Don't look back ...

If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come,

 they would have had opportunity to return. - Hebrews 11:15

Remember Lot's wife.

Recognizing the signs of the times.

• Apostasy, the loss of the faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church. -POPE PAUL VI, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13, 1977

• At this period, however, the partisans of evil seems to be combining together… No longer making any secret of their purposes, they are now boldly rising up against God Himself …that which is their ultimate purpose forces itself into view—namely, the utter overthrow of that whole religious and political order of the world which the Christian teaching has produced, and the substitution of a new state of things in accordance with their ideas, of which the foundations and laws shall be drawn from mere naturalism. - POPE LEO XIII, Humanum Genus, Encyclical on Freemasonry, n.10, Apri 20thl, 1884

• …before the Lord’s arrival there will be apostasy, and one well described as the “man of lawlessness”, “the son of perdition” must be revealed, who tradition would come to call the Antichrist. - POPE BENEDICT XVI, General Audience, “Whether at the end of time or during a tragic lack of peace: Come Lord Jesus!”, L’Osservatore Romano, Nov. 12th, 2008

• Who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction? You understand, Venerable Brethren, what this disease is—apostasy from God… When all this is considered there is good reason to fear lest this great perversity may be as it were a foretaste, and perhaps the beginning of those evils which are reserved for the last days; and that there may be already in the world the “Son of Perdition” of whom the Apostle speaks. - POPE ST. PIUS X, E Supremi, Encyclical, On the Restoration of All Things in Christ, n. 3, 5; October 4th, 1903

• …when the culture itself is corrupt and objective truth and universally valid principles are no longer upheld, then laws can only be seen as arbitrary impositions or obstacles to be avoided. - POPE FRANCIS, Laudato si’, n. 123;www.vatican.va

• …worldliness is the root of evil and it can lead us to abandon our traditions and negotiate our loyalty to God who is always faithful. This… is called apostasy, which… is a form of “adultery” which takes place when we negotiate the essence of our being: loyalty to the Lord. - POPE FRANCIS from a homily, Vatican Radio, November 18th, 2013

• It is not the beautiful globalization of unity of all Nations, each one with their own customs, instead it is the globalization of hegemonic uniformity, it is the single thought. And this sole thought is the fruit of worldliness.* - POPE FRANCIS, Homily, November 18th, 2013; Zenit

+ + +

+Mater Ecclesiae+

Hail, thou who tramples upon the wandering of error;

hail , thou who refutes the lies of idols.

Hail, Sea which drowned Pharoh and his schemes;

hail, Rock which refreshed those athirst for Life.

Hail, fiery Pillar, leading those in darkness;

hail, Shelter of the world, broader than a cloud.
-Akathist Hymn

Stay faithful.  Remember what the Catechism teaches:

816 "The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him."267

The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: "For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the People of God."268 - CCC

*All papal quotes taken from Mark Mallett, The Hour of Lawlessness.

Denigrating popular piety.

Another reason why people left the Church.

Years ago a friend told me a story of a novice at the Benedictine Abbey of St. John's in Minnesota who knelt to pray before an ancient crucifix in the cloister.  One of the monks came by and told him, "Get up - we don't do pious here."  Meaning they were above traditional expressions of devotion, perhaps - or - simply testing the novice's humility?

When I was a novice in another monastery, the novice master was concerned that my devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was too sensible, too superficial, too rooted in private revelation ... too pious.

I thought of this after reviewing the headlines at Spirit Daily - a site frequently criticized for the same thing.  The bold headline pointed to the "Superior attitude" that dismisses the miraculous traced in part to a straying from ...

I'll fill in the blanks with my own take on that one.

Popular piety and devotion has been more or less discredited and called out for being superficial and emotional since Vatican II.  Yet before the Council churches in major metropolitan areas were packed with the faithful attending weekly novena services, rosary devotions, 40 Hours Devotion, and throughout the day people dropped in to make a visit, light a candle, do the Stations, and so on.  Afterwards, theology, ecclesiology, Biblical studies all tried to fill the spiritual void left by the abandonment of such devotions. Not that there is anything wrong with that... per se.

