The Survival of Our Faith

With thanks to Biltrix.com

Mr James Larson has provided us with a penetrating study on, to put it simply, where we are right now and how we are to cope with it.  It can be found at his blog, The War Against Being.

It is easy in our too-hurried lives to be put off by long, meticulously argued tomes.  But Mr Larson's piece contains so much that is essential to one's understanding of where things sit at the moment (and the remedies for extricating ourselves from it) that it reads quickly even in the midst of such fascinating detail.

Please grab your favorite coffee or tea or other favored libation, and/or your favorite tobacco and allow yourself to be edified and filled with hope by the following piece by Mr Larson, The Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Rosary and the Survival of Our Faith, which begins as follows:

"Let us be honest.

We now experience a situation in the Church (and obviously also the world) in which fear and trembling almost inevitably penetrate to the very marrow of our faith and charity. Virtually no one living only half a century ago could have conceived of a Catholic Church so weakened, stained with moral filth, outwardly compromised in the teaching of Christ’s Truth, and prostituted to the world as we now see before us. And, possibly most debilitating, no one could have imagined that this charge into a seeming hell of philosophical, theological, and pastoral disorientation would be led by a Pope (or Popes).

Christ promised a Church built upon a rock against which the gates of hell would not prevail. Much of what we now receive through our mind and senses testifies against such perpetuity – just as a scourged, spat upon, bloody, and crucified Christ appeared to testify against His Divinity, and His promises, on that day almost 2,000 years ago when He was put to death. It therefore creates a deep uneasiness within our souls which challenges us to the depths of our faith.

In this time of severe crisis, it behooves us therefore to passionately seek the answers to two questions: What is faith – what is the deepest nature of the act by which man possesses that theological virtue absolutely necessary for salvation? And secondly, what is the surest means by which that faith is protected and retained?

The definitive teaching on the nature of the act of faith is to be found in Vatican Council I’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith:

“Man being wholly dependent upon God, as upon his Creator and Lord, and created reason being absolutely subject to uncreated truth, we are bound to yield to God, by faith in His revelation, the full obedience of our intelligence and will. And the Catholic Church teaches that this faith, which is the beginning of man’s salvation, is a supernatural virtue, whereby, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that the things which He has revealed are true; not because the intrinsic truth of the things is plainly perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself, Who reveals them, and Who can neither be deceived nor deceive. For faith, as the Apostle testifies, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not. (Heb 11: 1).”

It is quite easy to quickly read over this passage, to render assent to what it says, and yet never penetrate to the depths of the words contained herein, or to their implications.

However, this dogma was given to us by the Holy Spirit at the beginning of this Modern Age which has seen virtually every conceivable deception being thrown at the intellect of man in order to make the Christian faith appear impossible, irrelevant, and simply false. If we are not to be drawn into the vortex of this almost universal deception, it therefore behooves us to look very closely at this definition of our own act of faith."

Read the whole piece here: http://www.waragainstbeing.com/

Even amidst the rubble, Christmas in Damascus is celebrated

I don't know how they do it but the local people there can still manage to celebrate Christ's birth in Syria.

A lesson for us all, as our media, our government and the zeitgeist spit on us this holy season.

RT covers the story:  https://www.rt.com/news/327064-christmas-celebrate-syria-damascus/



[Yes, I too would prefer not to see Thomas Nast's "Santa Claus", America's replacement of the Christ Child, on display, but at this stage of the game it has become so ubiquitous that I fear only a thunderbolt from Heaven would remedy the situation - a situation immensely worsened by the Inclusionistas of Vatican 2]

Christmas Eve

"Blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold...."

Adoration of the Christ Child by Carl Marr

An English Carol, So Blest a Sight, sung by soloist Donna Carter, with the Robert Shaw Chorale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oC_TleKYW0

May the Blessings of the Christ Child be upon all our readers and their families.

Cardinal Koch, may we expect a new Joint Declaration?

