I was asked this question: Dear Catholic World: Why do YOU Remain a Catholic?

"I would lead you, bring you to my mother’s house ..."

Notre Dame, Montreal - where my conversion was initiated.

To whom else would I go?

Elizabeth Scalia sent an email saying "Would love to read your response, too!"

I'm a crackpot blogger - no doubt about it - so when someone like Elizabeth Scalia goes out of her way to invite me to respond to something, well shucks!  I'll do it.  (I did, but found out I was just in her email c.c. list. Here is my original response.)

Why do I remain Catholic?

Easy answer:  I fell in love with Jesus.

Who first loved me.

(I've pretty much told this story before - so I'll try my hand at being a bit more poetic in this narrative.)

I really, truly encountered him in the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament.

I was led by the Holy Spirit - literally grasped by him - and swept up into the confessional, where I was absolved of all my sins - reconciled to the Father.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus pursued me, searched me out in every sinful situation and state - time after time.  He revealed himself to me.  He opened my mind to the Scriptures, he set my heart on fire with love for him... time after time.

I found him completely within the Catholic Church, as surely as he dwells in the tabernacles of all the churches in the world - as surely as his Sacred Heart beats in his Body.  I found him in the house of my Mother - the Church ... it is like this:


He brought me to the banquet hall

and his glance at me signaled love.

My lover speaks and says to me,

“Arise, my friend, my beautiful one,

and come!"

My lover belongs to me and I to him;

Would that you were a brother to me,

nursed at my mother’s breasts!

If I met you out of doors, I would kiss you ...

and none would despise me.

I would lead you, bring you to my mother’s house,

where you would teach me,

Where I would give you to drink

spiced wine, my pomegranate juice. 

His left hand is under my head,

and his right arm embraces me.

Who is this coming up from the desert,

leaning upon her lover?

Beneath the apple tree I awakened you;

there your mother conceived you; 

there she who bore you conceived. 

Set me as a seal upon your heart,

as a seal upon your arm;

For Love is strong as Death ... 

(Sorry, it seems I can only express my 'mystery' in the words of the Song of Songs.)

Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me... - John 6:37

That is why I remain a Catholic ... Because Christ is mine and I am his, inseparably united in time and in eternity, in his body, the Church, in Mary, in the bosom of the Holy Trinity.

The fullness of truth is contained within the Catholic Church...  Where the body is ... the eagles gather.  To whom else would I go?   

Beneath the apple tree I awakened you ...

Read Elizabeth's post here.

And the guy who started it all, Todd Worner here.

This is interesting: The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has appointed the Superior of the Society of St. Pius X, to be the first-instance trial judge in the case against an SSPX priest who is accused of a serious crime.

Bishop Fellay

Obviously, the Society of St. Pius X is not schismatic then.

Contrary to what some priests online, such as Fr. Paul Nicholson have said.

The SSPX is definitely Catholic - but irregular?  That's Canon-ese language I suppose.

Bishop Fellay announced it himself during the course of a sermon at Our Lady of the Angels church in Arcadia, California, on May 10, 2015: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has appointed the Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), Bishop Bernard Fellay, as first-instance judge in a case involving a Lefebvrian priest. The former Holy Office is in charge of dealing with a number of “delicta graviora”. The one that pops up most frequently, is the one involving the sexual abuse of minors. Fellay presented this as an example of the “contradictions” in the Holy See’s approach to the Fraternity.

“We are labeled now as being irregular, at best. “Irregular” means you cannot do anything, and so for example they have prohibited us from saying Mass in the churches in Rome, for the Dominican sisters who had their pilgrimage in Rome in February. They say, “No, you cannot, because you are irregular”. And these people [who] say that, were people of [Pontifical Commission] Ecclesia Dei.” 

“Now, sometimes, unfortunately,” Bishop Fellay said, “also priests do silly things, and they need to be punished. And when it is very, very serious, we have to make recourse to Rome. So we do. And what does the Congregation of the Faith do? Well, they did appoint me as the judge for this case. So I was appointed by Rome, by the Congregation of the Faith, to make judgements, canonical Church judgements on some of our priests who belong to a non-existent Society for them (for Rome,Ed.). And so, once again, a beautiful contradiction indeed.” - ANDREA TORNIELLI

Sounds good to me.

Today, there's more good news on liturgical reform from Cardinal Sarah:

Pope Francis asked leading African Cardinal Robert Sarah “to continue the good work in the liturgy begun by Pope Benedict XVI” when he became Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments last November, he has revealed.