Now days, when we talk about how the Church may have failed the faithful, many blame the Novus Ordo - how the Mass changed.  The Mass is fine - I think it was the novelties introduced - to supply for the lack of piety and authentic spirituality, which zapped the sacred character out of it.  When I returned to the sacraments in 1972, two major churches in St. Paul celebrated the ordinary form Mass, in Latin and English, ad orientem, fully vested, reverently, and so on.  They never turned the altar around, thus the Mass seemed unchanged to me.  All I'm saying is that I don't think changing the Mass was the problem - downgrading the sacred, the ordinary expression of piety; in other words, eliminating the traditional devotional element of worship, which in some places vanished altogether as novel add-ons were gradually introduced, that's the problem.

Thus a new wave iconoclasm intellectualized, socialized/secularized, religious communities - including parishes.

To fill the spiritual gap - various movements arose, such as the Blue Army, dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima, and the Charismatic Renewal, to name just two.  Nothing wrong with that either.  Although progressives and academics dismissed such groups as superficial and shallow - reserved for the desperate, under-educated, badly catechized.  The void left by the abandonment of devotion was filled by the extraordinary gifts and experiences associated with the devotional movements - which also may explain, in part, the attraction to places of apparitions and private revelations today.

As people continued to fall away, like sheep without a shepherd, spiritual hunger led them outside the Church - wandering into New Age spirituality, Wicca, Eastern mystics, the occult; Theosophy - which is pretty much Gnosticism or neo-paganism - and the new religion of secularists.  Or, more properly, for the spiritual but not religious.

Nevertheless, religious practice is unsustainable without devotion - the gift of piety.  Hence, ordinary people abandon religion all together.

[T]he gift of piety perfects the virtue of justice, enabling the individual to fulfill his obligations to God and neighbor, and to do so willingly and joyfully. With piety, the person is not only motivated by the requirements of strict justice but also by the loving relationship he shares with his neighbor. Simply, a person wants to do what is right in the eyes of God. - The Gift of Piety

Crowds in procession for Novena to St. Anne

San Francisco, 1933.

Here's a thought: As long as we're talking about a "piecemeal" World War III...

How about recognizing a piecemeal schism?

How about recognizing a piecemeal great apostasy?  

How about a piecemeal Islam?

I agree with the Holy Father's observation that we are in a piecemeal WWIII - I have no problem whatsoever with what the Pope says...

Just with the rest of you.

Last night I caught a rerun of Bill Donohue on EWTN.  What a load of _____.  He and Arroyo were discussing the St. Pat's parade and Donohue was explaining why he decided not to march.  The whole thing boils down to the fact he was kept out of the loop and felt betrayed.  Who cares.

Betrayed, bewildered... wrong response?

So many of our arguments online are just ego jousts, self promotion and "I'm more Catholic than you" popularity contests.

Some of these conflicts betray something deeper, more divisive.

There really is a piecemeal schism.  This weekend I noted on one 'news' portal (and elsewhere) a few not so subtle little digs over the announcement of the feast days for St.s John XXIII and John Paul II.  I got the impression they were more than pleased that the feast days were not obligatory memorials. What is so schismatic about that?   It is an attitude shared by those folks who reject Vatican II, the Ordinary Form of Mass, and just about everything Pope Francis says.  (Not to forget "all those Fatima 'crazies'.." whose comments will be removed if she keeps posting her crap.)

Yeah, but, a piecemeal great apostasy?   Look around:  Closing churches.  Bad catechesis.  Unfaithful Catholic colleges and universities.  Christians who claim to be spiritual but not religious.  The general population disagrees with Church teaching on contraception and abortion, homosexuality and marriage, and so on.  While religious leaders seek to accommodate teaching to be more welcoming.  It's piecemeal, of course.