It is comforting to know that some still honor their ancient traditions, as we can see from the following linked story out of England.  Since this is an important movement of spiritually-motivated people we are confident that Cardinal Koch will soon be composing a Joint Declaration between the Church of Rome and the Church of Stonehenge.  It would be consistent with the oft-stated goals of the Vatican to have encounter and dialogue,

Who can be against that?

https://www.rt.com/uk/326806-stonehenge-winter-solstice-celebrate/

Cardinal Koch, we await your conciliatory prose.  And think of how natty you would look in a deer antler chapeau.



[For a more honest and more entertaining look at the mysteries of Stonehenge we could do no better than to recommend a superior horror film from 1957, The Night of the Demon, (which was released in the US in a cut version and re-titled Curse of the Demon...see the original British version only) which was brilliantly written by Charles Bennett based on a short story by M.R. James, and a film that contains a superb performance by Niall MacGinnins as the evil Carswell.]


                    

A sample of this film's mastery of atmosphere:


        

Respighi: The Adoration of the Magi

From his Trittico Botticelliano, with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Geoffrey Simon:



                    

Yesterday, at Our Lady of Damascus Church in Syria

Just an FYI for our readers. And a reminder that all is not as the worldwide media would have us believe.

President Assad attends a choir rehearsal and wishes his Christians a Happy Christmas

And this:  https://www.facebook.com/United.Syrian.Republic/videos/1738551319712361/

More info here fromGloria TV via RT: https://www.gloria.tv/media/D7ENLAj8Ybb


Please pray to Our Lady of Damascus, for peace in Syria.

Aquinas reminds Pope Francis

“Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.”

A Layman in a Monk's costume

From Gloria TV:

"When Pope Francis was elected, I was entirely positive about the new pontificate, focusing in my commentary on the new Pope’s apparentdevotion to the Blessed Virgin and his respect for the Fatima event, as shown by his request to the Patriarch of Portugal to consecrate his entire pontificate to Our Lady of Fatima. But I confess that at the time I knew next to nothing about the former Cardinal Mario Bergoglio. I did not know, for example, that he was “famous for his inconsistency.”

After two-and-a-half years of experience with this pontificate, however, I was not the least surprised to learn that Francis had named the fulminating, anti-Fatima, anti-Marian heretic Enzo Bianchi as a consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. This phony “monk,” a layman who calls himself “Prior” of the phony interdenominational “monastery” of the “Bose Community,” was rightlydenounced by Monsignor Antonio Livi, former dean of the faculty of philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, as “substantially atheist” and a “prophet of the end of Catholicism” whose speeches are “a rhetorical device for his propaganda in favour of a humanism that is nominally Christian but substantially atheist.”


Read the rest here: https://www.gloria.tv/media/pMU3RG7HG81

As I keep wondering, where do these nuts and idiots come from?

We didn't listen

We didn't listen.  We weren't fruitful.  We did not multiply.  And now the inexorable results.

Our refusal to accept the children that God wished us to have has now brought us to the brink. A quick glance at the current migration crisis in Europe is a revealing look at what our one-or-two kids mentality has brought to us.  We have contracepted, NFPd and aborted ourselves to something bordering on oblivion.

Where is everybody?

The answer is, they were never born.  And so the empty spaces that we have created will be filled by others, sometimes by good people, other times by criminal layabouts.  We had much help in bringing this situation to pass.  For example, in order for Ford Motor Company to have enough workers for their factories in the 1940s, and so that do-gooding, anti-Catholic meddlers like the Quakers could feel good about themselves, a massive migration of southern blacks were brought to the North, and in so doing the Catholic ethnic neighborhoods like those in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, etc. were destroyed, never to return or revitalize.  But Big Business, anti-Catholic interests and the Quakers had to be appeased even if it meant turning charming and safe neighborhoods into hell holes.  Where once there were charming neighborhoods of Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews, Polish and Russians there are now war zones and destruction.

And now Europe.  Catholicism is dying in Europe, helped by a moribund Church that has all but ceased teaching the Faith, and the results are the same: fewer children.  Now we see who it is who will be filling that vacuum.  The same interests that destroyed the ethnic neighborhoods in America in the 1940s to the 1970s, or their descendants,  are trying to destroy the remnants of European Catholic culture by facilitating an influx of refugees their own wars and policies created.

