called the natural law, written by the Creator’s hand on the tablet of the heart (Rom. ii. 14) and which reason, not blinded by sin or passion, can easily read. It is in the light of the commands of this natural law, that all positive law, whoever be the lawgiver, can be gauged in its moral content, and hence, in the authority it wields over conscience. Human laws in flagrant contradiction with the natural law are vitiated with a taint which no force, no power can mend. In the light of this principle one must judge the axiom, that “right is common utility,” a proposition which may be given a correct significance, it means that what is morally indefensible, can never contribute to the good of the people. But ancient paganism acknowledged that the axiom, to be entirely true, must be reversed and be made to say: “Nothing can be useful, if it is not at the same time morally good” (Cicero, De Off. ii. 30). Emancipated from this oral rule, the principle would in international law carry a perpetual state of war between nations; for it ignores in national life, by confusion of right and utility, the basic fact that man as a person possesses rights he holds from God, and which any collectivity must protect against denial, suppression or neglect. To overlook this truth is to forget that the real common good ultimately takes its measure from man’s nature, which balances personal rights and social obligations, and from the purpose of society, established for the benefit of human nature. Society, was intended by the Creator for the full development of individual possibilities, and for the social benefits, which by a give and take process, every one can claim for his own sake and that of others. Higher and more general values, which collectivity alone can provide, also derive from the Creator for the good of man, and for the full development, natural and supernatural, and the realization of his perfection. To neglect this order is to shake the pillars on which society rests, and to compromise social tranquillity, security and existence. - Mit Brennender Sorge

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

An amazing witness in Poland.



Jesus promised St. Faustina: 
"I bear a special love for Poland, 
and if she will be obedient to My will, 
I will exalt her in might and holiness. 
From her will come forth the spark 
that will prepare the world for My final coming" 
(Diary, 1732).


A day of reckoning will come.

Looking at photos of the Catholic resistance to LGBTQ ideology in Poland has been one of the most edifying witness I have seen in a very long time.  Especially those photos of a lone 15 year old boy, standing up to the gay pride parade and police, who removed him. 

One day we will all be convicted by the Holy Spirit for our sins and omissions, our consciences corrected for our acceptance and approval of ideologies which contradict the the Law of God and nature. 

ROME - Following weeks of escalating tensions between Polish bishops and the country’s LGBT community, the head of Poland’s Catholic episcopal conference has said homosexual people must be treated with respect, but he called on lawmakers to uphold marriage as between a man and a woman.
In an Aug. 8 statement, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki Poznań, president of the Polish bishops’ conference, issued an appeal to the nation’s authorities, urging them “not to make decisions that - under the guise of counteracting discrimination - would conceal the ideology that denies the natural gender difference and complementarity between men and women.”
“I also appeal to parliamentarians to resist the far-reaching plans of (the) LGBT+ milieus, that aim to change Polish law in order to introduce the so-called ‘homosexual marriage’ and the possibility of adoption (of) children by them.” - Crux

Today in Poland, Catholic teaching is upheld.  Praise God.

St. Maximillian, pray for Poland,
pray for us!

Monday, August 12, 2019

Pope Francis: “I am concerned because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934.”



Me too.

In light of the concerns Pope Francis expressed regarding the emergence of nationalism and political rhetoric of isolationism - a concern I share BTW: “I am concerned because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934.”  I want to link to a great article on how Trump is emulating Hitler's rise to power.  Don't freak out - no one is suggesting Trump is heading toward some 'final solution' to make America white again, as Burt Neuborne, the author of the book When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic makes clear: "I don’t for a moment believe that Trump admires what Hitler eventually did with his power [genocide], but he damn well admires—and is successfully copying—the way that Hitler got it.”
People on FB seemed to disagree with what the Holy Father says, or they immediately assume he's picking on Trump, yet comparisons with fascist speeches from the 1930's is not difficult to do.  I found a very good article on Neuborne's book (cited above) comparing Trump's style to Hitler's rhetoric and policies, which sheds some light on what the Holy Father may be talking about. Though it needs to be repeated that the Pope didn't name Trump, nor is Trump alone among leaders to foster nationalism.  Elsewhere in the world nationalism is gaining a great deal of support in reaction to the ongoing migrant and economic crisis.



20 Common Themes, Rhetorical Tactics and Dangerous Policies

Here are 20 serious points of comparison between the early Hitler and Trump.
1. Neither was elected by a majority. Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes, receiving votes by 25.3 percent of all eligible American voters. “That’s just a little less than the percentage of the German electorate that turned to the Nazi Party in 1932–33,” Neuborne writes. “Unlike the low turnouts in the United States, turnout in Weimar Germany averaged just over 80 percent of eligible voters.” He continues, “Once installed as a minority chancellor in January 1933, Hitler set about demonizing his political opponents, and no one—not the vaunted, intellectually brilliant German judiciary; not the respected, well-trained German police; not the revered, aristocratic German military; not the widely admired, efficient German government bureaucracy; not the wealthy, immensely powerful leaders of German industry; and not the powerful center-right political leaders of the Reichstag—mounted a serious effort to stop him.”
2. Both found direct communication channels to their base. By 1936’s Olympics, Nazi narratives dominated German cultural and political life. “How on earth did Hitler pull it off? What satanic magic did Trump find in Hitler’s speeches?” Neuborne asks. He addresses Hitler’s extreme rhetoric soon enough, but notes that Hitler found a direct communication pathway—the Nazi Party gave out radios with only one channel, tuned to Hitler’s voice, bypassing Germany’s news media. Trump has an online equivalent.
“Donald Trump’s tweets, often delivered between midnight and dawn, are the twenty-first century’s technological embodiment of Hitler’s free plastic radios,” Neuborne says.
3. Both blame others and divide on racial lines. As Neuborne notes, “Hitler used his single-frequency radios to wax hysterical to his adoring base about his pathological racial and religious fantasies glorifying Aryans and demonizing Jews, blaming Jews (among other racial and religious scapegoats) for German society’s ills.” That is comparable to “Trump’s tweets and public statements, whether dealing with black-led demonstrations against police violence, white-led racist mob violence, threats posed by undocumented aliens, immigration policy generally, protests by black and white professional athletes, college admission policies, hate speech, even response to hurricane damage in Puerto Rico,” he says. Again and again, Trump uses “racially tinged messages calculated to divide whites from people of color.” - Finish reading here.

I'm amazed that many Catholics mistrust the Pope, yet place so much confidence in Trump and his nationalistic policies. 

"Got a match?"

Sunday, August 11, 2019

For the Feast of St. Clare

Cena mistica di San Francesco e Santa Chiara.