In his message to the Sara Liturgia USA Conference in New York, which began on Monday, the Guinean Cardinal said: “When the Holy Father, Pope Francis, asked me to accept the ministry of Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, I asked: ‘Your Holiness, how do you want me to exercise this ministry? What do you want me to do as Prefect of this Congregation?’ The Holy Father’s reply was clear. ‘I want you to continue to implement the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council,’ he said, ‘and I want you to continue the good work in the liturgy begun by Pope Benedict XVI.’” - Catholic Herald

Works for me.

Hopefully this news will quiet some of the critics of Pope Francis.

I would like to see the liturgy restored.

Bonus:  I love this photo of ordinations for The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest:

2014 Sts. Michaele and Gaetano in Florence, Italy.

A story about the Trans-abled.

This transgender person with "species dysphoria" transitioned into a cat,

only to discover he/she was also transabled, and is now confined to a wheelchair.

Body Integrity Identity Disorder

I know, I know.  All the bloggers at Patheos are gushing with admiration for Caitlyn Jenner and her courageous step toward sexual reassignment surgery after this week's debut as a voluptuous transgender woman, but there are other people who have extremely difficult issues with trans identities as well.  These folks do not always get the accolades a huge celebrity might get, and probably miss out on the all the compassion as well.

The Transabled.

They are persons who "feel like impostors in their fully working bodies."  Their story, their courage in 'coming out' is inspiring, to say the least.  Our society has made such strides to accept and make improvements for the disabled, while ignoring the needs, the feelings of the transabled.

OTTAWA — When he cut off his right arm with a “very sharp power tool,” a man who now calls himself One Hand Jason let everyone believe it was an accident.

But he had for months tried different means of cutting and crushing the limb that never quite felt like his own, training himself on first aid so he wouldn’t bleed to death, even practicing on animal parts sourced from a butcher.

“My goal was to get the job done with no hope of reconstruction or re-attachment, and I wanted some method that I could actually bring myself to do,” he told the body modification website ModBlog.

His goal was to become disabled.

People like Jason have been classified as ‘‘transabled’’ — feeling like imposters in their bodies, their arms and legs in full working order.

“We define transability as the desire or the need for a person identified as able-bodied by other people to transform his or her body to obtain a physical impairment,” says Alexandre Baril, a Quebec born academic who will present on “transability” at this week’s Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Ottawa.

“The person could want to become deaf, blind, amputee, paraplegic. It’s a really, really strong desire.”

Researchers in Canada are trying to better understand how transabled people think and feel. Clive Baldwin, a Canada Research Chair in Narrative Studies who teaches social work at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B., has interviewed 37 people worldwide who identify as transabled. - Read more here.

Now what could be more wholesome or natural than that? 

Can we say these people are true heroes?  To be admired for the courage to mutilate oneself to become disabled.  To voluntarily share the disabilities of the truly disabled could possibly be a strange sort of heroic virtue, right?  I don't think so.

Highlighted in the article is a woman who wears  leg braces and is wheelchair bound - though her legs function perfectly.  Look at how happy she is, her smile beaming in the photograph below.

-photo credit-

“It’s a problem for individuals because it’s distressing. But lots of things are.” He suggests this is just another form of body diversity — like transgenderism — and amputation may help someone achieve similar goals as someone who, say, undergoes cosmetic surgery to look more like who they believe their ideal selves to be. - Reasearcher statement. ibid

Disclaimer.

I shouldn't make fun of this, I know.  I actually knew a girl who most likely had this problem.  She lived in my neighborhood and often would wear a cast as if she broke her arm.  She did break it once I think - which is how she got the cast.  Later she'd wear it out and about, without saying anything about it.  Once she plucked out all of her eyelashes and eyebrows.  She had mental illness - which is why these conditions are not funny.  That said - I think we need to call metal illness what it is - and these trans conditions seem to me to be mental illness.

The girl from my neighborhood ended up committing suicide.

H/T Ray

St. Charles Lwanga and Companions.

By Teresa Satola

Gay Catholics want patron saints?

You have them:  Martyrs who died rather than commit mortal sin.  As Fr. Z notes in his post, they were martyred by a sexually deviant King, a tribal Lord.  Fr. Z calls him a ritual pedophile.  I never considered it that way, and I think it is interesting in so far as we are reminded that the King and his pagan court believed in witchcraft - the ancient religion.  Interestingly, Black Africa continues to be plagued by witchcraft and superstition in some places.

A superstitious pagan, King Mwanga at first tolerated Christianity. Katikiro, a deputy in the court convinced the king that the Christians were dangerous, persuading him that if they refused to offer sacrifice, partake in the the activities the king desired, and if they would not massacre or make war, they would be no good for the kingdom, and if the kingdom became Catholic, it would destroy the country. - Source

"Charles Lwanga and companions died for their Faith and because they resisted the intrinsic evil of homosexual sex."

In 1879 the White Fathers were working successfully as missionaries in Uganda. They were, at first well received by King Mutesa.

