World Moron Day, 2016

Words Fail Me Dept.







And then there is the charming video of events in Poland in this Gloria TV report:

https://www.gloria.tv/video/sxaA1kkVubjVJTtFbsL8sAKe4

I'm tempted to once again mention the famous Belloc quote about standing by and watching the Barbarians but will instead point out that this sort of thing is not Catholic. Clueless young people travel long distances for an emotional "high" offered by a media-celebrated Pope.  What good will this do for them?  What solid, demonstrable good?  Emotions do not produce Saints, and these jamborees are nothing if not emotionalism gone to extremes.  Archbishop Bugnini must be smiling from beyond the grave.  I won't say he is looking down and smiling, because it is doubtful he landed in a place where he would be looking down on anything.  More likely he is looking up.

I feel profoundly sorry for the young people who attend these organized idiocies. It fills me with a deep sadness to see them so badly served by their spiritual leaders. For I know that these kids are not being spiritually nourished at all despite the so-called Masses being offered and the scores of Confessionals strewn about the grounds of these events.  These young people need to see and understand their Catholic heritage; instead they are offered mindless rock tunes and the sorry spectacle of nuns and priests acting like asses, gyrating and grooving to what some people call "songs".

I cannot but believe that God is offended by these displays of mass hysteria, a hysteria helped along by American "showmanship" and all the glitter and glamour so beloved of the entertainment industry.

How many conversions - real conversions - will result from a visit to World Youth Day?  Probably not many.  There may be emotional conversions but those kinds of conversions don't last too long.  Real, true conversions of heart and mind are quite rare these days, and for very understandable reasons.

The world looks at these events and laughs at the shenanigans of a dying Church trying to be "with it" and producing only chortles of derision.  A serious-minded Protestant, searching for the Truth, is sure to be put off by this kind of thing.  Any hoped-for ending of the schism between Catholicism and Orthodoxy will be killed by these never-ending "dumb shows".  Why should the Orthodox wish to contaminate their beautiful liturgies with this kind of crap?  Is there anything edifying in these gatherings that would inspire a Jew to come to the Faith?  A Muslim? Anyone?

If Jesus Christ Our Lord wishes us to convert people to the Faith, as He commanded, "World Youth Days" are not going to be the vehicle that accomplishes this.  Tawdry music that would embarrass an amoeba, nuns and priests behaving like they do at these things are hindrances, not helps, to conversions.  I don't recall Christ saying, "Go and teach all nations to imitate Michael Jackson", unless I missed something.

Hell is real.  What an awful, devastating thought.

How many souls will fall into The Pit "like snowflakes"?  How many indeed.  It is with a sense of astonishment that we observe so many Churchmen refusing to talk about this.  Do they really not care?  Possibly they are among those who don't believe in it as a real place.  These are serious questions not easily dismissed.

What is the explanation for this seeming indifference to the reality of everlasting damnation?

How does World Youth Day bring more souls to a serious contemplation of their final end?  From what I have observed, it doesn't.  Dancing and singing, with an occasional sacrament thrown in, is the stuff of these embarrassing pseudo rock concerts.  Teach them about the reality that is Hell?  Doubtful.

Perhaps it is the Church's winking, nodding acceptance of the Protestant teaching that basically everyone goes to Heaven which is driving this suicide march.  I have little doubt that these winks and nods will loom large this October when the Pope visits Lund, Sweden.

I doubt I am the only one who has had enough of this third-rate paganism promoted by a Church that has for all intents and purposes lost its way.  But there is hope, of course. It doesn't look like it but there is. The road back will start one day, and then all this fog will dissipate and we will begin to see clearly again.

Long and hard though the road back will be it will begin, in God's good time.