Our dislike of having children had enormous help from the weird idea called Feminism, a swindle perpetrated by some pretty smart people in order to wreck our homes, drive our women into the workforce, put our one or two children into the hands of uncaring daycare workers or over-taxed grandparents, and suppress the natural longings of the fair sex, transforming some of them into neurotic harridans or worse.  Feminism was also providing fertile ground for the rise and tolerance of the homosexual perversion.

The Money Power knew its target well and acted accordingly.  Anything that discouraged the begetting and nurturing of children was grist for their mill.  They loved the idea of women in the workplace; their cynicism and manipulations over the issue were observed by not a few.  To them it meant a whole new set of consumers, a rise in prices and profits and a reinforcement of a slave mentality.  They wanted unthinking, overworked robots who would not question.  And that is precisely what they got.

It is very late in the day, almost too late.  But this situation can be reversed.

Don't reject the children God wants to send to you.

O Magnum Mysterium

From Tomas Luis de Victoria:

To Tea Drinkers

(With thanks to the Hilaire Belloc blog)

"Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone."

Hilaire Belloc


(Full disclosure:  I enjoy tea and digestive biscuits usually around 4 p.m.  So there!)

The Church and the World are afraid to say anything...maybe the environmentalists will?

Nostra Aetate Dept.


From the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem:

http://en.lpj.org/2015/12/10/beir-onah-continuation-of-land-confiscations-and-trees-uprooting/

On land stolen from the Palestinians, ancient olive trees are destroyed

These Master Race tactics of the occupying regime in the Holy Land are all too common.

[For anyone interested, on the sidebar is a photo of olive oil.  By clicking the photo you will be taken to a site that sells the precious olive oil produced by these millennium-old trees, the remaining ones that is.  We use this in our home and can highly recommend it.  It makes a lovely Christmas gift, too.]

President Duda, what is more important to you, NATO or your own Polish people?

Already the new president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, who had given us such hope that he would be a tireless fighter for the rights of Poland and her people, is showing the world that being in the good graces of NATO is more important than peace in the region.  It is even more important presumably than the Polish people who elected him.

Duda has apparently joined the US/NATO bandwagon and the sinister cabal of oligarchs behind them.  He is ready and willing to help the US and NATO (or do I repeat myself?) wage their wars of choice and to increase the tensions in the area.  Incredibly, in an act of national stupidity if not national suicide, he will allow nuclear weapons from NATO to rest on Polish soil, and to be fired from Polish soil presumably at Russia, if the US wants, ensuring that the retaliatory strikes that will inevitably come will destroy great swaths of Polish land and people.

What is the hold that the US and NATO have over the leaders of Europe that would make them sacrifice the very lives of their own people against imaginary threats cooked up by Washington? What makes these leaders abandon their people so completely and so quickly?  Money?  Blackmail? What is it?

I believe that Mr Duda is a serious Catholic, though, of course, one that has been undernourished in the Faith like most of the rest of the world's Catholics for the past century.  Yet even so he does seem to take his faith seriously.  If that surmise is the correct one is there no sensible clergyman around that can school him in the realities of the world?  Here is a man clearly willing to see a nuclear weapon strike his land in retaliation for one shot from his country under NATO/US orders.

Satan never sleeps, we know, and so the centuries-old hatreds between Poland and Russia are being whipped up by the Lords of Chaos who cleverly use these ancient hatreds to manipulate people and nations.  The Evil One works through men and he has found fertile ground in certain peoples and countries. But to continue this hatred in the face of today's reality is pure stupidity.  The US/NATO and the other players in this game are happily doing the work of their overlords by stirring up a hatred between Poland and Russia.  It is mind boggling that so many Poles go along with this.

The Russians for their part are not being as helpful as they could by their constant Victory Parades marking the defeat of the Nazis.  Though Vladimir Putin has been notably trying to warm relations between his country and others, there are still those patriotic marches and celebrations that, frankly, could be toned down.  We can somewhat understand why these marches are suddenly popular again: half the world wants Russia's head on a platter.  Be that as it may it would do well if Russia would re-think this strategy of super patriotism.