Then there came a new pharaoh, as it were.

Mutesa died and his son, Mwanga, took over. He was a ritual pedophile.

Charles Lwanga, a 25 year old man who was a catechist, forcefully protected boys in his charge from the king’s sodomite advances.

The king had murdered an Anglican Bishop and tried to get his page, who was protected by Joseph Mukasa, later beheaded for his trouble. On the night of the martyrdom of Joseph Mukasa, Lwanga and other pages sought out the White Fathers for baptism. Some 100 catechumens were baptized.

A few months later, King Mwanga ordered all the pages to be questioned to find out if they were being catechized. 15 Christians 13 and 25 identified themselves. When the King asked them if they were willing to keep their faith, They answered in unison, “Until death!”

They were bound together and force marched for 2 days to Namugongo where they were to be burned at the stake. On the way, Matthias Kalemba, one of the eldest boys, exclaimed, “God will rescue me. But you will not see how he does it, because he will take my soul and leave you only my body.” He was cut to pieces and left him by the road. - Finish reading here.

Minneapolis Gaia Democratic School took students on a field trip to a sex shop...

 Smitten Kitten owner Jennifer Pritchett.*

And, and, and ...

Some parents weren't happy about it.

The story reminds me of Auntie Mame when she sent Patrick to Acacius Page's progressive school in the Village. Apparently Gaia Democratic School in Minneapolis may have a similar curriculum? I'm sure the parents understood that the quality of education at Gaia would be progressive and ultra liberal when they enrolled the kids, but I may be wrong.

I'll bet the students at Gaia understand the Bruce Jenner story better than their parents do, but I digress.

Mpls. private school takes students to adult novelty store for sex ed lesson ...

Some parents are outraged after the leader of a small Minneapolis private school took about a dozen middle- and high-school-aged students on a sex education field trip to an adult novelty store late last week. 

“It’s just a major breach of trust,” said Lynn Floyd, whose 11- and 13-year-old daughters were part of the outing to the Smitten Kitten. “You just can’t erase those images.” 

A leader of Gaia Democratic School and the host of the field trip defended the outing, saying the visit capped a months long sex education class. 

Director Starri Hedges, who also teaches the school’s sex education class, said she wanted to provide a safe and welcoming environment for students to learn about human sexual behavior. 

“What I saw happening on our trip, I thought it was beautiful because kids could talk to these sex educators without any shame, without any fear,” Hedges said Monday. - Finish reading here.

Well, what could be more wholesome and natural?


About Gaia.

From the website: Gaia is a private school that provides holistic educational services to students K-12 with emphasis on democratic process, individualized instruction, academic freedom, self-motivation, cooperative learning, youth empowerment, and environmental stewardship. We are part of an education movement that has a long, fascinating history and a vibrant, viable future.

At first it was ancient wisdom which stated that we are one with the universe, that everything is interconnected, that all is one.

Then later modern science caught up with this idea. Now quantum physicists say exactly the same thing – in a subatomic level everything is interconnected.

In the 1970s chemist James Lovelock formulated the famous Gaia hypothesis which proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.

Everyone is talking about the same idea, only from different perspectives. We add one more – a visual perspective.

This symbol is presented like a metaphor of us and our earth. It is a big organism and we, people, are parts of this organism; we are not separate. And the earth is also just a part of an even bigger organism. Our earth is like a tree with roots that extend to the vast cosmos. Everything is interconnected. - Read more here.

That's interesting, isn't it.


Gaia: The definition of Gaia is a figure from Greek mythology who was the goddess of the earth - Mother Goddess, or Magna Mater.  Today Gaianism is also a New Age religion - but many Gaians are not religious.


*The store’s owner, Jennifer Pritchett, said in an e-mail Monday that she considers Smitten Kitten to be “an educational resource about sex and sexuality. … We leave it up to the discretion of parents and guardians as to when, if, and in what capacity they seek resources from our educators.” -Star Tribune

Bruce-Caitlyn Jenner: Menstruation Myth and Metaphor in Neo-pagan Culture.

Frida Kahlo

Now that's a thesis someone should write.

Not me of course, paganism, neo or paleo, is not my forte - even though I dabbled in the occult in my hippie days, at the dawning of the Aquarian Age and all of that smokey stuff.  Now days many people do more than dabble - they plunge right in.  In our times the prophecy from the Book of Revelation appears to be realized: "All are made drunk from the cup of the whore of Babylon."

Yesterday, commenting on the Caitlyn Jenner Vanity Fair cover story, I said I was surprised that radical feminists weren't slashing themselves over Caitlyn's glamorous Hollywood debut.  I had in mind the Baal-priests and prophets of Jezebel in the time of Elijah [1 Kings 18].  I added the following analogy of why superficial transition based upon gender-stereotype may actually be more tolerant to feminist ideology than one might think.