Maybe - but a piecemeal Islam?  Really?  Islam is a major religion, a religion of peace.

That is what I get so tired of hearing and reading.  Be it President Obama or some Cardinal claiming Islam is so much like Christianity.  Everyone bends over backwards to say ISIS is not Islamic.  That ISIS can't just decide on their own to form a caliphate.  As if the claims made by ISIS don't count because they don't play by the rules.  To say they are not Islamic is like saying the Nuns on the Bus are not Catholic, or Pro-choice politicians like Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden are not Catholic.  They certainly believe they are.

People are pretending.  Either that, or they are deluded.  Or.  Schismatic?  Piecemeal of course.  Apostate? Piecemeal to be sure.  Embracing Islam, the religion of piecemeal?

“In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate

 - that's just like the sign of the cross!"

Watch your neck...

So anyway...  Cardinal McCarrick.

“In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate,” McCarrick said as he introduced himself to the audience at a meeting arranged by the Muslim Public Affairs Council. That praise of the Islamic deity is an important phrase in Islam, is found more than 100 times in the Koran, and is akin to the Catholic prayer, ”In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Catholic social teaching is based on the dignity of the human person… [and] as you study the holy Koran, as you study Islam, basically, this is what Muhammad the prophet, peace be upon him, has been teaching.” - Story here.

That sounds fairly piecemeal to me.

I may be wrong of course.

"Never in the history of New York’s 

St. Patrick’s Day Parade 

have homosexuals been barred from marching."

Bill Donohue

The most overlooked prophecies in the world have come from the Popes of the 20th Century.

And the 19th Century, I might add.

I made that comment on a post quoting Pope Pius XII - before he ascended the Throne of Peter:

"I am worried by the Blessed Virgin's messages to little Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the faith, in her liturgy, her theology and her soul... I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments and make her feel remorse for her historical past.

"A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, 'Where have they taken Him?'"

--Eugene Cardinal Pacelli, future Pope Pius XII, 1931 - Creative Minority Report

I've been printing select quotes which foretold our times as well - from the Popes and the Vatican Documents they commissioned and approved.  Some say Heaven complains messages from the Blessed Virgin are not heeded, yet perhaps an even more serious offense is that the teaching of the Popes have been deliberately ignored and repudiated.

The following, from St. Pius X:

Thus then, Venerable Brethren, for the Modernists, both as authors and propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor indeed are they without precursors in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our Predecessor Pius IX wrote: These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.' (Encyclical Qui pluribus, November 9, 1846) 

These men are certainly to be pitied, and of them the Apostle might well say: They became vain in their thoughts. . . professing themselves to be wise they became fools(Rom. i. 21, 22); but, at the same time, they excite just indignation when they accuse the Church of torturing the texts, arranging and confusing them after its own fashion, and for the needs of its cause. In this they are accusing the Church of something for which their own conscience plainly reproaches them.” - Source

And just to drive a few points home, this from Paul VI:

In the present period, the corruption of morals has increased, and one of the most serious indications of this corruption is the unbridled exaltation of sex. Moreover, through the means of social communication and through public entertainment this corruption has reached the point of invading the field of education and of infecting the general mentality. 

In this context certain educators, teachers and moralists have been able to contribute to a better understanding and integration into life of the values proper to each of the sexes; on the other hand there are those who have put forward concepts and modes of behavior which are contrary to the true moral exigencies of the human person. Some members of the latter group have even gone so far as to favor a licentious hedonism. - Persona Humana

From the first Pope:

Know this first of all, that in the last days scoffers will come [to] scoff, living according to their own desires ...

There were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will introduce destructive heresies and even deny the Master who ransomed them, bringing swift destruction on themselves.  Many will follow their licentious ways, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled.

In their greed they will exploit you with fabrications, but from of old their condemnation has not been idle and their destruction does not sleep. - 2 Peter 2