[A fascinating article appeared here at The Unz Review.  Even more fascinating were the comments that followed, especially several that pointed out the same things about Russia's over-indulgence in Victory parades.  Says commenter "Rurik":

What I would hope for is for Putin to relax his anti-fascist rhetoric that gets all the former satellite states like Ukraine and Poland and the Baltic states riled up and trembling at the Russian bear. Thereby priming them to want to run to big daddy NATO for succor. Militaristic Russian nationalism on steroids may assuage the urge for nationalistic chest beating of the working class Russian male, but at what price?

Russia, IMHO needs more and better reconciliation between Russia and those people who suffered under the Soviet Union. This seems to have happened in places like Hungary, but is a big problem in the Baltic states because of the large number of ethnic Russians who are still there and are having a hard time assimilating. Putin just needs to be an even more impressive statesman than he’s already being. Relax the rhetoric. Tone down the Victory Day Parades. Allow the people to tear down the hated statues of Lenin and the hated Red Soldier (rapist) Stop denigrating the Baltic grandfathers who heroically fought against Bolshevism. It only pushes your neighbors into the fetid hands of Zio-NATO-Rothschild/Fed.

I highly recommend both the article and many of the comments.]

But with all that at least Russia is making an effort at friendship and cooperation.  Poland on the other hand does not appear to be making much effort on its part to bury the hatchet.

What Andrzej Duda might do is to emulate Viktor Orban of Hungary.  Hungary suffered terribly under the Communist Russian boot but has come to realize that Russia is not the Soviet Union anymore and is willing to work together with all nations for the good of his Hungarian people.  Not surprisingly, he is hated for this by the US establishment.

Orban could show Poland the way if she would but take note.  If Mr Duda wishes to continue his fatal friendship with NATO his nation will be just another pawn in the hands of billionaires and may end up a smoking ruin.  Literally.  If Russia detects a nuclear weapon coming at it from any NATO country it is unlikely that Russia will merely sit there and take it.  This is the imminent danger that America has put Poland in (and Germany and Italy and dozens of others), and it is astonishing that the leaders of Poland are willing to accept this danger. [Here is a good article on what NATO and the US are up to in the Balkans: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2015/11/30/bfp-exclusive-stoltenberg-in-belgrade-biden-in-zagreb/]

We can only hope that Mr Duda's Catholicism "kicks in" soon and that he rejects the siren song of the Money Power and its agents, who care nothing how many innocent people get burnt to cinders in their quest for imperial dominance.

Pray for dear Poland.

Some of us might have this response to Fisichella's veiled excommunication threats

           



Seriously though, the good Archbishop would help himself if he would delve more deeply into Church history.  Legitimate and respectful criticism of the Pope when necessary has been going on in the Church since Christ Himself walked the earth, and has continued on since then.

One doesn't need to bore readers with the obvious historical examples that abound.  Catholics know that when their leaders go astray they have the right and the duty to express their thoughts, even if those thoughts are not the kind that high-ranking Churchmen wish to hear.

Would the good Archbishop be shocked to learn that Jesus Christ Himself said to the first pope, "Get thee behind me, Satan." ?

If nothing else Fisichella's ludicrous remarks indicate that the current Pope's hangers-on (and maybe Francis himself) are in desperation mode.

Confessions of a Potential Excommunicate

The theological lightweight, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization (sic), has intimated that those who might be more than a little troubled by some of the odd remarks emanating from the Vatican in recent years might be flirting with excommunication.

Words fail me.

A classic example of the ignorance of the doctrine of papal infallibility is here on full display from this high Churchman.  The Archbishop is saying, in effect, what the defined dogma of papal infallibility firmly rejected: that every utterance from the mouth of the Pope carries magisterial if not infallible dignity.  He is saying that the Popes are now impeccable - that anything and everything that drops from their lips belongs in the Deposit of Faith.  Fiscihella may not realize this, but that is what he is saying.