The Beast

Trans-idolatry.

I wrote, if Jenner goes through with sexual reassignment surgery - genital surgery, it seems to me that might herald a sort of feminist victory over patriarchal dominance, thus rendering Jenner's chosen gender-stereotype more tolerable. I think cutting the male genitalia can be considered as a sort of homage to ancient, matriarchal, origin metaphors connected to menstruation; making the transition a sort of blood ritual, an emasculation ritual far more extreme than circumcision, which ancient pagan cults connected to Goddess worship.*  (Likewise, the gender-mutilation of female to male transition, hearkens back to various menstrual myth and metaphor in ancient cultures, such as the pregnant male myth and aspects of lycanthropy.  A deeper study of which would most likely link gender-theory to therianthropy.  Like I said - it is not my area of expertise.)

Caitlyn

I wanted to highlight my observation to connect with an article I discovered today, written by Bevil Bramwell, OMI, discussing The Return of the (Pagan) Gods.  I believe it ties into what I have been trying to express concerning post-Christian Western culture and the strange adaptations we are witnessing.

119th Division - Richard Lindner

False religion - apostasy - draws people away from the religion of the true God.

A modern historian would have to labor to get a grip on the soup of religious ideas and practices that existed in the first century at the very dawn of Christianity. Yet the modern world is reviving precisely that as it progressively detaches itself from Christianity. Those ideas and practices are inspired by evil spirits now, even as they were then. In the West today, many behaviors might not be called religious, but by their power over individuals and their fixed routines, and their centrality in the life of many individuals, that’s what in reality they are.

One obvious modern worship is the adoration of Priapus. That “god’s” attributes do not need to be detailed here. But a whole industry of medications is devoted to the worship of Priapus by men who do not have a medical condition requiring medication. You can’t escape it: Ads are plastered all over TV.

[...]

False religions draw people away from the religion of the true God. When we paid more attention to what the Bible actually says rather than what we want it to say, we read: “all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary.”(Psalm 96:5-6)

Idols even distort the appearance of the true religion. They soak up time, energy, and moral commitment, leaving much less for the real thing. It is as if the denial of the true God redounds upon its idolaters in real time.

And there are even worse consequences: “reason itself is slow and hesitant in determining the course of action to be followed; it loses its sensitivity for what is truly human good and compromises with material interests. The will becomes pathologically self-seeking, absorbed in asserting the individual’s own rights and blind to the rights of others. Man’s sensual powers which should cooperate with and make more profoundly human the decisions of the virtuous man initiate a separatist movement and seek for autonomous satisfaction.” (Colman O’Neill O.P.) - The Catholic Thing

The Whore

*It strikes me as no small coincidence that the Church of England now appears to be tending toward a sort of Magna Mater cult in it's development of doctrine:

Support is growing within the Church of England to rewrite its official liturgy to refer to God as female following the selection of the first women bishops. - Read more here.

The Great Mother cult is the primal archetype of Goddess worship.

H/T Spirit Daily for Return of the Pagan Gods article.

Caitlyn Jenner - gender stereotype.

Photo credit/story here.

It's all about the look - and, I suppose feelings... but there's more to it than that.

I'm surprised feminists aren't slashing themselves over this one.*  Annie Liebowitz doing the shoot - or not - Jenner has become a mannequin for clothes, make-up, and hair; and worse, a gender stereotype.  The slang term is 'bimbo'.  After reading the article(s), watching the interview with Sawyer, I don't think there's a lot going on in that head.

“If I was lying on my deathbed and I had kept this secret and never ever did anything about it, I would be lying there saying, ‘You just blew your entire life. You never dealt with yourself,’ and I don’t want that to happen.” - Jenner's response to second thoughts on facial-feminization surgery.

An ironic statement to say the least.

As a woman of 65, Caitlyn looks pretty good.



*Although if Jenner goes through with genital surgery, that might herald a sort of feminist victory over patriarchal dominance, thus rendering the chosen gender stereotype more tolerable.  Cutting the male genitalia might be considered as a sort of homage to ancient, matriarchal origin metaphors connected to menstruation; making the transition a sort of blood ritual, an emasculation ritual far more extreme than circumcision, which ancient pagan cults connected to Goddess worship ...

For a better understanding of my analogy, read this article by Bevil Bramwell, The Return of the Pagan Gods.

Please read my follow-up post, Bruce-Caitlyn Jenner: Menstruation Myth and Metaphor in Neo-pagan Culture here.  


H/T Judy for the cover story.

Some thoughts.

Pierre Paul Rubens, "Le Miracle de Saint Just"

Today's Collect for St. Justin Martyr

Grant us that,

having rejected

deception and error,

we may become

steadfast in the faith ...

Reject deception and error ...

Justin sought the vision of God through philosophy - worldly science - until he was introduced to the Word of God - the testimony of the prophets, by a holy old man.  “But before anything else,” said the holy Elder, “pray diligently to God, so that He might open to you the doors of Light. No one is able to comprehend Truth, unless he is granted understanding from God Himself, Who reveals it to each one who seeks Him in prayer and in love.”

"The wicked have told me lies, but not so is your law: I spoke of your decrees before kings, and was not confounded." - Entrance Antiphon.

These days especially - we are being told lies.  Lies about love, marriage, gender, sexuality, and so on.  There are false seers, false teachers among us.

Faith.

St. Therese always said she preferred 'not to see' - not to have private revelations and visions - because faith is more meritorious.  She preferred to live by faith alone, even if that meant dining at the table of sinners - participating in their faithlessness, as it were, in her dark night of faith. In this manner, little Therese associated herself with the unbelievers and the skeptics, the lowly and afflicted. Nevertheless, in some mysterious sense, the heroic charity of Therese motivated her to 'bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things' - without seeing, devoid of consolation. How many of us can sometimes find ourselves at the same table? Struggling to believe all things, hope all things, endure all things?

"Having rejected deception and error ..."

Faith enables us to do that.

The deception and error so widespread today - so much promulgated by worldly authorities and scholars and media - entering into even the high places of religious debate through compromise and the development of doctrine ...

Deception and error.  Don't fall for it.

On the Most Blessed Trinity ... What makes us Catholic.

The Catechism is where Catholics go to learn about the "central mystery of Christian faith and life."

234 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the "hierarchy of the truths of faith". The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men "and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin". - CCC

Many Christians do not accept this teaching, other faiths reject it entirely.

237 The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the "mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God". To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel's faith before the Incarnation of God's Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit. - CCC

Islam rejects and condemns the doctrine entirely, which may explain why many Christians refuse to believe Muslims actually believe in the same God.  I don't know about that however.

They say: "(Allah) Most Gracious has begotten a son!" Indeed ye have put forth a thing most monstrous! At it the skies are ready to burst, the earth to split asunder, and the mountains to fall down in utter ruin, that they should invoke a son for (Allah) Most Gracious. For it is not consonant with the majesty of (Allah) Most Gracious that He should beget a son. Not one of the beings in the heavens and the earth but must come to (Allah) Most Gracious as a servant. - Qur'an

Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses reject the Trinity, as do Seventh Day Adventists - these sects are popularly considered to be Christian, though they reject this fundamental teaching.

That's sad.

I like to think about the Blessed Trinity, to ponder the Indwelling - I like to wonder - in awe ...

266 "Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son's is another, the Holy Spirit's another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal" (Athanasian Creed: DS 75; ND 16). - CCC

For priests: Saints who were falsely accused ...

Stefano di Stasio

I think there were many.

Yet just a few are singled out as patrons of those who are indeed falsely accused.  The first traditional, or 'designated' patron I'll mention is Dominic Savio, a boy saint.

As a young boy he was accused of doing something mischievous ...

Dominic is the patron saint of boys and of the falsely accused. 

This latter title was given to him due to the following incident. One time, two boys filled the school stove with snow and garbage during the cold winter months. When the teacher came back into the room, they falsely accused Dominic of doing the "dirty" deed. Although disciplined in front of the entire class, Dominic refused to tell on the two mischievous boys. When the truth was later revealed, Dominic was asked why he didn't confess to his innocence. He remarked that he was imitating Our Lord, Who remained silent during His persecutions and crucifixion. - Read more here.

I was falsely accused when I was a kid and didn't defend myself.  If only I had died right away after, I might be a saint today.  I was accused by insurance investigators of starting the house on fire - when the real cause was probably bad wiring - the guy told me I'd go to prison unless I admitted it.

In elementary school, a boy stole my essay and handed it in as his own - actually, we were supposed to read it out loud and the boy was ahead of me.  When the teacher called on me I pretended I didn't do my homework rather than betray him.  Now that was saintly, if I do say so myself - but I soon fell into sinful ways in adolescence. Oh!  Why couldn't I have died right then?  But I digress.

Detraction and calumny - sins of the accusers.

Perhaps one of the most famous saints falsely accused is St. Gerard Majella.  A wayward wench, a convent reject, accused the Saint of getting her pregnant - which is why he's the patron of pregnant women.  I know!  Who came up with such patronage appointments?  Anyway - he didn't defend himself and his accuser eventually recanted and he became a saint.  Yep.

St. Roch was falsely accused 

of being a spy and imprisoned.