This confusion over papal infallibility did not originate with men like Fisichella.  Echos of it can be found pretty much everywhere in the Church.  Many are those who confuse infallibility with impeccability.  Sedevacantists and papolaters, who would not wish to be in the same room with each other, also misunderstand this dogma. Both of these opposing groups believe a pope must be impeccable, unable to say anything which is false or erroneous.  Both have a poor understanding of the issue.  If a papolater hears something from a pope that is 180 degrees different from previous teaching he will simply go along with it, secure in the knowledge that whatever the pope says must be gospel since he is impeccable.  When the sedevacantist hears the same 180 degree different teaching from the pope he will say to himself, well since the pope is impeccable and that is clearly wrong, then, ergo, he must not be a real pope.

But Fisichella is carrying this ignorance of dogma to an entirely new level: suggesting in a subtle way that those who disagree with Francis' Modernist fancies may face ecclesiastical penalties.

As I said, words fail me.  But they don't fail the writers over at Voice of the Family:

Archbishop Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization, has stirred controversy by suggesting that some criticisms of Pope Francis might result in automatic excommunication.

Archbishop Fisichella made his remarks while explaining how Pope Francis’s new “Missionaries of Mercy” will operate. The 800 “missionaries” will have the power to absolve from penalties previously reserved to the Holy See.

In reference to Canon 1370, which imposes automatic excommunication for “physical violence” against the Roman Pontiff, Archbishop Fisichella said:

“I would say that we need to understand well ‘physical violence,’ because sometimes words, too, are rocks and stones, and therefore I believe some of these sins, too, are far more widespread than we might think.”

Archbishop Fisichella’s comments will be interpreted by many as an attempt to silence faithful Catholics who are deeply concerned by the direction currently being taken by those who hold offices at the highest levels of the Church. Serious concerns have been raised over the last two and half years concerning:

• The alleged manipulation of the 2014 Extraordinary Synod and the 2015 Ordinary Synod 
• The publication of a heterodox Relatio Synodi of the Extraordinary Synod
• The publication of a heterodox Instrumentum Laboris for the Ordinary Synod
• The publication of a heterodox Relazione Finale of the Ordinary Synod
• The radical reforms to the canonical procedures governing declaration of nullity of marriage
• The open collaboration between the Holy See and leading global advocates of population control
• The confusing remarks made by the Holy Father about who is able to receive Holy Communion
• The confusing remarks made by the Holy Father about the relationship between condoms and AIDS
• The confusing remarks and actions of the Holy Father on the subject of homosexuality
• The endorsement, by official bodies of the Holy See, of pro-abortion, pro-contraception UN Sustainable Development Goals
• The endorsement of the environmental agenda in the encyclical letter Laudato Si, without sufficient recognition of the profound connection between environmentalism and the population control movement
• The public association of Laudato Si with the most radical elements of the environmental/population control movement and dissent from the doctrine of Humanae Vitae
• The appointment, promotion or elevation to ecclesiastical offices or to positions of influence, by the Holy Father, of many openly heterodox prelates including, but not limited to: Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, Archbishop Blaise Cupich, Godfried Cardinal Danneels, John Cardinal Dew, Walter Cardinal Kasper, Bishop Heiner Koch, Reinhard Cardinal Marx, Vincent Cardinal Nichols, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn and Donald Cardinal Wuerl.

Read the rest here.

The erstwhile editors of The Eponymous Flower call this "insane".  We heartily agree.

The days of silencing the laity with this kind of nonsense are over.  There will be more courageous Churchmen, magazines, blogs, courageous layfolk and websites who will keep talking about these confusing times.  Childish threats such as Fisichella's will not stop a deluge.

The Teachings of James Martin, SJ and Thomas Roscia

The Mutt and Jeff of Media Catholicism are at it again.

"....especially when I think of all the wonderful LGBT friends I have."

Oh dear.

"Love means: getting to know LGBT men and women [aka sex deviates]..."

He's getting warmer.

"spending time with them..."

Uh-oh.

"..and wanting them to be a part of your lives..."

Still warmer.  I believe Martin is trying to tell us something.