Then there is the great Margaret of Cortona - she was falsely accused all of her life - holy gossips always claimed she was guilty of something.  She gives me hope.  False accusations have followed me all of my life.  People will even claim I'm lying about that.  Because I've led such a wicked life - I'll accept it.

That said, we all know the stories of these 'designated' patrons.  Although it seems we can only view them from afar.  Their reputations have been enriched, polychromed with the glorious embellishments of heroic virtue, sanctified by extraordinary graces of bilocation, visions, prophecies, and ecstatic states of prayer.  Even though it is stuff like that which makes it seem worth it to go through when the test comes our way, we can still become even more discouraged precisely because those extraordinary graces appear to be unreachable for ourselves.

There has to be someone less idealized.

Yet there has to be someone - a saint, a blessed, a servant of God who is more real, closer to our own time - someone whose reputation was tarnished, someone who was falsely accused but not yet 'whitewashed' by the hagiographers?  

And there is... these ought to be the new patrons...

A perfect example - maybe even a prophetic one at that, is Blessed Paul VI - or Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, former Cardinal Archbishop of Milan.  He was accused of being gay, and the story is continuously brought up - though he was falsely accused, I recall the Holy Father speaking of the vicious attack publicly, as the following excerpt from Vanity Fair magazine makes note of:

The Catholic priesthood’s contemporary gay cultural memory begins in the middle of the last century. When Paul VI assumed the throne, in 1963, by one account he took his papal name not from any predecessor but from a former lover, a film actor. That at least was the contention of the provocative gay French writer Roger Peyrefitte, whose 1976 allegations about Paul VI caused such a stir that Paul took to the balcony of St. Peter’s to denounce the “horrible and slanderous” accusations. - VF

Even today Paul VI is maligned and misunderstood - his papacy, his sanctity, all questioned - especially by the holy ones ... therefor he gets my vote for the most excellent patron of the falsely accused.

An authentic mystic-wonder-worker may help too.

Then of course, the runner up would have to be St. Pio of Pietrelcina.  He was falsely accused of everything - and locked away in his convent for years - until Paul VI came along.

In the summer of 1960, the Holy Office of the Vatican dispatched an apostolic visitor to investigate Padre Pio... 

...anxiety about Padre Pio stemmed from a set of audiotapes surreptitiously recorded in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni Rotondo that purported to document improper relations between Pio and a group of lay sisters, who formed a kind of protective guard around him. Keepers of the Padre Pio cult, they controlled access to the future saint, handled money coming in for the hospital, and appeared to have free run of the monastery at all hours. 

The apostolic visitor, Monsignor Carlo Maccari, left San Giovanni unimpressed by the person of Padre Pio and horrified by the cult that surrounded him, which he thought, according to his report, smacked of “idolatry and perhaps even heresy…religious conceptions that oscillate between superstition and magic.” -Source

For a time it looked like Padre Pio would live out his remaining years being treated as a miscreant.  But Paul VI changed things around rapidly. The Pope was not averse to St Pio. As Cardinal of Milan, Paul VI had sent a request for prayers to Padre Pio in 1959. In 1964, Pope Paul intervened with the CDF and ordered that Padre Pio be allowed to practise his ministry “in complete freedom” and that he was not to be confined “like a criminal”. - Source

Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him...
Two men, with two different reputations, representing two different 'ideologies' within Roman Catholicism - both falsely accused - neither receiving a great deal of support, both suffering the effects of false accusation in darkness and sorrow - perhaps near dejection.

These two saints Paul and Pio, seem to me to be the saints - the patrons for the falsely accused in our day.  We might implore them to come to the aid of those marginalized and suspended, although they share the lot of the saints in light - that light is darkness to the soul of the priest who finds himself alone ... outside the gate by a leave of absence as it were, sharing the shame of Christ.  The joy is unfelt - the peace certain - but the suffering is without consolation.

Please pray for priests who are falsely accused.  Pray for all priests.

Yes, I hear the whisperings of many: "Terror on every side! Denounce! let us denounce him!" All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine. "Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail, and take our vengeance on him." - Jeremiah 20:10

Here's one.

Happy Birthday G.K.!

“Modern man is staggering and losing his balance because he is being pelted with little pieces of alleged fact which are native to Blogs; and, if they turn out not to be facts, that is still more native to Blogs.” – G. K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, 4/7/23

H/T The Anchoress



Bonus Trivia:  Chesterton's wife's maiden name was Blog.  Not kidding!

Beer farts!  Terribly unpleasant old man!  Quite repulsive.

Badger alert!

I'm worried about the Badger.

He seems to be missing.  He hasn't posted in 7 days.

Catholic men are arming themselves for battle...*

I actually knew that...

Behind the headlines and beneath the radar, a grassroots movement is growing among Catholic men in the United States. 

But much of the talk within the Catholic men’s ministry is militant. 

Some might see a danger in a new Catholic male militancy. Are these guys all gun-toting conservatives? Are they wild warriors for Jesus or old-fashioned male chauvinists?

The new Catholic men’s movement taps into a few key elements that makes men what they are. It connects with a guy’s innocent need to join a gang, a team, a regiment, a fraternity, or a club. It also connects with a man’s need to be on a mission from God.

Are they meathead jocks trying to flex spiritual muscle by engaging in “spiritual warfare”?

Such labels are laughable. I’ve spoken at men’s conferences, helped organize our own parish men’s group, joined the Knights of Columbus, and learned about the new apostolates.

Finally, the Catholic men’s movement connects with a deeper sense in our society that men and boys are neglected and underserved. Men have needs, too, and those needs are being met as the Catholic men’s movement continues to expand across America. -Fr. Longenecker

*Excerpts from another excellent essay written by Fr. Dwight Longenecker. Read the entire article here.

No more bullshit - man up!

Just "don’t make religion a business..."

This is weird.

Benedict was handed a volume containing the visions of false seer Conchiglia.

False 'seer' gets a photo op with Pope Benedict and Ganswein.

Ratzinger was handed a volume containing the visions of false seer Conchiglia, who deifies the Virgin Mary, considers Pope Francis a “vicar of the Anti-Christ”, defines the Vatican as a den of deadly sins and claims that we are ruled by aliens. Mgr. Gänswein denied there being any support for the so-called seer or the content of the book. “Had Benedict XVI known what it was about he would never have agreed to the meeting” - Andrea Tornielli

I think people do this stuff all of the time.  They get a photo with the pope and promote their cause, giving the impression of papal approval.

For of this sort are they which creep into houses, 

and lead captive silly women laden with sins...

The Dangers of the Last Days.

But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days.

People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them.

For some of these slip into homes and make captives of women weighed down by sins, led by various desires, always trying to learn but never able to reach a knowledge of the truth.  

Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so they also oppose the truth—people of depraved mind, unqualified in the faith.  But they will not make further progress, for their foolishness will be plain to all, as it was with those two. - 2 Timothy 3

Schocken-awe... The idea that something is wrong - I just can't Schockenhoff* ...

Shake it off.  (What?*)

Father Schockenhoff 

Among the specialists present was Father Eberhard Schockenhoff, a moral theologian. Faithful German Catholics are particularly disturbed about the rise to prominence of Father Schockenhoff, who is understood to be the “mastermind” behind much of the challenge to settled Church teachings among the German episcopate and, by implication, at the synod on the family itself.

A prominent critic of Humanae Vitae (The Regulation of Birth), as well as a strong supporter of homosexual clergy and those pushing for reform in the area of sexual ethics, Father Schockenhoff is known to be the leading adviser of the German bishops in the run-up to the synod.

In 2010, he gave an interview in which he praised the permanence and solidarity shown in some same-sex relationships as “ethically valuable.” He urged that any assessment of homosexual acts “must take a back seat” on the grounds that the faithful are becoming “increasingly distant from the Church’s sexual morality,” which appears “unrealistic and hostile to them.” The Pope and the bishops should “take this seriously and not dismiss it as laxity,” he said.

Father Schockenhoff has also gone on record saying that moral theology must be “liberated from the natural law” and that conscience should be based on the “life experience of the faithful.”

He has also insisted that the indissolubility of marriage is “not seriously called into question” by admitting remarried divorcees to holy Communion, writing a book to push his thesis in 2011 entitled "Opportunities for reconciliation?: The Church and the divorced and remarried". He has further proposed that the term the “official Church” should be done away with because of a growing gap between the institutional Church and the Church of the faithful. - NCReporter

So.  This development of doctrine - it didn't just happen over night.  It's not new.  It's been unofficial 'teaching' in the Church for decades.  Yes it has.  It's been the pastoral approach, more or less.  At least in progressive Catholic circles.  And of course, many 'G'ay Catholics agree that "moral theology must be 'liberated from the natural law' and that conscience should be based on the 'life experience of the faithful.'”

*Eat your heart out Larry.

Ach du liebe!

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.

The rupture between sexuality and marriage.

Garden of Earthly Delights - Bosch

Unexpectedly ...

I found an excerpt from Vittorio Messori's book The Ratzinger Report on Spiritual Friendship blog, part of an extended discussion on the relationship between same sex marriage and contraception as viewed through the writings of Cardinal Ratzinger and Rowan Williams.  I've chosen to emphasize the Ratzinger Report: 

“The issue is the rupture between sexuality and marriage. Separated from motherhood, sex has remained without a locus and has lost its point of reference: it is a kind of drifting mine, a problem and at the same time an omnipresent power.”