I know what he is telling this writer: if it looks like a duck (see above photo), walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.  "Even after 25 years as a Jesuit [Note to young men with a vocation: you might want to cross the Jesuits off your list.] the level of hatred around homosexuality is nearly unbelievable to me". Someone must have hurt this man's poor, little feelings.  It is instructive that he seems inordinately interested in this particular mortal sin. In addition to his personal "predilections", shall we say, Father Martin is instructing us on what he apparently believes is correct theology.

And then there is the Rosica Guy, master of theology and cravenness:

Rosica(l) and kindred spirit, Mr Cupich of Chicago

"In contrast to the modern-day Pharisees and their followers, true Christians are those who boast in Christ crucified and no other, meaning that they believe that Christ’s work ensured the salvation of all whom He represented and is the only thing that makes the difference between salvation and condemnation. They know that their own efforts form absolutely no part of their acceptance before God. They rest in Christ alone as their only hope, knowing that it is the work of Christ by the grace of God that guarantees salvation."

"....their own efforts form absolutely no part of their acceptance before God"?  Mr Rosica will need to clarify that point a little.  Is "acceptance" salvation?  If not, what does the man mean by acceptance?  Acceptance of what? Their sinful selves?  And who are the modern day Pharisees? Please advise, Father Rosica.  If you are not just spouting gibberish have the courage and the decency to tell us plainly what you are talking about.

In view of these pseudo-doctrinal musings one wonders what vending machine these two clowns got their theology degrees from.

[with thanks to Kitchener Waterloo Traditional Catholic for the Rosica quote.]

Eric Margolis has some advice for Obama the Mad

Concentration of forces is the most basic  law of military science. Victory on the battlefield is won by amassing as many troops as possible at the key point of attack, or ‘schwehrpunkt,’ as it’s known in German.

Unfortunately, the amateur strategists in the White House seem to have been studying social anthropology and women’s issues instead of basic military science.  What they want is, to use the term coined by Russian poet Yevtuschenko, a half war.

This week, Pentagon chief Ash Carter, announced the US  would send about 200 more special forces troops to Iraq and Syrian to fight the Islamic State.  After vowing not to send troops to the Mideast, President Obama has by now deployed 3,500 new US soldiers to Iraq for “training.” 

The best way to lose or at least prolong a war is by committing penny packets of troops.  The US did precisely this in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan – and lost all these wars.   Now, we’re on to more half-measures in the Levant.

President Barack Obama’s first instincts to avoid any more wars were absolutely correct.  But the course of political events and the Paris massacre have dragged him into more rather than less military misadventures in the Mideast and Afghanistan.   Obama’s senior strategic advisors, Susan Rice and Samantha Power, have been steadily providing wrong-headed, even calamitous advice.

America’s mighty – perhaps almighty- military industrial complex, the Republican war party, neoconservatives and imperialists – keep impelling the US towards new wars in Ukraine, Iraq and Syria in spite of Obama’s desire to end America’s addiction to foreign conflicts.  Some of these cranks want a full-blown war with nuclear-armed Russia.

While Mr Margolis is far too kind to our illustrious Emperor his article is well worth a look.  Read the rest of the article here.

Prepared in advance: the Apostolic Exhortation

The internet is abuzz about a story from somewhere that the Synod Apostolic Exhortation was written prior to the Synod.

Did anyone think otherwise?

Those who did are not versed in the ways of propaganda, and the blog that is exploding this supposed "bombshell", as if it were a shocking revelation, might do better to study the mechanics of revolutions.  Revolutions are not spontaneous uprisings; they are generally well-planned and orchestrated with brilliance.  The actors are hand-picked, well-connected and amply financed.

That is not to say that things can't go wrong.  They can.  But as a rule when a PR campaign is prepared by skilled people - and the Synod was nothing but a pre-planned PR campaign - things generally flow along pretty smoothly.  The examples of pre-planning on this farce were well in evidence from the get go: the questionnaires, the press releases, the conveniently leaked information, etc. A thoroughly professional job.

Playing people like violins is the special talent of propaganda artists.

We don't wish to burst any blog's bubble (they are colleagues after all) but this "revelation" or "bombshell" should really surprise no one who has been paying attention.

Hovhaness: The Prayer of St Gregory