After this first rupture he sees another, as a consequence: “After the separation between sexuality and motherhood was effected, sexuality was also separated from procreation. The movement, however, ended up going in an opposite direction: procreation without sexuality. Out of this follow the increasingly shocking medical-technical experiments so prevalent in our day where, precisely, procreation is independent of sexuality. Biological manipulation is striving to uncouple man from nature (the very existence of which is being disputed). There is an attempt to transform man, to manipulate him as one does every other ‘thing': he is nothing but a product planned according to one’s pleasure.

If I am not mistaken, I observe, our cultures are the first in history in which such ruptures have come to pass.

“Yes, and at the end of this march to shatter fundamental, natural linkages (and not, as is said, only those that are cultural), there are unimaginable consequences which, however, derive from the very logic that lies at the base of a venture of this kind.”

In his view we will atone already in our day for “the consequences of a sexuality which is no longer linked to motherhood and to procreation. It logically follows from this that every form of sexuality is equivalent and therefore of equal worth.” “It is certainly not a matter,” he specifies, “of establishing or recommending a retrograde moralism, but one of lucidly drawing the consequences from the premises: it is, in fact, logical that pleasure, the libido of the individual, become the only possible point of reference of sex. No longer having an objective reason to justify it, sex seeks the subjective reason in the gratification of desire, in the most ‘satisfying’ answer for the individual, to the instincts no longer subject to rational restraints. Everyone is free to give his personal libido the content considered suitable for himself.”

He continues: “Hence, it naturally follows that all forms of sexual gratification are transformed into the ‘rights’ of the individual. Thus to cite an especially current example, homosexuality becomes an inalienable right. (Given the aforementioned premises, how can one deny it?) On the contrary, its full recognition appears to be an aspect of human liberation.”

There are, however, other consequences of “this uprooting of the human person in the depth of his nature.” He elaborates: “Fecundity separated from marriage based on a life-long fidelity turns from being a blessing (as it was understood in every culture) into its opposite: that is to say a threat to the free development of the ‘individual’s right to happiness’. Thus abortion, institutionalized, free and socially guaranteed, becomes another ‘right’, another form of ‘liberation’.” - The Ratzinger Report

Contraception, the original sin of the sexual revolution.

Before 1960 there was no magic pill to regulate birth.  Contraception was clumsy.  The contraceptive mentality was there, the convenience wasn't.  Then the pill came along.  Clinical abortion is a consequence of failed contraception.  Sexual liberty, and therefore 'equality' is the consequence of the cultural revolution; “the consequences of a sexuality which is no longer linked to motherhood and to procreation. It logically follows from this that every form of sexuality is equivalent and therefore of equal worth.”

I'm not sure why that is so difficult to understand, or why or how Church leaders in Ireland can be so surprised that same-sex marriage was so easily approved by so many.  In the west, dissenting theologians and clergy have been free to present the teaching on artificial contraception as a matter of personal conscience, ignoring and criticizing Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, which condemned artificial contraception as well as foretelling what some of the consequences would result.

Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. - HV 17

I should do something.

Self portrait - Ivan Generalic - 1953

Memorial Day 2015

+ story here +

What?

Years ago I was shopping at Lunds - a grocery store in Minneapolis - and I was picking out cat food.  There was an elderly gentleman standing nearby muttering, "All they do is eat and sleep."  I looked at him quizzically, and he said, "Cats."

He reminded me of George Burns without his signature cigar, but I didn't know how to respond to him.  I was in my 20's and not well socialized with old people.  I wasn't sure if he was joking or being critical.  After he walked away I realized he was being funny.  I ran into him later with his wife, who was shopping and discussing what to buy.  The man looked at me and gave me an exasperated look, nodding towards the wife.  Then I got it and I laughed and she said to me smiling - "Don't pay any attention to him."

I loved that guy.  I loved his deadpan humor, his George Burns style comedy act with his Gracie Allen wife.  I always wish I would have been less self-conscious/self-absorbed, less concerned about being cool in the yuppie-class grocery store near Lake Calhoun, and free to engage the old guy.  He was so funny.

Anyway.  I bring that up because it's kind of my humor as well.  Just saying random stuff.  No ill will intended.  Just dumb stuff.  I crack myself up, though very few really find my humor funny.  You see, I sort of have a sitcom going on in my head.

That said, I don't think that many people online are all that funny.

One guy I really like is Kevin O'Brien - he's funny and talented.  Unfortunately, he's not blogging anymore.  Fr. Z is funny too - I think a lot of people take him way too seriously though - all of the time - but sometimes he is really funny.

I like dumb humor the best.  I don't take serious very well.  Which is why I sabotage my friends' com boxes every once in a while.  Then the wife in my head says, "Don't pay any attention to him."

When most people online try to be funny, they're not.

Including me, obviously.